f13.net

New Item Quality Level - Ascended
While it remains to be seen exactly how many new items are being added in terms of new weapon or armor sets, we do know that a new quality level is being introduced: Ascended. This will be one step higher than exotic quality items, so it will be interesting to see how that impacts gearing up at level 80. As things stand currently, level 80 rares are basically something you only equip while piecing together an exotic set, and from there most people either salvage them for ectos or sell them on the trading post.

Hopefully the ascended gear will be somewhat difficult to obtain, otherwise it might end up greatly devaluing exotics moving forward. New items are also supposed to be hitting the current dungeon vendors, so I'm also curious to see how that will fit into the bigger itemization picture. According to ArenaNet, this new item quality is intended to help give the endgame a more distinct sense of progression, so I'd imagine that there won't be a massive amount of ascended gear hitting the live game right away either way.

It's also worth noting that with the update there will be a new resource to harvest, along with 200 new crafting recipes being added. Presumably these will be focused on the ascended quality level as well, so it will be interesting to see how expensive the new recipes will be to create given the current high production costs on exotic gear.

Ascended ITEMS with Infusion slots. These are whole new gear pieces people, NOT a new tier of armor. kitten the new dungeon deals with “fractals” that get harder the more you go in. Anyone think that maybe, just maybe, these new “ascended Items” are just gear pieces made for this particular dungeon (and likely for similar future dungeons), where you might have to upgrade your “infusions” based on certain fractals?
That actually sounds pretty cool. It’s basically a form of progression that isn’t necessary, but gives a reason to keep re-doing this dungeon.
Want to complete the dungeon once?
Cool, you can. You don’t need Ascended gear or Infusions to do it. You finished, have fun.
Want to run it multiple times and challenge yourself with higher difficulty each time?
Cool, go for it. Make sure you have your Ascended item and the proper Infusion.
This literally helps both sides of this coin. If you like to grind and like to max stats, you can grind the fractals till they become so difficult you start to bleed from the ears, and you can min-max on the infusions to your hearts content. If you just like to experience content once or twice you can run this dungeon a few times do that and you’ll have no issues with it.

I don't think whatever this new gear is will actually affect me. But, why are some of you against this even if it is a post-Legendary or between Exotic-Legendary gearset? Is it because it's too soon to obsolete current Exotics and Legendaries because it will break the economy? Just curious.

It feels to me like it would be too fast to obsolete the Legendaries. But then I have no idea how many people are kitted in Exoctics and visiting the Forge every day.

Also wondering about this new resource and 200 new recipes. We talking across all professions or also a new profession?

Legendaries and Exotics have the same damage/stats.

The only silver lining I see is that ascended armor (probably) won't have rune slots, so you'd have to give up your set bonuses to use them.

I'm only enjoying the dungeons because Sachiel and Selma grabbed myself and Vu to start running them.  We make a good group that can take just about anyone else along in the fifth slot.  Vu and I also run with our tiny little guild, and while we can make it to the end of most, it's just nowhere near as smooth.

The way I'm reading this (or at least, choosing to) is that the Ascended gear has marginally better straight stats than Exotic gear but is balanced by having Infusion slots instead of Upgrade slots. The Infusion slots exist purely to counteract Agony, which is (and I sincerely hope remains) an NPC/Mob condition that won't be available to players and therefore won't affect PvP/WvW. The Infusion items, if ANet have any goddamn sense at all, will be beneficial purely for these Fractal dungeons but remain close enough to Exotics stats-wise that you might not bother swapping armours out to play standard PvE etc. Another caveat to wearing Ascended items may be that you won't have access to set bonuses. I'd probably be happiest if the Ascended gear was kept strictly to non-aesthetic items; ie the accessory slots (with the exception of the back slot which you can see if you choose to display it). That way the standard visual gear implementation in the game remains as it always was - hard stat ceiling aesthetic prestige.

I'm honestly looking forward to the new dungeons.

