Let's talk Exotic weapons and New Player future

[Legend of Rogue.5394]

So when this game first came out the path in crafting and exotic armor in MY opinion was relatively easy. Just go Berserker on every class and everyone would love you in Dungeons and Fractals. You used Fractal Relics and Laurels to get your basic ascended trinkets AKA Berserker rings or Celestial Rings and life was good. There was Karma Exotic armor, Crafting/TP , Dungeon armor and we had about 3-5 ways to get them. Pretty easily set up.

 

Baically with HOT, POF, and EOD for a new player it is extremely depressing trying to learn this system except by word of mouth. We need all armor or majority armor to be stat selected or some type of way to make it easier. IF you want Viper gear you play original HOT maps and grind airship parts. YOU can grind the chests but that is really the only way because it is rare I ever find players playing the meta events, its pretty much HP trains. Auric, Dragon has a healthy base it seems..

 

The way players get armor is extremely difficult and very hard to learn. We need to get from Noob to raids, strikes, WVW and from talking to a few they all feel overwhelmed, they get constantly rejected in strikes, raids, groups etc because they have some exotic, some rare, some ascended armor unless they boost to 80 but they still feel like they are not able to learn. The only stat selectable armor in the game is rare and few in between. If you want viper you have to grind maps that are not used and getting exotic armor for these stats is almost impossible for a new player with out actually knowing how to navigate wiki, chat, guilds etc. Like where do they go from there? POF didn't solve this and EOD absolutely made it worse. Talking ascended, I find few players actually have ascended and are still rocking exotic with high tier runes. How do we get ascended? Well Berserker and basic stats from Beginning are the easiest but Anet keeps putting more of it in, we do not want Berserker meta again that was completely miserable to play with and how do we get it? Welp crafting to 500 (which few know about how to do and are really not learning how to find crafting guides etc nor do they have the money or resources to get there)

Raids are the only way to do it but no group will take you without ascended armor to begin with. You can do tracks, which take forever and are not very self explanatory, but still manageable, you can do WvW and pray to RNG gods, you can do grandmaster but that takes like what? A MONTH plus to get one piece and your only reliance is RNG.... Strikes do not offer it unless you exchange the currency for stat selected and those ARE LIMITED???!! Why are strike stat armor stat selects limited? That makes no sense, once again more berserker celestial and meta NO ONE actually runs...

 

I find it frustrating that EOD released 11 or 12 new back pieces none of which are stat selectable, they are pushing yet again Berserker tracks... Berserker armor stats and thats it.... No OR FAR stat selected options.

 

This might not seem like a problem for us players that have weathered this and know how to learn this way but we are 9 years into it thus its required, it was forced on us, but these new players are going to come in or are coming and are quitting after lvl 60? Or get a level boost and quit shortly after.

 

All I think should happen is more stat select armor available on exotic weapons that allows ALL stat options and is easily explained to players or is easier to obtain so we can get them into raids, strikes, wvw, pvp, mount, exploration etc where they do not feel overwhelmed because they cannot get their stats right

Ascended armor, weapons, availability attainability needs to be narrowed down and easier to obtain where we do not need to go to dead maps and hope there is groups running the events. I understand the difficulty required and needed to make it a challenge but to rely on this map for this insignia, or this map for this rune and this armor from this quest and this weapon from this spec and complete these mastery points to unlock this which gives you this.. It literally makes the game and communicating to new players impossibly challenging.

 

With the Steam launch approaching if this is not fixed it will drive new players away thus we will need commanders, guilds advertising like hell and working with them so we can get them up to speed, or it will be a complete fail.

 

Just throwing out some fears and ideas for ANET to address so we can make stats easier to obtain, armor is no longer the game thus I feel it should be easier to explain and easier to get at the same time still challenging to acquire, just better communication

[blp.3489]

It only partially addresses your concerns but every time you complete the bronze tier WvW skirmish reward track you get a box of Warlord's armor which is stat selectable exotic armor.  You can get one piece per week which you can use to get stats that aren't available on the trading post.

[kharmin.7683]

OWPvE is so ... forgiving.  Why would new players require stat-selectable armor?

[ugrakarma.9416]

Im not against complexity but the GW2 gear(stats) aquisition is bizarrely complex.

On wiki u have a large table with lots of "if" on acquisition method depending on status.

 

Its get extremely worse if u search for ascendend.

