Originally posted by QSatu
So far this AMA is what I feared the most. Everyone will keep screaming about gear and all other aspects of the game will be ignored. How many times do we ned to hear that Ascended gear is here to stay and we should deal with it?

I agree so much.  This whole Ascended fiasco is going to overshadow the other aspects of the game that need more attention.

Originally posted by Zeus.CM

The problem is that they destroyed their manifesto with this patch and raised concern among their loyal GW1 playerbase (which is a major percentage, including me), that's why so many questions are about that gear.

I found that the discussion on Reddit put my concerns to rest.  The part where Anet restated that they were going to continue to introduce ascended gear and have gear increases on tier gear in the future was quite soothing  Or maybe it was clicking the uninstall button that was soothing.  Either way, no more concerns about it and I feel much better.  I was part of that playerbase too, from GW1 with every xpac, and had been looking to stay with GW2 for just as long.

We all know they wouldn't have addressed it if they didn't have significant measurable outcry about it.  That 10,000+ post thread in their forums was part of it.  The posts I've seen about people not being able to find groups for anything other than FotM is another part.  The posts about "where did everyone go" leveling threads are part of it.  I'm think they have a significant measured decrease in logins to the game as well, but that's just speculation on my part.  But now they're committed.  They made it very clear in their statements today that they have changed their direction and they will NOT be going back to the philosophy that sold 2 million boxes of the game.  I guess only time will tell if the new players they can try to attract will be as lucrative as all the players they just burned and lost.

NCSoft, the parent of Anet, has had their stock dropping fairly noticably though.  I can only assume that this drama with Anet is a part of it, since that will affect corporate earnings and investors are probably concerned.  I would be, since we've seen that with Star Wars NGE players WILL simply drop a game and not come back if they get angry enough over a change in development direction getting patched live, and there is the potential to have a product that can't turn a profit.  I'm not saying this is as bad as that, just that it shows that it's possible to destroy a product in one patch with a bad enough reaction and investors undoubtedly keep that in mind when investing in gaming companies.

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Originally posted by avalon1000
It's not a grind to me because I don't care. My level 80 ranger has a mix of exotic and rare and I am just fine with that. I still did the Karka events and got along just fine. Sometimes I think we make our own grind in life....

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Such a rare moment of clarity on a forum so often full of shit and piss. Thank you.

Originally posted by Zeus.CM

Originally posted by PaRoXiTiC

The crying will never stop. This is exactly how an MMO should be. Gear released throughought an entire year and you taking some play days to farm/grind for the gear. Its not like your grinding your life away.

People please go back to your consoles. We are so sick of hearing you cry about how it takes to long to get items in an MMO. Please, again, go away. Go play something else if you have a problem with it.

The problem is that they destroyed their manifesto with this patch and raised concern among their loyal GW1 playerbase (which is a major percentage, including me), that's why so many questions are about that gear.

The problem is people like you speaking for the GW1 playerbase.  You're not the GW1 community.  I've been playing GW1 since day 1.  Every single person in my guild and alliance plays GW1.  If they're concerned they haven't mentioned it.  In fact this whole topic hasn't even come up.  So don't speak for the GW1 community.  Speak for yourself and give your opinions as they apply to you.

Some of us loyal GW1 players (at least me) like how ANet is handling the game and what they're doing with it.  I think there was more disturbance over the horrible initial ending of ME3 than there was over this.  There was some grumbling about the event, but even that got overshadowed by Halo 4.  Maybe they do care about the gear, but if so, not enough to actually mention it in chat.

"we have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intent to focus on horizontal but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve."

In other words, we are going to lie to you  now and say we always intended to be a WOW clone and that our Manifesto was total BS the entire time, god its only going to get worse now, if you don't like grinding gear I advise you get a refund while you still can.

Originally posted by Sleepyfish

"we have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intent to focus on horizontal but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve."

In other words, we are going to lie to you  now and say we always intended to be a WOW clone and that our Manifesto was total BS the entire time, god its only going to get worse now, if you don't like grinding gear I advise you get a refund while you still can.

Before this patch there was vertical progression of gear in the game.  Once you hit 80 you had to gear up blue to green to exotic.  Why weren't you screaming about it and calling them liars then?

