Guild Wars 2

vox.5019:

Orion.7264:

vox.5019:

Game is marketed as being for people tired of a genre filled with exploitative gear grind mechanics. Game introduces the same mechanics shortly after launch. Shame on the people who are angry about it!

Deriding an entire group of people on an internet forum who are justifiably angry over being lied to about a product they were purchasing to make yourself feel superior will never be a replacement for a worthwhile personality. Sorry if that’s harsh but it needs to be said.

And I believe that it will continue to be a success despite all the doomsayers who have been insisting for 3 months that the mass exodus is just around the corner. The servers are still highly populated, people are STILL talking about the game, and there are no decent alternatives.

The same was true when your implied large enough portion of the community to manifest a change in core principles was crying about not having stats to chase (must be separated from people wanting things to do and goals to obtain because they are not mutually exclusive whatsoever.)

It’s also been made plainly obvious that this sort of change has been in the works since before release so the argument that this is in any way the community’s doing is irrelevant.

I don’t know how you absolute morons have gotten any inclination to believe that this has “been in the works”. All the OFFICIAL Anet-released info has pointed to this being a very recent decision, let alone the fact that if this had “been in the works”, we’d have more than two rings and a back slot by now. Fractals have probably been in the works for a long time (again, can’t stress how pleased I am with Fractals as a whole. Amazing work). Ascended gear CLEARLY has not, and this has not only been TOLD to us by Anet, it is also readily evident to anyone with a god kitten brain. Stop passing around this absolute bullkitten that “this was planned from the start”, you ignorant clod-headed sorry excuses for people.

Do you need a towel to wipe the spittle off your monitor?

Linsey Murdock:

Adding item progression is a delicate process normally undertaken in an expansion…

Yes they decided to depart from horizontal progression long ago. If you can’t see that maybe you do need that towel.

I don’t need a towel, but I might need new keys. And no, the decision to depart from horizontal progression was not made until recently; however, the decision to possibly increase the level cap has been listed as probable with expansions for some time, and as such gear would increase in stats. This does not mean there would be an increase in tier; there would simply be level 100 exotic armor that is better than level 80 exotic armor, just as level 80 exotic armor is better than level 60 exotic armor. This in itself is annoying, but not nearly the same thing as introducing a new stat TIER when there is no need for increased stats. If you cannot see that this was a recent decision by Anet telling you so themselves, I don’t know what you need, but it’s probably some sort of medication.

vox.5019:

Game is marketed as being for people tired of a genre filled with exploitative gear grind mechanics. Game introduces the same mechanics shortly after launch. Shame on the people who are angry about it!

Deriding an entire group of people on an internet forum who are justifiably angry over being lied to about a product they were purchasing to make yourself feel superior will never be a replacement for a worthwhile personality. Sorry if that’s harsh but it needs to be said.

And I believe that it will continue to be a success despite all the doomsayers who have been insisting for 3 months that the mass exodus is just around the corner. The servers are still highly populated, people are STILL talking about the game, and there are no decent alternatives.

The same was true when your implied large enough portion of the community to manifest a change in core principles was crying about not having stats to chase (must be separated from people wanting things to do and goals to obtain because they are not mutually exclusive whatsoever.)

It’s also been made plainly obvious that this sort of change has been in the works since before release so the argument that this is in any way the community’s doing is irrelevant.

I don’t know how you absolute morons have gotten any inclination to believe that this has “been in the works”. All the OFFICIAL Anet-released info has pointed to this being a very recent decision, let alone the fact that if this had “been in the works”, we’d have more than two rings and a back slot by now. Fractals have probably been in the works for a long time (again, can’t stress how pleased I am with Fractals as a whole. Amazing work). Ascended gear CLEARLY has not, and this has not only been TOLD to us by Anet, it is also readily evident to anyone with a god kitten brain. Stop passing around this absolute bullkitten that “this was planned from the start”, you ignorant clod-headed sorry excuses for people.

Loosifah.4739:

They said max stat gear was in game(exotics). They NEVER said that exotics were going to always be top slot gear.

You don’t really think that 3 months after the game came out they looked at each other one weekend and said “Let’s code a new tier of equipment so all the gear progression players can be happy” do you? Do you know how much coding it takes to correctly implement a new tier of equipment? Do you honestly think they haven’t been coding this since the game launched and just holding it back until they were ready to release it?

What I’m thinking is they released it earlier than they expected to because of the complaints; but it was always coming.

Let’s look back on what they did say:

Legendaries will never be more powerful than exotics.

Max stat gear will always be easy to acquire.

Gear that requires grinding and lots of time to acquire will differ only cosmetically.

Players will never be forced to do one thing to acquire the best gear.

Content will never be dependent on having certain gear.

Loosifah.4739:

They said max stat gear was in game(exotics). They NEVER said that exotics were going to always be top slot gear.

You don’t really think that 3 months after the game came out they looked at each other one weekend and said “Let’s code a new tier of equipment so all the gear progression players can be happy” do you? Do you know how much coding it takes to correctly implement a new tier of equipment? Do you honestly think they haven’t been coding this since the game launched and just holding it back until they were ready to release it?

What I’m thinking is they released it earlier than they expected to because of the complaints; but it was always coming.

Lol talking about how much coding it takes. Newsflash for you: I can do the coding for Ascended items in under 10 minutes, using only Ctrl, c, v, f, and the number keys.

Aelelan.1639:

Orion.7264:

Aelelan.1639:

snip

Is there something in the game I cannot experience without acquiring a certain type of gear?

Yes.

Content is being gated. End of story.

Additionally, I’m having trouble even getting GUILDIES to run Fractals with me, because no one sees the point of running Fractals < 10 because the rewards are dismal compared to the rewards for Fractals > 10. Why put work into content for lesser rewards when the same work can get you greater rewards? And yes, I say same, because Agony aside the “difficulty” level of the upper Fractals is negligible. Before you say it, my guild is full of nice and helpful people, but the perceived need created to get the top-tier gear again and not get left behind has even the nice players abandoning others in a mad scrabble to the top. I didn’t have time to play this weekend, so I’m stuck at Fractals 5. Content has been gated not only by gear required, but also by required “prerequisite steps” that just stinks of WoW.

I suppose if you want to consider the ownership of an item content, then the system gates content, but I certainly don’t buy that. The content for me is what you do to get the rewards. At least now I know what you mean. I can rest easy.

The system isn’t perfect but I can understand its necessity and why it was added to the game. Hopefully it will be made better.

That’s not what I mean. Can I do Fractals > 10 without Ascended, infused gear? No.

Content has been gated.

What, I’m supposed to be content that I can do Fractals 1-10? There is something the game will not ALLOW me to do, simply because I haven’t been grinding my kitten off for a specific piece of gear.

Oh hey look, my guildies want to throw together a group to do Fractal 12. I’d love to play with them! Can I? NOPE! Because I’m not infused. Content has been gated.

^ This is a real story and happened today. With Arenanet’s explicit statement that this is how they will handle new content, I can look forward to a lot more of that.

Aelelan.1639:

snip

Is there something in the game I cannot experience without acquiring a certain type of gear?

Yes.

Content is being gated. End of story.

