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

[Shar]

Actually, now that I think about it, they really don't need to raise stats...but they do need more, a lot more and different cosmetic gear of all different difficulties to reach. Right now, there's not nearly enough. With only one of each weapon and no armor to speak of higher than exotic, and with medium armor wearers mostly having to choose between having a long coat and having a long coat, it's quite frustrating. I think I'm looking forward to more armor choices, and I don't really care if they come with a stat upgrade or not.

I agree with this. I think game developers really underestimate the desire of players wanting to look good/imposing/hawt. And it forces no one to grind to remain competitive.

Other than that, i think most players are spoiled and just ***** and complain too much. They want the entire game to be tailored to suit their needs.

[Vayne]

Well, if they don't see this as a mistake, after telling people in their manifesto that they would never do something like this, then they should be prepared to accept the backlash, as many people clearly do see it as such.



I agree about the metacritic/amazon rating thing... that's a bit childish. But the asking for refunds I can absolutely understand. A lot of people feel that they have been lied to, that the reason why they chose GW2 was just ArenaNet misleading them. False advertising, bait & switch... whatever you want to call it. Plenty of grounds to ask for a refund.
They were expecting to play this game for a long time, but now they have lost all faith in ArenaNet and have lost all interest in the game because of this. And ArenaNet did nothing to address their concerns. Again, if that's not a mistake, then ArenaNet should be prepared to accept the consequences.

Edit: even if ArenaNet do not see the change itself as a mistake, then their mistake is that they didn't foresee how many people felt passionate about this and the backlash it would have on their community. Still a mistake, though.

I've looked at the manifesto again, and I have to tell you, I'm not sure that grind in the context they're talking about is gear grind anyway. It says in the manifesto "No one likes to grind, no one finds it fun, we want to change the way people view combat".

I think it's pretty clear in this case, that Colin J is talking about grinding mobs to level, which was a major complaint of Aion. I think that saying that there will be no grind of any kind in the game is taking literally something that was pretty specific.

I'd have to watch the whole thing again, to see if there's other mentions of grind, but in context, no one with a reasonable grasp of English can say that Colin is talking about gear grind there. He's talking about grinding to level. Admittedly it's easy to remember way after the fact and not listen to the whole sentence, which is why I'll have to watch the whole thing again.

- - - Updated - - -

Well, if they don't see this as a mistake, after telling people in their manifesto that they would never do something like this, then they should be prepared to accept the backlash, as many people clearly do see it as such.



I agree about the metacritic/amazon rating thing... that's a bit childish. But the asking for refunds I can absolutely understand. A lot of people feel that they have been lied to, that the reason why they chose GW2 was just ArenaNet misleading them. False advertising, bait & switch... whatever you want to call it. Plenty of grounds to ask for a refund.
They were expecting to play this game for a long time, but now they have lost all faith in ArenaNet and have lost all interest in the game because of this. And ArenaNet did nothing to address their concerns. Again, if that's not a mistake, then ArenaNet should be prepared to accept the consequences.

Edit: even if ArenaNet do not see the change itself as a mistake, then their mistake is that they didn't foresee how many people felt passionate about this and the backlash it would have on their community. Still a mistake, though.

I remember the manifesto too, and I have to tell you, I'm not sure that grind in the context they're talking about is gear grind anyway. It says in the manifesto "No one likes to grind, no one finds it fun, we want to change the way people view combat".

I think it's pretty clear in this case, that Colin J is talking about grinding mobs to level, which was a major complaint of Aion. I think that saying that there will be no grind of any kind in the game is taking literally something that was pretty specific.

I'd have to watch the whole thing again, to see if there's other mentions of grind, but in context, no one with a reasonable grasp of English can say that Colin is talking about gear grind there. He's talking about grinding to level. Admittedly it's easy to remember way after the fact and not listen to the whole sentence, which is why I'll have to watch the whole thing again.

Edit: I'll paste below the full text from the MMO Manifesto which I got from the Guild Wars 2 wiki...I think it's correct. I'll also point out that Anet released a clarification shortly after this trailer was released which commented that due to editing there was a chance people wouldn't understand that Colin was talking about dynamic events and Ree was talking about personal story, and it was easy to combine what they were saying, which wasn't the case. Aside from that, I don't think they've broken any word from this manifesto, the individual claims might be argued, like if you don't think the storyline branched enough. For all intents and purposes, I don't see a lie here.

