I absolutely agree. I don't want to grind for many hours, days, or months to have fun. I want to have fun from the moment I start playing, that's what games are supposed to be about. Sure, you might have to adjust some graphics options or something here and there, but the majority of playing time should be spent having fun, not grinding so you can have fun.Originally Posted by frunk
Yep, I agree. And I don't have to grind. Even if the stats are a bit higher, I don't have to grind. That's the real bugaboo here.
People are saying if there are higher stats, I have to grind to get that gear. But since the gear isn't making huge difference, that's simply a choice.
If the legendary weapons had higher stats from the beginning, I'd still feel no real need to get one. That's the truth. I don't feel need to grind for ascended gear. It doesn't affect me. And it affects most people more in their minds than in the game.
I've seen so many people say PVe is too easy, or example. So getting better gear will make it harder? I'm doing find with what I have, and I'll continue to do fine.
I'm not going to grind for gear, ever, in any game. But if I don't have BIS gear, I don't care, as long as content isn't gated. As long as I can play the same dungeons, go anywhere in the world, I'm perfectly fine. There's plenty here for me to do.
Actually, this is the part of your reasoning that I have to disagree with. While leveling to 80, I was never forced to repeat the same content twice, I always had plenty of choice what I wanted to do, and while doing so leveling was easy and fast, and I earned enough money and karma to always be able to get max stat gear for that level without any additional grinding (in fact, I was level 80 and in max stat gear even before reaching Orr) Getting max stat gear was always a short-term goal, and easy to do - and that's how ArenaNet stated that it would always be (in their manifesto and all their other statements). Only if you wanted specific skins, you needed to invest more time and money, and possibly grind a whole lot more. Now all that has changed. As of this patch, you need to grind to get max stat gear, and ArenaNet have made it clear that max stat gear has become a mid-term goal. There will definitely be other ways than dungeons to obtain them, but Vayne's assumptions that those will be any easier to obtain or any more short-term, are contradicting the entire purpose why ArenaNet introduced this type of gear in the first place. And it's irrelevant whether or not you think I need or deserve it. It's a change in direction, a change I disagree with, and a change that's anything but trivial given how much emphasis ArenaNet has always put on this in their advertising about the game.
No, people are saying that you have to grind to get max stat gear. There's a difference.
Last edited by Centaur; 11-24-2012 at 12:33 AM.
You did before anyone for a lot of people. You just aren't thinking the way a lot of people are.
Let's take WvW. The only gear you can get with medals of honor is power/vitality/toughness. That's it. If you have any other build, or you're specced for anything else, you'd have to grind to get that stuff. The same is true with a lot of the gear.
Thousands of karma for specific gear that you want...that's a grind. Of course you had to grind for all dungeon gear, and legendary weapons anyway.
So the only difference, is that now there are stats instead of just cosmetics. For some people that's the end of the world. It's simply not the end of the world to me. Because I don't actually need/require max stats. In fact, I pay a lot less attention to stats than I should. I don't focus on them. I'm focus on the world and exploring the world and being part of the world. I focus on the story.
So how does not having BIS gear affect me? It really doesn't. I didn't choose to make that my priority. The limitation sets in when Anet says to me, you can't do this dungeon because you dont' have the right gear, or you can't WvW because you don't have the right gear. Other games do this. Anet has not done this, nor indicated they will.
I understand some people feel they must have BIS gear, and I feel bad that that is the case. But it's still a voluntary grind, unless you've made the choice that you must have it. I haven't.
Actually, seeing the large amount of feedback on this issue on the official forum, it seems that I am. And I'd wager that a lot more people think like me ("max stat gear matters") than like you ("I don't need max stat gear").
Two things:
First, yes, gear stats matter. Content becomes easier with higher gear stats, so those who are prepared to grind for gear will have what I call an 'unfair advantage' over those who don't. Not just in those dungeons, but ALL content in the game! Why should those who grind for gear get an easier time than those who don't? If you think that's okay, then we might as well introduce pay-to-win items next. They will give those who pay an easier time than those who don't, while still being completely optional. And who cares what ArenaNet have said in the past... they're missing from the game, so it's a gap, and they help ArenaNet make money and survive in the long run. So they're perfectly okay and maybe even needed, right?
Second, Vayne, you have repeatedly stated that you don't consider gear stats a problem as they are optional, you don't need them, and that you would draw the line at gated content. But please explain to me how this is any different:
* You need to grind to get max stat gear. "Having max stat gear is completely optional, you can very well do without. So it's perfectly okay if those who want it, will have to grind for it."
* You need to grind to get max stat gear to do jumping puzzles. "Jumping puzzles are completely optional, you can very well do without. So it's perfectly okay if those who want it, will have to grind for it."
So why would that be any different?
What percentage of game players post to forums at all? What percent of people even know what max stat is. You know as well as I do the greatest bulk of players is casual anyway, so this idea of I must have max stat being important to most people, well, no. Most people that post on forums, that maybe. But that's still a vast minority of a games players. Even in a forum like this over 80% of the people are lurkers and never post and you can't poll them. And how many players even sign up for a forum at all.
Pointing to the forums to illustrate a majority is misleading at best. And while people may care about having BIS gear, are you then going to poll how many people playing want vertical progression? Seems to me you can't have it both ways either.
What you want is a essentially a game with the main progression is purely cosmetic, after you get relatively easy to get max armor...something like Guild Wars 1. I'm thinking that you probably can't have that game on any real scale, because too many people are used to something else. It sucks to me that that's the case, but if people aren't taking up progression because there is no stat progression, I'm not sure what else Anet can do.
The obvious thing would be to produce tons of skins, all looking different with different paths to them, but that takes time..a lot of time when you consider five races and testing. So Anet has to do something in the mean time.
It's all very nice in theory to have nothing but cosmetic progression, until you have a AAA MMO with an overhead, that may not be able to hold enough people to sustain itself. That's the problem. I don't know, and you don't know. Only Anet really knows what's going on.
So you can say that BIS gear is tremendously important and it should be easy to get, and then when people get it they leave the game, and that helps who, exactly?
This game, like Rift, only really works with high traffic. It's designed that way. Once it has low traffic, it's a completely different game, which is part of the problem. Maybe Anet shouldn't have gone for a high cost, high profile game, and they should have made Guild Wars 2 more modest in staff and such..but then it wouldn't have the playerbase it has now.
Unfortunately all of these issues are easy to kibbitz from the sidelines, but making the actual business decisions are never that easy.
I'll ask another question in response to this one. To you and to anyone else who feels like taking the time to answer.
Why does the max stat gear matter to you as a player, right now as the game is? Not why will it in the future. Not what it could be or what you're afraid it will be. Why does it matter to you right now?
I've been listening to what they have to say all along as well, that's why A-Net doing such a sudden switch on 1 of the core principles that their games have been built around for the past 7 years doesn't make any sense. It makes a lot more sense that they are getting pressured into this by NCSoft/Nexon.
Finally something we can agree on.
It matters right now because you need to plan what you'll be doing in the future. Particular when a grind mechanism is introduced it's best to decide if you are going to get on it right away or give it a miss entirely. Given the progressive nature of the dungeon it's even more important, with the increasing difficulty of getting together a fractal group for your particular level.
If your plan is to rely on PuGs for progression, then lol to that. No offense.
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