I’m a bit old to rage-quit, but I haven’t played since they announced the introduction of ascended gear. And that’s not because I wanted to boycott them or anything, it’s just I don’t have the same drive to log on and play.
This fiasco has demotivated me completely. Instead of being excited for the new content (which I was before I read of the brand new threadmill) I’m looking at the GW2 icon but I don’t really feel any will to double-click it.
Dear Anet PR
May I suggest breaking silence with the below:
“We are listening to each of you and thank everyone for your valuable feedback. The team are committed towards an iterative approach and therefore are reviewing your concerns and evaluating the various options.
We sincerely apologize for any upset that the latest patch may have introduced and I promise that we are treating these concerns with the highest levels of resources available to us."
The hunkering down is just fueling the hate. Customers giving feedback deserve to be acknowledged.
1000 times this.
The trust of its core customer base it’s the biggest capital a company possesses.
Once it’s gone, it’s EXTREMELY difficult to rebuild.
ANet, your silence is doing potentially irreparable damage to your reputation. I can almost hear it ticking down.
You guys have to say something MEANINGFUL, not Chris Whiteside’s post, no PR crap, and you have to say it FAST.
I’m telling you, you are hurting your game and therefore yourself in the long run in a way you appearently aren’t fathoming at all.
Recognize that your solution to the “Legendary Wall” issue is much much worse than the problem it tries to solve, and announce your intention to review your decisions NOW.
The community has reacted strongly to your introduction of ascended gear, and it has voiced its concerns for the future of the game and its feelings of betrayal of the pact you had agreed with us in the form of your MMO manifesto.
Now you need to show us that the Manifesto wasn’t just a PR spin, or you will dig a trench between you and your players.
(edited by Urxx.6840)
It’s quite sad, really. No MMO thus far had managed to overcome the superpower that is WoW. Now that GW2 has chosen to attack on WoW’s homeland (that is, to introduce gear treadmill), where WoW has significant home advantage, GW2 has finally sealed its fate.
And what’s even more sad is: they are watching this happen. We are here posting and they don’t say anything meaningful.
With this decision they just triggered a downward spiral and they probably don’t even realize that.
The problem with downward spirals is that the most dramatic moment is when you trigger them. Then they start spinning very slowly and doing a very small amount of damage. But their speed and ill effects increase esponentially with time and, usually, when you see the effects they have amassed too much inertia and you can’t stop them anymore.
The trigger of the downward spiral is the introduction of merely two ascended items in-game: a ring and a back piece. Their initial effect on the gameplay will be negligible and easily overlooked. But when we will have full ascended sets, it will be too late to go back.
I’m perfectly aware of how overly dramatic it sounds, but it’s the very nature of downward spirals: when you eventually understand the dramatic tone was justified, it’s too late.
I saw something on Kotaku where Isiah Cartwright was doing a live Q&A. Someone asked a direct question about vertical progression which he neatly avoided answering properly.
Q: how important for you is vertical progression in GW2?
A: All progression is important to us, we want to make sure our rewards and progression systems hit a spectrum of players and makes everyone feel excited to play the game.
Was hoping to see more on the session but actually it was a pretty lame affair.
That in itself is a confirmation ANet now considers vertical progression acceptable: “All progression is important to us”.
The manifesto and 7 years of GW1 said only horizontal progression was acceptable to them. So that’s a confirmation of a u-turn if we ever needed one.
I wish Mike O’Brien never said in the Forbes interview that they wanted to surpass WoW. Now they are starting to suffer the same fate of any other game that tried to beat WoW: to start to “WoWize” itself, fight on Blizzard’s ground, lose the battle and in the process also lose all those players who were looking for a no-threadmill game because they were sick of WoW and / or its clones.
Can anyone link a statement where ANet promised that Exotic would be the max gear level? Without that…
They said that in plain English:
Lindsay Murdock:As we watch Guild Wars 2 mature in its Live environment, we have found that our most dedicated players were achieving their set of Exotic gear and hitting “the Legendary wall.” We designed the process of getting Legendary gear to be a long term goal, but players were ready to start on that path much sooner than we expected and were becoming frustrated with a lack of personal progression.
