(edited by Vlad.1739)
Fractal Tonic Realistically Unobtainable
Aren’t there 4 chances per day? But yes it’s a silly thing.
The actual item has very little use besides the huge “OMG” when you get one as a drop. There’s not really a need to boost the drop rate as it then loses it’s great feeling when you get one.
99.9% of the ‘value’ of the tonic is that it’s “unrealistically unobtainable” — if it dropped often enough for most fractal regulars to get it, it would mostly sit in people’s banks/storage toons, like any other tonic. Sure, the animations seem cool today, but then so did the forms of a lot of other (now common) tonics.
tl;dr be careful what you wish for — “somewhat reasonable” drop rates are for things that have their own inherent value.
Your argument about value is silly. Note that only people harmed are the people that obtain the item only because its rare not because they want it. This item has high relative value because as you said some people will throw it away others “OMG”. This item has a value of 0 or priceless since it is not available for sale.
Wanting an item because its rare is a poor mentality. If we can agree on this, then as you said most people will bank theirs but the people that actually want one for using it will be happy. Thus making an item that is account bound and super rare is a bad idea. The consumer of the item will never obtain the item and the others who randomly obtain said item can not sell it. So actually Fractal Tonic currently has very little value other than being rare drop.
TLDR: Items being only valuable because they are rare and account bound is poor design the end user can not obtain the item and others cannot sell the item to the end user for a profit.
The rarity is what makes this tonic special – I see no reason to change it. And no I do not own a fractal tonic.
Not everyone needs to own everything. There is no right to have everything just because you bought the game, that is not how online games work.
Your argument about value is silly. Note that only people harmed are the people that obtain the item only because its rare not because they want it. This item has high relative value because as you said some people will throw it away others “OMG”. This item has a value of 0 or priceless since it is not available for sale.
Wanting an item because its rare is a poor mentality. If we can agree on this, then as you said most people will bank theirs but the people that actually want one for using it will be happy. Thus making an item that is account bound and super rare is a bad idea. The consumer of the item will never obtain the item and the others who randomly obtain said item can not sell it. So actually Fractal Tonic currently has very little value other than being rare drop.
TLDR: Items being only valuable because they are rare and account bound is poor design the end user can not obtain the item and others cannot sell the item to the end user for a profit.
Your argument falls flat because barely anyone uses tonics. The only reason people care about the fractal tonicis because they don’t have it already. I can pretty confidently say that most of the people that want the rate boosted won’t care about the tonic if every fractal runner had it.
The rarity is what makes this tonic special – I see no reason to change it. And no I do not own a fractal tonic.
Not everyone needs to own everything. There is no right to have everything just because you bought the game, that is not how online games work.
You, falsely, assume that everyone wants this tonic because people like you see it as “special” due to its rarity. There are plenty of people that want it just to have fun with it. These are the people that don’t care if noone or everyone around them can also tonic into Mai trin for 15 minutes, as long as they can have fun doing so themselves. I don’t see a reason to keep the drop rate so incredibly low since its essentially just a toy
The rarity is what makes this tonic special – I see no reason to change it. And no I do not own a fractal tonic.
Not everyone needs to own everything. There is no right to have everything just because you bought the game, that is not how online games work.You, falsely, assume that everyone wants this tonic because people like you see it as “special” due to its rarity. There are plenty of people that want it just to have fun with it. These are the people that don’t care if noone or everyone around them can also tonic into Mai trin for 15 minutes, as long as they can have fun doing so themselves. I don’t see a reason to keep the drop rate so incredibly low since its essentially just a toy
Why are the people that want it as a toy more valuable and worth more then the players that want it to be rare?
I already have a guess as to what your answer will be.
The rarity is what makes this tonic special – I see no reason to change it. And no I do not own a fractal tonic.
Not everyone needs to own everything. There is no right to have everything just because you bought the game, that is not how online games work.You, falsely, assume that everyone wants this tonic because people like you see it as “special” due to its rarity. There are plenty of people that want it just to have fun with it. These are the people that don’t care if noone or everyone around them can also tonic into Mai trin for 15 minutes, as long as they can have fun doing so themselves. I don’t see a reason to keep the drop rate so incredibly low since its essentially just a toy
Why are the people that want it as a toy more valuable and worth more then the players that want it to be rare?
I already have a guess as to what your answer will be.
It’s not a question of the people, it’s a question of the arguments. The argument for wanting it to be rare is fallacious and absurd. The argument for wanting it to be obtainable is sensible and logical.
Reminder to Anet: Fractal Tonic is an RNG based account bound item that is as rare as a precursor. It is also gated behind a one chance per day mechanic. Please fix the drop rates or add other ways to obtain one that are somewhat reasonable.
And?
I’m not seeing the problem here.
So it’s rare → check.
It has no beneficial or otherwise mentionable value (unlike precursors) → check
It is bound on aquire (so no unfair “I made 900 gold thanks to rng”) → check
The only value it has is its rarity → check
So let’s make this game a tad more bland by removing ever little shred of value from rare items. That worked great for generation 1 legendaries.
We get it TC, you want the item. Tough luck, so do thousands more.
The rarity is what makes this tonic special – I see no reason to change it. And no I do not own a fractal tonic.
