Guild Wars 2

I have never really played other mmorpg’s very actively (I played a bit of Aion and WoW beta). What is in these games actually involved in getting the best in-game gear? How often do you have to do your favourite dungeon/raid? how much do you have to creaft & gather with what % of success?

I see so much complaining about the grindy nature of getting GW2 top-tier gear, it would be nice to see how it compares to the other games out there. (I honestly don’t know)

Most modern MMORPGs use a combination of a token + dropped item system.

Typically the best in slot gear drops from the hardest raid instance at the time. A raid instance is a multiple group set of encounters. Usually, the boss encounters in the instance drop 2-3 pieces of gear for the raid force, which people then distribute.

In addition, as a means to ensure that everyone gets something, usually raids/dungeons drop some form of token which you can buy a set of gear. Usually the gear you get from raid tokens is just under the Best in Slot gear.

I think it’s about the same in other MMO’s actually… which sucks because GW2 was advertised as being different and not having gear grind.

Plunder.8195:

I have never really played other mmorpg’s very actively (I played a bit of Aion and WoW beta). What is in these games actually involved in getting the best in-game gear? How often do you have to do your favourite dungeon/raid? how much do you have to creaft & gather with what % of success?

I see so much complaining about the grindy nature of getting GW2 top-tier gear, it would be nice to see how it compares to the other games out there. (I honestly don’t know)

My gear experience, from WoW, was as follows:
– Crafting would very rarely provide good, usable gear for a max level character. Many times, this involved grinding out reputation with a faction to be able to purchase a recipe, or getting a recipe drop from a raid. Many times, these crafted items were not bound to your character, allowing people to sell these items on the Auction House for those that did not want to/could not craft them. I rarely received items in this way.
– Gear would drop from raid bosses, in tiers, with the best gear dropping off of the latest raid. As a raider, I got a good part of my gear in this fashion. Even though the drops were random, and rolled for by whoever could use them (no individual loot), I really liked this system. You really need a good team or group of friends for this to work without people getting upset.
– You could purchase gear with special currency, which you accumulated from running endgame 5-man dungeons or raids. With this system, even if you didn’t get gear from a drop that night, you were still working towards your next purchase.

Shinzan.2908:

I think it’s about the same in other MMO’s actually… which sucks because GW2 was advertised as being different and not having gear grind.

It is actually much different in GW2 than it is in other MMOs.

In GW2, you can craft your “endgame” gear. You can run dungeons and get tokens to buy your endgame gear. Or you can get your endgame gear from simple drops.

In other MMOs (we’ll use WoW as an example) it is much different. Say in WoW, once you hit 85, you start with Normal Dungeons to get decent gear. Then you have to do the Heroic versions of those dungeons to get the next tier of gear. Then it’s off to Raiding. You have to start with the normal mode raid first (usually 10 man as you won’t be geared for 25 man), and farm that for epics to be able to start on the 25 man version. THEN you have to move onto Heroic versions of the raids. Heroic normal mode to get that gear, and then onto heroic 25 man to get the best gear.

In games like WoW, you can’t craft endgame gear. You don’t get endgame gear from world drops. You can’t run dungeons to get endgame gear either. You have to follow the tier system to gear up. Dungeons, Heroic Dungeons, Normal 10M Raid, Normal 25M Raid, Heroic 10M Raid, and then Heroic 25M Raid.

So it is very much different from obtaining gear in GW2.

i must admit what u stated above bout getting high end gear seems more fun then in gw2. sad but true

xerxys.2635:

i must admit what u stated above bout getting high end gear seems more fun then in gw2. sad but true

Yea it is really fun doing the same raid 3 – 4 times a week for months on end and never having a single piece of gear drop for your character

WoW isn’t really about getting the best gear and showing it off, at least not for myself. Its mostly about getting the Title for completing the heroic raid while being one of the first groups in your realm or even in the world, who knows? It is possible, in every tier (patch) of raiding to complete heroic mode having only normal gear equipped, all you need are good players, and that game is certainly lacking that!
Cause what will you do once you get the heroic gear ? Of course it gets easier to do the heroic bosses but, you have already completed it, what then ? So the real challenge isn’t to gear up, its to defeat the heroic bosses. Of course most people can’t do that, and they cry like babies till the raids get nerfed to the ground, but thats just how it works.

GW2 has a totally different philosophy though, and its not bad, its just new, and people are still adapting to it!

In Wow for example, gear level unlocks content. You cannot run that content without the gear.

The twist is they put in this thing called RNG which is a very tiny chance of getting your item to item to drop plus locking the instance so you can only run it once a week. This is how they stretch out a really thin amount of content over the longest period of time to keep you paying and paying and paying (monthly fees).

This last year I ran the Dragon Soul raid for 7 months on 2 different levels of difficulty trying to get a trinket that was required to get on a decent RBG team. Kitten thing never dropped, I finally gave up and quit the game.

Oh, and I forgot to mention – every 6-8 months they install a new patch which completely obliterates any ‘progress’ you made, makes any previous content obsolete and you get to start the process all over again! XD