Why is there a lack of unique gearing?

[Milo.3840]

I know prefixes, armor runes, and sigils give decent amounts of diversity, but it feels like once you hit max level and get exotic gear, getting cool items seems nonexistent..

 

I have multiple legendary items but they feel lackluster outside of their convenience of stat selection and sigil changing.. I wish items in the game had some sort of cool effects on them that felt like true progression without breaking the game. Probably not as much as gear sets like in WoW or the Witcher but something like having "built-in" minor sigils of Air etc would be neat

[Parasite.5389]

i feel like this would limit diveristy rather than improve it, because now you're implimenting items in the game that provide a unique bonuses, these bonuses regardless of how minor they may be will affect dps and other benchmarks, driving players to seek out those items in order to compete with other players.

we've seen similar things in the game already with Tormenting and Scholar runes being the "Meta" choice for builds, and if you're not running them, you're under performing.

Edited November 24, 2022 by Parasite.5389

[Vyr.9387]

Stat sticks are easier to balance; boring, but functional.
Runes, however, are the exact opposite, considering they're basically the usual - albeit slightly watered down - set bonuses, having their effects be taken into account for all classes.
Legendaries were also never meant to be more than convenience and/or fancy-sparks-all-around, so people don't feel like they need that Shadowmourne for their BiS set.

In short: old framework.

On the other hand, the new - not merely balance - team has demonstrated both their creativity and balls when it comes to breaking the status quo.
Never been a better time to dust off those iconoclastic flags.

Edited November 24, 2022 by Vyr.9387
Posted before proof-reading. Shame on you, crazy diamond.

[Solvar.7953]

There certainly is a problem at level 80, once you have good gear, the likelihood of getting anything to drop that is at all meaningful is really rare.

For myself, get piles of unid gear, which I open than then scrap.  Story rewards might give me a set of exotic equipment, most often with less than ideal stats or runes that now sells for 20s on the trading post - about the same value I get from salvaging it.

Rarely I might get an exotic that is worth a a gold or two on the TP.

Re-playing through PoF recently, I completed the Act 2 meta achievement.  Reward for that?  An ascended trinket with set stats.  Maybe that was good at one point, but with the various LWS map nodes in my home instance, I've been able to buy all the stat selectable ascended trinkets I'll ever need.  That PoF reward is arguably of negative value, as it costs more to use an ascended salvage kit on it than the materials it would produce.

But I don't have a solution to this - I don't want a gear treadmill where my gear can always be made slightly better.  If good items (say ascended weapons/armor) dropped more even, their value would be lower.

 

[Khisanth.2948]

1 hour ago, Milo.3840 said:

I have multiple legendary items but they feel lackluster outside of their convenience of stat selection and sigil changing.. I wish items in the game had some sort of cool effects on them that felt like true progression without breaking the game. Probably not as much as gear sets like in WoW or the Witcher but something like having "built-in" minor sigils of Air etc would be neat

That example is just a simple case of power creep and how is that unique?

[Milo.3840]

58 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

That example is just a simple case of power creep and how is that unique?

I'm not familiar with terms like power creep but I've never viewed it as a bad thing if it's what I think it means.

 

I guess I'd be referring to something along the lines of Diablo's gearing diversity to a minor extent.

[Milo.3840]

1 hour ago, Solvar.7953 said:

There certainly is a problem at level 80, once you have good gear, the likelihood of getting anything to drop that is at all meaningful is really rare.

For myself, get piles of unid gear, which I open than then scrap.  Story rewards might give me a set of exotic equipment, most often with less than ideal stats or runes that now sells for 20s on the trading post - about the same value I get from salvaging it.

Rarely I might get an exotic that is worth a a gold or two on the TP.

Re-playing through PoF recently, I completed the Act 2 meta achievement.  Reward for that?  An ascended trinket with set stats.  Maybe that was good at one point, but with the various LWS map nodes in my home instance, I've been able to buy all the stat selectable ascended trinkets I'll ever need.  That PoF reward is arguably of negative value, as it costs more to use an ascended salvage kit on it than the materials it would produce.

But I don't have a solution to this - I don't want a gear treadmill where my gear can always be made slightly better.  If good items (say ascended weapons/armor) dropped more even, their value would be lower.

