I got every type of set at 625 (str/dex glass cannon) even some of the magic build(angry,corrupted,ancient), got 1500 hours in game, so I know what I’m talking an about, but I’m done with farming another gear until they make some changes (even drastic) to this pointless system. I want to play game differently, trying new builds, but it is so freaking frustrating even I got umbrals shards for 2 another sets right now. Having a 5 sets just for one build is just much and it is JUST because of WARDS AND BANE perks.
I would be much more glad, if they trash that perks, don’t care about my sets rn, don’t care I invested my time in farming those sets. I want to play game as I want and I want gamers to enjoy game without this trash mechanics. And ward/bane is trash mechanic, adds nothing to the game, no progression, just nothing.
So be it. Scrap that whole system and I guarantee you, you allow expedition even on higher muta level to much larger audience.
It would be for a new slot. Like gems they would be relately cheap consumable to change out as you wanted. I would think they should drop in the dungeons, lower teir in the lower versions of dungeons and teir 5 in the mutators. They would also be craftable using the existing ward craft mods, bringing value to those.
I would hope that they wouldn’t be farmable in the mutations seeing as you would need them in order to do the mutations themselves… maybe they could drop from myrk bosses or currupted in shattered mountain as to be easily farmable. Y large groups
The new story quest drops light human ward head. Hopefully everyone has played the game to get this piece. The new reg dungeon drops BIS heavy chest piece and mutation drops heavy str set. At most you will need 4 if light dps or heavy tank (or 3 if playing medium) pieces of armor. At this stage no one will care if you only have two perkers. Lots of hardcore PVE players have dumped their two perker flame condition human ward pieces on market. Eventually I’ll need to give up the head piece as it is con and can’t run 5con.
New reg dungeon drops bane hammer and BIS GS. The GS drops every run. Mutation has BIS hatchet. I ran 20 reg dungeons to get enough materia to craft the hatchet and run GS/Hatchet.
All of this is the actual game that I am actually playing because I actually enjoy it. I enjoy looking on NWDB doing the (minimal amount of) research required to figure out what is the optimum ‘path’ for builds. This is not ‘grind’ or something you need to do to get to the actual game, it is the actual game.
There are so many lame tab targeting games out there for PvE carebears to spend their life min maxing. Honestly no idea why anyone ever played NW that wasn’t interested in PvP, action combat doesn’t matter when it’s against monsters.
You are one of those blind fan boys if you can’t see AGS created a mindless unsatisfying grind to lower the Dev work.
The dumbest part of it is if they just made good PvP loops from the start, they would have guaranteed 3+ years of self sufficient player driven content.
People play NW because there is literally an entire world of content to play beyond your evidently narrow focus… Threads like this always bring out the lazy and/or self-entitled players weirdly fixated on the idea that access to content is gated because they focus PvP at the expense of everything else.
Prior to the most recent couple of updates I had near-BIS bruiser sets, shirking fort etc. I really enjoyed the grind required putting those set together. I really loved playing OPR as a 5-freedom GA/WH light bruiser and I was pretty good at it. Now that play style is no longer available to me, so I pivot my focus back to all the other aspects of the game I enjoy playing. I am experimenting with other light melee play styles, but I don’t trust AGS to ruin my pvp builds. I have a SNS/hatchet build I do OPRs with now I’ve made from gear in storage.
With PVE I mostly know where I stand. All my gearsets were BIS or near BIS for running M10s. I’ve recently had to create new sets because of fortify and grit changes. I’ve made entirely new second sets for tanking corrupted bosses because of the fortify changes with different gems. I’ve pivot towards spear main in dungeons away from hatchet/GA so most of my sets have need a couple of new pieces.
Action combat matters in expeditions etc because you play alongside other players. It is a collaborative effort. Team work. Everything has to work properly to gold m10s and the like. If you think that it is the same content gated behind gear, then you have not run enough M10s to understand. Experienced M10 runners pick 625 noobs almost instantly in all dungeons because they don’t know the teamwork strats. The previous week ice/dynasty and nature/depths was rough because the real barrier was teamwork. I refused to tank pug dynasty runs after one run because I don’t need the stress of chuckleheads thinking the mutators that week were easy.
How AGS thought it was a good idea to alienate PvP bruisers is beyond me. The same logic applies with ward/bane. If they introduce changes like the bruiser-killing grit/fortify changes but affecting pretty much everyone, then they will surely kill the game.
Sure, make having fun more accessible but do it in a way that does not detract. My suggestion is that they actually need to encourage super experienced players to do lower level mutations, so there is always someone to run dungeons with, not make it ‘easier’ to do higher level mutations.
Honestly it would be a pain to me, even a disgust to see wards and banes disappear. Ok it’s a kind of grind, but it’s a grind you do at the same moment you grind your mutation levels. If people are wondering about umbral shards, they are everywhere now. For full PvE players you can grind, let’s say, 80/90% of the gypsums. And you’ve the orbs from the faction vendor; now you also have the unsable casts that grant shards as well.
The real problem here is that they add content but they don’t push the limits from the start of the game about storages if you can’t/don’t want to pay the gearset storages. Need a little boost about storage and implement the search system of the TP to it.
In the end it’s more QoL side stuff that need to be improved than the ward/bane system. People that worry too much about being 625 for low level mutation aren’t focusing the right thing.
Maybe because people aren’t looking at the real problem? It is realtively easy to get ward and bane stuffs. The thing that bother people imo is the gear swapping, finding it in storage.
Keeping people crafting/looking for new stuff? Make economy work by these changes? Ok, for PvP it was a hard point. For PvE honestly I don’t really see the problem. It’s part of the grind. With the number of ward sets droppable in open world that give general stats like Harbinger one for AE I feel it’s fine. I don’t feel it gatekeeping, it gives something to do.
Well, ok, let’s make the game super easy. Give three general con ward stuff (with like let’s say vigot/refreshing/general ward) , let people grind it to 625 and economy around expeditions are only around gems/amulets.
On short term, it’s cool people will rush to these stuffs and when at 625 it will be only umbral farming heh…
I hate it when people say this, they should have different teams! One for cosmetics and art development and barber, bugs, weapon balancing as it is standard and constant im mmo’s, and more. Not one that does it all. Little things make people happy like outfits, black dye lol big things are expected like gane functions and mechanics working.
Easy? There is nothing at all hard about the current system. It is MONOTONOUS. It’s BORING and TIME CONSUMING.
You are blind if you can’t see the current ward system has no value but a time sink. Why the hell would any player willingly argue that a time sink is a good feature, except to gate keep for those who haven’t yet done the grind???
Make it more monotonous with a unique ward then let’s go!
Edit: Having a solo warded gear is useless at some point because at some point the stuff is mixed with ward+weapon perks. So it means that I’d need anyway a gear for Corrupted (dex/thrust) ; one lost x Ancients (hammer) ; one AAxHumans (str/dex/slash) So yeah basically reducing the stuffs needed in the end to be an optimized 625 you’ll almost need as much stuff as right now.
When you want to succeed at best in M10 you need to push forward and look at your needs. yeah drops are part of the game, spend hours to farm a mob is part of the game. monotonous but rewarding in the end. Frustrating but brings happiness.
With this solution it’s not about gatekeeping, but need to know your needs! People that start mutation aren’t aware about that sometimes so maybe giving some stuff with missions instead of random 590 weapons.
Yes you can do it with whatever stuff you want, with no bonus, just need more time I agree on this point, but when you want something better to make it easier you take it, no?
