Guild Wars 2

Ya I agree with removing fractals. Those pain me to no end.

I totally agree with the issues involving dynamic events.

Now that most zones are basically empty…DEs spawn very very infrequently. With no DEs you only have a handful of renown quests. My newest alt is having an incredibly tough time leveling without hoping from zone to zone and basically getting most of my xp from exploring. I can play for like an hour and encounter one DE. It’s pretty sad.

Ayrilana.1396:

drwookie.6391:

Ayrilana.1396:

Einlanzer.1627:

Ayrilana.1396:

Einlanzer.1627:

2.) No dungeon loot rebalancing, Fractals still the only way to get Ascended.

Ascended items have a slot for infusions. Infusions provide agony resistance. Agony is only in fractals.

What’s the issue?

The issue is that Ascended gear is better than exotic gear, and is only available in the Fractals dungeons. This means that at the level cap most people aren’t doing anything but running Fractals over and over, which is harmful to the game.

It’s not rocket science.

Marginally better.

I fail to see how it’s harmful to the game. You can still do the other dungeons. There’s still plenty of people to do WvW. Orr events take a hit but a lot of them had been glitched so there was no point in doing them.

There’s more than just ascended items as a reason to farm fractals. It’s a great source of income. Especially after all the decent sources in Orr were nerfed. Fractals isn’t ruining the game.

I would disagree. Fractals is far and away the very very best means of income when playing the game (emphasis on playing…you can of course make more money just working the trading post, but I would argue you aren’t actually playing the game if you are doing that). Try to compare running fractals for a day to WvW….it’s a complete joke. Same with running Orr or really any other dungeon.

Add to that fact that they highest tier gear is exclusive to Fractals (Yes they may be “marginally” better, but still they are the most superior gear in the game) and you have a system that encourages everyone in endgame to participate in a single activity (Fractals).

That, in my opinion, breaks the game. They should be focusing on ways to spread people out, to encourage DIFFERENT activities, not encourage and reward everyone for doing the same thing over and over again.

As opposed to just Orr before fractals came out?

I’m not necessarily saying the system was that much better before, but they are definitely not going in the right direction.

Though to be honest before Fractals came out I do feel like people were more spread out. I knew some people who would run CoF ad infinitum, and others who would hang out in Orr. Heck once they had their exotics I feel more people were completely content just playing WvW all day (which is what I still do, despite being broke because of it). As soon as they added a “new tier” with “marginally better stats” that is only located in one place (which isn’t even in the real world, it is accessed from town)….they stuffed the vast majority into that small space. I personally don’t think it was the right direction to go, but I realize the game doesn’t cater 100% to my likes. However I do know I’m also not alone in my displeasure.

Ayrilana.1396:

Einlanzer.1627:

Ayrilana.1396:

Einlanzer.1627:

2.) No dungeon loot rebalancing, Fractals still the only way to get Ascended.

Ascended items have a slot for infusions. Infusions provide agony resistance. Agony is only in fractals.

What’s the issue?

The issue is that Ascended gear is better than exotic gear, and is only available in the Fractals dungeons. This means that at the level cap most people aren’t doing anything but running Fractals over and over, which is harmful to the game.

It’s not rocket science.

Marginally better.

I fail to see how it’s harmful to the game. You can still do the other dungeons. There’s still plenty of people to do WvW. Orr events take a hit but a lot of them had been glitched so there was no point in doing them.

There’s more than just ascended items as a reason to farm fractals. It’s a great source of income. Especially after all the decent sources in Orr were nerfed. Fractals isn’t ruining the game.

I would disagree. Fractals is far and away the very very best means of income when playing the game (emphasis on playing…you can of course make more money just working the trading post, but I would argue you aren’t actually playing the game if you are doing that). Try to compare running fractals for a day to WvW….it’s a complete joke. Same with running Orr or really any other dungeon.

Add to that fact that the highest tier gear is exclusive to Fractals (Yes they may be “marginally” better, but still they are the most powerful gear in the game) and you have a system that encourages everyone in endgame to participate in a single activity (Fractals).

That, in my opinion, breaks the game. They should be focusing on ways to spread people out, to encourage DIFFERENT activities, not encourage and reward everyone for doing the same thing over and over again.

TWMagimay.9057:

drwookie.6391:

TWMagimay.9057:

Build a bridge…and get over it. Besides, Germany was united in 1989….

“Reunited” would be a more correct term. The “unification” of Germany is more commonly considered to be after the Franco-Prussian war in the late 19th century.

Read OP. Think for a bit. Got it? Hope so.

Meh, I’d still call it reunite. But whatevs.

TWMagimay.9057:

Build a bridge…and get over it. Besides, Germany was united in 1989….

“Reunited” would be a more correct term. The “unification” of Germany is more commonly considered to be after the Franco-Prussian war in the late 19th century.

In my opinion it’s not just Orr, it’s pretty much the whole PvE world.

Leveling an alt now in PvE is NOTHING like it was at the beginning. The world is much more “dead” now, far less Dynamic Events popping up (since there are less people to trigger them). My most recent alt “out-leveled” the heart quests in the first zone by level 7, and had to switch to another zone just to continue leveling without grinding since there wasn’t enough content. My original character NEVER had to switch to a new zone in the same level range because he had “out-leveled” content. There were so many dynamic events going on he was frequently under the level of the content.

The system they designed was perfect for the initial rush of players, when the world felt alive and exploding with things to do and so many people to do it with. But then two things happen:

1. The “rush” of players dies down
2. They design the end-game to focus on a dungeon

The first they couldn’t avoid, and was bad enough. It definitely didn’t help though that they decided the best end-game would be the end-game practically every other MMO has: Dungeon grind. Those two things together combine to make the PvE world of Guild Wars 2 probably the least exciting I’ve seen. Had I bought the game now and started leveling up my first character right now, I wouldn’t have had the stomach to keep playing.

