Guild Wars 2

It’s always broken immersion for me when a game has an NPC wielding an awesome looking weapon, I kill him and no weapon drops. And yet… there it is. On the ground. Untouchable by me.

But that’s the trouble with MMOs in general. :-P

That would be nice. Though for a quick fix- I would make sure that you found something of interest at every POI. They aren’t just there for the giggles (well, some may be, but not most)- there is supposedly SOMETHING interesting at that location. Jumping puzzle, event, whatever. I’d start rechecking all those POIs you dont remember being very interesting.

Chances are we’ll see slower leveling in expansions, but this is a situation of “its too late to fix it”. I, for one, enjoyed the leveling speed of this game. I hit 80 at a pace that I considered both fun and rewarding. BUT, I understand that it caused a world of hurt for Arenanet since a bunch of folks hit 80 within a few days of release and then went nuts cause they wanted more stuff to do right that second.

However, what is done is done. Raising the requirements for 1-80 now would just slap the face of everyone who hasn’t hit 80 yet. All of us get to run around in our 80s with our exotics and they have to do twice the work to get here. Plus, I hit 80 and finished nearly all the hearts I ran into along the way. There just wouldn’t be enough hearts >_>

However, I imagine 80-85 will be much slower. Arenanet probably won’t want to deal with that level of QQ next time around, so they will buy themselves time to get more content out by slowing down the masses with a longer level time.

Ari Kagura.9182:

Gate of Madness!

RNG could determine if you fight the Undead Lich or Shiro Tagachi in the end (but you could fight both of them at the same time on higher difficulty levels).

Best suggestion yet.

Zenguy.6421:

I think Fractals broke Tyria by creating a separate effectively unrelated world with its own progression path and better gear.
- Want to explore, like story, and don’t mind having a less powerful character? Play in Tyria.
- Want to keep increasing the power of your character? Leave Tyria and go to the Fractals (or spend your time working the TP).

If ascended gear didn’t affect WvW, and all gear normalized to the strength of exotics in there so that when the full ascended set comes out it won’t completely dwarf all the other sets, this would be an amazing setup. It would give progression players what they want, and GW1 players what they want.

But because A) The rest of the game has crap rewards compared to fractals and B ) Ascended gear CAN be used in WvW, having fractals in the game doesn’t create a choice, it creates a requirement. The only way to avoid that requirement is understanding that you will be subpar in certain aspects of gameplay, and do more work for less reward in others. Hardly a fair choice, IMO.

With medium sets, I’ve found a good couple that mix/match very well. The only real issue that I’ve seen with them on mixing is CLIPPING. Clipping on medium and light armor sets can be horrid sometimes. If they fixed that, the number of possible medium combinations would expand greatly.

Their hands are probably tied with a lot of this stuff. As a turreteer, I can tell you that I would love to see a turret buff BUT at the same time my character does not feel any weaker than any other character I’ve run across. In fact, in 1v1 battles I had almost no problem winning.

If they make turrets too strong individually, they would have to limit how many we can have on the field more than they do now. Remember that turrets have as many advantages as they do weaknesses. I choose to use them because even if I get stunlocked, I can still deal damage to my enemy. That may not sound overly useful, but when you are in a close battle with someone and they down you first with only a 25% HP left… my turrets will often down them before they can finish me off.

Pet classes in a competitive MMO environment has to be difficult to design. Yes, 1 turret is worthless. If all I dropped was my 1 rifle turret I’d probably do just as well to not drop it at all- it won’t make a difference in their HP. But all 3 of my turrets at once, + my healing turret + me = equivalent or even mildly better than 1 opponent of any other type. Which, as far as I understand, is exactly how it should work.

No, not as epic as I would like, but it works and I get my turrets.

Delusion.5721:

I think heavy armour is fine. Medium needs more variety. For heavy armour you have so many variations like: chainmail, scalemail, splinted platemail, banded plate, full plate aswell as gladiator and pit fighter styles etc. you can mix and match some sets quite well like the splint helm, shoulders, gloves and kodan chest, pants and boots make you look like a spartan. For medium you can mix and match most of the sets easier but the problem is most of the medium sets are the same trenchcoat look so it doesnt really matter….

