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Originally Posted by crazy diamond
Personaly, the only thing I realy mind is people who just go there to buy the best armor so that they can breeze through the rest of the game or abuse the low level arenas. Most of them will bitch and moan and act like jackasses about it all the way too.
It's something that is easily fixed by putting level restrictions on armor. And will most likely cut down the number of people traveling through there significantly.
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I don't think that level restrictions would be a good idea. And there's more than one reason that makes me think this way. First, something that gets me wondering every time since I first played through the game: Why is it, that everyones level is so high above that of the henchies? From my understanding, and from my experiences, all missions are designed in a way that they prove a challenge (yet are absolutely possible, in a competent team) if you're about the same level as the henchies in the mission outpost. However, if I go anywhere now - and it doesn't matter much if this is Ascalon, the Jungle or the Crystal Desert, people tend to be way off the henchies. This yields two results - it makes most of the missions too easy (a reason to complain), yet it makes those missions difficult that don't require a certain level, but a certain tactic, a 'skill' that you don't develop by levelling but rather by conscient playing; the second result is closely related, it's the constant bitching of so-called high-levels about supposedly low-lvl guys in the same areas. And by that I don't talk about lvl 5's in the Oasis, but rather about lvl 15's that made their way there. More often than not they will have a hard time finding a group, which leads to excessive usage of henchies - and usually further improves the tactical and insight knowledge of the game, making most of them (if they weren't brought along by 'high-lvls') more valuable than those that are at lvl 20 already.
I'm pretty sure that ANet originally didn't expect players to be at lvl 20 when they ascend, otherwise the jump to lvl 20 wouldn't have been implemented originally (and it took some time for them to change it to the current reward - unfortunately). How does this impact Armor restrictions? Well, people will expect armor to be restricted to levels far higher than is actually feasible. If most (and this isn't much of an exaggeration) players are lvl 20 when they arrive at Henge of Denravi, they will want the crafters there to have armor exclusive to lvl 20's, else there will be even more constant bitching.
Next point that strikes me is something that has been mentioned elswhere by other people already: This game is not supposed to tell you how to play, but rather fit into your personal gaming style. If I want to go to Droknars before I ascend because I think it's a challenge/fun/or simply a change from the usual, then that's where I get the most fun out of the game. There's two parts to this argument: You can't just get to Droknar's and buy the armor there, if you didn't a) play through the game with another char to get the money/materials b) did some excessive farming (so you either levelled up by farming and aren't so low-lvl anymore, or just spent horrendous amound in low-lvl areas, which is beyond what I would call fun, but is of course your very own playing style). The only way that needs to be stopped is c) if you got your money through eBay or any other such institution. But that's against the EULA anyway, and ANet has their own way to deal with it. The first two ways however, are - in my understanding - completely legitimate, and just offer additional challenges/objectives to everyones gameplay. The least commendable objective is that of those players that want to rule the lowbie-arena at Ascalon. It's definitely nothing that is fun to me, but there seem to be those that draw some kind of fun from it. Yes, this might be a nuisance to those that only just left pre-searing and want to have fun, but are simply overpowered by the better equipment, yet, I wouldn change anything about it. In the end, those that practise their skills (provided you can call that training) on Newbies won't get far in the HoH or even the top-notch team arenas. They might get some feeling of superiority out of winning against Newbies, but they will always be sub-standard against anyone trying to improve his skills against 'real' opponents. Besides, the newbies might indeed profit from it, because they can learn how to win against better equipment (eg DoTs against high armor class). And if they're real newbies, they won't spend so much time in Ascalon anyway, because they will want to go on to the next Are(n)a - I know I didn't spend more than half an hour in the Ascalon Arena before I got back to missions and quests.
That said, it won't matter much for me, if they implement level-restrictions on equipment, I already filled my four slots with PvE-chars and finished the game with each of them - and took the Beacon's Perch-Droknar's Forge-Expressway at lvl 11 only with the last, because I was looking for a new challenge. And for me it was almost as much fun doing the missions in the Southern Shiverpeaks and the Volcanic Island Chain from 11-15 instead of lvl 20 to lvl 20. Besides, my first travel (after Ice Caves) lead to Granite Citadel to get my 2nd Armor (after the one from Ascalon) for my char

(which might be a nice workaround - don't put level restrictions on 'ascended' armor, because that's so expensive that no Newb can get a full set the legitimate way).
edit: There's something I forgot. Those behaving like idiots after they got their armor - well, they will behave that way no matter what armor they wear, and you either just don't play with them (more than once) or think positive: that lvl 15 W/Mo without the slightest idea of tactics that is aggroing way too many monsters at least won't die
that fast, because he's wearing ascended armor. So equipment negates skill - in a way

(which doesn't imply that I wouldn't resurrect him, if he manages to behave rude enough)