Guild Wars 2

I wonder why some people care so much about prestige regarding timed exclusivity on items? I mean, I have some items from old events that are no longer available, but I’d have no problem if they became available again so others could acquire them. I get stuff because I like how it looks, not so I can laud it over others and pretend I’m special.

Also, I’m sorry to break it to some, but ultimately, this is a product for consumers, and ANet is running a business where satisfying the most consumers possible is the ideal goal. They’re not going to cater to an insignificantly small minority at the cost of the majority, because from a business perspective, that simply does not make sense. So don’t be surprised if other one time event items become available sporadically again in the future. In fact, I’d be quite happy if they reintroduced Living Story S1 again using the new story journal template they’ve used for the new seasons so those who never got to do it can experience it, with all the rewards and achievements attainable again (I say this as someone who already did every achievement for every historical event in the game).

Also, if you’re holding on items for a long time for their ever increasing value as an investment, do so with the knowledge that all such investments involve some form of risk and that sometimes holding on too long works to your detriment. I was holding onto a number of power cores that were for a long time no longer attainable, and at one point they were selling for as much as 20 gold each. I had the mind to sell them eventually, but one day they were reintroduced and where I once could have made hundreds of gold, the value suddenly dropped to a point of insignificance. Still, I did not complain because I realized it was my mistake for waiting too long, expecting the price to go up more. I got over it and accepted the loss. After all, that’s how it goes in life sometimes, not everything works out how you expect.

maybe anet could care less about if your account will be popular on ebay or not? seriously, what world are people living in lol

old farts selling accounts to each other for profit have a game and its called everquest 1, this game is too new for that

Valediction.3275:

I’ve got a question. How may people here have legendary weapons? Out of those, how many would be okay if they put out a new RNG box in the gem store that dropped legendary weapons, and then prices on said items dropped by 90%+? I can’t help but think that a lot of people were okay with this only because it didn’t happen to their stuff.

Already got a Bifrost, and would love this, it was way too expensive. I’m actually using it (soulbound, can’t sell), so the drop in price would be only positive in that I could get a bunch other legendaries that much easier.

Valediction.3275:

I’ve got a question. How may people here have legendary weapons? Out of those, how many would be okay if they put out a new RNG box in the gem store that dropped legendary weapons, and then prices on said items dropped by 90%+? I can’t help but think that a lot of people were okay with this only because it didn’t happen to their stuff.

That’s not the same thing.
It is like

“you started today and after months of playing you happened to see a really good skin that you want, but HEY! YOU CAN’T! cause it is from a past event”

What then?

Story and Seasonal items push people to play, cause they know they won’t have a second chance to get the item ( maybe next halloween, for a standard seasonal event, or maybe after years of playing, for something like S1 Memory Boxes ).

If somebody couldn’t play, didn’t play gw2 when the event occoured, and so on, there should be a way to get items back.

Memory boxes help, but still they are tricky cause RNG both in drops and tokens because:

-Every box does not give you a standard amount of tokens ( at least one, but it’s a joke and we all know ).
-Drops from Tokens and RNG does not share ( you couldn’t get the item you want cause RNG, and still have many tokens, and viceversa you could get your drop from RNG but be unable to buy from tokens cause bad tokens RNG ).
-Soulbound items ( you have to buy boxes in order to get your items. There are only few items avaible from TP ).

More like a legit scam than an extra option to get items from a past event, only cause its own unfairness.

On the other hand, we do have a way to get things we couldn’t before.

The difference between a legendary weapon and the backpack is two-fold. A legendary weapon could not be obtained in the game for free. Essentially the backpack simply dropped in the dungeon and if you were lucky enough to get it, you go it, end of story Done deal. You could have gotten it on the first run.

A legendary weapon is something that takes time to craft for someone. Someone put the time and energy, months and months and hours and hours to craft a legendary. It wasn’t just lucky drop that someone benefited from, so a precusor would have been better for that analogy.

If someone gets a lucky drop and it goes down in price…shrugs. If someone works hard for something for six months and it is worth a fraction of a price, that’s different.

I woudn’t care very much if a precusor I got dropped in price, because stuff like that has happened.

In fact, at one point I was saving a skin to sell and it came out in black lion chest again and dropped significantly in value. I shrugged it off because no matter what, the skin cost me very little comparatively.

You always take a chance when you invest. That’s how I see it.

Colin didn’t really know what he was doing. He was wrong, and I’m glad they introduced ways to bring it back.

Valediction.3275:

I’ve got a question. How may people here have legendary weapons? Out of those, how many would be okay if they put out a new RNG box in the gem store that dropped legendary weapons, and then prices on said items dropped by 90%+? I can’t help but think that a lot of people were okay with this only because it didn’t happen to their stuff.

I have 17 legendary weapons. But the comparison is off because the legendary weapons have been consistently available with the random drop of a precursor since release (and later with quests). The limited availability of the jet pack created an artificial rise in price. I would have preferred the jet packs be related to a drop rather than a gem store box, but unless the drop rate was ridiculously low, the price still would have dropped. This kind of thing has happened to pretty much all my stuff (including the Mystic Forge drops of the Greatsaw and such), but there are positives to it as well. And when you consider the ease with which gold can be generated now as opposed to 3 years ago, that something like Howler is cheaper now than then, comparatively legendaries are much cheaper now. If there had been a consistent stream of jet packs, the price would have been more consistent and not reached the ridiculous levels it did. I paid about 40 gold for it IIRC and 400 or so for the two I bought recently, so it isn’t like it dropped below its initial value.

Shirlias.8104:

The rule of supply and demand.

And also, if it were possible to obtain through the game, i think the price would have been almost the same…

…or worse!
He could have done specific things:

-From tokens farm to time gating tasks.
-From random drops to Achievements/Boss kills ).
-From Mystic Forge RNG to Seasonal Content ( Oh i missed halloween… well, i only have to wait till next year! ).

Having the opportunity to buy it from the TP should be a Must for everything.
Maybe you won’t buy it from there, but you still had the choice.

I wanted HOPE as a legendary item.
Great i have plenty of golds… Checkin TP… oh… nothing? Oh Darn, i have to play and have no possibility to go through the TP.

I really wanted it so i did it at last, but it sucked that i had to play with no alternatives.

I made many golds through Winter’s JP.
Many people would have done Chest Farm Instead.
Others PVP/WvW.
And so on.

I understand that the choice here is unfair, due to the RNG drop of the Tokens, but this case apart it is really good to have the TP selling Everything.

I personally think that grinding gold to get everything (the way it works for most items ingame, and what you seem to prefer) is exactly what has burned out many people.

In this case it should have been as a drop from the boss kill (the way the implemented it initially). While at the same time you should be able to select the dungeon / fractal instead of it being a random one.

If it would not be account-bound you would still have the option to grind gold and buy it from the TP, but you could also go do that dungeon to get it. Or if it was account bound (what was not the case with this item) you would indeed be required to do the dungeon but for another items you wanted you would be doing other content. In that way you are playing all the elements of the game instead of grinding your brain out with the 5 best available grind available.

In this case it was not an account-bound item and not supper rare (so rare, that not everybody is supposed to be able to get it) so even if it was a specific drop people could go get it in the dungeon / fractal and you could still grind and buy it.

By now grinders might be in the majority (those who like to go for the items directly have left by now), but overall the grind approach is not a good one.

From a monetizing perspective I get it, while as expected also that eventually did not work out, with this approach you give people incentive to spend money on gold or boxes, but for that you do need to have enough people left to buy them in the first place.

Vayne.8563:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

ElectricGoat.8253:

How do I get more of those boxes? I used the first one up and got a sprocket out of it. I want more sprockets.

I’m guessing the only way is through the gem store?

Only way to get sprocket is the gem store, but many of the individual items are on the TP right now as well.

You see Vayne, this is another example of why I have a problem with this system. ElectricGoat wants an item, and if those items where available in game he could now be doing dungeons, fractals and so on… the content that did reward that type of items he is after.

And when he was after the next items, there would be other dungeons or content rewarding it that he would go after.

But instead the only approach he has is grinding gold (what tends to burn people out) or buy it. MMO’s are for a big part reward driven games, if you then sell those items or put them behind a boring currency-grind that is negative.

Anyway, I just notice your reaction on this great example, and because we talked about this so many times I wanted to point this example out to you.

Ah but you see, the items weren’t really supposed to be back at all. The content attached to those items is no longer here. There are indeed plenty of items to go for in game, which you seem to ignore.

