Guild Wars 2

I think the loot is very good considering each mob can be looted by upto 50 people.

In other games if you kill a boss only a handful of people even get loot at all. That makes the loot of course more interesting in itself. But Anet decided against it because they dont want people to compete for loot in PVE.

Continued…

What I would like from a loot system is something like what Diablo 3 achieved. That feeling of occasional joy when you get an actual reward of worth. I could play a couple hours of Diablo 3 and get a handful of legendaries or set items. And even if I cannot make use of them (which I probably won’t be able to) it is still a good feeling because you might be able to give it to another character, or you might be able to transmute it into something useful. And even if you cannot make use of it at all, it is still a joy to get because it has the POTENTIAL to be useful. When I get blues and greens in GW2 I know, without checking the stats, that it will be worthless to me. But if I got more frequent exotics or the occasional ascended piece, even if it wasn’t the stats I wanted, it would still give me that moment of joy when I get it, because there is the potential for it to be useful.

I know Diablo 3 and GW2 are very different games, and I know that loot drops can affect the economy, but I do not think the games economy should impact on player enjoyment, and besides the economy can always be balanced around this change. I think that feeling of surprise and joy, at getting worthwhile loot, is very important in games like this. But for me that feeling just doesn’t exist at all in GW2. All I get is a bombardment of worthless rubbish that I have to frequently spend time processing to get any kind of worth out of it.

My wish for GW2’s loot system is for it to be based on quality over quantity, for rewards (the processing of) to not impact the flow of gameplay too much and for each game session to give you at least one item that gives you that feeling of being rewarded. I don’t know if this kind of thing is something that is currently ‘on the table’ at Anet (i’ve not really followed the forums that much these days), and I am sure it would take some time and effort to fix it, but I really think the excessive and worthless loot we currently get needs to be looked at. Sometimes less is more.

Anyway, sorry for the long rant. I rant because I care. I would love the game to improve more and I just wanted to voice my opinion on one of the bigger niggles that vex me about GW2. Feel free to voice your own opinions on this topic. I would be interested to know what others think about GW2’s current loot system and what you think needs changing, if anything.

Malediktus.3740:

I think the loot is very good considering each mob can be looted by upto 50 people.

My problem is not how the loot is acquired, it’s the quantity and quality of it. I think having 50 people loot the same mob and get equal loot is great and one of the best features of GW2, but it is spoilt by the amount of worthless feeling drops you can get.

Rin.1046:

Malediktus.3740:

I think the loot is very good considering each mob can be looted by upto 50 people.

My problem is not how the loot is aquired, it’s the quantity and quality of it. I think having 50 people loot the same mob and get equal loot is great and one of the best features of GW2, but it is spoilt by the amount of worthless feeling drops you can get.

If you improve the quality then quality becomes standard and feels worthless again. Scarcity creates value.
If you reduce quantity you need to make sure not everyone gets loot. If you improve quality you have the risk of making quality feel standard and it soon feels worthless again.

Since most of the loot has little worth to you, and the time to process it seems too long, you might consider the ‘Salvage All’ option, and then the ‘Deposit All’ option. That should clear up some space and save some time.

The problems with frequent Exotic and Ascended drops is that the items then become common (see all the posts of yore about Ascended Rings dropping so frequently in Fractals), and thus, worth little to players. For the most part, an item can not be common and rare.

Now imagine the time before shared inventory slots, salvageomatics and salvage all options…

We got it good now

Malediktus.3740:

If you improve the quality then quality becomes standard and feels worthless again. Scarcity creates value.
If you reduce quantity you need to make sure not everyone gets loot. If you improve quality you have the risk of making quality feel standard and it soon feels worthless again.

Of course, I realise that. Enjoyable loot is a balancing act. As I said above, I don’t want exotic drops every 5 minutes, but it would be nice if each play session it felt a little bit more rewarding than it currently does. And by rewarding I don’t mean getting a super useful ascended piece every time I play. It could be an exotic with stats I will never use, because it is all about that FEELING of it being rewards. Of course, if I got tons of exotics, useless or not, then that too would not be enjoyable either, as you rightly say. But GW2 is not balanced very well currently, and in my opinion, doesn’t FEEL rewarding at all. It’s all about the feeling.

Like I say, I can play the game for a long time and get no rewarding feeling at all, and that is what I would like changed (balanced). It doesn’t have to be every event, or every meta event. But if I put 2 hours in I should feel like I got some feeling of joyment from the drops I get.