Since I have a feeling your reading skills lack significantly, otherwise you wouldn’t ask for proof that exotics were supposed to be the most powerful items, I’m going to paraphrase what you just read:
“Exotics were designet to be the best items in the game stat-wise. Legendaries only offered a better skin. But we designed the endgame poorly, and a lot of players had their exotics in no time. So we decided to introduce ascended gear.”
or
There wouldn’t be any ascended gear if ANet’s designers didn’t misjudge the average player’s ability to obtain best-in-slot items.
or
“Gosh, the content locusts are unhappy! Let’s trash all the money and time everybody else has invested in exotics and give hardcore players their new toys. Who cares if we said in the manifesto this wouldn’t happen?”
(edited by Urxx.6840)
9300 posts and probably 9000 of them negative… kinda a bad ratio Anet… pull your head out
postet from 100 people… how many are playing this game?
i can repeat myself over and over again just to fill this thread with comments… doesnt make it more decisive
just saying
Yet you won’t find another thread which grew this fast and has such negative feedback here.
ArenaNet is famous for listening to feedback. I think this thread shows a very clear reaction from the community. The fact this isn’t the whole community applies to any feedback, yet they listen to it carefully anyway.
something happened otherwise they would not had to come up with new gear this soon
the most obvious is a significant decrease of players…
the devs acutally live from money and not from a dedicated fanbase
why do people always tend to shout out loud or repeat what other people are complaining about, bevor even start thinking about the why!?
just stop those suggestive threats
and please stop pretending like youre the most important person in the world
if you pay ANet enough money to live from then they may design the game as you want it to be…till then its just all about to keep the numbers of players increasing
because that means money to keep this game/project aliveand no, they are not selling themselves, they just want to keep this game running and come up with new content and im sure that not all of them are happy with this decision
Nobody denies they acted on some kind of problem. We don’t have access to the logs, but I trust that if they say there was a problem that’s true.
My gripe with this whole thing is HOW they solved the problem. They could have been a lot more creative. There are many ways to offer people progression WITHOUT wasting previous progress and investments.
I understand why people don’t like it. But you don’t seem to comprehend why some of us do.
Everyone’s only reply to those of us who like it is just “Go back to WoW, since they perfected it”.
Learn to accept that everyone has their own opinion.
Nobody has a problem with the fact you like vertical progression. The problem arises because you are in denial of the fact this is vertical progression and it’s not what they said they would do with the game.
If you said “I see they aren’t doing what they said, since they introduced vertical progression, but honestly I prefer the game this way” nobody would argue.
They never come here to wrote somethings about.I don’t think that they waiting more pages on this threads for an answhere.
I think that there aren’t their fault for this, but NcSoft whit Nexcon want this.
And by the way I thought the Nexcon thing was a conspiracy theory, but ANet’s reluctance to actually address this (not how Chris Whiteside did, but actually communicating with us) is making that look more and more real.
I read your post, and comprehended it.
But your post does not quote them saying “There will never be a higher tier than exotic” or “Exotic will forever be best in slot” or “We will never for any reason add ascension gear”.
All it says is they introduced it because of a reason, that doesn’t say it wasn’t already on the drawing board; but just being postponed.
ON the contrary, they say clearly they weren’t expecting the reason that led them to introduce ascended gear to happen.
So, if you believe them, how could ascended be already on the drawing board if they weren’t expecting to need it?
Honestly, does it really matter whether or not ArenaNet said this, or that, or whether they were specific enough with the minutia of what they said, or whether or not it contradicts a video that they put out like two years ago?
Shouldn’t the point be whether or not Ascended gear represents a positive or negative change to the game?I just really don’t think it would make a difference if when you played the Manifesto video backwards at half-speed you could suddenly hear a demon saying “Kill your parents, drugs are good, in November of 2012 we’re going to add Ascended gear which is an 8% improvement over Exotic…”
There’s still no coherent argument, based on the merits of Ascended equipment and not what anybody said a year ago, that justifies their addition to the game, and there are plenty of arguments in favour of nipping the power creep in the bud.
If Ascended equipment was a good addition to the game, and ArenaNet had specifically said pre-release that there would never be Ascended gear, it would still be a good addition to the game, and should be added anyway.
If Ascended equipment is a bad addition to the game, and ArenaNet didn’t specifically say that they would never add it, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bad addition to the game, and should be pulled from the patch before it goes live.
I dissent, If I take a loss because I acted based on what you said and then you do something else, that damages me no matter if the thing you did is good or bad.
On top of that ascended is also bad. But them not keeping their words is a problem in itself.
