Guild Wars 2

Colly.4073:

Don’t believe a word this company says because all they have done from the very beginning is LIE.

Capitalizing a word doesn’t make it true.

Deamhan.9538:

So the first link doesn’t show anything that would determine the health of GW2.

Instead we have the graphic that can be found on various sites…

http://www.vg247.com/2013/08/28/guild-wars-2-turns-one-has-shifted-3-5-million-copies/

Over 3.5 million copies sold over a period of 1 year (not that impressive) and an all time peak of 460k users online at once (probably when the game first released).

It’s also not very impressive especially when that number is no doubt global. WoW:tBC caused a 800k peak in just China alone. I’d like to see what the global amount was.

The real test will be to see if they they can beat their current peak at some point in the future.

You’re right….it’s not that impressive to have 3.5 million copies sold in a year. Please list all MMORPGs that have sold as many copies in a year. I’ll wait here.

Theplayboy.6417:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

TooBz.3065:

To me this should all be very simple. If you aren’t having fun in the game, it’s time to stop playing.

This isn’t an about face or anything like that. But the developers did give us a place to provide feedback on ascended gear, apparently didn’t read it, and have now (apparently) deleted it.

I would assume that the ONLY impact we can have on the game is either with the play / don’t play dichotomy. So, in some respects, if you aren’t upset enough to quit the game, Arena Net doesn’t care.

That’s were I’m at. I don’t play. I log on occasionally to check ingame mail. I’m certainly not even looking at the gem store. I’m hoping all those others who feel like I do also stop playing, and voice their opinions to ArenaNet.

I also hope that ArenaNet doesn’t completely misinterpret the whole thing and add more gear grind. But you never know. They don’t seem to be in touch, at all.

To their credit, the forums are kind of fun.

:/

You don’t play, but I’ve never seen the game busier. I’m not sure that you not playing or the percentage of people who have actually stopped is more than the number of people playing and liking the game.

So I don’t see how it can be a wake up call to Anet. The game is truly packed.

Vayne your religious fanaticism has to stop. Look we understand completely that you are 51 years old, work very little, and love GW2 with all of your life. In fact dare I say that GW2 IS your life? You purposely troll every thread that criticizes GW2 hoping to get the thread locked or deletes. You do not listen to reason or common sense and derive every conclusion from your feelings and emotions alone. Any real man or successful person will tell you that you have to take your feelings and emotions out of the equation when making a decision. That being said though we both want the same thing, for GW2 to be successful. I see what they are doing wrong and how they have literally lost millions of players in a year and I call them out on it. You on the other hand think that all of their decision making is perfect and defend them vigorously. We are on the same team and I see that the ship is sinking and I’m bailing water while you sit up in the upper lounge believing everything is peachy.

Regardless the game is not busier than ever. Its numbers are falling dramatically and they are losing more players each week than they are gaining. It only appears that there are more players because of the recent grind they introduced with Ascended Weapons and Champ Bags. Everyone is concentrated in the same exact areas of the map farming farming farming farming. There are so few players left in fact that they were able to remove culling. Had they attempted to do that a year ago GW2 would have been a slide show and completely unplayable. The player base has thinned out so much its depressing. The only hope for GW2 is their release into China. They HAVE to be successful in that market or NC Soft is going to cut off their funding completely.

You know nothing at all about me. Nothing. Zero. This post proves it.

Edit: I was going to comment on the rest of your post, but I see other people have already done so. However, let’s compare this to other recently released MMORPGs that weren’t completely free at launch.

Let’s see, there’s SWToR…which oddly had to lay off half it’s staff and go free to play (I hear it’s doing better now…but it was largely considered a failure) and there’s TSW…which had to lay off a third of their staff and go free to play.

Let me ask you…what game has sold more copies in a year? How many copies has Rift sold all up?

Have you done any research at all?

Let’s pretent that the 400k concurrency number is from launch…well so what? Are you saying you can name an MMO where the bulk of the population doesn’t play less over time? Do you think ANY MMO has more people a year after launch than on launch day concurrently?

People play to level cap and log on twice a week to raid with their guild. What do you think the concurrency is? What is your evidence for how many people play? In fact, what evidence do you have at all?

Blaine Tog.8304:

Vayne.8563:

You have a theory. What do you have to back it up? Nothing.

I have circumstantial evidence and there was plenty of it.

You have anecdotal evidence, which is notoriously unreliable. You’re both talking out of your behinds, so let’s not try to pretend otherwise.

Vayne.8563:

The number of people leaving the game after hitting level cap. The number of people who didn’t think it was worth putting all that work into a legendary because it wasn’t any better than an exotic. The number of people posting on the forums about having nothing to do. This wasn’t one or two people…it was rampant.

Sure. That’s what the Living Story is supposed to fix though: giving people stuff to do to keep playing. Massive stretches of grind were not supposed to be the endgame.

Vayne.8563:

I do agree with you that Anet didn’t give it a chance and that they may have read the situation wrong, but don’t kid yourself. You didn’t invest millions of dollars into a game, you don’t get to say what they need to do for the game to survive.

Sure sure. It’s possible that their old design philosophy was ultimately flawed and wouldn’t allow them to rise to the level they wished, so they changed it. That’s really depressing for people like me who loved the design philosophy from GW1 (and, we thought, GW2) and I really don’t think that philosophy is flawed, but whatever, I don’t have the numbers and the aspirations that ANet does. I just want to have fun, whereas their primary motivation is to make money. They’re a business and that’s their prerogative.

But I do not take being lied to well. Because make no bones about it: Anet has violated their design philosophy with this patch, and they tried to pretend like they didn’t. If you’re going to make changes like this, at least have the courtesy to tell us upfront so I know to find another ship. I’m going to be left particularly embittered if my first sign that the destination has changed from Hawaii to Alaska is glaciers floating outside my porthole.

Vayne.8563:

But think about this. If Anet was truly using ascended gear to get more money, why is it account bound. You can’t buy or sell it on the trading post. You have to earn it. If anything, the ascended gear before this, amulets, earrings, the backpack and the rings were making Anet no money at all. So how does that stack up with your greed theory?

Ascended gear is a retention tool, which nets them more money over time than a single lump-sum purchase might. It does that better if it’s account-bound and time-gated.

Yep it’s a retention tool…that’s my point. So why did Anet suddenly feel they needed a retention tool back in November. It wasn’t popular with the core fanbase. Annecdotally it wasn’t popular with testers either. They knew there’d be backlash because they said they knew…and they did it anyway.

Why? They must have had a reason.

If their metrics showed the game was healthy would they have had to do it?

Sardonia.8196:

Vayne.8563:

Sardonia.8196:

You keep saying that their original business plan failed. How do you know that. It was never given a chance. It may have been working just fine. The game was alive and thriving at that point. You keep saying that they have the metrics. Yes they do, however, you do not know what it shows. You are just assuming like everyone else here but trying to make yourself look correct. So do not go state that their original plan was a failure because you have no clue if it was or not.

This change comes down to pure and simple money. They can make more money with the grind than without. You need the gold to help counter the grind. Great go buy some gems and convert. However, this will only work for so long and in the end will bite you back because no one will be spending anything because the casual players will just leave. The people that like VP will move to another game when it comes out and now they probably do not spend anything because they do not need to.

The thing that burns me the most was that they started a thread awhile back asking for feedback about accended gear and there were great suggestion in it. However, no feedback given and we were just ignored. Why start a thread asking for feedback and not give any response back?

You have a theory. What do you have to back it up? Nothing.

I have circumstantial evidence and there was plenty of it. The number of people leaving the game after hitting level cap. The number of people who didn’t think it was worth putting all that work into a legendary because it wasn’t any better than an exotic. The number of people posting on the forums about having nothing to do. This wasn’t one or two people…it was rampant.

I moderated a different fan forum back then, and I’m telling you, people really were confused about the lack of end game and having nothing to do. There were no raids. There was no gear to get. Only a really, really long grind that didn’t give you any advantage. And Anet did say at one point that the uptake on legendaries was smaller than they thought it would be. I don’t just invent stuff.