Not everyone needs to own everything. There is no right to have everything just because you bought the game, that is not how online games work.You, falsely, assume that everyone wants this tonic because people like you see it as “special” due to its rarity. There are plenty of people that want it just to have fun with it. These are the people that don’t care if noone or everyone around them can also tonic into Mai trin for 15 minutes, as long as they can have fun doing so themselves. I don’t see a reason to keep the drop rate so incredibly low since its essentially just a toy
Why are the people that want it as a toy more valuable and worth more then the players that want it to be rare?
I already have a guess as to what your answer will be.
It’s not a question of the people, it’s a question of the arguments. The argument for wanting it to be rare is fallacious and absurd. The argument for wanting it to be obtainable is sensible and logical.
How is the argument for it to be obtainable more logical? Economically it’s the less sound argument, especially for items that hold little other value.
Even gameplay wise it could be argued that it’s the less sensible approach. Once the item becomes massavailable it loses its luster. Thus removing 1 more item from the game where people could try to hope for “hitting it big”.
The rarity is what makes this tonic special – I see no reason to change it. And no I do not own a fractal tonic.
Not everyone needs to own everything. There is no right to have everything just because you bought the game, that is not how online games work.You, falsely, assume that everyone wants this tonic because people like you see it as “special” due to its rarity. There are plenty of people that want it just to have fun with it. These are the people that don’t care if noone or everyone around them can also tonic into Mai trin for 15 minutes, as long as they can have fun doing so themselves. I don’t see a reason to keep the drop rate so incredibly low since its essentially just a toy
Why are the people that want it as a toy more valuable and worth more then the players that want it to be rare?
I already have a guess as to what your answer will be.
It’s not a question of the people, it’s a question of the arguments. The argument for wanting it to be rare is fallacious and absurd. The argument for wanting it to be obtainable is sensible and logical.
Hahahah… oh wait you’re serious.
HAHA HAHAHA
Just because you disagree doesn’t make it fallicious.
In fact since you provided no evidence to support yur claims I think I will use your same tactic.
It’s not a question of the people, it’s a question of the arguments. The argument for wanting it to be obtainable is fallacious and absurd. The argument for wanting it to be rare is sensible and logical
I have no problem with the tonic being extremely rare. In fact, that’s probably the main reason why I want it so bad, otherwise I wouldn’t care.
But I think it’s stupid that some random number generator decides who gets it and who doesn’t. It should be awarded based on one’s performance in fractals and the amount of successful runs. They should create challenges (mainly solo) and set a super high amount of runs you have to do, but then you’d be guaranteed to get one. If the difficulty is set properly, the same percentage of players would be able to get it, so it would maintain its value, but it would be awarded to players who deserved it rather than just being lucky…
Your argument about value is silly.
On the contrary, it’s an argument about how people perceive value.
Note that only people harmed are the people that obtain the item only because its rare not because they want it. This item has high relative value because as you said some people will throw it away others “OMG”. This item has a value of 0 or priceless since it is not available for sale.
Maybe ‘value’ was a poor word choice. Of course the item can’t be sold, so it has no inherent value. Thus, its only importance is what players impose on it — people want what they want and, you might not have noticed, but people tend to want stuff that other people don’t have and especially stuff that others can’t get.
Wanting an item because its rare is a poor mentality.
Why? It’s not your mentality and (mostly) not mine.
If we can agree on this, then as you said most people will bank theirs but the people that actually want one for using it will be happy.
We could agree — that won’t change things for the rest of humanity though.
(Although, as it happens, I disagree — the mentality is different, not “poor” or “wrong”.)
Thus making an item that is account bound and super rare is a bad idea.
Obviously, I can’t agree with the premise behind that declaration. Moreover, even I did agree that “wanting an item because it’s rare is a poor idea,” I don’t have to agree that it’s bad to have some items be rare.
The consumer of the item will never obtain the item and the others who randomly obtain said item can not sell it. So actually Fractal Tonic currently has very little value other than being rare drop.
What’s interesting to me is that you can see clearly that the “Fractal Tonic …has very little value other than being [a] rare drop” and yet not understand that is exactly why ANet made the drop rate so tiny.
TLDR: Items being only valuable because they are rare and account bound is poor design the end user can not obtain the item and others cannot sell the item to the end user for a profit.
tl;dr the entire point of scarcity in MMOs is to cater to those players who want stuff that others can’t have. It’s a misunderstanding of human nature to think that a game with “good” drops can exist without some bound items that have infinitesimal drops and that can’t be traded. Good games have to offer a mix of items: some rare and tradeable, some tradeable-until-used, and so on.
Incidentally, I wouldn’t mind if ANet allowed these to be traded or increased the drop rate. All the same, I think it’s perfectly fine that 2-3 items in the game are both so rare I’ll never see them drop and non-tradeable.
The rarity is what makes this tonic special – I see no reason to change it. And no I do not own a fractal tonic.
Not everyone needs to own everything. There is no right to have everything just because you bought the game, that is not how online games work.You, falsely, assume that everyone wants this tonic because people like you see it as “special” due to its rarity. There are plenty of people that want it just to have fun with it. These are the people that don’t care if noone or everyone around them can also tonic into Mai trin for 15 minutes, as long as they can have fun doing so themselves. I don’t see a reason to keep the drop rate so incredibly low since its essentially just a toy
Why are the people that want it as a toy more valuable and worth more then the players that want it to be rare?
I already have a guess as to what your answer will be.
