Guild Wars 2

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Minos.5168:

Though, I guess that does promote transmutation stone sales in the gem store.

Map Complete is where I get mine. I’ve never bought a single transmutation stone from the store and I have a stack of about 50 fine, and around 200 regular.

You must admit though, it does seem a bit weird that the only way to make use of them is a transmutation stone. Nothing else really does that (cultural armor does to an extent, since it’s only rare and not exotic). Everything else would either have stats on it, or be an apply-able skin item.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Minos.5168:

Though, I guess that does promote transmutation stone sales in the gem store.

Map Complete is where I get mine. I’ve never bought a single transmutation stone from the store and I have a stack of about 50 fine, and around 200 regular.

It’d be real nice to be able to upgrade all those normal stones into fine stones, though. I’ve got almost 2 stacks of the normal ones sitting in my bank (working on my 5th map completion) and they’re basically useless for me =(

Rising Dusk.2408:

They serve a different purpose than dungeons? Outside of progressive difficulty and giving people room to continue up to level 50 at their leisure (ie. progression), what different purpose do they serve, and how does the current RNG-based (instead of progression-based) Fractal Weapon reward architecture fit into that? I understand you’re not the authority, but I’m curious as to your opinion (if you can provide it within the confines of your ability to speak to the community). I guess I’m genuinely curious as to the design philosophy behind the differences between dungeons and fractals.

Furthermore, it is almost intentionally a cosmetic grind right now for players who like the grind. It’s as if progress was made with the dungeon token system (of which I am a huge fan), and then intentionally steps were taken in the other direction perhaps to appease players who like raid-style rewards wherein they are forced to grind to get them. I think it’d be interesting to achieve both styles at the same time. Basically, keep the RNG aspect in there, but also add a tab to the pristine relic golem where you could spend 50 Pristine Fractal Relics for a Fractal Weapon skin of your choice.

Also, I agree with an above poster that the skins should be actual skin items instead of weapons, particularly because the weapons are confirmed by Izzy to never be used as special MF recipes in the future and that they have no stats.

I think the reason for the Fractals was to appease players that wanted an endless challenge.

I mean, they were introduced with Ascended gear when people started complaining about a perceived “lack of endgame.” (Though, honestly, I think this Living Story content could be a better solution to that complaint.)

Rising Dusk.2408:

Furthermore, it is almost intentionally a cosmetic grind right now for players who like the grind.

My current theory is that it was designed to be a torture device.

As someone who grinds fractals twice a day, I do not like the grind, and neither do my guild and a good number of PuGs I’ve talked to. I absolutely hate the dungeon and the game right now, since I only have enough time to do the runs and then log off, and fractals is not fun at this point. It unfortunately turns me hostile to other players and my guild, which I normally try to apologize for at some point.

If I didn’t run fractals, I couldn’t get the weapons. My brain is also pretty dumb, and once I see something I like, I must have it, though I probably won’t feel any better if I ever get the skins.

Mainly, it just seems stupid compared to the two other methods of dungeon rewards: GW style with heavy RNG but items are tradable, like celestial weapons in Urgoz’s Warden, or the GW2 mechanic that was suppose to prevent this, used in every other dungeon in the game.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Awesome.6120:

I was being completely sarcastic Robert.

… although I have been giving thought to a system that also reflects our personal story reward structure, where you could potentially choose one of three things offered at random. Again, just thoughts, but I’m always trying to develop better ways to reward players in dungeons.

If I can suggest a reward mechanic from some GW1 dungeons… there were some GW1 chests that you had a 100% chance of 1-2 items (lockpick, diamond, hero armor) + a randomly determined rare drop.

I hate bringing up lodestones / cores, but I know a lot of people that run dungeons for the specific cores / lodestones that drop there and having those in an end of dungeon chest would be cool. Also, if a chest had a garunteed random rare item at the end of the dungeon, I think you would get a lot less ‘I get better loot off the trash than the boss’ feeling.

How often did we throw ourselves at Slaver’s Exile in GW1 for a Voltaic Spear? We knew the odds were insanely slim, and yet we did it over and over again because even if we didn’t get one, we were getting other things out of it.

I do, however, want to say that I really enjoy the tokens as a way to get garunteed loot out of the dungeon. Consider the suggestion above a way to make something that is already very good even better.

