…You’re kidding right? Tell me you’re kidding.
Being an MMO has nothing to do with Anet’s ridiculous idea that players shouldn’t be able to replay old content. Every MMO under the sun keeps the majority of expansion content in place when a new one comes out, just in case new players come to the game and want to start from the beginning.
Yes, every MMO has limited time world changing events, but these events usually run for several months, and are used sparingly.
GW2 has taken the idea of having limited time events, and gone way over board with them by making their entire content based around it. This is not fun for a new player, at all. Nothing like coming into the game, hearing about Scarlet, and than hearing about all the cool stuff that happened that they’ll never, ever, get to participate in.
If Anet had actually kept the LS content in the game after each update, GW2 would have a plethora of content for people to participate in…but they didn’t, and instead we get the flavor of the week content to hurriedly rush through so we can have the next spoonful of (usually bad) content shoved down our throats.
I really like the temporary content. The temporary nature is what makes it a Living World, instead of a static world like “every MMO under the sun”. I don’t know why some people get so hung up on missing some event that happened 6 months ago. You missed it? That’s too bad, but it’s not a big deal. There’s new content coming out all the time. It’s great, and I really enjoyed it as a new player coming into the game, and I still enjoy it now.
I really like what ANet is doing with Living World and I’m glad I get to be a part of it.
I didn’t care for SAB. Tried it. Really did. Did not enjoy.
Linen isn’t a problem, really. It’s 40 scraps per damask, which is farmable.
Silk is the problem. 100 bolts of silk a day? 300 scraps of silk a day? That’s not farmable, and the recipe is sucking up all the silk in the game at an astonishing rate. The player base can’t replace silk fast enough. The price of silk is way out of balance.
The recipe requirement of 100 silk bolts was a HUGE error in judgement and needs to get fixed, ASAP. Frankly I am shocked by the poor judgement that was shown here, and it hurts my confidence in the game economy over all.
Anet,
I WvW, i don’t PvE, i don’t Craft, don’t ever have the time or the materials for it. However, in doing all the WvW i do, i’m sitting on a TON of these t6 crafting materials. That are just taking up slots in my bags and my bank. I can’t use them as i’m not a crafter, and i can’t trade them, as they are account bound.
So may i offer a suggestion.. Allow those who craft, to be able to sell those ascended items they are making. remove the account bound restriction on crafted ascended weapons/armor/jewelry.
Then, allow us players that don’t craft that are just sitting on these t6 materials to place 3 different stacks of 500(or whatever number you feel fit) into the mystic forge + 1 Exotic item we wish to turn into an ascended item. And let the forge do it’s thing. Make this item account bound. And call it a day.
Thank you for your time
-Testpig
This issue was discussed heavily in the recent CDI on Character Progression. I do think you can expect to see some movement on this issue in the future as lots of fixes and alternatives were discussed.
I love a good crafting system. Crafting can be a lot of fun. There have been several excellent and innovative crafting systems in other MMOs, but I’ve never been impressed with the GW2 copypasta crafting.
It’s boring and tedious because the design is boring and tedious. It’s like the system was developed by someone who didn’t want to do it, but had to produce something so they copypasta’d the basic structure from WoW.
Add to that the poor economic management of the game economy, and crafting is a dead horse. A poor dead horse.
There are a lot of things I love about GW2, but crafting was a huge disappointment. Grade: FAIL.
Hi All,
Here is the next evolution of the original Vertical Progression proposal based on a summary of our discussions:
Regarding Ascended Gear we would like to see more ways to earn it and in terms of drop rates, a higher percentage chance of acquiring them through this method.
A review of current RNG metrics.
The ability to build up to Ascended Gear through drops rather than just relying on RNG.
Just some math-food to help with these considerations:
There are 17 stat combinations for Ascended Armors. The chance that you will get the stat combo you want for your build is about 6% for the first piece. This chance% is compounded for every drop, so the odds of getting a set of ascended gear with the desired stat combo through RNG drops only is:
*1 piece 6%
*2 pieces .36%
*3 pieces .022%
*4 pieces .0013%
*5 pieces .00008%
*6 pieces .000005%
If you are more flexible in the stats you want — say any of 3 complimentary sets — the odds are closer to 18% for the first piece, which still works out to about .0034% for a set of 6 pieces with a random mix of those 3 stat combos.
