Guild Wars 2

Aufero.2893:

I’m not sure the hyperbole helps. I’m not happy with the latest change in direction, but it’s still a great game, and I’m still having fun playing it. (Except for one-time events I can’t participate in, but that’s a different issue.)

If it gets to the point where I have to grind for gear to be accepted in dungeon groups, (and I think these changes may bring that about) I’ll undoubtedly stop playing. It hasn’t gotten there yet.

When that will happen it will be too late.
If your car is headed towards a wall, do you wait for the crash to be inevitable before you hit the brakes?

Steering a company is even harder than steering a car. If you take measures when you have lost you most dedicated playerbase and your reputation, the things you do are going to be useless even though on paper they could go back in the right direction.

Most games that lose the trust of their core players never recover, fully or at all, from the consequences.

Culwenimos.1594:

To the OP:
Honestly, take any viewpoints posted on these forums with a pinch of salt. Consider how any changes affect your personally since a game is about your enjoyment not of others. There will be highs and there will be lows. As you said this is just one weekend. There will be more, and by then you can judge whether ANet consider the thoughts its players.

An MMO is also about others, whether you like it or not. The quality and quantity of people playing with you affects your own enjoyment.

They have trumpeted this game to be designed from the ground up to encourage the social part of online gaming, the MMO in MMORPG.

If the game and/or the community are, slowly or not, going down the drain, that will have an effect on your experience.

Especially since here there is quite a bit of content that requires a party, unlike GW1 where you had henchmen and heroes that made the game almost completely soloable.

critickitten.1498:

This is starting to bug me so I think I’ll just ask:

Does everyone honestly believe that buying a 15% stake in a company allows you to dictate EVERY facet of that company’s decisions? Hate to break it to you but 15% is not actually a majority, so it’s not like Nexon has complete and total control over ANet’s decision-making process. They will have influence, absolutely, but the other 85% will probably have just a little more say, doncha think? Unless there’s another couple of companies all helping Nexon reach that majority mark and they ALL want to destroy this product for seemingly no good reason, you guys really need to drop the conspiracy theories and just wait and see what happens.

I absolutely hate Ascended gear, for example. But I’m willing to wait and see if they continue to add tiers after it (in which case I’ll agree that they’re creating vertical progression and will probably stop playing), or if this is truly the final tier (in which case I’ll be unhappy, but I’ll live).

Conspiracy theory aside, while a 15% stake is not an absolute majority, Nexon is now NCSoft’s largest stockholder. That means that, depending on how fragmented the remaining 85% is, they can push to have people on the board of directors, which in turn could allow Nexon to exercise pressure to have trusted Nexon employees in some key position inside controlled companies, like ArenaNet.

The fact a key position in the monetiziation department (i.e. how the game is supposed to make money for the company) was recently assignet to a former Nexon employee, could be seen as a confirmation of this.

Of course ArenaNet could have freely hired that person purely because of her background.

xiv.7136:

You talk of “losing” this game as if it was some kind of tragedy.

There are families being blown to pieces in Gaza, tribal wars in various countries, and ecological disasters. Those are tragedies.

This is a game where they added a backpiece and a ring that have slightly higher stats.

Relax.

If you take the route of that kind of cheap rethoric, you’ll find yourself in a swamp very soon.

By your metric ArenaNet shouldn’t even exist. Why wasting the time of so many persons in producing something that isn’t helpful to those who are really suffering?

Why aren’t you in Africa helping starved children and instead are here posting about something as trivial as a videogame?

Your rethoric questions the very roots of the western civilization, and while in the proper contest it could be a very interesting topic, this is not the place to discuss it.

As a consequence of this week-end and the change it brought to the game, not only GW2 but also its forums now have a very clear new direction. A direction that would be considered a paradox in many other game forums.

Those (included myself) that 10 days ago could have rightly been considered fanboys, and who’ve always been very loyal to ArenaNet and their game design phylosophy because we thought they represented a oasis in a grindy MMO desert, are now disappointed and very vocal about broken promises and lost opportunities.

Almost all of those who applaud or even tolerate the new course come from a gaming background that 10 days ago would have been considered in conflict with ArenaNet’s design choices.

This is the paradox they have created, and I strongly believe that in doing so they have scored against themselves. This error will kill the game in the long run unless they revert it very swiftly, which sadly I don’t think will happen since they still haven’t addressed this mess in any way that would be considered MEANINGFUL by an ex-fanboy.

ArenaNet you have taught us to expect a lot from you guys. These past 7 years during which you have delivered on very ambitious promises have trained us to to be what we are in your regard.

Don’t you think that if the introduction of Ascended Gear has stirred the biggest protest in the short game’s history, the way you set our expectations has something to do with it?

NastyPiggy.2046:

I paid for a game that had a manifesto that said…

GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun

http://www.arena.net/blog/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto

Also, I think thet whoever purchased the game because of that manifesto, deserves that ArenaNet has the guts to tell us in our face “Yes we have changed direction because the manifesto didn’t work.”

