Guild Wars 2

Currently, the main issue that is being raised in relation to ascended gear is that non dungeon runners do not want to be dragged into the gear treadmill that dungeon runners seem to want. Higher stats on gear may not affect open world much, but it will definitely affect WvWvW.

If this is the case, why not limit it to dungeons? There is no valid reason why the open world or WvW needs stats higher than exotics, and yet this would still allow new dungeon instances to be gated so that only the best geared players can continue forward. Open world and WvW progression can continue to be horizontal, focusing on looks instead of stats.

After nearly 11,000 posts on the now removed ascended gear thread, the majority of which can be summed up to “wtf are you thinking?” in a rage response that an MMO hasn’t seen the likes of since Blizzard’s Real ID thread, it’s obvious some middle ground needs to be found before a large portion of the player base gets alienated.

It’s been painful to see how barren my server has become as of late. This terrible news has demotivated a lot of people who ran to GW2 thinking it was an oasis from the flood of WoW clones as of late… Please, give those of us who still have some faith in Arenanet some hope that this debacle will be fixed in the future.

Waffler.1257:

I doubt Anet will change WvW to have SPvP rules. I get the impression that they want WvW to be the noob friendly PvP area. With a 5 man team you really need to carry your weight or your team will fail, but with the 50 man zergs in WvW you can run around clueless, do extremely stupid kitten and it probably won’t really matter. If all you do is run dungeons and decide to try out PvP for the first time, then you will automatically have better gear than most other people so it will be that much harder for you to fail. It seems like a place for people who aren’t really confident about PvP to get accustomed to competitive play.

Ouch. So WvW is basically a gimmick tutorial to PvP? That kinda sucks. It was the drawing force for me to this game, and what I looked forward to the most. It’s a shame to hear that.

Keep ascended gear. Keep the stats of ascended gear. But separate it from the rest of the game and limit it to the fractals and other dungeons like it so that the people who want to gear grind and can do so and the rest of us don’t have to get sucked into that black hole.

If they announced tomorrow that Ascended gear/legendary gear would be normalized to exotic stats everywhere but in dungeons, I would be beyond thrilled and singing the praises of Arenanet. Hell, if they just said they would just do that for WvW it would be enough for me!

I don’t mind gear grinders or gear treadmills. I play them regularly. But that’s the problem- I already have a subscription to Rift, which is a FAR better gear grinder than GW2 currently is or ever will be. I got GW2 because it was different, unique. And while it was different and unique, it was the single best MMORPG I had played in years. Together they gave me a nice mix of what I wanted.

Now that GW2 wants to become a gear grinder, it is subject to comparison against the others… and in that respect, it loses sorely. So if I’m going to hop on a gear treadmill, it will be a more established one that does a better job of it.

I have a strong feeling that I agree with the sentiment of your post but… I’m not really sure because I can’t make heads or tails of it. Completely lost in translation, I’m afraid.

Whatever translation service you are using, I strongly suggest you try another.

Shadow Blade.1324:

what i used to do in guild wars 2:

work on map completion (finished)
do jumping puzzles
do some WvWvW
gather at the farms
level alts (have every class around lvl 20 apart from main and ele who is 40ish)
some crafting
kill dragons
do the occasional gathering run / penitent farm in orr

what i do now :
play eve online and log in for ~ 3min to see what the deals are and what lvl of fractals people are spamming for before logging out

This. Except replace EVE Online with Planetside 2.

It’s a shame, too. I was one of those that thought GW2 could do no wrong.

I looked forward so much to the joy that GW2’s endgame would bring, considering how much I enjoyed GW1’s endgame. And instead of a continuation of the GW1 legacy… I was treated to a continuation of WoW’s legacy.

mulch.2586:

Tolmos.8395:

Back when there was a stat plateau and exotics/legendaries were equivalent in strength, making exotics BiS, I was really hoping they would add dueling. Now that they have begun to add the gear treadmill, however, not so much.

