Guild Wars 2

Turkman.1089:

Thing is: If it were available through karma, (almost) nobody would do the new dungeon. People always choose the “easiest” path to a goal, although easy might sound sarcastic in that context.

True. They will take the easy path to max stats. But, once they are at max stats, then things get interesting. Will they start grinding for an nice skin ?
Since appearance is subjective, they will spread out.
Will they play the parts they find fun ?
I know that’s what I did in GW1.
Will they start hoarding gold ?

Will the make an alt ?
Thus helping populate low level zones.

Aleaf.8174:

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Aleaf.8174:

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Why should we be expected to work in a game we play for enjoyment just to get to the fun parts ?

Especially of those of us who don’t have much time to play due to actual work and/or family ?

Because that’s what MMORPGs/RPGs are. You earn something nice and shiny. You aren’t given anything free.

That would be a fair response if we were talking about any other MMO. But for GW2 ANET promised us a different game, which is why so many people with less available time bought it.

So now we come to the question: Why must MMOs be like that ?
Why can’t ANET produce the game they promised ?

Let’s look at other video game launches and things they promised their community:

-When SW:TOR was launched they promised a game that would “revolutionize the MMORPG Model.”

All I hear about SW:TOR is incompetence and by stupid design choices. So it’s probably a very bad example.

-When Mists was launched, they promised a much more engaging and challenging gameplay for their clients

What did Blizzard give them ?

Remember, I don’t like gear treadmills, so I don’t pay attention to WoW

-When Diablo 3 was launched, they promised to bring everything that made Diablo 2 into D3.

What did all three of those games actually provide ?

How about you pick some examples across the industry as a whole, not just two big names, and detail their promises along with how they were broken. In fact, detail of how they were broken is probably the most important part of detailing a broken promise. So why did you leave that detail out ?

But that aside, why does MMOs have to be like that? Well for one thing not all MMOs aren’t. MMORPGs are (There’s a difference, especially from a gameplay perspective).

Fair enough. I’ll be more precise next time.

Now why are MMORPGs like that? Mostly cuz of the fact that RPGs are like that too.

GW1 wasn’t. So it’s clearly possible to make a successful RPG that isn’t like that.

Ever play a JRPG? How about Dark Souls? You don’t have things handed to you. You earn it.

I didn’t ask why MMORPGs are like that. I asked “Why must they be like that ?”
Or to reword it a bit: Why can’t MMORPG’s be made without grind ?

You didn’t even try to answer the question I asked.

Aleaf.8174:

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Aleaf.8174:

Dead.7385:

Casca Longinus.3168:

once again, you want the reward without the work

WoW provided loot in a much better manner…..

WoW provided loot on a weekly basis at an RNG rate. I think I’d much rather grind for something that I know I will receive than grind a raid once a week and pray to the RNG Gods I get it.

At least GW2 isn’t putting daily limits on how often we can farm/run a dungeon.

Is a daily roll of the RNG for an Ascended ring significantly better ?

Once a week from 1 mob vs Multiple times a week against multiple mobs.

Yes. It is.

Even if the drop rate is worse so much that the average time to acquire it is longer in the multiple game that gives more rolls ?

Aleaf.8174:

Pretty sure grind is a traditional part of MMORPGs.

So what ?
Tradition doesn’t make an idea good or bad. It just makes it what everyone has always done.
If tradition is good, shouldn’t GW2 move to the traditional MMO business model: Subscription only.

Healix.5819:

One of the reasons for ascended gear was to forcibly slow down progression.

But why did they do that ?

GW1 managed to do very well with faster progression than GW2 had on launch. Then Factions came out and made progression faster while max stats remained the same.

Oh, and in case you think it’s just Ascended items that do this, It’s not. A guardian found a shortbow that was account bound on pickup. He isn’t the only one.
Why is ANET trying to make these items exist outside the economy ?

I saw this post on reddit today

Imgur this is the first exotic I have seen that is account bound and soul bound on use. As you can see it has an awesome skin but the name is a little lacking.

For those who don’t click those links, what the picture shows is a shortbow that is Account Bound on pickup, after a Guardian has picked it up. Meaning that the drop is basically trash, unless he has a thief or ranger and is running a shortbow build and likes that skin.

Why isn’t it tradeable ?

Lets say you made yourself an Ascended backpiece. You then transmuted it to attach one of the Mad King book skins.
Now you want to upgrade it so it comes with inherent agony resistance (eg Bowyer’s Delight to Bowyer’s Delight (Infused)). So you stick your transmuted backpiece into the forge. What happens ?

Does is spit out the upgrade version with its default skin, thus destroying your irreplaceable skin ?
Does it refuse to upgrade it, forcing you to grind out the material for the Bowyer’s Delight a second time ?

Or does something happen that doesn’t punish players for wanting a different skin to the one that comes with an items stats ?

Aleaf.8174:

Dead.7385:

Casca Longinus.3168:

once again, you want the reward without the work

WoW provided loot in a much better manner…..

