239 replies to this topic

[MazingerZ]

http://www.guildwars...and-gearchecks/

The results aren't pretty...

Quote

This is something that existed prior to ascended gear, and was something that we saw happen all the time in GW1, even without any sort of gear progression. Some players, typically people who play the game a lot, tend to only want to play with other players that play like them. They require some sort of proof to get into their party, whether it be displaying your Lightbringer Title, equipping or linking some type of gear, or using some other method of showing that you have already done and are experienced with the content. While ascended gear might be the new excuse, this behavior happens regardless.

While this is not really something that we want to encourage, players do have the choice to play the game in the way they want. We can’t force those players to be all-inclusive in who they invite to the parties they create, and to be honest, doing so would probably make people even more unhappy than they are now, and lead to a lot of undesirable behavior.

tldr; people are going to do this anyway, we dont't want to encourage it, but we can't control how people react to content.

Quote

The Agony mechanic wasn’t introduced at the start of the dungeon so that everybody can experience the content. While one of the goals of the Fractals of the Mists dungeon was to provide some difficult content for players looking for a challenge, we also wanted the dungeon to be available for everybody to experience. While getting far into the dungeon requires agony resistance from ascended gear, the content was designed to provide challenging content, and to allow players to choose what difficulty they wanted to play at.

As for ascended gear, to reiterate what Chris has said (https://forum-en.gui...Chris-Whiteside), it’s not intended as a treadmill, but rather as a tier of rewards that can help bridge the gap between Exotics (a few hours of effort to acquire a piece) and Legendaries (hundreds of hours of effort to acquire one). They’re currently only available in the Fractals of the Mist Dungeon, but we’re going to be adding new ways to acquire them, both inside of WvW as well as elsewhere in PvE.

tldr; we want everyone to experience content... Now watch as I reference Whiteside's post without telling you why Ascended gear needed to have more stats than Exotic/Current Legendaries, and tell you there is no gear treadmill...

[bcbully1]

I saw this.

They talk to the community like we are dumb. What he spoke of prior were artificial barriers. What is in the game now is a real barrier. He knows this, yet still keeps typing out rhetoric.

[Lucas Ashrock]

Ye well, they have to release a commercial bunch of trash to fool more customers, why not, they didn't meant to ruin the playerbase and read on map just trashy racism , but damn, it just happens, as expected by everyone of us , reason because on this forum and the official one (regarding the post deleted, customers banned, thread merged  and corrected) 99% are just post against anet and their decision

Like if was the first MMO around and they didn't knew it was gonna happens, right.

Edited by Lucas Ashrock, 20 November 2012 - 06:20 AM.

[Var]

bcbully1, on 20 November 2012 - 06:14 AM, said:

I saw this.

They talk to the community like we are dumb. What he spoke of prior were artificial barriers. What is in the game now is a real barrier. He knows this, yet still keeps typing out rhetoric.

Uhm, no. There is no "real" barrier. The only barrier on the content is human made: pugs being picky and unhelpful (imagine that). Want to see the content? Its not blocked in any, way shape or form until after level 10 which is (surprise surprise) the only level you need to reach to get every available piece of new gear and by which point you will have seen every fractal multiple times.

Yes, yes, we all know they are demons for adding a new tier of gear but let's keep the facts straight. They could have made the leveling system a bit better but in no way is any content "blocked" by arbitrary gear checks ie. treadmills.

Edited by Var, 20 November 2012 - 06:29 AM.

[MazingerZ]

Var, on 20 November 2012 - 06:29 AM, said:

Its not blocked in any, way shape or form until after level 10.

...

but in no way is any content "blocked" by arbitrary gear checks ie. treadmills.

...you fail at logic SO hard.

[Arshay Duskbrow]

And my response in that same thread:

Quote

That would've been plausible if they had simply been cosmetic items and not an entirely new plateau of power to chase after, obsolescing our previous equipment. As it is, there's no reason to believe you, or Mr. Whiteside. What you've done is directly contrary to the loudly and repeatedly stated design goals and philosophy the game was supposedly developed around.

