I know there's some forum rules about posting links ... but ... meh. This is important enough to the general playerbase of GW2 that I think your attention should be called to it. If a mod wants to get ticked and take it down, he takes it down.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-11-27-arenanet-holds-frank-reddit-debate-on-guild-wars-2-loot-grind

If you're interested about the future of the game, I suggest you check it out. I personally am not real interested in digging through the reddit information referenced to mine it for any more details, so I can't contribute much beyond what is said in that article.

The big highlights for me are: The level cap will eventually increase and there will be no new rarity added down the line although adding more items ( edit: to existing tiers, such as armor sets ) to the game will probably come with the expansions rather than updates. ( edit: Missed the line where Chris Whiteside was quoted as saying, "a full set of ascended gear will be slowly introduced over the next year." )

I hate it when people say, "Discuss!" like it's some sort of command from the unopinionated, but I'm curious to know other's take on the article, and what was said there-in. I have some opinions I could expand upon ... but ya'll get upset when I post "walls of text" so I guess linking to one wall of text will suffice for one post.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-11-27-arenanet-holds-frank-reddit-debate-on-guild-wars-2-loot-grind

Ya know, for convenience.

I've stated my impressions of ascended gear already, but to respond to MOB's points in brief:

• If the goal was more stepping stones on the road to a legendary, new exotic skins coupled with the infusion mechanic would have sufficed.
• Ascended stuff in World vs. World is too much of a limiting factor on player skill for the effort (read: grind) required to obtain it.
• Without a cap (wherein horizontal progression becomes dominant), vertical progression replaces an enticing definitive goal with a series of transient goals, and in the process lessens the meaning of those goals.

News of raised level caps with expansions doesn't surprise me, per se, but along with their stated intention to maintain vertical progression (an intention I didn't believe existed after playing GW1, nor when I bought GW2, nor right up until the announcement of ascended gear) I can't help but think it's a poor idea. Guild Wars 2 doesn't actually need to increase the level cap because of the scaling mechanic that is so prevalent throughout the game.

Here's a simple example of how leveling could be represented on a new landmass: have zones representing the full spectrum of level 1-80 content. This allows new players that jump into the game to immediately have access to fresh, recently designed content, avoiding a major problem WoW had with drawing in buys on expansion release. Existing players will be able to experience the new content however they want to, whether it be jumping immediately into end-game, exploring environments, or following the world story as it builds. Interestingly, this also means that a feeling of vertical progression is maintained - since you'll presumably be unlocking new weapon and utility skills while your stats re-scale - without obliterating the (in my opinion desirable) cap.

Interesting decision. I can't say I'm surprised. There was no way people would keep playing without the introduction of some kind of gear grind. I can see this as impacting WvW balance though, but then that was never intended to be a balanced game mode.

As for raising the level cap, they mentioned it sometime this summer (before the game launched). I don't have the article.

@UssjTrunks said:

I can see this as impacting WvW balance though, but then that was never intended to be a balanced game mode.

Yup, and I think it is time that people realize that. Anet always has, and always will, balance things with PvP (in this case sPvP more specifically) as not the first priority, but the only priority. For people who prefer WvW or (in my case) PvE, something will almost always be pretty broken. That is ok, because it is better for the health of the game and its playerbase that sPvP gets balance priority. You can still play and enjoy PvE or WvW if some profession or mechanic is OP, but if it is really bad in sPvP it becomes a total nightmare. Just take a look at pistol whip.

What would be the point of raising the level cap? Wouldn't that just give more trait points? Or do they intend to make higher level armour and weapons. If they did that, wouldn't that be kind of a lot worse than ascended stuff?

Why not just add more weapon types for classes instead of increasing levels, that'd be infinitely more interesting and would last much longer than increasing the level cap. I don't know, I honestly can't understand what increasing the level cap does for this game.

@SuperWristBands said:

What would be the point of raising the level cap? Wouldn't that just give more trait points? Or do they intend to make higher level armour and weapons. If they did that, wouldn't that be kind of a lot worse than ascended stuff?

Not only statistically, but also from the standpoint of devaluing old equipment skins. Regardless of how cool the dozens of existing level 80 exotics look, how many people are going to want to be seen in anything other than level 90 ascended gear a month after the first expansion is released?

@SuperWristBands said:

What would be the point of raising the level cap? Wouldn't that just give more trait points? Or do they intend to make higher level armour and weapons. If they did that, wouldn't that be kind of a lot worse than ascended stuff?

Why not just add more weapon types for classes instead of increasing levels, that'd be infinitely more interesting and would last much longer than increasing the level cap. I don't know, I honestly can't understand what increasing the level cap does for this game.

Some traits that have been broken since BWE1 are still broken. They should fix those before they think about adding any new ones. :P I'd prefer if they didn't add any new traits to sPvP as it will just throw off balance even more (it's already pretty shaky). I think they'll need to consider splitting the two modes at some point like they did in GW1 because they require different types of balancing.

It would be awesome to have an mmo with no levels. Where you basically just set up your character like in PvP and then you're off to the races tackling challenging content from start to finish. Forget slowly easing you into the game.

@UssjTrunks said:

Some traits that have been broken since BWE1 are still broken. They should fix those before they think about adding any new ones. :P I'd prefer if they didn't add any new traits to sPvP as it will just throw off balance even more (it's already pretty shaky). I think they'll need to consider splitting the two modes at some point like they did in GW1 because they require different types of balancing.

Adding new things like weapon types for classes, utility skills and elites is something that is bound to happen in sPvP and so long as it stays balanced I am all for it. Also I think that some skills are already being split between sPvP and PvE. I think I saw that in one of the patch notes.

I don't know about new traits but that could happen too (I was thinking more along the lines of getting, say 10 more points to spend on traits already in the game) and I would, of course, hope it all stays nice and balanced but I think they also mentioned the intention to keep sPvP at the level 80 mark so more points wouldn't be a problem there.

It would be awesome to have an mmo with no levels. Where you basically just set up your character like in PvP and then you're off to the races tackling challenging content from start to finsih. Forget slowly easing you into the game.

I would love that. I feel like GW1 was basically that (minus the whole MMO thing). I started with Factions and I think it only took a handful of hours to reach level 20 and from there is was just "Play the game the way you want to. Experiment".

Personally leveling is my least favourite part of the game right now. I've taken two characters to level 80, a third to 65 and have two level 20's. I was only okay with the journey from 1-80 for the first character, the rest feel like a drag just to be competent with other players in the highlevel areas (WvW with 80 gear, dungeons with 80 gear).

Ed Park just posted a well-worded article on the impact of gear progression.