Furthermore, anyone can farm gold in game, by doing fractals and dungeons and content, and then use the gold to buy gems. So yes, you can play the game to get them. I’ve heard your argument before again and again. I didn’t agree with it then and I don’t agree with it now, for the same reason I’ve never agreed with it.

You have zero proof the company could support itself your way

“Ah but you see, the items weren’t really supposed to be back at all.” That is a different subject.

“The content attached to those items is no longer here.” Those dungeons that dropped them are fractals now.

“There are indeed plenty of items to go for in game, which you seem to ignore.” I never ignored any items, I gave many of those examples in the past. But for the bulk this is not true, and that is where the problem is / was.

“Furthermore, anyone can farm gold in game, by doing fractals and dungeons and content, and then use the gold to buy gems.” Yes, the grind approach. That this is how it works for the bulk was exactly what I did see as the problem as you should remember.

I did point this one out because it was a good example of what we talked about so many times.

“You have zero proof the company could support itself your way.” You always have zero proof about alternative realities. We did do some calculations based on the information we had that did give a positive view. But you also dismissed those because you could never know how it would have gone else and available information is always limited. True. But with that mindset you cannot talk about any suggestions. Because we will never know for sure how they will work out.

We do of course know that the approach GW2 did take, was able to keep it running until now (positive), but also did see player base and income shrinking more and more (negative). It did not manage to keep up with the potential it had (based on the hype and sales on initial release).

We also know that the Living World approach (Anet’s approach) with seasons was not able to keep people playing as much as expansions (approach many players including my promoted) would. Seeing how expansion have been much better at getting people playing then seasons did.

So maybe another approach (on multiple aspects) would have been much worse, or much better. Not that it still matters.

I hope the next expansion will sell good, but imho HoT was the expansion ArenaNet had to get right for a come-back. Now the ship has sailed.

So I’m not here to try and convince you or ArenaNet that they should still go for the other approach, I did that years ago when the ship was still sailing. Now I just wanted to point this good example to you, that’s all.

Valediction.3275:

I logged in this week to poke around a bit and maybe decide to buy myself an expansion, and lo and behold I find my decorative molten jetpack’s price has crashed because there’s a new random box that is dumping them on the market.

Normally that would be a buyer beware sort of deal, but I’m pretty sure we were told explicitly that this wasn’t going to happen.

To be clear, I always thought having exclusive content like that was a bad idea. But given that I remember getting a specific statement saying they weren’t going to start dropping again, it seemed the safest asset to keep around to avoid keeping gold and watching it devalue due to inflation over time.

It’s particularly galling that the new drops aren’t coming from a reward for content or the return of Season 1, but instead from RNG boxes. It would have been a little easier to stomach watching my net worth drop 80% overnight if it didn’t feel quite so much like ArenaNet just cashing in to my detriment.

What gives?

It’s funny you say that. My bf has been playing since gw1 day 1, and thought the exclusive content was cool and a sort of way to say “hey I was there for that”. He’s pretty bent there are these 2 memory boxes giving out things which he earned from the actual events. He drew the analogy of soldiers getting medals for campaigns they weren’t involved in, and after about 12 whisps encouraging him to kill himself, and getting modded on the forums, he gave up. I guess this is what the majority of players want?

On another note, re: net worth dropping 80%, I had gotten a guaranteed wardrobe unlock and got the sclerite dagger skin and was thrilled at how much it was worth (419g) and two days later, season 1 memory box came out and that dagger dropped to 64g. Two. Days. I go from being super excited I got something which is super rare to “oh, well everyone has a huuuuuge chance of getting it now FOR FREE so it’s not that exciting anymore.” Two. Days. I can only imagine how upset other players who have earned this stuff from season 1 got.

Personally, I think the items should continue to be exclusive, only doled out by wardrobe unlocks, but hey, be careful what you wish for, Anet will probs give it to you…

Linken.6345:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

ElectricGoat.8253:

How do I get more of those boxes? I used the first one up and got a sprocket out of it. I want more sprockets.

I’m guessing the only way is through the gem store?

Only way to get sprocket is the gem store, but many of the individual items are on the TP right now as well.

You see Vayne, this is another example of why I have a problem with this system. ElectricGoat wants an item, and if those items where available in game he could now be doing dungeons, fractals and so on… the content that did reward that type of items he is after.

And when he was after the next items, there would be other dungeons or content rewarding it that he would go after.

But instead the only approach he has is grinding gold (what tends to burn people out) or buy it. MMO’s are for a big part reward driven games, if you then sell those items or put them behind a boring currency-grind that is negative.

Anyway, I just notice your reaction on this great example, and because we talked about this so many times I wanted to point this example out to you.

Yea but I belive alot of players want to have token system like the gears.
Just see how many threads there have been about egg sacks, invisble shoes, teqatil weapons etc.

Doing teq for example 250 times and getting 3 of the 16/19 if they have under water skins is just not fun in the long run.

Still saving up my Teq tail fragments and hope they will put in a trader for boxes.

Token system is still grinding a currency. Not that I think tokens are bad by definition, but should not be there to get the more desirable items. They should be more of the thing you get on the side so you also get some ensured progression when doing content multiple times.

So this is how I would implement it, with a dungeon as example. Have a dungeon-armor-set (like in GW2) that you can earn with tokens. But this should not be some very special looking set many people want to have for sure. It should be a ‘nice to have’. This ensures you have some reward progression while doing a dungeon multiple times.
Also put in a specific reward for completing the dungeon. So everybody who completes that dungeon gets that reward.

In addition you can add in some achievement-rewards as well. The Twilight Arbor Aetherpath is a perfect example of this one. That has a list of achievements that will unlock a mini.

And lastly have a boss drop a specific item with RNG. The Decorative Molten Jetpack was a great example of this when it still dropped in the Molten Facility dungeon (With the only big problem, that is was temporary). This should be the most desirable item.
How rare / hard to get this is, can still be controlled by the developers based on the drop-rate. For example 1/50 or 1/100 or 1/500 or 1/1000. You get the point. This approach over the token approach means that instead of looking at some number slowly going up and exactly knowing how many more runs you have to do to get the item, now every time you kill the boss there is the rush of ‘will it drop this time?’. Many people have got a negative idea with RNG loot, but that has mostly to do with the implementation of it. Some people believe in bad luck and while obviously you can have bad luck, when it has a drop-rate of 1/100 it’s very unlikely you have to do it 250 times before you get it.

You come with the Teq example what does use a drop-rate for specific items. The big issue here is that GW2 has already a system where people grind currency to get items. World-bosses like Teq are one of those things people grind. Now when they put in specific drops from that content (and make it not account-bound) the drop-rate has to be extremely low to prevent the TP from flooding with those items. Because even with extreme low drop-rates, simply the fact that so many people keep doing this specific content so many times, the items will still drop many times overall. Law of the big numbers. However, it also means that you as individual person have almost no possibility of getting such items in a reasonable way from the content itself. You are better of grinding gold (by doing Teq.. see the visual circle here?) to then sell the items you don’t want and other people do, to then buy the item you like and others don’t.

As long as they never bring back our ball caps or the witch hat from S1 Mad King, I don’t really have an issue with the new people getting S1 stuff. It was disappointing to see them running around with shatterer wings and hopefully they’ll leave sunless alone as well. But if not its ok. Just leave the ball caps out of it if nothing else. New people don’t deserve those and yes I said deserve. If you weren’t there first week of release (regardless of reason) then you don’t deserve them

The rewards from investments may go down as well as up…..gotta be quick if you want to play the market and when things go sour, the skill of a good trader is to get that sale in before the losses go bad.

If anyone wanders away from the game and misses out due to these….well….you thems the breaks really.

Devata.6589:

And lastly have a boss drop a specific item with RNG. The Decorative Molten Jetpack was a great example of this when it still dropped in the Molten Facility dungeon (With the only big problem, that is was temporary). This should be the most desirable item.
How rare / hard to get this is, can still be controlled by the developers based on the drop-rate.

If they make it a drop of a specific boss then what will happen is players running that boss 100 times per day in order to get it and then making the item practically worthless since players will now be deleting it. To keep it valuable in that case the drop rate needs to be abysmal low, to counter the “Law of the big numbers”. That’s how some of the very expensive skins worked in Guild Wars 1, creating entire meta compositions of farmers doing very specific dungeons for the very specific rewards at their end. Personally I didn’t like that approach because it meant “normal players”, those who do not farm the dungeon many times each day, had a very low chance of getting those skins.

