ArenaNet: Linsey Murdock unveils High End Ascended Gear (2012-11-13)

[Izzy]

Well having read quite a few pages here, I'd like to add my own thoughts.

I feel like Guild Wars 2 has lost something that the original game had. Be it the way titles were more prominently displayed or that gear was almost all just cosmetic. I honestly never felt bored playing Guild Wars. I always had something I was trying to do. Mixing and matching armor for fun, getting titles, hording money, playing in events, etc. I never felt bored, even after 7 years of it.

Guild Wars 2 feels more like it's becoming a standard MMO, gear treadmill and all. Frankly, if they continue pushing the gear treadmill system I won't be playing anymore. I simply don't want to play that kind of game, which is why I thought Guild Wars 2 was the game for me.

I don't feel like Guild Wars 2 has that 'thing' that made Guild Wars 1 so great, and I hope ArenaNet finds it soon.

I will continue playing for now, but if it only gets worse that will be it for me.

[Fey]

I don't feel like Guild Wars 2 has that 'thing' that made Guild Wars 1 so great, and I hope ArenaNet finds it soon.

I can relate to this. I've seen it countless times in other games from other genres. Super Smash Brothers Brawl was missing a lot of what made Melee feel so great. But the dumbed down version made way more money.

Same with Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike and the transition to Street Fighter IV. They made everything more accessible and overall easier to get into. 3rd Strike is still considered Capcoms "Golden" fighter, where they feel like they nailed it and did everything perfect. Except it wasn't selling as much as they want it to. So they changed it for IV, and that game is a huge success.

The same can be said for StarCraft 2. It's no where near as hard to play as StarCraft Brood War, and because it's easier to get into the numbers skyrocketed.

With all of these changes, the people that played the previous version and were dedicated fans felt shafted by the newer versions that tried to appeal to a wider demographic. I definitely understand what you mean. But I don't think this change is going to kill the game. It's not drastic enough and people are just overreacting in general to it.

Despite how much the dedicated players of all the above games felt shafted when the new version came out, those new versions were/are vastly successful titles. Far more than their predecessors.

[Izzy]

Oh I agree that there is a bit of overreaction on the part of the players, but some reaction is warranted.

It will takes a lot to kill this game, but the more they alienate their original fans the more their numbers dwindle. Do they really want to just dump the old community and start fresh? I would much rather them stick to what was great about the original and implement it in a new way, saving old and new players alike.

[Vayne]

But what if Anet was actually, you know, telling the truth. What if they looked and saw this massive gap between difficulty of getting exotics and legendary and felt the extra tier was needed, because the bulk of the players did. What if they wanted to keep people happy by making an extra tier that was easier to get to legendaries, and, just this once, they added stats to it, to make it appealing to those coming from other games?

And what if those numbers don't really affect your ability to do ALL the content. If the agony stays in the fractals and you like the fractals, you'll stay in the fractals. If you don't like that, you can still play the fractals, because you don't need the gear to do all the maps in their basic form. As they get deeper and deeper, you get the gear you need anyway if you do like them.

So if you don't like them, you don't do them and you can do everything else. If you do like them, you keep doing them and get the gear that lets you go deeper.

The gear grind is voluntary. Unless you have something in your head that says I must have max stats, even if I can do all the content without them.

But then people have been complaining the game is too easy or not challenging anyway. So if you don't have max stats, but you keep getting better, wouldn't you be enjoying the game just as much? Does making the game easier make the game better for people?

[Jim Hunter]

Sorry that just doesn't make sense. There was no statistical gap so there was no reason to introduce the gear creep. If the gap was just time it takes or amount of grind needed for legendary then there was still no reason to introduce the gear creep.

[Vayne]

Sorry that just doesn't make sense. There was no statistical gap so there was no reason to introduce the gear creep. If the gap was just time it takes or amount of grind needed for legendary then there was still no reason to introduce the gear creep.

Maybe the reason is the uptake of people going for higher cosmetic gear. That's a reason. It may not be a reason you can get behind, but it's a reason. I keep saying that Anet has more info about their playerbase than we do. And as players, we tend to think I can live with this so it should be fine for everyone else...but that's not always the case.

I've run into too many people who won't even consider going for a legendary because there's no stat increase. There's a thread right here in these forums about it. And about half the people commenting on the thread weren't going to go for it. I was frankly surprised but it also opened my eyes.

