Originally posted by andre369 Okay, so every time I go to the GW2 forums I come over threads where people say they will/have quit the game because of Ascended gear.
My question to those players; How does ascended gear hurt you?
Oh i dunno maybe because it goes against the whole mentality of GW2 that sold it to us in the first place: http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success This article now half a year later is very ironic and makes you wonder what is going on at ANET for them to reverse their stance on a pillar of their game completely. What happened to putting the game down for a while and not needing to catch up with everyone else?
Sure people will say that we dont need the gear since its only x% and you can do all the content in the game with rares but i ask those people why do you need ascended gear? The usual answer is of course something to play for, a carrot. But do you really need that carrot? Arent new content, and new looks and variety enough? It was enough for anyone sticking with GW1 for all these years supporting ANET and as the core playerbase GW2 was built for we feel abandoned. How is that good business practice? Why does every MMO have to be made for the carrot chaser?
how is it agianst it again? you aren't gated from high level fractals.. you aren't given any big advantage over other players.. its just something on the side for people to shoot for but completely unnecessary to complete and compete in everything in the game.. and to answer one of those question yes many do "need" that carrot it seems.. but at least this carrot isn't really needed for anything just something you can get if you want to shoot for it.. like legendaries
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Originally posted by IPolygonNo, treadmill is in essence a never ending cycle of new gear tiers that are introduced every period of time to keep players busy. It is perfect for designers, because they don't actually need to deliver content that keeps players buys for that time, but design a reward system so players cannot get the new gear quickly.
You need to get that gear in order to retain the status quo. The status quo is best-in-slot gear. Gated content that was introduced with Fractals has nothing to do with it. ANet did a nice trick with the introduction of Fractals so people think ascended only affects and will only affect Fractals, which it does not. As soon as new character levels, new gear tiers (full equipment sets) appear in the game, you will see where the game is going. Namely full vertical gear progression and old content gets obsolete with each subsequent tier. Right now it is easier to do complete things with ascended than without. The only thing that keeps up the illusion are effects that one-shot you regardless of your equipment. That flawed encounter design however is a story for another time.
See you next year since there wont be new tier this year and expansion is planned for this year.
And gear treadmill DOES include gated content because without it the gear is pointless in itself. Its nice to be able to finish content 30s faster but hardly important in grand scheme of things.
Flawed content design? lol, spoken like true "old schooler". Because gear isnt everything in GW2 like it was in those old school games. You need at least some degree of skill.
Gated content and gear treadmill may not be mutually exclusive, but they are not conducive of one another.
A gear treadmill is simply the installment of higher tiers of gear through a game's life span.
Gated content can refer to any content that prevents a player from accessing it.
Exempli gratia:
Ascended gear is a new tier of gear released 3 months after the launch of guild wars 2 that is better than Exotic.
Level 50 Jade Maw is considered gated content because he now deals an unavoidable 1172% damage upon the initiation of the fight and each phase transistion(Ranger rezzing/95% rezzing/ Rez orbs all proven to be ineffective post Jan28th patch. As proven by Dulfy herself.)
The problem is that we were all told that this is not what Guild Wars 2 is about in their "Manifesto". Yet here we are, in the midst of cognitive dissonance and nativity. Andre369 created this thread to ask "how it hurts you", and I answer by completing destroying my trust. By disgustingly throwing away their last convictions in hopes of earning more money and increasing player participation for shallow content.
As history has proven there is no coming back from this rabbit hole.
Originally posted by IPolygonNo, treadmill is in essence a never ending cycle of new gear tiers that are introduced every period of time to keep players busy. It is perfect for designers, because they don't actually need to deliver content that keeps players buys for that time, but design a reward system so players cannot get the new gear quickly.
You need to get that gear in order to retain the status quo. The status quo is best-in-slot gear. Gated content that was introduced with Fractals has nothing to do with it. ANet did a nice trick with the introduction of Fractals so people think ascended only affects and will only affect Fractals, which it does not. As soon as new character levels, new gear tiers (full equipment sets) appear in the game, you will see where the game is going. Namely full vertical gear progression and old content gets obsolete with each subsequent tier. Right now it is easier to do complete things with ascended than without. The only thing that keeps up the illusion are effects that one-shot you regardless of your equipment. That flawed encounter design however is a story for another time.
See you next year since there wont be new tier this year and expansion is planned for this year.
And gear treadmill DOES include gated content because without it the gear is pointless in itself. Its nice to be able to finish content 30s faster but hardly important in grand scheme of things.
Flawed content design? lol, spoken like true "old schooler". Because gear isnt everything in GW2 like it was in those old school games. You need at least some degree of skill.
Gated content and gear treadmill may not be mutually exclusive, but they are not conducive of one another.
A gear treadmill is simply the installment of higher tiers of gear through a game's life span.
Gated content can refer to any content that prevents a player from accessing it.
Exempli gratia:
Ascended gear is a new tier of gear released 3 months after the launch of guild wars 2 that is better than Exotic.
Level 50 Jade Maw is considered gated content because he now deals an unavoidable 1172% damage upon the initiation of the fight and each phase transistion(Ranger rezzing/95% rezzing/ Rez orbs all proven to be ineffective post Jan28th patch. As proven by Dulfy herself.)
The problem is that we were all told that this is not what Guild Wars 2 is about in their "Manifesto". Yet here we are, in the midst of cognitive dissonance and nativity. Andre369 created this thread to ask "how it hurts you", and I answer by completing destroying my trust. By disgustingly throwing away their last convictions in hopes of earning more money and increasing player participation for shallow content.
As history has proven there is no coming back from this rabbit hole.
How do you survive jade maw at level 50?
How can it be gated if no one can survive it?
Seems to me closed content, not gated content.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Gated content and gear treadmill may not be mutually exclusive, but they are not conducive of one another.