What you probably fail to see, is that a token system works better because you cannot abuse it by over-farming those tokens. You can only get a very specific amount of tokens each day and if you repeat the content you get none. This means the developer can better pace the rewards and make assumptions on how many days it will take a player to get the reward. For example, this is how the Raid boss reward chests work, you can only loot their big end chest once per week, and BECAUSE it’s on a weekly lock it has much better rewards than other reward chests. If Tequatl was on a weekly lock then you’d have 100x times better chance of getting anything from it.

It’s not only the drop rate that can make things rare. It’s also the difficulty as well as weekly/daily locks on rewards.

This approach over the token approach means that instead of looking at some number slowly going up and exactly knowing how many more runs you have to do to get the item, now every time you kill the boss there is the rush of ‘will it drop this time?’.

You may like this but I, and I’m sure many others do too, dislike the “will it drop this time” approach with a burning passion. It doesn’t make content better, it makes it boring, players get sick of it and when they do get that reward they are after, they never visit that content again in their lifetime.

Faaris.8013:

Maybe you are the one that doesn’t understand reward systems in MMO games, but you think your experience and expertise in that field is greater than that of the people in charge at ArenaNet (and of people with common sense)

Can you even picture a situation where that backpack skin and other S1 rewards drop from Molten Boss fractal (after all, it’s the molten boss jetpack)? Everybody would have it within 2 days. People farm that fractal, it’s played thousands of times per day. It would turn all these items into trash. Soon people would start asking for them to be removed (or at least stack to 250) because deleting jetpacks and other items from the inventory takes time. They would be like Mini Professor Mew!

Being able to buy the items with gold is the maximum freedom you can give people. Even gems, since you can buy gems with gold. If you make the skin (example) a rare drop from Molten Boss, how is that not require players to grind? Molten Boss gives so much gold, you could just buy the skin from the TP after a while, maybe even before you get the drop. Personally, I find having the freedom to get gold in a way that suits me, better than having to grind a specific fractal. Somehow you seem to believe that the thousand ways of getting currency in a game is more grinding than doing a fractal over and over to get a drop.

I think Anet has different goals with the rewards, and yes I believe the reward system the way I describe it is way superior from a ‘fun’ perspective (but Anet has a monetize goal for rewards, not a fun goal). Btw, the funny thing is that this specific item was initially implemented in the way as I prefer it. If only that dungeon was not temporary.

The fact that they are in charge at Anet does not mean they know better. Many games did fail with ‘experts in charge’. And Anet has always had a hard time retaining players with the same ‘experts in charge’. The same ‘experts in charge’ made many decisions they later had to come back on, decisions many players where negative about from day one. So being in change does not mean you make the right decision. So this whole “they are the experts so they know better” argument is empty and proven wrong many many times.

“Can you even picture a situation where that backpack skin and other S1 rewards drop from Molten Boss fractal (after all, it’s the molten boss jetpack)? Everybody would have it within 2 days.” The original dungeon it dropped from was farmed many times for more than two days and not everybody had it. This is all about drop-rate. And again this has to do with how the game works by now. There are some types on content people grind a lot (while this changes from time to time). If most rewards would be implemented in such way, grinding content would be less of a thing. So flooding the market with one item would also be less of a problem. However if you would want to go for a specific item you could still buy it from the TP (for a price) or go do the content and farm that specific content until you got it. There are examples of such implementations in other MMO’s without the TP being flooded with them (aka everybody having one within 2 days).
Now if a lot of content would have rewards like this and new people come in the game they might see it at somebody, ask where it comes from and so they mind up doing that dungeon. Then they see another item and they go do so other content that rewards that thing, then they see another items…. Now however it’s most likely that for all the items, the approach is grind gold. Then you can wonder how long it takes for those people to leave the game again being burned out.
“Being able to buy the items with gold is the maximum freedom you can give people. Even gems, since you can buy gems with gold.” Yeah, and it makes the game a big boring grind. But I guess that is great.

“If you make the skin (example) a rare drop from Molten Boss, how is that not require players to grind? Molten Boss gives so much gold, you could just buy the skin from the TP after a while, maybe even before you get the drop.”
This has to do with how you balance the game. Again, if you mainly work with these types of rewards and put them all over the world. Then farming the boss for it will be the fastest way. But that is not how the game is designed. You are working from a mindset based on how things work now in GW2. But they work this way because of how it is designed.
“Personally, I find having the freedom to get gold in a way that suits me, better than having to grind a specific fractal.” That is the nice thing about the other approach. For the not account bound items, you still have the ability to grind. Because some will still end up on the TP. The big difference is that at the same time you also have a more direct approach to go for them.

“Somehow you seem to believe that the thousand ways of getting currency in a game is more grinding than doing a fractal over and over to get a drop.” There are only an x number of optimal ways to get it. And again, you still would have the option to grind gold if you would really like that. Also it’s not always doing that fractal over and over again. It’s doing that fractal over and over again for that one specific item! After that there is another content to do. It are many optional micro farms / grinds vs a few required mega grinds to get the items you want.

The again. The people who hate the grind have likely all left by now. So it does not really matter anymore.

What is mostly left are the people who don’t mind to grind, who don’t mind to just buy instead of play or who don’t care for rewards in the first place. Obviously that is a smaller player base was also means lower income as we have seen over the years. What is especially interesting when taking into consideration that the current approach was likely mostly done from a monetization standpoint. And that did work great… for the short term.

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

And lastly have a boss drop a specific item with RNG. The Decorative Molten Jetpack was a great example of this when it still dropped in the Molten Facility dungeon (With the only big problem, that is was temporary). This should be the most desirable item.
How rare / hard to get this is, can still be controlled by the developers based on the drop-rate.

If they make it a drop of a specific boss then what will happen is players running that boss 100 times per day in order to get it and then making the item practically worthless since players will now be deleting it. To keep it valuable in that case the drop rate needs to be abysmal low, to counter the “Law of the big numbers”. That’s how some of the very expensive skins worked in Guild Wars 1, creating entire meta compositions of farmers doing very specific dungeons for the very specific rewards at their end. Personally I didn’t like that approach because it meant “normal players”, those who do not farm the dungeon many times each day, had a very low chance of getting those skins.

What you probably fail to see, is that a token system works better because you cannot abuse it by over-farming those tokens. You can only get a very specific amount of tokens each day and if you repeat the content you get none. This means the developer can better pace the rewards and make assumptions on how many days it will take a player to get the reward. For example, this is how the Raid boss reward chests work, you can only loot their big end chest once per week, and BECAUSE it’s on a weekly lock it has much better rewards than other reward chests. If Tequatl was on a weekly lock then you’d have 100x times better chance of getting anything from it.

It’s not only the drop rate that can make things rare. It’s also the difficulty as well as weekly/daily locks on rewards.

This approach over the token approach means that instead of looking at some number slowly going up and exactly knowing how many more runs you have to do to get the item, now every time you kill the boss there is the rush of ‘will it drop this time?’.

You may like this but I, and I’m sure many others do too, dislike the “will it drop this time” approach with a burning passion. It doesn’t make content better, it makes it boring, players get sick of it and when they do get that reward they are after, they never visit that content again in their lifetime.

“If they make it a drop of a specific boss then what will happen is players running that boss 100 times per day in order to get it and then making the item practically worthless since players will now be deleting it.” This is only true because of how GW2 works now. If almost all items were implemented like this, this would not be true.
Let me try to brake this down for you.. Forget all about how GW2 works. Let’s say we have a new game. We have a dungeon-game, it does also have a TP, but that is about it. This dungeon game has 10000 dungeons. Every dungeon has 3 bosses with each one specific drop. They also drop some currency (not a lot) and other rewards. But the cool items everybody wants are those 3 per dungeon.
Now person x wants multiple rewards but has his focus on a reward that drops from dungeon 1. He could do dungeon 2, get the reward, sell it and then maybe buy the reward from dungeon 1. More likely is he does dungeon 1 (first) because selling the item will also mean he lose some money, but anyway, he has the freedom to go for the different approaches.
Now let’s say it turns out that the item from dungeon 3 is the most popular, so a bunch of grinders decide to go and grind dungeon 3. Of course this would not really work, because within no time the price of the item on the TP will start dropping, not making it an interesting place to grind anymore. And what are they grinding for in the first place? To buy another item. So they can just as well just do the dungeon with the reward they wanted in the first place.
The drop-rate would not change much about this, it would simply make an item more or less rare. More rare could mean it would cost more on the TP but starting to grind for it would still financially not be interesting because as soon people started grinding the price would drop leaving them better off simply doing the content that rewards the item they want.