Additionally, I’m having trouble even getting GUILDIES to run Fractals with me, because no one sees the point of running Fractals < 10 because the rewards are dismal compared to the rewards for Fractals > 10. Why put work into content for lesser rewards when the same work can get you greater rewards? And yes, I say same, because Agony aside the “difficulty” level of the upper Fractals is negligible. Before you say it, my guild is full of nice and helpful people, but the perceived need created to get the top-tier gear again and not get left behind has even the nice players abandoning others in a mad scrabble to the top. I didn’t have time to play this weekend, so I’m stuck at Fractals 5. Content has been gated not only by gear required, but also by required “prerequisite steps” that just stinks of WoW.

The inevitable balancing and power creep of everything else in respect to increasing armor tiers renders your “better” argument invalid anyway. Who cares if your gear is better than exotic, if the new content they release makes the ratio of your characters DPS, survivability, etc the same ratio as exotics pre-Ascended items? In the end, what you worked for was just pixels playing out higher numbers that mean nothing because all the other numbers went up to. Hate to break it to you, but what you’re describing….

IS A COSMETIC PROGRESSION.

My cosmetic progression just has better looking gear, while your cosmetic progression has bigger numbers listed in the alt-text. Guess whose kitten is bigger when I’m walking around with a slice of the rising sun and you’re sitting in armor that looks like your character just got made fapping to your numbers.

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

Orion.7264:

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

Bonefield.9813:

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

Bonefield.9813:

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

Hell why even have levels in the first place. Why is Orr “gated content”? I don’t have the time to get my Mesmer to 80, I want to run Arah at level 10?

If you accept the concept of levels in MMOs, you must accept the concept of gear progression as well.

Anet has to keep people interested in the game.

If you want a static environment, play sPVP, or play a single player game.

I can only speak for myself, but gear progression stops being interesting for me at max level because I realize that I’m not actually making my character stronger. I’m just keeping up with the monsters, which are only getting stronger to keep up with the need to make me work for more gear. It’s fun up to cap because my character is actually growing. What keeps me interested after that is new content, new gameplay modes, new areas, and so on. I have left other games because all resources have to go to making new endgame encounters and gear to keep people who must continue improving their characters in order to stay interested busy.

There is no difference in progress pre-80 versus post-80.

One is stat increases from experience, and the other is stat increases from drops.

Both drops and experience comes from killing mobs, doing hearts DE’s etc.

Maybe you can prance around at 80 and pick flowers, but like I’ve already said in this thread, when I invest my time and money into an MMO, it is to see my ‘guy’ stronger when I log off than when I logged in. I doubt I am alone here.

What makes leveling interesting for me is the ability to visit new areas and access more content as I get higher level. To a lesser extent, it’s things like traits and skills which let me change the way I play. Just because I’m not attached to watching numbers tick up doesn’t mean I want to prance around picking flowers at max level.

I get the vertical versus horizontal progression argument. I think there is a bit of burnout in the MMO community on sheer vertical progression after level cap. I think that is in part why you see people on these forums jumping down Anets throat for this new gear level (which c’mon guys, is fairly trivial).

The problem is that there is no progression at all in this game at level cap, neither vertical nor horizontal.

Shortly after level 30, I’ve unlocked nearly every single weapon and utility skill I will ever get. That’s pathetic.

At level 60 I’ve unlocked the top traits for my class, and that is artificially held back because each trait line is only 30 points.

I want something to play for. I like exploration too, but that only holds my attention for so long. I can never get more skills, so the only way I can improve is newer, and better gear.

Oh, there was no progression at level 80? Tell me more about how you maxed all your WvW, PvP, and PvE titles. Tell me about how you have acquired your Legendary. Hell, I’ll even settle for one of the rarer exotics, let’s say Volcanus. How long did it take you to max every crafting profession? Do you even have 100% world completion? Have you done every dungeon? Can you do every ounce of content in the game without being downed once? Because I can, and if you can’t, then your SKILL hasn’t progressed as far as it could have if you would actually learn to play this game rather than begging for SKILL to be subsidized for you via stat buffs and numerical superiority.

Once I have full exotics, all you have listed is cosmetic.

I’m not interested in cosmetic progression.

I’ve said it many times this thread. I want my character to be better than it was when I logged in, when I log off.

You ignored all the other non-cosmetic options. And define better? You want your numbers to go up? Too bad. There will always be a cap on that, and this game was promised to be a game wherein that cap was easily achieved, because prolonging it does nothing for the game. Why don’t YOU focus on being better when you log off, rather than demanding a grind to make your CHARACTER better. If none of the multitude of options for enjoying this game appeals to you, TOO BAD. This was the game that was advertised, the game that was promised. They said time and time and time again before this game even hit beta that end-game progression would be horizontal. Cosmetic. If you bought it anyway, that’s on you. Demanding it be changed anyway to fit your needs is like moving to England and demanding they all drive on the right side of the road.

Hsinimod.5784:

One thing. Just one.

The gear treadmill in this game is like exercising for 20 min in real life. It is easy. It is short. And you just do it because it is overall good for you.

Any complaints are basically people upset that they finished exercising while others are just now arriving at the gym.

If we get to the point that it takes a month to gear up, then I’ll worry. I’m not going to worry that it takes a few days. I’m the slowest person ever to make money and karma, and I had no problem getting an Orr set. And this was before the dailies reward Karma! Oh so much easier on alts!

It will take the majority of players a month to get ONE Ascended piece. If they’re lucky.

ONE

PIECE.

Out of a total of 14-16 (depending on whether you use two-handed weapons or main-hand/offhand).

You may commence worrying.

Aelelan.1639:

Orion.7264:

rikkus.8153:

Well maybe I am missing something here, but it seems people are complaining that they “have” to obtain these Ascended items to stay competitive but competitive with what? The only reason to have Ascended items would be to do the new Fractals at the higher levels? I understand it might give players an edge in WvW but couldn’t they just balance it out by releasing a PvP Armor set of comparable stats?

You realize that PvE is a competition? Getting into groups is already segregated between exotics/others, and now you can bet there will be the same with Ascended. At least exotic gear was reasonable to get. New content is also balanced based off of the highest tier of gear, so players in PvE without Ascended gear will struggle through more difficult content (yes, struggle, because the difference in stats between full Ascended gear and full Exotic gear is comparable to the difference between full Exotic and full BLUES) purely because they didn’t grind for months through RNG and massive gold sinks to get their full Ascended sets. Not to mention content that will be artificially gated and locked to players through bullkitten mechanics like Agony.

Based on how they have balanced previous dungeons, there’s no reason to assume that only people with Ascended gear will be capable of running new dungeons. As it is you can run the first 1-10 difficulties of the dungeon without ever using a piece of Ascended gear or even exotic gear for that matter. Hell you don’t even have to be level 80 to do early difficulties as it is. No content is gated by Agony because the only thing waiting for you after difficulty 10 is…the same exact 9 fractals you’ve been playing to get to that point. That’s the content. For 10 difficulties (arguably 13 according to some) you’ve been running the same dungeons you will see when you get passed the threshold into Agony difficulties. Nothing new is waiting for you therefore no gated content. You’ve already seen the content after doing 10 difficulties of the dungeon.

