Because players don’t like dungeons, and they don’t want to throw good money after bad.
Raids are a gamble they’re taking, and fractals have a comparatively low development/maintenance cost.
I… yeah, not sure what making up a ‘no I’m new and I want this!!!’ persona will do for ya,
I’ts funny how you couldnt be any more ignorant and to a degree toxic against my post. Congratulations on being a prime example of ‘dps meters arent toxic, players are’
If you misunderstood what I was saying, read it again with a more open mind and I think we’ll be able to agree on some points
I’ll play;
In all honesty , your bizarre and incongruous use of the word ‘toxic’ gives the game away. It’s very much not a normal usage beyond the reactionary “NO YOU GUYS ARE THE REAL TOXIC ONES!” meme that likes to go out.
So yeah, not terribly effective.
In the end it’s a classic catch-22. The people who most want meters (excepting Jerus), are the people who least should be allowed access to them.
I… yeah, not sure what making up a ‘no I’m new and I want this!!!’ persona will do for ya,
I had a longer post, but kind of got bored halfway and cut it.
The point is this: “A designer has to be very cautious with the tools they give players”.
The gun analogy is terrible on all kinds of level (earlier they were going for the same point using terrorism, which was equally dumb).
~~~
To the point you’re trying to make, you’re outright wrong. A tool (in this case a gameplay meter) sends a very specific message to the players on how the game should be measured. It puts emphasis on the things you meter.
Yes people will be jerks about groups anyways, but adding a meter says “You should be judging people based on these criteria.” Unless they want players playing that way (which would be madness) it’s just harmful to the game.
They never endorsed key farming, but they did allow it for a very long time. All they would need to do is open up the UI/add-on capabilities a bit more, such that making a group meter is both possible and within the ToS. The community would do the rest.
They don’t need to directly endorse meters at all.
And yeah, I’m splitting hairs a bit, but allowing (community does most of the work) and endorsing (Anet does most of the work) are different in terms of how people view them. If Anet never comes out and says, “We want there to be group meters,” but allows them to exist, people can say that Anet is bad for letting them exist, but they can’t say Anet is endorsing them.
There would be anger, but less of a justification for it.
Altho, at this stage of the game… with how long the game has not had group meters… it’s unlikely that it’ll happen unless Anet drastically changes their model, or they come up with some alternative to group meters that acts in a similar fashion. Too many people are emotionally invested in not having their damage on display and would probably quit over it.
Allowing the community is different, I just think they don’t think meters are right for their game at all.
You’re absolutely right that ‘allowing’ is different than ‘including one themselves’, but it still has an impact – and I have this sense that they at least used to be pretty regularly shocked about now spreadsheet-optimization oriented the players could be (I’d hope this no longer surprises them though).
ODB: Game design isn’t like civil rights law.
very insightful reply, to a minor analogy instead of the major content of the post, but yes…the analogy was accurate. A restriction on some specific item or tool is not going to prevent the underlying behaviors and attitudes…which are already commonly known to be present anyway. There’s the analogy spelled out.
I had a longer post, but kind of got bored halfway and cut it.
The point is this: “A designer has to be very cautious with the tools they give players”.
The gun analogy is terrible on all kinds of level (earlier they were going for the same point using terrorism, which was equally dumb).
~~~
To the point you’re trying to make, you’re outright wrong. A tool (in this case a gameplay meter) sends a very specific message to the players on how the game should be measured. It puts emphasis on the things you meter.
Yes people will be jerks about groups anyways, but adding a meter says “You should be judging people based on these criteria.” Unless they want players playing that way (which would be madness) it’s just harmful to the game.
There’s some serious Eyore up in this situation.
ODB: Game design isn’t like civil rights law.
And you don’t even have a sample to prove otherwise. This one is good enough.
People on the LotRO forums thought they were a good sample too. Turns out they were wrong. Big time.
Hint: people that do not like raids, or will not articipate in raids are way less likely to go to any game convention. People that show up on the events like that are the very definition of the term “hardcore”.
This sample you have shown is biased so much that any person knowing anything about statistics and/or market analysis would cry if you suggested to use it as basis for anything.Only ArenaNet knows the true statistics and they responded to player driven statistics. You know what that means? If they have designed raids (which took months of research and almost a year to implement) and will continue to do so, that means the majority of the player base approved of it.
