Hello Anet,
I have a simple to define issue I’d like to point out that is difficult for you to solve. The issue is quite simply that build optimization is tied way too heavily to the game’s economy.
To take you back to Guild Wars 1, you should recall that the game had loads of build craft that you could do. This was not tied heavily at all the game’s economy. Players mainly experienced build craft through exploring the game and experiencing content.
The beauty of this was the enjoyable cycle that it created. When players wanted to experience the game in a new way, by playing a new build, they would go do replay or do new content they haven’t done before in order to unlock the parts of their build they didn’t have. When a build got stale they would repeat the process. It was a cycle that promoted new experiences.
In Guild Wars 2, the problem of tying build craft so heavily to the economy is that obtaining new builds and optimizing them becomes about repetition/grind. You are incentivized to find the most efficient money farms available to you and repeat that.
This combined with the massive reduction in build craft available in Guild Wars 2 and the amount of grind for optimizing builds due to that low supply of available builds has been a real struggle for me. At this point I can only play PvE for story (and on alts), because I feel like I’m wasting my time if I try to do more in the game.
Obviously you have a long established economy that boils down to everything is tied to build optimization or cosmetics, so easing the pain of making build craft more readily available is probably a challenge that can’t be overcome anytime soon.
Ultimately I’m just hoping that you make a core tenant of your future development to be fostering a cycle of experiencing the game in new ways, even when it’s replaying prior experiences. I feel like Guild Wars 1 did this very well and Guild Wars 2 should be able to reach a similar mark, since it’s still you as the developer.
(edited by Shockwave.1230)
The gearing systems are good and not going to change in such a way. GL!
To take you back to Guild Wars 1, you should recall that the game had loads of build craft that you could do. This was not tied heavily at all the game’s economy. Players mainly experienced build craft through exploring the game and experiencing content.
You must be remembering a different game. First, it was very difficult to determine market rates because there was no global marketplace. The closest we had was an NPC who would buy or sell certain mats (and run out frequently).
Second, there was no craft as such. You collected mats and took them to various NPCs to trade. Some mats were easily acquired and some were not.
Third, armor stats were tied to prefixes and suffixes that were obtained as random drops or through NPCs. When build preferences (i.e. “the meta”) changed, the values of these prefixes & suffixes would dip or spike accordingly. When hero mercenaries were added to the game, for example, those prefixes/suffixes needed for the hero meta were priced out of reach, according to a lot of players.
There was an option to collect tokens to trade for gear, but this was a convoluted mess. I literally maintained a massive spreadsheet to identify which gear stats could be obtained via tokens, where the (usually sole) NPC was located, and the 1-2 foes that might drop the tokens.
It was great for power traders, since there were all sorts of ways to profit on the impatience of others. And with enough coin, it was always possible to afford any runes and insignias one might want. I had no trouble outfitting everyone (and their heroes) with multiple gear sets, but many of my friends had a lot of difficulty managing just a few characters.
In short, crafting was tied to the economy in GW1. The difference was that it was a lot less easy for people to interact with the economy, so more people just waited for RNG.
I’m not against the idea of making it easier to get non-core gear, at least in exotics. For zerker exotics, we have the option of dungeon tokens or reward tracks. Couldn’t there be something as simple for viper’s exotics?
However, let’s not confuse the problem of price with the existence of a global economy. It’s easier in 2017 to farm the leather for exotics — what’s harder is how long it takes to earn enough gold to avoid farming.
To take you back to Guild Wars 1, you should recall that the game had loads of build craft that you could do. This was not tied heavily at all the game’s economy. Players mainly experienced build craft through exploring the game and experiencing content.
You must be remembering a different game. First, it was very difficult to determine market rates because there was no global marketplace. The closest we had was an NPC who would buy or sell certain mats (and run out frequently).
Second, there was no craft as such. You collected mats and took them to various NPCs to trade. Some mats were easily acquired and some were not.