WoW provided loot on a weekly basis at an RNG rate. I think I’d much rather grind for something that I know I will receive than grind a raid once a week and pray to the RNG Gods I get it.

At least GW2 isn’t putting daily limits on how often we can farm/run a dungeon.

Is a daily roll of the RNG for an Ascended ring significantly better ?

Aleaf.8174:

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Casca Longinus.3168:

once again, you want the reward without the work

Why should we be expected to work in a game we play for enjoyment just to get to the fun parts ?

Especially of those of us who don’t have much time to play due to actual work and/or family ?

Because that’s what MMORPGs/RPGs are. You earn something nice and shiny. You aren’t given anything free.

That would be a fair response if we were talking about any other MMO. But for GW2 ANET promised us a different game, which is why so many people with less available time bought it.

So now we come to the question: Why must MMOs be like that ?
Why can’t ANET produce the game they promised ?

Casca Longinus.3168:

once again, you want the reward without the work

Why should we be expected to work in a game we play for enjoyment just to get to the fun parts ?

Especially of those of us who don’t have much time to play due to actual work and/or family ?

If 2 happens, then you will find a lot of people becoming friends for a short period just to trade. So it will have the same effect as a standard trade window, effects ANET doesn’t want.

Option 1 however seems very useful.

lextoc.2856:

I think they should just increase the server cap instead of putting us in another server.

That wouldn’t help. The problem is that each instance of a zone can only hold so many people for technical reasons. More people on a server would just increase how many overflows are needed, and increasing the population cap in each zone is probably not possible with current hardware.

Agyaggalamb.4796:

I was thinking about that also, but I’m not familiar with the exact stats of Ascended items, so I assumed that they can come with identical (but improved) stats that we can produce, + the infusion slot. But if this is the case then we essentially killed off runes?

All we know so far is that an Ascended backpiece/ring without an infusion has greater stats than an Exotic backpiece/ring with the same jewel attached. Then infusions raise stats further.
We don’t know if there will be rune equivalents or not.

Btw “difficult to code” should not be an excuse. This is not the 7 year old GW1 with a small Live Team. The game is 3 months old, fully backed up by multiple teams.

Difficult to code also means a higher chance of bugs slipping through testing and making it live. It also means more work each time best in slot changes, as they have to test all the possible new upgrade paths. A new vendor just needs to be tested to ensure it spits out the right gear.
So the vendor could be implemented basically overnight, plus however long it takes to get through ANET’s internal code approval processes. An upgrade path would take longer.

But lets ignore coding difficulties, I still see nothing in the upgrade system that would make me prefer it to just replacing my gear. But I do see one thing that might make me prefer the replacement method: How would I go about getting a second set of max stat armor with a different stat combo under the replacement method ?

This is the main point of the issue. Max gear to be easy to obtain. Just like the main philosophy of GW. It seemed to be the case in GW2 also, but nowadays? Not so much. I still hope they’ll prove me wrong, and it’ll just turn out that we were impatient little kids.

Agreed.

Because then people would run the dungeons that they enjoy, not the skinner box ANET wants them to run.

All I see Ascended items doing is making the gap larger by doing two things:
– Eating up resources that could be used for Legendary weapons. Each ecto or skill point you use on an Ascended item is one you can’t use on a Legendary. All the time you spend in FOTM is time you don’t spend in WvW or another dungeon getting their components of the Legendary
– Raising the prices of those resources. Meaning that, even if you skip Ascended items, you still have to pay more.

This isn’t bridging a gap. It’s making the gap wider. Maybe even finding a gap that is bridged and blowing up the bridge.

deborah.2068:

Welcome to vertical progression =)

No, vertical progression can be done without being made worse by RNG. Two methods come to mind:
1 – Each run you complete you are guaranteed some tokens/gold/etc. Get enough and you can buy the item even if the RNG hates you.
2 – Make the stuff tradeable. That way if the RNG hates you, you still get to buy the items eventually from other players. Instead of the current system which forces the lucky players to trash the RNG drops once they have enough for themselves.

EndlessDreamer.6780:

Unique gear has been around since the very beginning of the game. Sorry that you didn’t know about it/notice it. However, are AKSs character or account bound? Cause if it’s the later you can always just send it to someone else.

Then why the wiki only list the Ancient Karka shells ?

Can you name any of the unique items that have been here since release ?

Sephirox.4071:

John Smith.4610:

The global trading post provides a large number of huge benefits at virtually no cost, outside of the complicated technology required to support it.

Making the TP individual to each server opens up market failures across the board, including easy arbitrage and extremely easy market manipulation.

The global TP is easier to find items, harder to manipulate, and reaches equilibrium prices significantly faster and more efficiently than any other in game marketplace ever created.

The problem is Jhon, are you guys going to do something about the loot? Prices are goign higher and higher, I liked the fact you gave precursors on the evtn to bring prices down but what about others? Currently making Infinite Light 1 Hand Sword costs 645Gold and making bolt costs 350G and bolt is a legendary while IL is not. Some drops are just too low and are making the costs of weapons too high.