Factor in drop rate, and the odds that any player will get a desirable set of 6 pieces of armor in their lifetime becomes roughly 0%.
Which leads us to…
The ability to change gear stats (Note there is still a lot of discussion about whether people want this or not)
Yes, I think it’s very important that we be able to change the stats on Ascended gear. It should cost currency each time it’s done, but the currency requirements should not be too punishing if you want players to be able to experiment with builds. Maybe add a vendor NPC that will return Ascended gear to a stat-selectable state for a fee?
This alleviates the pressure to commit to one build, and encourages build experimentation and diversity. It also alleviates the chance% of Ascended RNG drops (above) since now you just need 6 pieces per character, and can select stats for a fee once you have it.
While this does lessen the “specialness” of Legendary gear a bit, Legendary gear still retains unique QoL attributes that maintain it’s status as “top tier gear”.
No more new Gear tiers that make the existing tiers obsolete.
Agreed, though I shy away from saying, “No more new tiers ever.” Perhaps further down the road we may change our minds. I’d like to see the next tier of gear come from “upgrading” existing gear to the new tier, rather than just replacing it with new gear.
Additional ways to earn Ascended Gear at accelerated for Alts.
That would be really nice. I suggested in a comment to Isaiah that we might add an account-bound version of the t7 ascended mats that are not time-gated. 1x tradeable t7 per account per day, unlimited account-bound t7 per day.
Ascended Gear mats dropping more equally across the game, for example WvW.
Yeah, that would be a huge QoL improvement I think. I also really like the idea of “everything drops from everywhere” so that you can get what you need while pursuing the content you enjoy, without pressure to do Jumping Puzzles for Empyreal Frgaments or World Bosses for Dragonite Ore, etc. I’d like to see a shift to “All ascended mats can drop from any source that drops ascended mats”.
Well the crafting gating we added was actually for a different reason then gating the speed in which someone can craft ascended gear. We wanted to make people who level up crafting able to do something to gain gold each day. The time gate here goal is much more focused around making gold then limiting crafting as you can bypass it with gold.
Okay. If that’s the case, would it be possible to add an account-bound version of these mats that is not gated? That way we preserve the economic goals of the gate, but also relax the time-gate on people crafting for personal use.
If I have the materials to make 10 Ingots, I can craft them all in one day, but only the first one would be trade-able. The other 9 would be account bound for personal use gearing up my characters.
But if my goal was to craft for profit I would still need to limit myself to 1 ingot per day.
My idea in Horizontal and Vertcal progress is that the Order, what character have been chosen before, are giving tasks. And when character have been done these Order given tasks, character will get that reward what he/she has been chosen before. These tasks are repeatable as many times as player wants, only those DE’s are RNG in these tasks.
Example for reward what character can choose:
Order representative:
“What do you need?
- Ascended materials (only account bound)( minimum 5 and maximum 250)
- Legendary materials (only account bound)( minimum 5 and maximum 250)
- Karma (minimum 5 000 Karma points and Maximum 250 000 Karma points)
- Skill points (Minimum 5 and maximum 250 Skill points)
- Money (minimum 5 gold and maximum 250 gold)
- Experience points (for leveling)( minimum 50 000 xp and maximum 4 500 000 xp)
- Tokens (only account bound)(minimum 5 and maximum 250)”At this time Character needs some Ascended materials. So he choose Ascended Materials from the list. Then there is opening new window where character can choose material what he needs (materials are only account bound). And he choose Empyreal Fragments.
When character have chosen what material he needs there will come amount window, how many of those materials he needs. (Same way with Karma, Skill points, Money, Experience points and Tokens):
Order representative:
“How much do you need this material?
- 5 Empyreal Fragments
- 10 Empyreal Fragments
- 50 Empyreal Fragments
- 100 Empyreal Fragments
- 250 Empyreal Fragments”When character have been chosen how much he needs these materials, Order representative gives lists of the Dynamic Events what character needs to do to get this material. Larger amount of the material means more dynamic events from level 1 – 80 maps. (No FotM or Dungeon (meaning instances)), only dynamic events from the open world map.
By doing these tasks character is leveling up, getting materials what he needs, have to do dynamic events and get done also achievement points, (exploration, killings, using weapon and so on.)