0_o I always thought medium was the most diverse of all the armor sets lol

NetherDiver.6079:

Tolmos.8395:

JemL.3501:

Move on already

A lot of folks are doing just that. Moving on to other games, moving on back to WoW, moving on back to GW1… So yea, sound advice but many have already taken it

Explains why the forums are a lot quieter.

In game zones, too >_>

critickitten.1498:

Halanna.3927:

Can you provide a link please?

If that is the case, I might as well quit now. I wanted to play a NEW game. Not a WoW clone. If I’m going to have to gear grind, I might as well go back to that game as I have 5 years invested in it.

Thanks a lot Anet.

Sorry to be the one to let you know, but it’s true. Confirmed in an AMA after the release of Lost Shores.

I already quoted it in another thread but here it is again:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13tuac/im_the_studio_design_director_on_guild_wars_2_ama/

Yes the response was definitively expected. We did not intent for the information to come out this way. Going back to my previous answer the issue is that we believe in the vertical progression system we had pre launch and that the introduction of an element into the system post launch was going to cause concern but something we believe in.

….

So to the question of vertical progression. So as we know there is already vertical progression in the game and we do intend to keep moving forward with this philosophy.

….

I would also like add that we have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intent to focus on horizontal but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.

I appreciate that they at least admit it after the fact, but it would have been nice if they would have made their players privvy to that BEFORE release, instead of just watching everyone say “Guild Wars 1 had no vertical progression so obviously Guild Wars 2 won’t either!”.

I guess they realized the game wouldn’t sell nearly as well if they let the cat out of the bag early, so they waited until we had all bought the game before telling us. Kind of a cheap tactic. Clever, I suppose, but cheap.

JemL.3501:

Move on already

A lot of folks are doing just that. Moving on to other games, moving on back to WoW, moving on back to GW1… So yea, sound advice but many have already taken it

Nuka Cola.8520:

All Faction missions were fun and i remember spamming them on Hard instead of something like a dungeon because they were fun. Fun isn’t something gw2 campaign knows or will ever know.

I must have been the only person who enjoys Prophecies more than Factions =D

critickitten.1498:

Now let’s make a visual demonstration for GW2’s progression system!

Legendary
<future expansion equipment>
Ascended
Exotic
Rare
Masterwork
Fine
Basic

Hrm, no, wait. Something must be wrong….it doesn’t look horizontal at all. :/

QFT. +1 internets to you sir.

GW2 isn’t a bad game, it’s just misnamed. It is NOT Guild Wars 1’s sequel, and in fact the only thing remotely similar between the two games is the Lore. If they would have called this “World of Tyria”, I think the WoW style gear progression would have gone over a whole lot better.

You should have seen this game prior to November 15th, 2012. It was absolutely amazing. The difference in the tone of the forums, the population of the zones and the distribution of the players compared to how it is now, where everyone is grind grind grinding for their new gear in fractals, is almost unbelievable. :-\ It was this game’s attempt at recreating the SWG’s NGE patch (even down to the release date).

I have been playing MMOs since the late 90s, and have never experienced a game that was quite as enjoyable as pre-Nov 15th GW2 was. RIP

One of the reasons I never rolled a guardian or warrior was the heavy armor. With light and medium you have this wide array of looks that can suit almost any character style, but with heavy armor they are all the same- bulky, knightish look. I mean, from a realistic standpoint it makes sense being heavy armor and all… but from a customization standpoint, that may not necessarily be the look I was going for on my character.

Some variety would do heavy users a world of good.

Farzo.8410:

Brotip: Take your time when you level, do not rush.

This. The unique gameplay of GW2 comes from levels 1-80. That’s where the most fun is. Endgame starts to look a lot like other games these days, but from 1-80 you’ll get an amazing experience that really showcases the hard work that was put into this game. Take your time. And if you don’t like endgame, maybe make an alt.