Most likely they’re taking a gamble that it’ll work in an effort to pick up some purchases from a market segment they really haven’t reached before.
THE CONSPIRACY IS REAL!
They’ve proven they cna do this with the new PvP post-game damage totals. No reason to not add this for PvE.
Anyone who doesn’t want this is probably a kitten player who wishes not to be exposed.
Being combative and insulting about it really only reinforces why people don’t want them. THey’ve known folks with this attitude, and know what those folks do with meters.
Edit: There’s a reason anyways, People are jerks
Reducing the gold drop is “DEATH”?!
I haven’t seen this big an exaggeration since they claimed nerfing lightning flash was the end of elementalists.
Except, beating the drum here, it really doesn’t.
It’s not that meaningful information, trying to squeeze an extra .15% dps out of your character is a kind of mental masturbation. Fun, but not really that productive at the end of the day.
It’s something people want, and people conflate that with it being useful not just to them but to the population as a whole.
So a big chunk of the endgame will be lost (let’s not fool ourselves into thinking Anet will replace that dungeon content with new fractals and raids).
I cannot fathom that Anet would shift rewards to a new area and not have plans to add additional support to that area. It’s pretty clear they have some sort of plan to regularly add new fractals. We just don’t have any details on that aspect yet.
If Anet was adding new fractals, they’d have said so. They didn’t.
Not saying they are, but you have no idea. It’s not uncommon to hold some things back.
And the Chanp trains are a good comparison point, same reason for the nerf, liekly similar end result.
I’d agree, and why I keep repeating if they also nerf SW I’d be pretty ok with it. I don’t want to have to go do braindead play when I run out of money to build my bank back up.
I desperately hope they nerf SW also.
Well specifically, BREAK CHEST TRAINS.
And the Chanp trains are a good comparison point, same reason for the nerf, liekly similar end result.
@Jerus, well I don’t want to be mean, but you’re not exactly a standard case (meant in the most awesome way possible).
People, by and large, that are still doing dungeons like them for the high reward to low investment returns. Anything else stinks of self-deception (or perhaps just deception).
They like the rewards they’re mad the rewards are going away. It’s just like when they nerfed the champ trains.
Also, an official meter is Anet putting their ‘seal of approval’ on meters as a method of measuring players.
It gives the bad attitude legitimacy.
Here’s another problem I have with dungeons instead of fractals:
Yesterday I was teaching a RL friend who came back into the game some instanced content. I can easily take him into any dungeon and know exactly what path I’m doing, as well as having no AR or gear requirements. Can’t say the same for fractals as I’m limited to low level ones and also don’t know what fractals im getting other than swamp. I could bring him into a high level one and 4 man it, but that obviously wouldn’t be very fun for either of us.
Time to learn new content, I guess.
Why are you telling me that? My point is that Fractals and Raids have a high barrier to entry for new and returning players to the game. Fractals have gear requirement (and raids too, to an extent) and Raids are obviously not meant for new players and have full ascended gear as a recommendation. Dungeons filled that void of 5 man content for players that cannot commit to a raid team or do not have the gear for fractals. I can’t bring my casual friends into progression raiding or lvl 50+ fractals.
Absolutely.
Dungeons are your intro to group play, from there you get better and enter the more intricate dungeons (arah/aether), and then from there fractals are within your grasp to start and as you get into the game and get geared higher level fractals. All culminating in the highest challenge, Raids.
There has to be a starting point and that is dungeons.
Dungeons are hardly a prerequisite for fractals. New players will go directly to fractals because everyone will tell them dungeons aren’t worth the reward.
So a big chunk of the endgame will be lost (let’s not fool ourselves into thinking Anet will replace that dungeon content with new fractals and raids).
In the end players will get bored more quickly and thus move on to other games more quickly.
Exactly, Dungeons will get skipped in favor of low level fractals that are far more complicated (unblockable attacks, undodgeable attacks, jumping and all sorts of shenanigans). So people will now skip dungeons because people won’t be doing them and move on to a more complicated system and simply learn the game slower or not at all.
Still the only way to get tokens for skins and legendary gifts (barring pvp, which supplies skins but is TERRIBLE for tokens).
The people impacted by this change are those that farm dungeons for gold.
The reason people prefer dungeons is that it’s a bite-sized mindless farm. Fractals take a lot more reaction, SW is more lucrative in the longrun but takes more of a time commitment.
