Guild Wars 2

Ayrilana.1396:

Thrashbarg.9820:

That’s right folks, all your exotic weapons are currently best in slot gear. They are getting a downgrade on Tuesday. How fun.

Wrong. The difficulty (like there is any) is not changing with the update. What this means is that if you do absolutely nothing in regards to upgrading your current gear, you will not notice any changes. What was effective today will still be effective after the update. What WILL be different is that there will be players who are slightly more effective than you.

Builds will not die. All builds will still be viable after the update as they are now. This is not counting any nerfs that they might have in store. Don’t believe the doomsday nonsense that the players who feel they must have the best in slot gear are spewing.

You’re right, when considering existing pve content. Other players gaining more power is definitely a real problem in wvw. And after the full set of ascended gear is out, and more players have had a chance to get their mains into a set of it, there is the chance of future pve content being designed with this tier in mind. New content in MMOs, especially content that is supposed to high-end/challenging, is typically designed for players with the best gear available.

While this does not mean such gear must be an absolute requirement, the design of the content strongly encourages it, as well as encourages player/party enforcement of using it. This already exists in the game with exotic gear, and it will certainly carry over to the ascended tier, as well.

tolunart.2095:

This isn’t the first time they’ve updated the skins.

I’m aware of that. It’s just something I was thinking about because a friend decided to not get The Bifrost because of the recent change annoucement. I imagine he’d have been rather annoyed if he had gotten it, then later had it changed to where he no longer liked the staff.

colesy.8490:

I’m actually quite happy with bad players being forced to wait longer. Good job ANet

I suppose this will make all those squishy zerkers be locked into their bad builds shortsighted decisions. At least it will get me some easy bags and badges.

edit:
I guess the trolls do some good after all…sometimes. Made me see a little bit of an upside to this.

tolunart.2095:

Any aspect of the game can change at any time, it’s one of the things I find most fascinating about MMOs. Of course not everyone is going to like the changes, but it is necessary to accept that they are not creating the game for you, personally, but for millions of people who want many different things.

If you cannot accept this, play a single player game. Many of them have fan-created mods that change the game, but they are optional and you can take them out if you don’t like the changes. In an MMO you either accept the changes or move on.

Change in online games is a fact of life for us. But this is a change that is purely visual. A visual change to a tier of weapons that’s entire purpose for existing is their appearance. Players get these weapons because of the way they look. Given the effort involved in getting a legendary, I would assume that most people owning them like the appearance. I’m sure many people will like the new looks, and decide to get a weapon because of its new style. But is it worth taking that away from someone that likes what they have now?

I see the point you are making with gameplay/mechanics changes, but this is something purely visual and concerning very costly weapons.

colesy.8490:

I completely agree that PvE should be all zerker all the time. I disagree that WvW should be all PVT all the time. I’ve seen a lot more variety be very successful there.

PVT is the safest choice if you want something that’ll be useful practically regardless of conditions. Pretty much any other gear requires you to build around it.

So I should have to get a generic “one size doesn’t really fit all” gear set instead of a couple different sets tailored to different builds?

Just because you are fine with always using zerker or always using PVT, doesn’t mean the rest of us are.

This coming round of changes makes the think about those that are perfectly happy with a legendary as it is now. For me, going through that much to get a weapon would mean it’s something that is perfect or close to it.

So what happens when that “perfect” weapon gets what someone else thinks is a visual upgrade? Looks are totally subjective, so what a game artists thinks looks better might look much worse to someone else. Take the upcoming changes to The Bifrost, for example. I quite like the staff as it is, with noticable, yet subtle, trails. I think the “upgraded” version is overdone and gaudy. I’m sure some will like it, and some won’t care. But I don’t like it, and I’m glad I decided against getting one months ago.

I know these upgrades are with the best intentions, but there’s a good chance of it changing someone’s weapon to the point where they don’t like it anymore. For all the time and money it takes to craft a legendary, that’s a pretty horrible thing to do do someone.

butch.8136:

This was supposed to be ingame before release. Would you be QQ’ing then? No, it would be part of the game.

I have not seen anything to support this idea at all. The only thing Anet said even close was that they felt they should have implemented it before release. There is no indication at all that it was actually in any stage of development prior to release.

Even if it were included at launch, I’m sure many of us would still feel the same way, because the acquisition of ascended gear goes against so much of what were told and had marketed to us.

Here is what Chris Whiteside had to say on this back in November.

In retrospect Ascended should have been deployed pre launch and earn able throughout most activities in the game (which is how we are moving forward).

butch.8136

A gear treadmill repeats itself over and over, Anet said time and time before that this is the only high-end tier there will be.

No, here is what Chris Whiteside actually said.

We do not intend to deploy another tier/rarity of loot such as Rare>Exotic. However we also do not intend to make promises that can be misinterpreted moving forward.

Through infusions and existing Tiers there will be the opportunity to increase stats or abilities on a low power curve through multiple types of gameplay in GW2.

The possibility of additional tiers was intentionally left open, although the expressed a desire to avoid it. The also specifically stated that the intend on continuing to release more powerful items within the ascended tier. Releasing more powerful items in an existing tier isn’t really any different than adding them in a new tier.

Yeah, it is very sad indeed. One of the biggest reasons I was never able to really get into other MMOs was the drawn out gear progression, and constantly released higher quality gear. Anet sold me on the one that didn’t have this, and I trusted their word because they had a 7 year old game that was still successful without having it. Every step taken down this direction breaks that trust even more, and makes it that much more clear that Anet has no intentions of turning back until it is far too late.

The amount of effort it takes to get the current ascended trinkets isn’t bad, with the exception of back items. The problem is the timegating, and the fact that the timegate doesn’t care if you have 1 characters or 20 characters.

