Guild Wars 2

Namu.5712:

Its all part of the ride for me. I view this situation alot differently I think. I don’t really support a gear treadmill. But I am not hurt about my exotic sets not being the best anymore. I would be pissed if I lost my 100% explored though……I hunted for some of those spots! :P

I respect the fact you see things differently. But there are things that are objectively wrong, and even if those wrong things for some reason don’t disturb you, who does them is still making a mistake.

The way you would react if they took your 100% world exploration shows just that: it’s the same principle, applied to something you happen to accept less than having to get a new tier of gear.

TheIronFistOfDeath.3016:

Urxx.6840:

TheIronFistOfDeath.3016:

I see no problem with ascended gear so long as it doesn’t become a requirement to play content.

It will become more and more of a requirement to play an increasing amount of content

Unless it doesn’t.

Don’t you love circular rhetoric?

Except Lindsay Murdock said it will.

Namu.5712:

fixit.7189:

Yea, I am not quitting. I will grind in PvE like a good little hampster so I can go back to Wv3 eventually. Not going to like doin that tho, it will be forced on me.

And also I will have to somehow figure out how I am going to come up with a couple 1000 gold so I can afford to buy legendary weapon sets. I need at least 3 to start (1 staff + 2x daggers). This is going not going to be enjoyable at all. Guess I could spend RL cash like most….but I don’t wanna…

Guys, you aren’t reading.

Though lied to already but:
Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content.

Still they took our achievement of having 100% best-in-slot gear and trashed it. While they are at it they could take our gifts of exploration, remove 100% explored world and keep adding new territory necessary for the achievement. It’s the exact same thing.

Lothair.8942:

Urxx.6840:

For technical reasons, even if they listen to feedback I don’t expect them to pull the patch.

In order to restore my faith in them, for me it would be enough to get an official statement saying they underestimated the negative impact a new tier of gear would have on the community and they would either publish the patch without ascended gear or immediately start working of pulling ascended gear from the game and giving infusion slots to exotics.

Giving some way to exchange exotics for ascended equivalents would also prove their good faith and the fact the introduction of ascended items will be a one-time event and won’t waste previous investments from the players.

Don’t hold your breath Urxx – this is going to go live with little to no more communication from ANET. Now they are somebody that I used to know.

If I have to be realistic I have to agree with you.
And great song btw.

TheIronFistOfDeath.3016:

I see no problem with ascended gear so long as it doesn’t become a requirement to play content.

It will become more and more of a requirement to play an increasing amount of content:

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.

In the beginning it will be just part of the Fractals, but they have stated the system will be expanded.

Lindsay Murdock:

This is just the beginning. In November, we’re only adding the first level of Infusions and Ascended Rings and Back slots, so that leaves us a lot of room to build upon these levels of Item progression in future content.

For technical reasons, even if they listen to feedback I don’t expect them to pull the patch.

In order to restore my faith in them, for me it would be enough to get an official statement saying they underestimated the negative impact a new tier of gear would have on the community and they would either publish the patch without ascended gear or immediately start working of pulling ascended gear from the game and giving infusion slots to exotics.

Giving some way to exchange exotics for ascended equivalents would also prove their good faith and the fact the introduction of ascended items will be a one-time event and won’t waste previous investments from the players.

Jezath.7395:

Well this is also true for people in white gear compared to blue, or blue compared to green. Its always been the case, why so worried now?

Because it was always clear that there were tiers beyond blue, green and yellow. If one decided to invest in one tier knowing it wasn’t best-in-slot, it was an informed decision.

Now exotics aren’t best-in-slot anymore, but who invested in them didn’t make an informed decision.

Wildclaw.6073:

Urxx.6840:

Someone else affirmed what you just said, but so far nobody has provided any evidence whatsoever backing those claims.

I have seen the video but can’t see to find a working link to it. The actual quote is well spread and has been for a long time:

“Yeah, the level cap will be 80 on the initial release of the game, and we absolutely will increase it further into the game” – Colin

The reason why a quote is needed is also to put that kind of statement in context. In the early phases of the GW2 development they weren’t even sure they would have a level cap at all.

