that's the whole point though some people feel ascended turned the game into a "gated" content game like wow.. even i thought 30+ you needed some ascended gear but if that's not the case then how can anyone say they turned this game into a gated gear grinder type game?
saw your edit.. so you can progress through it just might not be able to complete the even ones.. but you arern't really gated from doing the content so I really don't see the issue
None of my GW2 friends that have played WoW or SWTOR or Aion believe that to be the case, ie: you're being held back from truly enjoying the game. I don't know what the precise issue is either, they're doing whatever level of dungeons they feel comfortable with. I consider higher level fractals to be akin to Hard mode in GW1, so for people who want a real challenge, it's there.
The gated content argument is kind of grasping at straws at this point.
Ascended items dont really bother me much. I still can do everything everyone else can. And i kinda want to improve my chars anyway. Its nice to feel like im progressing instead of knowing my chars will always be the same when i finish them.
I repeat. Ascended gear gives no noticable advantage. This elminates anyones crying about "gear progression". If you don't wanna do it then don't do it. From personal experieicne it isn't even worth it.
that's the whole point though some people feel ascended turned the game into a "gated" content game like wow.. even i thought 30+ you needed some ascended gear but if that's not the case then how can anyone say they turned this game into a gated gear grinder type game?
saw your edit.. so you can progress through it just might not be able to complete the even ones.. but you arern't really gated from doing the content so I really don't see the issue
None of my GW2 friends that have played WoW or SWTOR or Aion believe that to be the case, ie: you're being held back from truly enjoying the game. I don't know what the precise issue is either, they're doing whatever level of dungeons they feel comfortable with. I consider higher level fractals to be akin to Hard mode in GW1, so for people who want a real challenge, it's there.
The gated content argument is kind of grasping at straws at this point.
This all just comes down to yet another illustration of how developers can NEVER win. Some people complain about GW2 not having enough progression. Others complain that fractals are too much. People are never happy.
The simple truth, though, is that a very small number of people playing GW2 go after ascended items for the stats. I've been playing the game since beta, and have server hopped a few times (currently on Sanctum of Ral), since the fractal update. During that time I've seen the demand for fractal groups decline considerably. Currently, the only reason people seem to do them at all (out of a pool of ~500 I've grouped with / talked to / are guildies) is to make money. They want to obtain ascended gear not because of the stats, but because it allows them to do higher lvl fractals, which gives them more money.
A number of people I know, myself included, are actually sick of getting ascended items, because they drop quite often after lvl 20, and your bank starts getting cluttered with gear you literally have no use for (ascended items). You can't transmute them into anything of value atm, and the stat advantage is barely noticeable aside from the agony resistance. This is all just a case of a few very vocal players making a mountain out of a molehill.
If you think that the higher scores won't affect WvW you are really bad at math,
If you think that content in the future won't be cut off via dungeons that require agony resistance you aren't paying attention to the devs own announcements
so basically their are making this a necessity.
if it were really as innocent as providing agony resistance for dungeons and no other advantages over other players there would be NO increase in stats.
people who say otherwise either aren't paying attention or they are completely in denial.
If you think that the higher scores won't affect WvW you are really bad at math,
If you think that content in the future won't be cut off via dungeons that require agony resistance you aren't paying attention to the devs own announcements
so basically their are making this a necessity.
if it were really as innocent as providing agony resistance for dungeons and no other advantages over other players there would be NO increase in stats.
people who say otherwise either aren't paying attention or they are completely in denial.
end of story.
You are grossly underestimating the skill factor in this game. If you think that the amount of stat increase this game gives from exotics -> ascended items is even remotely close to that which other MMOs have, you are very bad at math. (i.e. an ascended piece of gear may give ~13% stat increases over gear that amounts to roughly 1/3 of your stats. In WoW, a tier upgrade is roughly a 50% stat increase on gear that gives you most of your stats)
They've mentioned doing more w/ agony resists. They've never said anything to imply this being a major aspect of the game. While I'm not keen on the way stats exist in GW2, the whole ascended gear really isn't working much differently than infused gear did in GW1. Yes, there is a minor stat increase, no it doesn't really effect much outside of fractals.
