Guild Wars 2

There is something I have been mulling over for the past month or so and I feel I can finally articulate it properly. It’s the feeling you get in a game between acquiring an item/armor set/weapon that you earned through game play vs. the feeling you get through farming one thing or doing a set of content and accruing gold and then buying a cash shop item or auction house item. For me there is no comparison. The thing I earn is always the thing that is most valuable to me. This is why lately, there is a disconnect for me with the rewards system in GW2. I will explain below.

When the game first came out we had all these dungeons to do and tons of weapon sets and armor sets we could earn in each particular dungeon. We had all these new weapon and armor skins we could craft, and heck even some of the karma/heart quest/temple sets were really novel. I also want to interject that I loved all three of the Gem Shop armor skins as well. I bought 2 of the 3 sets, but those sets don’t hold the same personal value I place on the sets I earned by playing the game. They don’t hold the same intrinsic value as completing something and then getting rewarded for it. There is something tangible valuable in earning something.

Fast forward to the Fractals. I love Fractal Weapons. They are the epitome of an item that can only be earned. They are account bound on acquire and that means that whenever someone sees me with that weapon, they know that I got it through doing Fractals. I couldn’t go farm a bunch of gold and then buy it on the BLTC. They know I didn’t buy some gem cards and convert that to gold and buy them. There is only one way to get them and that is by playing through the Fractals. They are a unique thing as well, because of the RNG involved. Now, I think there should be a way to get them with Fractal Relics, but that is a topic for a different time.

So what’s the point of all this? I feel like we aren’t getting those kinds of rewards anymore really. If these types of rewards were more prevalent in the game would it mean I would stop buying stuff off the gem shop? Nope! I still buy stuff off of there regularly, but it’s not the same. I can go to a trophy shop and buy a trophy and have it engraved but it still would mean less than earning a trophy for doing something. I think that is my point really, devs of ArenaNet. Don’t stop letting us get rewards for the things we do in game. Otherwise it loses the spirit of what playing these games is all about. The same could be said for the lack of new explorational content int he game as well, but again that is a topic for a different thread.

I was super sad that you guys said you weren’t going to do Fractal Armor sets. Fractals are more highly repeatable than dungeons and yet they lack armor sets that identify someone in game by what they have done. I think this is a mistake and one you guys should really give a lot of time thinking about. Don’t stop releasing items that can be earned. They hold more weight than I think you all have given them credit for. I would even be willing to compromise. Scarlet’s helmet is a prime example. We earned it for content we played. I can get the shoulders/gauntlets, but at least there was an item I could earn.

This is where the cash shop in GW2 falls short of the loot distribution in GW1. The high end loot was all meaningful in GW1. Here, we the players are getting shorted loot in favor of the cash shop when really both can coexist. Give us the stuff in the cash shop to spend our extra gold/RL Money on, and give us the stuff that we care about as players in terms of rewards. Both can work. It just seems that lately, *so much more of it has been tied to the cash shop. There has to be a better balance.

I generally agree with you but account bound rewards have a big disadvantage:

Once you obtained what you want, those are meaningless to you. A good example are account bound ascended mats. People who dont want them, complain on the forums and want Anet to make them tradeable or sellable to vendor (for 1 copper).

What incentive will you have to play more fractals, once you obtained all the skins available? At that point, your account bound reward will be useless, driving you away from your favourite game mode, instead of encouraging you to keep at it.

Thats why i think Anet has to take a compromise between tradeable, account bound and gem store skins.

Wanze.8410:

I generally agree with you but account bound rewards have a big disadvantage:

Once you obtained what you want, those are meaningless to you. A good example are account bound ascended mats. People who dont want them, complain on the forums and want Anet to make them tradeable or sellable to vendor (for 1 copper).

What incentive will you have to play more fractals, once you obtained all the skins available? At that point, your account bound reward will be useless, driving you away from your favourite game mode, instead of encouraging you to keep at it.

Thats why i think Anet has to take a compromise between tradeable, account bound and gem store skins.

