Loot and the lack thereof

Loot and the lack thereof

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Posted by: Rentapest.6503

Rentapest.6503

I’ve noticed that since April, there has been a steady decline of loot in dungeons. After the April feature patch, the content inside “bonus” chests is ALWAYS without fail 3xBlues. If you’re lucky enough to get a rare, it’ll be a useless tonic.

I’ve just ran through a Fracal, with 257% Magic Find and walked away with Blues/Greens and 1 single rare! That rare was salvaged using the Silver-fed o-matic and got me 2xSilk, not even an Ecto.

What is the point in doing dungeons if there is no loot reward? I enjoy dungeons and like to “grind” my money/materials that way, but it’s been taken away to the point that unless you run 20 dungeons a day, it’s no longer worth it.

The game is all about grinding gold to BUY materials from the over-priced TP instead of being able to obtain the materials yourself.

Bring back dungeon and fractal loot! I remember getting rares every run, even an exotic ocasionally that I could salvage or sell for materials. But now, I get rares like I get exotics … never or once in a blue moon, and get exotics as if they were precursor drops … once in a lifetime.

Honestly, the drop rates are completely rediculous and need to be revised accross the board.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Bring back dungeon and fractal loot! I remember getting rares every run, even an exotic ocasionally that I could salvage or sell for materials. But now, I get rares like I get exotics … never or once in a blue moon, and get exotics as if they were precursor drops … once in a lifetime.

Honestly, the drop rates are completely rediculous and need to be revised accross the board.

Hmm. What you remember as your “standard” has never ever been any part of my experience. What you believe to be the current sub-standard rewards have been my experience since the beginning. I’ve never gotten an exotic in a dungeon, and rares I can count on one hand. So, maybe, your odds are finally evening out.

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Posted by: Zaxares.5419

Zaxares.5419

RNG is RNG. I’ve had Fractals/dungeon runs where I didn’t even have a Rare to show for it, but on the other hand, just last weekend I had an insanely lucky Fractals run where I ended up with 4 Exotics, 2 Globs of Mist Essence, a Fractal Spoon and an Ascended Ring at the end.

Besides, I don’t know if you realise it, but if you run dungeons every day for the gold reward to buy materials, you’re actually contributing to the problem. Dungeons are probably the biggest gold faucet in GW2 right now, and every player that farms gold to buy mats instead of farming their own supply is only driving prices for those mats even higher.

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Posted by: Elsdragon.5109

Elsdragon.5109

Three simple letters that make up an acronym is likely the cause of all this: R N G.

Sorry to say, but your personal experience does not equate to a large enough sample size to properly determine how well the RNG system is working. I for one rarely ever get any rares let alone exotics since day one, and I’ve been playing from the betas and the 3-day head-start; although I will admit I’ve taken breaks every once in a while, but that’s not the issue.

If your luck is taking a turn for the worse, I would just like to say that there are some of us who have yet to taken a turn for the better.

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Posted by: Paul.4081

Paul.4081

InB4 RNG Excuse. Wasn’t fast enough

My drops, world bossy ones have went through the floor. I did get a ticket from a key from map completion though.

You know things are bad when the dev’s add a junk collector achievey thing.

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Posted by: Artemis Thuras.8795

Artemis Thuras.8795

salvaged using the Silver-fed o-matic

You understand this is more expensive per use than the same quality kit from the merchant?
You realize the mystic kit has 250 uses (all convenience you need, since you get 1 rare per fractal And is even cheaper per use?

You paid 800 gems, to pay more per use.
Ask for refund or abandon it in bank ( in case anet’s gemstore team grows a brain and reduces per use cost).

Edit:
Diminishing returns.
Quite a few theories floating.
General rules:
mix up the content you do.
Mix up the toon you do it on.

I’m starting to wonder if its class or racially weighed too, but that’s wild speculation

Co-Leader of The Mythical Dragons [MYTH],
Advocate of learning and being a useful party member.
http://mythdragons.enjin.com/recruitment

(edited by Artemis Thuras.8795)

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Posted by: Astralporing.1957

Astralporing.1957

Dungeons are probably the biggest gold faucet in GW2 right now

I sincerely doubt that gold coming from dungeons is even close to the one generated by casuals (from events, or by simply vendoring all their loot).
Yes, it may seen a lot, for an individual person, but remember that for each player running a dungeon there are hundreds if not thousands that are doing something else.
(and also that gold coming from selling your loot on TP doesn’t count).

Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November

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Posted by: Rebound.3409

Rebound.3409

As i’ve said countless times. GW2 is one of the most if not the most rewardless mmo on the planet. U grind u get nothing…u do normal stuff u get nothing…u do story u get nothing worth….anything and everything u do in this game gives u nothing of use.

If u know any other mmo that rewards players for their time spent ingame in such manner please list it. I am very curious because i played a ton of mmos from korean grinders, to p2w games to payed games. In none of them have i felt this lack of loot and reward for time played.

Everything worth u need to pay $$ for it in the gemstore and please don’t come with the hilarious excuse of a gem transaction because it has got to a point it’s literally kittened to even think of exchanging…specially for players that don’t have the time or patience to grind 1 thing over 12h+/day.

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Posted by: slamfunction.7462

slamfunction.7462

Yeah, i have to agree with the OP – dungeons just aren’t worth it, unless your farming tokens for a particular look with the dungeon armors. Otherwise, your best bet right now is the Orr Temple farming or EotM to get somewhat decent drops, since there are more drops in those situations, than anything else.

Its blatantly apparent that they’ve upped the drop rates on rares and exotics, regardless of your MF%. Whether i’m at 100% MF or 250% MF, it makes no difference. People can state that RNG is the issue, which it is. The odds are clearly stacked against the consumer in this case, to facilitate the purchase of gold via gems, to make crafting more accessible. Its highly irritating, but they’re makin money, so it is what it is.