I do agree with you that Anet didn’t give it a chance and that they may have read the situation wrong, but don’t kid yourself. You didn’t invest millions of dollars into a game, you don’t get to say what they need to do for the game to survive.

But think about this. If Anet was truly using ascended gear to get more money, why is it account bound. You can’t buy or sell it on the trading post. You have to earn it. If anything, the ascended gear before this, amulets, earrings, the backpack and the rings were making Anet no money at all. So how does that stack up with your greed theory?

You state you have circumstancial evidence. This basically means you are not sure either. How do you know people were leaving in droves? Because they stated it on the forums? Same can be said now then that people are leaving in droves because of the accended gear.
And with regard to money. It costs an extreme fortune to level you craft up to 500 just to make the accended. The easiest way to do it is to buy the gold and level it up. Unless you have all the mats or farm them yourselves, which takes quite a while. And you know people want the easy way and that is to buy the gold outright.

Yes, that’s true now about gold, but back when ascended gear was introduced, it wasn’t. Guild Wars 2 didn’t introduce ascended gear in the last patch. Guild Wars 2 introduced ascended gear in November…and so far it hasn’t made them a penny. If your theory about why they introduced vertical progression in the first place was true, it would have been available for cash back then…not this late in the piece.

And again, if it’s not about money, what other reason could they possibly have to do it. We know it was wildly unpopular with Guild Wars 1 players and their fans. We know it. This isn’t a guess. It goes against what Anet said they were going to do.

So what’s your theory to explain why, last November, Anet did a turn around and started adding stuff to the game they said they wouldn’t, kitten ing off tons of people in the process? It’s not about money or the cash shop because nothing they introduced back then affected the cash shop.

You tell me why they did it? To kitten off their core customers? For what reason?

IndigoSundown.5419:

Here we are arguing over terms again — instead of issues. Please stop derailing threads. If you want to argue about terms, get a room.

This time, I’m not the one arguing about terms, though. I was perfectly happy with my terms. lol

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

The bottom line to me is that leveling those skills made your character more powerful and getting more powerful gear makes your character more powerful. Making your character more powerful, is making your character more powerful.

One of the big bugaboos of vertical progression, why a lot of people say they don’t like it, is because of power creep. And Guild Wars 1 did experience power creep with those skills in PvE. You can deny it if you want, but everyone talked about how much easier those skills made the game. The same goes for VP.

So you can use the term VP or not, and I don’t care. If it looks like a horse and smells like a horse and rides like a horse, I’ll call it a horse.

The skills caused power creep, they positively trivialized content in Guild Wars 1 (far more than ascended gear will in Guild Wars 2), and you’re telling me I don’t understand VP. Well, you apparently don’t understand why people are against it.

It had the exact same effect on the game.

I’ll provide the same link I did last time on skill/ability progression being horizontal and the opposite of VP, which Mike was addressing in the quote:

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/strangesands/122012/24271_What-is-Horizontal-Progression-Really

Again, not quoted as an authority as literally everyone discussing it knowledgeably will put skill progression in the horizontal, not vertical (power) category. You either know the basics or you don’t. Raising the power level of the game has completely different effects of the game—google “power creep”. That’s obvious from understanding the difference between VP and HP, which, sadly, you don’t.

Okay I don’t. Shrugs. Have it your way.

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

SonicTHI.3217:

Carlin Sanders.3587:

snip

edit: and have we forgotten the point of why skill point scrolls exist? are we going to cry and whine when they introduce new skills into the game that seem better than the current meta? of course we will.

snip

Ascended was not brought in to do “a job”. It was brought in to please a subset of players that were complaining or leaving in droves – the same people that wanted GW2 to be more like WoW.

Unfortunately these same players can not be pleased. Ever. Once they have their chars geared out in ascended they will either demand new shinies again or leave.

ANET is doing the same 2 stupid things most companies in the last decade tried to do: trying to cater to everyone and trying to do what WoW does best.

I wish Guild Wars 1 players would stop spreading misinformation, like that there was no grind in Guild Wars that affected your character’s power. That’s just wrong. It wasn’t gear, sure, but then, there were plenty of skills that you had to level through rep, that were needed for some builds, like imbagon. Or do you not remember people in Guild Wars 1 looking for groups of r8 ursan?

Are you spreading misinformation on purpose or do you really have a short memory. Perhaps you will remember a quote from Mike O, which I gave you previously, that said GW had no vertical progression, ever, year after year. How could a founder of a company say something like that if Vayne says it did? Well, sadly, it’s because Vayne doesn’t know the difference between vertical and horizontal progression. Skill and/or ability progression is not only an aspect of horizontal as opposed to vertical progression it is an aspect almost always mentioned when discussing horizontal progression. It has nothing to do with power. That would be vertical progression which describes a process that raises the power level of the game over time.

Well, I don’t have a short memory. And, I actually know the difference between horizontal progression and vertical progression, so I will always call you on it. It would embarrass me to no end not to know common definitions and the basics in what I was attempting to discuss. I see that not all people feel that way.

Because founders are human and not perfect. He was thinking about gear. They were talking about gear. How can someone take a context that’s from a conversation about gear, and assume it applies to the rest of the game?

Well, of course, you don’t have a clue as to what he was thinking, we only know what he said. And, he was not talking about gear. He was specifically talking about vertical progression. That was even the meta-context of the entire AMA. So, the context is VP and I’m only talking about VP, just as Mike was when he said:

“How is introducing VP respecting the player? Because it’s fun to be challenged and rewarded. Because it’s fun to have the character you play grow and evolve over time. Because ArenaNet (sort of) held a hard line against all VP with GW1 — no VP ever, year after year — and it wasn’t that fun. It was stagnant.”

It must be hard to read that and come up with the context being gear. The ‘VP’ in the first sentence would be a strong clue if you didn’t understand the purpose of the AMA. Vayne, bottom line, not only don’t you understand the context here, you don’t know the difference between vertical and horizontal progression.

The bottom line to me is that leveling those skills made your character more powerful and getting more powerful gear makes your character more powerful. Making your character more powerful, is making your character more powerful.

One of the big bugaboos of vertical progression, why a lot of people say they don’t like it, is because of power creep. And Guild Wars 1 did experience power creep with those skills in PvE. You can deny it if you want, but everyone talked about how much easier those skills made the game. The same goes for VP.

So you can use the term VP or not, and I don’t care. If it looks like a horse and smells like a horse and rides like a horse, I’ll call it a horse.

The skills caused power creep, they positively trivialized content in Guild Wars 1 (far more than ascended gear will in Guild Wars 2), and you’re telling me I don’t understand VP. Well, you apparently don’t understand why people are against it.

It had the exact same effect on the game.

Deamhan.9538:

TooBz.3065:

This is true, but in the MMO space there aren’t a lot of shiny new alternatives out there. Especially if you are looking for a grind-free sandbox (no MMO has this). So if that’s what you are looking for, this is the only place to even get close.

I both agree and disagree with this. I agree that as far as non-grind sandbox MMOs go, there are none. EVE is one of the best sandbox games out there. The problem is that it will cost you in-game currency to do the things that are not grindy. This is why many players have at least two subs and at least one of those is used to mine or mission run. Both of which are mind numbingly repetative.

The part I don’t agree with is when you say “this is the only place to even get close” in reference to a grind-free sandbox. This game simply doesn’t come close. While it used to be close to the ‘grind-free’ part. It was never close to being a sandbox.

I feel your pain though. A sandbox RPG that keeps the grind to a minimum would be great.

Yep, Guild Wars 2 isn’t a sandbox. But then, I’ve never seen a grind-free theme park either.

Sardonia.8196:

You keep saying that their original business plan failed. How do you know that. It was never given a chance. It may have been working just fine. The game was alive and thriving at that point. You keep saying that they have the metrics. Yes they do, however, you do not know what it shows. You are just assuming like everyone else here but trying to make yourself look correct. So do not go state that their original plan was a failure because you have no clue if it was or not.

