Guild Wars 2

Sartharina.3542:

Ashen.2907:

Redenaz.8631:

I feel like Stormageddon’s use of that quote is misleading without context:

GB: Trading items for gold might be less of an issue for team PvP — where all players get bumped to 80 with standardized gear — but what of the implications for world-versus-world?

O’Brien: Before even answering this question, I want to point out that in Guild Wars 2, being competitive isn’t all about having the best gear. It’s not like you’re going to go into world-versus-world and get smoked because someone else has a godly weapon that you can’t hope to acquire. We’ve always been against that kind of thing.

Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.

To me, it seems pretty clear that, in that specific instance, “we don’t make grindy games” refers to games where you have to grind to compete with other players. In fact, that same paragraph explicitly says that they’re okay with ultra-rare items, so long as the difference they provide is mainly cosmetic.

Say what you will about GW2’s development, the manifesto, or whatever else, but that specific snippet of article seems perfectly in line with what we’re seeing.

Not to me. He mentions grind for gear differentiated by appearance rather than power, and yet ascended is differentiated by stats.

There’s a reason Ascended Gear and Fractals weren’t included at launch. They were created because a noisy part of the playerbase (And apparently sizeable number of players) demanded them. Ascended Gear and Fractals are a violation of the game’s core design philosophy.

But thankfully even now, over 3 years after they were first introduced ascended equipment is still only required for high level Fractals and (arguably) for raids.

It’s not quite the self-contained system it once was (back when ascended items only dropped from Fractals and were only required for Fractals, so if you didn’t like the idea you just didn’t do Fractals, or stuck to the low levels) but it’s still a lot better than most MMOs where you pretty much have to have the new equipment tiers to do the new content.

I’ve not actually tried raiding in exotics (or at all) but everything else, including all the different Fractal maps, I’ve been able to do without any ascended equipment.

I’ve not actually tried raiding in exotics (or at all) but everything else

I think the raid encounters are designed around the gear base of all exotics, with ascended Amulet and Accessories(not rings).

I just did on Saturday with a character with only one ascended piece(dagger) and the rest exotic, but I know some of the group had full ascended.

EremiteAngel.9765:

Before you guys jump in to say again that if they drop more often, then they lose their value, then so be it! Introduce more loot after that that are valuable when the current batch of valuables lose their value!

Loot doesn’t need to remain valuable forever! they can be replaced with newer equally valuable items after they lose their value!
The important thing is to let PvE players feel the exhilaration from finding a VALUABLE item!

Except if they kept adding more crap to be looted, there’s no DEFINITIVE way to make it valuable outside of npc value. Additionally, if they kept adding more crap to be looted, it also means you’re less and less likely to GET the “better” loot. Value is, in large part, solely determined by players, not Anet. That’s why you have precursors that were at one point worth over what, 1800g? And also why you have precursors as cheap kitten gold. All about the collective determination of value by players.

In order to get what the OP asks for, you need a situation where you can get 100s or 1000s of gold for a drop that is not that uncommon. Well, other players on the TP aren’t going to do it, so here are some suggestions:

• Add a vendor who will give you 100s of gold for each rare and 1000s of gold for each exotic.

• Inflate the currency with a lot of gold (perhaps coming from vendors who overpay for items), so that players have to spends 1000s of gold to get the gear they need to play standard difficulty content (ie exotics).

• Complain that so many exotics are going to vendors that there aren’t enough to equip yourself with the stats you want, so you just use the stats that randomly drop.

This is the world the OP wants. These are the consequences of such a world.

EremiteAngel.9765:

Before you guys jump in to say again that if they drop more often, then they lose their value, then so be it! Introduce more loot after that that are valuable when the current batch of valuables lose their value!

Loot doesn’t need to remain valuable forever! they can be replaced with newer equally valuable items after they lose their value!
The important thing is to let PvE players feel the exhilaration from finding a VALUABLE item!

Solid point.

This is how GW1 handled it. Worked for me.

Ashen.2907:

EremiteAngel.9765:

Before you guys jump in to say again that if they drop more often, then they lose their value, then so be it! Introduce more loot after that that are valuable when the current batch of valuables lose their value!

Loot doesn’t need to remain valuable forever! they can be replaced with newer equally valuable items after they lose their value!
The important thing is to let PvE players feel the exhilaration from finding a VALUABLE item!

Solid point.

This is how GW1 handled it. Worked for me.

And this how other games work as well; Titan Quest, Torchlight, Diablo 3…

In my opinion part of the problem with rewards in GW2 is not enough post level 80 skins for a game that is, at least in part, about cosmetics.

The vast majority of cosmetic options in the game are earned before you get to level cap but, like most MMOs, players can expect to spend the majority of their play time after they get to level cap. So the majority of the rewards are assigned to the minority of our play.

EremiteAngel.9765:

MadRabbit.3179:

IndigoSundown.5419:

If valuable loot were to drop more frequently for you, it would in all likelihood have to drop more frequently in general. Such drops would then stop being quite so valuable.

We should remove loot all together, because it’ll eventually lose value.

0.o.

It’s a pretty lame criticism, because other more loot RPGs manage to achieve a higher balance between making the character feel rewarded from loot drops with the inevitability of characters grinding out the system.

