Guild Wars 2

Here’s mine.

Head: Daredevil’s Scarf
Shoulders: Shoulder Scarf
Chest: Whispers Secret Longvest
Hands: Illustrious Grips
Legs: Carapace Leggings
Feet: Lawless Boots

Feirlista Xv.1425:

Have you upgraded to Windows 8.1 yet if not do so double check all drivers are up to date. Unfortunately it may just be windows 8 and your hardware there are tons of gaming issues in Windows8 mainly in driver compatibility. Windows8 at this time is not stable enough for gaming and Anet is not supporting it.

Yes, I am running Windows 8.1. All the drivers are up to date, including the bios.

My biggest issue with this is that I am able to run much more graphically demanding games like BF4 multiplayer at 80+FPS and barely achieving 30FPS in a GW2 zerg. Another issue is that I’m getting very similar performance to a PC I built over 5 years ago. I mean, you would think that an i7 4770K 3.5GHz 12GB RAM and a 770GTX and a solid state drive would perform better than an i7 920 2.66GHz 6GB RAM and a 660GTX 5400RPM HD but apparently they do not. At least not in GW2.

I recently upgraded my system to an i7 4770K, 770GTX 2GB, 12GB DDR3 RAM and I’m running GW2 from an SSD. This is a newly built system, literally 3 days old, with a fresh Windows 8.1 install.

I’m getting like 20 and bellow FPS in LA. In other zones, I’m getting respectable 60+ FPS but LA is horrible. In comparison, I’m running Battlefield 4 on ultra settings with 80+ FPS. Same with Batman Arkham Origins.

When I have GW2 running, my CPU temperature is at 46C, motherboard is at 35C and the GPU is at 49C.

Has anyone else ran into a problem like this and possibly has a solution? I’m seriously at a loss here. I mean, even when I set the settings to lowest possible, I’m only hitting about 45FPS when I’m standing still and around 35 when I’m moving. Is that normal for my system in GW2? I was getting a similar performance on my old configuration i7 920 2.67GHz 6GB RAM and 660GTX running of a 5400RPM HD.

mfernandez.4172:

uploaded a video on how to defeat. enjoy :-)

That doesn’t work for me. NULL just resets to his starting location every time I damage him from that rock.

Easiest way to do it is to run to the back of the room where there is a lake of sorts. in the middle of the lake there is a large area without any mines, which you can use to stand when he detonates all of the mines.

On the left side of that area there is an explosive mine, the one with the grenade symbol. Deactivate the mine until it turns green and kite Canach to it, it will explode. Run the middle of the lake and dodge around a bit until the mine respawns. Rinse and repeat. When Canach begins to detonate all mines, run to the middle of the lake.

The commandos are making a comeback?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Commando

They are all either doing fractals or are in Orr farming Plinx/Shelter/Penitent events. There are also about 7 in Southsun Cove farming young karkas.

I’ve recently started playing less as well. The reason is simple, I do not enjoy the direction this game is moving towards. There are a number of issues currently within the game, issues that are not addressed and in fact are made worse with each patch.

There’s simply too much grind in the game. Virtually anything of value requires it and instead of addressing it, each new patch only adds more. For example, the newly added ascended quivers and books require 250 tier 6 mats and 50 globs of ectoplasm in addition a randomly dropped item which only comes from the new instance. Then you have the ascended rings, which also depend on the RNG.

There has to be more fun ways of acquiring items than grinding for mats and/or gold. Scavenger hunts, difficult events and tough world bosses, more personal stories, etc.

My other gripe is the fact that Anet seems to have embraced the vertical progression model, which is so over used in most MMOs. Instead, more focus should be on creating actual content. More zones, more skills and abilities, more weapon sets, more events. Why not have special events once a month or so, like those we had at the end of each weekend beta? Those were infinitely more fun than just grinding FotM over and over again. The events can award a unique but no necessarily more powerful rewards. Something visually distinct.

Add open world dungeons with events, decent rewards and tokens. Most importantly, standardize all dungeon currency. This way, people don’t have to run the same dungeon over and over again ad nauseam. It will lower the feeling of the grind if, for example, instead of running CoF all the time, people can mix it up and go wherever and still purchase CoF armor.

It’s a game. Games are suppose to be fun and while there are people who enjoy it, grind only lowers the fun for most.

