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What's amazing is that Guild Wars 2 managed to last 7 years with little to no gear progression


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It's one of GW2's greatest innovation IMO, along with downscaling, and not increasing levels. Simple yet, for me I could never play another MMO without these features. Although Dawdler.8521 brings up a good point, the power creep is hidden in the elite specializations, but it's better than having to grind the former. Anet does a good job nerfing after feedback, albeit a bit slow(looking at you mirage).

The only thing lacking is rewards(too generic, not enough uniqueness that can be earned playing),lore(there's lore, but not enough. Besides the titles like GWAMM and from Birthdays, nothing else much separates long time players and current players),and more open world events like TT where we can't always win with numbers. Some of this has to do with their business model sadly.

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MMORPGs do not need levels and gear tiers. Some progression is needed, but that is true for pretty much all the games. From strategy games to platforms, sport, MOBA, FPS, and MMORPGs as well as all other genres. As you can see, pretty much all of the other games do not have a level and gear progression, the progression is getting to the next zone, managing to win the encounter, finding the strategy that wins you a match, gaining on personal skill - being it knowledge of the usage of tools you have or precision of movement.

A lot of games do have power progression, but a lot of the time it is just another tool to use, another skill, another way to move, something that works in some environments but not in all in the same efficiency. I do like this kind of progression, having lots of tools, but knowing when and how to effectively use it. Guild Wars 1 had it, and it was the best part of it. Things that were great in PvE were not in PvP or farming. Things that were great for some zones, weren't for others. Things that were great for some PvP modes, weren't for others.For example, I do like designs in PoF and HoT which need unlocking of skill, ability or item to be able to win. Like gliders, mounts, and a lot of masteries we got. Some found it bad because they couldn't win the encounter before unlocking those masteries, but that was the other issue. It was more about the story itself. The gated story because of the masteries was probably not the best idea, as well as the gated elite specialization unlock. And with that, I do agree. If the elite spec was more about unlocking parts after parts, but still being able to use elite spec from the start - that would be really good. But the way the trait system is, you really do need all of the parts unlocked for it to function - or you would just use other specs. And playing the elite spec after you played almost all the campaign and story was just a bad feeling. That is something Anet needs to change.

I do think GW2 has many amazing things going for it. Dynamic events instead of quests make it so zones are played again and again and there is always some action on maps. Quest system is just one-time play, dynamic events are played or encountered 100s of times. It is really more efficient way to do it. Meta events, World Bosses, all of these things included.

What I do wish GW2 had better, was the class and battle system itself. I do not agree that the great combat system equals action combat. I do not think that GW2 has better combat than GW1 or FFXIV or Classic WoW. At all. I would argue it is far behind. Why? Because I am looking at the skills as well. I am looking at how it feels to play in a party. Is the party play satisfying? Can you feel your impact? Can others feel the mastery of your skill? Do you have a role? Do you have to carefully plan the usage of your skills?

Some would argue that GW2 has it, and they would be correct in some parts, but the way GW2 made its combat, a lot of times it feels its just trait system carrying you. A lot of "hidden" passive traits, which activate at the "X" moment. I dislike the trait system so much, and I do believe it destroyed PvP scene. It would have been so much better without it, and if instead of the trait system, there were just other skills you could place on your skill bar. The way it is, the trait system is just a powercreep that makes you lazier and makes your mistakes so much more forgiving.

I also do think they made the horrible mistake of not going The Holy Trinity from the start. I talked about it at the release. But I was mocked upon. Anet did introduce it years after because they did realize that they just can't make group encounters satisfying experience - it was all just AoE DPS cleave until then.I do not understand how Anet completely forgot that humans have roles, and they need a role system to find their place in society, and with it, in games also.When I say The Holy Trinity I do not really think in terms of DPS, Tank, Healer, but more in the way of Guild Wars 1, because I do believe it made the best class design. So, damage dealers, healers, protectors (buffers, debuffers, utility classes like mesmer, necro, interrupt ranger, movement slowers (cripple ranger, water ele), blind spammer ele in GW1).

