Guild Wars 2

If Guild Wars 2 has one glaring problem, it’s the current Itemization System. There are currently a variety of Stats which are incredibly confusing. Not only are they confusing, they are also redundant – people will select the best combination of Stats at any given moment. This means that the vast majority of Stats are irrelevant. The current Guild Wars 2 Stats system creates the following issues:

1. Players have to regear if they want to try a different build. If you have Power oriented gear, you will need to buy a whole new wardrobe if you want to try a condition oriented spec. This puts up a large wall for those who want to try new play styles. This is not fun or necessary. Having this wall adds nothing to the player experience. One of GW1’s strengths was its flexibilities. It was possible to try out any build in the game at any time (provided the skills were unlocked). There was not an itemization wall that locked certain players out of certain builds or content.

2. It is incredibly confusing for new players to the game or a given class. New players have to figure out what they mean, and what the most optimal stats will be for them. Furthermore, as they try out new weapons they will likely find that their gear does not support these weapons – so they stick with their current weapons and miss out on a lot of content.

3. It is incredibly difficult to balance. The plethora of Stats mean that the Devs must balance every stat combination to make sure that none or too powerful. This creates an unnecessary QAQC burden (which costs Anet real money…).

4. “The illusion of choice.” Players are going to go to metabattle and pick the best stats. Having a large variety for them to choose from just wastes Development Time.

There are a variety of solutions. Any of these would improve the itemization and make the game more fun to experienced players (who can more freely try out different builds) and new players (who will not feel overwhelmed or kitten).

1. Remove all “Stats” on items and have them all scale based on gear quality. This will make QAQC/balancing easier. It will also make it much easier for players to change builds to try out new things.

2. Have stats “selectable” in PVE just like they are in PVP. In a town, I should be able to select “stats” just like I would in PVP – using the same Prefixes. The game will them calculate what my actual stats are given the quality of my equipment.

ANet, I know that you guys work really hard and that you love your game. This QoL improvement would make the game a lot more enjoyable, and would not take a massive amount of programming effort. Furthermore, this will make the game much stickier and habit-forming to those of us who have been bitten by the GW2 bug.

If you implement an easier way to change builds (from power to condi, for example), you’ll get a lot less ‘hate’ from players on the Forums every time you release a balance patch. To be honest, the last balance patch almost made me quit the game. I play a Power Warrior, and I am no longer able to raid. I have no Vipers equipment, and I feel like I have been unnecessarily excluded from the Raid community through no fault of my own.

Please consider this implementation ANet. Any Development Time allocated to this will be offset by much greater player retention and spending.

Thank-you for reading.

With a trinity there would maybe be some meaningful PVE.

Without any roles, GW2 cannot have PVE. Instead, it’s ZVE. Zerg versus Environment. And this isn’t fun because the individual is unable to affect the outcome for better or for worse. It’ll either succeed or fail regardless of what I do. And this isn’t fun.

Any benefits for gameplay and longevity will more than outweigh any potential minus to crafting. But there won’t be any penalty to crafting.

I suppose some inputs will now be redundant, but they wouldn’t be useless because the gear they make is still valid. The only thing it will do is harmonize the price of inputs.

“We will have multiple materials that are now redundant.”
-They are still useful, they would just no longer be distinct from one another.

“Crafters won’t be able to sell for profit.”
-The player demand for multiple sets of armour isn’t there anyway. This is not a point. Dungeon gear assures us of this. People tend to only want one type of gear, which is why EVERYONE is ’zerker.

“Crafting will be more expensive to level.”
-Perhaps slightly, or perhaps not at all. Regardless, tweaking to keep it within the desired range is incredibly easy. I could do it myself if I could adjust drop rates. Since GW2 has an economist on staff, I think his expertise could be utilized.

Crafting will never be a valid way to make a lot of money. Snowflakegate assured us of this.

Without adjustable stats on kit this game won’t be able to regain its former glory because players are hesitant to devote too much time to grinding away on a single set of gear that may be broken in a patch – like ’zerker is opt to do.

This really isn’t even a debate lol.

It wouldn’t affect crafting.

Most people only buy one set of armor anyway.