Then there is the issue of the quantity being too great. I understand that rare (enjoyable) drops need to be outnumbered by the not so good rewards, I am fine with that. Diablo 3 does that very same thing. But the ratio is just too much on the crap side and your inventory fills way too quickly with the stuff. If I play for only an hour 30% of my time could potentially be taken up by processing worthless loot, and that is not fun in my book.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Since most of the loot has little worth to you, and the time to process it seems too long, you might consider the ‘Salvage All’ option, and then the ‘Deposit All’ option. That should clear up some space and save some time.

The problems with frequent Exotic and Ascended drops is that the items then become common (see all the posts of yore about Ascended Rings dropping so frequently in Fractals), and thus, worth little to players. For the most part, an item can not be common and rare.

I must admit I had forgotten about the salvage all option, so that helps one part of the problem. But I still feel the good rewards rate needs to be adjusted. As I said to Malediktus, I do not want good rewards to be common or frequent, I just want them to drop enough to make the rewards system feel a bit more rewarding, which I currently do not think it is.

It obviously needs to be a good balance, I am 100% behind that notion. But currently I feel GW2 is not balanced well in this regard.

Edit: In regards to the salvage all option, while that is useful I cannot help feel it is a solution to a problem that shouldn’t exist in the first place. It’s like they had a problem and instead of fixing the problem they gave us a way to deal with it. It just feels odd to me.

Maybe your MF is super low, or the kinds of events you prefer don’t offer many Champion-tier chests, etc.

For two hours of play, I usually end up with several Rares, and maybe 1-2 in 5 times an Exotic. I usually throw the Rares (unless they are super valuable) in the Forge, where, about 20-25% of the time I get an Exotic.

Now, often, the Exotics aren’t worth a whole lot, but it is nice to see them. Ascended Armor/Weapon drops are only about 1 every 3 to 6 months. Which seems ok, as Trinkets are so easy to acquire in other ways.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Maybe your MF is super low, or the kinds of events you prefer don’t offer many Champion-tier chests, etc.

For two hours of play, I usually end up with several Rares, and maybe 1-2 in 5 times an Exotic. I usually throw the Rares (unless they are super valuable) in the Forge, where, about 20-25% of the time I get an Exotic.

Now, often, the Exotics aren’t worth a whole lot, but it is nice to see them. Ascended Armor/Weapon drops are only about 1 every 3 to 6 months. Which seems ok, as Trinkets are so easy to acquire in other ways.

I think my MF usually sits at around 250%, but I haven’t checked recently, so it might be a bit higher now. I know it’s not maxed, but it should make some kind of difference at least. As to events, I have been running the big meta events in Bloodstone Fen and previous to that I often did the big events in the HoT maps. I cannot remember the last time an exotic dropped for me. But maybe my account has been cursed with bad luck, I don’t know. But what I do know is that GW2 is the worse game for poor rewards (from my experience). I don’t suffer from this much poor luck in any other MMO I have played, and in some of those games there is no magic find buff mechanic.

As to ascended items, I think they are just a complete mess anyway. Trinkets are in abundance but weapons and armour your better off crafting, from my (unlucky) experience at least. It doesn’t feel very well balanced and seeing as they are the top tier gear, and grinding should (according to Anet’s original philosophy) be only for cosmetic improvements, I really feel ascended weapons and armour should be a lot easier to acquire. They are trying to improve it a little, with the ability to change the stats on ascended gear, but it is somewhat cumbersome in my opinion and not enough to make it feel better.

I am sorry if I am coming across as a spoilt brat who want’s everything now. That is not my intent at all. I’m totally ok with having to work for things, I just want the loot I get to feel a bit more rewarding a bit more frequently, with less time spent separating the wheat from the chaff. The salvage all is a useful work around, but I think the loot balancing needs to be looked at. But maybe I am alone on this front.

Ive been working away a lot for the last few months and haven’t had time to stay ‘on top’ of loot – and I realised just how bad it was at the weekend…

I decided to open up all the champion bags, Hot event boxes, PvP track chests and ascended salvager gifts that had collected across all 9 characters

It took me the better part of 4 days worth of play time ( I normally only get 2-3 hours when I do play) all spent moving, opening, sorting ,salvaging and selling and organising results between characters

- and for my troubles I only got 1 ascended weapon box ( I was opening all magic find boxes of which a had quite a few under the Mists buff of 200%) 1 ascended ring, 2 unique exotic weapons worth under 3G each and 1 exotic leg piece worth 1G.

