Guild Wars 2

Sky.9347:

Actually, he’s basing his argument on the current game.
You’re basing yours on the possible game tomorrow.

So if Anet has already identified the issue of having Ascended only in Fractals, and repeatedly said (and announced) that it will be fixed, not in the future, but tomorrow, yet we still get complains? How about just waiting for less than 24h (it’s not much) and then taking out the tomahawk of war.

Also, Legendaries are currently BiS and comparable to Exotics, that’s in the current game… so Legendaries ARE just cosmetic, and they ARE the main reason for grind complains, a reason that as you yourself said, is invalid for the current state of the game.

Tolmos.8395:

By cosmetic grind, I assume you mean grinding for gear that has the EXACT same stats as others but only looks different, since that is it’s definition.

Well, that’s exactly what we have in the game.

Since Rares < exotics < ascended gear, and Legendaries will later become BiS at all times, those don’t particularly fit in the category so, I am forced to ask…

What are you talking about? lol Is there some new cosmetic item line I missed the whine about attaining?

Talk about Ascended gear grind tomorrow and if you want it through WvW in February, until then just wait. As for the Legendaries part… it all depends how Ascended weapons will be acquired, if Rings/Amulets are any indication they will br acquired very very easily, so again you have nothing to base your arguments – yet.

If you have a Guardian that’s a very easy Fractal (and one of my favorites due to being easy) I only got to level 24 so not sure if it gets hard after that.

Sky.9347:

Well, if you’re saying a future update will remove the grind for Ascended… my response would be – okay, we’ll just have to wait and see.

The update tomorrow will allow everyone to get Ascended quality Rings and Amulets by doing Daily/Monthly achievements and collecting a new currency called Laurels. So no more Fractals will be “required” to get the top gear. Now it remains to be seen how many Laurels will be needed to get one piece, and if Anet learned their lesson (adding the same gear on both Fractals and Laurels instead of offering different stats like what happened with dungeons and crafting)
In less than a day we will know.

Gaudrath.6725:

And yet the Gate seems turned off for me. Can’t enter. Very annoying and I have no clue what am I missing.

Odd. The gate in LA or the gate inside the Fractals dungeon? The Gate is 90% of the time “disabled” there is no purple glow like other Asura Gates, that doesn’t mean it’s offline, walk inside it and you should get the message to select Fractal Difficulty and enter.

Sky.9347:

Doing a bunch of endless dungeons for +1 stat gear is a massive, dull grind.

I can’t get this… the rings (and new amulets) will be available with Laurels outside of Fractals. The Laurel’s are rewarded from Daily/Monthly achievements, which basically “require” the player to just play the game. I can’t see how a daily can be grindy, for one it doesn’t even take enough time to be considered grindy, so the best gear in the game will be available without any grinding for everyone.

All while, those who are playign the dungeon will also get their gear without grinding, unless they just farm a certain level of fractals instead of moving forward. I just can’t see the grind for that +1 you mention.

Gaudrath.6725:

A bit offtopic, but how do you get into Fractals solo? I know I managed to do it once, but most of the time that stupid guard won’t let me! :p

Walk up to the Asura gate next to the guard, select difficulty, enter? Be sure not to be in a party, they will get that popup to press “ready”. Then just go in the middle to start a map, repeat until you get the Swamp, then farm and profit.

Sky.9347:

Oh, were there changes to Ascended Gear?
Did Legendary Weapons go back to being equivalent to Exotic? (For the Future, as is currently planned)
I’ve not paid much attention for a while so it is entirely possible I missed some major change.

Not that I know off, Ascended Rings are as easy as always, same for infusing them, no grind required for those. Ascended backpieces are also available through Fractals for a low price, if you are ever planning on going high in Fractals you will get both rings and a backpiece while “leveling”, that’s not grinding.

Also, the laurels will be used to get Ascended Gear, now if that is going to be grindy depends on how many will be needed for a piece. Amulets will also become available tomorrow.

You still need 300 Ectoplasms and 250 of a particular tier 6 mat for the Ascended (Infused) Backpieces but those are only for the graphics/skin so they enter the category of “cosmetics”, you can get Ascended Backpiece from Fractals just by doing Fractals and getting to higher levels.

You probably missed how it works, not the change.

Sky.9347:

You are all still operating under the false premise that +1 stat is optional.

It is not. If you don’t understand why, then we can’t truly discuss the grind in GW2.

You can get the max stats without grinding. Tell me which +1 in a stat requires a grind?

Cerbeius.7129:

http://gw2cartographers.com/

Might come in handy.

