Guild Wars 2

This is still relevant

Good sirs, you have inadvertently produced a game where your risen chickens provide better loot than your dragons…

the only thing they changed is to guarantee 1 rare per account per day from dragons and to give the chickens a spamable 5k dmg attack

It has been said before many time but I will say it again…

There are three ways to get good loot/rewards in GW2:

1. Get a job → make money → buy gems with real money → convert to gold → Buy what you want

2. Learn to flip the TP → Make 10k-20k gold a month → buy what you want

3. Farm black lion chest keys → buy black lion chests → RNG chance of weapon skin → sell for gold → buy what you want

….or you can go play Diablo 3 ( patch 2,0) for 30 minutes, get some legendaries awesome drops, and then come back play GW2….repeat everyday….

Rauderi.8706:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Also, vertical progression is awesome. Just because that, in most MMORPGs, it sucks and is a massive grindfest, it does not means that the concept itself is bad. Just look at every single-player rpg out there: it is driven by vertical progression, and no one is complaining about that.

People don’t hate vertical progression. They hate grind-driven vertical progression.

There’s a lot of truth to this. I maxed on Diablo 3 some days ago, looked at my character and went “Well, he’s done, no need to grind for gear anymore,” because the odds of me finding something better were really, really slim.

At least with GW2, I have the horizontal growth of lots of alts and crafting and plenty to zip around and do.

LOL, vertical progression defines a gear grind. Google it and learn.

Zylonite.5913:

It has been said before many time but I will say it again…

There are three ways to get good loot/rewards in GW2:

1. Get a job -> make money -> buy gems with real money -> convert to gold -> Buy what you want

2. Learn to flip the TP -> Make 10k-20k gold a month -> buy what you want

3. Farm black lion chest keys -> buy black lion chests -> RNG chance of weapon skin -> sell for gold -> buy what you want

….or you can go play Diablo 3 ( patch 2,0) for 30 minutes, get some legendaries awesome drops, and then come back play GW2….repeat everyday….

There is a great vid about D3 but it applies equally to GW2 with its RMT focus, enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kwmJ_FepQs

Raine.1394:

There is a great vid about D3 but it applies equally to GW2 with its RMT focus, enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kwmJ_FepQs

If you dislike the game so much that you pay money to skip content, I feel sorry for you.

Suddenflame.2601:

Hold on a sec here. People are trying to compare the loot systems of Diablo 3, an ARPG dungeon crawler focusing on vertical progression, with GW2, an MMORPG with ARPG elements focusing on horizontal progression?

GW2 does not focus on horizontal progression. It was supposed to but that fell by the wayside. The new feature patch will help but it still focuses on vertical progression.

morrolan.9608:

GW2 does not focus on horizontal progression. It was supposed to but that fell by the wayside. The new feature patch will help but it still focuses on vertical progression.

It’s not really vertical if you can jump from blues to ascendeds without having to go trough all the other tiers.

Almost all MMO’s now incorporate a diminishing returns mechanic in some form or fashion.

Zylonite.5913:

2. Learn to flip the TP -> Make 10k-20k gold a month -> buy what you want

where are these people?.. i need to talk to them

the loot from champs wasn’t always so bad, they did get nerfed quite badly. since world bosses would now be scaled up quite a bit, we do expect better loot from them though i still doubt that.

Mirta.5029:

morrolan.9608:

GW2 does not focus on horizontal progression. It was supposed to but that fell by the wayside. The new feature patch will help but it still focuses on vertical progression.

It’s not really vertical if you can jump from blues to ascendeds without having to go trough all the other tiers.

Your use of the word “jump” proves that it is vertical. Vertical refers to an increase in power. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to go through each iteration to reach the next, only that it is a jump in stats/power. (See also: Nike’s Moa Test: Does X make it easier for me to kill a moa? If so, it’s vertical progression.)

Mirta.5029:

Raine.1394:

There is a great vid about D3 but it applies equally to GW2 with its RMT focus, enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kwmJ_FepQs

If you dislike the game so much that you pay money to skip content, I feel sorry for you.

Please don’t feel sorry for me. I’m enjoying the endgame, the forums, immensely.

Mirta.5029:

morrolan.9608:

GW2 does not focus on horizontal progression. It was supposed to but that fell by the wayside. The new feature patch will help but it still focuses on vertical progression.

It’s not really vertical if you can jump from blues to ascendeds without having to go trough all the other tiers.

It’s only vertical if it’s vertical. And Chris W said that GW2 would have vertical progression going forward. So, it is vertical progression whether you care to realize it or not.

Mirta.5029:

Guhracie.3419:

I miss loot tables. Maybe not to the degree that they exist in other games, but I’d like to go somewhere and have a reasonable chance of specific items dropping. Dyes were pretty much the highlight of my drops, and since they’re not going to be drops anymore…. When everything is a worldwide drop, all you have is luck. It’s not about persistence or skill anymore, and what is the fun in that?

