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

[Vayne]

I think the huge mistake that was made (and I mentioned this in the other thread) was funneling everyone into one dungeon on the release of this stuff. They thought they were tempering it by only doing rings and back pieces but when you have the best stuff in one place that's where everyone goes. It destroyed Orr. I never see even 1/4 of the numbers I used to see there. They should have had Orr availability, Sea of Sorrows availability, FotM availability, and WvWvW availability to this gear right at the outset. That would have avoided this entire issue altogether.

Funneling this gear into one dungeon is WOWesque of the highest magnitude. I've gone there once and I don't intend to go back very often. If I find out that that's what's required to progress in the game I'll quit and move on.

It was definitely a mistake on their part to put that gear in one dungeon, but I'm not convinced the popularity of that dungeon is based solely on the gear being their either.

I've played every dungeon in story mode and most of them in explorable mode and I don't really enjoy them that much. Not that I'm generally much of a dungeon guy, but those dungeons seem to be made for people who play a different game than I do.

By the same token, I quite liked FotMs. It's the first dungeon in Guild Wars 2 that I really enjoyed. Given a choice of running Fractals or another dungeon, I'd run Fractals because it's better. More fun for me, which is what I care about.

But I'd still prefer to be in the open world than running any instance. That's just a preference.

The thing is, it's new. If they introduced a new dungeon, just a regular one and it didn't have the best gear in the game, do you really think people wouldn't crowd around it, until they got tired of it? Because that's what generally happens.

I'm pretty sure in a couple of weeks, Orr will be Orr again. In fact, it's already getting back to that on my server.

[Sericenthe]

I honestly can't speak to other dungeons. The fractals one is the only one I've been in. I'd much rather be out int he world or in WvWvW myself.

But, gear is important to me and others as well and if the best gear is in there that's going to drive numbers.

[bokiz333]

So what is the backflip you keep bringing up? I don't see vertical progression as required gear grind, unless there's content I can't do. When you show me what I can't do/see/explore because of these changes, then we can talk.

Sir, now we're just negotiating. I bet you feel you are an island of right in an ocean of wrong.

[Vayne]

I honestly can't speak to other dungeons. The fractals one is the only one I've been in. I'd much rather be out int he world or in WvWvW myself.

I just think the dungeons aren't much fun generally. There's always some stupid frustrating thing in them that I feel just shouldn't be there, design-wise. There are some interesting mechanics, but some of it feels forced. This is particularly true in story mode.

In fact, I've found story mode over all to be harder than explorable mode, which wasn't supposed to be the case. I think they could have made dungeons more fun and enjoyable. Telling the story of Destiny's Edge through the dungeons was an interesting choice, but one that I'm not sure works. For one thing, very few people end up doing dungeons in order. I know I didn't, so the story is all over the place. There were probably better ways to tell that story.

Aside from that, the frustrating bits seem more frustrating than they should be. There's a bonus encounter in one of the dungeons where a troll breaks through the wall. They actually call it a bonus event. The words flash on your screen. You take 5, maybe ten minutes to kill the guy, and no chest or anything, you just loot his body. There are times I've gotten nothing at all from him. In what was is this is a bonus? Are we talking about adding ten bonus minutes to my dungeon run? It's just not fun.

There are other examples I could name that just make it not fun for me. But I run it with guildies who need a dungeon for completion, or to help out when they have four guys and need a fifth. Never my first choice.

For some reason the Fractals feel different. It could be that it's a bit more random, and it could be that the stories in and of themselves I find more interesting. In any event, I'm not a huge fun of the earlier dungeons. And people have been running them for a couple of months you have to expect most people to be bored of them.

[Vayne]

Sir, now we're just negotiating. I bet you feel you are an island of right in an ocean of wrong.

No. I feel like there's a lot of people who don't come onto forums like this because of negativity, and so I'm like one of the few left...and frankly if I wasn't a moderator I'd be gone too.

The fact is, I'm quite an easy target for you, because I'm a moderator and won't snipe back. You've been offensive to me before and it's getting rather tiresome. But your personal attacks come at the cost of credibility anyway. The more you do it, the more desperate you look. And it's not a good look.

Everything everyone says on a forum is frozen in a moment in time. As the conversation changes, things get clarified. It's really quite normal. I said I don't like grind, and that's true. But really until someone comes along and says, well, yes but there was grind in Guild Wars 1 to and I say, well yeah, but you don't have to grind. Which is something I've said before on these forums. And then someone else comes along and says, yes, but there's gear grind in Guild Wars 1, if you want to get 50/50 in your Hall of Monuments, which is true. But you don't have to get 50/50. That's a choice. Toward the end, I chose to grind, not knowing when Guild Wars 2 was coming out. Does that mean I lied when I said prior to that that I never grind? Not at all. Within the context of the time and place, I was talking casually about something.

