192 replies to this topic

[Lordkrall]

Andemius, on 14 November 2012 - 08:44 AM, said:

50 is a bit excessive. The only real cost would be a superior vigor rune, which for the price isn't particularly worth the extra 9hp if you're on a budget. Also collector weapons with max mods were also readily availble.

No, what was said was there would be no grind for gear. I cba finding the actual quote, but that is the bones of it.

Superior Vigor costed about 20 plat each for a rather long time after release. (The increase is 50 hp btw, not 9)

Indeed, weapons with max mods were rather easy to get, but getting the RIGHT max mods was rather much harder and more time-consuming.

And yet we do not know how much we will "grind for gear" here either.

Didn't we already have to "grind for gear" before this was added in that case?

[SigillumMilitum]

Andemius, on 14 November 2012 - 08:44 AM, said:

50 is a bit excessive. The only real cost would be a superior vigor rune, which for the price isn't particularly worth the extra 9hp if you're on a budget. Also collector weapons with max mods were also readily availble.

No, what was said was there would be no grind for gear. I cba finding the actual quote, but that is the bones of it.



Have to take your word for that, never played Lineage when it came out!

No problem. Somehow it's hard to google older screenshots (circa Chronicle 2/3), though to be fair art direction was somewhat bland during C1/prelude. Again, the game would have been great if its gameplay was half as good as its art assets at the time.

[Daesu]

Lordkrall, on 14 November 2012 - 08:17 AM, said:

Indeed, but you still needed to farm about 50 platinum in order to get the runes needed to be "good enough" and the weapons with the right mods where rather hard to get as well.

We have not been lied to. They never stated they would never add a higher tier than Exotic.

Runes are cheap in GW1.  The most expensive being Superior Rune of Vigor and that only costs 21 plats from the vendor, cheaper if you buy it off players.  Besides, without all the gold sinks in GW2, 21 plats comes very easily in GW1.

ArenaNet stated that there would be no grinding for the best gear, so we have been lied to.  Read the OP.

Lordkrall, on 14 November 2012 - 08:50 AM, said:

Indeed, weapons with max mods were rather easy to get, but getting the RIGHT max mods was rather much harder and more time-consuming.

No, how can they be difficult to get when the rares drop come in perfect or near perfect mods.  I have mules full of perfect mods.

[Lordkrall]

Daesu, on 14 November 2012 - 09:18 AM, said:

Runes are cheap in GW1.  The most expensive being Superior Rune of Vigor and that only costs 21 plats from the vendor, cheaper if you buy it off players.  Besides, without all the gold sinks in GW2, 21 plats comes very easily in GW1.

ArenaNet stated that there would be no grinding for the best gear, so we have been lied to.  Read the OP.

Yes they are cheaper and easier to get NOW, but three months after release it was more or less impossible for most players to get them if they did not get them as drops.

Getting 21 plat in GW1 is rather much harder than getting a piece of exotic gear in GW2.

Oh, so it is not until know that we have been lied to?
Haven't we "grinded" to get the best armor since release?

And do we even KNOW that this will be a grind?

[Andemius]

Lordkrall, on 14 November 2012 - 08:50 AM, said:

Superior Vigor costed about 20 plat each for a rather long time after release. (The increase is 50 hp btw, not 9)

Indeed, weapons with max mods were rather easy to get, but getting the RIGHT max mods was rather much harder and more time-consuming.

And yet we do not know how much we will "grind for gear" here either.

Didn't we already have to "grind for gear" before this was added in that case?

The difference between Major Vigor (4k) and Superior Vigor (17-27k) is 9hp.

The point is that adding a stat increase after exotic, which is mechanically the highest tier, makes it a grind.

[Lordkrall]

Andemius, on 14 November 2012 - 09:26 AM, said:

The difference between Major Vigor (4k) and Superior Vigor (17-27k) is 9hp.

The point is that adding a stat increase after exotic, which is mechanically the highest tier, makes it a grind.

