A: So yep you are right this is the question i have been likely dodging the most? The reason being is that it requires investigation. Vet and Champs should give good loot and there are a number of reports on perceived decrease in the frequency of drops. I will be discussing this in depth with the Production and Design team tomorrow and we will hopefully have more info soon.

A: Forgive my shortness in the reply but the answers are easy but the information is not something we would be prepared to talk about yet.
1: Yes 2: Its an interesting design proposition.
Hope you aren't to angry about the lack of info and thanks for taking the time to get involved in the conversation.

A: Really interesting comment that i agree with. I love the fact that i can create a really good build and would love the ability to swap between builds (armor and all). This is something we will be paying more attention to. Thanks for the post and support.
More news to come.

A: i love the goal here and it is an area i have been thinking about a lot today. Specifically a more frequent conversation between the community and the team. Still brainstorming around it, so watch this space.

A: We are still finalizing the design on both your question and your suggestion. If we were to discuss it it would likely change and therefore be misleading info. I think that moving forward we should be more communicative about our design once we have a good idea of our plans before it is executed upon. This is just an off the cuff idea but i can certainly see its value.

A: Thanks for posting. Questions 1 and 2 are answered in the main body of the Best Section. However i will answer the questions on the FotM as i dont think they have been covered.
Do you stand behind the decision of having the levelling system in FOTM, essentially fracturing your player base into many, many, different portions, with players only looking for the specific level they need to advance through level difficulty?
It was never a conscious decision to fracture the player base through the Dungeon. Honestly we were aware the dungeon was good but we didn't know just how popular it would be. Nearly straight away we saw the issue and have been working on a fix since, we have explored multiple systems and will land on one this week. Suffice to say that Ascended should have been a global roll out and wasn't.
In regard to disconnects we totally understand the frustration. It frustrates everyone in the studio because they have to suffer through it to. On top of this i never hear the end of it from my guild! Kidding aside though it is a big issue, we have a fix in our dev build and will test it thoroughly before deploying it. We will let you know when we intend to deploy.

A: We were talking about this this afternoon Red and we certainly believe that some method of meaningful replacement would be a good idea. we didn't however come to a conclusion yet so there is no more detail.

A: Thanks for taking the time to post. This was a bug and was not intended. The bug will be fixed moving forward.

A: I love the idea of henchmen and this is something we would discuss, however the problem you raise initially would be complemented by this feature rather than fixed. We are going to ensure full use of the world by not polarizing content. This has been a huge topic of conversation today. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and questions.

A: If you don't mind i will just answer the first question as the second is something that would be discussed at work. And thanks for taking the time to submit the questions.
So in regard to question 1: We had/have a plan to seed ascended through the game. It affects many many areas and systems and we wanted to essentially rewire aspects of reward progression. This is an ongoing priority. However this is a multi phase plan and during the creation of the FotM I wanted to roll out a subset of the plan to the community. The progression/reward system was not correctly deployed but the Dungeon was, at least in my opinion as i think the guys have done an amazing job. The reward system that was rolled out was also not 'as designed' due to some dependencies in other areas of the game. I made the decision to continue with the roll out and here we are today.
This is my responsibility, it was a bad call, but i have to say that whilst this could of been handled better i am still truly excited for what the future will bring and i wouldn't be doing this job if i didn't want to learn from extreme challenges and work with amazing people.
I very much appreciate the chance to connect with everyone not just in regard to this issue but the game as a whole. I am hoping to do this once a month with more team members and keep up more meaningful communication channels.
I hope this answers your question, going into anymore detail would take time away from answering other questions.

A: It really is shame to see you so angry at a team of people who work extremely hard to provide the best experience we possibly can. Whilst i understand your frustration saying that the team isn't listening to or working on bugs is just plain wrong and disrespectful. This is without doubt the best team i have worked and we will continue to give our heart and soul when it comes to making the very best game we can.
So with that out of the way let me address some of your concerns. A number of bugs that we see in game that relate to event progression or story progression are extremely complex and were not present before we launched. We have a team that works on just these kind of bugs and on a daily basis make fixes to very complex issues. Whilst i understand how frustrating this can be please understand this is a live game and one fix can cause a new issue. No matter how much we test for this variance we will miss issues.
We are doing everything humanly possible to fix issues that present themselves but it does take time.

