Snowulf

Snowulf, on 13 November 2012 - 11:28 AM, said:

This is undeniably true - I have, too, been playing GW1 for 7+ years and followed GW2 since the day of its announcement, so I know the feeling you are talking about.

As I said - in the sort run, this move will, more than likely, be profitable, bringing back to the game more players than it shoos away.

In the long run, however, as you mentioned, there next big thing which implements the concept of power creep better, will suck most of the fans of this activity from GW2 all together, and all the game will have will be the ever-slimmer playerbase of core players.

I am primarily a PvP player so this change does not affect me much (other than the wish to sometimes hop for some dungeon fun with guildies from time to time), but I pity the ones who enjoy playing PvE without gear constraints and the players who are really into WvW.

Making a 180° turn on one of the most important points of their design philosophy, which they told us for years, just 3 months after release, is realy the dumbest thing they could do.
That is coming from someone, who is actually enjoying gear-treadmills in  a certain way.

It's a bit long, but I've put down some answers to questions i've seen elsewhere and since it quotes the blog entry it's probably better suited here.

I don’t understand what the fuss is about? Arenanet never said they wouldn’t add more powerful gear?

Actually they did, in fact they highlighted it in one of their blog posts.
http://www.arena.net...easures-success

Colin Johanson wrote:

The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.

Ok, but there is no gear check gate I need TO have is there?

In all the other areas of the game, then no. However it’s irrefutable that teams and players will soon start insisting on it, thus creating a clear division between the have gear and have nots(or hardcore and casual). Effectively if you wish to keep being competitive you will need to keep playing..

For example, You can access all of open world WoW without a gear check, but for raids and dungeons it is certainly there. The same is now true of GW2

So how does this gear check work?

The further you go into the new content the more you will encounter the new Agony condition. Without the special gear you will not be able to proceed.

“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.”

For now, Infusions slots can only be found in gear of a new rarity type: Ascended.

https://www.guildwar...-ascended-gear/

Ah but the article said it was in GW1, so what’s the problem?

Actually it wasn’t. There are two possible references in GW1 that this could mean. Neither equate to a gear check and a requirement to obtain new items.

1. Infusion. This was a mechanic that greatly reduced the amount of damage you would incur against a single monster type. You got it automatically when you were doing the story line missions. It was free, did not give ANY improvement on stats and could be applied to your existing armor. You could even achieve all your objectives and content without it.
2. PvE skills based on reputation points. The more you grinded reputation points, the more powerful the skill got. However, you could still achieve all the high end content in the game without it, or with zero reputation points

Neither of these were in anyway shape or form a gate or gear check

The article shows an item, it has a tiny increase. Surely this is a storm over nothing.

On first glance yes the stats do seem only marginally higher. Ignoring the fact that min-maxers will demand people take it.
However, If you do the math, on the item showed the stats actually give a not insignificant 7.9% increase. If you do any PvE, or WvW to a hardcore level, that number matters.. A lot.

• Compared to its Exotic counterpart, new Ascended-rarity “Explorer” ring has:
+5 Power
• +5 Precision
• +3% Magic Find
• +infusion slot.

While the percentages in themselves may be small, the actual increase in the stats behind them are significant, especially magic find which imho is already questionable as a game mechanic

Ask a PvP or hardcore PvE player if they care about even a 1% difference. The fact there is one at all will shape player behavior

Hmm Ok, but it’s just a ring and back item so what’s the big deal?

It is right now. BUT the article clearly states

As we release more new end game content in the future, you’ll see more Infusions and Ascended item types being added to the game. Eventually, you’ll be able to kit yourself out with a full set of Ascended gear and high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content.

So it’s not just a ring and a back item. It’s going to be a whole new tier of weapons and armor.

So what?

• It puts GW2 in the ‘me-too’ category of gear checking, gear treadmill games. Not only does it undermine Arenanets reputation, but it also undermines a key differentiator of the game. One in which seems to be a key factor in many people’s choice to play the game.
• For WvW players, it a problem because your best-in-slot gear may now be exclusively found in dungeons.
• For casual PvEers, it’s a problem because you’ll be behind the gear curve, and more hardcore players will start to exclude you because of it. This means you’ll have to keep playing just to keep up.
• For die-hard PvEers, it’s a problem because you’ll be pressured to do the latest dungeon (the one with the best stats and neccessary infusions) to the exclusion of all else. Otherwise you too will drop off the gear treadmill just as you do in WoW.

Thanks for reading. I’ll leave it up to you to decide how you will react to such news. But I think it’s clear to say this is the most controversial change to the GW franchise in the 7 years since its release.

Linsey Murdock said:

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Was this not the original idea?  Didn't you always intend for players to reach a power plateau on their gear?  Sure, all you've done here is raised the bar a little so that people need to spend more time getting the new and powerful stuff, but what happens then?  You introduce even more gear that's stronger than the norm?  What happens when you release a full set of ascended gear?  Are you going to make the same assessment and come out with yet another tier of gear?  Do you see releasing higher performance gear as the way forward for expansion content in your game?