These last parts are what I would like Anet makes better. Better class design, role design - more importance on careful skill usage, and less on just 1111 spamming or mindlessly using skills. Harder PvE encounters, so grouping is needed. Bring back MMO part in GW2. I am sorry, but not sorry when I say that I do not care about less skilled players ranting that they can't solo anymore. I think they need to be ignored for the sake of this game's future. We need difficult parts even in open-world zones, which are not just events. I do agree that the story should still be able to be played solo. I think it is too late to force players to a group for the personal story - even though that is also an option since the beginning and many that couldn't solo could just bring someone to help them out. But they didn't. But that is actually not on them, it is on Anet that they created the story as single-player RPG, so GW2 brought many of those players in MMORPG so we have a mess we have now. A lot of players that are not the real audience for MMORPGs, but are here cuz GW2 is also a single-player RPG. They probably did save GW2, I do need to agree with that. I don't really play this game anymore because it is just not MMO, it is not the game for me, it is for them.

GW2 now needs to focus on the MMO part, more than ever before. If it wants to live another 7 years.

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Imo what you should be looking for is a reason for people to try other armor stats other than the usual prescribed best dps/best condi/best hybrid out there. I see no reason for additional gear progression when 80% of the existing system is being shunned upon particularly on the pve game mode. Trying out things is fun. Arenanet has to at least give a reason and make it worth the effort. It will probably require retouching creature AI, nerfing and buffing existing armor stats, and a very fast and agile balancing team who is in touch with the game because there will be problems. Not the current quarterly balancing which leaves issues for 2 years untouched. Can it be done? Of course it can. Is it alot of effort? Unfortunately yes. This should have been started years ago, when stuff was more doable. Maybe not right now when things are a little bit down on the company side. But yea...you guys ever seen the ISS from a telescope?

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Folks : We don't want gear progression , too much hassle and will affect the meta.Same folks : why wasn't there new elite specs announced?Don't be silly. We won't get any progression because like world PvP, mesmers and having to do collections people will just say 'no or nerf' and that's how it is.Now, personally, I'll take whatever this game throws at me, but it's easier to say 'no thanks' and hope more than one person wants the same.

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Gear progresssion isn't a good method imo.Sure it gets people farming for new tier stuff in some MMO's but it often turns a lot of people off too as all the previous work they put in for their current gear more or less gets thrown in the trash.

We can argue whether or not Gw2 did Horizontal progression right as there are definitely ways it could have been done better in parts but moving away from increasing gear tier and level caps was absolutely the right choice imo.

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The only thing a new tier of gear would accomplish is to piss off casual and hardcore players alike. I am sure everyone will cry out in joy when they hear that they are going to get to grind new and slightly better versions of the gear they already min-maxed instead of being able to play actual new content (PvE,WvW and PvP), getting new elite specs or even new weapon types.

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@Knighthonor.4061 said:Kind of crazy to think of a MMO doing such a feat. People didn't like this at first and many still don't like this. But somehow the game managed to last this long with little to no gear progression. I am now curious how long this can keep going to keep the lights on and content flowing going forward.

Gear progression has nothing to do with the longevity of a game.

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@Dawdler.8521 said:Yet at the same time the power creep compared to pre HoT is insane.

Funny that.Considering that the benchmarks before coming of DPS meters (which happened after HoT release, remember) were neither too precise (when they existed at all) nor complete, and that currently no dps build comes even close to the level of OP some HoT era builds could reach, i am not sure i'd agree. Not without better sources that would show what really changed, when, and by how much. Without those, all you have to back up your dramatic claims is your feelings, and those make for very unreliable judges.

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What is so amazing about that? Most games don't have gear progression. You do know why it is referred to as a treadmill in other games right?

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:Yet at the same time the power creep compared to pre HoT is insane.

Funny that.Considering that the benchmarks before coming of DPS meters (which happened
after
HoT release, remember) were neither too precise (when they existed at all) nor complete, and that currently no dps build comes even close to the level of OP some HoT era builds could reach, i am not sure i'd agree. Not without better sources that would show what really changed, when, and by how much. Without those, all you have to back up your dramatic claims is your feelings, and those make for very unreliable judges.

