Questionable design choices or am I just crazy?

[Haleydawn.3764]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> LS3 maps addressed the issue really. They added easy to get trinkets with selectable stats, scattered across the maps.

 

They did actually, before LS3, and the PvP and WvW reward updates, the only way to get ascended Viper Trinkets reliably, was from raids.

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"kinomori.1456" said:

> > @"MachineManXX.9746" said:

> > I mean, you started the game one month ago, and you are now here complaining that it is too hard or time consuming, to completely outfit multiple characters in absolute end game gear? Really?

> >

> > Buy Bitterfrost Frontier and either Bloodstone Fen or Lake Doric and you will have easy access to all ascended trinkets, including backpacks. This game is VERY easy to get max end game gear in a very short time. Not exactly sure what you expect?

> >

> > To answer your question, yes, you are just crazy.

>

> Okay, but why is it so much harder to gear up in Viper than it is compared to Berserker? I had zero trouble getting all of my Berserker gear but am currently stuck in a hole regarding Viper gear. If it's "absolute end game gear", why is it so hard for some classes, but not others? Isn't that just promoting a really bad balance in classes?

>

>

>

> > @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> > What's the rush? If it took you only a week to acquire all Ascended, it would seem it would not take long to acquire enough Gold to purchase whatever it is you feel you _need_.

> >

> > I'm not sure what you need it for, anyway; you aren't interested in WvW nor Raids, and PvP doesn't require it. Maybe it's Fractals; I can't tell if that is something you enjoy or not.

> >

> > Remember, it's not a race; take your time and smell the Red Iris Flowers.

> > Good luck.

>

> I AM interested in raids, but I'm not going to pull nearly as much DPS as I should when I'm missing 500 expertise and 700 condition damage. I'm not even talking about all ascended, I'm talking about jewelry, the stuff that on any other class I can get in 4x less time, if not more.

>

>

>

>

> To everyone else just saying "just buy LW3", my point is that shouldn't be an argument, why do I HAVE to buy something that costs the same as the expansion just to be able to get accessories, compared to the fact that I could get those accessories on another class without having even bought any expansions.

>

> You're missing my point, this just seems like bad design choices for it to be more difficult to gear up on certain classes compared to others, I can't think of a single MMO where this happens, and likely for good reason.

 

Simple answer to all your questions:

 

- no subscription

- certain aquisition methods are intended to be more efficient for different slots thus encouraging players to play every part of the game

 

What this means is, stats and content from sifferent expansions stays unique to those expansions to encourage people to at least spend some money on the game.

 

Going by what you said and how fast you've geared your characters, you've sunk a lot of hours into this game yet you are unwilling to spend a tiny amount of money on expansions or living world content. This game is not free to play or develope.

 

I can't think of a single MMO where you get this amount of content, with a flat itemisation and with no subscription fee or pay to win aspects.

[kinomori.1456]

Why will this community flip tables and go crazy when mount skins are released in lootboxes but will defend to the death that you are required to purchase Living World content to get jewelry for some builds if you aren't able to clear raids?

 

Also, I see nowhere to purchase single episodes, only the complete packs, meaning that it will cost either 250 gold or $20. Technically it'd be around $12, but you can only purchase 800 gems or 1600 gems, while Living World costs 960 gems.

[Vayne.8563]

In a game that hasn't raised the level cap or the top tier of gear in years, I'd say this is an acceptable situation. While the situation could be improved, I'm not so sure that complaining I can't raid after a month of playing (when you in fact can raid even if you're short one or two pieces of ascended gear) just doesn't seem all that amazing . This isn't some crazy grind to level you to the top raid, nor are the different levels of raids and in fact, you can raid.

[Halan.8951]

..........

[Wandering Mist.2973]

> @"Vayne.8563" said:

> In a game that hasn't raised the level cap or the top tier of gear in years, I'd say this is an acceptable situation. While the situation could be improved, I'm not so sure that complaining I can't raid after a month of playing (when you in fact can raid even if you're short one or two pieces of ascended gear) just doesn't seem all that amazing . This isn't some crazy grind to level you to the top raid, nor are the different levels of raids and in fact, you can raid.