Let Messrs. O'Brian, Flannum, and Johanson come out and explain how this move can be reconciled to their many past pronouncements about lack of grind and aesthetic rewards. Let them come out and offer detailed metrics to reassure us that this statistical power boost was a needed addition to the game. Let them come out and promise us that this addition was a singular anomaly that will never be repeated. Then I might believe your claims.

[Alleji]

Ascended gear would've been perfect without additional stats except for the agony resistance.

[Jason Seven]

bcbully1, on 20 November 2012 - 06:14 AM, said:

They talk to the community like we are dumb. What he spoke of prior were artificial barriers. What is in the game now is a real barrier. He knows this, yet still keeps typing out rhetoric.

The community is dumb, that's exactly how it is. This is very evident considering how many fell for ArenaNet's "promises" about things which were and are outright impossible. What everyone doesn't seem to understand is that MMORPG players need to be guided and that's where gear gating comes into play. It sets a goal for all players to achieve before they can overcome a threshold should they want to progress further. These people have proven to be superior than the rest. It is necessary as it seperates the wheat from the chaff, the good from the bad, the weak from the strong. Such system did not exist in GW1 so players themselves decided to create a system of their own which functions the exact same. Knowing this, ArenaNet simply decided to add this barrier themselves. What does it matter if its players creating this barrier or the developers themselves? It is existent regardless. As you can see, this is in mankinds very nature.

[Runkleford]

Blah blah blah challenging content blah blah blah. So nowhere in that speech did he explain why challenging content needs stat increases or how that even makes sense to raise stats on gear for "challenging content".

[Ritualist]

Runkleford, on 20 November 2012 - 09:02 AM, said:

Blah blah blah challenging content blah blah blah. So nowhere in that speech did he explain why challenging content needs stat increases or how that even makes sense to raise stats on gear for "challenging content".

Let's be honest - the massive difficulty in GW games always stemmed from really dumb ideas. Now, the games got more difficult as the player progressed, but we have clearly seen that A.Net simply reached a wall and the only way they could increase difficulty after that was by throwing in things like one-shot kills or environmental effects or must-KD-foe-at-right-time-or-you-can't-kill-it or ...
This here should be the main reason why GW games make sense as casual and easier games - A.Net themselves simply aren't good enough to design difficult content without resorting to cheap tricks, while at the same time, they can design the hell out of moderately difficult content. It's why I feel that FoW, while being one of the easiest dungeons in GW1, is actually one of the best pieces of content they ever created. It's on a difficulty level that they can design on.

[Phy]

I wasn't making a statement to disregard all complaints, but lets be honest, most complaints can be ignored. Most complaints are uninformed, speculative, over exaggerated, untrue, or biased and fail to explain why they don't like something. Fewer still are legitimate complaints, and of those only a portion are worth the time spent clicking "post". If ascended gear didn't have higher stats they would complain that it's equal to exotics. If they gave infusions to exotics they would complain about the difference between infused exotics and non-infused exotics.

[MandraxUK]

I think we can safely say that this new philosophy is here to stay.

[Coren]

Protoss, on 20 November 2012 - 09:11 AM, said:

Let's be honest - the massive difficulty in GW games always stemmed from really dumb ideas. Now, the games got more difficult as the player progressed, but we have clearly seen that A.Net simply reached a wall and the only way they could increase difficulty after that was by throwing in things like one-shot kills or environmental effects or must-KD-foe-at-right-time-or-you-can't-kill-it or ...
This here should be the main reason why GW games make sense as casual and easier games - A.Net themselves simply aren't good enough to design difficult content without resorting to cheap tricks, while at the same time, they can design the hell out of moderately difficult content. It's why I feel that FoW, while being one of the easiest dungeons in GW1, is actually one of the best pieces of content they ever created. It's on a difficulty level that they can design on.

