Guild Wars 2

Does GW2 have a future:

Yes, it will continue to exist as it has since launch.

Just don’t expect any new content, or skills, or classes, or continents, or fixes, or PvE balance, or PvP game modes, or dungeons, or features.

If you don’t need any of that stuff then you will probably be happy with the game.

wasted.6817:

The break is more or less the same as last time, so expect more or less the same. Likely another Dry Top sized new map etc.

Pretty much this.

Basically we should see something identical in size/scope to S2 episode 1.

Asmodeus.5782:

Then I’ll just buy some with real cash. Much more preferable than cheesing mechanics and grinding until my eyes bleed.

And this unfortunately is why we don’t get any real content. Why spend time, development, and money on engaging difficult content if all your revenue comes from people sitting in LA buying endless gemstore items and gold while not actually playing the game?

Gamers have ruined the era of video games, and it is sad.

Personally I think anything over 10 players is just asking for trouble.

The scaling in GW2 is not accurate enough imo to be brought into a raiding environment. Currently we have events that are made for 2-3 people, scale to impossible with 10 people and scale to stupidly easy with 15+ players. On the other end of the scale we have events made for 120 people and anything less than 115 players is impossible.

I doubt anyone can name a single event in the game that is well tuned for both 5 players and 50 players. Asking for scalable raids is dooming raiding to fail from the start.

Asgaeroth.6427:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Raids in GW2… I might actually come back to the game if they are well done.

A couple things need to happen though:

1. PvP and PvE balance will need to be separated
2. Condition specs will need to be fixed
3. Raids must be instanced and challenging
4. Raids must be no larger than 15 people

If those 4 things are done then I think raids could be a big boon for GW2.

I don’t see the point in limiting it to 15 people. Kind of a ridiculous notion to me. Scaling would be more appropriate.

I would hope that they’d use some of the coding time on a raid system to refine the squad system into a proper raid group system with some party management options for the commander.

Scaling doesn’t work, it was a flawed concept. It gets a pass in the open world since no one really cares, but it would never be acceptable in a raiding environment.

Raids in GW2… I might actually come back to the game if they are well done.

A couple things need to happen though:

1. PvP and PvE balance will need to be separated
2. Condition specs will need to be fixed
3. Raids must be instanced and challenging
4. Raids must be no larger than 15 people

If those 4 things are done then I think raids could be a big boon for GW2.

Vayne.8563:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

There’s plenty of people who agree with you, but this thread will be dominated by the same 1 or 2 posters that all negative threads are dominated by and will ultimately turn into a thread about how great GW2 is and how there are no problems. Luckily there is still an hour or two before they wake up where people can actually discuss it rationally.

Anet claims to put out content faster than any other MMO, but I just don’t see it. We have had no new areas, no new skills, no new dungeons, no raids, no new guild missions, no new PvP modes, no new races, no new trait lines, and none of the other things you see other MMO’s producing. Yes other MMO’s only put out 1 patch every 3 months and an expansion every other year, but those patches actually contain content and exciting things, and the expansions are HUGE.

Look at GW2… we are only getting patches every 3 months and they contain small stroy instances with little replayability and maybe 3-4 hours of content. The last content patch was August 12th, with the next one coming in November… same 3 month schedule as every other MMO but without the fun stuff that expansions bring.

I wasn’t going to even respond to this thread, until this bit of misinformation. Why twist the truth to try to prove something.

We haven’t had a content patch since August 12, which I count as six weeks. But before that we got content packs every two weeks, four times in a row. That, in my boat, makes it four patchs in 8 weeks before a break, afterwhich we got a feature patch, and now we have a tournament in WvW, followed by Halloween, followed by a new story patch.

I agree that the content is coming out too slow. But saying that it has a 3 month schedule, just because there’s 3 months between two specific types of patches is just a bit unreliable. I mean, it wasn’t three months between patches before that one. Or three months before that one, or three months before that one. So we’re not getting patches every three months, are we?

By all means express your opinion, but stop twisting stuff to fit a theory so easily disproved.

To clarify you say other games get patches every 3 months and we get patches every three months too. Anyone with access to the wiki and this page can disprove what you’re saying.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Release

I should clarify: I don’t make any distinction between 3 hours of content every 2 weeks for 4 releases and 12 hours of content every 3 months. They are the same to me.

