Guild Wars 2

A bunch of gear grinders bought a game advertised as not having a gear grind and then left? How is this an argument for a gear grind?

This is not my first MMO, my 50e says hi. Making gear that you spent months obtaining subpar is not a benefit, it’s exploitive and an insult to the very concept of a reward for such an effort.

But here’s a thought, merge all of the threads started that are for a gear grind. We’ll see how big that topic gets and measure the overall tone of it.

Southern Lord.7254:

I don’t understand all of the anger towards Anet at the minute.

This is an MMORPG. RPG games, since the dawn of time, have been about stats and vertical progression.

Anet has, from what I understand, introduced 1 end game tier dungeon, and items needed to progress in this dungeon, and everyone is acting like this is the death of the game.

Am I missing something? Surely you can choose not to do this dungeon? It is specifically aimed at those who want to grind, which is what the other 50% of the fanbase has been moaning about since launch.

This is meant to appease them, not alienate you. Why is this such a bad thing? I honestly don’t understand…

So your argument is that new ideas are bad and games should never try to do anything different from before? Guess what, this game was sold as being different from other MMOs, and the lack of a gear grind or any power differentiation between those that grind and those that don’t was a large part of that. It was built upon the legacy of a game that while more lobby than MMO proved the viability of an obtainable gear plateau and horizontal progression.

And yes, let’s just chose to not play the hardest high-end content with the coolest (and now statistically best) rewards when there was already a distinct lack of any sort of challenge in the game. This is seriously one of the most narrow-minded arguments and yet one of the most spewed.

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

Bonefield.9813:

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

Bonefield.9813:

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

Hell why even have levels in the first place. Why is Orr “gated content”? I don’t have the time to get my Mesmer to 80, I want to run Arah at level 10?

If you accept the concept of levels in MMOs, you must accept the concept of gear progression as well.

Anet has to keep people interested in the game.

If you want a static environment, play sPVP, or play a single player game.

I can only speak for myself, but gear progression stops being interesting for me at max level because I realize that I’m not actually making my character stronger. I’m just keeping up with the monsters, which are only getting stronger to keep up with the need to make me work for more gear. It’s fun up to cap because my character is actually growing. What keeps me interested after that is new content, new gameplay modes, new areas, and so on. I have left other games because all resources have to go to making new endgame encounters and gear to keep people who must continue improving their characters in order to stay interested busy.

There is no difference in progress pre-80 versus post-80.

One is stat increases from experience, and the other is stat increases from drops.

Both drops and experience comes from killing mobs, doing hearts DE’s etc.

Maybe you can prance around at 80 and pick flowers, but like I’ve already said in this thread, when I invest my time and money into an MMO, it is to see my ‘guy’ stronger when I log off than when I logged in. I doubt I am alone here.

What makes leveling interesting for me is the ability to visit new areas and access more content as I get higher level. To a lesser extent, it’s things like traits and skills which let me change the way I play. Just because I’m not attached to watching numbers tick up doesn’t mean I want to prance around picking flowers at max level.

I get the vertical versus horizontal progression argument. I think there is a bit of burnout in the MMO community on sheer vertical progression after level cap. I think that is in part why you see people on these forums jumping down Anets throat for this new gear level (which c’mon guys, is fairly trivial).

The problem is that there is no progression at all in this game at level cap, neither vertical nor horizontal.

Shortly after level 30, I’ve unlocked nearly every single weapon and utility skill I will ever get. That’s pathetic.

At level 60 I’ve unlocked the top traits for my class, and that is artificially held back because each trait line is only 30 points.

I want something to play for. I like exploration too, but that only holds my attention for so long. I can never get more skills, so the only way I can improve is newer, and better gear.

So how about arguing for more skills intead of begging to be treated like a hamster?

Mmm, the problem with trying to do more with hammer is that it already does so much. Looking at it as straight damage is a little misleading. It has 3 interrupts, a knockdown, knockback, and stun. The knockback and stun are aoe and the stun comes at the end of a gap closer. It has defense in the form of weakness. It has an AOE cripple. And its attack chain is of course AOE. All of this while still putting out still respectable damage.

Now, if you trait for it you will do 25% more damage to disabled foes, which will be in good supply considering its skills, while gaining some pretty snappy cds. Really it boils down to not grading every weapon solely on their base dps. It’s clear that the hammer is a control weapon and control is pretty powerful by itself. Combine this with a traited mace/shield or mace/mace and you become a stun/kd/interrupt/defense machine that’s impossible to go toe to toe against unless your enemy has good stability + burst or defiant in pve. There are simply not enough cantrips in the game to deal with it.

