Guild Wars 2

at first I liked the idea of scavenger hunts with rewards, finding things and collecting them. Sounded like fun.

But as I’ve been trying to do some of them, I get stuck by the same thing every time: There’s always at least 1 part that drops via RNG and is really rare, and due to leaks and insider trading driving up the prices, these things all cost a small fortune on the TP. Their rarity allows them to be controlled by a few in the landed elite, able to control the prices. It makes collections something that can only be done by the rich.

You might wonder “so what’s the problem just save up the money and buy it?”

The problem is it’s simply not worth it. You want to do the Uncanny Canner collection? Sure. the last two collectibles will run you about 44g. Doesn’t sound like much I know, but your reward for completing the collection is a 20 slot bag., something only worth about 12g.

You’ve made a system where the fun is robbed by the already wealthy people of GW2 working the market to get even more wealthy, and the carrot to chase is just not worth the hassle.

F, please apply yourself, see me after class.

false.
perfect execution to continue chasing the carrot

Spiderbite.8049:

false.
perfect execution to continue chasing the carrot

Not even.

Who’s going to chase a 12g carrot that costs 44g to catch?

Who’s going to blow 40 black lion tickets to catch a 5 black lion ticket carrot?

Who’s going to make all the ascended armor in the game for an 8g exotic?

Devildoc.6721:

Spiderbite.8049:

false.
perfect execution to continue chasing the carrot

Not even.

Who’s going to chase a 12g carrot that costs 44g to catch?

Who’s going to blow 40 black lion tickets to catch a 5 black lion ticket carrot?

Who’s going to make all the ascended armor in the game for an 8g exotic?

the ones who need a handicapped hand holding leveling experience
the ones who need to be told when to press ‘6’
the target consumer… you know… mushrooms.

I have 8 of 16 Dragon Jade weapons unlocked. I would have to buy 8 more of those weapons(the ones I never bought because they aren’t to my tastes)in order to get 7 weapon tickets. It would be cheaper and less of a headache for me to just buy the weapons I like outright.

They should have made the BL achievement like this: Collect any 16 BL weapons to unlock this achievement. A lot of this stuff isn’t for the players but it’s made to look like it is. It’s for their pocket book. I am all about them making coin, but would rather them take my money by giving me compelling content and features that feel like they were put in the game to enhance my experience as a player.

ArenaNet: Please see that this makes its way up the chain to people making these decisions. The game is sliding in quality in every area sans the gem shop and that is only getting better for ArenaNet, not the players.

Nothing on the collectible list should be RNG, none of it should be tradable on the TP. It should not cost gold to fill out your collections lists.

Don’t be evil.

I’d like the collectible achievements a lot more if they didn’t randomly throw in super-expensive items into otherwise sensible categories.

Do not buy any of the expensive collectible items now. They will not be able to control the rarity of the items when the places of drops becomes public knowledge, you’ll see the prices go down.
Have patience

I am in the same boat. I cannot complete any of the rare collections, because of silly items that are massively overpriced at the moment.

And if I happen to get those items as a drop, the big decision remains: do I sell it to a poor soul, willing to pay 10 times it’s value, or do I use it myself so I can get a lame reward. You are complaining that a regular 20 slot bag is 14 gold and you can get 6 bags with the money used to purchase the final items…

You can actually get a 20 slot bag for free, with fractal tokens, without having to pay 50 gold to the person hoarding the exotic Jars of kitten .

I’m not sure I understand the problem.

If you could buy this stuff 1 silver on the trading post it would be meaningless, you’d have the collection finished in a day and there’s be nothing left.

If you want to get the drops yourself, you can do content, casually, without focusing on it and fill in collections as you.

Encourages people to do that content so they can get stuff to sell if it drops. Working as intended.

Not exactly. If 99% of the collection is: go to this vendor and buy this, locking the final items behind RNG is just frustrating. I don’t mind having full RNG collections, I am the one that wants wants the fractal collection to be implemented. Items from a collection should have a similar way of acquisition, thus allowing us to complete at least some of them.