A: Thanks for taking the time to post your question. Well we already have a down leveling system and with it we intend to refresh content and reward/progression systems to make these areas constantly desirable. This is something we are working on for a release in the near future and will keep you posted as we get closer to the release date.

A: I think that's a really interesting point and personally i think we should be adding more variety and diversity in encounters and creatures in PVE in order to better communicate just how individual and role centric our proffesions can be when items, skills and traits are set up in such a way that they compliment each other. This is why we will be working on Creatures and open world PVE content very soon to help expose just how deep the combat system is prior to learning it at 80 for example.

A: I think grind is repetitive game play leading to a goal where the activity of progression isn't fun whether it not be fun initially or it suffers from diminishing returns over a period of time. Both the reward and the path have an impact on 'The Perception of the Grind' .
The one thing i do like about the ascended issue is that it allows us to talk about some of the deeper issues we see in our game,and the genre and for me to be able to recognize this and say it isn't good enough and that we will do our very very best to correct existing issues and make darn sure that new content and progression is best of breed.
So with this in mind it is our intention to ensure that progression is fun and that whilst different type of players enjoy different type of activities they can all appreciate the journey to the reward in their own way and that the outcome/reward of the journey is balanced.
The method in which Ascended Gear was rolled out does not meet these criteria, however it was designed to, but it didn't roll out the way we had originally intended.

A: I am not trying to answer any questions politically but there are some answers which we haven't decided upon internally yet and therefore it is pointless me giving an answer that hasn't been agreed upon yet. However what i can say is that kind of mat requirement is not in keeping with playing fun activities in the game and whether we lower the required amount of mats or apply another fix your answer is that we don't intend on keeping it the way it is.
Sorry i cant provide more detail, i just don't have it.

A: Well it certainly wasn't designed to be a monetization resource, however i do see your point. We wanted to get rid of rez rushing and focus more on parties working together to not die and die less (-: We will continue to monitor the need for repair in the fractals and go from there.
Sorry if i am not giving more details here but this is something i would like to get metrics on.

A: I think the amount of materials required to make some of the gear is disproportionate to the amount of time the player wants to put in before he/she starts feeling like the goal is a grind and this skews the overall experience of the dungeon and the perception of the gear within it. I would like us to correct this and we will start working to this shortly.
In regard to future items the amount of work required to gain an item to allow players to experience content and continue having fun will be balanced appropriately.

A: This ties back to what i was saying earlier in which Ascended Gear and really any progression related reward mechanism that impacts the world globally should be introduced (Where possible) across the game and inside the different type of player's activities specifically. Allowing players to continue doing the things they love without focusing player migration to a specific part of the world. The introduction of the Ascended reward in one part of the game was a mistake and one that i don't want to make again.
Soon Ascended Gear will adhere to these rules.

A: It is absolutely not intended that Ascended will make a discernible difference in WvW. However it is the certainly the perception. Again however we would have much preferred to have released Ascended Gear across the whole of the game than in one area.
Players in WvW will be able to acquire Ascended items within that area of the game soon.

A: These are all cool ideas for WvW and you can expect to see some significant content dropping in this area of the game in the near future.
I would like to be more precise but can't be but rest assured we are working a lot on not just new content for this area of the game but also progression, reward and beacon mechanics.

A: I would certainly like this. But seriously we are going to be doing some quality of life improvements to the TP in the non to distant future so watch this space.

A: I am very proud of the balancing work we did as a team on the FotM and i will be spending a lot more time on balancing moving forward. I intend to work more closely with the rewards and itemization team and will also be helping with the new guild content. we have a fantastic team here, i just wish i had more time to work with everyone on everything, although i am sure the guys and gals may differ on that specific goal (-:

A: There will certainly be different combinations and potentially new types of stats added to a specific rarity with no overall % power increase.
However Ascended and Legendary will be infuse able.
Infusions will become the vertical progression earn able in PVE and WvW and accessible through a wide variety of different player activities thus catering to lots of different types of players and gained from all across the world of Tyria.
Should we add new player levels to the game then new items within the current rarities with a shallow power increase would be viable, however we would look at doing a new system rather than defaulting to this initially.