 

I whole-heartedly concur. I've gotten all I could want stat wise from the Season 4 currencies, but even ascended items offer only a small increase in stats vs exotics. Maybe a fix would be some new type of Rune level above exotic that only ascended items could equip, because agony infusions to me aren't quite interesting considering the only rewards you get from fractals are achievements and cosmetics.. something that is a cross between infusions and fractal specific rune sets would make me want to play fractals

[SuavePuppy.2809]

3 hours ago, Milo.3840 said:

something like having "built-in" minor sigils of Air etc would be neat

 

37 minutes ago, Milo.3840 said:

Maybe a fix would be some new type of Rune level above exotic that only ascended items could equip

Seems like you're just asking for more bonus stats and gear progression, which is just one of those things this game doesn't do. I understand it can make it bland for some, but it also makes it easier to gear multiple characters and multiple builds.

[Milo.3840]

37 minutes ago, SuavePuppy.2809 said:

 

Seems like you're just asking for more bonus stats and gear progression, which is just one of those things this game doesn't do. I understand it can make it bland for some, but it also makes it easier to gear multiple characters and multiple builds.

Not really bonus stats so much as something like the sword "Firebringer" might have an effect that causes burning foes to have a chance to erupt and set nearby foes on fire, or "Bolt" could have an effect that causes a lightning strike and become a lightning rod, causing strikes against other enemies to chain back to it.

Or something that would be really cool would be the Specialization Achievement Reward Ascended weapon to have unique effects for that profession. Like "Purifier" (Willbender's Ascended weapon) could have an effect "While you have a Sword in your main hand and off hand, Lethal Tempo can stack an additional X amount of times"

Just examples of course

Edited November 24, 2022 by Milo.3840

[Moradorin.6217]

4 hours ago, Parasite.5389 said:

i feel like this would limit diveristy rather than improve it, because now you're implimenting items in the game that provide a unique bonuses, these bonuses regardless of how minor they may be will affect dps and other benchmarks, driving players to seek out those items in order to compete with other players.

we've seen similar things in the game already with Tormenting and Scholar runes being the "Meta" choice for builds, and if you're not running them, you're under performing.

yea like stat infusions. I agree and disagree. That is, I don't see a need for new things per say, however, I would argue the game has exactly that in stat infusions which got added to the game after ascended. They are not that hard to obtain but still hard enough that I would guess over half of players don't use a full set of stat infusions on even a single set of armor. Those people who want to compete for top dps or top heals do/will seek them out just as you say. Again idc if they add a new thing like that or not so much I just felt like adding that to the conversation.

[Moradorin.6217]

4 hours ago, Solvar.7953 said:

There certainly is a problem at level 80, once you have good gear, the likelihood of getting anything to drop that is at all meaningful is really rare.

For myself, get piles of unid gear, which I open than then scrap.  Story rewards might give me a set of exotic equipment, most often with less than ideal stats or runes that now sells for 20s on the trading post - about the same value I get from salvaging it.

Rarely I might get an exotic that is worth a a gold or two on the TP.

Re-playing through PoF recently, I completed the Act 2 meta achievement.  Reward for that?  An ascended trinket with set stats.  Maybe that was good at one point, but with the various LWS map nodes in my home instance, I've been able to buy all the stat selectable ascended trinkets I'll ever need.  That PoF reward is arguably of negative value, as it costs more to use an ascended salvage kit on it than the materials it would produce.

But I don't have a solution to this - I don't want a gear treadmill where my gear can always be made slightly better.  If good items (say ascended weapons/armor) dropped more even, their value would be lower.

 

I agree. To be honest later on its much more the case; I have maxed out Magic Find; I completed a set legendary armor set for each of the 3 types; I made enough legendary weapons to cover all my needs;I have leg. trinkets, runes, sigils done.

 

So at this point many things that used to feel rewarding really feel lacking now. I still do them if I feel like it for nostalgia but the base motive of wanting to do things like raids, fractals, etc for a Reward is basically gone for me.

For instance, on a T4 fractal run the usual benefits other than some gold is getting Ascended Chests, Fractal Skins, and things to salvage like unident that in part is to get luck to improve MF to get better drops (eyeroll). However, I cant use Ascended, nor do I get anything of comparable value if I salvage the ascended. I am done with the skins. I am done with needing luck. So the entire reward (in my head motivation wise) becomes the gold and/or the fun. I will just say that random pugs are not always fun depending which fractals are part of the daily and I dont really need much gold since I dont presently have any legendaries Im working toward at the moment. So most days I just dont do Fractals anymore because its a dice role that at best scores about as much gold as a number of other activities do and I generally dont need the gold anyway.

