Gear Grind?

I don’t get it.

I’ve been reading in a few places lately, about people who are upset with the obtaining of gear in WAR. In particular, the obtainment of PvP gear. If you’ll look back over my blogging history, you’ll see that I got my full Annihilator set in less than a month, Sentinel I got shortly after. My Darkpromise/Conqueror took a bit, but that’s not because I was having bad luck with drops, it was my inability to get into a group to do Lost Vale and the fact that my server rarely sees fortress captures. All of this was before the implementation of the token system. So what’s the problem?

People love to hate.

Players are feeling extra bummed out about the game for whatever their reason may be (valid or not) and so, they feel like their voice needs to get out there and get some type of movement going and make a change. This reasoning actually speaks highly of Mythic as I see it. Players and bloggers actually feel as if their voice can make a difference, and be responded to.

People can never be pleased.

How many different ways can players get PvP gear now? Boots and gloves both drop off of enemy players. Keep sieges now give 3 gold bags. Technically, there is a way to get someone who wins a green bag a gold bag through an exploit, so if you know what you’re doing, your chances have improved (as needed with 175 people attacking a keep) [aside: didn’t Mythic say they were going to implement a way to pass off gold bags to someone else?]. In a guild with a claimed keep when your realm locks the zone? Great, your guild leader just got a gold bag, make a case to him/her about why you need that bag to get another piece of gear. Tokens. These things seem to rain from the heavens for me. Participate in zone locks, help take those BOs/Keeps. You’ll get a crap-ton of officer medallions at the flip, a fat burst of renown, and a Conqueror Crest. Get organized, and play the campaign. This is on top of the medallions you’ll get from killing the enemy while you’re at it, and whatever you may get from bags. Oh, and once you have three pieces of annihilator (two drop off of players and are BoE, buy them on the AH!) you can go do the dungeons if you want instead. Seriously, how many options do you want?

People are unlucky.

I’m sorry, it just happens. You’re an unlucky soul. You don’t get tokens, you don’t get good contribution rolls, you’re rez timer runs out just before the BO flips, and forget about ever seeing your classes gear drop in an instance. If you are so unfortunate, stay away from Vegas, and I say, start working on your RvR influence so you can at least get some gear to do open field stuff in. Also, get in a guild and try to win some sympathy. Truth is, no one is that unlucky in my opinion.

People have the wrong perspective.

I hear left and right complaints about the “carrot on the stick”. The gear is the only thing enticing people to keep playing, and it’s a progression pinch is the general sentiment from the complaints I read. Well, then you’re looking at the game wrong. Too many players see the RvR as the means to get their gear. Once they get that gear they can… RvR more? The gear attainment should be looked at as a bonus for doing what you were doing anyway. Instead of thinking, “Man, I hope that Witch Elf drops me my boots!”, the thought process should be more like, “Killing that Witch Elf was awesome, and I got this awesome pair of boots too!”.

Mythic is partially to blame.

Too much reliance for the upper echelons of the PvP game are based around the wards. The drawbacks to not having the right wards for the right situation are too severe. If you don’t have the exact right wards for an encounter, you’re going to get decimated. Time and again the developers preached incremental increases, so why don’t the lower wards work in situations that require more powerful ones…only to a lesser degree. So for instance, you only have a full set of lesser wards (Annihilator), and you go into a city instance and fight the Lord at the second stage of the PQ. You now won’t get completely destroyed because you don’t have your superior wards (Conqueror), but you will hurt. Figure out a level of effectiveness that is acceptable (I’d say 50% for one level off) compared to a full suit of the correct wards, but let the effort of obtaining the lesser wards pay off as the campaign move further. Don’t completely cut people out of the late game because they don’t have the exact gear needed, just make it very compelling for them to get the stuff ASAP.

Anyway, that’s my take on it.