Why are the players that want it to be rare more valuable and worth more than the players that want it as a toy?
You didn’t pose an argument, you’re just disagreeing to disagree. If you’re just going to be rude to other people on the forums then maybe you should just leave the thread. No players are more valuable or worth more than other players. But considering how making the tonic slightly more accessible literally does not negatively impact anyone’s gameplay experience, yet will positively impact the gameplay experience for others, there is no real reason to keep it as rare as it is for the sake of keeping it rare. None.
The rarity is what makes this tonic special – I see no reason to change it. And no I do not own a fractal tonic.
Not everyone needs to own everything. There is no right to have everything just because you bought the game, that is not how online games work.You, falsely, assume that everyone wants this tonic because people like you see it as “special” due to its rarity. There are plenty of people that want it just to have fun with it. These are the people that don’t care if noone or everyone around them can also tonic into Mai trin for 15 minutes, as long as they can have fun doing so themselves. I don’t see a reason to keep the drop rate so incredibly low since its essentially just a toy
Why are the people that want it as a toy more valuable and worth more then the players that want it to be rare?
I already have a guess as to what your answer will be.
Why are the players that want it to be rare more valuable and worth more than the players that want it as a toy?
You didn’t pose an argument, you’re just disagreeing to disagree. If you’re just going to be rude to other people on the forums then maybe you should just leave the thread. No players are more valuable or worth more than other players. But considering how making the tonic slightly more accessible literally does not negatively impact anyone’s gameplay experience, yet will positively impact the gameplay experience for others, there is no real reason to keep it as rare as it is for the sake of keeping it rare. None.
They are more valuable because the item was meant to be that way. People who have the item now didnt act as cry babies on the forums demanding to be catered for them, 99% of them played tons of fractals and eventually got lucky. It would be unfair to devalue their work of playing tons of fractals to get said tonic. It would also be unfair to punish the luck of the extremly few who got it within a few fractal runs.
Maybe Anet could put it into the vendor for 10000 pristine fractal relics as a fall back mechanic if you still do not have it after a long time.
I’m sorry, but there is no reason for this item to remain as rare as it is. I didn’t even know it existed and I do nothing but fractals if I’m short on play time. It’s not trade-able so your argument is just moot. What’s being undervalued about something with no value? Is being upset over someone having the same toy as you really the side you want to be on? So since there are people getting it and throwing it away. Why can’t the people who want it have a reasonable chance of getting it? So I don’t have truly have the desire to dedicate time to aim for it, but there is no options to. And I think that’s a problem.
99.9% of the ‘value’ of the tonic is that it’s “unrealistically unobtainable” — if it dropped often enough for most fractal regulars to get it, it would mostly sit in people’s banks/storage toons, like any other tonic. Sure, the animations seem cool today, but then so did the forms of a lot of other (now common) tonics.
tl;dr be careful what you wish for — “somewhat reasonable” drop rates are for things that have their own inherent value.
I agree with that. But i got one at the first lvl 50 fotm i made after the fractal patch…..that was 2 years ago.
And how often do i use it? Once in a month?
They are more valuable because the item was meant to be that way. People who have the item now didn’t act as cry babies on the forums demanding to be catered for them, 99% of them played tons of fractals and eventually got lucky. It would be unfair to devalue their work of playing tons of fractals to get said tonic. It would also be unfair to punish the luck of the extremely few who got it within a few fractal runs.
I really don’t care about this tonic, but I did want to address something here.
You say it would be unfair to “devalue” the time or luck that goes into getting one of these, but there’s a problem with that argument. As long as this is handed out by RNG, the game could do that automatically at any moment. It’s always possible (though unlikely, I know) that more people can start getting the lucky rolls and these things start to become much more common. It’s also possible that people have been unlucky up until now, and at any time it could return to a higher, expected drop rate.
By the same token, it could swing the other way as well. Maybe people have been lucky until now, and the drop rate will plummet from its already low level. What counts as luck or hard work today may not cut it tomorrow.
If the only value something has is due to its rarity, and that rarity is affected by random numbers, then you can’t really be sure that the value won’t change on you. No, it may not change much, but it’s hardly set in stone.
You suggest offering it for a high price. While I’m sure your price is way to high, it’s not a bad idea if you bring it down some. There’s lots of good uses for this currency, there should always be something better to buy than a toy. Anyone buying it would be giving up a lot of other rewards to get it. Keep the price high but within reason, and I think most people would be okay with that. It may lose some rarity “value”, but not much more than randomness might change it anyway.
delicate, brick-like subtlety.
The argument made to justify the current rarity is that it increases the value and prestige of the item. However, not only is this not true, but it is actually opposite to reality. This can be easily demonstrated as follows.
When you see someone with the tonic, what do you think? You definitely don’t think “wow, they must be really good at fractals!” You probably don’t even think “wow, they must have run a lot of fractals!”
However, you almost definitely think “wow, they’re lucky!”
The fractal tonic is so rare that the perception is that running a lot of fractals has a negligible effect on your chances of getting it: close to zero no matter how much you run. This has the distinct effect of devaluing the tonic, taking it from a rare prestige item to a random novelty that has the same chance of being found by a noob with 15 AR and a veteran with thousands of fractals under their belt.
There are two viable solutions to this. One option is to increase the drop rate. An item can be both extremely rare and obtainable with enough effort, these are not mutually exclusive concepts. If the drop rate was high enough that most super heavy fractal runners could get one, it would still be rare and prestigious, but obtainable.