So, doing the exact same thing as we did for exotic will be a grind just because it is higher than exotic?
Why is it less of a grind to get from Mastercraft to Rare or Exotic?
Doesn't it involve the exact same amount of grind if they are gained the exact same way?

[Andemius]

Lordkrall, on 14 November 2012 - 09:30 AM, said:

So, doing the exact same thing as we did for exotic will be a grind just because it is higher than exotic?
Why is it less of a grind to get from Mastercraft to Rare or Exotic?
Doesn't it involve the exact same amount of grind if they are gained the exact same way?

If someone has already got themselves fully decked out exotic gear, and this comes along, it's just a rung in gear grind ladder. It has been added above exotic, which is the issue. If it were on the same level as exotic, there wouldn't be as much of an issue.

[Daesu]

Lordkrall, on 14 November 2012 - 09:23 AM, said:

Yes they are cheaper and easier to get NOW, but three months after release it was more or less impossible for most players to get them if they did not get them as drops.

Getting 21 plat in GW1 is rather much harder than getting a piece of exotic gear in GW2.

Oh, so it is not until know that we have been lied to?
Haven't we "grinded" to get the best armor since release?

And do we even KNOW that this will be a grind?

No, getting 21 plats is easy.  Just by joining a PUG to clear ONE daily zmission, which takes about half an hour, you get about 100 copper zcoins.  500 copper zcoins would worth about 1 gold zcoin which you can sell for about 15k, so you can easily afford one within a week if you only play half an hour a day.  And you only need ONE superior vigor rune for EACH character since they don't stack anyway.

I have played GW2 for much more than a week, with several hours a day, and I still can't afford a full exotic set.  I don't even want to mention the other gold sinks in GW2.

Grind?  What grind?  According to Mike O'Brien (ArenaNet President and Co-founder), GW2 is not suppose to have a gear grind...right....

Edited by Daesu, 14 November 2012 - 09:47 AM.

[Lordkrall]

Andemius, on 14 November 2012 - 09:34 AM, said:

If someone has already got themselves fully decked out exotic gear, and this comes along, it's just a rung in gear grind ladder. It has been added above exotic, which is the issue. If it were on the same level as exotic, there wouldn't be as much of an issue.

And yet the only reason you would NEED this new gear is for the deeper levels of the dungeon that actually drops the gear.

You won't be able to just run into the deepest parts of the Dungeon without first doing the lower parts.
And as far as we know maybe we will have full set before we even reach those level where it is needed?
How would that be grind in that case?

[Zhahz]

Quote

While it is pretty clear of what Arenanet has in mind going forward, many of us want to know "What happened?" One does not simply decide to simply build a MMO claiming to "defy all existing conventions" & 2 months down the road completely change ones business practices & betray its playerbase without reason.

Yeah, well, I'm one of the suckers who bought in on the original design and philosophies and who is pretty unhappy.

The game could certainly use something but adding in gear tiers and carrot is not it.

I've done the carrot in plenty of other games - I got into GW2 because there was no freaking carrot.  I also made the mistake of thinking ANet was different and setting out to make a game that was different.

It isn't my fault they made leveling in the game so stupidly fast and easy and/or that they made it so you can gear up in full exotics in days (or minutes if you're a gold buying cheater or like to throw down for gold via currency exchange (one person I know in game has spent a couple hundred doing this)).

Maybe they should put a little more thought into design (too late and still failing) and maybe they should test crap with actual players since their internal testing apparently sucks.

[Lordkrall]

Daesu, on 14 November 2012 - 09:35 AM, said:

No, getting 21 plats is easy.  Just by joining a PUG to clear ONE daily zmission, which takes about half an hour, you get about 100 copper zcoins.  500 copper zcoins would worth about 1 gold zcoin which you can sell for about 15k, so you can easily afford one within a week if you only play half an hour a day.

I have played GW2 for much more than a week and I still can't afford a full exotic set.

Oh you mean those things added SEVERAL YEARS after the release of the game?
I am talking about 3 months into the game, that was before Faction, before Nightfall and Heroes, long before Z-dailies were introduced.

