438 replies to this topic

[n00854180t]

http://guildwars2hub...ic-merchant.png

The Gift of Ascension requires 500 Fractal Relics. You get 5 Fractal Relics per fractal (15 for a full run of 3).

Ignoring the possibility that the Ascended items might require the exotic accessory shown there (1350 Fractal Relics), the Gift *alone* would require 34 full runs of the dungeon to obtain.

For comparison, it takes 1380 dungeon tokens to buy a *full set* of Exotic dungeon gear, or 21 explorable mode runs.

One Ascended item (assuming it uses the Gift of Ascension) will take 13 more runs than obtaining an entire exotic dungeon set. If it requires the exotic trinket as well, it would be 103 more runs than a full exotic dungeon set.

Anyone else think that's a little insane, especially considering that Ascended items are essentially required due to being almost a full tier better than exotics with equivalent upgrades?

[Al Shamari]

n00854180t, on 15 November 2012 - 10:02 PM, said:

http://guildwars2hub...ic-merchant.png

The Gift of Ascension requires 500 Fractal Relics. You get 5 Fractal Relics per fractal (15 for a full run of 3).

Ignoring the possibility that the Ascended items might require the exotic accessory shown there (1350 Fractal Relics), the Gift *alone* would require 34 full runs of the dungeon to obtain.

For comparison, it takes 1380 dungeon tokens to buy a *full set* of Exotic dungeon gear, or 21 explorable mode runs.

One Ascended item (assuming it uses the Gift of Ascension) will take 13 more runs than obtaining an entire exotic dungeon set. If it requires the exotic trinket as well, it would be 103 more runs than a full exotic dungeon set.

Anyone else think that's a little insane, especially considering that Ascended items are essentially required due to being almost a full tier better than exotics with equivalent upgrades?

You get 5 Fractal Relics for the first run I believe, chances are that with the increasing difficulty comes increased rewards...

[blindude]

n00854180t, on 15 November 2012 - 10:02 PM, said:

http://guildwars2hub...ic-merchant.png

The Gift of Ascension requires 500 Fractal Relics. You get 5 Fractal Relics per fractal (15 for a full run of 3).

Ignoring the possibility that the Ascended items might require the exotic accessory shown there (1350 Fractal Relics), the Gift *alone* would require 34 full runs of the dungeon to obtain.

For comparison, it takes 1380 dungeon tokens to buy a *full set* of Exotic dungeon gear, or 21 explorable mode runs.

One Ascended item (assuming it uses the Gift of Ascension) will take 13 more runs than obtaining an entire exotic dungeon set. If it requires the exotic trinket as well, it would be 103 more runs than a full exotic dungeon set.

Anyone else think that's a little insane, especially considering that Ascended items are essentially required due to being almost a full tier better than exotics with equivalent upgrades?

actually is quite the opposite taking into account that  probably rewards will increase with difficulty

Edited by blindude, 15 November 2012 - 10:06 PM.

[n00854180t]

Al Shamari, on 15 November 2012 - 10:04 PM, said:

You get 5 Fractal Relics for the first run I believe, chances are that with the increasing difficulty comes increased rewards...

Even if they give 2x as many, it's still an insane grind for a single piece. I wasn't aware the focus of the game was grinding one piece of content hundreds of times. In fact, I bought the game on the premise I wouldn't have to do that very thing.

Edited by n00854180t, 15 November 2012 - 10:06 PM.

[blindude]

how do you know it will be only x2 and why would you need to repeat the lower difficulty stages to farm relics for the rest f the pieces.I believe good players will have this new gear tier in no time as well..which makes me wonder what was the point of it being introduced in the first place..

Edited by blindude, 15 November 2012 - 10:08 PM.

[Featherman]

n00854180t, on 15 November 2012 - 10:05 PM, said:

Even if they give 2x as many, it's still an insane grind for a single piece.

I believe it was stated that a run would take around 15 minutes per map under unknown conditions. I hope they didn't mean to keep us busy for that long with just 3 pieces...

Edited by Featherman, 15 November 2012 - 10:17 PM.

[Korra]

Doesn't matter they will add the items slowly, enough time to farm them 1 by one. Now the question is what is the Mystic forge combination with Gift of ascension?