Caelib.2497:

In my experience, the perception of WvW varies greatly on how well your world is faring in your current bracket and your zergability — let’s face it, if you roll with a zerg that’s doing a lot of events, you’re going to get A LOT of Karma, Experience, Coin and XP. Is it broken? Hard to say … my advice is only do WvW with big groups and you wont have half the problem listed above.

Exactly, and I personally think it is a problem.

WHen you have an optional game mode that yields great rewards for the winners, but nothing but repair costs for the losers…you are setting it up for failure. Except in the upper tiers where each server is dedicated, most random players will jump in on a losing team, die a few times and realize that there is absolutely NOTHING to encourage them to stay. They can return to the relative safety of PvE where you have to try very very hard to not level up.

How that can be fixed, I have no idea….but I do think it is a problem. Not for me since I’m on a higher Tier server where people will fight come hell or high water, but I imagine on the lower servers it keeps a lot of them from getting people interested in WvW.

So I know it has been mentioned that they “plan” on adding ascended items to WvW…however it seems like that is off in the distance at least for now.

I was wondering if an easier temporary solution would be to just figure out some conversion factor to transform badges into fractal tokens. Then those of us who play WvW and don’t care about dungeons can still have access to ascended gear (You get the ascended gear from collecting tokens right? I’ve never done a single fractal so I don’t know).

I have no idea what the conversion would be, since I"ve never done the fractals…but I figure that wouldn’t be to hard to put into the game, and would allow those of us who don’t want to grind dungeons to still be able to get what ascended gear is available right now, so that when more is added we dont’ feel so far behind.

I’m really looking forward to another event with great loot given out to those who can make it, while I am out of town. Third update in a row where I miss the final “big event” and whatever rewards go with it. Excellent. (Sarcasm BTW)

EliteZ.1682:

FoTM is one of the best places to get money, i brought all the T3 the day FoTM was released and had about 2g. I got upto lvl 7 (i think) on FoTM and left with about 13gish after selling everything. Like i said i have not been on since so not sure if it’s changed.

Once you are in the teens the monetary gain is even larger. It keeps on going up.

If I spent weeks training in WvW, the rewards I get from killing an enemy at the end of those weeks is the same as when i started. I might kill a few more enemies, but overall my rewards won’t change drastically. Fractals keep on scaling up. it is completely ridiculous.

To me it isn’t the “boringness” of the event….it’s the fact that the event occured at what point in time, and was only available to people who can fit that single point in time on their schedule.

The halloween events were at least a little better since for the most part they were more spread out.

The karka event though was a single weekend. I was gone the entire weekend. To be honest I haven’t even entered the new map because after missing the big “hoopla” it just didn’t excite me. I felt completely left out because they decided to make this big “One time only” thing happen that I couldn’t be there for.

The other thing that is just starting to grind my gears more is when I talk to my friends who have ultimately gravitated more towards the PvE side of things. I do about 95% of my time WvW. My friends who have devoted their time 95% to PvE count their gold in the hundreds. My friend in Fractal level ~ 12 or above (i forget what number, I havne’t even done a single fractal) routinely gets like 8 rares, plus a bunch of random vendor trash PER “45-minute” run. I might get a single rare in like 4 or 5 days of WvW.

The disparity between how Arenanet wants to reward certain types of play (attending one time PvE events, or repeating the same dungeon) vs other types of play (WvW) is just astounding. It is not at all what I expected, and it is making me realize their priorities and the fact that the type of player I am (I’m here for the WvW) is not the population they really seem to care much about or want to reward.

Is this going to be the usual in this game? I’ve been talking to people in game, and noticing on these forums, that the rewards from the Karka event were incredibly impressive. Even more impressive if you didn’t get a reward and were recently emailed your reward.

Is this going to be the usual? One-time events scheduled at random with massive rewards? Regardless of what I think of it (I don’t like it), I want to at least know what to expect.

I feel like when I bought this game I thought I knew I was going to get, after Guild Wars. It seems as more and more months go by, pretty much everything that I have expected has been thrown out. It’s bad enough to compare a days work in WvW to someone running fractals (in 45 minutes you can earn more gold than you would in an entire 24 hour period in WvW). Are we also going to have frequent one-time events that shell out awesome rewards for those who can drop their life schedule for the game?

EDIT: The rewards I’m referring to are the people who were recently mailed precursor weapons and such after they were disconnected from the event.

Spartaccus the slayer.9135:

This the reason i quit this game.. this is so unfair.. i cant event attend one time events because of the timezone i stay in.

Ya it’s pretty crazy that the rewards from a “one time event” are so vast…(or I should say…rewards for being disconnected from a one time event).

Mmmm I just love hearing about how Anet loves to exclude people….such as those of us who were not able to be sitting at our computer for a random weekend that they picked out of a hat.

silleh.7682:

Honestly… Why would you even sell precursors, many people who obtain one just give it to an alt, your fault really.
With regards to your Trading Post issues, anything lost usually comes back within 24 hours. People need to consider the fact they obtained something that gives them 25% progress in obtaining a legendary.

Please read the person’s posts before you respond to him.

The event he is referring to took place 2 weeks ago.

Regardless of map completion it really should rotate and not be based on rank. Since in EB the three sides aren’t identical, they all represent different challenges for attack and defend. Those shouldn’t be based on standing, it should be random (unless you want to argue that the lowest standing gets the most easily defendable area. I don’t play enough EB to know)

The sad thing is one of the posts that they did delete (the one by me, and the one I was quoting) wasn’t even discussing an exploit. It was discussing a bug! I think we were both talking about the same person, who literally somehow got transported into a tower without meaning to. He wasn’t exploiting…somehow he was just transported in when he was beating on the gate. So they delete a post like that, but keep all the exploit accusations up…even though they claim they don’t want the exploit accusations. Just strange.