Thorgal.1287:

krookie.6378:

Last night I did the Arah event and got 2 masterwork and 1 rare item from the chest. What a waste of time.

You didnt have fun?

Fun is irrelevant to this topic, which has to do with drop rates.

What other ways will we be able to get ascended gear and will they require just as much grind as the current ascended items?

As a follow up question: what are the chances of lessening the grind on everything across the board?

Kumu Honua.2751:

krookie.6378:

You’d be surprised. People wearing MF gear dying all over the place while blaming the rest of the party for their failure. During one run I had a guy take off all of his armor while fighting the last boss in the norn snow zone, the one with frostbite debuff (forgot the name). I’ve had people randomly leave.

MF gear doesn’t cause people to die more. Lack of skill does. Frostbite for example is just player stupidity. Standing in the torch attack for long enough to get 8 stacks of frostbite and turned to ice? That’s just lack of skill. Random leaving/disconnecting is really annoying but moreso is that they cannot rejoin. Hard to tell those who disconnect and those who up and leave unless they are whining the whole time or complaining that “THE SWAMP IS TOO HARD!”

My point was more to point out that I’ve had some terrible experiences running fractals in a pug. You’re right though, MF gear doesn’t make you die quicker but you do contribute a bit less to the fight.

Basically to make the story short, even though I like the dungeon itself, I’m completely turned off from FotM because of everything else associated with it.

Aleaf.8174:

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

Ganzo.5079:

Really funny, so you have to grind, and use MF gear too? and this isnt grind? only the fact tha ppl use that cursed MF gear in a dungeon group to drop a particular item, is synonymous of GRIND.

Also it annoys people like me to have proper DPS, no MF gear so I can maximise the chances of actual finishing dungeons, whilst others capitalise on that.

Wait wait wait, you mean people actually have problems clearing Fractals below lvl 10?

You’d be surprised. People wearing MF gear dying all over the place while blaming the rest of the party for their failure. During one run I had a guy take off all of his armor while fighting the last boss in the norn snow zone, the one with frostbite debuff (forgot the name). I’ve had people randomly leave.

PUGing this instance is a nightmare. ArenaNet needs to change the requirement of completing 3 fractals before advancing to the next difficulty level. Make it still require 3 to advance but make one fractal count as 1/3. So you would still need to finish 3 to advance but at least you won’t feel like you completely wasted your time if someone leaves on the last fight. So you can slowly work on getting to another difficulty, one fractal at a time.

lunabaguna.8293:

Krookie, I am in no way advocating that this game become WoW. And guess what, neither is Arenanet. Vertical Progression is not a WoW concept, it is a concept that has existed as long as gaming has existed, even back to DnD and pong derivatives. That people are assuming the game is “going to become WoW” simply because it derivated in one way from GW1 is just silly.

Substitute the “WoW” in my post with DnD, LotRO, EQ, EQ2, AoC, Rift… basically whatever else game you can think of. The concept is still the same.

Gear progression was introduced because people rushed to level 80 and ran out of things to do, so they came to the forums and whined about GW2 not having a proper endgame, like WoW. They were not content with letting GW2 be it’s own game and refused to accept any other form of endgame besides the typical dugeon/raid gear grind.

So here we are. And here you are making a nice little post that in hindsight and with a slight name change, applies perfectly to GW2 before ANet caved into the gear progression crowd.

I just wish that you posted it during the height of the “no endgame” whining a few months ago.

I’ve made a similar suggestion a few days ago, during the height of this whole ascended gear fiasco.

Like the gear grinders have their ascended gear, which they claim they need for ever increasing dungeon difficulty. Let the rest of us play the game how we want without any imbalances that ascended gear brings into the equation.

Mira.3681:

Tolmos and krookie, I like your suggestions.

Perhaps being an optimist, but I think they could still salvage things, stopping at ascended gear and not adding additional statted gear every so many months. I am just not sure who is in charge now tho, or if there’s been a power shift, and perhaps will never know for sure. But I do think it’s not too late to stop with ascended and make future content more in line with the original vision of Anet.

Whether or not that will happen though, that is my question. At the moment, still playing and watching to see what develops …

Agreed. At this point in time, a few back pieces and a couple of rings are not going to change the game much. So if they stop with this ascended nonsense, it wouldn’t really impact the game that much.

Once they start adding ascended armor and weapons though, then it would be too late to revert as it would cause many more people to quit.

