Returning to Guild Wars 2: That Pesky Itemization - MMORPG.com

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Returning to Guild Wars 2: That Pesky Itemization - MMORPG.com

In keeping with my recurring theme for returning players, I’ll be looking into the sleeping giant known as Itemization. The way Guild Wars 2 seemingly inundates players with items, lootboxes, crafting materials, gathering tools, gear and collectibles is borderline sociopathic. We’re going to cover the basic three here in the broadest possible terms, Buy, Sell, Keep, to ease the itemization shock new and returning players may experience upon entering Tyria.

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meonthissite

(After reading the guide) Or or here me out here, they could just put much of what they are listing into the currency pane. TADAAA

maskedweasel

meonthissite said:

(After reading the guide) Or or here me out here, they could just put much of what they are listing into the currency pane. TADAAA

 You'd think so right? I'm pretty sure Anet does this on purpose. There are some currencies that don't go in the currency tab, some materials that done have a place in the materials tab, and then you have exceptionally tough items to make use or or break down that they give out by the truck load that you can't sell on the auction house, and have to have very specific items to break them down.

It definitely is a space game, every area has new items that are the same as the areas before, just with different names taking up different spaces. They don't need to make it so complicated.. they just.. do.

Unbino

Super guide for New players: sell all you dont need. When you need an item, buy it.

Tiller

Too much currency in GW2 to keep track of. It was worse when they were actual items in your inventory. Still though there is plenty that does not have it's own tab like some of the yearly event items. They just added a pane for toys which seems odd they really need one for tonics.

Xiaoki

maskedweasel said:

meonthissite said:

(After reading the guide) Or or here me out here, they could just put much of what they are listing into the currency pane. TADAAA

 You'd think so right? I'm pretty sure Anet does this on purpose. There are some currencies that don't go in the currency tab, some materials that done have a place in the materials tab, and then you have exceptionally tough items to make use or or break down that they give out by the truck load that you can't sell on the auction house, and have to have very specific items to break them down.

It definitely is a space game, every area has new items that are the same as the areas before, just with different names taking up different spaces. They don't need to make it so complicated.. they just.. do.

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JeffSpicoli

There is nothing worse then that initial cleanup when you return to a MMO after a long break. I'd literally rather clean my garage or mow the lawn than reorganize/cleanup a MMO inventory .

Xasapis

Are we talking about the perspective of somebody that is not interested in spending anything, or somebody that is willing to spend a reasonable amount of money?

Tiller

Xasapis said:

Are we talking about the perspective of somebody that is not interested in spending anything, or somebody that is willing to spend a reasonable amount of money?

It don't matter how much money you are willing to spend, your shit will literally be full within weeks. I find myself having to reshuffle and delete stuff all the time. I unlocked as many tabs and bank storage as I can across all my toons, I also have a private guild bank which I use for material storage, which I use for building up for full stacks to sell. My bank slots are used for crafting of course. I'm in 3 different guilds, have all nodes in my home instance so you can only imagine how many materials I harvest in a few weeks. An unlimited material storage option would be nice and I would gladly pay for it.

Xasapis

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to sell your excess?

flizzer

I don't know what half the stuff I have stored is used for but you never know when you might need it! The Hoarder's Motto!

Octagon7711

thunderC said:

There is nothing worse then that initial cleanup when you return to a MMO after a long break. I'd literally rather clean my garage or mow the lawn than reorganize/cleanup a MMO inventory .

At least GW2 gives you access to selling a lot of drops on the auction house as a link on your UI. They have escalated with more vendors for each zone requiring their own currency and items if you want to buy what they offer. 50 different types of currency is insane and fine for Devs who understand it all because they work on currencies 40 hours or more a week but for the average gamer can be added to our list of why not to play this game as opposed to a game that doesn't play the manage your inventory mini-game.

As games go it's not that bad as other games still call for travel to reach an auction or general sales vendor. I don't log into Aion and a few other games today because my inventory is full and I don't feel like going through everything to find out what's junk (I love the games that have a 'sell all junk' button) and researching prices to see what I should be selling old gear for, lucky for me GW2 brings up a comparison price list when you click on an item you want to sell at auction.

Octagon7711

Xasapis said:

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to sell your excess?

People are collectors by nature and have a natural need to save stuff in case it my be of use one day. It takes a lot of Feng Shui to clean your house and your inventory without fear and get rid of that clutter.

Octagon7711

Great article!  Another good article would be which MMO's have the best and worst inventory systems.

Kyleran

Managing inventory, what is provided to keep players entertained when the core gameplay isn't very entertaining.

Aeander

Kyleran said:

Managing inventory, what is provided to keep players entertained when the core gameplay isn't very entertaining.

By MMORPG standards, the core gameplay of Guild Wars 2 is a fucking work of art.

Games like Black Desert and Blade and Soul with excellent gameplay are the outliers in this genre, not the norm (and neither of those games offer compelling PvE content to back that up). Regular MMORPG combat is the equivalent of watching cripples on sedatives fight to the death. 

MindTricked

Tiller said:

Too much currency in GW2 to keep track of. It was worse when they were actual items in your inventory. Still though there is plenty that does not have it's own tab like some of the yearly event items. They just added a pane for toys which seems odd they really need one for tonics.