I’m sorry, but no. The only thing waiting for me after the first 10 difficulties is the reward for this dungeon: Ascended gear. It WILL NOT DROP in lower difficulties. It CANNOT BE OTHERWISE OBTAINED. That’s like updating the game so that current dungeons can be completed to a certain point without exotic gear, but require exotic gear to obtain the tokens. Content is certainly gated, reward is gated, and they have explicitly stated their intentions to continue utilizing such mechanics for future content, further requiring new mechanic-combating equipment to continue experiencing the game and the rewards thereof.

If players wanted more content to work for, give it to them in the form of cosmetics. If they want super uber awesome leet haxxorz gear, give it to them in the form of cosmetics. Everyone is fine with that, and they can feel superior as well they should decking themselves out in it. That’s the game they paid for, that’s the game they bought, that’s what everyone was told all along that this game would consist of. Easily acquired max-stat gear, prestigious grindy gear to look like a god. But NO power increase. If they bought this game anyway and don’t like getting what they paid for.. boo kittenin hoo. That’d be like buying SWTOR and then complaining because some characters have force powers and that’s not fair and no one should play Jedi they should all be bounty hunters. Everyone knew what they were getting up front; for some angsty minority to come along and demand that a revolutionary new system adapt to theirs anyway is absolutely kitten That’d be like moving to Canada and demanding capitalized health care. That’d be like moving to Great Britain and demanding they drive on the right side of the road. That’d be like moving to China and demanding that everyone speak English. The tragedy here is that Arenanet caved to these morons, rather than sticking to what was promised, advertised, and successful.

Aelelan.1639:

Columba.9730:

Aelelan.1639:

I still am kind of baffled this discussion is going on now that the dungeon is out. You can complete up to level 10 in the dungeon without ever seeing Agony or any reason to have Ascended gear. Period. What content is gated? You’ve seen the content. 10 TIMES. Nothing exists for someone who has all exotics vs. someone who has Ascended.

The only legitimate concern I can see here is that it’ll have an adverse (albeit miniscule) effect on WvW, and they’ve already said there will be ways to get it through WvW. How is this even a discussion anymore? We have yet to know whether they will add more tiers (in which case there’s reason to worry since there’s no more time investment gap between Legendaries/Exotics). The only thing they’ve done is keep quiet about whether or not there will be new tiers, likely because of a kittentorm like this one. I’d be paranoid to say anything is out of the question too when I know that there will be a flock of angry forumgoers to man the flame cannons if something goes not according to plan. I’d be extremely surprised to know that there are more tiers beyond Ascended but would be happy to eat my words if there ever is one.

Do the math. First, it’s just the beginning. Second the pieces are at least 20% better than exotics. how on earth is that miniscule? LOL

How is “it’s just the beginning” any sort of argument that there will be more tiers in the future? I can’t tell you there won’t be new tiers in the future, and you can’t tell me there will – hell Anet implies in their silence/refusal to speak definitively on the subject that even they can’t speak for what circumstances might arise and potentially warrant another tier. My personal take is that there isn’t a problem to be solved anymore and therefore there should not be any reason why another tier should be introduced. A tier of gear was a solution to a problem (the discrepancy between Legendaries and Exotics) not a precedent to be followed.

If you fixed a broken chair leg with wood glue and the problem is solved, why would anyone in their right minds continue to put glue on the fixed chair leg? The problem is solved, the chair leg is fixed. You don’t need to keep putting on any more glue. Anet saw that their gear tiering system was broken (or rather unbalanced) so they fixed the problem with a middle ground between the two tiers that had the biggest discrepancy. Why would they keep adding more tiers? There is no more problem for them to fix with any more tiers of gear.

There was no problem to fix to begin with. THERE WAS NO DISCREPANCY BETWEEN EXOTIC AND LEGENDARY. Stats were the same. Therefor changing stats had nothing to do with anything, and introducing a new top tier of stats merely introduced a new problem.

Was there a substantial gap between the time required to acquire legendaries and the time required to acquire exotics? Yes. Could they have introduced a tier in between exotic and legendary? Sure. “Legendary” or “Ascended” or whatever they want to call it, the equivalent cosmetic tier of armor would have been great. Instead, here’s what they did:

1. Introduced a new stat tier.
2. Made the acquisition of that stat tier incredibly long and expensive, NOT bridging the time gap between exotic and legendary but LENGTHENING it do to overlap in acquisition methods.
3. Gated new content through the requirement of above stated new stat tier to advance beyond a certain point.
4. Introduced a discrepancy between WvW players and PvE players and their relative power.

And those are just the top four problems, all INTRODUCED by this Ascended gear. What was solved?

slazzy.7309:

No I didn’t play GW1, but I don’t need to when I have a wiki and a dev post at my disposal. No matter how you slice it, this was a form of progession, horizontal or otherwise. It applies, my friends. And didn’t the devs say that anyone could gain Ascended gear by means other than running the dungeon? By multiple methods, I do believe I read that.

House of cards. Doesn’t stand for very long.

That’s like saying: “No, your honor, I didn’t witness the defendant stealing from the prosecution, but the prosecution said he did and I’ve read about this kind of thing so it’s kind of obvious isn’t it…”

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

Bonefield.9813:

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

Bonefield.9813:

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

Hell why even have levels in the first place. Why is Orr “gated content”? I don’t have the time to get my Mesmer to 80, I want to run Arah at level 10?

If you accept the concept of levels in MMOs, you must accept the concept of gear progression as well.

Anet has to keep people interested in the game.

If you want a static environment, play sPVP, or play a single player game.

I can only speak for myself, but gear progression stops being interesting for me at max level because I realize that I’m not actually making my character stronger. I’m just keeping up with the monsters, which are only getting stronger to keep up with the need to make me work for more gear. It’s fun up to cap because my character is actually growing. What keeps me interested after that is new content, new gameplay modes, new areas, and so on. I have left other games because all resources have to go to making new endgame encounters and gear to keep people who must continue improving their characters in order to stay interested busy.

There is no difference in progress pre-80 versus post-80.

One is stat increases from experience, and the other is stat increases from drops.

Both drops and experience comes from killing mobs, doing hearts DE’s etc.

Maybe you can prance around at 80 and pick flowers, but like I’ve already said in this thread, when I invest my time and money into an MMO, it is to see my ‘guy’ stronger when I log off than when I logged in. I doubt I am alone here.

What makes leveling interesting for me is the ability to visit new areas and access more content as I get higher level. To a lesser extent, it’s things like traits and skills which let me change the way I play. Just because I’m not attached to watching numbers tick up doesn’t mean I want to prance around picking flowers at max level.

I get the vertical versus horizontal progression argument. I think there is a bit of burnout in the MMO community on sheer vertical progression after level cap. I think that is in part why you see people on these forums jumping down Anets throat for this new gear level (which c’mon guys, is fairly trivial).

The problem is that there is no progression at all in this game at level cap, neither vertical nor horizontal.

Shortly after level 30, I’ve unlocked nearly every single weapon and utility skill I will ever get. That’s pathetic.

At level 60 I’ve unlocked the top traits for my class, and that is artificially held back because each trait line is only 30 points.

I want something to play for. I like exploration too, but that only holds my attention for so long. I can never get more skills, so the only way I can improve is newer, and better gear.