 

Week ago, i needed a assassin trinket, i have lot ofs of assets because im "older gw2 player", then i had assassin rings from  dungeons achievments. and because i did tons of PVP on the past, i have 3 full sets of pvp ascedend trinkets, and to complete, have 2 legendaries backpieces.

 

but if a new player ask me how to get these? "guy u need a journey for u entire life".

 

im not asking for cheap or easy stuff, but for a standartization. a common currency(make them all unbound), gold. 

Edited April 14, 2022 by ugrakarma.9416

[ugrakarma.9416]

3 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

OWPvE is so ... forgiving.  Why would new players require stat-selectable armor?

at some point ppl get bored, and will try new stuff.

[DeanBB.4268]

Is it really that hard? There is the trading post, which I assume most new level 80 players would hit first. The wiki, youtube and just google search produces viable results. I agree there are many options, but in my mind that just means more to choose from that works for a particular player.

Googling crafting also produces guides. I admit crafting takes some getting used to, but the gear crafting all follows the same formula, so once you figure it out, it becomes easy. My brother managed it, and had never played a game remotely close to GW before.

I've been playing since the beginning, and quite often my new level 80s evolve thru gear, collecting 1-3 sets easily.

I really don't see a problem.

[Kichwas.7152]

In OW PvE and in 'casual solo roaming and sometimes follow those guys up ahead' WvW you can wear anything.

Even pre-exotic gear.

 

You don't need exotic at all until you start doing explorable dungeons and even that is debatable. One experienced player in the group can carry everyone even on bad gear because the Dungeons only needed exotic back at launch because none of us as yet knew the secrets to GW2 gameplay.

 

I've added 4 or 5 more characters to my fractal roster since EoD came out. I think I now have 6 that can do through tier 3, and 3 more can do through tier 2. 2 can do through tier 4.

- This was very easy to do.

 

Berserker or Viper weapons. Berserker or Rampager rings and accessories. Attune and Infuse the rings. And 1 piece of body armor in the right type. The rest exotic. That can get you to 99 AR. That plus a potion runs you through even Sunqua 75 (the last tier 3).

 

- The biggest gate on this is that Dragonite Ore is account bound, and used to craft an account bound only item, and has a pretty slow drop rate. I had to make all but one character on my account run around with a Jade Bot that had the Dragonite salvager to be able to do this. Everything else can be sped up with gold... which a new player can get with PayPal... (shock and horror yeah - but even I did that for a bit - tossed unused gems from after the March sale back into gold).

 

But Dragonite Ore means your first Ascended and ready for Tier 3 fractals character is probably going to be 1-2 months in.

 

YOU SHOULD NOT BE PLAYING TIER 3 AS A NEW PLAYER WITH ONLY 1-2 MONTHS OF GAME EXPERIENCE !!!

 

Even if you can get the gear for it, you are basically trolling the other players with your in-experience.

 

EVERYTHING that a new player is likely to have the player skill to be ready for, they can get the gear for, within the first week of playing the game.

- which is a basic berserker exotic set with maybe 102 'Knights' pieces because they're not yet good enough at dodging to survive otherwise.

 

In OW and casual WvW you can put on a full set of Berseerker gear and play a 'condition damage based boon healer' build and... it won't matter. It's that forgiving.

You only need stats relevant to your build once you hit higher end organized play - which is gameplay you should have PLAYER SKILL before joining anyway.

Frankly I farm T2 and T3 fractals all the time and everytime someone says "let me bring a healer" I just see that as "can I get a carry?" because all we really need in that content is full DPS - power or condition.

It only starts to matter at Tier 4, raids, organized PvP, and organized WvW. Everything else is just 'roll a cat's butt over the keyboard and collect your loot'.

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Kichwas.7152

[kharmin.7683]

1 hour ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

at some point ppl get bored, and will try new stuff.

True, but I doubt this would be the case with new players. 

[standardFoe.2983]

I'm an open world casual with 6 full ascended builds (no leggy) accomplished through researching and asking questions and lots of farming/crafting. It's not the easiest system but it's possible to learn so much about how armor stats work with builds and thus combat that it can really improve one's understanding of GW2 game-play.

 

If players have common sense in any MMO they should know that the internet is full of web pages dedicated to players helping players with all aspects of the game. Seriously if a player doesn't know that max level in any MMO means a more intense type of game-play then they aren't paying attention.