This system requires, that all Dynamic Events are woking properly and are not bugged in any ways.
I am sorry that my English is so bad, but I hope you got idea what I wanted to share.
This is a really cool idea. I don’t know that it would work out well with quite those numbers, but the idea is really interesting. Also, your english is great :-) +1 Ilmatar.
That’s a great suggestion/addition to my idea, jsduke. Maybe the merchant can collect ascended materials for the transaction, as well as some silver, so that the materials would never fall out of use.
Yeah, I think you’re right. Good call.
What about ascended gear being taken down from the amount of sets we have, to a smaller amount of sets that have selectable stats?
For example, Berserker, Rampager, and Knight’s gear would be put into a single item set, and you can choose between those three stat sets similar to legendary weapon stat selection.
Giving each set only three different archetypes would still have people crafting different pieces, if their build called for a stat set that wasn’t available on their current set of three, but it would greatly reduce the acquisition period, as you would have alternatives available at any given time. It would also set apart ascended from legendary, as ascended would not have all stat types available at any time, but only 3.
That’s a really interesting idea. I hope Chris or one of the other devs will offer some feedback on it.
I think, though, that a more practical solution would be to have a “Stat-change Vendor” that offers to change the stats on an Ascended item for a gold fee. Or reset the stats to a selectable state. This would be a reasonable bridge between Ascended and Legendary, I think. Legendary gear still enjoys unique QoL functionality, but players are able to change gear stats on Ascended items for a fee that would be much less than making a whole new piece.
I am joining the thread late, but since this is a brainstorm… what if characters could actually get more permanent weapons skills based on the living world content?
It’s an interesting idea, but a balance nightmare for the devs, so I think it’s unlikely to happen.
New Weapon Skills are likely to come in the form of expanded weapon accessibility as ANet opens up more weapons for each of the professions. If I remember correctly, this is something that ANet has stated they want/intend to do at some point.
I like your idea, but I think it’s more appropriate to Utility Skills than Weapon Skills.
I play a PVT AOE Heal shout War. I have played this role fora long period of time and have never played a DPS War. On top of this I am also easily able to hold agro and support my group. My DPS is terrible but I keep my team alive while they run around destroying everything…
I like you believe that Horizontal Progression should be about role differentiation, however I feel like this system is already very core to the game…
Chris
It’s an excellent point that I think gets overlooked because of the prominence of popular cookie-cutter builds. I feel like those builds are good teaching tools, but it’s easy to lean on them as crutches. There seems to be a reluctance to stray too far from the “tried-and-true” builds.
I’d like to see Horizontal progression in terms of role diversification and hybridization. I’d love to see more options for “exotic” builds that step outside of the normal comfort zone of the professions to add more flexibility to builds, and new ways to engage content (read as: wreck kittens).
It seems to me that there are a lot of options for dps and damage mitigation, but there is tremendous opportunity to expand the meta game in other aspects of combat:
- Toggle Abilities
- Inter-profession Synergy
- Environmental Synergy
Toggle Abilities are Player States that are either on or off, depending on what the player needs at the moment. Risk and Reward should be a big part of Toggle balancing. For example, Warriors could have a “Determined Stance” that, when on, provides the Warrior with Stability, but drops Critical Hit Chance to 0% while the Toggle Ability is active.
Inter-profession Synergy is something that could be really exciting. It could also be really complex. It could work something like this:
- This would be a Party mechanic that you would set up when you form your Party.
- Each Profession has 1 Synergistic Effect with each of the other 7 Professions.
- Each Party Member can only have 1 active Synergy Effect at a time.
- To set up the Effect, you target the Party Member and “Offer Synergy”.
- The Party Member accepts or declines the Synergy.
- Synergies can be changed at any time outside of combat.
When the Synergy is active, both players benefit from the relationship. An example would be “Bond of Blood” between Warrior and Necromancer. While the Synergy is active, the Warrior’s attacks generate Life Force for the Necromancer. While in Death Shroud, a portion of the damage the Warrior takes comes off of the Necromancer’s Life Force Pool instead. This encourages players to work together in new ways.