Arena Nets are used to catch Gladiator Fish.

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Posted by: Lynne.8416

Lynne.8416

I agree that loot/rewards are ridiculously low. But I’m not sure what a proper answer is for this issue. If Anet makes loot/rewards easier to grind for this will bring the prices in the TP for items way down. BUT then you would have players leaving in droves because they’ve gotten everything they can possibly want within a month or two and Anet would need to add content more often just to retain players.

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Posted by: Rebound.3409

Rebound.3409

Oh god forbid they actually work on content instead of cash shop…god forbid they deliver actual expansion style content like any other mmo on the planet does. How dare u say things like that.

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Posted by: GOSU.9574

GOSU.9574

Loot in this game is the saddest part of this game. Crappiest loot in any MMO I have ever played.

One thing that history will reveal, years later this game will be known as the WORST loot MMO ever.

Hey dude you are walking into a wall.

smack..Wut?…smack…smack…

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Posted by: khani.4786

khani.4786

Loot in this game is the saddest part of this game. Crappiest loot in any MMO I have ever played.

One thing that history will reveal, years later this game will be known as the WORST loot MMO ever.

You never played GW1….that game had abysmal loot! At least here you get something about every other mob. I had about 30 slots in my bag and I’d be lucky to fill it up clearing an entire map.

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Posted by: DarkWasp.7291

DarkWasp.7291

This is actually one of the places where GW2 is vastly different from most other things on the market.

In most MMOs, instances/dungeons come about every so often in the main story chain and reward players with the craziest most OP and colorful things. However, 6 levels later it becomes a piece of junk OR a sadly underpowered item that has a feature that’s too good to give up for many levels to come.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world doesn’t drop many weapons or armor and you mainly accumulate crafting materials through drops or gathering.

GW2’s loot is a bit more like EVE missions, except in GW2 it’s across ALL content. You get dropped tons of gear that you aren’t going to use. The purpose of this is to salvage them, not to equip them. This is why we aren’t happy about the NPE profession loot bias thing.

Now as far as the OP’s concern with a sort of drop famine. Happens to everyone at different times of the year. Basically the way it works is exotics have less than a 1% chance to drop, and rares are pretty low too. Basically it makes us crazy, because it’s like waiting for a fish to bite in an ocean with no more than a couple dozen fish.

I have a few superstitions that I try not to hold on to but: For me it always seems like updates that affect the loot table immediately give me good luck for 3-4 days. Meanwhile, others report the opposite. Logically I know it’s just RNG, but deep down I still get more desperate to get on and farm/run right after a feature pack or holiday starts.

^ Uses Guild Wars 2 character screenshots for desktop wallpapers.

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Posted by: Rebound.3409

Rebound.3409

It’s not about how much u get it’s about the quality of what u get. In GW2 u can literally fill your inventory over 100 times and at the end have nothing worth. I prefer having 10 items in my inventory after a day of play…but out of those 10, 3 to be actually good items.

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Posted by: khani.4786

khani.4786

It’s not about how much u get it’s about the quality of what u get. In GW2 u can literally fill your inventory over 100 times and at the end have nothing worth. I prefer having 10 items in my inventory after a day of play…but out of those 10, 3 to be actually good items.

Yes, you fill your inventory many times over and at the end you have crafting materials which many of us use. They are worth something and I would much prefer this way than to wind up with a whole 10 items for the whole day and three “good” items out of that.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

I agree that loot/rewards are ridiculously low. But I’m not sure what a proper answer is for this issue. If Anet makes loot/rewards easier to grind for this will bring the prices in the TP for items way down. BUT then you would have players leaving in droves because they’ve gotten everything they can possibly want within a month or two and Anet would need to add content more often just to retain players.

I believe that many in the player base would consider ANet adding new content more often to be a good thing.

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Posted by: GOSU.9574

GOSU.9574

Loot in this game is the saddest part of this game. Crappiest loot in any MMO I have ever played.

One thing that history will reveal, years later this game will be known as the WORST loot MMO ever.

You never played GW1….that game had abysmal loot! At least here you get something about every other mob. I had about 30 slots in my bag and I’d be lucky to fill it up clearing an entire map.

I played the first 2 years of GW1. Yes, it was bad, but it isn’t the most recent. GW2 has supplanted it. GW1 wasn’t an MMO by the way.

Hey dude you are walking into a wall.

smack..Wut?…smack…smack…

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Posted by: Sariel V.7024

Sariel V.7024

Oh god forbid they actually work on content instead of cash shop…god forbid they deliver actual expansion style content like any other mmo on the planet does. How dare u say things like that.

takes a drink

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Posted by: Leamas.5803

Leamas.5803

Imagine a world where general loot is worse than it is now AND there are no champion chests, in fact champs drop NOTHING at all, AND there are no guaranteed “rare” daily chest for world events, AND there is no gold at the end of the dungeon. This is how it used to be and as bad as loot is today, it has been much worse. There were also patterns indicating issues with the RNG (Which should not have consistently repeatable behavior.). Those patterns were still present the last time I checked the MF with a pile of crafted staffs, probably last winter (Winter 2014).

Back in November/December 2012 through the winter and spring of 2013 we experienced HUGE loot nerfs paired with a massive killing of bot accounts, over 35000 to my knowledge. We saw things like T6 mats, which used to be between 2 and 6 silver, increase in price 10 fold in a matter of weeks. Some are 20-30 times more than what they were then. The DR was merciless making farming for specific mats difficult. Less was dropping and there was far less going in to the TP with all the bot accounts gone. Lost Shores (Nov-2012) also broke champion loot, which remained broken well in to the spring/summer. This is also when dungeon/dragon/temple/world boss/group event rewards took their worst hit. Pretty much guaranteed rares/exos were now replaced by blues and greens and stupid crests where a rare/exo dropped incredibly infrequently and almost never something you could use. You might get a rare every 5-6 events…IF you could get enough people to even complete the event. The reward for time and effort just wasn’t there, when one could go harvest a resource node and consistently make more money. This was long before the guaranteed daily chest with at least a rare per event, long before champion chests. No one was doing these events, no one was doing champions and people were becoming incredibly bitter.

