Guild Wars 2

Before I start, I refer to new players as new to the game. Not a level 80 trying to start a new character.

With the implementation of magic find from salvaging drops, the price of said drops and the availability has taken a hit. This you may think is no major thing, but a new player doesn’t have the extra gold to buy equipment as they level and as such, you have made the journey for a new player considerably harder.

The likeliness of a new player keeping their gear up to level from drops is unreadable (from experience) due to the numerous variances in type, stats and level. As such, the purchase of said items from the TP at a cheap amount due to high supply was the best solution.

With this gone, there is no real alternative.

Crafting is also not feasible due to the variety of materials required, and potentially if you are relying on this, you have seriously bumped up the skill-curve to get into the game – especially for casual players.

MMOs live because new people replace the old. By making this process much less appealing, you are starting GW2 down to road to an early death unless you make it easier for new players to the game to gear up as they level. If not then a lot of people won’t bother after the free trial as there are easier and more accessible options.

Hmm, I have always and only relied on drops to gear up. Except for the one time I like the look of some crafted armor, which was below my level once I could craft it. Thank goodness for transmutation stones. Lol.

Some people actually do play that way. It always seemed kind of like cheating, to me, to buy anything off the TP. But, that’s just me.

Remember, that with the cost of buying things going up, the profit of selling armor that drops and isn’t desirable has gone up, as well. I would imagine it’s a bit easier to make some money off the TP now, than it was earlier in the game’s life. Have you seen the price of onions, lately? Wow. I seem to make a fair amount of gold, just selling what one can gather in the starting zones.

Anyway, I guess my point is, not everyone plays the exact same way, and what seems harmful to some may seem par for the course, for others. =)

So, new players would be in the shoes of players at head-start? No gold to buy stuff, so forced to use (crap) drops or heart karma rewards mostly w/ Healing Power. I remember those days. Getting a green drop was actually a big deal.

On the contrary. With Magic Find becoming account bound and easily acquired by salvaging items of any level, I no longer have to constantly transfer gear between alts to be properly geared.

All my characters are now accumulating lots of level appropriate fine and masterwork items. I can easily sell them for well over twice their vendor price, given the demand for them by high levels players for salvage has increased. Or I can just salvage them myself for luck essences to amass even more Magic Find.

My characters are around level 20 and are all able to find gear for themselves, without relying on the market or other alts to remain properly equipped.

Humbolio.2174:

With the implementation of magic find from salvaging drops, the price of said drops and the availability has taken a hit. This you may think is no major thing, but a new player doesn’t have the extra gold to buy equipment as they level and as such, you have made the journey for a new player considerably harder.

The likeliness of a new player keeping their gear up to level from drops is unreadable (from experience) due to the numerous variances in type, stats and level. As such, the purchase of said items from the TP at a cheap amount due to high supply was the best solution.

Crafting is also not feasible due to the variety of materials required, and potentially if you are relying on this, you have seriously bumped up the skill-curve to get into the game – especially for casual players.

By extension, that also means that the drops they do get (and admit it, blues and greens are simple to get with drops) that they can’t/don’t want to use sell for higher on the tp, or they can salvage for EoL – if they sell on the tp, they make money, if they salvage they get luck and mats. Flip side of the same coin.

Crafting is the one area we can agree on. I know I didn’t keep it leveled with my toon’s gear level, and it requires mats you don’t always have handy.

tl;dr: Increases in price for buying means increases for selling. Crafting still isn’t that great for level-appropriate gear making.

Still fairly new and I never really had magic find until this account based junk. I never had a problem gearing up and making coin without it. Of course I used planing and didn’t go nuts on the TP when I saw things I liked.

OP are you honestly playing the same game I am?

I very recently started playing a new character. You could argue that I am already benefiting from my account magic find (sitting at a rather measly 30% at time of writing, 20% higher than it was when starting to focus on this new character). I do have a wallet, but I haven’t dipped into it at all, everything I have spent on her has come from the money she has made. Yes there has been inflation but it hasn’t hurt me at all! Seriously, it hasn’t. I can cut down green wood with a copper pick and make an enormous return on it, far more than my main ever got on release. Crafting isn’t essential to level up. I am taking a very causal chilled out route where I 100% the low level areas in order, and I have so much experience that I will most likely be way into my 80th level, way before getting even close to Orr, although I do admit I have crafted a little, and by a little I mean I am level 5/500 due to daily awards. Just playing a couple hours a day for a month and I bet you anything you will catch up to at least 40% of the player base!

