Guild Wars 2

A programmer could have a working prototype in a day if they already know the relevant systems. Maybe an extra hour beforehand for a lead or manager to design it. Sure the process continues from there but most likely it’s not being done simply because it’s not seen as an issue worth any current effort. That’s just how development works.

My question is, if it’s not worth the effort, why have pets nameable in the first place? After all, rangers are encouraged to change out pets to the situation causing the issue to be run into often.

Should have just named them pet type minus the juvenile part. I really hate having juvenile on every pet name because it’s not worth naming them only for it to reset constantly.

I would absolutely love it.

Two issues though. Many players have obtained multiple ascended sets already. And having you grind many Ascended sets is directly tied to their bottom line.

As far as revenue is concerned, if they put more effort into adding many new and awesome skins to the game and having them only be available on ascended tier it could still work as far as I’m concerned. Sadly the way the game’s been going it’s clear cosmetic only carrots don’t fly in the appropriate corporate meetings so I doubt they’d take that up.

As to people who have multiple sets, I dunno.

Why? Because of my favorite modern four letter word. Monetization.

GW2’s primary revenue is the all-encompassing monetization of gold via gems conversion.

Anet makes money when you participate in the economy. It’s so important that they hired a real world economist to help design and maintain the game.

Exotics require none to little participation. Ascended weapon and armor acquisition was designed to require you to focus on that participation. Ascended was too kind to players who didn’t want to grind, so they’re turning the psychological screws.

It’s why the game launched with players being rewarded their gear progression directly from content, but now is largely a gold grind activity.

You’ll continue to see more of this kind of thing to push players into the economy I’m sure. It’s just too bad that they can only do that with simple reskins of the traditional mmo mechanisms that they built their reputation on opposing.

The funny thing is that they would not have needed those mechanisms had they not dropped things like heroes, secondary professions, and large customizable skill set hunting.

These things provided for a game with very low vertical progression that you could repeat endlessly for a vast horizontal experience while sidestepping all of the player frustration found in traditional vertical systems.

Without them, or adequate replacements, you’re left with the industry status quo despite all of the player centered innovations in other areas of the game.

Btw, if you’d like to future-proof yourself from some of this, you should probably make sure you have all of the ascended trinket sets you want or will want later on. I’d put money on them being removed from the current easy acquisition methods when they’re added to crafting.

Basically the whole game is monetized via gems <—> gold. That’s their real bread basket but people always focus solely on shop items when talking about monetization for some reason.

It’s why the game shipped with gear stats, why “grind” became so prevalent after release, why you have ascended and time gates. If you’re not participating in the economy then you’re not driving profit.

Their original mechanisms proved to be too kind to the player for that to succeed thanks to the narrow + short progression as opposed to GW1’s wide + short progression. They forgot or didn’t realize the intrinsic importance of GW1’s width and they’re still recovering from the fallout.

It’s like teasing a cat with a toy. If you never let them catch it they’ll get frustrated and leave, eventually not even bothering with it when you pull it out. They’re so much happier if you let them enjoy their efforts after a bit of play and offer them different toys to play with so things stay fresh.

Yes, cat toys are better than carrots.

But I digress. In F2P’s you often see that as their player base declines for whatever reasons, they add more and more of those traditional time extending mechanisms to keep the most addicted players. They start pushing cash shop harder to pay the bills and investors with a smaller population, relying more and more on their whales.

Anet, thankfully and at last, fell back on their content and cat toy shipping roots. Hopefully the content will be very strong (read: not the same old you climb long time with little content… content) and it can mean less of the industry standard mechanisms going forward.

So, I believe most people who use falling traits do so because:

• it’s something they can pick up in passing without losing much
• they toggle it on when they need it
• they just say kitten and leave it on so they don’t have to bother.

With the new trait system these will be competing with very strong choices, and it seems like they’ll be mostly relegated to the last two.

So the question is, would the devs be willing to discuss whether or not it’s a good thing that people will be repeatedly navigating menus to toggle this thing on and off as the situation dictates? Or that they resign themselves to giving up combat effectiveness because it’s too much trouble?

There could be an argument here for build saving and whatnot, but surely something this core would be best off removing from the build system entirely. Not just from traits and switching them to masteries (which I believe don’t quite work that way.)

There’s been development focus for this new system in baking in core functions, so why not bake in fall damage reduction and effects?

As in, providing these effects on falls made while in the out of combat state.

Also, are there other traits in the same toggle happy position that should be considered? The new trait system will succeed on the strength of its build variety. Slots freed like this can provide more interesting combat choices.

