Guild Wars 2

Mimizu.7340:

fadeaway.2807:

You realise people on breaks don’t buy gems anymore right?

wow, now that you mention it, i didnt buy any gems in the 10 month break i had.

thanks for pointing that out. >.<

i also havent bought any gems since i returned either.

and considering most people convert gold to gems rather than buy gems with real money, no loss there.

Well I’m a dev myself and I’m Ok with supporting other devs. I was buying gems to get convenience items like bank tab or server transfer even I had enough gold. At least before ascended patch. Now I don’t think game is moving the direction I like so I’m not going to buy it anymore. At least before CDI thread results. Easy as that.
So ppl buy gems.

Fenrir.3609:

zilcho.7624:

Fenrir.3609:

I didn’t say it to end any discussion, not sure why you would think as such really.

I merely pointed out that you can make (a lot) of gold via non TP routes.

I also didn’t cite any figures for inflation, optimal or otherwise.

Except you can’t make a lot of gold without the TP. You might achieve 10G a day, if you play an exceptional number of hours and are efficient.

That is dwarfed by what is possible on the TP. Just looking at the price of Ascended gear makes this clear. If we go with the 10G/d estimate, do you really think one piece of Ascended gear is valued in months and not days? At that rate, it would take nearly a year to finish your set.

With a crappy 53% account magic find I can pull in 5-10g on average per hour from champ farming.

Let’s assume a paltry 10g a day though. In three months you have 900 gold. That is if you don’t get lucky and get a pre during your farm. Are you seriously suggesting that is not enough?

Those people playing the TP take on more risk and are involved in a zero sum game. It is a different beast. If I go and farm pve I know what I am getting (on average) and I know I am not having to compete with anyone or risk anything to get that.

So no, I don’t see an issue with it in all fairness. The issue arises when you get people who don’t want to farm, who don’t want to be “efficient”, who don’t want to actively engage in in the TP and at the same time expect to be able to get the elite/endgame items within a short time frame.

LoL Trade Wars 2. Sellers are taking risk. Your money is on the stake.

Always though that GW2 is supposed to be played in different way and your personal story doesn’t have TP as a final mission.

As for me ideal solution is to raise drop chance of good items, make content more challenging and make items bought from TP account bound. But ANET will never do this and everybody knows why. They also want profit.

In any case I don’t think this can go to extreme. If most players will not be able to achieve anything without TP play they will leave and game will die. So some sort of equilibrium will always be there.

I would gladly run 1-2 dungeons a day in a slow manner with a high chance to get precursor. But reality is I need to buy it instead. And I need money for this. More grind – more speed runs, more rude ppl.

Subdue.5479:

Ashen.2907:

Subdue.5479:

Hardcore is spending 2-3 doing the various activities associated with achieving long term in game goals – high level fractals, ascended gear, legendaries, etc.

You consider crafting hardcore ?

Hmm, some pretty hardcore grandmothers out there with all that knitting.

If your grandmother can do this, yes I’d agree she’s hardcore.

If you grandmother have skill to do this – yes. If she just collected money whole life and bought it – no.

Subdue.5479:

WRay.2391:

Subdue.5479:

Kevan.8912:

Subdue.5479:

The problem is that there exists this middle group that wants to feel hardcore, sitting around in BiS gear, but doesn’t actually want to be hardcore. These players play like casuals, a dungeon here, a dungeon there, some mapping, not really doing anything focused or hardcore with their time, but they want to be dressed in the best gear. Mind you, the gear they’re currently in most likely far more than enough for any content they’ve done or ever think of doing. That’s not the point for them though. The point for them is that they no longer feel hardcore, even though they never really were hardcore.

the problem is that there exist some people that forget that if they want to feel hardcore, there is WoW.
and there yeah, that’s kitten. grind your soul out and get that BiS gear to feel your glory….for a pair of weeks before the next tier is rolled out.
it’s you that want to have an easy BiS…if compared to other games…but slighty too difficult/time wasting for the other standard players, to show your possible kittenitude….in a battle of the have-nots.

and there exist(ed) also a gw2 game that forgot who bought it and why.
why sold out so many copies.
the only things that divide it from a big fat fail. the casuals who want to have that best equip.
let it continue down the road of new tiers.
there we’ll never be a real competition with really hardcore-grindy games.
a foot in both camps…won’t last long.

have fun…until there is fun.

It’s pretty clear that you did not even understand the post that you quoted, and your comments are entirely based on assumptions, many of which are contradicted by simple observation.

I think it’s you who don’t understand how GW2 was sold.
If you want to consider yourself hardcore and show off then there is a tons of skins/legendaries for it. Want hardcore grind – go for it. It’s called horizontal progression.

If you want to have stat advantage because you grinded more than WoW is for you. GW2 was not created for this but now ANET is trying to play for both teams. Results are bad IMO.

And please, tell me what is this magical “hardcore”. Are you hardcore enough ? Maybe you also a middle class player that pretends to be hardcore ? Who knows, everything needs comparison.

Actually, it’s likely you that doesn’t understand how GW2 was sold. It was marketed with a focus on quick, smooth combat and dynamic events. The concept of horizontal progression, was rarely even in the picture unless someone else brought it up. It was rarely if ever the focus of any marketing.

That said, GW2 drew from GW1 playerbase, sure, but it also drew from the overall MMO playerbase as well, many of whom came with certain expectations, that differed from the expectations of the GW1 players. Please note, I use the term GW1 players loosely, as I’m sure there are some GW1 players that are happy to have some higher tier gear to work towards, and I’m sure there are some non-GW1 players that would prefer a purely horizontal progression.