Orion.7264:

Be rational, guys; if they had ANY intentions of reverting the stats on Ascended gear to exotic tier, or making any sort of change in that direction, they would have disabled the acquisition of Ascended gear while they worked on a solution so people who got it wouldn’t QQ after. The silence, and lack of even a “we hear you and are discussing the issue” is just proof that they have no intention of changing Ascended gear. They were obviously blindsided by this much negative reaction, but seeing as this was apparently a reaction to “no progression gear treadmill like all the others, QQ”, they have turtled up. Being burned by responding to one request has left them unwilling to respond to others, and so instead of addressing the problem they are simply ducking down and charging ahead, hoping to blind zerg their way through this mess and win out. It’s like when a bunch of noobs start attacking a keep in WvW and then realize they’re outnumbered and it’s too well defended; they never retreat, they just keep charging until they wipe. It’s that sort of mindset.

As time passes, what you say seems more and more likely. Yet, if they completely ignore a reaction of this magnitude, it could backfire on them big time.

If I was them, I’d be more afraid of when we STOP posting here. That’s when even those that still give them the benefit of the doubt (someone could say we are naive) are gone and so are most of their loyal followers that are around since GW1.

Managing to lose a player base you have built in seven years of activity just because you mismanaged (although severely) a single situation would be an unjustifiable waste.

orresho.3197:

Take a chillpill. For real? You really don’t think they care nor read the posts? I’m 100% sure ANet will post a big blogpost or something about this very soon. This complaints are huge and they can’t make sudden changes. They really have to rethink everything now and the risk of giving a fast answer is that they will just make a bigger mess and have to re-do the whole thing many times = confusion in the community. There is a very big crowd who’s left the game because the lack of progression, let’s face it. And ANet has to balance it all out to bring back that crowd into the game. And that’s what I thing was ANets intention. I don’t think ANet was expecting this kind of rage.
Give them some time before complaining like 8yo kids.

You know, they could start by aknowledging the feedback.

“We are reading your feedback on the forums and are aware of the controversy that was caused by some of the changes that were introduced in the last patch. We are addressing things internally and will respond officially soon.”

Or something to that extent.

Silence on something that is clearly felt as important by the community is never a good idea. And no, I don’t count Chris Whiteside’s as a real asnwer.

At the very least, an event that only runs once and people could miss due to a lot of reasons, shouldn’t give out very valuable items just for being there.

That’s just discriminating among players based on random factors.

It should be in the spirit of halloween hats, and after running “live”, it should be available in personal instances for a week or so for everyone to enjoy. They could put it like if some NPC that was there is telling you the story of how it went and you find yourself living the event thru their words.

And then you get your cosmetic reward.

The way it went it seemed like some cheap form of ad for the newly invited players. “See it’s candy land here, you do an event and you could get a precurson some idiot paid 400g for on the TP”.

Conner.4702:

No one is saying the lost shores and the dungeon were made in just a few weeks. The gear though has been.

I agree on this.

They admitted that clearly in Lindsay’s post: they introduced ascended gear specifically because they had understimated the average gamer’s ability to get exotics, so players hit what they call the “legendary wall” sooner than expected.

That problem manifested itself after launch, so before launch they didn’t even know they would have needed ascended gear to address that.

The fact ascended gear doesn’t really address that problem but rather introduces a whole new problem which is way bigger, is another story.

Blaeys.3102:

I made my first piece of ascended gear yesterday for my back slot. It was a a little more difficult than getting an exotic but definitely achievable and not gated behind some elitist barrier.

To give an idea on stats – my toughness from that slot jumped from 28 to 34.

All said, nothing to get upset over. I agree I dont want a “treadmill,” but the slight bump gives people something to strive for without breaking the game.

Also – brilliant of them to only intro backs and rings for now with the promise of more to come. That way the “progression” of getting ascended is extended over a really long time, our current gear isnt invalidated and people interested in those things have something to look forward to.

I think if most people stop, take a deep breath, and think about it logically, they will see this not some horrible game breaking event – and that it may actually be a good thing.

First off let me say I appreciate your attitude. You are one of the few people who don’t despise the changes that is not trying to throw gasoline on the fire, or to delegitimate the other part’s entitlement to being upset if they perceive they have been lied to.

I think for me, the worse thing is that I don’t have clear objectives anymore. Before this patch I had a game that gave me clear goals. I could decide by myself wether I wanted something or not, but once I got the max stat gear, everything else was optional.

Now I have a strong feeling that there’s no point in doing stuff, and even though right now the material differences with the previous situation are marginal, sooner or later my achievements will be made pointless.

the uprising.6317:

everyone reached max level and had literally nothing to do.

Why do you guys keep equating having something to do at max level with having a gear threadmill? There are many ways to keep people at max level occupied, and a stat increase is not mandatory at all for that.

If ascended gear had sick looks and the exact same stats as exotics, and was quite grindy to acquire, content locusts would still have something to do halfway from exotics to legendary, and none of us would complain.

What’s so difficult to understand about this?

SiNoS.2147:

No reason to get livid over something so silly.

What you call getting livid I call voicing my opinion, which is what you yourself are doing here. So please don’t assume another poster’s attitude but rather debate his/her points. Or don’t.

You think if done in some ways it could hurt our cause, I think only ArenaNet not listening to the massive negative feedback they got can hurt our cause.

I also think that there are a lot people who still don’t understand the implications of this patch in the long run, and from this point of view the debate can only provide more shades to the whole picture.

SiNoS.2147:

Thing is currently people can and do dungeons naked. Rebalancing dungeons you always take into account all the gear tiers. Currently you can do parts of the new dungeon without the new gear. Odds are they will set up something like it with the current and future dungeons when they rebalance. Even if they dident its been stated that the new gear will be available in places other than the new dungeon. As i said if your going to require x to do something you alway give them a way to earn x before its needed. Progressing at your own speed is always possible. Thats why new players can join the game at any point. Otherwise the game would never have new players that are not instantly max level with at least x gear.