Oh, there was no progression at level 80? Tell me more about how you maxed all your WvW, PvP, and PvE titles. Tell me about how you have acquired your Legendary. Hell, I’ll even settle for one of the rarer exotics, let’s say Volcanus. How long did it take you to max every crafting profession? Do you even have 100% world completion? Have you done every dungeon? Can you do every ounce of content in the game without being downed once? Because I can, and if you can’t, then your SKILL hasn’t progressed as far as it could have if you would actually learn to play this game rather than begging for SKILL to be subsidized for you via stat buffs and numerical superiority.

You clearly didn’t play Guild Wars 1. Lightbringer ranks were acquired through playing the game, and only applied to foes that you had to play through the content that gave you ranks to even run into. It was free, it happened without a grind, and came along with content that players were naturally playing anyway. There were 8 total ranks of Lightbringer, and by the time you finished the campaign and really encountered “Abaddon and his demonic servants”, without taking ANY time to pursue further ranks for their own sake, my characters had all acquired rank 6. That’s like playing through Fractals, and by the time you get to agony at tier 10, you already have your back piece, one ring, and are two thirds of the way towards your second, all merely acquired just by playing through Fractals normally.

Your argument is based on incomprehension of a subject you have no experience with, and that is why it fails.

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

Derk.3189:

Stormleaf.1769:

Erulogos.2591:

Quoting you both as you both make the same argument, essentially, and miss the same issue.

The issue is not with -current- content. No Ascended gear is required to finish every dungeon and kill every boss currently walking Tyria.

The issue is with -future- content. It was stated, when Ascended gear was announced, that Agony (and thus Agony resist) was something that would be involved in content going forward. It was not stated, one way or the other, if it would be required to even attempt future content, and it therefore becomes a simple question: grind Ascended and Agony resist now, so you are ready for the new content no matter what, or wait and see if it will be required, and hope that, if it is, enough other people waited that you can get groups to grind it out.

It is true that as of this moment in time, the grind heavy gear is not required to see any of the content in the game. But we don’t know when or if it will be, and Anet has not said one way or the other. A lot of folks saying it is required are basically taking the cautious path, assuming it will be and preparing for the worst.

The issue with this is that ArenaNet could have easily made this content require Agony resistance from the beginning as well, by making it some Mystic Forge thing and introducing Agony at fractal level 1. They didn’t; heck, they even made it so low levels can participate. Exotics aren’t even a requirement for the early difficulty levels. If they didn’t do it now, why do you think they’re magically going to start doing it in the future? None of the content in GW2 has been restricted like that. There is zero indication of ArenaNet ever restricting content like that, and it’s simply not helpful to base your argument on an assumption that they’ll magically start doing it.

AHHAHA You really think they did that for the players? Its just there to draw out the content, an additional carrot on another stick. Oh you want to see what agony is like? Hit me up 10 levels.

The Agony mechanic wasn’t introduced at the start of the dungeon so that everybody can experience the content. While one of the goals of the Fractals of the Mists dungeon was to provide some difficult content for players looking for a challenge, we also wanted the dungeon to be available for everybody to experience. While getting far into the dungeon requires agony resistance from ascended gear, the content was designed to provide challenging content, and to allow players to choose what difficulty they wanted to play at.

As for ascended gear, to reiterate what Chris has said (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside), it’s not intended as a treadmill, but rather as a tier of rewards that can help bridge the gap between Exotics (a few hours of effort to acquire a piece) and Legendaries (hundreds of hours of effort to acquire one). They’re currently only available in the Fractals of the Mist Dungeon, but we’re going to be adding new ways to acquire them, both inside of WvW as well as elsewhere in PvE.

What happened to not requiring certain GEAR to even have a chance at completing content? What happened to max-stat gear being easily obtainable at the end game? What happened to not requiring players to grind for hours, days, weeks, months just to be ABLE to experience content? “Here at Arenanet, we call that waiting to have fun”.

Where is the manifesto and the game I paid for?

rikkus.8153:

Well maybe I am missing something here, but it seems people are complaining that they “have” to obtain these Ascended items to stay competitive but competitive with what? The only reason to have Ascended items would be to do the new Fractals at the higher levels? I understand it might give players an edge in WvW but couldn’t they just balance it out by releasing a PvP Armor set of comparable stats?

You realize that PvE is a competition? Getting into groups is already segregated between exotics/others, and now you can bet there will be the same with Ascended. At least exotic gear was reasonable to get. New content is also balanced based off of the highest tier of gear, so players in PvE without Ascended gear will struggle through more difficult content (yes, struggle, because the difference in stats between full Ascended gear and full Exotic gear is comparable to the difference between full Exotic and full BLUES) purely because they didn’t grind for months through RNG and massive gold sinks to get their full Ascended sets. Not to mention content that will be artificially gated and locked to players through bullkitten mechanics like Agony.

Fortuna.7259:

Orion.7264:

I think one thing that we can all agree on, whether for or against Ascended items, content gating, issues finding parties, or what have you, is this:

The actual content of the Fractals is incredibly good, and quite possibly the most fun aspect of GW2 PvE to date.

I don’t see it as remarkably better than other dungeons. Why do you feel it is?

That’s your opinion and I respect it. Here’s my two cents on why I find them so fun:

1) Not overly long. The entire set of three fractals (plus boss, if you’re on an even number), is about as long as all explorable paths of some dungeons, depending on group skill and composition. However, it’s broken down into smaller chunks of very different content, which makes it feel more dynamic and less grindy overall.

2) Cool mechanics! Rather than just being a bunch of combat with some dodge required, maybe one or two puzzle-like or gimmicky mechanics as in most dungeons, the majority of the fractals revolve around cool or interesting mechanics (cultist hammer in cliffside, fans/guitar hero of death/like charges in uncategorized, DOLPHINS?! in underwater, etc) that bring a fresh new feel, and an intelligent aspect to completing content.

3) Random selection of content: some people may like or dislike this, but I find it exciting to be faced with any of nine different mini-dungeons every time you head in. Keeps things fresh and fun, rather than players simply finding the easiest/quickest path to complete and farming it.

4) The actual content is aesthetically stunning, and a lot of player interactions with mobs and the environment tell little stories, are humorous, or even raises questions about lore that really make you want to get into the immersion. What is that colossus dude? Why is there a crazy cat lady asura abandoned in this facility? I love those little things, to be honest.

Anyway, that’s the best I can sum it up right now, I’d love to add more if I think of it.

Fortuna.7259:

I think you mistake “replaced” for “saved.”

Anything else people do will be extremely limited.

Unfortunately this is quite true. While I enjoy the Fractals and think they’re awesome, I don’t want to do them 24/7. I would like to enjoy all the other aspects of PvE as well, including getting dungeon gear (if not for max stats anymore, still for cosmetics); and both of these areas are hampered by the fact that players are forced into grinding Fractals for top tier gear.

Alexander Dragonfang.1759:

Adding numbers =/= Adding content.

This is POWER CREEP, and is going to cost Anet a LOT.

I agree with you; however, they did add content in the form of the new area and the Fractals, both of which I think are quite fun. Shame they had to ruin what otherwise would have been a fantastic update with a stat treadmill.

