Doh, I was hoping for some pics of ridiculous looking new gear.  

Pics of stats, though?  It's just numbers, who the hell cares..

Don't forget OP the Infusions also have stats on them oustside of agony resistance..

Ah well, it was a good game for me for 3 months. Honestly though, that stuff will utterly ruin WvW for me. I finally got into exotics only to find they will be releasing ascended gear and have it in WvW as well. It wouldn't be a big deal, but some of the stat increases are really huge and will eventually put me at a big disadvantage since I won't be grinding tokens or dungeons like others. And they added PvP dailies, which screams "grind me forever".

Ultimately I got into this game since it was the first MMO where I could be competitive in massive PvP without selling my soul to the game. Well, like I said, 3 months of fun, skill and tactics. Now I'd just get steamrolled by the ascended gearhounds simply because of time.

Too bad for me. I liked the game, but ultimately it no longer fits my playstyle and I am forced to leave.

Originally posted by NaughtyP

Ah well, it was a good game for me for 3 months. Honestly though, that stuff will utterly ruin WvW for me. I finally got into exotics only to find they will be releasing ascended gear and have it in WvW as well. It wouldn't be a big deal, but some of the stat increases are really huge and will eventually put me at a big disadvantage since I won't be grinding tokens or dungeons like others. And they added PvP dailies, which screams "grind me forever".

Ultimately I got into this game since it was the first MMO where I could be competitive in massive PvP without selling my soul to the game. Well, like I said, 3 months of fun, skill and tactics. Now I'd just get steamrolled by the ascended gearhounds simply because of time.

Too bad for me. I liked the game, but ultimately it no longer fits my playstyle and I am forced to leave.

PS2?

The item in question seems to have been datamined from the patch, but it's totally unrepresenttive of the power level of the other Ascended gear that has been datamined. We don't know if this is even an item that will ever be available to players. Even if it is, it could be something you'd need to work a year to obtain, which gives us a year to work on Arenanet to get them to scale way back on the highest degree of gear inflation.

We need a lot more facts. We need to evaluate the current, tepid steps in the gear inflation plan in context of the actual game before we can make an honest evaluation of the Ascended Gear design. then we can start to dialogue with Arenanet on finding a way to limit future gear inflation to levels that the community can find acceptable.

This could have been really bad if they had just suddenly dropped Ascended Gear for all gear slots all at once. As is, it's rings and back armor. It's a first, tiny step down a new path and both sides will have plenty of time to explain, discuss and argue about the new system and effect changes to ensure that this new inflation is mild and measured.

Nothing is set in stone and there will be plenty of opportunity for calm, reasoned debate once the system is live and Arenanet feels more open to dialogue on the issue.

Can't believe people think there's a gear treadmill anywhere close to something like WoW. 

You want to do Tier 2 content?  Gonna need Tier 1 my friend.

Want to do Tier 3?  Oh, sorry, Tier 2 required.

ETC.

GW2?  Did most explorer mode dugeons with a mix of 80% rare and 20% master work.  100% map completion with same gear.    

Ascension will work a bit different as it does have that special stat to help with the new type of enemy, but by the sounds of it, it'll be something even PUGs should be able to get easily.

What a buncha whiners.  I just finished my first exotic armor and am working towards my weapons now and have had absolutely no trouble playing and enjoying every facet of the game.

@ the OP, lol the ring you showed us is like the crappiest ring you would want, too many stats that are useless since your build won't ever be optimal if you try to focus on so many stats at the same time. Nothing OP about it whatsoever

To the people who think Ascended gear is a huge upgrade, come play against me in PvP if you think that your Ascended gear will make you SO MUCH POWERFUL. I'll prove you wrong anytime.

Originally posted by rykim86

Can't believe people think there's a gear treadmill anywhere close to something like WoW. 

You want to do Tier 2 content?  Gonna need Tier 1 my friend.

Want to do Tier 3?  Oh, sorry, Tier 2 required.

ETC.

