Guild Wars 2

A persistent issue since launch has been a “lack of rewards”. There have been countless revamps since launch to make the game more rewarding, but in the end many areas feel unrewarding. Why? Because everything is in competition with each-other, the rewards are largely generic, and no matter how much they increase rewards, this won’t change.

Players keep saying that the game is unrewarding but this simply isn’t the case, especially in comparison with other games. The rate at which you get items through normal play is healthy, you can get whatever you need within a reasonable time frame, and even the most expensive luxury items are within reach.

The issue with rewards in most cases isn’t with how much is handed out, but with the lack of variety and exclusivity. The bulk of value in desired items, such as legendary and ascended, are based around materials given out in every area of the game like rare equipment (salvaged for ectos and precursors), T6, and silk.

What this does is create a situation where every part of the game is in competition, and it’s just not realistic to meet the design goal of making every part of the game “rewarding” when the bulk of value comes from generic items.

What rewards need are more exclusivity. Each area of the same needs to have specific rewards that no other have access to, and those rewards need to play a large part in the creation of highly sought after items. This way, from a rewards perspective, every aspect of the game has value and is worth taking part in, not just a limited portion like we see currently.

+1

I think the new zones are moving in the right direction regarding this. Drytop has the ambrite weapons and Silverwastes have the carapace armor. While perhaps not the most sought out items by everyone, they are still unique to the zones and give reasons for players to spend time there. I hope this trend of ingame armor and weapon skins that don’t come from the gem shop, but from new zones continues.

I don’t know if it’s feasible to add similar rewards to all the old zones at this point, although if it could be done slowly over time, it would definitely give more reasons to revisit them. I would have said add a skin here and there as reward for map completion, but I don’t know how they’d handle all the people who have already finished those maps. Free skins just doesn’t seem that interesting.

elinos.7493:

+1

I think the new zones are moving in the right direction regarding this. Drytop has the ambrite weapons and Silverwastes have the carapace armor. While perhaps not the most sought out items by everyone, they are still unique to the zones and give reasons for players to spend time there. I hope this trend of ingame armor and weapon skins that don’t come from the gem shop, but from new zones continues.

I don’t know if it’s feasible to add similar rewards to all the old zones at this point, although if it could be done slowly over time, it would definitely give more reasons to revisit them. I would have said add a skin here and there as reward for map completion, but I don’t know how they’d handle all the people who have already finished those maps. Free skins just doesn’t seem that interesting.

Agreed; the exclusive rewards in dry top and silverwastes are nice even if they aren’t the most desired. I also like what they did with foxfire clusters which gave gathering a unique reward.

Foxfire clusters are a good example of what they should do more of. Imagine if they added something similar to other harvesting types, various dynamic events, jumping puzzles, WvW, and so on. Now picture these materials all playing a large role in the creation of legendary armor/accessories or something of that caliber.

Something as simple to implement as that could go a long way at improving rewards.

Bri.8354:

Foxfire clusters are a good example of what they should do more of. Imagine if they added something similar to other harvesting types

You don’t really have to imagine what would happen. It would tank whatever material the new item is associated with for a few months just like elder logs.

The problem (if it can be called that) was that they only added Foxfire Clusters to Elder Wood trees and above. That resulted in hordes of players farming T5 trees en masse in an attempt to get their Foxfire. If ANet had instead added Foxfire Clusters to ALL tree nodes (with perhaps a lower drop rate to account for the wider acquisition methods), we would have likely seen a more spread out supply of wood from all tiers as opposed to just Elder Wood.