People running for tokens (as the original intent one might add) will not be terribly impacted just the gold farmers.
There is a tremendous benefit to both players and developers by having numbers more transparent
No there isn’t. There’s a specific impact from the information on one part of the game; from a designers perspective it’s likely not even a positive impact.
It’s not necessary to complete the content, it might not even be advisable for completing the content. The obsession with measuring and spreadsheet play is a dead end.
The gear thread is
<<<<<<<<<<<<< that way
Well the gear thread has become another rewards thread, so it only makes sense that the meters thread becomes the gear thread.
The rewards thread is in Hell, where it belongs.
“Challenging Content” can mean very many things.
Also there’s some severe sample bias in a gamescon convention room.
So on a point from earlier, someone did a thread on this in the HOT forum, and as predicted, the response is much more (although not entirely) negative.
“you will see the benefits game wide”
I don’t think anyone arguing that there are no benefits from meters. The problem is that there are a lot of problems and the problems that stem from meters should not be a part of GW2’s cooperative mindset.
I’d argue that the benefits are minimal at best, even ignoring the downsides.
Except for more efficiency in build and rotation (which is utterly unneccessary in 99% of the content), there’s really not much.
— And it puts the stamp of approval on a fixation with that build/rotation efficiency, which I doubt is a developer goal.
Windsagio.1340It was broken. You guys should be glad you got to ride the gravy train as long as you did.
Is that the speech this rotation of devs is going to be given after being made into scapegoats and handed their walking papers?
Heh, really.
Their confidence in the new HoT content is worrisome. Kind of sad that they have to do this in order to ensure people will choose the new content over the old.
It was broken. You guys should be glad you got to ride the gravy train as long as you did.
But you don’t answer the idea that the requirement is kitten.
In the end we’re still all up in arms over a dev saying something stupid that they had to 80+% retract.
phys;
Coulter’s and My thesis is that the design limitation is, at best, exaggerated.
You seem to both believe it’s going to be a serious barrier and to be mad about it. It ends up feeling like borrowing offense.
I love how when a group can’t down a boss on their first or second try in a beta = Must have Ascended.
content designed based on ascended
+ the best groups needing 5-6 attempts ON THE FIRST MINI BOSS
+ everyone having access to any ascended gear set they want on demand
+ many groups failing after 2 hours, even with ascended ON THE FIRST MINIBOSSS= why are you dragging the team down by not coming with the best stats you can, we failed 4 times already quits team and starts new one with gear checks instituted.
mathematical need isnt really going to come into play.
requiring everyone to have ascended basically ensures better chance of success, and less mastery required to succeed, which makes it a feasible request.most people arent willing to fail 2-3 more times hoping everyone gets 10% more effecient after failing
It’s the first day of brand new content. If there were teams that were taking less than 5-6 tries on a 1 day old boss in a new game mode then the content is too easy.
irrelevant.
point is, if you take 5 to 6 times, you will likely take at least 6-7 times if you have to be better at the game to achieve the same goal
that translates to more time wasted.which translates to players not wanting to take people who arent the best they can be. People letting an exotic guy join will be the exception, not the rule. Therefore saying you can beat it in exotics is not that relevant. Most people will have to get ascended before people will seriously attempt raids with them.
which is actually what anet figured when designing them. player psychology is an important part of game design.
lets cut to the chase, lets bet, i bet that ascended will be the meta requirement for raids by and large, are you saying that it wont be the case?
Pre-answer aside: You’re still misusing meta
Answer: I think people might, but like the current ‘meta’ situation if it does occur it will largely be a player construct. The player preferences most enforced are often utterly not meaningful.
Now the full answer: I’d say that it’s 50/50 that you’re right that players will consider it ‘required’, regardless of whether they’re right. Even if they do, it’ll be similar to the current dungeon ‘meta’ where as the game ages it’ll become less and less meaningful.
~~~
even shorter version: You might be right about player expectations, but only because players like to set needless limits on each other.
DPS meters are for the unskilled who need to have there hands held. DPS meters will not make you a better player. Skill and knowing what you are doing will.
But hay what do I know right? The “elite” use it to make them selfs better right?
Sorry, but every thread I see like this makes me laugh.
Isn’t that the point?
Hey, he’s wrong in a flattering way of course.