Altogether I’d say hammer does just about everything we’d expect from GW1. As far as the attack chain’s final skill, I’d say it’s mostly fine, it does have an added effect in 360 AOE making it easier to hit with even though it’s not exactly something you’d beg for in pvp. But I don’t think adding a blast finisher to it would be too much, in fact I’d say that’s all it needs.

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

The Agony mechanic wasn’t introduced at the start of the dungeon so that everybody can experience the content. While one of the goals of the Fractals of the Mists dungeon was to provide some difficult content for players looking for a challenge, we also wanted the dungeon to be available for everybody to experience. While getting far into the dungeon requires agony resistance from ascended gear, the content was designed to provide challenging content, and to allow players to choose what difficulty they wanted to play at.

Just can’t swallow that difficulty == gear check mechanic. I’m sorry but it’s either lazy design or its intentions reach beyond providing challenging content. And I don’t doubt for a minute that ANet has hired anything less than talented designers. I want challenging content. I don’t want artificial gates and gear checks that provide no value beyond catering to a group of players that gain their bragging rights from skill shallow efforts.

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

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

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

Like others have said, there is a very large difference between exclusion because the content is challenging and requires higher than average skill and exclusion because of gear and other gating mechanisms. The former can be taught or demonstrated to a new player in short order. The latter being one of the major downsides of the hamster wheel model and the aspect this system seems to aspire to the most.

But here’s a question, what of those of us who want real challenge out of endgame content without the lazy gear checks and gating mechanisms? You know, content with the core concepts that were actually revolutionary and inspired in GW. GW2 had a chance to show the industry and players that these concepts were not only viable but made for an even more fun and rewarding endgame, yet it lacked them (and still does) on a very basic level.

It’s still a crumby system that bases advancement through high-end content on your level of grind rather than your own skill. And even then if that were removed it still segregates the population based on your unlocked difficulty making it more difficult to find groups than necessary, especially if you don’t start grinding out the tiers at the start of the week.

I’m sorry but this doesn’t get to the core of the issue that this system is vertical progression with gating. It may be “just for the dungeon” but this dungeon is now our high-end endgame, just because you don’t want to play at the highest levels doesn’t mean it’s problem solved if you don’t feel you have to. There are those of us who do and we will still have to deal with all of the negatives of these archaic and lazy design mechanisms.

And no, real hardcore players aren’t the ones that need their success at content to be defined by how long they’ve spent adding numbers to their gear. They want an even playing field because there’s no other way to gauge your skill against others.

mulch.2586:

Columba.9730:

GADefence.5634:

“Well you can seemingly run t1 and get the one item that you need from these dungeons but if you cant do that much may be you do not need these items because its just so painful that your reward of the “self view” ideal that your week in wvw. Its on you to get your gear to what level you want its no one else job to tell you how to play or what to do.”

O.o

Dear god, the community’s collective intelligence must have flatlined after the WoW locusts returned.

Do I really have to tell you why this is really a bad statement?

This game should not be a JOB. T6 mats are goign to skyrocket. These people probably bought gold (and considering how conditioned they are to it in WoW I doubt from ANet’s gem store), the dungeons are 50% boring, and this is going against ANet’s do anything (WvW sPvP real PvE dungeons) philosophy.

So wrong, so many levels.

Agreed. So I am forced to endure misery to compete in WvWvW now? Isn’t this the opposite of their promise to us?

You’re not forced. Even more, you’ll compete just as well in WvW if you don’t endure misery.

WvW is not like pvp in GW2. Your build, your gear really doesn’t contribute very much to the whole endeavor. A few stat points isn’t going to matter a lick. And if you’re the kind of player who needs every point he can get, you’re still gonna suck no matter what.

Relax and trust that by the time ascended gear gets past 3 accessory slots, by the time it makes a statistically-discernible difference, there’ll be a bunch of ways you can get that gear.

It doesn’t matter as much at the zergs, but whether you’re running supplies, scouting, ganking yakks, taking the pve objectives, or just getting back to the zerg after dying there are still plenty of instances where 1v1s or small fights occur. Yes it will matter.

Glass cannons getting mad about being blown up by other glass cannons and calling out imbalances seems legit. As for iBerserker, that’s a ranged skill you don’t have to put yourself in harms way to use and unless it’s killed it will continue to do damage on its own. Ranged does less damage than melee because it’s safer and easier to use. Not saying whether or not that was necessary but it does indicate proper balance reasoning.

Namu.5712:

vox.5019:

Namu.5712:

Garenthal.1480:

It isn’t ‘easy’ to obtain at all. It involves a grind, be it a direct or indirect one. Some people will be lucky enough to be able to throw gold at anything they need, which isn’t ideal for those of us who don’t devote our time to grinding money.

