Guild Wars 2

There has been a lot of talk recently about the lack of rewards of the game in general. I often feel this effect myself. But I continually ask myself. Am I just not seeing the rewards I am actually getting. Is the game actually rewarding me or is the loot really that bad. To help me determine if the loot is really that bad I ask myself a few questions.

1.) What do I consider a good reward? How often should I feel rewarded.

2.) Should time or difficulty dictate how I am rewarded.

3.) How much gold per hour should I expect to earn from selling loot and drops?

4.) Is my perception of my reward influenced by a goal I am aiming for?

5.) Perhaps my magic find is too low.

Based upon those and attempting to have rational logical thought about the matter I have come the the conclusion. Yes there is a problem with the loot on two fronts the indication that you are getting rewarded well and the fact that gold income outside of dungeons is low. Here is how I answered the questions.

I consider rares and exotics as well as tier 6 mats good rewards for a level 80. I do not consider guaranteed drops of a rare to have the same feeling as a mob drop of a rare. While I know I get Tier 6 materials I don’t know that I am getting them. It is hard to tell the difference between a Tier 6 and a Tier 5. Perhaps tiered materials need to have a rarity signal of their own.

I think rewards should be based upon difficultly not time. However I think time and the type of event should also be a factor. I think the Gold rewards should not be just 1-3 silver for all events. World and group events should reward more. Living story events that are designed to be difficult or take group coordination should also reward more.

I feel that I should get anywhere between 5-10 gold per day with a small amount of that coming from dungeons. I don’t think that anyone should be expected to run more then 1-3 dungeons per day. I think fractals should reward more then dungeons. To be honest I don’t know how much I get per day so I can’t say if I am getting rewarded close to what I expect I should get.

Also I find that my perception of rewards is greatly effected by what I think is rewarding. As most of my crafting is past 400 now I no longer feel rewarded on the lesser tier materials.

Then again maybe my magic find is just too low. I am currently at ~87

That is my view. What is your view?

TL;DR There is a loot problem in my opinion. How do you want to be rewarded? What do you feel is a good reward?

Also do not bring up the gem store or converting gems to gold in this post. It is off topic.

Well best way to rewards yourself is to spend cash on gems. Thats the way Anet is pushing the game to.

Probably in a few months mobs and champs wont even have a drop unless you spend xxxx cash a month to unlock mob drops….

I kind of wish this game’s loot system felt more like Diablo. It would be exciting to kill just about anything if there was always a chance at something special. Of course GW2 gear doesn’t have variable stats, so this isn’t really possible.

I want to see more challenging content that yields great rewards. And by that I don’t mean a tank+spank boss fight with billions of HP that has a 0.00001% chance to drop an ascended weapon. Give me a proper dungeon boss fight with multiple mechanics and smart AI that has more like 10-15% chance to drop ascended.

Velimirius.7018:

Well best way to rewards yourself is to spend cash on gems. Thats the way Anet is pushing the game to.

Probably in a few months mobs and champs wont even have a drop unless you spend xxxx cash a month to unlock mob drops….

^This

I left the game hoping eventually they would change their ways and just watching the forums hoping for that something to bring me back. All I ever see though is nerfs to any way of making money in the game. And now they have advertisements that say “hey don’t forget you can buy gold in our gem store”. Its pitiful, I don’t see how anyone can defend what they have been doing because they are getting more and more blatant about the best way to get any thing is to pull out your credit card.

Xenon.4537:

I kind of wish this game’s loot system felt more like Diablo. It would be exciting to kill just about anything if there was always a chance at something special. Of course GW2 gear doesn’t have variable stats, so this isn’t really possible.

I want to see more challenging content that yields great rewards. And by that I don’t mean a tank+spank boss fight with billions of HP that has a 0.00001% chance to drop an ascended weapon. Give me a proper dungeon boss fight with multiple mechanics and smart AI that has more like 10-15% chance to drop ascended.

The good news is they increased the drop chance for ascended in fractals.

kitten anzenketh, you beat me to it. :P I just wrote a 1500 word post in a text document for exactly this. To avoid multiple threads I will post parts of it below.

(By the way that two players went through the effort to compose massive posts and other players bringing it up should signal this is indeed a huge issue.)

The major complaints I have heard so far are as follows:

1. Loot doesn’t drop often enough from mobs. It causes players to ignore mobs in the open world, skip trash in dungeons, and find the optimal path towards the best reward (the boss). This last bit will always be the case, but I feel the lack of reward takes something away from the game. For example, sometimes I see a thief stealth, mesmer teleport away, or others just run when being hit by a mob. I’ve occasionally offered to help them fight it only to find out that it isn’t because the mob is difficult… it’s because they want the thing to go away and not bother them – it isn’t worth killing. Mobs not worth killing? Ack.
2. Loot isn’t diverse. The gemstore has seen a number of armor sets added to it and the living story has given us some interesting helmets/backpieces. It would be nice to see a greater variety of gear skins, trinkets, toys, etc added to the game that can be obtained in game, and loot is one of those ways.
3. Loot isn’t specific. If you hate zombies Orr probably isn’t the place for you and you probably wouldn’t be interested in potential armor from Orr that looks like the cadavers you stripped them from. But the skins you can only obtain by killing Triple Trouble or Teq make those fights (for some) worth the it. What if Southsun Cove had a set of lootable armor with a karka or seashell look? What if there was a frost-themed set that dropped from mobs in FGS or all minotaurs had a chance to drop a minotaur plushie your character could snuggle with out of combat?

Will adding more loot create inflation?
Yes. However there are ways to cope with that and small amounts of inflation is not bad. I have nothing against TP flippers but this does not give the economy added value – instead it artificially raises the prices of items. The finer details of what should be BoA, BoP, etc are all up for discussion – not everything needs to be TPable.