Environmental Synergy is another Party Mechanic that could work in a number of ways, but basically it changes the ways professions operate under different circumstances. For example, a Guardian could have “Valiant Avenger” that grants the Guardian +Power or +Might for every Party Member that is either downed or dead. Necromancers could have “Parasitic Bond” that grants +Condition Damage for every Party Member that is below the Health Threshold. Rangers could have “Alpha Dog” that provides +Critical Damage for every active pet/minion in the party.
I’m wondering if we are looking at Vamp Sig wrong, and it was really an attempt to give Necros a unique Necro-specific form of attrition?
i.e. instead of giving us a boring -5% damage talent, or a +100 toughness talent, or gives protection on x thing happening talent, Anet tried to give us a unique way of reducing incoming damage.
Obviously it didn’t work out very well. But I do think the idea was good.
Imagine if the passive never went on cooldown after the active was used, and the active heal had a base of 7k?
Now would you use Vamp Sig? Passive damage reduction that doesn’t go away, and a good active heal?
What if the passive was better and provided true damage reduction? Like a % of each hit so it scaled with big hits (I almost never get hit with lots of little hits).
I might consider the skill useful if it didn’t rob me of a real heal. If it were a Utility skill, I might think it would have some use in a build, but as a Healing skill it is a complete disaster and will never see my skill bar again.
TL;DR, a lot of complaints are simply frustrations about completely natural (and sometimes healthy) parts of normal game development. It doesn’t make the feelings or ideas of the complaints any less valid, but simply put the majority of complaints I hear are a bit like complaining that your steak took time to cook and had meat in it.
While I agree with pretty much everything you said, and I appreciate how well you presented your points, my concern with the profession is more meta in nature.
The Necromancer is horribly neglected by the development teams. That’s it. Every patch is PvP-centric, and PvE play takes it on the chin, and ANet seems to be perfectly okay with that. Since ANet seems to have no interest in addressing the issues Necromancers have in PvE play, I have abandoned the class.
If ANet is not going to invest in the profession, then why should I? I moved on, and I am now playing Elementalist and Guardian mostly, because ANet seems to care what happens to those professions.
Yup. Save your skill points. It’s not worth it.
Fractals of The Mist are also catered to these players because you have to increase your agony resistance in order to progress.
The only thing I’m baffled by is that players who normally like running dungeons (such as the guild DnT) dislike Fractals, and that seems like a major failure on ArenaNet’s end.
I’m kind of a solo-player, so I tend to avoid forced-grouping content like dungeons. But Fractals take it even further than that.
I remember being a new player and hearing about Fractals. They sounded interesting, and I wanted to try them, but they are pretty inaccessible to new players. People who do Fractals have been doing Fractals forever and never do the low-level content. So who do I group with to begin my Fractals journey as a new Fractals player? It’s not solo-able, and there are no noob-level groups to join. I can’t jump in at lvl 30 because I have no AR. Combine that with my personal avoidance of forced-group content and it’s easy to see why I’m still a Fractals virgin.
Fractals are a very niche kind of content for a very specific kind of player. I’m glad they’re in the game, but it’s really not my thing.
If Ascended gear was intended for Fractals play, then it should have had the same stats as Exo gear, but with the addition of infusion slots for increasing Agony Resistance… and dramatically reduced acquisition costs.
Since Ascended gear has roughly 5% higher stats than Exotics, it has value in all play environments. Linking accessibility to Fractals would have been a good idea if they did not increase stats, but it is not a good solution given the current state of Ascended gear stats.
But the game is also designed to completed in Rare level gear (still), and as I said in my previous post enemies scale in power as you progress in Fractals so you need the power boost too.
I see your point, and I suppose the Ascended gear stats address that issue.
My comments were in response to a post that suggested Ascended acquisition should be keyed through Fractals. I’m just saying I don’t think that’s a good solution because Ascended gear is desirable in multiple game environments.
If you don’t think necromancer’s are wildly powerful in WvW then you seriously don’t know the class. I’m surprised to even read that.
I’ll happily stay with my necro. I find the playstyle much more fun than most other classes, and it fits my playstyle very well.
I don’t do PvP or WvW. I’m a PvE player. It’s a much different story in that game environment.
A suggestion I might make about Ascended gear, and maybe I’m way off, is to reduce the crafting requirement and link unlocking it to Fractals since this is what Ascended level gear is designed for.
