1975 replies to this topic

[FiachSidhe]

karekiz, on 15 November 2012 - 07:34 PM, said:

I can read.  They posted about it ya know:

New Condition: Agony

In the upcoming Fractals of the Mists dungeon, we’ll introduce a new monster condition called Agony.
This extremely dangerous condition ticks percentages of player health away and can’t be cleansed by normal means. Players who wish to delve deep into the Fractals will find that Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must. The only way to mitigate Agony damage is by building up resistance through Infusions, a new type of upgrade component that can be acquired in the Mystic Forge.

There I made it easier to read so you don't get lost.  Happy reading.

Holy BALLS!
Agony sounds like an awful idea, and a terrible idea, mated. Then gave birth to a thousand goat-legged young, that merged into this game mechanic.

Edited by FiachSidhe, 15 November 2012 - 09:10 PM.

[Dove]

Asudementio, on 15 November 2012 - 07:32 PM, said:

The point of ascended is to offer a degree of vertical progression to offer a greater sense of accomplishment between exotics and legendaries. Ascended gear would be arbitrary if it was the same as exotic gear. I am a fan of horizontal progression but they are adding ascended gear to lessen the progression gap between exotic and legendaries which i support. Additional gearing objectives beyond the aesthetics is nice to have around because it allows me to progress on multiple fronts. I would have been happy with some cool skins instead of trivial stat increases, but Anet wants to do it this way so i'll settle.

Ascended gear would be arbitrary if it was the same as exotic gear? Really? Then why do people chase Legendary weapons? They are the same statistically as Exotics. The absolute only difference is cosmetic.

People keep acting like the phrase "filling a gap" makes everything okay, while failing to understand what's actually happening here. Defenders of Ascended tier introduction keep using the true premise of "filling a (time to obtain the item) gap" to justify the more insipid thing that ANet is actually doing: CREATING a STAT gap. That is a gear treadmill, and that is exactly what ANet promised would never be introduced.

Take away the introduction of the stat difference between Exotic/Ascended/Legendary, and I'm 100% cool with this. In fact, I'd bet that almost everyone would be. More options is good. But essentially taking max gear away from people who have worked toward it is absolutely against their stated paradigms in development.

And if you claim it needs to happen because there's nothing else to do, keep in mind that this paradigm worked for years in GW1. You could get max armor and weapons very fast and very cheap (Exotic), 15k armor and some better skinned weapons for more cost/effort (Ascended) and the coolest things in the game like Obsidian/Vabbian armor, Crystalline Swords, etc for very much time or money (Legendary). But NONE had any stat difference.

[Reisa]

Vancext, on 15 November 2012 - 06:14 PM, said:

If anyone feels like they have to grind, it means the underlying game mechanics have failed to be fun. I don't see a problem with adding new stats, so long as the process toward getting those stats is achievable and entertaining.

Ascended gear is not the problem -- the problem is whether or not the process for getting Ascended gear will be fun, and that's yet to be seen. People anticipate it won't be (and fairly) because the process for getting many of the exotic sets in game right now is not much fun. Hopefully this Fractals dungeon will so incredible that it will remove all perception of grind, and getting Ascended equipment will just be a happy byproduct of many fun hours just playing the dungeon for its own sake.

Unfortunately, by its very design and your own words, Ascended gear will be a grind, if only because at the very least they'll be primarily attainable through the new dungeon--if not completely, it's also the most likely place people will gain access to Infusions.

Fact of the matter is, not everyone likes dungeons.  Exotics could be gotten multiple ways--dungeons, karma, area completion, WvW, and so on.  Ascended items will, apparently, 'eventually' but who knows how long that will take--possibly a month or two before the next tier is introduced.