Tolmos.8395:

I would have added more armor styles into the game, as well as a way to unlock new slot and weapon skills as sort of an after max level leveling system (similar to how gw1 worked). The weapon skills could swap just like slot skills do now, still only giving players 10 skills in combat but many to choose from.

I would NOT have thrown the guild wars fan base under the bus by ignoring the primary selling points of the game and introducing higher stat items less than 3 months into the game. We loved this game because it was different, a breath of fresh air in a overwhelming sea of raunchy WoW clones… Now that it isn’t different anymore, what’s the main selling point?

Exactly this. Also, more personal story progression. More interesting zones. More events like the Hunger games event or the event where the corrupted could turn other players, like we had during beta. This is how you make a good game.

Adding more grind and unwanted gear progression is not an endgame. It’s just caving in to a vocal minority that rushed to lvl 80, instead of actually playing the game.

While I won’t do it myself, as I still enjoy the game for the time being, I can understand the feeling of frustration that would drive some people to give this game bad reviews.

Customers were lied to. Plain and simple. A lot of us purchased this game specifically because of the manifesto and various other interviews and blog posts by the dev team which promised no grind for gear, no power creep and ease of access to all content.

This patch was basically a slap in the face of all long time fans who loved GW2 specifically because it didn’t follow a strict EQ/WoW formula.

GG, ArenaNet/NCSoft/Nexon.

PS: you can’t out-WoW WoW. Many have tried and all have failed miserably. GW1 succeeded because it was different enough from WoW to be refreshing. GW2, if it continues down the path of emulating WoW will fail just like the other clones.

Raydaq.5421:

I have the Tome of the rubicon. it is an ascended item, and i made it on my first day of doing fractals. (I also started that day with 60s to my name)

If you are having trouble getting the mist essence then try using full MF gear. I wasn’t when i looted mine, but the guy that got the 3 in one fractal had full MF gear on. Hopefully you guys get yours soon. Btw dont make the one with the powerful bloods or it will cost you 100G however if you go for the scale one (i think that one has same stats, but i can’t check atm) it will cost maybe 2 gold for 250 of them.

Hopefully you guys get your mist essence’s soon

They don’t have the same stats.

Quiver of Swift Flight(vial of powerful blood):
+24 Power
+17 Precision
+1% Critical Damage
+32 Power
+18 Precision
+4% Critical Damage

Sight be True(armored scales):
+17 Power
+24 Toughness
+1% Critical Damage
+32 Toughness
+18 Power
+4% Critical Damage

PopeUrban.2578:

Orion.7264:

rgrwng.4072:

why does it take 1300 Fractal tokens for a back piece? can’t i just buy one from the armor merchant (not counting the merchant that has them, already)? i would pay up to 5 gold for one, just saying… i currently have 20 tokens, and was super excited, until i looked at the selection of items i could get.

Thanks to all the groups i had that were so patient with me!

Those are just the exotic ones, which have no bearing on the Ascended ones. For the Ascended, you need 300 globs of Ectoplasm, 6 Vials of mist essence, 250 of a t6 material, and some other assorted skill-point items.

False. You need ONE vial of mist essence and FIFTY Ectos.

You can then UPGRADE that ascended item to and infused ascended item with more ectos/vials.

And 250 tier 6 mats.

You can then upgrade that item to an (infused) item with:

Glob of Coagulated Mists Essence
250 Globs of Ectoplasm
Gift of Ascension

This just underlines the severe need for a proper LFG tool. At the very least it will lessen the spamming on LA.

El Hefe.2814:

krookie.6378:

El Hefe.2814:

nope. the game should be challenging.

Challenge doesn’t have to revolve around gear. Challenge has to do with actual game mechanics. Powerful gear does not make the content challenging, it actually makes it easier.

don’t puts words in my mouth. i think gear should be challenging to get. never did mention power.

When you make a broad statement like “the game should be challenging,” you’re leaving it open to interpretation. Next time clarify what you mean and avoid using one liners. This isn’t Twitter.

slazzy.7309:

krookie.6378:

250 tier 6 mats (powerful blood is at about 25s+ right now)
50 ectos
RNG essence

That’s just for 1 back piece. Then you got the infusion mats. You honestly want to tell me that it’s not grinding? How are you suppose to get those mats or gold for them?