Third, armor stats were tied to prefixes and suffixes that were obtained as random drops or through NPCs. When build preferences (i.e. “the meta”) changed, the values of these prefixes & suffixes would dip or spike accordingly. When hero mercenaries were added to the game, for example, those prefixes/suffixes needed for the hero meta were priced out of reach, according to a lot of players.
There was an option to collect tokens to trade for gear, but this was a convoluted mess. I literally maintained a massive spreadsheet to identify which gear stats could be obtained via tokens, where the (usually sole) NPC was located, and the 1-2 foes that might drop the tokens.
It was great for power traders, since there were all sorts of ways to profit on the impatience of others. And with enough coin, it was always possible to afford any runes and insignias one might want. I had no trouble outfitting everyone (and their heroes) with multiple gear sets, but many of my friends had a lot of difficulty managing just a few characters.
In short, crafting was tied to the economy in GW1. The difference was that it was a lot less easy for people to interact with the economy, so more people just waited for RNG.
I’m not against the idea of making it easier to get non-core gear, at least in exotics. For zerker exotics, we have the option of dungeon tokens or reward tracks. Couldn’t there be something as simple for viper’s exotics?
However, let’s not confuse the problem of price with the existence of a global economy. It’s easier in 2017 to farm the leather for exotics — what’s harder is how long it takes to earn enough gold to avoid farming.
hes not saying it was easier to buy builds in gw1, he is saying it was easier to get builds, which is completely and totally accurate.
no build in gw1 would take you as long to gear for as it would to get a build in gw2, or the eqivalent gold.
yes you hand random drops, but they were comparitively common. it might be hard to get a skin you want, but getting the functionality was easy.
that games economy was an afterthought, so they designed builds to be reasonnably obtained through normal play.
this games economy is forefront, so builds are designed to be one of the endgoals of a long investment in the game
basically like marketplace diablo versus market dead diablo.
for someone who wants to try different builds, this game needs a large investment.
(edited by phys.7689)
Hello Anet,
I have a simple to define issue I’d like to point out that is difficult for you to solve. The issue is quite simply that build optimization is tied way too heavily to the game’s economy.
To take you back to Guild Wars 1, you should recall that the game had loads of build craft that you could do. This was not tied heavily at all the game’s economy. Players mainly experienced build craft through exploring the game and experiencing content.
The beauty of this was the enjoyable cycle that it created. When players wanted to experience the game in a new way, by playing a new build, they would go do replay or do new content they haven’t done before in order to unlock the parts of their build they didn’t have. When a build got stale they would repeat the process. It was a cycle that promoted new experiences.
In Guild Wars 2, the problem of tying build craft so heavily to the economy is that obtaining new builds and optimizing them becomes about repetition/grind. You are incentivized to find the most efficient money farms available to you and repeat that.
This combined with the massive reduction in build craft available in Guild Wars 2 and the amount of grind for optimizing builds due to that low supply of available builds has been a real struggle for me. At this point I can only play PvE for story (and on alts), because I feel like I’m wasting my time if I try to do more in the game.
Obviously you have a long established economy that boils down to everything is tied to build optimization or cosmetics, so easing the pain of making build craft more readily available is probably a challenge that can’t be overcome anytime soon.
Ultimately I’m just hoping that you make a core tenant of your future development to be fostering a cycle of experiencing the game in new ways, even when it’s replaying prior experiences. I feel like Guild Wars 1 did this very well and Guild Wars 2 should be able to reach a similar mark, since it’s still you as the developer.
i understand your point, and you are right, but it will never happen here, this games design is heavily driven by the vision of how they want the economy to be, and they have basically made it clear that they want an extremely high level of economic investment for you to access build diversity.
this is why legendaries are the most expensive items, and new stat distibutions need more resources than old ones.
Hello Anet,
I have a simple to define issue I’d like to point out that is difficult for you to solve. The issue is quite simply that build optimization is tied way too heavily to the game’s economy.
To take you back to Guild Wars 1, you should recall that the game had loads of build craft that you could do. This was not tied heavily at all the game’s economy. Players mainly experienced build craft through exploring the game and experiencing content.