Even if that sentence does in fact come from Colin Johanson, it could mean nothing unless is very recent.

ANet uses an iterative approach to their production process and that idea could now be obsolete.

FrizzFreston.5290:

If they released this tier, and this rarity from the start, there wouldn’t be an issue.
But because they underestimated the players, and exotic gear was attained way easier and faster than expected, they’re trying to fix that.

That’s how it looks to me. They wanted the maximum gear to be this hard to attain from the start, except it wasn’t. (see legendary weapon stats being higher than exotic, at first. )

Exactly.

Or, in other words, they are saying

“Hey, we did a design mistake, underestimating how much time it would take the average player to get exotics. So even though we dind’t say anything at the beginning about a new tier and thus led everyone to invest in exotics because nobody could see ascended gear coming, why don’t we just make them pay for our misjusdgement and waste their efforts, instead of thinking of a better and less disruptive way of solving the problem?”

Jezath.7395:

Correct me please if i am wrong but they dident say if it would be legendarys or not. They just said they will be upgrading items already ingame to bring them inline with the new gear and make it so that it was not a wasted effort to get those items.

I wish you were right but I’m afraid it’s only legendaries:

Lindsay Murdock:

Legendary items were always intended to be on par with other “best-in-slot” items. So fear not, all existing Legendary weapons, which are currently on par with Exotics, will be upgraded to be on par with Ascended weapons at the same time that we add Ascended weapons to the game.

Hermes.7014:

It’s unevitable. With new content will eventually come a level cap increase, perhaps a new level of traits and more powerful weapons and armor.
Guild Wars 2 began differently, but will become similar to the vast majority of MMOs.

I’m even fine with that, though as long as gear elitism and farm/grindfests are kept off the game.

Yet they had managed to keep GW1 alive 7 years, releasing 3 campaigns and 1 expansions, without ever raising level cap. Nor gear power. 7 years after launch, there still wasn’t a single amor set that was more powerful than any max level armor present at launch.

All their behavior up until now had pointed to them doing the same on GW2. They have proven it’s entirely possible, so it wasn’t so implicit as you make it to be that they would take that route.

Quite the contrary.

Namu.5712:

But, didn’t they say they would be increasing level cap? And that they would be releasing new gear? Naturally that would make old gear obsolete, wouldn’t it? Or was it expected that the old 80 gear would maintain the same stats as say 85 gear.

I keep pretty up to date but I can’t remember a single instance where they stated they would raise level cap, or that newly released gear would be more powerful than exotics.

Someone else affirmed what you just said, but so far nobody has provided any evidence whatsoever backing those claims.

phooka.4295:

Yes, exactly, once I have 6 pieced of legendary armor, 2 legendary weapons and legendary trinkets, I’ve escaped the treadmill!

Oh wait…
…there’s no legendary tinkets or armor.
…legendaries don’t have infusion slots; even if their stats are raised, they still won’t shield me from agony so I’d still have to grind (for infusions).
…I can only make two legendaries per character.
…

But apart from those minor details, I agree, your point is valid.

Just for the sake of truth legendaries will have infusion slots, but that doesn’t detract one tiny bit from your point which is still completely valid.

Jezath.7395:

I agree with you ganzo and i feel the same way. I do. However I really truly beleive that this is not happening here. They are upgrading the stats of gear already ingame. Im sorry if im starting to sound like a broken record here but really, people seem to be missing this major point.

They are upgrading the stats of legendaries, not exotics. Legendaries are owned by a tiny percentage of the player base, and so far are only limited to weapons anyway.

All armors and most weapons today are at most exotics (because stat-wise there isn’t anything better in the game) and will become more and more obsolete.

Which is the opposite of what was promised in the manifesto and in other statements by ANet representatives.

Namu.5712:

They could have taken a cool approach to this. Rather then inserting a new tier of gear with the new content they could have simply created a sick gear set that is so amazingly detailed and awesome that you would be a fool not to run the new content for the gear. However, not everyone cares about looks, so while a great many people would be excited for the new content. Many just wouldn’t care. And just not bother because there is no “omg i gotta have that!” factor.