And I allude to as much in my second to last paragraph. There has to be a balance. The problem is we have gotten way more gem shop stuff lately than earnable rewards.

“Earned” is a matter of perspective. Farming in game makes at most $2.00 an hour.
Frankly, I have a job that makes many, many times more than that an hour. Time is also an investment. It seems a waste to me to farm 72 hours for something I can just buy after working a real-life job for 1 hour, especially when the farming isn’t exactly fun to begin with.
I’d rather earn money at my job and buy what I want so I can play how I want without repetitive farming.

Fractals was a poor example for this btw. Fractal skins are not earned, they are purely RNG based. You can run fractals 100+ times and not get the skin you want, yet someone can run once and get the one they want. Thats like calling the winning the Lotto as “earning” a living.

It’s a psyche thing.
And all of us a strung up in it. :/

MrRuin.9740:

“Earned” is a matter of perspective. Farming in game makes at most $2.00 an hour.
Frankly, I have a job that makes many, many times more than that an hour. Time is also an investment. It seems a waste to me to farm 72 hours for something I can just buy after working a real-life job for 1 hour, especially when the farming isn’t exactly fun to begin with.
I’d rather earn money at my job and buy what I want so I can play how I want without repetitive farming.

Fractals was a poor example for this btw. Fractal skins are not earned, they are purely RNG based. You can run fractals 100+ times and not get the skin you want, yet someone can run once and get the one they want. Thats like calling the winning the Lotto as “earning” a living.

I addressed the Fractal RNG part and even said we should get a way to earn the skins, but that it was a topic for another discussion. The things that are earned that I did discuss were dungeon skins and the example of Scarlet’s helm. Those are just two of quite a few examples, but I noted that earned rewards seem on the decline. I understand where you think my example of Fractals was bad, but I addressed the problems with it. Did you want to cite some examples that may be more in line with the spirit of the thread or did you just want to criticize something that I actually addressed the same way as you?

Iason Evan.3806:

Wanze.8410:

I generally agree with you but account bound rewards have a big disadvantage:

Once you obtained what you want, those are meaningless to you. A good example are account bound ascended mats. People who dont want them, complain on the forums and want Anet to make them tradeable or sellable to vendor (for 1 copper).

What incentive will you have to play more fractals, once you obtained all the skins available? At that point, your account bound reward will be useless, driving you away from your favourite game mode, instead of encouraging you to keep at it.

Thats why i think Anet has to take a compromise between tradeable, account bound and gem store skins.

And I allude to as much in my second to last paragraph. There has to be a balance. The problem is we have gotten way more gem shop stuff lately than earnable rewards.

I disagree. If you check out the last 2 big LS releases you got the following account bound skins released in the gem store:

1. Zodiac Armor Set
2. Scarlets gloves
3. Scarlets Shoulders
4. Eyepatch

The following account bound skins were unlocked via achievements:

1. Scarlets Helmet
2. Halo
3. Horn
4. 3 different ascended backpieces, 6 if you count the lower rarity ones

I think its pretty balanced is it not?

And since LS is over, they already announced 2 new weapon sets earned from wvw and new skins exclusive to the new pvp rewards track, so they didnt stop doing this.

You earned the gold to buy the reward, there’s no difference. Either way you put in effort and got a reward.

The trophy analogy doesn’t really work since doing a dungeon isn’t any more special than doing champs/events/ any other game content.

Tbh one of the things I like about GW2 is how I can choose between different methods to get what I want.

I think the “problem” becomes most apparent when looking at Legendaries. You can either have that long-term goal where you complete a journey (world completion, dungeon tokens, tons of t6 mats from lv.80 zones, WvW tokens,…) or you flip offers on the trading post until you have the coin to buy it without having experienced anything of the things described.

Personally I think that Legendaries could have been much much more. Reward Tracks for sPvP is a good step to earn some of the mats, but I would like to see a system to earn your stuff for PvE (like Zone-progression).