But, that balance doesn’t even come close to existing in GW2. They have had the right item at some points with the introduction of standalone armor and weapons.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_named_weapons

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_standalone_armor

But the items on this list are mostly acquired via…

1. Gem Store (biggest culprit of them all)
2. Previous Living World Seasons (N/A)
3. Festival Events (N/A)
4. Material Intense Crafting Recipes
5. Mystic Forge Recipes (Either Material Intensive or Mystic Coin Intensive)

The remainder that do actually drop are isolated to specific areas and with a very, very very low drop chance. They aren’t part of the universal loot tables.

Just because the game has horizontal progression doesn’t mean that it can’t have rewarding loot. Unique named items and armor with an unique skin can be perceived as valuable for applying an unique look to your character. The cosmetic aspect of the game has always been cited as GW2’s reward system.

However, the aspect that they base their rewards on is also the aspect that they make money on, which is why the ratio of cosmetic skins being produced for the gem store exceeds what is produced in the game.

And loot is in a current state where it’s a bunch of garbage that piles up in your bags to salvage for crafting materials. Crafting materials, mind you, that now lack a lot of value, since they are no longer supporting legendary weapons.

The sad thing is they don’t have to make a ton of new skins if they wanted to overhaul the loot system. They already have a ton of available options in the lists in the two links I have provided that players just don’t get, because of how they have to be acquired.

If you took all the current named weapons and all the old unique armor items from the old Living Season rewards, repurposed them to drop universally, made them account bound so the skins cant be acquired off the trading post and altered their drop rates so it was probable for a player with average magic find to get one once every 3-4 days, you would add an element of looting of “Ahh, that’s cool” that wouldn’t be exhausted quickly just due to the volume of items that already exist.

So many cool weapon skins on that list that either have incredibly low drop rates and are targeted to very specific chests or bags or cost something like 50 mystic coins and 250 of a T6 material to make (which they aren’t that cool to spend that amount on).

Wasted potential.

^
THIS
SO MUCH THIS!
This poster above nailed it.
Loot has to be rewarding! I don’t feel rewarded grinding a few thousand hours for items that I break and sell the mats worth a few bronze or silver coins.
I feel rewarded when I find drops worth 100s or 1000s of gold!

This is where GW2 really disappointed me.
The rewarding loots drop so rarely!

That’s where people’s perception of loot needs to change if they play this game. Everytime loot drops, I know EXACTLY how much it rewards me by the value people are willing to pay for it, or it’s salvaged components … and if they aren’t, there is a base value in any NPC merchant. Reward loot don’t drop rarely, they drop always, it’s just a question of how much of a reward it is.

EremiteAngel.9765:

MadRabbit.3179:

IndigoSundown.5419:

If valuable loot were to drop more frequently for you, it would in all likelihood have to drop more frequently in general. Such drops would then stop being quite so valuable.

We should remove loot all together, because it’ll eventually lose value.

0.o.

It’s a pretty lame criticism, because other more loot RPGs manage to achieve a higher balance between making the character feel rewarded from loot drops with the inevitability of characters grinding out the system.

But, that balance doesn’t even come close to existing in GW2. They have had the right item at some points with the introduction of standalone armor and weapons.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_named_weapons

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_standalone_armor

But the items on this list are mostly acquired via…

1. Gem Store (biggest culprit of them all)
2. Previous Living World Seasons (N/A)
3. Festival Events (N/A)
4. Material Intense Crafting Recipes
5. Mystic Forge Recipes (Either Material Intensive or Mystic Coin Intensive)

The remainder that do actually drop are isolated to specific areas and with a very, very very low drop chance. They aren’t part of the universal loot tables.

Just because the game has horizontal progression doesn’t mean that it can’t have rewarding loot. Unique named items and armor with an unique skin can be perceived as valuable for applying an unique look to your character. The cosmetic aspect of the game has always been cited as GW2’s reward system.

However, the aspect that they base their rewards on is also the aspect that they make money on, which is why the ratio of cosmetic skins being produced for the gem store exceeds what is produced in the game.

And loot is in a current state where it’s a bunch of garbage that piles up in your bags to salvage for crafting materials. Crafting materials, mind you, that now lack a lot of value, since they are no longer supporting legendary weapons.

The sad thing is they don’t have to make a ton of new skins if they wanted to overhaul the loot system. They already have a ton of available options in the lists in the two links I have provided that players just don’t get, because of how they have to be acquired.

If you took all the current named weapons and all the old unique armor items from the old Living Season rewards, repurposed them to drop universally, made them account bound so the skins cant be acquired off the trading post and altered their drop rates so it was probable for a player with average magic find to get one once every 3-4 days, you would add an element of looting of “Ahh, that’s cool” that wouldn’t be exhausted quickly just due to the volume of items that already exist.

So many cool weapon skins on that list that either have incredibly low drop rates and are targeted to very specific chests or bags or cost something like 50 mystic coins and 250 of a T6 material to make (which they aren’t that cool to spend that amount on).

Wasted potential.

^
THIS
SO MUCH THIS!
This poster above nailed it.
Loot has to be rewarding! I don’t feel rewarded grinding a few thousand hours for items that I break and sell the mats worth a few bronze or silver coins.
I feel rewarded when I find drops worth 100s or 1000s of gold!

This is where GW2 really disappointed me.
The rewarding loots drop so rarely!

You just… don’t get it do you?

In order for something to be worth 100s or 1000s of gold it has to be an extremely rare drop. Otherwise it wouldn’t be worth that price.

It’s simple supply and demand, if the items dropped on a semi-regular basis then they wouldn’t have nearly the value that they do now.

This economics 101.