I think one thing that we can all agree on, whether for or against Ascended items, content gating, issues finding parties, or what have you, is this:

The actual content of the Fractals is incredibly good, and quite possibly the most fun aspect of GW2 PvE to date.

I personally love the Fractals. But I very much disagree with you that PvE progression was lacking, or that Fractals introduces it in any sort of acceptable form.

Making it take longer to achieve max stat gear is not progression. That’s artificial prolongation, and it’s punishment for characters who haven’t achieved it yet, as content for them will be more difficult. There was plenty of progression before Ascended items, here’s a snapshot:

1) Exotic skins: Some of these were easier to acquire than others, but some were very difficult indeed. Volcanus required over 450 assorted lodestones; how’s that for progression? Cosmetic progression is just as viable as stat progression, and ever more satisfying for two reasons:
A. It doesn’t punish those who do not participate by forcing them to experience content on a more difficult scale.
B. It’s actually a more noticeable form of progression. No one knows if your stuff has higher stats than theirs, and you won’t be constantly reminded of that fact when you look at your character. But when you achieve that rare/hard to acquire skin, EVERYONE knows it.

2) Legendaries: see above, but even rarer and harder to obtain.

3) Titles: while not quite as noticeable as in GW1, titles still exist and confer their own prestige. I have respect for the people with the Dungeon Master title, as they have completed all paths of all dungeons (something I still haven’t gotten around to).

4) PvP rank: Structured PvP is a fun outlet and a great way to earn progression, as the rank system and associated PvP titles distinguish longer-playing/better players from the rest.

5) Map completion: grants a title and a cool star by your name. Not for the faint of heart or easy of rage (WHERE IS THAT LAST POI?! WHERE kitten YOU)

6) WvW: Has its own progression and titles, and contributing to making your server better in the points matchup is quite rewarding for many.

7) Alternate characters: With five races, 8 professions (so far), and 3 orders, there is a LOT of content to be experienced. And if you’re in it for the prestige? Imagine rolling out a maxed out character of every race and profession. Hard to beat that kitten; that’s a true master of the game.

8) Dungeons: rewarding in terms of skins AND money AND experience, and possessed of 1 story mode and 3 explorable modes each (except Arah, which has 4 explorable modes).

9) Dynamic events: Some of these are trivial, but some of these (Shatterer, Jormag’s Claw, Tequatl) are massive, fun, and a huge part of game immersion and completion imo.

10) Jumping puzzles: Wanna show me you’re better than me? Go do all the jumping puzzles. I will readily admit your superior skill; I SUCK at those things. But that’s a lot of content right there, a lot of which is beautiful to look at and fun/humorous to do.

11) Max out your crafting professions. Need two for Legendaries anyway, but you’re not “done” with the game by far if you haven’t gotten all of these finished.

This is only the tip of the iceberg of the “progression” available in this game. Can you honestly give me a real reason why all eleven of those points are completely invalid, and a new set of numbers is what we really needed? Or is it just that you don’t consider these progression because it’s a new kind of progression, and doesn’t match with the ingrained gaming behavior beaten into you by the treadmills of other games?

No, what it would do is show that a sizable portion of the player base is dissatisfied, and create an incentive for Arenanet to at least communicate with that player base, or receive well-deserved negative reviews.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.4851

But seriously, wtf are you doing posting here…

illgot.1056:

GADefence.5634:

“Think about it logically. Do you think they created this last event and the FotM instance, along with all the gear in the last two months?”

Of course not. FotM took a long time to make. The gear models probably took a while to make too.

However, the stats and new tier was obviously a last minute addition. It’s really really easy to add stuff like tiers and stats, considering it’s as simple as looking on your database and just modifying numbers.

Now, how about you try thinking logically and sanely.

So the whole idea of needing infusions was just something they threw together when? Last week, last month, two months ago? The instance is built around the need for infusions.

Something like that isn’t a function you just change by flicking around a few numbers in a database.

The instance is NOT built around the need for infusions. It already scaled in difficulty with mob adds and overall HP/Damage, and nothing inside any of the fractals points to the presence of infusion in the design process. It’s just another mechanic that, yes, they CAN make at the last minute; just add in a little: if(level)>10, then (Agony)x(level/base). The actual agony mechanic is easy as balls to code, because it’s simply an ever-present health drain.

Be rational, guys; if they had ANY intentions of reverting the stats on Ascended gear to exotic tier, or making any sort of change in that direction, they would have disabled the acquisition of Ascended gear while they worked on a solution so people who got it wouldn’t QQ after. The silence, and lack of even a “we hear you and are discussing the issue” is just proof that they have no intention of changing Ascended gear. They were obviously blindsided by this much negative reaction, but seeing as this was apparently a reaction to “no progression gear treadmill like all the others, QQ”, they have turtled up. Being burned by responding to one request has left them unwilling to respond to others, and so instead of addressing the problem they are simply ducking down and charging ahead, hoping to blind zerg their way through this mess and win out. It’s like when a bunch of noobs start attacking a keep in WvW and then realize they’re outnumbered and it’s too well defended; they never retreat, they just keep charging until they wipe. It’s that sort of mindset.

Revert Ascended items to exotic stats, while also either removing the “Infusion” mechanic, or making it applicable to every armor/accessory, and less of a month-long grind to acquire, and possessed of no stat increases. Spend some time making the Ascended gear desirable for cosmetic reasons rather than going the lazy way and simply forcing players to acquire it to obtain max stats. Fire whoever came up with statistically superior Ascended gear and the associated horrendous grind to acquire it. Fire anyone who agreed with them. If you find that this leaves you short-handed, hire me to replace them. I will do a far superior job for half their salary. Stick to the original manifesto that drew so many players to this game and made it the success it has been.

while also either removing the “Infusion” mechanic, or making it applicable to every armor/accessory, and less of a month-long grind to acquire, and possessed of no stat increases. Spend some time making the Ascended gear desirable for cosmetic reasons rather than going the lazy way and simply forcing players to acquire it to obtain max stats. Fire whoever came up with statistically superior Ascended gear and the associated horrendous grind to acquire it. Fire anyone who agreed with them. If you find that this leaves you short-handed, hire me to replace them. I will do a far superior job for half their salary. Stick to the original manifesto that drew so many players to this game and made it the success it has been.

Yes, as was the original plan that drew so many to this game. As was implemented in GW1 that so many players loved. No one should have to grind content, be forced into doing repetitive, narrowly-focused things, just to get their character’s base statistical effectiveness on par with everyone else.

Gear is part of leveling. You have not reached max level until you have attained max gear. What does leveling do? It adds stats. What does gear do? It adds stats. Just as people would throw a kittenfest if Anet decided to increase the level cap to 85, but leveling past 80 will only be doable in Fractals of the Mists, and experience will be rewarded on a random basis that gets a little better every time you advance, but won’t really kick in until past level 10, oh by the way you have to be at least 82 to play level 10 and up; so also are players pissed off that that’s essentially what they’ve done with gear. I should not have to grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind and grind ad nauseum just to FINISH my character statistically. That’s a forced elongation of the game through unappealing and unenjoyable content. I was perfectly happy with my exotic gear, working slowly towards my cosmetic goals, and enjoying all aspects of the game equally while not being forced into any one in particular. Now? Not at all.