 

This IMO is one of the big reasons many people end up saying WvW is the ultimate endgame. WvW part of the reward is always the prospect of good combat/competition and some unscripted playing which can be a nice change after allot of pve. WvW needs help too, like the roaming scene was sort of killed off by CMC a few years ago around when they took Mirage's 2nd dodge away and then started adding trade-offs and pushing wvw to be more all about large groups and the largest group wins kinda stuff.

 

Im not sure that adding a new type of item or what ever that lets us all further augment our stats or that adds some other combat enhancement would make anything better. For myself most of the reward issues I voiced in this post above I think could be addressed with simple things like some new merchants that exchange ascended chests for relics or some other thing that would give them an alternative use/value for people who no longer need ascended armor/weapons, etc.

Edited November 24, 2022 by Moradorin.6217

[Shuzuru.3651]

So, basically, you want the inferior version of sigil and rune. 

Hard no for me, why would anyone wanted basically a worse version of an already existing system ? 

A few examples of why it's a bad idea :

Imagine you got a special effect on bold, a legendary, which is resulting in making it meta, so required, now imagine having a 1000g+ weapon being required... 

Same thing with thing like spécialisation weapon that would basically force a actually optionnal collection

If you don't see the problem, then you failed to understand a core pilar of the game... 

[Linken.6345]

1 hour ago, Shuzuru.3651 said:

So, basically, you want the inferior version of sigil and rune. 

Hard no for me, why would anyone wanted basically a worse version of an already existing system ? 

A few examples of why it's a bad idea :

Imagine you got a special effect on bold, a legendary, which is resulting in making it meta, so required, now imagine having a 1000g+ weapon being required... 

Same thing with thing like spécialisation weapon that would basically force a actually optionnal collection

If you don't see the problem, then you failed to understand a core pilar of the game... 

Well to me it sounded like they wanted it in addition to what we have now so its just a buff not inferior in anyway.

[Cyninja.2954]

4 hours ago, Milo.3840 said:

Not really bonus stats so much as something like the sword "Firebringer" might have an effect that causes burning foes to have a chance to erupt and set nearby foes on fire, or "Bolt" could have an effect that causes a lightning strike and become a lightning rod, causing strikes against other enemies to chain back to it.

That is already happening. The few weapons with elemental stats on them produce unique finishers on enemies.

They do not offer statistical advantage, which is the entire point behind a horizontal gearing design.

4 hours ago, Milo.3840 said:

Or something that would be really cool would be the Specialization Achievement Reward Ascended weapon to have unique effects for that profession. Like "Purifier" (Willbender's Ascended weapon) could have an effect "While you have a Sword in your main hand and off hand, Lethal Tempo can stack an additional X amount of times"

Just examples of course

 

and once you have the unqiue weapon/weapons you are back to square one asking for the next unique weapon because you have the ones already available. Right?

 

Here is a suggestion: for some players, gearing and learning other characters/classes/roles and gearing those fills the role of gesr treadmill from other games. You could give this a try.

Edited November 24, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Danikat.8537]

I think Anet intentionally replaced built-in bonus effects with sigils and runes so players have more freedom to choose - you don't have to use the "Sword of Flames" to cause burning, you can put that effect on any weapon you like.

You can choose a sword with good stats for your build, put an appropriate skin on it, like the Primordus Sword or Heroic Dragonsblood Sword and then use a sigil of smouldering, or flame to get a thematic effect. But you could also put the same effect on any other sword you like so you're not restricted to the skin and stats which come with the effect you want. You could decide since your necromancer crafted their own sword it's magical fire which chills or cripples or strips boons instead of burning, or your elementalist can cause burning using a weapon with no visible fire at all.

Edited November 24, 2022 by Danikat.8537

[Shuzuru.3651]

3 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

Well to me it sounded like they wanted it in addition to what we have now so its just a buff not inferior in anyway.

I meant inferior in design, because his idea is basically sigil and runes, but with no flexibility. 

So imagine the game right now, but you can't extract or craft sigil and rune, it's built-in. 

That would be bad, right? It's his idea, basically

[Sobx.1758]

That's just another layer of power creep -no, thanks.

[Ryuk.6840]

On 11/23/2022 at 4:37 PM, Milo.3840 said:

I know prefixes, armor runes, and sigils give decent amounts of diversity, but it feels like once you hit max level and get exotic gear, getting cool items seems nonexistent..