A: We have been discussion this topic for a while. There are lots of things we have brainstormed but are not firmed up on a direction yet. However here are some ideas to wet your appetite or not:
Events and activities related to town clothes Cities as dungeons! Player created events and activities. Non confrontational material gathering for crafting.
These are just a few of the top of head.

A: Anet we have no connection to Nexon in terms of development direction or at all as far as i know.

A: We did introduce new skins as well as the ascended gear (-:

A: No we were acutely aware of the what the reaction was going to be.
It is also great to see all the feedback as it helps us to answer and navigate larger questions we have in terms of the direction of the game moving forward.

A: Yes definitely. That is most certainly our intention, one that has been misrepresented in the itemization of the FotM.

A: Repetitive game play that is not fun.

A: Yep there is no doubt that the fractal level system is causing fragmentation. We are currently looking at solutions, one of which is to set the levels into tiers whereby all those within that tier say 1-5 can participate. This has implications on reward and difficulty which is why we are still looking into it.

A: I understand your frustration regarding questions on PvP but i simply cant answer all the questions. We have a separate PvP team working on that section of the game and we are building toward the functionality you describe currently. There should be more news regarding PvP shortly.

A: Yes the response was definitively expected. We did not intent for the information to come out this way. Going back to my previous answer the issue is that we believe in the vertical progression system we had pre launch and that the introduction of an element into the system post launch was going to cause concern but something we believe in. That is why there is no plan for new Rarity Tiers of loot but there are plans to enhance or gain items within the existing rarity design whose properties continue on a shallow power curve. This said we certainly don't want to create a system where itemization blocks progression in the game globally and we also need to be careful of this in areas such as FotM if the primary reward isn't available elsewhere in the game. So in short its an exciting problem but one that has been poorly communicated and handled.
And for this i take responsibility and apologies. However the future of this philosophy and the design challenges it throws up are going to lead to a pioneering world and one that we are very excited about.
So anyway i kind of went of topic here so in short. We don't intend to have an item rarity gear treadmill, we intend for the progression for gaining these rewards to have lots of different avenues for different types of player and where possible lower no fun grind within the whole of the game.

A: Thanks for taking the time to post your questions. Mike O will respond to the top question and I will respond to the bottom section.
Ascended Gear is designed to fill the 'Time' gap in regard to the distance between exotic and Legendary in terms of progression and in retrospect would have been better to have been rolled out pre launch.
I would also like add that we have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intent to focus on horizontal but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.
Please understand that we see the community as a 'whole' and therefore are not intending to design again for one specific type of player over another. This is a misconception and one that is not promoted by the team. We will continue to develop the game for the community as a whole offering game play that caters to lots of different types of players in a unified approach that will evolve over time based on feedback and the direction the team as a whole wants to take.
Edit: Mike O's response is below.

(Mike O Brian) A: Hi! I'll respond to the top part since it's a quote from me.
Obviously the key phrase I'm going to point you to in that quote is, "if someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can't realistically acquire it". That really is the litmus test we've used. That's why, at ship, we gave better stats to exotic gear and didn't give better stats to legendary gear.
More generally, I hope we've been clear that GW2 is not a game with virtually no stat progression in it like GW1 was. That's why GW2 shipped with a higher level cap, and with a hard separation between PvE and PvP. In GW1 we never advanced the level cap through four campaigns/expansions. The game design didn't allow for it. But GW2 was designed without those restrictions, and we've always expected that we will someday raise the level cap in GW2.
That's why we've always said that GW2 rewards players through both progression and collection, whereas GW1 primarily rewarded through collection. Presumably players aren't shocked that GW2 rewards through progression, since it has a level 80 cap.
I wonder if the core sentiment is more this: It's only been two-and-a-half months! We don't even all have exotics yet, and already you're introducing another tier. Is this the start of a power progression curve that I'll never be able to keep up with?
I certainly appreciate that worry. I myself don't want a constant struggle, as exists in some other games, to keep my equipment viable.
Then we're left with a balancing act. Some progression is ok, but pushing players onto gear treadmill isn't ok and isn't what the game is about.
So I would ask you to judge us by details, and not by making slippery-slope arguments. We introduced a ton of new content in November, and the sum total of new progression rewards we added to go with it provided a 5-10% stat increase in 2 of 12 slots. I hope you'll agree that that kind of very shallow and gradual progression does not force people onto a gear treadmill.
I think it's important for GW2 to be able to have this kind of gradual progression. Of course we made some mistakes with the way we introduced ascended gear. (See ChrisW's answers for details.) But those are addressable issues. I don't think they invalidate the fundamental concept that GW2 can have gradual stat progression without being a gear treadmill game.

