Guild Wars 2

Hi, as the title reads, how is GW2 different than any MMO? Speaking specifically to progression.

Simply put, I don’t see much of a difference.

I’ll take WoW as an example since many people have played it.

WoW: GW2:
BiS gear through raids BiS gear through crafting
Required only in raids Required only in Fractals
New tier every 2-3 months New slot every 2-3 months

So, wheres the difference? Focus on the second line item…required only in raids / required only in fracta.s. True, currently ascended gear is only required in fractals similarly raid BiS gear in WoW is only required in raids(you can do any heroic content or daily quests with minimal gear.)

Wheres the difference? Why has GW2 been put on a pedestal, first by arenanet and now by the community, as a game where gear doesnt matter and isnt required in any part of the game except fractals. WoW, the almighty gear treadmill of them all, is the same way if you look at it like this. So why is GW2, in your eyes, a unique snowflake here?

Edit: Speaking solely interms of character / gear progression. I know this topic can be applied to many other areas of the game.

I don’t think anyone has put GW2 on a pedestal since last November. It is just like wow except without the trinity that made combat deep. Now we have shallow combat with a gear treadmill but no raids and no quests.

It does have dodging which is nice.

Because WvW. That’s why.
And if new tier every 2-3 months is added on this game, a lot of people would QQ. So ain’t happening.

Trinity doesn’t make combat deep at all. If the tank messed up in a trinity game, the dps and healers had ZERO chance to succeed without them.

In GW2 at least if something goes wrong you can use your skills to recover the situation.

When things are going right, both games are just as faceroll.

Almost every other MMO has the holy trinity. Guild Wars 2 does not. Almost every other MMO has you competing for nodes and tagging kills. Guild Wars 2 does not. But it’s not the individual features that make this game “unique”. It’s the specific combination of features.

I’ve played a whole lot of other MMOs and there’s not one MMO I ever played where I was in PvE and I was happy another player showed up? He was always going to steal my kill, steal my node, tag my mob. Even in Rift, with their dynamic event system, they still had this problem. I’d wait for a boss to spawn to do a quest, some idiot would just in, tag the boss as soon as he spawned, he’s get credit for the kill, and I’d have to wait five minutes for a respawn to try again.

The various things in Guild Wars 2 may be found individually in other MMOs, but the combination of features in this MMO makes PvE a more cooperative experience.

I’m not sure I can think of any MMO where everyone can rez everyone else without even using a skill slot for a rez skill. It’s about deliberate design decisions that create a specific mindset. Games train people to play them.

Most MMOs teach you how to be selfish. This game rewards you for rezzing other players.

cesmode.4257:

Hi, as the title reads, how is GW2 different than any MMO? Speaking specifically to progression.

Simply put, I don’t see much of a difference.

I’ll take WoW as an example since many people have played it.

WoW: GW2:
BiS gear through raids BiS gear through crafting
Required only in raids Required only in Fractals
New tier every 2-3 months New slot every 2-3 months

So, wheres the difference? Focus on the second line item…required only in raids / required only in fracta.s. True, currently ascended gear is only required in fractals similarly raid BiS gear in WoW is only required in raids(you can do any heroic content or daily quests with minimal gear.)

Wheres the difference? Why has GW2 been put on a pedestal, first by arenanet and now by the community, as a game where gear doesnt matter and isnt required in any part of the game except fractals. WoW, the almighty gear treadmill of them all, is the same way if you look at it like this. So why is GW2, in your eyes, a unique snowflake here?

The high end gear can be obtained through crafting & drops. But the difference from WoW is, its not needed to compete against other players. It’s fine being full exotic and still very viable. Theres no new gear every 2-3 months, they stated the reason for ascended armor. I prefer GW2 over WoW any day simply because skill is required to be good in certain situations, and I do not need a healer on me 24/7.

WoW, you work hard for gear that you need in order to compete in high end content, compared to GW2 where you can buy a full set of beserker gear (Exotic) for atleast 10g-15g. You can compete in high end content with exotic gear. Heck even rare gear but that’s a stretch.

