Guild Wars 2

One of the most tedious aspects of RPG’s in general, for me, is having to constantly swap out armour pieces for more effective ones in order to stay competitive, regardless of how ridiculously mismatched I end up looking. I find this especially jarring, considering that all the NPC’s get to stick to the same outfits throughout, in fact, I find that an immersion-breaker. The cosmetic and functional should be entirely separate. The Secret World gets this right by having your outfits’ stats tied to upgrade items that you can freely swap out when you find something you like the look of better. I would very much like to see that system in GW2, instead of having to use Transmutation Stones all the time. Granted, if that were the case, then we’d have no reason to buy them but that can easily be resolved by replacing them with Gem Store-exclusive (cosmetic) armour sets.

Given that GW2 is far less gear-dependant than other MMOs, this issue isn’t so bad here, however, I do feel like it doesn’t cater to those, like me, who prefer consistency.