Guild Wars 2

First up, I’m an explorer.
Exploring is fun, especially when you go like ‘oooeee this looks like a jumping puzzle’.
However, fun as it may be, I’d like to get a proper reward for solving it.

for example: I just spend 50 min deciphering a puzzle in Blazeridge steppes (charr land). At a certain point I had to fight a veteran spider. This spider wasn’t only hard to fight but was also bugged, it had the nasty habit of resetting and showing ‘invulnerable’ on it. This healed it back to full and 1sec later it was attacking me again (unfortunately I didn’t get the full heal stuff….). So I needed to redo this twice before I finally got it and could continue solving the puzzle.
meanwhile whilst searching for a way to get up there, many mobs kept re-spawning over and over again even though I just killed them like 10seconds ago. Very annoying.
After that I found a red veteran ooze. This was a hard but fair fight (it didn’t reset like the spider did). Finally I made my way towards the chest and when I opened it:
- 1 blue pauldron
- 1 iron ore

really? I cant even wear pauldrons and before coming to this place I mined like 50 iron ore.
ok, this was a small chest…can’t expect epic loot (still something green would have been nice :s)

another puzzle in WvW this time. I spend 1hour30min trying to get 2 pieces of a vault key and fighting off enemy players. I was overjoyed when I found this super large chest hidden in this vault! ‘OMG this will at least be something good’ I thought.
but when I opened it all it had for me were the schematics of a battering ram and some badges of honor -_-’
ow come on….the blueprint is ok, but I’ve gathered more badges just by fighting my way up there.

conclusion: for a game promoting exploring and adventure you don’t seem to get much loot out of it. I’m not saying they have to be OMGWTF orange/purple legendary gear. But is it too much to ask to at least get something useful out of it?

attached are 2 screen shots I took from the chests

This game rewards random killing easy things more than doing hard challenges :/

Agreed Kal and that doesn’t break from the MMO Norm which I THOUGHT GW2 was SUPPOSED to be doing
I mean if I just ran through a maze after not falling to my doom earlier and make it past x number of deadly traps and didn’t fall to my doom again only to get 2s 100 Karma and some craptastic blues I can’t even USE or give away it kinda just kicks you right in the kitten

The question is would you still complete these jumping puzzles if there was no chest at the end of them?

If your answer is no then why are you doing them when you know the loot will be disappointing?

If yes then why do you care what loot comes from the chest at all? It’s just icing on the cake for completing a fun challenge.

No Swagman, the question is: if they reward your 30 min of random killing with 5 blues, 2 greens and maybe a yellow, why don’t they reward your hour of effort beating something hard with more than a blue and some few coins?
What would be the downside of doing it? you prefer having your players killing wolves in a forrest or trying to beat bosses/mazes/instances whatever hard content?

precisely
From everything I ever heard or read or understood GW2 was going to be like GW1 where it took the basic concept of MMOs and rewrote the script
But currently it seems like if I go kill Mobs my level for a while and participate in a couple of events out in Who knows where I get better rewards from Drops rather than if I manage to find out the secret of something
Truthfully so far in my experiences GW2 is seemingly no different than other MMOs out there.
You say But Dynamic Events….uh ok Those are few and far between and last I checked had no DRASTIC effects on my gameplay in that zone…which was also said to be happening via the GW2 folks
SO I dunno what went wrong where but it seems someone needs to take a look at what’s going on and implement some strategy as to what to do
Oh and You SERIOUSLY need to hire some folks as Game Managers (GMs) It’s needed and they need to swing the mighty BanHammer down on some neer do wells

kal.4350:

No Swagman, the question is: if they reward your 30 min of random killing with 5 blues, 2 greens and maybe a yellow, why don’t they reward your hour of effort beating something hard with more than a blue and some few coins?
What would be the downside of doing it? you prefer having your players killing wolves in a forrest or trying to beat bosses/mazes/instances whatever hard content?

Because a dungeon is RIGHT THERE they tell you HEY COME CLEAR ME I HAVE LOOT. a heart quest pops up on your screen and announces itself to you by having a giant heart on the map.
A jumping puzzle is HIDDEN you GO OUT OF YOUR WAY to find it for, as it was intended, the people who GENUINELY like exploring. Because you watched a YouTube video that told you how to get through it doesn’t qualify you as an explorer, you are reward driven player, the reward for you is the loot chest.

