Guild Wars 2

At this point of the release, I suppose everyone has heard/said things like “a chest full garbage again”, “that was really hard, the reward should be better” and more recently “don’t kill the boss, farm the monsters for better loots”. In addition, leveling areas are deserted and famous farming spots are overcrowded. I think most would agree the reward system doesn’t fulfill its purpose: conclude the epicness of the content Guild Wars 2 has to offer with exiting and appealing rewards.

At the moment, greatest events/puzzles/dungeons/achievements are rewarded with a chest, which is brilliant in my opinion. Everyone loves chests … provided there’s something inside. Imagine that every Christmas you have really nice gift box with a pair dirty socks inside. I bet Christmas would feel… different.

Point is the reward system would benefit from a revamp, maybe the whole model, maybe only a part of it.

Summary

Here’s a quick summary of the proposition. Detailed explanations are in the rest of the paper.

The idea is to bring different type of rewards for each type of content. In a way so each part of the game would feel more appealing, bring back people in deserted areas and start different collections for future cash-shop additions.

• General: Stats between exotic and rare gears are close -> exotic won’t feel mandatory nor pointless.

1. PvE:

• Simple monster drops, renown hearts & DEs -> random fine items (blue).
• Group events, rare events/monsters -> random masterwork items (green).
• Difficult Events, dungeons -> random rare (yellow).
• Rare named champions -> good looking rare (yellow), random named exotic (orange).
• Most challenging content -> always token, random exotic (orange).
• Crazy stuff: always token, high probability exotic, low probability legendary part.
• Add dungeon and events in daily achievement to push people in deserted areas -> money reward.

1. WvW:

• Kill drop, simple objectives -> random fine items, random tokens.
• Small group objectives -> random masterwork items (green), tokens.
• Big group objectives -> random rare (yellow), tokens.
• Server wins -> a bonus chest: random masterwork, random rare or money.

2. sPvP:

• Add a rating system and the ability to show it.

3. Storyline:

• A beautiful ending cut-scene, maybe an epilogue, with THE epic music.

4. Exploration:

• Gives collectible in-game lore books, artworks, music, artifacts… as exploration related rewards.

5. Trading:

• Add expensive town clothes, mini-pets or whatever showing wealth.

6. Collectible:

• Add the ability to share detailed achievement progression and other collections through titles, a sharable achievement panel or home instance.
• Add collectible around the world to push players back in deserted areas, such as named monsters/named exotics, bestiary book, collectible lore books, etc.

7. Cash-shop:

• First, create a need for collectible through normal content. Second, add special ones in the cash-shop.

From here, it’s a detailed explanation of the thinking behind the summary. Feel free to read or not. However, I suggest reading some parts if you’re going to comment.

Different Rewards for Different Players

Currently, there’re only two types of rewards for the whole PvE content, Big/medium/small chests with gear in it or mystic coins/transmutation stones/mats for achievements; WvW rewards are quite similar to PvE, except for the puzzles; sPvP basically gives cosmetic/collectible stuff; and of course, monster drops. In the other hand, there’s a load of different types of contents for different types of players. Anet designers have done an incredible job identifying what people like in video games. This base of knowledge can be used to reward players with things they’d like, according to what they’ve just done. Right now, getting combat gear at the end of an exploration run through a jumping puzzle feels a bit off…

So far, I can see:

• A huge RPG open persistent world – Renown Hearts, Dynamic Events & random monsters: This is the main content of all MMORPG. When naming a game MMORPG, it’s the feature people expect to see and where most non-end-game contents take place. Since most players are running this content, there’s no need for spectacular rewards. The important thing is keeping a sense of progression. Normal content gives common things, harder content gives rare things, piece of gear or whatever.
• Organized cooperative gaming – explorable dungeons: Players want to be challenged here. They want to master their character and show that they have. For each accomplished stage, reward them with something that proves it on their character. Those players have a stronger attachment to the character they’ve mastered. Gear is what fits the best, or character bound titles.
• Organized competitive gaming – sPvP: The character is less important here. Gear and look are still fancy but players want to shine as an individual. Make them shine on a scoreboard, give them a rating system.
• Large scale competitive gaming – WvW: There’re two things to consider here. The group the player is a part of and the player himself. The player can be given just as normal PvE: normal objectives give common things, harder objectives gives rarer things. Server and/or should be rewarded too upon wins. There’s already the bonus system, but a big chest/small chest for the 1st/2nd server upon win in Lion Arch may bring a much exiting and visible reward.
• Storyline – Personal Story: It’s all about the story, not the gear. At the end of every single player game, people want an epic ending, a beautiful cut-scene and sometimes an epilogue. Why not put an epic music (you know which one I’m talking about) and a generic, just like a movie, so we can recognize the work of all people of Anet. Modern games are not so different from movies.
• Lore – Books, special NPC, historic places.
• Eye candy – Vistas, Point of interest.
• Exploration – Puzzles: Those last 3 are quite similar. There’s a huge and amazing work on the artistic side of Guild Wars. Players who hunt landscape and piece of story wander around the world of Tyria, and vice-versa. Jumping Puzzles are a part of the exploration, they do it because they are exploring, not because they like fighting. Show them you care and reward them with a piece of art, like collectible books about the story of Tyria, collectible artworks, songs, collectible artifact, treasure maps … not gear.
• Trading – Crafting, Trading post: Those spend a LOT of time in town. They get wealthy and… that’s it? Gives them things to show in town for their genius trading skills. So far, there’re only cultural armors. That’s gear, that’s not enough and they don’t look wealthy. Bring expensive town clothes, expensive mini-pets, expensive whatever….
• Collectible – Achievements, minipets, alts: Along with challenging content, this is what is called “end-game” by many. Give faithful players a checklist, they’ll do it. Reward them? Meh. But as all collection, they’ll need to show it at some point. There’re some titles but they don’t cover everything and are hard to see. Allow people to show their achievement panel easily, show their home instance, put collectible stuff in their instance, (mini-pets wandering would be cool). Reward them with other collectibles to keep them going on another collection.
• Roleplay/Customisation – Character creation, town clothes, dyes, home instance. Some players spend a lot of time in the character creation panel, spend a lot a gold in dye and collect town clothes. But I can see any reward for looking original aside from… looking original.

