Guild Wars 2

lol I love this. I REALLY love this. I recognize some of the people whining here about this as faces who defend ascended gear… and their arguments are slapping them in the face.

“You don’t like ascended gear? Don’t grind for it! No one is FORCING you to. Who cares if you lose out on some stats. They are inconsequential in the long run.”

Right back at you. You don’t want to level multiple alts to get another chest? Then don’t! No one is forcing you to! Who cares if you lose out on some loot. It is inconsequential in the long run.

In before someone claims that the argument somehow doesn’t apply to them because they are special.

Wait wait wait… so if someone joins a guild, represents when that guild is doing guild missions, and actively participates in the mission, thus helping the guild as well as themselves get credit for the guild mission, then goes back to representing their more social guild so they can chat with their friends… they are considered leachers? REALLY? Since when did active participation count as leaching?

Jeebus it’s like watching a comedy about a jealous, crazy girlfriend. It’s not enough to spend the times that count with her, ya gotta spend every second and only talk to her, ever.

My advice- if you ever find yourself in a guild that tries to restrict your representing, especially when you are helping them during the times you represent, I suggest you RUN FOR THE HILLS.

Major +1 for this patch. Lately I haven’t offered much positive feedback, but this patch (especially the daily changes) were worth logging in just to say “Thanks for that”.

/insert shameless request to make town head gear, like glasses, wearable in combat

=D

MrDmajor.7084:

Dear ANet please ignore class balance. Keep nerfing Engineers and others then finally remove them from the game. Do not have a sense of urgency about this. People do not point to class balance and bizarre nerfings as a reason to put the game down. The population is not dwindling at all due to character and class disenfranchisement. Continue with the great work and staying with your core philosophies.

reverse psychology <- does this work?

Incoming blog post with this as a reference to show how “Wildly successful” class balance has been up to this point.

Seriously, though… I am kind of curious why they haven’t gone ahead and removed Engies yet. It’s pretty obvious no one in Anet actually likes the class, since they go out of their way to make it as unenjoyable to play as possible… not sure why they don’t just give it a good mercy killing instead of leaving the class to thrash and suffer slowly.

Currently, if you have your back slot set to hidden, your kits will completely ignore that and place a huge, clunky and often ugly backpack on your back. For some characters, this completely destroys the armor look you are going for. For others, especially female toons, some of the kids clip horribly not only with the armor but also the toon itself (I believe its grenade kits that will consume the entire head of a human female engineer).

If the option exists to hide back slot items, I see no reason why kits should be exempt from this. I would be outstanding if those items respected the option that was chosen, and did not appear on the player’s back unless the player desired it.

I know of at least a few players on TC who would use kits a lot more since it would no longer destroy their character’s look.

So whats the current best money making method that does NOT involve instance/fractal running?

I really hope they fix this in the next major patch This has been a known issue since release. They’ve had over 6 months to fix this issue, so it’s pretty safe to assume the fix for it should finally be appearing within the next month or so.

The two weapons I would love to see in the game are main hand pistols for mesmers, and rifles for Engineers (I know what you are about to say and no, you’re wrong. We can’t use rifles. We can use rifle skinned shotguns. I want a RIFLE. Shoulder shooting, capable of doing full damage at medium range, non-splash damage rifle. )

I would make townclothes head pieces (like glasses!) item skins so that you can wear them in combat. It makes no sense why my character would only wear glasses in town, when he needs them least.

I play this game on my 55" tv with a controller. It’s not like a console is required to do that.

• Hdmi to tv. If you don’t have a port for it, use dvi→hdmi adapter.
• headphone jack to audio component (red / white connectors), then connect to a stereo. OR you can use an HD audio connector if you have one on both your pc and stereo.
• Xbox 360 controller for windows + xpadder.

Tada! One game with tv and controller but all the graphics power of a pc

As much as I love heroes, I can’t see it working in this game. The pets we have already are dumb as posts. They actively choose invincible targets over normal, dangerous ones, they get stuck on every loose rock under the sun and they sometimes decide monster are just too scary to fight (like engineer turrets vs dragons. They could be literally INSIDE the foot of a dragon and still not even bother shooting at it. They will idle before shooting).

That said, I can’t imagine bolstering the rank of derpdom further with more NPCs.

I’m really blown away that Anet wont help with that. Its pretty surprising to me for sure. Any other company would have gotten that worked out within minutes of the ticket being answered by a GM.