I'm only enjoying the dungeons because Sachiel and Selma grabbed myself and Vu to start running them.  We make a good group that can take just about anyone else along in the fifth slot.  Vu and I also run with our tiny little guild, and while we can make it to the end of most, it's just nowhere near as smooth.

Nope. They're prestige only.

I can tell there's a lot of angst in this thread.  Could anyone nutshell this for the layman?   :grin:

TLDR version:

Everyone expected the GW1 system where the top end gear is essentially a flat cap that never goes up over the life of the game. ArenaNet introduces gear that goes over the established cap a mere 3 months in. Rage ensues.

From a game play standpoint, you're at least 100 hours away from worrying about anything posted in the last 30 threads on this sub-board. Shit, I'm like 150-whatever hours in and I'm still asking newb questions. I love GW2 like I haven't loved an MMO since the first few months of WoW. This has come closest to giving me everything I want, from 5 minute sessions that have demonstrable rewards all the way to super fluid groups that don't require OCD-levels of attentiveness in four hour blocks.

Outside of that: any specific questions?

Ah, I get it.  But then if the top end gear never becomes better than anything else, what's the point of introducing new gear unless it's just cosmetically different?

No, nothing specific.  I'm just intrigued over how angsty it appears people are getting over something.  I'm sure that if I commit and pick this up, by the time I am of level to concern myself over the events of this thread, the matter will probably have resolved itself.

I'm just not feeling the anger, dudes. The ring they showed was what? +2 on two stats.

This metric of success impacted a lot of our early content-related design decisions for Guild Wars 2. Some examples include:

    Fun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.

+4, IIRC. The issue is that the total comes out to an 8% stat increase when the set is done. Which in RVR turns into "you must raid to pvp"

Upcoming update will add a new arbitrarily difficult dungeon and new arbitrarily stronger armor that lets you beat the dungeon once you have grinded to get it.

+4, IIRC. The issue is that the total comes out to an 8% stat increase when the set is done. Which in RVR turns into "you must raid to pvp"

??

uh...


Are you sure?
Did miss the 18 Prec and 18 Power? Or without the gem, the Exotic alone isn't up to par?

Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two.

I know there's no stat difference between AC and Arah, it just serves to underline that some people will be elitist assholes about gear even if it doesn't have stats. Same idea with having to link raid achievements to get in PUGs in WOW. Only now with the ascended gear such elitism will be a lot more wide-spread...

e: I think some of this could apply to GW1 too, actually. Most PVP groups for TA/AB/etc only accepted pugs that had a high pvp rank already. I'm not sure if you needed to have a certain grind-title to get in the high-end elite dungeon runs like DOA or Underworld, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.

Our Studio Design Director Chris Whiteside just posted this:

“I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.

Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.

Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores."
Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

Good luck with we don't have the numbers defense.  Do you even play this game?  Stats are huge.  Exotics +13% advantage over rares.  So +8% ascended is substantial.

Doesn't matter. I don't like gear grinds. They changed their mind about gear grinds and so have I about playing GW2. We know were this bullshit goes.

But its probably a good business move.  Suckers and money and all that.

It's easy enough to demonstrate without having to resort to figuring out the effects of stats on DPS. Just look at how vitality scales, and assume that DPS and the more hidden survivability stats scale in the same way. An 8% or 13% increase in vitality is significant; it is safe to assume that it will be significant for the other stats as well.

EDIT: And actually even if it isn't, just scaling health by a bunch for a segment of the population will be pretty harmful.

From what I'm understanding as an outsider looking in, it seems that this new gear does actually fall in between exotic and legendary.  Is the angst due to the fear that those that can barely cut obtaining exotic will be further segregated from being viable in WvW because those that CAN obtain exotic and CAN obtain this new gear (but still can't get their hands on legendary) will be more powerful?

It's certainly not going to be non-zero, but damage almost never works on a linear 1 for 1 scale in MMOs. There are always a whole bunch of moving parts which adjust it. And, again, I can't stress enough that no set bonuses are going to be huge, even if they do expand it outward to all gear slots.

