Ascended and Magic Find blog

[Svifnymr]

I have a feeling they will make charged quartz crystals required for ascended celestial armor later on down the road.

The example item she made was an Ascended Celestial Greatsword, no mention of the crystals, so I assume they're not used.

I know you specified armor, but since they use the same mats for exotic, I'd assume the same for ascended.

[Zephyr Storm]

The example item she made was an Ascended Celestial Greatsword, no mention of the crystals, so I assume they're not used.

I know you specified armor, but since they use the same mats for exotic, I'd assume the same for ascended.

True. Although, knowing Anet, I don't really see them abandoning charged quartz crystals so quickly. They love to keep items that some people don't have relevant to try and force people to buy gems and then buy the items off the TP. Plus, charged quartz crystals add even more time gating to the time gating of ascended items, which is what Anet seems to want with this game.......time gating to keep people playing. It's a really retarded idea that I think needs to die in a fire, but w/e. Anet seems hell bent on destroying their game and alienating their fans, so more power to them I guess.

[Deleted]

An extra 50 hp isnt going to do anything.

But this 50 hp today will be 300 hp tomorrow and maybe 1000 hp the day after. today the weapons, tomorrow the armor and then we get the next tier.

thats what makes me worry so much.

[Odeezee]

But this 50 hp today will be 300 hp tomorrow and maybe 1000 hp the day after. today the weapons, tomorrow the armor and then we get the next tier.

thats what makes me worry so much.

people should not worry. Collin said that they rushed the game to ship so they left Ascended out to meet the deadline, but it was always intended to be in the game from the start, it just took them a minute to implement. funny think about Ascended stuff though is that it is VERY easy to acquire playing the game however you like to play; PvE, WvW and even tPvP (thought that is only if you want to do any PvE or WvW).

[Meledelion]

people should not worry. Collin said that they rushed the game to ship so they left Ascended out to meet the deadline, but it was always intended to be in the game from the start, it just took them a minute to implement. funny think about Ascended stuff though is that it is VERY easy to acquire playing the game however you like to play; PvE, WvW and even tPvP (thought that is only if you want to do any PvE or WvW).

They also said that LS would be deep, that there would be a big pvp/wvw reveal at pax and many other things they never delivered on.

Just because someone says something doesn't make it true...

Did you know I once single-handedly fended off the entire chinese mafia by bitch-slapping them with a bouquet of flowers?

[Odeezee]

They also said that LS would be deep, that there would be a big pvp/wvw reveal at pax and many other things they never delivered on.

Just because someone says something doesn't make it true...

Did you know I once single-handedly fended off the entire chinese mafia by bitch-slapping them with a bouquet of flowers?

completely irrelevant analogy. until there is evidence to the contrary we go with what they said unless ofc you are the one developing the game and you have insider information that we don't have. /sigh

[Meledelion]

1. completely irrelevant analogy.
2. until there is evidence to the contrary we go with what they said unless ofc you are the one developing the game and you have insider information that we don't have.
3./sigh

1. Yes because we know a-net has lied/misrepresented stuff in the past yet I haven't. I should've looked for a better analogy a car-salesman perhaps since they're known to lie. If you have had any contact with the court, we're establishing the credibility of the person/institution using past acts.
2. That's fine, but as long as you hold that perspective you must believe what I said about beating up the mob, unless ofc you are in the chinese mob and have insider information that others don't have.
You're trying to make me (and everyone else who disagrees with you) disprove a negative which is impossible. A similar construction would be "disprove to me that whenever my goldfish isn't being osberved he jumps out of his bowl and dances the tango."
3. ditto

[Svifnymr]

They also said that LS would be deep, that there would be a big pvp/wvw reveal at pax and many other things they never delivered on.

LS's "depth" is subjective, like the difficulty of some things, I think they actually believe the stuff and aren't lying.
Same with the big announcement, they announce the Wv competition, big to some, not big to others.

The main thing that they never really redeemed was the "coming in February/ March, we'll have an expansions worth of stuff!". They really should explain that, but I think they depend on the fickleness of their audience not remembering it.

But Pepperidge Farms remembers!

Just because someone says something doesn't make it true...

There's a difference between being wrong and lying though. Why they "planned" a tier above Exotic doesn't make a lot of sense, why not just make that tier Exotic... but then they do have exotics before level 80, so maybe they always planned a level 80 only tier that was tough but not as bad as Legendary...

No clue, too many of these companies play their NDA's close to their chest.