Hi,
I guess I should have been clearer and I will update the OP, but I was speaking in terms of character progression..gear progression. Whenever the topic of ascended gear comes up, people(including myself at times)whine that they won’t be on even playing field as someone that has an ascended gearset whether it be in WvW or a dungeon. Then, the pro-ascended camp comes into the thread and says “you don’t need ascended gear to run any dungeon, or to queue into WvW. GW2 has no gear requirements in any aspect of the game aside from GW2”.

My response to that is, “so I don’t need raid gear to run a dungeon in WoW and I don’t need raid gear to do any of the daillies in WoW. Whats your point? Why is GW2 different?”

cesmode.4257:

Hi,
I guess I should have been clearer and I will update the OP, but I was speaking in terms of character progression..gear progression. Whenever the topic of ascended gear comes up, people(including myself at times)whine that they won’t be on even playing field as someone that has an ascended gearset whether it be in WvW or a dungeon. Then, the pro-ascended camp comes into the thread and says “you don’t need ascended gear to run any dungeon, or to queue into WvW. GW2 has no gear requirements in any aspect of the game aside from GW2”.

My response to that is, “so I don’t need raid gear to run a dungeon in WoW and I don’t need raid gear to do any of the daillies in WoW. Whats your point? Why is GW2 different?”

If a game were only about gear progression you’d have a point. But then you could say baseball and football are the same game because they both have scores, they both keep stats and they both have a team that wins a superbowl/world series. They’re both competitive team sports, right?

All MMOs have progression but how you progression, even sandbox MMOs have progression but I don’t think anyone would say Eve is like WoW.

Vayne.8563:

Most MMOs teach you how to be selfish. This game rewards you for rezzing other players.

That’s an overly optimistic view… People very rarely rez others. Doing so usually results in the loss of 10s-30s due to the zerg faceroll. In the Teq fight you will be insulted and reported if you attempt to rez a dead player. Since events complete so fast due to the zerg faceroll, people will almost always run over your dead body so they don’t miss the event.

We did get rid of tagging which was very nice, but it lead to just another problem that is just as selfish as before, AOE spam to get as much loot as possible, event tagging where you only tag the event and then leave, and worst of all, zergs that mean many players can’t get credit at all unless they group up (just like in WoW). So in the end while it was a good theory and works in small roaming groups it introduced many more problems then it solved.

I always res others, it’s awesome.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Vayne.8563:

Most MMOs teach you how to be selfish. This game rewards you for rezzing other players.

That’s an overly optimistic view… People very rarely rez others. Doing so usually results in the loss of 10s-30s due to the zerg faceroll. In the Teq fight you will be insulted and reported if you attempt to rez a dead player. Since events complete so fast due to the zerg faceroll, people will almost always run over your dead body so they don’t miss the event.

We did get rid of tagging which was very nice, but it lead to just another problem that is just as selfish as before, AOE spam to get as much loot as possible, event tagging where you only tag the event and then leave, and worst of all, zergs that mean many players can’t get credit at all unless they group up (just like in WoW). So in the end while it was a good theory and works in small roaming groups it introduced many more problems then it solved.

Rezzing also includes rezzed from a downed state. And there are tons of times I’ve been rezzed by random players. It happens.

I’m not saying every player is going to rez you in every situation. That’s not my claim. I’m claiming that the game rewards you for rezzing and people do it. They give you a daily rezzer on some days. They give you a title for it. They give you experience for it.

And on my server rezzing happens quite often. The Tequatl fight is simply the exception that proves the rule. You brought that one up because it IS the exception. It’s too hard to rez people in that specific fight.

It’s like the Mai Trin fight in the fractals during the canon phase. We usually in our guild rez each other when people go down, but not then.

Points all around. Well taken, but specifically about char / gear progression. I know its one aspect of the game, but it the one area that is compared most to other MMOs. People whine about ascended gear, other people say that GW2 doesn’t force you to craft it if you dont want to. Not needed unless you run fractals. So I feel the need to compare and contrast.

And vayne, take me off your buddy list for opposing me! just kidding.

I don’t believe they ever said gear progression was the main way this game would be different to other MMOs so focusing entirely on that is a flawed comparison.