Not really. That map has only vistas/skillpoints/hearts/pois what the OP needs are area names: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/2/2b/Queensdale_map.jpg

This map of Queensdale for example has all the names in it, like Village of Shaemoor, Western Divinity Dam etc, THOSE count for the explorable achievements.

Mirta.5029:

I did research on infusing rings (thought that it requires ectos too), no it only requires pink stuff that drops in fractals. The drop rate is low, but hell, I got 1 vial of mists essence and 4 globs of mists essence without going further than level 13 (I repeat daily level 10 a lot because I want to ring up my alts).
The back piece can be made solely from fractal relics too. You’ll need 1850 of them, but it’s doable.
Upcoming stuff so far is the necklaces that will be bought with laurels.

If you just need pink mats, solo farm Fractals. Some of them are very very easy.
I’m not saying finish them, just get in, try some times until you get the easiest Fractals (Swamp) kill mobs, get out, get in again, repeat → all your pink mats

Go on the wiki and find a map of one of the Kryta zones. Check one by one the named areas then open your ingame map to see if you are missing any of them.
The locations in the explorable achievements are always named locations, so just looking at a map and comparing with yours is enough.

For the Maguuma Explorer look for Aurora’s Remains, south west of Brisban’s Wildlands, it’s an area commonly missed.

Astralporing.1957:

Yes, that wouldn’t be a problem. Of course, if purely economical reason to play Raids would be eliminated, almost noone would play them. So, why should anet waste precious developer resources on content that would be used by a fraction of a percent of the community, if at all?

Why would it be used by a fraction of the community? There are lots of people who want a challenge and there can’t be challenge in Open World content.

I said it should have no exclusive gear, that doesn’t mean the gear from challenging content should have the same drop rates as anywhere else. Just like dungeons offer the same gear stat-wise, but you can buy any gear you want with tokens, instead of depending solely on your luck. Same could be done with any large scale instanced group content really.

Remove portion of RNG and replace it with challenge, lots of people will try it then.

Red Falcon.8257:

<— 5 lvl 80s without grinding.
There is no required grind in GW2.

Please learn the basics of the game.

Yes but you don’t have 5 Legendaries (one for each) that’s what people want and call the game “grindy”

Auesis.7301:

If I get a whiff of MF, you’re gone. On just a matter of principle, you disgust me. It’s not that you ARE playing at a standard lower than you could be, I can deal with that. That’s perfectly normal, part of the learning process of an MMO. I enjoy playing with genuinely inexperienced people that want to improve. It’s that you CHOSE to gimp yourself for your benefit and to everyone else’s detriment. That’s the key.

Yep that’s exactly why I hate MF, it’s all about choice. But this thread isn’t about MF, or is it?

May I redirect everyone to this thread instead:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/why-do-people-hate-magic-find/page/8#post1294303

There is an excellent post on the general forums about raids:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/philosophy-on-raids/page/5#post1297828

It has a very healthy discussion with nice results (in the end at least lol)

harris.7964:

No.I mean,will an event in LA or Hoelbrak (The vent will be north as far as I understood) come at a selected time.Like the attack from Kakrkas or something like that.Or only a patch,with all these improvements but no world event?

The January update is just a prelude, the “real” story will start with the February update. There won’t be any karka-like event, otherwise they would had announced it already.

pricer.5091:

There is nothing “legendary” about the process of getting one, perhaps if they were for actual game accomplishments with a higher level of difficulty than the average gamer was able to complete…maybe they might be termed “legendary”.

I think they should have both options. Either as it is, boring and grindy, and an option to get a legendary by doing something that the average person cannot do, unless they at least try. Having them exclusive to very hard content isn’t better either, they should be available to anyone

plasmacutter.2709:

What it has guaranteed so far is exploitation and people spending most of their time watching gw2spidy instead of playing the zones ANet’s dev team toiled for years to create.

The thing is, if they made them more “available” everyone would have them in no time. The trick for me is to balance the difficulty to get them, now to get those items it’s not difficult in terms of challenge, even a braindead person can get Infite Light, Legendaries, whatever, but instead it takes a lot of time. What they should do is add a challenging way to acquire the materials, more challenge better rewards, less challenge less rewards.
For me that’s what is missing from the game now. As much as I hate that people can get Legendaries by paying real life money, I wouldn’t want them either to get acquired by people just farming one or two locations for a few days. A compromise is needed.

plasmacutter.2709:

Please do your research on mats for infusions, upcoming recipes, etc.

The MM-matrix has you, Nibiru. Free your mind.