This would solve the problem with people feeling like they have to craft Ascended to compete in WvW, and it would allow people to focus on having fun instead of feeling like they have to farm gold (grind) in order to craft Ascended gear.
If Ascended gear was intended for Fractals play, then it should have had the same stats as Exo gear, but with the addition of infusion slots for increasing Agony Resistance… and dramatically reduced acquisition costs.
Since Ascended gear has roughly 5% higher stats than Exotics, it has value in all play environments. Linking accessibility to Fractals would have been a good idea if they did not increase stats, but it is not a good solution given the current state of Ascended gear stats.
I think I would quit the game if they raised the level cap. It’s so not necessary.
I could see raising the level cap at some distant future point, but not soon, and certainly not now. My fear is that horizontal progression would get neglected, and it’s horizontal progression that the game needs most.
I’ve been playing a necromancer since I started gw2 8 months ago, loved it then, love it now, sure there are things to be fixed but I’ve never been one to switch professions just because it isn’t the most l33t class, I’ll keep playing my necro to the best of my ability.
I’m not interested in being “most l33t”. I’m interested in playing a profession that isn’t being neglected by the development teams. It seems to me that ANet doesn’t know what to do with the Necromancer, and they don’t seem have much interest in the profession, either.
So I’m going to reinvest my play-time in a profession that enjoys more care and attention from the development teams.
I’m not really interested in more Vertical progression at this time. Vertical progression is just “more of the same thing” which can hold my attention for brief periods, but really adds nothing new to the game to hold my attention for long.
Ascended crafting is a good example. I already leveled my crafting to 500, so the only thing for me to do now is craft time-gated materials until I have enough to make a piece. This vertical progression means I spend about 1 minute each day on crafting before going back to the game… where nothing has changed. Even when I get ascended gear, nothing has changed.
Horizontal progression is what interests me.
Cosmetic Progression is fun, but isn’t content-driven, so it only holds my attention for a brief period before I’m back to the same old content. While I enjoy being able to personalize my characters’ appearances, their style has no impact on how I experience in-game content.
Skill Progression is where the action is:
- New Skills
- New Traits
- New Weapons
- New Runes/Sigils
These game elements directly effect how I interact with content in-game, so introducing new elements in these areas can really revitalize my interest in all content, old and new.
I’m particularly interested in new elements that:
- Open up new Build possibilities
- Encourage Build diversity
- Support experimentation and play-style customization
There is literally nothing you can do that will engage me more than introducing new ways to design and personalize my build to suit my tastes.
As several other players have commented, we need a way to switch stats on high-end gear in order to facilitate build diversity and experimentation. The time and materials investment is currently too high to make crafting new gear sets a viable option, and that’s going to be a huge obstacle in the future.
TL;DR:
*No new vertical progression any time soon
*I like Horizontal progression that expands build options
*We need improved gear functionality that supports experimentation and build diversity
(edited by jsduke.6537)
Oh lawd. Necromancers are in a strong state in WvW and PvP. They can still condi bomb someone to death and wells are a great WvW tool.
OP: you want to play an ele? Prepare to feel like an idiot compared to the necromancer, unless it’s for zergs.
Necros keep whining and I agree you have some issues, mainly mobility but you’re FAR, FAR from the worst class in the game.
I’m a PvE player. I don’t know how Necros do in PvP areas of the game, and I really don’t care. Balancing patches that are focused on PvP have really hurt Necros in PvE. You may have valid points about the PvP side of things, but those things don’t matter to me. In the area of the game that I play, Necromancers suffer greatly.
The profession as a whole is neglected by the devs. The only attention Necros get is PvP balancing to make sure Necros aren’t overpowering the other professions in that environment. Perhaps because Necros do well in those environments, the devs feel that there is no need to give attention to Necros in PvE, which has resulted in the profession’s steady decline over the past several months.
Although I have enjoyed playing Necromancer as my main since I joined GW2 in April, I really can’t handle it any more. I don’t know what ANet has planned for Necromancers going forward, but the profession is in a sad state these days, and it’s going to be at least 3 months before we get a “features update” that might address the problems.
So I’m putting my Necro back in her box, and moving on to a new profession. Maybe I’ll come back to it in the future, I don’t know.