Well
Specific champions can drop specific exotics
Specific world bosses and bosses in dungeons can drop exotics unique to them
Raid bosses (like Tequatl) can drop ascendeds unique to them
Fractals are the only place to get fractal weapons and also have an increased chance to give you ascendeds.

Yeah, I guess I wasn’t clear. I get that there are a form of loot tables here, but there’s a difference between what GW2 does and having a “reasonable” chance at certain items. When it makes more sense to open up the trading post and buy an item than attempt to find it via drops, it’s not a very compelling loot table. (Obviously this excludes items that can’t be found on the trading post, like ascended chests and fractal weapons.)

Guhracie.3419:

Yeah, I guess I wasn’t clear. I get that there are a form of loot tables here, but there’s a difference between what GW2 does and having a “reasonable” chance at certain items. When it makes more sense to open up the trading post and buy an item than attempt to find it via drops, it’s not a very compelling loot table. (Obviously this excludes items that can’t be found on the trading post, like ascended chests and fractal weapons.)

You probably have a more reasonable chance to get a precursor in here than anything worth anything in runescape. In MMOs a 1 in a million chance is pretty normal, the smallest chance in here is 1 in 10 000 I think.

Short answer: Yes.

Also diminishing returns is a thing, so there’s an anti-farm code.

Loot is boring, everything tied to gold, no skill → rewards (other than SAB, isn’t that sad?)

I want more access to t6 mats… meanwhile I’m sitting on 100,000 Bloodstone dust, 60,000 fragments, 50,000 dragonite and nothing to spend em on.

CaboSoul.1204:

I disagree, I so disagree with this. Having better gear (in GW2, don’t know about other games) is optional as well.

I wasn’t talking specifically about Guild Wars 2, but MMORPG’s in general. Besides, in most cases it’s not the game itself, that forces players to get better gear, but other players. As there is no option for others to actually see your gear in Guild Wars 2, there’s not so much coercion. Not to mention that getting exotic gear in Guild Wars 2 is as easy as it gets compared to any other MMORPG ^^

DiogoSilva.7089:

Xae Isareth.1364:

That’s really quite your opinion unless you got stats to back that up. Personally, I don’t really find numbers exciting at all, in fact, I turn off my damage numbers whenever I can because it ruins immersion.

I find numbers exciting, but not exciting enough. It’s much cooler when, instead of stat numbers, gear offers unique abilities that enhances or adds to your playstyle. Something that games like diablo among many others do. In GW2, that’s the purpose of runes or sigils – however, most (non superior) runes and most sigils only offer number buffs, which makes them pretty boring (especially to someone with your tastes). Especially for runes, most of the more creative effects are on the 4th and 6th bonus, and is extremely unlikely that you’ll gather 4 or 6 of the same (superior version of the) rune without mystic forge or the trading post. In other words, GW2’s current system only gets slightly more exciting at endgame, but by then, most of your progression experience is already done.

To give an example, let’s compare sigils and runes to FFVII’s materia due to similarities. In FFVII, the game is consistently giving you materia items with several creative effects, and the player is constantly tweaking their materia combos or slotting new materia in their gear. You don’t need to depend on RNG nor wait till end game to buy materia from a trading post. No, you’re having fun with the system the game brings through the entire game. The game knows how to keep you hooked with its systems from the very beginning to the very end.

Meanwhile, GW2 almost never gives us a reason to care – or have fun with – the sigils and the runes we obtain. Just like it doesn’t with its gear, and many other things. This ultimately makes GW2’s loot less exciting, because almost everything you get is either generic materials for crafting, general gold for trading post, or statistical buffs (that by your very own words, you admit it’s “boring”) that later turn into savage fodder. All dictated by RNG.

I tend to think that its because leveling in GW2 is a very trivial process compared to most MMOs. There just isn’t enough timesink put in to justify putting elaborate and interesting systems in place.

Leveling in FF14 even in ARR (which is a lot less grindy) took forever. It needs something there to keep you entertained, and you actually get to use the materia system in quite a bit of detail.

In GW2, I hit 80 before I even finished exploring the world, and I barely got past the orders part of the main plot. I kind of feel that its like why leveling armors look so bland: you’re past the stage where you would think about it too quickly to make it worthwhile elaborating on.

This is something we seem to disagree on. I feel that GW2’s progression starts at 80, because then you can start planning your build and get all the cool-looking stuff.

I do agree that we need more variety on sigils and runes, but, I tend to feel that it really comes down not to that there many with interesting effects, but that simply the numerical ones are just better in terms of min-maxing, due to the ones with interesting effects being more situational or restrictive.