Guild Wars 2

Hello I been playing PvP a lot lately actually I just reached deer (rank 10) So I was looking forwards to getting some new and awesome and improved pvp gear… Tho what I get is something that looks “fancy” but is the same crap in stats that I already had? so what am I really going for here? what is my goal? normally in PvP I go for the best gear becausekittenI look good and have the best gear (stats wise) but when I got the rank 10 gear today and saw that nothing changed… I lost all my will to play pvp. So am I doing something wrong or is GW2 just a game that don’t really want people who play pvp a lot to get any kind’a advantage in stats?

Unfortunately for you, this game does not let players rofl stomp because of stat boost. It’s a “gear vs skill argument”, thats been in mmos for years. Guild Wars adheres to skill based pvp. Now that’s not saying all things are “pure” skill, because that would be a misleading statement considering the varying classes/abilities etc. But Anet does not like the idea of compounding the “balance” conundrum by also adding stat variations to the equation. So they have always chosen the “no stat boost” design, where as other MMOS don’t do this. It’s a matter of preference. Some players like stat advantages over others whereas some prefer the “no stat” model. It’s very much like LoL if you’re familiar with that game, where you get rewarded with skins not Power!

It is a skill based pvp game. You play pvp because you enjoy it. Everyone is on equal footing with max armor and gear unlocked automatically.

PvP effectiveness should be based on Player Skill not Gear. The developers of this game have kept PvP extremely balanced to the point where ranking up does nothing for you statistically, but give you flashy armor – as it should be.

Ohh… seems a bit lame to me tho, Yes you can say “as it should be” but why? a lot of other games have done it the other way in many years and that seem to have worked out fine… but yeah I guess I was to fast to set my heart on GW2 then :P

I suggest you try a game like Rift where there is little to no skill involved and victory is determined by gear and consumables and there are no rankings or team vs team match making.

I play Rift already :P but thanks

Actually RIFT is equalizing gear soon too.

dublido.5417:

Ohh… seems a bit lame to me tho, Yes you can say “as it should be” but why? a lot of other games have done it the other way in many years and that seem to have worked out fine… but yeah I guess I was to fast to set my heart on GW2 then :P

Well this is known, that guild wars doesn’t offer stat advantages. We would argue that “winning” because of an arbitrary number is lame. Thus the differences in opinions. Plenty games offer pvp that don’t give Stat advantages and are very successful much like Guild Wars.

Not saying we are “right” and you are wrong, but two very different pvp experiences/gameplay.

Untouch.2541:

Actually RIFT is equalizing gear soon too.

I think they scrapped the idea. A sub game needs the “carrot” factor and I think they realized that.

Edit: I could be wrong on that, so don’t quote me. I also am not sure if they scrapped it bc of that exact reason, just making the assumption. I think it’s hard to make the horizontal progression switch once you’ve established a community who enjoy vertical scaling. It’s a drastic change.

dublido.5417:

Ohh… seems a bit lame to me tho, Yes you can say “as it should be” but why? a lot of other games have done it the other way in many years and that seem to have worked out fine… but yeah I guess I was to fast to set my heart on GW2 then :P

It seems lame to you, because other MMO’s have brainwashed you into thinking a gear threadmill is a good idea. They only do that so you keep playing and paying their subscription fee for as long as possible. Guild Wars 2 however is trying to be a competitive game. A competitive game only works with a level playing field where it’s about skill, not about who grinded the most.

dublido.5417:

Ohh… seems a bit lame to me tho, Yes you can say “as it should be” but why? a lot of other games have done it the other way in many years and that seem to have worked out fine… but yeah I guess I was to fast to set my heart on GW2 then :P

sure it has worked out in those other games, but GW2 wants to be esport and having stats in pvp game that wants to be esport is just BIG no no

Irishbrewed.6537:

Untouch.2541:

Actually RIFT is equalizing gear soon too.

I think they scrapped the idea. A sub game needs the “carrot” factor and I think they realized that.

Edit: I could be wrong on that, so don’t quote me. I also am not sure if they scrapped it bc of that exact reason, just making the assumption. I think it’s hard to make the horizontal progression switch once you’ve established a community who enjoy vertical scaling. It’s a drastic change.

AFAIK they tried it, but they removed it

Besides the obvious “parity” reasoning of not having “power advantages” , I cannot stress enough how enjoyable (and relieving) to not feel like “Oh no I have to log in and get my points less I get left behing in the gear grind”! From a man with a full time job, a wife, and 3 young children, it’s rather refreshing I can still partake in MMORPG PvP, and not just get rofled roll because I didn’t “do my dailys”!!!

