Loot = Why We Play (Stop the Nerf)
Blizzard removing the RMAH from D3 was a huge surprise to me. They were willing, as a business, to remove a source of income from the game and totally revamp the rewards to drastically increase the quality of the gameplay experience. Part of it was probably to generate hype and increase sales for Reaper of Souls, but still they pretty much restored my faith in them as a company.
I’m not sure Anet can afford to do the same thing though. They aren’t nearly as big as Blizzard, and NCSoft has dominion over them, whereas Blizzard is pretty much free to do what it wants.
activision has dominion over blizzard. I think it all comes down to is does the company want a product that will last for years or do they want a product that makes money in the short term. Blizzard realized that D3 was done for if they didn’t change things and that having something they could sell for the next 10 years like D2 was in their best interest. I don’t think anet cares if gw2 dies in NA/EU as they have china and a new mmo they can work on. So I think they will nickel and dime as much as they can till it dies.
Quick correction: NCSoft has a new mmo to work on, not Anet (if you are thinking of Wowstar). Anet has no control over that, it’s developed by Carbine Studios.
I don’t personally believe Anet is this shallow. I think NCSoft kind of has their hands tied. NCSoft is Korean and Activision is US, so maybe I’m biased but I think that is the reason Blizzard was allowed to make such a drastic change to their game (in addition to Blizzard being much bigger, older, and generally more successful than Anet, not to mention Blizzard has many many more IPs and sources of income than Anet).
I’m scared NCSoft would sooner shut down GW2 than radically restructure its monetization. They already shut down like 3 other MMOs they weren’t satisfied with.
They closed AA, exteel, tabula rasa, city of heroes, Lineage and even more out of US/EU.
No shut down of GW2 anytime soon (soon – 4-5 years). I sincerely believe that this game has at least 8-10 year ahead of it, and Anet has some big plans with it in the future. Its an insanely good concept that can be polished and expanded for a very long time.
Hope Anet will come at its senses and bring the game to the steady state it was 2-3 months before, and CERTAINLY introduce the precursor scavenge hunt to return the prices to a logic level.
I don’t really see them introducing it any time soon to be honest.
If they mainly use stuff like T6 materials, then what’s the point? I’d just be same as it is now because the gold value of it wont be too far behind what’s on the TP at the moment.
You already need world completion to get a legendary, so they can’t use that.
The original plan I think was to use T7 materials, but look at how stuffed our banks are with them.
It’s a difficult balance, and something which will take time to think of a good solution which isn’t affected by update. For example, back before EotM, you could argue Dragonite Ore was a good material for it, because it was relatively uncommon, but now with EotM, they’re basically as common as any other T7.
I personally think they’ll probably resort to fractal relics: it’s endgame content, it’s not very easy to get, people have been demanding a fractal reward revamp, it fits in with logic (reforge legendary weapons using relics from the past) and you can’t just buy your way to it like with dungeon tokens. It makes a lot of sense.
What I think is going to happen is that they’ll do a first round of fractal rewards updates to empty the huge stacks of relics vets are sitting on at the moment, then add precursors later.
It’s so that people would buy gems and convert them to gold. This is on one of their official advertisement pages.
Pathethic.
I didn’t even see this before.
It’s so that people would buy gems and convert them to gold. This is on one of their official advertisement pages.
Pathethic.
I didn’t even see this before.
What’s pathetic are the people buying gold from bot companies. THEY are the reason you see such advertisements. If you arent buying gold from bots, you arent the intended recipient of the advertisement.
How’d they nerf loot? The only nerf to loot I’ve felt was a while ago when they took away unidentified dye drops.
Hope Anet will come at its senses and bring the game to the steady state it was 2-3 months before, and CERTAINLY introduce the precursor scavenge hunt to return the prices to a logic level.
I don’t really see them introducing it any time soon to be honest.
If they mainly use stuff like T6 materials, then what’s the point? I’d just be same as it is now because the gold value of it wont be too far behind what’s on the TP at the moment.
You already need world completion to get a legendary, so they can’t use that.
The original plan I think was to use T7 materials, but look at how stuffed our banks are with them.
I think you’re not on the right track there.
There is no reason to claim that the scavenger hunt needs to lower the prices of the Precursors. The only reason people are complaining about the Precursors is because they are both expensive and there is no guaranteed way to get them. The fact that people are buying them even at the current prices is proof enough that it’s not too expensive.
It’s a difficult balance, and something which will take time to think of a good solution which isn’t affected by update. For example, back before EotM, you could argue Dragonite Ore was a good material for it, because it was relatively uncommon, but now with EotM, they’re basically as common as any other T7.
I personally think they’ll probably resort to fractal relics: it’s endgame content, it’s not very easy to get, people have been demanding a fractal reward revamp, it fits in with logic (reforge legendary weapons using relics from the past) and you can’t just buy your way to it like with dungeon tokens. It makes a lot of sense.
What I think is going to happen is that they’ll do a first round of fractal rewards updates to empty the huge stacks of relics vets are sitting on at the moment, then add precursors later.