EremiteAngel.9765:

Before you guys jump in to say again that if they drop more often, then they lose their value, then so be it! Introduce more loot after that that are valuable when the current batch of valuables lose their value!

Loot doesn’t need to remain valuable forever! they can be replaced with newer equally valuable items after they lose their value!
The important thing is to let PvE players feel the exhilaration from finding a VALUABLE item!

With an ever expanding valuable loot pinnjata.
What form of messures according to you, should they put in place to combat the inflation?

Werdx.2059:

Sphinx.8014:

What would you change? What is valuable loot in your opinion? Do you want exotics and ascended chests for killing veterans? Or for what activities exactly do you want improved loot?
Be more or less specific

This is where you made mistake.No one wants ascended items for killing veteran mobs,but veteran,champion or legendary mob,gives you same loot.1 green item and 1 blue item,sometimes only 1 of those.

I spent last 9 months in SW.Opened over 50.000 SW bags of all kind,never got single item worth over 3 gold.Magic find is myth and illusion to keep people occupied,so they can rely on high mf% .

Since bags you get in HoT maps are affected by mf,i put that to the test.My account with 530% magic find,opened 3.000 HoT bags.Got nothing.

Opened 3.000 HoT bags on friend’s account,30% magic find,got same loot,which is nothing besides green and blue items.

You do know that magic find dont work on champion bags right?

Linken.6345:

EremiteAngel.9765:

Before you guys jump in to say again that if they drop more often, then they lose their value, then so be it! Introduce more loot after that that are valuable when the current batch of valuables lose their value!

Loot doesn’t need to remain valuable forever! they can be replaced with newer equally valuable items after they lose their value!
The important thing is to let PvE players feel the exhilaration from finding a VALUABLE item!

With an ever expanding valuable loot pinnjata.
What form of messures according to you, should they put in place to combat the inflation?

Don’t know how much work it would take, but maybe when they put in one new set of weapons as a drop they remove the previous set. That keeps the loot table from exanding indefinitely and the skins looted but not sold gain in value over time as they become scarcer.

Linken.6345:

Werdx.2059:

Sphinx.8014:

What would you change? What is valuable loot in your opinion? Do you want exotics and ascended chests for killing veterans? Or for what activities exactly do you want improved loot?
Be more or less specific

This is where you made mistake.No one wants ascended items for killing veteran mobs,but veteran,champion or legendary mob,gives you same loot.1 green item and 1 blue item,sometimes only 1 of those.

I spent last 9 months in SW.Opened over 50.000 SW bags of all kind,never got single item worth over 3 gold.Magic find is myth and illusion to keep people occupied,so they can rely on high mf% .

Since bags you get in HoT maps are affected by mf,i put that to the test.My account with 530% magic find,opened 3.000 HoT bags.Got nothing.

Opened 3.000 HoT bags on friend’s account,30% magic find,got same loot,which is nothing besides green and blue items.

You do know that magic find dont work on champion bags right?

He didn’t say Champ bags, he said bags of all kinds. The Silverwastes bags, probably not. There is the map magic find, Perseverance, that is for bandit chests but maybe not for the bags inside the chest. The other, HoT bags are affected by magic find.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magic_Find
Magic Find is both an account bonus and a character attribute that increases the chance to receive higher-quality loot from slain foes. With a couple exceptions, it does not affect containers (including champion loot bags), chests, or any other source of loot.The exceptions are:
Containers received from structured PvP reward tracks.
Divine Lucky Envelopes during Lunar New Year
Heart of Thorns meta event participation containers.

Edit: grammar

Redenaz.8631:

thehipone.6812

It is my hypothesis that nearly all of the demand for exotic weapons is to flush in the forge and the demand for the skins is relatively low, save a few exceptions like Crystal Guardian or Cobalt, so this wouldn’t tank the exotic market.

I can’t help being a little skeptical of that. Just to use your example, Al’ir’aska sells for about 3g, while there are about 25 other exotic spears that sell for 2g or less, some of which are named and some of which are “Rampager’s Iron Spear of Perception.” Prices will go up and down, but I wouldn’t underestimate the value of the skin itself. If people were just buying it to forge it, they’d probably go with something cheaper, so the number of skins whose prices are being affected by their forgeability seems pretty low. (~7 named Spears under 2g)

Um, your observation is in line with what I said – 7 out of 8 of the named (skinned spears) are at the same price as the pearl weapons and have no real value outside of forging. I chose the VS because it was a (THE?) popular GW1 skin and would be something that you might actually be excited to get as a skin drop. If you look at swords and exclude Twin sisters and crystalline blade, which are priced based on the sigil, the dropped named swords are all roughly the same price as the pearl ones. Hammers, greatswords, rifles, etc. the named weapons are all mixed in with pearl/generic skins.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

EremiteAngel.9765:

MadRabbit.3179:

IndigoSundown.5419:

If valuable loot were to drop more frequently for you, it would in all likelihood have to drop more frequently in general. Such drops would then stop being quite so valuable.

We should remove loot all together, because it’ll eventually lose value.

0.o.

It’s a pretty lame criticism, because other more loot RPGs manage to achieve a higher balance between making the character feel rewarded from loot drops with the inevitability of characters grinding out the system.

But, that balance doesn’t even come close to existing in GW2. They have had the right item at some points with the introduction of standalone armor and weapons.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_named_weapons

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_standalone_armor

But the items on this list are mostly acquired via…

1. Gem Store (biggest culprit of them all)
2. Previous Living World Seasons (N/A)
3. Festival Events (N/A)
4. Material Intense Crafting Recipes
5. Mystic Forge Recipes (Either Material Intensive or Mystic Coin Intensive)

The remainder that do actually drop are isolated to specific areas and with a very, very very low drop chance. They aren’t part of the universal loot tables.