So it’s not the massive increase in demand that Ascended items created that’s messing with prices ?

Agyaggalamb.4796:

There should be some new vendors introduced that are able to upgrade your Exotic gear to Ascended tier for a reasonable price, 1-10g a piece. Keeping the skin, the stat combinations, but upgrading stats and adding infusion slots. This way the easy to obtain max gear status quo remains, while the cooler/rarer skins are still something to work for/brag about/sell for tons of cash (oh wait, you can’t – that also needs to be fixed).

That could be difficult for ANET to code. Especially if higher tier equipment doesn’t use runes and has nothing similar to some rune effects.

Making vendors, copying an items stats onto a different skin, and stocking those vendors up with the new items seem much simpler. So minimal new code, and that’s mostly going to be a copy and paste of known working code.

Also, I think ANET would be against free skin transfers because those would reduce transmutation stone sales.

The only problem I see is that it would break WvW.

@Kaimick.5109
If the time investment required to acquire the gear from these best in slot vendors was significantly larger than the time investment for other routes, would you have a problem ?

By that I’m meaning something like 1 week for the item grinding a specific dungeon, 4 weeks to get enough gold/karma to buy from the vendors.

Because this suggestion was focused on making there multiple ways to get best in slot gear, not making it quickly acquired.

Kaimick.5109:

Ok so they initially decide to do some sort of gear progression, we are not in dis-agreement about this. They have made it so the Gear progression is not greatly out powering the existing gear, when if fact is is more cosmetic and a sign of someones dedication more so than my gear trump’s you every time suck it.

Lets take two card games: Solitaire and Poker.
What the FOTM grind is doing is the equivalent of saying that someone who has won enough solitaire games gets to have an extra card in their poker hand. How is that fair to poker players ?

So because people complained about end game content and something to keep their motivation for it, and Legendary’s became vastly underestimated in time spent to get them by Arena Net ( as said Themselves) the implemented the gear chase earlier and made it harder to get the legendary’s.

They could have just implemented items that were actually between Legendary weapons and exotics: Items with exotic stats, a price between exotic and Legendary, and a look also between them. Those wouldn’t have caused complaints.

not form the gem store ( as people say, since you can not Guarantee players will use it ever) the only Guarantee is the box sales.

But you can guarantee that some of the players will buy from the store. That’s how f2p games operate, they know that most players will be freeloaders, but that those freeloaders are necessary to keep the population high enough to keep the paying customers happy.
Also you can’t predict which freeloader will start paying in 6 months or not, so you can’t treat them too badly.

As for box sales, GW2 will have expansions. Lots of people who don’t buy from the gem store will still buy them.

So if people are so unhappy with it then why continue to play?

Because there is no other MMO that offers what ANET promised with GW2. They are complaining because of a lack of options (leave GW2 and we have to choose between grind or non-MMOs) and a hope that ANET can change direction.

The people who want vertical progression have plenty of other choices.

From a business standponit, who is a more valuable customer: A loyal one who keeps coming back, or one that will leave when the next big thing comes along ?

GW2 was advertised as a game with little grinding for stats. You seem to like grinding for them. Why did you decide to buy GW2 ?

GW2 from the 423k Congruent player base only about 5.8k of the players hate the game, yet continue to play.

WoW(MoP) out of the 800k Congruent player base 12k players say they hate how the game plays but still play it.

Could I see a source for those numbers ?

Olba.5376:

Making dungeons excessively profitable is like a big middle finger to the WvW folk.

The solution to that looks simple:
– Make WvW the best gold faucet. Which means that it drops more coin and items with higher average vendor value than anywhere else.
– Give the other places rare drops that only drop there. These will start out valuable, but the price will decline over time taking the profitability of the dungeon with it.

So WvW has guaranteed, but lower, profit while the dungeon has potentially greater profits with a greater risk. If the only people involved were people seeking the greatest profits, the market would settle to the point where both have the same profitability if you average it out over enough time. But people with a preference to one or the other will skew that.

If they had another way to get it, they sure as hell wouldn’t be in the dungeon. After all, those people were against the whole idea.

The only people who I saw against FOTM before it released were those who didn’t like Ascended gear. If there was anybody predicting elitism, they were drowned out by the Ascended gear predictions.

As for the people who won’t try it, what good does forcing them into it do

It gets people in the dungeon. In the worst case scenario, it at least gives off the impression of it being popular. Because let’s face it, no developer team wants to discuss how their most recent addition to the game was both unpopular and disliked.[/quote]

Forcing people into the dungeon also hurts ANET. If people had a choice, then the number of people choosing to go in tells ANET how much people like the dungeon. If nobody goes in, find out why, and don’t make that mistake again.

By forcing people into FOTM, ANET is skewing their data, forcing themselves to have to assume that the vocal minority actually represent the opinions of the playerbase. But there is no way to tell if the vocal minority represent the attitudes of the silent players or not.