Personally though, I’m not a fan of RNG in any form. Even with the higher drop rate, you could still get screwed over, and a noob could get it on their first run. Therefor, I feel that the best solution is a deterministic method. The advantage of this is that everyone knows just how much effort it took. The prestige is inherent in the fact that when someone sees the tonic, they know exactly how dedicated you were, how much time you spent, how many fractals you ran to get that prize. It also means you’re not at the mercy of the RNG; if you want the tonic, you just have to go and put in the effort to get it, not get on your knees to rngesus.
Obviously, a deterministic method would need to be appropriately difficult/time consuming to maintain the rarity and prestige of the tonic, but that’s just bookkeeping. Conceptually speaking, I feel that this is definitely the best way to make the tonic obtainable while also rare and prestigious.
I’ve suggested before to them that it needs to be purchasable for an extreme amount of Pristine Fractal Relics. We’ll see if that comes to pass in future seasonal updates.
The argument made to justify the current rarity is that it increases the value and prestige of the item. However, not only is this not true, but it is actually opposite to reality. This can be easily demonstrated as follows.
When you see someone with the tonic, what do you think? You definitely don’t think “wow, they must be really good at fractals!” You probably don’t even think “wow, they must have run a lot of fractals!”
However, you almost definitely think “wow, they’re lucky!”
There is nothing in this game that shows that you are good, but it shows that you are most likely very dedicated about fractals.
MMOs are traditionally more about dedication than skill, so its not suprising that there are no truly skill based rewards in GW2. Bad at raids? Just pay others to do them for you and reap the rewards…
Even if you require a solo lvl 100 for the tonic, it is pretty easy to pull of with some builds.
There is nothing in this game that shows that you are good, but it shows that you are most likely very dedicated about fractals.
I’m sorry, just how exactly does a random drop with an extremely small chance which also just so happens to be gated behind dailies show that you’re dedicated? It might as well drop very early in, as it has happened for players while there are people who’ve been running fractals daily since release and don’t have it. Your argument is, frankly said, bullkitten.
So is the idea of keeping this drop as is. There is no novelty behind a random drop that requires no skill to acquire (i.e. pretty much most of GW2’s rewards), at least for me all it does is making me go “oh, guess he got lucky. Good for him.” The tonic should be put into a collection which makes you do some actually difficult stuff inside fractals, but that’s not going to happen, so might as well go with Rising Dusk’s solution of demanding a cubic ton of pristines from the player.
There is nothing in this game that shows that you are good, but it shows that you are most likely very dedicated about fractals.
I’m sorry, just how exactly does a random drop with an extremely small chance which also just so happens to be gated behind dailies show that you’re dedicated? It might as well drop very early in, as it has happened for players while there are people who’ve been running fractals daily since release and don’t have it. Your argument is, frankly said, bullkitten.
So is the idea of keeping this drop as is. There is no novelty behind a random drop that requires no skill to acquire (i.e. pretty much most of GW2’s rewards), at least for me all it does is making me go “oh, guess he got lucky. Good for him.” The tonic should be put into a collection which makes you do some actually difficult stuff inside fractals, but that’s not going to happen, so might as well go with Rising Dusk’s solution of demanding a cubic ton of pristines from the player.
The law of large number dictates that only an insignificant amount of people will be lucky enough to get it in small amount of attempts (dailies). If the chance is 1 in 1000 (the chance is actually much lower), there is still a 36% chance to not have it after 1000 dailies.
There is nothing in this game that shows that you are good, but it shows that you are most likely very dedicated about fractals.
I’m sorry, just how exactly does a random drop with an extremely small chance which also just so happens to be gated behind dailies show that you’re dedicated? It might as well drop very early in, as it has happened for players while there are people who’ve been running fractals daily since release and don’t have it. Your argument is, frankly said, bullkitten.
So is the idea of keeping this drop as is. There is no novelty behind a random drop that requires no skill to acquire (i.e. pretty much most of GW2’s rewards), at least for me all it does is making me go “oh, guess he got lucky. Good for him.” The tonic should be put into a collection which makes you do some actually difficult stuff inside fractals, but that’s not going to happen, so might as well go with Rising Dusk’s solution of demanding a cubic ton of pristines from the player.
The law of large number dictates that only an insignificant amount of people will be lucky enough to get it in small amount of attempts (dailies). If the chance is 1 in 1000 (the chance is actually much lower), there is still a 36% chance to not have it after 1000 dailies.
While I get your point, it’s still RNG in the end. It either gives you to tonic or not, and while it should swing statistically into a certain direction that doesn’t mean it has to or will.
https://gw2efficiency.com/account/statistics
Sort by fractal tonics. Look at the top 15 accounts. More than half of them have fewer than 5k hours played and yet they have two or even three fractal tonics. There are several accounts with fewer than 2k hours played that have 3 god kitten tonics.
I had 6 characters at lvl 48+ in the old old system.
My fractal main was somewhere in the 70s back when that wasn’t supposed to be possible.
Hit lvl 50 within 24 hours of Fractured! and rarely missed a daily at any level.
My friends and I won the KING fractal tournament back in August 2014.
Hit 100 within 5 days of HoT and I’ve barely missed a daily at any tier.