Just because the game has horizontal progression doesn’t mean that it can’t have rewarding loot. Unique named items and armor with an unique skin can be perceived as valuable for applying an unique look to your character. The cosmetic aspect of the game has always been cited as GW2’s reward system.

However, the aspect that they base their rewards on is also the aspect that they make money on, which is why the ratio of cosmetic skins being produced for the gem store exceeds what is produced in the game.

And loot is in a current state where it’s a bunch of garbage that piles up in your bags to salvage for crafting materials. Crafting materials, mind you, that now lack a lot of value, since they are no longer supporting legendary weapons.

The sad thing is they don’t have to make a ton of new skins if they wanted to overhaul the loot system. They already have a ton of available options in the lists in the two links I have provided that players just don’t get, because of how they have to be acquired.

If you took all the current named weapons and all the old unique armor items from the old Living Season rewards, repurposed them to drop universally, made them account bound so the skins cant be acquired off the trading post and altered their drop rates so it was probable for a player with average magic find to get one once every 3-4 days, you would add an element of looting of “Ahh, that’s cool” that wouldn’t be exhausted quickly just due to the volume of items that already exist.

So many cool weapon skins on that list that either have incredibly low drop rates and are targeted to very specific chests or bags or cost something like 50 mystic coins and 250 of a T6 material to make (which they aren’t that cool to spend that amount on).

Wasted potential.

^
THIS
SO MUCH THIS!
This poster above nailed it.
Loot has to be rewarding! I don’t feel rewarded grinding a few thousand hours for items that I break and sell the mats worth a few bronze or silver coins.
I feel rewarded when I find drops worth 100s or 1000s of gold!

This is where GW2 really disappointed me.
The rewarding loots drop so rarely!

You just… don’t get it do you?

In order for something to be worth 100s or 1000s of gold it has to be an extremely rare drop. Otherwise it wouldn’t be worth that price.

It’s simple supply and demand, if the items dropped on a semi-regular basis then they wouldn’t have nearly the value that they do now.

This economics 101.

Actually if a Vendor will pay 100’s or 1000’s for something the value stays high and folks either pay the same value on the TP or it goes to a vendor and out of circulation.

I would like to see the drops increase as well only I would like to see things like Ascended or Legendary items drop randomly, and I don’t mean .0000001 percent chance either.

Give the chance to play for drops to build your characters, is that not a good option for the play as you want? Don’t make folks that hate crafting craft, don’t make folks grind for gold to get upper tier items, just play the game.

Let them drop in any area and for any thing not just Raids, Fractals, Dungeons, or events.

thehipone.6812:

Redenaz.8631:

thehipone.6812

It is my hypothesis that nearly all of the demand for exotic weapons is to flush in the forge and the demand for the skins is relatively low, save a few exceptions like Crystal Guardian or Cobalt, so this wouldn’t tank the exotic market.

I can’t help being a little skeptical of that. Just to use your example, Al’ir’aska sells for about 3g, while there are about 25 other exotic spears that sell for 2g or less, some of which are named and some of which are “Rampager’s Iron Spear of Perception.” Prices will go up and down, but I wouldn’t underestimate the value of the skin itself. If people were just buying it to forge it, they’d probably go with something cheaper, so the number of skins whose prices are being affected by their forgeability seems pretty low. (~7 named Spears under 2g)

Um, your observation is in line with what I said – 7 out of 8 of the named (skinned spears) are at the same price as the pearl weapons and have no real value outside of forging. I chose the VS because it was a (THE?) popular GW1 skin and would be something that you might actually be excited to get as a skin drop. If you look at swords and exclude Twin sisters and crystalline blade, which are priced based on the sigil, the dropped named swords are all roughly the same price as the pearl ones. Hammers, greatswords, rifles, etc. the named weapons are all mixed in with pearl/generic skins.

I guess I’m not sure what the point of separate skin-only drops is. The prices for most dropped skins are already fairly low, making them affordable regardless of Mystic Forge demand, while the rarer ones are unaffected by Mystic Forge demand. If a player is only excited about a skin because it’s rare and has a high price, separate skin drops are just going to lower that price or else not affect it.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but I’m not sure who it helps.

Ashen.2907:

In my opinion part of the problem with rewards in GW2 is not enough post level 80 skins for a game that is, at least in part, about cosmetics.

The vast majority of cosmetic options in the game are earned before you get to level cap but, like most MMOs, players can expect to spend the majority of their play time after they get to level cap. So the majority of the rewards are assigned to the minority of our play.

Fortunately, GW2 doesn’t have an exclusive ‘endgame’. You can get those skins any time.

Oh yeah… and “End Game Starts At Level 1”

This is something that I do find a bit interesting. When I look at other game economies, wherein loot is differentiated by power and aesthetics, then I can see why there is always a demand for higher and stronger items. You have a tier-system:

Item A is weakest but cheapest and affordable
Item B is more expensive and stronger
Item C is really expensive but not the strongest. It just looks nice
Item D is the strongest but it looks horrible

And so on. In this system, items of inferior quality still have a demand, for the budgeted player and the newer player. Item B isn’t the “best” in any sense, but you’ll still want it because the increase in power helps you to get more powerful things faster. This creates a chain of demand.