That last question about your favorite memory. It would be nice to read some of those. Any plan to release staff picks?

inb4 gemstore lockpicks

Working to earn gold to buy the things you want. That’s what we all do in real life and is missing the point of playing video games completely. I’m really dissatisfied with this aspect of GW2 and gold <→ gems is just another mechanism to force that reward system on players.

I too lament the fact that we’re coming up on 2 years and still the only new armor look we have that doesn’t involve the gem store is the single set locked behind the ascended grind. And I’m sure at least part of the decision of the ridiculous resource and time requirements for ascended involved “encouraging” people to RMT their gold/rewards/progression.

Even considering the gem store armors, I’m fairly certain that there are less new looks available than we got with Factions. You can talk about how much work is involved in making a new set but I know the work it involves. You can bet that per person it’s less work than what’s involved in getting just one of your characters set up in ascended, and they are getting payed.

Visual customization is stagnant in GW2, it has been for a while. And performing dull mindless tasks best described as work to buy the few gem store styles (or anything in game for that matter) is not how a great game presents player rewards.

When you’re talking about the core experience the OP’s sentiment is absolutely correct. GW2 is a time-gated gear stat grind with a Korean f2p inspired cash shop. That’s about as far from GW1 (and the manifesto) as it is possible to get within the same genre. That is not “making some adjustments.” It’s a complete and total 180.

I doubt we’ll ever really know what influenced the shift but in the end I feel much less like a valued customer and player here and more like one of those mythical vat-floating intubated cash cows an increasing number of games seem to be designed for.

I still have plenty of respect for the artists, even though I’m disappointed with the Saturday morning turn in the writing. The bug squashers are certainly doing their work behind the scenes. I’d even give balancing a (molasses) nod. Outside of that… there’s not much I can see of the old player centered Anet.

This pretty much. The SAB rewards, they just look terrible to me. Now with the obby shards and forge items gone there is 0 reward for me here. Combined with the monetizing design it just feels like this super awesome thing that I loved the first time around is dead now.

And of course your home server isn’t going to empty enough to let you out of overflow until after the event is over. Really well thought out…

You are being reasonable TooBz but I think your low end is too low. I can’t speak for all classes but I know that for mine 8 stacks is too low on anything but trash. Even without condition build or weapons that are made to apply conditions, 8 stacks is about what I maintain. In a condition setup the low end is more like 16-18 stacks.

I’d say the same to you. Let’s be clear on this, I rebuffed your number filled tryhard post by pointing out that your conclusion (that the difference is negligible) is actually incorrect. You countered with “if you have gear you should work on better gear.” How is that in any way relevant to the discussion? Mind blown buddy… mind blown…

This is the last post in the argument. (All you’ve resorted to now.)

What’s that, you say you can’t maintain 25 stacks of bleeding without being fully geared? Oh look at that, another point made for the other side, thank you very much.

And I feel so very sorry for anybody you pug with in masterworks and especially with the attitude that it is the way things should be done.

Not everyone enjoys champ farming all day for gold. Inflation is skyrocketing while gold income from sources other than zerg chains is hardly going up. Dungeon tokens are now time-gated to 180 per day and to be honest it’s more like 120 since most dungeons have that path that nobody wants to do.

But hey, it’s cool, you’re rich, you have your gear and plenty of tokens for new sets. Anybody who doesn’t is just wrong in their opinions and should be wearing VENDOR TRASH.

Nice selective math you have there. You say 63 vs 71 is negligible for bleeding? How about a 200 damage per tick? Because that’s the difference when you’re talking about 25 stacks. Expect that to more than double once you add armor weapon and runes. That is not negligible, period. /thread (lol at tryhards who actually use that like it means something.)

Saint.4732:

The Signet of Dolyak is reasonable however it doesn’t break stun.. so you will have to search for the best time to proc it.

Dolyak breaks stun.

Comparing the two is just not worth it, they’re entirely different tools. It’s also a bit silly to completely ignore half of what any of your tools can do. In this case you’re ignoring either a full cleanse or a stun break.

I will add, however, that the endurance regen from Stamina isn’t all it’s made out to be without endurance food. Endurance gain from bursting with Building Momentum and an Energy Sigil swap can give you plenty of dodging without either. Similarly Dolyak without Signet Mastery is plain inferior to Balanced Stance, however an 8 second cd difference with it makes the extra toughness more tempting.