 

I have multiple legendary items but they feel lackluster outside of their convenience of stat selection and sigil changing.. I wish items in the game had some sort of cool effects on them that felt like true progression without breaking the game. Probably not as much as gear sets like in WoW or the Witcher but something like having "built-in" minor sigils of Air etc would be neat

There could a mechanic to sacrifice leg/asc gear to the jade bot , in order to unlock cool new skill effects,  or just like the old WvW event , you have a chance to  get Skills from other classes (with charges + a popup button  in the upper space of the 5-10 utility slot , that when pushed it will replace the utility slot beneath (you should try to change the Healing skill + long elite for max damage) )  .

Or anew F6 button (by again sacrificing gear)  that acts like an extra weapon swap mechanic (BladeSworn) that pick up corrupted weapons dropped by the enemies (or when the breakbar is destroyed) for few min , midfight (test-ground for future weapons)

Edited November 24, 2022 by Ryuk.6840

[Hotride.2187]

Legendary items in this game are the best items I've seen in an RPG, since the legendary armory came out. You make one and you are done with the slot / weapon type (some few exceptions).

Getting full legendary is a great item chase that is rewarded very well. I really cant ask for more in that regard.

[Artemis.8034]

Thats horizontal progression in a nutshell. Once you have the best ie legendary everything there is no where to go. Its a blessing and a curse,many people dont want to have to vertically progress gear all the time, but otoh without some form of progression things tend to stagnate. There has to be a middle ground,  we get new content but never have to change our gear. Maybe the answer is a gear reset on expansions, not on patches but on full expansions. Maybe a level increase to 85 or 90 with new gear sets.

[Cyninja.2954]

56 minutes ago, Artemis.8034 said:

Thats horizontal progression in a nutshell. Once you have the best ie legendary everything there is no where to go. Its a blessing and a curse,many people dont want to have to vertically progress gear all the time, but otoh without some form of progression things tend to stagnate. There has to be a middle ground,  we get new content but never have to change our gear. Maybe the answer is a gear reset on expansions, not on patches but on full expansions. Maybe a level increase to 85 or 90 with new gear sets.

 

Or, and now hear me out:

we stick with the design concept which has worked so far and players who wish for gear progression play MMORPGs which scratch that itch.

 

Wouldn't that make the most sense?

[Omega.6801]

No.

[Tails.9372]

2 hours ago, Artemis.8034 said:

Thats horizontal progression in a nutshell.

Except GW2 does not have "horizontal gear progression" at its highest rarity but "no gear progression at all". If GW2 actually had horizontal gear progression then people would be talking about the gameplay related pros and cons of various legendary weapons in different scenarios which there is obviously no point in doing so as they are all the same.

2 hours ago, Artemis.8034 said:

Once you have the best ie legendary everything there is no where to go.

Not really, that's the hallmark of vertical gear progression which usually has the additional disadvantage of devaluing the content related to the previous equipment (in more than just one way).

Edited November 24, 2022 by Tails.9372

[Sobx.1758]

16 minutes ago, lokh.2695 said:

No.

Agreed.

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, Artemis.8034 said:

Thats horizontal progression in a nutshell. Once you have the best ie legendary everything there is no where to go. Its a blessing and a curse,many people dont want to have to vertically progress gear all the time, but otoh without some form of progression things tend to stagnate. There has to be a middle ground,  we get new content but never have to change our gear. Maybe the answer is a gear reset on expansions, not on patches but on full expansions. Maybe a level increase to 85 or 90 with new gear sets.

That's not "middle ground". The middle ground is actually what we have now - the original design assumed people will be fully geared up in BiS gear by the time they hit level 80. What you suggest is abandoning the horizontal progression idea completely, which is not what most players of this game want.

If you want to know the consequences, consider, that the backlash from introducing ascended gear was the greatest negative response this game ever had in all 10 years of its history. When they introduced the ascended tier, they were mentioning "continuing item progression" on a "shallow curve", and "definitely wanting to increase level cap in the future". A year later however, after seeing player response to this idea, during HoT reveal MO was already promising that nothing like this will ever happen. This was one of the very few cases of Anet devs ever mentioning that they will definitely never do something, and it was about something they clearly wanted to introduce earlier, so you can guess how bad the player reaction must have been to that idea to make them change the direction so much.

In short, it will never happen.