Guild Wars 2

I’ve just found out that Fractal weapons are account bound and can’t be traded, and not only that, they drop as normal loot so you’re stuck with what you get. Isn’t that exactly what the token system was developed to prevent?

Part of the core dungeon philosophy was supposed to be the ability to choose your rewards for finishing it. It was developed to avoid that unfortunate instance of getting every weapon except the one you want/need, or getting the same piece of armor twice in a row. If they were tradeable, you could at least sell the hammer to get the bow but the new Fractal weapons aren’t.

I understand wanting to create a level of exclusivity with them, and make sure that people who have them have earned them. In that case, I have a couple of thoughts:

• A new dungeon token aside from Fractal Relic that drops in higher difficulties, only used for the weapons (e.g, a “Fractal Shard” that could be turned in to the weapon vendor)

• A generic transmutation item that could allow you to “Fractalize” one of your weapons, and could be used on any weapon type.

• A new Mystic Forge recipe that involves combining high level mists essence, fractal relics and orichalcum components

These are all ways that they could remain account bound, exclusive, but make sure everyone gets what they want and worked for. I think any of these ideas would be preferable to the sole and only method being drops. If they continue to be drops I can only ask: please, please please make them tradeable. I love these new weapons and I just know that I will end up finding weapons I can’t use and don’t want before getting the ones I’m working towards.

The rings are RNG drops too.

Zerikin.1593:

The rings are RNG drops too.

The rings are fine, IMO, because anyone can use them. But what do you do if you get a Fractal Hammer and you don’t have a Guardian or Warrior? Trash it?

Colin Johanson backs me up here:

Fun impacts decisions. Every time you finish a dungeon you get tokens you can trade in for reward items that you want, rather than having a small chance of getting it as a drop, because it’s more fun to always get rewarded for finishing with something you want to have!

Is it fun?

Yeah, this seems like it needs to be changed. I don’t like running dungeons 15 times to get enough tokens for one piece of armor I want, but it’s better than having to vendor/salvage things that are blatantly useless for my character(s).

You can always get 4 unwanted ones and throw them into the mystic forge.

(that’s sarcasm btw)

So in the space of 2 weeks you’ve given us Gear Grind, Power Creep, Gated Content and now this: RNG loot drops in a dungeon for the most powerful weapons and items.

Are there any more manifesto principles you want to break Anet?

Maybe you should just introduce Mounts, Gear Score, Dungeon Finder and rename to WoW 2 and be done with it.

I will never spend another penny in your gem store, and will not be buying the expansions. Good day.

Hang on… you can’t buy the fractal weapons with the tokens you get from the dungeon… (y’know like all the other dungeons)?

Oh,

Well I guess I’m even less likely to ever get any of them, guess I’ll stop thinking about those pistols for my engineer… actually I now have no reason to do that dungeon at all.

This isn’t exactly worth boycotting Anet over, but it certainly should be used to remind the item team of the principles the game was founded over. They might have gotten excited about the glorious rewards of “the amazing new Fractals of the Mists: Full of exotic and rare treasure!” and forgotten that this exact thing is what the dungeon token system was invented to avoid.

I know that I’ve been extremely disheartened by this, and even though I love FotM and plan on playing it a lot, I sincerely doubt I will ever play it enough to get the items that I want through RNG.

Still nothing on this, but I tried my best to get this question answered in Chris Whiteside’s AMA. I sent a PM to Robert Hrouda too and still nothing. This is something that’s seriously bothering me, I love these weapon skins and I just know I’ll never be able to get what I want unless a new method of acquiring them is added.

The weapons are just skins afterall and yes they should have been added to the vendor from the “get go” , problem is you need rings with agony infusions to get past lvl 25+ 30+ and you cannot progress just with one infused backslot. So basically your stuck untill you get your lucky rings and if you do better pray they have the right stats for you or you just wasted so much time. Im gonna play them for 1-2 weeks for daily if they don’t drop im gonna take a brake untill they clean this kitten RNG.

Actually, you’re right, there should be rings in the token vendor too, even if they cost an ungodly amount.

But the point is that if you do get the ring, there’s no doubt you will be able to use it. Everyone can use accessories, but with a weapon, chances are very strong it’s going to be something you can’t use. RNG being the only way to get it makes them near impossible for someone to get the one they want or can use.

It’s not about the NRG or anything the point is you get an item that you can’t use ( I got rifle and underwater ) they look cool but can’t be used by my ele. The ingi in my team ended up getting the staff where he has not a single charr witch could use the staff. ( my rifle chars are lvl 35) and it be really great if you could make it possible to trade fractal weapons within a vendor to the one you want as easy as that. just make it turn in 1 fractal weapon get 1 you want.

