Guild Wars 2

It would have been better if they ramped up the difficulty before they introduced new ascended gear. If you introduce more powerful gear and then ramp up the difficulty (especially in a trivial way like adding more health) people will (justifiably) scream gear grind.

Zacchary.6183:

TooBz.3065:

No. Ascended gear is boring to get. If they bore me I will complain. Don’t care if I never have to do it again.

I hate peas, if you make me eat peas I’ll fuss (especially if it’s a big heaping plateful). Even if you say it’s unlikely I’ll have to eat them again.

Some people like peas, that’s cool with me. Enjoy. Personally, I think that taste terrible.

I hate everything. Do you see me kittening about it?

No, you’re very stoic.

Agaetis.4518:

So I did a little test in the builder how much those ascended weapons you “need” to “grind” for really matters. Please let me know if I did something wrong.

- Full berserker warrior without ascended weapons and exotic trinkets:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.2|7.1g.h1h.9.1g.h1|1.1g.h1|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67|u5ab.a1.0.0.u69c|0.0|5x.6d.6e.6c.6m|e

= 6503 effective power

- Full berserker warrior with ascended weapons and exotic trinkets:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.2|7.5g.h1h.9.5g.h1|1.1g.h1|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67|u5ab.a1.0.0.u69c|0.0|5x.6d.6e.6c.6m|e

= 6582 effective power = 1.1% increase in effective power

If you don’t feel you really need that 1.1% increase in damage/or the looks don’t grind for it! It’s not harder than that when you think about it

The increase in weapon damage is not accounted for in the effective power.

I always find these comments funny. I think that with an MMO most people expect to do a certain amount of tedious stuff in order to get something worthwhile. Like an endurance test or something.

I don’t want tedious stuff in my game. I certainly don’t want to pay someone for the privilege of doing the tedious stuff. If you look at almost any game review for any other type of game the stuff that’s accepted in an MMO would get the game crucified.

Games are suppose to be fun entertaining. They aren’t suppose to be tedious.

tom.7468:

are you seriously complaining about 9 more primary stat 6more minor stat and 50 more damage? wow l2p they should be 200 more damage at least.

50 more damage is misleading due to the multiplicative nature of weapon power and power. It’s more accurate to say 5% more damage. 200 more damage would be a 20% damage increase.

Jumping puzzles give empyreal.

It can be confusing. To decide how to gear up, first decide what stats you want. The second part of the guild says that. However, it’s a little out of date. Celestial gear isn’t listed, because it was just added a couple of months ago. Also any gear with magic find is inaccurate.

If you’re totally lost let us know your class, whether you want power (direct damage) or damage over time (condition damage). Also it’s helpful to know if you mostly play PvE or WvW.

Once you pick a set, then you decide how to get it.

Ascended gear takes longer to get. There is no ascended armor (yet), either way you need to pick the type you want first.

VOLKON.1290:

TooBz.3065:

No. Ascended gear is boring to get. If they bore me I will complain. Don’t care if I never have to do it again.

I hate peas, if you make me eat peas I’ll fuss (especially if it’s a big heaping plateful). Even if you say it’s unlikely I’ll have to eat them again.

Some people like peas, that’s cool with me. Enjoy. Personally, I think that taste terrible.

Good news then. No one is making you eat peas, nor are they making you grind ascended gear.

I like peas btw. Steamed. Keeps them sweet and snappy (instead of mushy).

Snow peas in the pod are ok. But as for the other ones, no, you don’t like them. You just think you do (kidding).

Ascended weapons are here to stay, no amount of QQ will change that. In some ways, it was a good try. They are pushing people to do a lot of different things to gather materials, temples, jumping puzzles, champions, world bosses, dungeons(???) etc…

However, there are terrible aspects to it, where I think they missed the boat entirely. Grinding 50 levels of crafting with 25 levels of recipes is oh so bad. Progress grinds to a halt. I don’t know how many discoveries it actually takes, I’m guessing that someone will figure it out, but it’s too many. (This may be because I had previously crafted gear for 7 alts. Probably about 21-25 weapons or more, so been there, done that)

No one is making me play this game at all. But honestly, if the content is out there I’m going to check it out. So no, they aren’t making me do ascended gear, but I still salvaged about 15 exotics and grinded to crafting level 439 before deciding that it was too boring / tedious.

