Okay, but then shouldn't the combined value of base and baked-in augment then just match the exotic level of power so that the infusion can stand alone as the modifying factor? I don't see where the power creep part ever gets justified.
Guild Wars 2 |OT2| Funding An MMO Entirely On Quaggan Backpacks
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Okay, but then shouldn't the combined value of base and baked-in augment then just match the exotic level of power so that the infusion can stand alone as the modifying factor? I don't see where the power creep part ever gets justified.
Where are you seeing there's more progression planned within the ascended tier? The only part I see is "We'll make Legendaries better when we add Ascended weapons to the game", which is there because in this patch, it will only be rings / back items.
Three months in, I see it as fine tuning, not the first of many new tiers of gear.
Actually, their exacts words were "Players were ready to start on that path much sooner than we expected and were becoming frustrated with a lack of personal progression." Unless you have some other source, but I'm going off the blog post. The people who have Legendaries now are, in my opinion, the outliers, the extreme cases of people who spent a lot of time and probably money to get them.
The reason I mentioned Rings and Back Items is because they're adding just those items in this patch, so it's not an entire new tier to start grinding right now, it's literally two items now. It's not a gear reset, it's a slow change made in increments. And just because one of those items is PVE Dungeon specific (the other is Mystic Forge based, so that will likely come from regular PVE). There's also a ton of new recipes in the new patch, so who knows what that may bring.
Again, I don't see this as "caving in" so much as a tweak a mere 3 months after launch, to give them some flexibility in how gear is handled. They've been pretty open about it, to be honest.
Complistic
Member
I'm pretty excited about the new "tier". I got my exotic armor on my two main characters and since then I haven't been that motivated to play. I'm never going to get the legendary stuff ever, so I'm excited I have something to work towards again.
You can tweak existing gear with a patch to tune it. Infusions could have been applied to existing gear via forging or hell, consumables. I just fail to see the reason for another tier of gear, other than adding another carrot.
If this next tier of gear is such a minimal change in effectiveness/stats, why bother? I'm still convinced now more than ever that they are testing the water.
On another note it looked like the ascended ring didn't have a socket other than the infusion. Sounds like it could be limiting if you are stuck with stats you don't like, or you can't apply a gem/sigil/rune. On the other hand if you CAN throw a rune etc. in that socket then you are in a whole new level of stats/benefits.
If this next tier of gear is such a minimal change in effectiveness/stats, why bother? I'm still convinced now more than ever that they are testing the water.
On another note it looked like the ascended ring didn't have a socket other than the infusion. Sounds like it could be limiting if you are stuck with stats you don't like, or you can't apply a gem/sigil/rune. On the other hand if you CAN throw a rune etc. in that socket then you are in a whole new level of stats/benefits.
Noisy Ninj4
Member
I don't like what I'm reading. It smells like the start of a gear grind.
New item slots, I can deal with. I could even deal with infusion if it was similar to GW1 infusion. (An upgrade to your current armor)
But adding on stats to new gear that requires replacing your old stuff (which used to have top-end stats) so you can continue having dem high numbers? Unless this is a one-time deal, GW2 is becoming a game I don't want to play. If arenanet gave every exotic dropped/made prior to the patch an infusion slot, I'd be far less wary.
New item slots, I can deal with. I could even deal with infusion if it was similar to GW1 infusion. (An upgrade to your current armor)
But adding on stats to new gear that requires replacing your old stuff (which used to have top-end stats) so you can continue having dem high numbers? Unless this is a one-time deal, GW2 is becoming a game I don't want to play. If arenanet gave every exotic dropped/made prior to the patch an infusion slot, I'd be far less wary.
The new Tier allows them more flexibility. Right now, Exotics start about level 60 and run all the way to 80. That tier is already covering a lot of ground, and adding a new tier allows them to build more into the game between now and what I assume will be a future expansion.
I should also add that this Ascended stuff going to be everywhere; it's not coming from just this one dungeon, from here on out this is going to be stuff that's available to everyone.
