More Info on Strike Missions, Balance, and Rewards in End of Dragons

[aeris.5846]

19 minutes ago, Izzy.2951 said:

constructives visions

I think constructives visions was on the previous posts. Just why not leaving fractals CM as is currently if "this is not that much MC", even with clover at 2MC instead of 1, and just adding MC and clovers on other content too?

Edited February 16, 2022 by aeris.5846

[Banryuu.2156]

My time has come. I think it's time to share my thoughts about this whole MC situation here.

First of all I like GW2 because of it's uniqueness, each class can be good dps or provide some kind of support, every person has their own loot from bosses/events, it has different currencies for every game mode, there are multiple "end game" content so people can find their favourite, so on...

Doing fractals is a good source of gold. With "Fractal God" title doing daily CMs + T4 + recommended is around 25-40g / day / 1,5 h (by selling only the junk items from the encryptions). But for that you need a lot of work, get all ascended gear and AR for higher fractals.
As it is an end game content it should benefit players, and CMs are one of the hardest content in the game, so it should give us something unique, something more special than relics, ectoplasm etc.
Yes, you can get MCs as well and you can buy clovers from the vendor so it's an ultimate source of legendary items, I agree. But if only a small minority of players benefit from that why taking it away from those players who worked hard for it?

For a few years I only did normal T4 dailies, because when I tried CMs they were a bit hard and long. Time has passed and it's around half a year since I do CMs every day, started doing them with my guildies. My ONLY motivation was the MCs, but it's also a good gameplay experience especially nowadays when sometimes we go without a heal (or try different roles).

I would call myself a casual player, but according to this thread I'm in the small minority whos doing fractal CMs daily...and also weekly raid clears (wing 1-7).

I crafted one legendary for the skin in months and I was done, never thought I will get full legendary gear/weapons...but later I wanted more and more. The most expensive ingredients are MCs and clovers.
So let's jump to numbers as people here like numbers.

- You need 15 clovers for 1 legendary armor, a total of 90 clovers for one set. All 3 sets 270 clovers.
- Every legendary rune needs 20 clovers, 6 runes = 120 clovers
- Every legendary sigil needs 30 clovers, 4 runes = 120 clovers
- Legendary backpack / trinkets 77 clovers / each. Total of 6 = 462 clovers.

972 clovers for all gear and there are no weapons yet. They are also 77 clovers / each.

Well, that's a lot of time and money, which is okay as they are meant to be QoL, hard to get items.

I don't like gambling with Mystic Forge, I prefer the slow way from fractals. It's basically using 1 MC with a chance (~1/3) of getting 1 clover vs. buying 1 clover with 1 MC with a timegate. People can decide if they want the clovers immediately for 3 times more MCs or waiting with patient. Need time to get other materials/gold as well or do the achievements, so I'm fine with it, not in a rush. So 77 clovers = 35 days with the daily 2 from fractals + 7 from the 28th daily login reward. (If you play PvP or WvW then it's even less time, but let's not talk about them as they weren't mentioned in the post either.)

Without CMs I often had to buy MC from TP to get my daily 2 clovers. In a 28 day period you need 56 MCs to get all your clovers from fractals. Let's see how much you can get.
- 20 MC from daily login rewards
- 28 MC from daily LLA
- 2 MC from mystic forger daily achievement ?

That's 50 MCs in total for a "casual player" and if you are lucky enough to get some (8 in 4 weeks) from doing the normal daily (T4) fractals it can be enough for the clovers. And you still need to buy a lot of other materials for one legendary, or even a stack of MC if you are making a gen 2 weapon...if you are doing CMs as well, you can get them by yourself in a couple of months maybe.
And with the average of 53.76 MCs from fractal CMs it's 103.76 in 28 days.

I like doing the achievements for legendary items because they feel more valuable and personal, getting all the MCs by myself is the same. When I read "want to spread the love to other types of content" I was really happy thinking that we can get more MCs from other sources as well...then it hit hard reading "Bosses in Challenge Mode 98, 99, and 100 no longer have a chance to drop Mystic Coins". WHY? Just why? People worked hard to get there, to be able to kill them, complete the challenges.
Getting more junk item or even 1-2 gold for killing a challenge mode boss will not give me back the joy to getting MCs. The only reason to do CMs will be the 3 Integrated Fractal Matrixes so I can exchange them to keys spending less gold on the keys. But people would not be interested in learning the CMs as they won't give reasonable reward anymore, and fractal CMs will die. At least doing 5 raid CM is giving us provisioner tokens, but getting a few more gold with fractal CMs is just not enough, I may just do some open world meta with a chance of getting some very rare infusion.