This isnt Diablo 3. A-Net doesnt flag accounts for bad loot like Blizzard did.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Minos.5168:

Though, I guess that does promote transmutation stone sales in the gem store.

Map Complete is where I get mine. I’ve never bought a single transmutation stone from the store and I have a stack of about 50 fine, and around 200 regular.

90% through the map on a single character (and whatever many maps completed throughout my alts), and i’ve never ever obtained a single fine transmutation stone from map completion. normal ones? sure, i get them almost all the time (still nowhere near as many as you, i think i have about 60 or 70 lying around), but i’ve never even once gotten a fine one.

and with the increasing prices of gold/gem conversion, it’s getting harder and harder to get my hands on some :/

Well, I believe you when you say that there is no “bad/good loot flag” anywhere. However, I’ve had some very bad luck with loot myself. I’m mainly talking about my bad luck of getting (or rather not getting) any ascended rings for a long time to the point where I could not progress any further with my guild.

So… tell me, what is used as the seed for your RNG? You should probably have someone take a close look into that.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Rising Dusk.2408:

I’d like you to look at the system in place in Fractals with regards to Fractal Weapons. Your designer mind should see something wrong.

In the case of fractals, there is a different reward system in place for obtaining the skins and the items there. It is not the same as the dungeon reward scheme, because fractals serve a different purpose than dungeons.

I will also mention that I am not the authority on reward schemes – I see trends, play the game, experience the content, and and draft proposals to the leads and those responsible for reward structures. I have brought up proposed changes to the reward scheme for the fractals, but it is not my place to be the decider on those issues.

Even though fractals serves a different purpose, it’s still the same issue of:

Do content, get epic reward, feel bad because said reward is useless to you.

A fractal rifle and mace are sitting in my bank collecting dust because I don’t have any character that could use one

TLDR:
Loot feels really bad for some of us.
We need more uses for Fractal Relics and Pristine Relics
(Why can we not buy Ascended Amulets for 10 Pristine Relics)
And Fractal weapon Skins for 1-2k Fractal Relics??

To the post above. I would be delighted to get ANY epic reward (for me currently that are the Fractal Weapon skins because I spend 80% of my playtime in fractals because I want them so bad) Really any skin primary weapon Skin (bar underwater because I rarely see those) would be awesome if it ever happened to be in the chest I open.

Even if A-Net tells me that there is no “Flag for bad loot”. I can not really believe it. I have run fractals hundreds of times. Everytime I run with my guild I will see the other 4 post at least 4-5 Yellows and maybe 1-2 exotics every other run and tons of cores.

If i get lucky I gain 3-4 yellows and 1-2 cores and really rarely (probably every 20th run) an exotic.

My usual fare is 1-3 yellows per whole fractal run (including Maw) and that is it.

Can you feel it when you work 2 hours trough level 30 Dredge fractal and beat that stupid ice elemental (sometimes 3 players simply have no clue how to dodge ) and then you open that chest and … 2 green 1 blue is the reward for your hard work? Then you continue with Uncategorized (yay falling down) and get… guess.. 2 green 1 blue from the chest of the Asura. Then finnish off with Ice and get yet another 2 green 1 blue and then at the Maw chest I get 1 yellow. And then someone else in the group links 2 Lodestones 1 Core and 2 Yellows out of his maw chest and a ring.

Oh sure I got 110 Fractal Relics and 1 Pristine Relic. They are nice but after your bank is piling 7000 relics and 50 Pristine Relics you get really really bored of them.

Now there is this one fellow that posts continuously 6+ yellows and 1-2 exotics per run. They are different ones and those that drop in the dungeon. I do not believe he would just mock up old stuff for the giggles. So my perception is that I get just a few yellows while all others get 2x as much as I do and one is getting 3-4x as much.

And this happens every run I do with them. Maybe its just bad luck for a year? and next year ill get some good loot? I have lost my will to play because it doesn’t seem rewarding at all to me. I know others have fantastic loot, but I simply never have that. Every run I have done in the past 2 month’s has left a bad taste in my mouth afterwards and a “oh well just crap loot again and no skin I want yet again”

I have done the level 28 and level 30+ daily nearly every day since the 2nd week of fractals and have 1 underwater Spear to show for it (nearing my 500th fractal completed). Also I will always get tons of Darkened Claws, Stones and all that gray worthless vendor trash. When other teammembers get yellows, cores and other green quality stuff.