A gear treadmill is simply the installment of higher tiers of gear through a game's life span.
Gated content can refer to any content that prevents a player from accessing it.
Exempli gratia:
Ascended gear is a new tier of gear released 3 months after the launch of guild wars 2 that is better than Exotic.
Level 50 Jade Maw is considered gated content because he now deals an unavoidable 1172% damage upon the initiation of the fight and each phase transistion(Ranger rezzing/95% rezzing/ Rez orbs all proven to be ineffective post Jan28th patch. As proven by Dulfy herself.)
The problem is that we were all told that this is not what Guild Wars 2 is about in their "Manifesto". Yet here we are, in the midst of cognitive dissonance and nativity. Andre369 created this thread to ask "how it hurts you", and I answer by completing destroying my trust. By disgustingly throwing away their last convictions in hopes of earning more money and increasing player participation for shallow content.
As history has proven there is no coming back from this rabbit hole.
Its no JUST the installment of new tiers. The treadmill is lacking in JUST the installment of new tiers (as GW2 has nicely shown)
Where did i ever say that content can be gated only by gear? Eh?
1. Lots of people dont give a rats ass about ascended gear, me included. Thats where you make your mistake of presuming everyone is interested and hysterical about it. I did well in greens, yellows and brownis. In ANY content i chose to do. I will remain successful in greens, yellows and brownies in any content i choose to do in the future. Theres FAR more fun and interesting things to do than farm fractals, they made sure there are. Nevertheless, if you want to farm fractals (or consider you must) - knock yourself out.
To some people cosmetics are far more important than some irrelevant stat increase. Do they hystericize about it? Nope.
2. Fractals are not gated content. You have 24 exactly same instances of said content to play through.
Then go away and play something else? Earning more money? Really? Let me remind you, since you obviously forgot: theres NO sub in GW2 so playing longer IS NOT going to get them more money. Fractals DO NOT require ANY amount of money to play through.
Gated content and gear treadmill may not be mutually exclusive, but they are not conducive of one another.
A gear treadmill is simply the installment of higher tiers of gear through a game's life span.
Gated content can refer to any content that prevents a player from accessing it.
Exempli gratia:
Ascended gear is a new tier of gear released 3 months after the launch of guild wars 2 that is better than Exotic.
Level 50 Jade Maw is considered gated content because he now deals an unavoidable 1172% damage upon the initiation of the fight and each phase transistion(Ranger rezzing/95% rezzing/ Rez orbs all proven to be ineffective post Jan28th patch. As proven by Dulfy herself.)
The problem is that we were all told that this is not what Guild Wars 2 is about in their "Manifesto". Yet here we are, in the midst of cognitive dissonance and nativity. Andre369 created this thread to ask "how it hurts you", and I answer by completing destroying my trust. By disgustingly throwing away their last convictions in hopes of earning more money and increasing player participation for shallow content.
As history has proven there is no coming back from this rabbit hole.
You claim it goes against the Manifesto. I say bollocks. I could say bullsh*t, but bollocks is a fun word. Well... so is the other one actually... but back on point... I say bollocks. Unless of course you can provide with the quotes in context that are being somehow violated. I don't recall any quotes that are being violated by ascended gear... maybe there's something I missed.
The problem with Ascended gear that people had (most of them seem to be gone by now) is that until the point they were introduced, they believed that Exotics and Legendaries were equally powerful and they believed that Arenanet intended to keep a strict focus on horizontal progression rather than vertical progression.
If Ascended gear would have been made equally powerful to exotics and legendaries, those people would not have objected. There was no real reason to introduce any form of extra vertical progression other than to cater to the so called "WoW"-crowd, which made people feel betrayed by Arenanet.
If I knew a level cap increase wasn't coming, I wouldn't mind it so much. But it more than likely is... and there's a very good chance we will see it in 2013, most certainly in 2014.
So... when the game first releases we have no clue that there is a tier of gear above exotics, nor any plan for that. So we play based on that theory- gathering multiple sets of exotics, trying to get all our gear before going on to do other things like gather collectibles and explore and stuff like that.
Then, suddenly and without warning, Nov 13th they say "Oh hey guys, we have this brand new tier of gear that we actually planned on having all along, even though nothing even remotely supports that claim, and we'll be implementing it the day after tomorrow. Enjoy! TROLOLOLOLOLOL" and then they drop 2 items of this new tier of gear in our laps.
So here we are now. 2 months after they released the first batch of ascended gear, we get 1 more ascended item. This means it will take the better part of the year, at that rate, to get ALL of the ascended gear released.
So what does this mean for GW2? It means everyone will be spending the next year grind grinding for ascended gear and the moment they get it all, they get an expansion that makes it all obsolete so they can start all over. And the only guarantee we have in all of this is that they won't be adding a new tier of gear in 2013. Nothing about the future.
This screams "Treadmill". And that I don't like. Grind for all your exotics. Get em. Grind for all your ascended. Get em. Level up to 85 or 90. Start over again. Then what? New tier? More levels?
I already have a treadmill game I play. I started playing GW2 because it WASN'T like that, it was a change of pace. If that's the style of gameplay they want to go with, though, then I'm forced to compare GW2's gear progression against far more established gear progression games and in that respect... it loses.
I'll never understand why they decided "We hate the idea of being original. We would rather try our best to emulate WoW.". That makes 0 sense to me.
If I knew a level cap increase wasn't coming, I wouldn't mind it so much. But it more than likely is... and there's a very good chance we will see it in 2013, most certainly in 2014.
So... when the game first releases we have no clue that there is a tier of gear above exotics, nor any plan for that. So we play based on that theory- gathering multiple sets of exotics, trying to get all our gear before going on to do other things like gather collectibles and explore and stuff like that.