I’ve enjoyed playing as both Guardian and Elementalist, so I’ll probably go with one of those.
What about you? How much longer will you be playing Necro, and what will you do when you’ve finally had enough?
Wow, there is a lot of good feedback in this thread. Several good points have been made, especially regarding encounter design flaws and the problematic pvp-centric balance passes. Good job, community.
I have mained Necro since I started playing in April, and I have enjoyed it tremendously. But as I learned more about GW2 and the Necro profession, it has become clear that Necromancer in particular is just getting screwed in PvE play for the sake of maintaining PvP balance.
And since we aren’t going to get a “features update” until end of March, early April, then we’re looking at a good 3 or 4 months before anything might be done to correct this.
So I’m abandoning my Necromancer. The problems are too numerous, and I haven’t seen developer communication to indicate that ANet is even aware of how badly the profession is broken, much less any intention of addressing the issues.
I have 6 other lvl 80 professions to play with, so for the next three months my Necromancer is going back in her box and I’ll be playing a Guardian or Elementalist instead. Or both.
Yeah, the ability to buy time-gated materials on the TP means that anyone with enough money can just buy their way around the time-gate. We had enough time since the release of Ascended Weapons to acquire the account-bound mats. If I wanted to spend the money buying the materials, I would have 2 full sets of ascended gear right now, and be half-way through my 3rd.
A question to help direct the discussion a bit:
What are some of your favorite progression systems of all time in others? Be they horizontal, or vertical, just which ones really got you excited and were fun for you to continue to progress in?
For me, Final Fantasy Tactics is one I loved, where I was able to continue to unlock new jobs and advanced professions for my characters, as well as level up their abilities within those professions. It remains one of my all time favorite games, and one of my favorite systems of progression in any game. I’m also pretty darn fond of that Guild Wars game and skill collection.
As for horizontal customization in “other titles”, I really like the approach that Final Fantasy X took with the “skill maps”. Path of Exile is doing something similar right now with their “Passive Skill Tree” mechanic. That approach is very open-ended, and allows for astonishing degrees of customization. It puts everything on the table. All the toys in the same sandbox. Players still have to make decisions, and commit to certain mechanics and play-styles, but they have the freedom to mix it up however they like.
What would happen if you stripped each profession down to it’s core mechanics, and put everything else into one big sandbox that all professions can access?
That’s probably impractical at this stage of GW2, but maybe the next stage of horizontal progression is not to add more options for each profession, but to add a new pool of resources that every profession can access equally.
Hi,
To clarify I am looking forward to hearing the communities thoughts on speed of acquisition such as how long crafting time takes? or drop rates in fractals and other areas of the game etc.
I hope this adds some clarity.
Chris
Regarding acquisition of Ascended Gear:
I’m a crafter, and while I feel a sense of dread when confronted by the massive amounts of materials needed to craft the gear, I feel like it is a fairly well-measured amount for a long-term goal. It’s going to take me a while to gear up my primary characters to my satisfaction, and I’m okay with that. I like having long-term goals that I can work toward. Also, I was pleased to see that some of the materials requirements for armor pieces were reduced from what we saw with Ascended Weapons. I think the team hit the right balance with those numbers. The amounts are significant enough that it counts as a long-term goal, but the ability to complete the set in pieces gives me a sense of progress and periodically rewards me for my efforts. Overall I am satisfied — if not pleased — with the crafting aspect of Ascended acquisition.
However, when you get away from the crafting aspect, there are some serious problems with acquisition in general.
The first problem is that players are forced to craft the gear if they want to have any chance at completing a set, with desired stats, in something resembling a reasonable time-frame. Making Ascended gear account-bound means that players either have to invest in crafting, or cross their fingers and hope they get lucky.
Really, really lucky.
I haven’t done the math on it, but what are the odds of a non-crafting player getting 6 Ascended Armor Chests of desirable stats? What are the odds of getting 6 matching stat Chests? A mechanic that allows players to select stat combinations and slot is badly needed.
I don’t know anything about the drop rate, but I’ve heard in-game and on the forums that the drop rate is comparable to precursor drop rate. Which, for most players, = not even worth hoping for.
Add to that the fact that Ascended Armor Chest drops are locked behind certain specific content means that many players have to play outside of their “Enjoyment Zone” in order to even have a chance to get a drop.
