New Dungeon, Fractals of the Mists

[Ravenblade]

Depends on your angle. Right now it's just 2-3 pts. increase per item amounting to a total of Ø 35 pts. per tier increase. While this is fairly low compared to current increases between each tier the fact that this is going to be the open-ended way of progression means that in worst case in about 1.25 years the blue items will be obsolete and another 4-6 months later green gear will be worthless.

I had hoped the gear would be limited to one dungeon but realistically I hoped it being a one-time exception for the sake of infusion slots. Their addition of saying it will be just the first step in their item progression iniative makes even the most optimistic of the worst cases (flat linear increase, 2-3 months per new gear level) a bit worrisome. While the power creep may never reach the level of games which enjoyed a more curvy power curve it's still what it is: stat-based item progression. In a game where stats are a matter of gameplay style this may lead to lop-sided results such as dimishing the choice of importance of playstyles through traits over time. I could be wrong but that's what I gathered after first glance.

PS: I am ignoring the infusion slot thing - already accepted the possibility of it being exactly the same thing as in GW1 before that anyway.

[Valeron]

Well by that ring it's a little over 7% increase in stats. Seems fairly significant to me.

And about the infusion comparison to GW1, well in the first game you could infuse any armor. Here you only have infusion slots for ascended armor. So it is much more similar to radiance gear in lotro or resistance gear in wow.

[Skelington]

Not a misunderstanding.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/l...ascended-gear/

Officially bringing in gear progression to the game.

Ugh, and Skelington was glad that they didn't have spectral agony in this game. It was such a pointless mechanic and the game was designed around the debuff never even being a threat in the first place, despite infusion being incredibly important, so it's hard to believe this is going to be much different. The offensive/defensive infusions might be neat, but needing it for some super powerful one shot monster attack and making it in the forge is just annoying.

[Deleted]

Another change of heart by ANet, it's becoming quite common now.

[Deleted]

I don't see how this becomes a vertival progression as a fact now. What I read is that ascended gear is essentially exotic gear with built in slot-upgrades, to free up the slot for infusion. And all She wrote about future item progression was adding ascended gear for other slots, which to me is not exactly a tiered progression in stats.

What I don't understand is....rings and accessiores ok, they have only stats in their slots. but what about weapon and armor slots? they are much more specific in what goes in them, things like 'my shouts heal conditions' or 'I summon ravens to attack'

[Ravenblade]

Well by that ring it's a little over 7% increase in stats. Seems fairly significant to me.

Oh don't get me wrong, it definitely is no matter how you look at it but compared to the other per tier increases it is smaller which is why they liked to use 'slightly' as term. Even so they can't stretch it to say 1% per tier because people want *significant* increases. Well, people that want vertical progression that is.

I don't see how this becomes a vertival progression as a fact now. What I read is that ascended gear is essentially exotic gear with built in slot-upgrades, to free up the slot for infusion. And all She wrote about future item progression was adding ascended gear for other slots, which to me is not exactly a tiered progression in stats.

It's already stronger, your character gets progressively stronger by acquiring these over exotics.

The very fact that item progression is shifting from looks to stats is a sign of paradigm change, one which not only is controversial but may overall turn out to be detrimental to the game's reputation as a whole.

Also if you are reading the Future of Items Progression paragraph again then there are thinly veiled hints about their plans. That means stat-based item progression is a fact now and not fiction anymore.

It also concerns me that they are not talking of level 80 content as endgame content now. What happened to endgame begins at level 2?

[Maarius]

The new additions in November are just the start of our item progression initiative. We’re going to add tons of new high-level content to Guild Wars 2 in the future. As we introduce the new high-level content, we’ll also roll out complimentary Ascended and Legendary items (to say nothing of the other rewards you can earn by playing the content).

100 GW fans: "We don't want gear progression"
100000 players: "We want gear progression"

me: it's the design decision not to have gear progression, there are many ways to get the best statistical loot, bla bla...

the first time I'm absolutely not happy with a design decision... and I feel pretty damn stupid now, telling people what they can expect in GW2

[Deleted]

What I see at the moment is the adding of a new tier of armor between exotic and legendary or rather at legendary level which (possibly) will take more time to get (naturally as they will release it tiered in content patches).
We already have different tiers of armor. at lvl 80, it takes slightly longer to get exotic gear than to get masterwork gear. now you have an additional tier which again takes (speculating) longer to aquire. This is a new Item quality, not new exotics with better stats. Do you think they will introduce a new quality every other patch? If they wanted to do a real vertical tiered gear treadmill, it would be way easier to add new exotics with higher stats in every major patch.
I hope it goes the way I envision this. If I am correct ascended quality will be where it is now and all you will see is items for other slots added in more patches. And if I judge Anets speed correctly, an expansion won't be too far off sometime next Year too. And I always believed that they will up the lvlcap in expansions and then also up the stats to a new plateau you can then again achieve.

This is an interpretation, nothing more. And I know too:

Pessimists are just optimists who are in touch with reality

[Ravenblade]

No, pessimists are people who say 'It cannot get worse than that!' to which the optimists reply: 'You are wrong, of course it can!'.