So back to numbers after EoD.

- 20 MC from daily login rewards
- 28 MC from daily LLA
- 2 MC from mystic forger daily achievement
- 40 MC from strikes

90 MC in 4 weeks which is more for a casual player than before EoD but less for those who are doing fractal CMs. And let's see how much MCs do I need for clovers with the doubled price. "Discounted" means more expensive? I'm not a native English speaker so sorry for my English. The change is from 1 MC to 2 MC and from 3 ecto to 2 ecto. Currently 1 MC is around 1g80s and 1 ecto is 20s (rounding down). Instead of 2g40s it will cost 4g!

- 20 clovers from strikes -> 40 MCs
- 40 clovers from fractals -> 80 MCs
- 40 clovers from raids -> 80 MCs

A total of 200 MCs needed in a month while we get 90 MCs. Yes, I may be an elitist or maximalist whatever, but I think I'm not the only one who wants to get all the possible clovers. And I have enough fractal relics and raid shards to buy them for a few weeks so why not? But the MCs...

What I see here is if someone wants to get all the possible clovers from vendors, they can get the needed MC by themself before but not after EoD. And that's a big difference! Starting from 0 I would need 110 more MCs in a month only to cover my clovers. Even if they keep the drop from CMs which is 53.76 MC / 28 day I would need to buy MCs. But also "Only a very small number of the Mystic Coins consumed each week are used to purchase Mystic Clovers from the fractal vendor. Nearly all coins consumed per week go into Mystic Forge recipes for Mystic Clovers or are used directly in legendary crafting." Then why bringing more vendors for clovers? Either the timegate or the fractal currency why most people don't purchase it now, so why would they purchase after for double MC price? Maybe they will buy 20 clovers from strikes and keeping the remaining 50 MCs, but currently you can buy 56 clovers, which is almost three times more. So casual players will have more access to legendary items (20 clovers + 50 MCs) than before, but fractal/raid players will have less (45 clovers will consume their MCs).

But maybe it's just me so let's forget this, the only thing they changed is to cut off 53.76 MCs from fractal CMs and put 40 MCs to strikes while giving more MC sink with double price!
They say "normal difficulty strikes have a much lower barrier to entry in terms of difficulty", also they want the legendary items to be more accessable for everyone. We still don't know what will we need for gen 3 weapons, but I doubt they would need Mystic Tribute or Gif of Fortune, at least it's logical to change it for a next generation.
Strikes are "played by significantly more people" than fractal CMs, BUT "93% of Mystic Coins come from login rewards. The remaining 7% includes Ley Line Anomaly, WvW Gold/Platinum chests, fractal daily chests, Mystic Forger daily mission, and fractal Challenge Modes. Fractal Challenge Modes are one of the smaller sources." So fractal CMs are around 1-2%(?) of the MC sources, now let's say 10 or even 20 times more people do strikes that will be 20-40% of the current MC income. I'm not an expert in this field but to get the prices lower shouldn't the income be much more?
Don't forget that it is expected that more people will make legendaries that means more people will keep their MCs for either buying or mystic forging clovers (or getting 250 MCs for mystic tribute). Even after the armory more people started making legendaries, now even more expected. With the double MC needed for a clover the demand will be higher or everyone will use the mystic forge, but either way more MCs will sink than ever and nobody can predict the outcome.

One more thing I want to highlight from the post, regarding fractal CMs: "They’re not played as much relative to other sources because the content is very difficult and exclusive." If it's so difficult and exclusive why doesn't it give even more unique reward than MC for people who actually do them? Like the monthly PvP tournament 1st place, it gives 100 MC, 500 gold, a novelty and some more. I would like to have that "Champion's Moon" from September's tournament but it's impossible to get it unless you have a PvP static with good experience (that I don't have). So why not "spread the love" and give it to fractal CMs? It's just a "silly" novelty, can't even sell it or turn into legendary.