Guys, devs; listen up, because I want you to take this seriously.

We need a fractal…

IN SPACE.

Also, since the devs seem to be paying attention to questions about the Fractals: will we ever get more lore about the colossus? What is he? What is he doing? Where did he go? WHY IS HE SO COOL

I gotta say, I love all of the fractals. The swamp one is interesting, because at first it IS very difficult. There is a learning curve dependent on the skill of your group, and the first couple of completions can take as long as an hour each. However, once you’ve learned the tricks to it, it DOES become a very quick fractal. I hear people complain a lot about the lower left one, with all the bear traps, the spike trap on the wisp, the KD traps, and the walls that spawn at any close-by paths through. I have to say though, I much prefer doing this wisp to any others once I learned the trick. Becomes very easy. Swamp is just one of those fractals that is very… I dunno the word, I don’t want to say gimmicky, but there are definitely certain ways to do it that you have to figure out. The difficulty lies in figuring those out, and once it’s done, you’ve got that fractal nailed for all eternity. I have done all the fractals and have yet to find one that I feel is truly difficult; the Searing fractal probably comes closest due to having to fight through a bunch of arrow carts and mobs of NPC’s. Still very doable with a good group.

Enjoying the Fractals of the Mist extensively. Now if only the presence of a gear treadmill and a massive grind for max-stat gear that was promised since before the launch of the game to be easily obtainable wasn’t ruining my ability to even want to play.

Lt Latency.7415:

Ballistic.4531:

Lt Latency.7415:

Ballistic.4531:

Lt Latency.7415:

kKagari.6804:

Lt Latency.7415:

Ferguson.2157:

Lt Latency.7415:

Ballistic.4531:

Lt Latency.7415:

Forum posters are the minority not the majority.

How do you know this? I would love if people actually were backing up their claims with some kind of evidence. Not even hard evidence. Anything would suffice, just as long it’s not completely made up.
We don’t know if forum people are a minority or a majority.
So please stop quoting this as a hard fact.

This thread has about 100k posts. GW2 sold over 2 million copies.

Even if every single post was a unique person which it’s not even close to being. We need ALOT more posts.

More like 10304 with your post.

I’m against this ascended move, but there is no reason to lie or exagerate.

My bad, typo,

People didn’t believe that forum posters are a minority and wanted some hard proof, Had nothing to do with ascended gear.

You have equally as little proof that the happy players are the majority. I am in a guild full of dissatisfied players; and over half of them have filed for refunds. They don’t post on forums here simply because they don’t have time to burn.

I don’t even know what were are talking about now??

I am not talking about happy or sad. Just how many people post vs how many people play which you seem to agree with.

Saying our last line talks about how most of your guild doesn’t post on the forums

And again you don’t know that for a fact. You don’t know how many left in pre-ascended time, how many left because ascended were introduced, how many left because of this new one-time-huge-thing-event and how many aren’t posting at all.
So again. We don’t know who’s in minority or in majority. There are no facts on this. Only plain speculations.
Edit: I’m not saying I’m in majority here, I’m saying we don’t know.

Yes we do.

2 million vs 10 thousand if every posters was unique (which it’s not)
keep cutting it in 1/2
1 million
500k
250k
125k
62.5k
32.25k

You have to cut the population in 1/2 7 times to even get close to 10k being the majority. If things are this bad in 2 months, Your DAM right then better start making major changes.

It’s funny how you make up math that means nothing. You are so stubborn in saying you know exactly who’s who without any valid fact or proof except for made-up numbers you throw out. Sorry but that’s not proof from my point of view.

Look at this thread. 10k posts.

For that to be the majority. That means this game went from 2 million users which is a number of units sold that this game reached to less then 20k users in 2 months.

If that is the case they should just turn the servers off because this game is done.

Please refer to my post involving the statistical accuracy of the microcosm presented by forums and other such phenomena.

Crater.1625:

snipped

I would like to agree with half of this and disagree with the other half.

Personally, I found exotics fairly easy to acquire. I’ve got two characters outfitted in them, and not just the cheapest; I got the looks I was going for. Very pleased with the outcome. It was not super duper faceroll easy, but I found that it wasn’t unpleasantly hard either. In my opinion, the acquisition of exotic gear was just right, except for lodestone requirements of some of the rarer exotics (Foefire’s Essence, anyone?). Dungeons made getting good-looking armor and weapons a matter of skill rather than grind, as a good group could roll through all dungeons (even Arah, trust me) in reasonable time. Due to tokens being account-bound, my second character had all of his exotics ready by the time he was 40. On a side note, sitting there ready to be maxed out and look cool and just be waiting on levels makes you REEEEEEALLLY impatient… so I may have messed with my OCD by getting his stuff early. But I digress.

The Ascended gear IS far too much of a grind, and it’s completely unnecessary. My characters were geared out in exotics, yes; but that doesn’t mean I was done with them. I had full intentions of getting Sunrise for my guardian, and I’d already pursued other “rare” exotics for my necromancer. With successive characters I’d have more and more options in terms of legendaries and unique mystic forge exotics. With additions of new skins, my quest for horizontal progression in terms of just looking kitten could potentially never end, and I would be fine with that. But these Ascended items don’t close any gap between exotic and legendary, they introduce a required grind that WIDENS that gap horribly, and will be extensively long for no reason. Outdating all the work I put into my exotic gear for no reason. If they were the Legendary equivalent of armor, sure! I’d chalk that up on my to-do list depending on the skins, for various classes, etc. I don’t mind long-term goals as long as I can be just as statistically effective in the meantime. Do I really want Sunrise on my guardian? Hell yes. Will it take me a long time? Hell yes. Do I feel pressured to get it because my current greatsword is crap for stats? No, not until Ascended creates that gap. And anyone looking to get a Legendary is even more screwed, because you have two options:

Waste time getting gear you will replace with your legendary(ies)

OR

Be underpowered on the long grind toward your legendary(ies).

Now the pressure kicks in to grind that horribly long chain of requirements just to be effective. This is what we don’t like, that constant pressure to keep up or get screwed. I took a day off of doing Fractals, and I have no doubts that when I come back I’ll have trouble finding a group for level 5, because everyone will be on 10+ and no one wants to stop for lower levels because they feel that pressure to get their stat gear. Never had that issue with dungeons; plenty of players were more than willing to do some dungeon they didn’t need just for fun, the experience, etc., putting on pause the ones they needed, because the gear was merely cosmetic. There was no demand to have it ASAP, it could be postponed and acquired casually. That is an aspect that will NEVER factor into a stat-race. The Ascended grind is not only far too extensive, ESPECIALLY just to have max stats, it also fractures the community, creating divisive barriers, perceived pressure to do ONE thing to the exclusion of all others, elitism between players, frustration when players fall behind in the race, difficulty for those players to ever catch up, and a myriad of other negative effects which will ONLY contribute to a decline in player base, an increasingly insurmountable barrier for new players, and inevitably a dead game. I love GW2, I love all aspects of it except for this new gear treadmill, some may need fixing but that can be tweaked along the way; I do not want to lose my enjoyment in a game that had so much potential, and I do not want to see it fail.