Guild Wars 1 players in particular would go for it, but are Guild Wars 1 players now the bulk of the players playing Guild Wars 2? I don't think so. These players came from other games, not just WoW....lotro, tor, DDO, Perfect World and a host of others. And Anet has changed the game by doing other things. Minimizing skills, getting rid of the trinity, active dodge, and a host of other things.

So maybe they went a step too far, a step you can easily deal with but a big percentage of the playerbase can't. What if enough people would not go for gear without some stat upgrade and they all left. What if there weren't enough players left after that to keep building the game. Would that advantage or disadvantage you?

You'd just move onto another game. The stake you have in Guild Wars 2 is relatively small compared to those who have built the game. I'm pretty sure they didn't flipplantly say, hey, I know what we can do. Let's raise the stats on a new set of armor.

If you think that's how it went, I've got nothing else to say. I think they fought about it, argued about it, struggled with it, looked at the numbers and realized, we have to do something. We have to get more people getting this gear, or people will run out of things to do and they'll leave.

Because that's basically all an MMO is. A list of things to do. Once you have no more things to do, there is no game. You've done all the things.

Guild Wars 1 is a seven year old game with four campaigns and a lot to do. Guild Wars 2 is a 2.5 month old game with a bunch of stuff to do, but not enough for a portion of the playerbase. How big a portion? I don't know. I'd wager you don't know either.

So where do we go from here? Say that Anet changed their mind about stat upgrades for no reason whatsoever? Or do we think maybe there might be some reason for it. After all, if there was no reason they wouldn't have done it. And you can't see that reason, but again, you don't have access to their data. They do.

So far, Anet has added a backpack and a ring. I've been through the fractals of the mists. I'd done 11 of them. I have neither the ring nor the backpack but I'm not having trouble with the content yet. I'm doing it in my old gear. That's not exotics btw. That's a mix of greens, golds and exotics.

So far, I don't need those upgrades to do ANYTHING. But let's pretend I did have ring and backpack and got those upgrades. Do you think I could take you 1 v 1 in WvW? Cause I don't.

Now Anet has said there'll be ways for WvW people to get these things too, but obviously they're still designing that now. If you can get it by just WvW, how is it any different from exotics? If the difference between ascended gear and exotics is the same as the difference between exotics and rare, how does that change things?

I believe Anet had data available to them, from both feedback and numbers, that people weren't logging in. They could try all sorts of stuff, I agree, but the bottom line is, this is something that can help short term while other solutions are sought.

MMOs are always dynamic and they always changes, sometimes for the better, sometimes not so much. Some changes have killed games. This isn't going to be one of them. If Anet lost every Guild Wars 1 player that really cared about this, it wouldn't kill the game, keeping in mind that my wife and I played Guild Wars 1 for years and we're okay with this....SO FAR.

But if Anet says they saw what was missing and introduced a new tier, I believe them because I saw it was missing to. If they upped the stats because they need to at least give people a reason to try the fractals, well, that's not such a bad thing either.

And if they keep people playing in the fractals, and keep the playerbase up for those people and they fund the rest of the game that I like, why should I object?

As long as I can still do all the same stuff I did before the upgrade and I can...what's the issue? Something that might happen, because someone said it might?

They were filling a missing gap, an obvious gap. They made a decision, an unpopular one with a certain percentage of the playerbase, but how many are really going to leave?

I believe a small percentage WILL leave. But I think they're premature. I don't believe this is the start of a gear treadmill, because gear treadmills are accompanied by minimum requirements to do content.

In Rift, if you didn't have the right gear you couldn't use the LFG tool to queue for a dungeon. The game wouldn't even let you queue. That's how gear treadmills work. A game that allows you to play all the content whether you have the gear or not...and succeed...is not the same as having a gear treadmill.

[frunk]

The reason I'm not going for a Legendary is not because it isn't stronger, but because it is a huge grind. That's the whole point. Those who want to do a grind can, and they'll be rewarded with something nice and shiny not with something more powerful. Now Legendaries and Ascended are both more powerful and have grinds, so those who would like to have max power gear but have no interest in grinds (and even worse a narrow content choice grind) are stuck. That's the key problem that GW avoided, and GW2 avoided until now.

[Vayne]

The reason I'm not going for a Legendary is not because it isn't stronger, but because it is a huge grind. That's the whole point. Those who want to do a grind can, and they'll be rewarded with something nice and shiny not with something more powerful. Now Legendaries and Ascended are both more powerful and have grinds, so those who would like to have max power gear but have no interest in grinds (and even worse a narrow content choice grind) are stuck. That's the key problem that GW avoided, and GW2 avoided until now.