Ascended weapons are adding a ridiculous amount effort, while keeping the same timegates, and even using the same resources. Laurels are so over used now that those with alts/multiple builds will need years to gather enough of them just to get the new “basic max gear”. I can’t decide which is worse, needing laurels to buy each stat combo for each weapon type, having once daily timegated crafted, or needing hundreds of items you can only gather once daily per location. The combination of all these factors is absolutely appalling. The amount of grind, timegating, and convoluted mess of intertwined materials and refinements would make the developers of some Eastern MMOs jealous.

I do still love the game, and there is so much that is great and unique about it. But there are these huge black marks, and they just keep adding more. I might have been able to deal with these new weapons if they didn’t take laurels, and didn’t have the timegates/daily limits on Ecto Refinement crafting and obtaining Obsidian Refinement materials. Even if the limits were character based, it wouldn’t be nearly as bad. I just can’t accept all of that combined.

The damage has been done. Anet has chosen the minority of the fanbase they wish to work to keep. The fans of every other MMO, that came here looking for something the game was marketed for not having. The middle majority likely don’t care about any of this, until if at some point it directly effects them. And then we have the other minority. People that were tired of what every other MMO had to offer, and wanted the one MMO that was supposed to break that mold. Along with those of us that loved Guild Wars, believed in what Guild Wars 2 was designed to be, and trusted Anet to stay true to that image, and to their longtime fans.

Game developers sometimes have to make decisions that sacrifice portions of their playerbase. You can’t please everyone all the time. It happens. It’s terrible when it’s post release and pleases one group at the cost of another. But it’s absolutely shameful when one decides to sacrifice their own integrity, their own game design philosophy, and the fans that stuck with them because of that philosophy.

I was watching the crafting part of the livestream and trying to pick up as much info as I could from what she was showing. The items the July blog stated were acquired “once per day per unique location” are these Empyreal Fragments/Dragonite Ore/etc shown in the video.

Later in the video you can see that it takes 100 of these “once per day per unique location” items to make the refined items like Empyreal Stars/Dragonite Ingots.

And then even later you see that a Vision Crystal takes 5 each of Empyreal Stars/Dragonite Ingots/Bloodstone Bricks.

So to make a single Vision Crystal you need 500 each of Empryeal Fragments, Dragonite Ore, and Bloodstone Dust. So, where do these come from?
Bloodstone Dust – drops from champ loot boxes
Dragonite Ore – temple/world bosses and keeps/castles in WvW
Empyreal Fragments – dungeons/mini-dungeons/jump puzzles and camps/towers in wvw

Looking back at the July blog and assuming it is still true, this is “once per day per unique location”. So you’re going to be needing to do a lot of different champs, a lot of different dungeons, and a lot of different wvw objectives to get these 1500 items.

It is also worth noting that in this part of the video, she shows how to make something called “Mithrillium”. which can only be crafted once per day. But the greatsword blade/hilt she crafts later on do not take Mithrillium. They take 3 each of something called “Deldrimore Steel Ingots” which are visible in the Refinement, but are never shown in detail. It’s likely that the Deldrimore Steel does use Mithrillium, but it can’t be known for sure, and the exact materials and amounts are kept hidden in this video.

Edit: A bit more on Mithrillium and Deldrimor Steel
While details behind Mithrillium’s relation to Deldrimor Steel are not shown on screen, we do see the relationship between a Glob of Elder Spirit Residue and a Spiritwood Plank. Like Mithrillium, this Residue is in the “Ectoplasm Refinement” category. It’s tooltip states that it is used in the refinement of Spiritwood. Spiritwood Planks are in the “Refinement” category next to Deldrimor Steed Ingots.

With Mithrillium’s partner material clearly being related to the “Refinement” section’s Spiritwood, Mithrillium itself is most likely used in a similar fashion. The only visible option on the screen would place it as being used for Deldrimore Steel, that section’s new material going along with Spiritwood.

This still leaves the question of how many Mithrillium/Residues are needed, and what other materials, if any, are used in this refinement. But since each greatsword component (hilt and blade) take at least 3 days to craft, as it requires 3 Deldrimor Steel, which in turn will require Mithrillium. That is a minimum of 6 days to craft only the blade and hilt, which will be higher if Deldrimor Steel takes more than a 1 Mithrillium.

Brienson.7319:

. But now with full ascended gear sets that are ALSO time gated and tied to the same resource as accessories,

That is the most kitten ing part of it. And requiring laurels for recipes will mean directly limiting build variety because we have to purchase the recipe for each individual stat combo. It’s 5 laurels per stat combo, per weapon type, per character that needs to craft it. There are different recipes for a berserker greatsword, a knight’s greatsword, and a berserker hammer, that take 5 laurels each.

edit: this is much worse than I orginally though, I mistook the weapon recipes as being for a GS/hammer/etc, in general. Each individual stat of each individual weapon has it’s own 5 laurel recipe. And each one takes 3g in addition to the 5 days worth of laurel.

Victory.2879:

The biggest problem is laurels being used in the process- that’s a completely shut gate as far as multiple alts are concerned.

Anet have clearly worked out that the vast majority of people only ever play one toon and cater exclusively for them.

I still need 390 Laurels just to get a single set of amulet+2 rings for my 6 remaining chars, most of which require 2 or more sets. Plus the 4500 badges it would take to get them at that lower laurel price. It would be 570 laurels without using badges. This goes up by 80 laurels per character/build for those not able to viably acquire earrings through guild mission. Even if used laurels for amulets only, it would take 150 with badges, or 210 without.

Excluding the achievement reward chests, you can only earn 485 laurels per year. I think the numbers speak for themselves.

I don’t know how many laurels the new recipe will take, but I’m certainly in no position to start dumping them into new items. I’m not done with the “old” ones yet. And this isn’t counting the other things that can be bought with laurels, plus whatever they decide to add in another month or two.

Riondron.1069:

That is not a hack, or an exploit, and is very easy do to, especially for someone with points in ac. Just set it up along the wall, and look up. Simple. It would seem that many wvw players really don’t know the difference between what is or isn’t an ac screen view exploit. So until Anet finds a way to eliminate the true exploits, the argument will perpetuate.