My guesstimate (removing the 99.99% that don’t care at all):
5% people who really really enjoy optimization working out best possible rotations etc.
35% people who feel the need to filter their groups and take care of poor performers (one way or another).
60% people who look at it as a competition.
I love how when a group can’t down a boss on their first or second try in a beta = Must have Ascended.
content designed based on ascended
+ the best groups needing 5-6 attempts ON THE FIRST MINI BOSS
+ everyone having access to any ascended gear set they want on demand
+ many groups failing after 2 hours, even with ascended ON THE FIRST MINIBOSSS= why are you dragging the team down by not coming with the best stats you can, we failed 4 times already quits team and starts new one with gear checks instituted.
mathematical need isnt really going to come into play.
requiring everyone to have ascended basically ensures better chance of success, and less mastery required to succeed, which makes it a feasible request.most people arent willing to fail 2-3 more times hoping everyone gets 10% more effecient after failing
It’s the first day of brand new content. If there were teams that were taking less than 5-6 tries on a 1 day old boss in a new game mode then the content is too easy.
just to be clear, i dont want raids balanced for exotics, that would make them way too easy. I want ascended aquisition to have a method that is goal/trial oriented over grind/time gate.
and i want a better system for dealing with multiple stat sets, than our regular inventory, which is fairly annoying to deal with already, much less with multiple stat sets reccommended.
Worth likely repeating, the difficulty difference between ‘scaled for ascended’ and ‘scaled for exotic’ is likely insignificant.
- 1)it doesnt really matter, people playing difficult content always want people to bring the best statistics they can.
- 2) also you keep on saying the stats are negligeable, when you mean the stats from armor specifically are negligable. the stat difference in ascended in total are noticeable, unless you dont think something that as a team, contributes something in the range of 12% more offensive effeciency and 3-9%(upper end estimated) more defensive effeciency with the same exact players is noticeable.
- 3) regardless, even if its negligable, it was balanced for ascended, which means ascended aquisition should be logical with the context of a focus on challenging/raid type content.
That’s a HELL of a range for defensive benefit.
Otherwise mainly want to hit 3. Balancing for ascended implies a large number of other things already balanced for, many of which I doubt arenanet will be willing to accept
just to be clear, i dont want raids balanced for exotics, that would make them way too easy. I want ascended aquisition to have a method that is goal/trial oriented over grind/time gate.
and i want a better system for dealing with multiple stat sets, than our regular inventory, which is fairly annoying to deal with already, much less with multiple stat sets reccommended.
Worth likely repeating, the difficulty difference between ‘scaled for ascended’ and ‘scaled for exotic’ is likely insignificant.
Yeah and thats ridiculously tedious for a modern mmo. Dont ( -_-) us. Its a dumb thing to ask your players to do to play to their best.
It’s also a silly obsession for players to think this matters or particularly enhances gameplay.
Maybe having full exotics will not be a guarantee of failure, but it’s going to significantly increase chances of failing.
This is a lie, +20 Primary Stats and +16 Secondary Stats (the benefit of full Ascended Armour) will never “significantly” increase your chances of winning. Do not fall for this argument it is NONSENSE.
“Full exotics”. Learn to read.
“Full Exotics” means you have a play time of less than a month, raiding isn’t for you… Learn to think.
There are many prople who. Can play at a level of raids without needing a month of play.
Its like you using how long someone owned basketball sneakers as a measure of their skill.
And for those people the gear difference isn’t likely to be important.
As an aside, if we take the larger number for ascended weapons (~10%) I have the sense that’s calculated purely as DPS, am I correct or mistaken?
You are talking about a “gate” required for players before they enter the Raid. But do you honestly believe that players who haven’t done Fractals / Dungeons will have any luck in Raids? Would you really want someone to come with you in the raid that hasn’t ever run a Dungeon or is only at level 8 in Fractals? Those things alone mean his experience in GW2 instanced content is very limited, so their ability to help in the Raid will also be severely limited.
Let them decide that, don’t force the issue with gear. The whole point of a gear progression (or one of them) isto delay access to content. It makes the content ‘last longer’, but I’m always for letting people try.