Personally I don’t think 6 items considered ‘good’ from hundreds of chests with magic find buffed up like crazy is reasonable, I also don’t think its reasonable that as my magic find has increased over time ive actually been getting ore and more white items because 1. loot tables appeared to be nerfed when HoT arrived, 2. magic find isn’t worth kitten these days due to Anet deliberately removing most of the loot from being affected by magic find in the first place.

Its the ONE thing that puts me off the game for large periods of time its not ‘fun’ to save all these godkitten boxes up only to get a tiny amount of actual usable items the rest being mats that have to be stored/sold/organised into more items I can make/store/sell

Its just not satisfying….

Rin.1046:

tldr: GW2’s loot system is excessive in quantity and poor in quality. It needs to change before it drives me away from the game again. I want to enjoy GW2, but poorly implemented systems like this make it difficult.

I still have more than 15 stacks of Champion bags unopened since June 2nd. The thought and sight of the these stuffs made me not wanting to log on and I have not played more than 10 mins since June.

Another reason made me logout was the redesign of the infusion slots for ascended rings.

Lord of Rings.5371:

I still have about 15 stacks+72 bags to open.
It is 3822 bags and could be around 23 hours to go.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-so-many-items-currency-in-lvl-80-zones/6185028

Rococo.8347:

…snip….

Exactly, thank you. The salvage all function is useful, but you don’t just salvage everything. You have to open loot bags, sell rares on the BLTP and then you have to find a merchant/mystic forge to get rid of the unnecessary amounts of green sigils and runes no one wants.

I’m glad I am not alone on this. The loot system just feels frustrating and unrewarding and like you say, MF feels pointless at this stage. I certainly haven’t felt any benefit from it.

ah the loot system… hey I get more ascended drops on my alt account with very low magic find (around 70 I think), than I do on my main account with over 220 magic find… and I even play my main more, obviously. I really don’t understand how this ‘drop’ system is determined… and definitely think that the magic find percentage is smoke and mirrors and doesn’t give you any real chance of anything better than the new players. From what I’ve seen we all get equal chance of garbage AND good stuff… but mostly garbage.

Balthazzarr.1349:

ah the loot system… hey I get more ascended drops on my alt account with very low magic find (around 70 I think), than I do on my main account with over 220 magic find… and I even play my main more, obviously. I really don’t understand how this ‘drop’ system is determined… and definitely think that the magic find percentage is smoke and mirrors and doesn’t give you any real chance of anything better than the new players. From what I’ve seen we all get equal chance of garbage AND good stuff… but mostly garbage.

Maybe that is part of the problem. If the blues and greens are included in the MF table then it would not change your chances of getting exotics and ascended, ergo a pointless buff. Exotics and ascended items need to gain much more benefit from the MF buff than blues and greens, otherwise what is the point in having it?

The problem is partially psychological. When you are leveling your very first character, drops feel more rewarding, especially if you use what gets dropped rather than the TP to equip your character. However after your first character you know what’s desirable. You know the armor and weapon stats you want and therefore everything else becomes “junk”, stuff to sell or scrap ASAP so you can clear your bags. 2 blues and a green doesn’t cut it at level 40, you want yellow; at 80 yellow is worthless, you want orange.

Maybe you get excited if the unwanted item has a skin you don’t have but if SOP is salvaging all unwanted items, it’ll get unlocked in your wardrobe. As much of a pain the old skinning system was, a nice skin off of a weapon or armor was a reward in it’s own right even if the stats wasn’t anything special. The new wardrobe system removed that reward because again, the longer you play, the more skins you already have unlocked.

So we all become jaded. Drops that may have been exciting in the beginning are now meh. 95% become stuff you salvage or post on the TP. Preferred gear becomes less about adventuring and more scanning the TP for a good value.

Oh God – they have a salvage ALL facility now? lololol even so it still would have been a godkitten nightmare as you said – you still have to check the prices of the rares to decide what to do, forge sell sigils etc.

While im moaning, all the ascended mats like bloodstone get on my last nerve aswell – we shouldnt have to NEED an ascended mat eater to then open the boxes the item eater makes to then salvage whats inside the item eater box to then ..you get my drift – we basically should just get LESS ascended mats, and you know something nice in the loot table instead.

