New Dungeon, Fractals of the Mists

[Eiserne Drossel]

Glad someone else found that, this is pretty much how I feel too.


And the official forums have me scratching my fucking head at this. "ITS ONLY 10 STATS" "ITS ONLY TWO SLOTS RIGHT NOW"... I just, I don't get it. Of course, the only response from ANet is a swift automated forum lock.

24 hours, 4165 posts, 42623 views. That thread is going places

5 stats, 10 stats, 5%, 7%, 2 slots, 19 slots, it doesn't matter, really. If they keep adding 2 slots each week, or each month, or what they now will do, it will become a gear treadmill, which makes me sad. So it doesn't matter if it is +2 stats only, overtime it will become more, and if it seriously is needed to be able to do dungeon content, it goes against what they have been talking about.

[Newbryn]

I'm more concerned with the agony system. I hope it's not an excuse to make the boss encounters the same as we have now in exploreables. I don't even do explorables anymore the fights are just awful and trash is harder.

That's the thing though I don't feel the dungeons are gonna get any better just more of the same, of course the gear progression crowd wont care after all they're getting an upgrade.

[Durzlla]

Who said anything about PvP? /boggle

The whole "same dungeon you got it in" thing still isn't relevant, either. Not sure why people keep acting like it just makes it all ok.

Um, you're complaining about resist gear? If you don't want to go into the depths of the same 9 instances on a harder difficulty then DON'T that's all you need it for...

[Avuun]

Well I'm slightly upset to say the least after reading the blog post. It's LOTRO radiance all over again :/ I'd be completely fine with Agony if you could use it on your current sets of gear, like how it used to be, if you could get it from completing something. Adding another gear set exclusively and more powerful, regardless of how many stats it gives, it's still more powerful. I can see a split player base starting to arise in my opinion.

[Newbryn]

Well I'm slightly upset to say the least after reading the blog post. It's LOTRO radiance all over again :/ I'd be completely fine with Agony if you could use it on your current sets of gear, like how it used to be, if you could get it from completing something. Adding another gear set exclusively and more powerful, regardless of how many stats it gives, it's still more powerful. I can see a split player base starting to arise in my opinion.

yes this is pretty much it amazing how people aren't getting it, by doing this the whole design philosophy goes a full 360 and now only the instance content is gonna matter. De's which could use improvement are more or less gonna become obsolete, basically there wont even be any reason to do non instanced content.

[Bovinity Divinity]

And the official forums have me scratching my fucking head at this. "ITS ONLY 10 STATS" "ITS ONLY TWO SLOTS RIGHT NOW"

Yeah...and I have argued in the past that scale matters, so I can understand what people are saying in that regard. But it's not even the amount of stats, it's the principle, it's the departure from the original design. The whole idea that you didn't need to really worry about gear, that the gear progression just ended at a very low ceiling, that was the big principle that really held a lot of appeal to people. And then to make it a resist gear system on top of that, I just don't understand.

If it's just this ONE dungeon. ONE time. Like a self-contained thing where Agony only matters in this ONE place and nowhere else. Kinda like Costume Brawl, just a little mini-game...then I could sorta understand. It doesn't look like that's going to be the case anyway, though. Even then, what happens when a group of friends wants to do a "x27 run" or something, and someone wants to join in but can't for no other reason than, "You didn't gear up enough, brah." =(

[Azuri]

Well I'm slightly upset to say the least after reading the blog post. It's LOTRO radiance all over again :/ I'd be completely fine with Agony if you could use it on your current sets of gear, like how it used to be, if you could get it from completing something. Adding another gear set exclusively and more powerful, regardless of how many stats it gives, it's still more powerful. I can see a split player base starting to arise in my opinion.

It seems a bit shady and a slippery slope here. They've lured in the players that thought there is no gear treadmill and now A-net says it's time to branch out to the player market who seek gear upgrade progression? Sounds like corporate shenanigans to me it's an interesting scenario atm and I'm curious what the outcome will be.