[Daesu]

Lordkrall, on 14 November 2012 - 09:37 AM, said:

Oh you mean those things added SEVERAL YEARS after the release of the game?
I am talking about 3 months into the game, that was before Faction, before Nightfall and Heroes, long before Z-dailies were introduced.

I forgot what their prices were 3 months into the game but I am sure they were still easier to farm for than a full set of exotics since you only need ONE superior vigor rune per character, as they don't stack anyway.

Edited by Daesu, 14 November 2012 - 09:47 AM.

[Gremlin]

If you take the coming update as the arrival of GW factions you will see that Anet have not done a 180 they are doing just what they said they would do with GW1.

There where supposed to be additions to GW1 every 6 months however with the decision to add 2 new characters with each expansion it became impossible to sustain after Nightfall.
They then decided to call a halt and work on GW2.

Some players have finished the pve content to their satisfaction in anything from a couple of weeks to a couple of Months and are now moaning.
PVP players are complaining about WVW and lack of GVG
Others like me are just moaning about camera angles in puzzles and black lion keys.

Anet appears to have listened to this and have imo brought forward several future expansions combined them into a massive "their words" expansion to be introduced this month.
Still complaining oh well there is no pleasing some people.

There are problems, wvw is the main one I would think.
Players say it isn't working, anet know this and are probably rethinking it, but that's ok it was a good try and not all new ideas work out.
I feel quite sorry for anet they created a new game and apart from bug fixes you would think they could sit back for a time and enjoy their creation instead they are getting pilloried by many for screwing up and for sometimes mutually exclusive reasons.

WVW ok it needs work.
BL chests/keys yep annoying
Camera angles again should have been fixed before start
Totally over the top high end gear creation that is somewhat random yep silly.

[Spenn]

I don't understand the hue and cry.

On one hand we have people crying about low-pop zones because progression-minded players have moved on, on the other hand, people are crying about new mechanics designed to entice these progression-minded players back to the game.

I'm all for new gear tiers, as long as they do not become a blanket content gate. I doubt ascended gear is mandatory for FotM content, just like exotics and legendaries aren't needed for existing dungeon content. Yes, they're nice to have, but they're not mandatory.

Ascended gear is just another carrot to bring back progression-oriented players (and we know there are a lot of them).

[Azjenco]

Bennyandthejets, on 13 November 2012 - 04:14 PM, said:

"Here's what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can't realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game.  Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear.  We don't make grindy games -- we leave the grind to other MMOs."

  -Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The problem is, the game has already a bit like that up to now.
I mean, you need to run a dungeon 23 times to have enough tokens for a dungeon set, and that's excluding the weapons. Full karma gear cost 252K karma, and that requires quite a bit to get to. I'm also not against the idea of ascended gear, but it needs to be dealt with in the right way. I actually a suggestion on this topic, so I'll just leave it at that:
https://forum-en.gui...irst#post725357

I'm not being negative, or trying to say 'well, the game is like that, so there's nothing to do about it'. What I am saying is, there's already some fundamental flaws, and I think Anet knows this. They're tweaking dungeon tokens, and already added jugs of karma, but I don't think it's enough. Dungeon tokens should be universal, or at least tradable from one token type to another. Karma jugs should be a chest reward in game and not just awarded from achievements.

The game should award more for playing how you want to play, and have more to do in lower areas, perhaps even adding 'danger' events that's harder to do, but grants good rewards and a purpose for higher level players to be in lower level areas. Across the board there should be more things fitting into one another.

I think the one thing ANet thought when they said that there will be little grind is, there are events everywhere, you can enjoy them all, meanwhile building karma in the background, and thus slowly make your way towards karma gear. Or play dungeons as you like, there are paths thus meaning less grind. Little did they know that players felt that they were forced to run Orr to get to exotic gear, because its the most effective way to make karma. Or that that players will try to do the quickest dungeon paths, because it felt like the least annoying way to get tokens as they did dungeons over and over.
Players usually seek the path of least resistance, and I have an idea that ArenaNet thought they had found a way around that.