However, while A.Net may have wanted to develop a purely horizontal game, the fact of the matter is that the majority of the player base, and most likely those player that were more prone to spending on gems, wanted something to work towards.

A.Net’s compromise was… well I explained that part already.

Oh, I almost forgot to address your question. What is hardcore? Hardcore is spending 2-3 doing the various activities associated with achieving long term in game goals – high level fractals, ascended gear, legendaries, etc.

Oh, thank you for your explanation.

What you described as hardcore is a simple grinding. You don’t even need to have mind to do this. Bots are the most hardcore players by your definition.

As per my understanding hardcore is building your skill in certain activity. Solo Arah p4 in white armor and I will call you hardcore. Reach fractals 80+ before nerf and I will call you hardcore. Grind for mats/gold and I will call you bot or casual.

Subdue.5479:

Kevan.8912:

Subdue.5479:

The problem is that there exists this middle group that wants to feel hardcore, sitting around in BiS gear, but doesn’t actually want to be hardcore. These players play like casuals, a dungeon here, a dungeon there, some mapping, not really doing anything focused or hardcore with their time, but they want to be dressed in the best gear. Mind you, the gear they’re currently in most likely far more than enough for any content they’ve done or ever think of doing. That’s not the point for them though. The point for them is that they no longer feel hardcore, even though they never really were hardcore.

the problem is that there exist some people that forget that if they want to feel hardcore, there is WoW.
and there yeah, that’s kitten. grind your soul out and get that BiS gear to feel your glory….for a pair of weeks before the next tier is rolled out.
it’s you that want to have an easy BiS…if compared to other games…but slighty too difficult/time wasting for the other standard players, to show your possible kittenitude….in a battle of the have-nots.

and there exist(ed) also a gw2 game that forgot who bought it and why.
why sold out so many copies.
the only things that divide it from a big fat fail. the casuals who want to have that best equip.
let it continue down the road of new tiers.
there we’ll never be a real competition with really hardcore-grindy games.
a foot in both camps…won’t last long.

have fun…until there is fun.

It’s pretty clear that you did not even understand the post that you quoted, and your comments are entirely based on assumptions, many of which are contradicted by simple observation.

I think it’s you who don’t understand how GW2 was sold.
If you want to consider yourself hardcore and show off then there is a tons of skins/legendaries for it. Want hardcore grind – go for it. It’s called horizontal progression.

If you want to have stat advantage because you grinded more than WoW is for you. GW2 was not created for this but now ANET is trying to play for both teams. Results are bad IMO.

And please, tell me what is this magical “hardcore”. Are you hardcore enough ? Maybe you also a middle class player that pretends to be hardcore ? Who knows, everything needs comparison.

I have different feeling about WvW map completion. I had map completion on 10 characters now (deleted 2 of them). When I discovered I need WvW maps for completion I was mad. Still I did it and what I got from it:
1. You should understand that you are getting Gift of Exploration for legendary, it’s not just a title. WvW is one of the major activity required for this (you also need Gift of Battle).
2. I really liked WvW. Never was a PvP player, but this activity is nice if you have a good guild and server. That time it wasn’t that zerg oriented though.

ANET can probably fix this for players who really hate WvW as they did with Gift of Battle (buy it for badges from achiev chest and you are good). Add an option to enter WvW as a guest (no enemies for you but you cannot see ppl from normal mode to avoid spying) or remove it from map completion. Removing is probably better cause there will be no challenge from the first option so why even bother.

timidobserver.7925:

WRay.2391:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I do believe that economics played an important role in the Ascended decision. We’ll never know what might have happened if ANet had opted to provide the promised horizontal/cosmetic progression rather than shallow vertical progression. They had the opportunity to push the alternative MMO progression they advertised. However, it doesn’t take an economist to realize that adding Ascended Rings and a back-piece took a lot less resources than developing the robust options for skill-based and/or cosmetic progression that would have been needed for HP.

It also doesn’t take a programmer to realize the difficulty of retooling some things which are desperately called for (ranger pets, “DPS is king”, “Traherne killed my story”) are expensive in employee hours and requirement for creating new assets in some cases to handle it without botching.

Right now, Arenanet has their focus on finishing out their Living World “Season 1” with Scarlet. They have their CDI notes, but we know nothing significant and quick is going to come out of them.

Even if they hit the brakes right now on everything else and started working on something purely horizontal progression, we would probably be . . . I’ll say three months from seeing it hit live release.

During which, there’s the risk of people departing because there’s no longer anything to do except wait.

Yeah. If ANET will not change things until D3 RoS will be released I’m out. Grinding for gear is much more fun in D3 as it was DESIGNED for this. You get gear by killing monster – simple what about this game is. And Blizzard at least heard players – no more RMAH, loot better, mystic that will allow to change stats on the gear.

GW2 was designed to not have gear grind. They added it but didn’t give any new content with it. Like really ?! I need to go and grind for middle tier mats with my lvl 80 char in low level zones ?! Best design ever !

Your point is absolutely the only valid point I have ever seen against vertical progression. I am for vertical progression, but I agree entirely that it is pretty lame to release a new gear tier with no content to support it.

Instead, you go and farm eons of low level mats or….. convert money to gems and buy the mats.