[Jairyn]

While still not all that satisfying, it appears Germany gets straighter talk than we do in the States: https://forum-en.gui...an-forums/first

[Lordkrall]

karekiz, on 15 November 2012 - 07:34 PM, said:

I can read.  They posted about it ya know:

New Condition: Agony

In the upcoming Fractals of the Mists dungeon, we’ll introduce a new monster condition called Agony.
This extremely dangerous condition ticks percentages of player health away and can’t be cleansed by normal means. Players who wish to delve deep into the Fractals will find that Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must. The only way to mitigate Agony damage is by building up resistance through Infusions, a new type of upgrade component that can be acquired in the Mystic Forge.

There I made it easier to read so you don't get lost.  Happy reading.

And yet it says NOTHING about how it is applied.
It could be a constant DoT from the dungeon itself,or a DoT applied by all mobs that works ends after a few seconds or a Boss-only skill that will stay on you until you die.

[Featherman]

Jairyn, on 15 November 2012 - 09:42 PM, said:

While still not all that satisfying, it appears Germany gets straighter talk than we do in the States: https://forum-en.gui...an-forums/first

That's far more satisfying than how the NA team spun it. While I still don't like that idea and think that there are other ways they can add progression, it's nice to hear them being frank about their idea of progression.

[Arquenya]

Dove, on 15 November 2012 - 09:32 PM, said:

Ascended gear would be arbitrary if it was the same as exotic gear? Really? Then why do people chase Legendary weapons? They are the same statistically as Exotics. The absolute only difference is cosmetic.

I believe Legendaries have better stats than exotics. That was part I of ANet's mistake.
Now ascended stuff is part II of the same mistake, imo.

It makes me wonder. The original GW did 5 years without a better gear incentive.
Why can't GW2 do even 3 months without?

[Whimsical Pacifist]

I voted no, I'll stick around if Legendary is the final tier, but if they raise the level cap or make additional tiers above legendary I won't be sticking around to chase an ever moving carrot on a stick.  Such moves would be antithetical to the premise of GW1 and the views exposited in ther "Manifesto", in essence making ANET morally bankrupt hypocrites.

Edited by Whimsical Pacifist, 15 November 2012 - 10:16 PM.

[Dove]

Jairyn, on 15 November 2012 - 09:42 PM, said:

While still not all that satisfying, it appears Germany gets straighter talk than we do in the States: https://forum-en.gui...an-forums/first

At least they recognized the major difference between time progression and stat progression. Geez. And they're darn right to expect a difference of opinion, particularly when some people bought this game because they expected that exactly what's about to happen would never happen.

I'm not going to go so far as to say I'll quit the game or all of a sudden hate ArenaNet over this, but it is sad to see their ambitious and noble goals compromised so early in the game's life cycle.

Arquenya, on 15 November 2012 - 10:11 PM, said:

I believe Legendaries have better stats than exotics. That was part I of ANet's mistake.
Now ascended stuff is part II of the same mistake, imo.

Nope. This update is going to introduce the difference. Hasn't been a difference up until now.

Edited by Dove, 15 November 2012 - 10:24 PM.

[Jairyn]

Perhaps it's strange, but I would be more open to raising of the level cap and expansion of stats in the event of an official expansion. Likely because we'd be told about it at least 6 months in advance, rather than 3 days, I suppose.

[RedStar]

Arquenya, on 15 November 2012 - 10:11 PM, said:

I believe Legendaries have better stats than exotics. That was part I of ANet's mistake.
Now ascended stuff is part II of the same mistake, imo.

Legendaries never had better stats. It won't ever. It will always be on the same level as the best tier available.

Edited by RedStar, 15 November 2012 - 10:36 PM.

[XionValkyrie]

Dove, on 15 November 2012 - 10:23 PM, said:

At least they recognized the major difference between time progression and stat progression. Geez. And they're darn right to expect a difference of opinion, particularly when some people bought this game because they expected that exactly what's about to happen would never happen.

I'm not going to go so far as to say I'll quit the game or all of a sudden hate ArenaNet over this, but it is sad to see their ambitious and noble goals compromised so early in the game's life cycle.