Players should be rewarded equally for doing things all over the board. Perhaps there should be more dungeon paths, and each of them a short intense experience, rather than a string of long, stretched out battle against unending bars of boss monster. More challenges that keeps you on your toes.

And Karma needs to play a larger role, something more easily acquired and perhaps play a larger role other than exotic gear. Which is why I liked your idea:

Quote

Zaishen Daily Dynamic Events - Each day 1 zone is selected (Outside of Orr/Frostgorge).  For the first completion of every dynamic event in that zone the player would be rewarded a large % increase to Dynamic event rewards.  Significantly higher than that of Orr/Frostgorge.  For example:  Orr/Frostgorge reward something like 378 karma for completion.  ZDDE would reward 500.  Once every dynamic event in the zone was completed the player would be rewarded with a 20-30 T6 mats of their choice & a fair sum of silver.  ZDDE applies to 80's only.  (Yes, I'm aware it would have to be affiliated with some other organization, just using Zaishen as a GW1 reference)

Two things I'd like to suggest:
1 ) Make it two zones, rather than one. This way one zone wont be flooded with players and spread out the activities evenly.

2 ) Rather have a token system, like in GW1. This will allow players to acquire tokens and then buy whatever rewards they feel matters most to them.

[Desild]

Daesu, on 14 November 2012 - 09:45 AM, said:

I forgot what their prices were 3 months into the game but I am sure they were still easier to farm for than a full set of exotics since you only need ONE superior vigor rune per character, as they don't stack anyway.

At one point in time, they were almost worth 90 platinum. So yeah, not sure where you're getting at. Took me years and a bit of luck to grab myself a Superior Vigor for my main.

There are many things that irk me in GW2. Things that I'm sure complaining won't fix them. Low drop rates, crappy dungeon rewards, crippling dungeon bugs, inflated difficulty, gimmick mechanics that are begging to be exploited. Now this. At this rate, I'm tossing GW2 out of the window and quit MMOs games altogether.

[ShadeMoon]

Like most of their "revolutionary" ideas - like the lack of trinity, super limited arsenal, limited character progression, no raids, PvP without tangible consequences and so on - the lack of meaningful gear progression was a bad idea which could never provide longevity.

Fans have been in denial about that - just like ArenaNet have been in denial about it.
Now that they completely contradict themselves and do EXACTLY and PRECISELY what they CLEARLY promised would NEVER EVER happen after hardly 3 months - the fans are going to pretend it's not a big deal.

Anyone with a brain can see this completely goes against their design philosophy. It's a huge deal if you care about that kind of thing.
However, it's definitely a good thing for the game - because it will help keep it interesting for a longer time. That's because basic human psychology tells us that rewards are nice when you spend time achieving something. That's what all other themepark MMOs have realised - and ArenaNet chose to ignore because they're so fantastic at game design.
Yeah, not really.

Cry more noobs.

Edited by ShadeMoon, 14 November 2012 - 10:17 AM.

[Mootillay]

Lordkrall, on 14 November 2012 - 09:23 AM, said:

Getting 21 plat in GW1 is rather much harder than getting a piece of exotic gear in GW2.

No... it really wasn't.   I'd say it required about the same effort.  By the end of 7 years, Z-quests and instance rewards made it quite easy to accrue gold.  The vast majority of non-cosmetic GW1 gear was very easy to come by outside of maybe a couple spear, scythe mods--because these weapon drops were limited to certain areas of the game.

I don't recall Superior Vigor costing 90 platinum either, and I've played the game since release.  In fact, I recall Superior Absorption costing this much and Vigor costing half that.. I landed a Superior Vigor with my first character and sold it to the vendor for an astounding(at the time) 40 plat or so.  After a year or so, however, these prices dropped sharply.