Time to wake up buddy.

Getting to 80 was a grind.

Getting your exotics guess what…. oh thats right it was a grind.

I like how people seem to think that with ascended gear theres now a grind…. it was there all along. What do some of you smoke?

Such depth of understanding, I’m in awe of the intelligence. It’s called a plateau, you don’t walk right up to the mountain and suddenly find yourself at the top, you climb it. But once you get there you find that it’s a wide open space with many things to do that don’t involve the pointless exertion of endless climbing for a peak that keeps moving up the further you go.

Hey I was just pointing out that there was grind there in every part of the game even at endgame there are different grinds.

New gear is just another form of the grind.

And you don’t know its endless…. I don’t see why people keep blowing things out of the water. technically they are saying ascended is the last tier, but you will need to basically get infusion’s in the future.

So I fail to see how them adding one tier of gear in end game is a endless grind? Or can you read the future and your magic ball said there is going to be a new tier of gear every content update? Oh right you don’t know.

It’s called logic. Simple comprehension. Interpolation. Which type of player are they attempting to capture with this sort of system? And what will they have to do to keep them interested once they achieve these goals? Right.

Columba.9730:

I just did three of these dungeons. didn’t finish one. I hate this garbage. Hate it with a passion. I can’t believe I am being forced to do this stuff that I loathe just to be competitive in wvwvw.

Please tell us when this will be available in wvwvw? If I have to do another dungeon I will shoot myself, seriously.

Considering that it’s meant to be a grind relevant to the “hardcore” (laugh) raid gear grinders, when it becomes available in w3 it will be like trying to get ap conditioned eternals solely through pvp in Aion. Otherwise everybody would just go to w3 to get it.

morbidillusion.2759:

vox.5019:

Namu.5712:

Garenthal.1480:

It isn’t ‘easy’ to obtain at all. It involves a grind, be it a direct or indirect one. Some people will be lucky enough to be able to throw gold at anything they need, which isn’t ideal for those of us who don’t devote our time to grinding money.

Time to wake up buddy.

Getting to 80 was a grind.

Getting your exotics guess what…. oh thats right it was a grind.

I like how people seem to think that with ascended gear theres now a grind…. it was there all along. What do some of you smoke?

Such depth of understanding, I’m in awe of the intelligence. It’s called a plateau you don’t walk right up to the mountain and suddenly find yourself at the top, you climb it. But once you get there you find that it’s a wide open space with many things to do that don’t involve the pointless exertion of endless climbing for a peak that keeps moving up the further you go.

GW2 doesn’t have plateaus – it has asymptotes.

Man was not meant to challenge infinity, infinity will always win

Namu.5712:

Garenthal.1480:

It isn’t ‘easy’ to obtain at all. It involves a grind, be it a direct or indirect one. Some people will be lucky enough to be able to throw gold at anything they need, which isn’t ideal for those of us who don’t devote our time to grinding money.

Time to wake up buddy.

Getting to 80 was a grind.

Getting your exotics guess what…. oh thats right it was a grind.

I like how people seem to think that with ascended gear theres now a grind…. it was there all along. What do some of you smoke?

Such depth of understanding, I’m in awe of the intelligence. It’s called a plateau, you don’t walk right up to the mountain and suddenly find yourself at the top, you climb it. But once you get there you find that it’s a wide open space with many things to do that don’t involve the pointless exertion of endless climbing for a peak that keeps moving up the further you go.

Mephane.8496:

William Fairfield.1428:

There is also a new MgF/Vit/Tuf in the Fractals. It’s called Wayfarer.

Sounds like that is the perfect Magic Find gear for dungeons – highest chances for loot with maximum survivability, at the expense of damage, healing etc. Which somewhat even proves the OP’s point.

Vitality is actually terrible against agony as it is a percentage of your health. When your health goes up because of the vitality stat on your armor your healing does not, meaning any direct heals or regen will counter less agony than if you did not have that extra vitality. All I see is another underhanded trick to force players of endgame content onto the hamster wheel.

Some people are just too indoctrinated to understand what a gear plateau is or means. Even if you tie them down and tattoo it into their forehead they would still come up with arguments that are completely irrelevant to it and show a total lack of even the most basic understanding of the concept.

warmonkey.8013:

tyu.9470:

Non-Casuals: Let us have this small tiny piece of content to do hardcore and hard stuff and push the limits.

You wanna push limits, try doing harder and harder content in the SAME gear. Getting better gear doesn’t mean you’re doing any better, it means you don’t HAVE TO do any better. Your gear is carrying you.

