4881

And I don’t believe anyone signed a contract to not leave a shitty review in response to said changes. Would you like to try again, but this time with a point?

4882

Here’s a point: review-bombing an infant MMO right before the biggest shopping days of the year, all because of a single patch, is a serious overreaction that could tank the game!

You don’t like the decisions? Don’t ruin it for the rest of us. If you don’t like the menu change then just eat elsewhere.

4883

Why don’t you go yell at Yelp then while you’re at it. Or maybe a cloud.

4884

I wouldn’t worry about the reviews on Amazon. There are still almost twice as many 5 star ratings for GW2 there as there are 1 star ratings. I sincerely doubt it’ll affect their sales much.

And it’s good to let people know that currently if you want to absolute best in slot gear, it’s going to require a bit of effort. A week ago, you could hit 80, hit the Trading Post, and be completely geared in a matter of minutes. This does matter to some folks, as evidenced by the outrage we’re seeing here.

Of course, since the only content that requires you to have the new gear is the content you have to do in order to get the new gear, not having the best gear is pretty much a non issue. With the exception of WvW. And frankly, considering the zerg v zerg mentality of WvW and the fact that there are people there of all levels and gear, you’d be hard pressed to ever say, “I died because that guy had Ascended gear and I didn’t.”

And if you did say it, you’re probably wrong.

For what it’s worth, I don’t like grinding dungeons for gear. So I do find the whole Ascended gear debacle somewhat disturbing. However, I do enjoy GW2 a great deal, so I am willing to give Anet the benefit of the doubt. As long as no content ever gets fully gated behind the gear grind and as long as it doesn’t impact WvW significantly, I’m okay with it.

4885

Reviewers are free to express their opinion on most sites. A good game will have enough people praising the game over those who are angry. Also, a 1 star review certainly doesn’t ruin it for me. I have no idea why it would ruin it for you anymore than a 5 star review makes the game more fun.

4886

Worse reviews theoretically equals worse sales = less revenue for Anet = less money to spend on adding content and fixing the game = less fun for me playing Guild Wars 2 long-term. This is all dependent on the first part of the equation being true, of course.

4887

If there are that many people unhappy enough to tank future sales maybe “the rest of us” are part of them and not you? Seriously, if you are that concerned for the future of the game based on these complaints, it’s probably a much larger percentage of players that are upset than you want to believe. Otherwise you’d just write them off as “entitled” or whatever catch all me me you could think of to write them off.

4888

Since Guild Wars isn’t very maintstream I don’t think it would take too many negative reviews to impact sales. A game doesn’t have to be 10/90 positive/negative for people to reconsider a buying decision.

I seem to recall a situation where review-bombing really impacted a game, but maybe it’s just in my head. Regardless, its the intent that irks me so. People wouldn’t do it if they didn’t think it had an impact. It just seems like a childish way of making a point.

4889

My advice is to post a positive review then to help counter the negative ones.

4890

Didn’t it sell multiple millions of copies at release? It’s as mainstream as it gets in the MMO world. I agree it’s childish, but I don’t think it will impact the game at all unless it turns out it’s a large contingent of the players who are really unhappy.

4891

Just a heads up, but they are going to be having a Black Lion Trading Company Black Friday sale. The email I received said it would run Friday - Sunday. There are going to put up three items for sale each day with a discount of up to 70% off. Each sale will last 24 hours.

Link is here: BLTC Black Friday

I’m hoping for a sale on character slots. I wonder if bank slots fall under the sale as they aren’t in the BLTC, as I definitely need more of those.

4892

You can always hope, but it seems more likely they’ll do this with consumables or cosmetic only items. If they do bank slots, I will be beyond pleasantly surprised.

4893

I haven’t written (or plan to write) a review, but I think negative reviews are very warranted. These are not “1/5 Game Sux” reviews, reading through some of them most articulate reasons for low marks in great detail.

There is no argument about Anet breaking major promises, they did, the question now is what is the proportional response to these promises.

I know I personally brought with me 4 people to play GW2, and I sold it to them as “WoW, minus the grind”. Now Anet is forcing me to apologize to my friends.

4894

I agree, but it’s a little more complex than that. As I’ve read Anet posts over the past week, here is the story I think they are trying to tell:

  1. Legendary is the top tier, it always has been and always will be. It’s extremely difficult to get, but the statistical advantage is minor. By the way (and this was new information a few days ago), we’ll eventually introduce legendary gear other than weapons

  2. Exotic gear is darn close to Legendary, and it’s relatively easy to acquire. Moreover, you can get it through all the major gameplay channels. Dungeons, WvW, overland karma farming and crafting – all roads lead to oranges. No grinding required.

  3. Ascended gear is not a new top tier. It’s a new mid-tier, sitting between Exotic and Legendary. The difficulty of acquisition likewise sits between those tiers. Right now, it’s mainly from dungeons – actually, a single dungeon. We’ll be adding other roads to ascended soon, though.

That actually hangs together, if you believe that the difference between Exotic and Ascended is relatively minor. It appears that that difference is about 8%. The difference between Exotic and Ascended is about 5%. Everyone will judge for themselves whether that gap is narrow enough that full-exo’s is still considered endgame-complete, and whether you believe them when they say that new tiers are not planned.