Thank you Anet! Foreal, from one old dude to the other, thanks!

The gear thing definitely has its advantages, but i still lol at how serious some people are about winning the hotjoin so they get more glory that does nothing for them. WTF I GOT TEAM SWITCHED, im gonna miss the bonus glory that ultimately does nothing.

Kso.6458:

The gear thing definitely has its advantages, but i still lol at how serious some people are about winning the hotjoin so they get more glory that does nothing for them. WTF I GOT TEAM SWITCHED, im gonna miss the bonus glory that ultimately does nothing.

Well that’s not true. Glory is a currency to purchase upgrades so it’s not useless. But yeah raging because of the minor bonus is silly considering youre not NEEDING it to stay on the treadmill like in other mmos.

Well yeah, I meant it does nothing except change your appearance.

I understand GW2 is a skill based game. No stat advantage or gear chasing. I’m totally ok with this model.

But seriously, all the fanboys going off about this is how it SHOULD be and bashing on people who are still learning is silly. FYI, MMORPG games have always been about PVE and obtaining the best gear possible. Bragging to your friend about getting that super rare drop. Old mmorpg games didn’t “brainwash” you in to thinking that stats were important. The fact is, stats are SUPPOSED to be important in an mmorpg. It is what drives the genre. PvP is an afterthought entirely. And successful games try their best to balance it.

But in all honesty, If you want something PvP skill based, please just play an RTS, MOBA, or FPS game. Any competitive, skill based mmorpg is still a joke compared to the genres stated above.

GW2 is drastically different in this way. It is a nice change up. But in no means is it “the way things should be”.

That’s a fair point, Pineapple Man.

I’m one who absolutely likes gear stat progression in other MMO PvP and I was a little disappointed about not having it in GW2. Having played it for a while, I’m actually OK with it, but I wish the customization was a little more free. Having only the amulet and jewel as opposed to being able to customize each piece of gear as we can in the PvE environment is a big bummer for me because I’ve always been a huge fan of min/maxing and optimizing things… it’s the game within the game. In GW2, you can still do this to a degree, but its pretty limited.

Skolops you can still swap your runes on your armor if that’s what you mean.

milo.6942:

Skolops you can still swap your runes on your armor if that’s what you mean.

Certainly, but its not as interesting to me as being able to customize stats like you can in PvE (or other games). The runeset you use is a part of your stat customization, but its relatively small.

The real unfortunate thing about the runes is that I find you rarely get to pick them for their diverse effects – which is really what they’re for – but instead have to choose them to pad whatever stats you can’t get enough of because of the amulet/jewel “presets.”

dublido.5417:

Ohh… seems a bit lame to me tho, Yes you can say “as it should be” but why? a lot of other games have done it the other way in many years and that seem to have worked out fine… but yeah I guess I was to fast to set my heart on GW2 then :P

Except it doesn’t work out, because what it tends to produce is bad PvP and basically is partly responsible for killing off PvP (or near enough) in most MMORPGs (the exception is EVE, which does PvP differently from your bog standard MMORPG).

What is lame is getting thumped by players simply due to gear differnces whilst you rank up, then when you are eventually geared the PvP is still lame becasue you end up facerolling undergeared players.

You played Rift, which is the perfect example of this, when I played it took a fair while to get to rank 40, then you had to grind rep for various bits of gear/runes, even then you would still be at a significant disadvantage if you had 10k PA agaisnt people with 60k PA plus, then on top off all that, raid gear was far, far better than the best PvP gear, especially for thing s like marksmen who could avoid much of the damage.

All of which resulted in terrible PvP whether you were ranking up or had ranked up, which is why the number of PvP servers absolutely plummeted in comparision to the number of PvE servers.

I’m an FPS/RTS gamer and I couldn’t fathom playing a game that had gear progression. That has to be one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard. No other game genre does it (and thankfully, GW2 doesn’t do it either). People should win in games based purely on skill, not hours played.

Pineapple Man.1976:

It is what drives the genre. PvP is an afterthought entirely. And successful games try their best to balance it.

Not really it is what drives bog standard themepark games like WoW, Rift, etc, one of the most successful MMORPGs is EVE (the only MMORPG other than WoW that has actually grown over the long term), it is entriely driven by PvP.

