Guild Wars 2

This is ridiculous, those are the stats i expect to see in WOW or Rift… I never… in my wildest nightmares expected to see this kinda stuff show up in GW2… let alone this SOON and suddenly.

I swear if it was April i would assume Arenanet is punking us… this is simply… shocking.

Venn.8931:

Glad I dropped hundreds of dollars in computer upgrades to run a game I’ll probably uninstall this weekend.

Good news is there are some decent games coming that can take advantage of those upgrades.

Want an mmo feel with fps action? Try PS2 or Firefall (scifi style)
Want an mmo with the potential to be what we wanted? Keep an eye on WoD
Want a good action game? AC3, LoL, Smite beta are all options

Want a good treadmill MMO? WoW, Rift, Tera, Aion, LoTRO are all BETTER in that regard then GW2.

yes to both. This idea that “most players wanted” without any way to see the numbers and figures they got this from… then when seeing the thread AGAINST the newest change shows overwhelming negative support for said change.

Something is not right. Arena Net either got their hands forces by a higher power, or have no CLUE what their true fan base are.

We need transparency and communication. We are CUSTOMERS not tools.

LucasOfTheDesert 29 minutes ago

Hello Isaiah Cartwright,
I am just curious about the gap between exotics and legendaries that gets mentioned so often. Since they are both max stats and GW2 is (supposed to be) just for the looks then there is no real gap in my opinion. If you want to have a nice skin then go for the Foefire´s Essence or the Anomaly or if you think you can afford the time go for a legendary.

The real problem is that players ONLY want a legendary and forget about all the other weapons and about what it is supposed to be: legendary! So only about 5% of the gamers should be able to obtain it. I believe that you shouldn´t have advertised for the legendarys that much. This way players believe that it is part of finishing the game to get one instead of just finding a gear that satisfies your expectation.

What are your thoughts on that? (I´m sorry for grammer mistakes my native language is german :/)

Best regards
IsaiahCartwright @LucasOfTheDesert a minute ago
The gap we’ve talked about is more the game in time we everyone to have achievable goals that players can look forward to. Legendary are very long term goals and we want to make sure they are layered in with other interesting goals a player can accomplished while on their way to finishing a legendary.

So the stat increase has nothing to do with the gap fix… thats the grind… the stat fix must simply be to get the grind heads to come play.

Venn.8931:

I guess the invite-a-friend is there to stop the bleeding caused by the mass exodus induced by the introduction of gear grind.

Peace Y’all.

actually that makes sense. They already admitted they knew this would cause anger.

Basicly… they know they are going to lose players… and have basically decided they would rather have more carrot style players then the old fans of GW1

Sky.9347:

We finally got our answer. We did it by being bystanders to the newest marketing outreach to unhappy vertical progression MMO players.

I understand what happened. The development team was what we bought, the “Live” team is who is now in charge.

Beta through release was a fantastic game with some flaws.
The first content update, managed by the Live team, used “industry standards” to “respond” to their most “dedicated players”.

I do want to know where these two gentlemen who pioneered horizontal progression in Guild Wars 1 have gone, and if there is any legal way for the original developers to speak up I would like to hear it.

It’ s been fun.

The two people responcible for the original horizontal progression direction left GW2 in 2010 and are now working at Undeadlabs

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Next thing you know, people who I invted to this game will think I’m a Lier when I said this game has no grear treadmil… what am I suppose to tell my friends Now ArenaNet!?

Please, I’d like to know.

yeah I had originally thought “hey they are letting me invite friends!” cause I had a few interested since they are sick of the normal gear grind on MMOs and stopped playing them all together. Now… those invites will go to waste as it would be an insult to our friendships if I even suggested them to come play GW2.

the closest we will get to an answer

" Freyar (Who’s… 16 minutes ago
I’m concerned over ascended gear. Is Guild Wars 2 supposed to be moving towards traditional MMO progression? One of the reasons I stepped away from WoW and others was so that I could enjoy an MMO at my own pace without the risk of being excluded by something like Gear Score.
IsaiahCartwright @Freyar (Who’s best… 2 minutes ago
I can see your concern, our goal with ascended items is to fill the gap in our progression between exotics and legendary as well as give us a new tool with the infusion slot to give more depth of rewards by offering new and interesting infusions that are directed at different game types.

basically did not answer the question and went back to PR speak. They are all on damage control now.