SneakyErvin.3056:

Honestly the game brought less grinding to the table than what I excepted at release. I expected to grind a set by doing dungeons, then when I had that, be set for WvW. However, I had full exotics just 5 hours after hitting 80, since everything was there at the TP.

Did you ever play GW1 ?

Because, based on my experience there and the promises in the manifesto, the path to exotic gear was a bit longer than I was expecting. Though it wasn’t enough to complain about.

That really highlights the cultural divide between people who based their expectation on GW1, and those that based it on MMOs.

Silentstorm.7531:

LOL everything you do in this game is a grind of some sort. The legendaries was a super grind it’s even worse now. You can’t just pick and chose which grind you want to complain about. You might as well complain about the whole thing lol….

The legendary weapons are cosmetic only. That is why we aren’t complaining about them. That is the clear dividing line between what we will and won’t complain about:
– If it gives extra stats, no matter how small a gain, we will complain.
– If it doesn’t, it’s fine.

Discounts to new customers after launch are standard for video games, just look at Steam. That’s all this is, a discount for the DD version.

The only oddity is no discount on the DD upgrade for existing customers.

Agreed. I’d go one step further and suggest that the full cycle fits exactly into a 23 hour period (eg an 11h 30 min cycle, or a 7h 40m one) so that people who can only log in at a specific time of day still have variation in what part of the cycle they play.

More skins to chose from is always a good thing.

Though I would like to see some fancy looking weapons that still look realistic. Basically ANET should look through history to see how people have blinged out weapons while keeping them effective. Then implement those in game.

But what was not expected was the negative impact LFG had on the communities in the realms. People stopped talking with each other, there was no need to communicate with others.

Do you know how much communication I see from a typical /map formed group ?
Map chat: GLFxM {dungeon run}
Then it’s either whisper the person with something saying your in to get an invite or inviting yourself.
Then silence till the party is full.
Then, sometimes, someone asks if the group is ready. Sometimes they even wait for everyone to answer before going into the dungeon.
That’s all the communication that a LFG system would kill. Once you are in the dungeon, the communication level is going to be the same.

Outside the dungeon however, with LFG messages killed, there is more room for people to have a conversation without LFG messages making it too hard to read.

TimeBomb.3427:

4) Occasionally, a thread links to a non-existent page. Example: There are 5 pages in a thread, but it links to the 6th page. Then it shows absolutely no content aside from a buggy list of pages.

Solution: There’s not much more to say other than.. fix the bug. Also add a fail-safe fall back: If a non-existent page is accessed, redirect to the last page, perhaps with an error similar to “Non-existent page number: # accessed!” This isn’t just in case bugs occur, but also if somebody links to a non-existent page of a thread for whatever reason.

That is only a consequence of the real problem: The forum doesn’t know what page of a thread a post is actually on. Go to any thread that has a second parge. Go to the last post on the first page. Open the direct link to that post in a new tab/window. It will go for page 2.

The longer the thread, the worse the problem. The most extreme is the Ascended items threadnaught, where posts on page 222 try to open page page 243.

I suspect that the function which determines which page a post is on thinks there are less posts per page than there actually are. A simple typo, or maybe a case where the number was changed but the coder forgot to update both variables.
But also a hint of bad coding practices. It shows that the posts per page number is stored in two separate variables. Since it’s always going to be the same for all code that needs it, it should be stored in a single variable that all the relevant code can access.

Another bug I’ve noticed is that the kitten filter ignores spaces when looking for stuff to censor, causing it to censor the middle of unoffensive phrases. I don’t know why it ignores spaces. It should only be there to catch accidental swearing, anybody who intentionally bypasses it can be dealt with by the ban hammer much more effectively. Sticking spaces in the middle of a word to bypass a filter is pretty clearly intentional.

TWMagimay.9057:

People don’t “exclude” you on purpose, they do it because most people don’t go out of their way to help others.

True. Which is why FOTM is such a badly designed dungeon. Think about how other mechanics in GW2 make the selfish behavior the cooperative one:
– Sharing the rewards for kills means that helping someone kill a tough foe is the selfish decision.
– The same for dynamic events.
– Ressing someone awards you with xp. So people will at least stop to res you as they are running somewhere.
– For dungeons other than FOTM, you want to run quickly. The time spent trying for a perfect party member isn’t worth it, so the selfish option is to grab the first level 80s that want to join you.

The only times GW2 encourages selfish behavior to the detriment of other players is Magic Find gear* and FOTM grouping. Why should we tolerate such exceptions to such a beautiful design choice ?

*Too small of an effect for me to care about.

etiolate.9185:

You seem to be approaching this from the angle that all doubt leads to histrionics. People are capable of hearing an explanation that makes sense and accepting it. In other words, you don’t keep silent due to a handful of fools. The silence only worsens the situation.

Especially if they give an explanation players have already guessed at. Which would mean blaming Nexon.

ThiBash.5634:

etiolate.9185:

Beyond the angle of some idea of betrayal, the change to a gear treadmill doesn’t even make sense for their pricing model.