Which is why I think they need to shift their attention and focus on a much more controllable and predictable outcome. And that is peoples lust for competitive play and being the best.

The fact an increasing amount of new content would require infusions to be enjoyed would have motivated most players to obtain infusion slots on their exotics whether they liked the looks of the new supercool sets you can get in the fractals or not.

BUT

Their exotic gear was still top in power and they weren’t lied to.

That’s all I’m saying.

I’m fine with agony.

I’m fine with infusions and infusion slots.

I’m NOT fine with being lied /manipulated / deceived / however you want to call it and with game phylosophy u-turns after I’m already invested in a game.

Namu.5712:

I guess im indifferent about what was “promised” vs what is going to happen.

For me the game is fun. But is quickly getting…stale? maybe boring? I don’t know but somethings gotta give for me to want to log in. And this is after some months of hardcore WvW, perhaps its a bit of pvp burn out with no real progression competition wise… well server rankings but those mean nothing in the current state of WvW. Pve wise I like the mechanics but feels like there is something missing. And that’s not to imply that I think new gear is missing… just theres something that makes me say meh why bother.

I completely agree on the need of new content, and I saluted their announced plans of publishing a content patch every month with great excitement.

What I say, is that the new content in enough to make the game less stale and more alive and evolving. You don’t need to make the past efforts of people irrelevant to achieve that.

Do you really think that if they didn’t introduce ascended gear, allowed us to add infusion slots to exotics via quest/mission/event/wathever, and retained the agony / infusion mechanic the game would have been a lot less fun than what it will be the way they are doing this?

It would have brought the same amount of freshness and content, without making exotics obsolete and rightfully upsetting those who invested in them based on their statement that GW2 wouldn’t have power creep.

Jezath.7395:

I really am not sure why this is such a problem, for myself I also spent alot of cash/time on exotics and getting geared out. But I am very happy with the new ascended gear as I know it will add months and months of more enjoyment for me, this time however i wont have to do AC a load of times to get my exotics/cash/tokens I can do the fractal dungeon and get the peices from doing the bosses there.

That’s a very good attitude. But if one has the benevolence and equanimity of the Dalai Lama and takes a wrong thing in a very good way, that doesn’t make the wrong thing right.

Namu.5712:

I should have made myself a bit more clear… discussing it is fine. But making assumptions and freaking out over the unknown future of what this brings is a bit uncalled for.

Because we really don’t have an info on how the gear is obtained in the first place, do we get it as we progress in the new content? Is it a karma farm + some other currency? Special items to be used in the forge? I mean no one knows how it will be obtained. Its just instant omg the end of the world GW2 is a wow clone now!!! and that kind of thing is really…. well pointless. Its like the people in real life every few years freaking out about the end of the world… then comes the day the world is supposed to end and what do ya know it just keeps on rollin.

And yes I am concerned. My concern is how do they fix the broken end game without turning it into something that revolves around gear and stats. I have no problem with a little gear progression, its nice…. in small doses and when the content is complimented by it and your not running the content over and over again hoping for the gear.

Like I said above they need to introduce player competition. So that you do have a goal in game… but the goal isn’t exactly gear, its about being the best. And it being known that you are the best at whatever it is your doing. This could be done several ways.

But I digress, we still don’t know how this is going to pan out. It might not be bad. It might be horrible, in which case they will definitely hear about it.

See, but the fact they are introducing a new tier after they led everybody to invest in exotics and without any previous warning is damaging to most players and puts a shadow on their reputation, no matter how you acquire ascended gear.

Whether it will take time and/or money and/or karma is irrelevant from this point of view.

Mil.3562:

Sigh. You guys can comment, argue, protest and disagree till page 1000. Nothing will change.

Ascended Gears are coming and they are here to stay. And probably more tiers to come in the long run.

I will be going back to LOL while waiting for the next MMO.

Mil I genuinely hope you are wrong and ANet does what it did in the past: listen to community feedback and understand that they got a certain idea wrong and have the courage to do what it takes to make it right.

Namu.5712:

One way to counter gear progression while still offering progression is things like personal ELO, leaderboards, titles etc etc. I have no idea why these things aren’t already here really.