Arrow cart view is one of those tricky things. We’ve been accused of it more than once using carts against walls/gates, where it was just a matter of getting the right standing spot (your position in relation to the cart matters a lot) and camera angle. I’ve seen a few spots used against us (not only in this matchup) that I would question, but I would not “cry hax” until I had placed one there myself and tried it.

Mikau.6920:

I just saw the livestream, and I’m sad that most likely will say good bye gw2. I’m not really fan of grind and even less of time gating. I was just begining to build up my alternative chars, but I cannot becouse I’ll have to build even (a lot more) my main. For only a single build (considering several weapons, I’m sorry for warriors) will take the eternity… Were really fun during this time and I was believing that this game were the best game ever made, but I’m wrong. I’ll wait a little more to see, but most likely I’ll leave the game.

Welcome to the World of Guild Wars 2!

I want to see just how bad the economic damage from this is, but I expect it to be just as bad, or worse, than I’m thinking. This new tier is relying way too heavily on T6 materials, and even weapons, with ascended weapons requiring materials that can only be acquired by salvaging exotics.

Curiosity will keep me around just to see the fallout, but I’m done with GW2 beyond standing around in LA and using it as a means to socialize with some friends. WvW had been what kept me interested in GW2 the most. Account bound wvw ranks were a huge blow to that, and these new weapons, with their wide-spread economic impact, are the final hit.

I did not buy GW2 to be sent on a year long grind to get new weapons, but this is exactly what Anet’s pandering to fans of other games has done. Enjoy your new grind “loyal” fans till they get their single character/build a new weapon and move on to a game with even more grind, they’re going to be all you have left when you’re done destroying what used to be the best MMO on the market.

This latest livestream and news/blog post pretty much confirm everything we’ve been thinking, and it’s even worse than we were thinking, in my opinion.

This is a convoluted and confusing timesink of new materials and upgraded old materials. And to top it off, it’s adding even more uses for the current T6 mats, which is going to drive up the cost of making exotic gear and stifle the build variety in that tier because because of the higher costs. If you’re going to add a new tier, it needs an entirely new set of materials, not using an already overused set of mats.

Congrats on driving up the costs of exotics and legendaries, while at the same time adding even more timegated grind to your new tier. Oh, and I almost forgot…now we get to use Laurels to buy the recipes for this junk. Because I’m totally done gearing up my 8 chars with multiple sets of gear, and have a massive pile of unused laurels…oh wait….only a couple of them have because I can only earn 1 per day.

Still labeling an entire guild because someone else thinks they’ve found a hacker? I’m not going to say that wall/gate glitching doesn’t exist (I know for a fact that NW tower has been broken since release, and sometimes that gate cannot even by hit by rams/golems), but blaming it all on a single guild is beyond absurdity.

Of all the Bay caps I have been along on, I’ve never seen any of my guild’s regulars (or anyone else at all, for that matter) using or abusing any glitches. As for the NW tower, I know of more than a few instances where someone has unintentionally ended up inside the tower. I’m not sure how often this happens, but that is a huge temptation to abuse it. It doesn’t excuse it, it doesn’t make it right, it is still abusing a glitch, but it is not hacking.

Ronin.4501:

The individual in question didn’t come in through the main entrance at all, but rather through an area where one would seemingly need the ability to fly to gain access.

As I said above, there is no hack required to do this. There is certainly no flying involved It’s stupidly simple to do. I have now seen it done (I only know of a few that are aware of how) and was able to follow myself, although I got myself killed just inside.

I’m not going to defend it as normal, intended, or something that should be happening. But it’s definitely not hacking.

Juunro.7082

It’s usually very, very clear when someone is actually hacking. For example, last week a friend of mine and I engaged an upleveled Mesmer in the BL who was clearly wearing the starter gear. He hit me for just shy of 30000 damage with what appeared to be an autoattack. That was hacking.

Any mes, especially an upleveled one, hitting for that much in a single attack is well beyond suspicious. But you have no way at all of telling what gear they are actually wearing based on its appearance. You can transmute any piece of gear you want with your starter set’s skin.

Tots.3056:

Ronin.4501:

Tots.3056:

Ronin.4501:

While I agree with most everything you said here, you do realize it was a member of your guild (and one of your commanders) that was the one repeatedly caught hacking into enemy spawns? I suppose you’ve expelled them from your guild then?

I wasn’t there, however if you’re referring to a borderlands citadel I can say that’s far from “hacking”. You can literally jump into that place.

No, this was into SBI’s spawn on YB’s BL. And they didn’t enter through the stairs leading up to the waypoint either. I’d give more specifics, but I’m certain it would result in an infraction.

Ah alright. Yeah that’s a bit questionable.

I think it is something similar to the citadel, getting around the teleport barrier on the main entrance. I know I’ve walked right into an enemy spawn area on EBG using stealth, but didn’t get far in before I hit the barrier and got teleport back outside.

I agree that someone should not be able to get in there, but I don’t think there is any actual “hack” to it.

edit: I’m not going to say anything about how it’s done, but it’s easily done. No hacks or glitches involved, but it’s certainly an oversight in level design.

Ronin.4501

And you’re right, a few incidents don’t necessarily reflect an entire server…but when it’s more than a dozen in one week, it does reflect poorly on the entire server.

I would consider a dozen to be quite few incidents considering the thousands of players on each server. That is by no means a significant portion of YB’s population, or even just my own guild’s.

Ben K.6238:

It’s hard to take anyone in your guild seriously when your commanders are complicit in this.

I shouldn’t have to remind those trying to implicate an entire guild that anyone can get a commander tag. While our ranks are somewhat sorted to have those known to actively use their tag in wvw in the appropriate rank, they are not the only ones that have it. This of course complicates the matter of actually finding who is being accused and determining whether they have actually done anything.

