13 replies to this topic

[bdatty]

I'd like to share my thoughts positively on this matter.

As you all know, a decent sum of the community are currently upset with the idea of a new tier in gear. Whether casual or people that just share a dislike towards the typical gear ladder, I can't seem to fathom why all this hatred being condensed. There are things I'd like to point out.

1. Is it that hard to acquire Exotics? In terms of rarity, other items such as Rare and Masterwork can easily be dismissed and can easily be jumped to Exotics with the given time. I ask this question because it goes both way. Many will say it isn't relatively difficult to obtain. Now Aside from ArenaNet's philosophy, why worry about it? People interpret this as a drag and that it requires more time being spent to get the best. It's not like they added an-even-harder-to-get-than-legendary item. It'll be achievable. Keep in mind with what they said:

Quote

"...we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content."

Now ask yourself, do you really want new content to keep at a consistent tone with the current?
What if one year from now, they keep at that pace of adding new areas just to explore. There's no flavour in it.
New players of GW2 would play the game and eventually see an unnecessary redundancy of why put it there in the first place? Some of you will answer because it's self-rewarding. Well, how much of a self-reward can you give yourself? Not everyone will be on par. From a game Design point of view, they want to keep the world alive, keep players interested, hence forth that level of difficulty increase to also compensate with new content.

If obtaining Exotics is that hard, then what have people been doing the last few months.
PvP is competitive, so why not keep PvE a challenge at a personal level with a great reward to perform better?
Appreciate that there are more things to do.

2. When have they made a mistake on their choices. As for their philosophy or what not, I will not argue with. Some where on the line things have changed over time. They realize that something is not working, and they want to fix it. ArenaNet itself is young but innovative. They may have GW1 behind their backs but their drive to make things work is completely different from before and now. They're always tackling new challenge every step of the way. From changing overall font type to making discoveries easier, they worked on a lot of the small details that are often forgotten and don't strongly direct towards player but it helps. As a guy with an interest in Game Design, I respect this. Not as a gamer but a way of understanding and improving. Now they're going to add Ascended gear, you guys won't even give them room to breathe?

3. Casuals. As to the casuals, if you like the game, why worry about it. You can still be entertained while acquiring said gear over time. It's not like ink on paper, it's not that noticeable. We can't inspect you, but if you want to be more 'entertained' by advancing further then there's a drive to do so, to feel good knowing you put a bit more x amount of time to get y in order to achieve z result. There should be a level of competitiveness somewhere in PvE that keeps the game interesting. It's like you're all worried about being left behind. That stigma of closing the gap quickly to feel satisfied ruins your mind. Just relax and play. Simple as that.
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Lastly, do you guys realize how mindless and redundant things will be if things are the way they are right now. This is a change in pace that complements with the gear to progress to the new dungeon. People can barely do CoF Path 3 or even do Arah. You think a harder mechanic will help? No, it'll be lashed out. It's understandable to see why they put this into practice. Numerical value plus mechanic encounter compensate difficulty. But hear me out, It's only one tier higher not four, five, six.

Don't worry about the gear, just wait for that dungeon. You're all tangled up with reminiscing the old GW1.

tl:dr If you didn't read this, then why are you on the forums for. To read and comment one moment opinions and whine?

Edited by bdatty, 14 November 2012 - 04:17 PM.

[RaoulDukeHST]

yeah,but you are using logic and common sense,why would people do that when they can QQ and whine like a bunch of pansies that arenanet took their toy away?The gaming community today is at it's worst state ever.People just complain no matter what you do,if you give them 1,they cry cuz' it's not 2.If you give them 2,they cry cuz' it's not 1.

[jonasklk]

For me it's all going to be about how they implement it.

If they implement it in such a way that that you will be able to acquire them from the current dungeons then i really do not have a problem with it.

[Red_Falcon]

Ascended are just meant as a bridge between exotics and legendaries.
Exotics are like Droks armor, Ascended like 15k armor and Legendary is FoW armor (when armor pieces will be released).

No problems for me with this, it all depends how hard it'll be to aquire those Ascended items.
If it's within one week of playing I'm fine.

[Lol Lol Lol Guy]

Someone with common sense? I didn't know it still existed on this forum beside a very small percentage! Everything you said is so true. Plus, let's not forgot all the whiners are just a very vocal minority. Most of the players are probably turned off of this forum because of the amount of whining and crying.

[Alex Dimitri]

Jonasklk has a point, it`s how will they implement Ascended stuff into game.
The other thing is people are scared that it might create unbalance in WvW, or simply make PvE portion of the game too easy !

And my personal grudge with Ascended gear....would be (i hope i`m wrong) this just looks like stepping stone, more of these will come with time, when they release new content i presume stuff will be much harder to do (new content) and only way to make players stronger is to "pump" up the stats we already have !

Which generally brings us to usual treadmill that every other MMO has !

[badra al duun]

I don't understand how one can say it's a stepping stone between exotics and legendaries without simultaneously acknowledging that:

  1. Legendaries don't have different stats than Exotics (*), one would hope that a "stepping stone" between them would also share the same stats.
  2. Acquiring ascended MUST be a grind (insofar as acquiring legendaries is a grind).