This gives people a sense of accomplishment, and competitive spirit without the need for a gear boost every few months with updates.

On that I agree completely. There are many things ANet could have done to give a sense of progression without making previous progression (i.e. the acquisition of exotic gear) more and more maningless.

Namu.5712:

You don’t know their plan, and you don’t know what this change means. So sitting in the forums throwing a fit about it is a exercise in futility.

One of ANet’s strenghts up to this point has always been their ability to listen to feedback.
I firmly believe that whoever understands the danger and mechanics of downward spirals agrees that you have to discuss now the potentially devastating effects of this patch in the long run, because when you will see those effects it might be too late to counter them.

I’m here posting because I love this game and I don’t want to see it down the drain.

The fact you yourself are posting here means you feel the same.

So, no staying here is not an exercise in futility.

Chrissle.8690:

But only ANet knows which part is the majority and which part is the minority. I dont say you can cater to all players but it´s better to cater to as many players as possible. Who knows, maybe they are trying this out to see how many of the players likes it and how many dislikes it. If the majority dislikes it, they might change it again. It is ni their power to do so. But if it turns out the majority likes it then the people hating it is just going to have to suck it up or move on. That´s how it works. As you said a game cant cater to everyone.

Majority or minority is not all. Casuals, who are the ones most likely to be hurt and disappointed by this patch, are likely the ones who spend more money on the gem store.

On the other hand hardcore gamers, who are the ones this patch it’s most aimed towards, are the ones who don’t need to spend much money in the gem store because they have plenty of gold.

The problem with pleasing the hardcore gamers is that it’s an impossible task. They consume content much quicker than ANet can create it.

So what they are doing is to alienate those who spend more money in the gem store to keep hardcore gamers fed for another week.

Sorry but the more I think about all this mess and the darker the future I see for GW2.

Healix.5819:

It’s been known for over a year that there was a good chance that exotics would be surpassed by level 81 gear. They did after all say that they “absolutely would increase the level cap, probably with expansions.”

Quote or it never happened.
Mike O’Brien and Colin Johanson have been quoted several times in this thread saying the opposite.

Chrissle.8690:

There´s one flaw in your philosphy about only farming for looks though. Imagine a new dungeon coming out. Only new looks on the dungeon sets, not better stats. 50% of the player base likes the looks, 50% hate them. What incentive do the 50% that hate the looks of the new armor have to do the content? What ANet is trying to do is cater to all kinds of gamers, not just one kind. I´m not saying either way is better than the other but most of the posts I see in this thread is like this “waaah waaah mommy they are not doing what I want. How can they be so mean to me. I´m gonna quit this game and tell all my friends that they shouldnt play it anymore. Am I doing good mommy? waah waaah”. Kinda like that. Not all of you are like that but majority that I have read in this thread. =)

The point is not how smart it is to base progression on looks. The point is that that was a selling point for GW2. GW2 was advertised to have horizontal progression and no gear threadmill.

The fact some like cosmetic progression as the only way to progress and other dislike it is irrelevant. What’s relevant is that they led people to buy their product based on a feature that they subsequently removed.

Pants.8315:

It’s a gear step. A treadmill implies it’s continuous. No where have they stated they will be adding anything beyond Ascended gear. In fact they explicitly said they were not intending to keep adding better tiers of gear.

They had led us to believe exotics would never be surpassed in power. Why do you trust them this time?

Pants.8315:

The gap in the investment required to acquire said items, time, resources etc. Currently Exotic items require a fairly small investment, where as Legendary items require a monumental investment.

Ascended items are presumably intended to fill the investment gap between the two. i.e. they take a while longer to get than exotics, but not as long as Legendary items.

You can still do that by giving infusion slot(s) to exotics. The time investment to get infusions would still be significant without making exotics obsolete.

But no, they had to break their word.

Pants.8315:

No they haven’t.

not ever three months…

How long has Guild Wars 2 been out…3 months!

Now look back at the sentence. They are saying, yes the game has been out 3 months and we are adding a new tier of gear to bridge a gap we left in original release, that doesn’t mean in another 3 months or more we aren’t going to be adding new tiers of gear.

