Guild Wars 2

I don’t know that its the client and not you.
I run Wurm, Wvw, Tequatl, Temple bosses, etc on near max settings at 1080p and all that happens is a drop in framerate to 20fps at worst.

[Why is WvW map completion required for making Legendary? QQ]

With the exception of there being no souldbound gear, I’ve never played a game with the features you have listed here. Everything was character based in other games I played, except gear could be ‘stashed’ through an account stash or bank to equal-levelled alts.

Arenanet wants you to play all aspects of their game and they make one very special and very hard to get weapon require things from both PvE and WvW. I could see valid complaints if the 2 were balanced now, but they are not. The balance of whats required in WvW VS PvE is downright stupid as it is now. Its 95% PvE and 5% WvW. And you can buy the rank needed with laurels. People are seriously going emo and ragequitting over this?
There should be lots more added yet from WvW for a Legendary weapon as the balance is way off. This is a path towards balancing the game aspects more and I hope they take more steps in this direction.

People will take offense in anything and everything when they are of the type who goes looking for it. Over-sensitivity is more of a problem in today’s society than anything that’s actually offensive.

Ascended was added as a vertical progression via minor stat crawl, also known as a dangling carrot.
There was no other reason for it to be added as it serves zero purpose and is needed for absolutely nothing in game, fractals included as Infusion slots could have been added to exotic/legendary.
It’s Anets way of conforming to the tired-MMO standard of having a stat-based endgame gear grind, which sadly many players asked for.

It could very well be based on active accounts. My home is Anvil Rock, a notoriously low pop server. If I want to do any bosses or events through the day, I have to guest elsewhere. The population is that low. Shadow Behemoth spawned this morning and 6 people came. Have seen Maw, Shatterer, and many others go untouched. We must be the only server that doesn’t have a 24hour Queensdale train. Forget about seeing anyone in Orr.
However, the few hours right at and after server reset, you would swear we were a tier 1 server. Huge swarms of people zerging the world bosses, temples, and so on.
Our ‘very full’ could very well be based on active accounts, because for the those few hours, we have a very active and high population. But if you miss that boss train in those few hours, you’ll more than likely have to guest at any other time of day to do anything.
Of course, our population also has a huge spike with living story updates every 2 weeks, like all servers probably do. I do believe its counting active accounts, because there are lots of them. They’re just not consistently active

This isn’t to defend Anet or how much RNG they use, but you guys know the forge is a lotto, right?
“Investment” is a very poor term for what you’re doing. Do you consider spending money on lottery tickets with the hopes of winning the jackpot “investing” also?
While I agree that the current methods of obtaining a precursor are absolutely horrible, I would hardly call throwing that much money away to be an investment.
Call it what it is : gambling.

How is a trinity any less braindead than a zerg?
Tank rushes in first, spams aggro control skills. Healers spam healing skills to keep him alive. DDers spam their DPS skills to kill it.
Its still just spamming and wailing the same skills repeatedly, only in a forced and conforming trinity format.
Never mind the spamming in LFG for specific class types.
Currently I never have to put a run on hold spamming for a healer and hoping he’s decent, and I’m quite happy with that.
I don’t think Anet handled the lack of trinity quite properly and theres a lot more that could be done, I still think the MMO genre as a whole needs to move away from the role-locking trinity. Hopefully GW2 started something that itself or even other MMO’s with refine into something better than we’ve had.

I don’t find it frustrating. I do find it a curiosity though – why even add this as a drop option?

Farming Flats.5370:

2- Where is the scavenger hunt ?

Has this ever been mentioned in any way than more than a passing comment or suggestion?
I see this come up so often and wonder why people are so adamant about it when I’ve yet to see Anet say with 100% conviction this was something that they were working on (beyond the speculative thinking out loud). So I wonder how much the idea for this is based on player speculation and rumor.
I’m really just curious as to if Anet actually did say anything.

raiden.9024:

Sorry u didn’t play gw1 ? With nightfall you could swap out stats through runes, some being class limited. Only base armor stat stayed the same on armours ie 100 def on plate or was it 80.

This isn’t GW1.
As evidenced from the last year, why would anyone expect anything from GW1 to be carried over?

Sceletonx.7481:

It’s not 1 level of fractals. It’ all levels of fractals between 10 and 50, all of those need some agony resistance which you can have just on ascended (and legendary) items. So you re basicly locked on one stat combo for whole instance which is mean to be top tier PvE intance.

