First, I absolutely love this game and I’ve had a blast playing it so far, but there is one thing I really dislike about this game and it’s the way gear is handled.
Gearing up is boring, simply put.
Now I bet you guys will assume that I’ll talk about WoW and no end-game gear treadmill but.. no! I’ll actually compare the way GW2 handles gearing up with a favorite mmo of mine which while has many flaws made gearing up extremely fun, Ragnarok Online.
Alright so the first thing I don’t like about how gearing up is handled in GW2 is that you need to be at or close to max level to start building up what will be your permanent equipment, why? Because lower level items will become completely obsolete as you level, so you’ll have to replace them.
The way RO handled equipment was different, the strength of a piece of gear wasn’t dependent of its level requirement (in fact most items had low level requirements), so a sword you could drop at level 5 from a crappy mob that had no special attacks could actually be more viable in PvP than another sword that was dropped from a super strong boss. And it was great, because you could start working toward your ultimate gear at level 5, and it was great because it broadened your options of things to do. Don’t feel like leveling? Go into one of the dozens of areas your character can tackle and try getting that bow of yours, and maybe some mats to upgrade it.
Each piece of gear was unique too, and most if not all weren’t part of a set, so you’d quest for single pieces of equipment instead of doing dungeons over and over for a whole set. When people talked about gear it was ‘’ Go for +int gear for your mage ’’, it was ‘’ Well you’d better get a Valkyrie Shield, and the Wool Scarf+Tidal Shoes combo’’, you weren’t questing for items with specific stats, but for the items themselves, and specific monsters dropped those items so you just had to go kick their behind and get your item, no millions of dungeons runs required.
Sure, the game was a grind but it didn’t change the fact that the idea was extremely good and so so so nice for the player.
Second thing I don’t really like about gearing up in GW2 is that pretty much every single upgrade component boosts stats, 2 items will boost different stats but it’s pretty much all there is to it, stat boosts. There are those rare sigils that have more interesting effects like +3% damage against a certain monster type or some kind of proc but their effect is so weak (or on such an insane cooldown) that stat boost upgrades are always the better option, the only notable exception is the Sigil of Superior Earth, but it’s really the only one. At least rune combos give bonus durations on conditions or boons, otherwise it’d be extremely boring.
Now to go back to Ragnarok Online, the way it handled equipment slottable upgrades is stellar, and in my opinion there is not a single mmo that has done it better. The game used cards, which were dropped by monsters at an absurdly low chance (0.01%, but the grind is not what this topic is about), each card could go in a specific piece of equipment, be it Armor (chest piece), boots, garment, headgear, accessory, shield or weapon and EVERY SINGLE CARD had a different effect, some could even combo with each others!
(There was a ton of them too check this out, and it’s not even all of them!)
The effects weren’t only stat boosts too, you had them sure, but you also had bonus damage against specific types of monsters (as well as monster sizes and elements), experience boosts against specific types of monsters, cards that gave you a chance to drop items on kill, cards that had some kind of proc effect, cards that gave you new skills (like a teleport skill, a low level heal skill or a hide skill), cards that reduced damage from certain elements/monsters and even cards that changed the element of your character (which was neutral by default).
Cont in next post.
(edited by Vyniea.2054)