Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2, like so many other MMOs, employ a tier system for materials. You might have six different kinds of fangs, for example, with the flimsiest being used to craft low level weapons, and the sturdiest to craft more powerful items. The steps to craft each tier is essentially the same experience, except the materials used are typically found in zones exclusive to the level of the item being made. This makes some kind of sense on paper, but there are some issues with this approach that I never see addressed, and it’s something that I am curious about your opinions on.

Invariably, it always leads to a plethora of useless stuff, particularly in the lower tiers. For one, the leveling process is comparatively fast, making it largely unnecessary to craft much of the gear, better (and level specific) items are naturally obtained just by roaming around, and stuff like potions that give a +1% increase to a stat aren’t really going to make much of a difference anyway. If you do 100 damage per hit, you get one extra damage point. Needless to say, these items always end up flooding the respective trading posts and auction houses, undesired and unprofitable as they are.

There are several ways to make a more interesting and compelling system, yet many games, including Guild Wars 2, fall back on this formula. Is it an economic thing? What are the benefits of useless items? Is it a niche using them, or am I in the minority for shunning “+1% damage” while I’m still trading baby blows with level 15 centaurs?

I’m probably going to make a separate post in the suggestion forum with some of my ideas about crafting, but in this particular post it would be interesting to hear your opinions and thoughts about tier materials and crafting. What’s so great about this system? What isn’t?