2k for ring
5k for weapon ..thats about commensurate with their RNG

IMO should be 500 for ascended rings, 1500 for infused rings, Weapons 3000-5000 respectively, essenses should also be attainable via tokens.

2k for a ring? 500 for a ring? After reading through their AMA is sounds like Anet realizes this game is already too grindy as it is.

They should replace the ring drops with a ring token so you can trade it for a ring you want. Also add an RNG forgiveness system so if you go 7 daily’s without getting a token to drop your drop chance goes to 100%. Forget this grind BS.

The RNG forgiveness system sounds awesome, that sounds like a fantastic way to work around the ring requirement. Maybe not specifically 7 dailies, but definitely having a hard limit where it recognizes you haven’t gotten one and you should. I wonder if that sort of “reward tracking” would be possible.

I hate tokens, just unbind the stuff and be done with it.

what is grindy about it? ive done 4 10’s and some runs with guildies and have 2 rings, 5 globs and 3 essences. No I dont run with mf gear, yes I do kill most things. I also have 950 fractals. Also my above post was meant to be sarcastic, I still think they should all be account bound, its a bragging piece and little else outside the dungeon.

Honestly seems like most people dont want rewards, they want gifts.

Ditton.3149:

ive done 4 10’s and some runs with guildies and have 2 rings

I have almost 2500 tokens and 200 runs and one ring. Let’s don’t count all the hours and failed runs. I dunno what is so grindy here…

Yeah, I agree they should either unbind them or make them available via tokens. Either or is probably fine.

I’ll put my vote in for unbinding though. I like the idea of getting 20-30 gold because you happened to pick up an awesome drop that you don’t want.

NO. if they use tokens for fractal weapons you’ll see everyone and their mother wearing one. now i feel special with my LONG N HARD fractal GS on my mes.

Rakuren Kenshou.7689:

Yeah, I agree they should either unbind them or make them available via tokens. Either or is probably fine.

I’ll put my vote in for unbinding though. I like the idea of getting 20-30 gold because you happened to pick up an awesome drop that you don’t want.

yeah everybody likes the idea of RNG when it helps them.

Nuka Cola.8520:

NO. if they use tokens for fractal weapons you’ll see everyone and their mother wearing one. now i feel special with my LONG N HARD fractal GS on my mes.

Congrats on actually getting something you want and can use. Now imagine if you’d gotten a rifle on your mes?

It doesn’t even have to use the token system, I wouldn’t care if there was a mystic forge recipe that required 250 globs of essences and tons of orichalcum as long as there was a guaranteed method of getting the Fractal weapon that I want and can use. There is no such thing right now.

Ditton.3149:

Rakuren Kenshou.7689:

Yeah, I agree they should either unbind them or make them available via tokens. Either or is probably fine.

I’ll put my vote in for unbinding though. I like the idea of getting 20-30 gold because you happened to pick up an awesome drop that you don’t want.

yeah everybody likes the idea of RNG when it helps them.

True. Some people like it when it doesn’t too though. That would be me. I think the idea that you can get precursors from the mystic forge is awesome! I haven’t gotten one, but the idea that I might (just while crunching my rares into exotics) is pretty thrilling!

RNG is the basis of pretty much every game. Even something like Skyrim, where you get LITERALLY everything your opponent was carrying, you still get random loot drops like gems and stuff. I’m excited when I get cool stuff.

It’s very possible to be excited when you get something, and not freak out when you don’t.

If a token system were to be used for these weapons, it should be purchased with either a crap-ton of Fractal Relics (2000~4000 Relics), or a token that only drops in levels 20 and higher, probably 200~400 of these higher level tokens depending on weapon. The RNG could stay for those that like the lottery-like feel to obtaining one from the chests, but for those that aren’t a fan of that, the token system at least downgrades the annoyance level from “treadmill” to “grind”. That might be a suitable compromise so that the exclusivity of these weapons remains moderately-rare if not ultra-rare.

To be honest all you need is a couple of new Mystic Forge recipes.

EG… Fractal Weapon + Exotic Crafted Weapon with type and stats you want + 50 Philosoper Stones + Vial of Myst Essence

That changes any Fractal Weapon into the one you need for your class. You still need to get to the correct level and get a Fractal Weapon drop. But doesn’t mean you have to run Tier 3+ 100 times to get the 2 pistols you need.

You could do something similar with rings. with the ring you get out based on the mix of two types of T6 Mats and the Tier being based on the Tier of the Ring you throw in.