Two words: Transmutation Stone

Even if only 10% of the players decide they like Guild Backpack better, at $1 per stone, that’s $200,000 just for changing a few numbers in a database. Not a bad revenue for 30 seconds of work right?

As a short term cash grab it does. For the long term it doesn’t. ANET built a game where people could leave for months and return without penalty. So those people bought it. In the long term, those people will return, see that they have been penalized for their absence because of those cash grabs, then leave again.

Taiance.6213:

People are actually hoping for C?

Of all the answers they could pick… for me C is the worst. It’s nothing but a delaying tactic. It answers nothing but presumes to answer everything with the promise of further discussion that is unlikely to ever happen. It’s pure PR spin doctoring and as already said by Shanaeri it is bad ju-ju to be messing with.

C is them admitting they made a mistake. Admitting the mistake is the first step to fixing it.
C is also something else that will come back to bite them if they continue down the gear treadmill path. You think it’s bad now ?
Imagine how bad it will be if they chose C, then introduce Ascended gear into any other slot.

C is also the only option that takes GW2 in the direction I was hoping for.

Mr Crazy Moose.5760:

I doubt they’ll even acknowledge there might be something to address.

Back when they used Gaile Gray to distribute information in GW1, she had an amazing blind spot for that kind of stuff. Even when the district was 95% full of people afking rings.

Thing is, the timestamps on the questions will be present. So if they refuse to answer, expect lots of questions about why they refused to answer.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

E) I’m not able to discuss that at this time. (Or some permutation of it.)

Follow up question: Why did you not have a preprepared answer for this question ?

Because ANET knows the question is coming and it’s an ask me anything session. They should want to get that answer out of the way quickly, even if that means answering it before it’s asked.

etiolate.9185:

Gear treadmills were popular because they worked towards keeping people subscribed. As Guild Wars 2 is a different business model, the treadmill really serves no purpose and is rather out of place. The advantage of Buy 2 Play is that you can take a break and come back later without being disadvantaged. Due to that, you can focus on non-power based hooks. That’s why I had the follow up questions asking to what purpose do the stat increases serve.

That is the worst part about this whole thing, adding Ascended gear just doesn’t make sense when you consider the business model. Hence why so many people believe meddling from Nexon, because that we can understand.

EndlessDreamer.6780:

Please don’t misrepresent the company. They have in no way stated that there is going to be a level beyond Ascended.

They have also failed to say that there won’t be another level beyond Ascended. My point is only that we don’t have enough information to predict which direction ANET will take on this issue.

It’s a new dungeon. Unlike the other dungeons, it was not in the game from the beginning.

So ?
They could have got people in there by just having it be more profitable. Either through rare skins or a higher value in the vendor trash.

I hope that ANet will eventually add the Ascended gear to crafting and the Temple Karma Vendors. However, if they added it from the beginning, tons of people would just craft the gear rather than run the dungeon.

Then those who are interested in FOTM would still go in. GW EOTN dungeons only offered rare skins, gold and title progress. They were popular.

And besides, none of the gear we have in the previous dungeons is craftable. They do have alternatives that are craftable, not to mention that some variations can be bought from the Temple Karma Vendors.

The other dungeon gear is also not dropped via RNG. It’s obtained through tokens, which you earn on each run. Which means that as long as your group is good enough to complete the dungeon, you have made progress.

And that’s a ton of people not doing the dungeon. New content that is not being done by a large portion of the player base? Sure sounds like a dumb idea.

Most people will still try it, especially the people who are after gold. If it’s the only place that drops a new skin, that skin will be very valuable, so people will farm the dungeon just to get it. So why do you think a ‘large portion’ of the player base won’t try it ?

The monthly achievement alone would get a lot of people in there.

As for the people who won’t try it, what good does forcing them into it do ?

Olba.5376:

Making FotM gear available without running the dungeon sounds good on paper.

But that would rather defeat the point.

Why should people be forced to spend their limited playing time in a tiny area of the game they don’t enjoy just to improve their stats for the parts they do ?

Why should they be forced to run it hundreds or thousands of times, with no progress made on any of those runs, just because the RNG hates them ?

Why run the dungeon if you can just buy the gear?

Because the dungeon can drop really valuable stuff that you can then sell for lots of gold. Because it’s a fun dungeon. Because you don’t have the gold you need to buy it and are hoping to get lucky.

Most of the people who are interested in FotM gear are into WvWvW. People who have already done everything. People who have a decent amount of wealth. People who would be willing to buy the gear if it meant they could stick to doing WvWvW.

What’s wrong with them buying the gear ?

And from what I understood, ANet is already planning to put in means of getting the stuff outside of FotM.

We can’t judge those plans without more detail. They might be planning to remove bind on pickup, they might be planning something rather stupid like Ascended gear drops in WvW being from jumping puzzles only. Or they might not have any plans yet, just a panicked promise.

We are talking about a company who locked the Ascended gear threadnaught with a message telling people to refer to a post made before we knew that they had gone with the stupidity of BOP RNG drops being required. A post that was insufficient even then.