If they changed it so we could see how placed siege I don’t see how a moderator could receive a report of the player with a screenshot like the one the original poster provided and think ANYTHING other than foul play.

What possible excuse could you think of for someone to place a row of siege rams into a wall? I can’t think of anything even remotely reasonable.

I say let us report these people, and have ANET take a HARSH stance. Heck they could announce beforehand that they are planning to make this a bannable offense and then the people couldn’t complain…they would know the rules.

Rather than changing game mechanics to avoid exploiters we really just need moderators who are actually willing to punish people for these things more harshly. Punishment is the only way you will get rid of it. You can’t just change the game to find a way for people to not exploit it…they will always find a way to take advantage of whatever changes you made and ruin it for people. You just need to be ban them and be done with it. They are scum anyway and don’t deserve anything else. MAYBE we can give them one warning…but to me I say full account ban (after they announce and put up a warning in advance).

Moderator.1462:

Hi everyone,

There has been some chat of exploits and acussations as usual going on here. Please refrain from that behaviour as it is punishable. If you suspect someone from cheating or hacking, use the in game report tool but refrain from bringing the discussion here.

Thanks

Out of curiosity…why are only SOME posts regarding exploits and such being deleted from the thread? How do you choose? There are some very inflammatory posts still here, and yet you delete a post that is merely agreeing with a previous post about noticing a bug involving teleporting into a tower on accident.

Just trying to understand your decision-making process when deciding to delete posts…if you have one.

Just a thought (not sure if it’s a good one, so please give opinions).

What if the event reward for taking AND defending a location scaled based on how upgraded the location was and how much siege was present? So like if a team has a HEAVILY fortified keep and they successfully defend it, they get a bigger reward than if it was just an empty paper keep. Similarly, if an attacking team goes for that heavily defended target…they are rewarded better than if they “ninjaed” the undefended keep.

It could also maybe scale based on the number of enemy players are present during the fight?

That would maybe encourage people to upgrade things more (since the rewards for defending it would be greater) and would encourage people not just to go around taking things that are undefended. You can spend 5 minutes stealing an empty tower and get the same reward as if you spent 30 minutes trying to take a heavily fortified tower…perhaps that should change?

Just a thought. Opinions? (I have to go back to work so I couldn’t really fully think it through to see if it totally made sense, but at least superficially it does to me…)

Krighton.2138:

I would love to post and agree with the OP. The downed state is stupid mechanic. Especially when you factor in the complete stupidity that is cloth wearers taking less damage than Leather wearers.

My thief is useless once I’m downed, might as well just be dead and skip the long drawn out “kitten emote” that is the kill animation. It gets old. It’s not epic. My enemy didn’t actually accomplish anything. 3489 players hit me at once. That’s why I died.

..so I won’t agree because I’m back after a month long ban from the forums for thinking freely and not stroking Anet’s kitten enough.

So, leave the downed state alone! Anet is awesome! they’re perfect. They graduated MMO school 101 and really know how to deliver. If you don’t like the downed state then L2p.

Did I do that right? Is that how all this other drivel is allowed to be posted without a 30 day suspension. Lol. Anet.

hehe someone is a little childish and very bitter.

Bunzy.8674:

due to the downed state.

I am so over killing people just to have them instant ressed back up. This is not fun not does it reward skillfull gameplay.

It needs serious changes or remove the whole concept from any type of pvp.

I don’t completely agree. It rewards certain types of gameplay, which could be considered “skillfull”. It adds an extra layer to large scale battles because each team needs to decide how focused they are going to be on reviving downed players. When you are reviving, you are producing no damage to your enemy. So every time you see a downed teammate you have to decide what is more important. That makes the battlefield more complex. Similarly, as the enemy you have to decide how much you are going to focus on downed enemies versus ones that are alive and continuing to deal damage. If you don’t fully kill them, they could rez. However, in the moment they are dealing minimal damage compared to their living teammates.

Now I understand you don’t like it…but I’m just saying that just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it doesn’t take some skill to deal with it on the battlefield.

Kravick.4906:

GamerToukotsu.4219:

LotRO wasn’t the only company to introduce something like this, several years back EverQuest II introduced something called Critical Mitigation. It was only on raid gear at the time, then began being placed throughout the game in Solo, Group and Raid dungreons. It took 4 years to completely remove it from the game.

A single factor that takes any form of skill outside of the players hands such as a limiting factor shouldn’t be added into any game. Remember your players are your customers and while some players might enjoy a debilitating condition placed on themselves not all your players will, ultimately you might lose some customers over this issue if its not handled the right way.

I remember that. It got so bad that you needed upwards of 200% critical mitigation just to do entry level dungeons. A new character or player had no hope of ever achieving that much mitigation without some serious back tracking by your guildmates. PUGs and casuals had no hope if they didn’t play during the first month of an expansion when everyone was gearing up in those dungeons..

Exact same thing happened in lotro. Newer dungeons would be made requiring more radiance to counter more dread (their version of agony). It was a way to force people to grind dungeons in a specific order regardless of player skill.

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

This is something that existed prior to ascended gear, and was something that we saw happen all the time in GW1, even without any sort of gear progression. Some players, typically people who play the game a lot, tend to only want to play with other players that play like them. They require some sort of proof to get into their party, whether it be displaying your Lightbringer Title, equipping or linking some type of gear, or using some other method of showing that you have already done and are experienced with the content. While ascended gear might be the new excuse, this behavior happens regardless.

While this is not really something that we want to encourage, players do have the choice to play the game in the way they want. We can’t force those players to be all-inclusive in who they invite to the parties they create, and to be honest, doing so would probably make people even more unhappy than they are now, and lead to a lot of undesirable behavior.