I have mixed feelings on this. I’m sure the prices will go down eventually, but they are never going to as low as they once were (as would be expected). The problem is, making 95% of a collection easy to get and the final 5% based on RNG or paying some big jump in currency is just… jarring (ba-dum tsh).

No, but seriously, it would be like if the rare regalia set had an exotic piece thrown in there that you need to acquire. It’s just kind of weird.

I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad idea, but it’s going to trip people up. A lot.

IceVyper.6810:

Not exactly. If 99% of the collection is: go to this vendor and buy this, locking the final items behind RNG is just frustrating. I don’t mind having full RNG collections, I am the one that wants wants the fractal collection to be implemented. Items from a collection should have a similar way of acquisition, thus allowing us to complete at least some of them.

Again, by design. Did you ever play McDonald’s monopoly when they had it out. One property was ultra rare and all the other ones you can get.

They want people to get the easy ones and be left with one.

Because if it was all RNG a lot of people wouldn’t do it at all. This is part of game design theory. Gamers often have inertia and need a push. It’s true in all games. The games are designed to push people in certain directions. It’s done with holiday content. In older MMOs it’s done with end game zones. Keeps people together and doing stuff.

This isn’t really any different.

Vayne.8563:

Again, by design. Did you ever play McDonald’s monopoly when they had it out. One property was ultra rare and all the other ones you can get.

They want people to get the easy ones and be left with one.

Because if it was all RNG a lot of people wouldn’t do it at all. This is part of game design theory. Gamers often have inertia and need a push. It’s true in all games. The games are designed to push people in certain directions. It’s done with holiday content. In older MMOs it’s done with end game zones. Keeps people together and doing stuff.

This isn’t really any different.

Which is absolutely true…

Except that they introduced several sets that directly contradict this design methodology, such as the rare regalia and the exotic thingamajig-whatever-its-called.

Vayne.8563:

IceVyper.6810:

Not exactly. If 99% of the collection is: go to this vendor and buy this, locking the final items behind RNG is just frustrating. I don’t mind having full RNG collections, I am the one that wants wants the fractal collection to be implemented. Items from a collection should have a similar way of acquisition, thus allowing us to complete at least some of them.

Again, by design. Did you ever play McDonald’s monopoly when they had it out. One property was ultra rare and all the other ones you can get.

They want people to get the easy ones and be left with one.

Because if it was all RNG a lot of people wouldn’t do it at all. This is part of game design theory. Gamers often have inertia and need a push. It’s true in all games. The games are designed to push people in certain directions. It’s done with holiday content. In older MMOs it’s done with end game zones. Keeps people together and doing stuff.

This isn’t really any different.

This doesn’t make it less frustrating and will definitely alienate a lot of people from the collections. I was really looking forward to them.

Vayne.8563:

IceVyper.6810:

Not exactly. If 99% of the collection is: go to this vendor and buy this, locking the final items behind RNG is just frustrating. I don’t mind having full RNG collections, I am the one that wants wants the fractal collection to be implemented. Items from a collection should have a similar way of acquisition, thus allowing us to complete at least some of them.

Again, by design. Did you ever play McDonald’s monopoly when they had it out. One property was ultra rare and all the other ones you can get.

They want people to get the easy ones and be left with one.

Because if it was all RNG a lot of people wouldn’t do it at all. This is part of game design theory. Gamers often have inertia and need a push. It’s true in all games. The games are designed to push people in certain directions. It’s done with holiday content. In older MMOs it’s done with end game zones. Keeps people together and doing stuff.

This isn’t really any different.

Just because it’s intentional doesn’t mean it is “good”.

It’s only expensive because you want it done now. The whole point of collections is to give people something to work towards over a long period of time. If you had it your way you’d be done with a bunch of collections by now and you would instead be complaining that you have nothing to do. The fun isn’t being robbed by people who bought up the collection items. It’s being robbed by your impatience.

This:

Vikkela.7261:

Have patience

Most of the rewards I´ve seen so far are not something one would need immediately or at all cost, so that the achievements can be done on the way.

It gives more meaning and depth to some rare but also a lot of ordinary drops, to karma-vendors and a lot of other stuff. This makes the game more interesting, richer in some aspects for which many didn´t care before and a great task for explorers.