[n00854180t]

Featherman, on 15 November 2012 - 10:08 PM, said:

I believe it was stated that a run would take around 15 minutes per map and under unknown conditions. I hope they didn't mean to keep us busy for that long with just 3 pieces...

So about 45 minutes for a full run of all 3 fractals. So that's a mere 25.5 hours (of NOTHING but grinding the dungeon, not including any downtime) to get one Gift of Ascension, which is almost certainly not the only thing required.

If it takes a Gift of Ascension and one of the accessories, that number balloons to 93 hours of pure grinding (no downtime accounted for etc.).

Edited by Ethereal, 16 November 2012 - 09:58 AM.

[Kymeric]

ANet said Ascended are supposed to fill the gape between Exotic and Legendary.

ANet said that they expect people to be getting Legendaries six months to a year into the game.

Exotics can be achieved shortly after hitting 80.

Did anyone expect that Ascended would be achieved quickly?  It's going to have to be grindy to fill that six month gap between Exotics and Legendaries.

This is the problem with trying to satisfy people with endgame carrots to chase.

[Biz]

Korra, on 15 November 2012 - 10:08 PM, said:

Doesn't matter they will add the items slowly, enough time to farm them 1 by one. ...

How would that have any bearing on the fact that you still need to apparently do hundreds of runs for those items. Getting more tokens at higher difficulties isn't that much better considering that you more or less have to have ascended items already in-order to even consider those higher difficulties as well as the fact that you will be as good as forced into re-running easier tiers because there is some one in the party who haven't done it quite as many times as you did and all that.

[n00854180t]

Kymeric, on 15 November 2012 - 10:14 PM, said:

ANet said Ascended are supposed to fill the gape between Exotic and Legendary.

ANet said that they expect people to be getting Legendaries six months to a year into the game.

Exotics can be achieved shortly after hitting 80.

Did anyone expect that Ascended would be achieved quickly?  It's going to have to be grindy to fill that six month gap between Exotics and Legendaries.

This is the problem with trying to satisfy people with endgame carrots to chase.

I expected them to take a while. I didn't expect them to be nothing but a *really* absurdly long grind. Anyway, I agree, that's the problem with catering to WoW fanboys that aren't even going to stick with the game anyway. They might lure a few of them back for a couple of weeks, at which point they'll start whining there's no carrot again.

Edited by n00854180t, 15 November 2012 - 10:17 PM.

[Sheepski]

n00854180t, on 15 November 2012 - 10:12 PM, said:

So about 45 minutes for a full run of all 3 fractals. So that's a mere 25.5 hours (of NOTHING but grinding the dungeon, not including any downtime) to get one Gift of Ascension, which is almost certainly not the only thing required.

If it takes a Gift of Ascension and one of the accessories, that number balloons to 93 hours of pure grinding (no downtime accounted for etc.).



When did I EVER say I wanted gear grind? Not to mention that I find dungeons boring and easy. Go back your hole troll.

Also, it's laughable that you think "time sink" is equal to "difficult content".

Well they said between 20-40 minutes initially, although that's now 15-30... so your calculations could be doubled with PUG/worse groups.

[Kymeric]

They have said that Ascended gear will be available through other means, though.  Just like exotics can be gotten more simply than grinding dungeons, perhaps there will be easier avenues to Ascended in time.

[n00854180t]

@Sheepski, that is horrible. 25-50 hours for the Gift of Ascension...

[RaoulDukeHST]

n00854180t, on 15 November 2012 - 10:22 PM, said:

@Sheepski, that is horrible. 25-50 hours for the Gift of Ascension...

yeah,you should get it in 15 minutes.Or better,just log in and find it in the mailbox!

[Arquenya]

It´s also going to depend on how much fun the new dunegons are.

If they´re fun and pretty and you´d do them for sheer challenge - it won´t be a big issue.
If they´re boring and annoying with 1,000,000,000 hp bosses, random instant death traps - it´s going to be a tedious grind.