You could just as easily say that to the vast majority of people the defining feature of an MMO is that you play online and there’s lots of other people in the same game world, therefore all MMOs are the same. Go out on the street and ask people and I guarantee the top two answers you’d get are “yes, that’s right” and “What’s an MMO?”

But of course once you look at it in detail there’s a lot more to it than that and most people who play MMOs would very strongly disagree that they’re all the same just because they share that one feature. Especially since it works in different ways in different games.

I’ve never played WoW, or most other MMOs. The last one I did play was Ultima Online and I never got as far as worrying about what gear to use. But as I understand it from other people there are 2 key differences:
1) In WoW you need raid gear to do raids. Saying you can do them without it is like saying you can do dungeons naked in GW2. It is possible, some people have done it, but no one in their right mind would consider it a viable option for the vast majority of people.

2) In WoW getting a full set of T1 raid gear means you’re all set to do the second raid for your T2 set. Which gets you the gear for the third raid. And so on. You can’t choose, you can’t decide the second raid sounds boring so you’re going to skip it and do the third one instead, or skip them all and just do PvP in regular gear. You have to follow the path you’re set. Whereas in GW2 whilst you have to craft your ascended gear you have a number of options for how to collect the materials, which is the bulk of the work, and you’re not locked out of any content while you’re doing it. You might have 5% lower stats than someone in a full set of ascended, but you can still do dungeons or WvW or whatever and still be competitive doing it.

Morinmeth.9823:

Because WvW. That’s why.
And if new tier every 2-3 months is added on this game, a lot of people would QQ. So ain’t happening.

There are other games with so much better realm vs realm than GW2…

I’ll just drop one tiny HUGE detail that makes this game bad for pvp…. body blocking.

Nuff said…. without body blocking the whole system of taking and defending things is pointless. Any serious pvp oriented game has it. In GW2 pvp is a minigame for the lulz when you are bored of the pve minigame for the lulz.

Danikat.8537:

2) In WoW getting a full set of T1 raid gear means you’re all set to do the second raid for your T2 set. Which gets you the gear for the third raid. And so on. You can’t choose

And what exactly did you choose here?

Good luck being anything else but a pure dps machine in any serious group.

Danikat.8537:

1) In WoW you need raid gear to do raids. Saying you can do them without it is like saying you can do dungeons naked in GW2. It is possible, some people have done it, but no one in their right mind would consider it a viable option for the vast majority of people.

You must have missed much of what Ive written in this thread.

Kind of like in GW2, you need ascended gear to do fractals. Saying you can do fractals without it is like saying you can do dungeons naked in WoW. It is possible, some people have done it, but noone in their right mind would consider it a viable option for tha vast majority of people.

See what I did there? (sorry for the word to word quote, but I was making a point). There are areas in WoW and in GW2 where you need certain gear. The rest of the areas of either game, you dont need certain gear.

And again, Im focusing on just gear because its the area of the game most commonly compared to other MMOs. Its the easiest to compare the two. I know gear doesn’t encompass all that is an MMO. But try to focus on it please

Im beginning to think that people who are saying “you cant just focus on gear” don’t want to see the truth, the the gear systems in both GW2 and a game like WoW are eerily similar, if not the same in their own way.

In this thread, Im just focusing on gear. Not the leveling experience, not PvP, not lore. Gear. I could just as easily make a thread comparing how Lore is given between GW2 and other MMOs if I wanted to and see where that discussion takes us. But for this one, Im focusing on gear. The acquisition of, the grind for, how its used and where.. Im finding that its the same thing as WoW.

WoW: Raid gear for raids
Gw2: Ascended gear for fractals.

WoW: Any other gear for any other PvE portion of the game.
GW2: Any other gear for any other PvE portion of the game.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I don’t think anyone has put GW2 on a pedestal since last November. It is just like wow except without the trinity that made combat deep. Now we have shallow combat with a gear treadmill but no raids and no quests.

It does have dodging which is nice.

I can’t say I agree with the Trinity adding depth.