This. It always makes me laugh at all the bads who think accomplishing something because of the numbers on their gear makes them skillful and hardcore. No, it just makes you a hamster.

Because it’s not worth coming up with new ways to say it for people that 99% of the time are too stoneheaded to listen or consider a new thought.

vox.5019:

Mike.9185:

if they didnt add gear than we would have had a thousand posts saying “whats the point of new content if the stats are the same QQ” theres new stuff to do that is more challenging thus requires better rewards.

why would you do an insanely hard dungeon (fractals of the mists) if you get the same awards grinding an easy 1

This and posts like it completely miss the mark. We did areas harder than anything GW2 has, and I would put money on being harder than the fractals. Areas where the difficulty was a skill check not a gear check. And we did it for rewards that were no more powerful than anything else you could get within a day of making your character. Why? Because they were the rarest and most difficult to obtain items. We got all of the prestige of the rarest and coolest looking items plus the prestige of completing content that many couldn’t even though they had the exact same tools as us.

We also knew beyond any doubt that the item we worked so hard to obtain, months in some cases, would never be made worthless by new content updates. It would be with us for years or as long as we cared to use it. That creates a true and lasting attachment to your gear, your rewards, that you can never have with progression gear.

And if someone had no interest, was casual, took a break for a few months, just started a new character, w/e, it didn’t matter, they could still play in the same world as us. They could even do the exact same content with us if they ever did want to because there was no artificial gear barrier that they would have to grind for half a year to pass. How much have you heard them say that GW2 is about bringing players together? How much of the launch content was designed to do exactly that? Well guess what, horizontal progression goes hand in hand with that concept. Vertical progression tosses it out of the window.

That’s the Guild Wars paradigm. That’s what horizontal progression and ungated content means. That’s what separated it from the ocean of generic gear grinds. That’s what we played for years. That’s what we expected in GW2, and were lead to believe we would have. And that’s why we’re angry.

Some conditioned to running in a hamster wheel say “things change.” I say, why are you trying to make them the same?

WoW is all about tiered gated content. They want to attract that population, ergo this entire new system is built around exactly that. What, you thought GW2 was about bringing players together? What on earth gave you that idea?

I’d argue against it with well thought out reasoning and easy to follow formatting, but as GW2 is just another generic MMO now, why not.

The saddest part. The only people at ANet that will ever actually read all of the thoughtful posts in this thread, are the mods who are just looking for any violations that need infractions.

ANet is owned by the Korean F2P industry now, these gambling addiction items are never going away, get used to it.

CharrGirl.7896:

So if most people are obviously against this, why do they still push it on us?

This doesn’t sound like the Anet we know.

It hasn’t been the ANet we know for a while now. I remember when they were active all over the place in community discussions back in GW1. Now aside from some basic technical matters and PR we never hear from them. They’ve turtled up just like most Korean F2P MMO developers that rely on hamster wheels and gambling addiction cash shops. Because they know if they stick their heads out to take a peek it’ll get chopped off by the hordes of customers they anger just to make a buck.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see that their management and culture have changed to follow the style of some of the worst businesses the gaming industry has to offer. I just hope the artists and forward thinkers still left make it out to other companies more deserving of their talents.

Mike.9185:

if they didnt add gear than we would have had a thousand posts saying “whats the point of new content if the stats are the same QQ” theres new stuff to do that is more challenging thus requires better rewards.

why would you do an insanely hard dungeon (fractals of the mists) if you get the same awards grinding an easy 1

This and posts like it completely miss the mark. We did areas harder than anything GW2 has, and I would put money on being harder than the fractals. Areas where the difficulty was a skill check not a gear check. And we did it for rewards that were no more powerful than anything else you could get within a day of making your character. Why? Because they were the rarest and most difficult to obtain items. We got all of the prestige of the rarest and coolest looking items plus the prestige of completing content that many couldn’t even though they had the exact same tools as us.

We also knew beyond any doubt that the item we worked so hard to obtain, months in some cases, would never be made worthless by new content updates. It would be with us for years or as long as we cared to use it. That creates a true and last attachment to your gear, your rewards, that you can never have with progression gear.

And if someone had no interest, was casual, took a break for a few months, just started a new character, w/e, it didn’t matter, they could still play in the same world as us. They could even do the exact same content with us if they ever did want to because there was no artificial gear barrier that they would have to grind for half a year to pass. How much have you heard them say that GW2 is about bringing players together? How much of the launch content was designed to do exactly that? Well guess what, horizontal progression goes hand in hand with that concept. Vertical progression tosses it out of the window.