That’s a shame.

I’m assuming the best way to go about this is xpadder, but I was wondering if anyone out there was playing a tried and true layout for the controller.

I remember trying it once before and was… less than thrilled with how I set up my gamepad and how the gameplay felt, but I figured I would give it another go, since playing on my tv while sprawled out on the couch is just an awesome thought =D

So… anyone have layout suggestions?

I can see it happen on the “Xbox 720”, but not the PS4. PS3 is based on openGL, so I would assume that the PS4 will be too.. This game is a directX game. Changing that is no simple matter. Unless I’m mistaken, Xbox DOES run DirectX so porting it over would be far less work and far more feasible.

So no, I would be super super surprised if we saw a PS4 release of this game.

Raserei.8361:

World of Warcraft isn’t the only game with fast movement speed.

Everquest 2 has very fast mounts AND flying mounts.

Diablo 2, introduced a patch to increase base movement speed at one point because they realized players didn’t like moving slow. (Common sense)

GW2, offers speed boons in town… Why? Because towns are so large and it’s convienient. I’m just asking we get more of that convienience in the overall game not just the city. A mount system, an out of combat movement system of some sort that everyone can get…. Maybe sell mounts for gems… Make some money. Why not?

Rift as well. They not only have mounts but increased their on foot movement speed for ALL characters at ALL times by some odd 20% or more.

Yea, I always wondered who they got to write some of those character options. >_> The story script and the player choices does an excellent job of making the character someone that only some players would relate to lol. Sure, you might find a handful of situations you kind of agree with your character on, but it’s always balanced by a whole bunch of situations that make you go “wtf?”

Atm, a large portion of players are upset with the way Ascended gear was handled and, in particular, the obsolescence of their exotic gear in the face of a new tier of armor. This basically does the one thing GW2 was never supposed to do- decide on a playstyle for the player. In particular, it changes many players game play direction towards grinding for gear, instead of working towards exploration, collectibles, or just generally goofing off and having fun.

Easiest way to correct this issue? Leave ascended gear as it is, but add new and better exotic jewels that are attainable through the means that all other exotic gear is attainable through- crafting, karma, dungeon drops, etc. The jewels, lacking any form of agony resistance as to keep ascended gear as the only real means of acquiring it, would boost exotic stats up to their ascended gear counterparts.

This would avoid the need to modify any armor stats directly, which swiftly and immediately bringing an end to the majority of the “ascended gear fiasco” while still giving a reason to grind out for ascended gear for players who want it (agony resistance, different stat combinations than are currently available on exotics, etc). No, it isn’t ideal… but it’s a compromise. It would reestablish the stat plateau that has made the Guild Wars series so wildly popular, and create a middle ground between those who love ascended gear, and those who hate it.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Mega Messiah.1734:

Look at all these people answering “No”!

Time to dash some dreams:

Mike O’Brien (CEO of ArenaNet) wrote:

“I hope we’ve been clear that GW2 is not a game with virtually no stat progression in it like GW1 was. That’s why GW2 shipped with a higher level cap, and with a hard separation between PVE and PVP.

“In GW1 we never advanced the level cap through four campaigns/expansions. The game design didn’t allow for it. But GW2 was designed without those restrictions, and we’ve always expected that we will someday raise the level cap in GW2.”

Sources: http://www.gamefront.com/guild-wars-2-level-cap-raise-confirmed-for-future/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13tuac/im_the_studio_design_director_on_guild_wars_2_ama/

We have all seen how well Anet keeps their word and how good they are at going back on their word as well. I would seriously take this with a grain of salt.

If Anet is truly listening to their players like they say they do, then hopefully this thread will provide enough feedback to let them know that a pretty hefty sum of players are against the idea of a level increase. Whether they said they are going to do it or not is irrelevant. Like I said above, they have gone back on their word several times already. This situation is no different.

As to the topic, no they shouldn’t increase the level cap. They should introduce Campaigns like they did with GW1, instead of creating Expansions like other MMOs, where you have to grind to the next max level just to experience any of the new content. Campaigns cater to everyone, where Expansions only cater to max level.