But, in an all-aesthetic system, there is no Item A, B, or D. There is only item C. This… really cuts the demand down, actually. There is no longer an “affordable” option or a “more powerful” option. Those are things everyone wants. But aesthetics? Well, that’s up to personal taste, so the demand for an item changes from “any player who could equip it” to “only the player who wants the specific aesthetics of that item”.

So to have a super valuable item, you need two things.

#1: An item that has an aesthetic that everybody wants
#2: An item that has a drop rate so horrendously low that it is in high demand for the few players who want that aesthetic.

Hence, why it is that after 3 years of continuous play, most players haven’t had a precursor drop. Though Anet has found some ways around this in the game. Mostly achievements, but at least there is a demand for an item outside of “how it looks” and “how rare it looks”.

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

EremiteAngel.9765:

MadRabbit.3179:

IndigoSundown.5419:

If valuable loot were to drop more frequently for you, it would in all likelihood have to drop more frequently in general. Such drops would then stop being quite so valuable.

We should remove loot all together, because it’ll eventually lose value.

0.o.

It’s a pretty lame criticism, because other more loot RPGs manage to achieve a higher balance between making the character feel rewarded from loot drops with the inevitability of characters grinding out the system.

But, that balance doesn’t even come close to existing in GW2. They have had the right item at some points with the introduction of standalone armor and weapons.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_named_weapons

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_standalone_armor

But the items on this list are mostly acquired via…

1. Gem Store (biggest culprit of them all)
2. Previous Living World Seasons (N/A)
3. Festival Events (N/A)
4. Material Intense Crafting Recipes
5. Mystic Forge Recipes (Either Material Intensive or Mystic Coin Intensive)

The remainder that do actually drop are isolated to specific areas and with a very, very very low drop chance. They aren’t part of the universal loot tables.

Just because the game has horizontal progression doesn’t mean that it can’t have rewarding loot. Unique named items and armor with an unique skin can be perceived as valuable for applying an unique look to your character. The cosmetic aspect of the game has always been cited as GW2’s reward system.

However, the aspect that they base their rewards on is also the aspect that they make money on, which is why the ratio of cosmetic skins being produced for the gem store exceeds what is produced in the game.

And loot is in a current state where it’s a bunch of garbage that piles up in your bags to salvage for crafting materials. Crafting materials, mind you, that now lack a lot of value, since they are no longer supporting legendary weapons.

The sad thing is they don’t have to make a ton of new skins if they wanted to overhaul the loot system. They already have a ton of available options in the lists in the two links I have provided that players just don’t get, because of how they have to be acquired.

If you took all the current named weapons and all the old unique armor items from the old Living Season rewards, repurposed them to drop universally, made them account bound so the skins cant be acquired off the trading post and altered their drop rates so it was probable for a player with average magic find to get one once every 3-4 days, you would add an element of looting of “Ahh, that’s cool” that wouldn’t be exhausted quickly just due to the volume of items that already exist.

So many cool weapon skins on that list that either have incredibly low drop rates and are targeted to very specific chests or bags or cost something like 50 mystic coins and 250 of a T6 material to make (which they aren’t that cool to spend that amount on).

Wasted potential.

^
THIS
SO MUCH THIS!
This poster above nailed it.
Loot has to be rewarding! I don’t feel rewarded grinding a few thousand hours for items that I break and sell the mats worth a few bronze or silver coins.
I feel rewarded when I find drops worth 100s or 1000s of gold!

This is where GW2 really disappointed me.
The rewarding loots drop so rarely!

You just… don’t get it do you?

In order for something to be worth 100s or 1000s of gold it has to be an extremely rare drop. Otherwise it wouldn’t be worth that price.

It’s simple supply and demand, if the items dropped on a semi-regular basis then they wouldn’t have nearly the value that they do now.

This economics 101.

Actually if a Vendor will pay 100’s or 1000’s for something the value stays high and folks either pay the same value on the TP or it goes to a vendor and out of circulation.

I would like to see the drops increase as well only I would like to see things like Ascended or Legendary items drop randomly, and I don’t mean .0000001 percent chance either.

Give the chance to play for drops to build your characters, is that not a good option for the play as you want? Don’t make folks that hate crafting craft, don’t make folks grind for gold to get upper tier items, just play the game.

Let them drop in any area and for any thing not just Raids, Fractals, Dungeons, or events.

If a vendor pays hundreds or thousands of gold for something that is not rare, that drops frequently, then the supply of gold goes way up and gold loses purchasing power. You und up receiving a thousand gold for your item but that gold may have no more buying power than the silver you used to get.

Ashen.2907:

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

EremiteAngel.9765:

MadRabbit.3179:

IndigoSundown.5419:

If valuable loot were to drop more frequently for you, it would in all likelihood have to drop more frequently in general. Such drops would then stop being quite so valuable.

We should remove loot all together, because it’ll eventually lose value.

0.o.

It’s a pretty lame criticism, because other more loot RPGs manage to achieve a higher balance between making the character feel rewarded from loot drops with the inevitability of characters grinding out the system.

But, that balance doesn’t even come close to existing in GW2. They have had the right item at some points with the introduction of standalone armor and weapons.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_named_weapons

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_standalone_armor

But the items on this list are mostly acquired via…

1. Gem Store (biggest culprit of them all)
2. Previous Living World Seasons (N/A)
3. Festival Events (N/A)
4. Material Intense Crafting Recipes
5. Mystic Forge Recipes (Either Material Intensive or Mystic Coin Intensive)

The remainder that do actually drop are isolated to specific areas and with a very, very very low drop chance. They aren’t part of the universal loot tables.