Nice job commenting on the topic while deflecting the fact that you guys have instituted a gear treadmill/grind in a game where you clearly stated multiple times was not going to be a “grindy game”.

No seriously…nice work. Very impressive. Takes talent to deny such a massive elephant in the room.

Avatara.1042:

drwookie.6391:

Cover Girl.2580:

Good luck this week. Lets get thru the initial “were new to T-1 so we got lots to prove lets rush in hard” weekend zerg and get down to the chess match. JQ. Where you at? get in here boys!!!! :>

Couple of major things this week will effect this match. The one time event will definitely pull all but the most dedicated away this weekend (and I would imagine a server who is new to the tier would, on average, have more people dedicated to fight because of the enthusiasm). Also, a number of people are leaving over the start of a gear treadmill. Then at the end of the week Thanksgiving may pullsome people away (but bring some people in). All around its gonna be a strange week.

Those two things may affect some servers more than others for a variety of reasons (one of which I mentioned above). I for one (on JQ), am gone until Tuesday and then gone again on Thanksgiving through Friday.

Server events will nearly always affect SoS more, due to the nature of the SoS server.

Oh what is the SoS server? I didn’t know there were different types of servers (other than Euro/US)

xtorma.1283:

The new gear works in WvW.

Though it can only be obtained by dungeon grinding.

“We don’t make grindy games”

Cover Girl.2580:

Good luck this week. Lets get thru the initial “were new to T-1 so we got lots to prove lets rush in hard” weekend zerg and get down to the chess match. JQ. Where you at? get in here boys!!!! :>

Couple of major things this week will effect this match. The one time event will definitely pull all but the most dedicated away this weekend (and I would imagine a server who is new to the tier would, on average, have more people dedicated to fight because of the enthusiasm). Also, a number of people are leaving over the start of a gear treadmill. Then at the end of the week Thanksgiving may pullsome people away (but bring some people in). All around its gonna be a strange week.

Those two things may affect some servers more than others for a variety of reasons (one of which I mentioned above). I for one (on JQ), am gone until Tuesday and then gone again on Thanksgiving through Friday.

Eddie.6701:

Are you sure this new gear can be used outside of the dungeon? Maybe it should be dungeon use only.

If only….if it was dungeon only I would have ABSOLUTELY ZERO 100% NO PROBLEM with any of it. I don’t play dungeons, I never have and I never will. I don’t care if dungeon runners want to grind for gear all day. I just don’t want it affecting MY gameplay (WvW). Just like I wouldn’t expect playing WvW all day to give me an advantage in dungeons (that would clearly be unfair right? It should go both ways).

BadHealer.3608:

drwookie.6391:

Edit. Oh and for those telling us not to speculate about the future….keep in mind we don’t know what infusions for armor will be like. Of is quite possible they will have set bonuses plus stat increases…we don’t know. Upgrade components for jewelry and armor is different,…so infusions for each may end up being different.

Oh, we already know. Infusion has stat upgrades and the more infusion it has the more stats are on it.

http://i.imgur.com/MV1Vt.png

No you misunderstood my point.

Right now the only ascended items are rings. So these infusions are upgrade components for jewelry. If we base infusions on upgrade components already in place (I know I’m speculating, but for you to say this isn’t true you are also speculating), infusions for ARMOR will be different from infusions for rings. For exotics, upgrade components only provide stat bonuses. For Armor, upgrade components (runes) can apply set bonuses as well.

When they add ascended ARMOR, it is quite possible (and it would be in keeping with their current system) to have ARMOR infusions which are unique from jewelry infusions (which are the only infusions in game RIGHT NOW since only ascended jewelry exists). It is then quite possible that those ARMOR infusions will have set bonuses. We don’t actually know, since ascended armor (and therefore armor infusions) aren’t in game yet. However, based on the current system in the game for exotics, it isn’t that far a stretch to think that armor infusions will be UNIQUE from jewelry infusions, and may provide other bonuses.

Even if they are just stat bonuses…bottom line this is a STATISTICAL ADVANTAGE for all areas of the game that is ONLY available in one area. So people who grind dungeons have a STATISTICAL ADVANTAGE in WvW, even though dungeons have nothing to do with WvW. Yes I know they plan on adding ascended gear to WvW, but we have absolutely no timeline (and no real clear indication of what kind of priority that is…from the sound of it, it’s low priority…it’s a “we’ll get to it”).

Furthermore…the jump from rare —> Exotic is NOTHING like the jump from exotic —> ascended since exotics can be A. Acquired in ~ 4 or 5 different ways B. Can be acquired in mere hours while Ascended gear A. Can ONLY be acquired in dungeons and B. Require a large grind per piece

A grind would be okay if it provided NO STATISTICAL ADVANTAGE (IE: Like legendaries). But now they are creating grinds for stats…and that is a dangerous road to be heading down.

Coffeebot.3921:

Crater.1625:

Because:

1) None of those tiers except Exotic has ever been positioned as 100% of maximum power. If the game had launched with only White, Fine, Masterwork, and Rare, and ArenaNet was just now introducing Exotic equipment, I would have exactly the same reaction.

2) The functionality of Exotic gear is relatively easily obtained. I could stand to see it lowered, but 1.5-3g per piece for a cheap (ie: crafted) Exotic piece of equipment is easy enough to obtain that I can grit my teeth and push through the grind.

In comparison, Ascended equipment 1) Is being introduced after Exotics are already established as the top tier of equipment, meaning that the introduction of Ascended equipment is a functional downgrade to every piece of existing equipment in the game. If Exotics are now 100% of max power, they’ll be 90% once Ascended is in the game; if Rares are now 90% of max power, they’ll be only 80% once Ascended is introduced, and so on. And 2) The amount of grind to get one piece of Ascended equipment, from all the information we’ve been given so far, is, at the absolute minimum, on par with the amount of grind needed to get an entire, full set of dungeon equipment. That’s more of a grind than I would ever put up with for a non-cosmetic upgrade in a game.