That’s 40 levels of fractals, each of them different because of random selection, 20 levels with different instabilities. For all of that I am locked for one stat combo. That’s maybe normal for most MMOs, but GW2 is designed to have a large viable build diversity and allowing players to experiment with them.

GW2 is conforming to the status quo of the MMO genre, if that hasn’t been made evident. Thats why vertical progression was added in the first place.
You don’t need Ascended weapons or armor for fractals 10~49.

And as for trinkets, Ascended trinkets are very cheap using all the methods available to obtain them, so its not a problem having multiple of those for swapping for those levels of fractals (especially since Pristines can be broken down now). You can have all the AR you need in your trinkets and swap sets of exotic armor and weapons for different builds in fractals 10~49.
So, whats the problem besides wanting a Legendary luxury for less?

Sceletonx.7481:

MrRuin that would have been true, if they didn’t decide to make gear progression neccesary for part of the content. Right know you NEED at least ascended weapons + trinkets to be able to go through highest level of fractals and later on when they add more levels, you will also need armor. Therefore you LOCK yourself to one stat combo to be able to do all PvE content.

As few percent stats boost it makes sence the way it is right now. But with gear-checking PvE content players should be able to switch their stats combos to different one while still having their agony resist.

By your own admittance, you only need that Ascended set for higher level fractals. Specifically only level 50 atm.
Choose the stat set of Ascended you need for that level fractals and move on. You don’t need that stat set or that gear for anything else. Run Exotic for any other build set or when not in fractals. What do you need that specific set outside of fractals lvl50 for? Can you not have other sets with other stats in exotics?
You still want Legendary privileges for Ascended prices is what it comes down to.
You are locking yourself into one build by not making or considering any exotic outside fractals.
You run different builds in WvW? Or a different build for other dungeons? Thats the luxury Legendary players pay for. If you have different builds for these, get an exotic set for those.

It would probably be really annoying for Legendary owners to have a luxury benefit they paid loads of coin for also given to you for a substantially lesser cost. Its a luxury feature and not needed for your gear that you only need to have in one level of fractals.

You don’t pay that much for it, relative to Legendary – cost of levelling the professions not included in this as its moot after the first set, which is the topic at hand. If you are making a second set, the cost is substantially less as you have already maxed the crafts needed.
You shouldn’t get the full feature model paying less,.You would pay less a fee to have the benefit of Legendary stat switching without having to actually pay or work on a Legendary. Unless you stat switched many times or unless the cost was astronomical, you would never pay the same amount and essentially get the same benefits of a Legendary user for mere fraction of what they paid. Why should that be?
If you want the best……go for the best.

Because its a ‘feature’ of Legendary. Why do you think they added that to Legendary at the same time Ascended was added? Its there to act as a superior feature and incentive for Legendary. Even paying for that same feature on ‘lesser’ gear detracts from having the feature on the highest end gear.
You jumped at the Ascended carrot they dangled. This is the price you pay for it.
Its why I am not even bothering to make Ascended armor. I have no interest in spending that much for a build-locking BiS gear-set for a bit of a stat boost.
I am trading that stat boost to maintain equal sets of versatility. You are trading away versatility for a stat boost. Pretty simple.

The leaderboard as it stands exists for 25 people. The 25 on the first page. That’s it.
Its a pointless board anyway, as it only shows how much you can grind dailies and living story achievements. It serves as a deterrent for anyone who’s stared playing the in last few months from even bothering to try as the majority of those points can’t even be had anymore.
If the people working to be on the top of the board are so competitive and good at getting these points, then stripping this board in favor of a monthly one shouldn’t really affect them – if they’re that good they’d top a new monthly one as well, yes?
I don’t think the whole system should keep everyone else down with absolutely zero chance of ever coming close for the sake of upsetting the 25 people who currently rank top.
A board like we have now stagnates the site, the game and player interest. Who cares to even look at that stagnant board with the same names on it for months?
A monthly resetting board could get some people into it to rank each month, when they know they have a chance.

Won’t happen and shouldn’t.
This is the offset price you pay for jumping on board the vertical progression train. You build-lock yourself for the benefit of slightly higher stats.

Not only would it detract from Legendary weapons (and upcoming trinkets and rumored armor), it flies in the face of all the reasons they had for justifying adding Ascended to game in the first place. It wasn’t supposed to be easily accessible and that’s exactly what you’re asking for. More easily accessible ways to get the same armor with different stats.