I don't think it's testing the water so much as they realized a couple of months after launch that there was something lacking and they wanted to change it.
It looks the same bump from rare -> exotic judging by the example on their blog. Actually maybe masterwork -> rare is the closest jump.
Noisy Ninj4
Member
I hope you're right, but my faith in arenanet is shaken.
This is the first time I've seriously felt the possibility that they're trying to cash out.
Exactly. As I said above, there's already a lot of content that the Exotic rank covers right now. Rather than keep tacking on new levels of power within the Exotic rank, they decided to add a new Ascended rank.
I totally get that, but I still say it's too early to start saying the sky is falling and waaaaay too soon to have your faith shaken.
I think he's talking about this -
Linsey said:
and maybe this -
Linsey said:
It's still unclear if the first level refers only to the Fine rarity of Infusions or if we're talking about tiers of Infusions like Tiers of standard equipment like another certain unnamed MMO.
To be honest, I'm not really bothered by it either way. I've never reached the "end game" in any MMO so I doubt it will really affect me.
I get the impression though that these Ascended items will be statistically equal to slotted Exotics and Legendaries. The biggest change will be that you can't customize their bonuses through Runes or whatnot. Instead, you'll have this Infusion slot and who knows what kind of bonuses these will confer. It's possible that they'll only add Agony-related resistances? I that's the case, they'll still be required inside the new Mists dungeons since non-Ascended items will lack Infusion slots - unless they add some solution through crafting.
Cash out on what exactly?
Complistic
Member
More content. or something.
Masterwork+ to Rare might be better. The jump from rare to exotic is pretty significant at 80.
They are certainly wading into treacherous territory. I'm not all that concerned at this point. I think if they came out and said that there won't be further stat increases until a level cap increase then people would calm the fuck down. They could also reveal that the stats only make a difference within the fractal dungeon and I don't think it would be that big a deal.
Stuff like infusions reducing Agony damage by x% and increasing damage versus Fractal monsters by x%. Making it meaningless to the rest of the game.
But then you might temper the odd group this tries to appeal to: The GW2 player who mostly cares about gear progression. It's an odd audience to try to appease to begin with.
So they'll have to be careful how they handle it. A lot of chickens with their heads cut off right now, so I expect more word on the future of Ascended gear to try to calm the masses.
Personally, I think improving their loot tables would have done more good. It would have provided the sense of reward that the game lacks on a consistent basis right now. There's a severe lack of Froggy Scepters and reliable, worthwhile drops and rewards beyond dungeon tokens. Ascended gear doesn't really help improve the lackluster rewards from dungeon bosses, world bosses and champion mobs, and the big treasure chests.
Noisy Ninj4
Member
Players trapped in an endless chase for the top-tier item carrot while having the (real-money) item store for them to buy stuff from. I imagine they'll have some new offerings for sale when the patch comes out.
Noisy Ninj4
Member
I only have issue with them having something to chase when it's tied to actual game mechanics. As long as it remains about cosmetics, I'm totally cool with it.
Oh yeah I totally agree with you there.
SnakeswithLasers
Member
Informative; thanks!
br0ken_shad0w
Member
Count me in at being disappointed at this update. We're not at gear grinding or content gating yet, but Anet's certainly treading the waters. It doesn't help when you show this in the preview:
The agony mechanic is much worse. That's just a straight up gear check without actually calling it that.
Because those same people will poopsock their way to those items in a few days and then bitch that there's nothing else to do at endgame. Nobody should listen to those people.
The agony mechanic is much worse. That's just a straight up gear check without actually calling it that.
Because those same people will poopsock their way to those items in a few days and then bitch that there's nothing else to do at endgame. Nobody should listen to those people.
I can't believe stuff like the bomb spawning glitch in the Queensdale thief cavern still hasn't been fixed. It's been about two months. Any word if they plan on putting in any work on performance fixes? My 690gtx still runs the game pretty badly and I'm getting 2D texture flickering with SLI enabled... been like that since day 1.