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_armor

 

https://guildjen.com/new-players-guide-leveling-to-80-and-getting-your-gear/

 

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Guide:How_to_Gear_a_Character

 

I'm not so concerned about Steam being full of idiots that do not understand how MMO's work that the GW2 population will suffer. Actually there seems to be a misconception the GW2 is super easy, (omg please don't lecture me I'm disabled and struggle with mechanics in this game), but it takes a lot more concentration and skill than something like ESO (which I love as well, don't hate me). So I'm looking forward to influx of players in all modes, yeah they will need help but so what? GW2 players love talking about how helpful they are, time to prove it.

Edited April 14, 2022 by standardFoe.2983
spelling

[ArchonWing.9480]

3 hours ago, Legend of Rogue.5394 said:

The way players get armor is extremely difficult and very hard to learn. We need to get from Noob to raids, strikes, WVW and from talking to a few they all feel overwhelmed, they get constantly rejected in strikes, raids, groups etc because they have some exotic, some rare, some ascended armor unless they boost to 80 but they still feel like they are not able to learn.

Blatantly false; only time ascended gear is required is fractals, and that's because of agony resist. Players get rejected because they don't know the encounters and don't understand their class.

Should check this thread out

Here we have a thread where I suggest a player gear in exotics just using core, affordable stats instead of breaking their bank with meta stats, and they quickly went from below 10k golem dps to above 20k dps, which is more than enough to tackle the grand majority of content in the game. Sure, they could do more damage with better gear, but all the gear in the world means nothing if you don't know how to use it. And I guarantee such a method gets one in ascended gear faster due to all the gold saved.

Now that being said, the game is pretty stingy when it comes stat selectable instances, and one wonders if it'd be better incentive to add it to story or something. EoD as a whole doesn't feel rewarding.

Also finally:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lunatic_armor

(but it needs to be updated with eod stats)

Edited April 14, 2022 by ArchonWing.9480

[Legend of Rogue.5394]

3 hours ago, blp.3489 said:

It only partially addresses your concerns but every time you complete the bronze tier WvW skirmish reward track you get a box of Warlord's armor which is stat selectable exotic armor.  You can get one piece per week which you can use to get stats that aren't available on the trading post.

Is it any stats that are current? Also what is it for other players that do not do WVW because lets face it, not everyone will do WVW or PVP I think the majority are going to do PVE and strikes

[Legend of Rogue.5394]

3 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

OWPvE is so ... forgiving.  Why would new players require stat-selectable armor?

Well I mentioned because to join on anything else you need to have it figured out and they do not have it figured out because PVE meta is forgiving but as soon as you get to raids, strikes, WVW in some cases. This game is operating in some cases as do whatever you want and the others will carry assuming they have some clue what they are doing. That doesnt help in guilds, or actual events that require some cognitive thought.... Then they get rejected or ridiculed thus cant even get into it, and the only way is word of mouth and by guilds stepping up. I will give the veterans like us because we are actively trying to teach them. It is ok up to a point with PVE but in EOD meta and these other team metas then the overwhelming factor comes into play. Try explaining armor to a new player from Noob to experienced and it will take you HOURS, WEEKS, MONTHS. I cannot honestly say with meta and builds THIS IS THE WAY TO DO IT, nope its miles of rabbit trails and theorys, pricing, farming this route. ITS IMPOSSIBLE.

[Legend of Rogue.5394]

3 hours ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

Im not against complexity but the GW2 gear(stats) aquisition is bizarrely complex.

On wiki u have a large table with lots of "if" on acquisition method depending on status.

 

Its get extremely worse if u search for ascendend.

 

Week ago, i needed a assassin trinket, i have lot ofs of assets because im "older gw2 player", then i had assassin rings from  dungeons achievments. and because i did tons of PVP on the past, i have 3 full sets of pvp ascedend trinkets, and to complete, have 2 legendaries backpieces.

 

but if a new player ask me how to get these? "guy u need a journey for u entire life".

 

im not asking for cheap or easy stuff, but for a standartization. a common currency(make them all unbound), gold. 