Lutharr.1035:

Tolmos.8395:

Lutharr.1035:

Tolmos.8395:

MrMacAndCheese.3907:

Why is level 80 better then 79? Cus +1. Who wants to be the best you can ever be one month after the game is out, and then just soak there for the next five years. Honestly, haven’t you folks played RPG’s? Didn’t it suck when you had nothing left to kill or get in FF7?

Most of us did play Guild Wars 1, which did exactly as you described. And ya know what? We loved it.

Not every game has to be WoW to be enjoyable.

Last time I checked GW1 was still active. I guess if all you want to do is play GW1 there are still servers around to do so? Didnt realise Anet promised GW2 was going to be GW1 with a glossy finish.

Well I wish I had been made aware before getting hyped up about it that GW2 was actually intended to by WoW with better graphics.

well considering GW2 is nothing like WoW in almost any respect you just acting like the sky is falling for the sake of it. Gotta love the uninformed garbage comments that just throw WoW around like it lends some weight to their stupid comments.

Look around in game. Where are the majority of players? Lions Arch, right? And why is this? Because they are getting a group to run a single instance over and over and over and over to get the latest greatest gear.

…

Nope, sounds nothing like WoW.

And once they get this tier of gear, we’ll be blessed with an expansion that will raise the level cap and make all of our gear obsolete!

…

Nope, still nothing like WoW. You are absolutely right.

Good thing this game is like Guild Wars where PvP is centered around guild battles and not just focused on 5-10 man battlegrounds or a single zone where “open world” PvP takes place like Wintergrasp… …. oh wait. >_>

Guild Wars 1: Stat plateau, BiS gear ASAP with grinding for looks only, expansions don’t add gear or levels so your character remains viable for all content in the game, guild battles

WoW: Stat progression, BiS gear takes unbelievable amount of grind, expansions add levels and start your gear grind from scratch so if you are away for a year you are no longer viable, no guild battles but rather small 5-10 man battlegrounds and a single zone for "open world’ PvP.

Which of those two sounds more like GW2?

I dunno about a specific mission, but I know that they should add the Abaddon fight to this game.

And they should definitely include the /dance scenario from that fight

Lutharr.1035:

Tolmos.8395:

MrMacAndCheese.3907:

Why is level 80 better then 79? Cus +1. Who wants to be the best you can ever be one month after the game is out, and then just soak there for the next five years. Honestly, haven’t you folks played RPG’s? Didn’t it suck when you had nothing left to kill or get in FF7?

Most of us did play Guild Wars 1, which did exactly as you described. And ya know what? We loved it.

Not every game has to be WoW to be enjoyable.

Last time I checked GW1 was still active. I guess if all you want to do is play GW1 there are still servers around to do so? Didnt realise Anet promised GW2 was going to be GW1 with a glossy finish.

Well I wish I had been made aware before getting hyped up about it that GW2 was actually intended to by WoW with better graphics.

1 2 3 4 5
6 – 0 = shift +1 – shift + 5

That worked very well for me.

What do I miss from Guild Wars 1? The actual Guild Wars series, that’s what. It’s a shame that game will never get a sequel.

Still, this GW2, aka World of Tyria, is alright in it’s own right.

critickitten.1498:

My ranger’s still got less than full Exotics and gets along just fine, too. But that won’t be the case forever, as they raise the level cap and continue to make new items. Why?

It boils down to difficulty. Many players have cried for higher difficulty already. And as player stats go up, the game’s difficulty will decrease unless they increase the power of monsters to compare. This is the definition of power creep.

QFT. This person right here gets it, and has stated the problem most of us have in probably the most straight to the point and accurate manner I have seen.

My personal issue is not with ascended gear alone, but what it represents. If I knew that ascended gear was the end of the line, and no more gear would be added, monsters wouldn’t be boosted in power, and my character would always be viable for all content in the game (just as my Guild Wars 1 character was), then I would still play regularly and say “have fun with your ascended gear”! But that isn’t the case.