LoL I’m sure that was one of the reasons. Exactly that is why I will never buy gems from ANET anymore until they’ll fix this at least at some extent. If I’ll need gold so badly I’ll prefer to buy it from some gold spammer in current circumstances.

spiritus.7983:

Kevan.8912:

vertical progression binds me to a sense of inferiority, grind like a necessary work to be done for a mandatory aim.

tell this to “dedicated players”

I believe you meant “dedicated grinders” here ? If it’s a gameplay then I will definitely leave this game. For now I’m just hanging here waiting for results of CDI thread.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I do believe that economics played an important role in the Ascended decision. We’ll never know what might have happened if ANet had opted to provide the promised horizontal/cosmetic progression rather than shallow vertical progression. They had the opportunity to push the alternative MMO progression they advertised. However, it doesn’t take an economist to realize that adding Ascended Rings and a back-piece took a lot less resources than developing the robust options for skill-based and/or cosmetic progression that would have been needed for HP.

It also doesn’t take a programmer to realize the difficulty of retooling some things which are desperately called for (ranger pets, “DPS is king”, “Traherne killed my story”) are expensive in employee hours and requirement for creating new assets in some cases to handle it without botching.

Right now, Arenanet has their focus on finishing out their Living World “Season 1” with Scarlet. They have their CDI notes, but we know nothing significant and quick is going to come out of them.

Even if they hit the brakes right now on everything else and started working on something purely horizontal progression, we would probably be . . . I’ll say three months from seeing it hit live release.

During which, there’s the risk of people departing because there’s no longer anything to do except wait.

Yeah. If ANET will not change things until D3 RoS will be released I’m out. Grinding for gear is much more fun in D3 as it was DESIGNED for this. You get gear by killing monster – simple what about this game is. And Blizzard at least heard players – no more RMAH, loot better, mystic that will allow to change stats on the gear.

GW2 was designed to not have gear grind. They added it but didn’t give any new content with it. Like really ?! I need to go and grind for middle tier mats with my lvl 80 char in low level zones ?! Best design ever !

If existed system promote such a level of farming then exploiting is the only way. If you don’t want to mess with ascended don’t waist effort of ppl who still hope to get it. I gave up on ascended armor currently, effort and prices are just ridiculous. But if farmers will force mats prices to go down I appreciate it.
With current requirements ANET should officially allow bots cause with all farming needed players are becoming bots by themselves which is sad.

Ashen.2907:

I agree with the OP.

The addition of vertical progression at level cap via ascended gear has made the game unenjoyable for me.

I generally try to give things a chance even if my first perception is negative, and so continued to play, and spend, even after the first steps of gear grind were added. I found GW2 with the addition of ascended gear to be a job for which I was not being paid rather than a fun experience for which I was willing to continue to pay.

OP, you are not alone in your opinion.

^^
+100500

Tachii.3506:

Keiel.7489:

I’ve gotten more keys from drops than precursors.

Key 1.
Precursor 0.

So yeah, I guess I can agree with this statement.

Same

While grind exists and somebody proposing a way to get rid of it for some bucks gold sellers will be there. For good reason. If anet will add ways to greatly reduce grind for fair price they will be gone.
If somebody will propose me mats for ascended for $10 so I don’t need to grind for it as a robot I will go for it. I never report these guys. I don’t like spam but see this as forced by anet currently.

lordkrall.7241:

imsoenthused.1634:

Oh, that. You got enough of those points just exploring the areas and doing quests that I never felt like I was grinding to meet those requirements. Even later when I went back to get 10000 Luxon points, just to finish up the protector title, it was a negligible grind compared to the nightmare of ascended gear. Something you could knock out in an afternoon.

And yet it is REQUIRED, while in GW2 you are not mechanically blocked form anything for not having Ascended gear.

And no, just doing quests in GW1 (without doing repeating stuff) you would get about 8500 points (for Luxon), which is 1500 points less than you would need in order to progress. Sunspear also required quite a bit of going out of your way in order to get enough.
At least back when I did it around release.

Sure it was not really that hard or annoying to do it, but the point remains that it was actually REQUIRED, and yet people don’t seem to have any issue with it, while they have major issues with the non-required Ascended gear in GW2.

I guess because grind for required points in GW1 was more fun than grind for Ascended in GW2. Plus you can really enjoy GW2 now only by totally ignoring ascended.

Makes sense. But what about Arah story which is a mandatory for personal character story completion ?

juno.1840:

erroch.8061:

Devata.6589:

With buying gems you are not supporting the game you are helping to destroy it. And I will not explain why again.

Explain in the current model how you financially support the game without buying gems please.

You can’t beyond box sales — which is a problem. We will continue to get more gem store fluff unless the current model is changed. I have not, and will not, push RL cash into the gem store — ever. I will give RL money for expansions (but at this point I would have to see what the expansion offers as my faith in the franchise is shaken).

You have point but I’m not completely agree with you.
Company have tendency too:
1. Get profit (get more money than was spent)
2. Maximize profit (get as much profit as possible)
Option 1 is mandatory. If they are not getting enough money to pay salary/expenses than they’ll make your life miserable by adding all kinds of pay to win regardless you opinion or manifesto.
Option 2 is important but negotiable. If company is in profit it start caring about feedback cause if community is frustrated profit can be lost.
In my opinion support with gems is a good option. But they need to add some kind of survey in game and make public. So community sees what is important for ppl and how anet works on fixing it. Voting can be made using gems (still can be banned by a big chunk of community to not let pay-2-win options pass).

DarcShriek.5829:

I hate this one and the rabbit food in Wayfarer Foothills.

Rabbit food is really easy if you are not alone. You get credits for scaring rabbits too (you can do this while NPC carries food too btw).

Verdelet.3812:

I did this heart on an alt the other day and know just what you mean lol. I got the flag near the heart NPC by jumping on the boxes (I think they were boxes) behind it then crept to the right and hid by the rock in front of the guy who jumps out of stealth in the corner. As soon as stealth guy disappeared, I crept behind his spot to get the flag there, then I think jumped onto the tent, walked across it and dropped down at the right time to get the next flag.