“This is the truth: when you sacrifice your life, you must make fullest use of your weaponry. It is false not to do so, and to die with a weapon yet undrawn.”
-The Book of Five Rings

Weapons:

• Axe – Mainhand is the all around best mobile melee dps, i.e. doesn’t force you to stand still. Offhand 4 should be avoided unless you activate it while running up to a mob to hit as soon as you’re in range. 5 is mediocre AOE but good for tagging at events and GREAT for building adrenaline, note that you can dodge while spinning. Burst is a decent spike with a little mobility. Don’t forget to leap through fields for the combo effects and use it to recharge your endurance if traited high enough.
• Sword – Mobility and conditions. Offhand 5 is a good active defense and can help build/maintain adrenaline between fights. It’s lackluster if you don’t gear for it though.
• Mace – With weakness and all of its control it’s good for survival against tough odds. Remember to use the third auto-attack for weakness as much as possible. Mainhand 3 is the same as Sword 5. If you take the offhand don’t forget to keep 4 up as much as possible for extra dps. All in all these are great for cracking tough nuts though you won’t kill as fast.
• Hammer – Decent, keep 2 up for survivability. Other than that I think it’s really only something to do in solo PVE if you enjoy the playstyle but it’s definitely worth learning. That said, mace/mace + hammer is all kinds of hilarity. There is a downside to using it without traiting for it, which you can’t do with this build, but you can still use it as a swap with Fast Hands.
• GS – Don’t take with rifle. Remember you’re only getting CD and bonus on one of them, if you need a ranged swap take Longbow. HB is of course the reason for the season, make sure your mob/s will eat the whole thing without interrupting you or moving. This can mean anything from autoattacking until they use their interrupt/escape, to backing off and swapping to range if they make the area around themselves dangerous, or popping stability like you give 0 kittens. Dodge a big attack right through them with Whirlwind, Bladetrail to keep the dps going, and Rush back into them. Run with Axe/X swap to take advantage of the better auto-attack during HB downtime if you want to be at your best DPS-wise.
• Rifle – An all around useful swap when traited, CDs are too painful to take it when not traited. Your shots will pierce, you can lead a fight with a vuln and spike while you’re still running to the mob, you can use it for an interrupt if you don’t have one slotted or in your primary, and the cripple lets you kite easily when it’s too hot in melee. The downsides are that it builds adrenaline slowly, and once your burst is done you’re doing kitten damage until you’re off CD so don’t linger if you’re not playing keep-away, take full advantage of fast swapping. Sigil of Blood is handy to regain health while kiting.
• Longbow – Destroyer of Hordes. That’s what I think of when I look at the LB. Between solo might stacking combos and crazy large burn field you can lay waste to entire regions by yourself. It’s not that hot for regular kiting without a cripple, but you can burn them and run directly away, using blind or immobilize to cover you when you need to stop and face them. These are good things since its untraited range is rather low.
• Shield – The cooldowns keep it from being a combat option, however it’s handy for running through areas you don’t care to fight through. Stick a Sigil of Energy on it and put it on your swap, Swap to it after you’ve dodged your endurance away, you’ll get an extra dodge and 3 seconds of immunity. Should be all you need to make it through that cave without losing your out of combat speed.

First of all, sword/axe is a little silly. Swords are wasted without condition damage and that would just kitten your offhand. I wouldn’t trait for survival, instead focus on learning and using dodges, control, movement, and killing to avoid damage. Trait for DPS so mobs die fast and you can move on. Honestly though I leveled to 80 without ever buying the 2nd and 3rd trait books and just rocking whatever weapons I felt like using at the time. If I were doing it again though…

• At least 10 in Discipline for Signet Mastery. I’ll mention why in the next section.
• Build up to 20 in Arms for Rending Strikes and CD on either GS or Rifle, take something else if you’re carrying neither.
• Build up Strength and Discipline at your disgression after that.
  – Discipline primarily for faster weapon swaps which will give you more versatility in combat, and axe CD if you’re running x/axe for AOE or adrenaline building (if you only have axe mainhand it’s not entirely necessary, but the extra adrenaline gain is still nice.) Sweet Revenge is also very helpful for 20 points if you’re not running x/axe.
  – Strength of course for weapon specific bonuses, however endurance on burst at 15 can also be very helpful. Adjust the major traits to whatever weapons you’re carrying at the time.