I understand they don't want fractals to be "the most efficient one-stop source for obtaining the gold, Mystic Coins, and Mystic Clovers", but I don't understand why remove a reward from such a "very difficult and exclusive" content. The only logical reason is that they don't want to keep that content alive anymore, more precisely they want everyone to play the new one. And here is the twist: only those can earn more MCs who bought EoD.

tl;dr final conclusion:

Casual players can get more MCs in a month IF they have EoD (90 instead of 50).

Fractal CM players will get less MCs in a month even if they have EoD (90 instead of 103.76).

We will have more MC sink (raid and strikes clover vendors), but why if currently a very small number of MCs are consumed to purchase clovers?

If everyone keep their MCs for legendary crafting then:
- casual player whos only doing strikes can buy 20 clovers from vendor and keep 50 MCs in a months.
- while experienced players can buy 45 clovers from multiple vendors with no MCs left in their pockets instead of 56 clovers with some lefover MCs.

If only those players want to craft legendaries whos already crafting some, then these people will have to buy more materials then currently.

I am happy for casual players will have more access to legendary items, but why nerfing the rewards for those who already playing "hard"? It's like paying less for hard-working colleagues so the company can raise other's salary instead of keeping hard-workers salary the same and giving raise for other's.

Some idea to keep everyone happy with changes included:
- For fractal CMs keep the MCs as it is and drop the clover vendor instead.
- Give something unique to CM rewards that will keep old players and make new players interested in doing them.
- Drop MCs from CMs as planned but buying clovers from fractal vendor no longer requires MC (but more relics, mist essences, fractal matrixes, something that unique to fractals).
- Also buying clovers from raid vendors would not need MCs but LI/LD instead.
- Make every class 150% stronger so raids/fractals won't be that hard for casual players and keep everything as it is now.

Edited February 17, 2022 by Banryuu.2156

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

7 hours ago, Izzy.2951 said:

At the end Arenanet is gonna end up not giving any info, cos people get actually too mad. Instead of giving constructives visions, or getting to an a agreement for not that "much of a nerf", people are just so selfish raging, crying and being annoying.

No, people see this as a poor justification for the nerf and are pointing it out why. 

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

12 hours ago, Izzy.2951 said:

At the end Arenanet is gonna end up not giving any info, cos people get actually too mad. Instead of giving constructives visions, or getting to an a agreement for not that "much of a nerf", people are just so selfish raging, crying and being annoying.

I don't exactly know what you're reading but from what I've read thus far, this is the ONLY topic about EoD that's actually more respectful in tone compared to everything else. And I say that knowing some of the people replying here don't even do Fractals in general yet they still agree that what ANet is doing regarding CM Fractals and taking away Mystic Coins is bad by design. 

[Dielfazor.3142]

12 hours ago, Izzy.2951 said:

At the end Arenanet is gonna end up not giving any info, cos people get actually too mad. Instead of giving constructives visions, or getting to an a agreement for not that "much of a nerf", people are just so selfish raging, crying and being annoying.

 

To be completely fair everyone has been fair in criticism in the post, yes there was a lot of "raging" on reddit, but most posts here actually raise good points, besides maybe one or two, so lets not focus on the negatives, they're clearly a minority !

[Katary.7096]

18 hours ago, Izzy.2951 said:

At the end Arenanet is gonna end up not giving any info, cos people get actually too mad. Instead of giving constructives visions, or getting to an a agreement for not that "much of a nerf", people are just so selfish raging, crying and being annoying.

There have been a couple of years in which Arenanet told us almost nothing unless it was patch day, if they prefer that policy they certainly have experience to draw from. As far as this thread is concerned, the most common response seems to be that people understand that Arenanet has told us quite a lot about this topic, but we still don't know how and why they came to the conclusion that the removal of mystic coins from fractal CMs is a necessary move.

I admit that I don't know what "constructives visions" are, but I assume it is similar to constructive feedback? In which case I think people who suggested that there should be more content types in which players can earn mystic coins but fractal CMs should keep theirs is fair criticism. Or the proposal that the mystic coins which can be gathered from fractal CMs could be reduced instead of being removed.