So the question is, how big a percentage of the playerbase do you represent, compared to other people, who need some stat upgrade? It's a valid question, and not just from a business point of view.

No matter how much money you spent on Guild Wars 1, everyone spent money on Guild Wars 2. We all bought the game. A lot of people who bought the game, maybe most, have never played Guild Wars 1 seriously. So again, if you're in Anet's place, and you realize what you've set up isn't working, what do you do?

Stay loyal to your original core of fans, and stick to the letter of the law, never put in a stat upgrade and risk losing the bulk of the playerbase? Or do you try to make a compromise that ups the stats, but slowly and not enough to ruin anyone's fun. The only thing here is the insistence in your mind that you must have the best stats. But if those stats aren't going to prevent you from doing content, it's not a gear treadmill no matter what people call it.

Games with gear treadmills have content you can't do unless you have that gear...and they make sure you can't do it. This dungeon that's been introduce basically separates them from us. Gives them something to work for, but most of what they need is the resistance to agony, which only affects that dungeon and only later on.

I'm never going to grind a dungeon, so I'm not going to be getting that gear, but I can still comfortably do everything else the game offers. It's a compromise. And if you absolutely must have the best gear, well, that's unfortunate, for both you and Anet, because you will leave this game.

Anet has stated they're not starting a gear treadmill and stated also the reason for these changes. People don't want to believe it, because they already feel lied to. But those same people have said this game is missing something that Guild Wars 1 had. Would they be sticking around anyway?

If the game doesn't have what Guild Wars 1 had, and it doesn't have what any other game has, what chance does it have?

This was never going to be the game for people who loved raiding. I think most of us have been saying that all along. But I don't think Anet counted on the amount of people who needed some sort of gear progression to keep going. I know I didn't.

So what should they do? What would you do?

[Jim Hunter]

I would have explored other options. You say this was a business decision but how good of a decision is it to spend all this time advertising the game as one thing and then doing a 180 a couple months after release.

They have broken peoples trust and if you don't have the market cornered on something trust is very important.

What's worse is if you're right and they are trying to walk some middle ground between having a gear grind or not then they will be driving away everyone.

They can't have it both ways and with the manifesto and the big deal they made about how this game will be different I think it is to late for them to get enough of the gear grind crowd to keep the game alive.

[frunk]

So the question is, how big a percentage of the playerbase do you represent, compared to other people, who need some stat upgrade? It's a valid question, and not just from a business point of view.

No matter how much money you spent on Guild Wars 1, everyone spent money on Guild Wars 2. We all bought the game. A lot of people who bought the game, maybe most, have never played Guild Wars 1 seriously. So again, if you're in Anet's place, and you realize what you've set up isn't working, what do you do?

Stay loyal to your original core of fans, and stick to the letter of the law, never put in a stat upgrade and risk losing the bulk of the playerbase? Or do you try to make a compromise that ups the stats, but slowly and not enough to ruin anyone's fun. The only thing here is the insistence in your mind that you must have the best stats. But if those stats aren't going to prevent you from doing content, it's not a gear treadmill no matter what people call it.

Games with gear treadmills have content you can't do unless you have that gear...and they make sure you can't do it. This dungeon that's been introduce basically separates them from us. Gives them something to work for, but most of what they need is the resistance to agony, which only affects that dungeon and only later on.

I'm never going to grind a dungeon, so I'm not going to be getting that gear, but I can still comfortably do everything else the game offers. It's a compromise. And if you absolutely must have the best gear, well, that's unfortunate, for both you and Anet, because you will leave this game.

Anet has stated they're not starting a gear treadmill and stated also the reason for these changes. People don't want to believe it, because they already feel lied to. But those same people have said this game is missing something that Guild Wars 1 had. Would they be sticking around anyway?

If the game doesn't have what Guild Wars 1 had, and it doesn't have what any other game has, what chance does it have?

This was never going to be the game for people who loved raiding. I think most of us have been saying that all along. But I don't think Anet counted on the amount of people who needed some sort of gear progression to keep going. I know I didn't.

So what should they do? What would you do?

There's no way people with the upgraded gear are going to be happy with content that can be done without difficulty with unupgraded gear. They'll demand more difficult content, which will require content that needs this better gear. They've already mentioned that with infused specific content going forward. Better gear isn't created in a vacuum, it creates its own requirements.

I haven't heard nearly as many people demanding better gear as you have. That has generally come out as way down on the list of things people are complaining about. To cater to that specific crowd, and to violate some of the core principles that the game was founded in the process, isn't a first, second, or even third step I'd take.