You cannot have both a stat plateau, which is one of the core selling points of the Guild Wars series and what sets it apart from all the WoW clones out there, AND gear progression/level cap increases. Sure, ascended gear is only 1 tier of gear. Yea it takes a ton of grinding to get, but that’s all it is- 1 tier. But what about expansions? Unlike Guild Wars 1, this game’s devs show interest in raising the level cap. New level cap means new gear, right? So when you finish grinding out your ascended gear, you get to watch all your gear become obsolete as you level to the next cap. And then the one after that, and the one after that.

Suddenly, it goes from the Guild Wars 1 stat plateau to the WoW gear treadmill/power creep. That is the issue I have with this game. That is why I don’t call this game Guild Wars 2, but instead just GW2. This game has nothing in common with Guild Wars 1 except it’s lore. That’s it. No stat plateau. No gear plateau. No guild battles.

This isn’t the sequel to Guild Wars 1. This is World of Tyria. I just anxiously await the day The Guild Wars series gets its first sequel.

Shikigami.4013:

120 hours in 34 days on my main char (not sure what that means, did I really create my main only 34 days ago, or why did the game not count that chars playtime earlier?) and 989 hours total over the last 4 months.

PS: People still find threads to ninja-add their complaints about ascended gear, that really made me laugh

Just being truthful, but glad to hear you are so easily amused.

I nearly hit 500 hours between release and the November 15 ascended gear patch. I’ve added 3 hours to my /age since that patch

MrMacAndCheese.3907:

Why is level 80 better then 79? Cus +1. Who wants to be the best you can ever be one month after the game is out, and then just soak there for the next five years. Honestly, haven’t you folks played RPG’s? Didn’t it suck when you had nothing left to kill or get in FF7?

Most of us did play Guild Wars 1, which did exactly as you described. And ya know what? We loved it.

Not every game has to be WoW to be enjoyable.

Desamos.1836:

So people constantly need to get new gear to satisfy their needs? Why can’t someone just buy one Ferrari, and take good care of it : /

Because that isn’t how WoW did things, therefor any game that lacks it gets accused of not being an MMO.

Desamos.1836:

about Ascended weapons. Got my inquest longbow, inquest sword, inquest dagger, inquest harpoon, and inquest spear gun. Put superior sigil of fire, and energy runes on them. Now Ascended weapons have come to my attention, and that I will soon no longer have max damage weapons. What was the point of me working so hard getting all this gear?

Of course, once you finish grinding out your new ascended gear you’ll get the pleasure of a level cap increase in the expansion, which means its ALL worthless and you can start your grind from scratch. God, doesn’t that just sound like so much fun?!

I refer to this game as GW2 only, because as far as I’m concerned Guild Wars 2 hasn’t released yet. But I pray that one day Guild Wars 1 finally gets a successor, instead of Arenanets attempt to enter into the WoW market.

Up until today I’ve been able to view the forums without having to log into my account, but suddenly today that changed. Has anyone else had it forward to you account login when you tried to view the forums?

Heh. Might as well. We have WoW’s instanced gear grind, we are going to get WoW’s increasing level cap with each xpac, I really see no reason on holding back from adopting WoW’s raids as well.

No reason to do a job half way, I suppose! If Anet is going to slap the Guild Wars 1 crowd in the face and say “cry some more”, might as well slap ’em HARD!

Zeldain.5710:

Tolmos.8395:

In all of my life, I have not disagreed with a post more than I do with the OP of this thread. The OP’s entire post can be summed into 4 words: “This is not WoW”. And somehow he goes on to make this sound like it is a bad thing.

No, it’s not WoW. It is solo friendly. BiS endgame gear used to be easy to get, but now you’ve gotten your wish and there’s a gear treadmill so enjoy that… And finally more Guild based stuff is on the way.

But I really don’t get it. You have how many other gear grinders out there? Why in the world do you people keep coming to the successor of the wildly successful Guild Wars 1 and keep trying to demand it do everything WoW did and nothing GW1 did? It boggles my mind.