MrRuin.9740:

“Earned” is a matter of perspective. Farming in game makes at most $2.00 an hour.
Frankly, I have a job that makes many, many times more than that an hour. Time is also an investment. It seems a waste to me to farm 72 hours for something I can just buy after working a real-life job for 1 hour, especially when the farming isn’t exactly fun to begin with.
I’d rather earn money at my job and buy what I want so I can play how I want without repetitive farming.

Fractals was a poor example for this btw. Fractal skins are not earned, they are purely RNG based. You can run fractals 100+ times and not get the skin you want, yet someone can run once and get the one they want. Thats like calling the winning the Lotto as “earning” a living.

That’s not a flaw with the rewards but with grind in general: If you grind through content, you’re just aiming for the reward. If you want to grind most efficient, you “grind” some dollars and convert them into gold.
I know it’s a hard goal but ANet should focus on making playing the game more rewarding as grinding through the game, both fun and reward wise.

I completely agree with the OP though, even if I’m running fractals almost daily and never got any fractal weapon skin.

Grind this, grind that, what does it matter? With very few exceptions, all the rewards in the game are achieved by repeating some action. Grinding fractals for RNG drops doesn’t make you any more of a hero than grinding LS achievements, or Champion trains.

This has more or less been something that i didn’t like about gw2’s direction since before they released it. Buying stuff from the gemstore has no meaning. I preferred the reward system of gw1 a lot more than gw2 which is probably why I didn’t take breaks from gw1 whereas I have taken breaks totally 1 year from gw2.

I grind dungeons to get gold to buy gems to buy gemstore things. How did I not earn that in game?

And as far as I’m concerned, as long as everything is earnable within the game I’m happy. And the idea of people being able to use Real Life Currency to skip ahead or get something quickly in game, is fine by me. Not everyone has the same amount of time to play. So I like that there’s multiple avenues for most things. You can have the same stuff and have it open to the more casual player that rather spend money than gold. Or open to the more hardcore player who laughs at the idea of spending money on what is very available with in game effort.

You’re having those players happy, and Anet makes money, I don’t see what’s wrong with that.

And to me the idea that almost everything is available for gold is great as well. It means you can play whatever you want, and while it may not be the most efficient, everything is viable. I enjoy dungeons, Fractals are pretty cool, and WvW/world bosses I dabble. So even if dungeons weren’t as good as they are on gold, I’d probably still be farming them as my preferred way of money making.

Here goes:

Casual players EARN their items in a different way then hardcore dungeoneers.

We still have to contend with RNG even for crafting materials still to this day so we have more to EARN than the dungeoneers.

Ascended was supposed to be limited to Fractals because it was meant to be Fractal sets. (thus the agony resist)

When the game first launched Open World only Casual players, you know the ones they attracted with their prelaunch sales pitch, were able to craft the highest tier gear.

The ending of LS adventures originally was never meant to be a 5 man dungeon it should have been an open world event like we were told prelaunch in multiple interviews about the “benefits in time and resources of using open world events rather than new dungeons in production.”

The only part of your post I agree with is they have been relying too much on economic manipulation to sell items in the store and new store releases and haven’t released enough in game diversity in looks. They do need to work on that, put those gear guys to work for items not sold in stores.

I believe part of the earning vs bought problem we have in the game at the moment is actually due to the “obtain it by playing how you want” , while it sounds great in theory in reality it means there will be easier and harder ways to obtain an item which in the minds of players makes it slightly less rewarding.

The classic example of legendary weapons, you can cash buy one, gold buy one or earn one. due to being unable to tell by which means they were acquired it holds no status because you have to assume it was done in the easiest way possible.

On the meaning of “earned” I don’t consider buying with gold to be earning, grinding out gold is not something that requires your attention or effort you can do it while watching a movie/reading the forums. I believe that earned should mean you did a specific activity to a specific standard and gained the reward as a result.

I’d actually like to go back to specific activities giving unique rewards, I feel its one area where guildwars actually got it wrong. I loved being able to walk through a city and go , that guys a rank 80 in pvp cos he’s wearing the r80 only pvp armor, that guy is an elite dungeon runner he has the weapon that is only obtainable by doing every dungeon in hard mode without skipping.That guy must be a fresh level 80 or still learning to play he is wearing generic armor.
The SAB tribulation mode skins and Liandri are the two best examples of this, you know exactly what that person did to get them and you can respect them for it without doubt as to how they acquired them.