Then, suddenly and without warning, Nov 13th they say "Oh hey guys, we have this brand new tier of gear that we actually planned on having all along, even though nothing even remotely supports that claim, and we'll be implementing it the day after tomorrow. Enjoy! TROLOLOLOLOLOL" and then they drop 2 items of this new tier of gear in our laps.
So here we are now. 2 months after they released the first batch of ascended gear, we get 1 more ascended item. This means it will take the better part of the year, at that rate, to get ALL of the ascended gear released.
So what does this mean for GW2? It means everyone will be spending the next year grind grinding for ascended gear and the moment they get it all, they get an expansion that makes it all obsolete so they can start all over. And the only guarantee we have in all of this is that they won't be adding a new tier of gear in 2013. Nothing about the future.
This screams "Treadmill". And that I don't like. Grind for all your exotics. Get em. Grind for all your ascended. Get em. Level up to 85 or 90. Start over again. Then what? New tier? More levels?
I already have a treadmill game I play. I started playing GW2 because it WASN'T like that, it was a change of pace. If that's the style of gameplay they want to go with, though, then I'm forced to compare GW2's gear progression against far more established gear progression games and in that respect... it loses.
I'll never understand why they decided "We hate the idea of being original. We would rather try our best to emulate WoW.". That makes 0 sense to me.
See that part in bold up there... it's basically full of crap. Ascended gear does not obsolete exotic gear. It provides a marginally greater pool of stats (about .33% increase with the amulet and rings at the moment) and gives people that require the feeling of progression something to spend a moderate amount of time chasing. At the pace of change right now, by the time ascended gear is fully realized you'll be able to see a 1% to 2% increase in your base stats total. With the combat style of GW2 that's barely noticable and you will still be able to be taken down by someone in exotics or even rares with skill.
Time is the real driving force here. People get exotics almost instantly now. Legendary weapons take forever. Ascended gear takes a moderate amount of time for a marginal stat increase. Legendary weapons will have their stats boosted to match ascended weapons when they're finally released. It may very well take a full years worth of time to get an ascended set. My alt in exotics in WvW will tell you how pretty your corpse is as he stands over it.
If I knew a level cap increase wasn't coming, I wouldn't mind it so much. But it more than likely is... and there's a very good chance we will see it in 2013, most certainly in 2014.
So... when the game first releases we have no clue that there is a tier of gear above exotics, nor any plan for that. So we play based on that theory- gathering multiple sets of exotics, trying to get all our gear before going on to do other things like gather collectibles and explore and stuff like that.
Then, suddenly and without warning, Nov 13th they say "Oh hey guys, we have this brand new tier of gear that we actually planned on having all along, even though nothing even remotely supports that claim, and we'll be implementing it the day after tomorrow. Enjoy! TROLOLOLOLOLOL" and then they drop 2 items of this new tier of gear in our laps.
So here we are now. 2 months after they released the first batch of ascended gear, we get 1 more ascended item. This means it will take the better part of the year, at that rate, to get ALL of the ascended gear released.
So what does this mean for GW2? It means everyone will be spending the next year grind grinding for ascended gear and the moment they get it all, they get an expansion that makes it all obsolete so they can start all over. And the only guarantee we have in all of this is that they won't be adding a new tier of gear in 2013. Nothing about the future.
This screams "Treadmill". And that I don't like. Grind for all your exotics. Get em. Grind for all your ascended. Get em. Level up to 85 or 90. Start over again. Then what? New tier? More levels?
I already have a treadmill game I play. I started playing GW2 because it WASN'T like that, it was a change of pace. If that's the style of gameplay they want to go with, though, then I'm forced to compare GW2's gear progression against far more established gear progression games and in that respect... it loses.
I'll never understand why they decided "We hate the idea of being original. We would rather try our best to emulate WoW.". That makes 0 sense to me.
See that part in bold up there... it's basically full of crap. Ascended gear does not obsolete exotic gear. It provides a marginally greater pool of stats (about .33% increase with the amulet and rings at the moment) and gives people that require the feeling of progression something to spend a moderate amount of time chasing.
I get what you are trying to say, but your math is a little off.
An 8.5% difference in stats between exotic and ascended gear tiers per item is quite a bit more to shake a stick at than a 0.33% increase.
Find me a reason as to why they had to increase the skill cieling of gear in the game.Why couldn't have ascended gear had the same stats as exotics but with infusions? In the ama and in the official threads when this question was asked they ignored it. I quit in the end of november after the reddit AMA and haven't looked back.
From the very start i looked forward to capping my stats quickly and then enjoying the entire game before me without worrying about having to increase my power ever again and then that shitty crab update came and ruined it all.
I never thought I could be so upset at a video game or its developers until arena net and gw2 came along. When they said they were taking all the best things about gw1 and putting them into gw2 i figured the horizontal progression was one of them as well, reading the manifesto seem to imply that too.
I guess gw1 spoiled me, I never thought gw2 do this.
How does it not obsolete exotics? It is better. Why would anyone want exotics over ascended? You clearly have no clue about what you are talking about. The way stats work in GW2 a full set of ascended gear is effectively up to 20% better than an exotic one (statistically 8,5%). Yes skill will usually make up the most of a win but disregarding gear in any kind of competitive play is stupid. Especially when you consider the progression wont stop with ascended. Also exotics are not instant. The way ascended infusions screwed up the material market exotics are now easily 2-3x the price they were.
is there an ascended gear set for every type of build? as a condition based player it would do me no good if i couldn't get an ascended set that wasn't heavy on + condition damage.. how about a set with +healing stats for my guardian healing build? if not then ascended gear is useless to me and is not better in anyway. Looking at the list of ascended gear doesn't even look like they have sets for many of the builds out there so it's mostly only usefull for people with certain builds anyway..