And again, that ignores the gear swapping issue. If full ascended is that important success (it’s not), it’s in essence locking people into one role, which is anathema to everything GW stands for. I know people that have done over 1000 fractals (I’m one of them) that haven’t gotten enough drops or stuff in the pieces they need to have more than one set of ascended armor for their characters (alhtough generally it’s because they’ve taken the chance to spread them out over multiple classes). If you need ascended clerics gear for your role, good luck getting a dps set in that type for the next several months.
And that is the problem
(or would be if the limitation wasn’t bs)
in context of the post directly above his it’s fractals :p
More to the point, you don’t know either. There was less than a days worth of chances to learn/see the encounter, with free gear as you wish it.
But we can modify: It’s extremely unlikely that full ascended will matter and fairly unlikely that any kind of ascended will matter at all.
dlonie: The more competitive the players the worse this will be.
I think of some of the people I’ve seen in these forums talking about the ‘bads’ and whatnot getting this tool and I get the shivers.
Lol, I’m not “derailing” anything, I’m just following the flow of the conversation. These elements are all inextricably connected.
((looks at thread title))
No… I’m pretty sure this thread has nothing to do with reward structures.
Ascended gear is, and has been, part of GW2’s reward structure for years. This thread references a requirement (not saying that I agree with the assertion of said requirement) for top tier equipment rewards from old content in order to completion certain new content.
This thread has everything to do with reward structures.
The title is also misleading as Arenanet later confirmed the non-requirement for Ascended for raids. If the thread were renamed ‘Ascended Gear to be Recommended for Raids’ this entire discourse would have been much shorter and less stressful.
The reward structures for equipment that is recommended is less problematic than equipment that is required, no?
That’s part of the narrative for me though. Normally I like to defend the devs, but the person who started it all shot their mouths off and got Anet some pain with some prima facie incorrect info.
ascended is only 5% increase you can do it with exotics easy with no trouble.
Have you done it easy and no trouble in exotics? No? I thought so.
High fractals? I have. In fact, it’s common until you get to 50 where AR starts becoming a real issue. 49 tho? Lots of times.
Ohoni, don’t you already have a thread to discuss your displeasure with the reward structure without even further derailing this one?
I see two possible scenarios:
1. Raids are easy enough that you don’t need to calculate dps. This essentially means CGC has failed to be challenging. This would be a pretty big fail. If you can just faceroll it with any team comp after a week then what was the point?
2. Raids are hard enough that you need a balanced team comp with optimum dps. They will be hard and take practice, but they will lead to raid leaders coming here a few weeks after the raid launches in droves wondering why they can’t beat the raid and complaining they have no feedback about what they are failing at. At this point they will either require all their members to run an “illegal” meter or they will stop running raids.
Either way, raids will fail without having a way to get feedback on what is happening.
you know, difficult content has been beaten without dps meters many times over.
tatistics usually is best used once people have solved the problems, and are more focused on optimization rather than problem solving, increasing skill, etc.
Which is kind of the same as saying ‘statistics are best used when they’re not needed’
I think this whole discussion comes down to closed thinking.
People associate progression gear with ‘hard’ and raids, so they think progression gear == actual difficult content.
The thread maybe, the situation no. Fact is it exists. If they tune for exotics then ascended is overpowered. You either need to scale the ascended to exotic levels rendering that extra money you spent useless, or tell your players to suck it up and get the best stuff if you want to max out your abilities in raids. That’s the situation. Either works, it’s just who are they more concerned with upsetting? Those that spent the time/money on ascended, or those too lazy to do so? (yes I know it’s an inflammatory way of putting it but really ascended isn’t hard to acquire, it’s tradeable within your account, and weapons/trinkets make up the majority of the power from it which are even easier to acquire than armor).
The problem with this is simple:
Ascended weapons and trinkets are about a 3% boost.full armor is an additional 2% boost.
Picking the wrong utility skill or trait has a massively greater effect on your effectiveness, offensively or defensively than ‘full ascended’ ever will.
And they can’t tune to that fine a level If they attune to the 2% of full ascended armor, that means that they’ve already tuned to the most efficient group/build makeup that they can think of . Yeah they want it hard, but doing that is suicide — also nearly impossible.
The numbers on ascended gear is well known (although I see some people occasionally throw some crazy numbers out, the math’s been worked many times, including a few in this thread). Given that, it’s just not meaningful, one is left wondering why people are so convinced it is. I have 2 reasons.