And this is my problem, In WOW or FFV these games are pretty freaking easy to explain, guild wars is SOOOOOO intricate, that I cannot teach a new player how to do t efficiently and that in itself is overwhelming. Players need to be in the mix fast and feel like they matter and belong, they want to see challenging aspects and they want to see populated maps, they want to be helped they want the challenge but need the guidance along the way. I know every aspect of this game but I cannot for the life of me explain the grey area.. Crafting was the best decision I made thus I have coached every player i come in contact with and have even helped them with materials because crafting is soo important now in my opinion. It is the staple of this game the rest is RNG and random "I stumbled on this" but I took one aspect of this game and mastered it and it helped. Most new players wont even KNOW where to BEGIN with in this adventure. This game is exploration friendly and challenging but a lot of the map events are dead, glitched messed up, no players thus it feels like a single player RPG..... 

[Legend of Rogue.5394]

2 hours ago, Kichwas.7152 said:

In OW PvE and in 'casual solo roaming and sometimes follow those guys up ahead' WvW you can wear anything.

Even pre-exotic gear.

 

You don't need exotic at all until you start doing explorable dungeons and even that is debatable. One experienced player in the group can carry everyone even on bad gear because the Dungeons only needed exotic back at launch because none of us as yet knew the secrets to GW2 gameplay.

 

I've added 4 or 5 more characters to my fractal roster since EoD came out. I think I now have 6 that can do through tier 3, and 3 more can do through tier 2. 2 can do through tier 4.

- This was very easy to do.

 

Berserker or Viper weapons. Berserker or Rampager rings and accessories. Attune and Infuse the rings. And 1 piece of body armor in the right type. The rest exotic. That can get you to 99 AR. That plus a potion runs you through even Sunqua 75 (the last tier 3).

 

- The biggest gate on this is that Dragonite Ore is account bound, and used to craft an account bound only item, and has a pretty slow drop rate. I had to make all but one character on my account run around with a Jade Bot that had the Dragonite salvager to be able to do this. Everything else can be sped up with gold... which a new player can get with PayPal... (shock and horror yeah - but even I did that for a bit - tossed unused gems from after the March sale back into gold).

 

But Dragonite Ore means your first Ascended and ready for Tier 3 fractals character is probably going to be 1-2 months in.

 

YOU SHOULD NOT BE PLAYING TIER 3 AS A NEW PLAYER WITH ONLY 1-2 MONTHS OF GAME EXPERIENCE !!!

 

Even if you can get the gear for it, you are basically trolling the other players with your in-experience.

 

EVERYTHING that a new player is likely to have the player skill to be ready for, they can get the gear for, within the first week of playing the game.

- which is a basic berserker exotic set with maybe 102 'Knights' pieces because they're not yet good enough at dodging to survive otherwise.

 

In OW and casual WvW you can put on a full set of Berseerker gear and play a 'condition damage based boon healer' build and... it won't matter. It's that forgiving.

You only need stats relevant to your build once you hit higher end organized play - which is gameplay you should have PLAYER SKILL before joining anyway.

Frankly I farm T2 and T3 fractals all the time and everytime someone says "let me bring a healer" I just see that as "can I get a carry?" because all we really need in that content is full DPS - power or condition.

It only starts to matter at Tier 4, raids, organized PvP, and organized WvW. Everything else is just 'roll a cat's butt over the keyboard and collect your loot'.

 

Yes I hear what you are saying the old ways of acquiring it are still the same, what if a player doesnt want to play condi or just this or that but feels obligated to? They are not going to stick around for long. You have your head on right so you know what you are doing but how did you acquire all this information? Did you look into this yourself and find this info out your self and grind it in your brain through the years or was it guided to you? The time of grinding information into our brains is not the same anymore and this game is EXTREMELY difficult to get into at this point

[Cuks.8241]

I just stumbled on a youtube video on exactly this topic. Maybe you got idea from there (or are the author)?

Here it is:

 

Anyway after watching this video and thinking back; exotic gear acquisition is very much all over the place. Its extremely easy to get it in some parts or content and downright impossible in other parts. And there is no real pattern to it. 

[ugrakarma.9416]

1 hour ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Also finally:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lunatic_armor

(but it needs to be updated with eod stats)

this ilustrate the whole mess.

new player ask how to get exotic from armor stats thats not existis on TP:

"u should craft a seasonal event tied armor".

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by ugrakarma.9416

[ugrakarma.9416]

To sum up.

Armor aquisition need a  standardization.

 

This its not about make easy(skip content/challenge) or make stuff cheap.