So based on what you are saying, you care about what stats are on your gear, and given that the only place that has ANY relevance what so ever is in WvW I can conclude that you are primarily a WvW player.

Welp, I didn’t see you on the forums complaining about people having exotic gear while you only had rare gear, and based on what you said it’s because exotics were the top tier of gear already present in the game, the problem with not complaining about the rare/exotic difference is that as soon as ascended gear enters the game it will be the EXACT same scenario as rare/exotic and again, the only place that that had a difference was WvW, but due to the nature of WvW never being able to be balanced (even remotely) it’s a non-issue.

So as far as I can tell, you are complaining about ANet adding gear to the game that has better stats than exotics but the only way (at present) to get it is through doing some content… well how about that, you have to play the game to get stuff for the game? Just like the monthly achievement it’s completely optional, and just like the monthly achievement if you want the reward you’ll do the content regardless of what it is.

Lastly, the only element of the game this affects is WvW and if you want to have the best gear in WvW (because you have the mentality that stats mean everything right?) then you will go get the best gear regardless of what it takes, if WvW isn’t what you primarily do then… there’s actually nothing to complain about because it doesn’t affect your experience in the game in ANY way, shape or form.

As a WvW player….

I had a set of exotic gear about one hour after hitting 80.

I highly doubt I’ll have a ascended gear in one hour.

Exotics are not only acquired easily, butntheybare obtained by multiple paths. Right now, ascended gear is a DUNGEON ONLY gear that offers stat increases compared to exotics. That means now the top tier for WvW requires me to grind a dungeon.

That, at least for me, is what I’m most peeved about.

Edit. Oh and for those telling us not to speculate about the future….keep in mind we don’t know what infusions for armor will be like. Of is quite possible they will have set bonuses plus stat increases…we don’t know. Upgrade components for jewelry and armor is different,…so infusions for each may end up being different.

Also, people are talking about how the items we are complaining about have a little bit of each stat, and so is not specific. Just like there are currently items like that (divinity runes), what makes you think there aren’t corresponding infusions that have more specific upgrades?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

so this is positive:
-) all content available to everyone – horizontal progression
-) challenge mode for people who need vertical progression – something to work towards

Correction:

all content is available to everyone who wants to grind a dungeon

Those of us who play this game because we believed we could play the way WE WANTED without feeling left behind are screwed. I play WvW solely. I am now being set up to be at a statistical disadvantage to those who want to grind dungeons. I have no interest in grinding dungeons, I don’t play other MMOs for that reason and I play this one because I was told (by their manifesto and their overall original game design) that I would be able to play the way I wanted.

This is clearly not the case.

Wasselin.1235:

LordGustoff.3752:

Though, now that I have had time to think about it… is it possible that the stats on the infusions only take effect when in the Fractals? In which case this is perfectly fine. Infusions wouldn’t affect PvE or PvP/WvW… you would only need better infusions to do Fractal OMFGHARDMODE

Just keep trying to find any reason to deny the truth. Over and over again arenanet says that they added this to give a sense of gear progression and that it’s a tier of gear higher and more powerful than exotics and people just won’t believe it.

It’s true. They have added something that’s better. It doesn’t just work in the fractals, the infusion doesn’t delete your runes, it’s not somehow mysteriously worse than exotic gear.

And it is extremely telling in my opinion when you look at the reddit translation from the german developers…who cannot “Confirm or deny” whether ascended gear is the last tier.

Just the mere fact that they are “leaving options open” implies, to me, that at this point anything is a possibility….and every design idea about the game from the get go is thrown out the window. Really anything goes at this point.

Fritz.5026:

drwookie.6391:

Fritz.5026:

When the next tier is released.

I’m actually looking for an honest answer. Basically my question boils down to their plan moving forward. What takes priority?

that was a logical and honest answer.

notice this section on the patch notes "The drop rarity of Rare and Exotic weapons from certain places in the world (champions, veterans, and players in WvW) has been increased. Rares and Exotics should be much more likely to drop and every champion should be guaranteed to drop loot. "

they are ensuring that the older tier is much easier to attain.

they will make sure the current top tier is easier to attain when they release a new tier.

this is the method nearly every gear grinder game follows.

i am sorry if its not what you want to hear, but the writing is on the wall.

Ah good point. I didn’t think about that.

So that implies the rest of the game will be perpetually behind the “dungeon” aspect of the game? Again, it’s not for sure but I agree that is what it seems to suggest.

Honestly I wouldn’t care about that if the “dungeon runners” weren’t able to come into a competitive environment and fight those of us who choose not to run dungeons. They can bring their stat advantage (which may be “small” now but it is not clear how wide the gap will become before those of us who don’t run dungeons can obtain the gear) into a separate part of the game.

No matter how much WvW I may play, those who grind the dungeons can come in and instantly have a stat advantage. Will they defeat me? Perhaps not. But at least at the beginning of the fight they have an instant advantage. It’s like going into a duel where you have 1 bullet and the enemy has 2. You may still beat them, but they are still at a clear advantage.

Oh and for clarification: I didn’t post this in the main thread because I am really asking for a very specific question, a very specific clarification.

I realize I’m not going to get that clarification…but at least wanted to put it out there. I think it is VERY VERY important for the devs to state where their priorities lie. From the ways things have been set up for this content update, it appears it lies in the gear grind and dungeons. I want to hear:

“Hey our major priority now is to make all this gear accessible to every playstyle out there, so you don’t feel like you need to do one specific thing to get it. We will be adding that before we add any additional gear”

Like I said, I know it is unlikely to happen. But a guy can dream

Fritz.5026:

When the next tier is released.

