Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Guild Wars 2: High End Ascended Gear Revealed
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Linsey Murdock has written a new blog post on the Guild Wars 2 site that details some exciting news about new high end ascended gear for players. The post details how new gear progressions and 'challenging new game mechanics' will give high level players incentive to progress and reason to step carefully.
In the upcoming Fractals of the Mists dungeon, we’ll introduce a new monster condition called Agony.
This extremely dangerous condition ticks percentages of player health away and can’t be cleansed by normal means. 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.
Read the full post on the Guild Wars 2 site.
Comments
lol that's easy Spock, just don't do future content that requires higher Agony. They have control of what they do.
Honestly, the dungeon sounds like it's a perpetual dungeon, never ending get as far as you can until you are overwhelmed. They had these sorta things in gw1 with challenge missions. You go on forever till you are killed.
However, not really digging the ascended thing. If it follows suit with the ring example shown, does the new gear make sigils, jewels and runes obsolete?
Actually they say in the article that Agony is the 1st end game gating mechanic I fully expect other end game activities will have a different mechanic you will have to combat by whatever. I doubt we will see Agony being used in many places. I bet they plan to have different mechanic for different end game activities.
I don't think its intended as a blocker, but as a different way to drive content. So its more like the level req. checkmark needed to go into any dungeon.
I completely agree with you. Especially after reading this part:
"By adding challenging new combat mechanics to end-game content and ways to mitigate those mechanics through gear progression for high-end players, we can add personal progression without making the game feel like an endless treadmill of gear that is just out of your reach. Original Guild Wars fans may recognize that we took a familiar approach to our new progression. The first end game mechanic we will introduce is Agony, ..."
That may be true but they are doing a great job at making it look like the same old treadmill progression from every other MMO, which favors gear over skill. I really hope they are not caving in and following in the footsteps of every other Gear based MMO...
I don't think they are. If you see what the showed the stats were nearly identical, the only difference is this "Agony" which is an artificial requirement that only drives you to do other content before you step into the dungeon. Which BTW is one of many they plan to introduce into the game.
Could you explain why you think they are doing "a great job at making it look like the same old treadmill progression"? I think other players with misinformation(some on purpose) are trying to make it look that way though, but not Anet.
How is that any different from needing to be above a certain gear score in wow?
It would be the same if Agony was used in every dungeon/end game activity in game. Apparently it won't. So it's a little bit like gear score which is seperate for each dungeon. At least this is my theory.
So each new type of content will be gated individually? that's different.. but how is it better?
Come to think of it, how is any of this better than just upping the level cap and adding a new higher level zone, to match?
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
It is just my theory based on the blog post. it is better b/c you can choose which end game activity you want to do instead being forced to do dungeon x then y and tehn finall z in which you really was interested in.
Well I see it as different for a reason. If you raise the gear stats significantly with each endgame content with the purpose of gating content then you create an inbalance within the entire game which in the case of GW2 would cause bigger problems. When you do this via a different more artificial source that only matters for specific content then you essentially modularized it from affecting the rest of the game. Its like she says in the start of the article:
"As we watch Guild Wars 2 mature in its Live environment, we have found that our most dedicated players were achieving their set of Exotic gear and hitting “the Legendary wall.” We designed the process of getting Legendary gear to be a long term goal, but players were ready to start on that path much sooner than we expected and were becoming frustrated with a lack of personal progression."
this makes sense-kinda put it in perspective-IF Anet dont neglect the other end game content and wvwvw.
They still have tons of work to do in both WvW and spvp. At least they started with spvp, I expect them to keep doing stuff for WvW as well. Actually, if I remember correctly in the mmorpg interview with the coders they talked about changes they were working on for wvw.
I'm complaining about this figuratively tbh
DAOC Live (inactive): R11 Cleric R11 Druid R11 Minstrel R9 Eldritch R6 Sorc R6 Scout R6 Healer
I don't really see this as a problem, although admittedly I was concerned at first. However, from what I'm getting from the blog post, etc. the Ascended equipment is on par with Legendaries. in fact, all new Legendaries will be Ascended quality - in keeping with Anet's plan that Legendaries are the strongest items possible. On top of that, it looks like the equipment you may need, or the ingredients to get it, will be dropped in the dungeon itself. So, you can get so far in the dungeon without the Ascended/Infused items and by the time you get to where you would need it, you'll have it available.
At least, that's what I'm getting from the info in the blog and the wiki.
Seems less like a gear progression and more like a natural progression as a result of doing the initial stages of the dungeon. The one question that does remain is the drop rate. If the initial stages of the dungeon require a grind to get the items needed to progress, I would see that as a problem. Then it certainly does smack of the "necessary grind" for power progression.
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
Be afraid.....The dragons are HERE!
Gear progression is the worst possible end game system for an MMO. And you're right, it goes directly against the core of the game.
Just do what DAoC did.