The beauty of this was the enjoyable cycle that it created. When players wanted to experience the game in a new way, by playing a new build, they would go do replay or do new content they haven’t done before in order to unlock the parts of their build they didn’t have. When a build got stale they would repeat the process. It was a cycle that promoted new experiences.
In Guild Wars 2, the problem of tying build craft so heavily to the economy is that obtaining new builds and optimizing them becomes about repetition/grind. You are incentivized to find the most efficient money farms available to you and repeat that.
This combined with the massive reduction in build craft available in Guild Wars 2 and the amount of grind for optimizing builds due to that low supply of available builds has been a real struggle for me. At this point I can only play PvE for story (and on alts), because I feel like I’m wasting my time if I try to do more in the game.
Obviously you have a long established economy that boils down to everything is tied to build optimization or cosmetics, so easing the pain of making build craft more readily available is probably a challenge that can’t be overcome anytime soon.
Ultimately I’m just hoping that you make a core tenant of your future development to be fostering a cycle of experiencing the game in new ways, even when it’s replaying prior experiences. I feel like Guild Wars 1 did this very well and Guild Wars 2 should be able to reach a similar mark, since it’s still you as the developer.
i understand your point, and you are right, but it will never happen here, this games design is heavily driven by the vision of how they want the economy to be, and they have basically made it clear that they want an extremely high level of economic investment for you to access build diversity.
this is why legendaries are the most expensive items, and new stat distibutions need more resources than old ones.
It’s definitely not a thing that can happen quickly. It will take a change to a core tenant of development. And I’m hoping they start to analyze how to make content replayable not for getting currency, but instead for getting pieces of new builds people can play to experience the game differently. Maybe the core problem I have is more along the lines of build diversity being so limited, but I also think build craft as it currently exists needs to be shifted.
Hello Anet,
I have a simple to define issue I’d like to point out that is difficult for you to solve. The issue is quite simply that build optimization is tied way too heavily to the game’s economy.
To take you back to Guild Wars 1, you should recall that the game had loads of build craft that you could do. This was not tied heavily at all the game’s economy. Players mainly experienced build craft through exploring the game and experiencing content.
The beauty of this was the enjoyable cycle that it created. When players wanted to experience the game in a new way, by playing a new build, they would go do replay or do new content they haven’t done before in order to unlock the parts of their build they didn’t have. When a build got stale they would repeat the process. It was a cycle that promoted new experiences.
In Guild Wars 2, the problem of tying build craft so heavily to the economy is that obtaining new builds and optimizing them becomes about repetition/grind. You are incentivized to find the most efficient money farms available to you and repeat that.
This combined with the massive reduction in build craft available in Guild Wars 2 and the amount of grind for optimizing builds due to that low supply of available builds has been a real struggle for me. At this point I can only play PvE for story (and on alts), because I feel like I’m wasting my time if I try to do more in the game.
Obviously you have a long established economy that boils down to everything is tied to build optimization or cosmetics, so easing the pain of making build craft more readily available is probably a challenge that can’t be overcome anytime soon.
Ultimately I’m just hoping that you make a core tenant of your future development to be fostering a cycle of experiencing the game in new ways, even when it’s replaying prior experiences. I feel like Guild Wars 1 did this very well and Guild Wars 2 should be able to reach a similar mark, since it’s still you as the developer.
i understand your point, and you are right, but it will never happen here, this games design is heavily driven by the vision of how they want the economy to be, and they have basically made it clear that they want an extremely high level of economic investment for you to access build diversity.
this is why legendaries are the most expensive items, and new stat distibutions need more resources than old ones.
It’s definitely not a thing that can happen quickly. It will take a change to a core tenant of development. And I’m hoping they start to analyze how to make content replayable not for getting currency, but instead for getting pieces of new builds people can play to experience the game differently. Maybe the core problem I have is more along the lines of build diversity being so limited, but I also think build craft as it currently exists needs to be shifted.