This change comes down to pure and simple money. They can make more money with the grind than without. You need the gold to help counter the grind. Great go buy some gems and convert. However, this will only work for so long and in the end will bite you back because no one will be spending anything because the casual players will just leave. The people that like VP will move to another game when it comes out and now they probably do not spend anything because they do not need to.

The thing that burns me the most was that they started a thread awhile back asking for feedback about accended gear and there were great suggestion in it. However, no feedback given and we were just ignored. Why start a thread asking for feedback and not give any response back?

You have a theory. What do you have to back it up? Nothing.

I have circumstantial evidence and there was plenty of it. The number of people leaving the game after hitting level cap. The number of people who didn’t think it was worth putting all that work into a legendary because it wasn’t any better than an exotic. The number of people posting on the forums about having nothing to do. This wasn’t one or two people…it was rampant.

I moderated a different fan forum back then, and I’m telling you, people really were confused about the lack of end game and having nothing to do. There were no raids. There was no gear to get. Only a really, really long grind that didn’t give you any advantage. And Anet did say at one point that the uptake on legendaries was smaller than they thought it would be. I don’t just invent stuff.

I do agree with you that Anet didn’t give it a chance and that they may have read the situation wrong, but don’t kid yourself. You didn’t invest millions of dollars into a game, you don’t get to say what they need to do for the game to survive.

But think about this. If Anet was truly using ascended gear to get more money, why is it account bound. You can’t buy or sell it on the trading post. You have to earn it. If anything, the ascended gear before this, amulets, earrings, the backpack and the rings were making Anet no money at all. So how does that stack up with your greed theory?

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

SonicTHI.3217:

Carlin Sanders.3587:

Have gw1 fans forgotten the name of the fancy versions of armor you got on prophecies? does ‘ascended’ armor ring a bell?

exotic was designed to do a job – make top tier something that required effort so that people can actually appreciate what they have. it failed. so they had to bring in ascended to do that job. (would you salvage an ascended weapon? in comparison, would you salvage an exotic? and why?)

edit: and have we forgotten the point of why skill point scrolls exist? are we going to cry and whine when they introduce new skills into the game that seem better than the current meta? of course we will.

I wish people would stop spreading disinformation about GW1 already. 15k GW1 armor had the SAME stats as 1,5k and the SAME as obsidian or any other max armor.
Legendary had the SAME stats as exotic. Ascended was not needed in any way and goes against everything explained in numerous blog posts and interviews over the course of several years.
And no i wouldnt salvage my exotic weapon if it was max stat. Exotics required enough effort for most people. Especially if you wanted to have a fully geared character or god forbid alts.

Ascended was not brought in to do “a job”. It was brought in to please a subset of players that were complaining or leaving in droves – the same people that wanted GW2 to be more like WoW.

Unfortunately these same players can not be pleased. Ever. Once they have their chars geared out in ascended they will either demand new shinies again or leave.

ANET is doing the same 2 stupid things most companies in the last decade tried to do: trying to cater to everyone and trying to do what WoW does best.

I wish Guild Wars 1 players would stop spreading misinformation, like that there was no grind in Guild Wars that affected your character’s power. That’s just wrong. It wasn’t gear, sure, but then, there were plenty of skills that you had to level through rep, that were needed for some builds, like imbagon. Or do you not remember people in Guild Wars 1 looking for groups of r8 ursan?

Are you spreading misinformation on purpose or do you really have a short memory. Perhaps you will remember a quote from Mike O, which I gave you previously, that said GW had no vertical progression, ever, year after year. How could a founder of a company say something like that if Vayne says it did? Well, sadly, it’s because Vayne doesn’t know the difference between vertical and horizontal progression. Skill and/or ability progression is not only an aspect of horizontal as opposed to vertical progression it is an aspect almost always mentioned when discussing horizontal progression. It has nothing to do with power. That would be vertical progression which describes a process that raises the power level of the game over time.

Well, I don’t have a short memory. And, I actually know the difference between horizontal progression and vertical progression, so I will always call you on it. It would embarrass me to no end not to know common definitions and the basics in what I was attempting to discuss. I see that not all people feel that way.

Because founders are human and not perfect. He was thinking about gear. They were talking about gear. How can someone take a context that’s from a conversation about gear, and assume it applies to the rest of the game?

Erick Alastor.3917:

Vayne.8563:

So you’re saying NO ONE complained on any forum about the grind for levels in Luxon or Kurzick. There wasn’t one complaint. There wasn’t any complaint about lightbringer ranks. People didn’t grind all weekend on special bonus weekends, running that stupid quest in the sulfurous wastes, just to grind out the levels to their lightbringer title.

I mean, no one ever did any fast faction farming…that’s FFF in the Guild Wars 1 wiki.

No one felt obligated and no one complained.

Right.

I never said that.
What I’m saying is that, in my opinion, people who complained about that had the right to do so, but I felt that there was almost no reasons to do it.
I would compare those complaints to complaints about legendaries being too difficult to craft ‘cause of rng (pre-stats doping).
On the contrary people complaining on this forum, not only have the right to do so, but they also have a real reason to do it.
+20-30% of stats everywhere/everytime is not something optional, and the time spent to get that bonus is simply absurd (because of grinding/gating/and the"slow release" of items).
(Always in my opnion:)
Should people complain because of ascended gap right now? Maybe not.
Should people complain about ascended because of their implications? Yes.
Why? Because ascended are:
- Not alts friendly.
- Not builds friendly.
- Not “play the way you want” to naturally obtain your gear.
*Why don’t implement them exactly like exotics? (with a slightly higher request in time)
- A possible requirment for higher contents (because of numbers).
- (to quote George Carlin) bad for ya :P

I feel the same exact way you do. People have the right to complain about anything, but I don’t feel it’s worth complaining about. That’s perspective works.

JDGumby.7685:

Vayne.8563:

And I’m pretty sure that every competitor knows that the bulk of people who visit forums are there because they are dissatisfied, but it doesn’t show the opinion of the masses, over all.

Then they need to get someone with a grasp of basic statistics on their side. Even with the self-selection of forum posters to account for, it’d be relatively easy to determine how well represented those concerns are among the general population.

I don’t agree with this. Because you’d have to know what percentage of forum posts are just trolls, and I think a lot of people simply like to rile up other people. No one can really tell what’s legit and what’s not.

Hard data is always better than soft data.

Of those options, I’d go mesmer. Warrior isn’t as good in PvP (even though warriors are very good in PvE). Mesmers can also bring a lot of utility to dungeon groups.

Though keep in mind they start off slow.

Pirlipat.2479:

Vayne.8563:

Kaizer.7135:

Vayne.8563:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Colin Johnson timeline:

• The now infamous quote about expecting people to have best-in-slot gear upon reaching level 80.

• The now infamous quote about how he didn’t expect people to get to exotics so fast, so Ascended gear must be added.

• Don’t expect another tier for a long while.

Do you really trust him at this point?

Sure I trust him. Just like anyone else who said something years ago, and then the situation changed. In your life, you’ve never said something and two years later had to change it?

People are disingenuous. Oh, he’s a dev. He needs to be proficient in crystal ball to know what will happen.

That’s not the way the world works.

Yeah lets just get all game developers to make false statements about their game before release so people will buy the game anyway despite them not wanting it, then make up some BS so they can cover it up. Is that what you’re trying to say? God, you’re so ignorant.

Okay that’s another story. I believe when those statements were made, that was the intention. People are complaining about what Anet is saying NOW, about what Anet was saying then. These are two completely different issues.

Do you have any evidence that when Anet said that stuff they didn’t mean it?

Well, so they did not lie on purpose but changed their opinion a few days or weeks after release. What makes you sure they wont change it again this time?

This discussion is useless. Either someone trusts or he/she doesn’t. No side can convince the other one. I for my part don’t but on the other Hand: if they want to add another tier we can’t hinder them anyways so why should I care?

Oh, I’m not sure that they won’t change their mind based on circumstance. In fact, I’m pretty sure any company can potentially change their mind because of circumstance. It happens all the time. It’s called business.

I’m not the one who’s upset that they changed their minds…even though the change isn’t particularly suited to my style of play.