Now im not saying you dont love the game or anything but saying that someone cant progress at there own speed is just silly. There will always be content lotus just as there will always be that group that is not affected by any changes because they move threw content slower than others. Just by playing the game they will be given what they need just as those when went threw it before them. In most cases they actually have better gear as they come into ownership of the gear ment for newer harder content.

One can progress at his/her own speed, of course. What I’m debating is that before the patch, sooner or later, the slow progressing player would’ve got the highest tier of gear. It was just a matter of time, not of if but of when.

Now, if your pace is slow enough, you could fall behind.

And after having read ArenaNet’s intentions and having seen the stats on ascended items, I don’t see how that won’t be a limiting factor.

It will be a limiting factor by design. If they wanted to make ascended gear optional, they would have differentiated it only by looks, like they did with legendaries up until now. The fact they increased stats on it, tells you that they plan to make it a limiting factor, so that even those who don’t like its looks are still trying to acquire it.

Yes, now you can do fractals up until a certain difficulty scale in exotics. But now it’s the beginning of the new direction, so it’s only natural the actual effects on gameplay are marginal. The future effects of the present direction is what worry me.

And not, I’m not willing to wait for ArenaNet to fully implement this new vision before voicing my concerns, because I deeply believe that by then it will be too late and GW2 won’t be the game that was meant to be (and promised to us) anymore.

SiNoS.2147:

Ok i think i figured out what your failing to realize. In a game designed for 1-?, where ? is max level, you can NEVER balance all the content to only be for ? with the best gear possible. This is what lets people move at the pace they want to. In every game i have played if content is added that requires x stat to even start it this content always provides easy access to the min required to do said content. So this infact does let him do it. Even in games like wow there are players like him. You can move at any pace you want if you are good enough.

Probably I haven’t been clear on a point that is fundamental for me: before the change, anybody in exotics would have access to all the content the game could provide. If you knew what you were doing, you could do anything.

Gear wasn’t a limiting factor.

Now let’s say a year from now they have introduced ascended gear for any slot. They upgrade the dungeons to be challenging for people in full ascended gear. Your own pace of playing means you still wear exotics.

You try Arah and fail because it’s now too difficult for you, and not becasue you don’t know what you are doing, but because your gear is now a limiting factor.

This will eventually be the case, and this scenario wasn’t possible before the patch.

In WoW a player can proceed at a slower pace, but in that case (s)he can’t access all the content available at any given moment. If you don’t have tier x gear you can’t do tier x + 1 raid. You will eventually, but by then that raid won’t be relevant anymore.

Or, put in other words, my 54,99 € are worth the same as the € 54,99 of an hardcore player, so why should I get less content than him at any given time for the same money?

SiNoS.2147:

I’ve yet to ever see a game that advanced that fast to be honest. Currently the game is so easy its an utter joke. It would take a good long time before its even remotely nearing that hard. Odds are that even your slowest players would never come near to seeing this. Not even close. That being said its silly to argue over this point. He will play the way he wants. As long as its within what the games designed around why nitpick? Kinda sounds like your doing it just to argue.

No I’m doing it because I loved GW2, and it’s so rare to find a company ilke ANet was, that manages to create a lot of hype and still gives you a game that delivers on that hype. And then just three months after it goes online, this…

It’s just out of a big disappointment.

And about the game pace, I don’t know how long it will take before ascended sets are all in. Maybe it will take a year, nobody knows.

The point here, is that you can’t choose your own pace the way you could before they introduced a new tier. Exotics were easily obtainalble and then you could REALLY do things at your own pace because all the content was balanced around exotics and you knew they couldn’t be surpassed in power by anything, even legendaries.

Now, your pace can’t be slower than that at which they introduce new items, as slow as it may be, because otherwise you fall behind.

The phylosophy of ArenaNet and GW1 has a always been to let you play the way you wanted. You could log off GW1, log on one year later, and you armor and weapons were still relevant.

They reconfirmed this phylosophy in the manifesto.

And then got hijacked.

SiNoS.2147:

Urxx.6840:

Pants.8315:

And I’ll absorb that content at my own pace. I won’t be cut off because I will never be the only person who wants to do it, there will always be late comers, alts, other people who take their time to do the content, people willing to go back and do lower level content. (I for one do this)

And I really don’t care if they explicitly say one way or the other if it’s the last tier. It won’t change the pace I absorb the content, I don’t have to be at the cutting edge of gear, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest if X Lego Lass X is stood next to me with a Legendary sword and an ascended back piece whilst I’m still rocking my Exotics.

You still miss the point.

Reread my quotes.

And check these items:
http://www.gw2db.com/items?filter-item-rarity=8

Compare stats.

When the existing content will have been adjusted to be challenging for people wearing whole sets of this stuff, you won’t be able to do them unless you grind for ascended stuff as well.

It’s not a matter of alts or other things. It’s not a matter of choice. The difference between ascended and exotic is higher than the gap between exotics and rares, but in turn ascended is A LOT less accessible than exotics to casuals.

Um hes saying that he will move at his own pace. When it comes time to grind for it he will. Hes just saying hes not worried about the gear others have. Hes a very rare type of player that truefully doesent care what others have equiped. In all honesty his player type is normally some of the most skilled players i have ever encountered which lets him play in this mind set.

