"Ascending" actually meaning something.

Yeah this idea popped up in the riverside forum about ascension. The question was...why the hell do we even get ascended? Is 50k xp really necessary? If you do the quests/missions up to that point you should barely be far away at all from lvl 20. And for those who don't rush directly from beacons to droknars, you'll still typically get there at about 14-15 or something.

So the problem is...ascending doesn't...do anything. It's supposed to make you a lot stronger to be able to beat the mursaat but it's basically...optional.

Anyways the idea was to have the droknars armor (and beyond) only available to those who ascend. This would stop the problem of lvl 8 people getting rushed to droknars, getting the armor and then going to murder everyone in the ascalon arenas and what not. It would also stop the chance of you finding someone in say, Ice Caves of Sorrow who keeps asking who the hell the mursaat are and what "infused" is...

Players new to the game are getting rushed to droknars and then they've no clue what goes on and it really kinda ticks me off.

I'm trying to figure out...what the benefit of getting rushed to droknars even is. The only thing there is a skill trainer with a few skills and the armor.

The only purpose getting rushed there really serves is if there's a priest of balthazar there or in the area that PvP players need to reach quickly to exchange their faction, and that I can understand.

However...for all the people who just want to move through PvE quickly, it'd really help to stop it. Making it so that you can only hop into that final armor after ascension would stop newcomers from getting in water too deep, and it would still allow for PvP players to go and exchange their faction or whatever 'cause they're not too concerned about the armor.

Also, it'd actually make ascending worth something, if you know what I mean.

You can't get to Dragons Lair unless you pass Ascension. If you can't get to Dragons Lair, you can't get to the Tomb of Primeval Kings, and if you can't get there you can't get into the Hall of Heroes.

Then maybe they should move the Draknar's Armor to the Desert areas... which can only be accessed by doing missions.

Will say its annoying how Ascension currently means bugger all.

Why that is absolutely brilliant!! Absolutely smashing idea!

But make it Dragons Lair! That way you have to Ascend!

This idea may very well deserve its own thread if not this one!

Dragon's Lair would be a perfect place for the armorers.

Even better make the Armor Makers within Dragon's Lair, or the Tombs... then you have no option but to Ascend in order to get the uber armor.

I see we're all on the same page here. Good, good!

i can see this work but the armourer really shouldnt be ghost or those snake things to fit in the time

If the armor were in Dragon's Lair, I would not have paid runners to get me to the Forge. I'd have bought sh*tty armor in Ascalon and kep it for as long as possible before replacing it.

Well there you go, it would stop ganking of low level people by people using high level armor in PvP arenas.

I thought it was supposed to be set up that you couldn't even buy high end armor until you met a min lvl req?

True for high-rank armor in low level arenas. But real pvp players are not concerned about low level arenas, and me personally can well ignore those poor souls that need to overpower people with equipment. GW is about skill, and skill in PvP is measured when you can use about the same equipment and are about the same level. That is, tombs or pvp characters.
Couple days ago I took a new warr character and undertook academy at lev 2, didn't want to go through pre-searing. So I enter the arena and confront a german guy spewing things like "i'm gonna thrash you", only, not that clean. He was a lev 7 ele/ranger with pet, I was a lev 2 wa/necro. He won 3/2. Do I feel humiliated? hardly. Would I have felt humiliated if he won 7/0? Nah. Let them gank. Big fish in the pond works only while people stay in the pond.

But if I had a runner, my warrior would've gone through the first pve missions much faster, and I would've liked it. I did those missions already, and while I'm going to be enjoying the challenge with a new class, if I had a runner I'd take it. And, I'd run my guildmates through, if they want it - of course after they did all he mess once without help. I don't need no whiners in guild, first you work hard, THEN I run you through

Yep, Yep, I agree with the OP. Make Ascension mean something by allowing you access to the armor only in Dragon's Lair. Yep, Yep.

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At present I don't see how ascending means bugger all. Unless you assend you can't get to the hall of hereos. This is one of the biggest features of the game. Without ascending you are still classed as just another mortal in the eyes of the gods. Once you have you and a group of like minded souls can enter the Tomb and attempt to prove your worth to the gods. I would have thought that was reason enough for ascension.
Besides if it was moved to tombs (Armour that is) People would start doing runs from kyrta to ages to sanctum cay. And the damn people offering money for desert mission runs would increase. I think the desert is an important place too. It's where you learn to form groups proporly, discuss stratagies beforehand and learn how to best utalise your abilities. (Especialy against your mirrior, learning how to counter your own tactis from someone stronger then you is an important lesson.)
To all thoese who think forming a group in the desert is hard, try doing it in the tomb .

Yes people would indeed pay to get run to Sanctum and Desert, but once you hit the mirror, there is no amount of money that will get you through because you have to do it yourself. You absolutely have to do something for yourself if you want to get your prize.

And no matter how good you are a lvl 6 is not going to survive two hits from that thing.