If you have to have a specific group composition, and them roles have to have a specific build, then there’s little to no depth, since you can’t make any meaningful choices outside of who’s doing what.

Building on this, when encounters require this, they tend to be more of a dance routine that requires memory, than an encounter that requires thinking. Granted, it’s probably harder to create encounters that require thinking and for players to develop their own approach.

I should note that I consider the Trinity to be Tank, Healer and DPS in a specific composition.

I’d say the key difference is where WoW has more of a focus on dungeons and raiding as PvE endgame (probably best demonstrated by their patch content, and is ultimatly why I left; I didn’t consider the rest to be worth the sub), GW2 is less like that and more you aren’t funneled into a specific type of content (at least content isn’t a walkover) at endgame.

This might have changed since Cata(I know there’s a pokemon game in there now, but I have my DS for that), granted.

The orcs in GW2 are furry and we call them ‘Charr’.

Mesket.5728:

Morinmeth.9823:

Because WvW. That’s why.
And if new tier every 2-3 months is added on this game, a lot of people would QQ. So ain’t happening.

There are other games with so much better realm vs realm than GW2…

I’ll just drop one tiny HUGE detail that makes this game bad for pvp…. body blocking.

Nuff said…. without body blocking the whole system of taking and defending things is pointless. Any serious pvp oriented game has it. In GW2 pvp is a minigame for the lulz when you are bored of the pve minigame for the lulz.

An accurate post.

The differences as I see them, specifically as relates to gear progression:

GW2 content that “requires” Ascended requires it only for the Agony infusion; the additional stats are not required the way Tanking, Healing and DPS stat increases are required in a game with raid tiers. This means that the stat boost in Ascended is purely a progression carrot for those who “require” one, and not an integral part of the progression of the game.

Also, I don’t recall another game in which BiS anything could be acquired through crafting, never mind solely through crafting. Ascended armor/weapon acquisition via drop happens, but nowhere near enough, nor reliably enough to count as a realistic means to acquire it.

cesmode.4257:

Danikat.8537:

1) In WoW you need raid gear to do raids. Saying you can do them without it is like saying you can do dungeons naked in GW2. It is possible, some people have done it, but no one in their right mind would consider it a viable option for the vast majority of people.

You must have missed much of what Ive written in this thread.

Kind of like in GW2, you need ascended gear to do fractals. Saying you can do fractals without it is like saying you can do dungeons naked in WoW. It is possible, some people have done it, but noone in their right mind would consider it a viable option for tha vast majority of people.

See what I did there? (sorry for the word to word quote, but I was making a point). There are areas in WoW and in GW2 where you need certain gear. The rest of the areas of either game, you dont need certain gear.

So in WoW you only need raid gear to do a hard-mode version of one dungeon? You can do everything else, including all other “end game” content without it? If that’s the case then yes I agree they’re the same and I don’t understand why so many people complain about gear grind in WoW because if they don’t like it they can just ignore it. Just like people in GW2 avoid the need for ascended armor by sticking to Fractals level 1 – 10.

(And on a related note has anyone really done Fractals, at the levels where you get hit with Agony, without ascended armor?)

cesmode.4257:

And again, Im focusing on just gear because its the area of the game most commonly compared to other MMOs. Its the easiest to compare the two. I know gear doesn’t encompass all that is an MMO. But try to focus on it please

Im beginning to think that people who are saying “you cant just focus on gear” don’t want to see the truth, the the gear systems in both GW2 and a game like WoW are eerily similar, if not the same in their own way.

In this thread, Im just focusing on gear. Not the leveling experience, not PvP, not lore. Gear. I could just as easily make a thread comparing how Lore is given between GW2 and other MMOs if I wanted to and see where that discussion takes us. But for this one, Im focusing on gear. The acquisition of, the grind for, how its used and where.. Im finding that its the same thing as WoW.

WoW: Raid gear for raids
Gw2: Ascended gear for fractals.

WoW: Any other gear for any other PvE portion of the game.
GW2: Any other gear for any other PvE portion of the game.

I understand that you’re just focusing on discussing gear. But you seem to also be implying that if the form of gear progression is similar then that means the games in general are also similar, or even identical, and therefore when Anet promoted this game as different to other MMO’s they were wrong.