I stopped playing for nearly 7 months primarily due to incredibly poor loot. I once saw over 100 porous bones in cursed shore in less than 2 hours of running events. They were losing players and had to do something to draw them back in and more importantly had to do something to get them to actually play the content. Daily rewards for events, champion chests and later mega-server. These were all efforts to repair the damage caused the overly heavy loot nerfs, to get some populations in to notoriously empty maps such as Timberline Falls and many of the mid-tier maps and to get people engaged again. I do fear that with some recent changes, such as those made to the forge, to make drops even less rewarding than they already were, we’re going down the loot nerf path again, but time will tell.

The loot system now is vastly better than it was ~2 years ago, though I wish they would stop adding collections, or at least make them so once you have, say the Siege Commander’s Spoon, it doesn’t drop again…replace it with some other exotic. I already have the stupid spoon and should not be able to get it again.

(edited by Leamas.5803)

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Posted by: Mesket.5728

Mesket.5728

Loot in this game is the saddest part of this game. Crappiest loot in any MMO I have ever played.

One thing that history will reveal, years later this game will be known as the WORST loot MMO ever.

This game doesn’t care for loot. It’s a grinding game.

What would you put in loot? think about it… more tokens? a random exotic? (that would impact hard the economy) toss out what you would expect as loot in this game… remember that absolutely everything you do it’s repeated by tens of thousands every hour.

Zerk is the average Joe build. Don’t pat yourself in the back too hard.

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Posted by: Lynne.8416

Lynne.8416

I agree that loot/rewards are ridiculously low. But I’m not sure what a proper answer is for this issue. If Anet makes loot/rewards easier to grind for this will bring the prices in the TP for items way down. BUT then you would have players leaving in droves because they’ve gotten everything they can possibly want within a month or two and Anet would need to add content more often just to retain players.

I believe that many in the player base would consider ANet adding new content more often to be a good thing.

True, but I was referring to the drawback for Anet/NCSoft (cost wise) to significantly increase the drop rate of rewards/loot. If you increase them (significantly), then Anet/NCSoft would HAVE to step up more content via expansions every year to retain the players that quickly consume content. And that does NOT appear to be what Anet/NCSoft wants at this time. It appears (to me) that they prefer keeping the loot/reward rates low so that those that have throw away money will buy gems to convert to gold to buy their in game hearts desire.
But again, I have no idea of a good resolution to increasee loot/reward with Anet retaining players.

(edited by Lynne.8416)

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Posted by: Swagger.1459

Swagger.1459

Top level “rewards” (that all require crafting) are designed for players to buy gems to convert and for gold sinks. “Rewards” are never going to change under the f2p model.

New Main- 80 Thief – P/P- Vault Spam Pro

221 hours over 1,581 days of bank space/hot pve/lion’s arch afk and some wvw.

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Posted by: ikereid.4637

ikereid.4637

My issue with loot in this game is its too generalized. You can Kill a boss in the arctic and a boss in the desert and they drop the same items. To me, that is what doesn’t make sense.

The fact that everything shares the same loot table (aside from a few small selection of drops), is why RNG is sooo bad in this game. That 1% you do get a drop, its a RNG roll against 50,000 different items in that part of the table. And that is why its so terrible to get good loot in this game.

Desktop: 4790k@4.6ghz-1.25v, AMD 295×2, 32GB 1866CL10 RAM, 850Evo 500GB SSD
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Posted by: Leamas.5803

Leamas.5803

In general I refuse to partake of gold sinks…the Mystic Toilet being the worst and ascended crafting close by. Occasionally, I will craft stuff to throw in the forge, but I will not spend any of my gold and will not use the gem store to buy gold to waste on RNG. The last time I used the gem store was to finance a world transfer, before that was shortly after launch to give me some gold to work with as I level. It’ll be a cold day in H.E. double hockey sticks before I spend real money on a few pixels.

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Posted by: Etien.4601

Etien.4601

The answer is that a year ago or so there was a patch tha buffed the chest loot from dungeons. I remember because of that all were lfg in front of each one. And the drop was good. Exotic and rare items almost often. Obviously it was too much and got stealth nerfed as usual.
and don’t even get me started on fractal loot.

Drop Acid Not Bombs (Richie Hawtin)

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Posted by: ikereid.4637

ikereid.4637

The answer is that a year ago or so there was a patch tha buffed the chest loot from dungeons. I remember because of that all were lfg in front of each one. And the drop was good. Exotic and rare items almost often. Obviously it was too much and got stealth nerfed as usual.
and don’t even get me started on fractal loot.

there is only 2 answers why they did that.

1. to stop gold inflation
2. to promote more gem sales to convert to gold.

I feel it was more to prohibit Gold Inflation.

Desktop: 4790k@4.6ghz-1.25v, AMD 295×2, 32GB 1866CL10 RAM, 850Evo 500GB SSD
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Posted by: Etien.4601

Etien.4601

But why was buffed in the first place? Ofc to shut ppl’s mouth. Remember that loot drops thread with 20k replies? Orr was buffed for a while and shortly after (2 days) it was stealth nerfed again.
I do want to keep supporting with gem purchases but there are no decent items in the shop either.
So I wonder what’s going on and when those issues are getting adressed once and for all. Things are getting way out of hand already.