Frankly, gear was a non-issue in GW1 unless you were seeking extremely rare cosmetics(i.e. Factions shields, crystalline swords).  Anyone who denies that didn't understand the game or is full of Joe Biden's Irish malarkey.  I've played MMOs that intentionally make exclusive gear the focus of motivation for players and while it may "work"(sell copies) to some degree it doesn't cultivate a good atmosphere or gameplay experience and frankly that's a big part of the reason I bought GW2... to get away from it.  Crossing my fingers I can find a way to accept these new gear upgrades.

[Uder]

I think the only thing that can be done is cry on the forums and on every other media since they suspend pretty fast on official forums, some came to the conclusion that having a german community leader is the reason, but i don´t know...

[miriforst]

Perm Shadow Form, on 13 November 2012 - 06:38 PM, said:

Stop crying, finally Arena Net does something right.

Says the one with the name "perma shadow form".

Oh the irony.

The problem as i see it is that they state that the farther you go into the dungeon the more you will need the protection from infusion. Who then will want to farm it with the player late to the party (as in even a week or two). It is essentially built for a "Must Be This Geared to Enter" sign above the dungeon. Of course close friends and guilds will be able to complete it, jsut don't count on pugging it.

I am okay with acessories but please dont let it flow into armors and weapons.

Edited by miriforst, 14 November 2012 - 12:13 PM.

[Ritualist]

Daesu, on 14 November 2012 - 09:45 AM, said:

I forgot what their prices were 3 months into the game but I am sure they were still easier to farm for than a full set of exotics since you only need ONE superior vigor rune per character, as they don't stack anyway.

I ran around for ages in collectors AL 57 gear on my necro because I couldn't afford the mats for the 1,5k energy Droks set. I think the tattoos demanded feathers/ink and that was completely out of reach for a new player.
With that in mind - the prices have dropped over the years and max gear was made easier to obtain and THAT made GW1 better. And it would be fantastic if GW2 learned from those issues and instead of having to wait for YEARS for A.Net to fix the SAME issues that plagued GW1, maybe they could incorporate those solutions into GW2 from the start.

A clean slate doesn't mean you have to forget every dumbass decision you made, nor does it mean you need to forget every good decision you made. On the contrary, a clean slate makes sense if you REMEMBER what you did and don't repeat the same dumbass mistakes ALL OVER AGAIN.

[badra al duun]

Ultimately, it's an issue of trust.  Perhaps they are simply adding this one thing, so we need to regear our characters just this once- sure, they said we wouldn't have to, but one time isn't bad, right?  It's not a treadmill if it's just once.

Except, there is no particular reason to believe them on the topic, as they changed position on it once already.  So maybe, even if I throw out all my exalted sets (cost me at least 50g/character) and get ascended, when the next box comes out I need to get super-mega-ascended2-the-sequel.  They lost credibility the first time they broke their word on the topic.

I spend a bit of each day running plinx, before I do some dungeons, or go wvw.  If I need to go get ascended shit to max my farming gear for orr, well- I'm not getting on that treadmill.

[Crantson]

It is true that early in GW1 certain mods and runes were extremely expensive and hard to get.  Part of this was that you could not choose which rune or mod you would salvage off an item.  There was a very good chance that in salvaging an item you would get a crafting material instead of the mod you were after so things like +30 hp mods for weapons were, at one time, running around 60 plat or higher.  Armor also originally had different stats for the different kinds (not tiers) of gear you bought so you had to buy different sets for different builds.

However, ANet changed these things - apparently they were not adding to gameplay enjoyment.

Edited by Crantson, 14 November 2012 - 04:47 PM.

[Specialz]

Daesu, on 14 November 2012 - 09:35 AM, said:

No, getting 21 plats is easy.  Just by joining a PUG to clear ONE daily zmission, which takes about half an hour, you get about 100 copper zcoins.  500 copper zcoins would worth about 1 gold zcoin which you can sell for about 15k, so you can easily afford one within a week if you only play half an hour a day.  And you only need ONE superior vigor rune for EACH character since they don't stack anyway.

I have played GW2 for much more than a week, with several hours a day, and I still can't afford a full exotic set.  I don't even want to mention the other gold sinks in GW2.