I’ve played many characters to 80 without funding them from my main – before the wallet was added – and never had any problems just using the stuff that dropped for me and sometimes buying karma gear if i was falling behind. It’s not hard to keep geared while leveling from scratch, you’re being way too dramatic here.

This is especially a problem in WvW. Newer players will take far longer to get geared up to max stats than they did previously (when max stats were exotics).

This puts them at a disadvantage and probably discourages many from even trying WvW. (Imagine a fully geared Ascended glass cannon thief with permastealth and Guard Leech ganking a new player with two hits immediately upon arrival in WvW — is that new player going to ever return to WvW?)

ATM I have 2 lvl 80 chars.
To neither of them I bought stuff till lvl 80 and I didn’t have any problem

I never buy gear. I also get tons of masterwork and fine level items to salvage. I dont see the issue.

Lord Kuru.3685:

This is especially a problem in WvW. Newer players will take far longer to get geared up to max stats than they did previously (when max stats were exotics).

This puts them at a disadvantage and probably discourages many from even trying WvW. (Imagine a fully geared Ascended glass cannon thief with permastealth and Guard Leech ganking a new player with two hits immediately upon arrival in WvW — is that new player going to ever return to WvW?)

This isn’t as big of a problem in WvW when levelling. An upleveled player in WvW shouldn’t be focusing on any one stat set, but just getting good gear altogether. WvW will give upleveled players decent amount of drops, and the upscaling is actually pretty decent. I went in on my level 25 ranger and I left with a bag full of mostly blue and green items.

Your comparison of a full exotic person ganking an upleveled player isn’t valid here. This is the case now, and it was the case since GW2 came out. That argument isn’t very useful here, at all. Upleveled players in WvW shouldn’t be roaming, and doing so is at their own risk If they join a large-scale war and get ganked doing small group stuff…well…I feel no pity! The upscaling is actually very strong in WvW (I got over 2000 vit on my engi once wearing only greens at level 15), so the gear isn’t AS big of an issue (Though it can be). It’s mostly just experience (I’ve seen upleveled alts taking on lvl 80 players successfully)

Handin.4032:

Lord Kuru.3685:

This is especially a problem in WvW. Newer players will take far longer to get geared up to max stats than they did previously (when max stats were exotics).

This puts them at a disadvantage and probably discourages many from even trying WvW. (Imagine a fully geared Ascended glass cannon thief with permastealth and Guard Leech ganking a new player with two hits immediately upon arrival in WvW — is that new player going to ever return to WvW?)

This isn’t as big of a problem in WvW when levelling. An upleveled player in WvW shouldn’t be focusing on any one stat set, but just getting good gear altogether. WvW will give upleveled players decent amount of drops, and the upscaling is actually pretty decent. I went in on my level 25 ranger and I left with a bag full of mostly blue and green items.

Your comparison of a full exotic person ganking an upleveled player isn’t valid here. This is the case now, and it was the case since GW2 came out. That argument isn’t very useful here, at all. Upleveled players in WvW shouldn’t be roaming, and doing so is at their own risk If they join a large-scale war and get ganked doing small group stuff…well…I feel no pity! The upscaling is actually very strong in WvW (I got over 2000 vit on my engi once wearing only greens at level 15), so the gear isn’t AS big of an issue (Though it can be). It’s mostly just experience (I’ve seen upleveled alts taking on lvl 80 players successfully)

This has nothing to do with upleveled toons. Uplevels in WvW know that they are entering at their own risk so death is not a big deal — you’re basically expected to die and if you don’t, you’re happy. Plus leveling to 80 and getting exotics is easy — so (before the introduction of Ascended gear) it wasn’t like you were under-leveled and under-geared for a long time.

The problem lies with new players who are level 80, where Ascended gear is a long way off because of the materials/time investment needed. They will be at a disadvantage in WvW for a very long time. That’s very discouraging. This is also why I’m very opposed to the whole rank abilities (especially guard leech).