We don't really need a DPS meter or benchmark to see the contribution from gear. It is just whatever stat the provide. Precise and complete benchmarks wouldn't matter much anyway. Traits and skills are massive confounding factors.

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@godofcows.2451 said:Imo what you should be looking for is a reason for people to try other armor stats other than the usual prescribed best dps/best condi/best hybrid out there. I see no reason for additional gear progression when 80% of the existing system is being shunned upon particularly on the pve game mode. Trying out things is fun. Arenanet has to at least give a reason and make it worth the effort. It will probably require retouching creature AI, nerfing and buffing existing armor stats, and a very fast and agile balancing team who is in touch with the game because there will be problems. Not the current quarterly balancing which leaves issues for 2 years untouched. Can it be done? Of course it can. Is it alot of effort? Unfortunately yes. This should have been started years ago, when stuff was more doable. Maybe not right now when things are a little bit down on the company side. But yea...you guys ever seen the ISS from a telescope?

This pretty much nails it. Their build system is sort of a waste for PvE. There's usually a good DPS option or two, and everything else goes in the garbage. The problem isn't the tools they give the players, it's that problems they give them that don't really show the strengths of most of those tools. One encounter tends to be like another, and generally when they try to do something special mechanically, it's entirely parallel to the whole build system so that they don't unduly punish any class. If the game was better at getting players into group content, then that would matter less, since one character's weakness could be mitigated by another one.

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@"Acheron.4731" said:It does create a small problem though....once you have legendary everything and no longer have to farm for new stats or gold...what keeps you playing?That is the point I am at. PVE couldn't possibly drop anything I need. WvW stays in a stale meta...pvp never needed gear...kinda bored now, really. Without new elite specs to fiddle around with you are kinda stuck in limbo.

See, that's only a problem for people that still desire chasing gear tiers ... they ONLY think about getting BiS. GW2 isn't modeled like that ... there are LOTS of other skins out there besides legendaries. I would even go so far as to say there are BETTER skins than legendaries. The difference is basically chasing gear for BiS performance vs. how you want to look. That's why GW2 is win ... because once you get a full exotic, you are good enough and you can slowly work your way to ascended as you play without the specter of "you're not geared" holding you back.

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@Dante.1508 said:I'm not sure how people keep thinking there is no gear progression in this.. its just as bad as most other mmos these days progression wise.. Guildwars 1 had no true gear progression.

Well, it's easy to think that ... because most of us have experience with other games where gear progression IS the endgame. So when we play GW2, we can objectively recognize a significant departure from that. Is that gear progression completely eliminated? No, but it's not so bad that you need BiS gear to have good performance in every aspect of the game.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@Dante.1508 said:I'm not sure how people keep thinking there is no gear progression in this.. its just as bad as most other mmos these days progression wise.. Guildwars 1 had no true gear progression.

Well, it's easy to think that ... because most of us have experience with other games where gear progression IS the endgame. So when we play GW2, we can objectively recognize a significant departure from that. Is that gear progression completely eliminated? No, but it's not so bad that you need BiS gear to have good performance in every aspect of the game.

and there has been no change for certain builds. Beserker or Beserker/Assassin mix to hit 100% has been the gear for power build for ages. Ascended a bit of verticality but at this point the ascended ones have been around for longer than not.

Also contrary to other games, gear has also become easier to get.

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@Khisanth.2948 said:

@Dante.1508 said:I'm not sure how people keep thinking there is no gear progression in this.. its just as bad as most other mmos these days progression wise.. Guildwars 1 had no true gear progression.

Well, it's easy to think that ... because most of us have experience with other games where gear progression IS the endgame. So when we play GW2, we can objectively recognize a significant departure from that. Is that gear progression completely eliminated? No, but it's not so bad that you need BiS gear to have good performance in every aspect of the game.

and there has been no change for certain builds. Beserker or Beserker/Assassin mix to hit 100% has been the gear for power build for ages. Ascended a bit of verticality but at this point the ascended ones have been around for longer than not.