Just because the game has horizontal progression doesn’t mean that it can’t have rewarding loot. Unique named items and armor with an unique skin can be perceived as valuable for applying an unique look to your character. The cosmetic aspect of the game has always been cited as GW2’s reward system.

However, the aspect that they base their rewards on is also the aspect that they make money on, which is why the ratio of cosmetic skins being produced for the gem store exceeds what is produced in the game.

And loot is in a current state where it’s a bunch of garbage that piles up in your bags to salvage for crafting materials. Crafting materials, mind you, that now lack a lot of value, since they are no longer supporting legendary weapons.

The sad thing is they don’t have to make a ton of new skins if they wanted to overhaul the loot system. They already have a ton of available options in the lists in the two links I have provided that players just don’t get, because of how they have to be acquired.

If you took all the current named weapons and all the old unique armor items from the old Living Season rewards, repurposed them to drop universally, made them account bound so the skins cant be acquired off the trading post and altered their drop rates so it was probable for a player with average magic find to get one once every 3-4 days, you would add an element of looting of “Ahh, that’s cool” that wouldn’t be exhausted quickly just due to the volume of items that already exist.

So many cool weapon skins on that list that either have incredibly low drop rates and are targeted to very specific chests or bags or cost something like 50 mystic coins and 250 of a T6 material to make (which they aren’t that cool to spend that amount on).

Wasted potential.

^
THIS
SO MUCH THIS!
This poster above nailed it.
Loot has to be rewarding! I don’t feel rewarded grinding a few thousand hours for items that I break and sell the mats worth a few bronze or silver coins.
I feel rewarded when I find drops worth 100s or 1000s of gold!

This is where GW2 really disappointed me.
The rewarding loots drop so rarely!

You just… don’t get it do you?

In order for something to be worth 100s or 1000s of gold it has to be an extremely rare drop. Otherwise it wouldn’t be worth that price.

It’s simple supply and demand, if the items dropped on a semi-regular basis then they wouldn’t have nearly the value that they do now.

This economics 101.

Actually if a Vendor will pay 100’s or 1000’s for something the value stays high and folks either pay the same value on the TP or it goes to a vendor and out of circulation.

I would like to see the drops increase as well only I would like to see things like Ascended or Legendary items drop randomly, and I don’t mean .0000001 percent chance either.

Give the chance to play for drops to build your characters, is that not a good option for the play as you want? Don’t make folks that hate crafting craft, don’t make folks grind for gold to get upper tier items, just play the game.

Let them drop in any area and for any thing not just Raids, Fractals, Dungeons, or events.

If a vendor pays hundreds or thousands of gold for something that is not rare, that drops frequently, then the supply of gold goes way up and gold loses purchasing power. You und up receiving a thousand gold for your item but that gold may have no more buying power than the silver you used to get.

But add the Ascended and Legendary to drops and this is a mute point regarding economics. So yes items can still be sold and bought but they can also be gotten by a drop. The whole statement was what I was adding not just the gold value.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

This is something that I do find a bit interesting. When I look at other game economies, wherein loot is differentiated by power and aesthetics, then I can see why there is always a demand for higher and stronger items. You have a tier-system:

Item A is weakest but cheapest and affordable
Item B is more expensive and stronger
Item C is really expensive but not the strongest. It just looks nice
Item D is the strongest but it looks horrible

And so on. In this system, items of inferior quality still have a demand, for the budgeted player and the newer player. Item B isn’t the “best” in any sense, but you’ll still want it because the increase in power helps you to get more powerful things faster. This creates a chain of demand.

But, in an all-aesthetic system, there is no Item A, B, or D. There is only item C. This… really cuts the demand down, actually. There is no longer an “affordable” option or a “more powerful” option. Those are things everyone wants. But aesthetics? Well, that’s up to personal taste, so the demand for an item changes from “any player who could equip it” to “only the player who wants the specific aesthetics of that item”.

So to have a super valuable item, you need two things.

#1: An item that has an aesthetic that everybody wants
#2: An item that has a drop rate so horrendously low that it is in high demand for the few players who want that aesthetic.

Hence, why it is that after 3 years of continuous play, most players haven’t had a precursor drop. Though Anet has found some ways around this in the game. Mostly achievements, but at least there is a demand for an item outside of “how it looks” and “how rare it looks”.

This is why most drops in this game are “meant” to be salvaged. The materials are either directly (used to craft) or indirectly (gain gold to buy needed/wanted stuff) used to gain the very rare stuff. Outside of a few serendipity drops like a Teq Hoard, the most desired rewards are by and large incremental. The advantage of that type of system is that — while the target may be a long way off — you know roughly what it will take. The disadvantage is that there are almost no “Awesome!” reactions to drops.

Supply and demand plays a role in those other MMO’s, also. The really “expensive” stuff is also either low drop rates, gated behind content (like most Epics in that other game), soulbound on acquire, or some combination of those. What makes them seem more rewarding is, yes, somewhat better drop rates, but also the lack of items gained by incremental rewards as the method to get anything of real value.

