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

[Stonesolid]

You sir have put words into my mouth. I never stated what that, you only interpreted it that way.

I did and I apologize. I was just looking for clarification or a reason why anyone would be FOR new gear with higher stats. A lot of people seem excited about it and I don't understand why. I saw absolutely no need for it. I thought you may have been one of those people and I was wrong.

Also unless something changes Legendaries will always be matched to the top tier of weapon, the stats will never be higher than whatever the currently available "easy-to-get" weapons are. They have the same stats as exotics now and they'll be raised when Ascended weapons hit the shelves. They had higher stats temporarily but it was a bug and was fixed. I thought the selling points of the Legendary weapons were supposed to be the design and effects when equipped, not just the next higher scale of weaponry.

[Centaur]

See, I don't think they made this change in order to get old players back. I think they made the change to prevent people who are bored but like the game from quitting and people who will innevitably get bored for the same reasons. Not to mention bring new people into the game.

I hope that this change is going to save the game in the long run, but tbh... I doubt it. Apart from the lack of subscription fee, part of what made Guild Wars 2 stand out, was its manifesto and its very firm policy against specialized endgame content and against gear grinding. They brought in many, many players exactly because of that policy. Now they're stepping on their own policy, basically declaring it null and void, adding specialized endgame content and the first levels of gear grinding. With this move, ArenaNet comes a lot closer to just being "one of the many MMORPG's out there". So they not only lost part of what made them special, but they also lost the confidence of all those who believed in ArenaNet and its manifesto, and what they have now will most likely still not be enough to keep the majority of those who actually want endgame and the gear grind entertained for very long.

I'm not saying that they didn't need to address the problem... I was getting bored too (and many others with me), but that's no surprise as even GW1 had more to do at max level than GW2... and all without gear grinding. They just had a lot of great opportunities and many ways to address the problem, and for me (and many others) the path they chose doesn't solve anything and actually makes the problem bigger.

Let's assume you're correct and that the majority of the population is pissed and is quitting. They're not going to try and reel you back in. That's not how game development works. People that claim to have been "playing the game for 7 years and dedicated all this time into GW1 and are angry" yet have just quit over a single change that's actually a minor part of a major patch and are now "protesting" agains it because of how much you love the old game; all that tells the Dev's is that you're no longer their target audiance and that your opinions are dismissible.

I'm not claiming to know if it's the majority or not... I just know that it's a significant number. And frankly, personally I didn't quit to protest... I quit because I was having a lot of issues with the game, and most of those still haven't been addressed. And yes, I was getting bored, but the 'solution' that they came up with actually made the game even less fun for me. At this stage, with the things they have been doing, this game simply isn't fun for me anymore, and playing it would be like torturing myself (and I'm not into that kind of thing). That's why I quit. The OP of the other thread was just my goodbye note to ArenaNet, to make sure that they were aware of my reasons for quitting, so they can hopefully do something about those issues to prevent even more people from quitting. If they don't address those problems, then I expect to see many more people quitting in the long run... even among those who aren't bothered all that much by this particular update.

Then again, if this direction will help the game survive in the long run... great, good for you and for ArenaNet. If eventually it turns into WoW 2 or some such with an equal amount of success... wonderful for those people who enjoy that kind of thing. It just stopped being the kind of MMO that ArenaNet told us it would be, the kind of MMO I was looking forward to and would enjoy playing.

[frunk]

Did GW1 have more to do than GW2 with just Prophecies? It certainly did after the expansions and the release of hard mode, but most of the original campaign wasn't for max level characters.

[Centaur]

With just Prophecies? Originally not. Prophecies was ArenaNet's very first game ever, and they made many mistakes with that game... mistakes they claimed to have learned from and mistakes that they were aiming to avoid with GW2.
But with GW2 they weren't aiming to release a game that could measure itself with Prophecies... they were aiming to release a game that could measure itself with WoW as it is now, including all its expansion packs.

[Alexanian]

An outsider in will see a lot of negativity about the game and the company. It's just not on the main forums anymore, this is spreading because it's been about a week and they still haven't done any damage control.

I'm willing to bet a lot of the people that have quit the game are going to websites like amazon and leaving bait and switch comments in the reviews.

I'm personally very against the gear grind direction but the PR disaster will be what really hurts A-Net.

Speaking from someone who has actually been in game. People are really enjoying the new dungeons. There is so much conversing going on in map chat because people are finding new items and recipes. I think the last 3 days have been some of the best. If thats connected to a certain group of player types not being around... Ill leave math to someone better suited for it. But I guess all the negative voices arent around, and the people left are fine.

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I don't want to grind out anything to get the most powerful gear. Why should I have to?

Sorry, I forgot you want everything handed to you for nothing. You lost all your cred with me.

[Centaur]

Sorry, I forgot you want everything handed to you for nothing. You lost all your cred with me.

You definitely failed to understand the concept of a game without gear grind.

[Delvoire]

You definitely failed to understand the concept of a game without gear grind.

I think maybe he just realizes that he's gonna play the game for what it is, changes and all, and not sweat the small stuff. JIMO

[bokiz333]

Meh, to each their own. This topic has been beat to death. Has anyone changed their mind in the last week? No. So whats the point of all this back and forth really? Play the game. Dont play it.

I'm thinking Im going to come back...so I can grief the community. I know it sounds aweful, but I'm going to run the dungeon and ask for gear links. Go to WvW and kill players and dance on them. Make it so new players don't have fun. Sounds terrible I know, but at this point, you either deal with the new game as it is or leave. And I'll just make the new players decide which they want sooner rather than later.

I'm actually skipping my basketball game tonight to log in and start my new "griefing project".

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I think maybe he just realizes that he's gonna play the game for what it is, changes and all, and not sweat the small stuff. JIMO

Ohh, I hope he WvW's.

[frunk]

Sorry, I forgot you want everything handed to you for nothing. You lost all your cred with me.

I certainly don't want everything handed to me. I want to defeat challenges based on skill in playing/planning not because I got a magic doodah after 100 hours spent trying to get it.

[Alexanian]

You definitely failed to understand the concept of a game without gear grind.

No, I failed to see you guys want to login just to see a big fat YOU WIN! screen.