That’s the Guild Wars paradigm. That’s what horizontal progression and ungated content means. That’s what separated it from the ocean of generic gear grinds. That’s what we played for years. That’s what we expected in GW2, and were lead to believe we would have. And that’s why we’re angry.

Some conditioned to running in a hamster wheel say “things change.” I say, why are you trying to make them the same?

Something tells me the phantasm nerf is going to start making Mesmers see “obstructed” when trying to cast them like other ranged attacks do on occasion.

Should we head on down to the thief forum and gloat?

Seriously though, I’m glad LB got a little love.

LFM must have +6 Epic Staff of Awesome Noob Slaying. Oh wait…

I laid all of this stuff out 2 days ago.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Some-things-you-may-have-missed/first#post715275
What you fail to realize is that there are many of us who were looking forward to challenging content on an even playing field. The real hardcore players for whom skill is king. If you want to know what that kind of content looks like go play in The Underworld in GW. Or if you’re really nuts and think you’re hardcore yourself, Domain of Anguish. In those places it was your team’s skill and build that determined success not some gear check, you could have all of the gear you needed within a day of making your character. The people who want to spend large amounts of time grinding for numbers on their gear in order to do content where their success is determined by those numbers are NOT hardcore players. They are quite the opposite.

You cannot measure skill unless the field is equal, period. I get that people who think GW2’s dungeons are hard won’t care about this content being gated, but we don’t and we will care about dealing with this crummy mechanic.

Urxx.6840:

vox.5019:

Exactly, it all basically points to this being a decision, made long before release, to shift from the Guild Wars paradigm to more standard MMO fare. While still espousing the Guild Wars paradigm. These are the things at the core of my disapproval.

Not only that. I’m not one of those fundamentalists that says GW2 must be identical to GW1 in all its mechanics.

Departures exist already and a lot of them improve things.

But then, if you ANet want to be honest and respect your customers, you talk about ascended gear right from the start.

At least if I invest in exotics it’s an informed decision, because I know an higher tier is coming.

This way it’s not. It’s insulting our intelligence. Sneaking in a new tier like we were idiots and couldn’t understand the implications it carries with it, after you repeated for years that having to grind to get items higher in power was not ok.

Agreed there too. Had I been informed, my own decision would have been that this wasn’t the game for me and oh well, sad to see it’s not going to be the GW that I wanted but no biggie, stuff happens. But I guess it’s not that far of a leap to conclude that that’s exactly why they didn’t let us know before release.

Sky.9347:

“As we watch Guild Wars 2 mature in its Live environment, we have found that our most dedicated players were achieving their set of Exotic gear and hitting “the Legendary wall.” We designed the process of getting Legendary gear to be a long term goal, but players were ready to start on that path much sooner than we expected and were becoming frustrated with a lack of personal progression. Our desire is to create a game that is more inclusive for hardcore and casual players alike, but we don’t want to overlook the basic need for players to feel like they are progressing and growing even after hitting max level. Adding item progression is a delicate process normally undertaken in an expansion, but we feel it’s important to strive to satisfy the basic needs of our players sooner rather than later.”
- Linsey Murdock

---

This has been bothering me too.

First of all – I take issue with how you use the term “dedicated players” to mean those who consume content at a rate MUCH higher than you expected. That isn’t dedication.

Second of all – Adding item progression is a delicate process normally undertaken in an expansion. Say what? When has ANet ever released an expansion that adds item progression?

Thirdly – “basic need” is not correct. I have a basic need for food and warmth. There is no “basic need” for an artificially inflated set of gear to work towards so that I always feel as if I have a goal to pursue that will result in the increased power of a video game character. In fact, I don’t even have a non-basic need for such a thing. While we’re at it… I don’t even have a desire for it, much less a need at all.

Exactly, it all basically points to this being a decision, made long before release, to shift from the Guild Wars paradigm to more standard MMO fare. While still espousing the Guild Wars paradigm. These are the things at the core of my disapproval.

Warrior in Cursed Shores fights 10 Risen at once only with extreme awareness, tactics based on high levels of game knowledge, and accurate reflex and response.

Mesmer in Cursed Shores fights 10 Risen at once by spamming illusions, teleports, and AOE until it all dies, almost without even paying attention.

Some classes aren’t as lucky as either at fighting large groups of Risen solo, but there are still some that can.

At low levels, sure, Warrior is a little easier but it’s also just as easy to bite off more than you can chew because you don’t really have the tools to deal with too much aggro other than running away. Some other classes can be more forgiving in that regard if you study their mechanics and learn how to really play them.