 

GW2?  Did most explorer mode dugeons with a mix of 80% rare and 20% master work.  100% map completion with same gear.    

Ascension will work a bit different as it does have that special stat to help with the new type of enemy, but by the sounds of it, it'll be something even PUGs should be able to get easily.

What a buncha whiners.  I just finished my first exotic armor and am working towards my weapons now and have had absolutely no trouble playing and enjoying every facet of the game.

If you remember WOWs gear treadmill was not nearly as bad in the beginning, but they did have one. Once you make one the only option is the escalate it. What do you thinks going to happen next expansion and  you start seeing 80 to 100 point bonuses, the beginning dungeons will start getting   2 or 3 manned possilby soloed. The sliding scale between pve and pvp skills will change and WVWVW is going to depend more and more on gear and will diminish sPVP.

On top of that the  PVP patch, was a JOKE, they addressed none of the actual problems and actually made some of them worse. The "options" in spec are so bad basically everyone is stacking conditions and crits, there are no fun specs really, healing specs, control specs, you name it, not there. It was supposed to be eveyrones a hybrid, but in fact everyones is dps with some extra skills on the side.

Originally posted by rykim86

Can't believe people think there's a gear treadmill anywhere close to something like WoW. 

You want to do Tier 2 content?  Gonna need Tier 1 my friend.

Want to do Tier 3?  Oh, sorry, Tier 2 required.

ETC.

 

GW2?  Did most explorer mode dugeons with a mix of 80% rare and 20% master work.  100% map completion with same gear.    

Ascension will work a bit different as it does have that special stat to help with the new type of enemy, but by the sounds of it, it'll be something even PUGs should be able to get easily.

What a buncha whiners.  I just finished my first exotic armor and am working towards my weapons now and have had absolutely no trouble playing and enjoying every facet of the game.

Good for you. The rest of us are granted with pattern recognition and see this is how gear treadmills begin.

Originally posted by rykim86

Can't believe people think there's a gear treadmill anywhere close to something like WoW. 

You want to do Tier 2 content?  Gonna need Tier 1 my friend.

Want to do Tier 3?  Oh, sorry, Tier 2 required.

ETC.

 

GW2?  Did most explorer mode dugeons with a mix of 80% rare and 20% master work.  100% map completion with same gear.    

Ascension will work a bit different as it does have that special stat to help with the new type of enemy, but by the sounds of it, it'll be something even PUGs should be able to get easily.

What a buncha whiners.  I just finished my first exotic armor and am working towards my weapons now and have had absolutely no trouble playing and enjoying every facet of the game.

Did you see the Lost Shores update trailler/blog posts and went:

"YAY! More powerful items! Just what I wanted!"

I went:

"Yay content! Awesome art! Interesting dungeon! Boo stats increase, boooring!"

I've yet to see someone actually excited about the items or more excited about the items than the new content.

Originally posted by SirFubar

@ the OP, lol the ring you showed us is like the crappiest ring you would want, too many stats that are useless since your build won't ever be optimal if you try to focus on so many stats at the same time. Nothing OP about it whatsoever

To the people who think Ascended gear is a huge upgrade, come play against me in PvP if you think that your Ascended gear will make you SO MUCH POWERFUL. I'll prove you wrong anytime.

You know full well that there is a different stat version to that ring for every spec in the game. Just like every other piece of gear in the game. Eventually everyone will optimize or just buy the pieces they want on AH, or craft it with dungeon mats. Of course you know that. @ you wouldn't be able to beat  most good pvpers 2 out of 3 times without Ascended gear much less if they had it.

You can use those codes to pull up plenty of things that arent in game, and probably never will be. They seem to be linked to anything that is in the db, so even if it is real, it doesn't mean it will ever find its way into the game. 

They already showed us what the new gear would look like. 

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Originally posted by rykim86

Can't believe people think there's a gear treadmill anywhere close to something like WoW. 

You want to do Tier 2 content?  Gonna need Tier 1 my friend.