The entire loot table is chock full of s.t.u.f.f.w.e.d.o.n.t.n.e.e.d
Take shards of Glory for example, unless you are crafting a Legendary, there is simply no need for them and yet you get tonnes from the pvp tracks – ive got 6 stacks of them that I cannot sell, tomes of knowledge its just as bad, once you have a couple fo level boosters you have no need for these, they cannot be used for anything useful and yet the pvp tracks keeps spitting them out…

I had no idea about the salvage all option, where is it at? I hate the amount of loot I get while doing events. lots of bags that give 2-3 pieces of equipment that I have no use for, my inventory fills in minutes.

Behellagh.1468:

The problem is partially psychological…

Yes, very much so. It is a very psychological problem. Some may not think that is important, but it is very important. Your enjoyment of a game is all about how you psychologically percieve the game, and whether you psychologically enjoy it. If something impacts your psychological opinion negatively, you will not want to play it. So I agree completely here and I think it is worth paying close attention to. Devs of any game should be very mindful of how their game is perceived and understood on a psychological level. It is why I have emphasised the word feeling a few times, because it is all about how we feel about the loot that we’re getting.

I mostly like loot the way it is now, it is better than it used to be. The only thing mildly annoying to me is the Russian doll bags, but that is a dead horse.

russian doll bags? the ones filled with more and more items?

coso.9173:

russian doll bags? the ones filled with more and more items?

A bag in a bag with a bag in it.

The Psychologist B F Skinner and in fact the entire branch of Psychology ‘behaviourism’ is partly to blame for this – it simplifies humans down to a mechanical level, it thinks because a rat in a box that’s starving will ‘appear’ to enjoy pressing a button to get food that this reaction can be also be manipulated in Humans – its called Skinner box.

Gamer developers have gone all in on this theory because it allows lazy game making – they think that simply opening a box gives enough fulfilment in itself that whats inside the box doesn’t matter.

I hate it, and behaviourists and economists who also see humans in simple terms of ‘commodity’ and simplified mechanical reactions are the right arm of the devil as far as im concerned – life is tough, we don’t need this sort of kitten being applied to games that we play in our down time.

Rant over!

yeah, no point in opening bags if all we get is crap…

There’s no point in arguing with the brainwashed.

Yes, the loot you acquire in this game is terrible 99% of the time. I never get the “Wow!” feeling from this game when I loot something, which should definitely be changed. I’m at 98% MF, have played for 6,000+ hours, and I have never looted a single ascended piece. Yet I get stacks and stacks of mats that are useless to me.

(still the salvage all option might change things for me. since most of my items are indeed useless equipment)

Rin.1046:

I do not think the games economy should impact on player enjoyment, and besides the economy can always be balanced around this change.

The economy always impacts players and it’s not at all trivial to balance it.

The game is designed partly so that we get enough ‘stuff’ so we can sell off what we don’t need and use the funds to pay for stuff we want.

Rin.1046:

I think that feeling of surprise and joy, at getting worthwhile loot, is very important in games like this. But for me that feeling just doesn’t exist at all in GW2.

One of the reasons is that there’s no gear grind in GW2. Today’s top gear (rarity) is going to be tomorrow’s, too. So there’s no constant source of new shinies, outside of new skins. And there’s no way to generate as many new skins as it would take to keep us feeling that we are getting good drops often enough.

In other words, two of GW2’s best features (lack of gear treadmill and its global economy) lead to one of its biggest downsides (diminishing psychological returns on loot).

There’s no way to easily resolve issues around the psychology of loot, without damaging some of the things that make this game special to all of us.

Op, you actually beat me to this. I’ve been dying for days to write a thread about this.

Anets solution is always give more loot. Now, just as you said, it’s so excessive its unenjoyable. The time emptying inventory, the automatic looting takes away part of the game’s experience.

There was a time when you died, and after the mobs started moving away, you saw that elusive steel chest. You fought your way heroically back to it. Clicked it. Got that satisfying rare.

Now it’s just not sayisfying.

adding more armor and weapons skins would be a good way to make loot much more enjoyable.

Wow ….. I make so much gold off all the drops I get. Whether I salvage or sell on the TP, I make so much from all the drops …….

i only sell the yellow equipment in the TP, I find the rest to be not worth the 2-3 silver they’re sold for.