Tradeable stuff is better for those who want it for their collection and for those who are lucky to get a more valueable drop but don´t need or want it.

What I don´t like so far is, that many things are dungeon-related – WvW-players should also have dungeon-paths available, just like in spvp.

Labjax.2465:

Vayne.8563:

Again, by design. Did you ever play McDonald’s monopoly when they had it out. One property was ultra rare and all the other ones you can get.

They want people to get the easy ones and be left with one.

Because if it was all RNG a lot of people wouldn’t do it at all. This is part of game design theory. Gamers often have inertia and need a push. It’s true in all games. The games are designed to push people in certain directions. It’s done with holiday content. In older MMOs it’s done with end game zones. Keeps people together and doing stuff.

This isn’t really any different.

Which is absolutely true…

Except that they introduced several sets that directly contradict this design methodology, such as the rare regalia and the exotic thingamajig-whatever-its-called.

Sure, that’s how the design works. You mix it up. You give some easier sets so people can get the feel for the process and get rewards. You up the bar for other sets. Up the bar even more for yet others.

The real collectors will work kitten getting everything the can, everyone else will go as far as they want. Again, that’s how I’d design a new feature.

It’s how most tiered achievements work in this game and it’s why they’re tiered. Even why they left monthlies tiered.

i agree there is something wrong in the production process when content pampers the trading post piranhas and makes it practically unbearable for the rest of the player community

I would give them a C+ on the collections execution. Needs work, the idea you need to discover them was nice . . . tying them to randomized drops to unlock them? Not so nice.

Would like to see it do more than just exist though.

Vayne.8563:

IceVyper.6810:

Not exactly. If 99% of the collection is: go to this vendor and buy this, locking the final items behind RNG is just frustrating. I don’t mind having full RNG collections, I am the one that wants wants the fractal collection to be implemented. Items from a collection should have a similar way of acquisition, thus allowing us to complete at least some of them.

Again, by design. Did you ever play McDonald’s monopoly when they had it out. One property was ultra rare and all the other ones you can get.

They want people to get the easy ones and be left with one.

Because if it was all RNG a lot of people wouldn’t do it at all. This is part of game design theory. Gamers often have inertia and need a push. It’s true in all games. The games are designed to push people in certain directions. It’s done with holiday content. In older MMOs it’s done with end game zones. Keeps people together and doing stuff.

This isn’t really any different.

Because a game with extremely limited prizes is totes the same as gw2 collections right?

The gw2 collections is intended to drive up prices on limited supply rare items to encourage people to spend real world $$$ to convert to gold. it’s shady business practice at best.

The collection idea is great…but the carrot at the end is a piece of poo.

This SHOULD have been tied to the precursor scavenger hunt.

Protoavis.9107:

The gw2 collections is intended to drive up prices on limited supply rare items to encourage people to spend real world $$$ to convert to gold. it’s shady business practice at best.

Or it’s intended to draw people to go looking into places they finished once and forgot about, especially Heart areas . . .

But again, why think that’s a possibility when we can attribute malice and/or stupidity?

Vorch.2985:

The collection idea is great…but the carrot at the end is a piece of poo.

This SHOULD have been tied to the precursor scavenger hunt.

Does anyone really believe that’s coming? I mean seriously if it takes two years to come up with an idea it’s probably not the right people at the helm guiding the development of a game. They’ve given a few dead lines on the topic and always at the very last minute had something come up that prevented it happening….let’s stop being naive.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Protoavis.9107:

The gw2 collections is intended to drive up prices on limited supply rare items to encourage people to spend real world $$$ to convert to gold. it’s shady business practice at best.

Or it’s intended to draw people to go looking into places they finished once and forgot about, especially Heart areas . . .

But again, why think that’s a possibility when we can attribute malice and/or stupidity?

Hearts give rare items now? Rare items that have a small drop rate and come entirely from RNG…oh wait, nope….

Protoavis.9107:

Hearts give rare items now? Rare items that have a small drop rate and come entirely from RNG…oh wait, nope….

