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A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside
Regarding the concerns of GW2 becoming a gear treadmill: Our Studio Design Director Chris Whiteside just posted this:
I think it is nice that a developer such as Arenanet really can respond to its customers. I am glad for it!
Comments
What he said was good but to others it won't be acceptable most likely lol.
Wether you can blame them or not is the question.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
No sense having to go to the actual post- here it is
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
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck ..... it's a duck. This is damage control plain and simple. Fotm was part of the Lost Shores update that catered to one segment of the playerbase. The backlash in their own forums quickly exposed how small that segment truly was, and this is nothing short of backpeddling. The reason they will slowly add it into the rest of the game is because they never intended to do so in the first place.
They made a choice to establish a gear grind because 12 million players can't be wrong and alienated the loyal support of the GW playerbase who made them what they are now. The result is a gamestate that satisfies neither and it would be in their best long-term interests to QUICKLY integrate the current ascended items into the remaining phases of the game. A REAL apology for this decision to their fanbase instead of this "political flip-flop" sandbagging will do way more to fix their reputation.
By allowing their forum MODS to relentlessly delete posts that gave opposing views of the current gamestate, The devs were given slanted feedback. IF you truly want to hear your players THEN you have to hear all of your players. You have reaped exactly what you have sown.
EDIT: Removed comment to not derail thread. My disgust is not relevant to the point of the thread.
I am happy to see Anet actively communicating with their playerbase, even if occasionally it's to tell them something they might not want to hear. At least they are active with the community.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
Edit: I should have read other posts more carefully
And this again.
I did not get to participate in the Lost Shores event. I did do a few area quests, but did not get to experience the whole of the event. That said, I do enjoy GW2 when I get a chance to play it and I believe with A-net that they have been and will continue to be a developer that cares for their game and the people that play them. Will there be those that get upset at the path the game takes? Of course, but A-net will continue to do their best to improve the game for the enjoyment of their player base.
I believe that is what this letter was intended to express. I believe A-net has an intended goal and a set plan to execute said goal. All the conspiracy theories and dooms-day sayers out there are just trying to create a mountain out of a mole hill. I do hope that A-net makes things right for the masses of people that were not able to take part in recent event or were booted at the wrong time and lost out on rewards.
+1 also on that
I love it when people reach and make statements like this.
1) You're assuming that none of the people complaining liked doing dungeons for loot.
2) Just because theres a hundred or so angry fans clogging the forums, that doesn't equate to any sort of percentage of the population.
3) People would be just as vocal if this gear was only offered only to crafters or WvWvW rewards. They admitted that offering ascended gear to just dungeon runners was a huge mistake. At this point, ANet is clearly no better than Blizzard or Bioware at foreseeing and avoiding big mistakes.
That message was posted two weeks ago. It was insufficient then and the "AMA", (more like DEAR, Don't Expect A Response), didn't do much to address my deep concerns.
I'd rather see them trash a failed concept they wasted development resources and live with a few bruised egos, rather than introduce cr@p into the game just because it exists.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
[mod edit]The gear in question was intended from the beginning. Lots of other things, much that we haven't seen yet, were intended from the beginning. There are other holes in the system that haven't been fillled but have been prepped. For example, there are paths, right now, out of areas that you can't get to or use because the zone they go to haven't been released. They're there and, if you pay attention, kind of obvious.
And, in the end, you don't need ascended gear to do things in the game. You don't have to get it. You don't need legendaries, either. It's not like the mandatory gear treadmill of WoW, SWTOR, LOTRO, etc., where you can't do things if you don't the right gear because you'll be hopelessly out-classed.
I said this before the company responded and gave valid information. You can either respect it and move on. Or simply just not play the game. But the over and over whining is probably going to get you banned from this forum. And it's already getting people banned from the official forum.
Because it's a time to grow up and move on with things. A lot of people don't seem to have that life lesson. All and all I will support them and continue to be a beta tester and you tuber for the game. Because they give personal responses eventhough people still don't respect that.
Alternatively, there are things that were intended to be there at launch that haven't been put in yet.
Adding the vertical gear grind to only the dungeon is catering to one segment. No reach at all.
1) I don't really have to direct you to the plethera of "quality of dungeon drops" posts in the forums to back this up do I?
2) It exactly equates to a percentage, just as the total number of posters in the forums is a percentage of the playerbase.
30 I completely agree with you here - they would be just as vocal and just as justified.
If they were truly interested in fixing their mistake they would remove the extra stats and promise never to introduce the agony debuff into open world events and fix open world drops.
so how sincere really was the apology again, really? we'll see in time
They are not apologizing for ascended equipment. They apologize for a way they presented it to public.
a) it should have been released right from release of game
b) if it was not, at least those items should be obtainable by doing all sorts of stuff in game (apart from sPvP obviously).
So their apologize will mean to spread ascended equipment wide.
Too bad it just reads as double talk..
"We don't want to create a gear treadmill, we're simply extending the gear treadmill!"
They want to bridge the gap? Seriously? What gap? The highest tier armor to legendary was ZERO stat change. There was no gap. It was purely cosmetic. They filled a gap that wasn't there.
You consider small change in stats as gear treadmill? It's not like you can't enjoy any part of gw2 without this new stuff. I'm personaly still playing mostly in rares and not80level exotics and I can do just fine anywhere I go.
As for gap... they mean cost gap. Cost of exotics is much much much lower than cost of legendaries. So they want to put something expensive in between, so people that are not prepared to go for legendary can have some smaller (yet reasonable) goal to go for.
For now. So far they've shown by sneaking this and other nerfs into the game (nerfs to loot to force people to either use expensive 1 time only magic find buffs to get any loot outside of dungeons that worth anything) and failing to fix the glaring problems with the professions like the engineers glaring miss problem that's still there since bwe3 that they have some serious priority problems and honesty problems.
There was no gap, they created a gap by adding stats to this gear all because they wanted to listen to the tiny minority in the gaming community that has forgotten that the reason why so many mmo's with dungeon only models are losing customers left and right is because this minority that cares for only 100% foreknowledge runs and 100% gear prior to running dungeons breaks up and destroys the community. Here it is three years later and they are STILL being pandered to by these companies all because they had an original thought and these people didn't like it, so they whined there wasn't what they were used to doing, running dungeons endlessly, and now look where it gets them. We'll see in the next few months. Or has everyone here forgotten what happened with gearscore and dps meters, or what happened with SWTOR? Remember these are the same people that NEVER stick with a game for more then 3-5 months at a time before moving onto a new shiny where they do exactly the same thing.
My current guild had people logging in constantly prior to this new patch, I haven't seen half the officers since we're all waiting with bated breath on what they'll do next.
The fact that there is one more set that you need to grind for doesn't mean that you can't finish content without it. That was the point with GW, that is the point, and that will always be the point. It won't change in a few months because ANet has it very well figured out with its no-sub mmorpg. You can get gear by being very skilled, very patient or very sociable (grouping gives better rewards).
Your second point I don't know because many people buy GW, play it for a bit then quit. They've seen the game then move on. It's just not their game but they tried it because of their clan, friends or just curiosity. This has nothing to do with ANet failing to respond to its customers.
Finally it's not like I'm a fanboi. So if you really want to complain, then complain against the things that makes the mmorpg addictive, such as the max achievements for WvW, max achievements for each weapon type, etc. etc.