After that I kept being discovered so my advice probably isn’t all that great lol. But if you can get the first few, just wait and they’ll reset soon so you can go around to get them again.

Did this heart on 10 alts Your first steps a correct. Then just timing of run/dodge. I think I was able to get all flags during one stealth finally (maybe missed one, don’t remember). But first time it’s really frustrating, I agree with you here.

I see that OP made this post fast and under influence of feelings. Will comment some.

“I’m getting annoyed by people who say they want instant armor, instant ascendeds, instant legendaries, instant gold, instant attention for their little worlds, in their little minds where they’ll seemingly never will be happy”

I’m getting annoyed with such generalization. Ppl doesn’t want anything instant, they want time/reward ratio to be acceptable. IMO it’s awesome for exotics as BiS stat gear and for legendary as status skin. I was happy. But now game is moving grind direction and I have concerns about it. Why my opinion is worse that yours ?

“A RPG game is not a grind, but you’ll have to work for it. "
Absolutely agree, see my first comment.

“I have played computer games for about 30 years now.”
Pretty much same. But I don’t think that opinion of ppl who play less is irrelevant.

“Nowadays games, including Guild Wars, can deliver a 3D simulated environment, on the fly, with 100’s, 10.000’s and even 1.000.000’s of people playing it. People don’t seem to care about the programming, the infrastruture and the effort which has to come together”
As a software developer I’d say that most processes are already working and optimized. You are not inventing every time you build new product. It’s still a complex technical problem but it’s not a god level solution. Gameplay design and QoL is more important IMO.

“just because they paid 50 euro’s/dollars and therefore they expect they are (the) boss.
I will tell you you are NOT! Even though I spend quite some money on this game I’m happy. Happy I got hundreds of people working their kitten off to make me able to play a luxury computer game. I’m happy people thought of it and build it. …”
Well. What can I say. It’s always good to appreciate dev’s work. I was also buying gems to support them (not anymore though until they’ll fix current grind issues at least at some extent). If you paid $50 for product that is not as it was advertised than you are not appreciating your own time/money. If you cannot respect yourself I doubt you can respect others. Nobody is trying to be a boss but everybody wants to play game they paid for and raising concerns if this has tendency to change.

“Just for all the instant people. Please just go and add some water and become people. Understand you are playing a RPG and you’ll never be first, cause there is always somebody who’s more fanatic and more dedicated to paying for things then you’ll be, in the 30 minutes it took you to read thispost or write your post someone else advanced a little furter ahead of you.”
Nobody wants to be first (with exclusions of course). Ppl want some QoL in game that is getting reduced. From where did you get this “being first” approach ? And btw please a little bit more respect to other ppl as you do for ANET devs.

“I’ll stay, because I like Guild Wars 2 -period-
To the whole crew of Guild Wars 2:
Thank you for giving me a nice game with so many interesting details. Thank you for the effort you put in to make this work. Thank you for making my life a bit bigger.
Thank you -period-”
Agree almost on everything here. I log in less often now but I’ll return when you’ll make latest changes more balanced. Please work with us on feedback and make this game even better. Don’t just go easy grind way. But in general your game is great.

“And maybe, just maybe in those 10 years of chopping wood and mining iron and crafting which lie ahead:
I’ll eventually hope to get my other legendaries and all needed ascended, legendary or godly items for my 9 characters…. If that is what I want…. As long as I’ll be enjoying it.”
I’m happy for you man. Just don’t forget that there is real life outside and you should enjoy it too. Wish you all the best.

Wasbunny.6531:

On second thought I suppose if it were not optional WvW players could just crank their brightness up to gain an unfair advantage.

So much for that bright idea.

^^
This. If it will give advantage everybody in WvW will start changing general light settings. Slider as an option may work if somebody will want it but don’t force us to play with the game settings for half a game period

morrolan.9608:

mtpelion.4562:

morrolan.9608:

Whats the difference between grind through dungeons and raids and grinding for materials? Both can be said to have access. The main difference is that in WoW it now takes much less time to get BiS than in GW2.

I think the biggest difference with regard to the WoW/GW2 grind comparison is that while you are playing GW2 you are slowly accumulating the item you want (be it through materials used to make it or gold used to buy it) whereas in WoW you are playing through an entire raid/dungeon looking for a single boss to RNG drop a specific item and hoping you win the Need roll. In GW2 your grind builds progress over time until you get the item while in WoW your grind is never rewarded until you randomly get the item.

WoW has tokens if you don’t get the drop.

In GW2 you can’t accumulate ascended mats until you reach level 80. I would also hazard an educated guess that there is no way in hell a light armor wearer would be able to accumulate the cloth required to make a full set ascended light armor in levelling from 1 to 80. I was accumulating silk scraps at level 80 for months before it was introduced and still had nowhere near the amount required.

^^
This. And there is no difference if you grind for mats in dungeons or you doing raids. At least raids are NEW content. And in both cases you have ACCESS to statistical BiS gear when reach max level.
Logical conclusion for “everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game.”:
1. If meant as have access to BiS gear, than it’s a BS cause game is not different from any other on the market. Wasn’t worth even mentioning.
2. I meant as HAVE THE GEAR, that it’s a BS now after ascended patch. Still it was true after release.

VOLKON.1290:

darkace.8925:

VOLKON.1290:

morrolan.9608:

VOLKON.1290:

The reason ascended was introduced makes perfect sense in my opinion. They simply didn’t expect exotics to become so plentiful and easy to get.