[Gorem.8104]

9 hours ago, ChronoPinoyX.7923 said:

I don't exactly know what you're reading but from what I've read thus far, this is the ONLY topic about EoD that's actually more respectful in tone compared to everything else. And I say that knowing some of the people replying here don't even do Fractals in general yet they still agree that what ANet is doing regarding CM Fractals and taking away Mystic Coins is bad by design. 

Exactly, I think it is cause people are being told by Anet "oh anyone who posts on reddit or here are toxic" without even doing the research themselves, as evidenced by Muk's latest video. I noticed all the ones getting upvotes are ones who are not toxic and offering constructive feedback with maths and facts. 
This has been one of the most respectful discussions and yet is still being labelled as not just so Anet doesn't have to revert the change I bet. They seem to be using it as an excuse. 

If anything threads like this just shows how passionate the CM community is, and unity most players have with their top end players, cause often the more experienced players help newbies through hard content or give them free stuff. There is a lot of good players in this game helping others, even an entire section on this forums for doing so. Why hurt these players with potentially thousands of gold loss over the years they stay playing? There is no reason to. The only reason to do CM's after a certain point was for MC's, now that use is being removed. This will stop people doing CM's entirely. 

[Izzy.2951]

3 hours ago, Katary.7096 said:

 the most common response seems to be that people understand that Arenanet has told us quite a lot about this topic, but we still don't know how and why they came to the conclusion that the removal of mystic coins from fractal CMs is a necessary move.

Easy answer:

 We want to spread the love to other types of content, but that means that NO single source should award such high amounts of legendary resources at the same time.

What does people dont understand? Fractal is by far the more rewarding thing to do regargind gold per hour (even without MC), for titles, skins and loads of stuff too. And they stated we DONT want a SINGLE source to award such high amounts of legendary resource at the same time. 

PD: You can keep raging for the total reverse of this, or actually ask for a "re-balance" like puting 0-1 MC per boss, or even 0.-2 per boss but with 10% drop instead of 14%. But no, in general people are blind, selfish and acts like kids in the internet. Thats what it is.

Edited February 17, 2022 by Izzy.2951

[Bleed.7052]

29 minutes ago, Izzy.2951 said:

PD: You can keep raging for the total reverse of this, or actually ask for a "re-balance" like puting 0-1 MC per boss, or even 0.-2 per boss but with 10% drop instead of 14%. But no, in general people are blind, selfish and acts like kids in the internet. Thats what it is.

 

With all due respect the only person raging here is you, we're just asking from an official response and there's nothing wrong with that, have fun being outraged by everything in the internet.

[Linken.6345]

1 hour ago, Izzy.2951 said:

Easy answer:

 We want to spread the love to other types of content, but that means that NO single source should award such high amounts of legendary resources at the same time.

What does people dont understand? Fractal is by far the more rewarding thing to do regargind gold per hour (even without MC), for titles, skins and loads of stuff too. And they stated we DONT want a SINGLE source to award such high amounts of legendary resource at the same time. 

PD: You can keep raging for the total reverse of this, or actually ask for a "re-balance" like puting 0-1 MC per boss, or even 0.-2 per boss but with 10% drop instead of 14%. But no, in general people are blind, selfish and acts like kids in the internet. Thats what it is.

Dont drizzlewood coast meta award more gph tho?.

And it gives clovers so no need to even give the coins.

[flog.3485]

52 minutes ago, Bleed.7052 said:

 

With all due respect the only person raging here is you, we're just asking from an official response and there's nothing wrong with that, have fun being outraged by everything in the internet.

Honestly it does feel like the official response had already being given out and yes it is pretty crystal clear that they want people to focus on strike. And frankly, why shouldn’t they ?

 

Yes fractal CM rewards with a chance to give you MC. However what is the point of keeping that status quo if:

-so few people participate in the content, making the argument that most challenging content is being discentivized to play completely irrelevant,

-the reward can be bought, obtained with the daily anomaly, the login reward and

-is highly obtainable with the return to achievements. Personally I am sitting on approximatively 50 MCs coins from unopened weapon chests.

 

Maybe that is what going on at the end of the day. The price of MCs didn’t go down fast enough for EoD and so they are taking extra measures to make sure that it will.