I think mobs should just not drop as much weapons, armor and trinkets. It would be far nicer if mobs just droped salvagable stuff instead (because in the end all the blues and greens are just a source for mats anyway). And it would also make the game more immersive because they can make it so drops make more sense.

I think MMOs dropped the towel with immersion about monster loot a good while ago XD

coso.9173:

i only sell the yellow equipment in the TP, I find the rest to be not worth the 2-3 silver they’re sold for.

This reminds me of… but Santa I don’t like presents…

Yeah I know but there really isn’t a difrence between a drake dropping ble leather armor or some piece of hide. The result is you get leather because you are not going to use that armor anyway.

Hide would be stackable and thus easier because it takes less space in your inventory.

They have this system why not expand on this instead of the bags in bags if the result is the same anyway.

yeah, mobs dropping leather, scales or mats to craft armor would make much more sense and be stackable too.

+1 to this loot problem. My guild and I have been thinking this for months.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The economy always impacts players and it’s not at all trivial to balance it.

The game is designed partly so that we get enough ‘stuff’ so we can sell off what we don’t need and use the funds to pay for stuff we want.

I agree it will not be trivial to balance the economy, but I never said it would. But it would be possible, depending on how much the loot system changes. At the end of the day the weapons and items you get are converted to curency in some way, so providing the replacement loot system keeps that currency gain balanced the same the economy shouldn’t be impacted that much. It is all about how the currency gets into our hands, not how much currency we get.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

One of the reasons is that there’s no gear grind in GW2. Today’s top gear (rarity) is going to be tomorrow’s, too. So there’s no constant source of new shinies, outside of new skins. And there’s no way to generate as many new skins as it would take to keep us feeling that we are getting good drops often enough.

In other words, two of GW2’s best features (lack of gear treadmill and its global economy) lead to one of its biggest downsides (diminishing psychological returns on loot)…

I agree with this, they are good features of the game, but I disagree that it cannot be designed to be more psychologically appealing. Other games have managed it quite well, and with much smaller dev teams might I add. Diablo 3 being my go to example here, but other games I play also do a better job at giving you that feeling of joy at getting a good reward, without it damaging the economy. (I’m not saying Blizzard is a small team, but some dev teams for games I play are). It is all about balancing expectation with progression of rewards. Making sure players don’t get too much but giving them enough to be incentivized to carry on playing. Currently I am getting far less reward for the time I’m investing in the game.

This may not be a problem for someone who spends a lot of hours in the game. To them they may well get some decent loot in each game session. But for players like me, who can only spend a couple of hours at a time, the time between good drops is extended, and that is a problem.

Also, as others have aluded to, the good rewards do not need to be lucrative. If they were, and time restricted players suddenly started getting more of them, then that would indeed upset the economic balance. But if the rewards were not of great monetary value but had decent aesthetic or usable value, then it would still be a worthwhile reward. Rewards do not always need to be focused around financial gain, sometimes a new toy or new look is enough to keep players happy.

Rin.1046:

tldr: GW2’s loot system is excessive in quantity and poor in quality. It needs to change before it drives me away from the game again. I want to enjoy GW2, but poorly implemented systems like this make it difficult.

I have been playing GW2 since launch, but over the recent few months I have hardly played at all (I just log in for the login rewards then log straight back out again). The game just doesn’t hold my attention any more. I don’t know fully why that is, I think it is a combination of many minor things that get on my nerves. These issues individually are hardly anything on their own, but collectively they all add up and make the game more frustrating than entertaining. That said, I recently pinpointed one of the bigger issues that is really annoying me and I wanted to express my views on it.

I have started playing again recently, mainly to do the new living story stuff (which I am enjoy… loving Canach!), but one thing really hit me yesterday, something that is really starting to get on my nerves now and I think it is one of the contributing factors that is putting me off the game. And that something is the excessive amount of worthless loot you get. This has always kind of been present in GW2, from the start, but it seems to have been getting a lot worse since HoT.