When I compare GW2 to other MMO’s I see ~4 patches of LS to be equal to 1 MMO patch. Except GW2 doesn’t release expansions in between.

We have “feature” patches which are supposed to make up some of that expansion like aspect, but I just don’t see it as a success.

Edit: To be fair I thought the second half of S1 actually had some decent pacing content wise, it was just the story aspect that was lacking. Unfortunately that was mostly temp content that was removed so I can no longer justify counting it.

JCROY.5730:

How about let Champions be Champions roaming somewhere on solitude and NOT let them appear by scaled up events and achievements ? Problem solved

This is why champ bags were introduced in the first place.

Previously instead of spawning champs, events spawned 10-20 regular mobs. those 10-20 regular mobs gave 10-20 loot rolls that people wanted. Before champ bags if an event spawned a champ players just left. There was no reason to waste time on events that spawned champs when they could get much better loot much faster on other events. In order to get players to kill champs and not ignore the events, they introduced champ bags.

The problem is the terrible reward structure in this game. The best way to get every item in the game is the same, grind for it.

There’s plenty of people who agree with you, but this thread will be dominated by the same 1 or 2 posters that all negative threads are dominated by and will ultimately turn into a thread about how great GW2 is and how there are no problems. Luckily there is still an hour or two before they wake up where people can actually discuss it rationally.

Anet claims to put out content faster than any other MMO, but I just don’t see it. We have had no new areas, no new skills, no new dungeons, no raids, no new guild missions, no new PvP modes, no new races, no new trait lines, and none of the other things you see other MMO’s producing. Yes other MMO’s only put out 1 patch every 3 months and an expansion every other year, but those patches actually contain content and exciting things, and the expansions are HUGE.

Look at GW2… we are only getting patches every 3 months and they contain small stroy instances with little replayability and maybe 3-4 hours of content. The last content patch was August 12th, with the next one coming in November… same 3 month schedule as every other MMO but without the fun stuff that expansions bring.

Wanze.8410:

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, even if you salvage all the leather gear you find.

Why do you believe that to be the case?

Because cloth seems to be part of more loot tables from containers and has a higher droprate in general from bags.

My droprate research data from over 150k lootbags of various kinds and tiers suggests that i got 57% cloth and 43% leather.

Yet even when silk and leather were both useless there was 3x more leather on the TP than silk. In fact at no point in the games history has there been any material more supplied than leather. Leather is clearly the highest dropped item in the game.

You mostly still just run dungeons, now AC is the go to dungeon for farming, and kakra train is still pretty popular.

The newest season of the Living Story is available on the gem store for you to buy if you so choose. The first 4 episodes are out with new episodes (free if you log in within 2 weeks of their start) coming November 4th.

There is also a new zone, Dry Top, that was introduced with the LS, though anyone can go there.

Leveling characters was recently redone, so you might want to take a look into that. I’d experience it yourself, people are pretty polarized on that subject so don’t bother asking for opinions here.

There have been many QoL improvements as well, such as a wardrobe, mini slot, account wide unlocks, collections, and mega servers. Read through the feature patch section of the forum for the full rundown.

Dps meter haters are the epitome of hypocritical thinkers.

They want you to be able to “play how you want”, and “not encourage elitism”

Unless of course how you want to play is well or with like minded people, in which case you are the devil and should leave the game.

You can’t argue with them because you are wrong by definition in their mind. The idea of playing well and learning to improve yourself is repulsive to them.

Vesuvius.9874:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

“this game isn’t for you” is simply the catch all defense for people adding in features they don’t like. Their hate for those features has no basis in logic or reality so they have to fall back on the catch all defense.

This includes things like:
Raids- Abundant and fun in GW1
Trinity- Also present in GW1, and after the 2 year of clear failure in GW2s removal clearly superior
Mount- Fit the lore, makes more sense, wanted by players.

There isn’t any real reason for Anet not to add these things so the only defense players have against them is to try and force players to leave the game. Games evolve after release, things they tried didn’t work, they can change the original design to improve the game. Ascended gear is a prime example of this. The game was plummeting into failure so they changed their position on gear and saved the game.