Now back to GW2. Yes, there is a grind culture here. Many items you can only get buy spending gold or cash. So people are grinding. Putting in one new dungeon with one new reward would possibly create the effect you said because everybody will go grind that dungeon (depends, if there is only one rewards, other content might still be more interesting to grind so the people will not come to grind it), and the TP will be saturated within no-time or the drop-rate has to be extremely low to prevent that from happening.

It’s all about how you design the reward-system.

And yes, things like allowing it to only be done once a day can help as well. That does not mea you need to have a token system.

Devata.6589:

Faaris.8013:

Maybe you are the one that doesn’t understand reward systems in MMO games, but you think your experience and expertise in that field is greater than that of the people in charge at ArenaNet (and of people with common sense)

Can you even picture a situation where that backpack skin and other S1 rewards drop from Molten Boss fractal (after all, it’s the molten boss jetpack)? Everybody would have it within 2 days. People farm that fractal, it’s played thousands of times per day. It would turn all these items into trash. Soon people would start asking for them to be removed (or at least stack to 250) because deleting jetpacks and other items from the inventory takes time. They would be like Mini Professor Mew!

Being able to buy the items with gold is the maximum freedom you can give people. Even gems, since you can buy gems with gold. If you make the skin (example) a rare drop from Molten Boss, how is that not require players to grind? Molten Boss gives so much gold, you could just buy the skin from the TP after a while, maybe even before you get the drop. Personally, I find having the freedom to get gold in a way that suits me, better than having to grind a specific fractal. Somehow you seem to believe that the thousand ways of getting currency in a game is more grinding than doing a fractal over and over to get a drop.

I think Anet has different goals with the rewards, and yes I believe the reward system the way I describe it is way superior from a ‘fun’ perspective (but Anet has a monetize goal for rewards, not a fun goal). Btw, the funny thing is that this specific item was initially implemented in the way as I prefer it. If only that dungeon was not temporary.

The fact that they are in charge at Anet does not mean they know better. Many games did fail with ‘experts in charge’. And Anet has always had a hard time retaining players with the same ‘experts in charge’. The same ‘experts in charge’ made many decisions they later had to come back on, decisions many players where negative about from day one. So being in change does not mean you make the right decision. So this whole “they are the experts so they know better” argument is empty and proven wrong many many times.

“Can you even picture a situation where that backpack skin and other S1 rewards drop from Molten Boss fractal (after all, it’s the molten boss jetpack)? Everybody would have it within 2 days.” The original dungeon it dropped from was farmed many times for more than two days and not everybody had it. This is all about drop-rate. And again this has to do with how the game works by now. There are some types on content people grind a lot (while this changes from time to time). If most rewards would be implemented in such way, grinding content would be less of a thing. So flooding the market with one item would also be less of a problem. However if you would want to go for a specific item you could still buy it from the TP (for a price) or go do the content and farm that specific content until you got it. There are examples of such implementations in other MMO’s without the TP being flooded with them (aka everybody having one within 2 days).
Now if a lot of content would have rewards like this and new people come in the game they might see it at somebody, ask where it comes from and so they mind up doing that dungeon. Then they see another item and they go do so other content that rewards that thing, then they see another items…. Now however it’s most likely that for all the items, the approach is grind gold. Then you can wonder how long it takes for those people to leave the game again being burned out.
“Being able to buy the items with gold is the maximum freedom you can give people. Even gems, since you can buy gems with gold.” Yeah, and it makes the game a big boring grind. But I guess that is great.

“If you make the skin (example) a rare drop from Molten Boss, how is that not require players to grind? Molten Boss gives so much gold, you could just buy the skin from the TP after a while, maybe even before you get the drop.”
This has to do with how you balance the game. Again, if you mainly work with these types of rewards and put them all over the world. Then farming the boss for it will be the fastest way. But that is not how the game is designed. You are working from a mindset based on how things work now in GW2. But they work this way because of how it is designed.
“Personally, I find having the freedom to get gold in a way that suits me, better than having to grind a specific fractal.” That is the nice thing about the other approach. For the not account bound items, you still have the ability to grind. Because some will still end up on the TP. The big difference is that at the same time you also have a more direct approach to go for them.

“Somehow you seem to believe that the thousand ways of getting currency in a game is more grinding than doing a fractal over and over to get a drop.” There are only an x number of optimal ways to get it. And again, you still would have the option to grind gold if you would really like that. Also it’s not always doing that fractal over and over again. It’s doing that fractal over and over again for that one specific item! After that there is another content to do. It are many optional micro farms / grinds vs a few required mega grinds to get the items you want.

The again. The people who hate the grind have likely all left by now. So it does not really matter anymore.

snip

I don’t believe your way is more fun. All you can say is that it would be more fun for you. I personally prefer a token system.

Edit: Farming gold allows me to play in a lot of places, not just one place to get a specific item that I might never get.

Devata.6589:

Linken.6345:

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

ElectricGoat.8253:

How do I get more of those boxes? I used the first one up and got a sprocket out of it. I want more sprockets.

I’m guessing the only way is through the gem store?

Only way to get sprocket is the gem store, but many of the individual items are on the TP right now as well.

You see Vayne, this is another example of why I have a problem with this system. ElectricGoat wants an item, and if those items where available in game he could now be doing dungeons, fractals and so on… the content that did reward that type of items he is after.

And when he was after the next items, there would be other dungeons or content rewarding it that he would go after.

But instead the only approach he has is grinding gold (what tends to burn people out) or buy it. MMO’s are for a big part reward driven games, if you then sell those items or put them behind a boring currency-grind that is negative.

Anyway, I just notice your reaction on this great example, and because we talked about this so many times I wanted to point this example out to you.

Yea but I belive alot of players want to have token system like the gears.
Just see how many threads there have been about egg sacks, invisble shoes, teqatil weapons etc.

Doing teq for example 250 times and getting 3 of the 16/19 if they have under water skins is just not fun in the long run.

Still saving up my Teq tail fragments and hope they will put in a trader for boxes.

Token system is still grinding a currency. Not that I think tokens are bad by definition, but should not be there to get the more desirable items. They should be more of the thing you get on the side so you also get some ensured progression when doing content multiple times.

So this is how I would implement it, with a dungeon as example. Have a dungeon-armor-set (like in GW2) that you can earn with tokens. But this should not be some very special looking set many people want to have for sure. It should be a ‘nice to have’. This ensures you have some reward progression while doing a dungeon multiple times.
Also put in a specific reward for completing the dungeon. So everybody who completes that dungeon gets that reward.

In addition you can add in some achievement-rewards as well. The Twilight Arbor Aetherpath is a perfect example of this one. That has a list of achievements that will unlock a mini.

And lastly have a boss drop a specific item with RNG. The Decorative Molten Jetpack was a great example of this when it still dropped in the Molten Facility dungeon (With the only big problem, that is was temporary). This should be the most desirable item.
How rare / hard to get this is, can still be controlled by the developers based on the drop-rate. For example 1/50 or 1/100 or 1/500 or 1/1000. You get the point. This approach over the token approach means that instead of looking at some number slowly going up and exactly knowing how many more runs you have to do to get the item, now every time you kill the boss there is the rush of ‘will it drop this time?’. Many people have got a negative idea with RNG loot, but that has mostly to do with the implementation of it. Some people believe in bad luck and while obviously you can have bad luck, when it has a drop-rate of 1/100 it’s very unlikely you have to do it 250 times before you get it.

You come with the Teq example what does use a drop-rate for specific items. The big issue here is that GW2 has already a system where people grind currency to get items. World-bosses like Teq are one of those things people grind. Now when they put in specific drops from that content (and make it not account-bound) the drop-rate has to be extremely low to prevent the TP from flooding with those items. Because even with extreme low drop-rates, simply the fact that so many people keep doing this specific content so many times, the items will still drop many times overall. Law of the big numbers. However, it also means that you as individual person have almost no possibility of getting such items in a reasonable way from the content itself. You are better of grinding gold (by doing Teq.. see the visual circle here?) to then sell the items you don’t want and other people do, to then buy the item you like and others don’t.

You do know that the weapon boxes Im talking about are account bound so no matter how much gold I collect Í cant buy them so what is the point of your post again?