Smith.1826:

Vayne.8563:

Spiral Architect.6540:

Vayne.8563:

You can eat your steak if you want.

For a short while, perhaps. Once ascended armor comes out, they’ll start tuning content to that gear level. Then, when the next tier of gear comes out, they’ll tune to that. And so on. Pretty soon, that steak will be off the menu.

In one short year, they went from "Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base.” to “Here, everyone: chase the shiny lewtz, just like you did in all those other games.” ’Tis a shame.

Enjoy your tuna noodle casserole.

I don’t believe there’ll be a next tier of gear. Simply put, the game will have enough stickiness by then where it won’t be necessary.

Anything can change at any point in time. I’m not saying there will be another gear tier, I’m not really referencing any specific change in particular, rather I’d encourage the mindset of “expect the worse, hope for the best”, especially in an MMO. I wouldn’t want to wish the disappointment I’ve experienced on anyone else, and if it happened to me, “it could happen to you” (thank you, based J-Roc).

lol..thanks for this, but no worries. It’s not a belief like a religious belief. I don’t attach myself to predictions of the future. I believe it, but I also understand things can change…as has already been shown.

JDGumby.7685:

Pray For Kosmos.5849:

i miss the personal story stuff. i don’t feel like a hero anymore. the living story is complete horsekitten. game definitely feels less epic.

You felt like a hero during the Personal Story? Given that the first half of the PS is mostly so personal that it has absolutely no worldly significance (exception: that one Sylvari line where you encounter Trehearne gives context for later events, “Act with Wisdom”; in many other cases it’s also more about the NPCs they saddle you with than you), and that the second half is all about you being Trehearne’s flunky, I’m very surprised anyone feels like a hero, even in the slightest.

I felt like a hero in the personal story. Why? Because being “in charge” doesn’t mean being “the hero”.

Ever watch Beverly Hills Cop or Die Hard? Eddie Murphy and Bruce Willis were heroes…but they weren’t in charge. In fact, very often, heroes in movies aren’t in charge. Was Frodo in charge of the war again Sauron? Nope. But he’s definitely a hero.

Trahearne wasn’t even there when you went to Arah story mode.

Kaizer.7135:

Vayne.8563:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Colin Johnson timeline:

• The now infamous quote about expecting people to have best-in-slot gear upon reaching level 80.

• The now infamous quote about how he didn’t expect people to get to exotics so fast, so Ascended gear must be added.

• Don’t expect another tier for a long while.

Do you really trust him at this point?

Sure I trust him. Just like anyone else who said something years ago, and then the situation changed. In your life, you’ve never said something and two years later had to change it?

People are disingenuous. Oh, he’s a dev. He needs to be proficient in crystal ball to know what will happen.

That’s not the way the world works.

Yeah lets just get all game developers to make false statements about their game before release so people will buy the game anyway despite them not wanting it, then make up some BS so they can cover it up. Is that what you’re trying to say? God, you’re so ignorant.

Okay that’s another story. I believe when those statements were made, that was the intention. People are complaining about what Anet is saying NOW, about what Anet was saying then. These are two completely different issues.

Do you have any evidence that when Anet said that stuff they didn’t mean it?

zaxziakohl.5243:

Wow. The comments here kind of surprise me.

The voice acting certainly has it’s corny moments. That said….

This game has a lot of content and depth that a 12 year old wouldn’t get.

Someone mentioned childrens books. Ever read The Lorax? I loved it when I was a kid. Did I really understand it? Not so much. The full meaning of the book didn’t sink in until I was much older. This went even further when I started reading teen books (loved Animorphs.) Going back as an adult, there is SOOOO much that I didn’t see. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. I loved it. It doesn’t even mean I didn’t understand it! I did! I just didn’t see the depth that was there. Honestly, it had very little to do with me being young, and more to do with me not having life experience, which gives us that ability to read into things more.

Anyway…continuing on. Guild Wars 2 HAS that depth for me. YES a 12 year old can play it. But if you are understanding it in the same way that a 12 year old does, than either it’s a very smart/jaded 12 year old, or your choosing not to read into it more.

You go to the pale tree and you pick out your deepest fear. A meaningful deep heartfelt fear. As part of your wyld hunt (lets face it, they are all on a journey with destiny) you are going to come face to face with your fears, and your hardships. The only way for you to endure, and win in the end, is to win against those fears and survive. You can’t reach your end goal without those.

12 year old version: I had a partner to fight with. We killed lots of mobs to the top. We were kinda successful, but she got left behind. Now we tried to rescue her, but we failed, and now she died.

Deeper meaning: To be strong enough to face Zhaitan, destiny would put hardships in my path to prepare. One of these is facing my deepest darkest fears. I have no issues hacking down enemies, and coming out on top. I’ve done it again and again. THAT I’m good at. I’ve been through pain, I already lost my first partner. They showed me the true meaning of sacrifice for a greater cause. Now I have a new partner, and it’s my fault. My biggest fear come to life, they die, because of me. It’s horrible, it’s tragic, but I survive. And am stronger to beat Zhaitan because of it.

If you guys aren’t seeing the deeper meanings, then maybe you aren’t looking?

Just had to drop by to say that the Lorax, though a kid’s book, is one of the best books I’ve read. It really calls into questions some of the problems the world is now experiencing.

Oh, and I agree with your post, too. lol

Erick Alastor.3917:

Vayne.8563:

Rank 8 ursans required rank 8 ursans.

People who wanted to run imbagon, ALWAYS wanted to get their luxon/kurzick points up, because 4 seconds wasn’t enough for hard mode DOA and groups wanted more. If you weren’t playing then, then I guess you didn’t see it.

I’m sure the permasin used the Sunspear skill and that it was much better/more effective at the higher level.

And people leveled up stuff like pain inverter and technobabble and necrosis too. You can deny it all you want, but people felt compelled to level that stuff, because it could be better/stronger/more powerful. Not just one or two people, either.

4s instead of (maxed) 6s
About permasin If you’re talking about “Intensity” the same applies to this skill or even to technobabble or pain inverter.
All of them where effective even at the lowest rank, moreover their max effect was not reached at the top rank but right in the middle one (easy to “farm” if you were willing to).

Btw, in this thread we are talking about “vertical progression”.
You can counter a skill with another skill, you can obtain best results using different types of build depending on the situation.
At some point anet, who said that did not intend to work on an hard mode, will have to lock content behind gear.
This is a totally different problem here.
We are not talking about 1-2s of difference of a single skill and the fact that few elite players will demand you a clearly useless top rank.
We are talking of tens of percentile points that work on their own, with 0 effort/skill required to the players (unless you do not intend grinding a proof of skill).

Why do you think PvE only skills were limited to 3 per bar? Because they were arguably the most powerful skills in the game. Introduction of those skills completely trivialized some of the hardest content in the game.

But the real issue comes from the idea that people didn’t feel pressured to level those skills. I felt far more pressure to level those skills than I do to get an ascended weapon. They different in power I get from an ascended weapon isn’t nearly as great as the difference in power in leveling those skills.

Take something like “Save Yourselve’s”. Here’s a shout that allows you to mitigate 90% of all damage in the game…not just to you, but to your entire party. Do you think a 33% longer duration on that….33%!…isn’t going to make a HUGE difference.

I think you’re either remembering wrong, or you’re being completely disingenuous.

Let’s take a poll. How many people would rather mitigate 90% of the damage their party takes (which could be kept up almost all the time), or like 10% higher stats?

I don’t think there’s much contest here.

Chuo.4238:

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

Jaga.2084:

It was fun having a finished character. I got all exotic gear and could play what I want. Well, after I did my chores that are Dailies. I could even experiment with new builds, because gear wasn’t a time consuming factor. I leveled Crafting just for Guildies to make them stuff if they needed it. Now I log in and the list of chores grew bigger. Beside of dailies there is the gathering farm, dungeon farm and champion farm. And after that, I farm living story. And after all the stuff, I didn’t have fun doing, I already played to long. I’d rather pay a subscription fee and play what I want when I want, than being pushed in the daily grind that is Guild Wars 2. Most of my friends logged in just for the dailies until they left the game completely.