Again semantics. They said legendary is on terms with exotic. They also said legendary will equal top in slot gear. They never said exotic would always be top in slot. Therefore legendary = whatever top in slot is. Therefore legendary = ascended now.
Is it really that hard to comprehend that you may have misinterpreted?
It’s all irrelevant. They stated clearly we wouldn’t have ascended, and therefore exotics would still be best-in slot, if they didnt make a mistake.
You don’t need to interpret MIke O’Briend or Colin Johanson. Lindsay Murdock said that very clearly: we introduced ascended because we weren’t able to design endgame properly.
Show me some concrete evidence that they stated clearly “We’re not going to add ascendant gear”
What are you talking about? Reread my post.
Exotic is soooo easy to get. You have money; therefore you have exotics.
Yet they weren’t able to predict people would hit the legendary wall very soon. It’s their words not mine.
Again semantics. They said legendary is on terms with exotic. They also said legendary will equal top in slot gear. They never said exotic would always be top in slot. Therefore legendary = whatever top in slot is. Therefore legendary = ascended now.
Is it really that hard to comprehend that you may have misinterpreted?
It’s all irrelevant. They stated clearly we wouldn’t have ascended, and therefore exotics would still be best-in slot, if they didnt make a mistake.
You don’t need to interpret MIke O’Briend or Colin Johanson. Lindsay Murdock said that very clearly: we introduced ascended because we weren’t able to design endgame properly.
Where/When did they state Exotics are the final tier?
It’s right here for you, in plain English.
Lindsay Murdock:As we watch Guild Wars 2 mature in its Live environment, we have found that our most dedicated players were achieving their set of Exotic gear and hitting “the Legendary wall.” We designed the process of getting Legendary gear to be a long term goal, but players were ready to start on that path much sooner than we expected and were becoming frustrated with a lack of personal progression.
Exotic gear was supposed to be endgame gear. it WAS endgame gear. But then they realized they had made a mistake. They had underestimated the average player’s progression. So to repair a mistake they did a bigger one and decided they would declass exotics and introduce ascended.
If players dind’t hit the legendary wall this quick, we wouldn’t have ascended. It’s right there, in the words of an ANet’s representative.
But we did because THEY made a mistake.
And so now the players who invested in exotics will pay ANet’s misjudgement.
Simple.
And sad.
Your argument is completely subjective to thinking “exotic = best.” Which they NEVER said.
Stop arguing.
Your argument that adding a new tier isn’t vertical progression is objectively wrong.
I respect those who say “I see it’s vertical progression but I like it anyway”. At least they aren’t in denial.
Anet is a good company I really beleive this, I mean they could have made it difficult for people wanting refunds but they have gone out of there way to provide a suitable system for it.
I’d rather prefer they go out of their way to stick to their design phylosphy. Also because I don’t want a refund, I want a game that follows what they have done and said in the past 7 years of GW1 and GW2 development.
The refund is just a last resort if they stubbornly insist on breaking their promises (you are welcome to disagree about my take on what happened) and therefore I feel cheated.
I came across a thought I posted in another thread. But some of you fellas seem to be rather busy here, so I wanted to run this by you as well. Aside from the ragers, many of you are excellent conversationalists. So, here we go!
I think many of us saw the image of the ring posted, and assumed there would also be a power ring, and a precision ring, a healing ring, etc. But what if there isn’t?
What if the ring shown, was the only ring? It’s stats base lined for running dungeons? Putting everyone on a plateau that they can design pve dungeons around. Modifying variable being your infusion, and whatever weapons you happen to take along. Sure, I could equip my higher DPS ring, but agony would down me. Again, now I am at a plateau that they can design the dungeon around.Thoughts?
I think it’s highly unlikely that there is only a stat combination. That would pidgeon-hole classes in certain builds, and that would go against the fact every class can play any role.
I can tell you now they’re not going to scrap Ascension gear and infusions. It won’t be added in sPvP and tPvP, but it’s coming.
So you guys have 2 choices.
a> grin and bear it, and hope they keep their word about no gear treadmill
or
b> leave and if you’re from europe try to get a refund after 600+ hours(which I think is stupid that you can do that).
There are a third option, and it’s the one we prefer.
Let them know through the official forums in a clear, respectful manor why we disagree with the design choice in the time leading up to and immediately after the implementation.
I’m not advocating something ridiculous like trying to get a refund on a product someone has already spent many presumably enjoyable hours on.