Also contrary to other games, gear has also become easier to get.

So true ... I've dipped my toe back into SWTOR for a bit ... and I can remember why I left. If someone thinks this game is a gear grinder, they simply don't have enough perspective of what other games in the market REQUIRE you to do to progress. The effort needed to outfit yourself in Ascended gear is laughable to even the lower tiers of gear that I would be forced to obtain to be accepted as a beginner player for flashpoints or operations in SWTOR.

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@Khisanth.2948 said:What is so amazing about that? Most games don't have gear progression. You do know why it is referred to as a treadmill in other games right?

@Dawdler.8521 said:Yet at the same time the power creep compared to pre HoT is insane.

Funny that.Considering that the benchmarks before coming of DPS meters (which happened
after
HoT release, remember) were neither too precise (when they existed at all) nor complete, and that currently no dps build comes even close to the level of OP some HoT era builds could reach, i am not sure i'd agree. Not without better sources that would show what really changed, when, and by how much. Without those, all you have to back up your dramatic claims is your feelings, and those make for very unreliable judges.

We don't really need a DPS meter or benchmark to see the contribution from gear.The best gear for power dps is still the same it was in the pre-HoT times: Berserker.

It is just whatever stat the provide.And that didn't change.

Precise and complete benchmarks wouldn't matter much anyway.Many builds were not benchmarked properly and only eyeballed. A lot were
never benchmarked at all
. Condi
core
ranger, for example (so popular before it got replaced by Soulbeast), appeared only after dps meters have shown that it was (to everyone's surprise) quite good (especially compared to the effort it required). It doesn't mean the build didn't exist before. It just meant noone realized how good it actually was.

And that's the point: without good and reliable benchmarks, we can't say anything about pre-HoT power levels. We're only guessing based on our limited knowledge of mechanics - and sometimes just guessing based on feels alone.

The game went through so much buffs and nerfs in those years that personally i honestly don't know how current power levels relates to the possible builds of before HoT. And i honestly suspect that a huge majority of people speaking about power creep do not themselves know any better than that as well.

Of course, if someone does know how the power level changed throughout the years, i hope they will share that knowledge. I am honestly quite curious about it. What was the dps of FGS spam meta? Of Meteor storm/ice bow line casting? Of many other old and now forgotten builds?

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People seem to have a rather short memory when they complain about power creep. Think about the 150k-200k+ Hundred Blades warriors (not even fully buffed or min-maxed) or the pre-pre-pre-nerf Meteor Shower and Frost Bow elementalists.Or more recently: Remember how the revenant sword damage used to melt VG? Remember the first version of the Condi Berserker? I used to get 40k burning ticks off of that build at Gorseval even if I do not have a benchmark. My static was playing around with Scourges when they were introduced, They used to get 35-37k+ DPS due to the old Shade mechanics before anyone even started to use Epidemic (which wasn't nerfed yet also).We could talk about support and boons/buffs next. Remember 100% speed Quickness? How about the 66% reduction Alacrity? Old Grace of the Land, Glyth of Empowerment, old banners, old spirits, builds which were a one-man-army like the Chaos Chrono, etc, etc.

Honestly, I feel like we might be utterly blown away by the DPS of some of the old and especially ancient builds if they were avaible in a modern setting where we have all of the tools required to min-max them further and current mindset. The community as a whole improved greatly over the years. The crazy expansion power creep has long been nerfed but we manage to maintain a good set of META builds even after.

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@"Acheron.4731" said:It does create a small problem though....once you have legendary everything and no longer have to farm for new stats or gold...what keeps you playing?That is the point I am at. PVE couldn't possibly drop anything I need. WvW stays in a stale meta...pvp never needed gear...kinda bored now, really. Without new elite specs to fiddle around with you are kinda stuck in limbo.

It's safe to say that players who have "legendary everything", are a very small subset of the playerbase. And it would be foolish to tailor the game to that small group instead of the vast majority of players who don't even have one legend.

And I see elite specs as something completely detached from gear progression. Something fun to play with regardless of your BiS status.

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