Guild Wars 2

The idea of getting more loot in a group and encouraging cooperation is a good one, but it has had some nasty side effects:

• Before Lost Shores the only place to find a loot group was in Cursed Shore
• Most other zones became useless to even set foot in
• If other zones had good farming opportunities, we never knew because it was impossible to form a loot group in them
• Spending a lot of time around penit/shelt LFGing despite that being one of the main things GW2’s open world dynamic PvE was supposed to prevent
• After Lost Shores even Cursed Shore became hard to form a group in
• Hours spent solo killing enemies in Southsun has yielded very few drops

Before release in an interview about endgame, developers mentioned that unlike most MMOs the endgame in GW2 shouldn’t have to be different than the rest of the game. You shouldn’t have to play a different game from the one you played leveling up to 80.

However, this has never been the case. The end game options have always been Cursed Shore or dungeons and now its leaning toward just dungeons.

I have tried really hard to find open world ways to make even half as much money as CS farming and dungeons, but I’ve failed everywhere else I go. The entire time I wonder if the profits wouldn’t be so bad if I had a full group following me around. I’ve never been able to form one and I shouldn’t have to.

Now GW2 has a robust trading post which means a lot of profit comes from trading with players. Due to the laws of supply and demand much of the prices and profits come from the material cost of high demand high level items and the supply of the most common/efficient methods of procuring those items in materials. In other words, the ‘cost of living’ (so to speak) gravitates around the most effective farms.

In order to keep up with the latest gear, each player needs to pull in gold at a rate comparable to which the market is based. It doesn’t have to be equal, just comparable. By that I mean, even 50% might be acceptable. The problem is the market gravitation is based on loot groups. A dungeon is a loot group and so is a group farming in Cursed Shore. We’re not just looking at the most efficient farm, we’re looking at the most efficient farm IN A GROUP.

The gap between dungeons and open world PvE is further increased by groups.

Little example chart here:

It kind of creates a sort of negative snowball effect where low profits caused by the lack of available loot groups lessens the population in a zone, in turn that makes the ability to form a loot group in that zone even less possible. Without forming a loot group you get very few drops and it becomes very difficult and not in the least bit fun to achieve the gear and materials you desire.

Currently the only solution is to not play those zones. To not play the way you want to, but instead just to do what everyone else is doing. Granted, there is a lot more contributing to this than mere loot groups, but I feel they play a significant role in the gap between open world PvE and dungeons. Making one endgame a much higher percentage better than another endgame.

Currently the difference between solo and full loot groups can sometimes be compared to the difference between “very little” and “a lot.”

I’m not saying we take loot groups down to “very little” I’m saying we take solo up to “a lot.”

Think about how much better the world would get if solo loot was buffed in such a way:

• You could play the way you want to and still get rewarded for it
• You can run across strangers at big events and be happy to see them for their aid in combat rather than worrying about the need for them seeing and accepting your LFG
• You could take a day off from dungeons without taking a day off from the game
• You could go check out some new scenery and not be wasting time financially
• You could take pride in the fact that you just soloed an event and have more to show for it than 1.3s and two salvage items
• You would have an honest chance at a reward from all the effort you put into soloing a tough veteran enemy
• Zones can begin to repopulate as the lack of drops would not drive people out of them so quickly
• You have other ways to make money when misdirected elitism prevents you from joining a dungeon group
• You have other ways to make money when low population days prevent you from filling a dungeon group

In summary: I’m proposing that the loot for soloing be brought closer to the loot for groups as to reduce the market/cost gap between isolated content (dungeons, cursed shore stationary events) and open world PvE thereby making zones like Southsun and Frostgorge more enjoyable and worth doing.

Very well thought out argument here.

I suspect the only reason they don’t do better drops for solo farming is because that’s the easiest way for them to lessen the impact of bot-farmers. I’m not arguing against you, though. If I spend time doing farm more damage to each mob when I go around and solo kill things, it seems a bit daft that I’d get far less loot than if I just hardly tag a mob in a mass farming group.

Well I thought about that, but I realized it probably wouldn’t be a very effective anti-bot method. A lot of botting is done in the same place on multiple stolen accounts.

Who’s going to have an easier time forming a 5 man loot group anywhere he wants to? An honest player out in the world or a “hacker” with a whole slew of bots?

Increasing drops for solo players also increases the desire to play solo.

“If I can do this event by myself and get quite good loot without the hassle of finding others to join me, what is the point of me bother finding other people? My time is best spent alone.”

I don’t think they want this. They should however focus on creating interest back into those areas with a different alternative to reaching those financial goals.

Culwenimos.1594:

Increasing drops for solo players also increases the desire to play solo.

“If I can do this event by myself and get quite good loot without the hassle of finding others to join me, what is the point of me bother finding other people? My time is best spent alone.”

The thing is, this is how I play now. I’m in a small guild and I’m very much an introvert. The only things I don’t solo are “Group Events” and Champion level mobs. Until reading this post, I had no idea that you got additional loot for being in a group. That’s still not enough for me to start looking for groups, though.

One of the major reasons I enjoy GW2 is that it’s the solo player’s MMO. You can group with others if you want to, but you can be almost as equally successful not being in a group. The majority of the game is designed around not needing to be in a group since we get credit for mobs and events just by participating and helping out.

If the gap in the amount of loot that you receive is as drastic as the OP states, when comparing group loot to solo loot, I feel that really goes against the spirit of the games design.

This is a game and a game is meant to be a relaxing activity not a profitable one. Get rid of your real life mentality of getting profit out of everything and enjoy your game play time.

Culwenimos.1594:

Increasing drops for solo players also increases the desire to play solo.

“If I can do this event by myself and get quite good loot without the hassle of finding others to join me, what is the point of me bother finding other people? My time is best spent alone.”

I don’t think they want this. They should however focus on creating interest back into those areas with a different alternative to reaching those financial goals.

One of the big selling points of the game prior to release was that players wouldn’t need to form a UI group to play with others. I mean it makes sense. I know games aren’t all about realism, but why not allow people to cooperate in events by just fighting together.

If two people are fighting toward the same goal that’s cooperation whether they are UI grouped or not. The idea was the game would be about getting out into the fight, even their ad line is “Our time is now.”

However right now we’re being severely penalized for getting out into the fight. Appearantly what we should be doing is standing around LFGing.

Ronah.2869:

This is a game and a game is meant to be a relaxing activity not a profitable one. Get rid of your real life mentality of getting profit out of everything and enjoy your game play time.

So you’re saying they shouldn’t improve the economy because its a game and we’re supposed to kill stuff with no goal other than to kill stuff?