Drop Acid Not Bombs (Richie Hawtin)

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Posted by: Astralporing.1957

Astralporing.1957

The answer is that a year ago or so there was a patch tha buffed the chest loot from dungeons. I remember because of that all were lfg in front of each one. And the drop was good. Exotic and rare items almost often. Obviously it was too much and got stealth nerfed as usual.
and don’t even get me started on fractal loot.

there is only 2 answers why they did that.

1. to stop gold inflation
2. to promote more gem sales to convert to gold.

I feel it was more to prohibit Gold Inflation.

…better item drop rates do not increase gold inflation, Well, not unless you are talking about droprates of items that are vendored directly to NPC merchants – and noone is vendoring rares and exotics. So no, i doubt that was the reason (or even one of the reasons). In fact, it’s more likely that drops were nerfed in order to raise the prices.

Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November

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Posted by: Leamas.5803

Leamas.5803

The answer is that a year ago or so there was a patch tha buffed the chest loot from dungeons. I remember because of that all were lfg in front of each one. And the drop was good. Exotic and rare items almost often. Obviously it was too much and got stealth nerfed as usual.
and don’t even get me started on fractal loot.

there is only 2 answers why they did that.

1. to stop gold inflation
2. to promote more gem sales to convert to gold.

I feel it was more to prohibit Gold Inflation.

But by limiting the stock too much, they’re causing massive price inflation on what’s already there. If they really wanted to control gold inflation they would kill the gem to gold conversion as a start. Another huge problem is the vendoring of items. Both create massive amounts of gold out of thin air and there simply are not enough gold sinks in the game (Or people have become bitter over those that do exist, such as the MF) as people sit on huge mounds of gold watching prices in the gem store inflate out of control as a result. Too much gold is already flowing in to the economy and not enough stock is flowing in to the TP to keep the prices down.

From a player perspective, one of the worst things that happened in this game is when they killed all the bots. The bots were bad for other reasons, hacked accounts and the such. But from a regular player perspective, bots kept prices down on the TP which was generally good for a majority of players. That said, the bots were putting so much in the TP that it was keeping prices down to a level that was casual friendly, but of course the hardcore burned through stuff like mad. Keep in mind, the game was advertized specifically to the casual player.

In the short, the economy is out of balance and there is no easy or good solution to fix it.

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Posted by: Zaklex.6308

Zaklex.6308

-Snip-

Diminishing returns.

-Snip-

The above plus RNG are the two(2) biggest factors in loot dropping, and diminishing returns was used in GW1 as well, so it seems to be one of the main ways A.net wants to use to get people to not constantly repeat the same content over and over. Just in case you don’t know what diminishing returns is, it’s the concept of the rewards scaling down every time you do the same thing over and over and over, usually by a small percentage, but it accumulates over time. If they kept the GW1 concept it would get to the point where you would get NO drops from mobs, absolutely nothing(and I know this for a fact because I wanted to test it, picked an area an repeatedly killed the mobs, eventually not a single enemy dropped anything).

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Posted by: John Smith.4610

John Smith.4610

The answer is that a year ago or so there was a patch tha buffed the chest loot from dungeons. I remember because of that all were lfg in front of each one. And the drop was good. Exotic and rare items almost often. Obviously it was too much and got stealth nerfed as usual.
and don’t even get me started on fractal loot.

there is only 2 answers why they did that.

1. to stop gold inflation
2. to promote more gem sales to convert to gold.

I feel it was more to prohibit Gold Inflation.

But by limiting the stock too much, they’re causing massive price inflation on what’s already there. If they really wanted to control gold inflation they would kill the gem to gold conversion as a start. Another huge problem is the vendoring of items. Both create massive amounts of gold out of thin air and there simply are not enough gold sinks in the game (Or people have become bitter over those that do exist, such as the MF) as people sit on huge mounds of gold watching prices in the gem store inflate out of control as a result. Too much gold is already flowing in to the economy and not enough stock is flowing in to the TP to keep the prices down.

From a player perspective, one of the worst things that happened in this game is when they killed all the bots. The bots were bad for other reasons, hacked accounts and the such. But from a regular player perspective, bots kept prices down on the TP which was generally good for a majority of players. That said, the bots were putting so much in the TP that it was keeping prices down to a level that was casual friendly, but of course the hardcore burned through stuff like mad. Keep in mind, the game was advertized specifically to the casual player.

In the short, the economy is out of balance and there is no easy or good solution to fix it.

Rewards are definitely an issue that should be discussed, but I think you have a couple of incorrect assumptions above. The currency exchange and vendoring items are by no means huge economic issues. I also don’t believe that the economy is imbalanced in the manner you’re speaking of. I don’t want to derail this thread, so I encourage anyone who has any questions to post here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/I-have-a-question-about-the-economy/
it’s a stickied thread in the BLTC forums about economy questions. Or if you have something that doesn’t fit that thread’s theme, post it over in the BLTC forums.

Great discussions
We’re reading!

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Posted by: Leamas.5803

Leamas.5803

The answer is that a year ago or so there was a patch tha buffed the chest loot from dungeons. I remember because of that all were lfg in front of each one. And the drop was good. Exotic and rare items almost often. Obviously it was too much and got stealth nerfed as usual.
and don’t even get me started on fractal loot.

there is only 2 answers why they did that.

1. to stop gold inflation
2. to promote more gem sales to convert to gold.

I feel it was more to prohibit Gold Inflation.

But by limiting the stock too much, they’re causing massive price inflation on what’s already there. If they really wanted to control gold inflation they would kill the gem to gold conversion as a start. Another huge problem is the vendoring of items. Both create massive amounts of gold out of thin air and there simply are not enough gold sinks in the game (Or people have become bitter over those that do exist, such as the MF) as people sit on huge mounds of gold watching prices in the gem store inflate out of control as a result. Too much gold is already flowing in to the economy and not enough stock is flowing in to the TP to keep the prices down.