Unfortunately that won’t work.

Content locusts are so quick in devouring content that by the time he will have finished grinding ascended stuff “at his own pace” there will be divine or uber-ascended or whatever armor and the thing will start afresh.

The problem when you cater to content locusts, is that you commit to a direction that is implicitly a threadmill. Either you find a way to keep them in your game without raising stats, of if you do raise stats the first time, why not the second time they hit a wall again?

You can have your own pace, but if the content difficulty outgrows you, you are screwed.

Pants.8315:

And I’ll absorb that content at my own pace. I won’t be cut off because I will never be the only person who wants to do it, there will always be late comers, alts, other people who take their time to do the content, people willing to go back and do lower level content. (I for one do this)

And I really don’t care if they explicitly say one way or the other if it’s the last tier. It won’t change the pace I absorb the content, I don’t have to be at the cutting edge of gear, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest if X Lego Lass X is stood next to me with a Legendary sword and an ascended back piece whilst I’m still rocking my Exotics.

You still miss the point.

Reread my quotes.

And check these items:
http://www.gw2db.com/items?filter-item-rarity=8

Compare stats.

When the existing content will have been adjusted to be challenging for people wearing whole sets of this stuff, you won’t be able to do them unless you grind for ascended stuff as well.

It’s not a matter of alts or other things. It’s not a matter of choice. The difference between ascended and exotic is higher than the gap between exotics and rares, but in turn ascended is A LOT less accessible than exotics to casuals.

Dogblaster.6713:

So they said that HC PvE players like me with 200+ explorable runs, almost finished legendary, 1000 hours player will not have any progression dungeon?

I dont see why are you mad? Cause they add dungeon that add progress? Well A lot of players loves it and those who dont or dont have time for it, here is news for you. Dont do it.

I have a feeling I’m feeding a troll, but anyways.

I have no problems with the new dungeon and if you’re happy that you have something new to do, good for you.

What goes against ANet’s promises is that your playstyle is now forced on everybody, while they always said that if someone wanted to grind they would get better looks and better status in exchange, but not higher power items.

Because when you introduce higher power items you have to adjust the whole content to them, otherwise what’s the point of having level scaling to make everything equally challenging to everybody?

The same goes for WvW, where players in full ascended sets will dominate players in exotics.

At that point, casuals are left out, because they can’t afford ascended items, which now are just rings and backpacks but will become whole sets.

When all casuals will be gone, with whom will you brag about our 5th legendary? In Lyon’s Arch you will only see hardcore players with their legendaries and in full ascended sets.

And since I suspect most of you guys don’t spend much in the gem store and ANet will have hundreds of salaries and the infrastructure to pay, their cash flow will become negative.

They will be forced to lay off people and won’t be able to add as much content as they are doing now. And then you and all the other content locust will go elsewhere.

ANet will have lost their loyal followers, you guys, and their reputation.

Sounds far fecthed and dramatic?

Mark my words if they don’t do something about this new direction.

Dogblaster.6713:

Sorry .. This is an mmorpg.

Those who are casuals will always be behind and those who playes 10+ hours a day will always be ahead, having better and nicer gear.

Thats what mmorpgs are about.

Stop complaining about you having real life stuff to do and you cant play a game. Its not AREANETs fault you cant play the game as much as you want to.

FoTM was CLEARLY MADE FOR THOSE who want PROGRESS. For HC PvE players which play 10+ hours a day and having nothing to do in GW 2. . NO for casuals.

Really .. people these days complain about everything

That would be perfectly fine hadn’t ArenaNet attracted a lot of players explicitly promising what you just said would never happen in their game.

And the manifesto didn’t sound like pure marketing because if was backed by 7 years of proven track record.

Until now.

Pants.8315:

However, I’m not concerned people will be ahead, simply because, if there isn’t a group for me, I will make my own. The wonderful thing about MMO’s is there’s always a few like minded individuals, and there’s always alts.

You don’t understand what lieas ahead, do you?

This has been posted on GW2’s official german forums by the german Community Manager, and thus an ANet representative, and then translated on reddit with the help of german players to ensure translation was faithful to the original:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/139a4j/official_post_ascended_items_on_german_forums/

Ramon Domke (translated from German):

They are explicitly not promising that Ascended gear will be the last item tier

and

Ramon Domke (translated from German):

New and existing content will be adjusted for the new tier.

When full ascended sets will be in, current dungeons will be too easy so they will be adjusted to match the new gear tier.

You can play with like-minded people as much as you want, but you’ll still be forced to grind unless you want to be cut off a growing portion of new and existing content.

It won’t even be the party cutting you out, it will be the content itself.

Simple as that.

gadenp.7586:

If you are not able to grind often, I strongly suggest you play another game

Fixed for ya.

For anybody who knew ANet for a long time, It’s pretty obvious they got hijacked.

GW2 is not a friedly place for casuals anymore. Right now actual differences with the past are marginal, but they’ll become worse patch after patch.

It is very possible to cater to grinders AND casuals alike. You just have to make grind optional and still reward it adequately with looks / status but NOT power and / or gating mechanics like difficulty scale or agony. That’s how the original legendaries were. That’s what GW1 did successfully for 7 years.

But ANet suddenly decided to take the easy route and provide content in the form of gear grind. Non only that, they made sure they made grind somewhat mandatory for those who don’t want to be left behind.