MMO Manifesto Text

Mike O'Brien: "We founded ArenaNet to innovate, so Guild Wars 2 is our opportunity to question everything, to make a game that defies existing conventions. If you love MMOs, you'll want to check out Guild Wars 2, and if you hate MMOs, you'll really want to check out Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1 and puts it into a persistent world that's got more active combat, a fully-branching, personalized storyline, a new event system to get people playing together, and still no monthly fees."

Daniel Dociu: "The look of Guild Wars 2 is stylized. We're going for a painterly, illustrated aesthetic. Everything in our world feels handcrafted and artisanal. We treat our environments as if they are characters themselves."

Colin Johanson: "When you look at the art in our game, you say 'Wow, that's visually stunning. I've never seen anything like that before,' and then when you play the combat in our game, you say 'Wow, that's incredible. I've never seen anything like that.' In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. 'I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.' That's great. We just don't want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat."

Ree Soesbee: "As a structure, the MMO has lost the ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you are doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn't care that I'm there."

Colin Johanson: "You'll get quest text that tells you 'I'm being attacked by these horrible things,' and it's not actually happening. In the game world, these horrible centaurs are standing around in a field, and you get a quest step that says 'Go kill ten centaurs.' We don't think that's OK. You see what's happening. You see centaurs running to the trading post, knocking the walls down, burning and killing the merchants."

Ree Soesbee: "We do not want to build the same MMO everyone else is building, and in Guild Wars 2, it's your world. It's your story. You affect things around you in a very permanent way."

Colin Johanson: "Cause and effect: A single decision made by a player cascades out in a chain of events."

Ree Soesbee: "You're meeting new people whom you will then see again. You're rescuing a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you. The most important thing in any game should be the player. We have built a game for them."

[Centaur]

The manifesto was more than just that video. From their Design Manifesto blog:

Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.

and

It all gets back to our basic design philosophy. Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.

So their CEO, Mike O'Brien, definitely was thinking of gear grinding as well, there.

Later, there were more quotes along these same lines. I can post a dozen of those, but I'll just post this one:

Mike O'Brien:

Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games – we leave the grind to other MMOs.

It should be very clear that he's talking about grinding for gear here, not level grinding.

[Vayne]

And not one of those things is in the game yet. Not a single one. Nothing. I haven't found a single thing that I have to grind for in the game at this point.

You're making huge assumptions about what will be in the game. There's no treadmill, certainly at this point. And you don't have to grind for anything to get gear that will get you into all content. I'm having fun instead of preparing to have fun now and before a few words on paper, so were you.

Grinding for a future reward sounds a lot like legendaries were anyway. Anet never said there will be absolutely no vertical progression ever. They said, the game will be fun. You can play it. You don't have to grind for rewards. That remains true at this moment, and frankly we have no real evidence that will change.

It's called jumping the gun. I'm not saying it can never happen. I'm saying it hasn't happened. I'm saying that Anet has added a level of gear, because it was missing. They've reiterated yet again they have no desire to keep doing this every three months. That they won't keep coming out with new tiers of gear.

You choose not to believe them. You've said several times they've betrayed the manifesto, they haven't. Of the three quotes you've quoted above they all talk about gear grind, and that's simply not in the game yet.

And you still have yet to answer me once about how other games with gear grind gate content so you absolutely can't do content without gear.

The only dungeon in this game you would need gear to do, you'll be doing to get the gear anyway. And everyone can enjoy the scenes on a more casual level, which is unlike raids in other games. It's unlike the gear grind in other games.

Face it, when they said the game would be fun instead of waiting to have fun, that you won't have to grind endlessly to level, that you won't have a gear grind like other games, that's all still true.

Even if this were gear grind and vertical progression doesn't automatically have to equal gear grind, no one knows the extent, how easy it will be to get this stuff, how you go about getting it... its' all blown way out of proportion.

Anet is trying to balance things so that everyone is happy. It might not work. But it's a lot better than balancing stuff for one group and losing another group entirely.

[Centaur]

*Sigh*... I could refer you to my previous posts for the reply to that. Somehow it just doesn't seem to get through to you. You prefer to be blind and claim that it hasn't happened. You can look at it however you want, but you already have to grind (ie. repeat the same dungeon multiple times, even if you don't want to) to get the best gear (which is exactly what that last quote from Mike O'Brien said you would NOT have to do). The difference is no longer just purely cosmetic, which is what they stated it would be.