I see plenty of accusations in this thread, from all sides, of another team glitching into towers, through gates, or doing this and that under suspicious circumstances. It is often impossible to determine if these claims are true, someone mistakenly labeling legit gameplay as cheating, or outright lying. There are only a couple instances I have any specific information about, largely because posting such information here is not allowed. But any that I do know/find out about, I intend to do what I can to ensure it does not happen again, or at least does not happen under my guild’s banner.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Ashen.2907:

Viking Jorun.5413:

You don’t, in fact, grind to get to the fun stuff.

I do, “in fact,” have to grind to get to the fun stuff.

False again. Colin was talking about endgame and leveling, as I said before. You’re already at endgame — the “fun stuff”.

I would consider Fractals to be one of the few endgame activities GW2 has, and that most certainly requires grind to continue doing. If you wish to continue doing higher and higher levels, which is “the fun stuff” for quite a few people, you need ascended gear. To get this gear you’re going to have to grind.

Doing Fractal levels below your own level could be considered grind, because it’s not what you want to be doing, but you need to in order to get more agony resistance.

Doing the same dailies day after day for laurels. They rotate, but after only a few sets of dailies, you’re going to have done them all. Then it’s back on repeat/grind mode.

Want to do Fractals on an alt for variety. Guess what, you have to grind all of this all over again for that character to catch up to your main.

Wreckdum.8367:

Ronin.4501:

Just a heads up to NSP players, YB likes to have some of their members hack into spawn to spy on your golems/attack your golems. Real class act.

EDIT: Removed the name of the guild to avoid an infraction. But had another YB guild hack into Bay on multiple occasions tonight as well. Usually these incidents are limited to a handful of players or a single guild, but it looks like YB is fielding a good number of players/guilds of this caliber.

Kudos on your “win” this week.

SBI has already been caught on video and posted in this thread using hacks… Get over it. Bad apples on all servers. Not enough to swing the week.

Indeed, and using the presence of a single member out of a 500 member guild as supporting evidence of a tower cap not being legit is ridiculous. My guild has close to 30 holding a rank reserved for our most dedicated wvw’ers, another 20 in the commander’s rank, and that is not including the dedicated players and commanders in the higher ranks of the guild. A few problems player doesn’t make the whole guild, or the entire server, a bunch of hackers.

I don’t want these players in my guild, or on my server. But there isn’t much I can do about the latter. Unfortunately, there isn’t going to be any server or actively recruiting guild that is completely clear of these people. They are a fact of life in online games, and we will continue dealing with them as best we can.

Kronyx.2570:

Radioactive.1248:

Here’s a screen shot of about 20 Yak’s Bend who took a portal into a fully upgraded tier 3 northwest tower when no walls or gate had been down since it was flipped back to green, epitome of class:

The second screen shot took place 1 minute before the first. You can see us running to save the tower. The gate was still up, we thought we had time, until a number of yak’s bend ported right up onto the wall and rushed the lord as evidenced by the first picture.

The second screenshot clearly shows the gate heavily damaged probably below 20%. What happened I think was that we got in, then someone repaired the gate.

That same screenshot appears to have red AoE circles on the wall just right of the lord room, which means there is a fight right there, likely with the claim lord. I’d say the gate had been breached and repaired before the person taking the screenshot got there, and a mesmer inside ported in those that were locked outside. That would also explain why there’s only 3 YB players at the gate with the rams, the rest were already inside and they were re-breaching.

I think these quotes from a November 26, 2012 AMA are quite relevant here.

Chris Whiteside

We do not intend to deploy another tier/rarity of loot such as Rare>Exotic. However we also do not intend to make promises that can be misinterpreted moving forward.

Ascended Gear will be introduced throughout next year,and accessible through many game play activities rather than just on. -Through infusions and existing Tiers there will be the opportunity to increase stats or abilities on a low power curve through multiple types of gameplay in GW2.

The opportunity to enhance existing tiers of loot will not be through a regular cadence of monthly updates instead it is more likely to come from expansions or very big drops of content.

In retrospect Ascended should have been deployed pre launch and earn able throughout most activities in the game (which is how we are moving forward).

Obviously, some of this plan has changed because we are not seeing large updates/expansions, and Anet has shifted and committed to their 2 week temp content rollouts. They have already continued building onto the ascended tier and its infusions with these frequent updates.

There is a definite intention to keep building this power creep within the ascended tier and infusions.

As for his last statement, the tier has been in the game for almost 10 months, and the only improvements we have seen in making it available throughout multiple activities is the addition of rings to the laurel vendors. I am not willing to include the wvw vendor as an additional means of acquisition, as it still requires laurels.

Earrings are also available via 2 means, but one of them still requires laurels in combination with a considerable amount of ecto. Shortly after the earrings were added, there was a post on the forum by Isaiah Cartwright stating that the high ecto cost was to discourage that method, and enforce guild missions/commendations as the way to obtain ascended earrings. If Anet is not willing to consider this as a normal/viable means to acquire them, neither am I.

The only other ways to get Ascended gear aside from the above listed and initial Fractal-only methods is via RNG from guild mission or wvw rank-up reward chests. There is a very low chance of this happening, and you are still reliant on RNG/luck to get an item that is actually useful to you.

Namu.5712:

Ascended gear was supposed to have launched with the game it just wasn’t ready at launch.

There isn’t really anything to support that statement. While PR statements made after the addition of ascended gear said that they should have included it at release, they never claimed it was actually in developement before release. It seems to have been a completely post-launch addition.

Statements from blogs, videos, and interviews just a few weeks before the game’s release continued to imply that exotic was to be the highest tier in the game.

Namu.5712:

Those type of people already require you to have a certain setup, how is it any different by having ascended?

If someone starts a group and wants a certain setup that’s their deal, if you cant or dont want to comply with their setup, then dont join them start your own group and invite whoever you want. Its not that hard!