If you mix Legendary, I assume the mainhand is the dominant for effects, footfalls specifically.
Do other effect from the offhand carry through if they are not the same type of effect as the mainhand?
Specifically, if you have Incinerator mainhand and Quip offhand. Does Quip’s glow still take effect in tandem with Incinerators footfall effect? Does it still shoot confetti?
Has anyone tried this or something similar?

This kind of content is going to drive people away from this game. Sure, you will always have your fanboys, but I have seen much, much more distaste and dislike for this open-world raid content than anyone saying they like it.
Its not just here on the forums. People want to do things with their friends. They dont want to be forced into a group of strangers and have to trust these strangers completely to not screw them over.
I’ve attempted Marionette many times and have had to just stand on a platform and watch other groups fail for lack of knowing what to do. Even after telling before and during the platform fight what they need to do. Just watch them cause my failure, even though my and 3 other platforms were successful. We all fail because we’re forced to rely completely on people who don’t bother to ask or read. Then afterwards they ask what they were supposed to do.
I don’t mind the learning curve or the challenge. I do mind being forced to do it with completely random strangers who are not paying attention, wanting a free ride, can’t be bothered to learn, etc
Call that elitism if you want, but while some of you proclaim fairness to those ‘casuals’ and people who wouldn’t otherwise do it believe it is fair for 100+ people to have their event fail and time wasted because of the 25ish people who dont care and wont take the time to learn or even bothering to read the instructions people are giving them?
This isn’t helping ‘soloers’ either. I play this way and know many who also do, but still don’t get to really finish this content because of how dependent it is on other people to not fail. As someone who does alot of solo roaming and adventuring, I also joined a rather large guild so I can do dungeons, temple runs and so forth. I expect to have to do this for this content, it is an MMO afterall. So, I would gladly take part in Marionette and Wurm encounters in a controlled guild instance. As it stands now, I am just frustrated and have already lost all interest in these bosses after time and time again watching other people cause my failure. Its not a matter of learning how to do, because I and countless others do know how. Its a matter of luck of the draw of whether you get someone competent or not on your map. The success or failure of 100+ people should not hinge on the 5 people in each lane and end up on a platform who didn’t bother to say or ask beforehand that they don’t know what to do.

EARL.8312:

4. LFG Matchmaking version(not really necessary)- Instead of posting/joining. The system will automatically match you to the players with the almost same AP point with you.

Whats the point of this? Achievement points has no meaning whatsoever when it comes to dungeons or any case that you would need a party.
Achievement points show how well you have been able to grind the living story and do things like JP’s. A player can easily have thousands of AP’s and never have set foot in any dungeon.

Holy, this thread is childish.
And the reverse claims would be made had the situations been reversed.

Elbegast.6970:

I want to remove everything from the top-right corner of my screen. I don’t need a constant reminder that I need to kill Zhaitan or complete my dailies. It’s just unwanted screen clutter.

This. I don’t want it removed permanently, as I’m sure many people like it. I would absolutely love the option to turn it all off though. I hate having this stuff on my screen.

I am surprised they replaced this for you.
They have safeguards in place already to prevent this from happening and this was clearly your own fault of clicking and not paying attention and they still replaced it. Not many companies would do that.
They dont need to add any more safeguards for what you sell and salvage. You just need to slow down and pay attention to what you’re doing. Should count your blessings on this one that they were nice enough to replace it and be more mindful of what you’re doing in the future.

Zacchary.6183:

Why waste craploads of time and money on a legendary when you can make an ascended weapon that is cheaper and way easier to make?

Many reasons.
Ascended is build-locking. Whatever stats you choose, you better like it and hope they don’t nerf your build or else you’re SoL. Legendary allows you to change stats as you change builds or as they modify them in patches.
Ascended is not future-proof. Noone can say right now with any degree of certainty that there will never be more tiers of gear added. If there is, guess what? Your Ascended just became second-best. Legendary bumps up.
Ascended is the easy route. Some people don’t like to settle for the easy path.
Ascended is ugly. While some Legendary don’t appeal to all, they are eye candy.

These reasons may not appeal to you, but there’s many reasons that someone may not choose the easy path like you deem to be the only valid one.

Darkobra.6439:

Too much work for too little reward. It’s why I don’t even do dungeons anymore. And yes, “reward” also includes “fun.” If it’s not fun, it’s not rewarding either.