A: I agree that the crafting materials required for Ascended Gear are to much of a grind and we are looking to balance the requirements in a manner that is fair for all involved and we had always intended for their to be multiple ways to get Ascended Gear it just didn't make it the FotM build.

A: Moving forward we are going to do our best to design events that are accessible to the community as possible. We really should have thought about some of the ramifications of the design of the Karka event in more detail. In short its not something we wanted to happen and we will be rethinking how we do 1 time events moving forward.

A: First of all in retrospect it would have been better to have included Ascended Gear at launch. It is designed to give users a progression path that is between Exotic and Legendary (Legendary Items will be at the same power level as Ascended) and the gap between them in terms of time is very large.
So to the question of vertical progression. So as we know there is already vertical progression in the game and we do intend to keep moving forward with this philosophy. However we have no intention of adding a new Rarity of Gear such as Ascended. Instead and as we evolve the game existing Rarity's will evolve over time. However these will not be common occurrences, for example full Ascended gear will be introduced over a long period of time and will be earn able through lots of different parts/activities of the game. We had intended for example for the first release of acsended items come from other parts of the game but sadly it did not work out this way. Moving forward this is how it will work however.
In regard to gear checks specifically all increases in the power curve will be minimal and therefore there should be no straying from the intended power curve that you see in the game now, in terms of trajectory.
In regard to gated content via gear then i think that this is something we are going to give more thought to. Specifically if the reward at the end of the activity applies to players that are not just looking to do a specific type of content. Note that this statement is somewhat contradictory to the philosophy laid out above if the required items do not drop elsewhere or the ultimate rewards don't either. This is something we are going to fix.
Personally i do not feel that the latest changes are against what we said in the manifesto. I do however feel that we do have to be very careful in regard to progression design turning into grind and i believe there are some instances of this kind of grind that predate the launch of the game. It is for this reason that we are looking to revamp some aspects of the game whilst connecting other parts increase the overall experience of fun in our progression mechanics.

A: It was not specifically designed before launch. However the concept of progression rewards with a shallow curve bridging other rewards was. Hope that makes sense.

A: Thanks for taking the time to send in some questions. We do not believe we have gone against any of our principals, but we do understand the concern regarding potential grind. We absolutely design everything we do with minimal grind and will continue with this principal moving forward.
1: I would prefer that we never say never but our intention is that in terms of 'Named Tier (Rarity) of Loot' Ascended will be with us for a long time and we will not introduce a higher tier of loot for the foreseeable future. There will be loot with different stats and new infusions within the current tier that will be spread over long periods of time (for example Ascended gear will be deployed over the whole of next year). 2: Ascended gear will be obtainable throughout the whole of the game aside from sPvP and in retrospect it would have been better to have rolled different acquisition methods out at the smae time os the FotM.

A: Thanks for taking the time to post and put forward your feedback.
The requirements for some of these items are currently under review as are certain items/areas that were released on launch. Personally i feel that aspects of the game ARE too grindy and we are working through these areas to correct our overall direction moving forward as well as taking some of our current progression systems and rewiring them for want of a better term for example different methods of acquisition related to the way different players like to play their content.
To be frank the ascended gear was designed to be earn able outside of the FotM and unfortunately we were unable to deploy this prior to the update. This (i hope) will not happen again.
At the end of the day we want to make fun content for all of our different player types to enjoy, in which they can earn the same rewards as other types of players, through activities they enjoy playing the most. This is not PR this is a fact. It is an extremely complex and exciting design goal that we aim to achieve with the help of our community.

A: This is a reply from John Smith, ArenaNet's economist:
We did expect the change in price of Ectos and it was intended. Bots had artificially suppressed the prices of many high end items making late game farming for legitimate players less effective than we wanted. With the fractal dungeon we introduce available ways to earn Ectos and other high end items for use or profit to keep the price from going up too fast.

