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  1. #1

    Content Gates Vs Gear Gates

    I just wanted to make a thread to point out the differences between what GW2 posters are afraid is happening, and what is actually happening.

    World Of Warcraft has Content gates. In order to do certain things you need to first do X,Y, or Z. In MoP this takes shape in the form of dailies. In order to get access to the gear you need to do raids you are strongly encouraged to do dailies. Now you dont have to do these dailies and can choose to get a full heroic dungeon set and try to do raid content but youll find yourself at a severe disadvantage and you will more than likely not be able to see all the content raiding has to offer. <<<< That is a Content Gate. You must have at least a few higher ilvl pieces if you wish to see raid content.

    Anet said they didnt want this type of gate on their content. Instead they have made all content viable since day 1 (provided your the correct level) Once you are the proper level for dungeons you can complete that dungeon no matter how bad your gear is. Dungeons are scaled for replay-ablility and zones are scaled for the same reason as well. Anet then put a gate on gear. If you want this gear you have to run this dungeon, If you want this legendary you have to farm these items. This isnt the same as WoW's gate because in WoW the heroic raid gear is blocked off. A fresh level 90 in greens isnt going to be able to do heroic Heart of Fear. A fresh level 80 in Blues can do HoTW explore and get his gear set. Anet have allowed anyone and everyone access to their content and the items that come with it.

    Anet are now introducing a new dungeon. Lets think of it like a exploreable dungeon. There are 9 paths. You have to finish 3 paths to complete the dungeon. After which you are rewarded with the normal loot you get from other exploreable modes. You are then given the option to do 3 more paths with more rewards at the end at the cost of an increase in difficulty. You complete those paths and are given the same option again and again and again. Eventually you happen to get a new item tagged Ascended.

    Now pls tell me how the content required you to grind for gear in order to complete it. Tell me where Anet its holding content from you. Your going to be able to clear this content and get rewarded for doing so. The new gear is just another "hey look at me i got really far in the difficulty and can prove it" Not "hey look at me i had to run this dungeon to get to the next dungeon to get to the next dungeon to get to the next dungeon (all different dungeons btw cuz running the same dungeon wouldnt make sense) and i couldnt have done it if i hadnt had this epic gear, Its all cuz of this gear that i completed these dungeons to see the content"

    Bottom line. Your going to be able to see the content. Your going to be able to complete the content. Your going to get rewarded and recognized if you get to high difficulties, and you can do this content in all greens.

    Ty for your time.

  2. #2
    So where is the official statement that all this content can be done in "greens"?

    The new blog post directly contradicts that claim at the moment. Is this one of those "good faith" things Martin Kerstein informed players about this morning?

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    So where is the official statement that all this content can be done in "greens"?

    The new blog post directly contradicts that claim at the moment. Is this one of those "good faith" things Martin Kerstein informed players about this morning?
    Zeek never said all of the new upcoming dungeon can be done in greens. He said HotW(heart of the waves) explore could be done in greens. There is no official word that this is possible but people have done it, just makes the dungeon harder. As to the new Fractals of the mists dungeon who knows. There will probably be a few nutballs that go out and try to clear the hardest part in greens just for the challenge although the average player probably wont be able to do that or even clear the whole dungeon.

    In any case even if blue/green gear is too weak to do the new dungeon you also have to consider how easy it is to get top quality gear. Rare quality gear is probably good enough and a full set of that is trivial to obtain even for a fresh 80 if they've been even remotely frugal while leveling. Even exotic quality gear can be had with only a minimum of farming for coin or dungeon running. There's really no excuse to not have access to the needed gear if not the moment you hit 80 then withen a play session or two. Compare that to days or weeks of grinding dailys and dungeons/raids with WoW style content gateing and people are makeing much ado about nothing. Sure you could argue that someone ground an explorable mode for days to get their exotic set but thats cause they chose to take that path even though there were quicker options. The other difference is this game does not move the gear goalposts every new patch while WoW does so gleefuly.

    As an additional note This whole assended/infusion system at the moment only applies to rings and back slots. It seems very much like haveing to get infused armor to protect agianst spectral agony in GW1. If you dont get it its painfuly difficult to advance any further but the game all but hands you the needed tool once you reach the point of needing it.
    Last edited by Merendel; 2012-11-13 at 05:55 AM.

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  4. #4
    Zeek never said all of the new upcoming dungeon can be done in greens. He said HotW(heart of the waves) explore could be done in greens.
    He said it in the "bottom line".