Nope. This update is going to introduce the difference. Hasn't been a difference up until now.

This patch would not change any of the legendaries.   So far there's only been Legendary weapons.   This patch is adding ascended rings and backslots.   All Legendaries will have the same stats as exotics until they actually add ascended weapons.

[AureliusRex]

Featherman, on 15 November 2012 - 09:45 PM, said:

That's far more satisfying than how the NA team spun it. While I still don't like that idea and think that there are other ways they can add progression, it's nice to hear them being frank about their idea of progression.

Since it basically leaves the door wide open for further gear inflation, I don't find it satisfying at all.  In fact most of the responses in that post hint at further design changes I would not like to see in the game.  Specifically it looks like crafted gear is going to become inferior to dungeon gear, at least in the near future.

Its looking ever more likely that this game is going to become a gated dungeon game just like all the other WoW clones.  Thats what the community is speculating and Anet has to be aware of that, but nothing I've seen from them makes any attempt to contradict it.

[Jason Seven]

Protoss, on 15 November 2012 - 05:20 PM, said:

snip

The game looked very promising, it's ideas seemed fresh and innovative but I had to quit sooner rather than later and go back to a game that was much more satisfying in terms of its content. If only I had known sooner what a travesty it was. I am very, very glad to see ArenaNet trying to iron out their mistakes. I do think that it is not too late for them to do so.

dd790, on 15 November 2012 - 05:28 PM, said:

snip

Why? It's simple really. If your MMO doesn't make people want to play it, then it's a failure. This goes for every game. It will not make any money over the years or only bare minimum. All the work and money they put into making this game would have been in vain. There must be something in a game that makes people want to play it and a gear treadmill is the way for this to happen in any MMORPG. Yes, GW1 players might have contributed to making GW2 happen but they've also caused it to fail with their very dated mindset of what MMOs should be like. It was time for ArenaNet to wake up from its slumber and see who its best for them to please. The trying time for their game has long since passed and they did not succeed with their current model which is why they did what had to be done.

RedStar, on 15 November 2012 - 05:36 PM, said:

snip

There cannot be a MMORPG for everyone. Either you make a game that pleases the masses or you will forever stay unsuccessful in the gaming market. Yes, I did dislike GW2 as soon as I hit 80 about 2 days after starting to play. There is/was just nothing to do at all. You either went to make your character look pretty, which is a most absurd way of making players play, or you quit the game. For a long time have my friends and I begged ArenaNet to finally introduce more content so we could improve our characters instead of joining in on this fashion show of heinous game design. I do very much hope that ArenaNet will introduce tier after tier after tier just like every other MMO does. This is what makes a MMORPG a MMORPG, it's the very core essence of such a game.

Asudementio, on 15 November 2012 - 05:51 PM, said:

snip

An infusion of both will only cause both audiences to be dissatisfied. A change in direction was needed. ArenaNet needs to abandon its old ways and start making a game for the masses if they ever want to be recognized as good game developers who actually knows what people want. "Aestethic" grinds are most certainly not the way to go!

Runkleford, on 15 November 2012 - 06:12 PM, said:

snip

Quite the contrary, I'm afraid. The only lazy and cheap game design is catering to a very, very niche crowd that has absolutely no idea what they are talking about. But yes, cosmetic skin collecting (LOL!) is the pinnacle of boring content simply due to the fact that it in no way causes your character to progress. Constant progress is absolutely needed in every single video game out there and ArenaNet finally realized this. I'm glad they did before screwing their game even more up. As you can see it is only the old GW1/2 crowd who is upset about this change of direction.

Edited by Jason Seven, 15 November 2012 - 11:38 PM.

