This post isn’t a rant about the new Ascended gear, but a simply sugestion for the whole gear system in general. English isn’t my main language so forgive me if it gets poor sometimes.
When I first learned about gears in Guild Wars 2, I was excited because I knew that I would get to 80 looking for Masterwork pieces, and after reached the level cap, there would be a whole new world of gears to acquire. I could explore through the world and find rare gear, and then survive through a lot of dangers and challenges and someday get an exotic gear.
The problem is, the romance is over. Masterwork pieces (Masterwork!) are just vendored, pretty much like garbage. I would salvage tons of fine weapons – because that weren’t fine at all – and won’t even speak about basic items. Then the problem just got worse: I found that rare items had nothing rare about it, and everyone in Lion’s Arch were using exotic gear they bought for about 2 gold pieces from a merchant who had piles of it. The only truly rare gear, the Legendaries, the ones we could brag about having and that could breath away those who run past us in Lion’s Arch and give us hope about killing the dragon’s most powerful minions – they were just an elitist item, something that money can buy and lucky can bring. They were not related to our achievements and conquered challenges.
And then, after all the mess, a new item type is introducted. Instead of trying to relieve the current gear system, it’s creating a whole new class of items, wich will replace our gear and make it even more trivial. Nobody will touch rare items and exotics will be people’s underwear or pajamas.
So, why? I’m not just worried about the trend of keeping us replacing our gear periodically, wich is everybody’s concern at the moment, but mostly what it will happen to the current items and market. People already don’t give a kitten about items that SHOULD be rare, and what is an exotic? What is the excuse of creating a new, parallel item rarity, instead of boosting the existing ones and make them more appealing through one type and the other?
And then here comes my suggestion. I know it would not be easy to implement but would love to see that you guys at least “get the idea” around it for future content.
1. First of all, rare items should be truly rare and, hence, desirable. They should be attainable like cultural gear, but never trivial (not talking about how you get it, just how much it’s desirable). And above all, gear people would like to use. Even if outleveled, it would not be salvaged because it is rare, after all, and otherwise used to transmute for better stats while keeping those awesome look.
2. Similarly, Exotic items have to be something that catches people’s eyes as you pass by. I’m not talking only about particle effects, but just gear that you can not find easily. Something really exotic. It should be about aesthetics, as an “Exotic warrior” isn’t exactly a better warrior, it’s just.. Something exotic. Hard to get, it would be entirely optional, something wanted only for those who want to stand out in the crowd.
3. About the Legendary. They NEED to be about your story, not about your budget. The precursors need to be something really hard to get, but that can be reliably reached. The beginning of an optional journey. And this journey, in turn, need to be about your character and what he has done to make the world a better place. Speaking about journey, I would love to make the abyss between exotics and legendaries shorter. I am not talking about making legendaries easier to get, but to give the players the feel that they are getting there. For example, instead of collecting tons of mats and boxes of gifts that mean almost nothing for us, make us collecting equippable “legendary fragments”, something that people recognize as “this guy is getting there”.
Going on in this, valuing the system that is already in the game, we can make items that the hardcore crowd would like to have and get them busy. This post is already big enough, but if someone want to I can give my view about how that could be achieved. I would also love to see a feedback from a dev about this. Either way, thanks for your time and hope it meant something!
TLDR: Masterwork items are trivial, rare items aren’t rare, and exotics aren’t exotic because everybody is using those. The game don’t need the creation of a new tier right now, but a rework in the current gear system!