My personal gripe: I enjoy playing my characters. I also enjoy playing dress up, going exploring, treasure hunting, and fighting giant zombie-spewing dragons. And I enjoyed kicking Scarlet in the face. On that note I felt the reward was okay for kicking Scarlet in the face. The crafting item was nice, the helmet was REALLY ugly, but hey I got a new skin.

What I would like to see: More item drops and more silver on mobs in general and a MUCH greater variety of in-game skins. Important items should not be so heavily locked away by RNG. They should be a challenge of skill, not of chance.

Two illustrations:
(1) If I see a killable named NPC (I’ll call him Charlie) I want to go after him full gusto, guns blazing (or stealth-smack him from behind), kill him good and dead, and walk away with his unique jacket. You know, custom tailored because Charlie is dapper like that. It doesn’t need to be a max level jacket – just a cool look that isn’t anywhere else in the game because Charlie paid good money to have it made just for him. Maybe his head will be in just nice enough condition that I can put it on a pike and leave it as an ornament outside of my house. And since he’s fancy I’m guessing he had some money on him, so I’ll take his wallet too.

(2) Say you go out exploring in Brisban Wildlands and you see an interesting structure you want to jump on or a new area you hadn’t noticed. And inside is a cool cave. Neat! Rp spot! Or just cool place to explore. Well, what if there is a dead npc, sculpture, or some other easter egg (turkey room)? Bonus! That’s a fun discovery and I imagine a lot of people might get a bit of a thrill from seeing that. Well….. what if there’s a chest at the end? It seems to me that this is the ultimate reward for most players (similar to jumping puzzles).

But we could make this better.

What if there was loot specific to this area in that chest? And what if one of those things is a toy skritt that you can pop out and laugh evilly as it chases players through DR for a certain distance? What if instead of a toy skritt the chest dropped a sword skin that sometimes spawns a small family of skritt to stand there laughing as you slaughter your enemies?
———
Somewhere in here is a nice balance between RNG, reward, and obtaining items through challenges or a series of quests.

On your point 1. There are some dungeons that this is actually by design. Caudecus’s Manor is the only one where this is the case though from what I have seen so far.

As for BOA BOP items. I think if it is a a guaranteed drop or a high chance then BoA and BOP is acceptable. Otherwise I think it should be allowed in the trading post. I do agree with the balance between RNG and obtaining items though a series of quests however.

Could you clarify a bit on that first point? I remember something about CM but not the specifics.

I think gw2 is a game that is marketed towards those who want to subsidize time that would be spent in the game with money instead to get rewards. I don’t think that will ever really change.

Which is fine…I guess. Those people need a place to game also. But it’s time WE find our place to game and stop trying to turn this game into something the devs don’t want it to be.

Just my recently developed opinion on gw2. I hope no one takes that the wrong way.

Allaraina.8614:

Could you clarify a bit on that first point? I remember something about CM but not the specifics.

There is a are in CM between the backyard and the boss at the end that just has too many mobs to fight. If you attack one it bring too many and the party is likely to wipe so there is no way to wipe all the mobs. I think Sorrow’s Embrace also has a similar area.

I want loot to be in the gemstore.

Want 1 Vial of Powerful Blood?
Buy it for 5 gems!

anzenketh.3759:

Allaraina.8614:

Could you clarify a bit on that first point? I remember something about CM but not the specifics.

There is a are in CM between the backyard and the boss at the end that just has too many mobs to fight. If you attack one it bring too many and the party is likely to wipe so there is no way to wipe all the mobs. I think Sorrow’s Embrace also has a similar area.

Oh, are you referring to the hounds in Path 2? There’s a mob with a pack of hounds that pats around in the back. I’m a little confused as to what you mean by this being by design in regards to my listed “semi common complaint #1”. I would think that if this group dropped decent loot that players would make more of an attempt to kill it rather than flee. Or at least, in most of the runs I’ve done of CM players usually vote to flee.

jweez.7214:

I think gw2 is a game that is marketed towards those who want to subsidize time that would be spent in the game with money instead to get rewards. I don’t think that will ever really change.

Which is fine…I guess. Those people need a place to game also. But it’s time WE find our place to game and stop trying to turn this game into something the devs don’t want it to be.

Just my recently developed opinion on gw2. I hope no one takes that the wrong way.

I fully appreciate that opinion. My guild has almost completely dissolved due to needing a different place to go (and they were all super casual!). I’m just hoping that maybe things will change.

Allaraina.8614:

anzenketh.3759:

Allaraina.8614:

Could you clarify a bit on that first point? I remember something about CM but not the specifics.

There is a are in CM between the backyard and the boss at the end that just has too many mobs to fight. If you attack one it bring too many and the party is likely to wipe so there is no way to wipe all the mobs. I think Sorrow’s Embrace also has a similar area.

Oh, are you referring to the hounds in Path 2? There’s a mob with a pack of hounds that pats around in the back. I’m a little confused as to what you mean by this being by design in regards to my listed “semi common complaint #1”. I would think that if this group dropped decent loot that players would make more of an attempt to kill it rather than flee. Or at least, in most of the runs I’ve done of CM players usually vote to flee.

I am talking about this point. Me and some non-pugs tried to kill them all once. It did not go well. But that was closer to launch so it actually may be possible now.

http://youtu.be/uOtXAGZKTDk?t=5m10s

I am fine with some content being designed to be skipped. But I think that most should not and that the trash mobs in general should at least always drop something.