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
How does it not obsolete exotics? It is better. Why would anyone want exotics over ascended? You clearly have no clue about what you are talking about. The way stats work in GW2 a full set of ascended gear is effectively up to 20% better than an exotic one (statistically 8,5%). Yes skill will usually make up the most of a win but disregarding gear in any kind of competitive play is stupid. Especially when you consider the progression wont stop with ascended. Also exotics are not instant. The way ascended infusions screwed up the material market exotics are now easily 2-3x the price they were.
is there an ascended gear set for every type of build? as a condition based player it would do me no good if i couldn't get an ascended set that wasn't heavy on + condition damage.. how about a set with +healing stats for my guardian healing build? if not then ascended gear is useless to me and is not better in anyway. Looking at the list of ascended gear doesn't even look like they have sets for many of the builds out there so it's mostly only usefull for people with certain builds anyway..
There isnt at the moment. Some people feel being pigeonholed into certain builds because of this, because they want the best gear. ANET is "addressing" this and soon you ll be able to get all the stat combos. The whole problem with vertical progression is that most people never see what its doing to them till its too late and then they quit.
thing is what is having ascended doing to people with exotics? there's nothing i can't complete in exotics i'm extremely effective in WvW in exotics. There's no content gated from me for having exotics so what do i need ascended gear for? to beat the maw on even level fractals?
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
How does it not obsolete exotics? It is better. Why would anyone want exotics over ascended? You clearly have no clue about what you are talking about. The way stats work in GW2 a full set of ascended gear is effectively up to 20% better than an exotic one (statistically 8,5%). Yes skill will usually make up the most of a win but disregarding gear in any kind of competitive play is stupid. Especially when you consider the progression wont stop with ascended. Also exotics are not instant. The way ascended infusions screwed up the material market exotics are now easily 2-3x the price they were.
is there an ascended gear set for every type of build? as a condition based player it would do me no good if i couldn't get an ascended set that wasn't heavy on + condition damage.. how about a set with +healing stats for my guardian healing build? if not then ascended gear is useless to me and is not better in anyway. Looking at the list of ascended gear doesn't even look like they have sets for many of the builds out there so it's mostly only usefull for people with certain builds anyway..
There isnt at the moment. Some people feel being pigeonholed into certain builds because of this, because they want the best gear. ANET is "addressing" this and soon you ll be able to get all the stat combos. The whole problem with vertical progression is that most people never see what its doing to them till its too late and then they quit.
thing is what is having ascended doing to people with exotics? there's nothing i can't complete in exotics i'm extremely effective in WvW in exotics. There's no content gated from me for having exotics so what do i need ascended gear for? to beat the maw on even level fractals?
That s precisely my point. Why do you need ascended if everything in the game is doable in exotics and balanced around rares. There is absolutely no need for ascended gear. The infusion mechanic could have easily been added to exotics or as an effect (permanent buff). But no, ANET decided its better to ruin their own game. When there s so many things to be fixed in this game introducing a new tier that goes against everything they ve stood for and balanced the game around at is just making more problems and more mechanics to solve those problems.
don't you see there is a group of people who like that "gear grind" if you can call it that so how can you please both groups? make a new set of gear that doesn't really do much but still gives a "slight" increase and allow people in exotics to still be able to complete all the games content.. That already said gw2 is a much more ambitious project than gw1 and are trying to get a much wider audience of people...how is that ruining their game? I haven't found any of those "problems" in game or seen anyone in game bitching about ascended gear.. i see a couple people on forums crying wolf as they always do when something doesn't go their way but yet to see any effects in game to warrant the cries
I'd have issue with ascended gear if it did 1 of 3 things
1. Gated me off from content
2. Gave people noticable advantage in WvW
3. Gave noticable damage output for PVE encounters/Dungeons
it doesn't so I see no reason for concern
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
How does it not obsolete exotics? It is better. Why would anyone want exotics over ascended? You clearly have no clue about what you are talking about. The way stats work in GW2 a full set of ascended gear is effectively up to 20% better than an exotic one (statistically 8,5%). Yes skill will usually make up the most of a win but disregarding gear in any kind of competitive play is stupid. Especially when you consider the progression wont stop with ascended. Also exotics are not instant. The way ascended infusions screwed up the material market exotics are now easily 2-3x the price they were.
is there an ascended gear set for every type of build? as a condition based player it would do me no good if i couldn't get an ascended set that wasn't heavy on + condition damage.. how about a set with +healing stats for my guardian healing build? if not then ascended gear is useless to me and is not better in anyway. Looking at the list of ascended gear doesn't even look like they have sets for many of the builds out there so it's mostly only usefull for people with certain builds anyway..
There isnt at the moment. Some people feel being pigeonholed into certain builds because of this, because they want the best gear. ANET is "addressing" this and soon you ll be able to get all the stat combos. The whole problem with vertical progression is that most people never see what its doing to them till its too late and then they quit.
thing is what is having ascended doing to people with exotics? there's nothing i can't complete in exotics i'm extremely effective in WvW in exotics. There's no content gated from me for having exotics so what do i need ascended gear for? to beat the maw on even level fractals?
That s precisely my point. Why do you need ascended if everything in the game is doable in exotics and balanced around rares. There is absolutely no need for ascended gear. The infusion mechanic could have easily been added to exotics or as an effect (permanent buff). But no, ANET decided its better to ruin their own game. When there s so many things to be fixed in this game introducing a new tier that goes against everything they ve stood for and balanced the game around at is just making more problems and more mechanics to solve those problems.
don't you see there is a group of people who like that "gear grind" if you can call it that so how can you please both groups? make a new set of gear that doesn't really do much but still gives a "slight" increase and allow people in exotics to still be able to complete all the games content.. That already said gw2 is a much more ambitious project than gw1 and are trying to get a much wider audience of people...how is that ruining their game? I haven't found any of those "problems" in game or seen anyone in game bitching about ascended gear.. i see a couple people on forums crying wolf as they always do when something doesn't go their way but yet to see any effects in game to warrant the cries
I'd have issue with ascended gear if it did 1 of 3 things
1. Gated me off from content
2. Gave people noticable advantage in WvW
3. Gave noticable damage output for PVE encounters/Dungeons
it doesn't so I see no reason for concern
What if ascended gear gave combat bonuses only within special zones (call them ascended zones)? Would you be ok with that?