From a player perspective, one of the worst things that happened in this game is when they killed all the bots. The bots were bad for other reasons, hacked accounts and the such. But from a regular player perspective, bots kept prices down on the TP which was generally good for a majority of players. That said, the bots were putting so much in the TP that it was keeping prices down to a level that was casual friendly, but of course the hardcore burned through stuff like mad. Keep in mind, the game was advertized specifically to the casual player.

In the short, the economy is out of balance and there is no easy or good solution to fix it.

Rewards are definitely an issue that should be discussed, but I think you have a couple of incorrect assumptions above. The currency exchange and vendoring items are by no means huge economic issues. I also don’t believe that the economy is imbalanced in the manner you’re speaking of. I don’t want to derail this thread, so I encourage anyone who has any questions to post here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/I-have-a-question-about-the-economy/
it’s a stickied thread in the BLTC forums about economy questions. Or if you have something that doesn’t fit that thread’s theme, post it over in the BLTC forums.

Great discussions
We’re reading!

Thanks for the clarification John.

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

The answer is that a year ago or so there was a patch tha buffed the chest loot from dungeons. I remember because of that all were lfg in front of each one. And the drop was good. Exotic and rare items almost often. Obviously it was too much and got stealth nerfed as usual.
and don’t even get me started on fractal loot.

there is only 2 answers why they did that.

1. to stop gold inflation
2. to promote more gem sales to convert to gold.

I feel it was more to prohibit Gold Inflation.

But by limiting the stock too much, they’re causing massive price inflation on what’s already there. If they really wanted to control gold inflation they would kill the gem to gold conversion as a start. Another huge problem is the vendoring of items. Both create massive amounts of gold out of thin air and there simply are not enough gold sinks in the game (Or people have become bitter over those that do exist, such as the MF) as people sit on huge mounds of gold watching prices in the gem store inflate out of control as a result. Too much gold is already flowing in to the economy and not enough stock is flowing in to the TP to keep the prices down.

From a player perspective, one of the worst things that happened in this game is when they killed all the bots. The bots were bad for other reasons, hacked accounts and the such. But from a regular player perspective, bots kept prices down on the TP which was generally good for a majority of players. That said, the bots were putting so much in the TP that it was keeping prices down to a level that was casual friendly, but of course the hardcore burned through stuff like mad. Keep in mind, the game was advertized specifically to the casual player.

In the short, the economy is out of balance and there is no easy or good solution to fix it.

Rewards are definitely an issue that should be discussed, but I think you have a couple of incorrect assumptions above. The currency exchange and vendoring items are by no means huge economic issues. I also don’t believe that the economy is imbalanced in the manner you’re speaking of. I don’t want to derail this thread, so I encourage anyone who has any questions to post here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/I-have-a-question-about-the-economy/
it’s a stickied thread in the BLTC forums about economy questions. Or if you have something that doesn’t fit that thread’s theme, post it over in the BLTC forums.

Great discussions
We’re reading!

Instead of discussing it can we just fix it? I have examples. Crusader Angaria who is an NPC that is part of the pre-Arah event chain used to have to be defended for about 6 minutes. In that time span, enemies would spawn over the course of the whole thing. Enemies don’t spawn there anymore. It used to be a great way to amass heavy moldy bags. Conversely, there was an event that was taken advantage of by the community over by the Grenth Temple. It has since been fixed and rightfully so. The issue I have is that the events like Angaria that were working as intended and then broke haven’t been fixed.

I feel like anything that is detrimental to ArenaNet’s side of farming(exploits and the like) get fixed in a timely manner and rightfully so, but when events break that were being played as intended, just get left as is more often than not. There are places I used to like to go to just kill enemies because I could get tier 6 mats and those enemies do not drop items like before(trolls in Frostgorge, Plinx mobs, Grawl in Frostgorge). I understand why a lot of those mobs item drops were toned down 2 years ago(bots) but the bot issues are way less pronounced now and yet the drop rate has not been reset. Again, not addressed when it’s in the players advantage for such things to get fixed. At least that is what it feel like.

This isn’t a new thing and I think you know that. I would love it if we could have a fast decision on this stuff and then act. It’s an issue. We all know that. Respectfully but firmly, It’s well past time we do something about it, please.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

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Posted by: DiogoSilva.7089

DiogoSilva.7089

If there’s one thing that Anet certainly forgot (or didn’t know how) to do, when they launched this game, was to make it a rewarding experience.

One of the problems with the reward system, is that GW2 is meant to focus on horizontal progression, but its uses gear as one of its main loot types. What is gear in GW2? That item that makes you stronger for a few hours/ days (before replacing it with something even stronger) and is therefore psychologically appealing? No, because in GW2, vertical progression comes blazing fast, and almost completely ends by the time you reach lv80, which is also an easily acchievable goal. So what is gear, most of the time? Salvage fodder. For what? Materials. So, you either get materials directly, or you get materials from bags, or get gear or gear from bags that in turn gives you nothing but materials. Yes, not the most diversified system out there.

But there’s nothing wrong with focusing on horizontal progression, as long as the game as a steady and streamlined set of systems to support account unlocks, convenience upgrades, cosmetic playing, prestige, diversity, etc. And there comes the second big problem with GW2’s rewards: there has not been much of that, especially at launch.

  • New skills and traits? We’ve gotten very few in 2 years, most of the global/ racial skills are purposefully useless (and no, that is not working, Anet), and everything else is generally underwhelming because devs are afraid of their impact in PvP. The last point is understandable, if it wasn’t for the fact that Anet takes 1/4 of the year to give us a single balancing patch, which might and will not even address most of the new additions.
  • Account unlocks? At launch, there has been almost none. Fortunately, Anet has been making serious changes on this. Wardrobe skins, collectibles, account wallet and dyes, legendaries functionality, etc, have all been improving, and hopefully there will be more (housing, halls, etc). Also, some systems should be rethought a bit, like renting skins in wardrobe: it currently does not motivates players to experiment much, when everything they get is “temporary” (lasts only for as long as until they spend for the next rent).
  • Prestige items/ titles? That’s great, but there has not been enough content for that.