I would like to see Less gold chasing more goods. I.E. Increasing gold sinks in the economy and giving less gold to players, while giving better loot and more rewards, providing effective means of attaining those rewards.

Deflation, or what I’m describing, increases the real value of gold. This allows a person to buy more goods with the same amount of money over time. Every time a good is exchanged over the market, the TP strips a bit of the profit, which is more than effective at reducing the overall gold supply in the market.

Remember when Precursors were 60g? Yea.

Allaraina.8614:

1. Loot doesn’t drop often enough from mobs. It causes players to ignore mobs in the open world, skip trash in dungeons, and find the optimal path towards the best reward (the boss). This last bit will always be the case, but I feel the lack of reward takes something away from the game. For example, sometimes I see a thief stealth, mesmer teleport away, or others just run when being hit by a mob. I’ve occasionally offered to help them fight it only to find out that it isn’t because the mob is difficult… it’s because they want the thing to go away and not bother them – it isn’t worth killing. Mobs not worth killing? Ack.

I’m at about 150% MF. I’d say roughly 15% of the rares I’m getting each day (doing the world boss train) are from trash mobs. Just last week I got my first exotic from a trash mob.

I’m not quite sure where the right balance is, and the MF mechanic may be screwing things up (make loot better at low MF and it becomes too good at high MF). But there’s definitely a balance point in there where it’s worthwhile killing trash. From a loot perspective, I don’t mind killing trash because I’m averaging about 3-5 rares from them every day. Sometimes I even get more from them doing the pre for a world boss than I get from the boss itself (including the guaranteed daily chest).

@anzenketh – ah, I see what you mean. To clarify my first post, there are days I just want to get a dungeon done, nice and quick, so I do like some things being skip-able. My problem is that at the moment it feels like the game has a number of extremes very little middle ground. And I want to feel rewarded for stopping to kill stuff by getting a healthy collection of loot.

I think maybe that might be a good way to discuss this topic? The “health” of loot. It isn’t good to have extremes but there needs to be some good diversity and a nice amount. At the moment it feels ‘anemic’.

@Recalibar – I’m not sure deflation is actually possible in this point. I am under the impression that it is something that VERY rarely happens in MMOs if at all. Inflation in small gradual amounts is not a bad thing, it just tends to happen in digital economies. Extreme inflation is bad – like what we saw at last year’s Queen’s Jubilee. Because this game has a gems-to-gold conversion system inflation has basically been guaranteed. That and our characters do not need basic necessities – food, rent, a retirement fund, etc.

I definitely agree with needing better loot. More diverse loot might help with the issue of inflation because it would give players more to go after.

Solandri.9640:

Allaraina.8614:

1. Loot doesn’t drop often enough from mobs. It causes players to ignore mobs in the open world, skip trash in dungeons, and find the optimal path towards the best reward (the boss). This last bit will always be the case, but I feel the lack of reward takes something away from the game. For example, sometimes I see a thief stealth, mesmer teleport away, or others just run when being hit by a mob. I’ve occasionally offered to help them fight it only to find out that it isn’t because the mob is difficult… it’s because they want the thing to go away and not bother them – it isn’t worth killing. Mobs not worth killing? Ack.

I’m at about 150% MF. I’d say roughly 15% of the rares I’m getting each day (doing the world boss train) are from trash mobs. Just last week I got my first exotic from a trash mob.

I’m not quite sure where the right balance is, and the MF mechanic may be screwing things up (make loot better at low MF and it becomes too good at high MF). But there’s definitely a balance point in there where it’s worthwhile killing trash. From a loot perspective, I don’t mind killing trash because I’m averaging about 3-5 rares from them every day. Sometimes I even get more from them doing the pre for a world boss than I get from the boss itself (including the guaranteed daily chest).

I managed to break 300% (I think) between a birthday booster and several other buffs, after which I noticed a HUGE difference in EotM. A lot more rares and I’ve gotten one or two exotics from there. So it’s definitely making a difference but it also seems like a hefty barrier to entry.

I wonder what how people would feel if unnamed items dropped a lot more frequently early on and as your MF went up you started getting more named exotics? I think prior to this they would need to flesh out the droppable armor and weapon skins. But say there was another ‘tier’ of exotic things more likely to drop at higher mf levels (the only difference being that they have new cool skins)?

Note words “more likely” not “exclusively”. And definitely not a gear treadmill.

I also have a hard time determining if GW2 drops are “rewarding.” I do know that I have gotten a feeling of excitement from drops in other games, but that almost never happens to me in GW2. Perhaps that’s because so many rewards are obtained via incremental means, rather than serendipity. While there may be some amount of surprise over getting a T6 Mat drop, for instance, the mat only represents some silver from the TP or one tiny portion of an eventual item.

Anet likes their loot rare.

Recalibar.6482:

Remember when Precursors were 60g? Yea.

I think that is actually part of the problem when it comes to players needing more gold. 1k gold seems like a lot. However I think that many players can make 5g a day relatively easy so they should be able to afford a pre-cursor in a year if they save up.(if inflation does not run away with itself)

IndigoSundown.5419:

Perhaps that’s because so many rewards are obtained via incremental means, rather than serendipity. While there may be some amount of surprise over getting a T6 Mat drop, for instance, the mat only represents some silver from the TP or one tiny portion of an eventual item.

I honestly think that is the major problem. Really I think that is the TL;DR of my post. However I don’t want them to take that away. I have a lot of things that I would never have had due to I was able to incrementally get it.

they need to FIX THE LOOT than worry about drop rates

This loot system is similar to Diablo3… everything you kill, any activity you do, its pretty much greens/blues/yellows…. the occassional orange that is worth a few gold.

