Should armours be different in stats (long)

first of all id like to say no1 flame me or any1 else on the basis that there will be comparisons between guildwars and WoW in this thread; I don't want to see any "omfg u fag, WoW is sh!t GW is sooooo much better lolololololol" seriously thats just stupid and since the argument is not over which game is better and WoW is simply being used to make comparisons for the betterment of GW, it is also completely unnecessary.

so basically i was wondering what every1 thinks about the way armour works in GW. currently all the max armour for a class have the same stats, wether u bought that armour from docks or from that place after the vortex (name escapes me, but u buy primeval from there). this definately has its upsides but sometimes I feel like id prefer the armours to really difer from eachother. right now the only thing thats better about getting the more expensive armour is the looks and prestige. in the pve scheme of things that seems strange to me, i allways thought the idea of pve was to lvl up to the cap lvl in order to do the high end stuff and thus get the best armour and weapons. however in GW pve is more like, get half way through the campaign and u can get the best armour, and i find the incentive to keep going sort of dwindles. The best stats-armour is what drives a lot of pve'ers to put in the long hours, and as many people who have played mmo's b4 know, stats > looks.

(brace ur self for WoW comparison)
WoW has very different stats for its armours all the way from lvl1 to lvl70, and once u do hit the cap lvl there are the different tier armours (1-6) which get increasingly better stat wise. this gives players something to really aim for, and really sets players apart from eachother. once u start properly raiding you can start aiming for tier1, then later tier 2, and when u see players with the higher tier armour they really stand out because to get that armour is a real accomplishment and not a heap of people have it.
In GW there isnt anything like that for pve'ers, to get the most prestigous armour pve is thrown out the window and u just have to farm for a while and once u do get it, when u warp to a major town u can turn a full circle and allways see multiple players with the same armour (sorry but faming is not very challenging and with all the guides for farming builds every tom, dick and harry can get the prestigous armour).
While getting tier armour in WoW is also a form of farming (repeating raids again and again and again) at least that farm involves working with other players in an enviroment that demands every1 to coordinate their efforts through proper builds and stratagies in order to achieve their goal, ultimately the raid will fail if every1 cant work together as a group.

Ultimately i feel that GW pve would benefit from having armours with differing stats instead of having max armour at the halfway point. I think the current system is bad for pve as it encourages players to simply aim for the halfway mark then make a new character or start pvping. I know people will say that the dedicated pve'ers still aim for titles and elite skills, but armour is really the ultimate title and capping elite skills is just a time killer, as u really only go cap elite skills if the build your making requires a certain one. so maybe if they made it so there were some armours in GWEN that increasingly got better and required lots of teamwork by players to aquire the pve in GW would be raised and pve'ers wouldn't have to look for excuses to keep pve'ing (title and elite skills aren't what id call the best goal for a proper pve'er).

NOW id like to say that i love GW, I love my Dervish AND i love his primeval gear, i will continue playing GW and will start aiming for titles as i have the coolest looking gear imo and since it has the best stats i can get I dont really have much else to do pve wise. I think GW is a great game and is definately worth playing. however there are allways things that can be improved in a game and i think what ive brought up could be a real improvement for GW pve.

You've basically grasped the whole ethos of Guild Wars - all equipment is balanced, and you don't have to be one of the mega-rich elite to own the best gear. All money gets you is shiny weapons and pretty armours.
This is the entire point of GW, what sets it apart from other games. It's not gonna get changed.

Once you've got the leet skins, go PvP.

Here's the issue with different armor stats: PvE characters have access to PvP as well. A PvE character with boosted armor from prestige gear would be at a significant advantage that PvP characters couldn't match - they have no access to PvE, and therefore no access to the best armor. This would cause a major imbalance issue in the PvP environment.

GW is a game based around functionality. Weapons and armor with max stats are pretty easy to come by; this makes it a good setup for both casual and hardcore players, which is one thing that I personally really like about this game. Everybody can get the best equipment relatively easily, but a character's true effectiveness is based on the skills they choose to put into their build and how they combine those skills in combat - not the equipment they use.