    To wit~

    Bottom line. Your going to be able to see the content. Your going to be able to complete the content. Your going to get rewarded and recognized if you get to high difficulties, and you can do this content in all greens.
    Blog post specifically mentions continued item progression in the works.

  5. #5
    The Lightbringer Durzlla's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    So where is the official statement that all this content can be done in "greens"?

    The new blog post directly contradicts that claim at the moment. Is this one of those "good faith" things Martin Kerstein informed players about this morning?
    Well... if it's anything like the other explo modes you're capable of doing it at lv 80.... in lv 16 armor... because you know, getting clerics armor at level while you're not a leather worker would just be to awesome for you to do... and yeah, trading post was broken so fuck that suggestion!! I think if i could clear a path or two in CoF, CoE, TA, CM, AC, and all of HotW in lv 16 armor, you can clear this new thing in greens...
    Quote Originally Posted by draykorinee View Post
    Youre in the mmo forums and you find mmos boring, Im heading on over to the twilight forums to add my unecessary and shallow 2 cents.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Durzlla View Post
    Well... if it's anything like the other explo modes you're capable of doing it at lv 80.... in lv 16 armor... because you know, getting clerics armor at level while you're not a leather worker would just be to awesome for you to do... and yeah, trading post was broken so fuck that suggestion!! I think if i could clear a path or two in CoF, CoE, TA, CM, AC, and all of HotW in lv 16 armor, you can clear this new thing in greens...
    Once again, the very blog itself contradicts these claims.

    To wit.

    Players who wish to delve deep into the Fractals will find that Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must. The only way to mitigate Agony damage is by building up resistance through Infusions, a new type of upgrade component that can be acquired in the Mystic Forge.

  7. #7
    The Lightbringer Durzlla's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    Once again, the very blog itself contradicts these claims.

    To wit.
    I meant get to the point where you can actually get the ascension gear, not the whole going deeper into it sort of thing.
    Quote Originally Posted by draykorinee View Post
    Youre in the mmo forums and you find mmos boring, Im heading on over to the twilight forums to add my unecessary and shallow 2 cents.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    He said it in the "bottom line".

    Blog post specifically mentions continued item progression in the works.
    It would seem I missed that line in zeek's post, however as I mentioned they only said you would need these items to protect agianst agony the further you go. They are available in the dungeon so it stands to reason that the first stretch of the dungeon assumes you have none and could be done with whatever gear you could reasonably be expected to scrounge up at 80.
    Players who wish to delve deep into the Fractals will find that Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must. The only way to mitigate Agony damage is by building up resistance through Infusions, a new type of upgrade component that can be acquired in the Mystic Forge.
    There does appear to be a very minor amount of power creep they are puting in with this "Item Progression" but its also only a couple slots at a time and very tiny boosts at that. the ring they showed for example was 2 added points on the primary stats and 3 from the upgrade slot stats. It adds up but even a whole set following that line of progression will add a barely noticeable bump in power. Contrast this to WoW where damage/healing output can jump 50% or more going from one tier to the next. IF you dont have that jump in power your stuck, here that jump is easily lost in the background noise of combat and the only gateing mechanic is the need for the infusion to protect agianst the mechanic and the boosted stats are unimportant to all but the number fanatics.
    Last edited by Merendel; 2012-11-13 at 06:13 AM.

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  9. #9
    The Lightbringer Durzlla's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Merendel View Post
    It would seem I missed that line in zeek's post, however as I mentioned they only said you would need these items to protect agianst agony the further you go. They are available in the dungeon so it stands to reason that the first stretch of the dungeon assumes you have none and could be done with whatever gear you could reasonably be expected to scrounge up at 80.


    There does appear to be a very minor amount of power creep they are puting in with this "Item Progression" but its also only a couple slots at a time and very tiny boosts at that. the ring they showed for example was 2 added points on the primary stats and 3 from the upgrade slot stats. It adds up but even a whole set following that line of progression will add a barely noticeable bump in power. Contrast this to WoW where damage/healing output can jump 50% or more going from one tier to the next. IF you dont have that jump in power your stuck, here that jump is easily lost in the background noise of combat and the only gateing mechanic is the need for the infusion to protect agianst the mechanic and the boosted stats are unimportant to all but the number fanatics.
    Worst case scenario (assuming you have enough infusion) is you eat a meal a cook can make, boom stat gap gone and you're on the higher ground (most people don't even use these buffs... so it's really quite advantageous)
    Quote Originally Posted by draykorinee View Post
    Youre in the mmo forums and you find mmos boring, Im heading on over to the twilight forums to add my unecessary and shallow 2 cents.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Merendel View Post
    There does appear to be a very minor amount of power creep they are puting in with this "Item Progression" but its also only a couple slots at a time and very tiny boosts at that.
    Well I don't wanna quote myself too much on this but I am sorta awesome so, yah.