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Originally posted by Aerowyn don't you see there is a group of people who like that "gear grind" if you can call it that so how can you please both groups? make a new set of gear that doesn't really do much but still gives a "slight" increase and allow people in exotics to still be able to complete all the games content.. That already said gw2 is a much more ambitious project than gw1 and are trying to get a much wider audience of people...how is that ruining their game? I haven't found any of those "problems" in game or seen anyone in game bitching about ascended gear.. i see a couple people on forums crying wolf as they always do when something doesn't go their way but yet to see any effects in game to warrant the cries
Back to square 1: And there are people who detest gear grind. The people this game built upon, relied for advertising on... sure not all players who enjoyed GW1 are anti vertical progression but its what this game was advertised as. Its Guild Wars 2 not World of Guild Wars. Trying to please everyone will result in pleasing noone. It is bad business practice. Especially if that something you are compromising is a pillar of your game.
And yes vertical progression ruins games. Better gear makes things easier. Now the people demand harder content. Its too hard for some so they demand better gear. And so on. At some point people get left behind. But that s not all. Because you r skewing the difficulty line you need to rebalance all other content, make up new mechanics for its availability etc. And you at some point need to make it easier to get, requiring even more dev hours. All for the sake of better stats that players dont really need. I d rather have actual content and less bugs with a fleshed out system as GW2 had in the first place for acquiring max stat gear.
The problems may not be apparent yet for most people but that s how it always is in a system like that and if a 10k post thread on the official forums wasnt enough of an indication on how bad this issue is for this game then i dont know what is.
i read a lot of the thread on the official forums.. most is people who are just butt hurt and think ANET lied to them.. the ascended gear is nothing like wow or any of those other games adding in another tier of gear you need to grind out dungeons to advance on to the next tier and so on.. the game hasn't changed in anyway into a gear grinding dungeon game(unless you want it to be) not in the least bit. ANET already said no more gear this year and who knows if they will ever had higher stat gear. In its current state ascended gear doesn't give enough gain to make a case about harder content or people needing it because of ascended gear. If one day ANET adds another dungeon like fractals with another set of gear with better stats than ascended gear then i'd say it's cause for concern.. for now its just people picking at straws about what "could" happen but not what "has" happened
An astraoid may hit the earth at any second.. should i hide in a bomb shelter and worry the rest of my life about a possible impending doom or just enjoy life.. i choose enjoy life if the astroid hits at least I know i went down having fun
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
If I knew a level cap increase wasn't coming, I wouldn't mind it so much. But it more than likely is... and there's a very good chance we will see it in 2013, most certainly in 2014.
So... when the game first releases we have no clue that there is a tier of gear above exotics, nor any plan for that. So we play based on that theory- gathering multiple sets of exotics, trying to get all our gear before going on to do other things like gather collectibles and explore and stuff like that.
Then, suddenly and without warning, Nov 13th they say "Oh hey guys, we have this brand new tier of gear that we actually planned on having all along, even though nothing even remotely supports that claim, and we'll be implementing it the day after tomorrow. Enjoy! TROLOLOLOLOLOL" and then they drop 2 items of this new tier of gear in our laps.
So here we are now. 2 months after they released the first batch of ascended gear, we get 1 more ascended item. This means it will take the better part of the year, at that rate, to get ALL of the ascended gear released.
So what does this mean for GW2? It means everyone will be spending the next year grind grinding for ascended gear and the moment they get it all, they get an expansion that makes it all obsolete so they can start all over. And the only guarantee we have in all of this is that they won't be adding a new tier of gear in 2013. Nothing about the future.
This screams "Treadmill". And that I don't like. Grind for all your exotics. Get em. Grind for all your ascended. Get em. Level up to 85 or 90. Start over again. Then what? New tier? More levels?
I already have a treadmill game I play. I started playing GW2 because it WASN'T like that, it was a change of pace. If that's the style of gameplay they want to go with, though, then I'm forced to compare GW2's gear progression against far more established gear progression games and in that respect... it loses.
I'll never understand why they decided "We hate the idea of being original. We would rather try our best to emulate WoW.". That makes 0 sense to me.
See that part in bold up there... it's basically full of crap. Ascended gear does not obsolete exotic gear. It provides a marginally greater pool of stats (about .33% increase with the amulet and rings at the moment) and gives people that require the feeling of progression something to spend a moderate amount of time chasing.
I get what you are trying to say, but your math is a little off.
An 8.5% difference in stats between exotic and ascended gear tiers per item is quite a bit more to shake a stick at than a 0.33% increase.
You're doing it wrong. When you consider the change in stats overall for your character when you upgrade from the exotic to the ascended you see about a .33% increase in the primary. Comparing them to each other is meaningless when you consider they're adding the value to a considerably larger number. I'm basing these numbers on this:
I just got the berserker equivalent amulet to replace my ruby orichalcum amulet of the berserker.
The new amulet is adding only 11 power, 6 precision and 1% crit to a base (on my mesmer... your mileage will vary) of 1867, 1684 and 35% respectively. Power goes from 1982 to 1993.
If I knew a level cap increase wasn't coming, I wouldn't mind it so much. But it more than likely is... and there's a very good chance we will see it in 2013, most certainly in 2014.
So... when the game first releases we have no clue that there is a tier of gear above exotics, nor any plan for that. So we play based on that theory- gathering multiple sets of exotics, trying to get all our gear before going on to do other things like gather collectibles and explore and stuff like that.