3. We are missing engame challenges, raids AND the grind for better loot.
Yes yes, I/we know. GW2 is a mmo where endgame gear stats are capped for all, and easy to get to. Its all about finding better looking gear, and stand out in the crowd..
- That is just fine, if Arenanet want GW2 to loose players all the time from boredom.

Guild Wars 1 did just fine without that. More than just fine.

No… it amounts to “this is not an MMO.”

And GW1 didn’t do just fine. It was a small niche game… if you’re ready to admit that’s what GW2 is, I’m ok with that.

A) Just because a game does not resemble World of Warcraft, with its raids and gear grinds, it does not make it “not an MMO”. I know that can be hard to grasp if WoW was your first, but it’s true. There were other games out there with exceptional variety that were nothing like the Warcraft monster

B) If you consider 6.5 MILLION copies of Guild Wars 1 to be a small niche game, I can’t imagine what you consider to be a massive game.

In all of my life, I have not disagreed with a post more than I do with the OP of this thread. The OP’s entire post can be summed into 4 words: “This is not WoW”. And somehow he goes on to make this sound like it is a bad thing.

No, it’s not WoW. It is solo friendly. BiS endgame gear used to be easy to get, but now you’ve gotten your wish and there’s a gear treadmill so enjoy that… And finally more Guild based stuff is on the way.

But I really don’t get it. You have how many other gear grinders out there? Why in the world do you people keep coming to the successor of the wildly successful Guild Wars 1 and keep trying to demand it do everything WoW did and nothing GW1 did? It boggles my mind.

3. We are missing engame challenges, raids AND the grind for better loot.
Yes yes, I/we know. GW2 is a mmo where endgame gear stats are capped for all, and easy to get to. Its all about finding better looking gear, and stand out in the crowd..
- That is just fine, if Arenanet want GW2 to loose players all the time from boredom.

Guild Wars 1 did just fine without that. More than just fine.

It’s the karma armor. You can purchase it at level 80 via karma from one of the 5 temples in Orr. Very difficult these days since Orr is devoid of people a large portion of the time, but still possible with some diligence. It’s one of the more popular armor sets in the game.

I don’t want to say that it’s fine, because with the way Arenanet’s GMs have been acting lately you’ll probably get permbanned for it… but I will say that after a decade of playing MMOs, I would be horribly surprised if any game dolled out even so much as a warning for that.

Your turrets are not invincible. If you can position yourself and them in such a way that they can continually kill, I see no reason why it would be an actionable offense. That said… I’m equally surprised they allow ranger pet kills and engineer turret kills that do not involve the player to give experience. It’s a pleasant surprise, but one all the same. Normally the player has to at least thump the NPC on the nose to get some XP.

Unfortunately, that is RNG. This game has started to give Aion a run for its money in the grinder department. In fact, now that Aion has been through a few patches to fix their grind, it’s actually better in some parts when it comes to RNG. :-\

If you don’t like RNG and grinding, GW2 isn’t for you.

GW2’s biggest flaw was not introducing Ascended gear at release, and then (after that first mistake) introducing it at all later. If anything results in its death, it would be that.

Not introducing it at release left the grinders wondering “What next?”. Release to November 15th was a long time for hardcore content consumers and ex-WoW players, and eventually a large portion went on their way after saying “This game has no gear progression. I’m gone”.

Once they were gone, you were left with Guild Wars 1 players who came looking to its sequel to live on its legacy of uniqueness. But then suddenly Arenanet busts out with the November 15th patch and slaps all of those players in the face with a gear grind more becoming of World of Warcraft than its actual predecessor. This would be all well and good for the grinders… if many of them hadn’t already jumped ship.

So the grinders jump ship earlier and return to WoW. The GW1 players jump ship later and return to GW1 / whatever is left for those of us who don’t like WoW clones. What groups are left?