Work? Of all the things wrong with the majority of world bosses, “work” doesnt come to mind.
Frozen Maw, Behemoth, Fire Shaman, Golem, Wurm, Dredge, Shatterer and others are all just HP sponges. You stand, unload your skills or auto-#1, occasionally move a few feet to the left or right to avoid some attack, repeat.
Its mindless and hardly work. Time consuming watching them soak up the hits with their amount of HP, yes. The only ‘work’ involved is trying to stay awake through them.
World bosses are lame and hardly deserve the title to be called as such.
They all need complete revamps, rewards and difficulty alike.

Orpheal.8263:

The fastest way to level is just by playing the game normally and doing every single dynamic event, personal story and heaert quest, while you are exploring the maps and making all the skill challenges.

This all while using Exp Boosters from the Shop/Chests and those from Laurels.

There is no faster way of leveling characters, than this, which doesn’t require of you first either tons of gold, or real money and lots of preparations first.
its the only way how you can level up fast, without havign to spend gold for something, instead you make gold when ypou explore all the maps on the way to 100%.

This is quite a bold, absolute statement. It’s also wrong as being the only fast way outside of crafting. You are implying PvE content and ignoring another large part of the game.
I levelled my last character from 1-80 in 74 hours worth of playtime entirely in WvW, with no boosters of any kind. I spent very little only in upgrading gear every so often.

gw2stuff.com

Using that site and guesting, I can hit all the temples usually 2 to 3 times a day with multiple characters. (they dont all get bonus chests obviously, but main chest is repeatable)

Maybe just the option to bind certain gear to a specific box – such as weapons to your invisible box so they go there when weapon-swapping.

The rest of it though, sounds more a problem of clicking like a madman and not paying attention. There’s already safeguards in place for the things you have worries about.
If you accidentally sell something to an NPC……it will sell it back to you. If you go crazy clicking while salvaging or simply misclick, a warning box comes up on anything rare-grade or higher asking if you’re sure.
These safeguards, along with actually paying attention to what you are doing, should be enough to prevent losing anything of value.

Xenon.4537:

Ascended gear isn’t dumb, you just don’t yet understand that it’s an optional long-term goal meant for certain players who have the time and resources to pursue it. You are angry because you have been trained to expect something. Well things change. Different games are different. Is it not humanity’s ability to adapt one of its greatest strengths?

Point was kind of missed here.
Angry is a strong term for probably anybody opposed to Ascended. Disappointed I find to be more fitting. You are right, we have been trained to expect one thing. The stagnant MMO genre has trained us to expect to have to grind BiS gear.
This game claimed to be more friendly, throwing aside the grind and stagnation of the MMO genre pushing away from the tired gear-tier stat climb in favor of something more innovative.
Whats disappointing is to see them fall into the same stagnant and tired trend of just throwing a tier-grind into the endgame for lack of doing anything else.
I was ready to adapt to new kind of MMO only to find this one turn into the same tired and boring grind for “new content” as every other MMO thats out there.
Yeah its optional…its also the only new thing they’ve added to work for.
Where’s the horizontal progression? Wheres the cosmetic progression? Wheres the innovative turn from traditional MMO’s? Tossed away in favor of tedious grind that any other MMO has.
Legendary did fill this spot. And they should have continued with it. A flashy weapon to work toward that did not give stat gain.
They could have added legendary armor, with stats that can changed out of combat, with infusion slots, with flashy skins, variable skins, and so on……all with the same stats as exotic. You would have flashy eye candy, with conveniences like stat changing and something to show off………………all without this stupid stat crawl.
Different games are different. Too bad this one chose to conform and be the same as all the others.

Vayne.8563:

Sure. But how many MMOs can you say that you can experience 99.9 % of the content without BIS gear is the question.

Most MMOs lock you out of content if you don’t gear up. Guild Wars 2 not so much.

All themepark MMOs are going to run into the same problem. There won’t be enough content to play, and therefore, people will have to repeat stuff until new stuff comes out. I don’t really see any way around that.