Then, suddenly and without warning, Nov 13th they say "Oh hey guys, we have this brand new tier of gear that we actually planned on having all along, even though nothing even remotely supports that claim, and we'll be implementing it the day after tomorrow. Enjoy! TROLOLOLOLOLOL" and then they drop 2 items of this new tier of gear in our laps.
So here we are now. 2 months after they released the first batch of ascended gear, we get 1 more ascended item. This means it will take the better part of the year, at that rate, to get ALL of the ascended gear released.
So what does this mean for GW2? It means everyone will be spending the next year grind grinding for ascended gear and the moment they get it all, they get an expansion that makes it all obsolete so they can start all over. And the only guarantee we have in all of this is that they won't be adding a new tier of gear in 2013. Nothing about the future.
This screams "Treadmill". And that I don't like. Grind for all your exotics. Get em. Grind for all your ascended. Get em. Level up to 85 or 90. Start over again. Then what? New tier? More levels?
I already have a treadmill game I play. I started playing GW2 because it WASN'T like that, it was a change of pace. If that's the style of gameplay they want to go with, though, then I'm forced to compare GW2's gear progression against far more established gear progression games and in that respect... it loses.
I'll never understand why they decided "We hate the idea of being original. We would rather try our best to emulate WoW.". That makes 0 sense to me.
See that part in bold up there... it's basically full of crap. Ascended gear does not obsolete exotic gear. It provides a marginally greater pool of stats (about .33% increase with the amulet and rings at the moment) and gives people that require the feeling of progression something to spend a moderate amount of time chasing.
I get what you are trying to say, but your math is a little off.
An 8.5% difference in stats between exotic and ascended gear tiers per item is quite a bit more to shake a stick at than a 0.33% increase.
You're doing it wrong. When you consider the change in stats overall for your character when you upgrade from the exotic to the ascended you see about a .33% increase in the primary. Comparing them to each other is meaningless when you consider they're adding the value to a considerably larger number. I'm basing these numbers on this:
I just got the berserker equivalent amulet to replace my ruby orichalcum amulet of the berserker.
The new amulet is adding only 11 power, 6 precision and 1% crit to a base (on my mesmer... your mileage will vary) of 1867, 1684 and 35% respectively. Power goes from 1982 to 1993.
That amulet gives close to 1% extra dps. For sake of simplicity: assume 10 different equipments all giving the same dps increase: that would give a total of almost 10% extra dps, which is noticable.
Originally posted by Aerowyn don't you see there is a group of people who like that "gear grind" if you can call it that so how can you please both groups? make a new set of gear that doesn't really do much but still gives a "slight" increase and allow people in exotics to still be able to complete all the games content.. That already said gw2 is a much more ambitious project than gw1 and are trying to get a much wider audience of people...how is that ruining their game? I haven't found any of those "problems" in game or seen anyone in game bitching about ascended gear.. i see a couple people on forums crying wolf as they always do when something doesn't go their way but yet to see any effects in game to warrant the cries
Back to square 1: And there are people who detest gear grind. The people this game built upon, relied for advertising on... sure not all players who enjoyed GW1 are anti vertical progression but its what this game was advertised as. Its Guild Wars 2 not World of Guild Wars. Trying to please everyone will result in pleasing noone. It is bad business practice. Especially if that something you are compromising is a pillar of your game.
And yes vertical progression ruins games. Better gear makes things easier. Now the people demand harder content. Its too hard for some so they demand better gear. And so on. At some point people get left behind. But that s not all. Because you r skewing the difficulty line you need to rebalance all other content, make up new mechanics for its availability etc. And you at some point need to make it easier to get, requiring even more dev hours. All for the sake of better stats that players dont really need. I d rather have actual content and less bugs with a fleshed out system as GW2 had in the first place for acquiring max stat gear.
The problems may not be apparent yet for most people but that s how it always is in a system like that and if a 10k post thread on the official forums wasnt enough of an indication on how bad this issue is for this game then i dont know what is.
i read a lot of the thread on the official forums.. most is people who are just butt hurt and think ANET lied to them.. the ascended gear is nothing like wow or any of those other games adding in another tier of gear you need to grind out dungeons to advance on to the next tier and so on.. the game hasn't changed in anyway into a gear grinding dungeon game(unless you want it to be) not in the least bit. ANET already said no more gear this year and who knows if they will ever had higher stat gear. In its current state ascended gear doesn't give enough gain to make a case about harder content or people needing it because of ascended gear. If one day ANET adds another dungeon like fractals with another set of gear with better stats than ascended gear then i'd say it's cause for concern.. for now its just people picking at straws about what "could" happen but not what "has" happened
An astraoid may hit the earth at any second.. should i hide in a bomb shelter and worry the rest of my life about a possible impending doom or just enjoy life.. i choose enjoy life if the astroid hits at least I know i went down having fun
Ascended gear is neither "nothing like" nor "exactly like" WoW: it is similar in that it tries to cater to the power progression audience, but like you said different in that the relative power increase it gives is far lower than in WoW. When Arenanet claimed to not want to do a WoW clone and instead go their own path as well as focusing on horizontal progression, it is not suprising that some people expected Arenanet to not add any extra vertical progression no matter how small the power increase was.
That amulet gives close to 1% extra dps. For sake of simplicity: assume 10 different equipments all giving the same dps increase: that would give a total of almost 10% extra dps, which is noticable.
Why are you guys still debating the ascended gear?
Let me give you the bullet points:
- Players that prefer the WoW/EQ style of game started leaving GW2 after the first month.
- The reasoning given was that there is no progress to be achieved and legendaries not only give no stats they are too far away.
- Arenanet panicked and added items with more stats making it some kind of progression.
- Arenanet was naive because what the players leaving wanted isn't character progression via stats to be stronger, what they want is to be stronger than the average gamer via items only found in gated content that take huge amounts of people to do.
