4841

I heard the same concerns about regular dungeons (when everyone is done with the story mode, everyone will run explore only, it will be difficult to find a group to do story), they haven’t materialized yet though. I’ve been re-doing all the dungeons on my alt and had zero problems finding groups for any of the story dungeons (I’ve done all but Arah so far in the 2-3 weeks).

I was looking for a Fractal lvl 2 group yesterday at freaking 2 pm (I was sick at home) and found it within a minute.

It’s one of those theoretical dangers that are certainly possible but will take long time to materialize. People play at different paces, people have alts, some people are just starting the game, etc. - it’s working so far.

And, of course, a cross-server LFG tool (if it ever released) would completely alleviate all these concerns.

My second concern is, dungeon set aesthetics aside, people are only running Fractals since all other top tier gear has been made irrelevant. This really goes against the design philosophy thus far.

No dungeon gear has been made irrelevant so far. New ascended stuff (rings and the back piece) is currently available only for the slots that have never been “upgradable” through dungeons.

If your concern is for the time when they do introduce new armor (chest, helm, etc.) pieces, let’s wait for when it happens before we start freaking out. :) For all we know, upgrading to an ascended helm, for example, could involve throwing your exotic helm into Mystic forge together with some ingredients, so people will still need to get their exotics.

4842

Agony only kicks in after fractal lvl 10. There is A LOT of content out there before you even need to think about agony and infusions. And by the time you are at fractal level 10, I am pretty sure you will be able to acquire infusions.

I don’t think it qualifies as “gated content”.

4843

You can’t look at the “prices” when you need to upgrade 3 items and assume they will be the same when you need to upgrade 12 of them. You don’t know how available these things will be in the game by the time you need them.

Besides, each of those infusions provide you with 5 stat points. 12 infusions = 60 points. If it’s Vitality, it’s 600 hps. If it’s Precision, it’s less than 3% crit chance. You get more from a food buff that costs 1 silver. If someone is dumb (or rich) enough to pay 300$ for that, I say let them. :)

Jeez, people just love yelling “the sky is falling” on any occasion. roll eyes

4844

Yes, and I love this about the game! You can take whatever Exotic set you’ve managed to cobble together, from whichever activities you’ve decided to participate in, and move forward.
But why should I bother working on my Citadel of Flame set if I have to do Fractals now?
The option is there to have a power based armor set from CoF, or one that stacks condition damage and healing from Honor of the Waves, but one isn’t dependent on progressing to the other.

I don’t understand the design decision to abruptly place the focus on gear instead of content. It seems like a ploy to keep the powerlevel and quit people invested.

4845

No, it this case people bought into GW2 after Mike O’Brien’s manifesto that explicitly promised not to introduce gear grind into the game. To me, that was one of the key selling points. Now they are turning around and introducing gear grind anyways.

4846

Guild Wars 2 Design Manifesto

So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. 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.

How ArenaNet Measures Success

When your game systems are designed to achieve the prime motivation of a subscription-based MMO, you run the risk of sacrificing quality to get as much content in as possible to fill that time. You get leveling systems that take insane amounts of grind to gain a level, loot drop systems that require doing a dungeon with a tiny chance the item you want can drop at the end, raid systems that need huge numbers of people online simultaneously to organize and play, thousands of wash/repeat item-collection or kill-mob quests or dailies with flavor text support, the best stat gear requiring crazy amounts of time to earn, etc.

But what if your business model isn’t based on a subscription? What if your content-design motivations aren’t driven by the need to create mechanics that keep people playing as long as possible?

How do you reconcile this with Korean Grinder they just pushed out on us with Ascended gear?

4847

I haven’t played for some time but I like to see what’s happening. So is Anet introducing new gear or things that upgrade gear that will be required to do later content?

4848

They are in process of introducing WoW-esq “fire resist” gear that supercedes everything else and takes extreme (~250 days) grinding to do without the use of the cash shop.

4849

So here’s the thing. As of this moment, the only thing “Ascended” gear does is allow you to experience the exact same content that you’ve been running to get the Ascended gear.

It is the same content you’ve been running. They’re not gating anything behind the Ascended gear. Heck, level 2 characters straight out of the intro can go and run Fractals of the Mists. If anything, they’re opening up content to more people rather than gating it.

Currently. Now, it is possible that the next update will have a new dungeon or some new content that requires you to have Ascended gear in order to experience it. In that case, I think we’ll have a legitimate gripe.