The thing is, if there’s going to be a mindless BiS grind, I would rather there be some point to it besides Anet just adding the feeling of being behind.
At least then they are adding new content that at least needs this new gear that costs so much and requires so much grind.
I find it worse that Anet just added a tier for the sake of adding the feeling of being behind if you don’t.
And the thing is, there are ways around it. People have suggested many things, in this topic and others. In forums of other MMO’s. The playerbase is a fountain of ideas. There are many unexplored ways to go for endgame progression that doesn’t involve a tier based BiS system. Simply feels to me Anet took the easy way out and added a carrot-system just for the sake of it.
One of these days, someone will take these ideas and make a truly innovative MMO and revitalize the genre (at least for a while). Until then, GW2 stands as the best there is currently since the some of the other things they have in game are enough to outweigh the carrot-grind. I had the high-hopes of thinking GW2 was going to attempt to do just that, but was rather disappointed to see them take the same path, under a different guise.
We have grindy tier based BiS gears, only you don’t really need them and they’re just there to make you feel inadequate and behind the people who do have it.

Vayne.8563:

Without the grind, people would be done with it in a week and they’ve have nothing to do. That’s really the whole point of the exercise. If it was going to be something you can just do, it would not have been successful…not in the way that Anet needed it to be anyway.

It’s not saying much that this is the best they could come up with for that.
I understand the reason, but not the implementation. And the forgotten fact seems to be that some people did start getting it in less than a week.
It’s like they just assumed that because MMO’s and RPGS have had mindless grind in them for so many years now that people must love it.
To be honest, the addition of Ascended grind is the reason I am patiently waiting for new MMO’s to come out. The grass isn’t always greener, I know, but GW2 has proven that in itself by catering to this model of endgame. I came here to get away from the standard MMO stagnation of tier grind, but ended up in the same situation. If I wanted the Ascended experience, I could pick up any MMO from the last 15 years and get the same grind.

Or just make them tradeable. I have 6 gifts of exploration I’m not using, I’d gladly sell you one for 750gold >:D

Last alt I levelled was a necromancer. I levelled him almost solely in WvW. Having levelled others in PvE, I wanted to know how long it would take. I did the /age command when he turned 80 and he was only 74 hours old. Pretty sure this is going to be the way I level my next character as well now. It was fast levelling, but also felt fast.

Having 100% map completion actually makes the achievement easier to do.
Just go to the wiki, look up a map. It lists whats in each “area” of the map – since you have all the pois, vistas and skill points, all you have to do is pick out the areas without any of these in them, of which there aren’t too many. Then just see which of these areas are still blurred out on your own map.

Dee Jay.2460:

Then again, GW2 does not really “complete” the same way other games do. We pay no monthly subs so ANet doesn’t require us to play in order to turn a profit. Those most likely to switch are probably the ones who don’t buy many Gems anyway.

Anet requires us play to turn a profit more than a sub game. They need people to play to fuel the cashshop, hence the bi-weekly content and sales.

I dont think TESO or Wildstar are the most direct competition thats up and coming.
In my opinion, EQN is the going to be big one they’ll have to compete against. An open world sandbox MMO thats also Free-to-play.
I admit, I’m watching the current MMO’s coming up because Anet just isn’t cutting it for keeping me interested. Still playing because its the best there is currently. They’ve turned me off with updates that feel limited and forcing certain methods of play while also stunting variation and experimentation in favor of quickly added, poorly implemented content.
I hope they do turn things around in 2014 before these new MMO’s come out, as I’ve invested alot of time in it and think GW2 has tremendous potential.

tolunart.2095:

If you want to reach the top of the mountain, you have to climb. You can’t stand at the bottom and demand someone installs an elevator.

Yeah, must be why all those skiiers don’t use ski lifts and choose to climb the mountain themselves.

Adrenaline.2854:

PvE, as in open world? If so, then Rangers are probably at the top.

Is there a class that isn’t? I’ve 6 of the classes at 80 (haven’t made a Mesmer or Engineer yet) and can’t say any of them have had any trouble in any open world content. Orr, events, bosses, you name it, they all do great. I think that’s a testament to the open world content level of ease than the classes themselves, though.

I had been getting bored as well. So…….I’ve been watching movies, reading, playing a couple console games. I login to GW2 to do my daily achieves, chat with Guildies while I do them, and thats about it. I got my monies worth though as it kept me entertained for a year (though my previous MMO had done so for 4 years).
Just kinda biding my time until the next wave of MMO’s. Still waiting for the one that rejuvenates the genre.

This topic is going nowhere.
I believe alot of the people arguing for the P2W have never actually played a true P2W scenario game, you can tell by what’s being argued as P2W for the sake of calling GW2 that. Its really not a matter of opinion, its a matter of having experienced it and you can tell who actually has. And those that haven’t can never be convinced what it actually is like unless they were to experience themselves.