I believe that phys is correct in assuming that it will never happen because I dont think that Anet wants more build crafting. They dont want to spend the resources on more frequent balance patches because more buildcrafting finds more efficient builds more frequently.
It saddens me. Buildcraft was one of my favorite aspects of gw1.
Hello Anet,
I have a simple to define issue I’d like to point out that is difficult for you to solve. The issue is quite simply that build optimization is tied way too heavily to the game’s economy.
To take you back to Guild Wars 1, you should recall that the game had loads of build craft that you could do. This was not tied heavily at all the game’s economy. Players mainly experienced build craft through exploring the game and experiencing content.
The beauty of this was the enjoyable cycle that it created. When players wanted to experience the game in a new way, by playing a new build, they would go do replay or do new content they haven’t done before in order to unlock the parts of their build they didn’t have. When a build got stale they would repeat the process. It was a cycle that promoted new experiences.
In Guild Wars 2, the problem of tying build craft so heavily to the economy is that obtaining new builds and optimizing them becomes about repetition/grind. You are incentivized to find the most efficient money farms available to you and repeat that.
This combined with the massive reduction in build craft available in Guild Wars 2 and the amount of grind for optimizing builds due to that low supply of available builds has been a real struggle for me. At this point I can only play PvE for story (and on alts), because I feel like I’m wasting my time if I try to do more in the game.
Obviously you have a long established economy that boils down to everything is tied to build optimization or cosmetics, so easing the pain of making build craft more readily available is probably a challenge that can’t be overcome anytime soon.
Ultimately I’m just hoping that you make a core tenant of your future development to be fostering a cycle of experiencing the game in new ways, even when it’s replaying prior experiences. I feel like Guild Wars 1 did this very well and Guild Wars 2 should be able to reach a similar mark, since it’s still you as the developer.
i understand your point, and you are right, but it will never happen here, this games design is heavily driven by the vision of how they want the economy to be, and they have basically made it clear that they want an extremely high level of economic investment for you to access build diversity.
this is why legendaries are the most expensive items, and new stat distibutions need more resources than old ones.
It’s definitely not a thing that can happen quickly. It will take a change to a core tenant of development. And I’m hoping they start to analyze how to make content replayable not for getting currency, but instead for getting pieces of new builds people can play to experience the game differently. Maybe the core problem I have is more along the lines of build diversity being so limited, but I also think build craft as it currently exists needs to be shifted.
I believe that phys is correct in assuming that it will never happen because I dont think that Anet wants more build crafting. They dont want to spend the resources on more frequent balance patches because more buildcrafting finds more efficient builds more frequently.
It saddens me. Buildcraft was one of my favorite aspects of gw1.
nah, I’d say its because build craft is the main carrot, and they dont want to invest time and energy reworking basic systems.
gear swaps, sigil swaps, unlocking instead of needing inventory space.
it would all probably require better UI, new data structures, and reworking inventories, AND it would basically diminish the economic benefits of pre existing items.
they literally did not make legendary weapons get sigil replacement that legendary armor currently has because they need to evaluate the effects on the economy.
Economy is the main design consideration when it comes to items in this game, not utility or game design.
hes not saying it was easier to buy builds in gw1, he is saying it was easier to get builds, which is completely and totally accurate.
And I’m disagreeing. Changing your attributes in GW1? Easy, just like changing traits in GW2 is. Changing your gear in GW1? Often more difficult than in GW2, because not all gear is easily obtained. Some 20/20 sets are more easily found than others, for example.
Your 10 skills have nothing to do with the economy.
hes not saying it was easier to buy builds in gw1, he is saying it was easier to get builds, which is completely and totally accurate.
And I’m disagreeing. Changing your attributes in GW1? Easy, just like changing traits in GW2 is. Changing your gear in GW1? Often more difficult than in GW2, because not all gear is easily obtained. Some 20/20 sets are more easily found than others, for example.
there is no build in gw1 which takes as long as gearing 1 charachter in best in slot in gw2.
unless you are looking for specific skins
(edited by phys.7689)
Build diversity to try out new builds is quite cheap in gw2, it only becomes expensive , if you want BiS gear and a popular build.