If I understand things correctly, you can not run the 15 point attribute quests unless you ascend. That's a strong reason to ascend right there.

In addition, why not make the armor makers only deal that high level armor to people who have ascended? Then, the armor's don't have to be moved. Also, make the underworld/fissure areas only available to ascended characters. That would drastically increase the reasons to ascend.

I would also like to see a visual change for ascended characters. I read once (somewhere) and idea suggesting that maybe their eyes could glow or something. That might be really cool. Even if it was just an emote thing like the collectors addition does with people's hands......

Yes, this is true. I had completely forgotten about that.

These are also very good ideas. If the armor crafters sell only to those ascended it also defeats the purpose of running to Droknars. Same thing should apply to the skill trainers.

I don't like this. It's like the cape thing. It might sound good on paper but a lot of people will end up hating it and begging for a toggle like the cape.

I totally agree with this, put the high end armor in a place where it takes skill and time to get to

or put a min. lvl on what it takes to wear it

When are you people going to get over the whole Droknar Armor thing? Moving it won't fix anything with ganking in the Ascalon arena. If you really want to give the newbies a fighting chance and make their introduction to PVP a good one, put an arena in pre-searing.

No matter how good you are, or how much practice you get in pre-searing, once you get to post-searing you're still screwed. Playing a guy who has 60-80 armor and carrying elites while you're still wearing your measly 15-30 and using basic skills is unfair and is going to be abusive.

When are you people going to get over the fact that it's not fair?

I could understand that, but that's why I suggested it working like the collectors edition glowing hands. i.e. (at least as I understand it) the affect is only there in emotes.

Requiring ascension for the armor would solve a lot of the problem in the ascolon arena.

Putting an arena in pre-searing would be really sweet though.

I know it's not fair and that's why I said put an arena in pre-searing. That makes things fair. Moving Droknars Armor into Dragon's Lair or putting armor levels on it does nothing to stop the bigger problem of ganking in the Ascalon arena. You can't stop people from getting elites, you can't stop people from buying weapons that wouldn't conceivable be able to get without buying them, and you can't stop people from having better armor than a new player in Ascalon.

Do you know what would happen if the Droknars Armor is moved? You would have people being rushed to Sanctum Cay and then heading into the desert to get collectors armor, which is the exact same AL as Droknars.

The people that gank in Ascalon are griefers and they will find a way to stroke their poor, fragile egos. Your suggestions simply shift the problem from one area to another.

Personaly I like the fact that the developers have given us the option to run to droknars. Getting the armour there (Assuming you have the money) will not instantly make you uber. Without ascending you can't get the atributes, you can't change your secondary and most importantly of all you are denying yourself the experiance nessesary to participate in the more advanced sections of the game.
However if you are on your 3'rd PvE char (Hell I've ran 5 through, i got bored with em and started over!) you might not be so hot on doing all the missions again. Maybe you want to get rushed to droknars, grab your armour and then go back and tackle some of the misisons solo?
Speaking from experiance I needed to get a PvE ranger for the pet build I wanted to run. (I didn't want the wolf pet and I wanted to name it )
I ran myself with henchies froma sclon to piken, to yaks. did borlis pass, ran to kryta, then ages, then sanctum kay.
From their I labored in the desert with my lvl 15 char still in pre-searing armour (Excpet the chest which I'd replaced at the ice caves) and set up my skills so that I could still do the desert.
I beat my mirror in this armour at lvl 15. Now there's not a chance in hell I would have pulled that off without ALOT of previous experiance. I'm currently going back through the rused areas unlocking skills via quests for each profesion that i need. (I've done all the path quests)
Had I have just been rushed to droknars I'd have had to go back anyway. The only difference is that I'd have had better armour while dong it.
Let people get rushed. If they've got the money for it let them spend it. They're going to have to go back and ascend at some point to be truly competative anyway.

People are actually pathetic enough to do this? Anyone having problems with this just leave the ascalon arena, play through and ascend. Once you have you can go PvP on equal tearms and these grifers won't be able to do a damn thing about it.

The reason people can get to Droknar's at low levels is because of the Lornar's Pass. There's no reason to go from Droknar's to Beacon's... so ask yourself: why is it there? It's something for guilds to do. Take low level characters down and get him good armour so they can then rush him through the rest of the game to ascend and get the 50k XP to level 20.

I'll tell you one thing: no armour or "godly weapons" can win your battle against your mirror self. My monk/warrior (mostly healing, I tried it first with smiting but the little bugger didn't have to get used to the new skill bar like I did, so I went back to mostly healing) level 15 took 20 minutes to kill his mirror self. Not because the guy kept healing himself, but because he just had more hp, access to all my skills at any time, and any weapons aparently... he used a chaos axe half the time!
I wound up just forcing him to run out of energy (I had energy boosting offhand tools so I had that advantage) and then I unleashed everything. He was at 50% health. He healed once, ran out of energy. I wore him down from there, which took the rest of the round. He couldn't heal fast enough because he was running out of energy all the time.