Ferguson.2157:

pjdct.8176:

Live Q&A with Lead Designer Isaiah Cartwright at 6 Eastern

http://kotaku.com/5960951/the-lead-designer-of-guild-wars-2-is-answering-your-questions-right-now

I saw one “hard” question come up – the third question – it was magically deleted and unanswered.

This is all just a PR sales snowjob interview.

Yep I posted a ration none inflammatory question about stat tiers and the future plans and it was deleted. Reposted again… and deleted.

This “any questions” is a sham.

This is close to the same result you would get if as a Blizzard developer you annouced in WOW

“Next week we will be making changes to the dungeons, from now on all max level items have the exact same stats and all dungeons offer the same level of rewards now”

its a case of thats NOT the game you bought… the wow players would be furious at a sudden change. Anet did a sudden and drastic change to how they are treating the game.

THAT is the issue here. Its a case of fundamental design decisions we were told, that are suddenly going out the window.

so basicly Anet is now saying.

“get legendary, or deal with grinding out new gear constantly” so people will ignore exotics (get the easy ones forget the hard ones) as a goal and just save mats and money for the Legendary.

Until Anet announces that due to popular player demand (yeah right) legendary are no longer BIS and you must now get the xxxx of Ultimate Souls! Its only 8% better….

Some serious misconceptions out there.

1. infusion being the same as GW1.

This is false. In GW1 you got infused into WHATEVER armor you wanted. In fact you could get infused to the level 10 armor if you wanted to. The skill negation is the only thing that is the same and NO-ONE is complaining about that part of it. Its all about the fact that ONLY these new armors can be infused.

2. You can craft the Ascended armor.

Sure this may be true… but it will be very hard to get and rare (more so then Ori) or be reserved for getting inside the dungeon. Then you have to consider the recipe itself will be a rare drop and/or a mystic forge recipe thus making it about as hard to get the materials to craft as it is to just grind the dungeon.

3. It will be a one time one step progression to get those players that left because they were bored with full exotics to come back.

Very true, however if they have it available enough and expect people to be able to actually USE this armor to experience the dungeons depths, then those that grind it out quickly (the only ones that actually like this change will do so) will be bored again in a month at the latest and Anet will again feel the SAME pressure to create a new tier.

4. The stats are not that much better then exotic.

False, they are between 8-15% better. Which means it is now a new gating system. Exotics was already a gating system but since exotics were POSSIBLE to get for a casual player (i have played over 300 hours and have only 4 exotic pieces) it means the gating was not truly affecting players for long and thus it had limited issues to people not able to play the game. If the stats were not better by much they would not have had to chnge the legendaries. The simple fact they are changing legendaries to match means ANY arguement about the stats being about equal to exotics is 100% false.

5. This will keep people playing longer then just cosmetic upgrades.

False, this works as a shot in the arm. You can look at the expansions for other games for the true affect. The truth is it will alienate those players that stuck with the game, bring in a few for the grind… until the grind is over which will happen in a few weeks, and the net total is LESS players in the world and less people buying from the cash shop in the long run.

Anyone that says this is a GOOD change is simply trying to destroy the game. Beyond the “lied to” part the fact is if Anet is deciding to now run a gear treadmill game, they screwed up and need a LOT of work before they can keep people on the treadmill as well as games like Aion, Rift and WoW do. Those games were designed for it GW2 was not… like it or not, this is an all around BAD thing for the game and it will cause a large drop in value for exotics, dungeons will be even more abandoned, and the rich will simply get richer alienating the majority of players in favor of the “elite”.