Now, we come to define further what bothers me about grind. It's not the grind itself, it's feeling forced to grind. In Guild Wars 2, I don't feel forced to grind. In Rift, I did feel forced to grind. That's not a backflip. It's simply more detail on what's been said earlier. My stance on this hasn't changed since Rift. But as arguments get phrased differently, different definitions form.

The problem is, you're trying to discredit me by pointing out my "flaws". You've done this before as well, in other threads.

Those who know me, know better. Those who don't? Well, they can think anything they want.

[Jim Hunter]

I have 11 characters. I had planned on leveling each of them up to 80 and having them set up with several sets of exotic armor in order to play different roles as needed. This way I could play with friends and be ready for any content with any role exactly like I was in GW1.

They have decided to introduce a gear grind, I don't care if it's a slow drip, it is what it is. If I was the type of person that only focused on one character this wouldn't be as big of a deal but with as many as I have it has turned into work instead of a fun way to pass my time.

They said they don't plan to constantly add new tiers of armor but they will keep adding new types of infusions with better stats. It doesn't matter if you change the name of the armor or not, if you are constantly making people grind for the new stats the end result is the same.

Whether they actually gate content or not eventually exotics won't be good enough for the content. You can say I don't know that for sure but that is what happens with a gear grind.

The vertical progression makes this a very different game than the one I had waited so many years for and it has put a bad taste in my mouth. I'll probably stop in from time to time, maybe check out events, but I'm not going to waste my time chasing the carrot.

I was hoping this was the game I would play for years but I was wrong.

[Centaur]

But really until someone comes along and says, well, yes but there was grind in Guild Wars 1 to and I say, well yeah, but you don't have to grind. Which is something I've said before on these forums. And then someone else comes along and says, yes, but there's gear grind in Guild Wars 1, if you want to get 50/50 in your Hall of Monuments, which is true. But you don't have to get 50/50. That's a choice.

Stating that grinding is okay if it's a "choice" is dangerous, as everything in a computer game is a choice. Even whether or not you play the game is a choice. So then every change would be okay.
The better way to approach this, is to determine whether or not the object you are grinding for has any attributes that affect gameplay.
In GW1, you chould choose to go for 50/50, you could choose to go for obsidian gear, and several other methods of grinding.
But none of those made any difference in gameplay. You didn't get higher stats, better skills or whatever. You didn't even get any gameplay advantages in GW2 for all the countless hours of grinding to 50/50 in GW1... it was all just cosmetic.
So those who did choose to grind for such gear, did not gain any gameplay advantages over those who didn't. And that made that method of grinding perfectly acceptable.
As soon as you attach gameplay advantages (like stat increases) to items that you grind for, it's a whole different ballgame... even more so if those advantages also apply in a pvp environment (WvW). See also points #4 to #8 in this post.

[bokiz333]

W.T.F I just have a huge post typed and it just disappeared...Im so sad.

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Vayne, I'm not picking on you as a person. Never called you an idiot, fool or anything resembling a PERSONAL attack. I have been pointing out illogical and inconsistent arguments you've made.

I'd have MUCH more respect for you if you just said something like "This game is changing from what they originally said but I still like it. I don't want to waste all the time I spent waiting for and now playing the game. I'm allowed to change my mind (just like we all have on things) and will stay with it for as long as I personally enjoy it"

That is perfectly understandable...but to continue arguing and pretending like AN didn't do a complete 180 and that this is not grind etc, is just disingenous imo.

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That was a much much shorter version of what I had typed earlier where I explain my thinking more and also explained why I'm not picking on Vayne, consider him an easy target, or think poorly of him. I think Vayne seems like a really really good dude. If I ever went back to Australia I would want to have beer with that guy. I just could not disagree with him more on THIS particular issue, which is obviously something alot of people are passionate on both sides.

[Jim Hunter]

That is perfectly understandable...but to continue arguing and pretending like AN didn't do a complete 180 and that this is not grind etc, is just disingenous imo.

I think this is one of my biggest problems with the ama. instead of saying sorry this wasn't what we originally wanted but we felt we needed to add this for the game to survive they basically said we were to stupid to understand the manifesto and they have always intended to do vertical progression instead of horizontal.

If they really thought that vp was the message they had conveyed than why were they expecting people to be upset when they introduced it?

[bokiz333]

I think this is one of my biggest problems with the ama. instead of saying sorry this wasn't what we originally wanted but we felt we needed to add this for the game to survive they basically said we were to stupid to understand the manifesto and they have always intended to do vertical progression instead of horizontal.

If they really thought that vp was the message they had conveyed than why were they expecting people to be upset when they introduced it?

Exactly. Plus they touted this game as being different that other MMO's and innovative...umm what's innovative about this game, the fact that is has dodge, less skills and SLOW tredmil..

Hey hey hey guys, I have a brilliant idea that's going to revolutionize the MMO indrustry...lets introduce a gear treadmill but release it slowly over time and not all at once. Game. Changing.