Nor were the games that WoW copied like that, PvP was a big part of DAOC & EQ, they had fun things like public dungeons.

Pineapple Man.1976:

But in all honesty, If you want something PvP skill based, please just play an RTS, MOBA, or FPS game. Any competitive, skill based mmorpg is still a joke compared to the genres stated above.

Why? It takes more skill to play PvP in most MMORPGs than it does to play LoL.

Pineapple Man.1976:

I understand GW2 is a skill based game. No stat advantage or gear chasing. I’m totally ok with this model.

But seriously, all the fanboys going off about this is how it SHOULD be and bashing on people who are still learning is silly. FYI, MMORPG games have always been about PVE and obtaining the best gear possible. Bragging to your friend about getting that super rare drop. Old mmorpg games didn’t “brainwash” you in to thinking that stats were important. The fact is, stats are SUPPOSED to be important in an mmorpg. It is what drives the genre. PvP is an afterthought entirely. And successful games try their best to balance it.

But in all honesty, If you want something PvP skill based, please just play an RTS, MOBA, or FPS game. Any competitive, skill based mmorpg is still a joke compared to the genres stated above.

GW2 is drastically different in this way. It is a nice change up. But in no means is it “the way things should be”.

There have been other MMO’s (perhaps not ‘rpg’) that did without the player vs gear model that the current games adhere to. However in my, and quite a large number of other serious PvP minded players opinion(s) when it comes to PvP is that gear should never be a factor, only skill. Otherwise it is not PvP but PvG(ear) or PvT(ime).

I dealt with it in WoW (for far far too many years than I should have) and it was terrible. It was like PvE. “Ok, gear check. Does my gear vastly outrank yours? If yes: Faceroll. If no: Die.” That’s not PvP, it’s some terrible mockery of what PvP is supposed to be.

(I do enjoy my FPS’s still thank you, that’s what I was raised on….ah the glory days of 14.4 baud packet loss warping sarcasm)

Pineapple Man.1976:

But seriously, all the fanboys going off about this is how it SHOULD be and bashing on people who are still learning is silly. FYI, MMORPG games have always been about PVE and obtaining the best gear possible. Bragging to your friend about getting that super rare drop. Old mmorpg games didn’t “brainwash” you in to thinking that stats were important. The fact is, stats are SUPPOSED to be important in an mmorpg. It is what drives the genre. PvP is an afterthought entirely. And successful games try their best to balance it.

I’d argue that RPG’s are about Player Improvement/Growth. The fact is, the easiest way to showcase that Growth is by increasing Stats. The goal of the game is to complete the quest/campaign. Stats are just a means of improving with which to do so. As it’s been stated before.. the only reason these Stats have been thrown on Gear (rather than just players) and that Gear made time costly to attain is due to the Subscription nature of early MMORPG genre. The general idea is that Subscriptions were necessary in the genre to continue to fund the upkeep of game hardware/software on the Developer’s side of things.

Anet didn’t run with a Subscription based model in GW1 and they still haven’t in GW2 and as such.. there’s no need to place the Highest Stats at the end of a Treadmill. This actually brings this game more in line with other games where you get Patches, Additional Content, and Online Play for the single price of purchasing the game initially (pretty much every PC genre before MMORPGS came along).

So there really is a logical “as it should be” aspect to the way Anet runs things. Yes, MMORPGS have had subscription fees in the past but no one really knows if they had to.

If you’re losing your will to play after you’ve cleared all the fluff out of the way, then there’s definitely an issue.

I feel the OP because I’m feeling the same way right now. This point capping system is Boring. I’m only sticking around in hopes TDM or Capture the Leader is added.

In GW, all I did was RA and HA (the original old school styles of play GW was founded on). If I wanted to run around capping points all day, I’d stick with GW1 Jade Quary which I never liked since they implemented it.

I really like the fact that there are no stat boosts, I like the differant looks you can get to stroke your kitten, but ultimately It comes to skill and build choice, you still get a fair bit of paper, scissors, stone with the different build types ( just look how many ‘this class is OP’ threads there are) with out adding the ‘they out gears me Crutch so what’s the point’ excuses for afk ing battlegrounds, I don’t think anyone will want the level of battleground spawn camping seen in other MMO’s

can you imagine heart seeker strike spam from a thief way more geared than you are? No thank you to that!

Being in the worst gear and facing someone in the best gear never felt as bad as some of the stuff I’ve experienced in this game (in the tankiest of builds, at that!) The potential is there, but some tweaks definitely need to be made.