 

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

3 hours ago, Izzy.2951 said:

Easy answer:

 We want to spread the love to other types of content, but that means that NO single source should award such high amounts of legendary resources at the same time.

Easy rebuttal

It's not spreading the love if you remove a reward from one piece of content and migrate it over to another.  That's moving the love.

[Ashantara.8731]

On 2/14/2022 at 9:55 PM, The Urps.8379 said:

We get punished. If the hard content of CM has so little impact why not slighty nerf the drop rate, and add extra coins to the EoD Strikes. There are more MC sinks, why not have more MCs available overall... 

I second that question.

While the nerf doesn't affect me personally, I find the choice a little off in the light of the revelation that Fractals CMs only have a tiny (if any) impact on the Mystic Coin market overall.

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

On 2/17/2022 at 2:16 PM, Izzy.2951 said:

What does people dont understand? Fractal is by far the more rewarding thing to do regargind gold per hour (even without MC), for titles, skins and loads of stuff too. And they stated we DONT want a SINGLE source to award such high amounts of legendary resource at the same time. 

 

To get fractal CMs on daily farm you require the following:

1. Fractal Mastery line maxed out
2. Mastery of your build & rotation
3. Mastery of mechanics for  each fight
4. At least 150 Agony Resistance
5. At least a full set of Ascended armor+Weapons

To get it to be even more profitable and done in a timely manner you need some or all of the following:

1. At least 2 sets of optimized gear based on stats you get from agony resistance that you can swap around depending on boss/party composition
2. Infinite Fractal Potions / Omnipot
3. At least Fractal Savant - Fractal God titles to get more rewards out of your dailies.
4. At least full +9 infusions or higher for optimal attributes from the potions and mastery.  Bonus if +9 AR / +5 attribute infusions are used

It's perfectly fair for fractal Challenge Modes to reward so much "legendary" tier rewards if the personal investment to get them on farm is so high.  Namely, however, there's alternative open world farms that are more lucrative than Fractals and only really require you to have a skyscale and pay attention to the LFG so you can hop ship once your map is done to a new map just starting.

Also, on the topic of s ingle instances of content rewarding exceptional amounts of legendary materials (In no particular order):

1. WvW: Awards clovers, gifts of battle, etc. For just being there.
2. PvP: Awards clovers, ascended shards of glory, mystic coins, etc. for participation in seasons.
3. Drizzlewood Coast: Same as WvW, but you get big rewards in the form of materials as well as clovers.
4. Login Rewards: 20 Mystic Coins + 7 mystic clovers per month for doing basically nothing and this can be exploited by having multiple accounts.

Yet somehow fractals, specifically Challenge Modes needed the nerf?  It doesn't add up.
 

Quote

PD: You can keep raging for the total reverse of this, or actually ask for a "re-balance" like puting 0-1 MC per boss, or even 0.-2 per boss but with 10% drop instead of 14%. But no, in general people are blind, selfish and acts like kids in the internet. Thats what it is.

Most people are questioning what the point of a nerf to literally negligible amounts of mystic coins is for.  As far as appearances go, it seems ANet is doing to fractals with EoD what they did to dungeons with HoT; nerfing rewards to incentivize new content under the guise of "Too rewarding".  ANet did, shortly after, admit to not planning on any future content for dungeons after said nerf (And subsequent retraction/rebalancing of the nerf).  Very few are being selfish, but please, latch onto those few exceptions to inflate their importance and skew the view.

Edited February 20, 2022 by Sir Alymer.3406
A word was ommited.

[The Boz.2038]

10 hours ago, flog.3485 said:

is highly obtainable with the return to achievements. Personally I am sitting on approximatively 50 MCs coins from unopened weapon chests.

Did you seriously include a single one-time available reward as a source of MCoins?

[aeris.5846]

2 hours ago, Sir Alymer.3406 said:

It's perfectly fair for fractal Challenge Modes to reward so much "legendary" tier rewards if the personal investment to get them on farm is so high

And clearly, CMs are only interesting with clovers. and so with MC. Without this, it's better to do Dragonfall (30gph), Drizzlewood (30gph + clovers), Istan (27gph), Bitterfrost (27gph), Auric (27gph) than CMs (30gph without MC). More diverse content (5 completly differents content on 7 days instead of mostly the same each day), no downtime to fill an LFG, no stress and blacklist because ppl bad, no training, no RA/omnipots/fractal god/ required, no bunch of ascended required, no 2-3 full builds required, and mostly the same time to run (~1h).