Stormlord Alex hit it on the head. GW is not about getting a ton of highend uber weapons. It's about being balanced-there's not differenece between a runic blade and a crafter sword beyond rarity and shiny-ness.

And that high-end uber weapons rarity is one of the major reasons I don't play WoW (beyond the subscription fee)-I like the idea I can have a buddy just start and once he hits lvl20 the only thing that prevent 'em from doing anything hard is skill-and that's easily acquired by playing the game.

So to answer your question-nope.

I figure they'll probably stretch the spectrum of weapon & armor stats for GW2 as there is something to the notion of watching things improve, but I hope they stay true to the spirit of making you want to play for the sake of playing, not constantly getting an edge on the other guy. There really is something special in the notion that there's a relatively fixed amount of effort required to have access to everything (function wise), and then whatever competition you take part in is decided by your choices in what subset of everything you go with.

I played WoW for about 9 months, I'm with GW now and while there's a lot of stuff about WoW I hope they do learn from*, the neverending grind of gear chasing is not one of them.

* For an example, how to find friends - it's not just "Joe is online" in WoW, it's "Joe is in the Den of Nasty Fire Nymphs", if he's AFK, you get a message that tells you, and if he's offline, you can leave him a note that he'll get next time he logs in. Little things like that *were* better in WoW.

i take all ur points on board and they are definately valid ones.

a couple of things though:

i dont aggree with
"you don't have to be one of the mega-rich elite to own the best gear". making armour have different stats and getting that armour from high-end game co-op missions wouldnt require money to do, just skill, perseverance and a good guild. the way the armour works now is more costly, having to spend money on tomes, inscriptions etc to improve the armour. if there were better stats on the armour u wouldn't need to spend money on tomes for the sake of improving your current stats, HOWEVER you'd still need some tomes for specific builds.

"PvE characters have access to PvP as well. A PvE character with boosted armor from prestige gear would be at a significant advantage that PvP characters couldn't match - they have no access to PvE, and therefore no access to the best armor. This would cause a major imbalance issue in the PvP environment."
this is very easily fixed. pvp characters already get to start with the best gear from pve (minus all the tomes etc) if the quality of pve armour was raised the pvp armour would simply be raised to equal it. it would be the same as it is now except that the pvp gear would be better.

"GW is a game based around functionality. Weapons and armor with max stats are pretty easy to come by; this makes it a good setup for both casual and hardcore players, which is one thing that I personally really like about this game. Everybody can get the best equipment relatively easily, but a character's true effectiveness is based on the skills they choose to put into their build and how they combine those skills in combat - not the equipment they use."
If armour stats were raised i dont see how is would kill the casual gamer or require less skill. those that are more dedicated would spend more time on pve, would get better gear and spend more time in the end-game area's. those that were casual would still have good armour and have things to do to have fun with so that really wouldnt be a problem. as for skill being less of a neccesaity, well people with better armour would be doing harder mission etc so really they'd still need skill as in the area's they would be in most their armour wouldn't make them godly. granted if those better geared players played in the areas for people with weaker armour then they would be better but i still dont think that would make a massive difference.

so i guess my suggestion has become two-fold, 1 make it so end-game armour has better stats and include areas for those people with the better armour.

Its quite funny really...

You want a game thats been based on Skill over grind.... to switch into some crappy wow like game thats grind>skill. Haven't you seen any of the ads?

I wonder how easy it would be for armor to have differing stats, depending on whether or not the wearer was in a PvP area or a PvE area. I could see some uses for this if the different stats were easy to implement, otherwise the PvP-friendliness of GW would make this impossible.