And honestly, if they just added an Ascended tab to the Temple armors that you can buy with Karma and to WvWvW vendors, I think that would please most people.

That would help, assuming all stats available from FOTM are also in the temple vendors.

At the moment:
– Legendary weapons have identical stats to exotics with the same stat combination. You’re meant to grab them for their appearance.
– Exotic weapons have the best stats for their slot, except rings and back pieces where Ascended has larger numbers.

As for how things will change, who knows. ANET promised no gear grind, then added Ascended gear. ANET promised more Ascended gear, but the major outcry might change their mind.

ANET have promised a higher level with the next expansion. Whenever that will be.

When you are in an area and a tradeable item drops that you don’t want, you have three options:
– Junk it
– Give it away
– Sell it on the trading post

When a bind on pickup item drops, if you aren’t going to use it yourself, it’s worthless to you. Even if there is someone else in your party that really wants it, for example someone who is doing FOTM just for Ascended gear.

So lets take the example of a rare item everyone wants, and why making it tradeable is better for everyone. The example item is Vial of Condensed Mists Essence, required for Ascended back gear:
1 – For someone who already has Ascended back gear on all their characters, making these tradeable would be beneficial because they can sell them on the trading post. Probably for quite a lot of gold. Keeping them untradeable means that they are worthless.
2 – For someone who is unlucky, making these tradeable is beneficial because each run where it doesn’t drop is still progress towards having enough gold to buy one. Keep them bind on pickup and a run where one doesn’t drop is a run where no progress was made.
3 – For people who don’t like running FOTM, making them tradeable is beneficial because it lets them acquire one without having to ever step foot inside that dungeon.
4 – For people who want to do other content, having them is tradeable is beneficial because more people will be available for other content.

For groups 2 and 3, it’s still going to take a while to afford the essence, as it’s going to be rather expensive due to its rarity. But slow progress is still better than no progress.

I don’t see any players that would be harmed by this change.

karizon.7203:

the primary issue is you can’t ever open the temple because it’s almost always bugged

Some people can open it. So if you’re going to keep complaining about it being bugged, please provide detail about how the bug makes it impossible. Not too hard, impossible.

Legendary weapons were never meant to be easy. If you’re finding it too hard to get a group to open Balthazar, at least you do have a second option.

Galen Grey.4709:

Rude players have nothing to do with FotM, the same thing could happen in any dungeon, in the open world and in WvW

Then why didn’t it happen anywhere near as often before FOTM ?

You say that FOTM isn’t to blame. If it isn’t, why has the rude behavior increased at the same time ?
Why are all the complaints I’m seeing about rude behavior relating to FOTM ?

Correlation doesn’t guarantee causation. But it’s a pretty good bet when you have a theory for how causation works and no alternative to it.

Cayen.8395:

Sorry for the weird topic title, no idea why it posted like that.

When the word filter sees a series of letters it doesn’t like, it replaces them with kitten. When looking for the letters, it ignores spaces between them. Now that you know that, look at the 4 letters it replaced.

DEKeyzToChaos.7381:

If you like leveling your crafting, then buy some embroidered insignias (or if they’re cheap, intricate insignias) from the BLTP instead and just craft with that. Strangely, the insignias themselves are usually cheaper than the total cost of the mats that go into them – but double check before you buy. .

A lot of people are crafting stuff for the sake of leveling crafting. Then selling what they produced for whatever price they can get. They knew they would be making a loss when they started, and went ahead because they aren’t doing it for the coin, they are doing it to hit 400. Maybe for their Legendary, maybe to power level their character.

Lots of stuff is cheaper than its ingredients for that reason. In fact, I’d be surprised if there was anything that didn’t require max crafting that wasn’t like that. Max crafting is only an exception because the only reason to craft stuff there is for profit. But that isn’t guaranteed if there are enough idiots who think “If I mine it myself it’s free”.

moiraine.2753:

RNG exists in every MMO.Is it GW2 with FotM dungeons or WoW with LFR there is always some kind of RNG system existing.
I can only say one thing RNG is RNG am i lucky or not well this doesn’t really bother me.

Doesn’t WoW have some token system so that, if the RNG hates you, you still make progress towards what you’re after on each attempt ?

While pure RNG is either you get what you’re after, or you don’t. You don’t get to make progress. You might get what you’re after first time, or you might take thousands of runs.

Fallensbane.8420:

This would be abused so hard. Hey lets meet at x and trade rage quit kills. Yeah, this ain’t happening.

Then give a second title for the player that rage quits. A title that subtracts achievement points and progresses at twice the rate of the title for causing them.

Alfador.7649:

I’m confused. How is BiS gear not already insanely easy to get? I was able to find some generic level 80 exotic with the stats I needed on the TP for very reasonable coin within a day or 2 of hitting 90. I’m less trying to be critical here and more thinking I’m genuinely missing some point.

It’s not exotics that are the problem. It’s Ascended items. Lets look at backpieces:
First you need: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vial_of_Condensed_Mists_Essence
A random drop from FOTM that binds on pickup.
Then 240 philosophers stones. Which cost 24 skill points in total.
50 ecto
250 of a T6 material.