But letting a company know why you are dissatisfied with their product has a lot of value to the company.
I don’t think that’s ridiculous. If it turns out the product I bought is not the one that was advertised to me, I have every right to stop using that product and get my money back.
So by adding a new tier of equipment it’s not what they advertized and you should get a full refund after you’ve cost them money by hosting the servers for you to play on for 600 hours? Nice logic.
For me that extra tier means I can’t enjoy the game anymore. I bought the game based on the fact they advertised that there wasn’t nor the would have been vertical gear progression in the game. I can tell you for sure I wouldn’t have bought it otherwise.
If they break their part of the sale contract, the fundamental characteristics of the good or service, I can break mine, which is the compensation.
That said, if I wanted my money I wouldn’t have bought the game in the first place. So I still hope they retract and I can get the game I was promised.
I can tell you now they’re not going to scrap Ascension gear and infusions. It won’t be added in sPvP and tPvP, but it’s coming.
So you guys have 2 choices.
a> grin and bear it, and hope they keep their word about no gear treadmill
or
b> leave and if you’re from europe try to get a refund after 600+ hours(which I think is stupid that you can do that).
There are a third option, and it’s the one we prefer.
Let them know through the official forums in a clear, respectful manor why we disagree with the design choice in the time leading up to and immediately after the implementation.
I’m not advocating something ridiculous like trying to get a refund on a product someone has already spent many presumably enjoyable hours on.
But letting a company know why you are dissatisfied with their product has a lot of value to the company.
I don’t think that’s ridiculous. If it turns out the product I bought is not the one that was advertised to me, I have every right to stop using that product and get my money back.
I can tell you now they’re not going to scrap Ascension gear and infusions. It won’t be added in sPvP and tPvP, but it’s coming.
So you guys have 2 choices.
a> grin and bear it, and hope they keep their word about no gear treadmill
or
b> leave and if you’re from europe try to get a refund after 600+ hours(which I think is stupid that you can do that).
Stupid or not we can, and many of us will if we think we’ve been lied to and they don’t retract their stance on this.
I’d like to add to this
“Q: What of the level cap? Have you guys decided whether you’re going to be increasing the level cap in future expansions?
Colin: Yeah. The level cap will be 80 on the initial release of the game, and we absolutely would increase it further into the game, probably through expansions is the most likely place we would do that."
The above is from 2011 btw.
So what are people going to do if they raise the level cap with expansions, Something that has been stated in the past will likely happen, and has been documented around the net.
Was this missed by people before purchasing? It was all before release… how would it be any different having to gain another 10 levels and replace gear then than it is now?
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/40868-should-level-cap-rise-with-future-expansions/
or
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/938738-guild-wars-2/64181546
Unfortunately this was so far back apparently that all the links in those forums are dead, but they did state in the past there would be increases. There is no difference if this is the case.
Yeah and before that they had unlimited levels and then they got scraped from the game.
For a company that uses an iterative approach like ANet does, 2011 is jurassic. Unless they confirm now this is still their plan I won’t believe that to be the case.
Their game philosophy never said that there would be no higher tier than exotic though.
There’s already progression in this game. White -> Blue -> Green -> Yellow -> Orange/Red
Adding a new tier post release is vertical progression. Arguing that just because they didn’t say exotic means it isn’t vertical progression is absurd logic.
Also they stated clearly legendary was and was supposed to stay top tier. Exotic had the same stats so it was only logical to conclude that exotics would have been top tier stat-wise and the only difference between exotic and legendary would have been cosmetic.
There was no way someone could have imagined legendary weapons would have been boosted. Unless they shared the fact they were working on ascended gear and let players decide if they still wanted to invest on exotics or not.
But they witheld that information and I think it’s not too far fecthed to think it was because releasing it would have hurt their gem sales.
No I bought an MMORPG with a lot of PvE content and things to keep me happy. Just because GW1 didn’t have any vertical progression on gear doesn’t mean that GW2 has to have none.
I personally think Ascension gear will be the last tier, and I’m fine with that.
But you understand where we are coming from then right?
The game was advertised, hyped, and sold as not being about vertical progression. Precedent with Anet and GW1 has showed this to be the case and all the GW2 prelaunch interviews and information confirmed that this design principle was still driving GW2.
Now this is changing 3 months post release.
It’s quite simple why many are not thrilled.
Yes I understand where you’re coming from. But at the same time; I don’t believe they’ve broken any promises yet. Especially if this does turn out to be the final tier of equipment.