Originally posted by Honkie

Originally posted by Zeus.CM

The problem is that they destroyed their manifesto with this patch and raised concern among their loyal GW1 playerbase (which is a major percentage, including me), that's why so many questions are about that gear.

I found that the discussion on Reddit put my concerns to rest.  The part where Anet restated that they were going to continue to introduce ascended gear and have gear increases on tier gear in the future was quite soothing  Or maybe it was clicking the uninstall button that was soothing.  Either way, no more concerns about it and I feel much better.  I was part of that playerbase too, from GW1 with every xpac, and had been looking to stay with GW2 for just as long.

We all know they wouldn't have addressed it if they didn't have significant measurable outcry about it.  That 10,000+ post thread in their forums was part of it.  The posts I've seen about people not being able to find groups for anything other than FotM is another part.  The posts about "where did everyone go" leveling threads are part of it.  I'm think they have a significant measured decrease in logins to the game as well, but that's just speculation on my part.  But now they're committed.  They made it very clear in their statements today that they have changed their direction and they will NOT be going back to the philosophy that sold 2 million boxes of the game.  I guess only time will tell if the new players they can try to attract will be as lucrative as all the players they just burned and lost.

NCSoft, the parent of Anet, has had their stock dropping fairly noticably though.  I can only assume that this drama with Anet is a part of it, since that will affect corporate earnings and investors are probably concerned.  I would be, since we've seen that with Star Wars NGE players WILL simply drop a game and not come back if they get angry enough over a change in development direction getting patched live, and there is the potential to have a product that can't turn a profit.  I'm not saying this is as bad as that, just that it shows that it's possible to destroy a product in one patch with a bad enough reaction and investors undoubtedly keep that in mind when investing in gaming companies.

Not gonna lie I might of misread the answers in reddit but I didn't see that statement, I don't mind if I'm wrong cause it doesn't effect me, but where did they state that?

Originally posted by Thupli

Originally posted by Sleepyfish

"we have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intent to focus on horizontal but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve."

In other words, we are going to lie to you  now and say we always intended to be a WOW clone and that our Manifesto was total BS the entire time, god its only going to get worse now, if you don't like grinding gear I advise you get a refund while you still can.

Before this patch there was vertical progression of gear in the game.  Once you hit 80 you had to gear up blue to green to exotic.  Why weren't you screaming about it and calling them liars then?

No you didn't those stat increases were marginal, Ascended not only ups the bar on the stats, it also creates a mandatory window to do the dungeons because of Agony. Hell even if the stats were the same adding agony alone creates its own treadmill. Not to mention the boost it will give in WvWvW. Before this patch you would have passively picked up applicable greens and blues anyway just by playing the game. Ascended gear forces the issue and makes what used to be optional dungeons into a mandatory grind. I wont waste too much time arguing about it since frankly I am looking/waiting for other games now. If you are happy with it fine by me.

Originally posted by Sleepyfish

Originally posted by Thupli

Originally posted by Sleepyfish

"we have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intent to focus on horizontal but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve."

In other words, we are going to lie to you  now and say we always intended to be a WOW clone and that our Manifesto was total BS the entire time, god its only going to get worse now, if you don't like grinding gear I advise you get a refund while you still can.

Before this patch there was vertical progression of gear in the game.  Once you hit 80 you had to gear up blue to green to exotic.  Why weren't you screaming about it and calling them liars then?

No you didn't those stat increases were marginal, Ascended not only ups the bar on the stats, it also creates a mandatory window to do the dungeons because of Agony. Hell even if the stats were the same adding agony alone creates its own treadmill. Not to mention the boost it will give in WvWvW. Before this patch you would have passively picked up applicable greens and blues anyway just by playing the game. Ascended gear forces the issue and makes what used to be optional dungeons into a mandatory grind. I wont waste too much time arguing about it since frankly I am looking/waiting for other games now. If you are happy with it fine by me.

Agony will affect WvWvW or the ring and backpack?

So good, better, best and something unique/awesome looking for hardcore players not enough?  Is it because you can convert gems and buy a set of exotics cheap that made acquiring "best" too easy?  Can you buy ascended items or the mats on the TP?  Is it to increase cash flow for the game?