As higher stats come out, it will become less about individual skill and more about who has the biggest numbers. That will imbalance dueling something terrible, and you’ll just end up with a bunch of well geared but unskilled players lording their victories over the less geared players.

you never have to worry about gear in GW2 pvp, and neither can you use gear as an excuse for losing

we all use the same vendors for gear and everything is free

we will have dueling (1v1, 2v2, or whatever you like) when they get private arenas into the game.

Oh, I thought he meant open world Dueling, as in like I see Bob the Ranger in Divinity’s Reach, click him and type /duel and proceed to beat the crap out of him.

Not too terribly long ago I remember an Arenanet official response stating that PvP changes would not affect WvWvW, which would instead play under the PvE ruleset.

Has there been any clarification on why or, better yet, have they changed their stance on this?

My main concerns are:

• Class balance. Some skills are being individually balanced for PvP and PvE. This should affect WvWvW. If someone is OP in sPvP, why wouldn’t they be in this pvp?
• New gear tiers will affect WvWvW. Atm, the stat difference is negligible. But as time goes and more ascended/legendary/whatever get put into the game, the stat difference between someone in greens or even someone in full exotics vs those in the new sets will begin to become far more significant.

I’m mostly curious as to where WvW stands.

Back when there was a stat plateau and exotics/legendaries were equivalent in strength, making exotics BiS, I was really hoping they would add dueling. Now that they have begun to add the gear treadmill, however, not so much.

As higher stats come out, it will become less about individual skill and more about who has the biggest numbers. That will imbalance dueling something terrible, and you’ll just end up with a bunch of well geared but unskilled players lording their victories over the less geared players.

El Hefe.2814:

Emapudapus.1307:

Hello ppl, i just created simple voting poll to see your opinion about this topic, just for fun ofc.

http://poll.pollcode.com/ttb2am

that poll is worthless seeing as you can vote an infinite amount of times.

Sure, you can place your vote an infinite number of times, but it will only count once.

Sit down and think about it really hard- do you actually think a website based entirely around polls would survive if it allowed that? lol.

Go ahead, try voting 40-50 times. The total number of votes won’t move an inch

So all together… who is this patch supposed to cater to?

People who hate vertical progression: “This is terrible. This is completely against everything you told us prior to launch. You lied to us to get us to buy your game and then changed everything once you had our money”

People who like vertical progression: “Your sad attempt at vertical progression is terribad. Thanks for the patch, though- it helped me realize I really do miss vertical progression, so I’m going to give WoW another shot since it does it better!”

November 15th- the bane of MMOs. First SWG, now GW2.

For the past month and a half or so, new players began complaining that low level zones were dead. With no one around, events were hard to complete for the new players and low level instances were near impossible.

The problem in GW2 seemed far worse than in most MMOs. Why? In other MMOs, the games are focused on gear grind. The PvP, the PvE- all of it. So, players who want nothing to do with that would simply reroll an alt and start fresh in order to keep having fun. It kept the low level zones flowing with fresh faces. But GW2? Most of the people playing this game came here to avoid the WoW clones and their gear treadmills, so the endgame here kept them happy. Exploring. WvW. 100% map completion. Karma gear for looks, not stats. With the exception of the handful of content locusts who got 100% in the first few weeks, the population was still happily trudging along through the content. There was no real reason, besides map exploration, to go back to low level zones.

Enter Ascended Gear.

Suddenly, the forum posts all look the same: 80 zones, except for FotM, are dead and empty. Newbie zones, however, are having to go to overflow maps. And what if that was the point? What if the point was to push a large portion of the playerbase away from endgame, away from dungeon running and WvW and all that, and get them to start rolling alts instead? What if, in the end, the point really was to kill the end game of GW2? I know it sounds like it should be sarcastic or maybe just a really out there conspiracy theory, but remember how much work they put into 1-80. For them, it wouldn’t be so bad if we kept going back and making alts, instead of playing our 80s to the end. If every player rolled a single 80 and that’s it, then they would miss how much content? ~3 personal story arcs per race, 4 races? Maybe they wanted the game to be more focused on that.

Food for thought.

Flame on.