In WvW I've consistantly been in groups that decimated opponents with better gear, and more buffs. Skill > gear in this game, by quite a large margin. Even in Tier1. In regular dungeons, no one cares if you have ascended gear, because it just doesn't matter. Heck, I've beaten most dungeons in this game naked just as a joke, and the amount of time saved from gear upgrades is purely mental. Best case scenario in a 100% perfect run, it shaves off a few seconds at best.
Group comp, player skill, and build, make far more of a difference in this game than gear ever has. It's been proven time and time again, even if certain people choose not to believe it.
Fractals aint gated by ascended gear. You can do fractals in greens if you want.
This is factually false.
Fractals requires 'Agony' gear.
Agony gear also has higher stats than 'exotic' gear.
sorry bro but your wrong ppl are at 80 fractals and if you get hit by agony your dead no matter how much resist you have so you can have alot or none it's all the same. yes AR helps on the lower lvl's but if you dodge it your fine. hell there a post on reddit about a fresh lvl 80 and he did lvl 26 with no AR and he was fine once they explained fights. btw it's Ascended gear man you can get it without agony resist on it. not being a grammer nazi just letting ya know
but i will say this if they add a new tier every 6 months i will stop playing but cause im not doing this again(WoW). if ascended gear is final step im cool with it.
I'm seriousely not trying to make a point but what exactly do I need from fractals now that I can get laurels?
I'm dead ass about this questions to, cause I honestly could be missing something here?
Is it the infusions or something?
Weapons are the current exclusive to fractals of the mist aside from the capacitor, however the weapons come with no stats and need to be transmuted for stats in order to gain access to the infusion slot.
Also doing fractals at 26+ will yield a chance for a pre-infused ring, which is a very nice money/time saver should you be so lucky.
...
Okay, so in all honesty I really don't need to do fractals in order to get ascended gear. I only asked because some people are still saying fractals are being forced or somehting like that. Which in return confused me, but then also wouldn't this make GW2 not a gear treadmill or it still is despite current an incoming options to get Ascended gear, maybe I'm confusing gear treadmill with something else.
Don't think anyone mentioned it, but you can craft Ascended back pieces (Quivers and Books) from Pink (Glob of ectoplasm) mystic forge drops found in the Fractals. It is also far easier to get 10 Pristine Fractal Relic tokens at lvl 10+ for a Ring instead of 35 Laurels - which is a rip off IMO.
OK, time to combat the tears with actual numbers, and may the gods forgive me for doing so. I'm going to use my mesmer as he's set up right now with a relatively balanced build. Here's the numbers:
The Ascended amulet is replacing the Ruby Orichalcum amulet of the berserker. The base numbers are without an amulet equipped at all. The ascended amulet gives me an increase of 11 power, 6 precision and 1% critical damage. In other words, after changing amulets we see this:
Power: 1982 -> 1993
Precision: 1763 -> 1769
Crit dmg: 44% -> 45%
C'mon people... are you really raging over numbers this marginal? You can practically change a gem and have a bigger impact.
Originally posted by NaughtyP Ascended items don't matter when they are part of the invisible zerg Hulk Smashing me in the face.
LOL even tho you are disagreeing with me I thought you had the funniest post about it! Good one!
I would agree except that there is no point (to me anyways) because there are bigger fish to fry. Like invisible zergs. If I can't even see my enemy their gear means little. One problem at a time...
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
im saving my laurels cause no ascended 3 iten suites me (i need carrion status), and i notice the differences are really short to my almost free itens from karma on Orr, and i usuallly dont do more than L12 fractals so i dont really care about them for now.
OK, time to combat the tears with actual numbers, and may the gods forgive me for doing so. I'm going to use my mesmer as he's set up right now with a relatively balanced build. Here's the numbers:
The Ascended amulet is replacing the Ruby Orichalcum amulet of the berserker. The base numbers are without an amulet equipped at all. The ascended amulet gives me an increase of 11 power, 6 precision and 1% critical damage. In other words, after changing amulets we see this:
Power: 1982 -> 1993
Precision: 1763 -> 1769
Crit dmg: 44% -> 45%
C'mon people... are you really raging over numbers this marginal? You can practically change a gem and have a bigger impact.