You should do your research first, because you clearly haven’t done it.\

If you disregard your quest to get a legendary, the gold cost for making an infusion or infusing anything isn’t high. But of course, the main problem we have is that players are saving for their legendaries, and then complain that everything else is also expensive when it isn’t. Stop saving for a legendary and suddenly everything will be super cheap, yes even that 20g Abyss dye isn’t very expensive once you stop hoarding your gold and instead try using it.

Rambodacious.7495:

Now, I will inevitably receive responses saying “don’t have to have a legendary to play the game.” My response is up at the very top. I’ve done everything else this game has to offer in PvE. Map completion, all dungeons, my personal story, fractals out the wazzoo, etc. Creating a legendary is all I had left. However, given my limited playtime, it would appear that my gold grind to acquire the weapon, may very well be infinite, or so close to infinite as it being not worth it to continue playing.

What are other people’s thoughts?

You can wait for the 28th and start doing the new daily/monthly to get Laurels then exchange them for the Ascended Amulets/Rings. You can try leveling your Fractal level up, I think the limit is around 80, but it is “doable” up to 40, I don’t think you can get higher without using “questionable” tactics. With the Ascended Amulets you should be able to get higher.

So yeah there should still be something for you to do in PVE.

Other than that, wait for one of the new releases I guess. They will add more content with them, there is a good reason to come back when they do.

Checking the old dungeons after their “make up” is another option

killcannon.2576:

Because guilds would never get together to make a legendary, and then sell it for the guild.

Shhhhhh don’t give any weird ideas, a legendary is for the individual to be proud off and weave around like a noob.

Martin The Brave.8731:

Agreed, there seems to be a negative stigma when talking about “Raid’s”, And this is why I have mostly referred to it as “Large grouped instanced content”. As a GW1 Vet myself I want to see these instance’s because it’s what brought me to play Guildwars 1 basically since launch. Although I would like to see an increased group size such as the 8 or 12 in GW1. I think 10 is a realistic goal for this game as it is double the party size and can be pretty well balanced.

The general anti-raid argument, from what I understand, is that raids usually have their own gear progression, and offer the best gear in the games they are in. This is true, but if large grouped instanced content was introduced in Guild Wars 2, it would make sense to have the exact same rewards (plus maybe different skins and some titles) as any other part of the game.

I believe most people wouldn’t have a problem with that.

Naracion.6597:

It is though. If you want the gear you need to do fractals.

They are fixing this…. tomorrow.

Also, if you want the gear you don’t need to do Fractals, you are missinformed, Fractals don’t drop Exotic gear you need, that’s what you get from Crafting/Dungeons/Karma whatever. Fractals gear are some rings that give a negligible boost, I don’t understand how just getting some rings (that offer few stat boosts) is enough to justify running Fractals all the time.

puffintoast.6501:

Cosmetics done properly.

It’s true, the Guild Wars 2 gem store is lacking, in what it should have, cosmetics.
I can’t see how it is relevant to the topic though, unless it means Arenanet is restricting us to only a few pieces of gem store items, that’s certainly restricting in a way.

Naracion.6597:

I know this is kinda my issue but I got really annoyed(to the point where I don’t want to do them anymore) with fractals with all the dcing issues such as “your leader has just dced and your party has now disbanded and you lose all your progress.” I’m sorry but no matter what level it is, these situations aren’t fun. I will be happier when they put into place other ways of getting the ascended stuff which I do believe they said they are going to be doing.

The DC issues have nothing to do with grinding though. The reason of this cleverly disguised OP was to point out that there is an extreme grind (but there isn’t)

Also, they are fixing the DC issue tomorrow

Silver.8023:

Every time I read through the forums I see so much moaning, complaining, crying, many dummy spits and wild conjecture. If all this kind of thing was done to anything I worked for hours upon hours on and did my best on, I would be a complete and utter wreck!

Welcome to a video game’s official forums.
Even single player games are like this, don’t worry it’s normal, but with MMORPGs it’s different because a lot more people play them regularly.

Anyway:
Thank you Arenanet for a game well done

Jabronee.9465:

Before Launch… In GW2 we want the player to play the game how they wanna play.
Months after Launch…. We want the players to play the game how it should be played.

Nuff said

Care to explain? The game looks the same

Tolmos.8395:

I’m not sure which server you’re on but the only overflow my server (Tarnished Coast) sees is LA, and that’s just to cram into fractals. Orr is pretty empty even on weekends and low level zones look like a single player game. >_> Everyone is funneled into Fractals right now, fractaling away for their fractal gear.

I’m not sure about other servers but Gandara is healthy, there are people in Orr, Frostgorge, doing lots of dungeons, Fractals and dynamic events. Even lower level zones have lots of people around.