Unfortunately, I’m afraid there’s very little chance they will listen to us on it. Ignoring my personal feelings on the matter (that they would do it despite our cries because they perceive it as being a better business decision, because WoW did it, etc etc), I mainly think it will happen because of how long it takes to produce game content. If they are even remotely planning on releasing the expansion by 2014, they will have already started working on it by now. If that’s the case- they are committed to having post 80 stuff, and all of this is moot :-\

Here is an ongoing poll for this particular question. It’s up to a little over 500 votes! Keep voting!

http://poll.pollcode.com/vfxrsy

The GW2 forums appeared to have suffered some issues this morning, and this thread got lost in the fray. Since I received no forum mail stating it was moderated, I can only assume it was lost due to that.

It’s a shame to lose all those “Nos” in the comments, but the poll lives on at 490 votes! (394 NOs, 96 YESs at current count).

Happy voting!

http://poll.pollcode.com/vfxrsy

This is a very simple, straight to the point poll. Where do everyone stand on the level cap increasing with xpacs? I’ve seen threads about it, even threads called “POLL”… but there is no real poll to be found. Sooooo here it is! Feel free to explain why you don’t want it, why you do want it, whatever. Or feel free to just click yes or no and vote.

Max Lexandre.6279:

YOU GUYS must understand that if there is new maps, new items, new things, the market will change anyways, with or without higher level cap.

We do realize that all too well, and you’ve made our point for us. This line should be requoted over and over- it’s exactly WHY we don’t want the level cap increase. It would serve no purpose besides arbitrarily taking the focus away from exploration and story and putting it more on making raw numbers go up.

In fact, thanks to this game’s downleveling system it would be worthwhile for them to put LOW level stuff in, instead of higher level stuff! Start with level 40 zones and work their way up!

They’ll add a way to get the legendary skin in sPvP, but I since they have done their best to section off sPvP from the rest of the game, quarantining it into its own little world… I have to say that I don’t ever see them allowing the PvE legendaries to be used there.

Several other games use that as well. And every time I’m like “Dude this is a shady sounding program! DENY!” and then remember that it’s not.

I really wish they would change the name of that executable to suit the game lol. “GW2_Browser.exe” would be pretty darn awesome, IMO.

Recycle.5493:

This kind of poll site is too easy to be tempered with, and there was already a thread about this with majority of people said “no”.

Most ISPs won’t allow you more than 3 (AT MOST, 2 generally) dynamic IPs in a day. So besides using multiple lines (cell data line, home net line, etc), VPNing all over the place, TORing… it’s gonna be hard for anyone to vote more than a couple of times for the same thing. And the vast majority of people on this forum have no idea how to do any of that or don’t have the resources to.

Anyhow, this type of thread I like to see more of. As much as everyone argues about everything (class balance, ascended gear vs no ascended gear, etc etc) this is the only thread topic in which the majority of the forums comes together with a nearly unanimous answer. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy seeing everyone agree like this.

Here’s hoping Arenanet doesn’t break our fragile little hearts! =D

Despite my feelings on where the game is headed, I do appreciate all the work the dev team has done. And tbh, my feelings on the direction of the game don’t fall on the dev team… seems highly unlikely a team that cared so much about their game and was so gung ho on a particular design style would throw it out the window for something tired, archaic and generally unpopular just because it seemed like a good idea. Seems far more likely that they were forced to harm their own game by implementing stuff they specifically said they never would!

So not only do I appreciate the work you’ve put in, but also the misery you’ve probably had to endure. Hang in there GW2 dev team!

Male Human Engineer

No here as well. I don’t want all the gear everyone has worked for up to this point to instantly be rendered obsolete and for us to have to go through all that all over again.

http://poll.pollcode.com/vfxrsy

This is a very simple, straight to the point poll. Where do everyone stand on the level cap increasing with xpacs? I’ve seen threads about it, even threads called “POLL”… but there is no real poll to be found. Sooooo here it is! Feel free to explain why you don’t want it, why you do want it, whatever. Or feel free to just click yes or no and vote.

Good luck!

Jski.6180:

@Tolmos
(Its getting way too long to full quote)

So what dose something that could have years later on have effect on how you play now? If your not getting any fun out of the game now you should not be playing it if you are getting fun out of the game then you should be playing it for the now not the what is to come if your that much of a fearful person.
Your right the words are missed used a lot ppl love the buzz words i even posted that if you chaired to read what else i posted but that was not quoted and i am not about to self quote. But i must say your guilty of using a buzz word wrong too the “grind” you make out that doing something in a game once a day is a grind witch is not its playing a video game. Your point of view on grind would make every thing and every game a grind fest (o god will i guess i got to eat today why is life such a grind?!) A grind in a game mainly talks about getting exp to level up gold and gear are some what part of this idea but not the full idea. This game “grind” is mostly for looks and is often gimped due to the ONCE A DAY event of it.