- Those players left anyway.
- The players that give no crap about gated content and needing higher levels and special extra powerful weapons, but instead rate freedom and progression via becoming a better player at the game and playing multiple characters, protested.
- Those players are the core of GW2 and the ones staying.
- Arenanet realized they fucked up.
- The game population started to climb up again.
- Arenanet is introducing ways to mitigate the damage done and is stating no more gear tiers.
TLDR: Arenanet panicked and fucked up. Arenanet realized the mistake. Ascended items aren't a huge problem.
Anything else is just blind fanboyism (Arenanet make mistakes), people that need to go out and inhale some fresh air (stuff change during game development/lifetime) and haters (people play because the game is good not because what the devs say or what they believe or do).
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Comments
how is it agianst it again? you aren't gated from high level fractals.. you aren't given any big advantage over other players.. its just something on the side for people to shoot for but completely unnecessary to complete and compete in everything in the game.. and to answer one of those question yes many do "need" that carrot it seems.. but at least this carrot isn't really needed for anything just something you can get if you want to shoot for it.. like legendaries
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Gated content and gear treadmill may not be mutually exclusive, but they are not conducive of one another.
A gear treadmill is simply the installment of higher tiers of gear through a game's life span.
Gated content can refer to any content that prevents a player from accessing it.
Exempli gratia:
As history has proven there is no coming back from this rabbit hole.
How do you survive jade maw at level 50?
How can it be gated if no one can survive it?
Seems to me closed content, not gated content.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Its no JUST the installment of new tiers. The treadmill is lacking in JUST the installment of new tiers (as GW2 has nicely shown)
Where did i ever say that content can be gated only by gear? Eh?
1. Lots of people dont give a rats ass about ascended gear, me included. Thats where you make your mistake of presuming everyone is interested and hysterical about it. I did well in greens, yellows and brownis. In ANY content i chose to do. I will remain successful in greens, yellows and brownies in any content i choose to do in the future. Theres FAR more fun and interesting things to do than farm fractals, they made sure there are. Nevertheless, if you want to farm fractals (or consider you must) - knock yourself out.
To some people cosmetics are far more important than some irrelevant stat increase. Do they hystericize about it? Nope.
2. Fractals are not gated content. You have 24 exactly same instances of said content to play through.
Then go away and play something else? Earning more money? Really? Let me remind you, since you obviously forgot: theres NO sub in GW2 so playing longer IS NOT going to get them more money. Fractals DO NOT require ANY amount of money to play through.
You claim it goes against the Manifesto. I say bollocks. I could say bullsh*t, but bollocks is a fun word. Well... so is the other one actually... but back on point... I say bollocks. Unless of course you can provide with the quotes in context that are being somehow violated. I don't recall any quotes that are being violated by ascended gear... maybe there's something I missed.
Oderint, dum metuant.
The problem with Ascended gear that people had (most of them seem to be gone by now) is that until the point they were introduced, they believed that Exotics and Legendaries were equally powerful and they believed that Arenanet intended to keep a strict focus on horizontal progression rather than vertical progression.
If Ascended gear would have been made equally powerful to exotics and legendaries, those people would not have objected. There was no real reason to introduce any form of extra vertical progression other than to cater to the so called "WoW"-crowd, which made people feel betrayed by Arenanet.
If I knew a level cap increase wasn't coming, I wouldn't mind it so much. But it more than likely is... and there's a very good chance we will see it in 2013, most certainly in 2014.
So... when the game first releases we have no clue that there is a tier of gear above exotics, nor any plan for that. So we play based on that theory- gathering multiple sets of exotics, trying to get all our gear before going on to do other things like gather collectibles and explore and stuff like that.
Then, suddenly and without warning, Nov 13th they say "Oh hey guys, we have this brand new tier of gear that we actually planned on having all along, even though nothing even remotely supports that claim, and we'll be implementing it the day after tomorrow. Enjoy! TROLOLOLOLOLOL" and then they drop 2 items of this new tier of gear in our laps.
So here we are now. 2 months after they released the first batch of ascended gear, we get 1 more ascended item. This means it will take the better part of the year, at that rate, to get ALL of the ascended gear released.
So what does this mean for GW2? It means everyone will be spending the next year grind grinding for ascended gear and the moment they get it all, they get an expansion that makes it all obsolete so they can start all over. And the only guarantee we have in all of this is that they won't be adding a new tier of gear in 2013. Nothing about the future.
This screams "Treadmill". And that I don't like. Grind for all your exotics. Get em. Grind for all your ascended. Get em. Level up to 85 or 90. Start over again. Then what? New tier? More levels?
I already have a treadmill game I play. I started playing GW2 because it WASN'T like that, it was a change of pace. If that's the style of gameplay they want to go with, though, then I'm forced to compare GW2's gear progression against far more established gear progression games and in that respect... it loses.
I'll never understand why they decided "We hate the idea of being original. We would rather try our best to emulate WoW.". That makes 0 sense to me.
See that part in bold up there... it's basically full of crap. Ascended gear does not obsolete exotic gear. It provides a marginally greater pool of stats (about .33% increase with the amulet and rings at the moment) and gives people that require the feeling of progression something to spend a moderate amount of time chasing. At the pace of change right now, by the time ascended gear is fully realized you'll be able to see a 1% to 2% increase in your base stats total. With the combat style of GW2 that's barely noticable and you will still be able to be taken down by someone in exotics or even rares with skill.
Time is the real driving force here. People get exotics almost instantly now. Legendary weapons take forever. Ascended gear takes a moderate amount of time for a marginal stat increase. Legendary weapons will have their stats boosted to match ascended weapons when they're finally released. It may very well take a full years worth of time to get an ascended set. My alt in exotics in WvW will tell you how pretty your corpse is as he stands over it.
Oderint, dum metuant.