Galen Grey.4709:

As we introduce the new high-level content, we’ll also roll out complimentary Ascended and Legendary items (to say nothing of the other rewards you can earn by playing the content).

So far we don’t know what this means obviously so it could be nothing but it could also be there will be single events that give away a basic version of ascended armor as it is introduced much like the back item given away at halloween!

Misprint. She meant complementary. Items that go with the new content. Do you really think they’ll be giving away free legendaries

I challenge the assertion that the people who like grinding out gear to do content are the “hardcore” crowd. I come from fighting games, STGs, and FPS’s. Hardcore players are the people with the dedication to spend crazy levels of effort to study mechanics and hone their own skill, or that of their team, to the point where demonstrating that skill by defeating the most challenging content or opponent looks as easy as walking.

People who repeatedly perform easy tasks to get numbers on their gear in order to accomplish other tasks whose results determined by those numbers are not.

This is what hardcore looks like, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvFTQCkH-Zw
And this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ENJmEJI8d8

I could link competition LoL or other games but it would be less obvious what’s happening in them to those who don’t play them. And while competitive multiplayer games are a breeding ground for hardcore players it’s not the only place you’ll find them. You’ll see it in those Guitar Hero prodigy videos, Quake Done Quick, Wipeout HD recordings, or anywhere else someone is defeating the most challenging content in a way that would make most people rethink just how good they actually are at whichever game.

There is one thing all of these game environments have that enables hardcore players to do their thing and that is an even playing field. You can install and load up the very same game and attempt the very same things they did using the very same tools that they had. Because that’s the only way you can really know how good they and you are. And the lack of even playing fields is why the highest level of competition for hardcore players, esports comps, don’t run MMOs. ANet knows this and that’s why their pvp with esports ambitions has no gear differential, but those of us who are hardcore players in pve aren’t as fortunate it seems.

Gated is gated. Without grinding the infusions can you play through all of the difficulties as those who have? No. Gated.

The argument that “you need a certain level of gear to complete anything” is exactly what this is all about. With the gear plateaued you can expect everyone to eventually have the gear required and thus eventually they will all be able to play all of the content with anybody else. And nobody’s going to gear check you before letting you into the party if it’s easy enough to obtain that there’s no way to not have it. The factors that content is designed for after that, is how dedicated you and your team are to improving your own game knowledge and skill rather than repeating easy tasks for more numbers on your gear.

As to the OP, those are my hopes as well.

There is alot of confusion right now about the future of this game and the uncertainty is only serving to divide the community. So I’m requesting a simple statement regarding the following questions.

• Will there be new high-end content requiring different infusions or other such gear mechanics?

• Will there be rewards that can only reasonably be obtained by playing in the higher difficulty gated levels of such content?

• Is the new gear-check system the only type of high-end content we can expect? If not, can we look forward to high-end content that we can challenge as far as possible, using the exotics that we have now?

• Will new item tiers ever be added?

• Will the level cap ever be raised in such a way that we must also upgrade our gear?

Thank you.
-A Fan, Ascalonian and proud

Kelvran.9047:

vox.5019:

Kelvran.9047:

The full ascended armor will be rolled out slowly, probably so that the demand for resources won’t send the markets into shock. According to Linsey Murdock, “As we introduce the new high-level content, we’ll also roll out complimentary Ascended and Legendary items (to say nothing of the other rewards you can earn by playing the content).” They’re giving them away. Anet want us all to have them. At least the initial rings and backpacks. As for the rest of the set pieces they can control the difficulty of acquiring them by changing the drop rates as needed. They can’t do that (at least not directly) with crafted exotics, karma Orr exotics or dungeon token exotics, which many of us have already.

So they’re giving out free Legendaries now? Honestly it’s pretty obvious that she meant “complementary.” Gear that goes with the new content. Dunno how this free ascendeds myth is spreading.

I just quoted what she wrote. If its a myth I didn’t start it

Regardless, the point I was making was that the infusions are what will drive gem sales and resource grinding, the actual gear item probably won’t matter much in the long run.

I’m not sure about how the MF stuff will work but it is possible, I certainly wouldn’t put it past them. You are dead on about the gear tier itself though, they abstracted the treadmill away from the gear and placed it on the gear’s upgrades (even though you’ll probably need a new set for the next gate mechanic so you can keep doing the old one.)

Kelvran.9047:

The full ascended armor will be rolled out slowly, probably so that the demand for resources won’t send the markets into shock. According to Linsey Murdock, “As we introduce the new high-level content, we’ll also roll out complimentary Ascended and Legendary items (to say nothing of the other rewards you can earn by playing the content).” They’re giving them away. Anet want us all to have them. At least the initial rings and backpacks. As for the rest of the set pieces they can control the difficulty of acquiring them by changing the drop rates as needed. They can’t do that (at least not directly) with crafted exotics, karma Orr exotics or dungeon token exotics, which many of us have already.