1) A dev said it was required (later retracted to reccomended) and they still haven’t fully retracted that statement.
2) Players associate gear progression with raiding so it ‘makes sense’ to them.
Where are you getting those numbers? As far as I’m aware Weapons + Trinkets is a 12.5% dps boost (remember things multiply) for power damage, and armor another about 2.5 for a ~15% total.
I took that partiular example from upthread somewhere (or my memory of it).
Even granting I’m remembering wrong about weapons/trinkets, the numbers for armor are close, and armor is the primary cost in ‘full ascended’.
So take the revised statement: “Partial ascended is recommended for all raids, and the late ones recommend full ascended.” If I grant 10%, the ‘partial’ kind of works, but in what world does the ‘full’ work?
Ascended armor still cannot be a meaningful limitation
Naw Armor won’t be a huge thing, but it could be the difference between a near win and a failure.
Only in the absolute least way. So many other things have more impact,
really depends how much unavoidable damage is in raids as the game continues.
3% reduction in damage compounds with healing in long fights.
and even though you dont believe it, they can optimize fight success on having protection up/90% of the time and clearing conditions within 2-3 seconds, as well as strong average heal per second while still maintaing X dps on a boss ( to beat enrage)
its just mathematics at that point.
I know they can, I don’t think they will.
It’s too restrictive, and they want this to be a major game feature.
I think this whole discussion comes down to closed thinking.
People associate progression gear with ‘hard’ and raids, so they think progression gear == actual difficult content.
The thread maybe, the situation no. Fact is it exists. If they tune for exotics then ascended is overpowered. You either need to scale the ascended to exotic levels rendering that extra money you spent useless, or tell your players to suck it up and get the best stuff if you want to max out your abilities in raids. That’s the situation. Either works, it’s just who are they more concerned with upsetting? Those that spent the time/money on ascended, or those too lazy to do so? (yes I know it’s an inflammatory way of putting it but really ascended isn’t hard to acquire, it’s tradeable within your account, and weapons/trinkets make up the majority of the power from it which are even easier to acquire than armor).
The problem with this is simple:
Ascended weapons and trinkets are about a 3% boost.full armor is an additional 2% boost.
Picking the wrong utility skill or trait has a massively greater effect on your effectiveness, offensively or defensively than ‘full ascended’ ever will.
And they can’t tune to that fine a level If they attune to the 2% of full ascended armor, that means that they’ve already tuned to the most efficient group/build makeup that they can think of . Yeah they want it hard, but doing that is suicide — also nearly impossible.
The numbers on ascended gear is well known (although I see some people occasionally throw some crazy numbers out, the math’s been worked many times, including a few in this thread). Given that, it’s just not meaningful, one is left wondering why people are so convinced it is. I have 2 reasons.
1) A dev said it was required (later retracted to reccomended) and they still haven’t fully retracted that statement.
2) Players associate gear progression with raiding so it ‘makes sense’ to them.
Where are you getting those numbers? As far as I’m aware Weapons + Trinkets is a 12.5% dps boost (remember things multiply) for power damage, and armor another about 2.5 for a ~15% total.
I took that partiular example from upthread somewhere (or my memory of it).
Even granting I’m remembering wrong about weapons/trinkets, the numbers for armor are close, and armor is the primary cost in ‘full ascended’.
So take the revised statement: “Partial ascended is recommended for all raids, and the late ones recommend full ascended.” If I grant 10%, the ‘partial’ kind of works, but in what world does the ‘full’ work?
Ascended armor still cannot be a meaningful limitation
Naw Armor won’t be a huge thing, but it could be the difference between a near win and a failure.
Only in the absolute least way. So many other things have more impact,
Is it just me or do other people just don’t give 2 kittens who joins their dungeon/fractal party?
It’s gotten way better, age had democratized the content and many people pug with a core+whatever these days.
I think this whole discussion comes down to closed thinking.
People associate progression gear with ‘hard’ and raids, so they think progression gear == actual difficult content.
The thread maybe, the situation no. Fact is it exists. If they tune for exotics then ascended is overpowered. You either need to scale the ascended to exotic levels rendering that extra money you spent useless, or tell your players to suck it up and get the best stuff if you want to max out your abilities in raids. That’s the situation. Either works, it’s just who are they more concerned with upsetting? Those that spent the time/money on ascended, or those too lazy to do so? (yes I know it’s an inflammatory way of putting it but really ascended isn’t hard to acquire, it’s tradeable within your account, and weapons/trinkets make up the majority of the power from it which are even easier to acquire than armor).