This is incorrect and has been proven to be so by quotes in this thread.

No it isn’t.

You couldn’t possibly be more wrong. Collin Johanson himself said, and I quote, “everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game.”

Actually you’re wrong. All level 80 characters do and did have access to the best statistical loot in the game. You don’t reach level 80 then have to go through a series of weekly dungeon and raid runs to eventually get access to the best statistical loot… it’s all available as soon as you hit 80.

In other MMOs (like WoW for example) you’d have to level up to 80 (at the time for me), then you’ve only just begun the grind of trying to gain access to the best statistical loot. You’d run dungeons to get gear for heroic dungeons and raids, only to get gear for the next raid, ad infinitum.

The best statistical loot in the game is available as soon as you hit level 80. Before you could get it overnight. Now it takes a little longer if you’re driven to getting ascended.

LOL. Have ACCESS to best statistical loot in the game by MAX level. Wait … Need some time to stop laughing …
Ok. In EVERY game character of MAX level have theoretical ACCESS to best statistical loot in the game (maybe there are exclusions when you need to pay real money for BiS, I don’t know. In this case it’s not a game I will play anyway). In WOW you grind by doing raids. In GW2 you grind by doing boring crap without new content. You need to do the same dungeons (call it raids if you want) to get empyreal. What are you talking about ?
I’m not even arguing now about need/want logic here. But your interpretation of the quotation is just fabulous.

Stooperdale.3560:

“Nonstop temporary events (along with achievements and unique rewards) prioritized over permanent additions create a sense of urgency bordering on stress while playing game. Most players don’t like feeling this so they end up abandoning the game. "

Do they? I’m not stressed about completing Wintersday and I don’t really see many other people like my guild stressing about it either. Most players abandon games because they have too little content instead of too much, and anyone who abandons because they have too much is really just creating their own problems. You miss Winterday and can’t complete it? Big deal. There’s something new next month. Problem solved just through the right attitude. There’s no peer pressure to complete living story updates at all.

Well, in temporary content you can find some interesting parts you are willing to do. You will get some achievements out of it. But to get a prize you need to complete achievements you don’t like too (kill n monsters, unwrap n packages). I would eventually complete it, but definitely not during 2 weeks (for this you need to dedicate time to do the same activity over and over again – grind). As a result I’m not getting reward doing temporary content if I want to enjoy it. Which is frustrating.
As a result I stop caring about temporary content at all. I’m not going to grind to complete all achieves in time, so I will not be rewarded. No reason to look at it then. Simple logic. Even daily I usually complete by doing other activities.

VOLKON.1290:

TooBz.3065:

VOLKON.1290:

TooBz.3065:

VOLKON.1290:

WRay.2391:

After ascended introduction you have stats increase. This forces you to get it ASAP to have the same benefits in stats as exotics granted previously. This prevents you from doing other content (in most cases it’s psychological desire, but it doesn’t really matter. With one patch ANET made you a second class citizen considering initial game setup and manifesto). Or you can admit that manifesto failed and this game is the same as the others MMOs on the market now. In this case I’ll switch to another game as soon as will find a good one.

Forces? Why? What can’t you do in the game without ascended stats? Is there new content that’s ascended only that I didn’t hear about?

Eh… no. You’re not forced into getting ascended. Maybe you think you are as a relic of past games where numbers were far more significant, but no, it’s ridiculous to claim that you’re being “forced” into ascended gear. If you want it, go for it. If not, nothing changes.

Forces. Sheesh.

Emphasized the initial post to aide with reading comprehension.

Emphasizing a falsehood doesn’t make it magically true.

Feelings aren’t true or false, they are feelings.

Obviously, if you look at the forums, there are many people who feel as if the have to get ascended gear, or who feel dissatisfied until they get ascended gear. I know you don’t HAVE to have it. But you don’t HAVE to play the game. And you certainly shouldn’t play a game that makes you feel second class.

My apologies then, I was thinking factually as opposed to feelingsy.

LOL So this game is your second job so you don’t have feeling about it ? TBH I will even leave my job if I will stop having fun doing it.

• I bought a product where BiS item is meant to be a normal thing when you reach 80. It was true and it was designed like this. ANED didn’t admit that manifesto changed so I assume now ascended should be a normal item for lvl 80. Is it normal logical chain ? What is a reason for want/need conversation ? * Or ANET sold one product and then changed it to another. In this case it’s a good approach to propose money back to unsatisfied players.

You don’t need exotics to do most of the activities. Are you using them though ? My bet is ‘yes’. Still nobody forces you. It’s a matter of convenience.

Grind can be considered mental disease if you want to talk about diseases. You spend tons of your time like a robot to get something that is meant to be easy to get. And you are happy about it. I’m currently just spending less time in this game in general, so I assume I’m not that bad.

Mars.6319:

BeoErgon.9107:

No grind for BIS means exactly that : no need to do repetitive tasks for obtaining BIS.
They thought it could work, it did not.

Could you explain why it didn’t work and what is different in the current system?

I thought the BIS weapon was legendary weapons.

Can’t you buy legendary weapons off the TP with real money by converting gems to gold?

Can’t you also buy time gated Ascended materials as well as crafting materials to level your crafting skill with real money?

So what exactly are we fixing by adding new tiers of gear and then making us choose between grinding out long lists of materials or buying them with real money? Why is this better?