All you do is farm scraps scraps scarps and more scraps and for what? to make the same yellows/oranges lol

Precursors can be found ANYWHERE , who ever is blessed by RNGesus will only get one though

there needs to be a better loot system implemented… theres no special loot anywhere in the game where you can specifically farm because THERES NO LOOT

Its all scraps scraps and more scraps

The endgame is skins. Thats the ONLY unique way to custimoze your character.
and there is NO SPECIFIC location where I can farm for those cool looking skins (outside frac wep skins)

I could care less about legendaries, they aren’t even uniques IMO. every where I go I see ppl twisting around in their twilights and what not.

skins for endgame is fine I guess, but there has to be ways to aquire it outside a stupid paywall… only way to get them is to keep on this tedious boring grind for scraps and muster enough coins to just buy them off TP….. LAME

I would like more skins.

Not grinding tokens or LS items to buy those skins, not RNG’d skins, I can even handle the stealth nerfs in gold and mats as long as I get something to wear and show off for all of the hard effort after completing my LS meta achievements. At this point, anything is better then 2 blues&1 green and a mess of LS items to clutter my bank space.

The only time I was ever excited over loot was Unidentified Dyes dropping…

SirQuester.5476:

The only time I was ever excited over loot was Unidentified Dyes dropping…

If you say why they might be able to bring that feeling back for something else.

I want mine in a box with a pretty bow on top of it.

jweez.7214:

I think gw2 is a game that is marketed towards those who want to subsidize time that would be spent in the game with money instead to get rewards. I don’t think that will ever really change.

Which is fine…I guess. Those people need a place to game also. But it’s time WE find our place to game and stop trying to turn this game into something the devs don’t want it to be.

Just my recently developed opinion on gw2. I hope no one takes that the wrong way.

Too bad that place to game doesn’t exist(yet?)

As long as companies will think that people addiction is worth more than people affection, that place will never exist.

The funny thing is that if they were not so greedy, all of us could experience playing wonderful games.

Erick Alastor.3917:

As long as companies will think that people addiction is worth more than people affection, that place will never exist.

The funny thing is that if they were not so greedy, all of us could experience playing wonderful games.

It’s hard to blame the company for this, as easy as it would be, it’s not their fault.

The fault falls on the pro f2p/b2p cash shop focus mmo players, as long as the demand is there we will always see a supply.

In the last 4-5 years U.S. (NA) gaming industry have seen a wave of games introducing the cash shop focus due to the acceptance of the players using those services. What was once popular in the east has infected the mmo industry over here.

As long as we have players crying over a measly $15/month a sub model mmo’s as a form of revenue for content focus and longevity in a mmo we will continue to see subpar mmo’s w/a cash shop focus.

Now granted some sub model mmo’s are not worth their sub, but that falls on the publisher and developers rushing for the quick cash grab knowing full well the cash shop would be an available accepted successful backup.

So if you want to pass blame, pass it to the mmo players, maybe someday they will take the blinders off.

anzenketh.3759:

There has been a lot of talk recently about the lack of rewards of the game in general. I often feel this effect myself. But I continually ask myself. Am I just not seeing the rewards I am actually getting. Is the game actually rewarding me or is the loot really that bad. To help me determine if the loot is really that bad I ask myself a few questions.

1.) What do I consider a good reward? How often should I feel rewarded.

2.) Should time or difficulty dictate how I am rewarded.

3.) How much gold per hour should I expect to earn from selling loot and drops?

4.) Is my perception of my reward influenced by a goal I am aiming for?

5.) Perhaps my magic find is too low.

First off: Great post. Lemme try and answer these the best way I can.

1.) I just want to be consistently rewarded. Halloween the second year paled in comparison to the first year in terms of rewards. We were getting gem store drops the first year. You never want to take a step back. The rewards in the zerg area and the omission of the Mad King fight made it lackluster. The same can be said for the Pavilion this year as opposed to last year. Steps back and a lack of consistency.

2.) Both. I don’t mind spending a great deal of time doing something as long as it’s consistent with the rest of the areas of the game in terms of gold and loot.

3.) I think 3-5 gold is good. PvP is really nice now. I actually prefer doing PvP to PvE now.

4.) Sometimes. Farming used to be a viable way to go out and mindlessly have fun with friends in small groups. That was replaced with Champ farms. Dungeons were always nice. It seems that ArenaNet has focused farming down to a few different activities. Not getting drops in the Pavilion while playing this year — when we were getting rewarded heavily last year — is a step in the wrong direction. Sure, the boss fights are more fun, but not only are the rewards less rewarding, we have to pay money to participate. No thanks

5.) My Magic Find is at 150%.

Allaraina.8614:

1. Loot doesn’t drop often enough from mobs. It causes players to ignore mobs in the open world, skip trash in dungeons, and find the optimal path towards the best reward (the boss). This last bit will always be the case, but I feel the lack of reward takes something away from the game. For example, sometimes I see a thief stealth, mesmer teleport away, or others just run when being hit by a mob. I’ve occasionally offered to help them fight it only to find out that it isn’t because the mob is difficult… it’s because they want the thing to go away and not bother them – it isn’t worth killing. Mobs not worth killing? Ack.

Do you always know that the person’s not killing the mob because they want better loot? I know that, no matter how ‘good’ the itemization in the game is, I’m not wasting time killing mobs if I’m trying to find a new waypoint, get to a jumping puzzle, or other task that requires me to get from Point A to Point B without needing to kill mobs.