Please, keep attributing stuff to me which I didn’t say. I’d love to keep playing that game all day.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Protoavis.9107:

Hearts give rare items now? Rare items that have a small drop rate and come entirely from RNG…oh wait, nope….

Please, keep attributing stuff to me which I didn’t say. I’d love to keep playing that game all day.

You started, I blatantly said rare items, you talked about hearts….you post was not remotely relevant to what I was pointing out.

Protoavis.9107:

Vayne.8563:

IceVyper.6810:

Not exactly. If 99% of the collection is: go to this vendor and buy this, locking the final items behind RNG is just frustrating. I don’t mind having full RNG collections, I am the one that wants wants the fractal collection to be implemented. Items from a collection should have a similar way of acquisition, thus allowing us to complete at least some of them.

Again, by design. Did you ever play McDonald’s monopoly when they had it out. One property was ultra rare and all the other ones you can get.

They want people to get the easy ones and be left with one.

Because if it was all RNG a lot of people wouldn’t do it at all. This is part of game design theory. Gamers often have inertia and need a push. It’s true in all games. The games are designed to push people in certain directions. It’s done with holiday content. In older MMOs it’s done with end game zones. Keeps people together and doing stuff.

This isn’t really any different.

Because a game with extremely limited prizes is totes the same as gw2 collections right?

The gw2 collections is intended to drive up prices on limited supply rare items to encourage people to spend real world $$$ to convert to gold. it’s shady business practice at best.

Or conversely to get people do to content to get those drops and sell them on the trading post to make some gold. Run Jormag if you want a chance at that drop. If you get it, you can use it or you can sell it. I’ll use the first one and run it other times to see if I can get another to sell.

The rewards aren’t good enough for most people to run out and spend money on getting the collections. If they really wanted to do that, they’d given amazing rewards.

Protoavis.9107:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Protoavis.9107:

Hearts give rare items now? Rare items that have a small drop rate and come entirely from RNG…oh wait, nope….

Please, keep attributing stuff to me which I didn’t say. I’d love to keep playing that game all day.

You started, I blatantly said rare items, you talked about hearts….you post was not remotely relevant to what I was pointing out.

Sure it is, it’s relevant to the collections. The spoons one, for instance, is a lot of finding your Hearts which had spoons. Same for the Jar one. There’s some drops in the category but that’ll level out in time.

And as such, I stated and will reiterate with some expansion: I think the collection idea wasn’t just to reach into the wallets of the weak-minded. I think it was intended to, for the most part, get people to go find the pieces of the collections themselves. You know, by playing the game rather than cracking open the wallet. Sure, you can, but that was always the case to skip right to having something rather than working for it. (Always. Not recently, always. Ever since people noticed Legendaries were bind-on-use and not bind-on-acquire . . . )

Devildoc.6721:

It makes collections something that can only be done by the rich.

You might wonder “so what’s the problem just save up the money and buy it?”

The problem is it’s simply not worth it. You want to do the Uncanny Canner collection? Sure. the last two collectibles will run you about 44g. Doesn’t sound like much I know, but your reward for completing the collection is a 20 slot bag., something only worth about 12g.

You’ve made a system where the fun is robbed by the already wealthy people of GW2 working the market to get even more wealthy, and the carrot to chase is just not worth the hassle.

F, please apply yourself, see me after class.

This is how the developer in charge sees the problem:

LordByron.8369:

LordByron.8369:

Question:
Do you care/will do something about the fact game economy is really perceived as broken?
Or if you instead think its well perceived, why don’t you look at every single thread that had the luck to remain for few hours in general section?

There were many threads about how important economy perception is in a videogame.

If by “really perceived” you mean that you mistakenly perceive a fantastic and functioning system as broken, then no… I don’t care.

referring to market manipulation.

I might argue is impossible to debate the issue there since there are too many interested in preserving all as it is since they are guilty of what is happening.

P.S. you might also want to see the 10000% price spike after announcement.
With obvious relistings.