[RedStar]

Jason Seven, on 15 November 2012 - 11:34 PM, said:

There cannot be a MMORPG for everyone. Either you make a game that pleases the masses or you will forever stay unsuccessful in the gaming market. Yes, I did dislike GW2 as soon as I hit 80 about 2 days after starting to play. There is/was just nothing to do at all. You either went to make your character look pretty, which is a most absurd way of making players play, or you quit the game. For a long time have my friends and I begged ArenaNet to finally introduce more content so we could improve our characters instead of joining in on this fashion show of heinous game design. I do very much hope that ArenaNet will introduce tier after tier after tier just like every other MMO does. This is what makes a MMORPG a MMORPG, it's the very core essence of such a game.

Why GW2 ? Is it the B2P model ? Or is there something else ?

[Prismatic Zach]

If new gear is mandatory, give me more bank space.
I support more back slots though

Edited by Prismatic Zach, 15 November 2012 - 11:40 PM.

[Darks Legacy]

This tier is basically just adding an in between exotics and legendaries and attainable by most players. Everyone has exotics at 80, soon everyone wil have ascended as well if they play consistently.

sPvp is unaffected.

WvW, where gearing matters are still going to experience getting owned by a better organized force that use siege weapons regardless of more people having ascended tier. 1v1s to 4v4s is where this will really matter, but in WvW, if those fights aren't over a key objective, doesn't matter if you get rolled by ascended, you weren't really helping out anyways.

My only fear is what people are saing, asking people to ping their gear if ascended gear is what is used to gauge who can go on dungeons or not. Then again, gw1 had title pings and skill bar pings so people wouldn't be taking complete noobs. I welcome the addition.

[Asudementio]

Dove, on 15 November 2012 - 09:32 PM, said:

Ascended gear would be arbitrary if it was the same as exotic gear? Really? Then why do people chase Legendary weapons? They are the same statistically as Exotics. The absolute only difference is cosmetic.

People keep acting like the phrase "filling a gap" makes everything okay, while failing to understand what's actually happening here. Defenders of Ascended tier introduction keep using the true premise of "filling a (time to obtain the item) gap" to justify the more insipid thing that ANet is actually doing: CREATING a STAT gap. That is a gear treadmill, and that is exactly what ANet promised would never be introduced.

Take away the introduction of the stat difference between Exotic/Ascended/Legendary, and I'm 100% cool with this. In fact, I'd bet that almost everyone would be. More options is good. But essentially taking max gear away from people who have worked toward it is absolutely against their stated paradigms in development.

And if you claim it needs to happen because there's nothing else to do, keep in mind that this paradigm worked for years in GW1. You could get max armor and weapons very fast and very cheap (Exotic), 15k armor and some better skinned weapons for more cost/effort (Ascended) and the coolest things in the game like Obsidian/Vabbian armor, Crystalline Swords, etc for very much time or money (Legendary). But NONE had any stat difference.

The prestige of legendaries is why they are sought. They represent an amount of dedication and resources unmatched by any other objective in the game. They are also in a whole different class design wise.

If you release very similar items of the same quality then what is the point of making the items fall in to two different tiers, when one will be more difficult to get? They may as well of been exotics.

A stat gap is not a gear treadmill..... Multiple stat gaps required for meaningful progression is a gear treadmill and that is, as far as we can tell, not what is happening here.


Mechanics from other/ old games don't always work, but i agree that horizontal progression only would probably be sufficient- but frankly i have no issue with vertical progression, especially vertical progression as trivial as this.

[Lucas Ashrock]

Looking forward to wait when we want to talk about trinity: aggressive , defensive, omni, and agony tick.
Aggressive: you deal more damage but you get more degen. You need a healer saving your back, you're a dps.
Defensive: you have the lower degen, you stay alive more than others, you're the tank. And you can throw heals too. Guardian choice n.1
Omni: able to wear any kind of upgrade. The only one able to fit any role, because after all, the game was created to make every player be dps tank and healer same time.
Pretty clear an aggressive set player is not gonna heal others, he's the one dealing the bigger damage receiving the biggest degen.
As well, defensive is not dealing a crap of dps, (compared to aggressive), better try to tank or stay back healing.
Omni is the god of the group, he can do what he want, based on mood/group lack.