I just think that boredom is the worst addition to the game.

mexay.3902:

despite Ascended equipment giving no real damage bonus over exotic.

I was actually with you until that last statement, which is demonstrably false. If Ascended gives better stats and gives more weapon damage then it give a real damage bonus.

Now, it’s possible that this damage bonus is the equivalent of, for example, equipping a zerker weapon instead of a knights (haven’t done the math), or between using a T6 oil / stone vs a T5 oil / stone (still no math). But it’s real.

Edit: ooops wrong quote

Yes. I’m specifically referring to Ancient Wood Logs. I could be wrong, but they aren’t that hard to get on my own either, so worse case scenario I’ve just slowed my own progress somewhat.

The logs are necessary to create the item, but, more importantly, are necessary to craft from 400-450. I’m completely speculating, but I think once the initial rush to Crafting 500 is over the price will settle down.

Edit: I should note that I have been wrong about the length of the RL dot com bubble and the RL housing bubble. So I may be off in duration by a number of years.

15 Exotics salvaged, 21 globs of dark matter. I used Black Lion Kits

Sorry, I said dumped. I should have said sold for a tidy profit.

Personally, I saw prices spike and dumped my mats now. I don’t think this will last very long and ascended gear isn’t that important.

We’ll probably see prices come back down in a couple of weeks.

Happyfool.8951:

TooBz.3065:

Happyfool.8951:

and what’s done is done. be the bigger man and accept it, or move on.

You don’t like time gating ,fine. What do you propose they do for ascended armor? post it in the suggestions forum in an orderly manner, that’s the only thing you can do at this point.

Why? They didn’t implement anything from the pages and pages of suggestions about implementing Ascended weapons (in a thread they created for feedback). What makes you think they would listen to a suggestion about ascended armor. Must better to accept our helplessness.

i’ve been to the suggestion pages only a few times, because most of what I see is “Iwant this!!!” “I want that!” Make THIS!!!
There are very few have constructive suggestions. Hell, I’ve seen more organized suggestions in the professions forum.

This wasn’t in the suggestions forum. It was 19-20 pages of Ascended gear feedback in the discussions forum. There was the usual amount of QQing, but there were also some really good ideas in there.

The suggestions forum is where the moderator sends threads to die.

Happyfool.8951:

and what’s done is done. be the bigger man and accept it, or move on.

You don’t like time gating ,fine. What do you propose they do for ascended armor? post it in the suggestions forum in an orderly manner, that’s the only thing you can do at this point.

Why? They didn’t implement anything from the pages and pages of suggestions about implementing Ascended weapons (in a thread they created for feedback). What makes you think they would listen to a suggestion about ascended armor. Must better to accept our helplessness.

Peets.8529:

As I can read we have two groups. One group who thinks this is a grind game and another group who doesn’t think this is a grind game since they already have what group 1 wants. Hmmm, people can be so strange and false informed. As far as I can see is that people just love to complain and that Anet can do nothing good except when it’s exactly what they had in mind. Yes, sadly we are that spoiled. There is grind in GW 2 but not required to do to get something. If you just play the game for fun you can get everything. It might take a little longer but you can get it. Prizes will drop and you can buy it from the TP or be lucky enough to get it while playing. What I am saying is, doing be a spoiled brat that only had to pay 50 €/$ or so to play a game that gets a lot of new updates for FREE! Lots of other games cost as much and you are done with it after 25 hours… There are going to be changes you like and don’t like. And yes share your opinion about it but please with less drama.

Yes. I am spoiled. ENTERTAIN ME. That’s what I paid for. That’s what will keep me buying gems in the gem store. Do a kitten jig, sing a song, make flashy graphics.