    The amount of stat increase is irrelevant. The addition of linear gear progression post level cap is totally hypocritical of basically everything Arena.net have been selling under the GW2 franchise.

    The blog further states out right more gear progression will come in the future. Jury is still out on degree of increase over X cycles of progression or whether these "complimentary" items will be up to par.

    Though I would wager my hat such "complimentary" items will be tied to some form of cash shop device as an eventuality.

    The point is thus: As of Lost Shores, Guild Wars will have linear gear progression. It is completely in the right to call Arena.net out on this as hypocrites.

    Worst case scenario (assuming you have enough infusion) is you eat a meal a cook can make, boom stat gap gone and you're on the higher ground (most people don't even use these buffs... so it's really quite advantageous)
    What if someone with infused gear +XX also eat the same meal? :>
    Last edited by Fencers; 2012-11-13 at 06:30 AM.

  11. #11
    Again Fencers the content is easily doable. If you want to see all the Fractles you can. Gear isnt going to be a problem to see all 9 dungeons. The Infusions are only there for those who want to keep going deeper into the dungeon. I dont see how this is a problem. Are you planning on doing high end difficult Fractles? If so you should be smart enough to know that the dungeon is eventually going to surpass your gear.

    Now i made this thread b4 reading or b4 that blog was even made. And now its even more pointless for ppl to be complaining. All they are doing is adding a condition that ticks on you. As you do higher and higher difficulties that tick hits harder and harder. So again only those going for the high difficulty and high rewards are going to feel the burn of this new condition. The current top gear (exotics) doesnt have a way to mitigate this damage so they made a new set of armor that can have slots to put the infusions in. This is prolly cuz they didnt want to add infusion slots to exotics that are not being dropped in the dungeon. Cuz since Agony only appears in the dungeon why should exotic sets that are already in game and availible everywhere get that infusion slot.

    The stats are only slightly higher on Ascended armor so there is no huge power jump, and the infusions do nothing but mitigate Agony dmg. Although im looking at the post now and it says there will be offensive infusions too so your prolly looking at dmg increases against certain mobs inside the dungeon, not in the outside world not in WvW.

    I know you like pointing out that Anet said they didnt want gear progression. But adding a higher stated item does not mean gear progression. You are not required to get that gear in order to see content. All 9 of those Fractles are available to the lowest geared 80's. The only thing that isnt available is the 9 fractles at the highest of difficulties. Games with gear progression prevent you from even seeing the content. This is why blizz put in LFR, Although they still did it wrong as LFR still requires Gear progression. GW2 does it right, no gear progression is required to start doing this dungeon.

    -edit-

    Just looked at the ring comparison in the blog post and the stat increases are a joke. And i mean that in a good way. When they said Slight they ment slight.
    Last edited by Zeek Daniels; 2012-11-13 at 12:36 PM.

  12. #12
    I kind of agree with Zeek on this one. First and foremost, I dislike gear treadmill and I don't want it interfering with the content I choose to play. Still, if there is a slight gear progression for people who want to experience the same content, but on a more difficult setting - I don't mind. This thing will probably make hardcore PvE players happier without having any drawbacks for casual players.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Zeek Daniels View Post
    In order to get access to the gear you need to do raids
    No, you don't.

    Raids can be done in 463 heroic blues - even DPS checks, or even lower for rest of the bosses. I remember ragtag bunch of guildies taking on DS with 350 healer (me) and 370 equipment on the rest. All the retarded "LFM MSV, you need ilvl 475+" you'd see in trade only prove that announcer's skill is pathetic and he wants to bruteforce encounter through superior gear and not actually challenge it.