Gems? That’s one way, if you don’t want to achieve them any other way.

Remember that list 80 things to do at 80? Remember how that was ridiculed into the dust, because someone had a constructive post (with a bit of humor sprinkled in) about what to do at 80, when many were suggesting there was nothing. Well, now there’s 81. Somehow that’s a bad thing.

Since there will be other ways of achieving it opened to us soon, I don’t really see the fuss. We really don’t have all the information available to claim game-breaking yet. But here we are.

The amount of things to do at 80 is irrelevant to my point which was a reply to a comment that there is no grinding involved in acquiring ascended gear. Within the game itself, ascended gear requires a lot of grinding. Gems are essentially outside of the game, since they require a purchase with real money. Saying trade gems for gold is like saying “buy gold from a farmer.”

El Hefe.2814:

nope. the game should be challenging.

Challenge doesn’t have to revolve around gear. Challenge has to do with actual game mechanics. Powerful gear does not make the content challenging, it actually makes it easier.

illgot.1056:

krookie.6378:

I’m only going to get the quiver. I almost have enough gold to purchase the mats. Honestly, I’m only getting this quiver because of the look, not because it’s ascended. ANet could’ve made it exotic and I still would’ve went for it.

I’m going to ignore the rest though. I’m definitely not going to grind FotM and hope for the rings to drop.

Hopefully ANet either scraps the idea of ascended gear or adds other ways of getting it. Otherwise I’m going to continue running in my exotics.

what would suck is if they put a quiver or other back items on the cash shop. I am honestly shocked there are no current back skins on the cash shop, it’s the perfect time to take advantage of the fact that there are so few in game.

They need to scrap the idea of town clothes and turn them into costumes that you can display in PvE, like you could in GW1. Then make a killing selling cool costumes in the cash shop. I know for a fact that I’d buy them as I purchased many costumes in GW1.

dalendria.3762:

Zoul.1087:

and results in my wife being reduced to tears because some jerk won’t stop telling her she is not trying hard enough.

Content gating, power creep and gear treadmills sometimes bring out the worse in people. I am sorry that happened to your wife. So much for creating a “fun,” cooperative environment.

That guy might have been just as bad if this game was still based on “playing your way” or “no gear stat progression,” but this movement towards vertical progression seems to attract more people like that.

I spent 4 years in a MMO with an ever increasing toxic environment. Racisim, sexism, insults, mockery, etc. People acting like the game was a job that I better dedicate my life to. Even experienced being judge on my performance like a job evaluation.

Finally got fed up and left. Have never looked back.

Those of us who have experienced this kind of behavior in traditional MMOs came to this game hoping for better. To date, I have found a wonderful guild and have enjoyed playing with others. But what will things be like in a few months?

Agreed. The issue stems from the design of the game. When GW2 first launched it was mostly about cooperation and working together and it was a refreshing change of pace from other MMOs. Now, with the focus switching to a gear grind, people are becoming increasingly nasty to each other. Whereas before people had to play nice with each other, now they view others as holding them back from the gear… err I mean content.

Merthax.5172:

GW1: you change your build from area to area in order to tackle the challenges that you are going to be facing. This including selecting appropriately statted gear for your build. This gear was easy to obtain, but you still need to make trade-offs. Do you want more armor, more attributes, resistance against specific elements, more energy?

This is much more exciting to me than: you grind to get higher-stat gear to tackle the challenges that you are going to be facing.

One of the things I loved about GW1. Most of the time you couldn’t just get the best gear and lolfaceroll the content. You actually had to use your brain when it came to skills and stats and how they relate to a particular encounter.

Same here. I noticed the change as well. I was literally just farming karkas, hoping for some powerful blood to drop and I get absolutely nothing worthwhile. Some junk items, a few karka shells and a rare sword. At least I was able to sell karka shells on the TP for a few silver.

Last night I did the Arah event and got 2 masterwork and 1 rare item from the chest. What a waste of time.

I’m only going to get the quiver. I almost have enough gold to purchase the mats. Honestly, I’m only getting this quiver because of the look, not because it’s ascended. ANet could’ve made it exotic and I still would’ve went for it.

I’m going to ignore the rest though. I’m definitely not going to grind FotM and hope for the rings to drop.

Hopefully ANet either scraps the idea of ascended gear or adds other ways of getting it. Otherwise I’m going to continue running in my exotics.

slazzy.7309:

You want something constructive?