Tasida.4085:

As long as they never bring back our ball caps or the witch hat from S1 Mad King, I don’t really have an issue with the new people getting S1 stuff. It was disappointing to see them running around with shatterer wings and hopefully they’ll leave sunless alone as well. But if not its ok. Just leave the ball caps out of it if nothing else. New people don’t deserve those and yes I said deserve. If you weren’t there first week of release (regardless of reason) then you don’t deserve them

what about the people who were there but dident keep the cap for 3 years untill the wardrobe hit?

Devata.6589:

So people are grinding.

And with your system they won’t grind? The system you described is very similar to the system in Guild Wars 1. Grind til your fingers bleed a specific dungeon to get that skin you want or grind elsewhere and buy that skin. There is still grind, and too much grind in some cases.

Don’t get me wrong, adding specific rewards behind specific content is something I will always support. All types of content, all dungeons, all pve maps, everything needs their unique rewards not found elsewhere.

This is the part I disagree with:

Now person x wants multiple rewards but has his focus on a reward that drops from dungeon 1. He could do dungeon 2, get the reward, sell it and then maybe buy the reward from dungeon 1. More likely is he does dungeon 1 (first) because selling the item will also mean he lose some money, but anyway, he has the freedom to go for the different approaches.

Adding unique/specific rewards to content is fine. Giving them currency value is not, and the main reason is because if that happens there has to be an insane RNG behind those items.

The drop rate of Raid miniatures is great, you don’t have to kill the bosses a billion times to get the minis. The drop rate of Ascended boss skins in Raids is great too. However, Ghostly Infusion drop rate is garbage. What’s the difference between the two? Minis and Skins are account bound, ghostly infusions can be sold, and in order to keep their gold value they must be rare, which means their chance of dropping is abysmal compared to the other Raid-specific drops. The tokens help you get a specific item you want, because there are LOTS of potential drops, the tokens also help players with bad luck to get what they want. After running that Dungeon 1 for the 1000 time without getting the reward you want, would you feel happy? I wouldn’t, at least with tokens I know I made some progress towards my goal. Having both tokens AND rng is the best way (account bound always)

Although it gives a way for those who don’t like the content, to get the rewards from that content (by farming something else and then buying it) it DOES make everything worse for everyone who actually likes the content.

Linken.6345:

Tasida.4085:

As long as they never bring back our ball caps or the witch hat from S1 Mad King, I don’t really have an issue with the new people getting S1 stuff. It was disappointing to see them running around with shatterer wings and hopefully they’ll leave sunless alone as well. But if not its ok. Just leave the ball caps out of it if nothing else. New people don’t deserve those and yes I said deserve. If you weren’t there first week of release (regardless of reason) then you don’t deserve them

what about the people who were there but dident keep the cap for 3 years untill the wardrobe hit?

Send a ticket in. They will replace the hat…..

Remember when they said Lake Doric would not be released and they did not have plans to introduce an area with that much water? Then we got lake Doric without the water like a month later.

Drecien.4508:

Remember when they said Lake Doric would not be released and they did not have plans to introduce an area with that much water? Then we got lake Doric without the water like a month later.

I don’t remember that because it’s not what happened.

People datamined pointers to a map called “Lake Doric” and ANet said that wouldn’t be released. The map we have is also called “Lake Doric.” It’s not quite a coincidence, because the name has a lore-based origin, but the two Dorics have nothing else in common.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t believe your way is more fun. All you can say is that it would be more fun for you. I personally prefer a token system.

Edit: Farming gold allows me to play in a lot of places, not just one place to get a specific item that I might never get.

I know you believe so. And we never know for sure if with the other system would have been better able at retaining people.

Then again, for all non-accountbound items you would still have your grind for gold option if you prefer that. So that does not change.

Also this approach would not trequire you to only play in one place, it requires you to play in one specific place for one specific item. That is a difference. It means that when you go after rewards you will llikely do all the content. Instead of only the things that are the best to grind for gold.

It’s also a more ‘life of the land’ mentality vs a work for cash and buy mentality.
Thing is, in the current approach, the people who prefer the ‘life of the land’ will get bored and leave (well, left). While in the other approach they don’t while people who want do to other content to earn gold to then buy what they want can still do so.
So logically more people would be happy (don’t get bored) with that approach.

It’s the best of both worlds.

Faaris.8013:

Specifically, from that post Valediction linked:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Any updates to the fractals will need to include additional update to the reward systems as well, agreed.

As for the jet pack, those specific rewards are intended as limited rewards you can only earn during that time, thus making them valuable. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely.

I think interpreting this comment to mean “regarding them dropping from fractals” is quite a stretch. No matter how it entered the game again, it is content and very specifically contradicts what the Game Director at that time said.

The value of the items has been undercut suddenly and entirely.

To be clear, I disagree with him. I think if you get items hoping that their value increases is a gamble, like anywhere else. If I buy that axe skin today for 50 gold and keep it (without using it), I’m betting on it to become more valuable in one or two years, maybe 1000 gold or more. If Anet makes that skin available again in 2 years, I lost the bet.

It’s unfortunate that the Game Director at that time made this statement, but I understand why the current person in charge thinks and acts differently. Maybe they aim to make as many people happy as possible.

Even without the random drop form those boxes, the value might have decreased now, since many players return to the game due to the expansion. They haven’t logged in for 2 years or longer, check their bank and inventories and notice the prices of the skins they have. At least that’s what I would do immediately. Some of those people probably sold them for 4k asap, and with 6 times more supply than before, the price has dropped to 400 gold.

But yes, the big impact came on the day the Season 1 memory box was released ^^
Imagine, there were people offering to purchase it for 3k half a year ago and didn’t log in that day (holiday season). They were sold that item for 3k and an hour later it was worth 400. Andf those who put them on the TP for 5k lost the 5% fee because they would never sell it for 5k anymore. But that’s the risk when you play the market.

This is the quote he was referring too:

ColinJohanson.2394:

As for the jet pack, those specific rewards are intended as limited rewards you can only earn during that time, thus making them valuable. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely.

I have to agree, what a load of horse crap to be handing out these items. Players like myself were there for those events and use these cosmetics to show that off.

Can we give everyone “God Of PvP” title in 3 years because not everyone got it? What a load of horse crap.

sephiroth.4217:

This is the quote he was referring too:

ColinJohanson.2394:

As for the jet pack, those specific rewards are intended as limited rewards you can only earn during that time, thus making them valuable. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely.

Was that quote from the era of temporary content? If yes then the quote made sense, the policy of the company was to release content that would disappear after a while, which meant the rewards in that content had to be kept unique and not given again, much like the content. However, the company policy on temporary content changed with LS2 (and that was a good change)

Temporary content required temporary rewards. Now that content is no longer temporary, having temporary rewards isn’t needed either.

maddoctor.2738:

sephiroth.4217:

This is the quote he was referring too:

ColinJohanson.2394:

As for the jet pack, those specific rewards are intended as limited rewards you can only earn during that time, thus making them valuable. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely.

Was that quote from the era of temporary content? If yes then the quote made sense, the policy of the company was to release content that would disappear after a while, which meant the rewards in that content had to be kept unique and not given again, much like the content. However, the company policy on temporary content changed with LS2 (and that was a good change)

Temporary content required temporary rewards. Now that content is no longer temporary, having temporary rewards isn’t needed either.

It’s the quote OP referred too. Please don’t try and spin it either, it is what it is, stated by Colin himself.

Here it is again though in case you didn’t read it fully.

ColinJohanson.2394:

As for the jet pack, those specific rewards are intended as limited rewards you can only earn during that time, thus making them valuable. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely.

sephiroth.4217:

maddoctor.2738:

sephiroth.4217:

This is the quote he was referring too:

ColinJohanson.2394:

As for the jet pack, those specific rewards are intended as limited rewards you can only earn during that time, thus making them valuable. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely.

Was that quote from the era of temporary content? If yes then the quote made sense, the policy of the company was to release content that would disappear after a while, which meant the rewards in that content had to be kept unique and not given again, much like the content. However, the company policy on temporary content changed with LS2 (and that was a good change)

Temporary content required temporary rewards. Now that content is no longer temporary, having temporary rewards isn’t needed either.

It’s the quote OP referred too. Please don’t try and spin it either, it is what it is, stated by Colin himself.