I spent HOURS, literally HOURS in WoW figuring out ways to climb above, under, and behind invisible walls on every map I could. I got 0 loot for doing it, the reward I got was getting there.

I say Anet removes all gear from jump puzzle chests and make them all reward tonics. That way the people who genuinely enjoy taking time away from their “time I could be farming” will continue to do them and be happy, and all the incentive loot driven players can’t complain because they all contain the same thing.

The problem aren’t puzzles, it’s everything that takes effort in this game. It doesn’t matter how rewarding a game is, but the more effort, the more reward. That makes sense to me.

I don’t know how hard puzzles are, I haven’t found any yet and I have a lvl 62,25,22 and 14. But from what I read, they are for sure harder than killing wolves in a forrest. So, it should be more rewarding than that. You don’t need it to be rewarding? Ok, it sure won’t harm you, and it will benefit lots of players.

I find the rewards from the puzzles alright, personally. As always with drops, the loot is random, so sometimes I’ve gotten some good greens and other times I’ve gotten blues. Personally I consider the blues just bonus money, and are vendored, so in all it’s a bit of money and some fun. I don’t really know what people expect. None of the puzzles are really that difficult, imho.

kal.4350:

The problem aren’t puzzles, it’s everything that takes effort in this game. It doesn’t matter how rewarding a game is, but the more effort, the more reward. That makes sense to me.

I don’t know how hard puzzles are, I haven’t found any yet and I have a lvl 62,25,22 and 14. But from what I read, they are for sure harder than killing wolves in a forrest. So, it should be more rewarding than that. You don’t need it to be rewarding? Ok, it sure won’t harm you, and it will benefit lots of players.

Explore my friend explore, Some in LA are ridiculously hard to even get into much less finish

Kal I’m going to copy this from another thread I posted in but I think it applies here to jump puzzles as well. Please explain to me why you feel the extra reward is necessary.

Please help me understand this. And I’m being serious. Tell me exactly how completing, just completing, these brutally hard dungeons is in no way a reward in of itself? Why is it that after overcoming such a challenge that getting a white item completely negates the hard fought and won battle for you? I’m not being a kitten I want to know.

My entire gamer life has been about the reward of a hard fought and won battle.
When I beat ninja gaiden (for Xbox) on hard there was no thought of a shiny trinket at the end, and it being single player no one was watching. Yet I felt a huge sense of accomplishment for getting through such an unforgiving difficult game.

From contra and street fighter to gw2 explorables just beating these “impossible” challenges is so much fun and rewarding to me that if I got no loot I’d still do it.
Please help me understand the other side of the coin.

Don’t overly understand the chest rewards either. I tend to get better loot from the trash mobs.

I love finding and solving puzzles. I also love the surprise of what might be in any chest I find at the end. If I can’t use the reward, one of my alts or guildies usually can. Besides, I’d do them even if there were no chests or rewards at the end. I think people are too reward driven and need to focus more on enjoying what they’re doing than what they might or might not be getting after it’s all over.

@Swagman.9013
Well, if i would play a puzzle just for the pleasure of solving it, I would like games like uncharted, but no, I’m playing an rpg with levels and items. There are lots of adventure games with puzzles, hell, there are even lots of puzzle games. But this game has levels and items. If I am playing this game, it’s because I love to get new things, spells, items, skills… If I woulnt like to improve my char, I would play a game that focuses on solving puzzles, or whatever.
This game has some puzzles, but it has 80 levels, lots of skills, hundreds (thousends?) of items…. don’t tell me: this game is not about the loot.

I’ve done some jumping puzzles with friends. You know what my reward was? The hours I spent truly enjoying a game with my friends. Laughing as I watched my friends miss a jump, not bother repairing, and try the same jump naked. Laughing as I dodge roll off of a cliff instead of jump. The chests are secondary, and I’d be fine if they completely remove them tbh.

zydal.2790:

I’ve done some jumping puzzles with friends. You know what my reward was? The hours I spent truly enjoying a game with my friends. Laughing as I watched my friends miss a jump, not bother repairing, and try the same jump naked. Laughing as I dodge roll off of a cliff instead of jump. The chests are secondary, and I’d be fine if they completely remove them tbh.