Yep. I’m with you. I’m totally sick of playing “keeping up with gear” on my character. I was so excited about GW2 because I (like an idiot, apparently) assumed that I wouldn’t have to deal with tiers of gear once I hit max level (like Guild Wars…duh).

So I got my toon all decked out, and skinned how I liked it….and now it’s all out of date.

Screw it. Way to ruin a great game, ArenaNet, by abandoning what made you special, and reverting back to the very thing that people hate in other MMO’s.

And yes, I’m going to keep complaining about it here, because even if ArenaNet doesn’t listen, you can bet that competitors are watching carefully.

Maybe one of them will finally break the mold.

Competitors aren’t watching carefully. That’s silly. If that happened, every MMO that came out in the last five years would have learned from forums. And I’m pretty sure that every competitor knows that the bulk of people who visit forums are there because they are dissatisfied, but it doesn’t show the opinion of the masses, over all.

There have been studies done about the number of people playing a game who actually post on the forum. It was years ago, but I’m pretty sure the number hasn’t increased drastically. About 15% of players post on forums. And since not all agree, why would you think any dev from any game is watching these forums closely?

Note: Do you know what devs will learn from this. Guild Wars 2 tried to have cosmetic only upgrades and failed to be able to do so. That’s the only less they’ll get here.

Don’t tell me I can’t hope. You don’t know if competitors are watching or not. I have no clue what your point to making that statement is. Cite some sources, or I’m inclined to think you don’t know what you’re talking about.

As for GW2 devs (or management, as applicable if you want to quibble), I have no confidence, based on experience, that they will learn from this. But, even on this, I can hope.

GW2 tried to have cosmetic upgrades, and failed? They didn’t even give it 2 months before jumping on the “tier gear” bandwagon.

Seriously dude. You just want to defend this game no matter what, and argue. They really ought to be paying you – you’re doing a better job than their current Community Manager.

Every MMO has made the same mistakes as every MMO before it. It’s happened over and over again. They look at whether a company is successful and making money. Reading the forums is like reading random ideas. They have no idea who’s just trolling, who’s genuinely leaving, who’s just saying they’re leaving, who’s a fan from another game just coming here to bag this one…this is terrible information. I speak from experience in business. This information is not pure enough to get ideas from.

They will take polls and such like that to get information, but looking at another game’s forum? It’s like wading through data that you can’t verify.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Finished crafting my first and last ascended weapon, hopefully there will be no other tiers EVER.

Congratulations. That took you ages. Just ages. This endless gear treadmill is tough.

Erick Alastor.3917:

Vayne.8563:

Conner.4702:

Vayne.8563:

SonicTHI.3217:

Carlin Sanders.3587:

Have gw1 fans forgotten the name of the fancy versions of armor you got on prophecies? does ‘ascended’ armor ring a bell?

exotic was designed to do a job – make top tier something that required effort so that people can actually appreciate what they have. it failed. so they had to bring in ascended to do that job. (would you salvage an ascended weapon? in comparison, would you salvage an exotic? and why?)

edit: and have we forgotten the point of why skill point scrolls exist? are we going to cry and whine when they introduce new skills into the game that seem better than the current meta? of course we will.

I wish people would stop spreading disinformation about GW1 already. 15k GW1 armor had the SAME stats as 1,5k and the SAME as obsidian or any other max armor.
Legendary had the SAME stats as exotic. Ascended was not needed in any way and goes against everything explained in numerous blog posts and interviews over the course of several years.
And no i wouldnt salvage my exotic weapon if it was max stat. Exotics required enough effort for most people. Especially if you wanted to have a fully geared character or god forbid alts.

Ascended was not brought in to do “a job”. It was brought in to please a subset of players that were complaining or leaving in droves – the same people that wanted GW2 to be more like WoW.

Unfortunately these same players can not be pleased. Ever. Once they have their chars geared out in ascended they will either demand new shinies again or leave.

ANET is doing the same 2 stupid things most companies in the last decade tried to do: trying to cater to everyone and trying to do what WoW does best.

I wish Guild Wars 1 players would stop spreading misinformation, like that there was no grind in Guild Wars that affected your character’s power. That’s just wrong. It wasn’t gear, sure, but then, there were plenty of skills that you had to level through rep, that were needed for some builds, like imbagon. Or do you not remember people in Guild Wars 1 looking for groups of r8 ursan?

And I wish the white knight GW2 fanboys would stop posting misinformation. None of the PVE only skills needed a high rep to be useful for the vast majority of the playerbase. You got high enough level just by playing. You are using a very small subset of people to make an argument in your favor. No PVE skills were ever needed to complete any content. Most of them got nerfed extremely fast as well. Take of your tunnelvision glasses for once

Only if you completely ignored the meta. Only if you didn’t want a permasin or an imabagon…which became required to get groups for certain content. Try getting a group for DOA without an imbagon paragon at some point.

Arguably those skills were far more required in GW 1 than ascended gear is in GW 2.

Sometimes I wonder if you even know what you are talking about.
And you are contunially pointing at those two specific builds (even in other threads).
Where it was the grind for the permasin?
And where for the Imbagon?
Prove your statements please.

Becausa as far I know:
1. PvE only skills. (not even a single rank skill needed for the permasin btw)
2. Even at the lowest rank every skill worked.
3. The skills bonus gained “farming points” in many cases was ridiculously low.
4. The middle rank (easily achievable) often offered the same stats of the (extremaly grindy) top rank .

So what you were talking about again?

Rank 8 ursans required rank 8 ursans.

People who wanted to run imbagon, ALWAYS wanted to get their luxon/kurzick points up, because 4 seconds wasn’t enough for hard mode DOA and groups wanted more. If you weren’t playing then, then I guess you didn’t see it.

I’m sure the permasin used the Sunspear skill and that it was much better/more effective at the higher level.

And people leveled up stuff like pain inverter and technobabble and necrosis too. You can deny it all you want, but people felt compelled to level that stuff, because it could be better/stronger/more powerful. Not just one or two people, either.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Vayne.8563:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Colin Johnson timeline:

• The now infamous quote about expecting people to have best-in-slot gear upon reaching level 80.

• The now infamous quote about how he didn’t expect people to get to exotics so fast, so Ascended gear must be added.

• Don’t expect another tier for a long while.

Do you really trust him at this point?

Sure I trust him. Just like anyone else who said something years ago, and then the situation changed. In your life, you’ve never said something and two years later had to change it?

People are disingenuous. Oh, he’s a dev. He needs to be proficient in crystal ball to know what will happen.

That’s not the way the world works.

If it was some small thing that would be understandable This is definitely not small. This was one of the major selling points of GW2.

If Tesla motors promised an electric car with leather seats, but delivered an electric car with synthetic leather seats that would be bad, but perhaps understandable if their costs turned out to be higher than expected. If they delivered a car with a gas engine then you would be really kitten ed no matter what their excuses were. That’s what happened here with Anet.

Okay, let’s define a major selling point. This is what you do.

Look at every single thing Anet has published about Guild Wars 2. Look at how many times this was mentioned.

Then get back to me about whether this was one of the major selling points.

Living breathing world…dynamic events…even death of the trinity got a lot more talking than this issue. Again, it was important to you, so you insist it’s a major selling point. By percentage, this is barely mentioned at all in their promos.

AtoBoss.2906:

You just named all the main ‘permanent’ features of GW2, but you dislike them all. But, there’s no denying the poor quality of the temporary bs.

What do you mean there’s no denying it? I deny it.

I don’t think preferring dark to light, or serious to silly says anything about age at all.

Dante.1508:

Mada.5319:

Is it really that hard? I mean, I log on and do my daily however I want and I get ascended gear out of it. I don’t call that a grind. It’s time gated yeah, but its not like it’s such a major stat buff that I can’t get groups or I’ll die without it….

Its not hard or easy, it just shouldn’t be there, because we were told when we bought the game it wouldn’t be there.

I personally do not bother playing this game anymore, because its not the same game i was sold.