I’m guessing from your grammar that English isn’t your primary language. It took some effort to read your post, but I think I have most of it down now. Forgive me if I misunderstood something, though- I tried my best.

The “grind” DOES exist- having to run the same instance over and over and over and over and over and over, or do the same event/quest over and over and over and over can’t really be considered many other things BESIDES a grind. Considering that prior to Nov 15th the point of endgame was to explore, collect COSMETIC items, help do dynamic world events and complete the story of the game. Now it’s to stand around in Lions Arch screaming “LFG LFG LFG”, followed by running the same instance repeatedly for the foreseeable future.

And it not affecting me for years? It’s affecting me NOW. I will affect me even more later in the year as more ascended gear items get released, and the stat gap between someone in exotics and someone in ascended gear slowly increases further. This isn’t just a grind for cosmetics- it’s a grind for the current BiS gear in the game!

That, to me, is a grind.

Jski.6180:

BTW
Posted on November 27, 2012, CJ Miozzi
Its painful out dated info and not of any use to the argument at hand.
Ontop of that its from an even older comment back when this game was going to be a true action game before they found out that they could not pull it off. Please look into this more before you just Google something as a point of view in an argument.

I’m sorry… what? a 3 month old post is now considered “painful out dated info”? But I won’t argue with you much here because, while I disagree, on this particular item I want you to be right. If you can present me ANY information that disagrees with this article, or the information presented in the article, I’ll be completely happy. But for right now, this is the stated word of Arenanet on the matter. And sure, sure… as my signature points out, Anet’s word is worth absolutely nothing, but atm I have absolutely no reason to doubt the validity of their claim that they plan to raise the expansion.

Afya.5842:

Let me get myself clear 1st, I don’t like gear grinding. But ascended gear is easy enough to get (for now) I don’t really care. And imo, gear isn’t all that important in GW2. Sure I can feel the different between green and exotic but rare/exotic isn’t that much different in real combat feeling. I also can’t think of ANY content that must be done in exotic let alone ascended (agony aside). So I’m fine with ascended gear.

Ah, I should have added this to my previous post- besides knowing the level cap would never increase, the only other thing that would make me 100% ok with ascended gear would be its removal from WvW. I really thought games had moved past allowing PvE grinders an advantage in PvP. I’d like to see GW2 catch up with the times.

Jski.6180:

Astralporing.1957:

Jski.6180:

aliksyian.7642:

I think you’re missing the point.

Can you answer “if 55 points isn’t important, why have it at all?”

For fractal and its a non gold cost item its a time cost item. If any thing Ascended items should be hosted up to show this game is not a p2w as some ppl love to call it.
Now i am not saying ppl who do not like Ascended items want to get to be p2w but i am not comply sure after reading ppl post.

Somehow, i get the feeling that you are answering a different question that was asked. I’m not even sure what question you tried to answer at all.

Quick Mouse.7635:

Quick Mouse.7635:

It took me just over two weeks of just doing the dailies with my two characters to gear them completely.

plasmacutter.2709:

cough this is not true at all

Dailies are now account wide, and laurels are account wide.

This means that you are perma-blocked, and the more toons you have, the worse off you are.

daily ACHIEVEMENTS have always been account bound.
daily FRACTALS have always been character bound.

Yes. good luck completely gearing (which includes amulets) two chars in two weeks

Just my quote.
I am stepping back and looking at the big meaning of this argument. Its far more then just items its about the game it self. I am in favor of the game so i will trust the makers to do what the game needs.
From a very negative thinking point of view the game is this way (it was “nearly” p2w when it came out but ascended items removed that “nearness” but ascended items have become some what of a one step treadmill). This is what we have to deal with when we prove our points of view. So from my argument i am for a one step treadmill from your argument your for the “nearly” p2w.

“Nearly”, in this situation, is synonymous with “not even remotely close to”. Before, the closest to P2W you had was spending RL money → gems → gold → buying a select set of exotic armor. That select set had stat selections that were ideal for very few people, and more often than not got ignored for the far superior Karma purchasable pieces.