As long as they offer a way for you to earn Ascended level things through wvw, what does it matter if they creep?  

As long as they offer a way for you to earn Ascended level things through wvw, what does it matter if they creep?  

No, because we don't know in any real fashion how stats interact with DPS at all. The notion that everyone has the ability to do +10% DPS because of gear we haven't even seen based on theorycrafting that we don't actually know is what I'm saying is most nuts. Like, seriously, show me concrete numbers which point to X stats equaling Y extra DPS on Z abilities but not N abilities, which are affected at a different rate due to different coefficients. Games are numbers, yes, but you don't get to point to numbers in WvW balancing as the game exists now while also using plucked from thin air numbers like +10% DPS (or +8% stats, earlier). If those numbers don't exist for public consumption, maybe everyone should stop freaking out?

I'm absolutely not ruling out the possibility that this ends up being a horribly balanced, game-killing monstrosity; I've seen it happen. I'm certainly not saying that them adding this is automatically a good thing, particularly in light of their promises and it only being three months out. I am saying calm down and if you want to cite numbers, cite actual numbers for me in order to sway the conversation in a rational manner.

Yeah I count myself lucky to get 2-3 badges in a session of WvW. You can get them reliably by doing the jumping puzzles, but I'm not there to do jumping puzzles. I've always kind of wondered why keep lords don't drop them.

I know there's no stat difference between AC and Arah, it just serves to underline that some people will be elitist assholes about gear even if it doesn't have stats. Same idea with having to link raid achievements to get in PUGs in WOW. Only now with the ascended gear such elitism will be a lot more wide-spread...

e: I think some of this could apply to GW1 too, actually. Most PVP groups for TA/AB/etc only accepted pugs that had a high pvp rank already. I'm not sure if you needed to have a certain grind-title to get in the high-end elite dungeon runs like DOA or Underworld, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.

"Like, seriously, show me concrete numbers which point to X stats equaling Y extra DPS on Z abilities but not N abilities" --Math is still being done, but it does exist!

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=coefficient&go=Go

I've seen people ask for level 80 only, or no glass cannons (which is funny, since that's basically saying "DPS spot filled" but no one wants to use the term DPS) - but having specific dungeon gear is  :uhrr:.

Plus, I am really looking forward to a level 80 zone that isn't full of stupid lazy-design Fallen.

Oh god please. I fucking hate risen.

Yeah I count myself lucky to get 2-3 badges in a session of WvW. You can get them reliably by doing the jumping puzzles, but I'm not there to do jumping puzzles. I've always kind of wondered why keep lords don't drop them.

Yea -- putting aside the gear angst, I'm really looking forward to this - especially since I get the idea that they'll be pumping out free dungeons / zones regularly. Maybe I'll get some mileage out of the Ele weapons I'm not too familiar with, too. (read: everything that's not the staff  :awesome_for_real:)

If you aren't using daggers, you're not living. Best set ever.

The only depressing weapon Eles have is that focus offhand adds Meh durability at the cost of pretty much all your offensive power.

WvW already has scaling.  Why not just cap the stats based on a ratio of your unmodified amount, and then it doesn't matter if you're level 2 or 80 in full Ascended...

People are freaking over nothing.

So does anyone want to get together and give a stab at the fractals once they go in?  I'm no longer feeling so attached to Gates of Madness, so I'm I'm willing to server hop if we want to try to get a group going.

There isn't any way to do cross-server grouping, right (unless getting lucky with an overflow or something)? I'm an officer in my guild on Tarnished Coast, and it probably wouldn't look good if I xferred :p

There's a reason damage damage AoE's have a cap, if you didn't think healing was going to get one the mind boggles. You can't design a skill with that sort of scaling.

Though it does look like Guardians are getting PvP nerfs out of this patch. I haven't done enough PvP with my guardian to know if they deserve it.

Fixed a bug preventing melee attacks from hitting static objects in the world if the character was not moving. As an example, this should help players using melee in Ascalonian Catacombs to hit graveling burrows, amongst other offending objects.