1. Loot isn’t diverse. The gemstore has seen a number of armor sets added to it and the living story has given us some interesting helmets/backpieces. It would be nice to see a greater variety of gear skins, trinkets, toys, etc added to the game that can be obtained in game, and loot is one of those ways.
2. Loot isn’t specific. If you hate zombies Orr probably isn’t the place for you and you probably wouldn’t be interested in potential armor from Orr that looks like the cadavers you stripped them from. But the skins you can only obtain by killing Triple Trouble or Teq make those fights (for some) worth the it. What if Southsun Cove had a set of lootable armor with a karka or seashell look? What if there was a frost-themed set that dropped from mobs in FGS or all minotaurs had a chance to drop a minotaur plushie your character could snuggle with out of combat?

Will adding more loot create inflation?
Yes. However there are ways to cope with that and small amounts of inflation is not bad. I have nothing against TP flippers but this does not give the economy added value – instead it artificially raises the prices of items. The finer details of what should be BoA, BoP, etc are all up for discussion – not everything needs to be TPable.

My personal gripe: I enjoy playing my characters. I also enjoy playing dress up, going exploring, treasure hunting, and fighting giant zombie-spewing dragons. And I enjoyed kicking Scarlet in the face. On that note I felt the reward was okay for kicking Scarlet in the face. The crafting item was nice, the helmet was REALLY ugly, but hey I got a new skin.

What I would like to see: More item drops and more silver on mobs in general and a MUCH greater variety of in-game skins. Important items should not be so heavily locked away by RNG. They should be a challenge of skill, not of chance.

Two illustrations:
(1) If I see a killable named NPC (I’ll call him Charlie) I want to go after him full gusto, guns blazing (or stealth-smack him from behind), kill him good and dead, and walk away with his unique jacket. You know, custom tailored because Charlie is dapper like that. It doesn’t need to be a max level jacket – just a cool look that isn’t anywhere else in the game because Charlie paid good money to have it made just for him. Maybe his head will be in just nice enough condition that I can put it on a pike and leave it as an ornament outside of my house. And since he’s fancy I’m guessing he had some money on him, so I’ll take his wallet too.

(2) Say you go out exploring in Brisban Wildlands and you see an interesting structure you want to jump on or a new area you hadn’t noticed. And inside is a cool cave. Neat! Rp spot! Or just cool place to explore. Well, what if there is a dead npc, sculpture, or some other easter egg (turkey room)? Bonus! That’s a fun discovery and I imagine a lot of people might get a bit of a thrill from seeing that. Well….. what if there’s a chest at the end? It seems to me that this is the ultimate reward for most players (similar to jumping puzzles).

But we could make this better.

What if there was loot specific to this area in that chest? And what if one of those things is a toy skritt that you can pop out and laugh evilly as it chases players through DR for a certain distance? What if instead of a toy skritt the chest dropped a sword skin that sometimes spawns a small family of skritt to stand there laughing as you slaughter your enemies?
———
Somewhere in here is a nice balance between RNG, reward, and obtaining items through challenges or a series of quests.

I like all these other suggestions, with getting gem-store items into the game as rare drops. The problem is… people will try to find a way to farm them

Farming is not fun.

Wetpaw.3487:

As long as we have players crying over a measly $15/month a sub model mmo’s as a form of revenue for content focus and longevity in a mmo we will continue to see subpar mmo’s w/a cash shop focus.

As opposed to all those poor MMO’s with sub models. Ultimately, MMO’s as an ongoing service are nothing more than a time sink and a money sink. They offer kitten-poor content additions involving click this X times or run this instance umpty-seven times while we make more of the same. This occurs whether the game is F2P, B2P or P2P. The only bright spot to MMO’s is if the base game — the game at launch provides enough or more entertainment to make it comparable with a SP game selling at the same price. In that context, B2P is superior to P2P, unless you’ve exhausted the game’s potential in the first (free) month. As far as F2P? I’ve never seen one where the base game was all that great.

Sartharina.3542:

Allaraina.8614:

1. Loot doesn’t drop often enough from mobs. It causes players to ignore mobs in the open world, skip trash in dungeons, and find the optimal path towards the best reward (the boss). This last bit will always be the case, but I feel the lack of reward takes something away from the game. For example, sometimes I see a thief stealth, mesmer teleport away, or others just run when being hit by a mob. I’ve occasionally offered to help them fight it only to find out that it isn’t because the mob is difficult… it’s because they want the thing to go away and not bother them – it isn’t worth killing. Mobs not worth killing? Ack.

Do you always know that the person’s not killing the mob because they want better loot? I know that, no matter how ‘good’ the itemization in the game is, I’m not wasting time killing mobs if I’m trying to find a new waypoint, get to a jumping puzzle, or other task that requires me to get from Point A to Point B without needing to kill mobs.

Oh I’m not arguing that at all. But in my experience there’s a bit of an extreme where I’ve noticed the people around me in the open world consistently fleeing mobs instead of bothering to kill them. I might be cherry picking or just noticing it more though. Dungeon runs might be a better example in terms of fleeing mobs because they aren’t worth what they or don’t drop anything at all.

And yeah… farming is NOT fun. I have seen it argued that some mmos require some amount of farming to stay alive since it is not humanly possible for developers to come out with enough quality content to keep us occupied between updates and I won’t argue either side of that.

Perhaps (at the risk of summoning a massive wrath storm on myself) completely removing farming isn’t the answer so much as adding a bulk of permanent content with unique loot so that people have more to go after. Preferably not things locked behind ridiculous RNG walls or with some kind of daily cap (precursors and endless cat tonics). There’s got to be some kind of middle ground somewhere.

anzenketh.3759:

There has been a lot of talk recently about the lack of rewards of the game in general. I often feel this effect myself. But I continually ask myself. Am I just not seeing the rewards I am actually getting. Is the game actually rewarding me or is the loot really that bad. To help me determine if the loot is really that bad I ask myself a few questions.