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13gj0p/ascended_gear_and_infusions_how_to_make_them_and/

You don’t have to grind for anything, unless playing more than once a week is a grind, or anything short of being handed the gear in your mailbox is considered a grind.

Forced to play for a tier….oy!

250 tier 6 mats (powerful blood is at about 25s+ right now)
50 ectos
RNG essence

That’s just for 1 back piece. Then you got the infusion mats. You honestly want to tell me that it’s not grinding? How are you suppose to get those mats or gold for them?

rozcinana.7249:

I actually like FoTM a lot, but I have found it impossible to get past level 4. Someone, or more than one person, either disconnects and can’t get back in or people become frustrated and quit in the middle of it.

I’m looking forward to the difficulty reset (when is it? Friday night??)… hoping to start fresh next week with some more experienced and patient players and get past lvl 4!

Hey, Zoul. Maybe we should all team up and try again?

Same with me and level 2. I have absolutely no luck with FotM groups. I wasted about 4 tries getting to level 2 and can’t seem to get past it. First, it’s virtually impossible to find a group for level 2 and second half of the time people either get disconnected or simply leave. I’m at a point where I don’t even want to do the instance anymore, even though I like it.

I got lucky enough with an essence drop, which I solo farmed in level 1 swamp, so I’m just going to get the quiver and call it a day. Not going to bother with finding groups and dealing with dbags.

RNG is definitely overused in this game. It needs to be toned down. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind RNG when it’s used smartly but in this game it’s all over the place.

Things that you need for progression, like the essence or those rings need to have a much higher drop rate, as you go up in levels. Also chest rewards need to have their loot tables reassessed. It’s really lame when you kill a really tough boss and only get a few rare and masterwork items.

DegoLocc.5976:

It’s about having enough common sense and foresight to see that for most ppl, cosmetic player growth is simply not enough. Long term players want stats. People who don’t are for the most part not long term players, but the flavor of the week, entitled casuals.

You can disagree, but it is, what it is.

You =/= most people. For you cosmetic growth is not enough. For others it is. People have stuck with GW1 for 7 years with cosmetic growth. Millions of people. People have purchased this game because for them cosmetic growth was enough.

You only speak for yourself, not most people.

The stones jumping puzzle is cool but I’m not really feeling the karka. I really hope that ArenaNet does something more with the zone. It just feels kind of mediocre.

Every time I go there it’s always empty except for a few groups farming young karkas.

Good thing that Planetside 2 literally just launched today. I urge anyone interested in mass scale FPS PvP to give it a try. It’s really quite an experience and it’s F2P.

Instead of grinding 250 tier 6 mats or paying 70g+ for them, I think that I’m going to be sniping some domes for a while.

LOCO.1785:

Dear ANet,

Thanks for running this one time event showering everyone that could attend with precursors and other exotic at 3-6am my time. For someone that’s invested 100s of hours into your game and only ever received one crappy exotic not even worth 1g, it didn’t feel like you were giving all oceanics a big middle finger whatsoever.

Please continue to alienate our community, we do not care, we love it so much.

/sarcasm

Don’t feel bad. I did the whole event from beginning to end and got a bunch of rares and an exotic spear gun.

Contact support. I hear they’ve been issuing refunds on the game purchase, hopefully they can refund you for the gems.

MxZeal.6538:

They give you an update and you guys flip tables, you want them to reply with “aww baby its ok i give you hug”

More content in itself doesn’t make for a better game. The quality of the content matters and the quality of this content leaves much to be desired.

Quality over quantity and all that.

There really was no gap. Unless you consider the difficulty in acquisition as a gap. Most exotics are relatively easy to get while most legendaries require an astronomical grind. Instead of addressing the legendary grind, ArenaNet has decided to add another grind.

Ascended gear does nothing more than add more grind to an already grindy game.

Agreed. Besides the fact that people missed out on the rewards, I have an issue with RNG based rewards in general. Especially when it comes to these type of events. For example, while some people got multiple precursors, I got 2 rares, the pendant and a bag that everyone else got. That’s just lame.

The whole RNG thing needs to be toned down. Anet seems to be in love with it.

NoOneShotU.3479:

Meh, there is less chance of dying from 3-4 Minotaur than from 1 Karka.

