I am mainly a PVE player (PVP maybe 20% of the time), with 1800 HRs in the game, I have a full time job in the health care sector, so I can only play 3 hrs per day. I play mainly tank and healer, on DELOS, played since day 1. I have never RMT in this game, or felt the need to.
The game has never been better. The servers are packed, groups are easy to get into and gearing has never been easier and better. I feel its important to talk about these things so that the vocal minority don’t influence AGS’s design philosophy on gearing, and other matters.
Gearing
Gearing has never been easier. I don’t understand the people that cry “RMT” all the time. Decent gear has never been cheaper or easier to get. Remember those times it cost 15-20 k to get a “resilient+freedom” gear? Now you can get any peice for 200-300 gold. Even PVE gear is so cheap now, any gear with “corrupted ward+weapon perk” costs 2-3 k, 5 k tops. Granted healer gear is a little bit more expensive, but in today’s age, where 2-3 k daily gold from mutations and questing is easy to find. You really do NOT need money to get decent gear anymore. Its not even necessary to have legendary gear. 8/10 peices of my gear of ward sets are all purple, and I run m10s daily.
Do you need BIS 3 perk gear to play the game? Absolutely not. Does have that 1 extra per of shirking fortification or elemental aversion make a difference? 99% of the time no. Maybe you take 1 extra hit worth of damage, but in PVP and PVE, dungeon knowledge, and party communication (which you only develop by running them over and over again) make the biggest difference between gold and silver.
Furthermore there are so many ward gears that drop from bosses and mutations, most you dont even have to buy them anymore. I remember paying almost 100 k back in the day to buy my genesis healing gears back in the day, around when umbral shards just came out. Nowadays, with just 15-20 k you can full deck your character out in ward gear.
Same with Jewlery. The extra 3rd perk makes next to no difference. Just refreshing toast and despised on a tank earring will take you all the way to m10 in any dungeon. Do you need nimble, or regenerating? No, its nice to have but its not necessary. BIS 3 perk like those will cost 65-80 k, while 2 perks will cost 2-3 k.
But its always nice to have something to work towards, and slowly upgrade to 3 perks.
Drops
Anyone that runs m10s daily will tell you that 1 BIS drop will fund your needs for a week at least. 1 3 perk bis item will easily sell for 10-30 k for (PVE), and 100-200 k for PVP. Like a sheild with sturdy, corrupted ward, and sheild rush will easily sell for 25k, and light pants with shirking fort and refreshing will sell for 150 k plus. So on top of the daily drops you get, mutation gear drops will make you the most money. The caveat is that m10s are the only mutation level worth running for drops. If you dont run m10s, you missing out on alot of loot.
Side grade system
The current ward system, and side grade system is great for the longevity of the game. Coming out with new monster types and new wards allow us to keep grinding for gear. There is no need for a level increase, or need to combine the wards. Having difference sets of gear to upgrade keeps me playing. I have ward sets with a variety of perks for healing and tanking. Probably have like 6 sets each. If you play any amount of end game, you will have more umbral shards than you know what to do with. I probably have 500 k umbral shards sitting in the banks, and I only run 2-3 m10s a day. On days that its genesis or laz, 4-5.
For all the new people complaining, be patient. Work your way through the mutations. No need to rush to m10 right away. Gear properly, weapons and armor, learn the boss patterns, and m10s will be easy in no time. For us old people, we have more shards and gold than we know what to do with.
Money Sinks
There are plenty of money sinks in the game, and I love it all. Are the money sinks required? NO. For example, if you are poor, just go and buy basic damage trophies. Most are 2-3 k gold. no more than 8 k for 3 trophies. Thats perfectly fine. Do you need a major trophy? NO, not even to run m10. But as you get more gold in the game, you can slowly buy your major trophies, and upgrade your character over time.
Economy
The economy in DELOS has never been better. Everything sells. Any ward+weapon perk sells quick, and you garuanteed 2-3 k per peice. Raw materials sells, scarabs sell, and all the raw materials are easy to farm now. Food and consumables sell, gems sell, if you put in the time to make gems or food, you can easily make 10-20 k per day.
My request 1 request for AGS
Since I carry alot of my gear with me (both a tank and healer ward set, and PVP set), its so hard to go swap gear every time. I don’t need premade gear sets. Even if you give us premade gear sets, only 2 sets is nowhere near enough.
For F*cks sake, please for the love of god, let us search our inventory and stash boxes by perk.
I want to type in “corrupted ward” and have all the peices with corrupted ward to show up. That will make gear so much easier to search for. Or I type in “fortifying sacred ground”. I have all this gear in my stashes which I am too lazy to go through every single peice to find a peice with “mending protection”. I dont want to spend hours organizing my inventory. I only play the game a couple of hours a day, I want to play the game, not spend time organizing the stash.
Please, tell us, why won’t you implement this? Is this too hard to implement? Just tell us something.
TLDR: I enjoy the current state of gearing in the game, and I hope AGS continues this side grade system of design philosophy. Furthermore, gearing has never been so cheap and easy. Economy has never been better. There is no need to RMT in this game at all.
LET US SEARCH our STASH and our BAGs by PERK.