I do keep tabs on the forum in hopes someone will take over and steer it back to the original direction, i know one can dream right…

It won’t happen. And I agree with you, we were told that it wouldn’t happen….but then reality happened and they realized it wasn’t working the first way. Sad, but that’s how it is. Too many people playing MMOs are programmed by other MMOs.

Jack of Tears.9458:

That was a pretty good Troll post, I could even believe you were being paid to make these, it was that good. (and companies do, do that)

If yer not, maybe link it to a few of Anet’s competitors and ask them for a job.

Not his first. Not even sure it’s his best. But after the third one of the same old same old, I’m thinking he’s run out of material. They all say approximately the same thing worded differently.

I was more impressed with the first one.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Galen Grey.4709:

Are you people joking? Do you seriously need Arenanet telling you that whatever design decisions they did they did because they think/thought it was what was best for the game? why else would they do it? what other possible reason could there be?

I imagine some of you would say profit but please, this is an MMO, MMOs are a long term investment, maximizing profits today by sacrificing the future would be ridiculous and no one is every going to do that no one. Not just that but they did plenty of things for the good of the game that ultimately ended up costing them money like say the wallet system and they did that out of their own initiative there wasnt even an outcry for it. The Crafting through bank and then the Discovery through the bank. Removal of exclusive skins you could only get through cash shop. And more. If they didnt care about the future of the game and only focused on maximizing profit today, they’d never have done any of that.

Everything they do, they do because they believe it will make the game better and more pleasurable. Its obvious, there is no need for them to come out and say it.

Thats EXACTLY what they are doing, short term maximizing profits in the west and moving focus to the east.

Are you so out of touch of everything? Its NCSoft were talking about rofl.

And you know this how? Again, statements with nothing to back it up but your perceptions.

“Perceptions”? rofl

What they are doing is very real. You get a nice taste of it, expect more to come soon

Yes, Sir, perceptions. That’s precisely what they are. You think you’re right. Only time will tell.

I think you’re wrong. Only time will tell.

But laughing at what everyone else is saying just because it doesn’t agree with what you are saying definitely doesn’t make it more likely you are correct.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Colin Johnson timeline:

• The now infamous quote about expecting people to have best-in-slot gear upon reaching level 80.

• The now infamous quote about how he didn’t expect people to get to exotics so fast, so Ascended gear must be added.

• Don’t expect another tier for a long while.

Do you really trust him at this point?

Sure I trust him. Just like anyone else who said something years ago, and then the situation changed. In your life, you’ve never said something and two years later had to change it?

People are disingenuous. Oh, he’s a dev. He needs to be proficient in crystal ball to know what will happen.

That’s not the way the world works.

The problem is that Colin is claiming that things did not change. He is claiming that the original stated intent never existed.

“We have changed our minds and so our past claims and statements are no longer valid,” is very different from, “our past statements and claims were never valid as we never meant them.”

Again, Colin is doing what businesses do. He’s minimizing damage. One guy will hold him accountable, a hundred guys will just move on and deal with it.

But the second he comes out and says we changed our mind…it’s the same reason governments have to have meetings before they apologize publicly for anything.

If nothing else, such an admission could end up being used for fodder for consumer complaints to authorities.

Most MMOs suck badly. Those “harder” MMOs unquote, don’t fit my play style at all. This game does.

I see what you did there.

MikaHR.1978:

Galen Grey.4709:

Are you people joking? Do you seriously need Arenanet telling you that whatever design decisions they did they did because they think/thought it was what was best for the game? why else would they do it? what other possible reason could there be?

I imagine some of you would say profit but please, this is an MMO, MMOs are a long term investment, maximizing profits today by sacrificing the future would be ridiculous and no one is every going to do that no one. Not just that but they did plenty of things for the good of the game that ultimately ended up costing them money like say the wallet system and they did that out of their own initiative there wasnt even an outcry for it. The Crafting through bank and then the Discovery through the bank. Removal of exclusive skins you could only get through cash shop. And more. If they didnt care about the future of the game and only focused on maximizing profit today, they’d never have done any of that.

Everything they do, they do because they believe it will make the game better and more pleasurable. Its obvious, there is no need for them to come out and say it.

Thats EXACTLY what they are doing, short term maximizing profits in the west and moving focus to the east.

Are you so out of touch of everything? Its NCSoft were talking about rofl.

And you know this how? Again, statements with nothing to back it up but your perceptions.

Conner.4702:

Vayne.8563:

SonicTHI.3217:

Carlin Sanders.3587:

Have gw1 fans forgotten the name of the fancy versions of armor you got on prophecies? does ‘ascended’ armor ring a bell?

exotic was designed to do a job – make top tier something that required effort so that people can actually appreciate what they have. it failed. so they had to bring in ascended to do that job. (would you salvage an ascended weapon? in comparison, would you salvage an exotic? and why?)

edit: and have we forgotten the point of why skill point scrolls exist? are we going to cry and whine when they introduce new skills into the game that seem better than the current meta? of course we will.

I wish people would stop spreading disinformation about GW1 already. 15k GW1 armor had the SAME stats as 1,5k and the SAME as obsidian or any other max armor.
Legendary had the SAME stats as exotic. Ascended was not needed in any way and goes against everything explained in numerous blog posts and interviews over the course of several years.
And no i wouldnt salvage my exotic weapon if it was max stat. Exotics required enough effort for most people. Especially if you wanted to have a fully geared character or god forbid alts.

Ascended was not brought in to do “a job”. It was brought in to please a subset of players that were complaining or leaving in droves – the same people that wanted GW2 to be more like WoW.

Unfortunately these same players can not be pleased. Ever. Once they have their chars geared out in ascended they will either demand new shinies again or leave.

ANET is doing the same 2 stupid things most companies in the last decade tried to do: trying to cater to everyone and trying to do what WoW does best.

I wish Guild Wars 1 players would stop spreading misinformation, like that there was no grind in Guild Wars that affected your character’s power. That’s just wrong. It wasn’t gear, sure, but then, there were plenty of skills that you had to level through rep, that were needed for some builds, like imbagon. Or do you not remember people in Guild Wars 1 looking for groups of r8 ursan?

And I wish the white knight GW2 fanboys would stop posting misinformation. None of the PVE only skills needed a high rep to be useful for the vast majority of the playerbase. You got high enough level just by playing. You are using a very small subset of people to make an argument in your favor. No PVE skills were ever needed to complete any content. Most of them got nerfed extremely fast as well. Take of your tunnelvision glasses for once

Only if you completely ignored the meta. Only if you didn’t want a permasin or an imabagon…which became required to get groups for certain content. Try getting a group for DOA without an imbagon paragon at some point.

Arguably those skills were far more required in GW 1 than ascended gear is in GW 2.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

SonicTHI.3217:

Carlin Sanders.3587:

Have gw1 fans forgotten the name of the fancy versions of armor you got on prophecies? does ‘ascended’ armor ring a bell?

exotic was designed to do a job – make top tier something that required effort so that people can actually appreciate what they have. it failed. so they had to bring in ascended to do that job. (would you salvage an ascended weapon? in comparison, would you salvage an exotic? and why?)

edit: and have we forgotten the point of why skill point scrolls exist? are we going to cry and whine when they introduce new skills into the game that seem better than the current meta? of course we will.

I wish people would stop spreading disinformation about GW1 already. 15k GW1 armor had the SAME stats as 1,5k and the SAME as obsidian or any other max armor.
Legendary had the SAME stats as exotic. Ascended was not needed in any way and goes against everything explained in numerous blog posts and interviews over the course of several years.
And no i wouldnt salvage my exotic weapon if it was max stat. Exotics required enough effort for most people. Especially if you wanted to have a fully geared character or god forbid alts.

Ascended was not brought in to do “a job”. It was brought in to please a subset of players that were complaining or leaving in droves – the same people that wanted GW2 to be more like WoW.

Unfortunately these same players can not be pleased. Ever. Once they have their chars geared out in ascended they will either demand new shinies again or leave.

ANET is doing the same 2 stupid things most companies in the last decade tried to do: trying to cater to everyone and trying to do what WoW does best.