The problem is you get sooo much crap these days and even though they are trying to make it better, by stacking some of it in bags, your inventory still fills up way too quickly and with stuff that is 99% worthless. I have two major issues with this setup:

1) It breaks the flow of the gameplay far too frequently. I start enjoying the meta events and other activities around the map, but it is not long before I have to stop and clear my inventory, which, thanks to all the loot bags, takes a fair amount of time to process. So by the time I have finished clearing my inventory the event I was in has ended or I have missed out on some other events in the area that started while I was cleaning up the crap. It can take a good 20+ minutes clearing your inventory sometimes, which is not what I call entertaining, when all I want to do is go from event to event having fun. My game time is limited these days and the last thing I want to play is Inventory Manager 2016.

2) Almost all loot is worthless. At the end of the day most of it just amounts to extra gold, and to be honest I would rather just get the gold direct, rather than having to spend time processing it (while adventuring) before I can spend it. The ‘rewards’ are not rewarding, they are frustrating. And even if you didn’t have to clean out your inventory that often, the rewards you get just aren’t enjoyable, at all. Why, at max level and in full ascended gear, would I want to get 50 blue weapons and armour pieces?! If you want to give me materials or money, just give me it directly, don’t force me to perform the tedious task of salvaging and selling huge quantities of junk. It’s just a complete waste of inventory space and a frustrating activity that I do not want to have to do.

Looking at it the other way, the good rewards are so infrequent in GW2 you just don’t FEEL like you are getting rewarded. You know, those rewards that give you a moment of surprise and joy when you receive them, like an exotic or ascended item. I could play GW2 for months on end and get nothing of worth. I’m not asking for an exotic drop every 5 minutes, but you should feel like a few hours of play are rewarding and currently they are not.

To be continued…

I think the same way as you do. There should be loot that feels rewarding. A weapon that is only dropped by a specific boss that is actually good (stats+design) instead of some crafting materials a chest and maybe a trophy. In order to make boss drops ever more enjoyable just make the boss harder.

But HOW do you make it more rewarding? The meta is what the meta is so I wouldn’t expect new stats. A new look would mean new armor sets and we know the devs say it’s too much work. Ascended is the long game so I wouldn’t expect an uptick in drop rates on those. So I don’t expect a change there.

You aren’t going to get gold direct because forcing players to go through the TP to offload their unwanted loot drains gold from the overall economy rather than injecting new gold. So unwanted loot is inevitable and is indirectly a gold sink for the economy. That’s why direct gold rewards got nerfed. So that’s not going to change either.

So I don’t see it changing.

I can’t believe after 4 years, people still don’t understand how the loot system works in GW2 and think it’s ‘broken’. At this point, you should have recognized that most of the loot you get is intended to reward you with gold from selling it on the TP or vendor … the loot itself VERY seldomly is directly useful to the player

… this concept drives the whole game. It’s not going to change, especially since its working as intended.

Obtena.7952:

I can’t believe after 4 years, people still don’t understand how the loot system works in GW2 and think it’s ‘broken’. At this point, you should have recognized that most of the loot you get is intended to reward you with gold from selling it on the TP or vendor … the loot itself VERY seldomly is directly useful to the player

… this concept drives the whole game. It’s not going to change, especially since its working as intended.

Selling loot on the market or using in crafting is what any other MMO does.
As OP said “excessive in quantity and poor in quality” for me that means that I’m absolutely not exited about loot drops in GW2 compared to any other NCSOFT game

I have always agreed with the OP’s position on this topic. GW2 suffers from a design flaw for loot in that GW2 is not a game of power creep like other MMOs. It is a game of skin collecting. The GW2 end game is all about collecting/creating skins for various equipment. You can easily acquire gear that has sufficient stats to play any content in the game, but acquiring skins for armor and legendary weapons is what takes the majority of the play time.

This design is what leads to the issue the OP is talking about. Loot must be had, but play time must be stretched to maximize gem purchases. The problem is there are actually far too few skins in the game. Now looking at the wardrobe you might think that isn’t so, but in reality each weapon should have hundreds of skins with customization options like colors and effects. Each armor piece should have swappable variants and hundreds of choices. Without this its vary model of skin chasing is crippled.

Now, the problem with this is that it is much more expensive to create a skin for armor or weapons then it is to create new and better weapon stats. Fashion Creep vs Power Creep. Games like WoW, which are designed for Power Creep can add new content and people chase after the next cool weapon with better stats that took much less development dollar than a brand new fashion outfit.

In the end, I don’t see a solution to this as GW2 is built on this core concept.

Yeah, I’ve long wished the quality of the loot drops were better overall. Most of what I get – crafting mats included – are just not worth anything really. Would be nice if this changed, but I don’t think it will.