Kouken.8604:

Really sad seeing one patch destroy such a good game

The exact same thing happened with Star Wars Galaxies. The exact same thing. The best part about it? The patch that killed that game was also released on November 15th. =D

It’s almost like Anet scuttled their AAA MMO as a tribute to SWG. lol It only furthers my belief that the devs were forced into this by some suit clad imbecile and they are taking every opportunity to let us know “It’s not our fault”. =D

I’ve lost almost all of my faith in GW2 since November 15th…

That said, I seriously doubt this is working as intended, and you might be better posting this in the bug forum. That level of grind incentive is something you’d really only find in an Asian grinder like Aion, and definitely not something you would find in this game. The most likely situation here is that they never tested it with transmutation stones (guess no one thought of it at the time? 0_o) and so it just never got fixed to work properly.

I’d put away the torch and pitch fork for now. I really do think this is a bug.

Silentstorm.7531:

Now why the hell couldn’t you read and comprehend that? That’s why i said this poll is incorrect because the poll options are biased and incorrect. Hell this is on THE MAIN PAGE. It’s not like you even need to google this which proves my point i been saying in every drama queen post you guys make. You don’t know wtf your talking about. And just don’t plainly read everything. So your pissed off on something not even best in slot good job drama queens.

Legendaries used to be best in slot ALONG WITH EXOTICS before this patch. These “drama queens” seem to be far more knowledgable of the situation than you do.

Ascended items do not bridge any gap- there was no gap to bridge. They created a gap the same day they added the gap filler. THAT is the issue here. Ascended items are just the poster children for the problem- that new stats were added for no good reason and now people who had no intention of grinding out for their looks because they already had the best in slot (exotics) are now stuck in a choice of being left behind stat wise, or joining in the WoW style gear treadmill that Arenanet is trying to create.

So before raging, with tears in your eyes, about how no one here has done their homework, you would do well to research a little on your own.

Only differences for me would be-

Long Bows to Guardians (holy light bow type thing)

and

Rifles to Engineers (I know what you thinking- No, we do not have Rifles. We have shotguns that use rifle skins. Give us proper rifles plz)

Neb.4170:

although guesting seems to be on indefinite hold so I’m not sure if it even matters.

Give them time to sort out this ascended gear fiasco first. I’m sure that’s somewhere on their priority list, considering how much outside attention it has garnered the game as of late. Anet’s own little Real ID debacle. =D

I would imagine guesting will allow you to guest to any server you can currently view on your server list. I never looked to see if european servers are on our server list or not, but if they are I would imagine so. If not, chances might be slim :-\

I dont know if this game is like this, but some MMOs have different “publishers” for different continents (cant remember the proper term for the companies in this regard…). Take Aion- the company that serves Aion here in the US is different than Europe, so European Aion sometimes gets different in game store deals than the US does, has events that the US may not get and the other way around, etc. They have some small amount of direct control over the game, making them honestly different.

If that is the case with GW2, it might affect the ability to let you guest there as well.

It has about as many as GW1 did at release. Back when this game was a horizontal progression, GW1 sequel I would have just said “Don’t sweat it, we’ll get more skins later on!”. However, now that it is becoming a gear grind vertical progression, WoW sequel I’m not so sure how many new models will be seeing in the future, since progression apparently will about bigger numbers rather than better looks.

I’ll also be ignoring Ascended gear until the full set is released, at which point I’ll see whether the stats they offer adversely affect my WvW play. If they do, I’ll be moving on to another game, I suppose.

Having logged over 500 hours across all my characters, and 300 on my engineer, I can say that I do not quite agree with the OP.

Many NPCs do have some pretty heavy hitting attacks, but dodging immediately negates them. Whether the attack does 1,000 hp or 1,000,000 HP, it all just shows up as “Evaded” for me. Some are harder to dodge than others, but they are all dodgeable.

GW2 is far better than most games, to the point that I am content with the overall layout of the armor designs, minus the starter armor since it is mandatory. Something a tiny bit more… realistic would have been preferable for that.