Complaints about precursor drop RNG have been around almost since launch. When ANet decided to “fix” that problem, what did they do? They created an incremental system. This suggests they think that the choice lies between incremental or RNG. If there’s a third option, I’ve no idea what it would be.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

This is something that I do find a bit interesting. When I look at other game economies, wherein loot is differentiated by power and aesthetics, then I can see why there is always a demand for higher and stronger items. You have a tier-system:

Item A is weakest but cheapest and affordable
Item B is more expensive and stronger
Item C is really expensive but not the strongest. It just looks nice
Item D is the strongest but it looks horrible

And so on. In this system, items of inferior quality still have a demand, for the budgeted player and the newer player. Item B isn’t the “best” in any sense, but you’ll still want it because the increase in power helps you to get more powerful things faster. This creates a chain of demand.

But, in an all-aesthetic system, there is no Item A, B, or D. There is only item C. This… really cuts the demand down, actually. There is no longer an “affordable” option or a “more powerful” option. Those are things everyone wants. But aesthetics? Well, that’s up to personal taste, so the demand for an item changes from “any player who could equip it” to “only the player who wants the specific aesthetics of that item”.

So to have a super valuable item, you need two things.

#1: An item that has an aesthetic that everybody wants
#2: An item that has a drop rate so horrendously low that it is in high demand for the few players who want that aesthetic.

Hence, why it is that after 3 years of continuous play, most players haven’t had a precursor drop. Though Anet has found some ways around this in the game. Mostly achievements, but at least there is a demand for an item outside of “how it looks” and “how rare it looks”.

This is why most drops in this game are “meant” to be salvaged. The materials are either directly (used to craft) or indirectly (gain gold to buy needed/wanted stuff) used to gain the very rare stuff. Outside of a few serendipity drops like a Teq Hoard, the most desired rewards are by and large incremental. The advantage of that type of system is that — while the target may be a long way off — you know roughly what it will take. The disadvantage is that there are almost no “Awesome!” reactions to drops.

Supply and demand plays a role in those other MMO’s, also. The really “expensive” stuff is also either low drop rates, gated behind content (like most Epics in that other game), soulbound on acquire, or some combination of those. What makes them seem more rewarding is, yes, somewhat better drop rates, but also the lack of items gained by incremental rewards as the method to get anything of real value.

Complaints about precursor drop RNG have been around almost since launch. When ANet decided to “fix” that problem, what did they do? They created an incremental system. This suggests they think that the choice lies between incremental or RNG. If there’s a third option, I’ve no idea what it would be.

Other games can also have incremental reward systems via crafting, collections, achievements, and gold. Unless the MMO has a collapsed economy or is extremely liberal with account/soul bounding, then you can always gather enough money to get the rare loot.

That isn’t the issue, though. The problem is that, in order to make something really valuable in GW2, you have to make it rare on a whole other level, due to a lack of global demand for most items. I say “precursor” because it is the one most people can relate to, but there are plenty of others. Invisible shoes, for example. I kill 3 invisible mushrooms every day, but realistically I’m never getting the drop, because even when thousands of people are regularly killing those mushrooms every day, nobody is getting the shoes.

This thread is funny because unlike most MMO games 95%+ of the items that drop have real tangible value. Ascended crafting has made the low-mid tier stuff extremely high value, each item drop is worth more than a lv 80 item, which is a very good thing I wish more games had. There are also really valuble items like skins and rare exotics worth a ton. Trick in GW2 is knowing the value of items which is easy to determine with the trading system.

There is a fix to this that allows the drop rate of “valuable” stuff to increase without causing inflation in the game, and thats simply to implement loot wear.
eg if you get a super dooper weapon from a drop,then as you use it in battle , its stats slowly fall, and each time you get it repaired the repair costs go up exponentially.
After a while, the weapon becomes so expensive to keep repairing, that you will have to get a new one.
Same with armour and all other stuff thats deemed to be “valuable”, whatever that means.

mauried.5608:

There is a fix to this that allows the drop rate of “valuable” stuff to increase without causing inflation in the game, and thats simply to implement loot wear.
eg if you get a super dooper weapon from a drop,then as you use it in battle , its stats slowly fall, and each time you get it repaired the repair costs go up exponentially.
After a while, the weapon becomes so expensive to keep repairing, that you will have to get a new one.
Same with armour and all other stuff thats deemed to be “valuable”, whatever that means.

All this does is ensure that the natural outcome of the game is hastened: Everyone builds legendaries.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Linken.6345:

Werdx.2059:

Sphinx.8014:

What would you change? What is valuable loot in your opinion? Do you want exotics and ascended chests for killing veterans? Or for what activities exactly do you want improved loot?
Be more or less specific

This is where you made mistake.No one wants ascended items for killing veteran mobs,but veteran,champion or legendary mob,gives you same loot.1 green item and 1 blue item,sometimes only 1 of those.

I spent last 9 months in SW.Opened over 50.000 SW bags of all kind,never got single item worth over 3 gold.Magic find is myth and illusion to keep people occupied,so they can rely on high mf% .

Since bags you get in HoT maps are affected by mf,i put that to the test.My account with 530% magic find,opened 3.000 HoT bags.Got nothing.

Opened 3.000 HoT bags on friend’s account,30% magic find,got same loot,which is nothing besides green and blue items.

You do know that magic find dont work on champion bags right?

He didn’t say Champ bags, he said bags of all kinds. The Silverwastes bags, probably not. There is the map magic find, Perseverance, that is for bandit chests but maybe not for the bags inside the chest. The other, HoT bags are affected by magic find.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magic_Find
Magic Find is both an account bonus and a character attribute that increases the chance to receive higher-quality loot from slain foes. With a couple exceptions, it does not affect containers (including champion loot bags), chests, or any other source of loot.The exceptions are:
Containers received from structured PvP reward tracks.
Divine Lucky Envelopes during Lunar New Year
Heart of Thorns meta event participation containers.