Edited February 18, 2022 by aeris.5846

[Izzy.2951]

 

12 hours ago, Bleed.7052 said:

 

With all due respect the only person raging here is you, we're just asking from an official response and there's nothing wrong with that, have fun being outraged by everything in the internet.

 

Not targeting to you specifically, im just saying 70% of what i read here and in reddit are ironic comments or like "they didnt give a reason, why they quit mc", and the answer is already in the official post:

NO single source should award such high amounts of legendary resources at the same time.

Also if the phylosophy of the game since gw1 till nowadays is that everyone should have the same gear stats and opportunities to do stuff, just skill/experience difference. This situation doesnt make any sense at all, since you need already ascended gear and a lot of money to start doing those fractals, and obiusly aside of skins, legendary items are really convinient and better than exotic. 

At this point already, and having in mind fractals CMs etc are very unacesible from new/returnee players since you need to invest lots of money/hours to get in there, i think its much better to ask anet for not a total nerf, but rather give 0-1 rng MC or 0-2 rng MC as much.

Edited February 18, 2022 by Izzy.2951

[aeris.5846]

5 minutes ago, Izzy.2951 said:

NO single source should award such high amounts of legendary resources at the same time.

And that's exactly the trouble. No single source wanted, but let's remove the single source to add it on a single source.

Because ONLY Strike will rewards clovers AND MCs, and in practice only Strike will provide clovers, nor raids nor fractals.
 

For me clovers on raids & fractals are just smoke to hide the nerf. In practice those clovers sources can't be used.

10 MCs from weekly strikes, directly in the 5 clovers weekly strikes. No more MC for raids & fractals clovers.

If you do LLA, expect 2 more clovers and 1-4 from daily rewards (from raids & fractals).

In practice, raids & fractales clovers can't be bought, or only 3-7 from the remaining 20 weekly cap.

 

It's not 4×(10MCs/25clovers) = 40MC/100clovers for 28 days (and you see a trouble here, 40MC is only 80 clovers in theory, not 100), but because weekly cap 4×(10MC=>5 clovers) = 40MC=>20clovers with only content.

So from 4×14=56 clovers per 28 days only with content now (capped to 53 if anet loot rates are right) to 20 clovers per 28 days.

[Izzy.2951]

2 hours ago, Sir Alymer.3406 said:

To get it to be even more profitable and done in a timely manner you need some or all of the following:

1. At least 2 sets of optimized gear based on stats you get from agony resistance that you can swap around depending on boss/party composition
2. At least full +9 infusions or higher for optimal attributes from the potions and mastery.  Bonus if +9 AR / +5 attribute infusions are used

It's perfectly fair for fractal Challenge Modes to reward so much "legendary" tier rewards.

 

At this point you are already talking about Vertical Progression/Vertical Rewards (depending on your gear) and the imposibility of people to start doing that content until they farmed XXXX gold (add much 0s as you want).

 

The game doesnt provide you with a cheap bad looking skin of Ascended armor once you are lvl 80 (and not 2 sets either + €€Infusions), so the game is already saying to you "you need this gear before", vertical progression. Its not even about learning the mechanics or being good, is that literally you are out of that content.

 

So basically if you put ALL the good loot, AKA mcs, gold per hour, skins, title, achivements in there, you are basically kicking a high % of the community out of that content, just based on GEAR (not skill). And this lead to the last point, if you want people to get  ascended/legendary gear to do High End Content and you cant do Fractals T4/CMs (with all the good rewards), Strikes we got now are useless and dungeons too. Theres literally 0 instanced content that will make you earn good rewards and progress in gear fairly. 

 

PD: Lets not compare instanced content to open world maps repetitive content and playing with 300 ppl at 30fps where you cant even look boss animations pls. (cos they are not the same)

Edited February 18, 2022 by Izzy.2951

[The Boz.2038]

1 minute ago, Izzy.2951 said:

Theres literally 0 instanced content that will make you progress in gear fairly. 