Karka are pretty easy. Either use a skill that blocks/reflects projectiles or do a double dodge when they start shooting. Once their projectiles are spent, they are a pushover.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

krookie.6378:

You’re absolutely right, we really have no idea what’s going to happen in the future. However, the point is to let the developers know what is and what isn’t acceptable. Sure, it’s ANet’s game but we’re playing and paying for it and I think that we have a right to let the devs know what we’re ok and not ok with.

The point is not “this is (un)acceptable” . . . it’s “I find this (un)palatable”. I concede the point that you, personally, find this highly distasteful. That’s something I cannot/will not attempt to tell you you are wrong in. I will however argue against blanket statements made as though they are the One Truth.

On topic, I already said my piece. Exotic gear is already remarkably easy to come by, compared to others and you can do fairly well with it currently. At this current time, no change is required to how easy it is to obtain. You can either luck out on loot (not recommended to rely on), find yourself a crafter willing to do it for materials and no upcharge (more reliable), or learning the craft yourself and pushing it to 400 (very reliable). Note, all of these methods will have a wildly variant amount of time required to do.

You’re absolutely right. I’m not OK with this change, especially since I purchased the game because it was actively advertised to exclude this “feature” that has now been added.

I don’t claim to speak for the masses. I’m simply offering my feedback and hoping that enough people share my view.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Also, I’m going to reflect your argument back at you. I don’t know what the game is going to be balanced to in the future. Do you? I don’t know how unbalancing full Ascended is going to be . . . do you? Is there some infallible crystal ball you’re looking into? Cause I could use some lottery numbers. (4,8,15,16,23,42 by the way)

You’re absolutely right, we really have no idea what’s going to happen in the future. However, the point is to let the developers know what is and what isn’t acceptable. Sure, it’s ANet’s game but we’re playing and paying for it and I think that we have a right to let the devs know what we’re ok and not ok with.

Bruno Sardine.2907:

krookie.6378:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Raine.1394:

Yes. As mentioned in the marketing literature, GW2 takes all that is good from GW1. In GW1 it was easy to get the best gear in the game because GW1 was not a grindy game and Anet doesn’t make grindy games. (Haha.) So, the same should be true of GW2.

Whomever said GW1 had no grind in it didn’t want Obsidian Armor, or the Treasure Hunter title.

No they weren’t required to progress, and they had barely any effect on the game play. (I think Treasure Hunter affected Lockpick break chance, but in HM it could only approach 50% chance to retain.)

Obsidian armor was optional. It didn’t have better stats and was basically a status symbol. Sort of like legendaries are in GW2. Ascended gear and the grind that goes with it are going to become mandatory pretty fast.

Right now, with only 3 slots having ascended items, it’s no big deal. But when the rest of the slots get ascended items, the combined stat boost will pretty much guarantee the necessity of having ascended gear in order to remain relevant in dungeons and WvW.

Based on…. ???

As far as I can tell nothing has been scaled to factor in Ascended gear.

Yes, I suppose fractals with agony ratings do factor in Ascended gear, but more for the agony res than the +stats.

In terms of WvW, I would ask if someone could produce a good survey of gear folks are wearing in WvW. I bet that while you have a good portion of level 80s in some exotics (if not full exotics), the majority of your base is not lvl 80 and likely has greens/blues…. How many people are we expecting and in what timeframe to get Ascended gear? When does this gear “shift the balance”, when 10% of a server has guys in Ascended gear? 20%? What kind of time will that take? Will the competition in the meantime get more skilled and more geared (in levels, rares, and exotics)? When the Ascended gear becomes available for WvW, how long will it take those folks to get gear via WvW? Does the gear shift the balance any more than what’s currently present with a certain mix of lvl 80s in exotics against lvl 80s and non-lvl 80s in blues/greens?

As far as I can tell, nothing is mandatory. There was no mandatory need to get exotics or to level 80 before Ascended gear, yet somehow Ascended gear has somehow changed this point.

It’s an educated guess based on other games that followed a similar direction. Of course nothing is scaled to ascended gear now, we only have 3 slots.

Look at the prime example: WoW. When that game first launched, epic gear was extremely rare to a point of being irrelevant. However, as the game progressed and more and more people got epics, newer content began to be designed around epics until people started getting excluded from content due to lack of gear.