Now for gear. Sword/Sword condition setups are fun and can help take down tougher enemies since you can bleed/torment and then kite, but all in all you’re sacrificing damage for every other weapon which can lead to staleness and boredom. So I’d recommend power/prec greens for armor and trinkets. If you really wanna play around with sword/sword at some point just buy condition trinkets. But whatever you do…

Slot 2x Major Water, 2x Major Monk, and 2x Minor Water (move to 4 superiors and 2 majors at 60.) Transfer the Monks especially with the the green Transmute stones when you upgrade armor.

After this eat the best boon duration with mf food you can and you’ll be rocking a nearly 100% SoR uptime. Perma swiftness, fury, and 5 stacks of might is… well it’s pretty much all you need for an easy time clearing maps.

The greatest advantage of this is not just moving around the map like a boss, but doing so while freeing up your weapon swap and your 3 slots to be purely combat oriented. FGJ is completely ignorable since at this point all you’re getting from it is 3 stacks of might.

Slot skills:

• SIO – The go-to stun break. Short cd, removes a condition, it’s hard to say no to this (but not impossible.)
• Signet of Fury – The extra precision is nice but its real utility is the instant full adrenaline on activation. Especially handy if you wanna cheese around with the rifle or longbow in combination with Heal Surge or Berserker Stance (Kill Shots and Combustive Fields all day long.)
• Balanced Stance – Lets you wade into groups of KD loving Centaurs and others with Axe 5 or whatever you want and the swiftness will cover any (minimal) swiftness downtime you have leftover from boon duration.
• Signet of Stamina – Dodge Wars 2, ‘nuff said. Though you’ll probably want this if you drop SIO, heck take both. Condition heavy areas can suck it, kitten Destroyers…
• Berserker Stance – More adrenaline fuel and also good in condition heavy areas, beware the long CD.
• Dolyak Signet – Another decent stun break. 12s of stability (with runes and food) adds even more to its utility.
• Stomp – Carry this for its stun break, it has good utility for getting breathing room, interrupting, and blast combos but never forget that it breaks stun. The stability during activation should also not be ignored.
• Kick – On a 20s CD this is the alpha and omega of slot interrupts. Oh so handy for the most annoying of Vets.
• Bulls Charge – In and out of combat mobility and control, not bad at all.
• Others – Don’t bother. They either have too little utility, too long of a CD, require too much maintenance, or are better suited towards groups.

I’d rather have deep wound on final thrust

Really though I’d rather see its activation time either instant or brought down by a good margin. It’s a spike skill that you have to order from that chinese place across town. Much like axe 4.

I pretty much agree with the OP. With every patch it seems I have less and less motivation to even log in my alts. If my main and my alts both need gear from the same time-gate guess who’s going to get it? GG killing diversity, guess I’ll only ever play one class like I do in every other MMO that wasn’t set in Tyria. Time-gates are crumby, period.

They talk so much about designing a “better” MMO yet they keep walking down the path to “the same” MMO. It’s funny because where they started was already the better MMO.

Monsoon is actually one of the few staff skins I like, it’s a more detailed version of the old water staves from prophecies. I’ll agree that most staff skins are annoying with clipping, scaling, positioning, or are just boring. Other weapons suffer too, and armor…

• Considering that it will take a new player 50-60 gameplay hours of GW1 to get their first 50 GW2 ’chieves, and that those are by far the easiest points to get, well… you can get more points for your time via farming repeatables in GW2.

• You’re not being forced to play GW1 to remain competitive on the ‘chieverboard. Some people got a small head start via supporting Anet for years? Sure. Objectively is it that big of a deal? Nope. Don’t want to put in the effort to close the gap which can be as little as a week doing repeatables? I’m not so sure you’re all that competitive then.

• As others have said, the simple fact that you can be completely locked out of points simply for not being able to play GW2 when they’re available prevents the system from being in any way a competitive measure.

• For most people all this change has meant is that the years that went into filling their HoM has rewarded them with some new shiny via the reward system. And TBH I and many of the people I know were very disappointed by the quality of the HoM rewards once GW2 was released, most of them aren’t even worth the trouble of scrolling past them in the window to get to the few decent ones. I feel less disappointed over that now.

I’m sure I don’t have to go into the negatives of short lived Living Story content as there’s plenty of that already, so I’ll just leave my possible solution here.

Worlds that can be guested to on which old Living Story content cycles in a manner similar to GW1’s weekend events.

• One per region to focus population for group content.

• Cycling on a bi-weekly or weekly schedule.

• WvW is unavailable on these worlds, they can not be set to home, and cross server parties are disabled (if that’s an issue for dungeons.)