So according to you to break a promise you have to act against it more than once?
What part of this statement dont some of you understand?
Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.
I mean they have spelt it out for you guys… All im saying is have faith and trust what they say…
None, it’s pretty clear. Pity it’s contradicted by what they are doing and doesn’t address the real problem the community has with this new tier of gear: that it goes against years of interviews, manifestos and blog posts on their end.
I did NOT expect that after 3 months I’d never have to do anything ever again.
What you or I or others expected is totally irrelevant. What’s relevant is how they advertised their game phylosophy.
Which was to add content, not new tiers of gear.
That’s objective, while what you or I expect is entirely subjective and therefore adds nothing to this debate.
Would I have purchased the game had I had knowledge that they intended to infuse a gear treadmill, or gear progression system. When they repeatedly said that they would not?
They already clarified that the ascended tier isn’t the start of a gear treadmill model but just part of the big update to strengthen/fixes the progression of the game as a whole.
They just go vs their gaming phylosophy.
Even if this was the case, don’t you think that there is something unacceptable with advertising the game as avoiding the gear progression model for years and then suddenly adding it in a few months post release?
I’ll reply both at the same.
I don’t think it’s going to be a gear treadmill model because there’s no evident of it yet. They only released one tier, which is only one. As said by the dev around 11x page, they won’t like release stronger gears every few months. No one knows, ascended could be the only update for the game lifetime that is related to gear progression.I perceive the update to be more like strengthening the progression between exotic and legendary. The progression between these 2 tiers really needs a serious emergency fix imo. (I reached exotic like in 2 days after Lv80? I calculated legendary going to take unrealistic 8 months on my pace if I play 4-8 hours per day? That’s a big gap.)
Right, no one know, and devs let the door open.
Maybe this new set is the last stats tier… or maybe its only the first new stats tier.
Before to continue to play, and buy other Anet product, i really love to know what’s the Development line they decide to Follow, but without PR Blog or other kitten…
A straight Answer:1)Yes this is the only one STATS TIER we add in the whole Gw2 Life
2)No, we are going to develop new items with better new stats, increase level cap etc etc etc.
Keep silence here, when they know that most of the players here prefer the option number 1, make most of us thinking that they prefer the option number 2.
So why dont simply clarify this… they are humans as we are and think they are mature enough to confront with their community, but if we talk about business, i think that this silence (and not only on this tread) is really hurting this project.Let’s say they say 1). That would mean they have already deceived us once, because that tier wasn’t supposed to exist according to what they said for several years. So why would you believe them this time?
The only way they can keep their word and come out clean from this mess is by removing ascended gear altogether and giving infusion slots to exotics.
Call it a development error, during their live they see that esotics are too easy to acquire (even if its easy only for the players that can play 6\7 hours + in a day), and they decide to make another tier (less easy to make)
im a kind of persons that tend to give to the others a second chance, with reserve for sure… if you betray me again, its over… Forever.
Life has taught me to do that the first time you betray me, not the second one.
The ones who deserve trust don’t betray. The ones who betray once, usually do it again if you let them.
Adding a tier, that must have been in the works before the game went live, does not constitute a radical departure from their stated philosophy in my book.
If the tier was in the works before the game went live, why haven’t they spoken about it before, letting us players decide if we wanted to invest in exotics or wait for ascended.
Oh wait, they would have sold a lot less gems…
Why is everyone still crying about this?
If this was a genuine question and not a rethorical one it would be a good question. A question ANet should try to honestly answer.
They could understand a couple of things before they steer the game in a very dangerous direction.
Would I have purchased the game had I had knowledge that they intended to infuse a gear treadmill, or gear progression system. When they repeatedly said that they would not?
They already clarified that the ascended tier isn’t the start of a gear treadmill model but just part of the big update to strengthen/fixes the progression of the game as a whole.
They just go vs their gaming phylosophy.
Even if this was the case, don’t you think that there is something unacceptable with advertising the game as avoiding the gear progression model for years and then suddenly adding it in a few months post release?
I’ll reply both at the same.
I don’t think it’s going to be a gear treadmill model because there’s no evident of it yet. They only released one tier, which is only one. As said by the dev around 11x page, they won’t like release stronger gears every few months. No one knows, ascended could be the only update for the game lifetime that is related to gear progression.I perceive the update to be more like strengthening the progression between exotic and legendary. The progression between these 2 tiers really needs a serious emergency fix imo. (I reached exotic like in 2 days after Lv80? I calculated legendary going to take unrealistic 8 months on my pace if I play 4-8 hours per day? That’s a big gap.)