P.P.S: with this i mean that non tp players only chance is to make him know there is indeed a bad perception about the market manipulation.
Don t know how unfortunately.
I hope he read some of latest topics about it

I do agree most (parts of) collections have been poorly executed. But there are some pretty cool parts such as the enchanted key scavenger hunt. An example for an completely account bound one is the hylek one. The hylek weapons have to be crafted by yourself and are accountbound. I hope Anet will indeed try to follow this path more in the future. I do think the rewards are pretty well done! Also keep in mind we don’t know how many hidden ones there actually are. ^^

I hate the fact that the collections are hidden. I want to see what is available and choose whichones to go for. Not having to wait for a stupid guide or hoping to stumble upon something in the open world.

Vikkela.7261:

Do not buy any of the expensive collectible items now. They will not be able to control the rarity of the items when the places of drops becomes public knowledge, you’ll see the prices go down.
Have patience

the items have always been super rare, so they’ll be easy to control, like precursors.

Vayne.8563:

I’m not sure I understand the problem.

If you could buy this stuff 1 silver on the trading post it would be meaningless, you’d have the collection finished in a day and there’s be nothing left.

If you want to get the drops yourself, you can do content, casually, without focusing on it and fill in collections as you.

Encourages people to do that content so they can get stuff to sell if it drops. Working as intended.

The problem is it’s RNG and utilizing events that have 30 minute to 3 hour timers on them. You get ONE chance to get the item to drop, and there’s a really good chance that even if you camp this event and do nothing else that you will never see the drop.

It’s like saying you don’t see a problem with the current way of getting precursors, which is get extremely lucky with RNG, or pay someone else for getting extremely lucky.

In fact, precursors are better off because at least they can drop from pretty much anything.

Only way to get rid of this is to not fall for it. People like completing and achieving things, especially when they are almost done. This is what they are exploiting.

Focus on doing what you enjoy instead of filling mindless completion lists (unless that’s what you really like to do).

Here’s a good example of the poor design thing: The Exotic Collection is all of the skins that drop out of the Champ boxes. You added the Scavenger Hunt to the game that players wanted for non-RNG precursors and left out the precursors and in turn made the cheapest Exotics for using in the Mystic Forge too expensive to use in the Mystic Forge to get precursors! Read that out loud. You literally took what you said you were giving us, removed the thing we wanted and made the thing we wanted more expensive? Who is this for?

BTW Where’s the Fractal Collection?

LordByron.8369:

Devildoc.6721:

It makes collections something that can only be done by the rich.

You might wonder “so what’s the problem just save up the money and buy it?”

The problem is it’s simply not worth it. You want to do the Uncanny Canner collection? Sure. the last two collectibles will run you about 44g. Doesn’t sound like much I know, but your reward for completing the collection is a 20 slot bag., something only worth about 12g.

You’ve made a system where the fun is robbed by the already wealthy people of GW2 working the market to get even more wealthy, and the carrot to chase is just not worth the hassle.

F, please apply yourself, see me after class.

This is how the developer in charge sees the problem:

LordByron.8369:

LordByron.8369:

Question:
Do you care/will do something about the fact game economy is really perceived as broken?
Or if you instead think its well perceived, why don’t you look at every single thread that had the luck to remain for few hours in general section?

There were many threads about how important economy perception is in a videogame.

If by “really perceived” you mean that you mistakenly perceive a fantastic and functioning system as broken, then no… I don’t care.

referring to market manipulation.

I might argue is impossible to debate the issue there since there are too many interested in preserving all as it is since they are guilty of what is happening.

P.S. you might also want to see the 10000% price spike after announcement.
With obvious relistings.

P.P.S: with this i mean that non tp players only chance is to make him know there is indeed a bad perception about the market manipulation.
Don t know how unfortunately.
I hope he read some of latest topics about it

The thing is that arenanet employees and a privileged few playtesters on the beta servers either took advantage of their knowledge or shared their knowledge with their friends/guildmates to take advantage and manipulate the market. That’s called insider trading in the real world, it’s illegal and if this were a real market John Smith and the rest of the participants would be in federal prison.

This economy is a joke because the demand side of the equation is basically under direct control of John Smith.

Iason Evan.3806:

BTW Where’s the Fractal Collection?

It exists, but I am not sure what unlocks it.