Yes I do believe my account is permanently flagged for poor loot even if it may not be but I simply perceive my continuous bad drops as such because it always seems my other team members get 3x as much yellows/loot.

I am at a point where I simply have quit playing for 3 weeks, went back to the game mid January and did a fractal run and all I got was Darkened Claws and the other kitten. I had not 1 yellow that run. Even the level 30 maw chest contained 2 green 1 blue and 3 coin bags… and of course I havent seen a ring or a fractal weapon for 2 weeks now.

I am at the point where I will probably toss out the game and play something else and never bother to come back here ever again because it just doesn’t feel rewarding enough to play.

Ok there are a plethora of other issues with the game like the feeling of less choice with any class every other big patch. But the single biggest one is IT FEELS NOT REWARDING.

I do not know if its just a few, if its an unknown deep buried but or simply really really really really bad luck, but it is there and seems to not go away.

Eldiora.5836:

Now there is this one fellow that posts continuously 6+ yellows and 1-2 exotics per run. They are different ones and those that drop in the dungeon. I do not believe he would just mock up old stuff for the giggles. So my perception is that I get just a few yellows while all others get 2x as much as I do and one is getting 3-4x as much.

Maybe it’s time to kick him for wearing full MF gear and lying about it. Kick and block, very simple.

Guildmate that has played with us for a long time?

I do not think all my Guildmates wear full MF or we would not be able to complete Dungeons and Fractals in a reasonable time. Also you kinda feel if someone has full MF because runs are dragging slower and he will die all the time because he has no defensive stats.

But my Guildmates don’t die too often to suspect MF gear.

Should just let people buy fractal weapon skins for an appropriately high amount of pristine relics. Let’s say 30 pristine relics for a weapon skin. Leave them as the possible daily reward as well of course.

Minion of Vey.4398:

Should just let people buy fractal weapon skins for an appropriately high amount of pristine relics. Let’s say 30 pristine relics for a weapon skin. Leave them as the possible daily reward as well of course.

this

Edit: or atleast let us trade skins for “tokens” that you can then exchange for another skin, smth like 3 “skin tokens” → 1 skin of your choice. It’s extremely frustrating to get a skin you dont need at all, considering the drop rate is so poor.

Before patch, always got golds (rares), 2-3 per run and the last chest ( maw ) gave a few cores and normally 1 rare.

After the patch is a different story and my regular guild group notices it as well, while random guildies who barely did fractals are geting rares left and right, fractal regulars are getting blues. If I’m lucky I might get a green, that’s kinda sad tbqh.

Now the easiest way to get golds again is through dungeon tokens and buying 30token rares. While normally, both were profitable depending on if you like dungeons or fractals.

See before this patch this used to be me actually.
1. Never got my wvwvw buffs
2. Opened around 300 dye, never got one worth over 5silver
3. Had never gotten a single exotic (a good 800+ hours of playtime)
4. when i’d run CoF my guildies were getting cores and lodestones left and right. They both ended with about 5 more lodestones and 20 more cores than they started with. Me? I got 3 molten cores and that was it.
5. When id do cursed shore with guildies they’d wind up with like 8 rares before id see my first, and I could not for the life of me get ecto out of them even with the best kit
6. in fractals it took me 18 days to get my first ring, and it was a magic find one. Two days later I got the exact same bloody ring again.
7. other various shenanigans regarding terrible terrible luck

Suddenly post patch none of my guildies can get jack kitten. They’re getting no rares and cores in fractals, CoF, or cursed shore. Meanwhile post patch i’ve snagged at least 3 exotics and about 20+ rares, not to mention lodestones and cores.

it’s like they fixed my DR and gave it to my guildies.

basically? Dont change anything pl0x! it’s good to finally feel like the lucky one :<

I feel so unlucky with fractal, i have about 650 fractal completed and i get only 1 skin….i get about 30 ring and dont know what to do with it…
I dont think this is normal…i just want the fractal long bow…but i dont see a fractal skin in the last 2 month of play….fix me pls…;-)

We had a similar situation to the one the OP describes in our dungeon running group early in game.