  14. #14
    what a shock the people who dont like gear treadmills sugar coat it and claim it ok in gw2. sorry, they are hypocrits. look at the manifesto, its a bunch of contradictory horseshit.

    exactly how long do you think it will be before people REQUIRE you to be in ascended gear for groups? and even when anet admit in the blogpost they are introducting further item progression, the white knights claim CLAIM anet are somehow wrong? LOL

    now i know why 2 of the 3 founding members for the original gw are gone, because this game has proven time and time again the PR hype was all just that, they duped thousands and thousands of people, then ninja patch in diminishing returns without a single word. only mention it until people start wondering why loot drops were getting worse and worse.

    anet are hypocritical lying sacks of poop which, to all my lovely haters, proved i was right all along. if this isnt the biggest travesty to 'their' game decision and yet some of you still defend i have only one thing to say: its not me or anyone else wrong with why or how mmo's progress, its you and the blind fandom that stops a company after 3 months to go back on everything they said for the sake of, well, who knows.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by rowaasr13 View Post
    No, you don't.

    Raids can be done in 463 heroic blues - even DPS checks, or even lower for rest of the bosses. I remember ragtag bunch of guildies taking on DS with 350 healer (me) and 370 equipment on the rest. All the retarded "LFM MSV, you need ilvl 475+" you'd see in trade only prove that announcer's skill is pathetic and he wants to bruteforce encounter through superior gear and not actually challenge it.
    Was that b4 or after the nerfs to DS. Also 4.3 is a different patch than 5.0. Multiple ppl have said that heroic dungeons in 4.3 provided the gear needed to start doing normal mode DS. In 5.0 alot of ppl have been saying that heroic dungeons do not provide adequate gear to do normals and that farming dailies is a must in order to progress in the raids.

    @infiniteretro
    Geartreadmills mean you need to aquire set A to do dungeon A then Dungeon B comes out which requires set B, then dungeon C comes out which requires set C. That is a treadmill of gear.

    This is what GW2 is doing. Dungeon A comes out, You need to be at least X level to complete it. Dungeon B comes out, you need to be at least level Y to complete it. Now Dungon FOM comes out, well you cant technically complete it but you can complete each part of it provided you are level 80, and for those that like harder challenges we will increase the difficulty each time you complete 3 parts of it, and to combat this new difficulty we will introduce a way to deal with difficulty as well as adding a new item set.

    In no way does GW2 Require that you farm get set A to get set B to get set C. All GW2 wants you to do is get to the level the dungeon is made for. After that the dungeons are based on skills or strategy to complete the encounters. The new gear is slightly stronger. So if your one of those ppl who always wants max stats on gear to stroke your ego (since the gear isnt requried to complete anything) then yea you should be pissed that you have to do this new dungeon that you may not like. But if your like me who only wants to see the content and maybe get involved in later difficulties some time down the road, you shouldnt have anything to worry about.

    Now there is one thing. And that is i hope they continue to add non FoM dungeons that provide more dungeon sets of exotic level. If they Add more of those dungeons and keep expanding on the FoM dungeon i think they will do just fine. If however they only keep expanding the FoM dungeon and dont add more regular dungeons i think that is a big problem.
    Last edited by Zeek Daniels; 2012-11-13 at 01:04 PM.

  16. #16
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    So, you pick raid "A" because you need gear "a", not because you want to finish raid "A"? Looks like many people will complain about "OMG THIS DUNGEON IS STUPID I DON'T WANT TO FINISH IT BUT I NEED GEAR"?
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  17. #17
    Deleted
    I disagree with slight increase, the way it works it's currently a slight increase of each stats, but the way damage is calculated in most game, even a slight increase will yield a significant advantage.

    having 7% more power, 7% more critical chance, 7% more weapon damage, and 7% more critical damage (just for the sake of the example) will yield more than a 7% overall damage increase because everything is multiplicative: Base_damage (from weapon and power) *((1-crit_chance) +(crit_chance * crit_multiplier))

    (It might not be 7% just took that value because someone pulled out that number somewhere).

  18. #18
    Deleted
    Why is it when people try to discuss something negative in a rational, constructive manner, they're still labelled as "complaining"?

    For me, on a purely personal - how I play the game level, I don't care. It's not going to change the way I play the game or my enjoyment. If anything, I'm looking forward to a new dungeon regardless of the rewards. I'm not afraid of a gear progression, I'm intrigued and interested in discussing the implications and thinking about the design.

    But it is hypocritical at this point of Arena Net. It is gear progression no matter how much people say "yes but it's only 5% and for one dungeon", so what, it's still a tiered progression that they said you would not need. I do not believe that this eventuality was part of their design philosophy through development or at launch which to me begs the question as to why they're doing it now. It just doesn't quite sit right with me.