I’ve done everything I possibly can to obtain one (becuase I love fractals and get a kick out of tonics) and still don’t have it. I’m not complaining, and I’m not even saying I deserve one, but no one can tell me it’s OK for someone with 1.9k hours played to have 3 of them and defend this drop rate as acceptable.
There is nothing in this game that shows that you are good, but it shows that you are most likely very dedicated about fractals.
MMOs are traditionally more about dedication than skill, so its not suprising that there are no truly skill based rewards in GW2. Bad at raids? Just pay others to do them for you and reap the rewards…
Even if you require a solo lvl 100 for the tonic, it is pretty easy to pull of with some builds.
I spent years doing them every day, and never seen anyone in my party getting it, let alone getting it by myself, and I’m sure that there is people who got it on their first week. Dumb RNG shows absolutely nothing. It’s stupid system.
25 charracters
(edited by Rednik.3809)
Considering there are millions of accounts it is not suprising that there would be someone with 2k hours and 3 tonics. Law of large numbers again. There will be people who play 20,000 hours of fractals and get no tonic at all to make up for it.
Just as there will be people who get 100 precursors with the same amount of effort as someone who got only 1-3 precursors.
(edited by Malediktus.9250)
Who cares?
This game needs more rare drops. Stats are easily obtainable so the only thing that makes loot worthwhile or interesting at all is its rarity or prerequisite difficulty conditions.
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ
Considering there are millions of accounts it is not suprising that there would be someone with 2k hours and 3 tonics. Law of large numbers again. There will be people who play 20,000 hours of fractals and get no tonic at all to make up for it.
Just as there will be people who get 100 precursors with the same amount of effort as someone who got only 1-3 precursors.
I don’t think you realize it, but you just made a very efficient explanation for why the system is awful and needs to be changed.
Its not awful. It is just another carrot to convince you to keep doing fractals. Just like people play the lottery with a 1 in 125m chance to win.
If anything Anet should add more items of similar rarity into the game for all kind of contents. I cant think of any reason why there should not be extremly rare cosmetic items. Noone is forced to get them, but it makes people extremly happy if they manage to get one.
(edited by Malediktus.9250)
Its not awful. It is just another carrot to convince you to keep doing fractals. Just like people play the lottery with a 1 in 125m chance to win.
If anything Anet should add more items of similar rarity into the game for all kind of contents. I cant think of any reason why there should not be extremly rare cosmetic items. Noone is forced to get them, but it makes people extremly happy if they manage to get one.
And very frustrated if they really want one, but can’t get it. I think what they’ve done with weapon precursors is the best way to do it. You can get it by being really lucky, but there’s also a slow and sure way to earn it.
delicate, brick-like subtlety.
The rarity is what makes this tonic special – I see no reason to change it. And no I do not own a fractal tonic.
Not everyone needs to own everything. There is no right to have everything just because you bought the game, that is not how online games work.You, falsely, assume that everyone wants this tonic because people like you see it as “special” due to its rarity. There are plenty of people that want it just to have fun with it. These are the people that don’t care if noone or everyone around them can also tonic into Mai trin for 15 minutes, as long as they can have fun doing so themselves. I don’t see a reason to keep the drop rate so incredibly low since its essentially just a toy
Why are the people that want it as a toy more valuable and worth more then the players that want it to be rare?
I already have a guess as to what your answer will be.
Why are the players that want it to be rare more valuable and worth more than the players that want it as a toy?
You didn’t pose an argument, you’re just disagreeing to disagree. If you’re just going to be rude to other people on the forums then maybe you should just leave the thread. No players are more valuable or worth more than other players. But considering how making the tonic slightly more accessible literally does not negatively impact anyone’s gameplay experience, yet will positively impact the gameplay experience for others, there is no real reason to keep it as rare as it is for the sake of keeping it rare. None.
They are more valuable because the item was meant to be that way. People who have the item now didnt act as cry babies on the forums demanding to be catered for them, 99% of them played tons of fractals and eventually got lucky. It would be unfair to devalue their work of playing tons of fractals to get said tonic. It would also be unfair to punish the luck of the extremly few who got it within a few fractal runs.
Maybe Anet could put it into the vendor for 10000 pristine fractal relics as a fall back mechanic if you still do not have it after a long time.
Except that the tonics aren’t valuable at all. Those items have no inherent value. None. And again I tell you, not one player is any more valuable than any other character in this game. The only one acting as a cry baby in this thread is you quite frankly. Because of the absurdly low drop rate, no one farms fractals with the goal of getting a fractal tonic out of it because that’s unrealistic and quite frankly a waste of time. The people who have the tonics will still have the tonics if the drop rate is increased. That won’t change. They will still be able to use the tonics whenever. People will still be jealous of their RNG luck. There is nothing unfair to them to increase the drop rate. Nothing. Likewise increasing the drop rate devalues absolutely nothing that they did because its all RNG. Someone could theoretically get a tonic by being carried through every single fractal they have ever run, not killing 1 mob the entire time and still end up with a tonic. And here you are trying to argue that not only would their tonic, which they did zero work for, be “devalued” if the drop rate was increased, but that they are somehow a more valuable player to ANet than someone who wants it to be more available.
Increasing the drop rate hurts no one. It just doesn’t, and no matter how much you go on, that won’t change the truth of the matter.