Want to do Tier 3?  Oh, sorry, Tier 2 required.

ETC.

 

GW2?  Did most explorer mode dugeons with a mix of 80% rare and 20% master work.  100% map completion with same gear.    

Ascension will work a bit different as it does have that special stat to help with the new type of enemy, but by the sounds of it, it'll be something even PUGs should be able to get easily.

What a buncha whiners.  I just finished my first exotic armor and am working towards my weapons now and have had absolutely no trouble playing and enjoying every facet of the game.

Were you in need of a new gear tier because you were bored?

Did you see the Lost Shores update trailler/blog posts and went:

"YAY! More powerful items! Just what I wanted!"

I went:

"Yay content! Awesome art! Interesting dungeon! Boo stats increase, boooring!"

I've yet to see someone actually excited about the items or more excited about the items than the new content.

My entire guild and myself are all excited about the new gear. We are all hitting the dungeon as soon as its open to begin getting the tokens we will need. 

Originally posted by taus01

Originally posted by Raekon
I don't know where you picked this screenie from but it screams photoshop to me.

And since you probably wont beleive me here are some chat links you can use IN THE GAME to see these items for yourself.

just paste it in chat and click on it:

[&Ag-gkAAA]

[&AgEJkQAwDZWd0+4GAADzMS7fZRcAAA==]

[&Agj-kAAA]

[&AgHwKAAA]

 

I guess the fanbois will still defend this, but it is quite obvious where the game is headed now.

 

No.   It's not 'obvious.'   You're just starting from a pre-conceived notion and a desire to find fault and justify your trolling.  This expansion pack was in the works before the game was released and much of it was material planned, but not ready for release as they  had to make some hard-cutoffs for release (like every other MMO ever released).    They even said they had cut material for release and were going to put it in future expansions.    For example when asked about LFG last month, they said:

We have a whole host of social features on our wishlist that we had to trim in order to ship, but we haven't forgotten about them, and I'm sure we'll revisit some of them in the future. I personally would love to take our LFG system further.

And that's one answer on a huge Reddit thread of player/developer discussion.

So, clearly,  rather than rushing out some half-completed stuff, like AoC, Warhammer, The Secret World, SWTOR and LOTRO have all done in the recent past, some material was cut and saved for future updates.    And it's not like they were perfect in the process.   There was clearly some material rushed out the door at the last minute that had to out because it was ESSENTIAL, unlike the Ascention gear.  There were number items with the wrong stats, wrong icons, wrong skins, etc. as well a bunch of semi-broken DEs, quests and skill-points.  But that stuff HAD to be released.   This gear didn't.

As far as I can see, it's only in the fevered imagination of Clan Troll does the obvious mean nothing while the conspiracy means everything.   This gear is JUST A NATURAL AND LOGICAL INTERMEDIARY between Exotic and Legendary.  It was PLANNED FROM BEFORE RELEASE and YOU DO NOT HAVE TO GRIND IT.

So get over it, already.   Jeeze...

Originally posted by taus01

So ANet has gone back on the promise they made, another one of the lies they told everyone incl. the Press before release. Blatant lies and missinformation was spread:

Colin Johanson

The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.

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.

This is an honest question:

Why weren't the people screaming now upset about them having rares, exotics and legendaries on release? 

Those were distinct tiers as well.  And they go against the quotes.

Originally posted by Xerith

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Originally posted by rykim86

Can't believe people think there's a gear treadmill anywhere close to something like WoW. 

You want to do Tier 2 content?  Gonna need Tier 1 my friend.

Want to do Tier 3?  Oh, sorry, Tier 2 required.

ETC.

 

GW2?  Did most explorer mode dugeons with a mix of 80% rare and 20% master work.  100% map completion with same gear.    

Ascension will work a bit different as it does have that special stat to help with the new type of enemy, but by the sounds of it, it'll be something even PUGs should be able to get easily.

What a buncha whiners.  I just finished my first exotic armor and am working towards my weapons now and have had absolutely no trouble playing and enjoying every facet of the game.