And you keep claiming that you don't absolutely need max stat gear (see also what I said about that here). But (unlike the skins on legendary gear), gear stats do have an impact on gameplay, they do matter, which makes them far from optional.

[Toc]

After the update:
There's nothing worth doing at max level if you don't care about gear grinding, but gear grinding is the only way to get max stat gear.

Is this true or can you buy/craft it? Will ways to acquire it by other means be added? I believe they stated that legendaries would be opened up to more avenues of acquisition? So is it feasible to assume this means crafting/questing/farming/wvw?

[Jim Hunter]

Is this true or can you buy/craft it? Will ways to acquire it by other means be added? I believe they stated that legendaries would be opened up to more avenues of acquisition? So is it feasible to assume this means crafting/questing/farming/wvw?

They said there will be other ways to acquire ascended eventually....

My guess is that eventually means when they come out with a new higher tier they will give new ways to get ascended.

[Centaur]

Is this true or can you buy/craft it? Will ways to acquire it by other means be added? I believe they stated that legendaries would be opened up to more avenues of acquisition? So is it feasible to assume this means crafting/questing/farming/wvw?

At this time, that statement is absolutely true. Eventually they will add other ways to obtain it (such as WvW and crafting). But as exotics are a short-term goal and ascended gear are intended a mid-term goal, it's not too far-fetched to expect that you will still need a significantly higher amount of time/gold/karma/grinding to obtain them than exotics. So don't expect the crafting recipes for ascended gear to be as easy and cheap as for exotic gear.
As for Legendaries... no, they never said those would be opened up to more avenues of acquisition as well. Legendaries remain a long-term goal, and are intentionally hard to obtain. They only said you would see more legendaries, and they would update the existing ones (so that they will always be the best stat gear).

[Toc]

So don't expect the crafting recipes for ascended gear to be as easy and cheap as for exotic gear.

I wouldn't, otherwise exotics would never be used. Just like exotics are harder/more expensive than master and master is harder/more expensive than blue con....etc. white con.

As for Legendaries... no, they never said those would be opened up to more avenues of acquisition as well. Legendaries remain a long-term goal, and are intentionally hard to obtain. They only said you would see more legendaries, and they would update the existing ones (so that they will always be the best stat gear).

Ya, legendaries are supposed to take on all avenues craft/pve/dungeon/wvw. I mistyped legendary instead of ascended.

[Toc]

I understand both sides of this argument...

1. Vayne needs to understand that it flies in the face of what most thought they were escaping by coming to GW2 as opposed to the other MMOs out. It happened very fast and seems to be going down a very well trod and similar path as other games. I just got all my exotics, literally I needed one peice before the Lost Shore event, this week and my first response to ascended was WTF?

2. Cent/boki/otherslol need to understand that this game is not completely removed from grind otherwise it would have only been the sPvP mode. Leveling to 80 and getting ANY gear is a grind. GW2 wanted to limit the grind (so far it is the least of any MMO I've played) and make it feel less grindy by being fun. I believe they have done this as well as I just got all my exotics and I had a blast getting them, via crafting,purchasing,dungeon and wvw (my helm, legs, hands, hammer, mace, necklace and 2 rings I crafted, my chest was wvw badges with guild emblem skin, my shoulders, feet and shield are from AC tears, my back is event item, my 2 earrings and all my sigil's/runes are purchased from TP).

One other thing is saying that you need/want/deserve best statistical advantage in WvW...

-Do you NEED it? No, absolutely not. I play with lvl 1-20 characters in WvW all the time, have fun and kill ppl/help my server.
-Do you WANT it? Yes, of course. It is no where near as important as most other games, but having 1 hp more than another of the same class would be the winning factor if they are played exactly the same. If you want to be the best possible in WvW you will want the best statistical numbers.
-Do you DESERVE it? No. WvW is NOT PvP. They have an entire mode of play for PvP we call it sPvP and it's in the battlegrounds through the mists. In this form of game play you are on an equal footing statistically with all others in that same mode. WvW is based off of your PvE character, hence the same gear/stats/unlocked abilities. If you go into WvW at lvl 2 you will be at a disadvantage from someone going in at lvl 80. If you go in with white con gear you will be at a disadvantage from someone with blue con gear... you must "grind" up to lvl 80 and "grind" up the blue con gear to be on equal footing... None of this has changed.