Guild Wars 2

There’s been a lot of complaint about the DR system, and to be fair the system feels very oppressive. But this is only because of its presentation.

So, ANet, I think you should keep the system the same, but switch around the presentation. Make the DR rate baseline, but give players a telegraphed drop rate bonus whenever they do activities that otherwise wouldn’t trigger the DR system. For example, players who actively move around the map and hunt mobs will have a constant bonus. Players who run a path of Ascalonian Catacombs the first time after the daily reset will get 20 tokens plus a daily bonus of 40. With this mental trick in place players will know what kinds of behaviors are desired through rewards rather than penalties, and they won’t feel as though they’re losing by playing.

This is actually a good point, would achieve the exact same result, but the physiologic result of it would be the exact opposite

However this directly counters logic.

They don’t want us to stay in one place, yet we need 500 tokens to get a gift for our legendary. Logic dictates you do it all now in as quick a time as possible rather than stretching it out over weeks.

Having to get lodestones to crafts omething? Yup, sit and farm a specific part of the map to get them. Logic dictates that no DR should happen, if anything the droprate for lodestones should INCREASE the longer you stay there as you obviously are getting better at spotting them/finding themt he longer you do it.

If they don’t want us to grind they need to reduce craftign expenses for everything across the board to what you can get in 3 days of farming within DR windows. As most will admit that anything over 3 days is called grinding in a spot. Heck, fighting elementals for 3 hours is grinding in and of itself but it is needed to craft even non-legendary items.

Runiir.6425:

However this directly counters logic.

They don’t want us to stay in one place, yet we need 500 tokens to get a gift for our legendary. Logic dictates you do it all now in as quick a time as possible rather than stretching it out over weeks.

With the tokens I think if would be a great thing if they would add the possibility to buy tokens from the token vendors for other token vendors.
I f.i. ran CoF with my guild a couple times, but I have no interest in any of the items.
Why can’t I trade in my CoF Tokens 2:1 for, let’s say, some Blossoms or Tears – or even Fractal Relics.

the 60 vs. 20 tokens IS a daily bonus, and it is portrayed as such.
DR is when you get 45 instead of 60 because you did too many dungeons in a short time period. You can’t explain away why you get 60 for Cof 1, then 60 for CoF 2, then 60 for AC 1, then 45 for AC 2 without using the phrase Diminishing Returns.

Runiir.6425:

However this directly counters logic.

They don’t want us to stay in one place, yet we need 500 tokens to get a gift for our legendary. Logic dictates you do it all now in as quick a time as possible rather than stretching it out over weeks.

Having to get lodestones to crafts omething? Yup, sit and farm a specific part of the map to get them. Logic dictates that no DR should happen, if anything the droprate for lodestones should INCREASE the longer you stay there as you obviously are getting better at spotting them/finding themt he longer you do it.

If they don’t want us to grind they need to reduce craftign expenses for everything across the board to what you can get in 3 days of farming within DR windows. As most will admit that anything over 3 days is called grinding in a spot. Heck, fighting elementals for 3 hours is grinding in and of itself but it is needed to craft even non-legendary items.

I think the DR system has two purposes in that it 1) deters bots and 2) pace a player’s grinding for rare materials such as lodestones. The first can happen but it can not stop bots, just mitigate them. We’ve seen this happen and I think it’s working in that respect. The second works well, but only in dungeons and instances. In the open world, where the RNG for desirable items is so low, players will not be able to pace themselves because there’s a likelihood that they won’t be rewarded at all for their efforts even before DR kicks in. This is a fatal flaw but one that can’t be fixed in the open world without screwing up the economy for those items. I think being able to buy the items with tokens would rectify the problem at least a little bit. The decent rate at which fractals drops these stones certainly helps, but it doesn’t fix the open world farming issue.

When you change DR to “Bonus,” I think it’ll help designers dictate player behavior through positive reinforcement, and not anger them through the current system which feels downright oppressive. It helps to ensure that most players will farm X area X amount of times over a span of X days because they want to.

@Mystic
That’s never happened to me, so I didn’t know about that. I think it’ll still help to call it a bonus when there’s a difference involved. Players enjoy gaining more than losing. It’s all about psychology, you see.

It’s an excellent principle to follow. It isn’t effective in every situation, but certainly makes a great foundation. Formulating a reasonable method is one part of this problem, releasing and “marketing” it in a way that is genuine and reduces feelings of being manipulated is a whole other kettle of fish.