Edit: grammar

S/He clearly stated he opened SW bags of all kinds and none of them are affected by mf.

mauried.5608:

There is a fix to this that allows the drop rate of “valuable” stuff to increase without causing inflation in the game, and thats simply to implement loot wear.
eg if you get a super dooper weapon from a drop,then as you use it in battle , its stats slowly fall, and each time you get it repaired the repair costs go up exponentially.
After a while, the weapon becomes so expensive to keep repairing, that you will have to get a new one.
Same with armour and all other stuff thats deemed to be “valuable”, whatever that means.

Punishing players for using a rare item and arbitrarily forcing them to rebuy or farm it again is a terrible idea

Linken.6345:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Linken.6345:

Werdx.2059:

Sphinx.8014:

What would you change? What is valuable loot in your opinion? Do you want exotics and ascended chests for killing veterans? Or for what activities exactly do you want improved loot?
Be more or less specific

This is where you made mistake.No one wants ascended items for killing veteran mobs,but veteran,champion or legendary mob,gives you same loot.1 green item and 1 blue item,sometimes only 1 of those.

I spent last 9 months in SW.Opened over 50.000 SW bags of all kind,never got single item worth over 3 gold.Magic find is myth and illusion to keep people occupied,so they can rely on high mf% .

Since bags you get in HoT maps are affected by mf,i put that to the test.My account with 530% magic find,opened 3.000 HoT bags.Got nothing.

Opened 3.000 HoT bags on friend’s account,30% magic find,got same loot,which is nothing besides green and blue items.

You do know that magic find dont work on champion bags right?

He didn’t say Champ bags, he said bags of all kinds. The Silverwastes bags, probably not. There is the map magic find, Perseverance, that is for bandit chests but maybe not for the bags inside the chest. The other, HoT bags are affected by magic find.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magic_Find
Magic Find is both an account bonus and a character attribute that increases the chance to receive higher-quality loot from slain foes. With a couple exceptions, it does not affect containers (including champion loot bags), chests, or any other source of loot.The exceptions are:
Containers received from structured PvP reward tracks.
Divine Lucky Envelopes during Lunar New Year
Heart of Thorns meta event participation containers.

Edit: grammar

S/He clearly stated he opened SW bags of all kinds and none of them are affected by mf.

True, and I pointed that out as not likely affected by magic find. But he also said HoT bags of all kinds, and some of those are affected.

mauried.5608:

There is a fix to this that allows the drop rate of “valuable” stuff to increase without causing inflation in the game, and thats simply to implement loot wear.
eg if you get a super dooper weapon from a drop,then as you use it in battle , its stats slowly fall, and each time you get it repaired the repair costs go up exponentially.
After a while, the weapon becomes so expensive to keep repairing, that you will have to get a new one.
Same with armour and all other stuff thats deemed to be “valuable”, whatever that means.

I’m sorry, but that’s kittening insane. If it was stuff exotic or lower quality, then I’d POSSIBLY consider agreeing. But for everything to wear out? kitten. No. I am not going to spend 2-3 thousand gold crafting a legendary, on top of close to 600 gold crafting my ascended set (probably more if I included the several stat swaps I’ve done), to have to craft them all over again because some dingus though it was a brilliant idea to implement breakable (or functionally breakable) gear.

may I introduce you to a friend called mystic toilet? it has a lot of precursors

The reason there are only two tiers of loot, being “common enough you can afford it easily” and “so stupidly uncommon that you’d best just resolve to be surpsied if you get it” has very little to do with drop chances and everything to do with GW2’s global auction house.

In most MMOs, auction houses are limited to much smaller portions of the player base, usually only a single server or a handful of servers. This means that the supply for items is far lower, and thus, the drop rate for valuable items is often somewhat higher.

In GW2, the auction house is not only shared by every single player, but it is the only system by which players can safely trade items. This means that unless something is ridiculously rare, and thus likely outside the drop tables of most players, it’s going to end up on the auction house for not too much gold, as there are myriad restirctions on armor and weapon types, and its far more likely that even if one were to find such rare look, the liklihood that person is using the proper class, weapon, and build for the item is statistically pretty low.

On the one hand, this results in making tradable drops easy. On the other hand it makes selling those drops for large sums of money difficult.

The likely reason other loot systems felt more rewarding was a combination of stats (it doesn’t have to be great if it’s just better than what you already have) and a much smaller economy where supply is much lower than in GW2’s full-region economy.

In 3k hours I haven’t actually equipped a single thing that I have gotten from loot outside of original launch week back when the Trading Post wasn’t working in the game.

It isn’t news that loot in general for GW2 is fundamentally bad.
Even in GW1 the loot was better, none of the cool skins were locked behind a gem store. And seeing a pile of ectos drop would practically make your heart race lol.

KingClash.3186:

And seeing a pile of ectos drop would practically make your heart race lol.

Even after getting to the point where I had a few dozen stacks of ectos it could be cool to see a particularly good farming run.

KingClash.3186:

And seeing a pile of ectos drop would practically make your heart race lol.

I can’t stress this enough. I wish GW2 had drops that did this on a more frequent basis…I’m not asking for a lot…like once every 6 months?

I do get fake races though, like when look-alike precursor items drop but then you realize its not a precursor but a cheap version!