The bottom line is that players are faced with this choice:
Craft your own Ascended gear whether you like it or not, or give up any hopes of assembling a set of Ascended gear.
My personal feeling is that Ascended gear should not be account bound. Certain specific items, weapons, and what-not… sure. But an entire tier of gear? Absolutely not.
But if it is going to be account bound, then it needs to drop from literally everywhere so that players don’t feel pressure to leave their “Joy Zone” to acquire it. Wasn’t that the philosophy behind precursor drop distribution?
I’ve come across some comments in various forums that suggest that the skins for the new Ascended Armors are getting a make-over. I looked around but haven’t found anything specific about it.
Does anyone know where this info comes from, or am I imagining things again?
15% of the value of the item that was purchased is removed from the game completely due to the 5% listing fee and the 10% sales fee. Only 85% of the value of the item is given to the seller.
If you consider the thousands (probably more like millions) of items that are transacted on the Black Lion Trading Company per day, it amounts to quite a lot.
This is the single largest gold sink in the game.
I guess you didn’t see my post. It’s the one immediately above yours.
The only viable use for Signet of Vampirism is in parties, to give a very small, very brief boost to party members’ dps and a little bit of health. Compared to other profession party heals, it scrapes the bottom of the barrel.
It is absolutely useless to the solo necro — don’t waste your time on it.
Worst. Heal. Ever.
Agree with OP. I do not like having these minions forced on me if I put any points into the trait line. I trait that line for the Staff traits, only. All the forced minion traits need to go.
Actually, you can hide the gloves…..
Nevermind then. :-)
The largest gold sink in the game is the TP fees. It’s 5% to list, and then a 10% tax on anything that sells. That’s money that is removed from the game completely.
But on the whole, I agree with your argument. Inflation is out of control, and that’s going to start being a real barrier to new players trying to enter the game.
Raising WP fees and Repair fees would indeed draw more money out of the game, but hurts the “poor” players more than the rich players, which exacerbates the problem for new players entering the game.
The problem needs to be addressed on both sides. There is too much money coming into the game through repeatables like champ farming and dungeon runs, and not enough leaving the game at any point.
The best short-term solution, as you stated, as NPC gold purchases. Perhaps ANet should send the Bazaar back to Tyria with NPCs selling items for gold. The Bazaar could stay until/unless enough gold was siphoned off to roll inflation back a bit. Or some similar limited-time event that would accomplish the same thing.
Honestly, I think inflation is the single greatest danger GW2 faces at the moment, and I haven’t heard any of the devs address it.
That’s the timegate. ANet doesn’t want you crafting it too fast/soon.
The ascended gloves look pretty cool… on every other character in the world. Why does the Human Female model still have that fluffy crap poking up out of the sleeve? It is so ugly like that, and Human Female is the only model that has it.
I don’t mind the fluffy crap on the shoulders so much, because I can hide those, but not the gloves.
ANet, please get rid of the fluffy crap on these Ascended Gloves.
edit: this thread seems very americanocentric(?), needs more people from european servers.
OP is shopping for a new NA server, so that’s what we’re focused on.
I tried to guest to an EU server once, and was not allowed to do so. I think it would have been great fun. Oh well.
I’ve been on JQ server since I joined in April, and I like it a lot. Healthy population of players at all times in all play environments. Whatever you’re into, we have plenty of good players to join. Player base seems to be more mature and laid back than other servers I’ve guested on.
TC is an RP server, so if you are into that, TC is your best bet. If you are not into RP, then steer clear of TC. Otherwise, spend some time on the different servers and see about finding a guild that you like.
The appropriate fix is to make Ascended gear trade-able. I don’t know why it isn’t. Forcing players to craft for BiS gear just blows my mind.
I’m a crafter, and I’ll have my ascended gear w/o difficulties, but I still think this decision is indefensible. This is not “play how you want”.
There are 6 chests that are easy to get to in Queensdale that give you fragments each time and add up very quickly. There are some vids out there about the Queensdale chest run like this one:
It takes about 7 minutes to do for each of your characters each day.
That’s cool. I knew about the 3 chests in the jp, but not the other 4 chests. ~20 Empyreal Fragments +random loot is a good payoff for not a lot of time.