What about these infusions and Agony?  Should I be ready to face a different kind of pushing mechanic in every single new dungeon you release?  Will I now need to acquire several sets of armor just so that I can try each dungeon and not feel closed off?

If ascended weapons have upgrades built into them and have infusion slots instead of upgrade slots, how am I supposed to duplicate the effects of certain sigils on ascended weapons?  Are there also going to be weapon infusions that are all more powerful variants of all of the weapon upgrades currently in the game?  If not and I can't get the sigil I want, do I now have to sacrifice stats and transmute an exotic's stats and upgrades onto a legendary in order to get the combination I want?

Have you made adjustments to structured PvP and WvW according to these changes?  With ascended gear now being the new best-in-slot, are you raising the stats on all of the PvP gear as well?

The introduction of this gear serves only as a slight delay to some players before they hit this "legendary wall" again.  I'm sure some players don't even bother with reaching best-in-slot gear before they start looking ahead to what they need for their legendary, in which case these new items have done nothing at all about the wall.  Meanwhile, you've thrown a curveball at everyone who has just been pining to get exotic gear for it being best-in-slot, and some who've gotten it already might not look forward to having to go for this new gear once it's released.  Personally, having not yet chosen to acquire a full exotic set of armor yet, I may not even bother anymore and instead just wait until the new ascended gear arrives.  After all, what's the point of getting the best gear when I know it's going to be trumped some time down the line?

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You're trying to create progression without gear grind and you're doing it by adding combat mechanics that are mitigated by new gear...

What?

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I don't remember a single instance in which the fundamental plateau on gear stats in GW was ever raised.  The system is not like infusion in Guild Wars, because that simply involved performing a task for an NPC to upgrade existing armor.  This is the introduction of an entirely new line of gear to accomplish that purpose.  Was there a good reason why this mechanic had to be exclusive to this near gear and not also tacked onto existing gear?

Perhaps you're actually trying to draw a similarity between GW2 infusion and GW title bonuses?  It sounds like with this new content, players will be challenged with new monsters that are hard because they've been given new skills and a new dangerous condition to use, which players can counter by getting better gear and improving their defense against it.  With the Eye of the North expansion, you created progression by designing harder enemies with higher levels and new abilities and allowed players to counter that by buffing themselves with different bonuses depending on where they were and how much title progression they had.  They could also use new skills tied to these titles that got stronger when the titles had more progression.  Original Guild Wars designers may recognize that players weren't particularly thrilled with grinding out these titles on every character they wanted to take through this content for the sake of performing at their best.  What made you think that it would have been a good idea to repeat the same system here?

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Excited about taking a turn down a path that I hoped to specifically avoid by purchasing this game?  No, I think you've pulled the wrong type of excitement out of me.

rusticgamer, on 26 October 2012 - 07:48 AM, said:

Stopped reading here. Most of the people complaining about thief being OP have rolled a thief, and seen just how laughable it is to spam 3 buttons in order and roll in the kills, so we went back to other professions.

Snowulf, on 08 October 2012 - 08:39 PM, said:

Sad but not surprised. The entitlement and unpleasantness of children (and adults who have not passed the social development of children) today never surprises me. It's one of the reasons why I no longer work in the games industry and have no desire to ever do so again.

Snowulf, on 08 October 2012 - 08:39 PM, said:

Like someone once told me: there are people who, by virtue of the fact that they are a paying customer, will take the liberty to abuse a member of staff because they believe they have the right to do so.

That's just poor form and I don't like it either...in my line of work I get that sometimes as well. Some of these folk need to treat others as 'people', as individuals, as they would themselves like to be treated. Unfortunately it doesn't always pan out that nicely.

I think one of the issues that some players have with the game (and to be honest it concerns me as well) is the talk of various bugs or loopholes that had the potential of being abused in early game before the techs got onto it and fixed it. To put it another way, if you had the time or were willing to put in the effort and rushed your toon straight to 80 and did farming, TP trading and mystic forging, you could be a lot better off than the folks down the line who have to play the game as it was intended (ie. without the said exploitable bugs or loopholes, or in the case of the TP, getting the jump on flipping for profit before the market matures). In some cases it's not even loopholes, it might be just the mechanics of the way things used to be, for example running just part of the dungeon to get less tokens (which could be easier than running the entire dungeon to get proportionately more tokens at the very end, assuming you can actually reach the end).

In this sense, I agree somewhat when people said the game wasn't actually finished when it was released. That is, they didn't iron out a lot of the creases before putting this game on the shelves. But knowing that there is competition everywhere (not just in the game industry), I do understand the necessity of rushing to put something out to the public and then taking time in the subsequent months to do damage control. Not that it's correct to do it, but it had to be done. Just my thoughts.

Diablo85, on 29 September 2012 - 10:51 PM, said:

There is no monthly fee. The real fans will stick with the game, and the others will disappear for a time. But since they pay nothing to play, they will come back. Like they did in League of Legends.

Arkis_WPvP, on 28 September 2012 - 08:06 PM, said:

Almost as powerful as stealth stomping.

Snowulf, on 07 August 2012 - 03:39 AM, said:

Well, thought you said you'd love to see it... and hence, gave it a mention.  =(