It will harmonize the prices of inputs, however. As a result crafters will no longer be able to level up buying cheap, undesireable mats. The adjustment to crafting prices will be modest, probably no more than 15%. If this is not desired, the drop rate for materials can easily be adjust upwards to eliminate any pricing adjustment.

More to last:
Games are about having fun.

Someone out there decided that players should get locked into a specific stat allocation. This is different from many other games because in this game, the stat allocation is to do the same thing.

Guild Wars 2 really only has one type of PVE character – DPS. Obviously, every character wants to be the best they can be. This is objectively optimizable by class. As a result, the developers have forced people to select “how” they want to do their damage and stay with it. They cannot change this unless they spend another year of grinding to get another set of Ascended gear.

Is this fair?
Not really. Other games have you lock in decisions but these decisions are more based on role than ‘how’ you accomplish role.

Is this fun?
Not really. If I want to change a little bit of precision for healing, I have to spend another year to gear up. This is really discouraging and causes a lot of frustration. It also causes everyone to gear as ’zerker because it is the most useful.

Will nerfing ’zerker change this?
Not really. There will always be a stat setting that is mechanically superior. This is because everyone is DPS in PVE always. If ’zerker is nerfed, a new stat combination will arise as the mechanically best. Everyone will take this and there will be equally no build diversity.

Will allowing gear to swap stats fix this:
Not really (see above). But it will allow players to experiment in PVE without feeling like they have wasted a year of their life.

I never said anything about ascended only. Changing stats on all gear on demand would be a great idea.

Why should Berserker’s be more expensive than Cleric’s? This adjustment will also harmonize the TP and bring material costs more in line with one another. The effect it will have on crafting is that it will increase the cost of level but decrease the cost of creating items. Really, this adjustment will be minor (look at the price spread between totems and blood and average the two for instance).

Why would you not find it a good idea to allow stats to be changed? Do you think it is more fun to be locked into a certain stat build for the lifetime of your character unless you want to regear?

Lordkrall – maybe you have a faulty memory.
Legendaries are meant to be cosmetic only – a grand achievement with no gameplay benefit. They are already going to be Account bound instead of the normal character bound.

There’s no reason squelch a good idea just to keep Legendaries different. The fact that legendaries can already do this is proof that it is easy to implement. There is no reason not to extend this to all items for the reasons listed ahead.

And this is a very good thing.

I believe that Scarlet Briar is the best Villain that a video game has ever encountered. She is the best villain because she is the worst character.

A villain in a video game acts to provide motivation for the protagonist. A good villain provides better motivation than a weak villain does. Scarlet provides a different kind of motivation than a lot of other video-game villains. Scarlet provides out-of-character motivation.

In most video games you have to suspend disbelief and “put yourself” in the character’s shoes in order to have motivation to do whatever tasks are set before you. Scarlet breaks this by providing out-of-character motivation.

Scarlet is unanimously held to be the worst character ever created in media ever. She’s cheesy, cliche, shows no signs of clever inspiration, and would be hard pressed to be worthy of a B-list Saturday morning cartoon. The fact of the matter is that a seven year-old could design a villain better than Scarlet without having to even try very hard.

Her place as the worst character of all time is precisely what makes her the best villain of all time. She is a blight on the Guild Wars name. Guild Wars has always told very mature stories with depth and complexity. Scarlet ruins all of this, and in doing so, elevates herself to the status of the perfect villain.

I hate Scarlet passionately. This motivates me to try to stop her. I want nothing more than to sever her head and free GW2 from her tarnishing and silly influence. Take a minute and ask yourself when the last time was that you felt a personal connection to stopping the villain. This is what Scarlet accomplishes.

Maybe we’ve all been trolled – Scarlet is the best villain of all time because she is the worst character of all time.

More to last:

The current GW2 model is very similar to a Saturday Morning cartoon – you log on, see the story, and move on. Because of the inflexibility with gearing, most players are discouraged from attempting any sort of grind.

I personally refuse to spend time working toward Ascended gear because it’s just not worth it. I’ll need one set to do dungeons, one set to do WvW, and another set if I want to try out a different build. This makes me less willing to play beyond logging on to see my Saturday morning cartoon.