I’m gonna have to disagree with you here OP. The availability of gear hasn’t changed much. There are a number of fall backs players have, first and foremost being karma vendors. As players progress through the world they can change out and supplement karma gear, with gear found from champ loot bags and chests scattered throughout the world, at the end of jumping puzzles and for participating in events. Players are rewarded with gear for fully exploring each zone, WvW offers gear every ten or so levels as well. And there is exotic gear available down in Orr practically free of charge.

Gear isn’t something players should stress too much about till lv 80 anyway. Up until then you’ll likely be playing with stat combos, skill set ups, and generally just trying to find what you like. Frankly no new player should buy gear from the auction house till they have a good understanding of the game and what role they want their character to fill.

Plus characters level up so fast perfect upkeep on gear is near impossible. 5-10 levels is and acceptable gap for a first character. Theoretically a person could stay in the same starting zone and level to 80 completing events and gathering. Live on gear drops they find, bank in a butt load of karma, then run down to Orr when the temples are clear and gear up. Then go and explore the rest of the world.

With regards to crafting, it was never a feasible method for keeping a new character geared. The experience gained between collecting the mats, discovering the patterns and raising the skill level your bound to out level anything you could make. The exception being the initial starter gear. That is if you bothered to keep up on your crafting skill at all.

Overall gear is still very much available, it’s the information on how to get it that many new players aren’t privy to. That and the pressure to have the top tier gear asap and the fastest way to do that being through the auction house.

As for GW being on the early road to death, they’ve already started that journey some time ago. It’s more a matter of whether they’ll change direction or not.

I didn’t buy any gear for any of my characters until my main got to level 80 and I got a set of temple exotics. I still haven’t bought anything for any of the others.

Throughout levelling I relied on drops and occasional crafted pieces and it wasn’t a problem at all. Sure they didn’t all have exactly matching stats and were sometimes a few levels behind mine but since players who are still levelling will be almost entirely playing open-world PvE that’s not a problem. IMO buying gear off the TP more than once in a while is a waste of money.

Besides which I’m reasonably sure the current price spike will be temporary. It’s mainly driven by people who want to get to 300% MF (or whatever their personal target is) ASAP. The people who aren’t in such a hurry are unlikely to buy large amounts of greens and blues from the TP when they’ll be getting plenty of drops of their own.

A new player can sell any piece of gear he picks up, any level, any rarity, and make a heap of money, to exchange for a piece of gear that he can use, just like it has always been like in this game, in any game.

Trade goods for money, money for goods. They’ll also get ascended mats before level 80 if I am not mistaken.

Most MMO’s economy would never allow you to straight up by the best gear for your level like you previously could in Guild Wars 2.

This was actually a bad thing.

The fact that I could make a brand new character and a blue weapon off the TP straight out of the gate, I don’t think was ever intended.

I start the game: intro mission reward new weapon. do first story mission reward new armor, wander to a heart quest do that, (excluding any drops you get ) reward karma. karma merchant sells equpment and weapons. discover new land, exp,karma,money. do another story mission, get stonger piece of armor(repeat till 80)

There is no issue for new players unless they log on run about doing nothing at all they’ll get equipment to survive the game, you fixation on the tp been the only source of equipment blinds you of how you got to 80 in the first place.

It’s not difficult to find level appropriate gear and you can use the white gear merchant to supplement any gear that is falling behind or craft gear with resources you find.

I leveled two characters from 1 to 80 without crafting and without buying anything from TP. I bought items from TP on my third char, just because I wanted to rush through content. If you’re not running in into mobs guns blazing you’ll do just fine even with the gear 10 levels lower of your own, anyways, if you’re doing personal story then you’re constantly getting free gear upgrades anyways.

Buy blues, use blues, sell blues. Repeat. The only cost to the player is the 15% trading post fee when selling, and that can be completely offset/ameliorated by placing buy orders.

Buying greens or yellows for leveling is a convenience, not a necessity. Blues are suitably effective at even level, and are easily affordable (especially as supplemented by drops and personal story rewards).

Saelune.5316:

I never buy gear. I also get tons of masterwork and fine level items to salvage. I dont see the issue.

Some people have better loot drops than others. I hardly ever got green drop let alone rare ones. It may have worked out good for you but it never did for me. I bite the bullet and brought from the TP. I also had i friend that played reach 80 and he was still in blues that he got from drops. In fact he quit because the RNG loot drops are so bad in this game. This is and has always been a major problem in this game.