That's skill, no armour or weapon gave me the knowledge to do that. I knew how to defeat him, and that's how I won.

As for early game arenas, nobody cares about those. Sure they're fun once in a while, but Tombs is much better. Competition and Team arenas are one step up, but the team size is still too small to mean much.

And if you put the best armour in Dragon's Lair, what does that do for the people who do follow the storyline? They get the best armour (which makes sense that it is made by the Dwarves... master craftsmen) one step earlier. Glint would have to be made stronger, otherwise teams would beat her far too often.

Just arguing the other side to give perspective, I don't side with bypassing the entire game. Even with my monk/warrior I did the Shiverpeak missions. I didn't do Ascalon because it's boring, nor the Maguuma because I hate the Maguuma. Additional reasons I skipped these areas include a) In Ascalon there are so many n00bs who b*tch at the monk because THEY ran 10 miles ahead of the group and died fighting 300 Charr solo because the monk wasn't there to keep them alive b) In Maguuma things swarm too much and usually they swarm the monk.
I did the rest of the game. With my Ranger I explored everything explorable too.


Oh, and I think I did the first of the 15 attribute quests before ascension with my Ranger. But that was a while ago they may have updated.

How about this...Ascension = infused. And no infusion missions. And infusion is a property of character, not armor. Then you would HAVE to ascend in order to fight the Mursaat.

Ooh, me like!

Although it still doesn't matter if it's on the armor or the character, since you can't trade armor.

OR simply have the Seer turn away any non-ascended characters. Will be funny to see them get to the Seer and get their "sorry, no dice" message...

It would only matter because it would give even more incentive to ascend...

EVEN BETTER!!

Im pretty sure that most of the people that rush their chars from Beacons Perch to Droknars Forge aren't "new" to the game. 80 percent of the time they are probably just sick of PUG's that fight and jeapordize missions, so they probably would just like to have the best armor right off the bat so they can greater their chances to rush through the game since they have done it already many times before.

Borak Bloodbane
Dwayna Bloodbane
Delandra Bloodbane
Bana Borakis

Actually, I ran one 15AP quest in the desert before ascension, but the others don't appear until Droknar's, right?

Hmmm... you say that, but have you heard some of the stuff people ask on S.Shiverpeak missions these days? "Where's Lion's Arch?"

(And I saw a level 10 in Thunderhead Keep, so he didn't just get armor & go back.)

Now that is a good idea! It would give meaning to Ascension plus it fits nicely into the storyline. If you think about it, why would the Seer infuse the armor of those that haven't ascended and advanced their role in the Prophecy? Answer: she wouldn't.

Brilliant in it's simplicity. Good thinking.

Far as I know Vanyi still wont give you the other 15 point quest.

Funny thing is they get angry when people make fun of them for asking such things so far into the game.

As you can see i did not use any dogmatic statements in my post...i simply said "most people"

Borak Bloodbane
Dwayna Bloodbane
Delandra Bloodbane
Bana Borakis

In order to get the second 15-point attribute quest, you have to complete both The Forgotten Ones (Given to you by that Forgotten snake dude just outside Augury Rock), and A Hero's Journey (Given to you by Vanyi).

Both those quests are only available in the desert, which you can't really be short-cutted to.

I am all for the Beacon's Perch -> Droknar's Forge shortcut. It makes me very happy. I absolutely intend to use it on my other three characters, but let it be known that I got there by Ascending the first time -- however, I don't feel like grinding through all those missions over again just to get my good armor. Once I've seen the entire story, the missions exist only to get me comfortable with my new skillset.

As I said (at length) in another thread elsewhere, experts farming Faction in the Ascalon Arena (newb reaping) will happen, Forge armor or no, it's just a crutch. You take super-green newb PvPer against omg ultra top-10 guild leader man, and I'll make my bets.

-sam

I don't gank in the low-level arenas. I don't even play in them. I know there are people who do that, though. However, I only PvP with my guildies in Team, HoH, or GvG. I rushed to Droknar's so that I didn't have to waste $ on four sets of armor or time collecting stuff for the collectors to get that armor instead. I feel my reasons are perfectly legitimate, while those rushing so that they can gank are not. Yes, I have an advantage over you in PvE. It's through the benefit of already having a high-level character gathering resources that can be passed to my low-levels. But, I'm not ganking you in the Ascalon arena. If the armor were made available in Dragon's Lair instead, I would simply have continued my mission storyline with AL30 until I got to the desert. That's the difference between a legit player and one looking to gank. I won't mind if you move the armor. I'll still get it. Just not as soon.

The idea of limiting armor based on character level has a precedent in the game. Weapons. There are tons of max damage weapons out there, but what's the lowest skill level on them? I'm not saying that which armor you used should be tied to a class specific skill level, but something like "at least one skill at level 10" (or whatever number makes sense).

Sure, I'd like for Ascending to mean more, but I also know that limiting armors to those that have ascended seems a little extreme. Besides, would pure PvP characters count ascended?