I’m actually looking for an honest answer. Basically my question boils down to their plan moving forward. What takes priority?

1. Adding more ascended gear (more accessories, armor etc…)
2. Adding more ways to get ascended gear

From the blog post and the clarification it seemed like number 1 was of FAR FAR higher concern for them….and the “more ways” to get it (WvW, etc…) was kind of a backburner “Oh don’t worry you will get it eventually also” kind of thing. While it is a “slow” grind for now….I plan on never doing the fractals. I have no interest in dungeons and I ESPECIALLY have no interest in “grinding” the dungeons (if I did do them, I would do them once for the experience/story and that is it). So if in 3 months they added more items to the dungeons, that will put me even further behind other people (in competitive play…WvW).

So they’ve said they have “plans” for ascended gear to be obtainable in, for example, WvW.

I want to know when. I don’t want any beating around the bush. Will they be obtainable in WvW BEFORE additional ascended gear is added? Or are they prioritizing adding more ascended gear before giving us other ways to obtain the gear.

FOcusing purely on dungeons initially for a new tier of gear is, in my opinion, telling us all where their priorities lie. It is saying that their major focus is on dungeon grinding, and the rest of the game is secondary. Exotics as a final tier worked because you could basically do ANYTHING in the game and be slowly working towards them (dungeons, crafting, karma, PVE, WvW). While it is great to hear that they “plan” to add ascended gear to the rest of the game….it is honestly sending the wrong message to release it ONLY in dungeons primarily.

All the other problems with a new tier of items with increased stats aside, I think this needs to be addressed. Yes it may be a “slow” gear treadmill, but it is a gear treadmill that at least for now is ONLY accessible in one area of the game, an area that perhaps not everyone wants to participate it. Prior to this content patch if you didn’t want to run dungeons your gear could easily match those who did (stat wise). This is setting a precedent where that is no longer the case.

Fiontar.4695:

For WvW, they’ve already said that Ascended Gear will be available via WvW and other means as well, so, once again, just an extension of the gear progression that already exists from level 1-80 in the game.

(I’m practically a sole WvWer so I am focusing on this)

Again…it’s great that they have “plans” to add it to WvW…but it is honestly insulting that they add it to another area of the game EXCLUSIVELY to begin with, with no real “timeline” for when the rest of us will get access to it.

The items have clear stat benefits, considering the infusions that we are seeing in this thread. WvW is a competitive game. This is therefore giving a statistical advantage to those who run dungeons in addition to WvW. WvW should be about WvW, not about what you do in a dungeon.

The change has nothing to do with whether you think you should be able to whisper them. If you think you should be able to talk to enemies, their names should be displayed.

CLEARLY they did not want for you to be able to whisper enemy players….so using the report function was a “work around” (Exploit) to get around that. To argue otherwise is just lying to yourself. So they are merely fixing their system.

If you want to argue that we should be able to talk to enemies (Which I am personally of mixed opinion about), that is a completely different issue. This was a fix, you are talking about a change to their whole system.

@Fiontar (i don’t want to quote you because it would be too long

While yes the stat increases right now may seem minor…at least in my case what worries me/upsets me more is the TREND they seem to be setting. It’s minor now because it’s only a ring and a backpiece. But they will be adding a whole set. After that what next? If they were willing to add a new tier now with higher stats, I no longer put it past them to add ANOTHER tier in 6 months or a year….That fact that they are doing this once, means they could do it again. Before this, I had assumed (and was wrong) that they were sticking to their original plan…that is to say, no increases in stats on gear.

Furthermore, while I agree it is nice they have plans to add the gear to other parts of the games….I think it sends the wrong message to initially add it ONLY to one facet of the game. It makes it seem like their priority is dungeons, and the rest is sort of “secondary”…a kind of “Oh we will get to that later”. That sends the wrong message, in my opinion. They should have added it to the whole game…even if that meant delaying its release. We have no idea when they will be obtainable in other parts of the game, and we don’t even know if that will happen BEFORE the other pieces are added. Will it be a full ascended gear in dungeons before they are added other places? Or will they add them to other places first? Again…just sets the wrong message in my opinion.

Yes it is a “slow measured” inflation…but as of right now it is a “slow measured inflation” in one ONLY aspect of the game. If I want to continue to just do WvW (which is what I do now), I will gain none of this gear. If the rest of the ascended gear is added before they allow me to get it in WvW….I will be an entire tier down that I will need to “grind” at some point so that my stats match.

Again I have repeatedly asked (with no real explanation) why they couldn’t just make ascended gear give the Agony resistance and be otherwise THE EXACT SAME as exotics. That would make it a dungeon “progression” system where it was a TOTALLY OPTIONAL tier for people who want to run dungeons and get new tiers of gear for “Harder” dungeons. It wouldn’t effect anyone outside of dungeons. The fact that they felt the need to increase the stats on all the items moving forward to me is the major problem. It is no longer about “satisfying a group of people who feel like they have nothing to do” (dungeon runners). It is now about changing the whole design of the game into what most games are composed of: Gear treadmills (no matter how “slow” it is, it is still a treadmill with the potential for no end in sight since they haven’t confirmed that ascended gear is the end of this whole fiasco).

To be the biggest issue with all of this is the PRECEDENT it sets. Before this I just didn’t even imagine they would add new gear with higher stats…but they had us all so convinced that wasn’t part of their game design. No matter how slow or gradual this change is, it is now clear that they ARE willing to add a gear treadmill. So what is next? I now have total doubt over what is coming in this game, and to be honest with this as the first major content patch it definitely APPEARS to be heading in the wrong direction. Am I right? I have no idea, like you say we have to wait and see…but this still sets a poor precedent in my opinion, for a variety of reasons (of which I won’t repeat but I’ve already stated).

Blacksarevok.8104:

mulch.2586:

Crater.1625:

Blacksarevok.8104:

They gap between Exotic and legendary was an effort gap.