People dont look at numbers all they see is one piece IS better, not that it is marginally better. People still think this is Rift, WoW, etc where there is UBER gear that you can 'PWN N00BS WITH'. It is a basic non-issue.
I think A.Net will be releasing armor/weapons with newer skins, for the look, not that they will be 'UBER' over the weapons that are out now.
One piece will not make much difference but eventually you will have 10 or 12(?) pieces.
Then it really starts to add up.
you can do all the content in master or rare items set
you can kill ppl in WvW in master or rare items
ascended gear doesnt make you more powerfull than any exotic gear
even if you get 10 pieces that give you 5 power on each piece its nothing
becouse game have base stats and traits system that makie stats pretty high - above 2k
so 50 more power or precision or whatever doesnt change anything
They had the same issues in GW1 - example was the 15% above 50% health weapon mod. It was a pretty rare one but you could find loads of 14%above 50 but people thought, 'They had to have the 15 above 50 or they were not uber' the difference was minimal in damage output and no matter how much you explained or showed how little it did, people didnt care - they wanted the max number. Same thing here - comapred to your overall traits - the amount the Ascended gear gives is not much over exotics and sometimes less.
OK, time to combat the tears with actual numbers, and may the gods forgive me for doing so. I'm going to use my mesmer as he's set up right now with a relatively balanced build. Here's the numbers:
The Ascended amulet is replacing the Ruby Orichalcum amulet of the berserker. The base numbers are without an amulet equipped at all. The ascended amulet gives me an increase of 11 power, 6 precision and 1% critical damage. In other words, after changing amulets we see this:
Power: 1982 -> 1993
Precision: 1763 -> 1769
Crit dmg: 44% -> 45%
C'mon people... are you really raging over numbers this marginal? You can practically change a gem and have a bigger impact.
But but but.... according to all the 'experts' in this thread its a flat 13% boost in stats! Why does that only work out to 0.05%!!!!!
Oh yeah, because ascended items only make up a few slots, and the stats on the actual items is a small portion of your actual stats, like I said earlier.
Honestly, I got the ascended items on my Mesmer, and wouldnt bother with any other character unless they got them through normal play. The boost just isnt important enough.
OK, time to combat the tears with actual numbers, and may the gods forgive me for doing so. I'm going to use my mesmer as he's set up right now with a relatively balanced build. Here's the numbers:
The Ascended amulet is replacing the Ruby Orichalcum amulet of the berserker. The base numbers are without an amulet equipped at all. The ascended amulet gives me an increase of 11 power, 6 precision and 1% critical damage. In other words, after changing amulets we see this:
Power: 1982 -> 1993
Precision: 1763 -> 1769
Crit dmg: 44% -> 45%
C'mon people... are you really raging over numbers this marginal? You can practically change a gem and have a bigger impact.
But but but.... according to all the 'experts' in this thread its a flat 13% boost in stats! Why does that only work out to 0.05%!!!!!
Oh yeah, because ascended items only make up a few slots, and the stats on the actual items is a small portion of your actual stats, like I said earlier.
Honestly, I got the ascended items on my Mesmer, and wouldnt bother with any other character unless they got them through normal play. The boost just isnt important enough.
Because math.
The problem is that people try and falsely compare the items to each other. Oh, this ring has 13% more power than that ring! But they never ask what the numbers are being applied to. One can be 13% more than another, but when applied to the actual base stats of your character they're well under a 1% increase. You get a lot more increase with a food buff.
Originally posted by IPolygon Originally posted by andre369 Okay, so every time I go to the GW2 forums I come over threads where people say they will/have quit the game because of Ascended gear. My question to those players; How does ascended gear hurt you?
It's the beginning of the end (gear treadmill). How does it hurt me?