Nice! Does that mean people can start requesting *ANY*thing? Hmmm… I’ve always wanted the Science Vessel from Starcraft as a mount. That’ll show those pesky thieves always going into stealth mode… >_> I’m sure ANET can make up some lore introduce the Science Vessel into Tyria

As long as it functions within the existing lore and can be styled by the artists to fit into the world then I don’t see why not.

Selling players what they want seems like a much better idea than telling them to give their money to other companies.

“this game isn’t for you” is simply the catch all defense for people adding in features they don’t like. Their hate for those features has no basis in logic or reality so they have to fall back on the catch all defense.

This includes things like:
Raids- Abundant and fun in GW1
Trinity- Also present in GW1, and after the 2 year of clear failure in GW2s removal clearly superior
Mount- Fit the lore, makes more sense, wanted by players.

There isn’t any real reason for Anet not to add these things so the only defense players have against them is to try and force players to leave the game. Games evolve after release, things they tried didn’t work, they can change the original design to improve the game. Ascended gear is a prime example of this. The game was plummeting into failure so they changed their position on gear and saved the game.

Don’t forget that AP gains will drop off drastically since Anet capped the daily and monthly achievement categories. At current rates of Anet adding AP’s it will take somewhere between 6-8 years for someone to achieve this set.

But yes I’m sure it is just entitlement that is the problem…

Ummm… Phase one champs drop no loot so that part is just wrong…

Phase 2 the champs need to be killed or they insta gib the golems making the event fail. Additionally only 3 of the 5 types of champs drop loot in phase 2.

Goatjugsoup.8637:

lol the games only had its 2nd anniversary, more stuff is being added all the time with new achievement sets + there is bound to be an expansion sooner or later that will add even more achievement points.

I’m sorry, but are you saying that playing a game every day for 2 years and only being 2/3’s of the way to a set is a reasonable goal?

I don’t know of a single western MMO in existence that has a goal that takes that long. Even the hardest to obtain, 0.1% hardcore WoW raider goals were obtainable in 6 months and most players here consider WoW to be grindy and repetitive…

“this game isn’t for you” or "if y ou don’t like it you can leave or “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” are imo three of the most dangerous phrases to an MMO.

A MMO is designed to be massive, and multi-player. As such it is the games job to attract a wide an audience as possible. If you find yourself having to tell multiple people that they are playing the wrong game, or they won’t be missed, then maybe the problem is with the game and not with the person.

This was something I saw a lot of in the first 6 months of SWTOR. People constantly used those 3 phrases as a way to defend the game and deflect criticism. The only problem was they ended up telling ~80% of the games population that this game wasn’t for them… And then they listened and everyone left. The game tanked, most of the devs were fired and it went P2W.

SO remember, if you find yourself telling multiple people that the game isn’t for them then it may be time to take a look at the game instead of the players.

Nimrud.5642:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I think you are missing a much more obvious reason for this decline.

People were very angry with the NPE patch, and the smack in the face to veteran players that they saw it as. Many players quit with the launch of this feature patch. There are simply less people playing the game now.

Demand is dropping because there are less players. Sell prices are increasing because there are less players to farm the mats in the first place.

Arent the majority of the community PvE players? Miniature collectors, living story heroes, etc.? I dont mean to insult any1 as I’m no1 to tell others what to enjoy in this game… but did the changes really hurt the majority? Did they subvert fractal/dungeon mechanics, did any class get a serious pve nerf?

I dont think that the rightful moaning of the PvP community is enough to explain such a great decline in TP activity. PvE players stayed, didnt they?

It wasn’t totally the patch itself.

The devs also came out and said that they considered dungeons and endgame activities a waste of time and they are abandoning work on everything that isn’t gem store or LS related. This put off a lot of people who have been patiently waiting for new dungeons or some raid style alternative.

Then they announced that SAB and festival style content is also getting put on the back burner and won’t be seeing any improvements or additions, which drove even more people away.

Then there was the lack of any serious PvP or WvW updates which drove some more of those people away.

Couple that with the release of several new MMO’s and the distain for the NPE and the net effect is that a lot of people are taking at least a temporary break.

I suspect you will see an upswing in the market again once the LS kicks off in November. Until then though I suspect things will stay how they are now.

I think you are missing a much more obvious reason for this decline.