    Doesn't make me want to curl into a foetal ball and cry or start spewing hatred and ranting about refunds? Of course not, I think that sort of extreme reaction is ludicrous as well. It definitely deserves some thought and constructive discussion though without people saying "stop complaining!".

    The power creep may be miniscule at this point; but they've made it clear you will eventually have a full set of ascended gear and at that point it's likely to be less miniscule. We're 3 months in. What about 6, 12, 18, 24 months in. Is this the only tier that's going to be added?

    Will there be a point where to get an achievement or to see the end of a dungeon, you need to get a rare/exotic set in order to farm tier 1 of the dungeon to get ascended accessories in order to farm tier 2 of the dungeon to get a full ascended set to farm tier 3 of the dungeon to get your achievement/whatever? What about the next dungeons in the future? Will they require ascended gear to even start? Meaning you'll have to complete the end of the lost shores dungeon to start future dungeons? Who knows... speculation, but it's a worry for a lot of people.

    To me it seems like a really weird design change just 3 months into release and I really want to know why they changed the philosophy. I do not believe that they did not know the reaction they'd get to it so they must think it's necessary for the overall state of game.

    I don't do WvW by the way; I have a feeling this is going to annoy serious WvWers a lot more than PvEers. If it's only a 5-10% increase in stats then to someone in PvE or even in a 5 man dungeon, that's not going to be mandatory but when you've got a 50 man group all in ascended gear going against a 50 man group all in exotic gear - how big a difference will it make then? If WvWers end up feeling like they need to farm this PvE dungeon in order to keep their server winning... there is going to be a lot more drama than we are seeing right now.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    Another thread that's gonna be full of rationalizations.

    The Agony mechanic pretty much guarantees that you'll have to pick up more and more Ascended gear.
    The fact that the dungeon scales in difficulty indefinitely requires new gear be made to compensate.

    Lets say Agony doesnt become a problem till x5 difficulty, That means you have run 15 total Fractales. Lets say the most skilled and hardcore players can get to x7 difficulty before it becomes to much for them to handle and they cant progress. This means your infinite dungeon is now just a dungeon you can run a max of 27 times if your really good without having a single infused piece of gear. Does that sound like a gear treadmill? They just gave all that content and you didnt need a single piece of Ascended gear to do it, hypothetically.

    Now lets say that elite group all got lucky and earned 1 ascended piece and those pieces each had an infusion slot. They are now able to reach x9 difficulty regularly and make it to x10 difficulty every 5 tries. Im not even going to do math on how many Fractles that is.

    In the end only those who want a difficult challenge need to worry about Ascended gear. Well that and people who only care about their stats and want to have max stats on every piece.

    Everyone will get to do this content. Not everyone will do the content on a high enough difficulty to even need the gear. Its your personal choice. If you want the gear do the higher difficulties, If you want to do the higher difficulties get the gear, If you only want to run these casually then reset the damn instance b4 agony gets out of control.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shamanic View Post
    The power creep may be miniscule at this point; but they've made it clear you will eventually have a full set of ascended gear and at that point it's likely to be less miniscule. We're 3 months in. What about 6, 12, 18, 24 months in. Is this the only tier that's going to be added?
    They wont need to, or at least shouldnt. I thought about this a bit. Maybe introduce 2 new slot pieces each time you expand on the dungeon. Also once your done with every slot you dont need to add a new tier, you just add new infusions. For instance lets say that a defensive infusion in a slot provides a 2% reduction in Agony dmg. Thats a total of 24% reduction in Agony dmg if you put that infusion in each slot. Now eventually that 24% dmg reduction is not going to be enough in later difficulties of the dungeon. While expanding on the dungeon they can add higher % reduction infusions so instead of 2% your getting 4%. This way you dont have to add more gear tiers but just new infusions that can be obtained at later difficulties of the dungeon or by mystic forge.

    And again only the players actually reaching those difficulties are going to need those infusions. Casual players wont.
    Last edited by Zeek Daniels; 2012-11-13 at 02:16 PM.

  20. #20
    While I am not surprised to see them add Infusion and (Spectral) Agony to the game, I am surprised that they added a completely new Tier of items. What they should have done was just add a new Infusion slot to all Exotic gear, so that all people need to do is find the special drops to Infuse their armor. This way, you don't add in Item Creep and you now have a mechanic that can be used in other special dungeons (instead of Infusing for Agony, you can Infuse with anti-Titan or anti-Joko, etc).

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