Asking that there be NO skimpy armor, for either male or female, in the game is a bit unrealistic as well. It’s a fantasy game, and some players (including female players) may desire to have their character look that way. The option should and is available to them. That tier 3 armor is just one example. On the other hand, very conservative and completely covering armor is also available for those who wish it. A female warrior in this game can be covered from head to toe, not an inch of armor showing. In fact, the female heavy heritage armor covers MORE skin than the male armor.

Unlike most games, there are a lot of options for everyone.

Dreamwalker.3617:

Most of the game hasn’t really changed. Just stay away from Fractals, and enjoy the rest of the world.

I’ve only done Fractals once. Solo.

Honestly, the only time I notice a change is when I come on the forums.

If they came out tomorrow and said “Maximum stats allowed in WvW is exotics. All other stats will be normalized to their level” I would do the same thing, but as long as Ascended and legendary gear will affect PvP, I need to get them.

Otherwise I’d say to hell with fractals and hope everyone running them has a good time while I do my own thing.

I love how, when faced with the overwhelming majority of players, the minority’s only response is to try to refer to their opposition as the “vocal minority”. No one is actually stupid enough to believe that (not even the person making the comment), but they try anyway.

Yes, this event will be dubbed a success. They introduced a gear grind and made only 1 location to get it from. Any player who wants to remain up to date on their gear has no choice but to run fractals to get it, and of course Anet will look at that and say “Oh, aren’t fractals so wonderfully successful?!”

Manipulation at its finest.

Gehenna.3625:

Although I share your feelings, I would point out that there’s already a lot of threads about this subject.

And maybe we need more.

The disappointment from this move overflowed from this forum and is spilling out not only onto MMORPG.com’s forums but even other MMO forums, with the folks who swore it would suck all saying “I told you so” and the players who left for this game saying “Honey I’m home”.

News articles, blogs, and threads with over 11,000+ replies all showing massive disdain for the direction the game is heading in and the response we get? “We’re very excited about the new content, and from the reactions we have seen, so are many of you. Players have already spent an incredible amount of time in the new Fractals dungeon, and their reaction to it has been phenomenal. "

Not only are they refusing to even so much as comment on the fiasco, but they are using the fact we have to play FotM to keep up with the gear grind as we currently have no other choices to PR spin it appearing to be popular? 0_o That’s a fine way to say “We don’t care what our users think. It’s all about what WE want, since that worked so well for Star Wars Galaxies.”

Of course its rating dropped. It’s in a transition period.

When the game first released, it was unique. This made it the best game of its type, and since it was fun that put it high at the top. Now, it is trying to move towards becoming a gear grinder, and will be compared to those accordingly.

As a unique game it was awesome, but as the gear grinder it is becoming it is seriously lacking.

Anyone else losing the grand enthusiasm they had for this game after the Nov 15th announcement?

For me, GW2 was proof that not all games had to follow the classical themepark formulas. A break away from quest hubs, raiding and gear grinds. Sure, leveling was a bit of a grind but once it was done, it was done. The game was about exploration and seeing new stories, not simply about chasing bigger numbers.

For the first 2 months, GW2 showed the world that not every game has to be like WoW to succeed.

Enter today- Orr is empty. Every city but LA is hanging on by a thread, and LA is only popular so that folks an spam LFG for fractals. Everyone is in FotM, trying to keep up with the first steps of the treadmill so that when the next step comes out they will be prepared. Love FotM or hate it, if you want to keep your character up to date on armor you will run them.

This doesn’t at all feel like the game I started playing. It went from a game where character stats were almost completely normalized, making them a non-issue, to suddenly being focused entirely on making my numbers bigger. :-\

With so many gear grinders already available out there, I was hoping this game would be an oasis for those of us looking to step away and do something unique and fun. I guess unique doesn’t pay well.

My last day playing will likely be the day they add a new level cap, assuming they haven’t added a new tier of gear before then.

That said, if the information in this OP is true then it is going to happen, and there isn’t much we can do about it. So, just enjoy the game for now and if the level increase bothers you too much, move on to greener pastures.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/19873-level-cap-increase-in-expansions/

We should also add a system that rates players with a numerical value based on the current level of their gear. A “gear score”, if you will. This will help keep the riff raff out of our dungeon groups

Im fine with them being that powerful because, at the end of the day, they are still weaker than me.