Why would anyone accept anything less from a hobby?

ophidic.1279:

GOSU.9574:

Welcome to FLASHBACK 2012.

This is what happens to the peeps who say “LOL you noob if you think GW2 is a grind you don’t know what a grind is”. Yeah, all that “We don’t make grindy games”, ‘we don’t have a gear treadmill’, etc. All the peeps that harped on those of us who complained when the first implementations of all this began to surface. Yeah…

To all those peeps who said it wasn’t a grindy game…LOL.

People on GW2 STILL don’t know a real grind. They’re just pampered and need some perspective.

I know, I know. You use to play a game that was never any fun at all. You spent all your time breaking rocks in a desert. It took 6 months of toil until you were able to try to fight a your first boss. The boss has a .00001% chance of dropping a shard. 7,000 shards could be combined into a fragment. 10,000 fragmets made a piece or armor. Whatever.

Why would you play such a game?

It’s there. Bottom of the list on the upper right. (10 Globs of Dark Matter)

I’ve salvaged about 12-15 exotics and have 23 globs of dark matter. I usually receive 2, 3, or none with a pretty good drop rate overall. All with black lion salvage kits.

Kincaidia.3192:

I can haz discoveries?

Sorry, that’s with the discovery bonus.

Excellent suggestion. I whole hea…

oh…

You weren’t serious were you.

Basharic.1654:

There is little-to-nothing you can accomplish in PvE that can’t be done in level 80 greens. So what’s the rush?

Legendaries, Fractals and ascended gear were put in place for grinders; for people who like longer term projects in their MMOs. If you aren’t one of those people, they aren’t for you.

Ascended gear is meant to be a mid range project between easy-as-pie exotics and supergrind legendaries. The mats I am familiar with on that list fit that bill exactly, and the time I’ve heard on the gated requirements fall into the two week range. That is nowhere near the time it takes for a legendary.

There is nothing inherently evil in time-gated content. It actually brings the time it takes for casuals and hardcore players to get any specific item closer together. It stretches the hardcore time, freeing them up do other things in game by limiting how long they can focus on a specific thing. Meanwhile gating barely affects casuals who play regularly, but for shorter sessions.

All that being said, I do really wish the Ascended items were statted the same as exotics, and were just sexy skins. And I don’t want any more power creep on our gear. I much prefer cosmetic progression.

The rush is to get this over with so we can go back to enjoying the game until the next bit of bullkitten is released.

This is not fun. Not even a little bit. It’s expensive and a pain in the kitten.

It look like for each new exotic I create I get about 2 levels in crafting. So I’ve got at least 6 more exotics to go before I hit 450.

Thanks a lot. Weeee… How fun is this?

MikaHR.1978:

TooBz.3065:

If you hold someone’s feet to the fire for everything they say, the next thing you know they don’t say anything.

One thing I think is missing from all these critiques of what they said is that people’s viewpoint change. I think ANet originally planned to have exotics be the top level gear and they changed their minds to be more responsive to the desires of the community.

Now, IMO, the smart thing to do was to come out and say something like – we planned X, you’ve asked for Y, so we are providing Y. Instead of saying things Y was planned for the start or Y isn’t Y because legendaries are still BiS.

But just because they aren’t the best at communicating, doesn’t mean we should say they lied. They changed their minds. If you want them to keep talking to us (or start again) then we need to collectively relax. Not everything they believe now is the same as what they believed then. It doesn’t mean they lied.

Talk is cheap. Especially from ANet. Because everything they say will probably change tomorrow. So what exactly is the use of them talking?

Sure, but my thought is that if they approached it differently, a little more here’s-what-we-thought, here’s-what-we-think, here’s-how-it-changed and a little less message-from-the-mountain then they’d probably get a better reaction.