I’m not necessarily disagreeing that they have similar gear progression (that depends on your answer to my question above). I’m disagreeing that gear progression was the thing Anet claimed made this game different, or even one of the main things.

As I remember it when GW2 was (and is) being promoted as something new for the MMO genre the focus was much more on things like the lack of a subscription fee, the fact that there was no tagging or kill stealing, no trinity and PvP was in separate areas.

You may be right that the gear progression is similar, but likewise I’m right that both games feature an online world shared with many other players. You can’t make a general conclusion based on that one factor whilst ignoring all the others.

Mesket.5728:

Danikat.8537:

2) In WoW getting a full set of T1 raid gear means you’re all set to do the second raid for your T2 set. Which gets you the gear for the third raid. And so on. You can’t choose

And what exactly did you choose here?

Good luck being anything else but a pure dps machine in any serious group.

Actually my main character is a condi/crit ranger and toughness as a 3rd stat, but I assume that means none of the groups I’ve ever played with would be considered ‘serious’.

But what I meant was you can choose which areas of the game to play. You don’t have to do one specific activity to get ascended armor. And even where things do have a definite progression you don’t have to follow it – for example you don’t have to do Ascalon Catacombs before doing any of the other dungeons, you could start with Arah if you really wanted to and you can do other things, like WvW, without doing any of them. Whereas as I understand it in WoW you have to start with a specifc raid and you have to go through them in a set order.

Cesmode – to put it another way what I’m saying is that you’re using what Wikipedians call a strawman argument.

It’s a simple and sometimes effective tactic: You set up a point of view that at first glance looks like the one you want to disagree with but which is much easier to take down – in the same way that a strawman or scarecrow looks like a real person at first glance but is much easier to fight.

In this case ‘gear progression in GW2 is different to WoW’ in place of ‘GW2 is not like other MMOs’.

Then you take apart the strawman argument, (quickly and easily because how hard is it to fight straw?) and act as if you’ve also beaten your real opponent – the original point of view that you wanted to disagree with.

But you haven’t really, because all the other factors which you ignored when building your strawman are still there, in the same way that the real person would still be there after you’ve ‘killed’ their scarecrow copy.

Danikat.8537:

cesmode.4257:

Danikat.8537:

1) In WoW you need raid gear to do raids. Saying you can do them without it is like saying you can do dungeons naked in GW2. It is possible, some people have done it, but no one in their right mind would consider it a viable option for the vast majority of people.

You must have missed much of what Ive written in this thread.

Kind of like in GW2, you need ascended gear to do fractals. Saying you can do fractals without it is like saying you can do dungeons naked in WoW. It is possible, some people have done it, but noone in their right mind would consider it a viable option for tha vast majority of people.

See what I did there? (sorry for the word to word quote, but I was making a point). There are areas in WoW and in GW2 where you need certain gear. The rest of the areas of either game, you dont need certain gear.

So in WoW you only need raid gear to do a hard-mode version of one dungeon? You can do everything else, including all other “end game” content without it? If that’s the case then yes I agree they’re the same and I don’t understand why so many people complain about gear grind in WoW because if they don’t like it they can just ignore it. Just like people in GW2 avoid the need for ascended armor by sticking to Fractals level 1 – 10.

(And on a related note has anyone really done Fractals, at the levels where you get hit with Agony, without ascended armor?)

cesmode.4257:

And again, Im focusing on just gear because its the area of the game most commonly compared to other MMOs. Its the easiest to compare the two. I know gear doesn’t encompass all that is an MMO. But try to focus on it please

Im beginning to think that people who are saying “you cant just focus on gear” don’t want to see the truth, the the gear systems in both GW2 and a game like WoW are eerily similar, if not the same in their own way.

In this thread, Im just focusing on gear. Not the leveling experience, not PvP, not lore. Gear. I could just as easily make a thread comparing how Lore is given between GW2 and other MMOs if I wanted to and see where that discussion takes us. But for this one, Im focusing on gear. The acquisition of, the grind for, how its used and where.. Im finding that its the same thing as WoW.