They are effectively acknowledging that the game’s been out three months, but they aren’t setting a precedent by adding this set now. It’s a one time only deal.

You know, if from the very beginning they had said there would be a further tier of rarity which whould include the unique possibility to equip infusions and counter otherwise uncounterable conditions, then it would be a rather different situation.

Investing on exotics before that tier was implemented in the game would have been an informed decision.

But like this…. this is a betrayal of our trust.

Kandrick.8054:

I thought the Halloween event was exceptional and I have no reason to believe that the Lost Shores event will be any less. I am looking forward to the event now and will weigh up the pros and cons of the changes when I come to it and make my mind up then if it is for me or not.

I thought halloween was exceptional and don’t expect Lost Shores to be any less, because ANet is blessed with exceptionally talented individuals who love games and put that extra effort to make their game the best they can.

That makes this terrible decision about ascended gear even more sad.

xelynruk.6983:

The last paragraph is relevant to the “problem” in that this game is new and the direction in which is headed isn’t set in stone. No one really wants to chase after stats every three months. Anet has stated that a treadmill is not their intention. We won’t know the difference until they actually do.

While it’s fine to protest the periodic addition of gear tiers to the game, it’s not acceptable to refuse an update that may or may not set a precedent for future updates. We simply do not have enough information to judge Anet one way or another at this point, and proof by intimidation is not proof at all.

What you and a lot of other poeple don’t understand is that even if ascended gear is the first and last tier they add after release, they have already made a whole class of gear obsolete, they have already ignored the time and effort and in some cases real money people put on exotics based on their stated phylosophy of horizontal rather than vertical progression.

It takes only one betrayal of trust to damage your reputation and alienate customers from then on.

For me, in 7 years I play ANet games, I’ve never seen them do anything like this, I don’t care how slowly they will introduce ascended gear or how difficult it will be to acquire. What I care about is they led the community to believe exotics would never be surpassed in power, people invested in exotics based on that, and that’s not the case anymore.

Will exotics become completely useless all of a sudden? Of course not. It will take time before one will be able to have full ascended sets. But it’s still a step in a very wrong direction, because eventually those exotics that according to them should never have been surpassed will in fact be obsolete. Eventually, teams who do an increasing amount of new content requiring infusions, won’t invite those who aren’t equipped with full ascended gear.

This isn’t the ANet I got to know and love, which would go out of their way to keep their promises. This is a new ANet I don’t like, and I can’t trust anymore.

Falcon Night.4653:

Don’t really understand the big deal here, sort of like some of the posters in this thread:
You need ascend gear to do Fractals of the Mist, ok.
You need to do Fractal of the Mists to get mats for Mystic Forge for RNG to get Revanant gear, for Dungeons of Light, ok.
You need to complete Dungeons of Light to get Wildheart Rainment/Beaststalker Armor/Magister’s Regalia to complete Blackrock Depths, ok
You need to complete Blackrock depths to equip 24 of your friends with Felheart Rainment/Beastmaster Armor/Socerer’s Rainment to complete Heart of Fear, ok.
I really do not see a problem.
My Druid would really look cool in the Felheart gear. And I’m thinking of speccing Balance. But might also put a few points in Restoration depedning on whether my guild needs more healers or DPS.

Nice sarcasm sir
/applaud

xtorma.1283:

What else is kinda sad is that some folks spend rl money on transmutaion stones to get thier armor looking just the way they like it because they thought they had the final tier completed.

so if they have 0 transmutation stones left. they have to buy 10 more in order to get thier look back, because they only come in sets of 5 and you need 6. So not only did they add stats, but they added a potential gold/rl cost to upgrading as well.

Sneaky stuff there

Not only that. A lot of casual players compensated their lack of time with real money and bought their exotics via gems -> gold.

They did that because ANet always gave the impression that exotics would never be surpassed in power.

Now the real money those casuals have spent on exotics will be more and more wasted as ascended gear creeps into the game and forces you to upgrade if you want to experience an increasing amount of new content that requires infusions.

ReeferKeeper.1865:

I don’t see people saying LFGM with ascended gear only anytime soon

Not anytime soon because they are just introducing rings and back items atm, but it will happen eventually when there will be people in full ascended gear and agony and other conditions which require infusions will be widespread.