That is largely a player/community problem, but having gear with that requires months to acquire a single set of only serves to make that more harmful to the game. Even if you want to comply and get the type of gear that groups are expecting, you are forced to wait months to get the gear.

Zindrix.1750:

Advent Leader.1083:

Level scaling still combats this problem in PvE – if level scaling did make it to a point where you get limited by the max gear for a specific dungeon. For example, what if all dungeons scaled down so that all gear choices higher than exotic will be scaled down to exotic? That way, ascended won’t necessarily have that much impact to PvE, and only affects high-level fractals and Arah.

It also affects WvW.

I wouldn’t mind that solution myself, but I’m certain many of us that have ascended trinkets already would not be happy with having their stats reduced as if they did not have that gear. After all, they did earn the gear.

I agree with the solution the OP of this thread suggested, and had actually thought the same thing when I first heard about the legendary weapons change back in July.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Fixing-Ascended-Gear/first

This allows the ascended gear to retain its improvements game-wide, without actually having any better stats than exotic gear. It would also greatly promote build variety and experimentation.

I’m sure some people that insist on sticking to only one build would still be angry over a change like this, but it is better for the game and community overall.

silvermember.8941:

It was still mandatory to progress the game. If you were a nightfall character you couldn’t progress w/o sunspear then later lightbringer points, that is outside the grind required to get a low requirement weapons if you wanted to maximize your attribute spread.

The requirement for Sunspear points only occurred once, and it was an amount of points most players should have already surpassed by the point it was required. It was mostly an issue for players that had chosen to skip significant portions of the story and rush ahead to areas before they were intended to have reached them

Lightbringer carried no such requirements, as far as game mechanics were concerned.

As for low req weapon, you could easily get req 9 weapon from collector NPCs. Even max damage/armor blue/purple items where somewhat common drops at req 8. Builds requiring these low unusually low reqs were definitely in the minority, the most common that I am aware being players with warrior as their secondary profession trying to meet the Tactics req for a shield.

To do glint’s challenge most of the groups required a high dwarven rank as well

That was a player-enforced requirement, but it does show the damage to the community that such mechanics can cause.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It was grindier after Nightfall.

Again, two words: Holy Lightbringer. Sure, you might be able to find a few efficient farms but they still were pretty pitiful.

Two more words: Traveler’s Gifts. Because if you thought repeating yourself for a limited amounts at a lottery box is bad with Black Lion Chests? Ooof.

I would have prefered not having things like Lightbringer that had an actual effect on gameplay. But LB wasn’t an issue outside of the later areas of Nightfall. And it had zero effect on the rest of the game. That and other similar titles (like the ones effecting pve skills) were eventually toned down in scaling to reach maximum effect at low ranks.

The Traveler Gifts aren’t really that similar to Black Lion Chests. The items required to get gifts were usually fairly easy to come by in the area he was collecting them. Black Lion Chest Keys require real money/gems, doing certain personal story steps, luck with map completion/daily chests (pretty rare), or an extremely lucky random drop (I’ve had this happen two, maybe three, times over a couple thousand hours of playing).

Ashen.2907:

All of the high yield farms, that I was aware of, got nerfed eventually (with the possible exception of Serenity Temple). The vampire farm in Urgoz, Chaos Plains (that few weeks was after it became popular. It ran for a while before then), and so on.

Yeah, none of them lasted all that long. I think Chaos Plains went longer, but the best of it was the initial month or so after a major skill overhaul made it possible. Still stayed pretty good even after a few rounds of nerfing, but as you said, it got more popular after the initial nerfs because more knew about it.

I actually think that chapter of GW1’s life is a bit comparable to where we are in GW2 now, at least for me. I read those update notes that made the truly permanent Shadow Form possible and quite easy, and I knew it was the start of something very damaging to the game. SF lead to some economic damage, but the worst was it leading to the stifling of builds and professions that were deemed acceptable to take into end-game/high-end areas.

I see the same thing looking at the July blogpost about these new materials and the page for the SAB:Back to School release. I see GW2 going farther down this road of limiting alternate builds and characters, and further enforcing this “berserker is always best” mentality by locking players into that gear set.

Anet spent years trying to undo what they had done to GW1, but they were never willing to take the one big step to end it, making perma-SF impossible. I don’t want to see the same thing happen to GW2, because the damage here will be even worse and more widespread. It effects everyone everywhere, not just players wanting to speedclear a few end-game areas. Once the damage is done, I don’t think they’ll be willing to take steps big enough to undo it. This need to be halted and rethought before it goes any farther.

byjiang.1260:

Castaliea.3156:

*Let us “finish” our characters so we can enjoy the game and let the people who want to grind for gear either grind for Legendary weapons, Alts, or even a whole other game, then they can come back to GW when they want and enjoy the new content….Like how GW2 was exactly marketed!

That would be bad for business. They want money now.

It’s perfectly fine for me if they produce a quality expansion and cost another $60, I’ll definitely buy it. Guess they prefer a cash shop, hence this mess we get.

They’ve managed to fit the worst problems of free-to-play games (high real world cost RNG lottery boxes for ingame items) and sub-to-play games (timegates and long-term gear grind) into a game that doesn’t even belong to either category. And they’re managing to implement and handle it even worse than many of those games. I suppose that is an innovation, but it’s one that will drive customers away, not attract them.

There are so many players asking for an expansion over temp content, and for them to stop the absurd amount of timegating on ascended gear. Stop pandering to players that only want GW2 to be like other games, because those games are still doing it better, and you’ll only lose even more of your players to them.

Make GW2 what you said it would be, and what it should be. Make it for as many people as you can, but don’t make decisions that will appease one portion of the community at the cost of driving away another. If some players want to leave because there isn’t a constant gear grind for them, let them go and work on the strengths that GW2 already has. Build diversity and ease of experimenting with new builds are some of the best of those strengths. Stop trying to destroy them.