Tolmos.8395:

It could be an exaggeration, mainly brought on because people are preparing to have fun as opposed to having fun (you know, that thing the April Fools joke called “the Manifesto” said would never happen). Getting low level fractals groups are almost impossible, so you need to rush to higher levels in order to get in on the groups. This requires grind grind grinding to run fractals AT ALL, much less being able to run them regularly. If you are just hitting 80 now and don’t have your exotics, I feel sorry for you. Get to grinding!

So what you are saying is that it requires grind to get gear (which it doesn’t, getting exotics is easy) and this grinding is preventing you from running high level Fractals

There is no “preparing to have fun”, unless your definition of fun for some twisted reason is running high level fractals. Last I checked you don’t have to run high level Fractals to have any fun. If you are below level 80 without even exotics you can do Fractals 1-3 rather easily, 4-6 as a level 80 with greens, there is no grinding required, it IS easy. Also, January patch will allow players to bypass that “problem” of low level Fractals.

No way. Every time there is a community complaint about an Arenanet decision, Anet immediately posts a blog patting themselves on the back for said decision and talking about how happy everyone is that the decision was made.

Not really.

Communication in the form of being told to stfu and quit whining, maybe… and then a blog telling you how happy Arenanet perceives you as being over the change… but that’s about it

If you read their blog posts you would know that’s not true, they do aknowledge their mistakes.

Dradiin.8935:

GRIND, we all were told this game was designed for no grind, that’s wholeheartedly false.

Where is this grind I don’t see it. Unless you want a Legendary, there is nothing grindy in the game. So what you were told is wholeheartedly true.

Tolmos.8395:

Gems -> Gold. Basically, buying gold with which to buy mats, gear, consumables, etc.

I can get all the mats, gear, consumables etc I’d ever need without using Gems and without grinding. I don’t know what you are doing wrong.

Tolmos.8395:

You asked what the perceived evil about the gem store was. That’s the perceived evil. Thought of mainly by people who don’t feel a financial advantage should equal an in game advantage.

The thing is you can get anything (stat-wise) easily without using your “financial advantage”… that advantage you are talking about will only allow you to get some better skins (including Legendaries) nothing that can affect your game in any way.

Laurel’s will only be available from NEW Daily and Monthly achievements, they will implement a different reward system for other achievements and you WILL get rewarded for doing them. Go and do as many as you want

Narkosys.5173:

what I would like to see is anet treat everyone as an equal and have equal rewards. You know value me and my time. Allow me to play the way I want to and have fun.

Wait, you mean someone that does content that is more demanding in a way should get equal rewards with someone who is doing nothing? I really don’t understand this logic, the harder the content, the better the rewards, otherwise why have hard content in the first place? Oh right people have been posting all over these forums how they want this game to be forever the easiest game in existence that rewards you for doing nothing.

What we have now is 1 group getting a hell of a lot more than any other for no reason at all. Fractal dungeon runners make 10X the amount everyone else does.

Fractals require a team, they are also the only challenging content in the game, is something isn’t doable by everyone, it stands to reason it will give more rewards, hopefully NOT exclusive, something Anet is already fixing. And no running Fractals doesn’t give 10x the amount of running AC or COF, or even doing all Dragon events each day + the temples in Orr.

The “best” money comes from doing events that spawns lots of mobs (events in Cursed Shore) those give more loot than Fractals.

You either play the way anet wants – doing dungeons till only your bones are left on your fingers or you buy gems ->gold. Otherwise you are poor.

That’s a lie, unless you are talking about fast running CoF p1 repeatedly, running Dungeons in general isn’t as good as you make it sound money-wise. Ever tried Arah or SE P1 or COF p3 or COE? Those are dungeons that can take up some time to do, in the same time you can have more money by doing other Events. If you said “Anet wants us to roll Warriors, give them Berserker gear and run CoF p1 till only your bones are left on your fingers” then yes I’d agree, there is a serious problem there as a money-making way, no risk, too much reward for too little time, something is obviously wrong, but not all Dungeons are the same, and Fractals, it takes some time to get to the higher tiers, and even more time to get used to all the mechanics.

That tells me I am not valued nor is my time so they dont get any money from me and I use their resources.
I think they should value everyones time equally WvW/PvE/PvP all rewarded the same but it isnt and has led to a mass exodus of people.

The new Laurels system will allow everyone doing regular PVE to get Ascended gear, a similar system is coming to WvW, sPVP should be left alone, it’s a separate game within the game.

Play how they want to =gold. Play how you want=0 loot.
That is terribly terribly wrong.

I have to ask, how exactly do you want to play the game and you are not getting any loot? If the answer is WvW then that will soon change, any other options?