Did you know I once single-handedly fended off the entire chinese mafia by bitch-slapping them with a bouquet of flowers?

Probably did, using some broken build with iron flowers and really weak maf's. Cheater!

[Karizee]

Here's a nice write-up on ascended crafting.

http://dragonseason.com/Front/tabid/...s-A-Guide.aspx

[Meledelion]

@Svifnymr
I agree, there's many things in the past which have left nasty scars on my end. We have a word in my native language to describe someone as unintentionally not telling the truth. The problem is that with a company it's hard to use this term since there should be (at least in my opinion) lots of feedback from within before they push out these statements, they have marketing firms and community managers for a reason.

The thing about ascended gear being in the pipelines for a long time is weird since it was never announced or even hinted at before the southsun update which was roughly 4months after release. article confirming this.

In that article they point out a-net's reason for introducing ascended gear: "to make the gap between exotic and legendary less of a big jump". This doesn't sound like something they had planned for all along. Secondly that's not what ascended gear does at all. You'd expect that the tiers based on stats (best to worst) would be leg>asc>exo>rare>mw>fine>basic. They will be leg=asc>exo>rare>mw>fine>basic. This is a bit odd if you add in another quote from a-net regarding legendaries: " Legendary equipment will always have the same relative stats as the highest quality available for the item type." Taking that quote into consideration it would seem that what is going to happen is X=best stat = legendary>asc>exo>rare>...

Combining those two quotes makes it fairly obvious that at the time of implementation a-net hadn't planned for ascended gear all along.

Having a name for the tiers of bad to good weapons is normal, using these tiers regardless of level is also normal. It's done in all MMO's I can think of and I've never seen anyone complain about it so in my mind it would be weird to all of a sudden fix this (non-)problem.


P.S.: I doubt a-net will implement another tier better than ascended but it does look like they have considered it at one point in the past.

[Svifnymr]

@Svifnymr
I agree, there's many things in the past which have left nasty scars on my end. We have a word in my native language to describe someone as unintentionally not telling the truth. The problem is that with a company it's hard to use this term since there should be (at least in my opinion) lots of feedback from within before they push out these statements, they have marketing firms and community managers for a reason.

While I understand that there is competition in the video game market (well, every market), the "corporate secret" approach is oftentimes more trouble than it's worth. There is also the "don't promise if you're not sure of delivering" thing, which is also a function of the constantly changing nature of the MMO market as well as the fact that a lot of stuff just seems like they are deciding as they go.

Which I mean, it's fine for what it is, but developing for 7 years and then deciding after launch how to advance the game doesn't always inspire confidence.

The thing about ascended gear being in the pipelines for a long time is weird since it was never announced or even hinted at before the southsun update which was roughly 4months after release. article confirming this.

In that article they point out a-net's reason for introducing ascended gear: "to make the gap between exotic and legendary less of a big jump". This doesn't sound like something they had planned for all along. Secondly that's not what ascended gear does at all. You'd expect that the tiers based on stats (best to worst) would be leg>asc>exo>rare>mw>fine>basic. They will be leg=asc>exo>rare>mw>fine>basic. This is a bit odd if you add in another quote from a-net regarding legendaries: " Legendary equipment will always have the same relative stats as the highest quality available for the item type." Taking that quote into consideration it would seem that what is going to happen is X=best stat = legendary>asc>exo>rare>...

It depends on how you view things, really. If you view it as "we need a tier of max level gear that you have to work for", they could have run out of time to determine how they wanted the weapons to be gained. Assuming this, they put the tier aside and set legendary stats to equal Exotic so that legendaries were not "better" than what was in game, but equal. In this scenario, rather than legendaries being bumped up to Ascended, they're just being returned to those stats after having been reduced for game launch. Assumedly they were more focused on getting legendaries in game.

But, obviously that's just a devil's advocate situation on my part, I don't know how it really played out. In the end it doesn't really matter TOO much, given we either play the game or don't, and should take everything they say (or any game developer says) with a huge grain of salt.

P.S.: I doubt a-net will implement another tier better than ascended but it does look like they have considered it at one point in the past.

I think it's just another "lets hedge our bets, we don't know what the hell we MIGHT do at some point".

[Meledelion]

Which I mean, it's fine for what it is, but developing for 7 years and then deciding after launch how to advance the game doesn't always inspire confidence.

That's what I was getting at in short.