Right now is the best time to voice our concern, since the issue is still in it’s infancy. If we simply dismiss it because it’s a non issue now, it will grow into a problem.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

And if all else fails? Let the elitists have their fun, and post an open guild for people who share your mindset. They’re out there, and they’re likely in your time zone and availability.

Ignoring the issue is not going to make it go away. Especially when future game content is bound to be balanced around these elitists with their ascended gear.

Like I said before, we’re only at the beginning and it’s easy to ignore 3 slots right now. However, when people are running around with full ascended sets and weapons and all dungeons are designed with some cheap gating mechanics, like this agony thing, then it’ll be too late to say anything. I’ve seen it before.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Raine.1394:

Yes. As mentioned in the marketing literature, GW2 takes all that is good from GW1. In GW1 it was easy to get the best gear in the game because GW1 was not a grindy game and Anet doesn’t make grindy games. (Haha.) So, the same should be true of GW2.

Whomever said GW1 had no grind in it didn’t want Obsidian Armor, or the Treasure Hunter title.

No they weren’t required to progress, and they had barely any effect on the game play. (I think Treasure Hunter affected Lockpick break chance, but in HM it could only approach 50% chance to retain.)

Obsidian armor was optional. It didn’t have better stats and was basically a status symbol. Sort of like legendaries are in GW2. Ascended gear and the grind that goes with it are going to become mandatory pretty fast.

Right now, with only 3 slots having ascended items, it’s no big deal. But when the rest of the slots get ascended items, the combined stat boost will pretty much guarantee the necessity of having ascended gear in order to remain relevant in dungeons and WvW.

Jski.6180:

krookie.6378:

Jski.6180:

No it should be some what hard to get the “best” of any thing it gives games longer life and give a human a achievement to work for being every one is looking for the next best thing that just a human behavior. This is not just for GW2 its for every new game there is something to work for that is not easy if one wants to be or get the “best” of any thing.
Its a lot like real life and in some ways teaching you good life lessons (nothing going to get handed to you and you MUST work for the good things in life).

“Next best thing” is very subjective. Your “next best thing” is not my “next best thing.”

True but your looking for it non the less. To make a game that just hands you every thing will be dead with in a month that why there are no more games like that other then the 6hr story games and even they have some build in “work for something.”

The game doesn’t hand you every thing. The game was originally designed with players setting their own goals. Sure, you can get some cheap exotics at 1-2g a piece, if you don’t mind looking like trash. You always had an option to set your own goal for a more expensive and better looking weapon and armor.

All ascended gear did was add a direction, mostly for people who are too used to being told by the game what to strive for and couldn’t figure out what to do in a game that didn’t hold their hand. ANet added those heart tasks for the same reason. People would leave town and get confused without the game telling them what to do and where to go.

The goals were always there but whereas before people had to figure things out on their own, now there is a clear direction to follow.

Umbra Unu.4260:

This is getting way out of hand. I love me a good conspiracy theory, but everyone’s talking about this with such certainty as if it was proven to be so.

As far as we know, this is nothing more than just a theory.

It’s not so much a conspiracy as a case of very curious coincidences. Ex Nexon person gets hired days before the announcement of NCSoft shares purchase by Nexon. Right after than there are some game changes to entice the use of the cash shop.

I can’t tell you whether or not the new ascended gear or this new patch with all those “Under New Managements” and Blinggs and whatnots are part of the whole thing but it’s pretty evident that there have been some changes to the game once Nexon came into the picture. Changes that were counter to overall design philosophy that ArenaNet advertised prior.

Good on you, OP. I was going to post something similar. Maybe this will drive the prices down a bit. 25s per vial of powerful blood is just silly.

Raf.1078:

Why does anyone think that 14.7% changes anything. Its just an investment in Nexxon’s Portfolio…not a controlling interest.

Right before the announcement of Nexon’s purchase of NCSoft shares, a certain ex-Nexon employee got hired by ArenaNet as a monetization producer. Soon after, the dyes went from account bound to character bound and the Mystic Forge was introduced, we all know how huge of a money sink that is, right?

Then we got the Halloween event BLTC chest skin drop rate fiasco and now ascended gear and the insane grind associated with it.

If you have played GW1 and have followed the development of GW2, all of these changes are counter to ArenaNet’s philosophy. In other words, either ArenaNet went a complete 180 on us or someone else is calling the shots. Even the new instance, as fun as it is, doesn’t really follow the ease of access design like rest of the game.