Now, in terms of the “1 step treadmill”… the problem isn’t the 1 step they added. I will say this: if they announced tomorrow that level 80 is the max level cap forever, I’d become 100% ok with ascended gear. Completely. Return to GW2 and play with endless ferver. The problem is that this isn’t the case. Rather, instead of having a game where we hit BiS early and then get a year or two break between leveling and gear grinding to actually do things other than the tired and archaic WoW model of “grinding for gear to waste time”, we will instead get to spend the next year slowly grinding out a full ascended set. It’s taken them 2 months per 1-2 items, so it’s safe to say that if this pace keeps up, we won’t see the end of the release until late 2013 at BEST.

But what about the expansion? Even if they wait 2 years to release that expansion, that would only give us a few months after the last piece of ascended gear before we get our new XPac… which they have already announced they plan to add a level cap increase with. Suddenly that “1 step treadmill” gets a lot more steps added, since all that ascended gear you grind grinded out will become worthless, and you get to start the whole gear grind over again.

And then what? Do we repeat this infinitely until they quit releasing xpacs? Grind grind grind for gear until the xpac, lose all that gear, start over and grind grind grind for gear? That sounds an awful lot like a… treadmill!

Folks say “ohhh its a conspiracy theory! CONSPIRACY!!!!1!!!!ONE!!!!1” Really? What part is a conspiracy? Is it a conspiracy that they added ascended gear? Hrm… no? No. Is it a conspiracy that it is taking them 2 months per release of 1-2 items and most folks (not talking about hardcore content locusts who play the game 8 hours a day) have been spending a large portion of that grinding out the ascended gear? Hrm? No? Didn’t think so.

Oh, well it must be a conspiracy that the level cap is raising! That must be what you’re talking about! Oh wait… http://www.gamefront.com/guild-wars-2-level-cap-raise-confirmed-for-future/ Well there goes that idea, then.

So… what’s the conspiracy again? Oh right, there isn’t one. Someone just heard that word used once on forums and started parroting it ever since… possibly without even looking up the word’s definition beforehand. Mildly embarrassing, but understandable.

Sounds like standard Anet policy when dealing with players to me. Be as demeaning as possible, avoid admitting fault and act like everyone loves you and your ideas for it.

Mackdose.6504:

Tolmos.8395:

aliksyian.7642:

Yes ascended are supposed to be better. Like has been said multiple times, its gear between exotic and legendary that is supposed to take time to get, and is acquired while you make legendary progress (ie Dailies for Karma, Fractals for Cores and T6 mats all result in progress towards ascended). But as you can see from the practical example, the stat bump isn’t so insane that it makes exotics redundant.

Hold on a second. Why is “better gear that takes a longer time to get” acceptable at all in Guild Wars? I thought one of the selling points was that you wouldn’t be chasing gear.

Guess it’s moot since they’re clearly going in that direction, but I just wanted to point out that that doesn’t need to be how the game works.

Actually, it is- because that’s how WoW did it. If a game dares to do something differently than how WoW did, they are immediately called “Niche” or even have people argue that they aren’t MMOs at all.

So at the end of the day, the question of “Why should it be this way” is always answerable with “Because WoW did it”.

More like “Every fantasy game since 1974 did it.”

Except Ultima Online? Shadowbane? Darkfall? Every non-Everquest based, WoW modeled fantasy MMO since 1974?

Again- just because WoW did it doesn’t have to make it an industry standard.

This forum really needs an off topic section. I’m surprised it doesn’t have one already.

You can easily knock out those last 20 levels in 6 hours using crafting. Surely by now you have gathered plenty of mats, and have a little bit of gold in your inventory to buy the rest. You don’t have to max them out- just getting 2 of them within 50 points of max will net you 8-10 levels a piece.

Hynoris.3684:

Remember, remember, the 13th of November

The vertical progression, ascended and plot;

I know of no reason, why the ascended treason

Should ever be forgot.

Nov 15th. Arenanet’s game “changing” patch is a tribute to Star Wars Galaxies game killing NGE patch, as they both released on Nov 15th.

That’s just a bad day of the year for MMOs. lol

Keirion.9105:

Tamaki Revolution.3548:

This thread will attract a lot of bitterness, which I can see has already happened :P

Yeah, I tried to head that off in the OP. Unfortunately my request has been utterly ignored by most responses.