Horrible game decision at this point.

And how long will you and your “like minded” friends keep playing once they get the new gear and are maxed stats?

Catering to the carrot+stick people ALWAYS leads to a treadmill to keep their interest.

Frankly… I would rather see this as the ONE mmo that says goodbye to your type and keeps the rest of us. You get plenty of options of games for gear treadmills… go play them and stop RUINING this one for the rest of us.

I am with Major. I am still playing and will play however.

I will not spend a dime on the game or expansions until this is removed. I will also let my “friends” invites sit and rot because the people that had a SLIGHT interest in GW2 was because it didnt have gear treadmill. Those I would have invited will not buy the game anyway because of this change.

Sorry this is simply a bad decision. I will probably play Planetside 2 more and more and Anet can only count on me coming in for the holiday events if this continues.

Dungeons that are already hard for some servers to get groups in, will be completely deserted now for the general public. The level 80s will now be running the new dungeons over and over grinding out for the new best in class armor stats and ignoring the dungeons except for the few that want a specific skin.

If you are a casual… good luck getting any dungeons runs in after the 16th. This screams of NCSoft forcing item gearing into the game to try and retain customers when they simply do not understand the current MMO marketplace.

A.net should have given us MUCH more cash shop town cloths and things to do with them like the FREAKIN minigames they annouced in beta.

I was an entirely smitten person with Anet but since the launch of GW2 I have been losing hope with them. Frankly… at this point I am starting to wish GW2 was never annouced at all.

Garenthal, what you are talking about is already happening with the "lfm for dungeon exp 80+exot only, send w!

Right or wrong… its a simple formula. Players always want the best around them when they are themselves trying to be the best. Not usually an issue however this will just add to the above. Expecially if they have a new dungeon with harder content.

Even if the stats are just 1 point on each piece higher then exotics. you WILL see people asking for only for that type of armor for their runs.

Bad is bad, and this is bad. I will not quit… but I probably will not spend 7 years as I did in GW1.

I know Mini and ran with him/her a lot along with TW and Fate and IRNY.

Me and my guild are in the same boat. We are a very small guild of 8 people that WANT to be active in WvW for small group tactics. The problem is we can never get more then 3 in at a time and usually by that time at least one of those three have to log within 30 minutes.

We are also like TW/FATE/IRNY and Mini another group of the since beta players that helped (even in small ways) make JQ the server it is. The community was great. JQ will always be at the top, but it just is a horrible situation that we have to decide between staying on the server/community we like, or actually PLAYING the game.

I did not understand what HOD and TA guilds were talking about.. now I do and completely understand why they left.

I will miss everyone we met and everyone we made friends with… but something has got to give and in this case, we are seeing most people choosing playing with friends over playing with the queue.

Yet another agree to swapping the buffs. Never ever understood giving power buffs to an already winning team. Give them gold/xp/magicfind etc, but give the underdogs a buff to fight back a little.

Here is the problem I am not seeing anyone address with a DF style dungeon.

What servers tend to be winning? The higher pop servers. Via night crews or simply more people willing to be in WvW the fact remains. So those that are winning in overall control get access to DF and move in. The theory being it means more space for the other 2 teams to reclaim, in truth those big pop servers just fill those spots with the people waiting in queue and continue to dominate the maps. Meaning those winning, now keep winning AND have access to the new dungeon un-challenged.

The only option would be to make it the same instance and population as the current maps, which is basicly what we have now but without the PvE content. We have an area that removes players from the active battlegrounds to allow the other servers to even the balance. The problem currently is this is not restricted and is accessible from multiple places. They need to lock it down so it works like DF with majority control of the zone, then locks the people in once they lose that control. Also they need to make the dungeon run HARDER but give more rewards so you actually have to dedicate time and resources to getting through, but want to dedicate those resources for the rewards.

Right now the rewards are nice for a small group but not for an army and it is easy for an organized group to get those rewards in a short time so it never really takes people off the battlefield.