FoW is incredibly easy now, but back in the day it was long and tough to get through, mainly due to te fact you needed 8 competent players, not heroes or henchmen. Don't know if you ever experienced the warrior's job of bunching up mobs so that elementalists could synch meteor shower. Sure it's not what I call a challenge, more of an annoyance. Same goes for Domain of Anguish which was incredibly long and frustrating before the addition of consumables and ritualist buffing.

Compare those to the fractals, I'm sorry but the fractals are fun, engaging and you need to do more than simply charge ahead. I didn't get to agony yet, and I do not support AT ALL having a better stat gear with agony protection to get through them, but from a challenge and engaging point of view, ANet did a great job designing them.

The agony protection? Why not, if it could be interpreted into my chosen gear like in GW1, but, again, making better stat items a necessity to continue? Contrary to their statements.

[Lucas Ashrock]

Jason Seven, on 20 November 2012 - 08:42 AM, said:

The community is dumb, that's exactly how it is. This is very evident considering how many fell for ArenaNet's "promises" about things which were and are outright impossible. What everyone doesn't seem to understand is that MMORPG players need to be guided and that's where gear gating comes into play. It sets a goal for all players to achieve before they can overcome a threshold should they want to progress further. These people have proven to be superior than the rest. It is necessary as it seperates the wheat from the chaff, the good from the bad, the weak from the strong. Such system did not exist in GW1 so players themselves decided to create a system of their own which functions the exact same. Knowing this, ArenaNet simply decided to add this barrier themselves. What does it matter if its players creating this barrier or the developers themselves? It is existent regardless. As you can see, this is in mankinds very nature.

Actually, you're mentioning a math based game, with trinity. Obiouvsly ther was roles, mathematically better group formations , using a particular set of builds etc. That kind of "racism" obiouvsly was part of gw1. Never seen 1 even tiny form of racism on gw2 except , a couple times, when an 80 group kept kicking everyone below 80 for a coe run. Well i didn't say nothing, after all coe is hard enough (except path1), better find 80s. Now, i keep reading on map racist LFM rank based, rare  LFM coe cof etc, and a couple cof speedruns ascended back  + ring only. Pathetic. And this is the beginning.

Edited by Lucas Ashrock, 20 November 2012 - 10:08 AM.

[Larsen]

Quote

why Ascendent gear needed to have higher stats for "challenging content".

It might if they'd added something more than just another one-group dungeon. This game is sorely lacking things for guilds to do as guilds, and then they go and add another freakin' dungeon. It only reinforces my belief that ANet were wrong to try their hands at an MMORPG at all since they obviously won't make the kind of content an MMORPG needs. They're still trying to make content for the instanced, mission-based game they left behind. They should have stuck with what they knew, because if there's one thing that can't possibly be argued at this point, it's the fact that they're both unqualified and unprepared to run an MMORPG.

[Gremlin]

I am more than happy to have the new ascended gear though since the Original high end gear is supposed to be "better" than ascended it would be nice if it was already considered infused.
Don't own any myself but If I had just worked my way to getting a set I would feel pretty hard done by.
I also happen to think that this really hard to get stuff should be better than the run of the mill armour and weapons, but there are 3 arguments against this.

1 its grind so players who grind get better gear than those who do not,
I see no problem with this all players have different lvls of equipment tricked out with different runes and sigils and those who work at it get better gear.

2 in PVP superior equipment gives an advantage.
OK so make the gear in pvp equal to the new gear or just don't allow that gear to be used.

3 Players use elite equipment as part of their selection procedure as to who they will take on dungeons.
Well this will always happen whether there is elite gear or not players will find some way to discriminate.

So dump the dungeon idea its well past its sell by date and starting to smell.
Open up the dungeons to anyone to wander in, though wander too deep solo and you die but at least no one is blocking you from content because your face doesn't fit.