We had this one dude, an ex GW2 player who also played a lot, who was consistently getting much better loot than everyone else.

He hated Magic Find and never wore any but was constantly getting rares and exotics all over the place. He would typically leave a FotM run with half a dozen rares where other may have had one or two.

No he doesn’t do much PvE anymore but considering his superior loot luck held on for months, it does make you wonder.

If this were an isolated case or a short string of good luck then sure, but consistently getting much better loot than everyone else is something you notice.

Then again, it might have been a case of conformation bias.

I would really like to see an update to loot, i have an 80 necro that is almost the only char i have played since i bought the game, only other char is a 50 guardian. neither character has ever seen an exotic drop and even after equipping full mf gear, eating omnom bars, getting guild mf buffs and using a mf buff from the tp have never found more than 2 rares from any dungeon/fractal/orr event. all my money has been made on tp because nothing else is worth the time for the amount of money i make off it.

I don’t want to pick sides nor sound like a smart a**…
But this type of topic has been coming up in games a lot, and I just want to throw in my two cents, give some food for thought. And it maybe a little too deep to be the issue.

There’s no such thing as ‘random’ in computing.

True that there are good ‘random’ number generators and there are some bad. To make it as close to truly random as possible, the developers would probably spend majority of their time developing that over the game it self, and although at that point you won’t be complaining about randomness, you will probably be complaining about why your character is 8×8 pixels. While I don’t doubt that they DID develop their own random number generator, it still isn’t truly random.

If you think I’m full of sh**, here are some links, or really just google it your self :
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~smyth/courses/ics178/random_number_generators_article.pdf

http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/aspnes/classes/469/notes.pdf

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question697.htm

The last one mentions “random natural event” being fed to the machine that generators randomness, at that point one can argue how sensitive the machine is to the event (how well does it pick it up)… but that’s a bit beyond this thread.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Awesome.6120:

I was being completely sarcastic Robert.

Ah, sorry about that. As a designer I click my mind into a state where I see a problem and try to mentally design a solution to it regardless of its level of sarcasm. That being said, I do like item rewards, but there’s a downside to it in that it’s not always the item you want. There are other games I have played where I would kill a boss 20-30 times and not get the specific item I wanted, and I would just have to keep at it and hope I got lucky. I much prefer the system we have right now where there is a guaranteed token reward to allow me to buy whatI want… although I have been giving thought to a system that also reflects our personal story reward structure, where you could potentially choose one of three things offered at random. Again, just thoughts, but I’m always trying to develop better ways to reward players in dungeons.

I know I’m necro’ing this thread, but I just want to make it known I have farmed Jade maw close to 250 times with 20+ and I have not gotten the fractal weapon of my choice because of the double RNG slot machine that has been implemented. I know fractal is suppose to have a different propose than dungeons, but currently it has worse rewards than dungeons, with higher risks. What is the propose of the fractals that dungeon don’t serve.

I totally prefer the token reward system. My only suggestion would be to change up what the merchants carry to revitalize the dungeons. If the tokens merchants had new stuff players would flock to them.

I feel like the loot system in this game is bizarre. I have tons of Karma but no idea where to spend it and what to spend it on. The places I can are only available during events like Orr which makes no sense to me because nobody is ever there when I’m playing to complete them. So I sit with rare pieces and can never get exotics.

I refuse to run dungeons as sitting at night spamming LFG blah blah all night is annoying.

Aevic.9675:

I feel like the loot system in this game is bizarre. I have tons of Karma but no idea where to spend it and what to spend it on. The places I can are only available during events like Orr which makes no sense to me because nobody is ever there when I’m playing to complete them. So I sit with rare pieces and can never get exotics.

I refuse to run dungeons as sitting at night spamming LFG blah blah all night is annoying.

This is exactly what the majority of people are experiencing now. There’s nothing to spend karma on except crappy RNG orrian jewelry boxes and legendaries. We could really use some more rewards for karma, especially in terms of new skins for armor and weapons.

Darx.9842:

Theres a theory floating around about permanent DR.

People who play alot hit this cap, to keep them at the same pace (financially) as someone who plays casually. The dude who plays 12 hours a day will get the same amount of exotics a person who plays 1-2 hours a day or less.