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Posted by: Etien.4601

Etien.4601

Can you guys please not drag this into a bltc direction. We are talking here about dungeon loot and loot in general. Nowadays for someone like me who’s running fotm daily – getting an ascended ring and 2 rares from a lvl 49 fractal makes me hurt my computer.
I also ran AC p1,2,3 in the past 3 days because of tokens; all I got from chests was blues. And this doesn’t sound like blues song to me at all. The gold rewarded from dungeons is still far superior than a high lvl fractals to date.
I mean, come on, seriously after all this time begging for a change something HAS TO CHANGE already. And soon!

Drop Acid Not Bombs (Richie Hawtin)

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Another event that comes to mind is the “Halla Corpseflayer Event” in Cursed Shore. When the game first came out it was bugged and enemies would just keep spawning. It needed a fix and got a band aid for the loot issue really quickly. The long term issue? The event’s loot was never fixed. The enemies pre-fix would drop items from all over the loot table. The loot table for that event got nerfed when it was broken, then the event got an actual fix, but the loot table didn’t go back to its pre-nerfed status. There are tons of events like this that need to be addressed.

We don’t seem to need a discussion when players benefit from a buggy quest. It just gets an immediate fix. The only time we seem to need to discuss it is when it’s not working in the players favor. Honestly, what needs to be discussed? Why don’t events like escorting the crash-landed troops back to Meddler’s which has been broken since the game came out(seriously, go to almost any instance of Cursed Shore and those people are always stuck in between where their chopper crashed and Meddler’s Waypoint) get fixed in as timely a manner as when players are getting a lot of drops off a broken event? Heck, even if it took 2 weeks longer to fix an event that was broken over an event that was being farmed I would considerate timely. The issue is that’s not happening at all.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

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Posted by: Tobias Trueflight.8350

Tobias Trueflight.8350

Instead of discussing it can we just fix it?

Sure, they can “just fix it”. Just like Trait Masteries. Or the Candy Corn overstock from ’12 to ’13. Or Borderlands Bloodlust. Or Tequatl.

There are places I used to like to go to just kill enemies because I could get tier 6 mats and those enemies do not drop items like before(trolls in Frostgorge, Plinx mobs, Grawl in Frostgorge). I understand why a lot of those mobs item drops were toned down 2 years ago(bots) but the bot issues are way less pronounced now and yet the drop rate has not been reset. Again, not addressed when it’s in the players advantage for such things to get fixed. At least that is what it feel like.

Well, I suspect if it was reset, the problems would come back slowly until it needed to be dealt with again. See, when there’s a “need” for people to farm something, they figure out how to do it.

One area which I used to hang out in a lot and just work on is still active and pretty nice . . . no I’m not saying where.

Honestly, my problem with loot nowadays is having not much interesting to do with 90% of it other than feed it into a salvage kit. Or sell it for a pittance to a merchant.

Seeking assistants for the Asuran Catapult Project. Applicants will be tested for aerodynamics.

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Instead of discussing it can we just fix it?

Sure, they can “just fix it”. Just like Trait Masteries. Or the Candy Corn overstock from ’12 to ’13. Or Borderlands Bloodlust. Or Tequatl.

There are places I used to like to go to just kill enemies because I could get tier 6 mats and those enemies do not drop items like before(trolls in Frostgorge, Plinx mobs, Grawl in Frostgorge). I understand why a lot of those mobs item drops were toned down 2 years ago(bots) but the bot issues are way less pronounced now and yet the drop rate has not been reset. Again, not addressed when it’s in the players advantage for such things to get fixed. At least that is what it feel like.

Well, I suspect if it was reset, the problems would come back slowly until it needed to be dealt with again. See, when there’s a “need” for people to farm something, they figure out how to do it.

One area which I used to hang out in a lot and just work on is still active and pretty nice . . . no I’m not saying where.

Honestly, my problem with loot nowadays is having not much interesting to do with 90% of it other than feed it into a salvage kit. Or sell it for a pittance to a merchant.

My point is that when something like an exploited quest gets farmed a lot it gets fixed fast. When its broken or bugged and has nothing to do with being over farmed, it goes ignored or it takes a long time. That’s the point. When I say, “can we just fix it?” I mean can we fix it in a time frame that is similar to the speedy fixes that exploited farms receive.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

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Posted by: Etien.4601

Etien.4601

Instead of discussing it can we just fix it?

Sure, they can “just fix it”. Just like Trait Masteries. Or the Candy Corn overstock from ’12 to ’13. Or Borderlands Bloodlust. Or Tequatl.

There are places I used to like to go to just kill enemies because I could get tier 6 mats and those enemies do not drop items like before(trolls in Frostgorge, Plinx mobs, Grawl in Frostgorge). I understand why a lot of those mobs item drops were toned down 2 years ago(bots) but the bot issues are way less pronounced now and yet the drop rate has not been reset. Again, not addressed when it’s in the players advantage for such things to get fixed. At least that is what it feel like.

Well, I suspect if it was reset, the problems would come back slowly until it needed to be dealt with again. See, when there’s a “need” for people to farm something, they figure out how to do it.

One area which I used to hang out in a lot and just work on is still active and pretty nice . . . no I’m not saying where.

Honestly, my problem with loot nowadays is having not much interesting to do with 90% of it other than feed it into a salvage kit. Or sell it for a pittance to a merchant.

My point is that when something like an exploited quest gets farmed a lot it gets fixed fast. When its broken or bugged and has nothing to do with being over farmed, it goes ignored or it takes a long time. That’s the point. When I say, “can we just fix it?” I mean can we fix it in a time frame that is similar to the speedy fixes that exploited farms receive.