For those like the OP who’s uncomfortable with level scale in FotM, wait and see when full ascended sets of armor and weapons will be in…

MisterEction.9382:

I just don’t see how they plan to make money off the store with this. The grinders I know don’t spend anything, that is why they grind. They look down on people that spend real money.

I think this idiotic idea of ascended gear was a reaction to some disappointing statistic, but they took a very poor business decision that will make their finances much worse in the long run.

Besided the refunds a lot of people are asking, they are alienating the very part of the players base, casuals, who are most likely to spend money in the gem store, mainly to compensate for the time they can’t dedicate to achieve things via gameplay.

On top of that, some of us were voluntarily spending real money in the gem store to buy unneeded things like minis with the specific purpose of supporting the game. A sort of voluntary monthly fee if you will. I’m ready to bet that’s going down drastically after this fiasco.

The main target of ascended gear, grinders, have plenty of virtual money. They are unlikely to buy gems with real cash.

Nageth.5648:

I’m beginning to wonder if they intentionally made this patch a complete mess to try to prove a point. There are lots of great things about it spoiled by these weird things that completely go against the originally stated design goals.

For instance, they could have made fractal level progression much less of an issue. Instead they made it so people could easily level up 10 times or so over the course of a weekend. They then incentived this new dungeon with extremely good loot drops that got much better at high levels so people would demand max fractal level groups. Finally they put out the trial offer so you have a bunch of new people and you side kick them to 80 so they can “try” to find a group that will take them into the new dungeon.

It is like they were literally trying to shoot themselves in the foot.

I don’t know if that’s the case, but I’ve known ANet for 7 years, and they WERE different than most other studios. I wouldn’t have bought GW2’s hype from any other game company, because they had a proven track record of sticking to their guns and keeping their word.

It’s a fact this isn’t the ANet all of us veterans know.

Maybe the name of that jumping puzzle is just a coincidence, but I can tell you for sure some management pressure has been made and the ascended fiasco is not ANet’s style at all.

We’ll probably never know the details, but something has changed for sure.

It’s been posted already, but now that the “under new management” thing has surfaced it sounds like a confirmation:

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/crystin-cox/3/957/a77

It seems Nexon, which is known as a greedy company and bought a quote in NCSoft, pushed to have at least one of their people manage monetization in ANet.

Under new management

It looks less and less like a conspiracy theory that the good people at ANet, those who always said they were gamers first and foremost, and made the kind of games they wanted to play themselves, are trying to say to us: “sorry, it hurts us too, we have no choice anymore, we are under new management.”

dalendria.3762:

@Urxx I agree with what you said but your statement “don’t want to go back to horizontal progression” is troubling.

Rpgtabbycat actually wrote that, I was only quoting him/her

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

So it seems the community is now split into two groups over the Ascended gear.

1. The group that either does not care or is excited about the new armor and is looking forward to obtaining.

2. The group that believes ANet is going back on their promise about no gear progression and are upset to the point that they will quit the game and possibly attempt to get a refund.

I wonder which group is larger. I am sure though that whichever group affects Anet’s bottom line the most is the one they will cater to. Unfortunately companies exist to make money.

At this point though, if they choose to change the Ascended armor they run the risk of alienating those who are happy about the new changes and don’t want to go back to horizontal progression.

Changing things now, for sure will have a worse impact than if they did the right thing from the beginning: giving more content to those who hit the legendary wall without introducing vertical progression.

That said. While it’s obvious you can’t please everyone, when in doubt about who to please you should ask yourself who’s your core customer base, the most loyal and dedicated in the long run.

Right now ArenaNet is alienating those who are with them because of their unique values and characteristics and were highly unlikely to find similar core features in other products, and they are doing so to retain those who are easily bored and very high maintenance and will jump on the bandwagon of the next higly hyped mmo as soon as it’s released.

That, IMO, is a very poor business decision. Sure in the short period their logs could show that there isn’t a critical problem in the concurrent access, and their monthly events are well received, but when their current mistake will show its true, ugly face, it will be too late to intervene.

When your loyal fans are gone, and so is your credibility, those fans won’t come back. And when the content locusts are gone as well, you are left with empty servers and an MMO that was once great and then got ruined by a single, miopic decision.

Bardes.1870:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13ccl4/mystic_forged_a_quiver/

Just 1 day, someone already has a pink(red) backslot equipment.

Hopefully Anet has good schedule and does not underestimate the ability that how fast players can get upgraded-stat asc gears. ’Cause soon, those who had nothing to do will have 2 asc rings and asc back.

Well, I admit I’m wondering when you will break your promise again — to announce T2 ascended items.

Wow, so the legendary wall is still there. How long before the content locusts will start to feel bored again?

That’s a perfect example of what happens when you cater to those who consume more content than one can produce.

Shadow Blade.1324:

this apparently isn’t the feedback thread, this is the discuss amongst yourselves thread, looks like we should be making our views known in the actual feedback thread as well as discussing here

If the devs ignore the fastest growing thread in GW2’s history just because it’s not officially marked as feedback, then I don’t think what we say in the official thread will make any difference.

I’m pretty sure this isn’t the case.

Logun.2349:

Urxx.6840:

Logun.2349:

Guys we are not going to win this gear fight

Personally I don’t realize myself by fighting imaginary cyberwars on forums.

I’m not here to fight ArenaNet. I’m here because I don’t like where this is going to lead a game I personally loved and spent a lot of time into.