Primal.9513:

Orion.7264:

Primal.9513:

Orion.7264:

Look, there’s plenty of statistical evidence to show that in situations like this, those who choose to voice their concerns represent a fractal microcosm of the whole. The ratio of supporters to dissenters is usually a fairly accurate representation of the community as a whole; the only faction not well-accounted for is the apathetic faction who doesn’t care one way or another.

So the fact you voice your concern about us being a minority means there is only a “fractal microcosm” of people who think we’re a minority? Good to know!

That’s not what it means at all…

But you said it yourself, there is PLENTY of statistical evidence!

My point is: Your argument can just aswell be reversed, and being a minority doesn’t mean you’re necessarily wrong or shouldn’t be listenend to.

Edit: Indeed, re-reading his post I realised I misread it, Thanks Eveningstar, and sorry Orion

No problem!

Maybe I can make this simpler:

Imagine you have a pizza. This pizza is made up of a bunch of different slices, all of which have different toppings. If you take a circular sample from the middle of the pizza, it doesn’t matter how small the circle is, because the pieces will all converge in the same ratio. There will be the same relative amounts of the different types of toppings, and no matter the size of the sample, because of the method in which it was acquired, I could tell you how much of each type of slice made up the pizza. This forum functions in a similar fashion.

Primal.9513:

Orion.7264:

Primal.9513:

Orion.7264:

Look, there’s plenty of statistical evidence to show that in situations like this, those who choose to voice their concerns represent a fractal microcosm of the whole. The ratio of supporters to dissenters is usually a fairly accurate representation of the community as a whole; the only faction not well-accounted for is the apathetic faction who doesn’t care one way or another.

So the fact you voice your concern about us being a minority means there is only a “fractal microcosm” of people who think we’re a minority? Good to know!

That’s not what it means at all…

But you said it yourself, there is PLENTY of statistical evidence!

My point is: Your argument can just aswell be reversed, and being a minority doesn’t mean you’re necessarily wrong or shouldn’t be listenend to.

Again, that’s not even close to the meaning. Look above, someone already clarified for you.

Primal.9513:

Orion.7264:

Look, there’s plenty of statistical evidence to show that in situations like this, those who choose to voice their concerns represent a fractal microcosm of the whole. The ratio of supporters to dissenters is usually a fairly accurate representation of the community as a whole; the only faction not well-accounted for is the apathetic faction who doesn’t care one way or another.

So the fact you voice your concern about us being a minority means there is only a “fractal microcosm” of people who think we’re a minority? Good to know!

That’s not what it means at all…

Look, there’s plenty of statistical evidence to show that in situations like this, those who choose to voice their opinions represent a fractal microcosm of the whole. The ratio of supporters to dissenters is usually a fairly accurate representation of the community as a whole; the only faction not well-accounted for is the apathetic faction who doesn’t care one way or another.

And they don’t matter, because whatever gets implemented won’t affect them or their enjoyment. Essentially it’s a choice between the people in favor and the people opposed (and even then, generally NOT doing something that someone is in favor of results in less ill-will than doing something someone is opposed to).

Lt Latency.7415:

Waffler.1257:

I don’t understand these arguments against people seeking refunds saying they got their moneys worth. We know that some people have successfully received refunds for the game, so if you don’t plan on playing the game anymore because you don’t approve of the direction what is wrong with trying to get your money back?

Just like if a bank extends a loan to a company and the company goes bankrupt. The bank could say, well I knew there was a chance of default when I made the loan so I will accept the entire loss. But I can guarantee the smart banks will send over every lawyer they have to recover as much as possible before the company’s other creditors do.

They reason for the change is player retention. People play time is WAY WAY down for this game. If people were still playing like crazy this wouldn’t even be a issue but it’s not the case.

Yes, they did make a change, But that is because people aren’t staying.

When you buy a game that tries new things, the company is taking a risk and so are you when you support them. If you choose not to support companies while they try new things, They WON’T try new things.

Yes sometimes, you will get burned when that new thing doesn’t work, but if we want companies to take risks we have to take them as well.

Oh really, player population was tanking? Please, show me your data. Or any indication of that at all. Before you respond, let me rule out two points just in case they come up, save us both time:

1) If it seemed there were less players on your server, here’s the news for you: FREE SERVER TRANSFERS. Lower pop servers, and lower rank servers, were less exciting for WvW and harder to complete Orr content and whatnot. Players on those servers transferred to others, leading to low pop servers getting lower and high pop servers getting higher. If it seemed there were less players over time on your server, chances are they came to someone else’s; as a resident of Stormbluff Isle, I can tell you there has been a SEVERE increase in player density and population. Also, the fact that nearly every server is now listed at High or Full capacity seems to disprove your idea that people are leaving.

2) Content locusts (aka the usual treadmill grinders): Yes, upon realizing that max-stat gear was easily obtainable in GW2, and not having uber1337non3wbsall0w3d raids to do to feel superior and get their chance at a gawdhaxx0rz item, these players probably became bored as they inevitably do without an endless treadmill. There may have been some QQ’ing because they couldn’t adapt their playstyle to a revolutionary new method, and some of them may have become bored and stopped playing entirely. Good riddance. They represent only a minute fraction of the entire population, and their inability to enjoy a one-of-a-kind game doesn’t bother me. There are plenty of games that cater to their gaming disability, and only one for those of us not so afflicted.

I was having plenty of fun running dungeons, rocking face in WvW, leveling alts and learning to play new professions, and slowly working towards my Legendary. If the Ascended loot hadn’t come with this new patch, I’d have had even MORE fun. Fractals are FANTASTIC, I love the aesthetics, the skill/logic based mechanics, the increasing difficulty; if rewards had been aesthetic-based rather than boring stat-based, if content hadn’t become gated by Infusion, and if they’d introduced some sort of emote or title that scaled with your Fractal progression, guess what? Everyone would STILL have something to work towards, everyone would STILL have new content, the content locusts wouldn’t be any less pleased than they will be in a day when they’ve gotten all their ubergear, and your primary, loyal playerbase you’ve built up over the years wouldn’t be pissed off and looking to get their money back.

Ok guys, I’ve found the person responsible for the Ascended items.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Cn4QBoexWtM

Yeah, I’m done with this game. 2 max level characters outfitted in full exotics, one more on his way, and 7 more characters waiting their turn; shelled out for Digital Deluxe with full intentions to purchase the highest level of all expansions, content, etc; bought extra copies to give to my friends and talked it up to all my WoW buddies only for this kitten. Done. You had one kittening job, and you screwed it up, Anet. The worst part is that you HAD it right, and you’re so kittening stupid you couldn’t even KEEP it right. What a joke and a failure.

What a failure and a travesty. For those of you defending system by saying players need “top tier” gear to strive towards statswise, we already have that. It’s called exotic gear, and the system for obtaining it is pristine. This doesn’t add anything to the game, doesn’t improve it in any way, it only introduces a compounding layer of grind. Players will have to rework “finished” characters just to get max-stat gear (which was always promised to be easily obtainable at 80, even if it looked like dog crap). And “infusions”? So not only is there a stat increase, it’s going to be even more of a departure from rares to exotics. Think of the power difference between rares and exotics, but now imagine that rares can’t hold runes either. That’s what we’re talking about here. A stat increase AND a new set of upgrades, paving the way for imbalance in WvW, gear discrimination in PvE for dungeons and other end-game content, and all for the sake of… more grind? Please. What a horrible move by Anet. All you had to do was introduce “legendary” armor, with amazing skins but no stat increases. All you had to do was stick to your basic design philosophy. Could you do that? No. I demand an explanation, and the head of whoever suggested this godawful idea.

