Ive played this game a lot, and my past few weeks have been solely concentrated on the legendary Hammer the Juggernaut. Ive earnt about 70% of it now, although of course I have started with the easiest sections first, and left the harder sections til last. My analysis is that there needs to be some changes.
A quick review will put my point into context:
I require 250 metal ingots, of 5 different varieties. This requires a moderate amount of time or money, but never too much. You can salvage, gather or purchase your way to success.
I require 150 lodestones, specifically molten variety. This is a more hefty money/time investment but certainly do-able. That which I cannot earn from CoF runs, I can buy up with excess money. The key is I have options available.
I need 500 WvW badges, again a lot but not too formidable. I can take enemy keeps/ camps, I can do the jumping puzzles and I can gank enemy players. Eventually I will double my current 250, and be done with it all.
I need 500 ectos approximately. Ive nearly done this, smply because yellow items are so easy to earn. Craft yellow items with mithril, or stack on magic find and farm enemies/chests, in any area of the game. You will get ectos if you use decent salvage kits and so again we are faced with a reasonable task that can be completed in multiple ways.
My issue is hopefully becoming more apparent.
The karma requirement for a legendary is very high. The projected requirement is 1 million karma. If you are quite unlucky it could be easily 10-30% more than that.
Additionally, compounding the issue is that, whilst you can gain karma anywhere in open world, you are limiting your personal gain if you do not stick to a single area and master it. This is what people are already doing in masses.
Cursed shore has become a social gathering for karma farmers. We call out “plinx ready”, “arena is up”, all because we have a mutual understanding. Players have gravitated to a single area, mastering it for maximum karma rewards per hour, and they know that swapping to another area will tank down their rate of karma gathered.
So we are faced with a huge task of karma (although certainly a reasonable one eventually), but where players are rewarded heavily for sticking with what they know. This causes a drive to not do varied things, as we have seen is available for each other task, but to grind.
This is a problem and should be changed. Note that my objection is not towards the karma requirement itself, but the severe skew towards boring grind playstyles. Without this method, the reward is too much. Nerfing individual areas events will not be a good solution. This would simply push the problem to a different area. DR methods that cap karma gain is an unfulfilling solution, as players feel heavily victimised when they hit it, as it is a change of negativity (taking away).
I personally suggest allowing players to trade dungeon tokens for chalices of karma, that can be consumed for a grant of karma, but I wonder if players agree. Do you think that the karma requirements are too high? Do you think that karma grinding over more general play is necessary for players, and do you think its good design philosophy?