In the end, it all boils down to ascended gear. It should have been introduced at launch, mentioned at launch, or not introduced at all. Keeping it a secret until November and then launching it let a lot of folks down while missing the chance to capture a large portion of the core group it was aimed at.

If they wanted to appeal to the WoW crowd instead of the Guild Wars 1 crowd, then they should have stopped those players from returning to WoW first.

It is rather scary playing a game with such ban happy GMs. Knowing that at any minute they could find fault with something you are doing and, rather than warn you or temp suspend you, ban you permanently and send you on your way.

I’m honestly surprised they didn’t perm ban everyone who Plinx farmed as well.

Gele.2048:

ye they adding gear whit beter statcs atm in the game so is no more cosmetic whic make me return to the game also mmo whit no gear progres is pointless for me if i whanted cosmetic staffs i was gona play barby insted xD

There are so many things I could do and say with this post… but I won’t. I’ve gotten more than enough infractions for the month. =D

Nuka Cola.8520:

^ and then do what with that kind of money? After you’ve owned a legendary there’s nothing left for you to buy/care.

Before gear grinding became the end-all be-all of this game, collecting was a big thing to do. So for players like me who like to collect stuff… yea, I could find a lot to do with that amount of gold.

Dyes
Minis
Armor sets
Raising EVERY profession to 400

and then saving the rest for future expansions and whatever collectibles they add.

The game is alive. Everyone is just in fractals.

GW2 pre Nov 15th is NOT the same as GW2 post Nov 15th. It went from an open world focused game to an instanced gear grinder. The population doesn’t seem to have changed much, but the focus of where those players are at certainly has.

Head to Lions Arch. You’ll find your missing brethren there.

MrPeanut.1543:

Appreciate the response! I know a lot of people hate the gear grind, but it is something I enjoy in an MMO (No, I’ve never played WoW).

I’ll look into that, thank you.

Anything to do with my abundance of skill points?

I haven’t tried for a legendary item myself, but I heard that those are needed for that. Legendaries now also serve a purpose: it were announced that they would always be BiS. Atm their enhanced stats have not been implemented (thus they are equivalent to exotics), but some players got to see what those stats would be when Anet accidentally implemented them for a day a while back. They are slated to be boosted to those stats in the future.

And if nothing else, you could farm up a legendary and sell it for 2,000-9,000 gold lol

I can’t begin to imagine what story would exist for a bow that shoots rainbows.

“One day a My Little Pony accidentally wandered into Charr territory. It was briskly scooped up by a passing engineer, chopped up and made into arrows and that’s where we get this bow!”

They added a gear grind, so you’re in luck. Atm, grinding the Fractals instances in order to attain the new tier of gear, Ascended gear, is what everyone is doing. Not many people in the open world, but nearly every server’s Lions Arch is in overflow with people LFGing for fractals, or in the fractals themselves.

Eventually they will slowly roll out more pieces of the ascended gear for you to grind for, and hopefully not long after that they will release the expansion (which they have expressed interest in raising the level cap for, which would let you start back on getting gear from scratch!)

Considering what you are looking for in an MMO, you have come back at a really good time lol

I liked the Clocktower the most. I ran it probably 50 times, and at least 30 of those were simply for fun.

The easy to attain BiS gear (and the stat plateau it entailed) and the knowledge that the level cap would never increase.

Those two made the game such a unique and amazing experience to me… one that will be difficult to attain in any other game. It was a step from the mold that all these other cookie cutter MMOs follow (including GW2): chasing bigger numbers for the sake of having them. It single handedly managed to prove wrong all the nay-sayers who swear up and down that the only way to keep people playing an MMO is to have a gear grind.

It’s hard to believe that same company produced this game. 0_o

Not to say GW2 is a bad game in its own right- it is one of the better gear grinders out there. Just not my cup of tea. I’ll have to wait for the sequel to Guild Wars 1 to come out

Namu.5712:

Tolmos.8395:

Servers are just as populated as they were months ago. That hasn’t changed. What’s changed is that they are all semi-AFKing in Lions Arch screaming “LFG LFG LFG” and LFM LFM LFM" for Fractals groups. And the ones who aren’t? They are in the Fractals.