With the exception of zone bosses, I have yet to find a champion NPC that I could not solo. Them having a massive HP base and able to 2 shot me doesn’t make a difference if they can’t hit me, and in fact just makes our struggle all that much more epic. Normally I’m not a fan of “more HP = harder combat”, but in this case because it does so much damage, it means I have to keep up a solo battle with him for up to 5-10 minutes without making more than 2 mistakes in a 30 second period.

Not exactly console game difficulty, but better than most MMOs I’ve played.

FotM. Its the only way to get ascended gear at the moment and no one wants to be caught unprepared for the next level of the treadmill to release. We’re trying to gather these items for our mains and alts before they release more pieces of the set.

The other dungeons and zones are, atm, worthless to the treadmill and therefor ignored. They are addressing this issue, though. We should see more progression in those zones as well.

Of course, Arenanet is well aware of this and is spinning it as FotM being wildly successful, since we’re all doing just it and nothing else. :-\

How I feel about GW2 – I loved GW2 up until November 15th. I still like it, but I do not like the direction it has started to head in. I will not quit just yet, despite that, as I want to see how bad the damage is when the full set of ascended gear is released. But, for now, I can say that my enthusiasm for this game has dropped grandly.

My background – My first games were on Atari, just before the NES released. I was exclusively a console gamer until ’99. I started playing Ultima Online in 1999. I tried Everquest but it was simply not for me, so Ultima and MUDs were my primary MMOing experience until the release of Anarchy Online and eventually Shadowbane. I quit UO in 2004 when I began playing World of Warcraft and then Guild Wars. For the next 5 years or so I focused on playing WoW, Shadowbane, Guild Wars and Planetside simultaneously.

Eventually SB died, Planetside’s population declined and I grew tired of WoW, so I began bouncing MMOs for a while. I began and still play EVE online, tinkered with Age of Conan, tried TERA and got a level 53 in Aion… tried Warhammer but it wasn’t for me. I finally settled in, upon its release, with Rift while continuing to play EVE and GW1.

Currently I play Planetside 2, Rift and GW2.

NaughtyProwler.8653:

If it is true, the only real option they have is to hope the changes they may have been “forced” to make are a complete success. If the game tanks? Fired. If they disagree publicly? Fired.

Welcome to the life of a modern day game dev in the corporate world.

They certainly should, if they don’t, since we dual wielders have to pay double the price for our weapons that 2H wielders do.

Sef.6918:

once you have ascended gear theres nothing to worry about, its not as if they adding new gear after that, whats the big bother?

This is the problem with sarcasm on the internet… it’s so hard to detect =D

I’d believe it. As I said in my previous thread- go back and read the manifesto, then watch the interviews before the game’s release. Those developers loved this game and its fans, and they knew what we wanted. They were excited to give it us, HAPPY to create something unique. They specifically spoke out against this type of content on a regular basis.

Then what… 2 months in they have a change of heart and decide to throw their fan base under the bus? I highly doubt it.

You people think you are sad about this change? I’d bet VERY good money that your disappointment over this change doesn’t compare to how some of them feel…

I’m all for gating content in a way that doesn’t affect my other content (such as open world or WvW).

Solution 1) Limit ascended gear stats to only be higher inside the new dungeons. In the open world and WvW, the stats are equivalent to exotics. This keeps people like me out of the new content since I plan to stick to my exotics, and keeps the gear grind out of my WvW.

Solution 2) Toss out the idea of bigger stats entirely and instead focus on making achievements the requirements to getting into new zones. You can only get to level 15 of fractals if you have some item from level 14 that allows you to survive. And you can only enter the next dungeon if you get an item from level 30 of fractals or something like that

Name says it all. I don’t run the starter backpack as showing most of the time, so I have nothing showing on my back slot at all. So when I switch to a kit, nothing is more goofy than suddenly having this giant backpack appear out of the thin blue air and sit there looking silly. >_>

I would definitely use kits more if it would respect my “hide back slot” option.