EG… 25 primary T6 Mat + 25 secondary T6 Mat + Vial of Myst Essence + Ring (Any Tier)

That would keep it fair. You have to do the correct tier to get your item, you can’t do Tier 1 Daily over and over to get a Tier 3 Weapon. But you don’t have to get super lucky to get the items you need. You can be a bit lucky and then change the item that drops.

No T6 mats please, they’re already in high enough demand to skyrocket their prices.

Yeah between that and the T6 mats required for back items i feel like anet has givn up on making a decent fun game

I personally don’t mind using T6 mats as long it’s not an insane amount of them. It’s bad enough that my Ascended quiver cannibalized on my stockpile that I wanted to use on my Legendary … but if I wanted to progress through harder levels, I might as well bite the bullet.

Ari Kagura.9182:

I personally don’t mind using T6 mats as long it’s not an insane amount of them. It’s bad enough that my Ascended quiver cannibalized on my stockpile that I wanted to use on my Legendary … but if I wanted to progress through harder levels, I might as well bite the bullet.

okay, what would you be doing if you had all your gear already? what would be fun to you then?

Keep playing until I felt I have explored every facet of that interests me in the game. That means along with attempting to get the best gear in the game, I also go through my achievements list and attempt them.

I don’t stop playing when I have reached the pinnacle of power. If that was the case, I would have never purchased Factions, Nightfall, and Eye of the North. In other words, I find exploring new content and developing my character in a variety of ways, besides gear, to be fun for me. That’s my idea of fun.

Exactly… in GW1 there was so much to do that you could play thousands of hours after getting your ideal gear with the looks and stats you wanted. Your gear was a part of your character progression but it definitely wasn’t all there was to it.

Deliberately complicating and obfuscating the path to items and enhancing the grind isn’t the way to keep us playing.

Ari Kagura.9182:

Keep playing until I felt I have explored every facet of that interests me in the game. That means along with attempting to get the best gear in the game, I also go through my achievements list and attempt them.

I don’t stop playing when I have reached the pinnacle of power. If that was the case, I would have never purchased Factions, Nightfall, and Eye of the North. In other words, I find exploring new content and developing my character in a variety of ways, besides gear, to be fun for me. That’s my idea of fun.

So what is stopping you from doing that while you do this a little at a time? You’re limiting yourself because you have chosen to not move forward until you complete this task entirely..thats silly. The system isnt limited, you are.

Ditton.3149:

So what is stopping you from doing that while you do this a little at a time? You’re limiting yourself because you have chosen to not move forward until you complete this task entirely..thats silly. The system isnt limited, you are.

I’m not sure what you’re getting at (and we’re probably drifting off-topic), but for some folks like myself, I tend to be focused on a particular objective before moving on to others, especially if the action before it has a prerequisite that needs to be satisfied before continuing on to the next objective. But if a certain action further down the list could easily be completed with the resources I have now without much detriment to a primary objective, then I might as well get that out of the way and complete it.

Likewise, since certain forking objectives share the same resources, in this case T6 materials for both Ascended upgrades/trade-ins and Legendary weapons, there has to be priorities that needs to be made. I suppose you could also add the theoretical Fractal weapon trade-ins for that. Though I would like to complete my Legendary at some point, I chose to upgrade my Ascended items because I need it to progress through the current content.

In other words, the expected completion of my Legendary can be pushed a bit. Besides, unlike Ascended rings which I have to hope for something to drop on a throttled progression of time (in this case, once per day), at least almost all the components in a Legendary can either be purchased, farmed in a reasonable time, or just can be paced accordingly.

The OP request would makes a sense if weapons was with agony resistance and a slot, offensive, defensive. So the weapon would be a “key role” so important to be craftable, vendored for an other etc. Instead no, they are just cool exotic weapons, the only reason to type a “hyke” is for the skin, retransmuting them, period. No need to change nothing about those weapons at all.

Ari Kagura.9182:

Ditton.3149:

So what is stopping you from doing that while you do this a little at a time? You’re limiting yourself because you have chosen to not move forward until you complete this task entirely..thats silly. The system isnt limited, you are.

I’m not sure what you’re getting at (and we’re probably drifting off-topic), but for some folks like myself, I tend to be focused on a particular objective before moving on to others, especially if the action before it has a prerequisite that needs to be satisfied before continuing on to the next objective. But if a certain action further down the list could easily be completed with the resources I have now without much detriment to a primary objective, then I might as well get that out of the way and complete it.

Likewise, since certain forking objectives share the same resources, in this case T6 materials for both Ascended upgrades/trade-ins and Legendary weapons, there has to be priorities that needs to be made. I suppose you could also add the theoretical Fractal weapon trade-ins for that. Though I would like to complete my Legendary at some point, I chose to upgrade my Ascended items because I need it to progress through the current content.