1.) What do I consider a good reward? How often should I feel rewarded.

2.) Should time or difficulty dictate how I am rewarded.

3.) How much gold per hour should I expect to earn from selling loot and drops?

4.) Is my perception of my reward influenced by a goal I am aiming for?

5.) Perhaps my magic find is too low.

Based upon those and attempting to have rational logical thought about the matter I have come the the conclusion. Yes there is a problem with the loot on two fronts the indication that you are getting rewarded well and the fact that gold income outside of dungeons is low. Here is how I answered the questions.

I consider rares and exotics as well as tier 6 mats good rewards for a level 80. I do not consider guaranteed drops of a rare to have the same feeling as a mob drop of a rare. While I know I get Tier 6 materials I don’t know that I am getting them. It is hard to tell the difference between a Tier 6 and a Tier 5. Perhaps tiered materials need to have a rarity signal of their own.

I think rewards should be based upon difficultly not time. However I think time and the type of event should also be a factor. I think the Gold rewards should not be just 1-3 silver for all events. World and group events should reward more. Living story events that are designed to be difficult or take group coordination should also reward more.

I feel that I should get anywhere between 5-10 gold per day with a small amount of that coming from dungeons. I don’t think that anyone should be expected to run more then 1-3 dungeons per day. I think fractals should reward more then dungeons. To be honest I don’t know how much I get per day so I can’t say if I am getting rewarded close to what I expect I should get.

Also I find that my perception of rewards is greatly effected by what I think is rewarding. As most of my crafting is past 400 now I no longer feel rewarded on the lesser tier materials.

Then again maybe my magic find is just too low. I am currently at ~87

That is my view. What is your view?

TL;DR There is a loot problem in my opinion. How do you want to be rewarded? What do you feel is a good reward?

Also do not bring up the gem store or converting gems to gold in this post. It is off topic.

“Also do not bring up the gem store or converting gems to gold in this post. It is off topic.”

Your answers are directly tied to the gem store.

As much as your post makes sense when it comes to time & reward, visual cues, & difficulty rewards it’s all to funnel you (masses)to one place. You even point out lower tier mats not giving the feeling of a reward due to your crafting being 400+, but as you know Ascended lvl500 (BiS) uses lower tier mats.

Just take a second and visualize those 250+ items (rewards) in the gem store were added to the ingame content as rewards, would you then feel rewarded? Would you feel rewarded if all those armor sets & rng box weapons dropped from world bosses and fotm? If minis & costumes dropped from dungeons? If harvesting tools & toys dropped from PvE? If finishers & dyes dropped rewards for PvP/WvW?

or maybe you just don’t feel rewarded because the game in the last year has giving you little to accomplish content wise to feel rewarded. Simple mechanics, rehashed holiday/festivals, southsun cove, easy world bosses, champ trains, LS zerg’n, mostly the same dungeons since release, Legends that can be bought w/RL cash, achievement hunting, and temp content.

Gw2 is probably one of the best looking mmo’s to date, has great animations, unique design philosophy, and great potential. But it’s hard to swallow knowing that if this was a sub model mmo + services like sex, race, makeover, name changes, & server transfers we would have seen an overall better quality game and content.

Wetpaw.3487:

Your answers are directly tied to the gem store.

As much as your post makes sense when it comes to time & reward, visual cues, & difficulty rewards it’s all to funnel you (masses)to one place. You even point out lower tier mats not giving the feeling of a reward due to your crafting being 400+, but as you know Ascended lvl500 (BiS) uses lower tier mats.

Just take a second and visualize those 250+ items (rewards) in the gem store were added to the ingame content as rewards, would you then feel rewarded? Would you feel rewarded if all those armor sets & rng box weapons dropped from world bosses and fotm? If minis & costumes dropped from dungeons? If harvesting tools & toys dropped from PvE? If finishers & dyes dropped were rewards for PvP/WvW?

or maybe you just don’t feel rewarded because the game in the last year has giving you little to accomplish content wise to feel rewarded. Simple mechanics, rehashed holiday/festivals, southsun cove, easy world bosses, champ trains, LS zerg’n, mostly the same dungeons since release, Legends that can be bought w/RL cash, achievement hunting, and temp content.

Gw2 is probably one of the best looking mmo’s to date, has great animations, unique design philosophy, and great potential. But it’s hard to swallow knowing that if this was a sub model mmo + services like sex, race, makeover, name changes, & server transfers we would have seen an overall better quality game and content.

Yes I am aware they use lower level mats. Common mats however. Fine not really. Cooking is the exception to this.

Also my feeling on the topic was not that they should stop dropping them in game. It was more of they don’t feel rewarding. How can we make them feel rewarding. How can we make the system and drops we have now feel more rewarding. Because while I think rewards are uneven in some areas. (Feel free to discuss that I am interested on what people think on specifics there. ) I think the majority of the problem is that the game does not feel rewarding as we are not given cues that it is rewarding and the majority of things we get rewarded by happen over time as apposed to oh lookie rare drop. I also don’t think that is a bad thing that rewards happen over time. On the contrary I like it that way.

It is also to ask the players who state that they don’t feel rewarded “How do you like your loot.” Meaning do you like rewards over time. Do you like the feeling of a rare drop. Or shall there be a mixture of both.

As for the gem store. This discussion is about rewards in game if you want to talk about what/if they would drop anything from the gem store in game that is on topic

anzenketh.3759:

Wetpaw.3487:

Your answers are directly tied to the gem store.

As much as your post makes sense when it comes to time & reward, visual cues, & difficulty rewards it’s all to funnel you (masses)to one place. You even point out lower tier mats not giving the feeling of a reward due to your crafting being 400+, but as you know Ascended lvl500 (BiS) uses lower tier mats.