In some ways, I agree with Vayne. I don’t think they lied when they said there was not going to be VP in the manifesto. I do think they lied when they said is was planned all along. And I think they are playing fast and loose with the facts when they say ascended will be the last tier. (edit: last gear tier but not the end of VP)

Generally, I think it’s a fair criticism to say that ANet says a lot of things that imply a course of action that they do not later follow. They make open ended statements that are worded to allow you to believe what you want to believe without ever actually committing to anything.

Personally, I would rather see a definitive statement of “i don’t know” rather than the terrible PR messaging they’ve done so far. But to get there we have to move past where we are.

I don’t think you can count on ascended gear being the last tier, or if it is that gear progression in going to end. They talked about more powerful infusions. Who cares is your grinding for a more powerful sword or a more powerful thing to put in the sword, it’s really the same.

If you hold someone’s feet to the fire for everything they say, the next thing you know they don’t say anything.

One thing I think is missing from all these critiques of what they said is that people’s viewpoint change. I think ANet originally planned to have exotics be the top level gear and they changed their minds to be more responsive to the desires of the community.

Now, IMO, the smart thing to do was to come out and say something like – we planned X, you’ve asked for Y, so we are providing Y. Instead of saying things Y was planned for the start or Y isn’t Y because legendaries are still BiS.

But just because they aren’t the best at communicating, doesn’t mean we should say they lied. They changed their minds. If you want them to keep talking to us (or start again) then we need to collectively relax. Not everything they believe now is the same as what they believed then. It doesn’t mean they lied.

Vayne.8563:

Klawlyt.6507:

MrRuin.9740:

A tired MMO gear-driven endgame with a new gradual-paced face that only affects people without Legendaries? Yes.
Innovative? No.

This guy knows.

I’m off to bed.

Yes he knows. You agree with him, so he knows.

The other people who have different opinions don’t know.

Frankly, I think neither one of you know, you know? lol

Because they disagree with you. Such is the cycle of life on the Internet.

Advent.6193:

I have the same opinion on Ascended EQ that I have on Legendary. Namely that -besides the Trinkets I’ve managed to snag- I can bloody well take my time. I game to escape stress, not make more for myself. Plus, I know I can handle myself with just Exotics.

I think that individuals may decide to keep running alts. But overall I think that this change will result in less people experimenting with classes / builds and sticking to a main.

For me, it comes down to how important ascended gear ends up being. I think a zerker two handed weapon is going to have 11% crit damage which is a 22% increase, which may be too much to pass up.

I can’t recommend joining now. I think things are too in flux. I’d wait a could of weeks and check back. By then some critical information about ascended weapons should be known.

Also, who cares if the “need” ascended gear. The fact that people “want” ascended gear is sufficient to limit builds and alts.

On topic, I know I plan to reduce to a single main, although I’m struggling to pick one.

I think you will see less variety in gear, you won’t see much switching between condition specs, support specs, and power specs. People will pick one kind of gear and run with it. People probably will pick the sigil they like an stick with it. Less experimentation.

But you will see variation within that type, for example, phantasm and shatter mesmers are both designed around zerker gear. Shout and Symbol guardians can both use the same kind of gear, etc…

But realistically, most people are going to gear up one main with different weapons.

Honestly, I think it’s done. We’ve said what we could. Proxy made some excellent suggestions, they just aren’t using them.

Time to move on and decide how to deal with it.

Nuka Cola.8520:

TooBz.3065:

As opposed to forcing guild missions, dailies, or fractals?

Dailies are as bad, guild missions ARE worst but don’t blame fractals. Fractals is just a dungeon as you’d get in another game you could (if wanted to) grind a skin, nothing else. Rings aren’t only in fractals anymore so if fractal weps aren’t your thing then there’s no point of doing them

I was referring to back pieces. Which are almost exclusively obtained via fractals.

Titan.3472:

I believe un-transmuting, splitting should also un-soulbound it then that’s pretty obvious as it will give you the original items used.

Especially if this is true. I have firebringer on a toon I never use, it un-transmuting makes it account bound again I’d happily do it.

Now firebringer doesn’t cost (anywhere near) as much as a legendary, but it’s not cheap either.