It goes against everything that made GW1 great. It forces me to go into another round of char completion in order to stay competitive (WvW) and valuable (PvE). I can never finish a char when I want to, thus removing the "play how you want to play". I have to get another gear set I need to grind for. The more tiers are added, the more I have to grind, since exotic didn't satisfy the WoW-crowd, neither will Ascended, thus more and more tiers will be added in the future. It goes against the basic philosophy of anti-grind that ANet marketed. Doing the same activities in a agame over and over again is grind. I won't argue about fun. I've lost a lot of trust in ANet, which they built over 8 years. This does hurt, personally.
Just a bunch of points that keep coming up. Not well-formed but spot-on.
No, it isn't. The treadmill is the constant required progression by forced gated content. Ascended gear is optional and available through a variety of means, even as simple as doing your dailies. In WoW, a good example of a treadmill based game, entire areas of content are locked to you if you haven't progressed on the treadmill getting the latest gear. That is not a factor in GW2 at all. The closest thing anyone could possibly find to this would be high end Fractals which require you to, not surprisingly, do lower end Fractals first and get agony resistance. If you choose not to you won't find yourself locked out of any future content as a result.
No, treadmill is in essence a never ending cycle of new gear tiers that are introduced every period of time to keep players busy. It is perfect for designers, because they don't actually need to deliver content that keeps players buys for that time, but design a reward system so players cannot get the new gear quickly.
You need to get that gear in order to retain the status quo. The status quo is best-in-slot gear. Gated content that was introduced with Fractals has nothing to do with it. ANet did a nice trick with the introduction of Fractals so people think ascended only affects and will only affect Fractals, which it does not. As soon as new character levels, new gear tiers (full equipment sets) appear in the game, you will see where the game is going. Namely full vertical gear progression and old content gets obsolete with each subsequent tier. Right now it is easier to do complete things with ascended than without. The only thing that keeps up the illusion are effects that one-shot you regardless of your equipment. That flawed encounter design however is a story for another time.
Originally posted by IPolygonNo, treadmill is in essence a never ending cycle of new gear tiers that are introduced every period of time to keep players busy. It is perfect for designers, because they don't actually need to deliver content that keeps players buys for that time, but design a reward system so players cannot get the new gear quickly.
You need to get that gear in order to retain the status quo. The status quo is best-in-slot gear. Gated content that was introduced with Fractals has nothing to do with it. ANet did a nice trick with the introduction of Fractals so people think ascended only affects and will only affect Fractals, which it does not. As soon as new character levels, new gear tiers (full equipment sets) appear in the game, you will see where the game is going. Namely full vertical gear progression and old content gets obsolete with each subsequent tier. Right now it is easier to do complete things with ascended than without. The only thing that keeps up the illusion are effects that one-shot you regardless of your equipment. That flawed encounter design however is a story for another time.
See you next year since there wont be new tier this year and expansion is planned for this year.
And gear treadmill DOES include gated content because without it the gear is pointless in itself. Its nice to be able to finish content 30s faster but hardly important in grand scheme of things.
Flawed content design? lol, spoken like true "old schooler". Because gear isnt everything in GW2 like it was in those old school games. You need at least some degree of skill.
Comments
None of my GW2 friends that have played WoW or SWTOR or Aion believe that to be the case, ie: you're being held back from truly enjoying the game. I don't know what the precise issue is either, they're doing whatever level of dungeons they feel comfortable with. I consider higher level fractals to be akin to Hard mode in GW1, so for people who want a real challenge, it's there.
The gated content argument is kind of grasping at straws at this point.
Ascended items dont really bother me much. I still can do everything everyone else can. And i kinda want to improve my chars anyway. Its nice to feel like im progressing instead of knowing my chars will always be the same when i finish them.
This all just comes down to yet another illustration of how developers can NEVER win. Some people complain about GW2 not having enough progression. Others complain that fractals are too much. People are never happy.
The simple truth, though, is that a very small number of people playing GW2 go after ascended items for the stats. I've been playing the game since beta, and have server hopped a few times (currently on Sanctum of Ral), since the fractal update. During that time I've seen the demand for fractal groups decline considerably. Currently, the only reason people seem to do them at all (out of a pool of ~500 I've grouped with / talked to / are guildies) is to make money. They want to obtain ascended gear not because of the stats, but because it allows them to do higher lvl fractals, which gives them more money.