[Ritualist]

Coren, on 20 November 2012 - 09:56 AM, said:

FoW is incredibly easy now, but back in the day it was long and tough to get through, mainly due to te fact you needed 8 competent players, not heroes or henchmen. Don't know if you ever experienced the warrior's job of bunching up mobs so that elementalists could synch meteor shower. Sure it's not what I call a challenge, more of an annoyance. Same goes for Domain of Anguish which was incredibly long and frustrating before the addition of consumables and ritualist buffing.

You glitched foes in FoW to make the run faster, not to make it possible. The problem is that some of other, more difficult content demands the opposite - you need to glitch foes to make the run possible, not to make it faster.
For instance, the Asura elemental had me running in, firing off my skills, use my invulnerability skill, fire off a few more skills and then retreat on the others side of the bridge and wait for my cooldowns. Or, having to switch to ranged weapons for certain foes because melee just gets one-shot. Or, when talking about the fraking dungeon - constantly re-spawning mobs, or better yet, the gear check.

These things could have all been more enjoyable with A.Net simply striving to create a medium-difficult environment instead of adding these moronic ideas in hopes of making something that is super-difficult.


EDIT:
It seems I posted multiple posts here, but still haven't gotten to the subject at hand!
The issue I have with Andrew's post is that he's comparing undesirable behaviour that has basically no foundation in how the game works (LF 4 more hot norn chicks! Big boobs or GTFO!) to something that does - lightbringer, ascended, sunspear, PvE-skill, ... all gave the player greater power than those that didn't have it. This makes people that demand a special quality in their team-mates, other than being able to play the game, go from *s, to being completely rational. It doesn't make sense anymore to NOT want people who ground over the people who don't.

Edited by Protoss, 20 November 2012 - 10:32 AM.

[Coren]

Protoss, on 20 November 2012 - 10:15 AM, said:

You glitched foes in FoW to make the run faster, not to make it possible. The problem is that some of other, more difficult content demands the opposite - you need to glitch foes to make the run possible, not to make it faster.
For instance, the Asura elemental had me running in, firing off my skills, use my invulnerability skill, fire off a few more skills and then retreat on the others side of the bridge and wait for my cooldowns. Or, having to switch to ranged weapons for certain foes because melee just gets one-shot. Or, when talking about the fraking dungeon - constantly re-spawning mobs, or better yet, the gear check.

These things could have all been more enjoyable with A.Net simply striving to create a medium-difficult environment instead of adding these moronic ideas in hopes of making something that is super-difficult.


EDIT:
It seems I posted multiple posts here, but still haven't gotten to the subject at hand!
The issue I have with Andrew's post is that he's comparing undesirable behaviour that has basically no foundation in how the game works (LF 4 more hot norn chicks! Big boobs or GTFO!) to something that does - lightbringer, ascended, sunspear, PvE-skill, ... all gave the player greater power than those that didn't have it. This makes people that demand a special quality in their team-mates, other than being able to play the game, go from *s, to being completely rational. It doesn't make sense anymore to NOT want people who ground over the people who don't.

Well I haven't had this issue in fractals yet, but then again im only at level 3, so your issues must be at a later level. Wouldn't you consider judicious use of your skills a challenge? One of the early fractals made you use the pouring molten cauldrons to make a boss vulnerable. Not difficult but adds depth.

What would your definition of a.difficult dungeon be? What would you want in it to make it challenging? I agree with you 100% that gear does not mean challenge, nor does.having a million hp boss equal a challenge, or having a certain title should mean you're better, it just means you have more time to get those.. I think the best example is the UW speed clears. You needed a certain amount of ghastly tokens to show how many times you did.the run. The challenge in that way was to both come up with the team builds AND everyone executing their part flawlessly. But the bad side implied that everyone had to have done it dozens of times to participate in a "normal" group.

[shanaeri rynale]

The difference between what Andrew said about GW1 and player behavoir is that the 'must take this or that' gate was purely player determined. I.e you did NOT Need lightbringer 8 to do DoA, Ghastly stones proved nothing and many different team and build compositions could be used to beat the areas.