First off, I absolutely disagree about the justifications that some people bring up about rarity not adding to the items value. You can spin it hower you want, rarity adds value no matter if justified or not.
Does it matter if it’s a pure down to luck rng rarity or not? Sure. If something is attainable via work or dedication it might be perceived as more valuable than something that was handed to someone due to extreme rng luck. Then again in some players eyes it it might just cause them to think:“Oh look, someone with no life who dedicated way to much time for such a useless item.”
Both sides to this discussion can be argumented for. The one thing that stays true though, scarcity creates value. It’s a basic economic principle. This very thread is an example of just that. If the fractal tonic were a common drop no one would even have bothered to open this thread or respond. Does it matter why the item is so rare? Sure, but that does not change the ultimate fact that it’s super rare even if it can’t be “worked towards”.
Now bringing up the argument of changing it’s availability to a less or none rng method. That would be possible, but if the same amount of rarity is supposed to be achieved the requirements would be ludicrous. Then we get the actual new problem of people who get the tonic (or already got the tonic) via random drop versus people who went through insane requirements to get it. This actually is almost the same situation as the original fratal skins. Please tell me how the addition of the fractal weapon box improved the item skins value? No one cares about silver fractal skins any more because every one has them.
I stand by my reasoning that the item is fine where it’s at especially since it has absolutely no beneficial effect or gives no more advantage to people who have it versus people who do not. Were this not the case I’d absolutely argue for opening the availability up.
I think what many do not realise is some rewards can be enticing even if you have no way of ever achieving them (or influence your possibility of gain). Funny enough, personally I think this game would have been dead ages ago without rng based rewards. Yes they are frustrating, yes they can scew in either direction (hello mystic forge blessed precursor generator accounts! How I wish mine was amongst your group) but ultimately they add a great sense of joy when the rng gods swing in your favor once in a while or for someone you know. It’s the reason people in guilds congratulate someone for hitting the jackpot in the mystic forge or finding that precursor drop (which I still have never seen after 3.5k hours playerd). Making every possible reward attainable via “work” turns this game exactly into that: work.
Now I know I’ve splashed in some example of rare drops which also have actual value mainly because those items are the only ones that come close to similar in rarity in this situation. In those cases I absolutely agree of adding a seperate method of aquisition (which funny enough was achieved by making the alternative economically less viable than the rng method. Translating this to an essentially not yet economically anchored item would be tricky in itsself).
(edited by Cyninja.2954)
Increasing the drop rate hurts no one. It just doesn’t, and no matter how much you go on, that won’t change the truth of the matter.
While not true (see scarcity creates value just above this reply), the same can be said about not increasing the drop chance. The item has no benefit or grants no benefit so not having it does not put someone at a disadvantage except for bruising their ego.
From the information from gw2efficiency it can be guessed that probably not more than a few 100 tonics exist in the whole game.
This item is so rare that it is irrelevant if you play 1 fractal or 1000 fractals. The thousandfold probability is still so small that it doesn’t make any difference in comparison to all players. So having one doesn’t tell anything about the time and effort someone put in fractals.
It’s completely luck instead. You can even give it out in whole tyria with the same rarity to anyone who ever played at least 1 fractal in the past: the actual distribution of fractal tonics will not change very much.
Whatever purpose the tonic has, in the intention of the developers: it’s not to reward some frequent fractal players with a super rare item. It’s just to distribute a super rare item to random players, and most of them probably don’t even know what they got.
Increasing the drop rate hurts no one. It just doesn’t, and no matter how much you go on, that won’t change the truth of the matter.
While not true (see scarcity creates value just above this reply), the same can be said about not increasing the drop chance. The item has no benefit or grants no benefit so not having it does not put someone at a disadvantage except for bruising their ego.
I completely agree. Increasing the drop rate hurts no one, and leaving it the same as it is now also hurts no one. But because increasing it hurts no one, @malediktus argument for leaving the drop rate alone is moot. And that is all I want him to understand. If ANet wants to leave the drop rate as it is then no one is worse off. But likewise if they wanted to just mail a tonic to every player in the game, still no one would be worse off. But that is exactly what @Malediktus is arguing, and it doesn’t make any sense at all.
If you put value in rare items those people who have the tonic are worse off because their item will no longer be rare. Saying noone is worse off if you make it less of a rarity is nonsense.
Items can have an intrinsic value even if they are not tradeable on the free market. There are a lot of items in real life that you are not legally allowed to sell, but that does not make them worthless.
Increasing the drop rate hurts no one. It just doesn’t, and no matter how much you go on, that won’t change the truth of the matter.
While not true (see scarcity creates value just above this reply), the same can be said about not increasing the drop chance. The item has no benefit or grants no benefit so not having it does not put someone at a disadvantage except for bruising their ego.
I completely agree. Increasing the drop rate hurts no one, and leaving it the same as it is now also hurts no one. But because increasing it hurts no one, @malediktus argument for leaving the drop rate alone is moot. And that is all I want him to understand. If ANet wants to leave the drop rate as it is then no one is worse off. But likewise if they wanted to just mail a tonic to every player in the game, still no one would be worse off. But that is exactly what @Malediktus is arguing, and it doesn’t make any sense at all.
I think you missunderstood my point.
I’m saying that the idea that no one is worse off when increasing the drop rate is incorrect. The mere fact that the item itsself loses value through reduction in rarity is already a loss, even if not measurable in some monetised quantity. While at the same time reducing the value of the item to its current owners.