About 2/3 of all tradeable exotic sigils are available for less than 10 silver for example, and for some stat combinations, you can get a full set of exotic armor for 4g on the trading post.
If I understand you correctly (it sounds like you’re essentially saying “crafting is too expensive”) then I agree completely. GW2 pretends like its gearing system is easy, but I’ve played treadmill MMOs that have a friendlier gearing system.
But this is just one component of a system built on spin. For example, I distinctly recall them saying something along the lines of wanting to reward players with loot, where other games make it hard to get drops at all. So what does GW2 do? You get tons of loot, but most of it is recycle bait, or 1/10,000th of something desirable.
I don’t think GW2’s system is all that bad overall, but I don’t like being fed spin. Don’t try to tell me that you’re giving me a gift when you’re just giving me repackaged staples of the MMO genre. Show some respect.
hes not saying it was easier to buy builds in gw1, he is saying it was easier to get builds, which is completely and totally accurate.
And I’m disagreeing. Changing your attributes in GW1? Easy, just like changing traits in GW2 is. Changing your gear in GW1? Often more difficult than in GW2, because not all gear is easily obtained. Some 20/20 sets are more easily found than others, for example.
there is no build in gw1 which takes as long as gearing 1 charachter in best in slot in gw2.
unless you are looking for specific skins
We must be using different definitions. There are several elements to what people mean when they discuss setting up their build:
Best-in-slot gear for GW1 depends on several qualities: the stats on the gear (max for the weapon or not) and the relevant prefixes and suffixes. Some suffixes are really hard to obtain; they are as much part of “best-in-slot” as the weapon or armor.
In addition, not all weapons and armor can be upgraded, particularly off-hands.
On the other hand, if all that you want to compare is how easy it is to obtain L20 gear in GW1 (easy), then the comparable item is L80 gear. L80 gear independent of prefix/suffix is easily obtained.
And I’d agree, that’s not necessarily relevant — people want (or think they need) specific stats. That’s where we disagree: getting fully spec’d gear in GW1 was harder, in my opinion; I kept several storage toons just for the situation in which I needed to swap gear for a new build or a friend needed it (because it took hours in spamadan to obtain it otherwise).
tl;dr best-in-slot gear is more than just max gear — that’s trivially obtained in GW1 and easily obtained in GW2. I’m referring to fully spec’d gear, which is simply expensive in GW2 (for specific builds) and either easy or horribly difficult in GW1 depending.
hes not saying it was easier to buy builds in gw1, he is saying it was easier to get builds, which is completely and totally accurate.
And I’m disagreeing. Changing your attributes in GW1? Easy, just like changing traits in GW2 is. Changing your gear in GW1? Often more difficult than in GW2, because not all gear is easily obtained. Some 20/20 sets are more easily found than others, for example.
there is no build in gw1 which takes as long as gearing 1 charachter in best in slot in gw2.
unless you are looking for specific skinsWe must be using different definitions. There are several elements to what people mean when they discuss setting up their build:
- Weapons, which determine skills in GW2 but not in GW1
- Armor
- Prefixes and Suffixes, which affect the efficiency of the build.
- Character-selectable stats, such as attributes in GW1 & traits in GW2
- Character-selectable skills (all of them in GW1 & just utilities in GW2)
Best-in-slot gear for GW1 depends on several qualities: the stats on the gear (max for the weapon or not) and the relevant prefixes and suffixes. Some suffixes are really hard to obtain; they are as much part of “best-in-slot” as the weapon or armor.
In addition, not all weapons and armor can be upgraded, particularly off-hands.
On the other hand, if all that you want to compare is how easy it is to obtain L20 gear in GW1 (easy), then the comparable item is L80 gear. L80 gear independent of prefix/suffix is easily obtained.