I'm a little worried this could lead to a gear grind, especially since they say they'll be introducing new mechanics for future content. I really don't want to have to have anti-Agony set for the Lost Shores dungeon, and then some new infusion set for the next content update, and yet another set for the one after that and so on. That's too much gear to grind for single content updates for me. I'd rather see new gameplay mechanics overcome by skill of the player, not by equipping some new piece of gear that magically negates it. You're just gating content at that point.
This thing sounds really similar to the radiance system LOTRO used. The players hated it so much the devs eventually got rid of it. I really, really hope it doesn't end up working like that.
The best part of the blog update for me was this:
Legendary weapons should be some epic, long quest that takes you all across Tyria IMO. Any move towards that is welcome.
This thing sounds really similar to the radiance system LOTRO used. The players hated it so much the devs eventually got rid of it. I really, really hope it doesn't end up working like that.
The best part of the blog update for me was this:
Legendary weapons should be some epic, long quest that takes you all across Tyria IMO. Any move towards that is welcome.
Not as bad as I feared, but still bad.
For starters, what with the unique label? Is that for the slot or the stats? Making people purposely downgrade stats for a slot would be dumb, so I hope it's exclusive to the slot.
From the sounds of it, it seems getting these rings will be completely RNG. Hoping for the perfect stat combination along with a slot does not sound enjoyable.
I also have doubts they'll add all the stat combinations. It's already impossible to get shaman and rabid stat combinations in exotic trinkets and jewels. Adding another tier without those stat combinations would make proper tanky condition builds fall even further behind.
For starters, what with the unique label? Is that for the slot or the stats? Making people purposely downgrade stats for a slot would be dumb, so I hope it's exclusive to the slot.
From the sounds of it, it seems getting these rings will be completely RNG. Hoping for the perfect stat combination along with a slot does not sound enjoyable.
I also have doubts they'll add all the stat combinations. It's already impossible to get shaman and rabid stat combinations in exotic trinkets and jewels. Adding another tier without those stat combinations would make proper tanky condition builds fall even further behind.
well, i gotta say right now i'm a bit disappointed in the new gear stuff as well. i'll reserve full judgement til more details are known. but if the offensive/defensive stats is anything like wow's pvp shit. i'm going to tip so many god damn magazine racks over. if you need shit to stay competitive in wvw that's bullshit. i hope anet is smart and makes it so you can't wear that shit in wvw if that's the case. but like i said, who knows how it works. the resillence gear pretty much made me quit wow cause pve was boring as fuck and i didnt want to do the pvp gear grind after doing it years ago with 2 chars already.
I agree so much. The priest and hunter weapon quests in Vanilla WoW, was probably some of the best questlines and ways to earn great weapons in any MMO period.
Make a legendary weapon for each class, and make people visit all of Tyria to get them. Via story quests that tie in to all dungeons etc.
AFollowerNotALeader
Member
Seconded. It's not going to be a problem until it's possible to fill most of the slots with the better gear but it's still clearly going to be a problem in future.
The only way to fix it would be to make gear with the appropriate stats obtainable though WvWvW (and leave off the agony nonsense to dissuade PvEers from grinding WvWvW for the gear).
Vigilant Walrus
Member
I... I can't really believe it has come to this.
In over 7 years of GW1 they never caved in on this.
Is this them giving in to the people who want to play this game like it's EQ or WoW?
Look - As things is, spending your PvE time farming Ori/Ancient Wood/Omni, Orr Karma Parties and Dungeons, post the 100% completion, it's not like we have much stuff to do anyway.
But what I don't get it is this. Why move a big group of players to this new medium sized zone. Sure, people can now shift between Orr and this new zone, but it doesn't really adress the problems?
If this ascended gear, is really going to be the end, then let these stats be max. Then let Ascended be top tier.
I like that I can join dungeons without having to be excluded because I didnt grind for whatever stats was needed.