Ashen.2907:

As to prestige armor skins…the amount of in game currency required to get the most expensive set (including the most expensive runes and dyes) in the game would take me less than an hour to earn (assuming that I did not have access to my “cash” reserves) using the most efficient farm I knew of over the course of my time in GW1.

The only things that even came close (and I don’t think even these things) ended with almost everyone doing them being banned permanently…and rightfully so. Unless we’re counting power trading as farming.

(edit) there is one thing that might if you were very lucky…but I know the first chaos plains farms only lasted a few weeks before it got severely nerfed. Was still possible afterward, but it became much slower.

Sure, money was a lot easier to come by in GW1, especially later in the game. And even at the start getting max armor/weapons was less effort than getting full exotics in GW2.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

All right then, let’s point out even easier:

Max armor was available in Nightfall at the Consulate Docks. This is almost criminally early for the campaign. By comparison, Prophecies had you slog to Droknar’s Forge which was . . . not all that easy unless you were “run”. Which was either expensive or chancy (scammers did exist and did make money off people).

This was non-prestige armor, and it still took some effort. I’ll go with Droknar’s because it was Prophecies and came first before Factions and Nightfall included comparative express trains to Lv20.

Droknar’s Forge armorsmith would make your maxed armor for 4k, 175 Cloth, and 28 Linen (a rare component, mind you). Or 4k, 175 Tanned Hides, and 28 Scales (more doable). Weapons all cost 5k and potentially some relatively expensive ingredients (Feathers, Granite, Steel).

9k required at the very least some farming OR lucky drops in Prophecies. It did become easier later, notably, but it was still going to lead into at least some farming.

I did comparatively as much farming to hit 400 Leatherworker as I would have to do to hit 9k right now in Guild Wars 1.

You were really supposed to get to Consulate Docks after completing the entire starter island. People just used other players that had kept the quest required to entire that town so they could drag others along with them, usually for a fee. This is the same as getting a run to Droknar’s Forge, although typically cheaper. Even Drok’s runs actually became very and easy and cheap only a couple years into the game’s life.

While your armor costs listed are mostly accurate (you left out the headpiece cost, and the materials did very on the type), the crafted weapon cost was something most players did not bother with. As I mentioned before, weapons from NPC collectors were much more commonly used. After Factions’ release, green/unique weapons started to become much more common and cheap. And after Nightfall’s release, even a gold req 9 of a more common skin could be bought from players for much less than 5k. NPC collectors were also an option for armor, but it was inferior as it lacked the additional/varied stats of sets from armor crafters, or lacked an insignia slot after insignia upgrades replaced the inherent stats for all armor.

Comparing the gold cost of an entire GW1 equipment set to the leveling of a single crafting trade in GW2 is not much of a comparison at all. You still have to make the exotic armor with that crafting, and that still gets you only the armor.

If I had to guess, I would say an entire set of GW1 equipment could be had for about 27-28k (in the last 3 years before GW2’s release), and that is including splurging on the superior vigor rune for an additional 9hp that costs you about 10-12k more than a major rune.

VoxShatterfall.5470:

Allowing completion players like you or I to get what we want after 100 hours of grind, without a gate, is like allowing a child access to any sweet they want all at once. While I think most completion players are able to put a halt on the game so they don’t burn out, I think some are just like me who feel good with completion and will stop at almost nothing for it. Time gating is the ONLY way to help manage this compulsive behavior, outside of professional help. Where as completion gamers who CAN pause their playstyle, please recognize that there are other completion gamers who CAN’T do so.

Blame it on me. Blame it on that 1 korean guy who played WoW for 2 weeks straight to get to lvl 80 whatever with the BiS equipment and died of a heart attack thereafter. You can try to blame it on ANET, but when ANET is responsible for a huge chunk of time of peoples’ lives outside of work, sleep, and family I’m sure ANET has a sense of responsibility to keep us from burning out. Just like us as young parents have the sense to not give all the possible candy to our young kids (age demographic is 25-35).

I think that’s a responsibility that falls on the player. If someone wants to do something ingame for 100 hours straight, that is completely their problem. I shouldn’t have Anet trying to babysit me because someone else can’t control themselves. And that is entirely possible in GW2 right now, just not for ascended gear. There aren’t any hard timegates on legendaries at all. The closest thing is the diminishing returns on dungeon tokens for getting the necessary dungeon gift.

Zero Day.2594:

i think you’re missing the point that, getting max stats in gw1 was easy…. going for the looks was hard.

Yep. Going for prestige armor was comparable to getting t3 cultural in GW2. It was 15 platinum per piece, while blue armor that had identical stats was 1 plat.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Way easier than Exotics?

For both Gold, Req9 weapons “late” in the GW1 Nightfall campaign (Sunspear Sanctuary) and prestige armor (Sunspear Prestige Armor) I had almost as much “farming” to do compared to my Armageddon Armor of Balthazar I’m currently wearing. And my longbow fell into my lap at Fireheart Rise for map completion.

There was no reason to have a gold weapon or prestige armor. That set of prestige armor is 15x more gold, and a good bit more materials, to make for only visual differences. Even a req 9 is questionable. Most physical damage professions would be using a build with the required stat being 12 or higher. And meeting the requirement of a weapon was really a non-issue for magic users, except for offhand/focus items (to get the full +energy). Weapon damage was not a factor for magic users most of the time because it was insignificant, and only used when you weren’t casting spells.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Well max stat gear was very easy later in the game, but not so much easy to get it dropped with a sane Requirement and extra bonuses which you wanted. Such as Energy +5, Armor +5 . . . Health +30 . . .

Yeah, the weapons were a bit harder to come by early on, and the upgrades for them were the hardest part. You relied on your own luck or buying from other players to get upgrades. Collectors were always an option for weapons, and the mob-dropped trophies they took in trade were usually easy enough to get. The addition of unique/green items from boss mobs added a cheap supply of pre-upgraded weapons with a wide variety of stats. When Nightfall came around moving the previously inherent stat onto replacable inscriptions made getting the right weapon stat even easier.