(*) I think NO ONE has a problem with this new content if the stats are the same as exotics.

Infusion, as done in GW1, was simply not an issue, and if that is how this ends up, then it's going to be a storm in a teacup that changes nothing and we all just move on.

However, if tomorrow comes around, and we need to "upgrade" all our existing exotic rings (and whatever else they are doing this round of changes)?  Well a lot of people are just going to stop playing (I'd say "quietly" but I bet the whinging continues).

Anyways, despite anet's claims on the topic, they are choosing right now, between treadmill or not (horizontal gameplay v. vertical).  Both choices are fine, it's just that some of us really only signed up for one of those two options.

[Fizzypop]

"Appreciate that there are more things to do. "

Except I'm locked out of an instance if I don't have infusion. So that new content? I won't even be able to fully enjoy. Agony is a lazy tactic to create difficulty for this instance. So it's new content that's HAS THE SAME PROBLEMS AS THE OTHER INSTANCES PLUS IT ADDS UNNECESSARY GEAR TO DO IT. Agony is no different than increasing mob health. It doesn't make the encouter more fun or interesting or even hard...it just requires more time. This doesn't change a thing. They could've easily created this terrible system by adding infusion to normal gear. It's like they took the dumbest idea ever and made it worse.

I'd love it if new content was actually new and not the same hashed out crap they've done before with a new name and look. That isn't innovative. Let's hope the new zone doesn't have the same problem Orr has...which is the same mob type over and over again until you want to claw out your own eyes.

Edited by Fizzypop, 14 November 2012 - 05:25 PM.

[Knuckledust13]

There is a topic for that, just do like thousands of other players and post your thougts there. inb4 merge

[dhatcher1]

Fortunately todays post by Anet pretty much relieves most of the concern.

Ascended is a new tier above exotic.
The stats difference will be smaller than the jump from fine to exotic.  
Legendary weapons will be upgraded to Ascended stats levels.
Means to obtain Ascended gear will be added to existing content, including crafting and PvE content.

We will only be in a "only the latest dungeon gear matters" mode until Anet gets Ascended integrated into the existing game.

The main issue is there are still plenty of dungeon groups that exclude players without exotic gear.  Are we now going to have groups excluding players without Ascended gear? It could make dungeons even less accessible to casual players who want some challenge.  Though maybe the new increasing difficulty dungeons will fill that need.

Edited by dhatcher1, 14 November 2012 - 05:30 PM.

[Dasryn]

i think the whole backlash part about the introduction of ascended gear was merely on principle.

the guild wars fanbase was promised no gear ladder/ gear tier and they feel like that was betrayed with the announcement.

its w/e for me because i never played GW1, and literally every mmorpg ive ever played had the gear tiering so this is a natural thing for me.

i still dont like starting a game and feeling left behind on day 1 though.  i like the idea of no gear tiering.  but is it just an idea?  only time will tell.

[Martiniam1]

Red_Falcon, on 14 November 2012 - 04:30 PM, said:

Ascended are just meant as a bridge between exotics and legendaries.
Exotics are like Droks armor, Ascended like 15k armor and Legendary is FoW armor (when armor pieces will be released).

No problems for me with this, it all depends how hard it'll be to aquire those Ascended items.
If it's within one week of playing I'm fine.

You forget one very important aspect though. All those armors had the same stats, some just looked cooler

[DuskWolf]

First of all? Legendaries will have different stats than Exotics, and this goes against everything ArenaNet told us of their prized power plateau. This was the stuff I bought into, and they've lied through their teeth about it. It smells rotten, it smells of Nexon.

And this is an exclusive zone, it's something that you have to grind for gear to get into. So bye-bye power plateau! Hello exclusive content! FFS, this is worse than WoW. How? In WoW, you only had exclusive raids, but in GW2 we now have zones which are only for elitists with too much time on their hands. And do you think that this is the only zone they're going to implement this way?

This is just the start of the treadmill. Better stats! More exclusive zones! Better stats again! Yet more exclusive zones! And this just reeks of the influence of Nexon. I'm sure that Guild Wars 2 was meant to be a fun game, but sadly it's been ruined for me. As if the lack of tactics and endless zerging wasn't a nasty enough WoW-ish inclusion, we now have the WoW treadmill.

I was an ArenaNet faithful, but as soon as I saw just how much they were ready to betray me, I tossed that to the side.

I wanted this game to be fun. I wanted my power plateau. And one thing I didn't want was exclusive content. How long is it going to be before we stop saying everything is fine? How long before we stop bending over and taking this punishment up the rear, hm? Well, that's something for you to decide.

[Shadok]

As I'm sure you're aware, there is already a plethora of threads on Ascension. Creating more threads does nothing more than fragment discussion and multiply the work of moderators. That said, if you would like to discuss this subject further, please do so in an already existing thread. If you would simply like to post your own personal opinion and truly have no interest in discussion, you may do so here.