People were very angry with the NPE patch, and the smack in the face to veteran players that they saw it as. Many players quit with the launch of this feature patch. There are simply less people playing the game now.

Demand is dropping because there are less players. Sell prices are increasing because there are less players to farm the mats in the first place.

Wanze.8410:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Each player has their own stack of burning. Make conditions be affected by vulnerability. Remove the condition cap.

If they manage to do that somehow, condition builds might become viable in PvE.

Huh? Is there any pve content that you cant manage to complete because you run a condi build?

You can complete most dungeons naked and without any traits… so…

Does that mean if traits break we shouldn’t fix them? If armor suddenly is removed from the game we should just not care?

Conditions should be fixed because they are broken, period.

Wanze.8410:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The worst part is those weapons don’t even have unique skins, they are basically a trap for new players to waste all their money so they have to buy gems.

New players dont have 425 crafting profficiency. These are aimed at veteran players that want to craft them for their alts to level faster, as they lined out in the blogpost.

And a veteran player who wants to level an alt faster would probably just know to sell those 50 ectos and gain 25 levels from leveling crafting up, which is both faster, more efficient, lasts longer and leaves you with something useful at the end.

There is really just no logical reason to make these except maybe sheer boredom. It’s like Anet saw another MMO where people trick out their low level characters without actually researching why they do that and completely missed the point but implemented it anyway.

Those wolves are the worst… Nothing is as bad as the one in the inquest ley line mission, it took me days to beat him on my ele and my ele can handle fractal 50 with no problem.

Best way to beat those wolves is to cheese them using LOS, elevation and kiting. sometimes you can find a spot where you can hit them and they can’t hit you. That was the only way I managed to beat the other one on my ele solo.

Alternatively a condition spec is a good alternative if you have one. You can load up conditions which won’t trigger retaliation and just run around in circles then rinse and repeat until it dies. Necro is probably your best bet.

Galen Grey.4709:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Galen Grey.4709:

good post and not much I feel I need to comment on. There is just 1 part which I think needs a bit of clarification. You said “to be Fair LS2 is an improvement but it’s still so apparent to me that it destroys the ability of the dev team to work on the rest of the game.” Thats not the case at all. The living story team consists of about 20 people out of 350
source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Enough-of-your-GMPC-please/page/3#post4193277

quote “Our team changes in size, but there are just a little over twenty people on it at any given time.”

There are still a lot of devs left to tackle other areas of the game.

Thats why some of us think there probably is an expansion in the works or if not an expansion other big content thats still being developed.

If 20 people can create all that living story content, how much more stuff should 320ish people create (well not exactly 320ish cause of course some of them are QA, Customer support etc.. that dont create content but still there is a sizeable number working on things in the background we have yet to see)

Apparently the other 300 struggle to do much of anything at all. There have been no new major features or content for almost a year. I suppose maybe dry top was assigned to those devs and not the LS team, but it seems pretty much exclusively for the LS so that seems unlikely.

I would love to know what all those devs are working on. I suspect they included NCSoft admin, janitors, coffee people, customer service reps and 100+ other people who don’t have anything at all to do with game development in that number. There is just no way a team that large could put out such little content.

Or they’re working on a project(s) they’re not ready to announce yet cause its not going to be finished this week

Lets say for the sake of argument they’re working on an expansion (not saying this is the case just an example) plenty of MMOs take 2 years to finish an expansion… rift, wow, Tera etc.. and thats without them releasing tons of content every single month. Because Anet dont announce stuff before they’re essentially ready to release it it would seem like most devs arent doing anything when in fact they were busy building an expansion. (or whatever they’re working on)

now even if most of the team is not a dev, with a 15% smaller team Anet built all of Gw2 in less then 5 years (some of those 5 years were used to design, build the engine and build the tools during which time not content could be developed for the game) and we still didnt see as much content so far. there has to be something going on in the background.

If they are working on an expansion then the game is in much better shape than everyone thinks. The problem is their no telling the community anything policy. If the LS ties into an expansion then I think many people will come back and give the game another try. I just hope they announce that before people uninstall and get dedicated to another MMO.

The difference between no ascended gear and ALL ascended gear is about 15% dmg if you are zerker. It is fairly significant. The math has been done on multiple sites and in multiple threads, i’m sure you can find them.