Hard not to be bitter when the game released as the most innovative and amazing thing we had played and then slowly, one patch at a time, changed in flavor and direction to become more and more like WoW.

Anyhow, in answer to the OP:

/remember the statue in Lions Arch

Zenith.6403:

roachsrealm.9284:

wow. don’t play ele or engineer, you’ll never unlock weapon swapping!

its a game! if you find it boring, go play something else.

- What if I want to play WvW? Is it reasonable to first having to play PvE for weeks to months before being able to compete?

In this game- yes. WvW is treated as PvE. I know it sounds wierd, but none of the PvP rulesets apply to it- whenever a change is made to a class for PvP balancing, it doesn’t take effect in WvW because (for whatever reason) it isn’t actually considered PvP.

That said, WvW is more of a PvE gear-flex than an actual open world PvP battleground. Even when you hit 80, you will still need to get better gear if you want to be on equivalent footing with everyone else. Rares at a minimum, exotics preferable, and ascended gear if you want to guarantee no one has a stat advantage over you.

WvW will always require some PvE to be able to compete, and will require you to continue to PvE to stay on top of everything. Hate to say it, but that’s just how it is. :-\ Your best bet is to become more acquainted with sPvP, which will be closer to what you are aiming for. Smaller scale, but stats don’t factor into victory.

EverythingXen.1835:

Only abused if they join and dont meet the party’s demands.

Welcome to the future of what MMO “communities” mean, folks.

You can thank WoW for this, and Arenanet for deciding to try to follow in that game’s footsteps.

aliksyian.7642:

Yes ascended are supposed to be better. Like has been said multiple times, its gear between exotic and legendary that is supposed to take time to get, and is acquired while you make legendary progress (ie Dailies for Karma, Fractals for Cores and T6 mats all result in progress towards ascended). But as you can see from the practical example, the stat bump isn’t so insane that it makes exotics redundant.

Hold on a second. Why is “better gear that takes a longer time to get” acceptable at all in Guild Wars? I thought one of the selling points was that you wouldn’t be chasing gear.

Guess it’s moot since they’re clearly going in that direction, but I just wanted to point out that that doesn’t need to be how the game works.

Actually, it is- because that’s how WoW did it. If a game dares to do something differently than how WoW did, they are immediately called “Niche” or even have people argue that they aren’t MMOs at all.

So at the end of the day, the question of “Why should it be this way” is always answerable with “Because WoW did it”.

aliksyian.7642:

I could ignore it, but as time goes on more content will be “tuned” with the assumption people will have the more powerful gear.

THAT I wouldn’t worry about too much, at least for now. At the rate they are putting out ascended gear (1-2 new items every 2 months) it would take them well into this year, or even early next year to get it all released. Eventually they will want to release an expansion, so the chances of anyone sitting on a full set of ascended gear this time around long enough for Arenanet to need to “tune” much new content to it is slim, since all that gear will immediately get reset when the level cap increases at expansion time.

What WILL be affected is WvW, but that’s another matter entirely.

Just let the other players run on the treadmill for a bit, and wait until the next big grind starts after the expansion. If you ever played WoW, just do what a lot of players there do. It’s following the same basic model.

Hawkian.6580:

Tolmos.8395:

So far only 3 of the ascended items have been introduced and they require between 20-60 days to get all 3. So I imagine when the new ones are introduced, the amount of time to get them will be joyous.

The 10%+ difference in stats between exotics and ascended gear has been just as horrid as everyone expected it would. While the 3 items available so far don’t make much of a difference on their own, it has become apparent to almost everyone (minus 2 posters above me) that the full set will be quite a leap from the current stats of exotic gear.

And yes, despite what one would consider common sense, the stats still affect the world outside of fractals… including WvW.

However, one change has happened in Forums at least- Ascended gear grinders have begun whining right alongside the ascended gear haters at the realization that yes, a level cap increase is coming and yes, this means all their gear grinding is pointless and they’ll get to do it all over again. Looking at some of the “Do you want a level increase?” threads and seeing an overwhelming “No” from both sides at least shows some small semblance of mutual understanding can be reached.

So yes, it is painfully obvious the treadmill was introduced. Grind grind grind to get exotics. They introduce ascended gear. Grind grind grind to get ascended gear. They’ll raise the level cap. Start over grind grind grinding to go back up to the ranks to ascended gear. And the only guarantee we have in all this is that no new tiers will be added in 2013. They were quite specific on that.