A number of people I know, myself included, are actually sick of getting ascended items, because they drop quite often after lvl 20, and your bank starts getting cluttered with gear you literally have no use for (ascended items). You can't transmute them into anything of value atm, and the stat advantage is barely noticeable aside from the agony resistance. This is all just a case of a few very vocal players making a mountain out of a molehill.
If you think that the higher scores won't affect WvW you are really bad at math,
If you think that content in the future won't be cut off via dungeons that require agony resistance you aren't paying attention to the devs own announcements
so basically their are making this a necessity.
if it were really as innocent as providing agony resistance for dungeons and no other advantages over other players there would be NO increase in stats.
people who say otherwise either aren't paying attention or they are completely in denial.
end of story.
You are grossly underestimating the skill factor in this game. If you think that the amount of stat increase this game gives from exotics -> ascended items is even remotely close to that which other MMOs have, you are very bad at math. (i.e. an ascended piece of gear may give ~13% stat increases over gear that amounts to roughly 1/3 of your stats. In WoW, a tier upgrade is roughly a 50% stat increase on gear that gives you most of your stats)
They've mentioned doing more w/ agony resists. They've never said anything to imply this being a major aspect of the game. While I'm not keen on the way stats exist in GW2, the whole ascended gear really isn't working much differently than infused gear did in GW1. Yes, there is a minor stat increase, no it doesn't really effect much outside of fractals.
In WvW I've consistantly been in groups that decimated opponents with better gear, and more buffs. Skill > gear in this game, by quite a large margin. Even in Tier1. In regular dungeons, no one cares if you have ascended gear, because it just doesn't matter. Heck, I've beaten most dungeons in this game naked just as a joke, and the amount of time saved from gear upgrades is purely mental. Best case scenario in a 100% perfect run, it shaves off a few seconds at best.
Group comp, player skill, and build, make far more of a difference in this game than gear ever has. It's been proven time and time again, even if certain people choose not to believe it.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
LOL even tho you are disagreeing with me I thought you had the funniest post about it! Good one!
i think its a good move for now, coz people kept whining and whining about the gear
(its a good move till they improve progression systme)
but i will say this if they add a new tier every 6 months i will stop playing but cause im not doing this again(WoW). if ascended gear is final step im cool with it.
Don't think anyone mentioned it, but you can craft Ascended back pieces (Quivers and Books) from Pink (Glob of ectoplasm) mystic forge drops found in the Fractals. It is also far easier to get 10 Pristine Fractal Relic tokens at lvl 10+ for a Ring instead of 35 Laurels - which is a rip off IMO.
OK, time to combat the tears with actual numbers, and may the gods forgive me for doing so. I'm going to use my mesmer as he's set up right now with a relatively balanced build. Here's the numbers:
Ascended Amulet: 126 power, 85 precision, 9% crit
Ruby-ori Berserk: 115 power, 79 precision, 8% crit
Base: 1867 power, 1684 precision, 35% crit
The Ascended amulet is replacing the Ruby Orichalcum amulet of the berserker. The base numbers are without an amulet equipped at all. The ascended amulet gives me an increase of 11 power, 6 precision and 1% critical damage. In other words, after changing amulets we see this:
Power: 1982 -> 1993
Precision: 1763 -> 1769
Crit dmg: 44% -> 45%
C'mon people... are you really raging over numbers this marginal? You can practically change a gem and have a bigger impact.
Oderint, dum metuant.
I would agree except that there is no point (to me anyways) because there are bigger fish to fry. Like invisible zergs. If I can't even see my enemy their gear means little. One problem at a time...
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
People dont look at numbers all they see is one piece IS better, not that it is marginally better. People still think this is Rift, WoW, etc where there is UBER gear that you can 'PWN N00BS WITH'. It is a basic non-issue.
I think A.Net will be releasing armor/weapons with newer skins, for the look, not that they will be 'UBER' over the weapons that are out now.
Regarding your numbercrunching:
One piece will not make much difference but eventually you will have 10 or 12(?) pieces.