But by then the downward spiral will be in place and it will be too late to save GW2 from decadence.

ReeferKeeper.1865:

People don’t even say that about exotic gear

Currently there isn’t any condition that can’t be cleansed and requires a specific tier to be countered. Again, when conditions / mechanics that require infusions will be widespread, things will chage. mark my words, if ANet doesn’t retract from this ascended mess.

Dedalus.3065:

They stated that the tier is between exotic’s and legendaries, correct. But you must remember that there’s a big difference in the acquisition of legendaries and exotics. For legendaries, you need to grind every part of the game. For exotics, you need to grind one part of the game. Their goal could very well be to eliminate the grind that exotics require by spreading it out across all aspects of the game (like legendaries).

How much gring will be required to get ascended gear is completely irrelevant IMO.
The problem here is not how difficult or time consuming it is to get ascended gear.

The problem is rather that the introduction of ascended gear constitutes a very bad business decision.

1) it alienates casual players, who most realistically invested real money into their now obsolete exotics via gems and who would have continued to spend money and support the game if ANet didn’t spit on their past effort.

2) It pleases hardcore gamers, but they will be here whining because they are bored one week after the patch goes live.

What happens is that to please a fraction of the player base which is virtually impossible to please, they are alienating those who factually support the game via gem store.

Also in doing all this they break their own previous design phylosophy and promises which were to have cosmetic improvement instead of power creep. They are stepping on Blizzard’s ground, were they will be destroyed because Blizzard is much better than them at the threadmill game.

BondageBill.4021:

IMO, ANet can make 90% of the people in this thread happy with two relatively simple changes:

1. Make Ascended base stats equal to those of Exotics.
2. Make a toggle for whether Agony (and the subsequent loot bonuses) affects your group. This could be a party vote, similar to exp. paths today.

These two changes make excellent compromises for both the crowd that does not want stat inflation and the crowd that wants gear progression.

Anti stat inflation: Ascended gear remains equal in power to current Exotics. New dungeon content is available with Agony turned off to allow for casual runs with limited loot-potential (read: current dungeon reward level). All content is available to this group without invalidating previous gearing efforts or introducing power creep through stats.

Gear progression: Ascended gear grows in power (for dungeons) through infusions, providing continued gear progression. More difficult dungeons (as far as Agony inflates difficulty) provide better loot rewards. This group gets a progressive, and potentially competitive, PvE mode.

Even better:

trash ascended gear entirely and give infusion slots to all max lvl exotics, either automatically or via quest/event/mission/whatever

OR

transform max lvl exotics into equivalent ascended items via quest/event/mission/whatever

The progression will still be there in the form of collecting infusions and new ascended gear but at least they won’t make all exotics obsolete all of a sudden.

The idea of agony/infusion was taken from GW1, but the fundamental difference was that there you could infuse any max level armor by doing a mission. You dind’t need a new special tier of rarity.

krookie.6378:

It boggles my mind. Introducing infusion to exotics would’ve accomplished the same thing as this ascended gear and maintained the horizontal progression scheme.

I don’t buy that “fill the gap between exotics and legendaries” nonsense either. There is no gap. Legendaries require a huge grind to get and that grind is not going to change if they add an item that requires less grind than legendaries but more grind than exotics.

I don’t mind a higher tier if it’s added with an expansion but with a content patch 3 months after the game’s release? Especially when certain slots don’t even have exotic or even rare items?

Exactly. And if by gap they intended a gap in acquisition time, then an infusion slot on exotic gear would have done anyway. Having all your gear fully infused still required an acquisition time which is higher than plain non infused gear and lower than legendaries.

Mission accomplished without upsetting all those who have spent remarkable amounts of time and virtual or real money to gear up all their toons in full exotics which now don’t grant access to all future content anymore.

krookie.6378:

The drops will more than likely depend on a RNG, just like they do everywhere else in the game. In other words, you can do the dungeon a few times and never get drops usable by your class or spec, thus locking you out of the content until you get lucky.

And anyway, why introduce a new tier making exotics obsolete altogether, after they have led us to believe exotics were the most powerful items in the game stat-wise?