So… I hope you like grinding!

Just to be clear- your interpretation of what has occurred is that you are correct, and almost everyone playing agrees with you except for two people who posted right above you?

No more or less than AcidicVision.5498’s post that everything is perfectly fine and the only people who disagree are conspiracy theorists.

Mackdose.6504:

Hawkian.6580:

Tolmos.8395:

So far only 3 of the ascended items have been introduced and they require between 20-60 days to get all 3. So I imagine when the new ones are introduced, the amount of time to get them will be joyous.

The 10%+ difference in stats between exotics and ascended gear has been just as horrid as everyone expected it would. While the 3 items available so far don’t make much of a difference on their own, it has become apparent to almost everyone (minus 2 posters above me) that the full set will be quite a leap from the current stats of exotic gear.

And yes, despite what one would consider common sense, the stats still affect the world outside of fractals… including WvW.

However, one change has happened in Forums at least- Ascended gear grinders have begun whining right alongside the ascended gear haters at the realization that yes, a level cap increase is coming and yes, this means all their gear grinding is pointless and they’ll get to do it all over again. Looking at some of the “Do you want a level increase?” threads and seeing an overwhelming “No” from both sides at least shows some small semblance of mutual understanding can be reached.

So yes, it is painfully obvious the treadmill was introduced. Grind grind grind to get exotics. They introduce ascended gear. Grind grind grind to get ascended gear. They’ll raise the level cap. Start over grind grind grinding to go back up to the ranks to ascended gear. And the only guarantee we have in all this is that no new tiers will be added in 2013. They were quite specific on that.

So… I hope you like grinding!

Just to be clear- your interpretation of what has occurred is that you are correct, and almost everyone playing agrees with you except for two people who posted right above you?

It’s Trollmos, do you expect anything different?

Oh my goodness, the cleverness of it!

No, really, I kinda like the name. “Trollmos”. Catchy.

Geotherma.2395:

“Guild Wars 2 isn’t one of those games that masquerades as free-to-play but is really designed so that you can’t get far without having to buy lots of microtransactions. We recognize that customers paid $60 for the game and they have the right to play the full game. So the microtransactions we offer are non-essential additions to the game and convenience services for players who want to trade money for time.”
-Mike O’Brien

Hehe, its all optional ^^

Yea, I haven’t run into anything on the black lion store that wasn’t optional, so that’s one of the few quotes from O’Brien that seems to still hold true.

That said, though, even though I love optional stuff like fluff items I can’t see myself buying any more black lion keys. The reward is so skewed in comparison to the risk it isn’t even funny. You have a better chance of winning the powerball than seeing one of those endless tonics. After enough keys, you start to feel like you’re not just wasting the money of the keys, but the time it takes to open each chest. :-P

Carrot and stick requires at least a carrot shaving once in a while… they don’t even give us that with those chests anymore.

I have been an LFG tool advocate since the game released, and really think this game could benefit from one. HOWEVER, I strongly believe that before they implement one they really, really need to fix the utterly broken /kick system in grouping. Otherwise it’s going to be a slaughter out there…

So far only 3 of the ascended items have been introduced and they require between 20-60 days to get all 3. So I imagine when the new ones are introduced, the amount of time to get them will be joyous.

The 10%+ difference in stats between exotics and ascended gear has been just as horrid as everyone expected it would. While the 3 items available so far don’t make much of a difference on their own, it has become apparent to almost everyone (minus 2 posters above me) that the full set will be quite a leap from the current stats of exotic gear.

And yes, despite what one would consider common sense, the stats still affect the world outside of fractals… including WvW.

However, one change has happened in Forums at least- Ascended gear grinders have begun whining right alongside the ascended gear haters at the realization that yes, a level cap increase is coming and yes, this means all their gear grinding is pointless and they’ll get to do it all over again. Looking at some of the “Do you want a level increase?” threads and seeing an overwhelming “No” from both sides at least shows some small semblance of mutual understanding can be reached.

So yes, it is painfully obvious the treadmill was introduced. Grind grind grind to get exotics. They introduce ascended gear. Grind grind grind to get ascended gear. They’ll raise the level cap. Start over grind grind grinding to go back up to the ranks to ascended gear. And the only guarantee we have in all this is that no new tiers will be added in 2013. They were quite specific on that.

So… I hope you like grinding!

Valento.9852:

Vol.5241:

Legendaries need to be even rarer.