A quote that was said in the era of temporary content. That era is long gone so the quote doesn’t apply anymore.

maddoctor.2738:

sephiroth.4217:

maddoctor.2738:

sephiroth.4217:

This is the quote he was referring too:

ColinJohanson.2394:

As for the jet pack, those specific rewards are intended as limited rewards you can only earn during that time, thus making them valuable. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely.

Was that quote from the era of temporary content? If yes then the quote made sense, the policy of the company was to release content that would disappear after a while, which meant the rewards in that content had to be kept unique and not given again, much like the content. However, the company policy on temporary content changed with LS2 (and that was a good change)

Temporary content required temporary rewards. Now that content is no longer temporary, having temporary rewards isn’t needed either.

It’s the quote OP referred too. Please don’t try and spin it either, it is what it is, stated by Colin himself.

A quote that was said in the era of temporary content. That era is long gone so the quote doesn’t apply anymore.

By your logic, everyone will have “God Of PvP” title within a year.

“era of temporary content” lmao, good one.

but here it is a 3rd time, just incase you didnt read it the first 2 times before replying.

ColinJohanson.2394:

As for the jet pack, those specific rewards are intended as limited rewards you can only earn during that time, thus making them valuable. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely.

There are some key phrases here if you’re not familiar with English, I’ll start with “rewards you can only earn during that time – This basically means there’s a time frame involved. That time frame is long over by the way.

" It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back"

It wouldn’t be fair to the people who earned (not rng) their jetpacks.

I hope you’re starting to understand why some people might be super frustrated about this.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t believe your way is more fun. All you can say is that it would be more fun for you. I personally prefer a token system.

Edit: Farming gold allows me to play in a lot of places, not just one place to get a specific item that I might never get.

I know you believe so. And we never know for sure if with the other system would have been better able at retaining people.

Then again, for all non-accountbound items you would still have your grind for gold option if you prefer that. So that does not change.

Also this approach would not trequire you to only play in one place, it requires you to play in one specific place for one specific item. That is a difference. It means that when you go after rewards you will llikely do all the content. Instead of only the things that are the best to grind for gold.

It’s also a more ‘life of the land’ mentality vs a work for cash and buy mentality.
Thing is, in the current approach, the people who prefer the ‘life of the land’ will get bored and leave (well, left). While in the other approach they don’t while people who want do to other content to earn gold to then buy what they want can still do so.
So logically more people would be happy (don’t get bored) with that approach.

It’s the best of both worlds.

But I don’t want to play in one place for one specific item. In Guild Wars 1 it was Bogroots Growth to get a Frog Scepter I never had. I don’t want to farm over and over again for a voltaic spear.

In Guild Wars 1 you could buy that stuff with gold, but most of that stuff inthis game you can’t. There are obviously reasons for that as well.

Right now, no matter what I ‘m doing I’m making gold or something that can become gold. I don’t need to “farm” it and I don’t. I just play the game.

sephiroth.4217:

By your logic, everyone will have “God Of PvP” title within a year.

You do know that God of PVP is still available right? Everyone has access to it because it will never go away and the winner of every pvp season for the rest of the game’s life will get that title. The jetpack wasn’t available anymore, that’s what temporary means. It was a temporary reward for temporary content, now that temporary content isn’t a thing anymore, temporary rewards aren’t needed either.

Is it fair that new players can get Maudrey? It’s a LS2 specific reward and they weren’t there when LS2 was first available.
Is it fair that new players can get Aurora? It’s a LS3 specific reward after all.
If we followed the molten jetpack example then players who weren’t there when LS2/LS3 was released shouldn’t be able to get those specific rewards that came with it.

But everyone can. Much like God of PvP. Because they aren’t temporary anymore, honestly those LS1 rewards should’ve been added in the game much sooner and not wait for so long to do so.

Vayne.8563:

But I don’t want to play in one place for one specific item. In Guild Wars 1 it was Bogroots Growth to get a Frog Scepter I never had. I don’t want to farm over and over again for a voltaic spear.

In Guild Wars 1 you could buy that stuff with gold, but most of that stuff inthis game you can’t. There are obviously reasons for that as well.

Right now, no matter what I ‘m doing I’m making gold or something that can become gold. I don’t need to “farm” it and I don’t. I just play the game.

And why did the Frog Scepter or the Voltaic Spear or Bone Dragon Staff had such abysmal low chance of dropping? Because you could sell them. Allowing players to sell those items means they have to be rare (low chance of dropping) to keep their value up. If they were account bound you wouldn’t need to farm the dungeons over and over to get what you wanted.

And if they offered the rewards with tokens too, then you’d get all the rewards from all dungeons after running them a very limited amount of time. No grind/farm needed.

Linken.6345:

You do know that the weapon boxes Im talking about are account bound so no matter how much gold I collect Í cant buy them so what is the point of your post again?

Yeah, but I never talked about items having to be account bound. Your example did have such items but that is not the scenario I talked about.

Don’t get me wrong, I think account-bound items have their place, but this might not be the correct place.

What you commented on was also about tradable items, while your example was not.

However, what you might seem to forget is that Arenanet still does this with a reason. They want some items to be very unique, have a specific rarity.

For MMO’s many developers want to have some really rare items.
What you seem to want is the following token system, so that let’s say you need on average to kill Teq 100 times to get one skin, now instead of a skin you would have the tokens to buy the skin you want. But that would make the skins less unique, because people will sooner have the skin they want (and use) so you start seeing the skins much more in the world. This is exactly what a developer is likely trying to prevent by using the system they have. They could turn it into a token-system, but when holding on the the rarity it would likely not make you much more happy.

Here comes your probability (math) into play. So let’s say that every item will have a drop-rate of 1/100. There are 10 items and there are no returning items (when you get an item, it’s always one you did not have yet). So on average you need +- 1000 kills to get all the items. The probability you get the correct item (based on the assumption that people are usually interested in one of 10 the items), every time you get an item is 1 in 10. So 1 item in +-100 kills and 1/10 will be the item you want.

So for sake of argument let’s say that based on these numbers on average you would need 500 kills to get the item you want (mathematically this is not 100% correct,). That means that to keep the same rarity that the developer wants, instead of letting you buy the items for 100 tokens they have to up the price to 500 tokens [based on one token per kill].

Or translated back to your Teq example, you might have to kill Teq another 1000 times to have the tokens to buy the skin you want. But by that time you were just as likely to have had it drop as well. That stays the same. The token system only helps you to be ‘sure’ you get it by then while a drop-rate has to do with probability. Some people feel they are always unlucky and so the token system would be better but that is not how it (the world) works. What is more likely is that one time you are out of luck and need double the number of kills then the average to get the item you want, while the next time you get it on the first kill.

Really, what (you) people are really asking for in your example is not so much a token system but is to lower the rarity.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket especially when it’s based off something you thought someone said. I have plenty of stuff that’s now worthless and I should have sold it earlier, but you know, just gotta live with your choices

That’s about it.

And honestly accessibility is good; players shouldn’t be denied things because they didn’t happen to be at the right place at the right time, especially not because some want to speculate on the TP.

I’m pretty happy about it. I missed like 1/2 of that stuff back when I played the actual event. Never got that Halo tonic I wanted. Never was able to finish my Spinal Blades backpack. Now I did! Great idea imo

Nightingale.9714:

I’m pretty happy about it. I missed like 1/2 of that stuff back when I played the actual event. Never got that Halo tonic I wanted. Never was able to finish my Spinal Blades backpack. Now I did! Great idea imo

^

Really guys, let us face it.

There could 2 two type of responses which depend on the specific human being himself:

1- People who pretend that the others don’t have any chance to get what they have ( regardless of reason, which could be “a past event” or “a rng drop” or “a removed item” ).

2- People who are happy if somebody can get something that he couldn’t before ( or simply, people who don’t care about the others ).

If you want to complain about something, at least complain about the “RNG” acquisition, which is not the best way to complete a collection.

sephiroth.4217:

No it’s not irrelevant and meaningless just because you say so.

But it certainly is. It was made at a time when the company was releasing temporary content. They changed their attitude towards content since then and no longer release temporary content. Therefore the quote is completely irrelevant and of course meaningless now.
And I kind of explained this to you multiple times and instead of understanding it, you re-posted the quote as if it means anything. Re-posting the quote when it’s already proven irrelevant won’t help your argument.

sephiroth.4217:

(last time though incase you seriously don’t understand: old rewards were earned, not RNG. They were also limited to that time era and was stated it would be a valuable item due to not returning to the game – the point of the thread, pointed out to you, again)

No they weren’t “earned”. The era of limited rewards and limited content is over, LS2 isn’t limited, LS3 isn’t limited. They changed from a temporary model to a permanent model, returning old limited rewards and make them like all new ones is making things consistent.