BeoErgon.9107:

I find it hard when people start arguing that 5% stat increase is nothing.
It is. In a game driven by numerical calculations it can make a difference.

Sure, a bad player in ascended will never win against a good player in exotics. But what about equally skilled players? 5% MAKES a difference.

And this is where all your 5% increase is nothing fails. It will never give power to bad players over good, but among equally good players, ascended gives an edge. Whoever tries to deny this is simply a fool.

An increase is an increase whatever you think about it. 5 will ALWAYS be more than 0 and you can play semantics as much as you like , this will never change. Even 1% is an increase and something that might help to differentiate two equally skilled players. See? It’s called an advantage.

Noone is denying it is a slight stat advantage. Its not a game-changer nor is it a bought and paid for win. I can also buy a +5% sigil for a few gold and have an advantage over anyone who doesn’t.
A pay-to-win scenario would be one where you can only buy this advantage. You pay, you get an advantage over people who cannot pay and they cannot get on equal ground without also paying. This is not the case in GW2.
Anything you can buy, can also be had for free in a reasonable amount of time.

Aeonblade.8709:

If I can buy gold with RL money and use that to buy most of what I need to craft/make/whatever ascended armor/jewelry/weapons, it’s a P2W game. You are right, the line isn’t fuzzy at all, I think everyone just draws their own line, and no two lines are going to be alike.

The argument is arguing the wrong thing. This game has pay elements.
It does not have win elements that are purchased with that pay system, which is what the argument is. Whatever you buy with RL money, anybody can get in game with time. All you are buying is the convenience of time. You are not buying anything to win. You can buy all you want in the GW2 cashshop, charge all the RL money you want and make 10 full sets of Ascended if you like. What did you buy to “win”? Nothing, as someone with Exotics can still kill you and do everything you can do with equal ease.

GW2 has pay elements.
GW2 lets you buy boosters.
GW2 lets you buy the convenience of time.
GW2 lets you buy prettiness via skins.
GW2 lets you buy ‘endgame’ gear by charging and converting RL money.
GW2 lets you farm all of the same ‘endgame’ gear in game. Ascended, while tedious, does not take long to farm.
Anything GW2 lets you do with RL money does not in any way make you better or able to do things people do not charge cannot, except save time. That time does not allow you do anything else any sooner other than flash that gear around. It does not let you win easily in WvW. It does not let you into dungeons better. It does not enable you to do anything.

The argument of semantics is coming down to what is “winning”.
I rarely charge RL money, I did once for a character slot. Noone that has charged hundreds of dollars can do anything more than me. Noone that has Legendary or Ascended can do anything more than me. Noone is going to win based on 5% increase in stats. If this were true, certain sigils would cost 200+ gold.

Aeonblade.8709:

Yes, GW2 is very P2W oriented. It is no different than all the other Korean Grinders out there, sans a few key things like WvW.

Whether people like it or not, spending RL money in the in game cash shop gives you huge bonuses, which is the definition of P2W. The only way it wouldn’t be P2W is if the amount of time to farm something in game was proportionate to your IRL wages being able to buy you the same thing for the same amount of time. It’s a hard concept for most to understand, but any game that promotes the use of cash to get ahead of other players is most definitely P2W.

I assume from that statement you have not played a Korean grinder. Even Legendary making is a cakewalk compared to some of the grind out there.
The cashshop here is not giving you huge advantages. You can get a few boosters and Ascended/Legendary. Both of which are farmable in game, and neither is needed to “win” at anything.
You can buy whatever you need to speed up your Ascended making process, go out into the world and someone with Exotics can still be far better than you in PvE and can still kill you in 1vs1 if you run into them in WvW. You haven’t bought the ability to win. You have bought the convenience of time. There is a difference there.

If said items gave you the ability to automatically guarantee you a win at anything, I would be inclined, but its simply not. Time is also a convenience, not a win.
The line to P2W isn’t a fuzzy one. If someone could buy a tier of gear that guaranteed them victory over anyone with exotics, then the line to P2W has been crossed. You simply cannot buy that kind of advantage here.

Protoavis.9107:

While I agree it’s far from that, it doesn’t mean GW2 isn’t pay to win either. I mean, if I use an analogy, say I’m driving my car 5mph (or kmph, take your pick) over the speed limit and someone else is driving 100mph over the speed limit, the difference in degree of speed doesn’t mean I’m not speeding, both of us are going to get a ticket.