"omfg u fag, WoW is sh!t GW is sooooo much better lolololololol"

Really as stated above the way GW works is just fine. I love all my fancy skins and my 15k armors, but I know how hard it is at first with out wiki and such. If your only goal in GW is to get the best gear then stop thenyou really do not see the point. If you have fun playing the game good. If you feel like there is no reason to keep playing then stop. Don't whine to me. GW is made so you can take your droks armor and blue collecter sword and be just as badass as the Obsidian Clad torment wielding players. Skill>Time.

Plus it would end up degrading to: "OMG Noob, you dunt have obby armor your in no way the same leage as me lololollolol" and make it hard for people who cannot play 10 hours a day to have fun in the high end areas.

Oh you see there are different stats.

Assassin Ancient armor has +1 Lameness
Assassin Kurzick has +1 coolness

but ya... thats not enough, so I vouch to add.
Aesthetic fireballs to the armor..

Assassin ancient armor has +5 huge Fireballs shooting from it as it moves
Assassin kurzick armor has +5 Water balls? shooting from it
Ranger elite Luxon armor has a +9 Golden, Epix Kitty that walks all over it.
While Ranger non elite luxon, has no kitty!!

Would that solve your problem =P

K' Ill be serious.

You'd like a little extra on armors right? For them to have stats.
Well before, all armor had different stats.

When Nightfall came, that was changed so that they All have no stats (like radiant,survivor,nightstalker)

And instead you buy Insignia's for them.

This makes armor's all more or less the same, but it makes the game less filled with grind to get 1 of each armor.

If person A is better at Guildwars than person B, but person B has more money/has more time to play and yet is still terrible at Guildwars, why should person B be able to beat A just because of the gear he/she has?


But I still like ensoriki's fireball idea.

god damn I think my kurzick armor is broken!

Because person B has a nice personality =P
Thats like asking why do beautiful people get ahead.
Because personality means shit =P


Fortunately in GW.

Thats changed

You See Jeff Strain, creator or something like that....of GW
Believes in Quantum Theory, and with his Logic....Grind does not exist.
In Jeff's mind, you can say Grind is just a word...then break that word into letters...then break it into scribbles...then into pixels...then light....then break that light into particles...then sub atomic stuff... then go even further into like Sub atomic macaroni.
And even further.
So that its not even light....

Thus, Grind does not exist in GW

And we are keeping it that way.

Does that make sense to you!?....

Also Elite Kurzick armor

Has +12, Battle Kitty of Fortitude, of Dungeons and Dragons Mastery, Hovering around it, that shoots fireballs from its eyes that explode...

The "What I want to see in Guild Wars 2" threads need their own forum.

Benefit pve? What about the game in general??

Never mind.

Fellas theres a simple way to solve our friends dilemma.

For Nightfall
You get 50 AL (warrior, so like 30 AL for casters) at Nundu Bay, 70/50 Al at like umm....... The desolation.

And 80/60 AL after beating abbadon.


This way you can go through Nightfall with crappy armor.

And make elite armor the only thing thats max armor for ALL campaigns... you know so that elite armor means something!

Also add +1 fireballs to armors.


Anyways, the thing is man.

PvE and PvP mechanics are intertwined as far as I know.
can't change the system.

The only thing you can do for pve is change when they can get that armor.
Which is a problem considering how hard monsters can hit *cough*aaxtes*

Grinding for tier gear in WoW was one of the most tedious and boring things I have ever done. I do agree that the fair and balanced armor system in guild wars leaves something to be desired for the hardcore pve crowd, it really does make the game that much easier and fun.

No

Grind to win is why so many people here treat WoW like the plauge, they dont like that, they like the idea that a guy can pick up the game on day one and be equal to 9 hours a day from the beta mega grinder. And that it is skill that decides who win, and whoever can use the most broken build too .

GW is based through skill and not time, this was stated on the box in the first game. Back when i first got the game I was happy i got guild wars instead of WoW.

Guild wars is fun because you can create a character and max it out completely in about a week or even less. But armor level/character level is nothing. It doesn't decide how good you are. This is where true "skill" lies, you need to understand how to make good builds and just the right insignias and stat enhancers. Plus there are different styles of playing your profession and since its easy to finish one character. You can experience completely new ways of playing, unlike WoW where you are stuck with ONE character and have 234234 skills to use, thus involving no skill to play, only meaningless nerdy lives.