WoW: Raid gear for raids
Gw2: Ascended gear for fractals.

WoW: Any other gear for any other PvE portion of the game.
GW2: Any other gear for any other PvE portion of the game.

I understand that you’re just focusing on discussing gear. But you seem to also be implying that if the form of gear progression is similar then that means the games in general are also similar, or even identical, and therefore when Anet promoted this game as different to other MMO’s they were wrong.

I’m not necessarily disagreeing that they have similar gear progression (that depends on your answer to my question above). I’m disagreeing that gear progression was the thing Anet claimed made this game different, or even one of the main things.

As I remember it when GW2 was (and is) being promoted as something new for the MMO genre the focus was much more on things like the lack of a subscription fee, the fact that there was no tagging or kill stealing, no trinity and PvP was in separate areas.

You may be right that the gear progression is similar, but likewise I’m right that both games feature an online world shared with many other players. You can’t make a general conclusion based on that one factor whilst ignoring all the others.

Just to clarify, in WoW you only need raid gear for raiding, not hard mode (heroic) dungeons. You can run heroic dungeons in easily(and by easy I mean a week or two of dallies, which in regards to acquisition time is less than the time it takes to get an exotic in Gw2).

For example, I leveled my shaman in WoW to 90, ran maybe 5 regular dungeons, did maybe a week of dungeons. I have enough gear to enter heroics and be OK. At level 90, I spent maybe 5 hours total until I was good enough to enter heroic dungeons.

Likewise for GW2… you can complete all dungeons without issue in rares. When you hit 80, you’re in a mix of blues, greens, yellows. Id wager the same amount of time to get into more rares and maybe an exotic, if you don’t flat out buy your gear from the trading post.

And you are correct that I am implying that the gear progression/requirements between the two games are similar. I dont know who it was that started the mentality here for GW2 that “you dont need BiS gear to do anything in the game”…whether that mentality was created from arenanet or by us. But that is the general mentality. So when people say that, I always respond with my own rhetoric that “I can have access to the same amount of content in a game like WoW(known for its treadmill)..so whats your point”

Danikat.8537:

Cesmode – to put it another way what I’m saying is that you’re using what Wikipedians call a strawman argument.

It’s a simple and sometimes effective tactic: You set up a point of view that at first glance looks like the one you want to disagree with but which is much easier to take down – in the same way that a strawman or scarecrow looks like a real person at first glance but is much easier to fight.

In this case ‘gear progression in GW2 is different to WoW’ in place of ‘GW2 is not like other MMOs’.

Then you take apart the strawman argument, (quickly and easily because how hard is it to fight straw?) and act as if you’ve also beaten your real opponent – the original point of view that you wanted to disagree with.

But you haven’t really, because all the other factors which you ignored when building your strawman are still there, in the same way that the real person would still be there after you’ve ‘killed’ their scarecrow copy.

Sure, call it the strawman argument if you wish. In reality, I could have just as easily re-titled the thread “GW2 gear progression/requirements is similar to WoW”, but I left the title open ended so that others may formulate their own opinions in the thread. Strawman? Maybe. To me, it was just a title. And the body of my argument is merely my own opinion.

Either way,however this debate is structured or set up, whether deliberately or not, does not take away from the fact that when you compare the two gear systems and ‘end game’ systems, they are similar.

And then when you look at the responses from people that are pro-ascended gear(in the form of "you dont need ascended gear to do anything else), you have to ask yourself “is GW2 any different than any other MMO in this regard?” I believe the answer is a firm no. In either game, WoW or GW2, you don’t need specific gear to roam in the world, to ‘quest’, to explore, to run dungeons. You do need specific gear to run raids and fractals, for WoW and GW2 respectively.

Thats my argument. Strawman or not. And I think its a pretty good one. I’d honestly love to have a back ’n forth with a dev about this in a CDI or something.

The main difference imo is the lack of the holy trinity and as far as I can see all that has brought is 1 class to dominate them all.
And I bet you can’t guess what Anet staff mostly play!!

The Classism must stop now… equal rights for all heights as the dwarfs would say.