Ascended gear was intended to fill that gap.

However, by adding better stats to ascended gear they successfully created ANOTHER gap to take the original gaps place.

GG Arenanet on becoming EA; fix one problem, create another even worse problem.

There wasn’t even an effort gap! They put Ascended items in for no reason except to cater to people who can’t live without higher numbers.

Fact is if you’ve been watching feedback here and on other gaming sites, there were a lot of people who felt like there’s not much to do in GW2, no endgame, boring after you hit 80, “i don’t want legendary and got full exotics right after I got 80, so I quit logging in” and over and over, the flames about no endgame.

So… here’s some endgame. With fractal, so no matter how you do it, it never ends. Smoke em if you got em, we’ll be here a while.

So the endgame went from being able to do essentially whatever you wanted (Dungeons, Events, PVP) to fractals (JUST fractals).

The gear ladder doesn’t anger me as much as limiting the new gear ONLY to fractals. A guy that spends as much time in PVP, or doing events, or even doing previous dungeons as a person doing fractals should be able to have access to that gear. As of now, if you want Ascended gear, you are pigeon-holed into fractals. That’s crap.

And yes, I know they said they would make the gear available from other facets of the game later on, but who knows when that will be. 3 months at the very earliest, so from now until then anyone that has no intention of farming fractals all day gets shafted.

Ya that is definitely a significant part of the problem.

If ascended gear ONLY provided Agony resistance, and otherwise had the same stats as exotics, I wouldn’t care if it was ONLY found in dungeons.

But thew ay it is now it provides a stat bonus and is ONLY found in the dungeons. Yes they plan on expanding that, but like you said we have no idea when. Exotics worked well as a final tier because you could obtain that tier in MANY MANY ways…so basically anything you did you were working towards them.

If they wanted to add a new tier that affected all facets of the game (which is what they did), they should have added a means to acquire it in ALL facets of the game at once….I understand that is much more work, but it is just wrong to do it this way….to pigeonhole people into one activity for the time being if they want the best gear.

mulch.2586:

Crater.1625:

Blacksarevok.8104:

They gap between Exotic and legendary was an effort gap.

Ascended gear was intended to fill that gap.

However, by adding better stats to ascended gear they successfully created ANOTHER gap to take the original gaps place.

GG Arenanet on becoming EA; fix one problem, create another even worse problem.

There wasn’t even an effort gap! They put Ascended items in for no reason except to cater to people who can’t live without higher numbers.

Fact is if you’ve been watching feedback here and on other gaming sites, there were a lot of people who felt like there’s not much to do in GW2, no endgame, boring after you hit 80, “i don’t want legendary and got full exotics right after I got 80, so I quit logging in” and over and over, the flames about no endgame.

So… here’s some endgame. With fractal, so no matter how you do it, it never ends. Smoke em if you got em, we’ll be here a while.

If people want a dungeon grind for end game…that shouldn’t effect other people who DON"T want that.

So ascended gear should provide bonuses for the dungeon (Agony resistance) but NOT stat increases….because as soon as you start throwing on increased stats, that means that people who see endgame as not a dungeon grind (For example, WvW players), also feel “forced” to do the content just to keep up with those who do.

Slic.2406:

Alberel Leonhart.9640:

If ascended gear had been in at release would you all still be complaining? I think most of the complaints are coming from people with full exotic that don’t like the fact they’re not top-tier any more. I understand the frustration there but I still think people need to look at this as a new rarity and not a new tier.

They explained it pretty well in the dev blog: the rarity levels had a gaping hole between exotic and legendary, they needed something to plug the gap. They’ve already said this stuff will be obtainable in WvW as well so the people whining about having to run the fractals for it have nothing to complain about.

Hate to break it to you but.. Do you realize how LONG it will take to get each piece of ascended gear? It takes ~2000 fractal tokens to get the stuff required to craft each piece. 1350 for the exo backpiece then 500 for the asc gift.

Guess the rate at which you get fractal tokens. Give up?

5 tokens every room, with every room taking 15-30mins to complete. PLUS running into an agony-wall gear-check that will force you to spend time looking for someone who can allow you to enter the lower levels again (i.e. a newcomer who hasn’t played the dungeon to death that you have to ‘carry’). We are talking DAYS/WEEKS of grinding for each ascended piece, as opposed to getting exos with the choice of your stats for 1-5g a peice from TP or crafting them (lvl a craft 0-400 in 1-2 hrs, and ur g2g).

I’m sorry, the thought that should be running through your mind is: “ok, the stats would have been acceptable as a top-tier (it is now NOT acceptable period), but the grind/time-sink sure as heck is NOT, considering the game is named GUILD WARS, not Lineage 2, Aion, WoW or Rift”.

At what point did you accept anet’s lie/broken promise. They specifically and repeatedly told everyone that there would not be ANY vertical progression or treadmill, ever. And now, they’re not even saying there won’t be more tiers between exo/legendary, because there very likely will be. Welcome to Grind Wars 2, would you like a Lineage 2 T-shirt with that?

If this is even close to true…that is just disgusting. Why any company thinks it’s okay to design content where you have to repeat something hundreds of times to get anywhere is just beyond me. Arenanet was convincing when they talked about how they were different….but if this is true they are not.

Yes there are multiple “minidungeons” in the fractals, and yes what you do is random…but still we are talking about repeating each mini-dungeon MULTIPLE times to get any of the equipment. Again, I would be fine if all of that made no stat difference, and it was just for “bragging rights” (IE: Same stats as exotics)…but for better stats? That is just the wrong direction IMO.