What? 
Ascended armor boxes drop in high tier fractals *and* strikes *and* raids right now.

[aeris.5846]

7 minutes ago, Izzy.2951 said:

At this point you are already talking about Vertical Progression/Vertical Rewards (depending on your gear) and the imposibility of people to start doing that content until they farmed XXXX gold (add much 0s as you want).

It's not that true specifically in frac. It's the only GW2 content with a real progress curve.

You can start T1 with exotic, perhaps even rare if in good company, but you have to repeat this content to loot enough to craft required ascended to go on higher tiers. And having the required ascended is not that difficult, trinkets quite easy to catch now (bitterfrost/dragonfall) and you can go up to end of T3 without crafting a single piece of ascended (90 RA only with trinkets).
Weapon/armor can then be bought from relics or looted, and your mates can help you to provide mats to craft ascended.

This is the only content on all the game with this kind of progressive leveling.

Edited February 18, 2022 by aeris.5846

[Izzy.2951]

28 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

What? 
Ascended armor boxes drop in high tier fractals *and* strikes *and* raids right now.

 

Either you havent read the post, or you just dont understand stuff. To get a full strike ascended set you will need ageeeeeeeees right now, and it will be only the armor (and theres what little rng drop with random stats?), raids are unacesible without ascended/legendary and much more things idk why you even mention that. Dungeons do not give you ascended gear either. And what about the +9infusions? XXX gold that you also dont get from strikes neither from dungeons, neither from raids (again unacesible content)

And again and again, puting all the good stuff ONLY in fractals T4/CMs, is not a good thing for new/returnee players that dont have x2 ascended gears with +9 infusions. And all the rest of instanced content as i mentioned in the post b4 are useless regarding getting rewards/ascended (gear progression) items and INFUSIONS.

Edited February 18, 2022 by Izzy.2951

[The Boz.2038]

Strikes can drop it. And you can buy it, but that takes longer, sure. 

The "rng drop with random stats" ascendeds can be stat-swapped for cheap.

You don't need ascended for raids. Source: have raided with exotic-geared characters.

Dungeons are entirely irrelevant.

You only need infusions for fractals.

You only ever need ascended *armor* for T4 fractals. Ascended trinkets are *really* cheap in S3, S4, S5, laurels, whatever. Ascended weapons can be grabbed from various sources.

And finally, a piece of ascended armor or weapon is ~30 gold. Not "cheap", sure, but not "I need days of farming to afford", either.

[Izzy.2951]

21 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Strikes can drop it. And you can buy it, but that takes longer, sure. 

The "rng drop with random stats" ascendeds can be stat-swapped for cheap.

You don't need ascended for raids. Source: have raided with exotic-geared characters.

Dungeons are entirely irrelevant.

You only need infusions for fractals.

You only ever need ascended *armor* for T4 fractals. Ascended trinkets are *really* cheap in S3, S4, S5, laurels, whatever. Ascended weapons can be grabbed from various sources.

And finally, a piece of ascended armor or weapon is ~30 gold. Not "cheap", sure, but not "I need days of farming to afford", either.

 

Yeah sure, you can raid in exotic gear, tell that to any group in the LFG. I mean please, lets be honest. They ask you for 231414 extra thing just to make sure you can do the raid.

I have been doing Strikes for weeks since i came back neither i have the currencies to buy 1 set neither i got it dropped.

Laurels you need maybe 60 days of loging in to just get 1 full set of just jewerly, not even backpiece or breather. (and what about the +9 infusions?)

Season currencies sure, they are confusing as hell, you need quite some farm and you still need to purchase those LWS. But i think we are talking here about INSTANCED content rewards (dungeons, strikes, raids, fractals).

I mean just dont tell people it is easy to get 1/2 full sets of ascended gear with +9 infusions (that i belive are expensive af), and grinding to T4/CM fractals, before you get good rewards for any instanced content in this game (and pls dont put raid in the talk, cos its nonsense and it doesnt even have greater rewards)

PD: And for me they could leave it as 0-1 or even 0-2 rng MC drop from fractals CM as i have said b4. But i dont like the idea of having just 1 instanced content with good rewards and that is vertical progression af to access.