There is no longer temporary content in the game, therefore there shouldn’t be temporary rewards either. I think it’s not rocket science is it?

Valediction.3275:

It’s kinda annoying that you can’t search the dev tracker, but at least I remembered correctly that it was a post from Colin, so I found it.

Here’s the specific post:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lwd/The-Historian-for-people-who-missed-content

Admittedly, Colin isn’t around anymore, but I didn’t realize that meant I’d wake up to this particular surprise.

When the game director changes, the direction a game takes also changes. Not having exclusive content is better, allowing people to attain everything so that items don’t become unattainable for people who play many years to finally get the gold to get an item only to find all the supply is gone.

maddoctor.2738:

sephiroth.4217:

(last time though incase you seriously don’t understand: old rewards were earned, not RNG. They were also limited to that time era and was stated it would be a valuable item due to not returning to the game – the point of the thread, pointed out to you, again)

No they weren’t “earned”. The era of limited rewards and limited content is over, LS2 isn’t limited, LS3 isn’t limited. They changed from a temporary model to a permanent model, returning old limited rewards and make them like all new ones is making things consistent.

There is no longer temporary content in the game, therefore there shouldn’t be temporary rewards either. I think it’s not rocket science is it?

Dude you could made this post earlier.

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

So people are grinding.

And with your system they won’t grind? The system you described is very similar to the system in Guild Wars 1. Grind til your fingers bleed a specific dungeon to get that skin you want or grind elsewhere and buy that skin. There is still grind, and too much grind in some cases.
~

While in addition to these type of drops I would also want to see more ensured rewards, like quest rewards. But yes, instead of a number of mega currency-grinds, it would be divided in many smaller farms (grinding is usually referred to when doing repeated content for some currency, being it XP, levels, tokens or gold while farming is usually referred to repeating content for item-drops you want). And that would in my opinion have burned out less people, or get less people bored.

“There is still grind, and too much grind in some cases.” It does not make more grind (in fact, usually it’s less because with the conversion to gold you also lose gold) but in the worst case scenario it’s the same amount while divided in many smaller ones.

“Grind til your fingers bleed” If your fingers are bleeding then, they for sure are bleeding now. Again, you try to make as if that is more ‘grind’ but in reality it the same or less and devided in smaller parts.

“Adding unique/specific rewards to content is fine. Giving them currency value is not, and the main reason is because if that happens there has to be an insane RNG behind those items.”
And this is simply factual false. That is exactly what I tried to explain before. You are thinking with a GW2 mindset where some content gets grinded for gold, because gold is so important here (for a big part because of the gem conversion). The number of times you would now have to do content to get the gold to buy item x would then be the same number (or likely lower!) of times you would then have to do content y to get item x.

“What’s the difference between the two? Minis and Skins are account bound, ghostly infusions can be sold, and in order to keep their gold value they must be rare, which means their chance of dropping is abysmal compared to the other Raid-specific drops.” Sure those items need to have a lower drop-rate then account-bound items. But you just changed the subject. I was talking about how things are implemented in GW2 now against how I would want them (for tradable items!). You are talking about account-bound items vs not account bound item. I am personally also not against adding those items. I am in favor of also have those ingame. But then you get many GW2 players complaining they are forced to do specific content.

“The tokens help you get a specific item you want, because there are LOTS of potential drops, the tokens also help players with bad luck to get what they want.” But getting the items you want easier basically means you want to lower the rarity, and bad luck overall does not exist. Yes one time they might take longer, but the next time they will get it faster.

“After running that Dungeon 1 for the 1000 time without getting the reward you want, would you feel happy? " If the drop rate for the item you want is 2000 and so it’s likely that even after 1000 runs you still don’t have the item you want, then it means you would need also like 2000 tokens (one token per run) to get the reward you want and so after 1000 runs you will also still not have the reward you want. You see, what you really want is to lower the rarity instead of a token system.

But to answer your question.. If the drop-rate is 1/2000 and after 1000 runs I would still not have it, no I would not be happy but at least I know that it could drop the very next run. Now with the token system I knew for a fact I had to do it another 2000 times (or whatever the number of tokens are). Yes, then I would prefer the none-token system.
Be aware, these numbers are mathematically not correct, but they works as an indication. What you are really looking for is at how many runs the probability exceeds 50% (what is not at half the number of runs). To be exact, with a drop-rate of 1/2000, the numbers of tokens would likely be something about 1385 as you would need on everage 1385 runs for the item to drop.

You have a point that if you add in many good tradable items in one type of content that RNG would start to become really bad (maybe that is what you are getting at). But what you then are really doing is creating grind content. Content people will do to get good rewards, including the ones they don’t want. So that is something you should not do in the first place. The number of these rewards should always be very limited. 2 or 3 at most from one type of content. And that should also be similar with all the content in the game. So no content can become the best to grind. (While even that would be of a temporary nature, because as soon as it does, prices of those items drop and so it’s not worth grinding anymore).

“Having both tokens AND rng is the best way (account bound always).” Not something I am against. While again you really ask to lower the rarity. Now if it all comes down to this “bad luck” idea. Because while nonsense, people might have that idea. You could also solve that in the RNG. Like every kill after x number of kill’s the probability of it dropping increases until it eventually becomes a guaranteed drop. No need for tokens to solve that.

“Although it gives a way for those who don’t like the content, to get the rewards from that content (by farming something else and then buying it) it DOES make everything worse for everyone who actually likes the content.” For this you don’t have to be in discussion with me. I have always been a favor of content specific rewards and have no problem with (many) of those being account-bound. But you will find many people here against that.

Shirlias.8104:

maddoctor.2738:

sephiroth.4217:

(last time though incase you seriously don’t understand: old rewards were earned, not RNG. They were also limited to that time era and was stated it would be a valuable item due to not returning to the game – the point of the thread, pointed out to you, again)

No they weren’t “earned”. The era of limited rewards and limited content is over, LS2 isn’t limited, LS3 isn’t limited. They changed from a temporary model to a permanent model, returning old limited rewards and make them like all new ones is making things consistent.

There is no longer temporary content in the game, therefore there shouldn’t be temporary rewards either. I think it’s not rocket science is it?

Dude you could made this post earlier.

If only I didn’t type the exact same thing in my first ever response to Sephiroth:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-thought-season-1-items-weren-t-coming-back/page/2#post6737602

Unless you mean even earlier than that.

maddoctor.2738:

Shirlias.8104:

maddoctor.2738:

sephiroth.4217:

(last time though incase you seriously don’t understand: old rewards were earned, not RNG. They were also limited to that time era and was stated it would be a valuable item due to not returning to the game – the point of the thread, pointed out to you, again)

No they weren’t “earned”. The era of limited rewards and limited content is over, LS2 isn’t limited, LS3 isn’t limited. They changed from a temporary model to a permanent model, returning old limited rewards and make them like all new ones is making things consistent.

There is no longer temporary content in the game, therefore there shouldn’t be temporary rewards either. I think it’s not rocket science is it?

Dude you could made this post earlier.

If only I didn’t type the exact same thing in my first ever response to Sephiroth:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-thought-season-1-items-weren-t-coming-back/page/2#post6737602

Unless you mean even earlier than that.

Gosh, i really did miss it.
Apologize.

Devata.6589:

And this is simply factual false. That is exactly what I tried to explain before. You are thinking with a GW2 mindset where some content gets grinded for gold, because gold is so important here (for a big part because of the gem conversion). The number of times you would now have to do content to get the gold to buy item x would then be the same number (or likely lower!) of times you would then have to do content y to get item x.

When you want something and the players tell you “just buy it from the TP” it’s what I dislike and what makes content not rewarding to me anymore. And that’s what happens if the drop chance is too low. Why bother with a 0.1% chance when you can go grind something more profitable and then buy what you want? That kills content in my opinion, it doesn’t make it better.

That’s how the game is now for many items btw, I’m not saying this isn’t happening now.

You said I want to lower the rarity of items but I do not want that. Having low chances to drop is one way of making something rare but it’s not the only way.
Putting it behind harder content is another because the fewer players that can finish the content, the more rare the item.
Adding a weekly or a daily lock is another, by limiting how many times someone can roll for the reward, they can make the rolls more favorable, because excessive farming won’t be a thing anymore.
Putting them as rewards for collections/achievements is another, requiring the player to do multiple types of content all over the game to get what they want.