[Featherman]

Biz, on 15 November 2012 - 10:15 PM, said:

How would that have any bearing on the fact that you still need to apparently do hundreds of runs for those items. Getting more tokens at higher difficulties isn't that much better considering that you more or less have to have ascended items already in-order to even consider those higher difficulties as well as the fact that you will be as good as forced into re-running easier tiers because there is some one in the party who haven't done it quite as many times as you did and all that.

If you look at it one way, it's akin to farming Orr for X hours to earn a legendary, although its uncertain how long it takes relatively. I'm pretty sure the hardcores will break the dungeon down to a science and run it on X difficulty in X manner using X composition. I'm starting to ask myself if this is really any different...

[Goojilla]

So have anyone of us here even tried out the Fractal of the Mists yet? Didn't think so. So how can you claim that ascended items require an insane grind?

[Alex Dimitri]

Why do you think those Gift Of Ascension is used to create Ascension gear ?
That would be mindless grind, for all we know those might be just part for some new kind of Legendary Weapon !
And didn`t they say those items will be drops ? (or i just mixed up stuff).

[n00854180t]

Arquenya, on 15 November 2012 - 10:25 PM, said:

It´s also going to depend on how much fun the new dunegons are.

If they´re fun and pretty and you´d do them for sheer challenge - it won´t be a big issue.
If they´re boring and annoying with 1,000,000,000 hp bosses, random instant death traps - it´s going to be a tedious grind.

I agree with this, but regardless of how fun it is initially, everything will eventually get boring when you have to do it 30-120 times in a row.

But yeah, it will be so much worse if they've stuck to the same designs as the current dungeons (i.e., mobs have too much health, use one-shot abilities and generally aren't challenging aside from the defeating the boredom of DPSing something for 10 minutes because it has a massive health pool).

Alex Dimitri, on 15 November 2012 - 10:29 PM, said:

Why do you think those Gift Of Ascension is used to create Ascension gear ?
That would be mindless grind, for all we know those might be just part for some new kind of Legendary Weapon !
And didn`t they say those items will be drops ? (or i just mixed up stuff).

They did say the rings will be drops, yes. I think the back slot has to be crafted in the Mystic Forge.

Also, it's called "Gift of Ascension" and is Ascended rarity (not Legendary, as are all Gifts that are used for Legendaries), and we know the back slot is created in the Mystic Forge.

Also, we don't have the tooltip for it, but I'm willing to bet it doesn't have the same tag line as the Legendary rarity Gifts do "Used to make Legendary weapons."

Edited by n00854180t, 15 November 2012 - 10:32 PM.

[Zedabi]

Fractal Shards scale depending on difficulty level.

So let's say it goes up by 5 for every difficulty level. According to Elixabeth, it seems Agony won't take effect until difficulty level 5:

Difficulty Level 1: 15
Difficulty Level 2: 30
Difficulty Level 3: 45
Difficulty Level 4: 60
Difficulty Level 5: 75

Total saved: 225

That's almost half way there just getting to level 5 (25 fractals), assuming it scales up 5 every time. However, it could also easily increase by a larger amount.

This is also not taking into consideration the Special Bosses at levels 2 and 4, which are also likely to award Shards, and they might award extra shards for the first set of Fractals completed each day (much like Dungeon runs).

Again, however, this is all speculation.

I'd say wait and see before complaining about a grind that might not even be there. For all we know, you might have enough Shards to get a Gift by the time you reach level 5.

[Myugen]

Featherman, on 15 November 2012 - 10:26 PM, said:

If you look at it one way, it's akin to farming Orr for X hours to earn a legendary, although its uncertain how long it takes relatively. I'm pretty sure the hardcores will break the dungeon down to a science and run it on X difficulty in X manner using X composition. I'm starting to ask myself if this is really any different...

If this is my BWL, I wouldn't mind one bit. But yeah, consider how dungeons were initially..they had set it for 100 runs to get the full set of gear, and it was toned down a few weeks later, and then they implemented changes so last boss gave tokens and not each so people wouldn't speed run first boss, blah blah blah

This will get modified. I truly doubt they will leave it at 5 per fractal. My vote is for increased rewards the higher difficulty.

[Daesu]

If the purpose of this new gear tier is to quell those who complained that they have nothing left to do after reaching 80, then it should not be surprising that it would require insane amount of grind, so that they have something to do for a very long time.  Makes sense?