The problem with this is simple:
Ascended weapons and trinkets are about a 3% boost.full armor is an additional 2% boost.
Picking the wrong utility skill or trait has a massively greater effect on your effectiveness, offensively or defensively than ‘full ascended’ ever will.
And they can’t tune to that fine a level If they attune to the 2% of full ascended armor, that means that they’ve already tuned to the most efficient group/build makeup that they can think of . Yeah they want it hard, but doing that is suicide — also nearly impossible.
The numbers on ascended gear is well known (although I see some people occasionally throw some crazy numbers out, the math’s been worked many times, including a few in this thread). Given that, it’s just not meaningful, one is left wondering why people are so convinced it is. I have 2 reasons.
1) A dev said it was required (later retracted to reccomended) and they still haven’t fully retracted that statement.
2) Players associate gear progression with raiding so it ‘makes sense’ to them.
Where are you getting those numbers? As far as I’m aware Weapons + Trinkets is a 12.5% dps boost (remember things multiply) for power damage, and armor another about 2.5 for a ~15% total.
I took that partiular example from upthread somewhere (or my memory of it).
Even granting I’m remembering wrong about weapons/trinkets, the numbers for armor are close, and armor is the primary cost in ‘full ascended’.
So take the revised statement: “Partial ascended is recommended for all raids, and the late ones recommend full ascended.” If I grant 10%, the ‘partial’ kind of works, but in what world does the ‘full’ work?
Ascended armor still cannot be a meaningful limitation
Another example: Rotation efficiency can count for upwards of 5 stacks of might from a PS warrior. No matter what, a warrior that hits rotations in exotic is more useful than one who doesn’t in ascended.
Oh and also, I forgot that food and utility buffs are also significantly more important to your performance than ascended vs exotic.
I think this whole discussion comes down to closed thinking.
People associate progression gear with ‘hard’ and raids, so they think progression gear == actual difficult content.
The thread maybe, the situation no. Fact is it exists. If they tune for exotics then ascended is overpowered. You either need to scale the ascended to exotic levels rendering that extra money you spent useless, or tell your players to suck it up and get the best stuff if you want to max out your abilities in raids. That’s the situation. Either works, it’s just who are they more concerned with upsetting? Those that spent the time/money on ascended, or those too lazy to do so? (yes I know it’s an inflammatory way of putting it but really ascended isn’t hard to acquire, it’s tradeable within your account, and weapons/trinkets make up the majority of the power from it which are even easier to acquire than armor).
The problem with this is simple:
Ascended weapons and trinkets are about a 3% boost.full armor is an additional 2% boost.
Picking the wrong utility skill or trait has a massively greater effect on your effectiveness, offensively or defensively than ‘full ascended’ ever will.
And they can’t tune to that fine a level If they attune to the 2% of full ascended armor, that means that they’ve already tuned to the most efficient group/build makeup that they can think of . Yeah they want it hard, but doing that is suicide — also nearly impossible.
The numbers on ascended gear is well known (although I see some people occasionally throw some crazy numbers out, the math’s been worked many times, including a few in this thread). Given that, it’s just not meaningful, one is left wondering why people are so convinced it is. I have 2 reasons.
1) A dev said it was required (later retracted to reccomended) and they still haven’t fully retracted that statement.
2) Players associate gear progression with raiding so it ‘makes sense’ to them.
Got wall-of-texty in there for a kitten
allenge/reward doesn’t really apply to the ascended armor question, it is still a largely meaningless ‘reccomend’.
Yes, it’s all a conspiracy because players just know so much more about balance than the designers do.
It does accidentally make a good point though – a meter would limit the design space something fierce because you’d kind of have to design in such a way as all classes were in the same range in the meters. Just another way that dps meters feed misery.
lol and 3 years of “ELE/ELE/WARRIOR/THIEF/GUARD ONLY” totally isn’t misery, right.
First of all, it has actually changed over the years, although the preferred style was pretty static for about a year and a half.
Secondly, these classes are designed holistically. If’s fine that you have a laser focus on one particular style of one particular game mode, but any designer thinking that way would be really in dereliction and doing a terrible job.