And I’d agree, that’s not necessarily relevant — people want (or think they need) specific stats. That’s where we disagree: getting fully spec’d gear in GW1 was harder, in my opinion; I kept several storage toons just for the situation in which I needed to swap gear for a new build or a friend needed it (because it took hours in spamadan to obtain it otherwise).
tl;dr best-in-slot gear is more than just max gear — that’s trivially obtained in GW1 and easily obtained in GW2. I’m referring to fully spec’d gear, which is simply expensive in GW2 (for specific builds) and either easy or horribly difficult in GW1 depending.
by the time nightfall came out, suffixes could be seperated from gear. not sure if this is the first time, but definately after that
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_weapon_upgrades
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Inscription
so you get inscriptions and prefixes
so basically you just needed sword strength 9 or something, then one of the bazillion extra items you got doing endgame content or even while leveling up, probably has/had the inscription you needed. it didnt have to be your weapon type, just needed to have the inscription
you then got the prefix.
the runes you could buy from npc exchanger
gw1 was so easy to gear for, that people basically were able to constantly regear their heroes just to try new team builds.
its not even in the same world, what is record time for gw2 for best in slot? 2 months if you play every day?
you literally were talking about being in spammadan for an afternoon to regear, in gw2 making 1 new ascended piece would take you like a week
take a new level 80 in gw who just finished core time till best in slot, probably 2 months if they play 4 to 5 hours a day
take a new level 20 who just finished prophecies, probably 1 week? 2 weeks if they play 5 hours a day?
Build diversity to try out new builds is quite cheap in gw2, it only becomes expensive , if you want BiS gear and a popular build.
About 2/3 of all tradeable exotic sigils are available for less than 10 silver for example, and for some stat combinations, you can get a full set of exotic armor for 4g on the trading post.
exotics dont give you an accurate comparison of relative power. if i feel like my power thief is under performing, and i want to try condition, bringing exotics is not going to be better than a full ascended zerker. If i use exotic marauder, the trade off probably wont be worthwhile.
etc.
exotics are fine for leveling, but when you want to see what your jobs are capable of they are pretty poor.
Economy is the main design consideration when it comes to items in this game, not utility or game design.
This does seem to show in many of their decisions. It’s unfortunate to prefer economy over design improvement imo. But I think this is a core tenant shift that needs to happen, and is kind of what I’m asking for ANet to consider.
Build diversity to try out new builds is quite cheap in gw2, it only becomes expensive , if you want BiS gear and a popular build.
About 2/3 of all tradeable exotic sigils are available for less than 10 silver for example, and for some stat combinations, you can get a full set of exotic armor for 4g on the trading post.
exotics dont give you an accurate comparison of relative power. if i feel like my power thief is under performing, and i want to try condition, bringing exotics is not going to be better than a full ascended zerker. If i use exotic marauder, the trade off probably wont be worthwhile.
etc.
exotics are fine for leveling, but when you want to see what your jobs are capable of they are pretty poor.
not sure if you are trolling or just chose the wrong words.
Regarding the first paragraph, thats exactly what i meant. If you want to min/max different builds, you are aiming for BiS gear and the most popular builds, so you gotta pay up. If you want to switch from a power build because you want to try out a condi build, there are plenty available for 10-20g.
The last sentence of your post cant be serious though, if you think that ascended gear is required to participate in end game content, once you hit 80 and done leveling in your exotics.
How did you manage to get all your toons from 1-60 before HoT, when exotic gear was only available after lvl 60?
Build diversity to try out new builds is quite cheap in gw2, it only becomes expensive , if you want BiS gear and a popular build.
About 2/3 of all tradeable exotic sigils are available for less than 10 silver for example, and for some stat combinations, you can get a full set of exotic armor for 4g on the trading post.
exotics dont give you an accurate comparison of relative power. if i feel like my power thief is under performing, and i want to try condition, bringing exotics is not going to be better than a full ascended zerker. If i use exotic marauder, the trade off probably wont be worthwhile.
etc.
exotics are fine for leveling, but when you want to see what your jobs are capable of they are pretty poor.not sure if you are trolling or just chose the wrong words.