SO in the long run guild wars players have more time on our hands to have fun instead of grinding. Or would you rather be a over caffeinated, playing till 3:00 A.M. obessed gamer playing WoW. I know a kid who did that and got to a number 5 ranking in WoW competitively in his server. Long story short, he didn;t have friends till have sold his account for 14 hundred and lived life lol.

Basically through my meaningless rambling, WoW takes longer to do, and is more for obsessive gamers. Its like guildwars, but you gain 1 XP for every 5 kills. You get the same thing WoW has to offer in less time and can play every profession, while living life at the same time.

The already have a Guild Wars 2 Wiki:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Main_Page

Seems a bit early...

Then have there be a PvP cap, exactly like what they're going to do in GW2 with those high levels.

That said, Guild Wars is meant to have a small emphasis on gear.

For not having played WoW, you suuuuuuuuuure know a lot about it.

(i.e. you are wrong on every single point you make, and completely and utterly bias)

I'd try to explain it to you, but then you'd probably call me a "WoW fanboi."

I love it, all(or mostly all) MMo's today require you to be rich to be the best. Guild Wars takes away that so you can focus more on having fun that just making money all day.

:D

I'm seconding this. Research more before you flame, Dante.

thirded on WoW.

I don't play WoW, but I know enough people who manage to play casual and have real lives. 9+ Million people can't all be grinding Cartmans or Korean farmers. You can get far in WoW playing casual. Just not as fast. If you just enjoy the journey, you will be amazed at how soon it seems you reach your goal.

But yeah, the point of armor equality was the PvP aspect. They could, considering the separation of pvp and pve in GW2, do it then. I think they'll stick as much as possible to this model, however. Jeff Strain said they want to keep "what works", and for casual players, the current system is what works.

I think that GW does a decent job with something I like to call optional grind, so in GW2 maybe we will be getting armor that makes you extremely godly even though you're a @#&$ head who can't tell left from right but have it only work in PvE not in PvP.

Cuz you are.

That doesn't change the fact that what Dante posted was horribly exaggerated and false.

skill based Vs Gear based argument again

if you want a game based on grinding towards the best gear play WoW.
if you want a game based on endlessly tweaking your technique and build play GW.

*Whispers OP, "You blew your case with your second post."

KANE

And Zinger..... I thought u WERE a fanboi!

No. I have actual reasons for liking WoW better. (and no, I don't play it currently, since I seek to maintain a high GPA.)

I'd be making a thread "A Litany of Comparison: GW and WoW," but the thread would be derailed ipso facto and Kakumei would never let me forget it.

OMG! Another thread degenerates into stupidity.

In this one, people are saying "WoW is just a lot of grinding", while in countless other threads people are complaining that GW is just a "grind for titles". Make up yer f'n minds people!!
Actually, they both have their "grind" aspects, and in both cases you only need to grind if you want to.

Personally, I like the WoW idea of the better armors with higher stats, etc. (and the same for weapons and other goodies.) But I think people are (as usual) overlooking one very big difference between GW and WoW - monthly fees. And, no, I don't mean that GW is better because it doesn't have monthly fees.

WoW, since it's based around MFs, is very much aimed toward ensuring that your on-line experience is continually interesting so that you will continue to play/pay. They therefore can/do create many quests/missions that have some definite goal in mind to keep you playing. Simply put, WoWs goal is to keep you playing.

GW, on the other hand, since no income is generated from on-line play, is naturally geared toward providing you with a relative finite game experience which will be interesting enough to prompt you to want to buy the next GW product. Or, simply put, GW goal is to get you to buy the next campaign/expansion/game, not to play on-line as much as possible.

This makes the approaches to things like levels, armors, character enhancements etc. different - but not necessarily is one better than the other.