Originally posted by Sleepyfish

"we have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intent to focus on horizontal but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve."

In other words, we are going to lie to you  now and say we always intended to be a WOW clone and that our Manifesto was total BS the entire time, god its only going to get worse now, if you don't like grinding gear I advise you get a refund while you still can.

FYI, originally GW2 was supposed to have unlimited leveling with diminishing returns. It was really never meant to be a horizontal game like GW1, just a game that's mostly about skill. The problem with Ascended gear is currently that it's doing vertical progression wrong.

Looks like the AMA ended. Too bad he didn't answer all of the official forums questions, but well, there was a lot of them. The answers were a bit better than I expected.

Originally posted by Xiaoki

Really should have kept his mouth shut, these comments are not going to help the situation at all.

Biggest mistake was saying "we have never said there would be no vertical progression".

Then he says they intend to focus on horizontal progression but will have vertical progression. Slowly rolling out a tier over the course a year then introducing another higher tier doesnt count.

But he also insists that they design the game with everything having little to no grind. How can anyone lie that badly with a straight face? Its so laughably bad you cant get angry at it.

Even if this is not exactly what most if not all was expecting, this gear is not hard to get and dont need months in grind. Which is the biggest difference to other MMOs. You can play FotM without it and its needed only if you want challenge. Also The actual stats are really not that big again compared to other MMOs where the next set of items has much higher difference in stats increase.

I'm also a bit disapointed, but on other hand this give the "grind" for some people to keep playing for a while. And even I dont like grind, sometimes its ok in small doses. So far it looks like to get Ascended really dont lead to countless repeats and month of doing the same.

If they keep it that way its tolerable and wont make me quit. I grind for achievements and specific skins, there is actually no difference. Just another thing to do.

I just saw a post on gw2 reddit of someone who is now level 31 in this FoTM dungeon. People are really doing this same dungeon 30 and more times ? Isn't this..hmm... totally boring ? I would feel like a hamster. And yes, I know the dungeon is composed out of different mini dungeons every time. But even those repeat over time.

As long as we players are willing to accept such kind of content we don't really deserve anything better.

Anyway, concerning this AMA and GW2 it is obvious I misunderstood Anet. My fault probably. But I still feel like I listened to a politician before an election and got the truth afterwards.

It is good to see they aren't burying their heads and making weak excuses like some others.

1) Maxing stats in a game where the output of your actions depends in part of those numbers isn't optional. Not caring about being gimped is an option everyone has, but you are still gimped.

Good Anet don't come with that excuse and the similar weak excuse that "it is only required for a dungeon after a certain point".

2) Tying this gear with only 1 type of content is also bad.

Good Anet recognizes this, but the speed in which they correct this is important.

3) The grind required for something that isn't optional (vide 1) is too high.

This unfortunately has been a traditional problem of Anet since GW1, where playing general content isn't rewarding enough compared to specific farms/trading and they end up having to boost rewards several times to equate activities and stop some getting things too fast while for others is too grindy.

And yes, people reading interviews before the game release were expecting level cap increases with EXPANSIONS. Not wiht content patches 3 months after release.

Originally posted by Zeus.CM

Originally posted by Calerxes

Originally posted by Zeus.CM

People are mostly concerned about ascended gear. As I am. To get full exotic gear I was required to get around 30-40g (gear + accessories). It was obtainable within a week of farming gold/materials. And now they introduced ascended back slot and rings. My experience: I had to grind 40g just to get back slot. ALso, it's been 6 days since I've been doing level 10 fractals and still not a single ring dropped.

Ascended brought what we feared the most in GW2 - the grind. I really hope they reduce the amount of materials or make better ring drop because as it is now, it's a bad grind.

 

Why are you grinding Ascended gear? what do you need it for? can you play other parts of the game effectively without Ascended gear? 

Without it I cannot play fractals beyond level 12 or so. Arenanet stated they will be adding more content to fractals, more dungeons. So, If I want to do it on higher levels I am required to make ascended gear... I'm a type of a person that want to be 100% efficient and when it comes to mmos that means to have max gear. I play GW2 because achieving that was not as time consuming as in other mmos. By playing 2 hours a day I could have max gear within 2 weeks or so. This will not be the case anymore, unless they improve the way to get it. The most concerning thing is that ascended gear introduced gear requirement to enter a group doing a certain level of a dungeon.