I liked that Exotic gear could be achieved for 1-3 gold per piece on TP. Its not pretty but it allows you to be even in dungeons and WvW. Its a reasonable amount of time to get into it, wihen the scaling is set at lvl 80.
Are they going to tell us;
1) It doesnt matter you dont got the best gear in WvW, because we didnt made it to be balanced or fair!
2) go to sPvP if you want fairness. Everyone is equal there.
This might be true, but I dont like it. It bothers me that I now have to do stuff.. not neccesarily because I want it because of effort, but because of an imporvement in stats, albeit small.
Thirdly it annoys me that they are not taking the players back into every zone. to do events everywhere, and to scale events everywhere. I was in Arathi Highlands last night and it was really fun, but nearly abandoned. its not that much the game has to scale the rewards/drops to really make it good.
In over 7 years of GW1 they never caved in on this.
Is this them giving in to the people who want to play this game like it's EQ or WoW?
Look - As things is, spending your PvE time farming Ori/Ancient Wood/Omni, Orr Karma Parties and Dungeons, post the 100% completion, it's not like we have much stuff to do anyway.
But what I don't get it is this. Why move a big group of players to this new medium sized zone. Sure, people can now shift between Orr and this new zone, but it doesn't really adress the problems?
If this ascended gear, is really going to be the end, then let these stats be max. Then let Ascended be top tier.
I like that I can join dungeons without having to be excluded because I didnt grind for whatever stats was needed.
I liked that Exotic gear could be achieved for 1-3 gold per piece on TP. Its not pretty but it allows you to be even in dungeons and WvW. Its a reasonable amount of time to get into it, wihen the scaling is set at lvl 80.
Are they going to tell us;
1) It doesnt matter you dont got the best gear in WvW, because we didnt made it to be balanced or fair!
2) go to sPvP if you want fairness. Everyone is equal there.
This might be true, but I dont like it. It bothers me that I now have to do stuff.. not neccesarily because I want it because of effort, but because of an imporvement in stats, albeit small.
Thirdly it annoys me that they are not taking the players back into every zone. to do events everywhere, and to scale events everywhere. I was in Arathi Highlands last night and it was really fun, but nearly abandoned. its not that much the game has to scale the rewards/drops to really make it good.
WvW is uncompetitive by nature though. You need to be max level and need to hit the gear threshold. Still can't believe that I trusted some of the people here that level and gear wasn't going to matter in WvW. Such bullshit.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
Look, you cant put it on us. We've played GW1 for over 7 fucking years. THEY NEVER CAVED IN.
Not once. for 7 years it was the same. easily obtainable gear, only lvl 20. I dont know wtf is going on! It really is nobody's fault in here.
I get your pain, just saying it wasn't unexpected considering how WvW was set up.
So, who wants my stuff? It's funny I was so looking forward to the content patch, now it's the tombstone of the grave of the carcass of the dead body of the maggots of death of the game to me. I'll log in one last time after they add this stuff, I got some mad king armour and crap. Well not much but a few bits!
I've got a thousand plus gems too :- ill just cash em I guess.
Also only people who have nothing plz.
I've got a thousand plus gems too :- ill just cash em I guess.
Also only people who have nothing plz.
Also,
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again
Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...stranger's hand
In a...desperate land
Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Now that's overly dramatic!
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again
Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...stranger's hand
In a...desperate land
Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Now that's overly dramatic!
But that won't solve the 'problem' with people demanding progression they'll always hit a ceiling, and it will only alienate some of the people who don't care about it, so what is the point ?
And it creates massive confusion about legendaries, and what could be the future legendary armors.
Once again, the way they explain things stays really vague, and for us people who can only rely on the official announcements we don't know what's what.
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
I don't think this makes them bad at communicating. Why do they need to outline all of the content in advance? Why not keep some of the details a secret until the stuff drops? A little bit of mystery and discovery isn't a bad thing.