No. Noone is winning in that scenario. Noone paid to be better, the analogy doesn’t apply.
If you buy a legendary and I am in easily farmed Exotics, and we fight 1vs1, you will not beat me based on that little boost Legendary has. It will come down to skill, knowledge of how to use your class.

In a P2W, like Perfect World, if you buy Rank9 gear and I am using game-farmed TT-gear and we go we 1vs1. You will 1 or 2 shot me everytime. I have zero chance of beating you. You don’t even have to know your class or what skills even do. That’s paying to win. You press a button and people die. You bought god-mode.

It stretched even into PvE that limited people with in-game gear from even running those dungeons.
You can farm months and months and months in-game for gear, then someone who just got the game comes on, charges $1500, instantly has better gear than you can even farm and steamrolls your face.
Not to mention that Ascended and Legendary both are fully farmable in game (Ascended moreso than legendary, but share stats)
There is nothing in GW2 that compares to a P2W system.

Pay-to-win means you are buying to win at something. You can buy boosters, you can buy Legendary by converting cash to gold. None of that will make you ‘win’ at anything in GW2 that someone cannot do with whats farmable in game.
What you guys are arguing as pay-to-win, simply isn’t. It is not semantics, its lack of experience with an actual pay-to-win system.
I get what you guys are trying to say, but anyone charging real money here is not winning at anything. They are flashier, and have more conveniences, but they are not able to do anything better than someone who does not charge. They can still be killed by someone who does not charge. They have all the same limitations in dungeons. They have the same PvE experience. The gameplay is the same.

Pay-to-win is the separation of gameplay between cashshop users and non-cashshop users. There is no separation in GW2. No one is limited or advantaged by it.
The only differences are how pretty you are doing these things and how many conveniences you have. The only separation in GW2 is showing off how rich you are, with skins, with Legendary, with conveniences. Sorry, but your flashy prettiness isn’t going kill me any better or faster. Or let you solo that dungeon.
This needs a new term, because P2W does not fit it. And if you ever played a P2W, you would agree and not be arguing semantics for a term that does not fit to GW2.

An Siorai Tharian.4516:

Point is, that unlike the Legendary Weapons in this game, it is nearly impossible to get Rank 9 Armor in Perfect World International without dropping a significant amount of real money on it.

Also, I would like to point out that Ascended and Legendary Gear only provides about a 5% bonus to a player characters vital stats when compared to Exotic Gear. That is not enough to be considered a “Significant” bonus. At least not when compared to the large gap in power between a Perfect World International Player who is wearing a full set of Rank 9 Second Recast Armor with Interval Stats, when compared to a player who is simply wearing Standard Rank 9 Armor.

Been there.
PWI is a glowing example for anyone who wants to know what a P2W game is.
This rank9 gear is so above and beyond anything farmable in game, especially once you also pay to recast it twice. Worse yet, is the refining mechanic – you dump loads more cash into the game to be able to refine this gear to +10 or +12, which is a huge gap yet again between someone with just the base model. Quite literally anyone with a credit card can login, buy their gear and smash your face. No amount of skill will save you. They just have to faceroll a couple attacks and you are dead if you are not in matching rank9 gear. They have quite literally bought the ability to steamroll anyone who is also not rich enough to have the same gear as them.
I had managed to get a rank9 bow and 2 pieces of armor. Could never afford the recasts though, let alone the obscene cost of refining it.
Not to mention the other cashshop based Annipack endgame gearings.

People trying to argue GW2 as a pay to win game have obviously never played one.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Some other interesting ways we could midigate the pressure on alts is just make all ascended gear account bound it would remove some demand but it’s something we’ve discussed before.

This would actually motivate me to actually make Ascended armor. As I could make all kinds of different sets. Instead of needing multiple zerker sets, multiple pvt sets, I would make one of each kind. The hassle of putting armor through the bank to other characters would be negligible compared to what I’d have to do currently to outfit them all.
I might make multiple sets eventually to save that hassle, but at least it wouldnt be nearly as daunting or restricting as it is now.

If wp’s go, then I would hope a much faster mode of transportation or auto-pathing w/o aggro issues be added to the game. Its one thing to explore, its entirely another to make everyone plod across a huge world at a snails pace.
Think Orr is dead now? Try doing events there when everyone has to run through all 3 maps to do any of the temples. None of those events would be worth the run from LA or where ever the starting point was.