Right, no one know, and devs let the door open.
Maybe this new set is the last stats tier… or maybe its only the first new stats tier.
Before to continue to play, and buy other Anet product, i really love to know what’s the Development line they decide to Follow, but without PR Blog or other kitten…
A straight Answer:1)Yes this is the only one STATS TIER we add in the whole Gw2 Life
2)No, we are going to develop new items with better new stats, increase level cap etc etc etc.
Keep silence here, when they know that most of the players here prefer the option number 1, make most of us thinking that they prefer the option number 2.
So why dont simply clarify this… they are humans as we are and think they are mature enough to confront with their community, but if we talk about business, i think that this silence (and not only on this tread) is really hurting this project.
Let’s say they say 1). That would mean they have already deceived us once, because that tier wasn’t supposed to exist according to what they said for several years. So why would you believe them this time?
The only way they can keep their word and come out clean from this mess is by removing ascended gear altogether and giving infusion slots to exotics.
Would I have purchased the game had I had knowledge that they intended to infuse a gear treadmill, or gear progression system. When they repeatedly said that they would not?
They already clarified that the ascended tier isn’t the start of a gear treadmill model but just part of the big update to strengthen/fixes the progression of the game as a whole.
You forget ANet sat there doing and saying nothing, selling gems which in many cases would be used to invest in that same exotic gear they were making obsolete with the very work they were doing in that moment.
Nothing technically changed here though? Legendaries are still differentiated by their rarity as they will have the exact same stats as Ascended in they release the Ascended Weapons.
It will still be in line with the top tier item, thus that quote remains 100% accurate. None of the quotes even say Exotic will be the final tier. There’s still no grind in order to compete, you can still do the content, theres nothing you will miss out on, and Ascended Items are only a bit harder than Exotics to get. So no promises really broken.
You can play the semantics game as much as you want, but if you have only just a bit of intellectual honestly you’ll admit a week ago nobody would have thought that that quote was pointing to a new tier being introduced and legendaries increased in power.
The fact exotics were and were expected to remain best-in-slot was implicit because legendaries weren’t any more powerful than exotics even though they were the rarest of items.
When you induce someone to believe something by omitting a piece of information (in this case the fact they were workin on a new more powerful tier) you aren’t in good faith. ANet isn’t in good faith and has manipulated the community’s perception of the lifespan of exotics to induce people to fund their exotics via gem store.
You know what? If this is where a gem store leads a game, then I prefer a monthly fee.
Exactly, it all basically points to this being a decision, made long before release, to shift from the Guild Wars paradigm to more standard MMO fare. While still espousing the Guild Wars paradigm. These are the things at the core of my disapproval.
Not only that. I’m not one of those fundamentalists that says GW2 must be identical to GW1 in all its mechanics.
Departures exist already and a lot of them improve things.
But then, if you ANet want to be honest and respect your customers, you talk about ascended gear right from the start.
At least if I invest in exotics it’s an informed decision, because I know an higher tier is coming.
This way it’s not. It’s insulting our intelligence. Sneaking in a new tier like we were idiots and couldn’t understand the implications it carries with it, after you repeated for years that having to grind to get items higher in power was not ok.
Star Wars Galaxy got ruined. Ultima Online got saved by the changes. The game would have plain be closed a lot earlier without them. As said Origin at the time, either they gave Trammel to the players for them to move to, or they’d all move to Everquest which they were already doing massively.
So Origin lost hardcore PVP players that were the ones that weren’t interested in Everquest. The others did go anyway, even after Trammel, it just took a little longer.
This seems off-topic but it’s not. It’s never a good idea to alienate your core players. GW2’s core players are those who were fine with exotics being best-in-slot and progression being optional and cosmetic in nature.
This was the design phylosophy advertised by ANet and that they had respected up until now.
Now they are alienating those players to retain hardcore players, which they will lose anyway because they consume content faster than ANet produces it.
Yep thank you! sounds like a great patch, dont listen to the whiners pls its always the same in every MMO released so far there is always a vocal minority which just wants to
start dlane waes seems like they suceedet here one again^^
Who played Star Wars Galaxies or Ultima Online still remembers the day when they patched in the changes that would ruin the game forever.