Legendary was not BiS actually. It had the same stats as exotics. As a result Legendary was a horizontal progression. You don’t need it to be (or to feel) competitive. You can work on it for month while doing other content.
After ascended introduction you have stats increase. This forces you to get it ASAP to have the same benefits in stats as exotics granted previously. This prevents you from doing other content (in most cases it’s psychological desire, but it doesn’t really matter. With one patch ANET made you a second class citizen considering initial game setup and manifesto). Or you can admit that manifesto failed and this game is the same as the others MMOs on the market now. In this case I’ll switch to another game as soon as will find a good one.

GuzziHero.2467:

TBH Anet hates people with alts. I should have just stuck to one character since the developers don’t want anyone playing multiple characters, or so it seems by their actions.

True that. If I new that game is going toward the current state I would never buy a character expansion slot.

I would probably try sPVP if ANET share PvP and PvE characters (like PvE and WvW). I’m not really interested in a dual character (different exp type or rank is probably ok). I want to use my build with my gear etc. But for this BiS gear should be easily accessible so this will not happened with ascended. And, I guess, there are many other reasons why they separated it.
Reward doesn’t really matter.

Well, I have 8 80s all with 100% world completion + 2 80s with world completion was deleted.
Leveling alts is fun for me. If it’s a different class your perception of the game changes. Different tactics, different builds.
As already suggested I’m doing all 1-15 zones first, 10-25 next and so on. By time you finished all 80s maps you already 80 for sure plus most gear is exotics. It’s a pain to solo all the lvl 80 maps, but also a good challenge (soloing skill point at the Balthazar temple is a pain if you are not a thief, I needed help for this one on some classes. After release it was easy). After you completed map first time you already know the path and it’s much faster for next alt.
I don’t recommend to level several alts in a row though. If you have a good memory of a map content it becomes boring. Switch to other activities for a while.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Teege.4623:

Things change. Namely change what you have to, to bring in the money.

“Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game.”
-Colin Johanson

Well “should” not “will”. And even in the original game that didn’t happen unless you were incredibly lucky or happened to ding 80 right after/during a Temple event chain.

At least 3 world map gives you 2 exotic for completion guaranteed. So it was pretty much “will”. Any way to get guaranteed ascended now ?

Yeah, there are some areas that can be opened during events also. It took me a while until I completed all the Explorer achievements. But nothing was related to personal story as far as I remember. Some parts you need to open even you visited it in story mode (like source of Orr location).

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

WRay.2391:

And please, no stupid comments about “you don’t need ascended”. Really tired of it.

So, I have to ask, what is it that you now cannot do on your alts because they do not have ascended?

Are you suddenly locked out of spvp?
Are you no longer able to access wvw?
Is there an armor rated area of pve that you now locked out of?
Can you no longer do the fractals that you were doing previously?

Please explain what exactly it is that you can ‘no longer do’ that makes your alts ‘useless.’

The game was bought because “by lvl 80 you will have BiS gear easily” + build experimenting. I paid money for this. It’s not “change your attitude”. It’s what I bought and what was changed in the most boring way. Money back process please as product is not as was advertised.

I usually get BiS gear (which is a grind evil but with exotics it was easy enough) and than go for game aspects that are interesting + skins grind which doesn’t feel abusive cause I’m not suffering stat loss. For constant gear grind Diablo 3 is much better game as it was designed for this (and Blizzard finally understood that RMAH is bad and loot should be better which is also good).

laokoko.7403:

WRay.2391:

Everybody for whom ascended is not a grind. Help me get full ascended for all my 8 alts, you are having fun grinding anyway.
Or give me yours, you don’t need it anyway as you are such a good players that can constantly dodge everything in white gear.

I can’t even imagine having a full set of top gear on 8 alts in any other mmorpg.

Maybe that’s why wow players joke about GW2’s endgame being making alt.

Ok, ANET can make any endgame they want. I gave up on this (though I knew what to do in game before ascended patch). But the problem is that I paid real money for character slot expansion. It was awesome before the patch. I was able to have 8 alts with BiS gear and enjoy the game using any class.
Now they break they manifesto and make all my alts useless. I’d say the product now is not as it was advertised and I lost money for nothing. If they are doing this I’d prefer to have money back solution and I’ll leave this game forever.
I’m not asking money paid for the game itself – I enjoyed it until recent changes. But there is no reason to have alts now if you don’t want to spend the whole life grinding. The most frustrating is a time spend to level up alts and make full map completion for them. The only way to use them now – park at JP and get daily loot (which is crap anyway).
And please, no stupid comments about “you don’t need ascended”. Really tired of it.

Everybody for whom ascended is not a grind. Help me get full ascended for all my 8 alts, you are having fun grinding anyway.
Or give me yours, you don’t need it anyway as you are such a good players that can constantly dodge everything in white gear.

Amere.9607:

gw2 isn’t grind, devs just trying to engage you in basic content because reward system sucked from the start.

imho, gw2 isnt grindy at all, game just doesn’t know how to handle itself. small effort = small reward, big effort = same small reward.

LOL Devs really engaged me. I have 8 lvl 80 with 100% world completion all of them. So I spent some time in this game. But after crafting 1 ascended weapon I understood that I’m not going to stupidly insanely grind to gear up all my alts.
As a result now I’m logging in for few times a month to have some WvW time (which is also currently not as fun anymore) and maybe do daily. LS completely sucks, same grind with some exclusions. Usually I ended up in crafting looking again at material requirements for ascended and I’m logging off for additional week or two.
But ANET will definitely not get any $ from me again until they’ll fix ascended.

I run max configuration. Experienced a lag only one in FS. But I believe it was a 3D Vision issue (a lot of snow particles).