Now, let’s step away from the gear debate a moment and talk about the tier system of the Fractals dungeon. Its design is such that everyone can experience it, but people who are competitive, people who do like challenges, can work their way up the tiers to see how far they can get. They’ve introduced content that everyone can experience and can also challenge the hardcore. To me, that sounds like win for everyone.

4850

Now if only they’d implement a random dungeon system and we’d all be happy :)

4851

What’s in there right now certainly doesn’t, and that’s one of those areas where I’ve been concerned about what exactly this way of handling content entailed from when it was originally announced (which I think was framed to the player community poorly) but what I’ve seen so far hasn’t been much of a problem. The sky certainly isn’t falling.

I’m happy to give A. Net the benefit of the doubt that they’re not going to scrap their entire design and move into a WoW-style Tiered content system. If they move in the direction where all the content is available to everybody, but has variably increasing difficulty for the more hardcore folks, I think that can be a win-win.

4852

Yeah, let’s just re-post every bullshit we read on reddit now.

There is nothing in the game right now that requires “WoW-esq fire resist” gear to experience.

And which piece of gear exactly does require 250 days of grind? And why exactly do you NEED it right now?

4853

Ok, Sinij. Let’s look at the stuff you quoted and see if they broke any of that yet.

For example, the stuff you bolded:

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.

How do they force you to grind for the ascended gear? The gear provides tiny stat upgrades, you can do anything in the game without them.

How do you need to spend hours preparing to have fun? You can do 10+ levels of Fractals without worrying about agony. That’s 30+ fractals, hours and hours of content. And you can repeat any number of them levels, if you are doing them for fun.

If you want to go beyond lvl 10, you will need ascended stuff. It will not make you a god in WvW or anything like that, it will simply allow you to slot infusions to go beyond lvl 10. At level 3, I can already buy 2 infusions with the fractal currency. I could go and make that back piece right now because the essence dropped at lvl 2 and globs and ancient bones are not that big of a deal really. Rings drop while doing the content.

You can do Fractals at character level 1, if you want. Where is the Korean Grinder you are talking about?

4854

But they’ve already said they will be introducing these.

4855

Regarding Sinij’s count of how long it would take to gather all the items: the claimed timeframe is just silly. First off, you don’t need all the items on day one (it’s been noted that Agony doesn’t even kick in until level 10, so you certainly don’t need any Ascended gear before then. In addition, a number of reports I have read mention you can often dodge the attacks that involve Agony, so it may even be possible to be strategic and get to fractal level 20 if you’re good). Secondly, Mystic Coins can be gotten not just through the daily events, but through completing the monthly, which gives you 20 or 30 (I think it’s varied). For instance, I’ve completed 3 monthlies and a number of dailies, and I have 100 Mystic Coins in the bank, and I spent a bunch (30?) creating a Mystic Claymore.

Not to mention you can purchase them off the trading post for less than 3.5 silver each.

Thirdly, one of the vendors in the Fractals outer chamber sells skill points for 35 fractal crystals, so there’s another way to get those.

The high cost of T6 materials and/or Passion Flowers is certainly an issue, but it’s one of those things that can be fixed through changing drop rates and/or adding other ways to create the items.

You also have a chance to get an Ascended ring from a bonus chest that drops after you do the 9th fractal level (once per day). So just by doing the dungeons you may be able to get some Ascended gear. Without any crafting.

Does this system need some adjustment? Sure. But it’s not the complete disaster many have claimed. People do love their drama.

4856

Spare me your “you don’t have to play” fallacies.

Ascended gear is Best-In-Slot for both WvW and PvE by non-trivial amount. If directed to vitality it would result in ~900 hp from the next best. It also includes agony stat, a soft block on how far you can get in the current round of PvE content.

They force you to grind if you plan to compete in PvP or even participate past some initial entry point in PvE.

4857

Not sure how you came up with 900 hp.

IIRC an ascended piece provides like +5 stat points compared to exotics. Plus the infusion also provides +5. So we have +10 for each of the 3 slots, 30 points in total or 300 hp if you are talking about vitality.

If you NEED 300 extra hit points to be competitive in WvW, then … err … I guess, yes, they force you to grind, lol. And to pay $300 too, lol.

4858

If you’re concerned that Anet is becoming more aggressive at monetizing the game, and you have any love for conspiracy theories, this thread delivers:

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Lost-Shores-A-Cry-for-Help/first#post811241

I… actually see some truth in it :)

4859

So what exactly is that thread delivering? A bunch of gamer hypochondriacs feeding off each other’s fears?

Anet is so not being aggressive in their monetization. You want to see aggressive? Let me direct your attention to LotRO.

4860

Have you considered that there are more than 3 slots of gear?