+239012009128109 times this. What Iason said. This exact thing makes me rage quit and and facepalm myself. Such ignorance makes me not buy gems. True story.

Drop Acid Not Bombs (Richie Hawtin)

(edited by Etien.4601)

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Posted by: Swagger.1459

Swagger.1459

Here are my issues with rewards…

•Game releases and we got the “cosmetic only grind” spiel which became a statistic grind.

•You can purchase bis legendary gear off the bltc, but you can’t purchase lesser in function ascended gear.

•Ascended weapons and armor were introduced and we were told prior to release that it’s going to be "a small stat increase with the focus on zero grind. I don’t think anyone with half a brain equates “focus on zero grind” with forced crafting and massive gold sink.

•New rewards coming out are nothing more than grinding out bits and pieces so you can buy or spend more gold on crafting said item(s).

Here are my issues with the development team that provides the rewards…

•Overall, and in every area of the game, there appears to be what I would call dartboard development or intentional experimenting all at the cost of customer good will. Random and unfinished things are tossed into the game and remain incomplete while you (anet) move on to the next big random and unfinished “thing”.

•The developers come out and make a pr statement about rewards (among other things) that completely contradict what is actually under development or being implemented.

•The real issue now is that anet can’t or won’t come up with other forms of rewarding gold sinks so they tie it in with gear acquisition (aka forced gear crafting), mystic forge gambling or dangling the precursors and legendaries carrots on the bltc as an option to bypass the annoying grind. As long as these remain without other options, players will always be given an unrewarding “reward” experience and rewards.

*typed this from my phone with distractions, but I hope my points came across.

New Main- 80 Thief – P/P- Vault Spam Pro

221 hours over 1,581 days of bank space/hot pve/lion’s arch afk and some wvw.

(edited by Swagger.1459)

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Posted by: GOSU.9574

GOSU.9574

Here are my issues with rewards…

•Game releases and we got the “cosmetic only grind” spiel which became a statistic grind.

•You can purchase bis legendary gear off the bltc, but you can’t purchase lesser in function ascended gear.

•Ascended weapons and armor were introduced and we were told prior to release that it’s going to be "a small stat increase with the focus on zero grind. I don’t think anyone with half a brain equates “focus on zero grind” with forced crafting and massive gold sink.

•New rewards coming out are nothing more than grinding out bits and pieces so you can buy or spend more gold on crafting said item(s).

Here are my issues with the development team that provides the rewards…

•Overall, and in every area of the game, there appears to be what I would call dartboard development or intentional experimenting all at the cost of customer good will. Random and unfinished things are tossed into the game and remain incomplete while you (anet) move on to the next big random and unfinished “thing”.

•The developers come out and make a pr statement about rewards (among other things) that completely contradict what is actually under development or being implemented.

•The real issue now is that anet can’t or won’t come up with other forms of rewarding gold sinks so they tie it in with gear acquisition (aka forced gear crafting), mystic forge gambling or dangling the precursors and legendaries carrots on the bltc as an option to bypass the annoying grind. As long as these remain without other options, players will always be given an unrewarding “reward” experience and rewards.

*typed this from my phone with distractions, but I hope my points came across.

While I don’t necessarily agree with each facet of what you have said, I do share the overall sentiment.

Remember this game was sold on the Manifesto that quickly got an about face from Anet, designers/developers. It was supposed to be low grind, lateral progression. Then Ascended was introduced which anyone with half a brain saw as blatant vertical progression, gear treadmill, power creep, whatever you prefer to call it.

Now the system to try to obtain the best gear outside of legendary is the Toil system. You will TOIL to progress VERTICALLY.

You will get crap loot to grind and sell and grind and sell and then amass your massive coppers to craft………

TOIL. Not play. WORK.

The loot system in this game is abhorrently unsatisfying.

Hey dude you are walking into a wall.

smack..Wut?…smack…smack…

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Posted by: Tobias Trueflight.8350

Tobias Trueflight.8350

Remember this game was sold on the Manifesto that quickly got an about face from Anet, designers/developers. It was supposed to be low grind, lateral progression. Then Ascended was introduced which anyone with half a brain saw as blatant vertical progression, gear treadmill, power creep, whatever you prefer to call it.

. . . in order for it to be a “gear treadmill” there needs to be more than one step up on it. It’s also hard for me to accept it as vertical progression when the secondary intentional purpose was to allow higher level Fractal access through AR, only possible on Ascended Gear . . . and the only time when the additional stats would be important.

Looking at it now, I’d have done it rather differently since its major function as a tier is for Fractals.

TOIL. Not play. WORK.

Stop toiling for it and just do what you want to do, or just take a break and check in only for the LS2 unlocks.

Honestly, I stopped chasing a lot of things because they were unsatisfying. That’s why I never ever considered “God Among Mere Mortals” to be a goal I’d chase. And yet, lots of people did and complained about the grind the whole time.

And then they forgot it.

Seeking assistants for the Asuran Catapult Project. Applicants will be tested for aerodynamics.

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Posted by: Wonderly.1324

Wonderly.1324

The answer is that a year ago or so there was a patch tha buffed the chest loot from dungeons. I remember because of that all were lfg in front of each one. And the drop was good. Exotic and rare items almost often. Obviously it was too much and got stealth nerfed as usual.
and don’t even get me started on fractal loot.

there is only 2 answers why they did that.

1. to stop gold inflation
2. to promote more gem sales to convert to gold.

I feel it was more to prohibit Gold Inflation.