Regarding the first paragraph, thats exactly what i meant. If you want to min/max different builds, you are aiming for BiS gear and the most popular builds, so you gotta pay up. If you want to switch from a power build because you want to try out a condi build, there are plenty available for 10-20g.
The last sentence of your post cant be serious though, if you think that ascended gear is required to participate in end game content, once you hit 80 and done leveling in your exotics.
How did you manage to get all your toons from 1-60 before HoT, when exotic gear was only available after lvl 60?
60-80 still falls into the range of leveling. Of course this is based on now, back in the day when i first played, there was only exotics.
now the game is different though, your next goal once you hit 80 is Hot and specializations, fractals, wvw, raids. You are going to want the best gears, not impossible with exotics, but you will always feel your gear is effecting your performance, because it is.
as far as having to pay up for bis, that is not really an of course. While best in slot is ususally harder to get the relative difference is large. Also this game unlike others wants build diversity, it wasnt as much of an issue back when berserker was the only endgame gear of import, but now that they are balancing dif stat spreads, the high cost of investment is working against that.
essentially the current build design encourages experimentation, and adaptbility, but the design of items does the opposite, until legendary of course, which is an extremely large investment.
as far as having to pay up for bis, that is not really an of course. While best in slot is ususally harder to get the relative difference is large. Also this game unlike others wants build diversity, it wasnt as much of an issue back when berserker was the only endgame gear of import, but now that they are balancing dif stat spreads, the high cost of investment is working against that.
essentially the current build design encourages experimentation, and adaptbility, but the design of items does the opposite, until legendary of course, which is an extremely large investment.
Exactly, I miss out on a lot of fun because I don’t get to experiment with how builds really feel to play unless I take a downscaled version.
I’m think it’s really a combined issue of build diversity being low combined with build craft being expensive because of how closely tied to the economy it is.
Really though I shouldn’t expect Guild Wars 2 to have the same amazing build diversity and high end content build viability that Guild Wars 1 had. ANet has chosen to try control what is viable in Guild Wars 2, whereas in Guild Wars 1 they gave a lot of tools/options and let the players be more in control if something could be viable.
essentially the current build design encourages experimentation, and adaptbility, but the design of items does the opposite, until legendary of course, which is an extremely large investment.
This is probably the best description of the current situation. While build diversity may not be perfect, it is still better than a few years ago. But the terrible system of gear and item management is a huge burden to this. You end up with huge costs, a stuffed inventory, and still lose a huge amount of time just by gear and trait swapping. That’s why I am still concerned with the approach of legendary gear as these items bring more qol then all other tiers (and even here I have doubts, that they are currently more convenient than switching between two sets of armors). But overall the people who benefit of it seems way too small to me to justify the work done on these features of legendary gear, instead of a change the underlying terrible system.
essentially the current build design encourages experimentation, and adaptbility, but the design of items does the opposite, until legendary of course, which is an extremely large investment.
This is probably the best description of the current situation. While build diversity may not be perfect, it is still better than a few years ago. But the terrible system of gear and item management is a huge burden to this. You end up with huge costs, a stuffed inventory, and still lose a huge amount of time just by gear and trait swapping. That’s why I am still concerned with the approach of legendary gear as these items bring more qol then all other tiers (and even here I have doubts, that they are currently more convenient than switching between two sets of armors). But overall the people who benefit of it seems way too small to me to justify the work done on these features of legendary gear, instead of a change the underlying terrible system.
Casual players will never have the payoff from stat swapping on legendaries because of the amount of grind it takes to get that QoL.
I for example have plenty of hours into the game to have a legendary weapon or armor, but the way ANet says I need to spend my time to get those things doesn’t interest me (mostly because of the grind), so I don’t have the same QoL options that someone else has who has a different preference than I do. FeelsBadMan
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