• Yes those otherwise time limited goodies and achievements remain available as they’ll provide additional population for group content and further reduce the feeling of being left out if you miss a release.

• If the 2 week release schedule is maintained there will obviously be an issue with timeliness as the years go on. Additional worlds can be added to encompass a year’s content i.e. Living Story Year 1 [Now playing Sky Pirates of Tyria], Living Story Year 2 [Now playing The Wrath of Zhu Hanuku], etc.

• If a certain seasonal content is non-repeating or phased out it can be added to the appropriate world (only one world if it ran for more than one year) during the appropriate season.

I just want to say that Labyrinthine Cliffs makes it pretty obvious how awesome Cantha would be with this team and engine.

Nope. There’s only two things that carried over. What amounts to lore, and no sub. Although I won’t be surprised if “no sub” carries a korean f2p connotation in the future.

Why is the first argument for this stuff out of everybody’s mouth that they’re only 3 accessories? Educate yourself before joining in on a discussion.

They’ve also said that not only will new content use this system but that old content will be rebalanced for the new stats.

You like feeling superior to others based on your time spent rather than your actual ability. I get it. I think it’s a kitten motivation to appeal to in a video game, but sure, I get it.

The dedicated player base requires these things to be so difficult to obtain that they can be assured when they get them that they’ll be statistically better than most everyone else for a good while. There’s no other reason to play video games after all.

Gated content and stat grind creates inclusive and poisonous communities? Not surprised

Sumii.2845:

But a great number of people have let’s say complained about precursors and their cost. This past event had a suddenly higher chance to get a precursor. Did everyone get one? No. Was there enough of an effect to change the economy and possibly cause artificial inflation? I would say yes, but that’s my opinion and it hasn’t been long enough to see the results of such an ordeal.

Currency exchange has gone up ~20s or more since the event as of earlier today. I can’t be more specific as the exchange is down for me atm. The random nature of the rewards would have almost ensured that a significant portion of the recipients would be the sort of player that would “blow it” rather than just legendary/ascended grinders. I don’t think I’d be overreaching if I said those players were more likely to blow it on gems and t3 armor above most other things.

Masterful economy manipulation? Maybe. But I am a cynic with a serious distaste for Korean F2P models and a much higher gold→gems conversion worries me, especially with hints of the gem store taking a more integral role in gameplay in the future. And if they’re intentionally causing inflation, while also reducing our ability to make gold… meh.

Can we get a direct and unambiguous response about the direction this game is going to take with regards to vertical progression and grind (especially grinders being statistically more powerful than other players), gated content, gear checks, and if the gem store is going to tie into ascended gear somehow? I know ANet doesn’t like to talk about things that are still cooking but it can’t really be denied that there has been an incredible paradigm shift from what many of us expected and clarity on this issue is important.

I can say from experience that korean f2p games are largely designed around broken progression being fixed by cash shop tactics. I haven’t quite made that leap here but it’s been obvious for a while now that the cash shop has gone korean in another feature, the gambling addiction exploiting items.

It’s pretty insulting that that “answer” with all of its vagueness and lack of any real response to the issues we’ve brought up is what we were directed to as their official response when they closed threadzilla (not that I think finally closing it was unacceptable given the reason.)

LordGustoff.3752:

Honestly I wish there was some communication on what I should expect for the future of the game. Right now, only 3 months in, I assume that this is all growing pains for a game still in its infancy… but a year from now I don’t want to walk away wishing I hadn’t stuck around for so long. That’s what happened with me and WoW and I haven’t looked back since.

The cynic in me says that’s exactly why there is no clear communication of their intent. To string those of us along who would keep playing despite not wanting the game’s new direction to continue because we have hope it won’t. It’s a sound business decision and they need to make money after all.

Fail categories. Sorry. No real information can be gleaned from them.

That’s the Eye of the North.

You realize that having fun, taking your time, taking a break even, is what horizontal progression enables, a static gear plateau WILL still be there when you’re done, you will not be left behind and forced to grind to catch up.

But go ahead, take your time and go have some fun or take a break now. By the time you’re done I guarantee that you will be behind the curve gear or fractal-wise and be unable to find a group. GG.

Missing one important point. This game wasn’t marketed to the hamsters. It was marketed to everyone else. And then they went and made it so the hamsters are catered to and everyone else is left behind.

You’re pretty much arguing with the same people that say an MMO MUST contain a gear grind in order to be called an MMO. Logic will get you nowhere.