So they’re giving out free Legendaries now? Honestly it’s pretty obvious that she meant “complementary.” Gear that goes with the new content. Dunno how this free ascendeds myth is spreading.

Wreckdum.8367:

Gear grind used to be a way to show initiative. You could tell who actually cared about the game and would put in the work. Now you have people who have no idea how to play but they are wearing the same gear as you…

We had just that in GW1. What you just described is the desire to show off your initiative and how hard you were willing to work. That’s called prestige. All of our GW1 mega grinds were purely about prestige.

Also just because someone has Super Ultra Awesome Staff of Noob Pwnage doesn’t mean they play better that someone without. I saw that daily in Aion.

There is no direct correlation between “things to do” and stat grind. It’s simply the most commonly used method to keep players doing things in your game. GW1 was different, and GW2 was supposed to be different.

toomuchtatose.6874:

Skykiller.3160:

vox.5019:

Skykiller.3160:

morrolan.9608:

Skykiller.3160:

Seriously guys they are adding ONE new tier to items! ONE! They have already said that they will not be adding more.

No they haven’t.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside “We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.” I rest my case…

I rest his case.

Lol sounds like you need to go back to school they said: “We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.” Which also means after 3 months there still wont be any new tiers…..

Nah no new tiers, but more types of infusion based thingies which (+Ascended gear) makes runes/sigils/etc. obsolete.

Yeah that’s the most likely, and what I personally believe. Just stepping in on someone else’s argument for fun.

Also for the argument that casuals don’t produce as much income, I would just like to point out that Call of Duty is an FPS for casuals.

Skykiller.3160:

morrolan.9608:

Skykiller.3160:

Seriously guys they are adding ONE new tier to items! ONE! They have already said that they will not be adding more.

No they haven’t.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside “We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.” I rest my case…

I rest his case.

Zaxares.5419:

On the Infusion topic, I don’t believe it is a true “gating” mechanism. Yes, the Fractals dungeon will have the Agony mechanic, but from reading the blog post by Leah, it sounds as if Agony will only start kicking in if you decide to hang around in the dungeon for longer than 1 or 2 “runs”. Thus, a player kitted out in Exotics (or even Rares or Masterworks) could still join a group and complete 1 run through the dungeon. But if they decide to stay for a second or third time, then Agony will make that increasingly difficult.

I still don’t really understand why ANet decided to increase the stats for Ascended items though. I think if they had scrapped that idea altogether and just have Ascended items be items with an additional Infusion slot (and give players the ability to add Infusion slots to existing armor/equipment through crafting), it would avoided a lot of this kerfuffle.

Yes you can do the lower levels, you just can’t get to the higher levels with the better loot until you’ve properly grinded.

Kejima.4613:

At least a small treadmill will definitely come.
The infusions will be some kind of treadmill.

It will start at blue(or was it white?) and climb up the ladder.
But what happens when it reaches Ascended or Legendary?
Will they continue to add Ascended or Legendary infusions which get stronger and stronger but stay on same rarity level?

Kejima – Isuke Kejima(GW1)

They’ll add new content with new mechanics (new agonies) requiring new infusions. So yeah it’s a treadmill. Only instead of grinding for gear every update you’re grinding infusions. Except that you’ll probably wanna keep your old infusion gear around and start a new infusion set so you can still do the old content…

Yes thank you for adding a gear treadmill to a game that was supposed to be different. And then calling it something else in the hopes people wouldn’t notice.

I love content, I love challenge. Gear checks are neither.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

vox.5019:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

they said thay didnt want a gear tredmill, this is not adding a gear tredmill

the closest tredmill like aspect of this hole thing is just How far into the Fractals you can get

in no way dose this new gear lock you out of content

It locks you out of the deeper levels of fractals and their higher rewards. Is fractals suddenly not content?

OH kitten@@@$)#$Q(Y *headdesk working as intended

the fractals are a gontlet like progression bassed new game type in the mist that you can do at any level. It dosnt lock you out. you can go in fight your hart out untell you cant fight any more Get new gear and do it all over again getting more and more gear each time

THUS being able to fight longer and longer each time. you are not locked out of jack

Maybe if you stopped smashing your head into your desk you wouldn’t be so dense. The point is that gear has anything at all to do with how far you get. Just because you get to play an easy mode version of a raid until it gives you gear to do the hard mode version doesn’t change a thing.

tkalamba.2541:

vox.5019:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

they said thay didnt want a gear tredmill, this is not adding a gear tredmill

the closest tredmill like aspect of this hole thing is just How far into the Fractals you can get

in no way dose this new gear lock you out of content

It locks you out of the deeper levels of fractals and their higher rewards. Is fractals suddenly not content?