4895

It would be unfortunate if you feel your friends need an apology or they do. It’s still a good game. You don’t need top gear to have fun in this game and to do well. Most the top gear is cosmetic with very little stat differences. It’s not as if I have seen anyone shouting they will only take specific classes equipped with specific gear therefore suggesting you have to grind for it.

I don’t think low reviews should auto be dismissed, either. If they explain the reason for the score, well that’s what a review is for. It’s not anyone’s job to decide whether or not a review is legit; they just get to decide if the review is legit for them.

4896

Sinij stated upgrading all gear to Ascended will increase health by like 900 hps.

Here is some quick math about Ascended gear.

The most Vitality you can get from the exotic gear (armor+weapon+jewelry, not counting runes) in the game is about 758. This is with the Vit/Heal/CondDam dungeon armor set (IIRC the only set with Vitality as primary), Beryl jewelry and something like Valkyrie weapon.

If we assume the same 8% stat increase will be applied to all exotic armor pieces, the most Vitality increase you will get from Ascended armor is about 60, which results in 600 hps. IF you stack ALL your gear with Vitality. Which means Thief’s health will go up from 18,385 to 18,985 (3% increase), Mesmer’s - from 22,662 to 23262 (2.6% increase), Warrior - from 25,952 to 26,552 (2.3% increase).

Again, that’s if you stack ALL your gear with Vitality. If you don’t, you will gain less HPs.

It applies to other stats as well - your character will gain 2-5% increase in stats by upgrading to full Ascended.

OMG the sky is falling, the game is ruined. :)

Infusions can provide 5 Vitality per piece, so 30 Vitality from Infusions in all armor pieces. Instead of runes. Divinity rune set provides 60 to all stats. Lich rune set provides 165 to Vitality.

Big deal.

Ascended upgrade WILL be minor at best. Once they release Ascended armor and if they follow the same route as with rings (no upgrades but Infusions), for many builds it will actually be a DOWNGRADE.

If you see any mistakes in my calculations, please let me know, but until then I am going to say that one should think before getting along with hysteria on other forums.

4897

Well, sure, if you think that this is a one-off deal and they will never ever do this again despite the fact their first foray into the gear treadmill has come a few months after release, then I’m sure it’s nothing to be riled up about.

4898

Ascended gear doesn’t bother me, I like this game and I’m not so paranoid about their lack of commitment to making this game for everyone that one slightly suspicious action that might point in the wrong direction is going to make me quit forever. They’ve only started implementing ascended so we have no idea how difficult it’s actually going to be to get in the future - I’ll agree wholeheartedly that it was a mistake to introduce it like this, they really ought to have just put some exotics with infusion slots into the game with this dungeon and when they were ready to fully implement ascended, then roll it out when it was complete… but even if they had done that a bunch of people would have exploded. With enough blog posts detailing the reasons why they absolutely had to include that new tier of gear they might have calmed people down… but yeah. It was a poor choice to not roll at least a few bits of ascended gear out with the game release to prevent the fan fury, or just ‘rebalance’ exotics to add the extra couple of stat points if they really thought we needed them. No use crying over spilt milk though.

The worst thing I’ve seen from all this is the volume of casual players that are currently ranting about how hard it is to even get exotics and how it’ll be impossible to get ascended. What on earth is wrong with those silly geese? Don’t they know they can buy exotics with karma? Through the process of just getting a lv 80 character they probably have enough karma for about 3 bits of exotic gear (unless they spent it all on recipes and other junk). People who started leveling after the karma jugs were added to daily rewards should find it even easier to get karma gear. Perhaps there needs to be a more explicit thing in-game to tell people who can’t manage to work that out on their own that there are exotics there for the buying.

While leveling, doing no grinding at all and spending quite a bit buying pets and dyes from the trading post I managed to accrue enough gold to outfit my first character in 4 pieces of exotic gear from the trading post the second I hit 80. That’s 7 bits of gear with gold and karma. After that I needed to upgrade some jewellery and my secondary weapon set… and I got the money for that by exploring Frostgorge Sound for map completion and completing my personal story up to the part where I needed to do the arah dungeon. I think I fought Jormag twice in total… so not exactly grinding that either. Are their money complaints arising from the fact they aren’t selling crafting materials they have no use for? Or are they not selling nice gear they find but don’t need, intending to save it for another character?

Why would anyone think exotics are hard to come by?

4899

Who knows. I am an extremely casual GW2 player and have my main fully kitted out in exotics, I have about 120000 karma, and 15 gold. I run the odd 5-man, I haven’t touched the fractals, I am still exploring the world, I don’t even play the Trading Post heavily.

IMO people are simply complaining for the sake of complaining. For some strange reason they seem to hold ArenaNet to some imaginary higher standard. The gnashing of teeth over this issue is hilarious to watch.

4900

I am not into guessing games. Some people said ANet is forcing them into gear grind, how essential ascended gear will be and how they will never be competitive in WvW without it. I proved them wrong.

If ANet releases a new gear tier above ascended, I will look at those numbers and see how they affect the game. If I still play this game by then. :) I am not going to freak out about something that hasn’t happened and may never happen at all.