As a side note, I’m sure their response to these games being called mmos and listed as mmos on a site that even has mmo in the title would be almost slightly entertaining:

http://www.mmogames.com/sportsgames/

Puffpuff.7390:

This was bound to happen anyways. Think about it. It every society there are always different levels of income, ie rich, middle class, poor. Problem is this game becomes pointless and so does any economy if there is a “cap” on how good your gear is (in game) or much money and possessions you can amass (in real life). The elite players of this game, the people who spend all their time playing this game, want to be rewarded with an advantage. The rest of us with less time don’t spend nearly as long playing the game, so I’m not sure how I can justify someone else being forced to be equal with me. Not every kid gets an A. The whole point is there’s stuff we can get if we work hard and make good choices. Both in the game and in real life there will and should always be outliers. Arena net should apologize or at least explain why they changed their mind on the gear grind, but I bet I can spell it out for you: a large part of the gaming population is asking, “Dude, what else is there to do, we already got all the best gear in a few weeks?”
I mean does anyone seriously plan on keeping the same gear forever and just unlocking new textures? Every RPG I’ve ever owned I stopped playing once I hit the max level because , meh, what’s the point. The whole fun for me is getting the next greatest thing. The one’s I played over and over (morrowind, oblivion, skyrim, two worlds 2) generally let me do what I want as high as I want it.
For all you haters talking about “pay to win”….I work and am married to a non-gamer, so I don’t have a bunch of time to play. I would have loved when I played wow to spend a few extra real bucks to catch up to the rest of you who have more time. I never got to do one raid in wow because by the time I got to the right level the next expansion came out and boom, 10 more levels to gind out before I can raid…..wish I could just pay to get quick xp so I can play with the rest of the population….

Now, WOW had an “impossible” treadmill that sucked because if you were lvl 68 you HAD to buy the next expansion because the green gear from the next expansion was BETTER than the legendary stuff from previous one.

MMOs are about the only popular multiplayer genre where power equality is not the norm. Your argument is pretty baseless with regards to gaming as a whole. In real life you can actually be rewarded for messing up someone’s life so thoroughly that they can never recover. Should video games promote that as well?

I don’t understand this nerf at all. Surely the conditions in PvP necessary to make the old version scary damage were rare or indicative of low opponent skill. I haven’t played thief in pvp much but I’d expect only Rangers with heeled pets and a pair of tightly clustered (bad) enemies would really see its dps. Could a tourney player maybe shed some light on whether or not there was a need for it in high level play?

As far as pve goes it’s now essentially useless. Mobs don’t kite you, making it a perfect waste of initiative. It’s not even enough to deal with low health add mechanics. My DD play in pve is now utterly boring caltrops and DB spam whereas before I at least had another option. Maybe I could see this damage working if it applied bleeds as well as cripple.

offence.4726:

It’s a personal effort after all , if you are a casual gamer who maxed his exotic set and have probably second BiS inslot why would you want ascendant gear for +5+10+20 stat ? Where will you be using that “hardcore” gear , once a week in wvw or the daily dungeon ? It’s the same previous mmo argument and here it comes: play harder ( work harder ) then the rest get an extra edge it’s just like in the real life or is it not ? No one is forcing you to do it you will still be competitive either way. So why cry about an extra +5 stat you don’t need and won’t use ?

This is a little hard to follow but I’ll try. You’re suggesting that because I want a gear plateau I’m not hardcore or competitive? Well I suggest that because you want a stat advantage you are neither. Stat advantages are a refuge for the skill anemic to obtain the thrill of a victory they “earned” by repetitive easy tasks before the challenge even took place.

I want an even playing field so I can truly measure my skill over others and “in yo face! son!” them with 100% assurance that it was my own skill and experience that got me the victory. I’ve been competitive since I first saw a row of quarters on an arcade fighter. Sorry but your argument is irrelevant and indicative of the slow decline of challenge in gaming.

gold.3025:

BroScientist.9875:

MistaMike.7356:

Its funny that people are complaining so much that they are casual and have too much of a life to play towards earning a new tier. If you’ve got such a busy life then why are you here complaining so much about a game? And its not just simple complaints, some of you are taking it real personal like the whole world is ending. It’s just a game you don’t even pay a sub for.

Are you kittening kidding me? We payed $60 plus all the money spent in the cash shop. Game hasn’t even been out long enough to offset the price spent in a traditional MMO with a sub. Your argument is not sound for a large percentage of players on here, not to mention that we are complaining because we WANT this game to succeed, just are angry/afraid of direction ANET is suddenly taking.