Allow me to hide the kit backpacks and I’ll run them all day long.

I ran turrets from 1-80 and about 3 weeks after hitting 80. I primarily did WvW and my K/D ratio in 1v1 and even 1v2 fights was easily double kills for every death, if not moreso. I avoided taking deployable turrets entirely. Why? Because the enemy attacking my turret meant they weren’t attacking me. So I had 2 alternatives to how the fight went:

A) They attacked me, ignored my turrets, and my turrets overall damage ruined their day
B) They attacked my turrets first, wasted valuable time pewing them down, and I kill them before they get to me.

Win/win in my book. I only dropped turrets because I began open world PvEing more, and the turrets flat out ignore a lot of important champion bosses, including dragons.

The maths seem to go both ways… so I’ll just say this:

If it is true, and we ARE the best DPS class- I hope the nerf the bejeebus out of us ASAP. Hotpatch that crap in.

I’d rather have a harder time pushing out damage than be the dime a dozen class that thieves currently are.

I would still love to see ascended gear’s bonus stats limited only to new dungeons. In the open world and ESPECIALLY in WvW they would cap out at exotic stats, but in dungeons they would increase to their normal stat limit. This would allow raiders/dungeon runners to have their gated content, making it impossible for people like me with no interest in getting that gear to be unable to step into the new dungeons without playing the previous first, but it would the rest of us from having to grind out the new gear in order to keep max stats for WvW.

Plus, I don’t want any more of an edge against casuals than I already have. I play a pretty solid amount, and have almost 2 full sets of exotics that I swap on my Engineer. I have enough of a stat crutch against blue/green geared 80s in WvW as it is, I’d prefer not to extend that gap even more so I can’t even tell if I just roflstomped someone because of my kill or gear.

Tower Guard.5263:

You should also add a RNG element to it.
RNG = Rage Now Generator.

The final step for attaining this new armor should be crafting it in the mystic forge using items purchased/crafted with the various currencies/materials stated above. Those items should have a chance to fail in making the item, and instead reward you with a stack of butter.

This would also make the game more fun and keep it in line with the current design philosophy that has been envisioned for it.

Lyger.1826:

I think it’s telling that none of the devs have posted enthusiastically about the ascended gear.

If they dislike it, it would be a bad PR move (and by extension a bad career move for them) if they stated that dislike publicly. About the only thing they can do in this situation is exactly what they’re doing – remaining silent.

Sometimes, the ‘powers that be’ force through changes that are possibly argued against in design meetings. Yes, the devs ultimately implemented it – but it’s likely that it was implemented unenthusiastically. A

+1 on this. After seeing this, I can’t help but feel bad for the devs. They tried so hard and were so excited about this game- a step away from the same tired RNG dungeon gear grind systems that exist in other games, constantly striving for higher stats. Watching their videos of how enthusiastic and dedicated they were I can’t help but feel sad for them, knowing that those same people were forced to implement something that betrayed their entire vision for the game, and the trust of most of their most loyal fans.

But I will give them this- For the first 2 months of release this game really stood on the forefront of the MMO genre and showed that the tired EQ/WoW playstyle of gear grinding wasn’t necessary to be successful and loved.

I don’t regret starting this game, and will continue to play until ascended gear or whatever tier they add after it will begin adversely affecting my own game play, since I have no intention of chasing after each new set and will stick to my exotics.

Merthax.5172:

I’m part of the crowd that is strongly displeased with the addition of ascended gear, as it is now. However, I’m also very ashamed at the amount of personal attacks that people have launched at each other and at ANet staff over this issue.

I don’t know if ANet devs made this decision, or if it came from above. What I do know is that while I disagree with the design decision, I don’t feel any personal animosity over it.

Agreed. Even if I did believe they did it personally, I wouldn’t HATE them for it. However, since I don’t think they had anything to do with the decision I will continue to assume that future games they put out, especially if they wiggle out from nexons grasp, will have a possibility of being great games

I see so many people trash talking the developers over ascended gear, saying they are terrible people and blah blah. But the truth is, despite my extreme disdain for where GW2’s future is headed, I feel no differently about the developers.