Finished mine not long ago:
Case: Cooler Master Cosmos II
PSU: e-VGA SuperNOVA 1300 G2
MB: ASUS Rampage IV Extreme
CPU: Core i7 4930K
RAM: 64 Gb G-Skill @ 2133
HDD: 2 x Intel 530 240 Gb SSD
Video: 2 x e-VGA 780 Hydro Copper Dual Classified in SLI
Monitor: ASUS VG278HE Black
Mouse: ROCCAT Kone XTD
Keyboard: MS Natural Ergo 4000
NVidia 3D Vision Kit
Full water loop
Running on Windows 7 x64

JJBigs.8456:

make a filter on lfg

class not allowed: x x x
achivement points higher than: x x

Not sure that class filter will work. I like to play alts, for example, but switch to warrior/guard for dungeons. Somebody can be leveling an alt. Many reasons.

Baldric.6781:

Before ascended armor, you could buy gems for money convert them to gold and get the full exotic armors and weapons, with 0 effort .
That was right and ascended is wrong ?

What’s wrong with this ?
You cannot buy uber weapon to dominate without having skill. Even you bought exotics you suck because you don’t have skill (you need to spend time to master in any case). If you earned it you didn’t waste real money for it and it wasn’t a big grind, so you are not in disadvantage. ANET got some cash. Win/win/win IMO.

Legendaries should not be tradable though. So if you got it – it’s a status item.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

SoLeciTO.3490:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

If you want to shortcut the process, buy Gems and convert to Gold. If you don’t mind waiting, you can still get your gear. Basically, if you put in the effort, you get the reward. Sounds like you don’t want to put in much effort due to real life, and that’s fine. Play how you want to play. All Casuals have access to the exact same thing Hardcore players have.

Try to be in my place . . . i have only 1-1.5 hr daily to play. . . i want to use that time to be in the action . . . WvW., Dueling on the mill, fractals (the only kind of dungeon i like).

Daily i can do it while playing WvW, fractals, or spvp.

But crafting . . . it is just too much for people like me.

Thanks all for the feed back.

Prioritize your time. You aren’t the only one with a family or real life issues to deal with. If WvW is important to you, then do it. If you like FotM, then do it. If you want to do Crafting, then do it. If you want all of the above, then you need to find a way to make use of the time you have. Do less WvW and FotM, and use the remaining time for Crafting.

Remember, once you level your crafting, you don’t need to maintain it. I would recommend that you consider doing a full day of crafting, just to get it done and out of the way. Then go back to your usual activities.

SoLeciTO,

Your desire does make sense and I support you completely. GW2 is a game advertised as “you’ll have BiS gear while you reach 80”. All this ascended crap was a big mistake and now devs are collecting feedback to fix it in some way. Just don’t rush yourself in buying something now and don’t loose hope in game in general.

Considering ascended design mistakes buying ascended is actually a viable idea. It will just bring you on par statwise. Legendaries and some skins should not be tradable instead and grinded. They are really not “needed” if you don’t have time for it but is an ultimate goal.

Ignore all this “you don’t need it to play” considering BiS items. It was discussed many times and is irrelevant because of initial game design.

Hi Chris,

There were many comments on all aspects of the proposal. I just want to add an easy way to mitigate ascended stat swap. Just add a retrainer for, let’s say, 10s a piece. You still need to retrain traits anyway (around 4s) so it’s not a big deal. And legendary owners also have some advantage of not visiting this trainer/paying money.

Warcry.1596:

RANDOM number generator. It is RANDOM. 100% Random. Not changeable at all. Nothing you can do can modify the RANDOM number generator. Any sort of pattern you see, is in your head. Other games can have the RNG modified by doing little things such as attacking yourself, or using all of your items. This game doesn’t have that though

Most generators a pseudo random, so not 100% random

I stopped playing after ascended. Will return for an hour today to check OP version. But I personally doubt that drop depends on break.

Teckos.1305:

Also the champions should be considered as DE, maybe still have their boxes, but have the even reward scaled in function of the champ toughness, and even the number of players participation( for examples if 50 peeps are on one champion the gold tier of reward is unobtainable), this would push people into playing in small to medium size groups, and even have people organizing “hard to do good” events with rewards worth the effort.