But by limiting the stock too much, they’re causing massive price inflation on what’s already there. If they really wanted to control gold inflation they would kill the gem to gold conversion as a start. Another huge problem is the vendoring of items. Both create massive amounts of gold out of thin air and there simply are not enough gold sinks in the game (Or people have become bitter over those that do exist, such as the MF) as people sit on huge mounds of gold watching prices in the gem store inflate out of control as a result. Too much gold is already flowing in to the economy and not enough stock is flowing in to the TP to keep the prices down.

From a player perspective, one of the worst things that happened in this game is when they killed all the bots. The bots were bad for other reasons, hacked accounts and the such. But from a regular player perspective, bots kept prices down on the TP which was generally good for a majority of players. That said, the bots were putting so much in the TP that it was keeping prices down to a level that was casual friendly, but of course the hardcore burned through stuff like mad. Keep in mind, the game was advertized specifically to the casual player.

In the short, the economy is out of balance and there is no easy or good solution to fix it.

It is an incorrect assumption that this game is marketed “specifically to the casual player”. This game is marketed towards everybody.

The second incorrect assumption is that high TP prices are bad for players. This is a one-sided statement. High prices are bad for buyers, but good for sellers. If anything, this is better for casual players. What type of players buy from the tp? Players who need massive quantities of rare materials (lodestones, T6’s, etc.) for exclusive, high-end items such as legionaries, volcanus, immobulous, etc. These items are cosmetic only and are status/prestige items for HARDCORE players. So the high prices on the TP are bad for hardcore players. Casual players only need exotic or at most ascended gear to enjoy and participate in, and be competitive in every single aspect of the game. It is completely possible and reasonable to obtain the 30 T6’s you’ll need for a full set of exotic/ascended gear from drops alone (without having to buy from the TP). It’s even possible to craft a full set of ascended armor from drops alone, as I’ve crafted 2 full sets of ascended armor from drops and salvages, barely buying anything from the TP. The “casual player” will inevitably obtain more rare crafting materials then “needed”, allowing them to sell these items on the TP. The higher prices of TP items is therefore more beneficial for casual players than for hardcore players.

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Posted by: Essence Snow.3194

Essence Snow.3194

That is one heck of an assumption as well. Pot meet kettle.

Serenity now~Insanity later

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Posted by: Theftwind.8976

Theftwind.8976

I look at it this way. As an adventurer you enter a town that needs help to kill the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal that has been terrorizing the population. After going out and spending money on your towel, which incidentally is jacked up in price due to demand , risking your life in a heroic battle, and needing weeks to recuperate you are rewarded with 76 coppers.

Nope, the risk is not commensurate with the reward if you think on your character’s level and not on your own.

Theftwind (HoD)

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Posted by: Relshdan.6854

Relshdan.6854

its not that loot is bad, or events/instances are unrewarding………its that its unexciting.

you simply don’t get usable/cool endgame equipment as loot…………….you take all your unexciting loot and salvage/sell them, and then buy what you want on the TP. aside from gold from speed clears or champ trains, mats add up (selling your t1-6)……….so does salvaging rares (70-80). make a mystic salvage kit and salvage every rare………….sell the mats/ectos and then gamble the runes/sigils at the MF (and then sell the good ones).

really wish they’d up the “fun factor” of loot and increase the exotic drop rate to that of rares (though not the unique skin ones)……..but currently the only think that isn’t really attainable w/o crazy grinding or using RL money are precursors (and a few very rare unique skins like chainsaw GS). Until they actually decide to make one earnable without RNG, this is probably how it should be……….legendaries should take forever to get (the fact that they were so much easier to get on game launch has twisted our perspective).

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Posted by: Zaxares.5419

Zaxares.5419

I sincerely doubt that gold coming from dungeons is even close to the one generated by casuals (from events, or by simply vendoring all their loot).
Yes, it may seen a lot, for an individual person, but remember that for each player running a dungeon there are hundreds if not thousands that are doing something else.
(and also that gold coming from selling your loot on TP doesn’t count).

Yes, after I logged off yesterday I thought some more about it and realised that I’m likely wrong. 5 people running AC all paths would generate a raw 22.5 gold into the economy, but that’s likely dwarfed by the amount of gold generated from, say, Karka Queen, who gives out 4 Champ Bags (each of which has an average of 3 – 5 silver) to maybe 50+ players, plus event completion. And that’s just one World Boss. I think the biggest source of new coin in the game most likely comes from Champ Bags across the entire game.

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Posted by: yanipheonu.5798

yanipheonu.5798

LOL After playing Destiny, or hell, lots of other MMOs or games with loot, I’m hard pressed to complain about GW2’s loot.

There are easily sought ways of getting good loot, doing world bosses, fractals and so on. And hey, you can BUY stuff y’know. Gold is easy to get if you put enough time in. This game makes it painfully clear how to get the loot you want, either by RNG or buying it.

Only egregious problem might be legendaries, but then, it really mostly the precursors that need fixing, and they are LEGENDARY, they should be hard to get I guess.

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Posted by: juno.1840

juno.1840

The loot is there. My first thought was ascended weapon boxes. I can’t recall if there are ascended armor boxes, but I think they are.

This is an MMO issue — the loot must be throttled to protect the economy. One solution is “Bind on Acquire”. Diablo 3 switch to BoA and now the loot drops like rain in spring. It feels very rewarding.

Other solutions are to associate specific loot with specific content. We have this already with dungeon tokens but those are only useful at this point for skins and legendary weps. The downside to this approach is you may not enjoy the specific content required to get the drops you want.

So what we have now is loot you can get while doing any part of the game. None of the loot is BoA except the ascended stuff which gives players the freedom to sell it for gold. The trade for this flexibility is low drop rates since there are millions of drops a day and rare gear isn’t rare if everyone gets the drop with a few days of playing.

It’s a delicate balance and while I agree that loot feels scarce, it’s the nature of the beast.

Part of me thinks that someone in ANet was thinking “hey, wanna see something funny? Watch this…”