IF you truly find what i wrote a fun way to play, well..

p.s. oh don't forget, what you will do (aggressive/defensive/ omni) is based on your RNG luck to drop the best (omni)

Edited by Lucas Ashrock, 16 November 2012 - 12:19 AM.

[Runkleford]

FiachSidhe, on 15 November 2012 - 09:06 PM, said:

No one should ever play a game with a persistent and ever evolving world, expecting anything, to be the final anything.

Oh? There ARE some reasonable expectations of persistency even in an MMO. For example, there's a reasonable expectation that your race,class,gender and level progress of your character does not change unless it is of your own purposeful undoing. And it was a reasonable expectation that after 7 years of GW1 and after all the sales pitches that the level 80 exotics were to be the last tier.

Clearly my expectations were wrong but that doesn't mean they weren't reasonable expectations. All I did was state my opposition to this latest change. All I did was state my disappointment that this one thing was not one of the few mechanics that remain static and unchanging in a constantly changing MMO. Not everything needs to be in constant flux.

[bcbully1]

Check this out. Infusion stats

http://i.imgur.com/MV1Vt.png
It’s probably a very low end infusion since we know they can be increased to go with the infinitely scaling dungeon.
Here’s the code in full, in case anybody feels like arguing about it being fake : [&AgEJkQAwDZWd0+4GAADzMS7fZRcAAA]


Thanks "Mr.CrazyMoose"

Edited by bcbully1, 16 November 2012 - 01:24 AM.

[Lucas Ashrock]

Ye probably is the cheaper possible.

[bcbully1]

So that 8% increase becomes about 16% per item?

[Lucas Ashrock]

The code you linked is wrong.

[bcbully1]

Lucas Ashrock, on 16 November 2012 - 01:32 AM, said:

The code you linked is wrong.

what's wrong with it?

[Jason Seven]

RedStar, on 15 November 2012 - 11:38 PM, said:

Why GW2 ? Is it the B2P model ? Or is there something else ?

I'm not sure I can quite follow your train of thought. If you're asking why I started playing then answer is because it was new. You see, after doing the same content of other games to no end, it does get a bit stale. I was looking forward to GW2 since it seemed very promising and new games usually come packed with a ton of fresh content to master. But I was severely mistaken in thinking so considering how lackluster it's been compared to other MMORPGs thus far.

[Lucas Ashrock]

bcbully1, on 16 November 2012 - 01:57 AM, said:

what's wrong with it?

Don't link nothing on chat

[Lafiele]

hmm, it's not that bad, like +2 stats... just like difference between master, rare and exotics. Minor.

[Lucas Ashrock]

bcbully1, on 16 November 2012 - 01:23 AM, said:

Check this out. Infusion stats

http://i.imgur.com/MV1Vt.png
It’s probably a very low end infusion since we know they can be increased to go with the infinitely scaling dungeon.
Here’s the code in full, in case anybody feels like arguing about it being fake : [&AgEJkQAwDZWd0+4GAADzMS7fZRcAAA]


Thanks "Mr.CrazyMoose"

Do you mind to post a working link?

[RabidusIncendia]

So yeah.  Not that I had a shred of doubt since they basically said it in a slip when talking about expansions...

But Ascended is not the last tier.  To anyone wanting to try to weather this out hoping against hope there was no treadmill, last stop TOOT TOOT!

Velron, on 15 November 2012 - 11:11 PM, said:

German site apparently got a real response.

They specifically state they are not saying ascended will be the last because they don't want to be able to be accused of breaking promises again if they decide to add more tiers.

Pretty much paving the way for the treadmill incoming.

http://www.reddit.co..._german_forums/

Edited by RabidusIncendia, 16 November 2012 - 03:45 AM.