Ok, so you have 50 ppl. But gold reward cannot be achieved in this case. You opinion how to split these 50 ppl in smaller groups without conflict ? Do you this that let’s say 20 guys will tell “Oh, nevermind, I will go somewhere else ..” ? Create instances ? Not open world anymore.
Scaling can help probably, not limiting number of ppl.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Shockwave.1230:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Shockwave.1230:

~~~snip~~~

4) There’s no real way to help the Casual player who has little time to play this game. They must make the choice of either playing more, or learning to live with what they can afford. If you give access and wealth of a player who plays for hours daily, to a player who plays 1 hour a week, that would be unfair to the other. That sort of thing would invalidate all the hours the other player put into the game.

Allowing players with little time and money the means to reasonably obtain almost anything is part of what made the first Guild Wars great. It wasn’t unfair there, it wouldn’t be here. The players with a lot of time that you think it’d be unfair to will always be ahead of the players with little time. I have no problem with that being the case, it makes sense. I’m just talking about closing the disparity of the gap that exists.

The game already has gear in place that a Casual player can get: Exotics. If you want BiS, you need to invest time to get them. By speeding up the process for Casuals, you then must speed up the process for Hardcore players. Then we have the problem of maximizing gear all over. Hardcore players will reach the goals too quickly, and will demand more progression. Then the cycle continues, with Anet having to consider another tier.

By gating things, both Casuals and Hardcore players move at the same speed. The major difference here is the cost of having all the materials required for the BiS gear. Hardcore players will be able to farm and “grind” out wealth to have mats. Casuals have access to the same content, albeit at a slower pace.

Can’t understand. You want some grinding goals … You have legendaries, skins, achievement system, minis, cultural armor. What’s the problem ?
GW2 was advertised as a game where BiS gear statewise is pretty much STANDARD for top lvl. You don’t grind for it for eternity. You got it and go to WvW, fractals, other end game content.
I got exotics for all my alts, start actively playing WvW, dungeons, working towards legendary for one of the chars. And now I need to drop everything and start stupid robotic grind to get BiS for all my alts again (I’ll take like a year at best). I’m not doing this.

ANET, please make statement. Should I monitor news about changes to old manifesto or it will be grind fest from no on and I can go play other game ?

Smooth Penguin.5294:

WRay.2391:

Funny, in all replies you are ignoring the main point …
Tell me that making ascended is not grind. Make my day.

I have 8 80s. All with 100% exotics and full map completion. I spent a lot of time for this but it was fun enough. Making ascended is just a stupid grind. You are not completing quests, your are not exploring. You just grind for material like a robot. After making 1 ascended I quit playing realizing that I’m not going to do this for all my alts.

Not having BiS gear is not an option. This was GW2 manifesto and one of the MAIN reason I bought this game and spent money for gems. To be sincere it should be a reason for money back like with “Aliens: Colonian marines” title. Product now is not as it was advertised. Period.

There’s a difference between “WANT” and “NEED”. You admit that you “want” to have BiS. And as you want this gear, Anet provides you ways of getting it. “BiS” means Best in Slot, or top of the line. If you were given a quick and easy means of getting the best gear available, you take away the need to do content. In other words, you want a short cut to the end game.

Anet promised no grind, and they delivered. No where am I forced to grind. I choose to grind. Being it’s my own decision to play content over and over, I reap the rewards with the sacrifice of time.

BiS gear gives end game players a goal. The gates on Ascended provide a means of an extended goal that’s reachable with effort. Not having access to everything and anything for all your alts within one day does not mean you can’t ever have it. Just as Legendary weapons were meant to take time as BiS and best in looks, so do Ascended weapons and armors (minus the special looks).

It’s not about I want and need. It’s what about I was paying for. There is no NEED in the game. You can be lvl 10 and play in low lvl areas, you just WANT to go to hi lvl areas. Any statement can be neglected with this. Game was advertised to not make ppl grind to achieve what they WANT if it has stat advantage. They failed.

P.S. End game playing starts after you have BiS gear, your are doing it wrong, man.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

stale.9785:

That’s not the system that was advertised, nor is it the game that the majority of us purchased. The game that was advertised was “BiS gear at lvl 80, for everyone, including casuals.” The game that the majority of us bought came under that promise.

THAT is the problem.

Casuals all have access to BiS gear. Nothing prevents them from having everything this game offers.

Once again you are avoiding main point. BiS gear without significant grind.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

galandor.1059:

morrolan.9608:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I think the argument falls in the Entitlement category.

Ah yes entitlement, the fallback position to demonise those who don’t want to grind.

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.” -Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet

Some how, I think aNet lost it’s way.

Legendary weapons are no more powerful than available Ascended weapons. The same will be true when Legendary armors are released.

Funny, in all replies you are ignoring the main point …
Tell me that making ascended is not grind. Make my day.

I have 8 80s. All with 100% exotics and full map completion. I spent a lot of time for this but it was fun enough. Making ascended is just a stupid grind. You are not completing quests, your are not exploring. You just grind for material like a robot. After making 1 ascended I quit playing realizing that I’m not going to do this for all my alts.

Not having BiS gear is not an option. This was GW2 manifesto and one of the MAIN reason I bought this game and spent money for gems. To be sincere it should be a reason for money back like with “Aliens: Colonian marines” title. Product now is not as it was advertised. Period.

There are some areas you want to travel fast while it’s opened (temple, …). This is usually places where meta events are happening. The contested part IMO made to prevent grave zerg rush (you attack champ, die, immediately respawn at WP and attack again).

Well, GW2 is going a grind way. With ascended addition you NEED to grind and zerging is making it al least bearable. I actually hate when ANET is nerfing farming spots but adding more and more requirements in resources. I wasn’t almost farm at all before ascended (I’m not as eager to get legendary until I’m on par statwise).

Guild Wars 2 was one of the most fun games I ever played after launch. I have all 8 professions at 80 lvl with 100% map completion etc. But updates killed my interest.
1. More and more grinding and ANET constantly nerf places where ppl grind.
2. Ascended gear. To make ascended you need like 2 weeks of grind + time gated mats. I like all my chars, I play all of them time to time. It’s like a year to make weapon for all of them. And armor is coming. All change ppl wanted in craft is possibility to make precursors.
3. Build switch. I was able to change build from cond to dps and get all exotic gear with like 20 gold and I good to go for WvW again. With ascended – forget about it.
4. About precursors. I didn’t get one with all time spent. If you are not lucky – no legendary (but it’s not major reason, I’m Ok without it if I’m on par with others statwise).
5. WvW is zerg game now. Needed to switch to hi population server.
6. As for me to more new content. Considering amount of grind for ascended, money, WvW achievements, daily achievement, guild missions …
7. World bosses update. It’s stupid to force ppl to create separate guild to defeat a world boss. Just my opinion. I spent a lot of time for teq (like 2 attempts from 7 are successful with a big zerg). If there is not a big zerg you don’t even want to try, no reason.

As a result I decided that game is developing in a way I don’t like and I quit.