There is more than one way to ensure the rarity of items. I want items to be rare, but I don’t want them to be a chore to get.

But you just changed the subject. I was talking about how things are implemented in GW2 now against how I would want them (for tradable items!)

And I’m expressing my dislike over tradable items in general. If the entire thing is only about tradebale items and how to acquire those and not about rewards in general then my mistake.

You could also solve that in the RNG. Like every kill after x number of kill’s the probability of it dropping increases until it eventually becomes a guaranteed drop. No need for tokens to solve that.

Aren’t tokens doing exactly that? With probably less development work needed. And more importantly: transparency.

maddoctor.2738:

And I’m expressing my dislike over tradable items in general. If the entire thing is only about tradebale items and how to acquire those and not about rewards in general then my mistake.

But it would and could be a positive thing to have a choice.

Let’s say that you took a break from GW2 and once back you find a cool item.
Now let’s say that you could have different possibilities:

-Seasonal ( it will be avaible next year )
-Historical ( it wont be avaible anymore, except in some occasions like memory boxes or events like halloween lottery )
-Achievement ( it requires specific things to do, and maybe time gate )
-TP/Gemstore ( it requires golds )

Having the possibility to buy it from the store would indeed be a great opportunity.
Maybe you wont have to wait till the next year, or maybe you are getting sick of timegate and instead prefer to directly buy one.

I mean, the way someone could get an item does not really bother me.
I am more interested in having an extra choice, in order to achieve something.

maddoctor.2738:

When you want something and the players tell you “just buy it from the TP” it’s what I dislike and what makes content not rewarding to me anymore. And that’s what happens if the drop chance is too low. Why bother with a 0.1% chance when you can go grind something more profitable and then buy what you want? That kills content in my opinion, it doesn’t make it better.

That is exactly how I look it as well and why I would like to see it different from how it works now. Because this is how it works now.

The fact that you can simply can go grind something more profitable however is not always true. If all content / rewards where implemented like this the rarity is also important for the price. So there would not be a cheap way to get it. In the current approach there is because people will grind content (to buy items, they can’t get in-game) and so prices will drop.

Anyway, I am also not against account-bound like I said before.

maddoctor.2738:

You said I want to lower the rarity of items but I do not want that. Having low chances to drop is one way of making something rare but it’s not the only way.
Putting it behind harder content is another because the fewer players that can finish the content, the more rare the item. Adding a weekly or a daily lock is another, by limiting how many times someone can roll for the reward, then can make the rolls more favorable, because excessive farming won’t be a thing anymore.

With your token explanation you did yes. Now you suddenly talk about other ways to make it more rare. Yes I agree there are multiple ways to achieve that, but that was not what we talked about before. You gave an example of a token, system and I explained that with that example basically what you wanted was a lower rarity.

maddoctor.2738:

Putting them as rewards for collections/achievements is another, requiring the player to do multiple types of content all over the game to get what they want.

That is also why I said in an earlier post that this would be one of the ways I would add in rewards if it was up to me.

maddoctor.2738:

There is more than one way to ensure the rarity of items. I want items to be rare, but I don’t want them to be a chore to get.

And with the token system you talked about it would just be as much a chore as with rng because it would both be based on the same rarity and number of runs.

maddoctor.2738:

But you just changed the subject. I was talking about how things are implemented in GW2 now against how I would want them (for tradable items!)

And I’m expressing my dislike over tradable items in general. If the entire thing is only about tradebale items and how to acquire those and not about rewards in general then my mistake.

My commented you replied to was mostly about how to acquire items (by grinding gold and buying vs directly from the game). Not about tradable vs not tradable.

maddoctor.2738:

You could also solve that in the RNG. Like every kill after x number of kill’s the probability of it dropping increases until it eventually becomes a guaranteed drop. No need for tokens to solve that.

Aren’t tokens doing exactly that? With probably less development work needed.

Yes and no. With such an RNG solution there is just a safety build in that you will not never get it, but other than that it’s still RNG. Every time you do a run it can drop so you keep having the rush of ‘will it drop?’ You might be unlucky with this reward and it takes you longer then normally or you might be lucky and get this reward sooner.

With the token system you simply know I need to do x more runs and then get the item. So you are looking at that number slowly increasing. There is no rush, to me that feels way more like a boring grind. Let’s be honest, at some point you know the content and it’s purely reward-driven. So the rush comes from the possible reward, but there is no ‘possible’ rewards, there just is this number slowly going up with eventually the reward ad a given number of runs.

About the development-time. The token-system would require more work. What I say for the most part is simply a formula, put in a method that can be reused. The token system would require at least a new design for all the tokens every time.

Anyway, for the most part we are on the same side I think. You just seem to have an idea about the token system that imho is incorrect. But other than that we mostly agree on this subject.

Shirlias.8104:

I mean, the way someone could get an item does not really bother me.
I am more interested in having an extra choice, in order to achieve something.

The problem is how to balance the different acquisition methods.
If an item has a currency value, a sell price, then it must maintain a certain level or rarity to keep that value. This makes items that can be traded (expensive ones) have much lower drop chances, in order to maintain their rarity. If a ghostly infusion had a 20% chance to drop then it wouldn’t be as expensive. The Chak Egg Sac is stupidly expensive because it has a very low chance of dropping, weapon precursors are expensive because their chance of dropping is low.

On the other hand, account bound items do not need such a low chance because they have no currency value. They do not affect the economy directly.

See a system that could work:
Let’s say that they add two versions of the same item in a new Fractal CM.
One version drops with high chances but it is account bound.
The other version has much lower chances but it’s not bound and you can sell it.

Both types of players are happy now. How possible is such a system though

maddoctor.2738:

Shirlias.8104:

I mean, the way someone could get an item does not really bother me.
I am more interested in having an extra choice, in order to achieve something.

The problem is how to balance the different acquisition methods.
If an item has a currency value, a sell price, then it must maintain a certain level or rarity to keep that value. This makes items that can be traded (expensive ones) have much lower drop chances, in order to maintain their rarity. If a ghostly infusion had a 20% chance to drop then it wouldn’t be as expensive. The Chak Egg Sac is stupidly expensive because it has a very low chance of dropping, weapon precursors are expensive because their chance of dropping is low.

On the other hand, account bound items do not need such a low chance because they have no currency value. They do not affect the economy directly.

See a system that could work:
Let’s say that they add two versions of the same item in a new Fractal CM.
One version drops with high chances but it is account bound.
The other version has much lower chances but it’s not bound and you can sell it.

Both types of players are happy now. How possible is such a system though

One thing, the developer might still want an item to be pretty rare in the world, even if it is account bound. It might not want everybody to run around with it. That is also something you have to take into consideration and might mean even a account-bound item might also have a very low drop-rate.

And the system you talk about we did have in SAB.

If you don’t remember see: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Super_weapon_skins

Acquisition:
- Masterwork version (account bound): Moto in Rata Sum [This one you buy with tokens]
- Rare version: chance to obtain from the Super Adventure Box zone completion chest. [This one you could earn in the game and is not account bound]
Both the same skins.

Devata.6589:

If all content / rewards where implemented like this the rarity is also important for the price. So there would not be a cheap way to get it.

I’m not exactly convinced that the same problem won’t appear with your system. Let’s say that the dungeons of the game got 2 to 3 unique items that only dropped with rng and not available with tokens. What would prevent everyone from farming CoF P1 (or any other because it’s faster then use the gold they earn to buy the Arah rewards?

With the token system you simply know I need to do x more runs and then get the item.

Combine tokens and RNG then this is no longer a problem. You can get your rewards by rng OR you can use the tokens to get that very specific item you want. The best of both worlds, you get the thrill of “will it drop” every time you kill the boss, however you don’t know which reward you get, you might get a sword but you want a hammer, you might want the mini of boss A but get the mini of boss B. Repeatedly. There is nothing more annoying than having a bunch of item rewards with low chances and you keep getting the same one over and over. Having both tokens and rng as rewards fixes the problems of only rng, and fixes the problems of having only tokens.

maddoctor.2738:

See a system that could work:
Let’s say that they add two versions of the same item in a new Fractal CM.
One version drops with high chances but it is account bound.
The other version has much lower chances but it’s not bound and you can sell it.

Both types of players are happy now. How possible is such a system though

That is really a good idea.