Harbard.5738:

Simple ideas (hopefully fun) for CRAFTING PROGRESSION concerning ascended

Thinking of ascended as a goal here, since its the only real benefit from crafting atm.

Since crafting is utterly irrelevant (meaning it’s stupid to craft for yourself or to sell your products) from 1-400 and a meaningful and well-executed crafting revamp would take a lot more resources, why not make refining materials give cXP all the way up to 500? (ascended bricks and all that stuff could give cXP only from 400-500). What if gave more crafting XP as well?

Alternatively
A total alternative to speed up crafting would be making all those fangs, scales etc account bound and only sold to npc merchants and make them drop frequently. That could turn leveling crafting into a matter of actually playing the game and not buying tons of crap at the tp with tons of gold and processing it all in one day with craft boosters just to get that freaking ascended piece. But of course, farmers are gonna complain, but crafters will get an actual “do it yourself” experience and play the game, which is what most people like about making their own stuff, in the first place. Go, gather, craft. Not go, sit at tp for hours, craft.

I feel the same about crafting as I do about sitting at the TP. Its not playing the game. Not the way at all like I want to. I’m not making Ascended Armor. I’m not going out of my way to make Ascended Weapons. Its boring and tedious.
If I wanted to play a crafting simulator, I’m sure I could find a better solution than this game.
My biggest problem with Ascended is the method of acquisition. Sure, its a bit of progression to “work” on, but ‘work’ is the operative word.
I’d be fine with Ascended gear remaining as it is, if other methods to Acquire it were added in game. I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished much pressing a crafting button.
To clarify, I am not looking for an easier way. I would be happy with any alternative that does not require me to farm countless amounts of nodes and spend my game time standing at a crafting station.
Let me buy it with xx amount of Pristine fractal relics. At least the experience changes each time I go in there and I’m not standing still staring at a crafting window. Just as an example. Ascended doesn’t need to be made able to trade. People just need more ways to acquire it thats not mind numbingly boring + a method to change stats to make it multi-build friendly.

Zeldain.5710:

But I don’t want or need it to do other things – I have a Mac for that.

If it can a) turn on and b) play games, that’s al I need in my high power desktop console.

Your gaming experience would be better AND cheaper with SteamOS on your hardware instead of Windows – period.

Better and cheaper is relative. Its not cheaper for me to get a new OS or a new box that does exactly what my current OS and box do with a slight performance boost that I’m probably not going to notice anyway.
Its not better for me for to have to dual-boot my system or have a separate box to switch between games and everything else I do in Windows. Its inconvenient.

Its better for you. You are already a dual system/OS user and don’t use or want your Windows box to be anything but a console game system. Its great for you. And thats wonderful.
I just hate seeing a discussion reduced to “this is how it is, its better for me so its better for you. Period, thats the end of it.”

Zeldain.5710:

Of course it wouldn’t happen over night, but, it could definitely happen for people who own Windows for no other reason than to play a game or two (like myself.)

I’m a Mac guy, and most of the games I want to play run natively on the Mac. The performance isn’t always as great as Windows… but that’s precisely the kind of edge that SteamOS would have over Windows – performance.

I want a desktop console… something that hooks to my Apple 27" Cinema Displays. Something that works with my mechanical keyboard and Naga mouse. But on my desktop, in place of my PC. This is where all of my good hardware is, not in the living room.

Despite what Valve is creating the SteamOS for, there will be a huge contingent that will use it to build destkop consoles, and I hope studios and publishers really jump all over it.

Since ArenaNet is just down the road from Valve, maybe they could work on being the first MMO on SteamOS

Well you would fall into what I would consider an enthusiast. Someone who has a PC just for PC games. Alot of the average PC owners wouldn’t fall into that category.
I have no doubt SteamOS will find its niche with people like yourself and that it will perform admirably.
I wish them the best, but until they have an OS with a lot more to offer than just another gaming box with slight performance boosts over Windows, there’s really no need for me to make the transition. Even dual-booting is just a hassle switching back and forth that I don’t need for the bit of a boost.
I see them doing alright enough to get some support from some publishers, but Windows continuing to dominate with first releases and some developers not jumping aboard due to low market saturation – though in that situation, as I understand it, SteamOS will stream games from a Windows PC, but then its just playing a middle-man that’s not really needed.