I’d rather be in-game playing than here posting. That was the case before this fiasco.

Well then you’re here protesting changes aren’t you because you want the game not to change …Right!

So if you’re here expressing an opinion then your fighting for what you believe to be the right course for the game is ….Right?

All I’m saying is Arena Net has their reasons they see this change as being needed, and you have your reasons you want it to stay the same as it is ….as I do, but we are not getting anywhere are we?

I’m trying to find a compromise here…. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/How-to-win-me-back-a-simple-compromise/first#post770150

I’m not opposing game change per se. It’s implicit an MMO is an ever-changing beast, and stagnation would kill it. I merely oppose this specific change.

I also never contested the so-called “Legendary Wall”, which is the problem that lead to the introduction of ascended gear, actually exists and is detrimental to part of the player base.

What I’m saying is that I’m sure there are lots of ways to provide progression to those who hit the legendary wall, without introducing vertical progression and making existing exotics more and more obsolete, wasting the investment the player base has already made in them.

Or in other words, you don’t need to make part of the player base feel betrayed and disappointed to solve a problem another part of the player base is experiencing. All it’s needed is a bit of creativity, and ArenaNet has shown plenty of creativity in GW2, so it’s certainly something that’s in their DNA as a company.

But in handling the legendary wall problem I feel they have settled for the cheapest and most harmful way of providing progression, instead of striving for more. It’s sub-par, compared to what they have achieved in GW2 so far.

I think it’s pretty simple really.

Logun.2349:

Guys we are not going to win this gear fight

Personally I don’t realize myself by fighting imaginary cyberwars on forums.

I’m not here to fight ArenaNet. I’m here because I don’t like where this is going to lead a game I personally loved and spent a lot of time into.

I’d rather be in-game playing than here posting. That was the case before this fiasco.

Ditrah.5128:

This is not a “gear-treadmill” for the simple reason that there is NOTHING in this game you can’t do in lvl 80 blues, that is the main difference and it is still there.
Nobody can inspect you and check what gear you use other then what skins you have on-top. I don’t think that every single player in this game like the same look, so anyone trying to cut you out of group because of it will be the fool impersonated.

In GW1 you couldn’t inspect people either, yet people would kick you off the party if you tried to do missions involving spectral agony and your armor wasn’t infused. How would they know your armor wasn’t infused if they couldn’t inspect you? Because of how fast you died as soon as spectral agony was cast on you.

Spectral agony…. infusion…. doesn’t this ring any bell? Yep that’s the mechanic they just introduced in GW2 to make ascended armor more and more relevant and all the other tiers but legendary more and more obsolete.

They took the idea from GW1. The main difference is: in GW1 you could infuse any armor via a mission. Here it’s only available to ascended and legendary tiers.

The way it is right now it’s a gating mechanic. In the beginning it will cut exotic and lower tiers owners off a tiny bit of content (Fractals over a certain difficulty scale), but as new patches go online, not having infusions will be increasingly limiting. Maye this doesn’t disturb you, and that’s fine because it’s subjective, but the fact it constitutes a u-turn from their previous and stated game design phylosophy is objective.

FrizzFreston.5290:

While I agree with you fully, it’s still worrying though.
And I feel that people in this age are too impatient and already had no faith in ArenaNet whatsoever. People are scared of every change. Hell, minutes after the patch was up, people were shouting (as usual) over the profession skill fixes.

People are just very passionate about this game, but there seems to be no stopping and drawing a line saying: “okay, let’s see how this works” There’s so many emotional responses here there doesn’t seem to be any room in order to step back, wait for the content review the content (Hell it’s free, so room enough to test, the game isn’t that bad, oh and you don’t have to pay them any money for it)

Try to get some of the ascended gear, see how long it takes you, if it’s really that bad that it makes you feel you want to bash your face into the keyboard for so long that your forehead reads QWERTY. Yes? Come back, and complain about this with some actual facts.

At least that’s what I’m gonna do.

The problem with waiting and seeing is that it won’t work.
They are sneaking in the new tier, and this patch will only introduce rings and back items, hardly game changers in themselves.

Before you will be able to see the full impact of what they started today (i.e. have full ascended armor and weapon sets), you will have to wait for months.

They hope people will get accustomed with the new status quo before its consequences are noticed by every player.

Now is the moment to give feedback and try and stop this mess. When the full impact of ascended gear on the game will be clear, it will be too late to do something. By then, the only options we will be left with will be to swallow this stinky stuff or to stop playing.

Personally I hate both.

Daredemo.2794:

Now, maybe they will address the players’ concern and rectify the situation in some manner. I’m not counting on game developers to have some humility and actually pay attention to their audience however, though I have heard that ANet is rather good in this regard.

In all honesty, up until this mess their reputation was earned with 7 years of sticking to their vision and keeping their word.

That’s why I’m here posting. I wouldn’t if I thought they were just the next scammy studio.

But as their silence continues and they refuse to say something MEANINGFUL (i.e. Mike O’Brien and/or Colin Johanson aknowledge they are going against what they personally promised and do something about it, instead of sending someone like the poor Lindsay Murdock or Chris Whiteside in the lions’ cage in their stance), my trust and respect are ticking lower and lower.

stof.9341:

I still have a little hope that we’ll be able to use that gift of ascension to turn any exotic into an ascended item sooner or later XD I just hope it won’t ask me for 250 ectos and 250 charged lodestones in the process.