The vast majority of armors in this game aren’t skimpy. It’s a fact though that a good percentage of female toons wear Feathered and Winged outfits. That’s their own choice though, you can’t remove that armor from the game because some people don’t like it, the choice is there…

tic.7425:

maddoctor.2738

What’s wrong in requesting something “challenging” in a game? I already explained above why the Open World can never be challenging, so the only “solution” is dungeons, or instances in general, and “dungeons that involve lots of players” are generally refered to as “raids” for whatever reason.

It’s not the Raids that are killing the game. It’s the lack of any challenge, the game is so easy to the point of being a brainless grind. It’s more like “work” and “loot” and “grind”, words that people are associating with raids, than any raid! At least if you have to actually THINK while you play, the grind effect can be lessened, at least if the content is challenging, they could get away with better RNG chances.

Because it typically doesn’t end with “challenging”. It invariably leads to, my guild is "working " harder, our rewards should be better.

Which is also fine, depending on the definition of “better”. Guilds able to “show off” for doing something in a game shouldn’t be considered “bad”, why should it?

I always say that exclusive gear (stat-wise, not skin-wise) is out of the question, and Anet knows that by now and won’t do the same mistake again (I hope)

But, giving players, and more importantly guilds, something to stand out, like a title for all of their members that defeated a powerful foe, or other guild boosts shouldn’t affect anyone, right?

Astralporing.1957:

In my opinion GW2 should move in exactly opposite direction (as befitting the “whole game is the endgame” motto) – making all the open world areas (especially the starting ones) more interesting, and equally interesting regardless of character level.

Open world content can have a difficulty up to a certain level, a very very very very low level of difficulty. The reason, is imbalance in player numbers and player gear/skill. You can’t have a really hard open world encounter because that’s the main reason people don’t want raids in the first place, they want all content to be spam1 and get the loot, as the open world is now.

Different difficulty for different people isn’t possible in the Open World. There will always be those who find it very difficult and those who can do it with their eyes closed, in the Open World they need to set a “standard” for the difficulty, cant’ have deviations, and that’s the main problem with focusing entirely on the Open World.

The results are evident: pathetic rewards/RNG system that everyone complains about, but terrible RNG and EASY encounters are two sides of the same coin. Just imagine, if an event like a Dragon had far superior drops what would have happened in the game, everyone would have a legendary and asking “What’s next?” So, in order to prolong the game’s life, instead of upping some difficulty to keep interest, they resort to terrible RNG chances.

Instead, if multiple versions of the same encounter were available, for example the way Guild Wars 1 did it with Hard and Normal mode, nobody is “left out” of the story/lore or content, BUT those who want theorycrafting, want to formulate good builds, play “better”, focus on teamwork or anything else, can find their challenge. Both types can have the same rewards, only the hardest part could use slightly less annoying RNG, nothing exclusive though.

Vae Victus.3678:

And “this not having Raids will kill the game!” mindset is complete BS. Being different from the norm of MMOs is the one thing that will make GW2 a success, and is a great reason to stay away from Raids and the trinity, etc.

What’s wrong in requesting something “challenging” in a game? I already explained above why the Open World can never be challenging, so the only “solution” is dungeons, or instances in general, and “dungeons that involve lots of players” are generally refered to as “raids” for whatever reason.

It’s not the Raids that are killing the game. It’s the lack of any challenge, the game is so easy to the point of being a brainless grind. It’s more like “work” and “loot” and “grind”, words that people are associating with raids, than any raid! At least if you have to actually THINK while you play, the grind effect can be lessened, at least if the content is challenging, they could get away with better RNG chances.

Space Cow.2431:

2)
My beef with this is that the game was sold to me on the promise (a pitch Anet plastered all over the place, mind you) that it was everything BUT option 2. Oh no, grinding is for other games. Not us. No sir.

Except it is. It truly, truly is.

No, truly it isn’t. The only “grindy” part is making a legendary, getting those exotics is so easy it’s a joke to call it a grind.

The only real major problem with the game is to make a Legendary you have the above two ways you posted, for everything else, no, there IS no grind in this game to get Exotics, at least compared to any other mmorpg out there.

plasmacutter.2709:

D/D has no way to stop ranged attacks. They have gap closers, but the profession they close with could swap to harder-hitting melee weapons.
holding a D/D at ranged and pounding them will cause a great deal of pain.