Just take a second and visualize those 250+ items (rewards) in the gem store were added to the ingame content as rewards, would you then feel rewarded? Would you feel rewarded if all those armor sets & rng box weapons dropped from world bosses and fotm? If minis & costumes dropped from dungeons? If harvesting tools & toys dropped from PvE? If finishers & dyes dropped were rewards for PvP/WvW?

or maybe you just don’t feel rewarded because the game in the last year has giving you little to accomplish content wise to feel rewarded. Simple mechanics, rehashed holiday/festivals, southsun cove, easy world bosses, champ trains, LS zerg’n, mostly the same dungeons since release, Legends that can be bought w/RL cash, achievement hunting, and temp content.

Gw2 is probably one of the best looking mmo’s to date, has great animations, unique design philosophy, and great potential. But it’s hard to swallow knowing that if this was a sub model mmo + services like sex, race, makeover, name changes, & server transfers we would have seen an overall better quality game and content.

Yes I am aware they use lower level mats. Common mats however. Fine not really. Cooking is the exception to this.

Also my feeling on the topic was not that they should stop dropping them in game. It was more of they don’t feel rewarding. How can we make them feel rewarding. How can we make the system and drops we have now feel more rewarding. Because while I think rewards are uneven in some areas. (Feel free to discuss that I am interested on what people think on specifics there. ) I think the majority of the problem is that the game does not feel rewarding as we are not given cues that it is rewarding and the majority of things we get rewarded by happen over time as apposed to oh lookie rare drop. I also don’t think that is a bad thing that rewards happen over time. On the contrary I like it that way.

It is also to ask the players who state that they don’t feel rewarded “How do you like your loot.” Meaning do you like rewards over time. Do you like the feeling of a rare drop. Or shall there be a mixture of both.

As for the gem store. This discussion is about rewards in game if you want to talk about what/if they would drop anything from the gem store in game that is on topic

I’m right there w/you on rewards over time, as someone who used to raid and do arenas I understand the lengths and wait times for that great reward. The difference in this game though is vast.

For example killing Tequatl for 5months almost every day (missed maybe a week total) w/nothing to show for it, or rewards tucked beneath achievements in LS & the achievements alone are hardly rewarding in the form of content, and fotm rng reward system. For me it’s the fact you’re not earning or working towards most rewards, you’re relying on rng or lackluster mini games and pve zergs, big difference.

WvW tourney for myself is a nice example of a reward system I enjoy, not necessarily that it is tied to the achievements, but I participated and feel I earned it solo and as a community. Even after crafting two legendaries I did not get that feeling of reward that the tourney accomplishment gave. Why? Even though I didn’t buy either precursor it was rng luck based, and the fact that anyone can just buy a crafted legend didn’t help either.

As for visual cues in some form for general loot, I’m not sure that would change the feeling of reward in the current state, it matters little if I got a visual cue I got a grey-exotic, or even t6 materials in any form of content. They’re just going into the MF, TP, Salvage, Vendor anyhow.

I’ve also crafted a legendary (had to buy the pre) and it absolutely did not feel legendary. It felt like I put in a lot of orders for mats. I didn’t even farm the mats – I tried but it got discouraging fairly quickly.

I do like that legendaries are heavily focused on crafting in this game but I would have much preferred an epic quest in order to get Zap instead of doing CoF/SE/CoE/AC/TA/mightbemissingone every day for uh…. a long time. I do like that they aren’t locked behind a raid where getting one is a matter of networking. I felt very much as I went along that it was something I could accomplish without requiring the time and patience of a coordinated group of other people (pugging dungeons aside).

Personally I don’t think a bigger visual would change how epic loot feels. Maybe exotics could be flashy when they drop down the side of the screen, but that wouldn’t change the fact that – whoopee – I just picked up yet another thing I will either salvage or tp.

WVW tourney is a fantastic example, actually. You do reap short-term rewards as you go, there is the title you could get pretty much as soon as you got the meta, and then there is the longer term reward of tickets that get (got?) dished out later. It was a single person effort as well as a community effort without requiring a commitment from a group of 10-20 specific individuals.

For me, I want to be rewarded sufficiently so that I feel like I accomplished something during a play session. If I do a long play session I want to feel like I accomplished more than I did during a short play session.

I don’t want to put a gold / hour tag on it, because inflation makes that relative.

If I spend a week, run 3 dungeons a day and end up with 25 gold, but during that time the precursor I want has risen 50 gold, I don’t feel like I accomplished anything, I just feel further behind.

anzenketh.3759:

If you say why they might be able to bring that feeling back for something else.

I haven’t played for awhile now, only read every bit of information on multiple sites. The writing is on the wall. This is no longer my game…no matter how much I might miss my mesmers.

I don’t agree with the direction the game is going and I don’t think Anet can change course.

What would bring that feeling back? I haven’t a clue.

I had just typed up a 2000 word essay about this. And i didnt save it and lost it. Forget it. So mad.

I want to feel like I am making more then minimum wage playing a game. At that rate, I need to be making 42g an hour or more. And I am not.

If they shaved off alot of the DR, people would feel more rewarded for doing more content.