Thanks for the pro-tip.
Since you mentioned it, I don’t like costume brawls either. I’d like to see them removed from game, but I’m not going to go on a personal forum-crusade to complain about it.
Fair enough. Hopefully you could acknowledge that the existence of costume brawls upends the claim that “Open world PvE zones are strictly for PvE.”
No I don’t think it does. Anyway, I’m not persuaded by your arguments, and I’m done with this thread. I recommend you continue your efforts in the PvP forums, since you are dissatisfied with the current PvP options.
Since you mentioned it, I don’t like costume brawls either. I’d like to see them removed from game, but I’m not going to go on a personal forum-crusade to complain about it.
If you understand that, then why on earth would you offer PvP immunity in WvW as a compromise? Why offer useless concessions while knowing full well before hand that they wont work?
The open world isn’t a sacred zone for PvE. It is just that, an open world. If you want your sacred, unadulterated PvE, that is what dungeons are for. The open world is for the freedom to do what you want on your own time.
And if duels are going to “invade” PvE, then what about Costume brawls? Surely, that would be considered “PvP in a PvE zone” yet for some reason, everyone is going happily about their business in the open world.
I was trying to illustrate to you why PvE dueling is a bad idea. You rejected my suggestion for the same reason I reject yours. Because it doesn’t belong in the environment.
If we didn’t have sPvP and WvW, then I would be on your side. Even though I dread the idea of PvP-bullies spamming duels everywhere I go, I wouldn’t try to prevent you from having the kind of content you like. But you already have PvP in 2 out of the 3 game environments.
Respect the fact that other players don’t want to play the way you want to play.
Yeah, there are a few good-looking legendaries, but most of them are either unattractive or just ridiculous. Moot? Dreamer? No-never-not-ever-forever.
I think Incinerator is a cool-looking dagger, but it doesn’t go with anything I have. Can you imagine my necro running around with Incinerator? Ridiculous.
Personally, I think I’m done with legendaries until new ones come out. We sure could use some variety in that department.
I think we should wait and see what happens. For me, power-creep is a non issue since I don’t do PvP. It doesn’t matter to me what gear other people have because I play in PvE environments. New players coming in that are PvE oriented will likely find that they have nothing to worry about. Likewise, sPvP would be uneffected because the gear is differentiated in that environment.
The only game environment that I can see being heavily impacted by ascended armor power-creep is WvW. I don’t know how to fix that, but I’m honestly not concerned, either, because I don’t play there.
Let’s compromise. We can have open-world dueling on the day that I can go to WvW and opt-out of PvP so I can do my map completion without getting harassed by the PvP crowd.
Surely you see that this defeats the purpose of WvW being an open pvp contested zone, while open world dueling in PvE would not disrupt the fundamental purpose of the open world in PvE, which is leveling, exploring, fighting mobs, collect nodes, DEs, etc.
I would even take it a step further to say, the open world doesn’t really have a specific purpose, hence being the “open world.” Its open for you to do as you please, at your leisure.
If you have duels disabled, you can continue business as usual in open world PvE.
If you have PvP disabled in WvW, you can spy/scout for your server at the very least, which is pretty gamebreaking if you ask me.
I do understand that. What baffles me is why you can’t understand that PvE is for PvE. PvP players have 2 different options for PvP play. You don’t need to invade all 3 play environments. Leave PvE alone.
It’s largely a playstyle issue. Personally, I have tons of bloodstone dust and plenty of dragonite ores, but I struggle to get empyreal fragments because I don’t enjoy dungeons. I think that adding new recipes for ascended mats (like they did with bloodstone dust) is a great idea, and one the I expect ANet will implement in the future.
So maybe hang on to them for a while. You might wish that you had, later on.
I don’t much care for the axe in general. I was going to forge Frostfang, but then I got The Legend drop, so I sold the Frostfang precursor to pay for the Bifrost mats instead. Much happier.
Let’s compromise. We can have open-world dueling on the day that I can go to WvW and opt-out of PvP so I can do my map completion without getting harassed by the PvP crowd.
Yes, that is what I was talking about. Discovering them all would net you a good 10-15 levels, but if you’ve already discovered them then you’re sore out of luck.
Maybe you didn’t see my post. It’s the one immediately above your post.