Wow, so much rage here. Guys, dungeons are meant to be the end-game, hard PvE content. From what I’ve seen, there are two schools of thought on current dungeons:

1) Dungeons are easy. This is the thinking of players who understand how to play this game, rather than trying to force other games’ mechanics on it. If you try and do these dungeons like other games’ dungeons, no wonder you don’t like them!

2) Dungeons are hard. This is the thinking of players who can’t get out of the mindset instilled by other games with trinity mechanics, where the tank just soaked up the aggro, the monk kept him alive and everyone else avoided standing in lava (or other bad stuff) and just DPS’d stuff down. I feel like most of the complaints come from these DPS players who aren’t used to ANYTHING coming after them (or just blamed the bad tank when it did), or the tank players who aren’t used to working to stay alive or healing themselves. Pretty sure the healer players from other games are just enjoying the break from redbar duty.

Here’s a tip: learn to actually play your class to the fullest. Your bar is only half of what you can do; pay attention to combo fields and your finisher skills. The amount of damage, healing, condition removal, condition application, protection, etc. you can do by successfully using combos is astounding, and massively improves the effectiveness of your party. Learn the synergy you have with certain classes, and play accordingly when you party with them. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen obvious DPS players from trinity games standing at range and dying, while up here by the boss we’re all fine because my guardian has PBAoE heals and prots constantly going and the melee are combo’ing off the fields. Do they ever consider coming up to us to survive better? Nope. Instead they die, and complain that it’s too hard/broken. Pay attention to your surroundings, for God’s sake! Bow of Truth’s command skill is a HUGE AoE heal that can fill up at least half of your health, depending on your total pool; sometimes more. Very easy to see, it’s a ghostly blue barrage coming down; but I pop it, and I see people with 25% health dodging around it like they think it’s AoE, or just not paying any attention at all. Placement is key! And on that note, if you’re super squishy and you really wanna dish out tons of DPS without drawing aggro, try placing yourself better. My necro is pretty tough for a caster, but even so I still find places to stand that are hard for enemies to get at while I throw wells and marks around, just so I don’t run the danger of getting swarmed by trash. There are places all over in dungeons to do this. I think a lot of the problems people are having with dungeons is insisting they’re set up for Trinity playstyles and treating them as such. They are not. Could you run them with Trinity if you had it? Yeah, they’d be pretty kitten easy, because they’re not made with those in mind. If you stop crying about the loss of your tank/heals, you might be able to see the screen better, and notice all the support/heals going off around you, the terrain you can use to your advantage, the bad stuff you shouldn’t be standing in, etc. I’ve done all the dungeons, and I can say that none of them are an issue inherently (there are some bugs that can be annoying, but that’s not a problem with the design, just an error). If I die, it’s because I did something stupid or I wasn’t paying attention. Every time. There is no way to play a dungeon well and die because “it’s not fair” or something.

In summation, the dungeons are not comparable to dungeons of other games, ESPECIALLY trinity games, and cannot be treated as such if you want to have a good time. Learning a new playstyle is difficult, but it’s necessary for a game with a new system. The sooner you let go of your WoW raid instincts, the sooner you will succeed in dungeons.

That being said, I agree with some of you suggesting smaller health pools for bosses and adds. Some of that is kind of unnecessary, and requiring more time to kill bosses not because of difficulty, but sheer time for time’s sake, is monotonous. This is the only “complaint” I have with dungeons, and it’s fairly minor; imo, maybe a 10% decrease would be perfect. Not gonna be upset if it doesn’t get changed. I have tons of fun in dungeons, and next to WvW they’re my favorite aspect of the game. I personally think the rewards are great, and I look forward to more dungeons for more variety in skins.

Guys, I think you’re taking this the wrong way. They’re not looking to make Legendaries easier to acquire overall; they’re just looking to shift the focus from such a gold-heavy approach to something requiring more skill-based actions. Right now, the gold required DOES make these very hard to get, but ONLY FOR SOME PEOPLE. For your average player, the amount of gold required (and the rate of increase in those prices) means that they, no matter how skilled, will probably never attain a legendary unless something is done. Legendaries were never meant to be a badge of how good you were at playing the market, which they have become; for those who jumped on TP and manipulated it immediately, hoarded precursors with the bugged recipes, etc, acquiring a Legendary ISN’T difficult, it’s laughably easy. I know a player who is very good at playing the market, and has acquired thousands of gold, which he used to make a legendary very easily in a few days (and sold on eBay, apparently). That doesn’t seem to fit with the idea Anet had for Legendaries; they’re supposed to be acquired through epic feats (like the map completion required for the gifts of exploration, I agree with the people citing that as an effective part of the process), not just something for the top .1% to BUY off eBay or the TP. Shifting a lot of the gold aspects of the legendary process into achievement/skill related challenges would solve that issue, and if it leads to poorer players having more legendaries and richer players having to actually work in-game for them, I don’t see how that’s a problem. Please, before you bash this system, try to consider the integrity of the system as a whole; this is Guild Wars 2, not Gold Wars 2.

Ishuria.6372:

hello guys~ I’m Iserah from WM
When I logged on game today, some ppl asked me “where are you? why don’t you run with us?” , “Is there any problem?”, “Is it true you planned to transfer some other server?” etc.. and my anwer always “Absolutely NO”

I understand why they asked me like that question. You guys can’t see us at WvW this weekend. We had an offline meeting – honestly, annual party- on this weekend, so most our members are too drunk to run for our mother land.

Thank you for your concern about us and don’t worry, we always be with SBI and they’ll come back as soon as recover from hangover XD

ps. If there is any weird sentence or wrong expression, sorry for that. I’m not much skillful at english. I just hope you can get my point …

I’d heard about this before the fight started, and I was definitely sad to lose such an effective force, even temporarily! We’ll be happy to have you guys back in the fray.

I’m definitely noticing the bandwagoners in WvW; to me, I don’t mind if they’re screwing around and we end up losing points for it. We win some, we lose some; if we’re behind, that just means there’s a lot of stuff to have fun capping. Maybe level some alts with it. The thing that bothers me is that SBI has a great community, and that’s the reason I love the server so much; before we started getting transfers in, everyone in WvW was very civil, map chat and team chat were constructive and easygoing. Now, there’s some nastiness going on from the new people, chats are more contaminated with flaming/trolling/just plain mean, and the new people seem to be… phallic in nature. Because I’m not sure if they’ll censor the d-word. Anyway, that’s just my two cents about the transfers; if they’d play nice and not be kittens on a server where everyone likes to get along, I wouldn’t mind. Gotta say, this week seems to be the hardest fight we’ve had in awhile, props to JQ for putting up a hard fight and BG for pulling themselves together and doing the same. Wouldn’t surprise me if we don’t take first, but I’ll be doing what I can to try for it anyway. :P