If they wanted to add a tier between exotics and legendaries to “bridge” the time-gap….then that tier should have ALSO been cosmetic only. The gap between exotics and legendaries is ENTIRELY OPTIONAL because the stats are the same. This tier that they haven’t is clearly not becoming “optional” because they designed (for no real reason that is clear to me) to make the stats increased on ascended gear. Why not just make them look different, plus have agony resistance ONLY (so they are only useful in the dungeon)….why the stat increase? It just ruins the whole idea of the game.

Alberel Leonhart.9640:

If ascended gear had been in at release would you all still be complaining? I think most of the complaints are coming from people with full exotic that don’t like the fact they’re not top-tier any more. I understand the frustration there but I still think people need to look at this as a new rarity and not a new tier.

They explained it pretty well in the dev blog: the rarity levels had a gaping hole between exotic and legendary, they needed something to plug the gap. They’ve already said this stuff will be obtainable in WvW as well so the people whining about having to run the fractals for it have nothing to complain about.

Your second paragraph, and their blog, ,take absolutely no sense. The stats on legendaries are the SAME as exotics….so how does adding a new tier with HIGHER stats plug that gap? Now ascended items are essentially exotics and there is a gap between ascended and legendaries.

Are they going to add another tier to “bridge the gap” between ascended and legendaries now?

Hymnosi.5928:

The drop rarity of Rare and Exotic weapons from certain places in the world (champions, veterans, and players in WvW) has been increased. Rares and Exotics should be much more likely to drop and every champion should be guaranteed to drop loot. This was to ensure that world loot drops were not a significantly worse way of acquiring rare and exotic items than crafting and running dungeons.

I’m excited for this.

Hell ya. I was asking for better drop rates since the first beta weekend. It was so incredibly obvious to me that the comparison between WvW vs. PvE for loot was just a total failure…glad they are coming around.

White.6193:

Kyiv.9621:

scree.2061:

I can only imagine how angry JQ is at tonights puzzle camping marathon on EB. My guild held it against a zerg of 60 JQ (some camping entrance…some trying to get the top of beast room cleared). Pretty hilarious considering we did it for 2 hours with only 10 players.

Just rubbing it in now ;p

Camping the JP is easy, its not an accomplishment to do it. Plus spending 2 hours camping JP is just sad in itself to even be bragging about lol

Why? It was fun, I had an absolute blast. I don’t know about you, but I play this game to have fun, which I had (a great deal of).

Before you say it’s not helping the server to camp the jp, think about it like this: 10 (actually less, maybe 7) SBI guys denied 50+ JQ their jp chest for hours. Let’s put that in perspective, less JQ free siege weaponry, and a few hours of JQ time where they were stuck and not out on the battlefield fighting. 7 guys for 2 hours is 14 man hours of fighting, 50 JQ for 2 hours is 100 man hours of fighting. I’d say we came out on top of that.

And just in case you are so uninformed, JQ looooves their jp. There was never a single moment where we weren’t chasing and killing off JQ guys. In two hours, never a moment, not a single instant where we weren’t firing the balista/catapults/arrow carts and charging into the masses of JQ. We weren’t sitting around twiddling our thumbs, we were raking in the badges (I came out with 55 at the end of the night excluding chest).

I salute you JQ guys though, I get pissed off and bail on the jp after dying a few times but you guys were dogged in your determination and persistence. Far more than I have been in your spot. Cheers!

People really need to stop referring to an entire server as a single persona. “JQ loves the jumping puzzle”. I’ve been on JQ since day one, I only WVW and I’ve never done the EB JP. Haven’t even tried it. I’ve done borderlands jps once on a Friday when the match was essentially over and we were waiting for reset.

It kind of sucks to hear that a large portion of our EB crew were wasting their time on the JP. I normally play on borderlands and we try to stay focused.

In any case, just remember that a server is made of white a few people…so to refer to them all as one collective body, and acting as if they all do the same is just silly.

Ah I guess my previous posts weren’t quite on the topic you wanted.

I completely agree. Adding a condition that can ONLY be countered with a buff from gear requires no skill whatsoever, it doesn’t make the dungeon more challenging..it just creates a completely artificial way to limit who can participate in the content…and the limit is not set by player skill, just time invested in gathering gear.

Zaber.5609:

I like the new feature, adds a sense of progression for us PvErs. And why are people complaining about grind in a MMORPG? Doesn’t make sense at all.

Why does it make no sense? Just because past MMOs are very Grundy doesn’t mean all future MMOs have to be.

Some of us play MMOs for the constantly evolving game world, the social aspect, the evolving story. I shouldn’t need to grind Dungeon A for gear before I can progress to Dungeon B, where I gain gear in preparation for Dungeon C.

I want to play each once, experience their story, and move forward.

Darx.9842:

What it does do is assure progression through a set of dungeons. You’ll have to get gear from the first to be able to do the next. Which I don’t mind.

It’s great for the people that love PvE and enjoy progression.

As for your suggestions: You haven’t played the content yet, don’t be so quick to critique.

Requiring you to do one dungeon before you do another serves what purpose? Why can’t we participate in all dungeons without grinding them in order?

Now if every dungeon had story and explorable modes PLUS “agony modes” which were for the “hardcore” then I would be fine.

Some of us want to just experience the content once and move on. I run every dungeon mode once and never again. I would be very very surprised if I could get all the ascended gear I need from just one run.

As for the stat itself…it is almost identical to radiance and dread in lotro….and that did not turn out well.

Surbrus.6942:

Why is everyone calling the pro-treadmill people “hardcore”? They aren’t hard core one bit, they just want their numbers inflated.

The people who are actually hardcore are the ones that consider a challenge to be more difficult content and PvP… not “hard” content that is nothing more than the same old same old with bigger numbers flying around. /rant

Its like the game version of Dragonkitten!!

A power level of 9000 was impressive…until everyone and their sister went super saiyan and had power levels of 90000000. But what does it matter when your enemy is also equally buffed up? Its just bigger numbers, same challenge.