Increasing gear flexibility will go a long way in creating more staying-power for this year+ old game. At the end of the day – there is absolutely no reason not to, and everyone will benefit immensely.

With the talk of nerfing ‘zerker, there are a lot of angry people who invested a lot of time into the grind for Ascended kit. Since this is a grind-focused game, their concerns are very valid and it’s easy to understand why emotions are running high.

If any adjustment to gear is made, ANet needs to allow the stats on gear to be customizable on demand. The beauty of GW1 was that I could adjust my stats in any town. This will allow players to customize their kit more easily.

Benefits:
1. Increased build variety – there will be less fear to experiment with nonstandard builds.
2. Less resistance in the community to adjustments to stat effectiveness. This will allow Anet to fine-tune stat balance without fear.
3. No fear of players demanding refunds for skins bought for now-obsolete berserker gear.

Cons:
1. Lower grind. As you no longer have to maintain multiple sets of gear, the amount of grind per player is lessened.

I cannot understand why this has not been implemented already. Players will play more and there will be a more rewarding play experience for everyone.

This happened to me too. How is this even possible?

I think it’s hilarious… This needs to be fixed… yesterday.

I guess Anet is too busy nerfing karma jugs to ensure that hard-earned minis don’t disappear…

Too little too late.
They need to listen to the community and produce what the community wants.

After much deliberation and perusing the forums, I have decided that this game is not being taken in a fun or sustainable direction.

The game is being taken in a direction contrary to that of the manifesto by implementing grindy things that provide stat bonuses that are not fun. I don’t want to have to play every day to get my laurel or do my fractals or be scared that I’ll be left in the dust. GW2 should leave the grind to other games – that do it much better. Because ultimately GW2 will fail if it tries to be like WoW with gear acquisition – because people like me will simply go back to WoW.

I cannot play every day because I have a very demanding job that keeps me busy. But I am able to play mammoth sessions on weekends when I have time to enjoy myself. The laurel system discriminates against me. It makes me sad because it means that I’ll have a hard time keeping up with other players.

GW2 is not fun because of the impossibility of changing your spec in PVE. Because it’s so difficult to acquire a secondary set of Ascended Gear, the Build Wars of GW1 are impossible. My character is going to be locked into a single role when I purchase his Ascended Gear. And, even then, I still cannot get the Knight’s prefix. One of GW1’s beauties was being able to switch it up – I could be a million of different builds whenever I wanted. I simply had to run into the nearest town, swap my skills, and try again. While there is a lot of skill variation in GW2 that I adore, lacking the gear makes switching your spec impossible.

GW2 is grindy and lacks a sandbox feel. I feel like I’m pidgeonholed into doing the FOTM (flavour of the month, lol) tasks in order to maintain stat parity with my peers. In GW1 I had no such pressure – once I had my set of Level 20 Armor I was free to explore the vast world and simply experience for its own beauty. In GW2, I don’t enjoy doing this because I feel like I’m being left behind. An example of this was the time I spent searching for Easter Eggs and Buried Treasure in Nightfall. I simply roamed, enjoyed the landscape, and really enjoyed the feeling of finding something that I didn’t know was there.

GW2’s “gear progression” sucks. It is such a chore – there is too much RNG and grindy tasks to get the latest gear. If GW2 wants gear progression, it should do it more like WoW does. Gear progression should feel less like a chore and reward tasks that you enjoy doing anyway. The revamp of the dailies does not do this. Because of the intended ease of completion, it simply rewards playtime instead of task completion. This is not fun.

GW2 does not care about class balance. I have not seen a substantial class balance patch in the last three months. D/D Elementalists and Thieves reign supreme and make sPVP unvaried and boring. Warriors have no place in sPVP. Imbalance is natural, but the fact that nothing is being done to address this is unacceptable. If GW2 wants to be taken seriously, it has to take balance seriously. There has not been a meaningful patch to balance Warriors in over three months. That is approaching ToR levels of apathy where Mercenaries are still unusable in PVP.

GW2 has no reason for guilds. Guild Missions are coming out soon, but I cry that it’s too little too late. There are still no guild halls either.