I agree, they need to be even rarer, not even grindier.

Not sure how that would be possible without falling back on the tired and outdated concept of RNG even more.

I do have to say, though, I am happy with where TC is at PvP wise now. It has really turned into a formidable WvW server. My first encounter with RP PvPers in GW2 was… less than favorable. Back during headstart I tried out WvW. We were all upleveled, having fun… and getting destroyed. But what made it the hardest was convincing others not to RP on the battlefield. I mean, there’s a time and place, right?

Try as I might, though, the battlefield RP still happened. And it made life a royal pain. Big battle going on, I’m over there screaming “TARGET THE ELEMENTALISTS!” and they are screaming “PREPARE THY SELVES, FOUL MEANIES, FOR MY VENGEANCE!”. Oh the brutality that happened to us that weekend.. the horrible, horrible brutality.

Grimm.2906:

This is why I firmly believe that EVE Online is the only MMO that really supports roleplaying. Instead of just typing about what your character does, you actually do it. I consider “roleplaying” that’s not backed up by rule or mechanics to be just talking funny and composing fan-fiction.

In most MMOs, you can say “I am Lord Awesome, General of the Black Legion, feared by all, blah blah”, but you still play the game in exactly the same way as everyone else—you run around and kill monsters and whatever. “Roleplaying” exists purely as an added layer of talking on top of the game.

Compare this to EVE, where you can actually do things you can only talk about in other games. You can be an admiral of a fleet of hundreds. You can be a trading tycoon and control the economy of large regions. You can be a pirate, preying on the weak and unprepared. You can be a diplomat that creates coalitions of thousands of players. You can be a mercenary who fights for the highest bidder. EVE’s mechanics actually allow you to do the things you want your character to do instead of just talking about them.

This is why I think most roleplaying in most MMOs is pointless. I instead prefer what I call “immersionism”. I try not to talk about out-of-world things, but I also don’t type whole paragraphs describing what my character is doing, because to me, that’s not roleplaying—that’s just talking funny and writing bad fan-fiction in realtime.

All that said, I don’t insult or otherwise pester people who chose to do so.

This. EVE isn’t the only one, since most sandboxes are that way, but I agree wholeheartedly.

I played an MMO called Shadowbane that was basically like a medieval EVE. Sandbox, do whatever whenever kind of thing. RP in the sense that this game has was nonexistent. No one sat around /chatting their characters actions while idling in town. And yet, it was impossible to play WITHOUT RPing. The stories I have from playing that game are more intricate in their politics, character development and execution than anything I’ve seen in manufactured RP in games like WoW and GW2. And it all happened in spite of none of us being “in character”. As the Silent Brotherhood sieged the town of Tombstone, on the northern desert Island held by The Lord Knights Keep, we were all chatting about what PS2 games we liked, what we were eating for supper and who was playing football that weekend. And yet, our stories ended up with intricate plot twists, stories of betrayal and loyalty, and all sorts of other neat stuff.

I think that’s why I could never get into this style of RP. I just don’t get the appeal. To me, RP should just… happen, despite the player. In a game like EVE or Shadowbane, there is no such thing as an RPer… And yet it is impossible to play without RPing. That, to me, is the mark of a truly amazing game. And it’s something the scripted, linear theme parks haven’t quite mastered yet.

Hellgaunt.1734:

Anyways, that’s off topic. RPers can do whatever they want and if you are too narrow minded and too scared or too insecure that you need to hate on other people to maintain a sort of selfworth you shold just go do something meaningful in life or read more books and analyze yourself!

I can just hear his blood pressure rising as he typed this. The perfect example of a rage post, becoming less coherent with every word typed. =D

Anyhow, I can’t imagine the GW2 RP community could ever hope to be as bad as Moanguard from WoW. If folks wanna ERP (aka cyber AOL chat style :-P) in game have at it… In whispers. But if the rest of the population has to be subjected to their nerd-lust descriptions of their fantasies / what they want to do to the pixelated female in front if them, then surely they can expect an equally appropriate response from those nearby.

Even RPers shy away from ERPers.

I would just sit around throwing dollars at my screen all day if they would finally make town clothes head-wear available in combat. If my character needs glasses, why in the world would he take them off whenever he fights an enemy… AS A RANGED CHARACTER?! 0_o

Those inventors glasses on my engineer would make me fall in live with this game all over again :-P