On the gem store, Personally I feel they should never have introduced weapons and armor to it, limiting it to minis,account upgrades and boosters. What you get to wear in the game should be determined by how well you do in the game, the you outside the game should be as irreverent as possible i.e it doesn’t matter if it’s a 12 y/o kid or a 100k a year executive. If the child does better in the game they progress further than you.

TL/DR: The best way to bring back prestige and the feeling of earning your rewards is to make sure everyone has to undergo the same criteria to obtain them regardless of playtime,real life commitments or monetary investment.

(and before anyone tries to use the money argument I do spend some real-world money in the gem store but never gems to gold as I consider that flat out cheating.)

Jerus.4350:

I grind dungeons to get gold to buy gems to buy gemstore things. How did I not earn that in game?

And as far as I’m concerned, as long as everything is earnable within the game I’m happy. And the idea of people being able to use Real Life Currency to skip ahead or get something quickly in game, is fine by me. Not everyone has the same amount of time to play. So I like that there’s multiple avenues for most things. You can have the same stuff and have it open to the more casual player that rather spend money than gold. Or open to the more hardcore player who laughs at the idea of spending money on what is very available with in game effort.

You’re having those players happy, and Anet makes money, I don’t see what’s wrong with that.

And to me the idea that almost everything is available for gold is great as well. It means you can play whatever you want, and while it may not be the most efficient, everything is viable. I enjoy dungeons, Fractals are pretty cool, and WvW/world bosses I dabble. So even if dungeons weren’t as good as they are on gold, I’d probably still be farming them as my preferred way of money making.

I totally appreciate the sentiment of where you are coming from. To me, the feeling of getting that drop I can’t buy is totally different from doing the most efficient thing til I have the gold and then I buy said item. They both have their merits but that wasn’t my point.

The feeling you get from getting that super rare drop that can’t be purchased with gold can NOT be replicated on the gem shop. That is really the gist of my meaning. We don’t have enough drops in the game that do that and I think that is what the game needs more of to feel like I want an MMO to feel.

I really enjoy the stuff on the gem shop though. I just don’t enjoy it in the same way.

Welcome to cash shop games and the ability to buy in game currency with real money.

The game is structured in such a way as to make farming extremely unattractive. It’s way, way, way easier to just spend dollars and spare yourself the grief and boredom, because like another poster said…if your time has ANY value at all, your best bet is to just drop cash on the game and do whatever it is you find “fun” in game.

I think the player should have the freedom to choose how they want to acquire the item. Yes, that feeling of accomplishment is true, and I do agree that “earning” the item yourself feels much more satisfying than simply plonking down the cash for it, but why should anyone dictate to anyone else how they can/cannot earn their item? More than that, why should anyone care how someone else earned their item? It’s none of your business whether they got it as a RNG drop, earned it with tokens, or bought it with gold. It’s not affecting your ownership of your own item in any way.

To that end, I fully support EVERYTHING being tradable, and/or players being able to bypass RNG with more token-based ways of earning skins. I keep pointing back to SAB World 1 as the perfect way of doing this:

1. You could play SAB yourself and hope to get lucky with a rare skin drop from the chests at the end of each world. (RNG, windfall feeling when you get lucky)

2. You could play SAB multiple times, collect tokens, and earn an account bound version of the skin for your own use. (Bypasses RNG, has feeling of “earned reward”.)

3. If you really dislike/are not good at SAB, but want the skin anyway, you can buy one of the skins dropped for people from category 1, but who don’t like the skin. (Bypasses time-gating, gives players from category 1 the “windfall” opportunity if they’d rather sell the skin.)

Something bought is far from a reward(unless bought as a gift for someone else). There is absolutely nothing rewarding in GW2 except for the graphics/visuals and that’s only to the eyes.