In other words, the expected completion of my Legendary can be pushed a bit. Besides, unlike Ascended rings which I have to hope for something to drop on a throttled progression of time (in this case, once per day), at least almost all the components in a Legendary can either be purchased, farmed in a reasonable time, or just can be paced accordingly.

you are right, this is getting off topic. I wouldnt mind weapons being given by tokens or rings for that matter. I think grinding should be left out of it though. There are dailys for a reason..because you only have to do each tier once a day and then you can do whatever else you want.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

The OP request would makes a sense if weapons was with agony resistance and a slot, offensive, defensive. So the weapon would be a “key role” so important to be craftable, vendored for an other etc. Instead no, they are just cool exotic weapons, the only reason to type a “hyke” is for the skin, retransmuting them, period. No need to change nothing about those weapons at all.

They are currently the only weapon set that is wholly based on RNG with no method of acquiring them reliably. That doesn’t seem fine to me. Yes, they are vanity items, but the same amount of status and impressiveness can be achieved with monumentally less frustration. A new high level fractal token, mystic forge recipe, or some other method isn’t “easier” than RNG, just less infuriating. Isn’t the point of the game to be fun?

Was there an announcement I missed or drops later on? This is the first I have heard of fractal/ascended weapons.

Nefara.2186:

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

The OP request would makes a sense if weapons was with agony resistance and a slot, offensive, defensive. So the weapon would be a “key role” so important to be craftable, vendored for an other etc. Instead no, they are just cool exotic weapons, the only reason to type a “hyke” is for the skin, retransmuting them, period. No need to change nothing about those weapons at all.

They are currently the only weapon set that is wholly based on RNG with no method of acquiring them reliably. That doesn’t seem fine to me. Yes, they are vanity items, but the same amount of status and impressiveness can be achieved with monumentally less frustration. A new high level fractal token, mystic forge recipe, or some other method isn’t “easier” than RNG, just less infuriating. Isn’t the point of the game to be fun?

Am i wrong or loads was asking content only special drops, gw1 style ( well gw1 style was final boss drop, here is a random mob/chest)? Now enjoy what the mass was asking

Another way would be to use Karma for Rings, 150,000 Karma for ascended rings, Karma 300,000 for infused ascended rings!

(copied and pasted from another thread stating my POV on RNG drops for fractal weapon drops)

I second this.

Endgame is all about cosmetics. Of course you have to work for it. Especially for legendary if you are so inclined.

But this isn’t legendary, it’s an exotic skin that requires

a) you get past level 20 of fractals.

b) got the ring drops from daily + the backpiece crafted (if not to infused level already, then on its way) to “farm” effectively without getting pwned because of agony.

c) a solid group and a good hour or two to get 1 run done ( although maybe that’s just my personal experience in groups of dealing with agony so probably can be done quicker I’d like to imagine).

So it takes time, to get to the level where you can get the gear; then even more time to farm the said gear; and then eventually a buckloads of time to get a shot at a RNG drop. If you get a drop, then it’s probably not even for your weapon.

I have no problem with farming the gear, and farming the drop but then the said drop should be able to be converted to the skin of YOUR choice, not the RNG.
There is smart RNG and stupid RNG. I had no problem with waiting/praying for the ring drops.

But I am not going to do the same for the exotic skins. Like voidwater said, 1/19 to get the one you want… it’s crazy when you take in consideration how unlikely exotic drops are, even with the fractal rate with chest/etc.

Please make it a fractal weapon TOKEN drop, not the actual weapon then you can convert it to whatever you want.
Since it cant be traded or exchanged because of account bound restriction, this system feels more like a time sink that a fun way of getting especially good looking gear.
I do feel sorry for your weapon designers , putting so much effort into lovely looking gear for the players who get them not to be interested in wearing the weapon they received because it’s the BLOODY WRONG ONE !

Less hair pulling means more fun for everyone.

Anet, I understand you don’t want everyone wearing the same skins to ensure that unique look for everyone but let me assure you, not everyone is going be willing to get to fractal lvl20, get the ascended drops and pray for the RNG to look favorably on them.
Reward those who put in the effort, please.

(look at me crying for looks like a proper Barbie…what have you done to me Anet ? xD )

Here here! My feelings exactly, Groovy. I would definitely prefer a high level token drop, even if it was still RNG. I would at least then have 100% chance of getting the weapon I want and can use provided I got one to drop.

@Lucas: unique drops are cool, like Shard of the Deep or Wisteria, but those can be sold. That means that the RNG is not literally the only way to get them.