On the otherhand, not increasing the quantity does not make anyone worse off since no one is negatively affected (since no one owned the item or could expect to own the item due to its pure rng drop nature). It’s the same as with lottery winners. No one who is not winning is worse off if nothing changes, but splitting the winnings between all players leaves the original winners with less winnings.
If you put value in rare items those people who have the tonic are worse off because their item will no longer be rare. Saying noone is worse off if you make it less of a rarity is nonsense.
Items can have an intrinsic value even if they are not tradeable on the free market. There are a lot of items in real life that you are not legally allowed to sell, but that does not make them worthless.
By your “logic”, every rare item must be immediately deleted after first drop to someone, otherwise we hurting his experience of owning something rare.
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If you put value in rare items those people who have the tonic are worse off because their item will no longer be rare. Saying noone is worse off if you make it less of a rarity is nonsense.
Items can have an intrinsic value even if they are not tradeable on the free market. There are a lot of items in real life that you are not legally allowed to sell, but that does not make them worthless.By your “logic”, every rare item must be immediately deleted after first drop to someone, otherwise we hurting his experience of owning something rare.
Not at all.
Increasing the drop rate hurts no one. It just doesn’t, and no matter how much you go on, that won’t change the truth of the matter.
While not true (see scarcity creates value just above this reply), the same can be said about not increasing the drop chance. The item has no benefit or grants no benefit so not having it does not put someone at a disadvantage except for bruising their ego.
I completely agree. Increasing the drop rate hurts no one, and leaving it the same as it is now also hurts no one. But because increasing it hurts no one, @malediktus argument for leaving the drop rate alone is moot. And that is all I want him to understand. If ANet wants to leave the drop rate as it is then no one is worse off. But likewise if they wanted to just mail a tonic to every player in the game, still no one would be worse off. But that is exactly what @Malediktus is arguing, and it doesn’t make any sense at all.
I think you missunderstood my point.
I’m saying that the idea that no one is worse off when increasing the drop rate is incorrect. The mere fact that the item itsself loses value through reduction in rarity is already a loss, even if not measurable in some monetised quantity. While at the same time reducing the value of the item to its current owners.
On the otherhand, not increasing the quantity does not make anyone worse off since no one is negatively affected (since no one owned the item or could expect to own the item due to its pure rng drop nature). It’s the same as with lottery winners. No one who is not winning is worse off if nothing changes, but splitting the winnings between all players leaves the original winners with less winnings.
I disagree. People who want the tonic for fun are worse off if the drop rates stay the same. Whereas people who already have the tonic are not affected. Its not like they worked hard for it. It won’t be taken away from them. Any perceived slight is simply that, perceived by them alone. No one will have “less winnings” if the drop rate is increased. If you already have a tonic then it won’t get worse, it won’t suddenly lose a few of the possible transformations, it won’t suddenly have a limit on how often you can use it before it doesn’t work anymore. The tonic will stay the same. No one will be worse off for it. The only thing that will happen is some people will be extremely buttsore because they can’t stand the thought of other players being able to receive the tonic.
And @Maledikus yes actually that is exactly what you said
No I didnt. If someone went to the same mechanics / same RNG to get the tonic, the rarity or prestige was not negatively affected. It is only is negatively affected, if the means of aquireing the item was changed to make it faster/easier/more reliable to get.
The “I want it all, I want it now” crew sure lacks basic understanding of how MMOs, rarity and prestige work together.
Having rare, hard to obtain items = good
Having rare, hard to get items purely because they’re RNG only with super low drop chance = bad
Having rare, hard to get items that drop through RNG but also offer a reasonably difficult, guaranteed method of acquisition = good
It’s pretty much that simple
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No I didnt. If someone went to the same mechanics / same RNG to get the tonic, the rarity or prestige was not negatively affected. It is only is negatively affected, if the means of aquireing the item was changed to make it faster/easier/more reliable to get.
The “I want it all, I want it now” crew sure lacks basic understanding of how MMOs, rarity and prestige work together.
No one here is calling for Anet to just hand the tonics out, which is the only thing you ever seem to take from other comments. What they are calling for is for ANet to change how the tonic is obtained so that you actually can grind out for it and earn the tonic instead of relying solely on RNG for one of the lowest drop rates in the game. That’s not asking for a handout. You are the only one in this thread that has even mentioned this. This really isn’t that difficult of a concept
Increasing the drop rate hurts no one. It just doesn’t, and no matter how much you go on, that won’t change the truth of the matter.
While not true (see scarcity creates value just above this reply), the same can be said about not increasing the drop chance. The item has no benefit or grants no benefit so not having it does not put someone at a disadvantage except for bruising their ego.
I completely agree. Increasing the drop rate hurts no one, and leaving it the same as it is now also hurts no one. But because increasing it hurts no one, @malediktus argument for leaving the drop rate alone is moot. And that is all I want him to understand. If ANet wants to leave the drop rate as it is then no one is worse off. But likewise if they wanted to just mail a tonic to every player in the game, still no one would be worse off. But that is exactly what @Malediktus is arguing, and it doesn’t make any sense at all.
I think you missunderstood my point.
I’m saying that the idea that no one is worse off when increasing the drop rate is incorrect. The mere fact that the item itsself loses value through reduction in rarity is already a loss, even if not measurable in some monetised quantity. While at the same time reducing the value of the item to its current owners.