Then it really starts to add up.
you can do all the content in master or rare items set
you can kill ppl in WvW in master or rare items
ascended gear doesnt make you more powerfull than any exotic gear
even if you get 10 pieces that give you 5 power on each piece its nothing
becouse game have base stats and traits system that makie stats pretty high - above 2k
so 50 more power or precision or whatever doesnt change anything
They had the same issues in GW1 - example was the 15% above 50% health weapon mod. It was a pretty rare one but you could find loads of 14%above 50 but people thought, 'They had to have the 15 above 50 or they were not uber' the difference was minimal in damage output and no matter how much you explained or showed how little it did, people didnt care - they wanted the max number. Same thing here - comapred to your overall traits - the amount the Ascended gear gives is not much over exotics and sometimes less.
But but but.... according to all the 'experts' in this thread its a flat 13% boost in stats! Why does that only work out to 0.05%!!!!!
Oh yeah, because ascended items only make up a few slots, and the stats on the actual items is a small portion of your actual stats, like I said earlier.
Honestly, I got the ascended items on my Mesmer, and wouldnt bother with any other character unless they got them through normal play. The boost just isnt important enough.
It would be a problem...if you could only get it in high level fractals.
If its readily available like exotics than its non issue.
It will all depend on how ANet handles it from now on when they have feedback on it.
Because math.
The problem is that people try and falsely compare the items to each other. Oh, this ring has 13% more power than that ring! But they never ask what the numbers are being applied to. One can be 13% more than another, but when applied to the actual base stats of your character they're well under a 1% increase. You get a lot more increase with a food buff.
Oderint, dum metuant.
They'll add up, by my guestimates, to a primary stat boost overall of between 1% and 2%.
In other words... one well timed dodge can be enough to eradicate the apparent stat advantage.
Oderint, dum metuant.
It's the beginning of the end (gear treadmill). How does it hurt me?
It goes against everything that made GW1 great. It forces me to go into another round of char completion in order to stay competitive (WvW) and valuable (PvE). I can never finish a char when I want to, thus removing the "play how you want to play". I have to get another gear set I need to grind for. The more tiers are added, the more I have to grind, since exotic didn't satisfy the WoW-crowd, neither will Ascended, thus more and more tiers will be added in the future. It goes against the basic philosophy of anti-grind that ANet marketed. Doing the same activities in a agame over and over again is grind. I won't argue about fun. I've lost a lot of trust in ANet, which they built over 8 years. This does hurt, personally.
Just a bunch of points that keep coming up. Not well-formed but spot-on.No, it isn't. The treadmill is the constant required progression by forced gated content. Ascended gear is optional and available through a variety of means, even as simple as doing your dailies. In WoW, a good example of a treadmill based game, entire areas of content are locked to you if you haven't progressed on the treadmill getting the latest gear. That is not a factor in GW2 at all. The closest thing anyone could possibly find to this would be high end Fractals which require you to, not surprisingly, do lower end Fractals first and get agony resistance. If you choose not to you won't find yourself locked out of any future content as a result.
No, treadmill is in essence a never ending cycle of new gear tiers that are introduced every period of time to keep players busy. It is perfect for designers, because they don't actually need to deliver content that keeps players buys for that time, but design a reward system so players cannot get the new gear quickly.
You need to get that gear in order to retain the status quo. The status quo is best-in-slot gear. Gated content that was introduced with Fractals has nothing to do with it. ANet did a nice trick with the introduction of Fractals so people think ascended only affects and will only affect Fractals, which it does not. As soon as new character levels, new gear tiers (full equipment sets) appear in the game, you will see where the game is going. Namely full vertical gear progression and old content gets obsolete with each subsequent tier. Right now it is easier to do complete things with ascended than without. The only thing that keeps up the illusion are effects that one-shot you regardless of your equipment. That flawed encounter design however is a story for another time.See you next year since there wont be new tier this year and expansion is planned for this year.
And gear treadmill DOES include gated content because without it the gear is pointless in itself. Its nice to be able to finish content 30s faster but hardly important in grand scheme of things.
Flawed content design? lol, spoken like true "old schooler". Because gear isnt everything in GW2 like it was in those old school games. You need at least some degree of skill.