I wish Guild Wars 1 players would stop spreading misinformation, like that there was no grind in Guild Wars that affected your character’s power. That’s just wrong. It wasn’t gear, sure, but then, there were plenty of skills that you had to level through rep, that were needed for some builds, like imbagon. Or do you not remember people in Guild Wars 1 looking for groups of r8 ursan?

You really are good at that strawman thing. Where in the post you quoted does he make any claim that there was no grind in GW1 ?

I didn’t say he did, but since he’s accusing people of spreading misinformation, I was pointing out that lots of Guild Wars 1 players were saying there was no vertical progression in Guild Wars 1, which isn’t quite true. Whether he specifically states it or not is not relevant…since I didn’t specify him. I just said Guild Wars 1 players.

And yes, I’m very good at straw men. lol

Banquetto.9521:

Vayne.8563:

A lot of the changes in the game has made it less fun and more grind. While the grind is optional…it’s only borderline optional. That is to say, there’s pressure to get achievements, pressure to get certain gear. If some of that pressure is self-inflicted by players, well, it’s still pressure.

I’d be interested to know whether people feel that, say, there is more pressure on GW2 players to get achievements that there was on GW1 players to get brutally grindy titles like Cartographer and Vanquisher?

Now this is something I can say with some certainty. There is definitely more pressure in this game than there was in the last game. That’s a fact. Just the fact that the dailies and the world events are so in your face, and that achievement points have become such a thing, it’s definitely more pressure.

One of the things I like less about this game than Guild Wars 1.

But it’s still something you can choose to ignore. It’s just harder.

SonicTHI.3217:

Carlin Sanders.3587:

Have gw1 fans forgotten the name of the fancy versions of armor you got on prophecies? does ‘ascended’ armor ring a bell?

exotic was designed to do a job – make top tier something that required effort so that people can actually appreciate what they have. it failed. so they had to bring in ascended to do that job. (would you salvage an ascended weapon? in comparison, would you salvage an exotic? and why?)

edit: and have we forgotten the point of why skill point scrolls exist? are we going to cry and whine when they introduce new skills into the game that seem better than the current meta? of course we will.

I wish people would stop spreading disinformation about GW1 already. 15k GW1 armor had the SAME stats as 1,5k and the SAME as obsidian or any other max armor.
Legendary had the SAME stats as exotic. Ascended was not needed in any way and goes against everything explained in numerous blog posts and interviews over the course of several years.
And no i wouldnt salvage my exotic weapon if it was max stat. Exotics required enough effort for most people. Especially if you wanted to have a fully geared character or god forbid alts.

Ascended was not brought in to do “a job”. It was brought in to please a subset of players that were complaining or leaving in droves – the same people that wanted GW2 to be more like WoW.

Unfortunately these same players can not be pleased. Ever. Once they have their chars geared out in ascended they will either demand new shinies again or leave.

ANET is doing the same 2 stupid things most companies in the last decade tried to do: trying to cater to everyone and trying to do what WoW does best.

I wish Guild Wars 1 players would stop spreading misinformation, like that there was no grind in Guild Wars that affected your character’s power. That’s just wrong. It wasn’t gear, sure, but then, there were plenty of skills that you had to level through rep, that were needed for some builds, like imbagon. Or do you not remember people in Guild Wars 1 looking for groups of r8 ursan?

Chuo.4238:

Jaga.2084:

It was fun having a finished character. I got all exotic gear and could play what I want. Well, after I did my chores that are Dailies. I could even experiment with new builds, because gear wasn’t a time consuming factor. I leveled Crafting just for Guildies to make them stuff if they needed it. Now I log in and the list of chores grew bigger. Beside of dailies there is the gathering farm, dungeon farm and champion farm. And after that, I farm living story. And after all the stuff, I didn’t have fun doing, I already played to long. I’d rather pay a subscription fee and play what I want when I want, than being pushed in the daily grind that is Guild Wars 2. Most of my friends logged in just for the dailies until they left the game completely.

Yep. I’m with you. I’m totally sick of playing “keeping up with gear” on my character. I was so excited about GW2 because I (like an idiot, apparently) assumed that I wouldn’t have to deal with tiers of gear once I hit max level (like Guild Wars…duh).

So I got my toon all decked out, and skinned how I liked it….and now it’s all out of date.

Screw it. Way to ruin a great game, ArenaNet, by abandoning what made you special, and reverting back to the very thing that people hate in other MMO’s.

And yes, I’m going to keep complaining about it here, because even if ArenaNet doesn’t listen, you can bet that competitors are watching carefully.

Maybe one of them will finally break the mold.

Competitors aren’t watching carefully. That’s silly. If that happened, every MMO that came out in the last five years would have learned from forums. And I’m pretty sure that every competitor knows that the bulk of people who visit forums are there because they are dissatisfied, but it doesn’t show the opinion of the masses, over all.

There have been studies done about the number of people playing a game who actually post on the forum. It was years ago, but I’m pretty sure the number hasn’t increased drastically. About 15% of players post on forums. And since not all agree, why would you think any dev from any game is watching these forums closely?

Note: Do you know what devs will learn from this. Guild Wars 2 tried to have cosmetic only upgrades and failed to be able to do so. That’s the only less they’ll get here.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I guess I don’t see the big deal… the exact same thing has been available on gw2lfg.com for the last 8 months… I have yet to wait longer then 2 minutes to find a group.

People can grief other people on LFG.com, by putting their name in for a run, even if they’re not running. There have been complain threads about this on the forums.

But in game, you can’t grief someone else.

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

luckywaldo.6089:

Vayne.8563:

Calae.1738:

Nebilim.5127:

I want the best loot and i want it now!

I’d like to think that an MMO is more about gaming experiences than grinding for new gear. I stopped playing a different MMO because I was sold on that idea.

Ascended rings and accessories brought content along with the grind. What did ascended weapons bring other than a grind?

There’s an answer to this. What ascended weapons brought is people doing content again. Stuff that used to be ignored is now done. You can take a temple in Orr again.

In spite of the fact that I’m against vertical progression on principle, the effect this has had on the traffic in world is huge.

And what happens when the ascended high is over, and the post-ascended crash starts when people get tired of farming and/or feel like they have nothing to progress toward anymore?

There’ll be another chapter of the living story that will do the same job. In case you haven’t noticed, Anet is getting better at traffic control, not worse.

They’ve certainly added quite a few cattle guards recently, but if they want to keep this cash cow chewing the cud they’d better start producing some high quality forage.

Maybe some people have a different idea of what is high quality than you do.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Colin Johnson timeline:

• The now infamous quote about expecting people to have best-in-slot gear upon reaching level 80.

• The now infamous quote about how he didn’t expect people to get to exotics so fast, so Ascended gear must be added.

• Don’t expect another tier for a long while.

Do you really trust him at this point?

Sure I trust him. Just like anyone else who said something years ago, and then the situation changed. In your life, you’ve never said something and two years later had to change it?

People are disingenuous. Oh, he’s a dev. He needs to be proficient in crystal ball to know what will happen.

That’s not the way the world works.

Thrumdi.9216:

Vayne.8563:

Spiral Architect.6540:

Vayne.8563:

So a company that said literally thousands of things before launch can be called on five of them.

You keep trotting some iteration of that phrase out, Vayne, and you keep missing the point: one of the key concepts the game was marketed on was the idea of horizontal progression, without gear grind. They said it over and over again. And then they trashed the idea.

If I had known the game would turn into a “gear grind, chase the shinies so you can chase more shinies” game, I would not have bought it.

No, I don’t think it was one of the key concepts the game was marketed on. In fact in thousands of videos it was mentioned a handful of times.

Dynamic events are what this game was marketed on. Personal story was what this game was marketed on. Vertical progression quotes are few and far between in comparison. They are important to you, personally, so you latched onto those few mentions but this isn’t big big new. People trot out the same three quotes. In five years of marketing, a handful of quotes doesn’t make what this game was marketed on.

Iteration, on the other hand, was mentioned in post after post, after post. Go back through the old blog posts and see how often iteration and iterative process was mentioned, and even an entire blogpost was devoted to it. It was in virtually every post by arena net for over a year.