Vayne.8563:

JK Arrow.7102:

I won’t disagree that some of the PvE skills were OP, namely the few you listed. There was plenty of complaining on the GWGuru boards about it too. Players back then realized that it trivialized much of the content. The boards were full of requests to nerf Shadow Form.

While Anet strangely changed SF to where some considered it better, they actually did reduce the effectiveness of several of the PvE sills including the well known Ursan nerf. They didn’t want people yelling Ursan R8 or kick. Which is a far cry from where we are today in GW2. Zerk anyone? Soon to be Ascended Zerk.

I’m not complaining about more ascended gear making content easier, although it will. I’m complaining about added vertical progression that we were led to believe wouldn’t be a part of this revolutionary ground breaking innovative MMO.

I understand. I’m just not understanding the difference between skill progression, which you had to grind to level or gear progression which you can get casually if you want.

Grind is grind. I didn’t grind in Guild Wars 1 and I’m not grinding here. It’s just a mindset.

Plenty of people thought Guild Wars 1 was grindy as hell…it wasn’t for gear. But the gear here, even though it’s BIS…it just doesn’t make that much of a difference.

That’s why I can let it go. That doesn’t mean I’m thrilled about it. But I don’t see this as game breaking, that’s all.

My preference would be cosmetic only progression but I understand too many people can’t live with that…and that is a problem.

Honest question, why is it that it’s okay that some people can’t live with cosmetic only progression, but it’s not okay that some people can’t live with gear progression?

Viking Jorun.5413:

Hell Avenger.7021:

They should give it to everyone, and not just legendary holders.

Why? It’s only important to people with transmuted legendaries. It will be available in the cash shop for everyone.

Because it’s fair.

As opposed to forcing guild missions, dailies, or fractals?

Retsuko.2035:

Hours played: 2500
Achievement points: 7150
Precursor drops (Mystic forge or mobs): 0
Real money spend on gw2: 0
Legendaries obtained: 2

I guess i’m not a quitter like most of the people in this thread.

Or, alternatively, you have a lot of free time and a high tolerance for repetition.

Yaki.9563:

TooBz.3065:

It’s just pseudo random.

You will never convince ANet or anyone else that your aren’t just unlucky.

I expect that sometime in the distant future ANet will uncover a bug with the loot table that causes some people to get multiple precursors and other people to get nothing.

You fail to understand randomness (and what pseudo random means).

Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention to this thread, but since you called me out.

First, unless computers have suddenly developed a way to generate a truly random number or ANet implements loot drops by having people roll dice in an office 24 × 7, then it’s not incorrect to say the RNG isn’t really random it’s pseudo random.

Second, I said that there was probably a bug with the loot table, not with the psuedo random number generation.

So I don’t understand what you were trying to say.

I could tell that everyone on CD was excited for this matchup. I’ve never seen a queue one every map before.

I guess it just takes three weeks of getting zerged to get everyone excited.

I had a lot of fun on YBBL last night. Good job on letting us get through water gate and demolishing us once we were inside.

Funny thing, one of my guildies said “this isn’t suppose to work” about 3 minutes before you wiped us.

Istaf.1953:

What the hell CD, you left us for this bunch? This saddens me. Come back CD, we miss you. TC means nothing to us. Really.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlKaVFqxERk

This was inevitable when you started flirting with TC.

colesy.8490:

I don’t see the big deal, all you need to do is pick up a zerker weapon for PvE and a PVT one for WvW, boom, done.

Even better if you don’t do much PvE or WvW so you only have to get a single weapon.

Sure, provided you don’t run multiple specs or enjoy variety.

The only difference is the kind of “infusion” you can put into them.

Offensive infusions add +4 ot +5 to an offensive stat (power, precision, or condition damage)

Defensive infusions add +4 or +5 to a defensive stat (Healing, Toughness, or vitality).