Yeah gap closers like Magnetic Grasp which is so slow that can be dodged by anyone, you can go make some coffee and then come back, move a bit back and you dodge it, not to mention the fail range of the skill. But most annoyingly, one the “best” gap closers for D/D Eles is so bugged beyond help:

I remember that time when I used Magnetic Grasp to “close the gap” on a Thief, he used his shortbow evasion skill and dodged it. That wasn’t anything new, everyone can do it, funny thing is MG bugged because he dodged it and my character was bouncing back and forth between my initial position and his, no way to stop it, and of course everyone could attack me at that time, that bouncing was so hillarious I regret not capturing it on video.

To add to what plasmacutter said:
The current PVP game is called conquest, you don’t have to kill, you have to capture to get points. In all the maps those said points are wide open, with a ranged attack you can stay away and the poor D/D ele has no way to fight back, even with gap closers on some cases, unless they move away from the point.
But of course, for some odd reason, everyone is only focusing on how to kill their opponent in some form of duel without using a brain.
Even some Thieves have adapted to it and don’t even try to backstab D/D Eles but instead use a Shortbow and insta win the fights (or force draws).
There is absolutely no profession in the game that can’t deal with a melee only D/D Ele, all others can switch to ranged dps at will, the D/D can’t.

paleeshi.1924:

Infectious.4836:

I just don’t get how anyone can defend the current meta D/D build.

It is defended because we don’t have much options to play around with at the end. Take that away as well and you’ll have no eles playing GW2 anymore. At least nothing viable.

Yep that’s the main problem. The current meta D/D build is the only build that is on par with other meta builds, nerf that and you will see no more eles in PVP anymore.

kRiza krimos.1637:

Runcore.5107:

You want proof? Here you are:

ppl are speaking about it on forum:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mesmers-will-not-be-the-only-portalers/page/2#post1242421

+ read transcriptions of interview with Anet developers. You think that I imagine things here only to make my post more interesting or what?

People saying it on forums makes it a fact? Please. And i have been reading and watching every interview with ANet representatives, still havent seen that mentioned anywhere. If you could be so kind to link interview where they said it plz?

From the transcript:

Q: Do you find any profession to be out of balance like Ele bunker, roamer, thief one shot combo, mesmer portal?
Ele bunker is really strong, on our watchlist
Mesmer portal is giving us problems –giving that tool onto other classes maybe?

source: http://dulfy.net/2013/01/17/gw2-dev-livestream-jan-17-transcript/

Runcore.5107:

Is good to know that ppl will have ascended items in few day while other ppl spent weeks on getting same items from fractals.

That’s the problem with adding new gear tiers on all MMORPGs, a problem that wasn’t supposed to exist in Guild Wars 2 but unfortunately it does.
Getting Ascended Rings in Fractals isn’t very hard… running level 10 fractal 10 times will net you one ring of your choice in 10 days, plus if you are lucky, some other rings from the daily reward.
We have to wait and see how it plays out with the Laurels. The real question now is, how much should a Ring cost in Laurels?
How much “harder” is, doing a single level 10 Daily in FotM, compared to doing a daily achievement? Let’s make a “quick” comparisson:
First, doing the level 10 Daily in FotM requires the “overhead” of doing the levels 1-9 first, Dailies require nothing before you start doing them.
Second, the level 10 Daily is doable by level 80 characters with some care in gear, you can’t do them naked (unless you are a very good player), on the other hand, a level 1 can certainly do all Dailies, maybe even easier than a level 80, there are more events at the lower levels, and more mob variety in zones like Queensdale and Wayfarer Foothills than the higher level zones. On the minus side, gathering materials on lower level zones isn’t optimal in terms of money.
Third, Dailies can be done easily solo, while doing the level 10 Fractals is impossible to solo and you need a group, and need to find a group each day, unless you have a dedicated party.

Overall, it’s obvious that getting Laurels is a lot easier than getting Pristine Relics, but… is it actually faster? A good group can do FotM level 10 in very little time, can you actually do everything in a Daily in the same time frame? That’s another aspect to consider.

If Ascended gear requires few Laurels, it will be bad, the Exotic Ring/Amulet economy will crumble, players of really low levels will already have Ascended gear before they are even 80, Dailies are never hard, neither they take time. It will also make all the hard work to get those exotics go to waste (for example Triforge), something common in other MMOs, but something I never wanted to see in Guild Wars 2.

On the other hand is Ascended gear requires a lot of Laurels, it will be bad for veterans and those who’ve been playing the game for a while, as they would have to “grind” daylies for months to get something new. Assuming those veterans are already in full exotics of course. Also, having high prices will defeat the purpose of any novelty-fun items, as most players will simply hoard the laurels to get their loot.