Were you in need of a new gear tier because you were bored?

Did you see the Lost Shores update trailler/blog posts and went:

"YAY! More powerful items! Just what I wanted!"

I went:

"Yay content! Awesome art! Interesting dungeon! Boo stats increase, boooring!"

I've yet to see someone actually excited about the items or more excited about the items than the new content.

My entire guild and myself are all excited about the new gear. We are all hitting the dungeon as soon as its open to begin getting the tokens we will need. 

But only because of the better stats.

That is why the Halloween event dungeon was such a fiasco.. no one did it, the servers didn't get a beating or anything.

Originally posted by Loke666

Anet didnt lie, they are reacting to feedback from the players. There are a zillion of threads requesting something between legendary and exoctic on this forum.

Personally I think we will be able to get the ascended gear easier after a while, but exo gear is a bit too easy to get.

+1, and i also think that this is not a major problem or even a issue, i think all the "Liars" screaming its a liitle bit exagerated, its not like this is going to ruin the game.

Originally posted by rykim86

Can't believe people think there's a gear treadmill anywhere close to something like WoW. 

You want to do Tier 2 content?  Gonna need Tier 1 my friend.

Want to do Tier 3?  Oh, sorry, Tier 2 required.

ETC.

 

It was like that in LOTRO, too.     In the end, that's why I quit.   I spent all my time grinding daliles for tokens then raiding once a week on the chance of getting the Tier 2 helm or Tier 2 shoulders plus the tokens necessary for a Level 75 Second Age Legendary Weapon as well as the best raid Jewelry    In two months my run of luck was so bad (armor, tokens, jewelry) I had none of that raid-drop (or won on rolls if it did drop) gear on my Guardian and couldn't do the new end-raid with the dragon on her as I was under-geared.

It was a miserable experience and pretty much put me off RAID Treadmill MMOs for life.   

Originally posted by DavisFlight

Originally posted by rykim86

Can't believe people think there's a gear treadmill anywhere close to something like WoW. 

You want to do Tier 2 content?  Gonna need Tier 1 my friend.

Want to do Tier 3?  Oh, sorry, Tier 2 required.

ETC.

 

GW2?  Did most explorer mode dugeons with a mix of 80% rare and 20% master work.  100% map completion with same gear.    

Ascension will work a bit different as it does have that special stat to help with the new type of enemy, but by the sounds of it, it'll be something even PUGs should be able to get easily.

What a buncha whiners.  I just finished my first exotic armor and am working towards my weapons now and have had absolutely no trouble playing and enjoying every facet of the game.

Good for you. The rest of us are granted with pattern recognition and see this is how gear treadmills begin.

Don't be dense please.  What's the point of a stat based game if you people don't want any level of gear progression (which btw, is completely optional).  Might as well give everyone the same base stats and stat equipment and just have people play for pure skins.

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Originally posted by taus01

So ANet has gone back on the promise they made, another one of the lies they told everyone incl. the Press before release. Blatant lies and missinformation was spread:

Colin Johanson

The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.

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.

This is an honest question:

 

Why weren't people the people screaming now upset about them having rares, exotics and legendaries on release? 

 

Those were distinct tiers as well.  And they go against the quotes.

Some were. First, myself included, expected all the level 80 items to have same damage or defense stats.

There is a huge thread in this forum, on the guildwars2guru forums, on mmochampions, etc.

But it was said that it wouldn't be too time consuming to get exotics, at least the ones with less interesting skins and that they could be crafted.

So you would do it once per character and be free of mandatory grind (most RPG players regard achieving level cap and max stats mandatory otherwise they are gimped).

It might come to pass that Ascended items are very easy to get.

But Anet said it will require a bigger grind for Ascended than for exotics.

Anet also didn't say it won't add higher stats items.

So we went from an established 1-2 months of casual play, with lots of diverse things to do, to not knowing when there is a patch that make our gear second tier.