All those times “vocal minorities” had warned the company, and they chose to ignore them.
And it turned out awfully.
Smart companies listen carefully to feedback, especially when they see a reaction like this which is unprecedented in the short GW2 history.
I’d just like to add that those of us with issues with the ascended gear system are excited for the other content.
It’s a bit unfortunate that’s its being lumped together.
The only issues we are sharing in this thread are that of gating and vertical gear progression.
All of the other content looks wonderful. No one is “looking a gift horse in the mouth” or otherwise disparaging the developers for the work put in to the Lost Shores events.
It’s really unfortunate that a very bad and miopic company decision overshadows the work of so many brilliant and exceptionally talented individuals who worked hard to give us some amazing new stuff.
This helps measure the extent of the damage done by this mess.
Wow. Content looks great! I’m really excited.
Thank you Arena Net.
Yeah I’m really excited about new content as well. If it wasn’t for ascended gear, this patch would be awesome.
This way it could be the beginning of the end of the GW2 they promised us.
The important word there is ‘if’. IF this is the start of a real gear treadmill, I’ll also be pretty kittened. I’m willing to wait and see what they’re actually doing before I start demanding ritual sacrfice, though.
If you check my post history you’ll see 90% of my posts are in this thread. Usually I play the game, not the forums.
The reason I’m here, is that when it will be clear that they took that route, it will be too late to go back, because they will have too many systems balanced around ascended gear.
Unless they provide some game mechanic that allows player to convert exotics to ascended, they have broken a promise and a premise of GW2’s design phylosophy, which was that after you got to exotics, the progression was just cosmetic. The so called “orizontal progression” everyone talks about in this thread.
Once that happens and we let them slip thru, there’s no going back. They are clever because they don’t patch in whole sets of ascended gear. They start small: just a ring and a back item and just one place where they make a difference.
But mark my words: they haven’t designed this whole new system to have some difficulty levels and a couple items. It will creep inside the game and expand patch after patch. And when you’ll realize GW2 is not what it was supposed to be anymore, it will be too late.
Which is one stance, sure.
However, I would argue that if what they are working is a design departure from years of public statements, press releases, interviews, and precedent, then they absolutely should be open and transparent of that process.
Actually after years public statements, press releases, interviews, and precedents that design departure shouldn’t exist at all. Period.
Even if they were perfectly transparent about it, it would still be plain wrong.
I understand that some posts may seem like it, but we are simply going off of clear statements by devs that directly intidicate a key design direction of the game is radiclly changing.
We aren’t raging, we are simply:
A. Voicing the direction we feel is best for the game and why.
B. Asking for a clear, non-pr speak, explanation of what is coming, and why.
So far, there have been no official statements that present evidence to indicate that this isn’t a departure from the previously touted horizontal end game. Raising the stat ceiling above exotic absolutely brings in additional (and to many of us, unwanted) vertical progression.
So to re-cap, we aren’t frothing, we are rational dissecting public statements by Anet devs and voicing our thoughts on those statements.
Well said. Clear and concise.
that actually reinforces the grind argument: 1300 relics and it’s not even ascended?
And it got worse stats than EVERY exotic 80 item in the game currently. Your point is? We don’t know what this item is at all.
You carefully edited out the part where I mentioned we don’t really know how many relics per run we’ll really get in the first place.
I didn’t edit out anything, I just quoted the part I was replying to.
- that 1300 relic item is exotic, not ascended
that actually reinforces the grind argument: 1300 relics and it’s not even ascended?
Right but why would you be repeating it to begin with if your not a progression player? Its no more difficult skill wise then the first other then you taking more damage from a dot. If you are sitting there repeating it to the point where you need the new mitigation, why is there a complaint about your exotic gear being obsolete? When its really not.
They are trying to give progressive players something to do. If you are a casual player your exotic gear is still top of the line well besides legendary gear which most people wont even attempt to get because its so time consuming.
I really don’t understand why it’s so difficult.
Right now I’ve got full exotic gear. I can do whatever I want knowing my gear is not limiting me.
That’s exactly why I invested time and gold in having a full exotic set of armor and weapons. Because we were led to believe this way our gear wouldn’t have been a limiting factor ever again.
Now it’s a limiting factor again. For now, just in the difficulty levels of the Fractals that go above a certain numer. After a few patches who knows.