But be careful. Ascended trinkets are unique meaning you can only equip one of each type. So for example, if you get “Athea’s Ashes” you cannot get another one and equip both.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infusion

butch.8136:

This was supposed to be ingame before release. Would you be QQ’ing then? No, it would be part of the game. A gear treadmill repeats itself over and over, Anet said time and time before that this is the only high-end tier there will be.

Personally, I wouldn’t be QQing because I wouldn’t be playing. I only started this game because my friends were here (never played another MMO). They were here because of the no grind policy. They all (yes, ALL) quit the game shortly after laurels were introduced. They were willing to ignore rings but dailies were too much.

I’m deciding what I want to do. Either drop down to a single main or quit the game. Either way, this experience has soured me on MMO’s and I don’t think I’ll play another one.

Well, I got what I needed. A preview that’s sufficient for me to figure out how I need about the next update. Needless to say, I am not pleasantly surprised.

cesmode.4257:

I am simply a player that likes to have BiS gear, and then enjoy the game…not having to worry about anything else other than my enjoyment. Thats how I wanted to approach this game. The time gated nature of this means that if I don’t take care of what I need to each day, Im behind the curve. I’ll feel obligated to log in each day to get my daily-crafted-junk done…like I initially felt with Laurels and dailys. I already feel obligated to get all LS achievements done for AP just to get to the next threshold for gold, account bonuses, and skins. I like being rewarded for the AP, but it also has a negative side too.

Im feeling a bit too obligated to do things in a game where it was touted that we could play how we want. For this reason, the game is beginning to cease to be fun for me, and more of a “hurry get it done before its gone” or a “hurry, get the BiS gear before the next guy does”. Just..not fun for me anymore, which sucks because I did like this game.

I feel exactly the same way. +1

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

TooBz.3065:

butch.8136:

And gw1 wasn’t a grind? lol it’s all optional, you’ll be able to play the game at any level without ascended gear.

Arguments like this are the death by a thousand cuts. No one cut is a big deal (as people such as yourself are quick to point out), but the next thing you know you have a checklist of bullkitten you do before you start doing anything you enjoy.

Eh, I’m careful of extrapolation, and cautiously optimistic of the future instead of worrying it’ll fall downward. Mostly because if it does go to crap I can just walk away and nobody is twisting my arm to make me do the stuff or stay.

Not telling people to leave, but don’t ever blame people for departing unless they kick up a huge fuss. Then it depends, if they kicked up a fuss over something which they could have fixed but chose not to . . . yes, I’ll mock or blame them. If they left because it just wasn’t fun for them anymore? No mocking, no blame, merely “hope the next thing is fun”.

Seriously. Any of you departing to await ESO or whatever it is you head to next? I do hope you have fun with it. I’ll have fun here until it’s no longer fun and then it’s to the next thing. That’s how I approach my games, because my life is too complicated to play games I don’t want to.

I completely agree. Different people have different thresholds of fun. I admit there’s a little bitterness right now. I did everything I could to offer suggestions as to how this didn’t have to be this bad, I feel ignored.

Truffler.3684:

etiolate.9185:

runeblade.7514:

Why do people support Ascended Gear anyways? All it is just two weeks of grinding, then the pro-vertical progression people will go back to the forums and complain there is nothing else to progress towards.

This is one of the more perplexing parts of Ascended gear. It solves no problems and creates new ones. Nobody gets super excited over Ascended gear. Some do get really kitten ed about it though. A new Legendary? People really care. New tier of power? Why? Is there a new dungeon difficulty we’re not aware of?

Given the limited and complex methods of obtaining this tier vs the prev BiS exotics, I’d say it’s a veiled attempt at dragging out our time in the game

Funny, I think it may have the opposite effect.

butch.8136:

And gw1 wasn’t a grind? lol it’s all optional, you’ll be able to play the game at any level without ascended gear.

Arguments like this are the death by a thousand cuts. No one cut is a big deal (as people such as yourself are quick to point out), but the next thing you know you have a checklist of bullkitten you do before you start doing anything you enjoy.