I have to say that tying precursors to any single dungeon in the game, except something new that they’d make specifically for that purpose, would be a very dumb move. This is a playerbase that flips the table when Gift of Battle requires a few WvW levels (which you can totally buy with Badges of Honor) or when they put Living Story monsters in WvW. Or when those Living Story monsters require stomping.
The problem with precursors being “scavengable” or craftable is that either they need to put a time cap on it like they did on Ascended stuff or it needs to require absurd feats or absurd quantities of materials.
Because let’s be honest, without some kind of forced gating, you’ll be guaranteed to have people who have gotten those precursors within the first two days. That has happened with every single piece of content that was not time gated. Heck, even when they announced Ascended crafting, there were people posting pictures on the forums with stacks of materials that would be far, far more than enough to craft all Ascended pieces for a character.
Is anyone else getting slightly tired of GW2’s stance on. If they can actually gain loot, make sure you nerf it. So they cannot get loot.
I am not sure if they realize. But there are only three huge reasons anyone plays a video game:
Loot. (Fun for people who loves shinies, and gives them something to do.)
PvE/PvP. (Fun for the people who just want to kill everything. And be challenged.)
Story. (Fun for the people who love immersion and suspension of reality.)Why do people PvE? For story, to kill things, and loot. Lots and lots of ungodly loot.
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-So why nerf Loot? If people play for loot?
Gold -> Gems conversion.
If you are going to nerf the game into oblivion just because people can exchange gold. Please just remove Gold -> Gems entirely. So we can play the game and have our loot.
Stop punishing us because it hurts your currency conversion. Just get rid of the conversion like D3 got rid of the Auction House. And then let us have our loot.
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-And if it does not hurt your currency conversion? Stop nerfing the loot, so we can actually have a reason to keep playing.
Man, I so agree with you, but nothing is going to change if people don’t complain… now a days they just switch to something else or stop playing.
I love GW1 and GW2, but GW2 has become a huge monopoly. Take away the gold people must buy gem to get some gold….. Sooo in reality about 200g is equal to $20.00 USD then?? Even the Gold seller must be suffering from all these nerf lol poor people.
Hope Anet will come at its senses and bring the game to the steady state it was 2-3 months before, and CERTAINLY introduce the precursor scavenge hunt to return the prices to a logic level.
I don’t really see them introducing it any time soon to be honest.
If they mainly use stuff like T6 materials, then what’s the point? I’d just be same as it is now because the gold value of it wont be too far behind what’s on the TP at the moment.
You already need world completion to get a legendary, so they can’t use that.
The original plan I think was to use T7 materials, but look at how stuffed our banks are with them.I think you’re not on the right track there.
There is no reason to claim that the scavenger hunt needs to lower the prices of the Precursors. The only reason people are complaining about the Precursors is because they are both expensive and there is no guaranteed way to get them. The fact that people are buying them even at the current prices is proof enough that it’s not too expensive.
It’s a difficult balance, and something which will take time to think of a good solution which isn’t affected by update. For example, back before EotM, you could argue Dragonite Ore was a good material for it, because it was relatively uncommon, but now with EotM, they’re basically as common as any other T7.
I personally think they’ll probably resort to fractal relics: it’s endgame content, it’s not very easy to get, people have been demanding a fractal reward revamp, it fits in with logic (reforge legendary weapons using relics from the past) and you can’t just buy your way to it like with dungeon tokens. It makes a lot of sense.
What I think is going to happen is that they’ll do a first round of fractal rewards updates to empty the huge stacks of relics vets are sitting on at the moment, then add precursors later.
I have to say that tying precursors to any single dungeon in the game, except something new that they’d make specifically for that purpose, would be a very dumb move. This is a playerbase that flips the table when Gift of Battle requires a few WvW levels (which you can totally buy with Badges of Honor) or when they put Living Story monsters in WvW. Or when those Living Story monsters require stomping.
The problem with precursors being “scavengable” or craftable is that either they need to put a time cap on it like they did on Ascended stuff or it needs to require absurd feats or absurd quantities of materials.
Because let’s be honest, without some kind of forced gating, you’ll be guaranteed to have people who have gotten those precursors within the first two days. That has happened with every single piece of content that was not time gated. Heck, even when they announced Ascended crafting, there were people posting pictures on the forums with stacks of materials that would be far, far more than enough to craft all Ascended pieces for a character.
Well, there is a guaranteed way to get them: off the TP. Sure, prices fluctuate but if you tie them to T6 mats, I’m not sure how much it would change because the prices of those also fluctuate, and you’ll probably increase their prices if you tie it to precursors.
If you don’t want to bother yourself with loot and item progression, don’t bother, no one is gonna judge you.
Aside from all the people who sneer (or worse) at those who don’t have the shiniest shinies or complain when a MMO implements content that isn’t all about new shinies for the “hardcore” crowd. You get that a lot in this genre, sadly.
I don’t understand why i need to explain why item progression is one of the fundamental aspects of a MMORPG game.
This is, seriously, a fact.
Only if, again, you assume your conclusion: X is true because X is true.