I get what you are trying to say, but your math is a little off.
An 8.5% difference in stats between exotic and ascended gear tiers per item is quite a bit more to shake a stick at than a 0.33% increase.
Find me a reason as to why they had to increase the skill cieling of gear in the game.Why couldn't have ascended gear had the same stats as exotics but with infusions? In the ama and in the official threads when this question was asked they ignored it. I quit in the end of november after the reddit AMA and haven't looked back.
From the very start i looked forward to capping my stats quickly and then enjoying the entire game before me without worrying about having to increase my power ever again and then that shitty crab update came and ruined it all.
I never thought I could be so upset at a video game or its developers until arena net and gw2 came along. When they said they were taking all the best things about gw1 and putting them into gw2 i figured the horizontal progression was one of them as well, reading the manifesto seem to imply that too.
I guess gw1 spoiled me, I never thought gw2 do this.
is there an ascended gear set for every type of build? as a condition based player it would do me no good if i couldn't get an ascended set that wasn't heavy on + condition damage.. how about a set with +healing stats for my guardian healing build? if not then ascended gear is useless to me and is not better in anyway. Looking at the list of ascended gear doesn't even look like they have sets for many of the builds out there so it's mostly only usefull for people with certain builds anyway..
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
thing is what is having ascended doing to people with exotics? there's nothing i can't complete in exotics i'm extremely effective in WvW in exotics. There's no content gated from me for having exotics so what do i need ascended gear for? to beat the maw on even level fractals?
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
don't you see there is a group of people who like that "gear grind" if you can call it that so how can you please both groups? make a new set of gear that doesn't really do much but still gives a "slight" increase and allow people in exotics to still be able to complete all the games content.. That already said gw2 is a much more ambitious project than gw1 and are trying to get a much wider audience of people...how is that ruining their game? I haven't found any of those "problems" in game or seen anyone in game bitching about ascended gear.. i see a couple people on forums crying wolf as they always do when something doesn't go their way but yet to see any effects in game to warrant the cries
I'd have issue with ascended gear if it did 1 of 3 things
1. Gated me off from content
2. Gave people noticable advantage in WvW
3. Gave noticable damage output for PVE encounters/Dungeons
it doesn't so I see no reason for concern
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
What if ascended gear gave combat bonuses only within special zones (call them ascended zones)? Would you be ok with that?
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
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i read a lot of the thread on the official forums.. most is people who are just butt hurt and think ANET lied to them.. the ascended gear is nothing like wow or any of those other games adding in another tier of gear you need to grind out dungeons to advance on to the next tier and so on.. the game hasn't changed in anyway into a gear grinding dungeon game(unless you want it to be) not in the least bit. ANET already said no more gear this year and who knows if they will ever had higher stat gear. In its current state ascended gear doesn't give enough gain to make a case about harder content or people needing it because of ascended gear. If one day ANET adds another dungeon like fractals with another set of gear with better stats than ascended gear then i'd say it's cause for concern.. for now its just people picking at straws about what "could" happen but not what "has" happened
An astraoid may hit the earth at any second.. should i hide in a bomb shelter and worry the rest of my life about a possible impending doom or just enjoy life.. i choose enjoy life if the astroid hits at least I know i went down having fun
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
You're doing it wrong. When you consider the change in stats overall for your character when you upgrade from the exotic to the ascended you see about a .33% increase in the primary. Comparing them to each other is meaningless when you consider they're adding the value to a considerably larger number. I'm basing these numbers on this:
I just got the berserker equivalent amulet to replace my ruby orichalcum amulet of the berserker.
Ascended Amulet: 126 power, 85 precision, 9% crit
Ruby-ori Berserk: 115 power, 79 precision, 8% crit
Base: 1867 power, 1684 precision, 35% crit
The new amulet is adding only 11 power, 6 precision and 1% crit to a base (on my mesmer... your mileage will vary) of 1867, 1684 and 35% respectively. Power goes from 1982 to 1993.
Oderint, dum metuant.
That amulet gives close to 1% extra dps. For sake of simplicity: assume 10 different equipments all giving the same dps increase: that would give a total of almost 10% extra dps, which is noticable.
Ascended gear is neither "nothing like" nor "exactly like" WoW: it is similar in that it tries to cater to the power progression audience, but like you said different in that the relative power increase it gives is far lower than in WoW. When Arenanet claimed to not want to do a WoW clone and instead go their own path as well as focusing on horizontal progression, it is not suprising that some people expected Arenanet to not add any extra vertical progression no matter how small the power increase was.
Please explain how you got to "1% extra DPS"
Let me give you the bullet points:
- Players that prefer the WoW/EQ style of game started leaving GW2 after the first month.
- The reasoning given was that there is no progress to be achieved and legendaries not only give no stats they are too far away.
- Arenanet panicked and added items with more stats making it some kind of progression.
- Arenanet was naive because what the players leaving wanted isn't character progression via stats to be stronger, what they want is to be stronger than the average gamer via items only found in gated content that take huge amounts of people to do.
- Those players left anyway.
- The players that give no crap about gated content and needing higher levels and special extra powerful weapons, but instead rate freedom and progression via becoming a better player at the game and playing multiple characters, protested.
- Those players are the core of GW2 and the ones staying.
- Arenanet realized they fucked up.
- The game population started to climb up again.
- Arenanet is introducing ways to mitigate the damage done and is stating no more gear tiers.
TLDR:
Arenanet panicked and fucked up.
Arenanet realized the mistake.
Ascended items aren't a huge problem.
Anything else is just blind fanboyism (Arenanet make mistakes), people that need to go out and inhale some fresh air (stuff change during game development/lifetime) and haters (people play because the game is good not because what the devs say or what they believe or do).
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Can you give us the source for that? I only remember them saying they won't add a higher tier this year.
Which is kind of clear seeing how they still have to finish the ascended set.