Danikat.8537:

Cesmode – to put it another way what I’m saying is that you’re using what Wikipedians call a strawman argument.

It’s a simple and sometimes effective tactic: You set up a point of view that at first glance looks like the one you want to disagree with but which is much easier to take down – in the same way that a strawman or scarecrow looks like a real person at first glance but is much easier to fight.

In this case ‘gear progression in GW2 is different to WoW’ in place of ‘GW2 is not like other MMOs’.

Then you take apart the strawman argument, (quickly and easily because how hard is it to fight straw?) and act as if you’ve also beaten your real opponent – the original point of view that you wanted to disagree with.

But you haven’t really, because all the other factors which you ignored when building your strawman are still there, in the same way that the real person would still be there after you’ve ‘killed’ their scarecrow copy.

Actually, a straw-man argument is misinterpreting or fabricating another’s argument to support your point, or make it easier to attack.

For example, person A says that “Gear acquisition for progression is bad”, whereas person B then counters with “Person A thinks progression mechanics is bad”. This is a strawman, since person A never said progression mechanics are bad.

To tie it in with this thread:

Cesmode: “I think GW2 isn’t any different to other MMO’s in terms of gear importance for certain content”.
Strawman McDuff: “Cesmode thinks that GW2 requires you to have the best gear in order to play all endgame content, but it doesn’t, because the stat difference is minimal / it looks shoddy / I leveled in WvW / some other point”.

Source

cesmode.4257:

Thats my argument. Strawman or not. And I think its a pretty good one. I’d honestly love to have a back ’n forth with a dev about this in a CDI or something.

I’d say the main difference is the importance of the gear (mostly in PvP).

In WoW, everything is worked out by numbers; block, parry, damage ect. There isn’t a way for someone who has inferior gear (say Blues to their opponents Purples) to make up that gap, since they have no control over whether their skills hit or not.

In GW2, someone with Rares to their opponents Exotics can bridge that gap through clever use of skills, dodging, LoS ect.

On another note, the next CDI is about Horizontal and Vertical Progression as shown here, and personally, it’s also one I’m going to be participating in too.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I don’t think anyone has put GW2 on a pedestal since last November. It is just like wow except without the trinity that made combat deep. Now we have shallow combat with a gear treadmill but no raids and no quests.

It does have dodging which is nice.

The trinity actually restricts combat. Every fight needs to be build around the trinity if it is there. Take the Thermanova boss for example, that fight would not have been in a trinity-based game because tanks would have zero purpose in the fight.

A treadmill involves forever going up. Anet has already stated they have no plans for another gear tier. If you mean those go kill 10 rats quests, we got enough of that nonsense in heart points; if you meant detailed and unique quests with amazing storytelling that isn’t a wall of text and objectives besides killing everything, only RuneScape and TSW managed to offer me those so far.

GW2 is unique in the rate at which bugs are added to the game (brand new bugs every 2 weeks).

New bugs mean new challenges.

I giggled at the trinity being deep….

Tank = sit there and take little to no damage at all against a single mob or multiple weak mobs

Healer = watches a health bar go down, trying to keep it from going empty

DPS= sits there at max range or melee without going over a threat meter to keep the mob on the tank. All the while clicking every button on his skill bar waiting on cooldowns to go away to repeat said faceroll.

Deep? ROFLCOPTERS !

Difference between WoW and GW2? GW2 has better graphics, gameplay, skill based combat (we don’t need to have sword of a thousand truths to kill that PKer, we just get good at the game), and has no subscription fee.

The original Planet Side had better large scale 3 way pvp.

I was using wow as an example for my argument. Maybe i should have just said “any modern and traditional mmo”.

And someone changed the thread title ;p

Although GW2 deserves praise for some great improvements over the standard MMO formula – like being able to freely change skills, reducing reliance on gear, introducing collections, freely accessible PvP, more dynamic combat, so on – underneath it’s still your generic WoW clone.

It’s no Terraria to your Minecraft or Everquest Next to your… well… Everquest.

It doesn’t introduce anything new to the standard MMO formula, but it does polish up some of the rough edges – which is basically what WoW did to Everquest/Ultima formula when it came out, too.