So does anyone want to get together and give a stab at the fractals once they go in?  I'm no longer feeling so attached to Gates of Madness, so I'm I'm willing to server hop if we want to try to get a group going.

There isn't any way to do cross-server grouping, right (unless getting lucky with an overflow or something)? I'm an officer in my guild on Tarnished Coast, and it probably wouldn't look good if I xferred :p

I keep telling you guys you don't have to be on the same server to group up. Just get the invite on your friends list and zone into the instance.

See my post above. If we all joined bat country we could just form up from guild chat. Just have to be representing so we can chat. I'd be in for a fractal too.

Btw who can invite for bat country?

Phred beat me to it.  I did the MK dungeon with buddies from a different server.  Just invite and meet in instance.

I'm not seeing the multiple tiers of infusions yet, or actually the stat altering infusions actually being a thing (I saw the item code link, but there are dud item codes just like WoW), that gw2db link shows infusion just adding 5 agony resist and no stats.

I'm really curious what is actually in game and what the intent is.

edit: to be clear, this is the mined infusion data:

http://www.gw2db.com/search?search=infusion#t1:items

But the rings link shows infused items without the extra +5 stat, so I think the (infused) stuff is just botched item codes, and the +5 stat thing is legit.

Halloween was just a short cinematic then everyone broke into groups and went into an instance.  This was horrible.

Well this is fun, 30-60 second skill activation times, randomly teleporting about, about a minute to use a waypoint res (because no one can res).  :uhrr:

Fractals are pretty fun. But for a kick in your nuts:

They don't count for dungeon completion for the monthly, and instead a new Fractals Completed is on the montly list <3

Fractals are pretty fun. But for a kick in your nuts:

They don't count for dungeon completion for the monthly, and instead a new Fractals Completed is on the montly list <3

They need a public test server. I'm curious why they don't have it. I hope they don't think it prevents info from leaking ahead of time. That's been long since proven a fools errand.

They need a public test server. I'm curious why they don't have it. I hope they don't think it prevents info from leaking ahead of time. That's been long since proven a fools errand.

Assuming they are running this like GW1, then they have a *heavily* NDA'd closed testing group still going on, where they push content live and the people that are in the beta program are allowed to try it (they also schedule testing events pretty heavily).  I believe when I was in the GW1 one way after live I wasn't even allowed to say that I was even *in* the test program.

So they do have a core group of players testing the new content, that I'm sure.  Whether it's the *right* group of players, that's debatable.

The fractals are fun but the rewards seem a bit low.  Other than the exotic back items, which actually seem to have lower stats than my current green one and no upgrade slot there didn't seem to be much point to them.  Is there a chance to get ascended items from them?

Tier 10+ fractals can drop ascended items is what is listed on the wiki. Ascended backpacks are mystic forge crafted.

Assuming they are running this like GW1, then they have a *heavily* NDA'd closed testing group still going on, where they push content live and the people that are in the beta program are allowed to try it (they also schedule testing events pretty heavily).  I believe when I was in the GW1 one way after live I wasn't even allowed to say that I was even *in* the test program.

So they do have a core group of players testing the new content, that I'm sure.  Whether it's the *right* group of players, that's debatable.

I think they want it to be a 'post-80 endgame zone', and yea, the mobs are quite a bit harder than orr or frostgorge - I also saw plenty of level 82 and 84 [!] mobs, which obviously hit pretty hard. Only advice I have is to have some kind of projectile reflect skill, since the kraken mobs use a high-damage volley as their first attack. If you reflect that, it usually takes off 60% of their hp right there.

I showed up three times.

I figured it was going to be an hour or so. By the time I was sick of it, I couldn't log out because I'd sunk over an hour into it.

It started well and ended well, but there were two phases of the event which had a gigantic silithi... sorry, karka... summoning adds. You killed the adds, not the karka boss. Except they just kept coming. By the end, it was three champions at once. It wasn't fun. It was tedious. Mind numbing. Awful.