1.) What do I consider a good reward? How often should I feel rewarded.
> Something that have use or value. Junk grey drops at 142%, c’mon…
2.) Should time or difficulty dictate how I am rewarded.
> Both. Dungeons shouldn’t be short and not even one hit killers. Overal, gamer’s own performance should give the reward. An AC path should last ~1h+ long but rewarding you a whole item at the end. And what about a really long ~6 hour path of Arah/DOA/UW/FOW, when you get an ascended armor piece in the end? One thing is sure, we shouldn’t overrush and speedgrind for some worthless token.
3.) How much gold per hour should I expect to earn from selling loot and drops?
> Really depends what/where I do and what I do with my loots (salvage)…
4.) Is my perception of my reward influenced by a goal I am aiming for?
> ATM I have nothing to spend my golds on, since game doesn’t really offers D&D items that are not overdesigned, crafts/dyes does not allow me to reforge/paint my weapons with the look of different materials, ascended armor is waaaaaaay overpriced and we don’t even have good roleplaying support, just a rushed & laggy WWW without need of real tactics.
So I’m just gathering and waiting…
5.) Perhaps my magic find is too low.
> 142%, it goes up very slowly now, so it should mean something, right?

Personally speaking, what I consider to be a good reward system is what we had back when SAB first came out. A token system that allowed us to work towards what we wanted, but also a rare drop system that existed alongside it. This meant that there were three ways we could get the skin/item we wanted:

1. You could play the content and hope to get lucky from the end chest. Because these Rare versions of the skin can be sold, it preserves the “Jackpot!” feeling from getting a rare drop. This rewards Luck as a loot system.

2. You could play the content, accumulate tokens, and trade them for an account bound version of the skin you want. This eliminates RNG frustration, because you know you WILL eventually get what you want, and you can calculate exactly how long it’s going to take you to get there. This rewards Hard work/Skill as a loot system.

3. You could buy the skin you wanted from players who got lucky in #1, but who don’t want the skin. This means that someone who was awful at the game mode, but who still wants the look, isn’t left out of the party. You can gain gold in whichever method works best for you, and buy what you want. (The Players from #1, meanwhile, get extra money for their luck/skill.) This rewards Skill in other Game Areas as a loot system, as well as Real Money Purchasers, the latter of which is extremely beneficial to ANet.

It is, quite simply, the method that makes the most people happy.

My lengthy academic dissertation on the matter came down to what the previous poster above me just said. I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH WHAT THEY SAID. I’ll try to summarize it briefly because I cannot recall the entire commentary but feel that it was still meaningful and contributed.

Gold. This should be buffed as a reward because the current gold rewards we have do not reflect inflation in the marketplace/trading post, and this isn’t preserving a time/effort/reward ratio for the vast majority of players. I also think that relatively, gold should be buffed since it has the highest buying power because it can translate into the most game modes or uses and still keep value. Everything from World versus World to the Gemstore in the game can be bought (or enhanced) by gold. I personally feel that implementing some kind of methods in which to invest gold into aesthetics other than skins for legendaries (currently the highest value items in the economy, used here as a benchmark) would alleviate inflation partially while allowing players depth through adding customization options. Hypothetically, what if we could unlock more attack animations for our weapon sets? Two warriors of the same race doing different animations for hundred blades, for instance, seems like an aesthetic touch that would please many people and would be only moderate resource use internally from Anet.

Karma. As a currency is highly informal, since most of the rewards are now reserved for obtaining aesthetically pleasing skins, and this is now applies to ‘subjective’ judgement. So my personal ideal of value for karma is every 21,000 karma is equivalent to 10 obsidian shards, which are used for ascended crafting. This makes karma as currency feel "of little value’ as this is one of the prime uses for karma, or Temple Armor/Orrian boxes which drop loot normally under 10s. So karma effectively is worth “very little”, especially since karma rewards are so prevalent yet actually applied towards very little which has an economic value we can objectively discern.

Experience. This is meant to help players and to generate skill points, however experience rewarded truly only benefits characters at max levels since most people are using their level 80 characters due to the community and game at large giving large statistical benefits to players at max level. Therefore, experience directly translates into skill points, which can create an arbitrary value of around 23s by combining averages of using the mystic forge output formula for piles of crystalline dust, the only crafting material that can be consistently synthesized by using items bought with skill points and a cheap resource, piles of incandescent dust. As a way to increase value of skill points without increasing scroll drop or experience gain, why not introduce additional utilities or weapon sets which need to be unlocked with skill points? Just like before we were gifted with the alternative class healing options, virtually nobody complained about that because it met the needs of the players and created depth and diversity. Introducing this is also a moderate internal resource investment from Anet, but it would generate good will and increase the overall enjoyment of the game, only requiring having the new skills be balanced. This could even open up new opportunities for gemstore items (sell skill point scroll maybe?).

Loot/Drops. This also is a huge topic that I will keep short and simple. Drop percentages across the board are paltry. My magic find is not awful but I salvage almost every single blue and green that I obtain in the hopes of ‘hitting it big with RNG’ and still only have 118% since the introduction of the system. It’s almost double what the average player starts with, yet I don’t get over 3 exotic drops in anyone one week, ever. What is this doing for me? I have played since beta and took a 4 month session off, but besides that I devote at least 15 hours a week, if not double that. This is not a whine about precursor drops, that’s an entirely different subject. Most low end loot is trash and has no purpose, yet we are consistently given them and expected to treat them as if they have value.

As a proposed solution, the idea I have is to either make the types of ‘rewards’ that we get more easily transferable between game modes so that we can have a more ‘connected pool of resources’, such as a solid gold/karma/experience conversion rate, or to maybe implement some kind of system where players could use a slider bar to choose a focus on their type of reward. Let’s say Gold/Karma/Experience/Magic Find all have ratios of 100%/100%/100%/100% and we could artificially increase the sliders for gold, while lowering the percentages in the other categories? This way players who are farming can attempt to boost their magic find, while people trying to make money or earn karma can get better rewards from that activity, or leave everything the same for regular reward amounts.