Grind?  What grind?  According to Mike O'Brien (ArenaNet President and Co-founder), GW2 is not suppose to have a gear grind...right....

First, getting 21 platinum was not easy back in 2005 I have no idea where you got that from. Also at some point around may 2006, runes of vigor were about 37 platinum because I remember spending my whole summer (sadly) farming ettins for them. But make no mistake, maybe its nostaglia but getting platinum was never easy in the first year for the average player.

Just to add, grind is a term that a lot of people don't seem to use properly nor do they even know what constitute as grind.  Playing the game normally is not grind, it just playing the game, getting exotic is not even grind because you can do the content in rares (my first alt elementalist wears only rares, I level from 65 to 80 without changing my armor as well). If you want to know what grind is play any MMO where you run an instance 100 times and still not get a single piece of armor. You can get max armor set piece by spending an hour or so in orr.

So yes, guild wars 2 doesn't really have grind which is coming back to bite them in the butt. It seems player need to be gated from burning through content and complaining how there is nothing to do at 80.

Edited by Specialz, 14 November 2012 - 04:52 PM.

[Gli]

Daesu, on 14 November 2012 - 09:23 AM, said:

ArenaNet stated that there would be no grinding for the best gear, so we have been lied to.  Read the OP.

So you already know we need to grind for the new gear?

Also, when discussing the GW1 - GW2 difference, bear in mind that GW1 year one was a very different beast than GW1 year 7. Equipping a warrior with max gear cost me around 250 platinum in year one, because Superior Vigor and Superior Absorbtion runes alone cost me 100 platinum at the time.

Edited by Gli, 14 November 2012 - 06:04 PM.

[Daesu]

Desild, on 14 November 2012 - 10:06 AM, said:

At one point in time, they were almost worth 90 platinum. So yeah, not sure where you're getting at. Took me years and a bit of luck to grab myself a Superior Vigor for my main.

There are many things that irk me in GW2. Things that I'm sure complaining won't fix them. Low drop rates, crappy dungeon rewards, crippling dungeon bugs, inflated difficulty, gimmick mechanics that are begging to be exploited. Now this. At this rate, I'm tossing GW2 out of the window and quit MMOs games altogether.

Sure, I would agree that at one point in time Superior Vigor runes were expensive.  But that doesn't mean that getting a full set of exotics (trinkets+weapons+armor+best runes/sigil) in GW2 is a walk in the park either.

In GW1, you can settle for a much cheaper Major Vigor rune which is just a difference of 9hp.  Furthermore you only need ONE vigor rune per character so overall I still believe it is harder to max stat your character in GW2 than it is in GW1.

Edited by Daesu, 14 November 2012 - 06:23 PM.

[Daesu]

Gli, on 14 November 2012 - 06:01 PM, said:

So you already know we need to grind for the new gear?

Also, when discussing the GW1 - GW2 difference, bear in mind that GW1 year one was a very different beast than GW1 year 7. Equipping a warrior with max gear cost me around 250 platinum in year one, because Superior Vigor and Superior Absorbtion runes alone cost me 100 platinum at the time.

It would really surprise me if ArenaNet offers Ascended gear, which are classified to be between Legendaries and Exotics, without any grind. Currently, we need to grind for Exotics anyway.

Like I have said, GW1 has always been cheaper to play than GW2 because of all the gold sinks in GW2.  You can map travel in GW1 for FREE!  Can you do that in GW2?  You can change your skill points for free in GW1.  Can you reset your trait points for free in GW2?  Resurrection is free in GW1, but not in GW2 and it scales to be more expensive with your level.  There are no repair cost in GW1, but not in GW2.  No listing fee and no transaction fee when you trade between players in GW1, unlike GW2.  I can go on.

Furthermore, in GW1 you are already given a max stat green weapon when you have completed the game.  Even if you don't care about that, you can also get max stat items easily from drops playing in the endgame areas.  You can also get max armor cheaply in endgame towns.

What are you offered in GW2 when you have completed the game?  A rare weapon, not even max stat.