Now the 'must take this or have ascended that' is a GAME imposed restriction. Does'nt matter how skilled, or how great your build is sooner or later you'll hit the 'must have infused gear' wall the GAME imposes.

Two very different things.

That's kinda the whole bitter-sweet thing with fractals. Sooner or later I know i'll hit a game imposed wall that is nothing to do with my skill, willingness of my guild to help or my build and every time I complete a level that moments becomes ever closer.

Edited by shanaeri rynale, 20 November 2012 - 11:34 AM.

[Coren]

shanaeri rynale, on 20 November 2012 - 11:32 AM, said:

The difference between what Andrew said about GW1 and player behavoir is that the 'must take this or that' gate was purely player determined. I.e you did NOT Need lightbringer 8 to do DoA, Ghastly stones proved nothing and many different team and build compositions could be used to beat the areas.

Now the 'must take this or have ascended that' is a GAME imposed restriction. Does'nt matter how skilled, or how great your build is sooner or later you'll hit the 'must have infused gear' wall the GAME imposes.

Two very different things.

That's kinda the whole bitter-sweet thing with fractals. Sooner or later I know i'll hit a game imposed wall that is nothing to do with my skill, willingness of my guild to help or my build and every time I complete a level that moments becomes ever closer.

That's something ANet thinks we wouldn't see. If someone wants.to spew that GW1 did the same with infused armor for the mursaat, I'll say this: you got your armor infused in a mission, a story mission. You couldn't even finish the story mission without being infused, and your current armor got entirely infused too. If someone wants to.say that in the beginning you had only one piece infused per run, I'll say that since ANet understood how retarded that was, they changed it rather quickly, and in theory should not do a similar mistake again.

Edited by Coren, 20 November 2012 - 11:39 AM.

[Lordkrall]

Actually no.
There is only ONE boss in the whole dungeon that applies unavoidable Agony. Which means that even when Agony starts it is very possible to complete the dungeon as long as you are good enough to avoid getting hit.

[TheVice]

This game is more and more full of shit. Nothing surprises me anymore after 2 things happened recently:
1: they introduced real gear grind to appeal to wow players
2: I was hacked and lost 99% of everything I had and anet said they don't have tools to restore items.

Faith in anet 100% lost. Just playing it because have nothing better to do atm, plus I wanna get at least full exotics back before I quit. Don't want to leave my character in greens with ugly designs.

Edited by Khalija, 27 November 2012 - 10:17 PM.
inappropriate language - warned

[Lordkrall]

TheVice, on 20 November 2012 - 11:49 AM, said:

This game is more and more full of shit. Nothing surprises me anymore after 2 things happened recently:
1: they introduced real gear grind to appeal to wow players
2: I was hacked and lost 99% of everything I had and anet said they don't have tools to restore items.

Faith in anet 100% lost. Just playing it because have nothing better to do atm, plus I wanna get at least full exotics back before I quit. Don't want to leave my character in greens with ugly designs.

1: I suppose you have not played WoW
2: So it was your own fault. Don't blame ArenaNet because you failed at security. Why should they restore items for people that have only themselves to blame?

[shanaeri rynale]

Lordkrall, on 20 November 2012 - 11:45 AM, said:

Actually no.
There is only ONE boss in the whole dungeon that applies unavoidable Agony. Which means that even when Agony starts it is very possible to complete the dungeon as long as you are good enough to avoid getting hit.

At level 21, yes.. But what about 31.. 41..51? As per the blog statement eventually you WILL hit a wall not because of skill, helpful guild mates and the like but because the computer says no, not without XYZ gear. That FACT is what is shaping the community right now. Like it or not Anet IS responsible for encouraging it because of this gating. As I said. There's a world of difference from a player imposed gate which with skill, good friends and inventiveness can be got around to a Game mechanic imposed gate that no good will, or leet skills in the world will get around. In the former case the players are wrong to impose a gate on people, in the latter case if they want to actually DO the content at their level they are right to impose a gate. Because they have NO other option.