According to a dev post not long after the "toy pane" was announced, they're working on getting tonics in there. They've already made a tentative step, as I believe a recently-released tonic can go into it, but I may be mistaken.

Dagon13

Selling bag space is highly suspect and has felt almost predatory in most games I've played. It's too easy for a developer to intentionally unbalance the rate of item drops vs inventory space. It's especially bad when you have no idea what the items are for yet. I remember GW2 inventory was annoying at launch but it wasn't as bad as games like Skyforge where I was practically destroying stuff right out of the tutorial.

At least it doesn't feel predatory when they are actively improving it without requiring a premium.

time007

yeah, that screen of a mess of currencies and crafting materials is a hilarious problem imho in MMOs. heck just the currencies are a monster pain, then throw in the crafting materials, even if you sort out different menus and bags for each, still a pain. i think crafting materials are expected to be an overload, but those currencies are just ridiculous.

Akulas

My alts need more inv space which their never going to get.

Ungood

Never liked the Organization system of GW2, it was just tons and tons of junk. Trove had a much better system.

Bananable

WTF?

"Itemization"
What does it even mean? Theres inventory management, but never heard about this one.

"returning players"
Really? It looks like it for the people that never played this game before.

"Buy Slots - Yes or no?" >.>
Um...go create f2p account and try to play with what you have.

GW2 has the best loot/inventory management system i ever seen (TESO is close but still sadly worse.It has so much useless drops like (bazilion kinds of) poisons and (mana/health/stamina) potions. And bag upgardes are costly for a newbie ).
Seriously you can go try ffxiv (I played long ago, it was awfull - so much gear and tiny just bag) or rift or even Teso.


GW2:
1.You can buy bags for gold (craft) (even 20 slots bag is cheap).
2.You can store crafting mats in the bank. (No matter where you are).
3.You can sell junk on TP (auction) (No matter where you are.)
GEM STORE.
4.You can buy (for gold!) bank slots and stack upgarde/bag slot/account shared slots. Additional char slot (not sure what limit is, i have 17)
According to that picture (461gold?) i assume you know how to make money.


"The way Guild Wars 2 seemingly inundates players with items, lootboxes, crafting materials, gathering tools, gear and collectibles is borderline sociopathic on the part of ArenaNet."
Again according to that picture i assume you have unlimited tools. I put them into account shared slots when i change chars. (But it just me, Im not rich, I think alot of other players have unlimited tools on every char.)


Plus those nice (minor) things.
*Wallet. Your gold is account shared. (I have 8 chars in TESO and its so annoying to run to the bank everytime my alt runsout of money)
*Luck - consume all option.
*Craft multiple items at once.
*Legendary and ascended gear are account shared.


"Currencies, Luck and Karma – Oh My!

Finally, we’ll touch on currencies, luck, and Karma. Currencies and special items will eventually clog your inventory, as it seems like there are dozens of in-inventory currencies and no place to put them."

Huh? Karma? You mean jugs? Why to keep em, just consume it.


"This is also the same for Luck, which you can obtain many different ways, but most commonly you get it from breaking down gear. "

Um...i dont get it. First you say "Too much (useless) loot" later you admit theres easy way to get rid of it - just destroy it. But even after that you still not happy: "Save me Superman, Batman, Fatman...Im drowning in luck".
Just consume it too. >.>

"With each new story change and with each added content update, more items flood the inventories"

Not mine, i quit the game. Nou mou lut flud fou mou. :P


"If I were to sit and detail every facet of itemization, we could be here for a very long while"
Lolz. I agree its bad to be "here". Runaway, (from this site) you, fools! (◠ω◠)


I still dont get it why you started this in the first place...adverteasing? *wink* *wink* *wink* :P

Ungood

Unlimited Tools are like 20 bucks a shot. I am going to bet, it's not a safe bet to wager a returning player with 460 gold, has dumped 60 bucks into just gathering tools.

Thupli

A weak point of gw2 is their ratio of crap/salvaged gear drops in order to craft.

I'd rather them cut drops but require less for crafting.

MadFrenchie

Aeander said:

Kyleran said:

Managing inventory, what is provided to keep players entertained when the core gameplay isn't very entertaining.

By MMORPG standards, the core gameplay of Guild Wars 2 is a fucking work of art.

Games like Black Desert and Blade and Soul with excellent gameplay are the outliers in this genre, not the norm (and neither of those games offer compelling PvE content to back that up). Regular MMORPG combat is the equivalent of watching cripples on sedatives fight to the death. 

I disagree with that assessment.

GW2 was enjoyable, to be sure.  I don't like it more than, say, WoW.  And BDO rates way below WoW for me.

WoW did a good thing foregoing the utilization of just mana for casters.  Resource building allowed a lot of extra nuance to specs, and specifically caster specs.  It gave them the ability to add talents that altered the way you built resources and expended them as well as ways to increase efficiency or effectiveness through manipulating those resources.

Currently, many specs are in poor form.  But that has less to do with resource management and more to do with an overall philosophy from Blizzard that directly conflicts with the system they already had in place as well as a rushed expansion release that saw them literally fail to complete their planned changes to specs.

Tiller

Thupli said:

A weak point of gw2 is their ratio of crap/salvaged gear drops in order to craft.

I'd rather them cut drops but require less for crafting.

That would not go over well. People like loot even if it is junk, not sure why but it is what it is. There is the plus with the fact that you can salvage on the go I guess.