But, to sum up my own personal opinion, if WoW had the "look-and-feel" of Guild Wars, instead of being so stupidly cartoonish, I'd be playing it instead of GW. IMHO WoW is much more of an actual RPG than GW is. The main idea of an RPG is to continually try to get new/better skills/equipment - not play for 2 days, get to lvl20 and get all the skills and max armor, and then run around farming crap to get stupid holiday masks. /rant

And I like it this way, personally. My teammate's armor, even if it's a basic skin with max AL, is as equal IN STATS (what matters the most in this game, gear-wise) as my elite set. Made for the casual player in part, since they don't necesserily have the same amount of cash as his hardcore counterpart... and the PvP balance. Not sure I'd like to face a monk who's got a -10dmg. reduction and another +30AL vs. fire magic because he's running with his FoW set.

(Gonna have to stop it there, rah.. might edit with more stuff later)

FTFY, unfortunately.

Yeah the current system is fantastic. One of the main reasons I purchased the game.

There are countless other online games that use the sort of system your looking for. GW is one of the few that does it this way.

Skill>time is by far the best of doing it imo, no disadvantage for those who dont grind or farm areas. Everyone is equal, only player skill matters.

I think you should go play WoW. Guild Wars doesn't seem to be your kind of game. I love having stats separated from appearance. It was horrible before Factions where armour was tied to stats. Every warrior with brains ran gladiator armour, rangers ran druid, etc. Everyone looked the same. After the release of Factions, you started seeing some variation, and with the introduction of insignia, even more. Increased variation in visual appearance is a good thing.

Honest to God, make it. I want to read it, since you do have more experience with the game than I do--I only got to ~33 or so before the fact that I didn't really have anyone to play with got to me.

Yes so in a game where matches either go really quick or last until VoD we want to add MORE DEFENSE to both sides.

So gud.

Lol.

Frankly, the thing that most people completely don't grasp about Guild Wars is that the varying types of armor and weapon bonuses available do offer significant advantages. No, you're not going to get an epic drop that grants you an additional 7000 HP, but the +30 HP mods on weapons and offhand items is an extremely big deal if you take into account the scale of damage that Guild Wars is built on. No, you're not going to get a Thunderfury that deals thousands of DPS, but that 15^50% mod on your sword is going to significantly increase your DPS, to the point that not having a mod (or something equivalent) puts you at a significant disadvantage. No, you're not going to get a fatty shield drop that makes you impossible to kill, but "+10 Armor vs. X" shield mods are very popular for a very good reason.

It's astounding how low most people's actual understanding is of a game they've been playing for multiple years.

Azeren Wrathe, the max AL armor technically was endgame armour in Prophecies.
You couldn't get it until very close to the end of the campaign, apart from getting run to that point.
When Factions, Nightfall, EoTN were released they had to push max AL to earlier parts of those campaigns so that high end areas could occupy the majority of the campaign, otherwise existing characters from previous campaigns would have little to do that was challenging in the new campaigns.

It's possible that Guild Wars 2 will work differently though and not use the campaign structure and have PvE and PvP completely seperated in terms of player stats. I have no idea.
As for how it works in Guild Wars 1, it'll stay that way and is probably one of it's most unique, casual friendly factors. I honestly do not like online rpgs that use a plethora of restrictions to ensure I need to play 500 hours with each new character before I can visit the Mushroom Palace and fight the Tofu King.

As far as quipment goes,

Point of GW is not to get BEST gear ever.

Point of GW is to get equipment that is best for combination of your build, gameplay style and oponents you face. That is actually hard and lenghty thing to do, after 2.5 years of GW I still have few important pieces of equipment missing.

Besides, todays "best" stuff is much different that best stuff two years ago (lol, we used sup runes, lol, we used energy armor, lol, we used wands and staves, lol we used sundering everything), and it continues to develop, there is still that one thing you are missing.

At least you don't have to go through a long quest chain/material hunt for something that is beat by something that has a longer mat hunt.