So its voluntary on your part? you can still do FotM without Ascended gear but need it to do higher level fractals which you voluntarily want to do., I don't see a problem.

Originally posted by Calerxes

Originally posted by Zeus.CM

Originally posted by Calerxes

Originally posted by Zeus.CM

People are mostly concerned about ascended gear. As I am. To get full exotic gear I was required to get around 30-40g (gear + accessories). It was obtainable within a week of farming gold/materials. And now they introduced ascended back slot and rings. My experience: I had to grind 40g just to get back slot. ALso, it's been 6 days since I've been doing level 10 fractals and still not a single ring dropped.

Ascended brought what we feared the most in GW2 - the grind. I really hope they reduce the amount of materials or make better ring drop because as it is now, it's a bad grind.

 

Why are you grinding Ascended gear? what do you need it for? can you play other parts of the game effectively without Ascended gear? 

Without it I cannot play fractals beyond level 12 or so. Arenanet stated they will be adding more content to fractals, more dungeons. So, If I want to do it on higher levels I am required to make ascended gear... I'm a type of a person that want to be 100% efficient and when it comes to mmos that means to have max gear. I play GW2 because achieving that was not as time consuming as in other mmos. By playing 2 hours a day I could have max gear within 2 weeks or so. This will not be the case anymore, unless they improve the way to get it. The most concerning thing is that ascended gear introduced gear requirement to enter a group doing a certain level of a dungeon.

 

So its voluntary on your part? you can still do FotM without Ascended gear but need it to do higher level fractals which you voluntarily want to do., I don't see a problem.

Why do people keep insisting in that excuse?

Not even Anet does.

That excuse can be used to justify anything in a game, because a game is all optional.

Originally posted by Silentstorm

What you got here is people who are horizontal basically not wanting to share the game. Kinda selfish and childish especially considering the vertical and hardcore/pvp outnumber you greatly. I said in a different post I like a game that isn't one dimensional where you have the {option} to do whatever you like. Alot of people say vanilla wow was like that to a extent it's also been labeled as the best mmorpg during that time. So I won't knock a company trying to do something like that.

 

Problem is you have people who are lazy and selfish who would exactly do just that knock the company. Want it all for themselves and screw the rest of the population of the game. That's fail and if you really want to act that way just quit the game you will be replaced with someone less selfish in mentality. If they want to make a game that suits everybody let them maybe they can pull it off. But don't play god all seeing and down the people for trying to make everyone happy.

 

Reason I'm singling out the Horizontal gamers is because vertical fan base didn't cry this hard. They did cry and bitch but not to the extent the horizontal gamers are. Also you don't see any major publication complaining now that GW2 put vertical content in. They actually have gotten praise for doing it. But before this every pc magazine from NYC to China bashed them. This very site was hard on them for lack of end game. They responded and save the army of carebears crying the media has not attacked them. You tubers haven't I would know I'm cool with and subbed to majority of them. 

 

Most you tubers were mad more about plinx than ascended gear lol...........

     So what mmo's out there have vertical progression players having to compromise and share thier game with horizontal progression players after being told thier game wasnt going to be based on horizontal progression? Yes, i wanted to play an mmo based on horizontal progression. How dare i be so selfish? Especially when i should have just went to one of the hundreds of vertical progression mmo's and insisted they cater to horizontal progression instead. What right do i have to expect that us horizontal progression players should get more than 2-3 mmo's catering to our tastes. That is just a childish selfish mentality i have, to expect that maybe i should get the game that was advertised and i paid for.

     Some tastes are mutually exclusive. I shouldnt be accused of being selfish and lazy just because i dont share yours. You vertical progression fans have just about every mmo on the market as an option for you if a game you like goes south. Those of us who prefer horizontal have maybe 1-2% of the options available to us that you have. Seeing this one taken off the table is likely going to impact us far more than it would your crowd.

     Sometimes compromise just means that no one gets thier way and no one gets to be happy as a result. We all would have been better off if we just had more options.

Seems to be the new way to pointless talk about "ideas" with zero indication and will to actually implement them.

Yeah right it's not like EAWARE made everyone sick of this kind of talk aready.