It’s to keep everyone equal and prevent the casual players from complaining that hardcore players are ahead. Which happens in every game in existence. I too see very few rare+ drops on my main character (650 hours) but on my alts see a crazy amount of rares out of dungeons.

RNG.

The part that worries me is the fact that so many players come up with this theory on their own. It’s not people preaching this theory, many people feel it and think it’s happening without being told about it from others.

Crazy phenomenons give rise to crazy theories, often independant of each other. Every culture in the world had, at some point, a god of lightning. Does not prove that a god of lightning exists, merely that lightning is such a crazy thing that people tend to attribute it to a deity.

RNG, by definition, gives birth to crazy things. People tend to see patterns in the most random things, ergo people tend to come up with the same theories if they are birthed out of the same crazy thing. Doesn’t imply a pattern, merely that people tend to behave alike.

Zero Day.2594:

I don’t want to pick sides nor sound like a smart a**…
But this type of topic has been coming up in games a lot, and I just want to throw in my two cents, give some food for thought. And it maybe a little too deep to be the issue.

There’s no such thing as ‘random’ in computing.

Ok smart kitten, but in this case, with millions of players, pseudorandom is just as good as truly random. It really doesn’t matter. In fact, I’d prefer pseudorandom because that implies I’m destined to a good roll eventually, which is not necessarily so with true random numbers.

True that there are good ‘random’ number generators and there are some bad. To make it as close to truly random as possible, the developers would probably spend majority of their time developing that over the game it self, and although at that point you won’t be complaining about randomness, you will probably be complaining about why your character is 8×8 pixels. While I don’t doubt that they DID develop their own random number generator, it still isn’t truly random.

There’s companies dedicated to generating real random numbers, one can rent a stream of true, hardware generated, random numbers.

Furthermore, development in RNG has made it so that true random numbers can be extracted from the hardware processes in any computer, such as jitter time on HDD reads, minuscule temperature deviations or white noise interference. Such things can be measured and are truly random.

If the Fractal system is different, could the current system be left as is, whilst a token system operating alongside it allows for a sub-class of Fractal weapons? Allows current weapons to retain their ‘elite/lucky’ status. People can link their Fractal weapon if they feel the need to show they have the RNG ones and not the token ones.

E.g. The token ones have set stats but aren’t transmutable.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Awesome.6120:

If only there was some guaranteed reward when finishing an event or dungeon!

Our token system for dungeons allows you to exchange and get things, and tokens are guaranteed at the end of each dungeon path. Events give out karma and currency, which can be used to buy things as well. Or are you implying a guaranteed item reward system, instead of a currency/token exchange reward system?

I understand the need for the RNG system and I’m sure other players do as well. I also believe that the use of RNG in this game is way too extreme.

I’m sure players would appreciate a loot table similar to GW1, where as each elite area/dungeon had randomly generated rewards but they also had that one special item that the players sought out (Obsidian Edge, Dhuum’s Soul Reaper, Dryad Bow, etc.), and therefor ran the dungeon over and over.

The tokens are fine but they are not the kind of rewards that players expect from dungeons. The thrill of victory is lost when you go into a dungeon knowing there is nothing else you need or want, and therefor begins to diminish the value of the content on a global scale.

I frequently mention this in posts commenting on the state of PvE, and that is the fact that the content in GW2 is simply not as fun as the content in GW1 and it boils down to the ability for the content to be replayed over and over. With this being an MMO it’s important for the core of PvE content (dungeons) to be fun to experience every time. I’m sure that there are people running fractals 20+ because they know that fractal weapons are on the loot table.

If, say, Honor of the Waves, a dungeon played at a lower frequency than others, offered the player the chance to obtain an awesome icy shoulder armor skin, I guarantee players would participate in that dungeon a little more often. Just take a look at the widely used 3rd party GW2LFG.com for proof.

People are only running CoF because of the time:reward. Do you really want your dungeons to be visited because they are the most easily exploited? I’m certain that the answer is “NO”

You want your dungeons run because the player gets an adequate gaming experience out of it, and players complete content for rewards.

Another method to accomplish this is offering a substantial reward for completing a daily dungeon objective, such as Complete Path X of Dungeon Y for reward of Z

The dungeons do not need to be revised, the RNG does not need to be revised, but the rewards system does.
This is how you solve problems for PVE players