So, I will be going back to GW1 and I will get my grindy-progression from WoW. The reason why I’m standing on my soapbox to write this post is because I deeply care about the game and would like to provide feedback to the developers as to why I no longer find their product fun.

When I go to review my Personal Story on the “My Story” Pane of the Hero (“H”) tab, my story does not appear past “Starving the Beast.” If I try to scroll lower than “Starving the Beast,” all entries disappear. This is disappointing as the Personal Story was a very large selling point of the game.

This has been confirmed to happen on two different computers. Please advise on what I need to do to fix this.

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

Thanks for lying Anet. No more support from me. And I was in the process of convincing my friends to switch over too.

Why can’t we just have a game with no gear grind?
I thought this was what GW2 was all about.

THey said it themselves that there’s going to be a full ascended set. That’s not what I expected when I bought my exotics and based on the tone of the anti-grind game.

Why can’t we just go back to the way things were?

Nope – I’m no longer playing this game and I’m currently requesting a refund for the gems that I bought under false pretenses.

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

I just wanted to let the community know what happened to me and how I felt. I suppose this community isn’t as supportive or positive as I had hoped – oh well, I guess all of the decent players left when this fiasco started.

I had thought that my Exotic Gear was going to be the best throughout the game, like it was in GW1 and based on the information I received:

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

I want the money I spent on gems to buy and upgrade my exotics back. That’s all I want – if Anet wants to change the game like this, that’s their choice – but I don’t like being misled into spending money.

Agreed!
Just requested mine.

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

That’s what I expected. GW2 is changing that and I feel it is unfair because I bought gems based on that.

He’s not a troll.

To be honest, I played GW1 for three years because it was fun and there was always something new to do. I could explore new areas, quest for new weapon skins, and take part in weekend-events.

In GW2 I feel like I do not have the ability to do this because of the stress of keeping up with my gear.

But most importantly, I feel deceived. The money I spent on my exotic sets was done under the premise that it was the equivalent of GW1 armor – and we had no reason to expect any differently.

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

Grinding for Ascended items is “grinding for a future fun reward.” They are not fun – especially when nobody else is running your fractal level. Thanks ANet for ruining this game and my investment.

I’m suck on level 2 because everyone is well past me and it’s impossible to find a group.

I feel the need to remain on the edge of the power curve because I love to WvW.

Happens? Deal with it?
This community is almost as bad as ToR’s was when ToR was going downhill. No one wanted to criticize the company… and look what happened.

Agony would be brilliant if it were implemented properly. If Ascended gear ONLY gave an advantage to Fractals – then everyone would be happy and the game would continue on.

Absolutely. I’ll sure give them the gear back. I can buy MF yellows until I get the Ascended gear.

ANET has said that there will be a shallow power curve over the next year. As I’m stuck on Fractal lvl 2, I can’t even compete even if I wanted to.

Besides, any gear progression is not what I expected when I purchased this game, purchased my gems, and began playing. This is a material change that adversely influences my ability to enjoy the game. I don’t want to have to grind to stay ‘in the game’.

I’m in the process of requesting a refund for the gems that I used to buy/upgrade my exotic gear that was done under the impression that there would be no grind.

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

The best thing that they can do right now is to downgrade the Ascended gear to Exotic quality and release a new, good-faith update to take players’ minds off of this.

At best – this is going to divide the community and ruin the game. With Christmas coming up, new games are coming out – and if GW2 has this kind of division and controversy, I think it will go the way of the ToR.

So, I’m pretty angry right now.

I spent a lot of time, effort, energy, and gems into acquiring my two and a half exotic sets. I understood this to be an investment because, like GW1, this gear wouldn’t become obsolete.

With the implementation of Ascended gear, I’ve realized that this wasn’t the case. All of the gear that I so painstakingly earned and bought is now obsolete. I’ve realy worked for nothing.

I love the idea of horizontal progression – like GW1, working towards extra skins and other non-combat ways to differentiate your character. I feel chated, lied to, and deceived.

I would like a refund for my gems and for my exotic gear. Or, I would like them transmuted into Ascended gear.