Edited by shanaeri rynale, 20 November 2012 - 11:55 AM.

[Lordkrall]

shanaeri rynale, on 20 November 2012 - 11:53 AM, said:

At level 21, yes.. But what about 31.. 41..51? As per the blog statement eventually you WILL hit a wall not because of skill, helpful guild mates and the like but because the computer says no, not without XYZ gear. That FACT is what is shaping the community right now. Like it or not Anet IS responsible for encouraging it because of this gating. As I said. There's a world of difference from a player imposed gate which with skill, good friends and inventiveness can be got around to a Game mechanic imposed gate that no good will, or leet skills in the world will get around

The point still stands however, it is possible to avoid all attacks from all bosses except that one. And as far as I have seen at the other levels the skills and range of the bosses does not seem to change much (if all) when you get to higher levels.

Did you run DoA in GW1?
That was gated quite a lot as well (on a character basis not a account basis, at least not at first).

Edited by Lordkrall, 20 November 2012 - 11:57 AM.

[Dasryn]

he was speaking about bridging the gap of time to obtain between exotics and legendaries.  that still doesnt explain the better stats.

idk, i try not to get in too deep with the politics of the game because they will never give you/us the whole story.

[shanaeri rynale]

Lordkrall, on 20 November 2012 - 11:55 AM, said:

Did you run DoA in GW1?
That was gated quite a lot as well (on a character basis not a account basis, at least not at first).

Yup loads

How did the GAME gate it?

Did it need a set build? Nope. Heck I ran it with a team of all mesmers..
Did it need PVE skills? Nope. It made it easier, but didnt stop us.
Did it need players to have set runes - nope
Did it need consumables Nope. Agaiin, made it easier but not essential
Did it need super special armor above easily got max stats? - Nope.

The only gating done in DoA was by the player's own prejudice. In this case it doesnt matter how open minded the player is, they WILL be gated by the game.

[Lordkrall]

shanaeri rynale, on 20 November 2012 - 12:03 PM, said:

Yup loads

How did the GAME gate it?

Did it need a set build? Nope. Heck I ran it with a team of all mesmers..
Did it need PVE skills? Nope. It made it easier, but didnt stop us.
Did it need players to have set runes - nope
Did it need consumables Nope. Agaiin, made it easier but not essential
Did it need super special armor above easily got max stats? - Nope.

The only gating done in DoA was by the player's own prejudice. In this case it doesnt matter how open minded the player is, they WILL be gated by the game.

I suppose you missed the part about having to complete the Nightfall campaign in order to get access to DoA.
Which in turn required you to grind Sunspear points in order to get past a certain point in the story.

Edited by Lordkrall, 20 November 2012 - 12:05 PM.

[Coren]

Hopefully getting ascended stuff with agony protection will be relatively easy to get with crafting. If agony is only for fractals, I'm ok with it, but I sure bloody hope story missions in future expansions wont require them.

Lordkrall, on 20 November 2012 - 12:05 PM, said:

I suppose you missed the part about having to complete the Nightfall campaign in order to get access to DoA.
Which in turn required you to grind Sunspear points in order to get past a certain point in the story.

Oh please krall, now you're just fishing for the last word. Getting the right amount of sunspear points was hardly grinding, you got them easily by either doing quests or picking up the blessing.


You normally make pertinent comments but this one is just ridiculous.

Edited by Coren, 20 November 2012 - 12:09 PM.

[Lordkrall]

Coren, on 20 November 2012 - 12:08 PM, said:

Oh please krall, now you're just fishing for the last word. Getting the right amount of sunspear points was hardly grinding, you got them easily by either doing quests or picking up the blessing.


You normally make pertinent comments but this one is just ridiculous.

I am simply correcting him about the fact that there were no game-imposed gates in GW1, which there quite clearly where.

Not to mention UW and FoW before they changed Favor of the Gods.