Then you need to infuse it. Then you can talk about rings and their infusions.

Kaimick.5109:

So by your example why run FoTM there would be no need to.

Your wanting something that people work hard to get with out all the hard work.

The need for running FOTM is quite simple: It’s the only place that currently offers the best stats. If people want to be on a level playing field, they need the best stats. So they must run FOTM.

Lets use board games as an analogy to gearing for WvW. Chess as the equivalent to WvW, checkers for FOTM. They current setup is like saying that if someone has played checkers enough, they get to start a chess game with an extra piece on the board in reward for their ‘hard work’.
Does that sound fair to you ?

So back to GW2: Why does someone who has spent a lot of time playing FOTM deserve to have a stat advantage over another WvW player ?

Kaimick.5109:

So hand out BiS gear for people that don’t want to run a dungeon cause they are too lazy. I say stop being lazy

It’s not laziness. It’s that we have other more important things to do with our time, we don’t want to sit down and have even more work before getting to the entertaining parts of the game.
Especially if they like WvW, because all the time they spend running FOTM is time they haven’t spent honing their skills at WvW.

Malediktus.9250:

That suggestion wont work. Jewelry has no skins, so making welfare versions of it is no option.

Seems ANET was lazy and introduced the Ascended items that required the least work first.

Kaimick.5109:

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Kaimick.5109:

That is my rant time to copy and paste it to another thread saying the same BS

Time for a copy and paste response:
Tell me how someone can bust their kitten off crafting or farming karma and acquire max stats in all equipment slots when Ascended gear comes out of exactly 1 dungeon and is untradeable.

They can’t but they can produce Exotic equals in crafting and Karma vendors in Orr give a set that is on par with all other exotics.

But they can not get Ascended gear, which has the highest stats of all gear. You said

I think that Lazy people should be able to get the same gear as the people that Bust their Kittens off either
Crafting
Running Dungeons
or farming Karma

Because of Ascended gear, it is impossible for crafters/karma farmers to get the same stats as FOTM grinders.

Ascended is one step above Exotics and one step below Legendary

In terms of acquisition, maybe. In terms of how the finished item compares to an exotic, definitely not:
– Legendary weapons have the exact same stats as an Exotic with the same stat combo. They only differ in stats.
– Ascended gear has higher stats than Exotics. Rings don’t even have skins.
So how can something that is different from Exotics in a way that a Legendary is not be considered to fit between Legendaries and exotics ?

So people now want to have a vendor they can purchase Ascended gear from with Gold cause they are too lazy to run a dungeon?

Because this is our entertainment. Why should we have to work at one small part of the game we may not like, just to be put on a level playing field with everyone else ?

You can’t even get a legendary buy throwing gold at it, you actually have to work to get it.

So why should lazy people be rewarded for not working for something?

Why should someone with no life outside of GW2 have any advantage over someone who doesn’t ?
Because it’s not laziness. It’s the fact that people who hate grinding have time consuming things like work and children. We don’t have the time to grind for stats and enjoy ourselves in game.

Kaimick.5109:

What about all the spoiled kids and lazy payers that decided to throw out $150.00 to purchase gems to purchase gold to buy the ascended. How is that fair to the guy that doesn’t have the money nor has the need to spend real world money to look like he accomplished something rather go out and actually accomplish it?

That’s why you set the gold price of maximum stats low enough that it’s within the reach of everybody. Then there is no advantage to the gold buyer, no advantage to the person with no life outside of GW2, just a level playing field where skill is the determining factor.

There are somethings that you just don’t buy with gold…. or shouldn’t be able to buy with gold.

What about using Karma vendors instead ?

If you want the top level gear for the price of gold World of Warcraft has Gilds that allow you to pay them gold for runs and give you all the gear and loot that drops.

Why should gear wars turn to be the same thing?

The only way I can see to stop that happening is to make max stats easily obtainable to remove the incentive. Anything else leaves the incentive and while the incentive remains, some people will see the transaction as worthwhile.

SneakyErvin.3056:

The implementation of the new gear wasnt 100% thought through IMO. But that doesnt mean its all bad. The only thing they really screwed up was limiting it to fractals.

Many would say that there were other areas they screwed up. But that’s an argument that’s taking place in many other threads.

The lack of thought in this grind is what’s worried me. As people have pointed out:
– LOTR had a similar system to Agony. Nobody liked it there. Why did ANET think here would be different ?

However there is nothing wrong with the fractals, they are much more fun than the other dungeons that just felt like WP bumrushing for the win.

I do like the idea behind them. If it had been me in charge, all I’d have done differently is:
– No Ascended gear. I’m not sure if Agony would stay or not.
– Reset difficulty level every so often. But, when I do, I publish a list of all the people who made it to the highest level anyone obtained.
– The first group to make it to a difficulty level would also be published to show they did it first.

I was dead sure I wasnt going to get ascendant gear because I hate PvE in general. Its easy to say things suck before you try it, I’m just glad I tried it before I discarded it.