 

Indeed. Gw2 is actually very forgiving on returning players compared to other mmorpgs like WoW, where you could have spent months getting the BiS gear, then quit for 2 months and return to find that all your gear is now less good than a quest reward that takes 5 minutes to get. It's quite disheartening in a way.

[Wanze.8410]

> @"kinomori.1456" said:

> I had a bit of trouble getting all of my **exotic viper gear**, but ended up getting mostly everything.... Mostly.

>

> I've now run into the very big problem that I am timegated, raid gated, or straight up money gated from getting all of my jewelry. Despite the fact that most **other classes have zero problems with this currently**. My only options to get jewelry are as follows:

 

Not sure what your problem is, [exotic viper trinkets](https://www.gw2bltc.com/en/db/search?name=black&rarity=Exotic&type=Trinket) are craftable and at 4-5g per trinket, arent expensive either.

 

And how do other classes not run into the problem you describe, if they want to run viper builds.

 

[Haleydawn.3764]

> @"kinomori.1456" said:

> Why will this community flip tables and go crazy when mount skins are released in lootboxes but will defend to the death that you are required to purchase Living World content to get jewelry for some builds if you aren't able to clear raids?

 

1- You aren’t required to purchase LS to get the trinkets because;

A: You can buy stat selectable trinkets from Fractals, PvP and WvW. Just because the method you want to obtain them in means you have to buy something, that quite frankly you don’t want to buy, doesn’t mean there’s no alternative. You just also don’t like the alternative either. So there’s no pleasing you.

B: You don’t have to run a meta build. There are alternative builds that *shockingly* don’t require HoT exclusive stats.

 

 

[RoseofGilead.8907]

> @"kinomori.1456" said:

> Also, I see nowhere to purchase single episodes, only the complete packs, meaning that it will cost either 250 gold or $20. Technically it'd be around $12, but you can only purchase 800 gems or 1600 gems, while Living World costs 960 gems.

 

Press H. Click on Story Journal. Then go to the Living World Season you want (in this case Season 3), click on the chapter you want to buy, and then you should see a "Buy now" button on each chapter page, allowing you to purchase that episode by itself.

 

[STIHL.2489]

> @"IndigoSundown.5419" said:

> > @"kinomori.1456" said:

> >

> > Okay, but why is it so much harder to gear up in Viper than it is compared to Berserker? I had zero trouble getting all of my Berserker gear but am currently stuck in a hole regarding Viper gear. If it's "absolute end game gear", why is it so hard for some classes, but not others? Isn't that just promoting a really bad balance in classes?

> >

> I believe ANet tied the acquisition of Viper and the other expansion-specific prefixes to XPac purchases specifically to: promote sales of the XPac (and later, the LS episodes); and to promote ongoing play in the maps (for trinkets, the LS3 maps where one can get stat-select trinkets with those options). I believe it was very much intentional.

> This is little different than WoW tying BiS gear to the raids in whatever XPac is current. I also believe that ANet did not, when designing this aspect of gearing, even consider the "plight" of people joining the game 2+ years post HoT.

>

> It can be true that -- as far as PvE metas go -- this GW2 variant to gear progression only applies to specific builds. That said, I know that -- on Metabattle at least -- the WvW Direct damage builds are all calling for Marauders, which is also a HoT prefix. Again, iirc, WvW does not offer any means to get Marauder trinkets. I guess that's a more level playing field as far as gearing for WvW metas, with the added zinger that some WvW players dislike the PvE they have to do to get that gear.

>

> Is that bad design? Maybe. Did ANet think that PvE meta builds for direct damage would switch to Marauders because raids would be "harder" than anything before seen in PvE, and maybe the Vitality on Marauders would be seen as being needed? I can readily believe that. ANet has been trying for years to respond to the PvE critics who claim that the PvE game is too easy. So far, all such attempts have been futile insofar as getting the player-driven metas to deviate from all-glass all-the-time.