There is a sweep spot somewhere, that won’t satisfy anyone, but at least will keep both sides equally annoyed. I just don’t know “where” it is.

tic.7425:

You want raids? No problem. Why cant the rewards be guild titles, armor skins, weapon skins, PvE guild perks (to do your next “tier”), i don’t know, but can we please stop with the epic lootz, at least in one MMO?

Sure I agree with you. If anything Ascended Gear acquired in WvW (when that comes) should be equippable by anyone, regardless of actual level, so if you are doing lots of WvW with your level 1, by 10 you could start wearing Ascended already, so lower levels will have an even play field IF they do a lot of WvW. At least that’s how I think it should work…

I never said anything about having exclusive gear only available in raids, on the contrary, “Raids” if/when/whatever they are implemented should give the exact same gear types as any other content. That was the big mistake with Fractals and the devs already aknowledged it and try to solve it now. Having Ascended items drop only in Fractals was a serious blunder, that hurt Anet, many players quit because of it (and the addition of a new tier of course) and I’m not sure if they are ever coming back.

I’m against exclusive gear in any kind of dungeon/raid whatever. What I “hate” though is farming the same boring thing all day, I want a chance to get, what others get by RNG, or farming for days, in a few tries (when I finally finish it) of some hard to defeat content. Not something exclusive for them stat-wise, the next gear tier or anything, just a way to lessen RNG loot dependance and add more challenge in its place.

Currently all you need for loot is faith in RNG and luck… Some effort should be rewarded.

Booning.5476:

Why does a random getting loot bother you? I thought it was all about the challenge / coordination and loot didn’t matter?

The fact that a random someone who just tag along, can get a precursor or any other highly valuable item (for doing nothing), while the ‘other idiots’ get porus bones is what matters.

Effort should be rewarded, not just plain luck

Booning.5476:

We don’t even have raids just a discussion and it already comes down to wanting to exclude players and just live in little boxes with people that they can control.

And why is that bad? We already have dungeons, why would having a few instanced versions of encounters like the Dragons or Temples in Orr be bad?

Ganzo.5079:

Luckily, as main tank of my old guild, i raised my voice to avoid such stupid sistems in favor of a more friendly loot sistem.

What kind of system, care to share with us the details? There isn’t only one DKP out there, that everyone needs to follow for some reason. Every guild uses their own version, one that suits their needs.

Gehenna.3625:

Guild missions sounds like an interesting concept, but I wonder if they really will work. If it does work I think it could do a lot of good to the game, but I wonder if it will simply because it sounds like another type of zerging. I don’t think they will give players bigger party sizes. I think it will be like the commander thingy rather than an actually party set up for 10+ people.

Unfortunately that’s exactly how I feel they will be. Players following the big zerg for looooots.

tic.7425:

And this is why i believe a lot of folks that don’t want raids in this game feel the way they do.
Once added it will (obviously) bring raiders to the game, and the next step becomes “loots”, “DKP” , “work” and all the rest….

And haven’t reached that “step” yet? What do people actually do as “end-game” now? Park your character where the dragon spawn and join in, spam1 for a few minutes and get the loot, or go farm around Orr for Lodestones, forming a huge mindless zerg, that takes care of “loots” and “work” parts of your argument

Namu.5712:

I just want challenging content in general.

And that’s what people like to “avoid” for some reason, challenge. This is how it could work, without adding a new gear tier, or exclusive gear:

Open World: no skill required, few drops, low RNG, lots of farming required
“Raid”: lots of skill/coordination required, more drops, a lot higher RNG, a lot less farming required

Red Falcon.8257:

Also, I’m pretty tired of MMOs who lock you into instances.
Anet was wise to decide to expand on open world content with these patches, because seriously this is a Massively multiplayer game not a 5/10 man game.

The problem with open world is that it lacks any real challenge. Also with the way they distribute loot in the game (no “shared” loot) they have to use terrible RNGs to keep it balanced.

For example, in a typical raid, the big boss either drops a few powerful items or a token that can be exchanged for the best items. These items have 100% chance of dropping, but bosses only drop a limited amount of them, so organized guilds need a way to distribute that loot appropriately, for example with a version of a DKP system. This creates a sort of progression for the team/guild instead of the individual.

In Guild Wars 2 on the other hand, there is absolutely no team progression, just plain luck. If you are lucky, you progress, if you are not, you will spend ages and not get anything.

While the system of Guild Wars 2 is nice for pugs, should everything in the game be doable by pugs as easily as it is now? Shouldn’t there be something to motivate guilds to work towards a higher goal? Loot doesn’t need to change, same loot in both “open world” and “raid” version, just in the second one, a lot better chances for it.