The main problem with Ascended gear is that people have seen it before in many other games and they don’t like it. Especially when they assume that ANET is planning a gear treadmill, and ANET refuses to tell them they are wrong.
For many of the people complaining, they don’t play MMOs in general because they don’t like a gear treadmill, so they won’t play games with one. GW2 promised to be different, these people paid for it, now they are angry that GW2 is ceasing to be the game they thought they were buying. Note how much of the argument focuses on the manifesto, and the feeling of being lied to.

As for the people who like grind, why did they buy a game that promised to not have any ?

Wasselin.1235:

It is a “skinner” box. That doesn’t mean it isn’t effective in firing those circuits in your brain that give satisfaction. I’m just saying that WoW has a more effective loot treadmill than GW2, because GW2 was not designed from the beginning to be one.

I’ve never played WoW, so I can’t say if it has a better treadmill or not. Though I do believe it as I’ve heard WoW has a token system, while GW2 only has RNG for Ascended items.

As for is giving satisfaction, it doesn’t work for me. I went through a few months trying various f2p MMOs back when a lot were pay to win. I quit quite a few of them rather quickly when I realized that their entire content consisted of grinding levels, just so you could grind levels somewhere else.

That was before I had heard anything about Skinner boxes. I saw grind with the only payoff being more grind. I saw content that didn’t get any harder if you progressed at the exact speed the developers intended, all that changed was the numbers.

Coffeebot.3921:

Does the manifesto represent the game?
No, the manifesto represents the sentiments and philosophies of the development team at the time it was released, and as we are all aware things change over time.

To rebel against the additions to the game is to rebel against change, this MMORPG has changed the landscape for the genre but to have the game itself be static and unchanging is going against the change it made to the genre.

No, to rebel against these changes is only to rebel against these specific changes, because we have specific reasons why we don’t like them. We don’t rebel against balance changes. We don’t rebel against anything else that happened in Lost Shores*.

*Except the one time event, which has a different set of problems.

I will also point out that calling for grind to come to GW2 is calling for ANET to take one thing that makes GW2 different and remove it. So calling for grind is calling for ANET to stop trying to change things.

Which one of us is against change in general ?
The ones calling for the reversal of one change we don’t like, or the people calling for GW2 to be changed to be more like almost every other MMO out there ?

FragGyver.8369:

If you guys feel really that betrayed and cheated, man up and just leave it.

And go where ?
If the people who want grind don’t like it, they have plenty of other games they can try.

Give ANet some time to recover from the shock they probably got by our reaction and probably by the management choices which were forced upon them. Not to make an official response was pretty wise in my opinion. There is so much rage atm, that every comment to that matter would be more fuel for the fire, so just be patient, calm done and wait for them to come up with something. If the rumors are true, which seems pretty plausible, we should encourage the devs even more cause they cant do anything, besides quitting their job, which is unlikely cause its probably very well payed.

No, we need to let them know how angry we are. And to keep reminding them until they do something.
Remember when ANET made that stupid statement about FOV ?
The FoV issue has since been addressed. I won’t say it’s been fixed till we can set our own FoV’s, but it’s improved enough that I won’t complain. Which shows that raging gets results, if the rage is backed up with solid reasoning.

Shadoekin.3928:

LOL. This reminds me of the class action lawsuit against the makers of Nutella. They advertised their spread as it if were health food but was taken to task. I wonder if the same can be done for ANet’s departure from their Manifesto.

Never threaten legal action on forums. The first thing ANET should ever hear about any legal action is either a message from your lawyer, a notice about a case being filed, or something from a group fighting on your behalf. Anything less and they will just ignore it.

Goatjugsoup.8637:

TBH that sounded a lot like you just aren’t willing to put in the time to get the stuff you want and want an easy way out… I’m not convinced we need one.

You may note that I never specified cost. Or even that these vendors should be quickest. Just that players should have a choice in how they put the time in.

Kaimick.5109:

Goatjugsoup.8637:

TBH that sounded a lot like you just aren’t willing to put in the time to get the stuff you want and want an easy way out… I’m not convinced we need one.

Thank you and to the other person that qouted me look on the other thread for your answer

I’ll look to that thread later, and reply to you there in the context of that thread.
In the context of this thread: Currently players can only get Ascended gear through FOTM. With my suggestion, they will be able to get them via any way they can think of to acquire gold and/or karma.

So much for it being too bugged to open. It’s just that the people wanting shards don’t want to do anything too hard for them.

dalendria.3762:

Can someone explain the RNG factor in acquiring one or both pieces? I thought you received tokens or crafting mats from Fractals?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vial_of_Condensed_Mists_Essence
Needed to craft Ascended back pieces. Randomly drops from foes in FOTM.

Kaimick.5109:

That is my rant time to copy and paste it to another thread saying the same BS

Time for a copy and paste response:
Tell me how someone can bust their kitten off crafting or farming karma and acquire max stats in all equipment slots when Ascended gear comes out of exactly 1 dungeon and is untradeable.