Yeah, this exactly. People seem overly obsessed by huge rewards. I’ve had some great fun in those puzzles and the loot was secondary. Also you can re-do all of them, and get those small loot rewards each time you go, so they’re just a nice bit of money as a reward for going.

kal.4350:

@Swagman.9013
Well, if i would play a puzzle just for the pleasure of solving it, I would like games like uncharted, but no, I’m playing an rpg with levels and items. There are lots of adventure games with puzzles, hell, there are even lots of puzzle games. But this game has levels and items. If I am playing this game, it’s because I love to get new things, spells, items, skills… If I woulnt like to improve my char, I would play a game that focuses on solving puzzles, or whatever.
This game has some puzzles, but it has 80 levels, lots of skills, hundreds (thousends?) of items…. don’t tell me: this game is not about the loot.

Totally agree with you. Its mind numbing how so many people keep going off about “play for the fun of the game” “the game is the reward” “fun is fun”

This game is loot based. The whole point of these games is to get sweet lootz and look cool. I love getting precious lootz. Its half the reason I even play RPG’s. The other half is the exploring and combat with buddies. In the end tho I want my exploring and combat to pay off with cool looking loot. Is that so much to ask for?

sixbock.4891:

kal.4350:

@Swagman.9013
Well, if i would play a puzzle just for the pleasure of solving it, I would like games like uncharted, but no, I’m playing an rpg with levels and items. There are lots of adventure games with puzzles, hell, there are even lots of puzzle games. But this game has levels and items. If I am playing this game, it’s because I love to get new things, spells, items, skills… If I woulnt like to improve my char, I would play a game that focuses on solving puzzles, or whatever.
This game has some puzzles, but it has 80 levels, lots of skills, hundreds (thousends?) of items…. don’t tell me: this game is not about the loot.

Totally agree with you. Its mind numbing how so many people keep going off about “play for the fun of the game” “the game is the reward” “fun is fun”

This game is loot based. The whole point of these games is to get sweet lootz and look cool. I love getting precious lootz. Its half the reason I even play RPG’s. The other half is the exploring and combat with buddies. In the end tho I want my exploring and combat to pay off with cool looking loot. Is that so much to ask for?

Wait… I thought the complaints were that it WASN’T loot based. If you’re not getting all the loot you seem to want, how can it be loot based? Ohhh.. it’s NOT loot based after all, is it? You just WISH it were loot based.

Why do people start a dungeon run? Isn’t it to get some loot in the first place? ^^
Then shouldn’t this be the same for jumping puzzles?

basic principle: risk reward. The greater the risk the higher the reward (should be).

your suggestions:
puzzle with no loot:
I’d feel like indiana jones but there is no golden statue at the end. think of how disappointing that would be…and then add a little kid that tells him: “but at least we had an awesome adventure, right mr jones?”
Or they open the ark and there is nothing inside of it…everybody just goes home and forget everything about the adventure.
nah…that wouldn’t make a great movie at all.

now imagine a dungeon without loot, you spend so long defeating a dragon only to find out you just had some PvE adventure. Isn’t that dragon not just the same as the first little mob you ever killed but only a bit tougher? I’d feel disappointed
same goes to puzzles with no loot, just doing them doesn’t satisfy me completely. It’s like a game with no endboss.

same loot as mobs:
the problem here is that it takes me 10sec to kill something in the world. so why would I be happy about the same reward taking me 1 hour?
1 hour = 60 min = 3600 sec, I would have gotten 360 items instead of one.
Is the adventure worth it? dunno, I don’t go talking to random people in a café saying ‘you know in gw2 I found this really awesome cave and….’

appropriate risk reward:
spend 1 hour in a puzzle -> get a good chest item (green or perhaps a yellow or even a 0.1% chance to get an orange)
In my opinion the best way to do it. You are satisfied with what you got and you had an awesome adventure: win-win everybody’s happy!

very high loot (yellow to orange)
This is a rather bad approach. Although many people would go look in every corner of the world for a jumping puzzle, it’s very abusive.
people would ‘grind’ puzzles to get their epic stuff. the economy and trading post would suffer as now everyone sells this stuff. chaos all over….