 

 

 

Edited February 18, 2022 by Izzy.2951

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

46 minutes ago, Izzy.2951 said:

 

At this point you are already talking about Vertical Progression/Vertical Rewards (depending on your gear) and the imposibility of people to start doing that content until they farmed XXXX gold (add much 0s as you want).

 

The game doesnt provide you with a cheap bad looking skin of Ascended armor once you are lvl 80 (and not 2 sets either + €€Infusions), so the game is already saying to you "you need this gear before", vertical progression. Its not even about learning the mechanics or being good, is that literally you are out of that content.

 

So basically if you put ALL the good loot, AKA mcs, gold per hour, skins, title, achivements in there, you are basically kicking a high % of the community out of that content, just based on GEAR (not skill). And this lead to the last point, if you want people to get  ascended/legendary gear to do High End Content and you cant do Fractals T4/CMs (with all the good rewards), Strikes we got now are useless and dungeons too. Theres literally 0 instanced content that will make you earn good rewards and progress in gear fairly. 

 

PD: Lets not compare instanced content to open world maps repetitive content and playing with 300 ppl at 30fps where you cant even look boss animations pls. (cos they are not the same)

Fractals are part of the game content. They were introduced back in the  day for people who liked those progression systems.  Comparing today to when Fractals first launched, getting a full ascended set is actually easier now than it ever was, especially with path of Fire.  The ascended weapons for the elite specializations are cheap (about 6 gold a piece), Strikes, T1 fractals, WvW, PvP, all don't require ascended gear and award it from vendors for successful  (And sometimes unsuccessful) runs.  The availability of this progression mechanic is much wider than it was even two years ago and is fully intended as ANet came out and said that exotic was too easy to acquire which is why ascended was added in the first place.  If you hate it, you should have quit 8 years ago when they first introduced i t.  Outside of a few unavoidable agony ticks, almost all fractals can be done outside of the threshold of agony resistance if you know what to avoid.  You're emphasis on gear here holds no bearing  here because the gear mitigates the necessity of having that game knowledge of what attacks to avoid to avoid getting hit with agony.

Also, PvE content is fair game.  Rewards should be structured based on time investment (Skill based, gear based, or otherwise) and effort.  Something in the open world where you can literally auto attack afk  at bosses and the only engaging part is how fast you fly on your skyscale shouldn't award more than the people who put the time and effort to achieve fractal god, full ascended, an omni-pot, and mastery of instanced content mechanics.

  

4 minutes ago, Izzy.2951 said:

 

Yeah sure, you can raid in exotic gear, tell that to any group in the LFG. I mean please, lets be honest. They ask you for 231414 extra thing just to make sure you can do the raid.

I have been doing Strikes for weeks since i came back neither i have the currencies to buy 1 set neither i got it dropped.

Laurels you need maybe 60 days of loging in to again to get a full set of just jewerly, not even backpiece or breather. (and what about the +9 infusions?)

Season currencies sure, they are confusing as hell, you need quite some farm and you still need to purchase those LWS. But i think we are talking here about INSTANCED content rewards (dungeons, strikes, raids, fractals).

I mean just dont tell people it is easy to get 1/2 full sets of ascended armor with +9 infusions (that i belive are expensive af), and grinding to T4/CM fractals, before you get good rewards for any instanced content in this game (and pls dont put raid in the talk, cos its nonsense and it doesnt even have greater rewards)

PD: And for me they could leave it as 0-1 or even 0-2 rng MC drop from fractals CM as i have said b4. But i dont like the idea of having just 1 instanced content with good rewards and that is vertical progression af to acess.

 

 

 

You  👏 can 👏  raid 👏 in 👏 exotic 👏 gear! 👏

In fact, most guides only recommend trinkets and weapons at most for ascended and that's only if you're DPS as weapons gain pretty big benefits depending on rarity (Weapon damage + stats) vs normal gear just having simply stats.  Most groups don't even ask you for your  gear either.   They ask for proof of experience as, get this, what kills people in raids more than gear?  Failure to perform mechanics.

You're exclusionary of everything else kinda shows how blind you are to how the progression mechanics in GW2 even work.  There are multiple, easy avenues to acquire ascended gear these days and crafting a piece is actually cheaper than it's ever been.

Edited February 18, 2022 by Sir Alymer.3406