Zero Day.2594:

@stale , sad but true…. GW1, your builds werent locked in by your gear… like i use pvt/zerker for most standard builds, condition builds would require a complete different set…. just feel nostalgic by the name.

The difference was max stat gear was very easy to get in GW1, much easier than exotic in GW2. I’d say somewhere between masterwork and rare gear, in terms of cost/effort.

I thought exotic was a bit much, at first. But after playing for a bit, I didn’t have any issues with the effort in getting exotic gear.

tolunart.2095:

so there is no reason for them to reward players for logging in for 10 hrs a day.

There is no reason to punish them, either. Which is what making the timegates account bound does. While I prefer to not have more powerful gear that is intended to take a long time to acquire, I am completely against limiting that acquisition on an account basis.

I see no issue with allowing players to use their extra playtime to get the same things done on more than one character. They won’t be getting things any faster than someone with only one character. They only players they would be passing by are the ones working on more alts than they had time for, or those not doing every daily bit of progress…who would be behind in any case.

morrolan.9608:

ASB.4295:

Fun Fact: The only reason there’s no direct gear progression in GW1 is because Anet at first didn’t regard their PvE content as anything else but a lengthy tutorial for what they considered was going to become endgame for every single player: PvP

Yet GW1 survived for 7 years and is still going.

I don’t see GW2 lasting that long if they stay on the current direction. They’ll have to keep releasing more and more higher stat gear to keep the main-only progression addicts playing, which is only going to drive away those of us that care about gear for our alts. The more casual players will keep playing till they get tired of the only new content being temporary events.

Will their business model survive on only the single-char subset of hardcores and the casuals?

Do these crowds even use the gemstore? I’m going to guess they don’t, at least not as much as the player groups in between. The single-char progression addicts aren’t as likely to care about the gemstore because it doesn’t make their character more powerful. They might buy gems with gold, but who’s going to be supporting the supply side of the gem market? Do the casuals care enough about the game to spend their real money on it? What will the gem trade market and the gemstore sales be like without the mid-ground of the playerbase?

Hjorje.9453:

I gave ANET the benefit of the doubt when they stated that ascended was supposed to be in there at launch but it didn’t make it. So I am “assuming” this is it and would have been it from the beginning. Now ANET messed up and they should have let us know there was one more tier from the beginning and they just hadn’t time to finish getting it ready before launch instead of just throwing it on us.

I think what was said was that they should have or wished they would have included it at launch. That wasn’t anything more than PR to attempt to calm the outcry against the ascended tier. Pre-release blog posts, interviews, and articles continued to enforce exotic as the highest tier. This remained true even for information coming out a mere few weeks before release.

The ascended tier is a fully post-launch reaction to the minority of players that rushed to finish the personal story, do map completion, get a legendary, and then complained they had nothing to do. They could have suggested making alts, and even getting all of those things for the alts. Instead, they opted to make a move to appease this portion of the playerbase without taking any consideration for the detrimental effects it had on the playstyles of the rest of the community.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Well tell me whats the point getting ascended weapon if their damage will be on par with exotic? +3 power bonuses?

The same point in getting an ascended ring over an exotic ring. Those +stat points, which are more than a +3 difference. I think the accidental upgrade put them at +15-20 over exotics. I’m thinking it was +18 for a 2H weapon.

Just look at an exotic vs ascended ring. The exotic ring(including its gem) gives +92 to its major stat, and the ascended ring gives 103. That’s an 11 point difference. A 1H weapon gives 90 points(almost the same as a ring) and a 2H gives 179 (about 2x a ring or 1H weapon). Expect a similar percentage increase there as well.

Jski.6180:

Molch.2078:

knbBlackTemplar.3059:

Maybe anet should just GIVE ascended weapon for you?

Yes. Why not. I don’t want to work in a frigging game to play the actual frigging game.

Well they did GIVE you top level items when the game first came out and ppl felt that the game lack depth because of this so they made it a bit harder to get ascended items.

I must have missed the exotic gear charity wagon. I had to earn all of the exotics I have. Not that it takes a long time to get them, but they are still earned.

Mikau.6920:

mrstealth.6701:

They do have higher base damage. We saw this back in November when they accidentally buffed legendary weapons to their ascended tier stats. This was quickly patched, but the information was already out.

A greatsword went from 995-1100 to around 1045-1150, a 50 point (approx) increase to the base damage. That’s about 4-5% in just the base damage, the +stats were also increased by an amount comparable to other ascended gear.

If they implement in that way, the ascended weapons will be a must to have. Unlike the trinkets.

Depending on the way to get them, I’ll just leave the game if they implement in that way and be time gated.

I’ll I will not care if they only get a +10/5/5 status boost (or something like that). But again, we have no information of how it’ll be. I’m really concerned…

I hope that base increase is gone, too. But I expect it to still be there when these new weapons show up next week. And a blog post earlier this summer already stated that the new materials will be account bound and daily limited.

The only way around the timegate will be legendaries, so legendaries will now have a somewhat pay2win factor to them. This is, of course, very limited buy the extreme cost/effort of a legendary, but it is still there. Those that already have legendary weapons will have a definite advantage over those that do not until the timegating allows others to obtain ascended weapons.

TooBz.3065:

I hate ascended items. I have them.

Count me into this group. I have them on 2 characters, for a single build on each of those characters. Unfortunately those characters also have 1 and 2 other full sets of trinkets that I couldn’t replace with ascended. I could have replaced another set by now had I not spent laurels on other things like wvw infusions or non-ascended gear related rewards. I also have 6 other characters that I play just as much, that have no ascended trinkets at all.

With 8 characters and almost every one of them having more than 1 build/full set of gear (I want this for them all), it would take me a couple years to get just the ascended trinkets.

I think some people need to re-read this.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success/
That blog lays out exactly what is wrong with this type of gear acquisition system. Yet a few months after this article was posted, Anet went down the very road they had written an entire article chastising.