When I read about their Guild Missions I was excited, for a few seconds, until I read the rest of the text. So, Guilds will start these missions with 10-15 people around, organize to defeat them, and a random someone that just spams 1, will get some contribution, while the Guild actually defeats the content with strategy/tactics (unless they are like the events we have now, brainless) and has his own share of the same loot… And with how RNG the game is, that random might well end up with a precursor or something, while the 15 guild members end with porous bones.

Why is this “fair” to guilds and organized players? Why join a guild or start a party with regulars/friends in this game? There is no reason for it, just go randomly, follow the zerg, spam1 and get the loot. That’s how it is now, anything else is getting punished, by not getting anything for doing it.

kuora.5402:

People really don’t want to use their brains when they come to games.

That’s the main issue unfortunately.

Mirta.5029:

Just noticed that you don’t need the globs to upgrade rings.
In any case, sorry to hear about your drop rate, mine is not much better (own 1 vial and 2 globs only), however a system of voting (need/ greed/ pass), would make it even harder, especially for pugs. (most people would roll need no matter they need it or not and steal your loot), it would be better if it was buyable with fractal relics I suppose.

Or have it as a toggle? Of course with their current fail 1-person kick voting it wouldn’t work, but a majority vote toggle in loot distribution could work.

Mirta.5029:

Actually need/pass makes people compete. You know how you can run dungeons in other MMOs for hundreds of times and never get n item because you are always outrolled by someone else’s need?

In every MMORPG I run the highest, “most difficult”, group content with my guild and friends and in all of them we can decide easily how to distribute gear more effectively for the group. In Guild Wars 2, we simply can’t do that, we need to follow “pug rules” and that’s exactly why I’m saying that fotm is punishing dedicated groups by not giving them anything more than the random pugs.

Why must I always get DPS rings (I don’t want them) and my fellow Thief gets Vitality rings and we can’t exchange? Why must a fellow member get 5 rings while someone else gets 1, this RNG is just painful and the solution is so easy.

Unless of course all Anet cares for are those random pugs, which might well be the case… Pugs forever!

Nurvus.2891:

No matter how you twist it, you should never, ever, feel weaker once you level up.
Even if for some reason you decided to stay in Queensdale from level 1 to 30 and didn’t update your level 4 gear, you should still feel stronger than a level 4 with level 4 gear, or at least just as strong, but with more skills and traits.

But you never feel weaker once you level up. Each level adds skills and traits, not to mention gear. If you play as a level 20 in Queensdale you get level 20 drops, even if you kill level 1 mobs, same if you are level 30, you can level in Queensdale 1-80 and by the time you finish you will have full level 80 gear. OK not full level 80 because I think the max you can get from level 1 mobs is level 70 I think? But you certainly DO become more powerful the more you level up.

Simple question… why are dedicated parties that consist of guild members and friends are being punished so much in fotm?

The system is clearly in favor of randoms, pugs, instead of organised play, not only due to the difficulty (it’s not very high) but there is no mechanic to actually help a group with the serious RNG issue.

I’ve been playing with the same people for a long time, we went from level 3 to level 22 together and I noticed how bad the ring distribution is, others got loads, others got only one, same with ascended materials like shards and globs.

Is there a way our dear Anet devs, would add a simple “need/pass” mechanic, like those in every single MMO out there, so we, a group of friends who trust each other, can pass the rings/materials around as much as we want?

I’m not asking to make them non-account bound, keep them bound on acquire, just allow the party to distribute them around as they see fit, instead of all this randomness in the game.

Obviously this “mechanic” should be togglable and clearly visible to anyone that joins the group, we don’t want to ruin that pugging experience.

LordByron.8369:

The real problem will be that we will see even more undergeared/unexperienced players join higher lvl fractals :|

Maybe they should have the actual Fractal level of everyone in the group displayed in an easy to see location? Maybe next to their party icon, like a buff? Or make it linkable, like gear.

Another, even better, solution is to have the Agony Resistance displayed as a buff instead, because that way it will allow players with alts to join high level fractals with them. If I have a character on Fractals 30+, chances are I had got enough rings to dress at least one more character, which means that character “can bypass” the lower difficulties to play on the higher tier of Fractals, the player already has, or should have, experience. There is no point for a full geared alt (with 20+ AR) to play Fractal levels 1-10

Fuzzion.2504:

BeduinoAlbino.9812:

I would be really happy if they gave us slots for a second weapon, even though we could only make the change when out of combat. It’s kinda of a pain to always have to press H and change weapons, sometimes on the run.

I agree on this but disagree with other users wanting to switch during combat.

Switching out of combat is needed, yes. But switching IN combat with the above limitation I mentioned, having only 4 skillbars, not 8 skillbars would be really imbalanced?