Yes, I dare declare that gold and max stat items have always been easier to get in GW1 than in GW2, even during the first year of GW1.

Specialz, on 14 November 2012 - 04:50 PM, said:

First, getting 21 platinum was not easy back in 2005 I have no idea where you got that from. Also at some point around may 2006, runes of vigor were about 37 platinum because I remember spending my whole summer (sadly) farming ettins for them. But make no mistake, maybe its nostaglia but getting platinum was never easy in the first year for the average player.

I don't know what is so difficult when ectos were a lot more valuable back then.  Just join a pug and farm UW.  You just have to know how to farm.

Edited by Daesu, 14 November 2012 - 06:44 PM.

[Improvavel]

So are we making a protest in game?

I think a mass coordinated log in in a major town that isn't LA saying in /map chat something about how gear grind sucks would be a decent start.

Videos and screen shots from all the servers spread around the web.

Edited by Improvavel, 14 November 2012 - 06:43 PM.

[Runkleford]

Lordkrall, on 14 November 2012 - 09:30 AM, said:

So, doing the exact same thing as we did for exotic will be a grind just because it is higher than exotic?
Why is it less of a grind to get from Mastercraft to Rare or Exotic?
Doesn't it involve the exact same amount of grind if they are gained the exact same way?

Here's the thing. At this point in time in GW2, there WILL be a gear grind for those with exotic armor upgrading to Ascendent. The reason why it wasn't a grind to get from mastercraft to rare or exotic is because at the time, exotics were the highest tier. So a player could skip mastercraft or rares and skip to working on getting to exotics and spend the bulk of their time, effort and gold on getting exotics.  It's the knowledge beforehand that helps people plan to avoid the grind.

But since everyone thought exotics were the last tier, we all spent our karma, gold and time on decking our character fully in exotics. And now we have to replace all of that with Ascendent gear to play future content when we could have skipped exotics and placed that bottleneck of time and effort onto the highest tier instead. This is why gear progression is bad in other games.

Now since Ascendent gear is supposed to be the last tier, this won't be a never ending gear grind but it's still frustrating for a lot of folks  who just had their bulk of their work rendered a wasted effort if they want to upgrade to the next tier. They could have saved their time and gold for Ascendent gear. That is the difference from knowing what gear is the highest instead of having it sprung on you in a new update.


Currently, the only place you need Ascendent armor is in the dungeon. But in the blog they said they would be adding more high level content and more ascendent gear. It's a safe assumption that the Agony mechanic will be prevalent in high level content so anyone who wants to play the new content will have to upgrade. So while it's not mandatory, you're missing out on content if you don't.

Edited by Runkleford, 14 November 2012 - 06:55 PM.

[drkn]

People are comparing 7-year-old GW1 to 3-month-old GW2.

BACK THEN, at the beginning or Prophecies, getting proper max gear was nearly impossible and/or expensive. Much harder than getting exotics in GW2.
BACK THEN, before the addition of zmissions, Nicholas and other farmable stuff, 20 plats was A LOT. Five years from now players will make a laugh of how you guys cried about exotics going away and the need to craft higher tier gear because along with new tiers of gear, ANet will introduce new ways to make money. Fractals alone seem like a decent farm spot for gold, letting you fund the things you need. Stuff like zmissions which might get added a few years from now will make getting top tier gear a joke, just like it is a joke to get sup vigor and 15k armor set in GW1 now. But it WASN'T that easy back when GW1 was 3-4 months old, get it?

@Runkle - you're already missing or consciously omitting official info stating that ascended stuff will be available from Forgre RECIPES. Not rng throw-your-exotics-and-hope-for-the-best forging, but proper recipes. Don't want to farm a dungeon or want to be absolutely ready the first time you're hit with Agony? Get your backbrace from the Forge!

There's so much misinformation, doomsaying and comparisons to other games while we still haven't seen how the new stuff actually plays out. I want to take it as a sign that the GW2 community cares that much about the game they love.

Edited by drkn, 14 November 2012 - 07:05 PM.