If exotics were a required component of ascended the way precursors are a required component of legendaries, at least I wouldn’t feel like I’ve wasted my investment when I bought exotics.

Still, the fact they are FORCING me to upgrade my exotics, whereas chasing leggendaries was completely voluntary, is something I could happily do without.

Vorch.2985:

I don’t mind agony being present. Spectral agony was essentially the same thing in GW1.

What I take issue with is the means by which one can defend against Agony, and that is to infuse. Infusion is only available on ascended armor. That means I must have ascended armor to progress. The dungeon itself may or may not be harder; it is simply impossible to do with out gear.

And I do agree: Ascended could just add an aura/be cool looking/add an emote/etc.

So I’m not 100% opposed to infusions; I just don’t like how they are being implemented. Again, I’ll reserve my final judgement until I’ve played through. Also, if they add another tier, I’m done. That would mean Ascended armors were not successful in bridging the gap and they are just pulling a fast one on me.

Seriously, last week I held ANet on the same level as valve…idk wth happened. My only solace is that I KNOW that they listen and that if there is enough of an outcry, they have a history of making things right. If they don’t…idk.

Sure, if agony worked like spectral agony in GW1 and infusion was accessible to any armor via a mission or event, it wouldn’t be a gating mechanic anymore and in that case I wouldn’t take any issue with it.

The problem here is that, while in GW1 infusion was somehow part of the story, here it’s been introduced SPECIFICALLY to make ascended gear desirable. They didn’t want the new gear to be chased only for looks, because in that case there’s always personal taste involved, and some might not have liked it.

This way, you will be FORCED to acquire it if you want to be able to enjoy any content the way it is today with exotics.

stof.9341:

Urxx.6840:

If they do that, they also have to remove stats from infusions, otherwise ascended gear is still superior.

They can keep them if they are only turned on when your infusion counters some Agony. Would be appropriate even.

The problem I have with gating mechanics, is that if you accept them in a game, you don’t know where they will be applied in the future. Several sentences in Lindsay’s post point to the fact infusions will be needed more and more, maybe to counter other conditions or effects, as new patches go online.

If I need to have ascended gear to play an ever increasing portion of content, the one which is newer and thus more desirable, my exotics are still quite a bit pressured towards obsolescence.

This in itself is the negation of horizontal progression, which implies once you hit endgame further gear progression is just cosmetic and optional.

This was a strong selling point of the original GW2, and I can’t accept they change it now.

Columba.9730:

10 days off for thanksgiving, and I can’t look forward to logging on now. I am quite saddened by this. Why bother playing now? It seems pointless since I hate dungeons.

I hear you.

Vorch.2985:

I can understand Ascended armor being introduced with an infusion slot. It’s the stat increase that is really bugging me, now, especially since the game has been balanced for exotics.

With full ascended gear, my warrior main could tear through most classes with enough critical hits in less than 3 seconds. That’s a bit wrong.

Granted, I’ll wait to see how ANet plans on addressing these balance issues, but I think they created a problem.

Why not just have Ascended armor have exotic stats, except they also have a slot that Fractal protection can be slotted for?

Or better yet, just allow us to infuse exotic gear a la GW1 infusion, even if it’s only one piece per run.

I’m not against different tiers of armor. I’m against the imbalance that stat increases will impose.

If they do that, they also have to remove stats from infusions, otherwise ascended gear is still superior.

Also agony alone is a gating mechanic, so I’d rather remove slots and infusions completely and make ascended gear just very cool looking, with particle effects and whatnot.

It should be a sort of mini-legendary, but in the way legendaries where before this ugly patch.

Zyrhan.3180:

So… Yeah. I remain highly displeased, now that the patch is out. I bought a copy of the game for myself, 2 character slots, and another copy for a friend, who herself bought at least two slots. That’s the last actual money I’m spending in the game, and I would be very unsurprised if it was the last money she spent as well, since she’s considerably more upset about this than I am.

By the way, a lot of players don’t use forums at all, but they still are kept up-to-date by guildies that do.

In our guild it’s just two of us that lurk the forums (and now post because of this fiasco), and the others hear news from us.

I’m ready to bet that this isn’t uncomon at all and there are quite a bit of players who know about the situation, this thread, and are hugely disappointed by ANet’s (mis)behavior, even though they don’t post here.

Nymia.3256:

And you guys buying this whole “gap closer” thing.

How does pursuing Ascended gear, which is now necessary, move you closer towards Legendary gear?

Does it do that? Just wondering, since that was the problem and all, right?

Exactly. Ascended gear introduces a problem which is wastly superior to the one it was supposed to solve.

That to me can mean just one thing: the gap filling bs is just a lame excuse. For what, I don’t know, but it does look shady.

Vorch.2985:

I’m ok with this new tier because they said it bridges the gap between acquiring an exotic and acquiring a legendary.

I will NOT be ok if they add another tier to bridge ascended and legendary. That means that they were just BSing me.

IMO, they are fixing a flaw which existed. It may not be the best way, but I’m willing to give it a go.

I see you are buying their PR.
But think a bit deeper.

Which kind of gap was there between exotics and legendaries? A gap in looks and a gap in acquisition time. Stats were identical.

So, something in between the two should have been better looking and harder to acquire than exotics and less than legendaries. But its stats should have been identical to both exotics and legendaries, since there wasn’t any gap to bridge there.