You paid 60$ for a liscence to play the game…which you got. You bought items in the cash shop willingly and most likely used them………….

You’re not investing in stocks & bonds here, idk why adding a new tier means they stole your money

You’re the best! Arooouuund! Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down! You’re the best! Aroooound!

offence.4726:

People already farmed these or are in the course of getting them. Everyone ingame is spamming LFG fotm lvl 1,2,3,4 that means that people enjoy them , it’s not like your getting left behind everyday you see lfg lvl 1 and 2 , they are short even if you grind one level a day you can get up to lvl 10+ and get the ring you wanted. It’s sad that people are so casual nowdays that want one tier gear for 10 years. Life issues and kids aside no one is forcing you to play them.

I do see fewer and fewer level 1’s every day. At times none. Also I’m having trouble leveling my alts because my preferred method is via dungeons. Right now the only dungeon groups forming are for fractals, so yes I kind of am being forced to play them. Except of course I can’t because nobody wants to take an upscaled lowbie.

I’ll save you the trouble of a response and do it for you. “It’s new, of course people are going to be running it and not the other dungeons.” To which I’d say “And that’s exactly why you can’t determine how enjoyable it really is until it’s no longer new content and has settled into its life in the game.”

Also, personally I think it’s sad that gamers want to be treated like a hamster to retain the feeling of games that string them along with the illusion of progress for years to keep them paying subs.

@gold Right. You’re better than us bro. I get it, I really do.

BroScientist.9875:

The only thing this game has going for it is the shiny graphics. ArenaNet really needs to take advice from PlanetSide 2 developers. They frequently make videos talking about current/future plans, post on the official forums+reddit, and actually make changes based on player feed back. In fact, I was just watching a developer interview and one of them specifically said they are NOT going to focus on pumping out new stupid holiday content but instead work on squaring away as many bugs as they can to please their player base. Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGUhSuhiJa0&feature=youtu.be (around 16 min)

I’ve been digging that in beta. Their activeness in the community really shows. I just hope they can get the mechanized vs. infantry balance right. It sucks being infantry man. Red5 is also really awesome at developing for their community. They’ve been super active on their forums through beta and are very accessible through email as well. I remember when ANet was that active in community discussions, it was good times in Tyria.

Orion.7264:

vox.5019:

Orion.7264:

vox.5019:

Game is marketed as being for people tired of a genre filled with exploitative gear grind mechanics. Game introduces the same mechanics shortly after launch. Shame on the people who are angry about it!

Deriding an entire group of people on an internet forum who are justifiably angry over being lied to about a product they were purchasing to make yourself feel superior will never be a replacement for a worthwhile personality. Sorry if that’s harsh but it needs to be said.

And I believe that it will continue to be a success despite all the doomsayers who have been insisting for 3 months that the mass exodus is just around the corner. The servers are still highly populated, people are STILL talking about the game, and there are no decent alternatives.

The same was true when your implied large enough portion of the community to manifest a change in core principles was crying about not having stats to chase (must be separated from people wanting things to do and goals to obtain because they are not mutually exclusive whatsoever.)

It’s also been made plainly obvious that this sort of change has been in the works since before release so the argument that this is in any way the community’s doing is irrelevant.

I don’t know how you absolute morons have gotten any inclination to believe that this has “been in the works”. All the OFFICIAL Anet-released info has pointed to this being a very recent decision, let alone the fact that if this had “been in the works”, we’d have more than two rings and a back slot by now. Fractals have probably been in the works for a long time (again, can’t stress how pleased I am with Fractals as a whole. Amazing work). Ascended gear CLEARLY has not, and this has not only been TOLD to us by Anet, it is also readily evident to anyone with a god kitten brain. Stop passing around this absolute bullkitten that “this was planned from the start”, you ignorant clod-headed sorry excuses for people.

Do you need a towel to wipe the spittle off your monitor?

Linsey Murdock:

Adding item progression is a delicate process normally undertaken in an expansion…

Yes they decided to depart from horizontal progression long ago. If you can’t see that maybe you do need that towel.

I don’t need a towel, but I might need new keys. And no, the decision to depart from horizontal progression was not made until recently; however, the decision to possibly increase the level cap has been listed as probable with expansions for some time, and as such gear would increase in stats. This does not mean there would be an increase in tier; there would simply be level 100 exotic armor that is better than level 80 exotic armor, just as level 80 exotic armor is better than level 60 exotic armor. This in itself is annoying, but not nearly the same thing as introducing a new stat TIER when there is no need for increased stats. If you cannot see that this was a recent decision by Anet telling you so themselves, I don’t know what you need, but it’s probably some sort of medication.