Why not just add infusion slots to existing max level exotics and legendaries, either automatically or via quest/event/mission/whatever?

UnderdogSMO.9428:

OH kitten@@@$)#$Q(Y *headdesk working as intended

the fractals are a gontlet like progression bassed new game type in the mist that you can do at any level. It dosnt lock you out. you can go in fight your hart out untell you cant fight any more Get new gear and do it all over again getting more and more gear each time

THUS being able to fight longer and longer each time. you are not locked out of jack

Which part of this extremely simple statement isn’t clear to you?

Lindsay Murdock:

In the upcoming Fractals of the Mists dungeon, we’ll introduce a new monster condition called Agony.
This extremely dangerous condition ticks percentages of player health away and can’t be cleansed by normal means

When you will start dieing fast in your exotic gear because you are eaten alive by a condition that nobody can dispel, a condition you can’t counter in any way, because your gear lacks infusion slots, your party will lock you out of content, kicking you out and giving your spot to someone who has ascended gear.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

But all infusions do is negate agony

No I think that’s the effect all the types of infusions have, but they have other effects as well. If all they did was to negate or mitigate agony, what would the point be in having different types (offensive, defensive, omni)?

Lindsay Murdock:

Infusions are a special new type of Upgrade Component that can only be slotted into special Infusion slots on gear.
There are multiple types of Infusions and Infusion slots. In November, we’ll introduce Offensive, Defensive, and Omni Infusions of Fine rarity from new Mystic Forge recipes. Infusion upgrade types must be paired with their like slot, with the exception of the rare and versatile Omni Infusions which can be slotted into any type of Infusion slot.
For now, Infusions slots can only be found in gear of a new rarity type: Ascended.

tkalamba.2541:

There is still the acquisition gap between Exotic and Legendary. You can get your full set of Exotic gear at 80 within a few days after hitting max level, but will take forever to get a Legendary.

Ascended gives players something to work towards between Exotic and Legendary, it closes the gap in acquisition time. Exotic gear is flawed, its too easily acquired. They wanted something that players in the end game could work towards getting as a final step. This in turn gives the end game some aspect of length vs. having the final gear so quickly. You get all your exotic, then what do you do? Sure you can explore, you can go for new skins but alot of people already rushed for map completion, and dungeons can get boring. This gives you yet another option to work towards. If Exotics took longer to get, they wouldn’t have had to add these items. Besides, with the slow trickle of Ascended items being released, most players wouldnt have an issue of obtaining some of it.

You would still have to acquire infusions for your exotics. So that would close the acquisition gap between the current exotics and legendaries. The main difference, thought., is that the hard work you have done so far wouldn’t be useless.

You would just have to decide if you want to obtain infusions because you are interested in the new content that requires them or not. Eeverybody would be happy that way.

Why should a company choose an alternative that upsets a part of their community over another thak makes everyone happy?

UnderdogSMO.9428:

I would be more upset if Ascended didnt pigon hole you so bad?

It will be hard to use my healing build if all ascended look like this http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/2/22/Ascended_example.png

The only part of ascended gear which is more pidgeon-holed than exotics is runes which are built-in. Other stats were already fixed. What I expect is that you will still have carrion, knight etc, or however they will call them for ascended, and they will have five stats instead of three.

I doubt you will have just a stat combination for all ascended gear.

So the fact they are pidgeon-holed still needs to be proven. The versatility of ascended gear lies in the infusion they can carry instead of the rune. I don’t see that being vastly inferior to exotics, actually the contrary.

tkalamba.2541:

Urxx.6840:

tkalamba.2541:

But Agony is limited to only a single dungeon, so the condition is already incredibly limited, and only kicks in after you progress to a certain point. It is entirely possible to experience the entirety of the dungeon without having to deal with agony.

Again, that’s the situation we will have now. But they already said they will keep expanding the infusion system, and that implies they will make it more and more relevant, otherwise why introduce it and a whole new rarity tier in the first place?

To provide options in end game content. It’s an option you can choose to do that won’t effect any other aspect of the game. They never said ALL future content will have to deal with Infusions.