Draco.2806:

Although GW2 deserves praise for some great improvements over the standard MMO formula – like being able to freely change skills, reducing reliance on gear, introducing collections, freely accessible PvP, more dynamic combat, so on – underneath it’s still your generic WoW clone.

It’s no Terraria to your Minecraft or Everquest Next to your… well… Everquest.

It doesn’t introduce anything new to the standard MMO formula, but it does polish up some of the rough edges – which is basically what WoW did to Everquest/Ultima formula when it came out, too.

Ill agree with this. It improved the overall leveling experience, Ill say..

However again lol, this thread is about gear progression, at least it was initially

Vayne.8563:

Most MMOs teach you how to be selfish. This game rewards you for rezzing other players.

The people who were always left on the ground during the Clockwork Invasion because the zerg moved too fast would have a word with you…

cesmode.4257:

Danikat.8537:

1) In WoW you need raid gear to do raids. Saying you can do them without it is like saying you can do dungeons naked in GW2. It is possible, some people have done it, but no one in their right mind would consider it a viable option for the vast majority of people.

You must have missed much of what Ive written in this thread.

Kind of like in GW2, you need ascended gear to do fractals. Saying you can do fractals without it is like saying you can do dungeons naked in WoW. It is possible, some people have done it, but noone in their right mind would consider it a viable option for tha vast majority of people.

See what I did there? (sorry for the word to word quote, but I was making a point). There are areas in WoW and in GW2 where you need certain gear. The rest of the areas of either game, you dont need certain gear.

And again, Im focusing on just gear because its the area of the game most commonly compared to other MMOs. Its the easiest to compare the two. I know gear doesn’t encompass all that is an MMO. But try to focus on it please

Im beginning to think that people who are saying “you cant just focus on gear” don’t want to see the truth, the the gear systems in both GW2 and a game like WoW are eerily similar, if not the same in their own way.

In this thread, Im just focusing on gear. Not the leveling experience, not PvP, not lore. Gear. I could just as easily make a thread comparing how Lore is given between GW2 and other MMOs if I wanted to and see where that discussion takes us. But for this one, Im focusing on gear. The acquisition of, the grind for, how its used and where.. Im finding that its the same thing as WoW.

WoW: Raid gear for raids
Gw2: Ascended gear for fractals.

WoW: Any other gear for any other PvE portion of the game.
GW2: Any other gear for any other PvE portion of the game.

In my opinion, the biggest problem is that GW2 was meant to be cosmetic (horizontal) progression only… ANet sold this for months in interviews, manifesto videos and all the PR crap the fed us before release.
But then they release a game that lacked in the field that would’ve been one of their strongest points… The cosmetic progression.
Because the game came out (and more than one year after, the situation is almost the same) with absolutely not enough variety in skins, expecially armors’… And most of them are uninspired to say the least… Not to mention the massive clipping and sizing problems that crippled the “Mix & match-ability” of the game.
This, togheter with the severe lack of content once a player hit level 80 are the major causes of the massive amount of complaints back after the release… Wich led to the whole Lost Shores + Living Story + Ascendant fiasco, and relative grindy vertical progression

@Vayne, I think the daily rezzer title encourages letting people die. I remember this happening a lot when the title was introduced.

Valanga.5942:

But then they release a game that lacked in the field that would’ve been one of their strongest points… The cosmetic progression.
Because the game came out (and more than one year after, the situation is almost the same) with absolutely not enough variety in skins, expecially armors’… And most of them are uninspired to say the least… Not to mention the massive clipping and sizing problems that crippled the “Mix & match-ability” of the game.

…And even without that, there was never any “Cosmetic progression” to begin with.

The transmutation system precludes that: you can only have one set of gear, and if you acquire anything new and decide it’s better, you have to wave goodbye to your old set (and pay real-life money for the privilege on top).

It’s rather like if your old skills disappeared when you unlocked new ones: that’s not progression, that’s the opposite.

But the really puzzling things is: the Dye system does actually count as proper cosmetic progression with players seeking out and collecting new ones, and it works really, really well.