Bring Back the Epicness

What do you feel when you loot a fine (blue) piece of gear? Most of the time, it’s junk. When you loot a masterwork (green) piece of gear? Most of the time, you can’t even wear it, nor sell it for a decent price, it’s junk. And a rare (yellow)? Yay, sell it! An exotic? If it ever happens, I’d throw it in the forge and pray for a precursor… then get sad.

While in other RPG it is exiting to loot an uncommon armor, it is not in GW2. Since giving piece of gear is the most obvious and easy reward system. It should be kept exiting. And I’m not talking about making them grindy and mandatory, but about keeping what should be rare rare. One of the most iconic system is probably Zelda: when Link open a chest everything is epic, from the music to the unique item. Link never gets a piece of crap to sell to the vendor, nor some rubies to buy Excalibur the same vendor is sitting on the whole game.

For a MMO there’s also a need to keep a certain amount of randomness to keep people playing and keep control on the economy. But still, don’t make them feel like they come back empty handed most of the time. Such would be like:

• Normal content, random monster: randomly common and fine gear (white and blue).
• Group content, rare event/monster: always fine gear (blue), high probability masterwork (green).
• Difficult Events, dungeons, rare champions: always masterwork (green), high probability rare (yellow).
• Most challenging content: always token, high probability exotic (orange).
• Crazy stuff: always token, high probability exotic, low probability legendary part.
  Trick here is to make each level of rarity only slightly better. So players won’t feel it mandatory nor completely pointless. Segment the drop location to harder places to keep items rare enough and feeling rewarding at the same time.

One Loot to Rule Them

Players behavior can be manipulate with rewards. Present them a carrot on a stick, they’ll go like sheeps. In such games, some content will eventually be deserted. A good reward can give them a reason to go back. When Blizzard introduced their daily dungeon quest mechanic, magic, people were running dungeons again. GW2 can bring it to the next level, by putting a random dungeon inside the daily/monthly achievement as well kitten events in a random area.

In addition, named monsters can be placed around the world. There’s already generic champions, get rid of them, give them a name and give them a loot table with a name exotic for lvl80 and a good looking rare for lvl1-79. Max level players will go back in those zones to collect them.

Let assume that Anet don’t like bots and farmers. Reward dailies dungeons/achievements/crafts/events/whatever with more gold. Casual players will be able to keep up, bashing bots won’t gain enough compared to players, other bots won’t be able to hide anymore and eat 10 reports/min, and we won’t see 50 people camping the same event to make gold.

Cash Shop Synergy

Actually offering some common collectible in-game may benefit the cash shop. The whole idea behind the cash shop is to offer something people want to collect, something they can brag about. Take the mini-pets for example. No one uses them. Since no one seems to have interest in them, there’s no point in doing “I’ve the biggest”. Bring some in cities, plant a need in the consumer mind and sell a glowing moa 10$. Wait a while then start polymock with mini-pets and sell a premiere-special-collector-limited-edition-rare-unique-signed-by-felicia-day glowing quaggan 40$ kitten now I want one ><). Second, If people are not playing, there aren’t buying. Rewards contribute in keeping players in the game, and since those players talk about the game and bring friends in, rewards can indirectly grab more players into the game.

React and Collect Ideas

Remember, the discussion is about how the suggested model can or cannot benefit the game now and in the future, how the model can bit improve or how it can benefit from/to other suggestions. It is not a contest about who like/hate the game the most, nor if WoW/GW1 is the worst. The suggestion forum needs constructive discussion instead of mindless fanboys-zerg-fest.

I love the ideas. I have to admit, when I play I have a tendency to feel a bit…lost.

It’s funny. I hate the way most games do structured content/rewards. However, I’ve found that half the fun in deviating from this structure in those games (I’m a don’t do my quests, go look at pretty trees person), is the fact that the structure is there to deviate from.

I love exploring, but I don’t feel it’s all that rewarding. I love being able to solo some champs alone, but again, not that rewarding, just time consuming.

If I had a “carrot” so to speak, I think I would be more excited about the things I do, EVEN THOUGH, I’m already doing all those things.

Great article. +1 for that ideas