It was like that before fractals though.

Not on my server. Orr was insanely alive and well. Sure, most of us were running Plinx over and over again but still, we were in Orr. Now Orr is a ghost town. Scream out at the top of your lungs and maybe 1-2 people will hear you. 0_o

Kravick.4906:

Because Chrystin Cox, Monetization Producer, person in charge of the gem store, and former employee of Nexon, made it that way. When Nexon acquired 15% of NCSofts stock and became a majority share holder, they put Mrs. Cox in charge of the GW2 gem store to protect their investment.

In all of my time MMOing, I’ve never seen the population of a game come to dislike a single person more. She’s been blamed for everything from the WoW cloning of this game with introduction of the ascended gear treadmill to the reason dye drop rates are total crap. The Nov 15th patch, this game’s version of the Star Wars Galaxies NGE patch, could be renamed the “Cox Patch” and I doubt many here would bat an eyelash :-P

Either she is the worst human being to ever attempt to put their hands in the MMO cookie jar, or she just has some really bad luck. =D

Servers are just as populated as they were months ago. That hasn’t changed. What’s changed is that they are all semi-AFKing in Lions Arch screaming “LFG LFG LFG” and LFM LFM LFM" for Fractals groups. And the ones who aren’t? They are in the Fractals.

treborIRL.4521:

ascended gear through karama….no thanks! players who get the ascended gear are the ones who deserve it, put in time to run fractals to get ascended gear, and getting it infused to keep on doing fractals. ascended gear is easy to get as it is already. can’t run fractals cause its hard or don’t have the time? don’t worry about ascended gear then. exotics are STILL great.

Arenanet, please don’t ever listen to elitist dungeon runners like this who think their playstyle alone is the only one that deserves items. This sort of mindset would turn this game into the same mindless drivel that World of Warcraft comes from- where those who want the best gear have to grind the same instance over and over and over until their eyes bleed. There needs to be more than 1 way to get this item type, and karma needs to be one of those.

Karma grinders would have to work harder for their items than fractals runners ever did, so if it is a matter of “deserving” it, those who got quick drops in fractals are the ones who are questionable in their worthiness.

I’m curious how Arenanet plans to handle the rest of ascended gear, expansions, and the level cap.

The first Guild Wars produced expansions at a relatively rapid pace. Almost one a year for the first couple of years. Each expansion didn’t raise the level cap or introduce new stats (well, one kinda did but not really. The base stats remained the same and a small bonus was added to new weapons). GW2 will do things a little differently, however, in that the devs have already voiced great enthusiasm for raising the level cap with each expansion.

My concern comes with the introduction of Ascended gear, especially in its sectioned state. If they drop a handful of ascended items every couple of months, requiring substantial grinds for each one… how long until the entire set is out? And how long after that until the expansion releases and makes all that gear null and void, thus resetting our gear grind and we start over. We would literally be on a non-stop gear grind for the foreseeable future. That level of treadmill seems a bit daunting to me, to say the least.

So, I am definitely curious to see how they do this in regards to the expansion. Is the future of Guild Wars 2 now to grind grind grind for the newest, best gear? Or will they find a way to finally bring an end to the grind and return GW2 to the unique plateau that made its predecessor so loved?

I think they should reduce the price of exotic gear on karma vendors and give us ascended gear for the current exotic price, considering they nerfed all the fun ways to karma into the ground.

They really should get to this pretty soon though. If they release expansions at the same pace as GW1, it won’t be too terribly long before we see the first expansion. And since they already announced that they definitely plan to increase the level cap in expansions, it would make all this gear null and void and we’ll have to start a brand new gear grind at max level again a la WoW.

Would be a bit much to hand us alternative ways of getting ascended gear only to make it all worthless within a couple months after.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Wouldn’t this be exploiting?

Knowing Arenanet, the entire cast of this video will be permbanned by next week.