On the otherhand, not increasing the quantity does not make anyone worse off since no one is negatively affected (since no one owned the item or could expect to own the item due to its pure rng drop nature). It’s the same as with lottery winners. No one who is not winning is worse off if nothing changes, but splitting the winnings between all players leaves the original winners with less winnings.
I disagree. People who want the tonic for fun are worse off if the drop rates stay the same. Whereas people who already have the tonic are not affected. Its not like they worked hard for it. It won’t be taken away from them. Any perceived slight is simply that, perceived by them alone. No one will have “less winnings” if the drop rate is increased. If you already have a tonic then it won’t get worse, it won’t suddenly lose a few of the possible transformations, it won’t suddenly have a limit on how often you can use it before it doesn’t work anymore. The tonic will stay the same. No one will be worse off for it. The only thing that will happen is some people will be extremely buttsore because they can’t stand the thought of other players being able to receive the tonic.
And @Maledikus yes actually that is exactly what you said
You are arguing from a perspective of complete neglect towards value created through rarity. I get it. It suits your argument so let’s ommit and ignore everything that contradicts it.
Taking something away from someone is different than giving something to someone who didn’t have it before.
There is no economic viability in reducing rarity. Period. You ignoring this aspect and not factoring this into your reasoning just shows how flawed or limited your argumentation is.
There is viability in expectation of increased player satisfaction by increasing availability and/or method of aquisition for the tonic. To this though I’ve argued that the gain might be negativ since once the rarity drops the actual satisfaction players might perceive would be less since now the actual reason for desire gets reduced. This effect can be argued/interpreted both ways (which I have also openly comminicated the entire time).
No I didnt. If someone went to the same mechanics / same RNG to get the tonic, the rarity or prestige was not negatively affected. It is only is negatively affected, if the means of aquireing the item was changed to make it faster/easier/more reliable to get.
The “I want it all, I want it now” crew sure lacks basic understanding of how MMOs, rarity and prestige work together.No one here is calling for Anet to just hand the tonics out, which is the only thing you ever seem to take from other comments. What they are calling for is for ANet to change how the tonic is obtained so that you actually can grind out for it and earn the tonic instead of relying solely on RNG for one of the lowest drop rates in the game. That’s not asking for a handout. You are the only one in this thread that has even mentioned this. This really isn’t that difficult of a concept
But they are, again I’ve explained this earlier.
Let’s assume the tonics drop with a 1 in 1,000,000 chance per run. To keep this rarity the price for tonics would have to be so high, that only 0,0000001 of the people trying for the tonic could afford one (simplistic view, the actual math works out differently but let’s just stick with: “it would be unreasonably expensive or hard to get”). Any type of alternative method would have to be this ludicrous to keep this rarity. (see my explenation of how precursor crafting was implemented earlier)
Since we can agree on that with such a new system in place no one would be happy or able to achieve their goal of aquiring the tonic (since no one in this thread would be able to get the tonic) arenanet would have to make the tonic available to a bigger audiance since a rarity close to 0 is near infinite in expense. Thus ultimately reducing its rarity.
Also the fact that you overexagerate the counter party perspective does not provide a good argument, it simply demonstrates your lack of argumentative skills or understanding of the issue.
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What about a collection to run 1000 daily T4 fractals and the reward will be the tonic? So ppl have to play a year of dailies to achieve that goal. Less to do than older WvW achievements but harder to get for a complaining casual wanting his shinies as fast as possible.
Its interesting that you think your argument has a solid base and mine doesn’t. You valuing something because it is rare does not mean others share that same value. For every person in this thread that has expressed interest in it because of its rarity there has also been another person who has expressed interest in making this item more valuable. Now you can keep bringing up your own values and treat them as proof or fact of argument, but that won’t change the fact that these items have no inherent value.
I absolutely do not care about what people in this thread believe. They are not a representation of general human behavior and a far to small sample size. I do base my argumentation on established economic ideas and principles. I’ve even given examples of how arenanet has handled similar situations in this game and kept rarity value equal or even higher than before a change, namely precursor crafting.
Despite what you would choose to try to make us believe, GW2 is not real life. There is quite literally absolutely 0 economic gain from owning a fractal tonic. Just none. So economic theory doesn’t even apply here. It would apply if having a tonic in some way, no matter how miniscule, affected your character in an economic way, but they don’t. You placing value in its rarity doesn’t mean that the item has any value on your account. You still cannot trade it. You still gain no benefit from it. It provides absolutely 0 economic gain to anyone who has it. Economic theory quite simply does not apply here no matter how much you wish it did because the tonic grants you no economic benefit or detriment. It doesn’t, and no matter how much you want to say otherwise you cannot pick out an economic benefit that the tonic brings to the account of anyone who has it.
Yes, and by your logic there is absolutely no economic gain of having legendarys (back before they got changed) or other rare skins yet they are a major part of GW2 endgame design. Economic theory always applies. You agreeing or disagreeing with it does not change this. It’s like saying I do not believe in math, thus the rules do not apply. The only question is how things are valued. In this case I value rarity over perceived satisfaction and am arguing that reducing the rarity of the item will negatively impact desire or satisfaction of the playerbase (both of owners and not owners). You are simply stating your opinion as fact over and over.
(edited by Cyninja.2954)