[Thelxi]

The stats being minor and barely noticeable is irrelevant. The feeling of being able to max out your toon optimally without much effort and through many means will be gone.

They wanted all the end-game grinds to reward cosmetic upgrades, and that was one of the main selling points. If they wanted to stay true to the foundations of the game they would reward awesome looking exotics, not upgrades, regardless of how minor they actually will be upgrades.

[Avuun]

It seems a bit shady and a slippery slope here. They've lured in the players that thought there is no gear treadmill and now A-net says it's time to branch out to the player market who seek gear upgrade progression? Sounds like corporate shenanigans to me it's an interesting scenario atm and I'm curious what the outcome will be.

I honestly feel as though they've had this planned for a while and are testing the water so to speak with just the jewellery being affected at the minute and then see how things go from there. Well , you can certainly see that it hasn't been well received. It's worrying as it's going to cause numerous problems for the future if it doesn't get a reasonable fix.

[Doozerjun]

yes this is pretty much it amazing how people aren't getting it, by doing this the whole design philosophy goes a full 360 and now only the instance content is gonna matter. De's which could use improvement are more or less gonna become obsolete, basically there wont even be any reason to do non instanced content.

Wouldn't it be a 180?

I would be very surprised if the instances were the only way to get the ascended gear. They are adding 200 crafting recipes so I'm sure that the new gear level is a part of that.

About the infusion, well I hope it doesn't bite them in the ass like it did in Lotro. Why didn't they just implement it like they did in GW where you could infuse any armor. Make a quest out of it or put it in a mission/dungeon where you could get your current armor infused. Or add crafting elements to where you could add infused slots to you armor. The way they are doing as it is just seems contrary to what they have been preaching that their game is about.

[Newbryn]

Wouldn't it be a 180?

I would be very surprised if the instances were the only way to get the ascended gear. They are adding 200 crafting recipes so I'm sure that the new gear level is a part of that.

About the infusion, well I hope it doesn't bite them in the ass like it did in Lotro. Why didn't they just implement it like they did in GW where you could infuse any armor. Make a quest out of it or put it in a mission/dungeon where you could get your current armor infused. Or add crafting elements to where you could add infused slots to you armor. The way they are doing as it is just seems contrary to what they have been preaching that their game is about.

It does say the ascended gear will only be available in the instance, this isn't good because they are simple catering to the crowd who never cared about the game in the 1st place, with this change there's almost no reason to even keep playing.

[Doozerjun]

Right but it is only two pieces of ascended gear I believe. Rings and the back slot. I'm talking about in the future I'm pretty positive that there will be multiple ways of getting the gear.

[Newbryn]

Right but it is only two pieces of ascended gear I believe. Rings and the back slot. I'm talking about in the future I'm pretty positive that there will be multiple ways of getting the gear.

There may be, its still not a good way to start however I still feel it will ultimately make the world events obsolete, though I am looking at this from the worst case scenario where the dungeons haven't really been improved, and this gear only serves as a buffer for an artificial rise in difficulty.

[Doozerjun]

Well if they do only make the gear available through instances only then they will be going against one of their design objectives. They were determined not to have exclusivity in the game, it's one of the main reasons why they said there would be no raids.

[Newbryn]

Well if they do only make the gear available through instances only then they will be going against one of their design objectives. They were determined not to have exclusivity in the game, it's one of the main reasons why they said there would be no raids.

That's what the uproar is about, because that's what they are doing with this dungeon.

[barackopala]

Most friends that left gw2 are taking a look back after this announcement, maybe it's cattering for a major audience (not saying it's better, just stating it).

[Doozerjun]

So those people can leave again in a week? It's a really bad idea to pander to that crowd in my opinion.

[barackopala]

So those people can leave again in a week? It's a really bad idea to pander to that crowd in my opinion.

It mostly depends on how well executed the content is, you're asuming people will instaleave.

[Bovinity Divinity]

Yeah, it could work in A.Nets favor, who knows!

[Newbryn]

Yeah, it could work in A.Nets favor, who knows!

It could and even be a big success doesn't change the fact its a big slap in the face to the loyal player-base.