Because, truth be told, I have a hard time believing any of this fiasco was the decision of any arenanet developer. I think this was forced on them just like it was forced on us. I’ve read the manifesto, the interviews… They were passionate. They were loyal to their fans. They were honestly excited about making a DIFFERENT type of game. So when this news broke, and we found out that they were going back on one if the primary selling points? No, I can’t see even one of those people having been the one to say “to hell with our fanbase, lets give in to the locusts and create an RNG dungeon gear grind just like every other 2 bit WoW rip off out there!”

Look around. The hints in game (under new management, the npcs, etc) are just the tip of the iceberg. Refunds? What company allows refunds like this for an MMO? One who cares but has no choice in the matter, so they do the only thing they can to make it up to the fans they were forced to betray. And the complete lack of comment on the gear, even defending it?

Give up on GW2 if you must… It’s not the game you bought. But maybe don’t give up on Arenanet, or the individual devs. I refuse to believe they had any control over this.

Honestly I am playing far less and am not at all enthused to continue playing. I already have a subscription to a dungeon grinding game (Rift). I came to play GW2 because it was different. Now that it is slowly moving away from being different, I find myself less interested in playing it. I already play one grinder, and even if I enjoy it why would I play 2?

I haven’t quit yet, but when the new gear tier is completely released and starts to affect my WvW gameplay adversely, I’ll likely call it quits, or if they release another tier after ascended., Until then ill just keep playing and try to ignore this horrible decision.

It’s sad how many players equate the words “skill” and “stats” together. They fear so greatly having their personal ability tested without being able to rely on the crutch of having larger numbers that they throw around words like “entitlement” and “lazy”. They know its not true as much as the rest of us do, but they hold to that tired argument because its all they have.

Yes, max stat gear should be easily attained. Best looking gear should take time, but no one should rely on numbers to create the illusion of skill simply because they have more free time to grind than someone else.

-signed Someone who currently has 8+ hours a day to MMO and achieved their karma gear within 5 days of hitting 80

Dungeon grinding for better gear is the future of MMOs. GW2 was supposed to be the utopia for those of us who wanted a reprieve from that. You see how we’ll that worked out. If even GW2 is forced to fall back on the dated and archaic practice of RNG stat gear grinding in dungeons then it practically proves that’s the future MMoRPGs.

Welcome to RNG treadmill grinding. For some people it’s awesome, for others it’s a nightmare.

Those of you who missed Vanilla WoW are getting a nice taste of how classical theme park mmos used to be. It’s just a shame you are experiencing it in GW2…

The issue with the time on fractals isn’t how long it takes to run them, it’s how long it takes to get a group. The fractal could take 15 minutes but if finding a group takes an hour then it becomes far more time consuming

Veltoss.9135:

Tolmos.8395:

Turning the game into a WoW clone is not making it unique. Gear treadmills are not unique. Gear checks are not unique. Being forced to run dungeons for the best gear so you can remain competitive in WvW is not unique.

Rather than trying to turn GW2 into WoW, instead of allowing it to follow in the footsteps of its successful predecessor and ACTUALLY be unique, why not play a WoW clone on the side and stop trying to destroy this game? It would be fun if the content locusts were to just play the game for itself instead of demanding more and more stats and content constantly, forcing Anet to push rushed attempts to appease them like this.

We bought the game knowing exactly what kind of game it was- the manifesto told us what it was. It’s the WoW fans who want to turn it into something else.

There is no treadmill. You and most of the people on this forum seem to think adding one tier of gear means it will become a treadmill, it’s not. Stop being a doomsayer. It gets old real quick.

A new tier of gear announced and released within 2 months of the game releasing? Most games that market themselves as treadmills don’t release their first tier that fast. And with the refusal to promise that there won’t be new tiers in the future, what else can we think? Last time we were optimistic and believed they would never release higher stat gear we had it thrown back in our faces, so it’s a little hard not to think the worst anymore.