Edited by Daesu, 15 November 2012 - 10:37 PM.

[n00854180t]

Zedabi, on 15 November 2012 - 10:31 PM, said:

Fractal Shards scale depending on difficulty level.

So let's say it goes up by 5 for every difficulty level. According to Elixabeth, it seems Agony won't take effect until difficulty level 5:

Difficulty Level 1: 15
Difficulty Level 2: 30
Difficulty Level 3: 45
Difficulty Level 4: 60
Difficulty Level 5: 75

Total saved: 225

That's almost half way there just getting to level 5 (25 fractals), assuming it scales up 5 every time. However, it could also easily increase by a larger amount.

This is also not taking into consideration the Special Bosses at levels 2 and 4, which are also likely to award Shards, and they might award extra shards for the first set of Fractals completed each day (much like Dungeon runs).

Again, however, this is all speculation.

I'd say wait and see before complaining about a grind that might not even be there. For all we know, you might have enough Shards to get a Gift by the time you reach level 5.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to assume the higher difficulty will reward that many more above the base, honestly. Not to mention the Ascended items are supposed to fill the "time gap" between Exotics and Legendaries, so if they're really giving you that many more Fractal Relics per run, then it doesn't serve the intended purpose.

[Jairyn]

Quote

Grindy

Quelle surprise!

[Shoros]

Jesus, just wait for the release of the patch already before making such assumptions. We can talk about it (maybe you're right after all) after we checked the facts, but it's really useless to speculate about it without having ANY information except the number of fractals needed for the item.

Edited by Shoros, 15 November 2012 - 10:45 PM.

[Wordsworth]

If ONLY the currency here were knowledge crystals. I have those falling out of my pockets.

[Zedabi]

n00854180t, on 15 November 2012 - 10:36 PM, said:

I think it's a bit of a stretch to assume the higher difficulty will reward that many more above the base, honestly. Not to mention the Ascended items are supposed to fill the "time gap" between Exotics and Legendaries, so if they're really giving you that many more Fractal Relics per run, then it doesn't serve the intended purpose.

Oh, I don't know. The reason I guessed that it increases by at least 5 was because it starts out at 5, and rewards end in either a 5 or a 0, meaning it doesn't make sense to increase the amount by a number that doesn't end in 5 or 0 (it keeps things neater and easier to work out). Shaky logic I'm using though, granted.

Remember:

- Fractals scale in difficulty infinitely, meaning they can be done without them becoming trivial.
- Not all Ascended gear will be released, and we also don't know the costs of that gear, how the gear will be made or when it will be released, meaning there's still reason to collect Shards.
- Fractal of the Mists isn't the only content that's being released with the patch, meaning people will still have things to do outside of this.

[FoxBat]

Red_Falcon, on 15 November 2012 - 10:34 PM, said:

There is no winning with MMO gamers.
If there is a treadmill, the game sucks cause it's a wow clone.
If there is no treadmill, the game sucks cause there is no endgame.

WoW fans want a treadmill.
GW1 fans do not.
We can see who Anet has chosen to favor.

[Reason on Cooldown]

n00854180t, on 15 November 2012 - 10:02 PM, said:

Anyone else think that's a little insane, especially considering that Ascended items are essentially required due to being almost a full tier better than exotics with equivalent upgrades?

Unless I misunderstood something, Ascended items aren't THAT much better than exotics. Only marginally.  What may make them look that much better is that they don't have a standard upgrade slot, and so the stats that would have come from the upgrade are added to the base stats.  Instead the upgrade slot is used for infusions, which may only help against Agony.  If infusion provide a bunch of other stats, than it could be argued that Ascended is a full tier better.  Otherwise, I'm not sure Ascended gear is REQUIRED, unless it's for running deep into the new dungeon.  At least that was my impression.

Biz, on 15 November 2012 - 10:15 PM, said:

you will be as good as forced into re-running easier tiers because there is some one in the party who haven't done it quite as many times as you did and all that.

Since you progress through the tiers at random it's not like you will be grinding the same fractal over and over again.  You may have to run easier tiers over and over (essentially restarting the dungeon), but with so many fractals, and the randomn nature of progressing through them, the content won't be as repetitive.