Feedback:User/Ryan Galen/Item Scaling

This is something that has been done very well in Guild Wars, so in theory we the players have no reason to believe that it won't be done well in Guild Wars 2. There is at least one, possibly more, areas where it could have been done better. More importantly, things are changing, and more then anything else I feel this is one of the things that could make or break the game.

Logical RNG look drops
This is one of the things that was, in my opinion, done wrong in Guild Wars. It is somewhat silly to to fine white weapons without max damage stats and attribute requirements over ten, while at the same time we're able to buy weapons with an attribute requirement of nine from the crafters. It would probably require far too much back end effort to request changing such a detail in Guild Wars with everything else on your plate, but Guild Wars 2 is still nonfired clay.

Justification for this request mostly centers around the concept of what is vendor trash. In Guild Wars, and with blind assumption I assume Guild Wars 2, you have rare skin weapons. Even a normal weapon skin can be considered 'rare' if a customizable version of it isn't available from crafters. People want to use these weapons, but what point is it using something that is not ideal when the ideal is available? I'm not saying that everything with max requirements should have max stats, but having requirements above that of max stat vendor weapons isn't reasonable.

I wish there was a possibility for me to comment on the affect this has on the market, but I've turned off my trade channel ages ago. I will say that if you're not careful, you stop making the products rare and start making the consumers rely on the alternatives. You're making a product yourself to put onto the real world market, just realize you're making the products to be put on the virtual market of your game in the case of the RNG loot drops.

Finite advancement, not exponential
This is where the player can only hope or dream about what will happen. The game's limit on player level is being raised so it is reasonable to suspect the equipment stats are going to be following suit. Since I know nothing of what you're actually doing, I have to strongly remind you to consider the relationship of equipment stats. I only have faith that you already are, but in the end it is better to speak up now rather then faceplant later for doing nothing.

Conceptionally it is hard to put into words exactly what I mean by this, so I hope you'll tolerate an example. A player gets their character to a level and story progression where they can participate in end game content. The gear they have gathered up to this point gets them into some dungeons but not others. They need to gather a full set of gear from the dungeons they can get into before going on to another set of dungeons, and then the same for those dungeons before moving on to the dungeons after that. I certainly don't expect something like this from Guild Wars 2 since it is almost the very definition of the word grind as it applies to MMO, but it illustrate the point of what I'm hoping is avoided.

The entire reason for this concern is that most people talk about the term 'grind' in a sense of getting to the level cap. As shown by you're choice of raising the level cap, you've realized that having a higher level cap can be done without grind. I just want to remind you of the other factors of the grind. Things are changing; I don't mind if the best PvE gear is going to be found in dungeons rather then crafted in town. Just please don't put endless tiers of advancement without thought. Part of the reason raising your leveling isn't as much of a grind as some people picture isn't just because of the joy of advancement, but also the joy of eventually feeling complete once you're at the top.

Hopefully, I've made my case on both points. Best of luck to you.