But what if your business model isn’t one based on a subscription, and your content-design motivations aren’t driven by creating mechanics to keep people playing as long as possible? When looking at content design for Guild Wars 2, we’ve tried to ask the question: What if the development of the game was based on…wait for it…fun?

This is exactly what a timegate is.
And to answer the question….No, Colin. This is not fun.

Zindrix.1750:

MikaHR.1978:

Ayrilana.1396:

There are diminishing returns. Adding 10 power when you have 100 power is not the same as adding 10 power when you have 1,000 power. As you increase power, eventually you reach a point where the increase is only marginal. I believe that there was a thread many months ago with stating this but with toughness.

Theres no dminishing returns in GW2. Period.

Adding 10 is adding 10 power and incresing you damage for that 10 power for same amount whatever your start point is.

Even so, she is ignoring the fact that the weapon could have a higher base damage anyways, which is multiplied by power for your overall attack.

They do have higher base damage. We saw this back in November when they accidentally buffed legendary weapons to their ascended tier stats. This was quickly patched, but the information was already out.

A greatsword went from 995-1100 to around 1045-1150, a 50 point (approx) increase to the base damage. That’s about 4-5% in just the base damage, the +stats were also increased by an amount comparable to other ascended gear.

MrRuin.9740:

If we can outright buy the finished crafted product though and I can just pay to outfit my characters with this new gear……then thats different. Is this confirmed? Or is this stuff account/soul-bound on aquire? Or still an unknown?

Colin Johanson

Looking Ahead: GW2 in 2013 blog post
New Crafting Material Rewards
We’ll also add a new set of account-bound crafting materials to the game. You’ll receive these materials as guaranteed rewards once per day per unique location for completing content within a category of gameplay in Guild Wars 2.
For example, capturing camps, towers, and keeps in WvW will earn you these crafting materials. In the Living World, you can earn them for killing giant world bosses, defeating dungeons, completing jumping puzzles, completing mini-dungeons, finishing some types of guild missions, capturing temples in Orr, and other activities.

Unless they’ve made some major changes in their plan, this is going to be completely account bound from crafting to finished product. They want getting ascended gear to take forever, so they aren’t going to let you buy it.

DJRiful.3749:

Lazy people who just want to deck out at start. What is the point of the game then?

The same as all those games that have no gear at all. To play because you enjoy playing it.

Having goals can motivate playing more, and be enjoyable themselves, but those goals do not have to involve making your character stronger. And as myself and others have said, it’s not even really getting stronger, because everyone else gets stronger too. Having 10% more HP/damage doesn’t matter when your opponent has 10% more HP/damage too.

I don’t see any reason why it would have been so hard to add a bit of gear progression to GW1. Adding armor with increased protection, weapons with higher damage, runes with better stats, or even allowing more attribute points to spend should be fairly easy. It wouldn’t mess up balance because everything goes up at the same rate for everyone, which is also why vertical progression is pointless. You get 10% stronger, but so does the other guy/the enemy.

pvp balance wouldn’t have been effected at all, because pvp characters in GW1 started out with max gear anyway. The only balance issues at all would have been from the time required for the gear grinds/progression hindering new players, alts, and gear sets for alternate builds…which are the problems we are facing in GW2 right now.

While it’s true that pvp was intended to be the major part of GW1’s end game, even after it became obvious that the fanbase was more interested in pve, vertical progression wasn’t left out because it wasn’t possible. Vertical progression was left out because they didn’t want it. It was clear they didn’t want it for GW2 as well, till they decided to start pandering to the fans of other games instead of their own fans.

GW1 became stale because it was an old game, with technological limitations in the gameplay mechanics. Things like the combat system, or the quest system not being adaptable to the more active and dynamic systems they wanted for GW2. It became stale because they had created more skills than they were capable of balancing. It was stale because there were very few people working on new content late in the game’s life.

fellyn.5083:

There is always going to be some one new. Why are you choosing to fight over ascended gear which will be in the game forever instead of the past year of live story events that are never coming back? The AP from those if you missed them is gone for ever and so are the rewards. Most of them in the horizontal progression that you say is so important.

At what point did I say that temporary content or AP were fine? I actually think all of the temp content is a terrible idea, because the “expansion worth of content” added is no longer in the game. But this, is not the place to discuss that. So stop trying to derail the discussion because you don’t agree with it.

I also made no claim here that horizontal progression was important. I prefer it to the way they are handling the vertical progression, but again, this is not the topic to discuss that. If you have nothing to bring up that is related to this discussion, create your own topic to discuss whatever you would like.

I agree that it’s better that the ascended gear is bound this way than being outright purchasable with gold. Given the nature of the gear, if it was tradable, the prices would be prohibitively high. This could always be done with exotic gear, but it didn’t matter much because exotic gear was made fairly easily available from multiple sources.

The problems with the account-bound timegating are with alts and new players. If the timegating was removed entirely, then you’d have those with the most time to play (I know I fall into this group) being able to rapidly gear up characters. I suppose that could be a problem itself, although I think it’s less of one. I think the mid-ground might be the best solution. Keep the existing timegates, but make them character bound. Earning a laurel would give each character a laurel to spend, or perhaps a secondary “light” daily for alts to earn their laurel.

Character-binding the timegating would still prevent anyone from rushing the process and getting a character geared up too fast, while allowing those with the time for alts to be able to gear them up in a reasonable fashion.

Xista.7391:

I really don’t see how ascended gear will lock people into playing a certain spec….

Because there are a lot of players that want to be using the best stat items in their build. I somewhat fall into this group, but I’d still use another set of gear if the situation required it.

If I have one set of gear that’s giving me 10% higher stats, I’m going to want to use that set as much as possible because it’s giving my character the highest stats I can get. It’s like having a favorite shirt or a favorite pair of shoes, except it actually gives you a benefit to using it over something else.