But then why oppose the fact exotic gear receives an infusion slot and you trash the whole ascended concept?

You still have your options and they keep their word about the fact exotics are and remain the most powerful items.

Why make the hard work of a lot of people that have geared up several toons obsolete? That’s the base of the threadmill system which most despise and is going to put ArenNet against Wow, which does these thing a lot better because they had 8 years to perfect their threadmill system.

Ganzo.5079:

tkalamba.2541:

Urxx.6840:

tkalamba.2541:

There are no stats, only protection for Agony, making Ascended gear pigeonholed into a certain stat set.

We don’t know if there will be different stats combination available for ascended gear like it is already for dungeon sets. That’s entirely possible.

What we DO know, however, is that no other rarity tier, except for legendary armors when they will be introduced, will allow to counter agony.

That is the problem. Not the 8% difference in stats, that a good player could somehow address, but the total impossibility to get rid of a condition, agony, than can’t be removed and eats away large chunks of your health with every tick.

But Agony is limited to only a single dungeon, so the condition is already incredibly limited, and only kicks in after you progress to a certain point. It is entirely possible to experience the entirety of the dungeon without having to deal with agony.

but what we know is that Agony resistance its ONLY A SIDEEFFECT OF INFUSION, we still DONT KNOW what are the real infusion effects!
Agony its not the problem, but infusion and ascended items!

And the problem infusion is not accessible to current amors sets, no matter how powerful.

tkalamba.2541:

But Agony is limited to only a single dungeon, so the condition is already incredibly limited, and only kicks in after you progress to a certain point. It is entirely possible to experience the entirety of the dungeon without having to deal with agony.

Again, that’s the situation we will have now. But they already said they will keep expanding the infusion system, and that implies they will make it more and more relevant, otherwise why introduce it and a whole new rarity tier in the first place?

UnderdogSMO.9428:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/2/22/Ascended_example.png

that Ascended Ring may have 50+ power

but that Exotic with the use of that ruine has +63 power all together

Wrong the ascended one has 68. The jewel is basically already in.

tkalamba.2541:

There are no stats, only protection for Agony, making Ascended gear pigeonholed into a certain stat set.

We don’t know if there will be different stats combination available for ascended gear like it is already for dungeon sets. That’s entirely possible.

What we DO know, however, is that no other rarity tier, except for legendary armors when they will be introduced, will allow to counter agony.

That is the problem. Not the 8% difference in stats, that a good player could somehow address, but the total impossibility to get rid of a condition, agony, than can’t be removed and eats away large chunks of your health with every tick.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Except the dev’s post doesn’t say anything about when where how ascended armor will be implemented.

But it says it will be implemented more and more AND it’s the only way to counter agony. Do you really see them developing the whole agony system and then leave it just in a single dungeon? That would be bizarre to say the least.

McSlappy.1372:

Exactly! I really liked the concepts that were advertised about GW2. However I still really like WoW PvP and with MoP they’ve made it even better. Ok CC could be toned down a bit but that’s another issue.

Now that GW2 is going to gear grind it’s just like everything else on a conceptual level. So gonna go play that game that has got it right. If you can get 10mil + people to pay you 15 a month your doing it right =P

That reasoning is surely legitimate from your point of view, and perfectly illustrates where introducing tiers of gear will lead GW2: if ArenaNet tries to fight Blizzard on Blizzard’s ground, they will sorely lose.

The only way they can win (and thus survive and even thrive) is by doing right what WoW did wrong. That’s what they were doing before introducing ascended gear. What we needed was just more content, not a wink in WoW’s direction.

Shahiel.8342:

I just hope the executives wake up before this goes any farther.

Amen to that.

BadHealer.3608:

But since the Legendary can’t be infused and you need infused to play in the dungeons, you will be locked out without Ascendends.

I don’t want to be locked out, because I don’t want to grind.

Upgraded to ascended status means they will receive an infusion slot. The problem is not with legendaries but rather with exotics.

Rhyaehar.9504:

Instead of assuming why peopel are unhappy about the new system, how about you actually read what they have to say?

I guess you weren’t replying to me even though you quoted me, because I agree with you 100%.