[Fkiolaris]

people should not worry. Collin said that they rushed the game to ship so they left Ascended out to meet the deadline, but it was always intended to be in the game from the start, it just took them a minute to implement. funny think about Ascended stuff though is that it is VERY easy to acquire playing the game however you like to play; PvE, WvW and even tPvP (thought that is only if you want to do any PvE or WvW).

From what I remember around the time of the reddit AMA after announcing the Ascended gear, Mike O'Brien said that they decided to add vertical gear progression because (his words, not mine) "GW1 felt stale because it didn't have vertical gear progression". I don't know if that was retracted/clarified since, but that pretty much sealed the deal for me NOT to get GW2 because if I want vertical gear progression then I can pick up a million other MMOs (and that was a bitter pill for me to swallow since I was so hyped about the game). Also, unless they went back to it, for me that statement said that there always will be a "new" tier (or part of it) to get, making the whole "friendly for casuals that want to get in and out" concept moot. If I remember things incorrectly or I am missing updates then please let me know, but that's the image I have in mind and based on that the announcement for the ascended weapons are of no surprise and nothing much to debate about. Once the full ascended set is available, then it would be the time to debate the game's direction imo.

[Gray_Matter]

From what I remember around the time of the reddit AMA after announcing the Ascended gear, Mike O'Brien said that they decided to add vertical gear progression because (his words, not mine) "GW1 felt stale because it didn't have vertical gear progression". I don't know if that was retracted/clarified since, but that pretty much sealed the deal for me NOT to get GW2 because if I want vertical gear progression then I can pick up a million other MMOs (and that was a bitter pill for me to swallow since I was so hyped about the game). Also, unless they went back to it, for me that statement said that there always will be a "new" tier (or part of it) to get, making the whole "friendly for casuals that want to get in and out" concept moot. If I remember things incorrectly or I am missing updates then please let me know, but that's the image I have in mind and based on that the announcement for the ascended weapons are of no surprise and nothing much to debate about. Once the full ascended set is available, then it would be the time to debate the game's direction imo.

I think you are doing yourself a disservice. A number of people who are not fans of the game have said that the leveling is worth the price on it's own. I don't remember what actually happened but I have never been unable to do any content because of gear. Not once.

- - - Updated - - -

Another thing, I have been preparing for this patch

About 400 champ bags saved so far, 10 exotics, 1250 mithril ore, some wood, about 10 pirate runes and some globs. Have bankrupted myself (well, buying the 5k in gems didn't help but what can I say) so hope it's worth it.

[Arlee]

Yes, Ascended weapons are account bound. You cannot buy them. I was trying to find out if you can just simply buy the mats from people who did the time sinks and skip the time sinks yourself, but nobody knows for sure yet.

The mats you make from lower level mats (the steel and wood planks) are tradeable, but they will be a limited supply because they require a mat that has a 1 a day CD and is account bound to make. All the other mats are account bound.

About 400 champ bags saved so far, 10 exotics, 1250 mithril ore, some wood, about 10 pirate runes and some globs. Have bankrupted myself (well, buying the 5k in gems didn't help but what can I say) so hope it's worth it.

Yep. I also stocked up on Blues and Greens last night doing invasions so I can salvage them and hopefully get a bunch of Magic Find to start off with.

- - - Updated - - -

Here's a nice write-up on ascended crafting.

http://dragonseason.com/Front/tabid/...s-A-Guide.aspx

The chart in that is brilliant. I wish I had thought of it. Was hard to explain how everything worked together without using a billion words

[Drakhar]

"GW1 felt stale because it didn't have vertical gear progression". I don't know if that was retracted/clarified since...

I read that "I don't know if that was retarded/clarified..." and immediatley thought: "yes, it was quite retarded."

So dem costs for Ascended weapons... wow

completely irrelevant analogy. until there is evidence to the contrary we go with what they said unless ofc you are the one developing the game and you have insider information that we don't have. /sigh

Completely irrelevant because... you don't agree with it? Nice try brah.

[Deleted]

I bet some people here don't use traits such as Fiery Wrath or Slashing Power, since 10% is just minimal.
I guess people that played melee on GW1 and wasted shitton of money to get weapons with 15^50 were a bunch of retards aswell.

[Meledelion]

I bet some people here don't use traits such as Fiery Wrath or Slashing Power, since 10% is just minimal.
I guess people that played melee on GW1 and wasted shitton of money to get weapons with 15^50 were a bunch of retards aswell.

You're forgetting people who get r7 shields/weapons etc too

[Lane]

I don't know what happened to Traveler's runes. There's no condition damage on them at all.