Galen Grey.4709:

good post and not much I feel I need to comment on. There is just 1 part which I think needs a bit of clarification. You said “to be Fair LS2 is an improvement but it’s still so apparent to me that it destroys the ability of the dev team to work on the rest of the game.” Thats not the case at all. The living story team consists of about 20 people out of 350
source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Enough-of-your-GMPC-please/page/3#post4193277

quote “Our team changes in size, but there are just a little over twenty people on it at any given time.”

There are still a lot of devs left to tackle other areas of the game.

Thats why some of us think there probably is an expansion in the works or if not an expansion other big content thats still being developed.

If 20 people can create all that living story content, how much more stuff should 320ish people create (well not exactly 320ish cause of course some of them are QA, Customer support etc.. that dont create content but still there is a sizeable number working on things in the background we have yet to see)

Apparently the other 300 struggle to do much of anything at all. There have been no new major features or content for almost a year. I suppose maybe dry top was assigned to those devs and not the LS team, but it seems pretty much exclusively for the LS so that seems unlikely.

I would love to know what all those devs are working on. I suspect they included NCSoft admin, janitors, coffee people, customer service reps and 100+ other people who don’t have anything at all to do with game development in that number. There is just no way a team that large could put out such little content.

Vayne.8563:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I think the difference is in the number of features released.

In the first LS season we had NEW features. Fractals, ascended gear, guild missions, dungeons, WvW ranks, new PvP maps, etc.

This year we have had no new features, just backend changes. These changes still took a lot of work, but they really provide nothing to show for all the work in the end content wise.

I think this is where the perceived difference really comes in.

I dare say that a new map is a new feature. Collecting is a new feature. Looks like we’re going to have more zone in the next patch. This year so far is three months into the story.

I think you should look at where we were three months into the last living story and compare. We did have a dungeon, but now we have a zone.

Some of us prefer zones to dungeons.

Will there be other different changes coming? It’s too early to tell.

Well if we count dry top then we also have to count southsun which is much bigger, though has less content wise.

Collections are interesting, but I think they end up being too much like the already existing achievement system to really set them apart. I mean we’ve had achievements that require us to do things around the world and give us reward boxes in return since last year, they just added more achievements for mostly things that were already in the game with some new rewards. Nice addition, but as far as “new” goes I find it lacking.

If this next new zone is well done and an actual full zone then I think this year will be better off, and we should still have one more feature patch that supposedly is focused on veteran players which could be a huge boon to the game if they actually give us what we want.

I think the difference is in the number of features released.

In the first LS season we had NEW features. Fractals, ascended gear, guild missions, dungeons, WvW ranks, new PvP maps, etc.

This year we have had no new features, just backend changes. These changes still took a lot of work, but they really provide nothing to show for all the work in the end content wise.

I think this is where the perceived difference really comes in.

The spike is due to the collection achievement to obtain all 3 sets of ascended armor. It rewards you with a 200g exotic. People who were close or only ever made one type or armor are now crafting it again to try for this achievement.

Ascended armor is supposed to be expensive. If silk was dirt cheap again then that would defeat the entire purpose of adding ascended armor in the first place,

Also silk prices have been very stable the last few months, it seems it is in a good place.

The best solution would be to make leather wood and ore have some sort of value instead of devaluing the only common mat that is worth anything.

Brother Grimm.5176:

duckideva.6358:

…… these current changes are a precursor to skills and traits being available on the gem store.
…….

EVERYTHING Anet has ever done in terms of gem store items is in TOTAL disagreement with this statement. I read the rest of the above quoted post and see a bunch of educational slathered mumbo jumbo claiming “evidence” and “tenancies”, but no actual FACTS that lead any non-delusional thinker to believe Anet ever intends to sell performance advantage items in the gem store. Going on and on in a thread to try and convince others of your delusional interpretation of past updates (while trying to impress readers with terms like “behaviorists” and “bioethics”) is kind of pathetic….state what you think and back it up with some FACTS and move on. If someone wants your “credentials” with your opinion, they will ask for them.

Fact:

Performance advantages have been available in the gem store since day 1.

/thread

No this is an improvement to the NPE.

Since the Sept feature patch if you started a new character you could not interact with diving goggles, skill points or vistas until level 15. If you tried to do so before that level it would not trigger or unlock.