Instead they have introduced a new gap in power that wasn’t there before and wasn’t even necessary to give those who hit the “legendary wall” something to chase.

Nobody here is against new skins that are cooler than exotics and easier to obtain than legendarie. We just want that they don’t touch stats and don’t introduce gating mechanics like agony.

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

The problem is, this isn’t just a betrayal of trust and a black mark for Anet – it really poisons the well for any future developer trying to create an unconventional MMOG without vertical progression or a standard end-game.

I go into more depth here at my blog on MMORPG.com.

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Meleagar/112012/24212

Very good post. I think it illustrates the feelings of most of us very well.

Strifetoe.4502:

Oh for the love of God, please stop posting on this thread, they are releasing it and theres nothing anyone can do..quit if you dont like it…you bought the game they have your money already. The people who dont like gear progression will quit and the people who do will start playing.

Besides I post wherever I want, and besides you are posting here yourself, why don’t you just refrain from reading?

The purpose of this thread is to post feedback on the new gear. If you want to say you love gear threadmills fine, like any other opinion it deserves respect, otherwise go grind your 4th legendary and leave us alone.

Northlander.4619:

I don’t mind Ascended gear to be honest. It looks to me like the stat boost is rather minor when comparing the stats to regular exotic gear. Actually I’m more annoyed that apparently I can’t slot sigils into them and for example my ranger is built to utilize Sigil of Fire.

Also both of my level 80 characters run mostly on masterwork (green) gear and I’m able to do even harder content like dungeons (i.e. Arah) just fine. I don’t really see the ascended gear changing that.

I’m more interested in their cool looks so I’m not going to start raging if something offers 10 points more in individual stats than exotic gear does currently.

Good luck doing more and more new content that requires infusions. Fractals are just the first step in that direction, and guess what? Infusions are only available on ascended gear.

Do you really think they would have developed this whole new tier without thinking of ways to make it increasingly essential?

According to them ascended gear was necessary to solve this horrible “Legendary Wall” issue that nobody ever complained about on these forums, so they are making sure everybody who wants to enjoy new content will have to take the pink pill.

Lindsay Murdock:

Players who wish to delve deep into the Fractals will find that Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must.

Cutterslaine.2689:

Urxx.6840:

treborag.3174:

I have no issue with this change as it relates to PvE/Dungeons. This is not for me, but it works for the majority of MMO’ers if WoW is any indication.

So far it worked only for WoW. All the other MMOs that tried to emulate WoW lost to the Emperor of Threadmill and went free-to-play pretty quick.

I’ve said it before but….I’d rather pay to play and get the game they promised us, than continue down this road.

I’ve said that as well and therefore I agree completely: if this is where a gem store leads a game, then I’d rather pay a monthly fee and be done with u-turns.

treborag.3174:

I have no issue with this change as it relates to PvE/Dungeons. This is not for me, but it works for the majority of MMO’ers if WoW is any indication.

So far it worked only for WoW. All the other MMOs that tried to emulate WoW lost to the Emperor of Threadmill and went free-to-play pretty quick.

Lothair.8942:

At the end of the day, it’s the things you say & do that define you. The lack of any meaningful response or communication with the community is what irks me. The rhetoric and misleading information may pull the wool over the eyes of the casual gamer, but for the vocal “minority” (which is growing daily) it’s not working in the least bit.

Regardless of the reasons behind the changes to the game theory, talk to us about it – tell us why you’ve decided to go back on promises and statements you made while designing this game. Communicate with your player base, the ones that are looking for some answers.

Also the vocal “minority” has been read over 100,000 times.

As someone else pointed out, that’s more than the whole population of most MMOs. Even if they aren’t unique hits, this thread is still quite representative of the whole communinty from a statistical point of view. The fact they are ignoring such monumental feedback is mind-boggling.

It shows they don’t know what to say. They don’t want to confront us and admit they were wrong in the way they tried to introduce progression. They don’t want to admit that they settled for the cheapest form of progression instead of being creative, while in the past they had pretty brilliant ideas.

Jairyn.6913:

Angry, but to addicted to quit? I think it’s pretty simple: don’t do fractals. Don’t grind gear.

Show them what a waste of time this is.

Even Blizzard realized it was a mistake when only 5% of players were doing Nax1.0/Sunwell.

I don’t plan on boycotting them in any way. Boycotting a company still takes an effort, and if they don’t retract this they don’t deserve any effort, even to boycott them or part of the content.

I will just play until my wish to log on will naturally dry out (and from how I feel right now it won’t take long) and then will take advantage of the European Law and ask for a full refund because the service characteristics are now conflicting with what they previously advertised.

Nerth.3940:

A very interesting quote on Guild Wars Wiki

I’m sure you saw that again in my most recent blog post. This industry just needs to move on. We’ve seen a bunch of “WoW 2.0” attempts, and who actually wants that? Do we really want to be playing those same game mechanics for another 5 or 10 years? —Mike O’Brien 20:22, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

We don’t Mike but I guess you’ve changed your mind.

There’s one thing that really annoys me about all this. In my mind I can’t really picture Mike O’Brien, which is a very clever person, authorizing such an idiotic idea, after he literally put his face in the MMO manifesto.

So the only explanation that seems believable is the fact Nexon creeped into NCSoft and now they are forcing ANet into their business model. I had dismissed this as a conspiracy theory, but ANet’s silence over this issue is making it look more and more real.

If that’s how things are, we won’t get any feedback and they will just steamroll over us.