You can do all 9 portions of the dungeon without encountering Agony, so no it does not lock you out of content. If you wish to proceed into the higher difficulty runs, which are still the same 9 sections, then Agony will play a role, but you can still do the 9 sections.

Your point being? If I want to challenge the higher difficulty levels to get the best loot, I have to play the gated tiered gear WoW clone. I am locked from the groups doing those higher levels until I have grinded out the same amount of Infusion as they have.

And then when we get new content like this the mechanics change and we have to grind for new infusions all over again. It doesn’t matter if this is the last gear base stat tier, we are still running the treadmill.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

they said thay didnt want a gear tredmill, this is not adding a gear tredmill

the closest tredmill like aspect of this hole thing is just How far into the Fractals you can get

in no way dose this new gear lock you out of content

It locks you out of the deeper levels of fractals and their higher rewards. Is fractals suddenly not content?

• Ascended gear and agony infusion is required to progress to the higher levels of this endgame content
• New endgame content will require new gear or infusions to protect against new mechanics

How is this not a treadmill? Just because they abstracted the gear grind into the stat grind (and not even very well at that) doesn’t mean you’re not running on it. If you like running challenging endgame content and came here because you wouldn’t see your efforts reduced to nil every update, you’re SOL.

Baron Von Graymouse.7801:

Its funny that most people people where complaining and upset that Legendary weapons had the same stats that the exotics have and that the Legendary weapons are only a cosmetic change. Well, Anet listened and now they are finally making Legendary weapons the way they should have been in the first place. Legendary weapons are suppose to be the most powerful items in the game. Not some re-skinned exotic weapons. I applaud Anet for this! With the introduction to Ascended items it puts the Exotics lower on the totem pole where they belong. Underneath Ascended/Legendary items. All these guys that are saying they are going to stop playing will still be playing the game it may not be this month or the next but I bet my bottom gold piece if you track those that said they are going to be quitting they will still be around. So, stop your belly aching and enjoy the new content.

Where in any information that ANet had previously released did they say that Legendaries were supposed to be more powerful? They stated quite the opposite numerous times. They were supposed to be prestige items. Like every other carrot in GW and the other carrots they said we would be chasing in GW2.

Not that the point is relevant at all as they’re still not the most powerful thing in the game, they’ll still be on par with every other Ascended weapon.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

vox.5019:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

vox.5019:

If the only point to the dungeon was to get gear to go further into the dungeon then why play it? That’s not the case, there will be high-end rewards that are not related solely to the dungeon. And to get to them you need to get to the higher levels of the dungeon requiring as much infusion as you can get.

I say nonsense. Can you give me a source for that?

“As we introduce the new high-level content, we’ll also roll out complimentary Ascended and Legendary items (to say nothing of the other rewards you can earn by playing the content).”

of course they roll out new items… but where is written that this items are new-dungeon only? he even wrote: “to say nothing of the other rewards you can earn by playing the content” (-> all of the content, not new-dungeon content only). This is what I get from this.

+ read this:
“Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward.”

So the carrot is the stick? What?

Content != stat treadmill. It’s a poor substitute for content.

Banewrath.5107:

vox.5019:

Banewrath.5107:

Well that don`t seem so bad. You would have your infused armor set in your bags for when you do these dungeons then. Sounds pretty cool to me actually. This is something they could take in a bunch of interesting different directions if they really wanted to. I can`t wait to see how it works out.

And when they release a new “Agony” that requires a different infusion, you will need to grind another set. And then when they release another…

I don`t think they would keep adding new agonies. Maybe just bump up the cap of how much resist you need in the future would increase. Still too early to tell. It`s anyones guess.

I’m actually hoping that’s the case despite all of the “this is the first mechanic” and “this is just the beginning” stuff. But even so, it still segregates us into tiered groups with gated content

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

vox.5019:

If the only point to the dungeon was to get gear to go further into the dungeon then why play it? That’s not the case, there will be high-end rewards that are not related solely to the dungeon. And to get to them you need to get to the higher levels of the dungeon requiring as much infusion as you can get.

I say nonsense. Can you give me a source for that?

“As we introduce the new high-level content, we’ll also roll out complimentary Ascended and Legendary items (to say nothing of the other rewards you can earn by playing the content).”