Debsylvania.7396:

sixbock.4891:

kal.4350:

@Swagman.9013
Well, if i would play a puzzle just for the pleasure of solving it, I would like games like uncharted, but no, I’m playing an rpg with levels and items. There are lots of adventure games with puzzles, hell, there are even lots of puzzle games. But this game has levels and items. If I am playing this game, it’s because I love to get new things, spells, items, skills… If I woulnt like to improve my char, I would play a game that focuses on solving puzzles, or whatever.
This game has some puzzles, but it has 80 levels, lots of skills, hundreds (thousends?) of items…. don’t tell me: this game is not about the loot.

Totally agree with you. Its mind numbing how so many people keep going off about “play for the fun of the game” “the game is the reward” “fun is fun”

This game is loot based. The whole point of these games is to get sweet lootz and look cool. I love getting precious lootz. Its half the reason I even play RPG’s. The other half is the exploring and combat with buddies. In the end tho I want my exploring and combat to pay off with cool looking loot. Is that so much to ask for?

Wait… I thought the complaints were that it WASN’T loot based. If you’re not getting all the loot you seem to want, how can it be loot based? Ohhh.. it’s NOT loot based after all, is it? You just WISH it were loot based.

There is tons and tons of loot to get in this game. You can get better loot as you level up. There is tons of different ways to get this loot. This equals a loot based game.

Don’t tell me you’re still running around in the same armour you got when you created your character? And why is that? Its because you wanted better armour as you leveled up, right?

You wanted better loot in this loot based game.

Kal is saying that he is not getting loot for something that is hard to do but he does get loot for easy things. The challenge/reward is not equal in this respect.

Why does it have to be equal? Why can’t Kal take the loot he got for doing something easy and then enjoy doing something hard without worrying about loot? Seems to me Kal has tied himself to a treadmill for all the wrong reasons.

Kal I’m saying that yes the game is focused on loot, that’s what dungeons, hearts, karma, dynamic events, and all those monsters are for.

If you have 700 alternatives for loot and these jump puzzles don’t give the loot you want, go do those 700 other things. Jump puzzles are for a break from the gear treadmill to have fun they aren’t requirements.

And to respond to the other person that mentioned Indiana Jones exploring a tomb with no golden statue at the end. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! You are in a tomb that is who knows how many thousands of years old, admire your surroundings and be amazed at the history of the place. I don’t need a gold statue I’m standing in history.

I thought the reward of a hard challenge was overcoming a hard challenge?

Agree with jestunhi here, I would do the jumping puzzels even if there wasnt a chest at the end because i have fun doing them…. same reason i am playing any other part of this game, because i have fun playing this game. My wife and I played about 5 hours the other night (saturday i beleive) and we leveled up once… only made about 20 silver each(but we salvage everyhting…) and had a blast the entire time we were playing…

It also means I’m never going to do them ever again afterwards unless it has a rich of an ore I want. None of them have been hard so far. The only problems I run into are because of bugs like mobs evading in an open space.

The pirate cave is an example of it being done right. Every other one I’ve done has been “Here’s 2 blues for your efforts”.

I can see both sides of the argument, but I do agree with loot being the driving force for most adventure stories. They almost always include a pot at the end of the rainbow. Not to mention replayability. Those games mentioned in a post above were just single play-through games. This game literally has no end.

It’s not about the loot. I guess I get that.

But it should be about something, right?

I’m loving the free blues/greens/yellows that I get from chests. Not sure about you, but I like to goto the Mystic Forge and turn them into better items, or rare crafting materials.

Jumping puzzles are about enjoying doing the actual puzzle and the excitement of figuring one out. If you just watch a video of someone do it you are missing out on half the reason they are there.

I must have been crazy during the bwes to think that these jump puzzles will be fun distractions for the people that like going off the beaten path and finding hidden things.

Apparently jump puzzles are requirements for gear in order to progress your character.

Just a warning don’t play portal there’s all kinds of jump puzzles in that but no gear progression yet still tons of replayability with challenge maps. I fear you guys may have an acute aneurism trying to wrap your mind around how such a game could exist.