Which is a shame, because the not reinforcement parts were pretty good. The loot? You were guaranteed the earring, the 20 slot bag, and then four pieces of randomized loot. Some people got precursors. A lot of others got named unique exotics. Me? I got two level 79 generic exotic armor pieces and two level 76 generic yellow armor pieces. Net value: 1.2 gold. For three hours, of which only a third of that was fun. It was bullshit and I'm still annoyed.

Problem with this event was people like me did part 1, got nothing.  Did part 2..got nothing.  Missed part 3 and thats when they give out the uber rewards...wtf?

try playing during asian hours.
GMT +8

Monday morning is when the event climax is wrapped up.
Needless to say, I did not even bother turning up.

The new zone is the wtf stuff. Why would I go back there? I'm not going to make more money, have more fun, or get better drops there. I don't think it's as aesthetically pleasing as Orr. It's entirely superfluous and feels very weird to me.

I keep telling you guys you don't have to be on the same server to group up. Just get the invite on your friends list and zone into the instance.

Viewing some Youtube videos the Fractals look kinda fun, but then I remember how hard it's been to round up people I know to try a dungeon (have yet to be able to try one) and between the elitism and retardation level of the general population I don't really have a desire to pug them.

if you get swamp. prepare for a long stretch.
some of them require voice coordination.
and maybe a mes to make it bearable.

There's even a map with a bunch of mini-platforms that has gas-venting walls you have to dodge, else you get knocked down and die while carrying the mcguffin that kills you after 40 seconds.

whee.

LF3M fractal scale 3.
I am scale 2 , is that ok
No.
LF3M fractal scale 3.
guildies logon.
Hey guys starting fractal scale 6 party come join me.

One day of this and I realize I shouldn't bother.
I returned to farming the improved dungeon loot to farm silvers and retire my char when the gold gets more expensive.

I like that they put out a post-event survey.

I eviscerated the event on the survey.

It is interesting that they looked at radiance from LOTRO - a failed system that they said "our bad" and ditched - and decided they should use it.

Or resists in WoW. Also "our bad, not fun removing".

FYI for anyone who disconnected during the event: today they're apparently sending out boxes of event rewards to everyone they saw as participating but not opening the box. I don't know where that cut-off is, since I didn't disconnect, I just got bored and logged out part way through the whole thing. Will update tonight to see if I get a chest or not.

FYI for anyone who disconnected during the event: today they're apparently sending out boxes of event rewards to everyone they saw as participating but not opening the box. I don't know where that cut-off is, since I didn't disconnect, I just got bored and logged out part way through the whole thing. Will update tonight to see if I get a chest or not.

I'm pretty surprised at this - I did about 30-45 min of the event and today got 2 named exotics, 2 ecto'd rares, the Karka Shell +25 to all and the 20 slot box.

well. if you don't do fractals, there's nothing else to do for pve nowadays.
b4 i stopped logging, it was either dungeon running for tokens (already decided what armor to wear with proper rune) or run fractals, looking for grp, hoping to get leveled without disconnect.

if you don't enjoy world v world or structured pvp, there's not much else, i'm afraid.
One look on their 'end game crafting' I decided it's not even worth pondering about.
Terrible goldsink for a skin and minor stat upgrade. Fuck that.

Terrible goldsink for a skin and minor stat upgrade. Fuck that.

"they are working on it", but that can mean anything.

Wintersday starts Friday.  This is going to be a major test for them, and I hope they know it.  If they can get it right, hopefully then they'll have enough goodwill to worry less about loot rage and more about these fixes and features we're waiting for.

If this is another mad rush for amazing loot in a multi-hour, bugged, one-time-but-not-really-one-time event, made worse with a botched fix, we might as well forget the whole thing.  Credibility is teetering as it is.

In other words, do what they did with Halloween, and not Lost Shores.  Shit, just do the exact same thing.  Mad Santa dungeon, Christmas maze of loot, and jumping puzzle on a spinning Christmas tree or giant Menorah.

Nobody really cared since town clothing is an abandoned concept anyways.