E: And reading more about the new content, I'm actually really excited. The idea of Ascended gear is pretty sweet, and the fact that it's limited to rings and back items means current dungeons are still relevant for the rest of your equipment. Anyone who decides they're quitting can go ahead and hook me up in game with their junk so I can continue to try and not be poor!
Making content demand higher stats on your gear is really not the way to make stuff more challenging. Especially not this early in a games cycle.
Or well it is a way. Just a damn lazy one....
Sure we make the boss hit a bit harder then the last one. So now they need to grind for those 10 extra hitpoints. Brilliant gamedesign!
ChackanKun
Member
Let me see if I understand this:
People are getting mad because ANet is going to add new type of items (weapons and/or armors i think) and you guys are getting crazy because...it's hard to get it or something? Or because of it requiring some grind?
Is this it?
People are getting mad because ANet is going to add new type of items (weapons and/or armors i think) and you guys are getting crazy because...it's hard to get it or something? Or because of it requiring some grind?
Is this it?
Zyrusticae
Banned
This. Absolutely this.
This is absolutely terrible. It's a straight-up gear check. This is exactly the sort of thing they should not be doing.
ArenaNet, I am disappointed.
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
I thought it was pretty clear that you only needed to gear for Agony if you intend to go super deep into the new dungeon.
It's a bit like saying, "Hey, you can't run explorable dungeons in low level blues, go find some rares/exotics." And to my knowledge, this is true. The stat bonus you get from rocking rares and exotics makes a pretty big difference. People seriously cannot assume that an MMO wouldn't have SOME sort of gear progression. Minimal as it may be right now, it exists, and people are seemingly looking past that fact.
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
And maybe that's true. There's no way of knowing until the content is available. But in order to GET the Ascended gear, you have to be able to clear some of the dungeon. So I'm going to say that you'll be able to battle through at least one or two rounds of the dungeon before Agony starts to really take its toll.
But seriously, I'm super excited for this content. Hopefully more GAF folk are as well - I'm looking forward to working through this new content with those who are.
Actually it looks like the rings are in the dungeon and the backpieces are a Mystic Forge recipes.
Either way I'm interested to see how easy/hard it would be to acquire this stuff - would you need the backpiece to get far enough to get rings, will you need to run the dungeon multiple times because of a low drop rate or is it a guaranteed reward?
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
Yeah, that's why I'm thinking it will be quite manageable for now. (since rings and back pieces are the only available stuff right now).
And who knows how drops will work. My guess is that there will be a medium drop chance of Ascended stuff (mats, infusions, rings) at the end of each wing.
Have you actually LOOKED at the stat difference? It's like, 5-10% at best. And because the upgrade slots are built into the default gear stats, there's little to no customization in the gear options. Keep in mind, Rings and Backbacks are the ONLY pieces available on Thursday. No armor, no weapons...Just rings and backs. And again, infusing with Agony resistance will do you NO good in WvW. Using your upgrade slot to get a 6/6 rune or sigil bonus, however, will likely continue to encourage the use of non-Ascended gear. They will likely be releasing new runes and such that encourages this, too.
Rofl. FREAK OUT PANIC TIME
Whoa, seriously? Everything I have just read indicates that it will only be required/beneficial for the new content, which makes it sort of a a "Lost Shore quest" to get Infusions. Sounds like fun to me...
edit: Holy crap, just caught up, are you guys nuts? It's rings and back pieces. I enjoy all the ways currently available to demonstrate that I've made a dungeon my bitch, and getting ascended gear that will help me do even more bitch-making in a dungeon with an exclusive new condition sounds like a blast to me. I don't see anything close to a loot treadmill, high-end gear check, or a new dungeon-prohibitive armor tier. I see new unique rings and back pieces which can specifically help you with the new content.
I don't think that ArenaNet sucks at communicating because they want to keep things secretive; I'm glad they do.
I'm willing to stipulate that they shouldn't have even told us anything at all. Man.
Exactly. People will still get these items within a few days and then resort to bitching about "nothing to do". I don't see how this is going to stop that at all.
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