Kso.6458:

The gear thing definitely has its advantages, but i still lol at how serious some people are about winning the hotjoin so they get more glory that does nothing for them. WTF I GOT TEAM SWITCHED, im gonna miss the bonus glory that ultimately does nothing.

I don’t mind the whole team switching, nor do I care about the bonus, It’s more of a, I just worked for that win only to feel like I’ve been a traitor for the other team the entire time. Certainly that little bonus is nice, it also works with booster so if your using one you lose out on more, and yes the gear is just for looks and titles, which mind you have a ridiculous scale on them to begin with, but being swapped to the losing side when your about 10 secs away from victory can be annoying.

I think the main thing is that Guild Wars 2 is not your typical MMO. GW2 is a game to play if you enjoy THE GAME. If you like PVPing JUST for PVP sake, keep PVPing. If you like exploring and doing random events just for the sake of doing it, keep doing it. If you want PVP gear progression, pub stomping, serious raiding, etc then GW2 is just NOT the game for you. It doesn’t have a subscription, you have most likely already gotten your moneys worth out of the game. If you aren’t enjoying the game for what it is, that is fine. Just find another game and come back if you ever feel like it.

I’m not saying “Shut up or GTFO”, I’m simply stating a fact. If you don’t like playing RTS games you aren’t going to play an RTS game. If you didn’t like Duke Nukem Forever you wouldn’t play it. If you aren’t enjoying/are no longer enjoying GW2, move on and come back if you feel like it. There is no sub tying you to the game.

Skolops.2604:

Being in the worst gear and facing someone in the best gear never felt as bad as some of the stuff I’ve experienced in this game (in the tankiest of builds, at that!) The potential is there, but some tweaks definitely need to be made.

I have seen way worse in rift and aion to name but a few, and it is far worse than anything I have seen here. Out geared is a far more demoralising gaming issue than build difference, twinks are a prime example of gear ruining a pvp bracket. If you think what we have here is worst then I am sorry we will have to agree to disagree. At least we do not have to level a character up max level to experience equal PvP, if you are unhappy that you can’t compete with a certain class you can change to that class and be playing in the same pvp matches within 10 mins.

Kryank.8069:

Skolops.2604:

Being in the worst gear and facing someone in the best gear never felt as bad as some of the stuff I’ve experienced in this game (in the tankiest of builds, at that!) The potential is there, but some tweaks definitely need to be made.

I have seen way worse in rift and aion to name but a few, and it is far worse than anything I have seen here. Out geared is a far more demoralising gaming issue than build difference, twinks are a prime example of gear ruining a pvp bracket. If you think what we have here is worst then I am sorry we will have to agree to disagree. At least we do not have to level a character up max level to experience equal PvP, if you are unhappy that you can’t compete with a certain class you can change to that class and be playing in the same pvp matches within 10 mins.

I don’t think its a class thing; I think its a problem with the overall game design, so switching classes doesn’t make a difference. I’ve played a few classes in PvP, and found it all to essentially be the same.

Idiopathicus.5927:

I think the main thing is that Guild Wars 2 is not your typical MMO. GW2 is a game to play if you enjoy THE GAME. If you like PVPing JUST for PVP sake, keep PVPing. If you like exploring and doing random events just for the sake of doing it, keep doing it. If you want PVP gear progression, pub stomping, serious raiding, etc then GW2 is just NOT the game for you. It doesn’t have a subscription, you have most likely already gotten your moneys worth out of the game. If you aren’t enjoying the game for what it is, that is fine. Just find another game and come back if you ever feel like it.

I’m not saying “Shut up or GTFO”, I’m simply stating a fact. If you don’t like playing RTS games you aren’t going to play an RTS game. If you didn’t like Duke Nukem Forever you wouldn’t play it. If you aren’t enjoying/are no longer enjoying GW2, move on and come back if you feel like it. There is no sub tying you to the game.

This is the statement that needed to be made. I think a lot of gamers prefer to play “for” something. They feel like they have to have some kinda grand GOAL to keep playing, instead of like a lot of us who “play to just play”. Like you said its not that those players at “wrong” for wanting to have a goal oriented mindset other then just pvp, it’s just one not supported by the game. At least not for “power creep”. You can still shoot for gear cosmetics if you like tht kinda thing.

But there is also players who enjoy the gear crutch, and like just rolling new players because of gear. Those players won’t hang around in GW2.