The level of stats was plateaued. Level increases and so do the stats. That’s vertical progression sorry. Adding gear tiers isn’t the only way it happens.

gold.3025:

vox.5019:

Game is marketed as being for people tired of a genre filled with exploitative gear grind mechanics. Game introduces the same mechanics shortly after launch. Shame on the people who are angry about it!

Deriding an entire group of people on an internet forum who are justifiably angry over being lied to about a product they were purchasing to make yourself feel superior will never be a replacement for a worthwhile personality. Sorry if that’s harsh but it needs to be said.

And I believe that it will continue to be a success despite all the doomsayers who have been insisting for 3 months that the mass exodus is just around the corner. The servers are still highly populated, people are STILL talking about the game, and there are no decent alternatives.

The same was true when your implied large enough portion of the community to manifest a change in core principles was crying about not having stats to chase (must be separated from people wanting things to do and goals to obtain because they are not mutually exclusive whatsoever.)

It’s also been made plainly obvious that this sort of change has been in the works since before release so the argument that this is in any way the community’s doing is irrelevant.

okay dude thanks for proving my point…….people take this whole thing waaay too seriously.

the devs made a change in game mechanics, as a business decision. in the long run it will probably help player retention. but if something as small as one tier of UPGRADABLE gear is going to make you ragequit, then you must not have been much of a fan in the first place

Thank you for proving that you have nothing relevant to add to this community discussion, only antagonistic rambling and both a keen sense of the obvious and remarkable ability to make up baseless falsehoods to further your own agenda.

You did not state how I proved your point because I didn’t do anything but disagree with you and point out your antagonistic tone. Yes it was a business decision to lie to us and that’s why we’re upset. I have not ever said that I was quitting.

Orion.7264:

vox.5019:

Game is marketed as being for people tired of a genre filled with exploitative gear grind mechanics. Game introduces the same mechanics shortly after launch. Shame on the people who are angry about it!

Deriding an entire group of people on an internet forum who are justifiably angry over being lied to about a product they were purchasing to make yourself feel superior will never be a replacement for a worthwhile personality. Sorry if that’s harsh but it needs to be said.

And I believe that it will continue to be a success despite all the doomsayers who have been insisting for 3 months that the mass exodus is just around the corner. The servers are still highly populated, people are STILL talking about the game, and there are no decent alternatives.

The same was true when your implied large enough portion of the community to manifest a change in core principles was crying about not having stats to chase (must be separated from people wanting things to do and goals to obtain because they are not mutually exclusive whatsoever.)

It’s also been made plainly obvious that this sort of change has been in the works since before release so the argument that this is in any way the community’s doing is irrelevant.

I don’t know how you absolute morons have gotten any inclination to believe that this has “been in the works”. All the OFFICIAL Anet-released info has pointed to this being a very recent decision, let alone the fact that if this had “been in the works”, we’d have more than two rings and a back slot by now. Fractals have probably been in the works for a long time (again, can’t stress how pleased I am with Fractals as a whole. Amazing work). Ascended gear CLEARLY has not, and this has not only been TOLD to us by Anet, it is also readily evident to anyone with a god kitten brain. Stop passing around this absolute bullkitten that “this was planned from the start”, you ignorant clod-headed sorry excuses for people.

Do you need a towel to wipe the spittle off your monitor?

Linsey Murdock:

Adding item progression is a delicate process normally undertaken in an expansion…

Yes they decided to depart from horizontal progression long ago. If you can’t see that maybe you do need that towel.

Game is marketed as being for people tired of a genre filled with exploitative gear grind mechanics. Game introduces the same mechanics shortly after launch. Shame on the people who are angry about it!

Deriding an entire group of people on an internet forum who are justifiably angry over being lied to about a product they were purchasing to make yourself feel superior will never be a replacement for a worthwhile personality. Sorry if that’s harsh but it needs to be said.

And I believe that it will continue to be a success despite all the doomsayers who have been insisting for 3 months that the mass exodus is just around the corner. The servers are still highly populated, people are STILL talking about the game, and there are no decent alternatives.

The same was true when your implied large enough portion of the community to manifest a change in core principles was crying about not having stats to chase (must be separated from people wanting things to do and goals to obtain because they are not mutually exclusive whatsoever.)

It’s also been made plainly obvious that this sort of change has been in the works since before release so the argument that this is in any way the community’s doing is irrelevant.