You are fine that a company lies to you and makes your time investments less and less relevant. I don’t, especially since they advertised they wouldn’t. Simple as that.
When you first do the new content you dont need ascend gear. If you keep repeating the content then that dot gets stronger.
Which means you don’t need the gear to do the content. But if you continue to repeat it over and over and over you will eventually need the gear to mitigate the dot.
That is what they say for the info on the new gear and dungeon.
So how does that devalue your exotic gear when the new gear is not even required unless you are repeating the content over and over again for the sake of personal progression? It doesn’t, is the simple answer.
I’ve never said exotic gear would lock you out of the whole Fractals experience.
But it does lock you out the difficulty levels where ascended gear becomes a must (to quote Lindsay Murdock) otherwise you become a burden for your party due to Agony killing you fast. Those are the levels where you get the best rewards.
And this is the situation immediately after the next patch goes live.
In the future things will get worse and infusions will be more and more needed.
Don’t expect much from them as far as communication and honestly don’t believe much that comes from them. They haven’t been upfront about this and I doubt they ever will.
You know, a while ago I would have acted all fanboy to such a statement. I would have posted something like “Hey they’ve always kept their word, they don’t deserve this kind of attitude.”.
Now sadly I’m more inclined to agree with you.
Hows it more difficult? Are there different mechanics? No, the only change is that the dot you get is stronger does more damage…. it doesn’t take anymore or less skill then before only difference is you neekittenigation stat.
There’s a logic jump in your argument. You were arguing that the mitigation is not necessary, and now you are saying “agony is not that bad if you have enough mitigation”
Yes but to mitigate agony I need ascended gear. The need to mitigate agony is exactly what makes ascended gear a necessity for those who want to progress beyond a certain point of the Fractals.
In other words, you are locked out of what lies beyond that point unless you have ascended gear.
Q.E.D.
You missed the whole progressive part of the dungeons that pretty much say you dont need the new gear…. but as you repeat the content with your group it gets harder and harder till you do need it.
This lets casual players that dont like getting gear do the content and have fun with the challenge.
Then the progressive players that like to gear up can keep grinding it until its so hard they cant go any further until they get the ascend gears.
Why can’t you comprimise is the question now. You still get the game you were advertised… your not required to get anything to do anything, its all doable. They have simply added an option for different player types to do the same exact content but just hard mode basically.
Why do you assume that somone who is willing to try very difficult content is all happy to trash his/her exotics and start acquiring new gear to do so? Especially after he’s been led to believe this wouldn’t have been the case?
Even though this patch is particularly causal-unfriendly doesn’t mean it doesn’t damages other players as well. I’m one for instance.
Look… If you expect to NOT play this game and still be on par with everyobne your having a pipe dream. I cant beleive that anyone would egnuinley think that would be acceptable. If you dont play the game EXPECT to be l eft behind its perfectly natural. This smacks of people who want everything but dont want to put the effort in.
I don’t know what pipe dream you’re coming from but that model was working perfectly in GW1.
Why? Because when I want to be on par with other people, I want my skill to matter, not my gear. It’s called fair play.
To be honest, it’s people like you – who expect grind to give them advantage – are the ones wanting advantage for free in my eyes.I don’t expect to be on part with achievement points or gold or whatever, I expect to be on par in the stats. That’s what GW1 offered and that’s what GW2 was supposed to offer. There are plenty of the game areas where you can farm, grind, shine and impress the more you play – kitten points, gold, shiny armour… Just not stats.
I’m not even mad at people like Jezath. They like a certain kind of gameplay and it seems they are getting it now. Not their fault if ANet is inconsistent with their stated and advertised design phylosophy.
Who I’m mad at is ANet. They acted all rightous while spreading hype and catering to those who hated threadmills, and now they realize they did a design mistake and players got exotics too quickly and what do they do? They wink to threadmill lovers.
Way to lose all your credibility.
How do you know it wont all be optional? They are setting it up so that its already optional, and giving you plenty of time to obtain said gear. It’s not like Agony will be a factor in WvW all of a sudden…
It depends on what you do. If you bought GW2 mainly for PVE, it will be less and less optional. In the beginning the content you won’t be able to do will be minimal, but in time it will increase.
And it’s not merely a matter of how much content either: the content you won’t able to do will be the most recent and new, and so the most desirable.
“Increasingly difficult” does not mean “unbeatable.”
Which part of this sentence isn’t clear to you (emphasis added)?
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.