I don’t mind opening bags if there’s a decent chance for something decent inside, but mostly it’s not that great.

Finally, getting that mastery for auto looting has actually improved my attitude for loot. At least I don’t have to pick it up anymore.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Yeah, I’ve long wished the quality of the loot drops were better overall. Most of what I get – crafting mats included – are just not worth anything really. Would be nice if this changed, but I don’t think it will.

I don’t mind opening bags if there’s a decent chance for something decent inside, but mostly it’s not that great.

Finally, getting that mastery for auto looting has actually improved my attitude for loot. At least I don’t have to pick it up anymore.

I think the only solution to a horizontally designed loot system is massive variety in loot. Variety adds value if there are enough game systems to apply it too. GW2 needs so many other things to do with low level crafting mats besides mindless TP flipping. Completely change how the decoration system works for guild houses and allow even green planks to be used to make decorations. Add guild member housing so that each player can make decorations for there own room or suite. Add craftible trophies for player Halls of Legend that we can fill with reminders of our exploits. Add junk collectors throughout Tyria like GW1 had that will give you map currency for trading in seeming worthless junk.

I’m sure there are more ideas and ways loot could be used but sadly this all takes development time that doesn’t add to the bottom line like living world updates and expansions do.

It’s really tedious and unappealing GW2’s loot system, it’s been 4 months since I started playing, and no other MMO I’ve played was like that, if you want something, spend years collecting brass coins, and buy at TP, and It does not make much sense because there are no better or better equipment, everything is based on skins, and this is very relative, because a skin that costs 800G for me may not be worth anything, since each one has a different taste. I really liked the game, but I did not adapt because of that, because there are no rewards, nor how to improve the status of an equipment, even if it takes a lot of time and gold.

Rin.1046:

Malediktus.3740:

I think the loot is very good considering each mob can be looted by upto 50 people.

My problem is not how the loot is acquired, it’s the quantity and quality of it. I think having 50 people loot the same mob and get equal loot is great and one of the best features of GW2, but it is spoilt by the amount of worthless feeling drops you can get.

The fact that 20-50 people can get loot from the same creature is a main reason the loot system is the way it is. Another alternative would be to use RNG like other games, but have the desirable items be extremely low chance drops. Whichever system a developer uses, getting the stuff you want has to take a lot of time. This is an artifact of MMO design which is necessitated by the MMO business model, which depends on lots of players playing for a long time.

Rin.1046:

tldr: GW2’s loot system is excessive in quantity and poor in quality. It needs to change before it drives me away from the game again. I want to enjoy GW2, but poorly implemented systems like this…

100% agreed. I have 8 20-slot bags that are continually filling up with absolute garabage that I do not want at all. Why don’t you give us an option to filter loot by quality? I would happily hit a few check boxes to filter out every piece of loot that isn’t exotic or ascended. That would be so great. Just keep all that other junk and let me know when something good comes in.

Rococo.8347:

Ive been working away a lot for the last few months and haven’t had time to stay ‘on top’ of loot – and I realised just how bad it was at the weekend…

I decided to open up all the champion bags, Hot event boxes, PvP track chests and ascended salvager gifts that had collected across all 9 characters

It took me the better part of 4 days worth of play time ( I normally only get 2-3 hours when I do play) all spent moving, opening, sorting ,salvaging and selling and organising results between characters

- and for my troubles I only got 1 ascended weapon box ( I was opening all magic find boxes of which a had quite a few under the Mists buff of 200%) 1 ascended ring, 2 unique exotic weapons worth under 3G each and 1 exotic leg piece worth 1G.

Personally I don’t think 6 items considered ‘good’ from hundreds of chests with magic find buffed up like crazy is reasonable, I also don’t think its reasonable that as my magic find has increased over time ive actually been getting ore and more white items because 1. loot tables appeared to be nerfed when HoT arrived, 2. magic find isn’t worth kitten these days due to Anet deliberately removing most of the loot from being affected by magic find in the first place.

Its the ONE thing that puts me off the game for large periods of time its not ‘fun’ to save all these godkitten boxes up only to get a tiny amount of actual usable items the rest being mats that have to be stored/sold/organised into more items I can make/store/sell

Its just not satisfying….

if u sell all mats obtained from it, u get tons of gold..

the true gold from GW2 comes from mats.