Is about remove unecessary tiers of complexity, like recipes sold only in hearts npc where u need do to whole kitten thing again.

 

Also i understand they want lock stuff behind paywall of xpacs(viper=>hot), but it can be stanardized without hurt their bussness model.

 

 

 

[SlayerXX.7138]

Just play Story. First vendor on the Hearts of thrones map sells everything but the breast slot as stats selectable. I started playing after POF never had problems to get exotics. Now ascended and the cluster f**k of LW maps is a different story. Bojarch marches Amulet and trinket are so cheap converting gold into gems to buy the LW and buying the trinkets with Ice shard is probably still the cheapest way to get ascended , even if you get them only once. But how should a casual/newbie even start to know that?

[Kichwas.7152]

1 hour ago, Legend of Rogue.5394 said:

Yes I hear what you are saying the old ways of acquiring it are still the same, what if a player doesnt want to play condi or just this or that but feels obligated to?

If they don't want to play condition, then they don't. They play something else.

Seems easy.

What exactly is the problem?

 

Every single bit of content that can be handled by someone with the PLAYER SKILL of a new player can be run on any random gear. Even non-exotic gear.

So I am completely confused about why this topic even exists.

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Kichwas.7152

[DeanBB.4268]

47 minutes ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

To sum up.

Armor aquisition need a  standardization.

While that would certainly be nice, this is not the Anet way. They introduce something new, then move on and introduce something new. How often have they gone back and revamped the old stuff?

You are better off hoping for some new method of more easily and consistently obtaining stat-selectable exotic gear.

[ArchonWing.9480]

1 hour ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

this ilustrate the whole mess.

new player ask how to get exotic from armor stats thats not existis on TP:

"u should craft a seasonal event tied armor".

 

You can actually buy everything though, any time of the year.

But I wouldn't tell new players to get stat selectable armor anyways. Zerker works perfectly fine.

Edited April 14, 2022 by ArchonWing.9480

[Legend of Rogue.5394]

2 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

I just stumbled on a youtube video on exactly this topic. Maybe you got idea from there (or are the author)?

Here it is:

 

Anyway after watching this video and thinking back; exotic gear acquisition is very much all over the place. Its extremely easy to get it in some parts or content and downright impossible in other parts. And there is no real pattern to it. 

This dude explained it way better than I did.... This was an informative video

[Legend of Rogue.5394]

1 hour ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

You can actually buy everything though, any time of the year.

But I wouldn't tell new players to get stat selectable armor anyways. Zerker works perfectly fine.

I really do not want to go back to zerker meta, I hate that its the standard...... We need variety in other gear, think of 9 years worth of gear that has never been touched

[Legend of Rogue.5394]

4 hours ago, standardFoe.2983 said:

 

 

I'm not so concerned about Steam being full of idiots that do not understand how MMO's work that the GW2 population will suffer. Actually there seems to be a misconception the GW2 is super easy, (omg please don't lecture me I'm disabled and struggle with mechanics in this game), but it takes a lot more concentration and skill than something like ESO (which I love as well, don't hate me). So I'm looking forward to influx of players in all modes, yeah they will need help but so what? GW2 players love talking about how helpful they are, time to prove it.

I think the overall community is helpful but I sense a shift lately and it seems pretty individualistic, like you cant even ask a question without some tool going "lOoK IT UpP On ThU WIIkkKKIi 

 

It drives me insane, no kitten ive already done that I cant find my answer can someone else help me? 

 

Like the game is altering in community lately and those people drive me nuts. I have found some good players that are fun to interact with lately and they are fun to enjoy the game with

[ArchonWing.9480]

4 hours ago, Legend of Rogue.5394 said:

I really do not want to go back to zerker meta, I hate that its the standard...... We need variety in other gear, think of 9 years worth of gear that has never been touched

Then you do carrion gear with a condi duration increase sigil and preferably condi duration runes; less damage but also harder to kill. Unless you're insistent on a torment build all of these are cheaper than peanuts. (balth for burn/krait runes for bleed). Even if you want to splurge on a 15g viper  weapon, the final bill comes down to around 30.

For WvW, dire is still solid in small scale and arguably better than trailblazer sometimes.

Also armor contributes the least to stats besides backpiece, so it makes no sense to spend that much on it. Though chest/pants can be prioritized for the richer folks.

Edited April 15, 2022 by ArchonWing.9480