No, it was clear throughout the pre-launch marketing period there would be no end-game grind. (To the point where people were even complaining about that before the game even shipped).

They even had a TM’d slogan for it: Play Your Way.

Play it your way had nothing to do with end game grind. If you think it did, you weren’t following the conversation as closely as you think you did. Anet said many times what they meant by that. If you choose to ignore that, you can ignore the rest of it as well. They said you can level by WvW, or doing dungeons, or doing dynamic events, or crafting. You can choose that. That’s all that meant. Reading more into it doesn’t help your argument.

As for end game grind I clearly remember (I think it was from an AMA), Eric Flannum saying there would be things to grind for for those who enjoy that play style, in answer to a question asked about it.

And what does end game grind even mean, in a game which claimed it had no end game to begin with.

I’m not sure you are remembering everything that was said. I think you’re remembering bits and pieces in an attempt to support your argument. A lot more was said than you’re saying was said.

Ashen.2907:

Cloud.7613:

I think you missed the point.

“People simply aren’t forgiving.”

And Vayne is completely right. Professionals follow through with their bosses commands. No one ever looks at Colin’s perspective, they just spend hours calling him a liar. Did Colin decide that GW2 wasn’t making enough possible money and it needed to be changed? We don’t know, nor will we ever know who decided that, but people still decide to personally attack him and expect he’d be a rubber band and come back every day for abuse? That goes for all GW2 staff, the forum is toxic from people who are stonewalled into believing their own opinions and attack even fellow players for straying from THEIR path.

A professional stands strong publicly no matter the possible duress and the staff has done that in amazing fashion. You can believe what you like, but you’re painting a very detailed picture of why GW2 player base needs to rethink attacking one man is going to solve not only a game issue, but a community issue.

I would be more forgiving of the company deciding that it needed to change its product, for whatever reason, if it was not attempting to spin the change by claiming that the original design intent used to help sell the product never existed.

This is what companies do. No company comes out and says we’re going to make this change, no matter what you think. They try to mitigate damage. It’s what business always does.

Sure you can yell and scream at them for it, or be disappointed, but I’m not really sure what else you’d expect a big company to do.

luckywaldo.6089:

Vayne.8563:

Calae.1738:

Nebilim.5127:

I want the best loot and i want it now!

I’d like to think that an MMO is more about gaming experiences than grinding for new gear. I stopped playing a different MMO because I was sold on that idea.

Ascended rings and accessories brought content along with the grind. What did ascended weapons bring other than a grind?

There’s an answer to this. What ascended weapons brought is people doing content again. Stuff that used to be ignored is now done. You can take a temple in Orr again.

In spite of the fact that I’m against vertical progression on principle, the effect this has had on the traffic in world is huge.

And what happens when the ascended high is over, and the post-ascended crash starts when people get tired of farming and/or feel like they have nothing to progress toward anymore?

There’ll be another chapter of the living story that will do the same job. In case you haven’t noticed, Anet is getting better at traffic control, not worse.

Spiral Architect.6540:

Vayne.8563:

So a company that said literally thousands of things before launch can be called on five of them.

You keep trotting some iteration of that phrase out, Vayne, and you keep missing the point: one of the key concepts the game was marketed on was the idea of horizontal progression, without gear grind. They said it over and over again. And then they trashed the idea.

If I had known the game would turn into a “gear grind, chase the shinies so you can chase more shinies” game, I would not have bought it.

No, I don’t think it was one of the key concepts the game was marketed on. In fact in thousands of videos it was mentioned a handful of times.

Dynamic events are what this game was marketed on. Personal story was what this game was marketed on. Vertical progression quotes are few and far between in comparison. They are important to you, personally, so you latched onto those few mentions but this isn’t big big new. People trot out the same three quotes. In five years of marketing, a handful of quotes doesn’t make what this game was marketed on.

Iteration, on the other hand, was mentioned in post after post, after post. Go back through the old blog posts and see how often iteration and iterative process was mentioned, and even an entire blogpost was devoted to it. It was in virtually every post by arena net for over a year.

Thrumdi.9216:

Vayne.8563:

So a company that said literally thousands of things before launch can be called on five of them. Some would call that a pretty good percentage.

Others would say that people are being too judgmental and focusing on the negative because it doesn’t fit their idea of what should have been done.

I think Anet, over all, have gotten it right. I think they got the ascended gear wrong, but not wrong enough for me to dig out two, three year old quotes and try to hold them accountable.

Bringing out those quotes won’t stop ascended gear. But it will derail the issue against vertical progression, because reasonable people will look at what you’re saying and remember the time they said something that didn’t work out the way they wanted it to.

If you’re against ascended gear, talk about that, not something that was said 3 years ago.

Or someone else will just bring up the quote about iteration and how Anet has said publicly in the blog post how they try things and if they don’t work, they’ll change them, even complete systems if they have to.

But when those 5 things are the core of the game, we are talking about a central issue.

It’s like a used car salesman promises you your car has an engine, among other parts. But when it’s delivered, it’s only empty under the hood.

You ask him, hey, where’s that engine you promised me? And he says to you: I also told you it had power windows, A/C, dual airbags, satellite radio and a sun roof. Why are you calling me on that one little thing? Aren’t you being unreasonable?

What five things are the core of the game. One of the things was dyes being account bound instead of soul bound (but they changed other things at the time as well).

Maybe two could be said to have changed, but they’re actually related. And seen by the core of the game by whom? I didn’t see them as the core of the game. I saw the living world as the core of the game.

Most people who play the game aren’t even aware of the concept, in my opinion.

So a company that said literally thousands of things before launch can be called on five of them. Some would call that a pretty good percentage.

Others would say that people are being too judgmental and focusing on the negative because it doesn’t fit their idea of what should have been done.

I think Anet, over all, have gotten it right. I think they got the ascended gear wrong, but not wrong enough for me to dig out two, three year old quotes and try to hold them accountable.

Bringing out those quotes won’t stop ascended gear. But it will derail the issue against vertical progression, because reasonable people will look at what you’re saying and remember the time they said something that didn’t work out the way they wanted it to.

If you’re against ascended gear, talk about that, not something that was said 3 years ago.

Or someone else will just bring up the quote about iteration and how Anet has said publicly in the blog post how they try things and if they don’t work, they’ll change them, even complete systems if they have to.

Calae.1738:

Nebilim.5127:

I want the best loot and i want it now!

I’d like to think that an MMO is more about gaming experiences than grinding for new gear. I stopped playing a different MMO because I was sold on that idea.

Ascended rings and accessories brought content along with the grind. What did ascended weapons bring other than a grind?

There’s an answer to this. What ascended weapons brought is people doing content again. Stuff that used to be ignored is now done. You can take a temple in Orr again.

In spite of the fact that I’m against vertical progression on principle, the effect this has had on the traffic in world is huge.

tigirius.9014:

Of course all of the people who WvW or play PVP don’t see a problem with getting these things.

One of the problems with this system is it’s disproportionate according to what you do to get it.

Once again open world seems to get the short end of the stick. I supposed we’ll be hearing next about how the bots are to blame for this as well?

I play PvE and I don’t see it as that hard to get either. But easy doesn’t equate to fast and hard doesn’t equate to slow. There’s a time barrier here.

Now if you needed this stuff to compete in PvE at this time (and clearly you don’t), then I don’t see why it matters if it takes two weeks to get, or a month or six months. Because you don’t need it. It’s a goal for people who need goals.

What percentage of the population needs goals? That’s the question. Can you answer it?

stof.9341:

Vayne.8563:

Okay, so a publisher says thousands of things and five of them change. I see you hold people to this high standard of behavior that probably isn’t attainable within a corporation.

That’s not just some 5-6 random points among thousands XD For me, the notion of Horizontal Progression was the core of the game, plain and simple. Changing that isn’t as if the decided to remove some minigame before (or after) the release.

It’s the core of the game TO YOU. It’s not the core of the game to me. It’s not the core of the game to lots and lots of other people.

If you had to take a guess, what percentage of the players even know what vertical progression means?