This change makes it so that if you already have a character over level 15 and you create a new character those things are already unlocked and you can use them from level 1.

I think the level boundaries need some more tweaking, but this was a big step in the right direction. If they tweak a few more things then this NPE might be savable after all.

It means that they don’t have to offer official support or resolutions for problems with it. This means less resources and less development time are needed.

Beldin.5498:

Vol.7601:

I’m going back on hiatus from GW2 and heading over to Archeage.

Haha … have fun in Wait Wars 2 then

Shouldn’t that be “Waitage”

The problem is 2 fold:

1. Builds are tied into gear instead of traits. In most MMO’s your build is decided by what you trait for and you focus on your classes stats to improve that build. There are no class stats in GW2, just generic stats that do the same thing for everyone. Your build decides very little of who you are and what you do, while your gear decides pretty much everything. In this way gear is much more important in GW2 than in any other MMO on the market.

As a guardian I can take full defensive utilities, full defensive traits and still do 90% of the theoretical max dps for guardian just by using zerker gear. Likewise if I take full offensive utilities and offensive traits and clerics gear I do no dmg. This is the main reason that zerker is so important

2. No roles. By removing the trinity and not replacing it with anything the game became a free for all dps fest. There is no reason to do anything except dps. If you aren’t doing maximum dps then your group takes more damage because things are alive longer. If you aren’t doing maximum dps then you die since the enemies are alive longer. Once you know how to play the game defensive stats become useless since you will always do better to kill things faster.

In order to make zerker less popular you would need to rebuild the game from the ground up and fix those two issues.

RNG is RNG, nothing to bug report. I mined 8 nodes yesterday and got one for every hit.

Does it even matter if they despawn? they don’t actually attack anything. I have never once seen my flesh golem engage in combat, he is just a larger mini.

The worst part is those weapons don’t even have unique skins, they are basically a trap for new players to waste all their money so they have to buy gems.

2 minutes + 200 hours of PvP… possibly the slowest leveling I have ever seen.

Also… MOVE THE TOMES OVER THE ACCEPT BUTTON

Mine definitely got dumber… He is now 100% a minipet. He does not attack under any circumstances and even when I activate his charge he just charges in place and doesn’t move.

I’ve tried about 8 times and have never gotten him to attack once since the patch. I guess i’ll switch back to plague…

unfortunately if you don’t use dulfy you will never finish those collections. the TP players use dulfy to buy up every item you will need and relist it for 100x the price. If you aren’t fast enough using dulfy then those collections will be out of reach for you.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

I just hope we actually get a zone each update now, and not a tiny piece of a zone every 2 weeks.

It took Anet 9 months to dye a Dorito 3 different colors… I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

I love how the entirety of the forums is basically everyone in unison fighting against Anet’s paid poster….

DonQuack.9025:

You cant lose money placing buy orders? Really? I didnt know the world stopped to give me time to port to get my money back so I can hopefully buy the item at the price I wanted.

hint It doesnt.

Wasnt buy the lowest seller the default before?

@above

When I want something immediate I want it immediately. When I want to save money. I am not in a rush to click buy or whatever it is. Also some players are kittenes.

Hint: It does.

“It appears when buying it defaults to Highest BIDDER not Lowest Seller so you cant instantly buy. Shame on me for not paying attention but”

if you placed an order to match the highest bidder then you are SAVING money over purchasing it immediately. If you would rather buy it immediately that is fine, you can lose money and purchase an item immediately like you want. You can cancel your buy order free of charge and get ALL your money back in the transaction tab.

you can’t lose gold making buy orders…

Well with 3 month breaks in-between every 2 months of LS releases, the end of the LS would put us at almost a full year if we consider the first 4 episodes as 1/3 of the total. As such I think it makes sense that there are 12 episodes total with 3 month breaks in between each set of 4.

Chess is MUCH too complicated for Anet’s intended player base. This will almost certainly not be returning.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

You think that’s bad, the reward for acquiring all ascended gear is an exotic. And not even a precursor.

To be fair, 2 of the exotics you can chose are worth 200g, which is more than most precursors.

They are attempting to save on server resources. My guess is that they are out of money and can no longer afford to keep multiple maps open so they close as many as possible. This also hides the population problems.