A: I agree whole heatedly and this is something we have and are continuing to have multiple discussions about.

A: There are certainly plans to have a look at that now and discuss it internally.

A: I will try to be as clear as possible:
- We do not intend to deploy another tier/rarity of loot such as Rare>Exotic. However we also do not intend to make promises that can be misinterpreted moving forward.
- Ascended Gear will be introduced throughout next year,and accessible through many game play activities rather than just on. -Through infusions and existing Tiers there will be the opportunity to increase stats or abilities on a low power curve through multiple types of gameplay in GW2.

- The opportunity to enhance existing tiers of loot will not be through a regular cadence of monthly updates instead it is more likely to come from expansions or very big drops of content.
- In retrospect Ascended should have been deployed pre launch and earn able throughout most activities in the game (which is how we are moving forward).
I believe there has been no change to our philosophy regarding end game gear. We have learnt lessons for sure which is one of the main advantages of a live game and no doubt we will learn lessons moving forward. This does not however dilute our commitment to create a pioneering, accessible and fun world for players as we continue to build out GW2. And we very much rely on your and the communities feedback as we execute on these philosophy.

A: Both personal story and home instances are ares that i wish we had spent more time on already in terms of content since release. However we will be building on them as we move forward and would love to hear more of your thoughts in regard to the direction you would like to see them move in. In short you can expect to see big things.

A: This is an extremely interesting question and as you know the path down the road for a solution is highly complex. In fact myself and Mo were discussing this this morning. So please forgive me if my answer is somewhat lite or comes across as deflective but i would prefer the surroundings of a pub or meeting room to really get into this one.
However:
I think online worlds are amazing in that they house different societies or player types if you like. I think it is only natural for players to gravitate to those who they feel are like minded, and i think it is also only natural and in some ways quite healthy to have a macro society or community that doesn't always agree with one another. I think that diversity is exciting but it can also fragment so a method in which different groups of players work with others in synergy each enjoying their own diverse game play that is rewarding because of the game play is certainly a step in the right direction. Reading this statement you will no doubt be thinking that the FotM doesn't utilize this philosophy and you would be correct. Moving forward progression and rewards will be inter woven appropriately into the core systems and social aspects of the game, allowing the diverse societies or player types to work together by playing the content that they love.
So in short something that is universally enjoyable as a progression system or a reward should be as accessible as possible and cater to the different ways our players consume the game but in a manner in which the Community of the world as a whole is contributing to each others overall experience.

A: Thanks for your question. We are very aware over the concerns raised over the timing and one time nature of the Karka event. Moving forward we will be paying special attention to how we design these events to be as inclusive as possible.

A: We are currently discussing these particular items and it is fair to say that we don't want have such big hikes in requirements moving forward.

A: We have a lot planned for WvW both in terms of current systems and new content and you can expect to hear a lot of new exciting details very soon. In short we have a lot of love for WvW and will continue to evolve it as we move forward.

A: I totally get what you are saying and we are working very hard on not only addressing the bugs in the game, but building on new areas and trying to ensure that new content is as bug free as possible. This is very big ticket item for all of us, so in the same way as the work we did on bots you can expect to see big improvements soon.

A: Really interesting question. Our intention is to deploy ascended components and gear across the whole of the game rather than focus it in one particular location. This was a a mistake and one that we will not be making moving forward. We do hope to find a balance and ensure that the world of Guild Wars 2 is as accessible and populated as possible and moving forward you will be able to see how we intend to execute on this goal.
I think with the support of the community we can continue building a world that does satisfy lots of different types of players in a fashion where everyone feels part of the same community and whose activities impact and interplay with those of differing player types.

A: Thanks for taking the time to get in touch. We will be evolving and building on all or our content in the game and do plan to build on Southsun Cove in the near future. In regard to the fractal fix, we are working on a fix right now and i would like to take this opportunity to apologies for the issue.

A: Great to hear that you are enjoying the game and thanks for your support.I will answer one of your questions in order to keep enough time for the rest of the community:
1: We are still working on getting the Karka event reward out to those players who participated but missed out.