They did hint continued item progression. They did not say in which direction to be fair but they are saying there will be more of this, more item types added to the list of Ascended items and finally they said that all new content will come with complimentary items.

What we do know is that they will fall "between Exotic and Legendary on the spectrum of rarity" and "Legendaries will remain 'best-in-slot' items" but only because "all existing Legendary weapons, which are currently on par with Exotics, will be upgraded to be on par with Ascended weapons".
Meaning they could - should they choose to introduce more tiers - just push the Legendaries ahead in power so they just remain on par with Ascended items - whatever power level they may be now.

Also I can understand why people are debating on this level: Principiis obsta et respice finem!

[Chrno]

Next up we get more gear tiers and 10 extra levels of content with added raid dungeons and they'll call it THE BURNING GUILD CRUSADE

but srsly.... im EXTREMELY surpriced by this and in a way upset by the lack of information giving and the fact that they changed up their ENTRIRE philosophy without a propper explanation. I mean ... what happend to horizontal progression

[Maarius]

What I see at the moment is the adding of a new tier of armor between exotic and legendary or rather at legendary level which (possibly) will take more time to get (naturally as they will release it tiered in content patches).
We already have different tiers of armor. at lvl 80, it takes slightly longer to get exotic gear than to get masterwork gear. now you have an additional tier which again takes (speculating) longer to aquire. This is a new Item quality, not new exotics with better stats. Do you think they will introduce a new quality every other patch? If they wanted to do a real vertical tiered gear treadmill, it would be way easier to add new exotics with higher stats in every major patch.
I hope it goes the way I envision this. If I am correct ascended quality will be where it is now and all you will see is items for other slots added in more patches. And if I judge Anets speed correctly, an expansion won't be too far off sometime next Year too. And I always believed that they will up the lvlcap in expansions and then also up the stats to a new plateau you can then again achieve.

This is an interpretation, nothing more. And I know too:

Pessimists are just optimists who are in touch with reality

The problem is: this new tier can only be found in the new dungeon (the rings). Exotic gear could be obtained through crafting, dungeons, karma-vendors, gold-vendors, etc. You were free to play the game your way and got rewarded with the statistical best loot in order to play on even ground against other players in WvW or to experience the same difficulty in a explorable dungeon like other players.

Now this isn't true anymore, it seems.


Why not just introduce new interesting rewards on a horizontal basis, which are only for the players who enjoy this dungeon-mechanic? People who follow the game for years expect this, this is why we followed the game for years in the first place.

[Deleted]

If I remember correctly it is not stated what exactly is needed to aquire these ascended items. Don't forget they also add a lot of recipes to the game.

Possible way: Ascended items can be aquired apart from doing the dungeon (eg crafting with new lost shores material), but to craft infusion slot-items requires a drop/whatever from the respective dungeon. They also stated that the infusion slots are in rarer ascended items, opening the way for other ascended items without it to be aquirend elsewhere, eg WvW.

You are overinterpreting given information. you could be right, but you don't necessarily have to.

[Exroyal]

I really don't understand all this rage over this. The stats mean little to nothing, yes it's going against their deisgn philosophy, but it's not like it will be game breaking.

No, i do not like this change, but i don't see how this will affect me in a big way. If ANet is implementing this change of heart, then the demand for it must have been high or else we wouldn't be seeing this.

[Marthenil]

People calm down. The new items are exotic-level stats with the upgrade integrated, so you have the ability to add infusions wich mitigate the new condition Agony added to the mobs in the new dungeon. It's better explained here : https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/l...ascended-gear/

[Deleted]

so what exactly is gonna happen with the infusion gear n such

[Marthenil]

so what exactly is gonna happen with the infusion gear n such

They are adding a new condition in the new dungeon: Agony. It ticks percentages of HP and can't be cleansed.
The only way to counter this is using special upgrade items that fit (This is speculation) in Infusion slots only. Think resistance items in WoW.

[Deleted]

People calm down. The new items are exotic-level stats with the upgrade integrated, so you have the ability to add infusions wich mitigate the new condition Agony added to the mobs in the new dungeon. It's better explained here : https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/l...ascended-gear/

Naaaa they are flat out upgrades just look at the screenshot of the ring in that blog post, maybe they are better to compensate the lack of "socket". Personaly I am a bit gutted a bit um sad tbh, I hate gear threadmill with passion still going to wait till friday before i completly "ape" about this gear progression thingy.

[Marthenil]

Hmm after rereading the post they are indeed higher than exotics. You get like 3 power per item more. So in total like 18 more Power. Me says : Big deal :P

[zito]

so what exactly is gonna happen with the infusion gear n such

The added agony to make encounters more "interesting" instead of fixing actual encounters that are horrible.

To counter this you need infusion slots on your gear it comes in offensive and defensive. Defensive is obviously there to counter agony offensive I'm guessing is if you think you can take agony damage.

Imo agony is the worst way to go if they are trying to make dungeons harder. Instead of fixing encounters they just add a dot.

[Thelxi]

Ascended quality gear and infusion slots completely breaks the game for me.

Was fun while it lasted.