 

This is kinda a two part problem, the first being that Defensive stats don't scale as well as offensive stats in GW2 as a general whole, and second, most end game PvE encounters depends on insta-downs and other cheesy tactics to simulate difficulty, so there is no motive to build for anything other then max DPS in PvE.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

> @"kinomori.1456" said:

> Why will this community flip tables and go crazy when mount skins are released in lootboxes but will defend to the death that you are required to purchase Living World content to get jewelry for some builds if you aren't able to clear raids?

>

> Also, I see nowhere to purchase single episodes, only the complete packs, meaning that it will cost either 250 gold or $20. Technically it'd be around $12, but you can only purchase 800 gems or 1600 gems, while Living World costs 960 gems.

 

You _can_ purchase single Episodes. See, this is the issue with being new to the game. One hasn't spent enough time to actually know how everything works, what's available in which ways, why some things work one way or another, etc. You will learn more as time passes.

(Pro tip: The Wiki [link above] is a great resource for all things GW2.)

 

Good luck.

[Kusa.6438]

Last time I checked, the Mist accessories from fractals are stupid easy to get and have all stats...

If you're doing raids... then doing fractals should be pretty damn easy...

Though I have literally thousands of Frac relics, and almost a thousand Pristine Frac relics... I'm somewhat of a frac junkie.

So maybe I'm over simplifying it.

[GDchiaScrub.3241]

> @"STIHL.2489" said:

> > @"IndigoSundown.5419" said:

> > > @"kinomori.1456" said:

> > >

> > > Okay, but why is it so much harder to gear up in Viper than it is compared to Berserker? I had zero trouble getting all of my Berserker gear but am currently stuck in a hole regarding Viper gear. If it's "absolute end game gear", why is it so hard for some classes, but not others? Isn't that just promoting a really bad balance in classes?

> > >

> > I believe ANet tied the acquisition of Viper and the other expansion-specific prefixes to XPac purchases specifically to: promote sales of the XPac (and later, the LS episodes); and to promote ongoing play in the maps (for trinkets, the LS3 maps where one can get stat-select trinkets with those options). I believe it was very much intentional.

> > This is little different than WoW tying BiS gear to the raids in whatever XPac is current. I also believe that ANet did not, when designing this aspect of gearing, even consider the "plight" of people joining the game 2+ years post HoT.

> >

> > It can be true that -- as far as PvE metas go -- this GW2 variant to gear progression only applies to specific builds. That said, I know that -- on Metabattle at least -- the WvW Direct damage builds are all calling for Marauders, which is also a HoT prefix. Again, iirc, WvW does not offer any means to get Marauder trinkets. I guess that's a more level playing field as far as gearing for WvW metas, with the added zinger that some WvW players dislike the PvE they have to do to get that gear.

> >

> > Is that bad design? Maybe. Did ANet think that PvE meta builds for direct damage would switch to Marauders because raids would be "harder" than anything before seen in PvE, and maybe the Vitality on Marauders would be seen as being needed? I can readily believe that. ANet has been trying for years to respond to the PvE critics who claim that the PvE game is too easy. So far, all such attempts have been futile insofar as getting the player-driven metas to deviate from all-glass all-the-time.

>

> This is kinda a two part problem, the first being that Defensive stats don't scale as well as offensive stats in GW2 as a general whole, and second, most end game PvE encounters depends on insta-downs and other cheesy tactics to simulate difficulty, so there is no motive to build for anything other then max DPS in PvE.

 

Makes sense when content is damage sponges with scripted events. Players learn the script, and optimize their output. If AI were more reactive as opposed to scripted then you might see more build variation beyond max DPS. _Might_. I want to say this was true for Guild Wars 1 pre-Elona (where they started to introduce IMBA pve-only skills). But my memory could be quaggan.

[Eltiana.9420]

> @"Sojourner.4621" said:

> > @"Eltiana.9420" said:

> > Viper Backslot you can also get from LWS3.

>

> He doesn't have LWS3

 

From their post, they seemed to not be aware that LWS3 also offered Ascended back pieces which is what I was referring to. I know they don't have LWS3.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

It would be nice to see [some additions](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/18301/suggestion-new-gear-items-unlocks-for-laurels "some additions") to the Laurel vendors, and the newer stats would be welcome here as well.