^According to that logic we should remove chests altogether and any reward from the game. Doh.

Gopher.4562:

I’m loving the free blues/greens/yellows that I get from chests. Not sure about you, but I like to goto the Mystic Forge and turn them into better items, or rare crafting materials.

Yellows? I’ve never gotten a yellow from a chest, and I’ve opened MANY. It’s usually just the garbage you sell to NPCs for little coin.

Swagman.9013:

Just a warning don’t play portal there’s all kinds of jump puzzles in that but no gear progression yet still tons of replayability with challenge maps. I fear you guys may have an acute aneurism trying to wrap your mind around how such a game could exist.

Portal is a action game with puzzles, GW2 calls itself mmorpg game, you catch my drift or you’ll keep trying to sound smart?

@OP -

Agreed.

Yesterday, I got 2 really bad blue under level items from a splendid chest, after solving a really hard (but fun) jumping puzzle in Plains of Ashford. I even had my magic find buff on! This is really silly.

Those kinds of chests should guarantee AT LEAST a green item of your level.

Deith.7596:

Swagman.9013:

Just a warning don’t play portal there’s all kinds of jump puzzles in that but no gear progression yet still tons of replayability with challenge maps. I fear you guys may have an acute aneurism trying to wrap your mind around how such a game could exist.

Portal is a action game with puzzles, GW2 calls itself mmorpg game, you catch my drift or you’ll keep trying to sound smart?

Oh whoops I’m sorry I overlooked the MMORPG section of the Game Genres Manifesto, where it clearly states that all mmo’s existing in the past present or future must adhere to loot based incentives no matter what type of challenge they wish to include.

And to the above I’d be fine with the removal of all chests in the game, I don’t run explorables for chests i run them to beat the challenge they present, because doing so is fun. The exotic gear is laid out for you to obtain. Which you can get using easily crafted rares (yellow) I spent 2g on a full set of rare armor from the TP and now i have 4 pieces of exotic dungeon gear. A loot chest didn’t play any part in it and I’m just fine with that.

Eochaidh.4106 — I don’t know why I can’t quote you, but w/e.

The ONLY time I’ve ever gotten yellows from a chest is when I have an Omnomberry Bar burning, or when I have my full Mfind set on.

I REALLY don’t know if it actually helps the chest loot or not, or if it’s just tinfoil hat. I do get yellows from chests though, quite often actually (at least once or twice in the 4-5 hours that I play per night).

Swagman.9013:

Deith.7596:

Swagman.9013:

Just a warning don’t play portal there’s all kinds of jump puzzles in that but no gear progression yet still tons of replayability with challenge maps. I fear you guys may have an acute aneurism trying to wrap your mind around how such a game could exist.

Portal is a action game with puzzles, GW2 calls itself mmorpg game, you catch my drift or you’ll keep trying to sound smart?

Oh whoops I’m sorry I overlooked the MMORPG section of the Game Genres Manifesto, where it clearly states that all mmo’s existing in the past present or future must adhere to loot based incentives no matter what type of challenge they wish to include.

Now you made it sound like it’s game meant for genre hipsters. The slogan should be “You’re bored with RPG games? What about RPG game that’s not an RPG game because the manifesto is too mainstream for us but we’d like to take some parts of it and ignore the important ones”

How about just
Hey bored with regular mmos? Well this one actually has things to do that isn’t tied to a gear treadmill, like jumping puzzles, exploring cities, playing pipe organs, and a lot of neat other stuff that won’t improve your characters stats or gear in any way shape or form but you may actually find it fun to do.

It’s not about mainstream it’s about fun, your version of fun has stats connected to it, my version is found in exploring a cave JUST TO SEE WHERE IT GOES. Look at that this game has something for the both of us, why don’t you leave me in the loot empty cave and go find some gear in a dungeon, instead of busting into the cave and demanding why loot isn’t present because it took you 30 minutes to get here.

I spent several hours in wow jumping up and under invisible walls only to be greeted by untextured zones. No treasure, no loot, yet I did it all the time and had a lot of fun doing it. Now GW2 rewards players like me with a visually stunning area to admire and a jumping challenge to enjoy.