I’m not saying that any given existing game isn’t fundamentally all about loot, or that no game ever should be all about loot. But it’s not some immutable law of nature for the whole genre. The fact that GW2 was loudly advertised as not having vertical progression was what attracted many players in the first place, and that is why there was a HUGE upset on these forums when ascended gear was announced.
Also, you either missed one point of my first post or I wasn’t clear enough: I actually agree with the people who are upset by constant “nerfing” of profitable activities (though I stand by my opinion that level 80 “trains” have no business in a starting zone). As someone who doesn’t care much for gear and positively hates grinding, I’d like to spend as little time as possible in the annoying process of “getting gear” so I can move on to the stuff that’s actually enjoyable for me. Thus, anything that makes getting money or fine materials even harder to come by is as much of a pain for me as it is for the people for whom “getting gear” is enjoyable in and of itself.
If Anet does not want us to grind/farm/whatever, then PROLONGING the time needed to get anything done is exactly the wrong way to go about it. Instead they should reduce the NEED to farm by increasing droprates and being less stingy with money rewards. Sure, some frustrated players with low impulse control will spend real money to get in-game gold. Maybe most of them will even do it the legitimate way, though given the goldseller plague I doubt that. But I think most ticked-off customers are not exactly going to pay for a game that annoys them … at least not for long, or without signs of improvement.
I just object to blanket statements that “we” (i.e. all MMO players) play primarily or exclusively for loot, or that loot must be “fundamental” for the genre.
Time gating and cost is not the ony way to make the crafting of an item difficult.
Several components can be linked to complex activities designed around game content with a horizotal difficulty. Such as long, specific dungeons with complex tasks requirig coordinated effort. timed tasks, event chains resulting in specific items that are needed in specific dungeons that produce specific items that are needed in other chains that are needed in other dngeons. A complex relationship of tasks across multile game types. Not difficult vertically, as in, not difficult in required time or cost, but in required skill, required coordination, and required understanding of specific game features.
The curret concept similar to this, as in the components of the Legendaries require item exchanged from dungeon tkens, items bought after killing the Claw of Jormag, map completion items, PvP items. But all of these items are different forms of grind. You grind dungeon tokens in repeated speedruns. You grind gold to buy the icy lodestones. You grind skill points. You grind karma. You grind obsidian. You grind all the required materials.
Literally only the map completion item is achieved through something that can be semi referred to as an “achivement”.
The purpose of every MMO is, and has always been, to get nice looking high end items, killing bosses after reaching the lvl cap and getting yourself into pvp (& WvW), if ofc you are interested in it.
SOrry, this is some weird bullkitten nonsense you’re spouting that’s been run through a bizzaro ringer too many times.
The purpose of every MMO is to provide a large, consistent world for a massive playerbase to interact with, and hang out and socialize with friends and strangers in a virtual environment. And to make enough money to keep the servers running and creators paid.
Nothing else. Nothing more, nothing less.
provide a large, consistent world for a massive playerbase to interact with, and hang out and socialize with friends and strangers in a virtual environment
What you are talking about can only be achieved if the real world is able to function the same way.
(edited by chronus.1326)
Of course it does not have to be that way for you.
You are a free man, you can do anything you want.
But please don’t go against us who care.
If you don’t want to bother yourself with loot and item progression, don’t bother, no one is gonna judge you.
But here we are talking about an extremely large part of the community that actually cares. The (semi) hardcore part of the community.
Ah. This is only a portion of your post but the main thing I got from it was “You don’t agree with me/us, so be quiet.” If that’s how you handle things, sure, I’ll step away too so you guys can self-righteously pump each other up.
Real money -> Gems -> Gold conversion has been part of the game from day 1, didn’t you know?
But did you know that the focus on gemstore is actually increasing so much?
But did you know that their jobs depend on people spending in the gem store and not just providing free content?
If that’s true then why did they convert everybody’s gem store purchased town clothes into non-dyeable 15-minute potions that only look like 1/4th of the original outfit, causing many people (including myself) to swear off the gem store forever and ever .
It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you would do if your job actually depended on the gem store. I have a feeling it does not.
provide a large, consistent world for a massive playerbase to interact with, and hang out and socialize with friends and strangers in a virtual environment
What you are talking about can only be achieved if the real world is able to function the same way.
I meant persitant (Though consistent helps), but it’s been achieved numerous times in all sorts of ways, ranging from Runescape to WoW to Furcadia to Guild Wars 2 to EVE Online to Planetside to… any other MMO out there.
MMORPGs add avatar progression, exploration, and questing to the mix. RPGs are RPGs, whether it’s D&D, City of Heroes, Mass Effect, or Guild Wars 2.
The purpose of every MMO is, and has always been, to get nice looking high end items, killing bosses after reaching the lvl cap and getting yourself into pvp (& WvW), if ofc you are interested in it.
SOrry, this is some weird bullkitten nonsense you’re spouting that’s been run through a bizzaro ringer too many times.
The purpose of every MMO is to provide a large, consistent world for a massive playerbase to interact with, and hang out and socialize with friends and strangers in a virtual environment. And to make enough money to keep the servers running and creators paid.
Nothing else. Nothing more, nothing less.
+1000
The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.