Guild Wars 2

Hmm, I was thinking about how to design a good MMO reward system. It feels like the best system would be a hybrid one. This is a thread to talk about possible designs for MMO (or RPG) reward systems.

- Random drop systems satisfy some people’s addictive gambling endorphins (which is not necessarily a good thing), but are disliked by others. But it has a benefit in that even the most casual of players might get a lucky drop on his very first try.

- Token based systems can feel like too much of a grind. If you have a token system that tries to enforce the sort of item rarity that a RNG system has, then the rarest items would have ridiculously high token costs. Most people will calculate how long it would take for them to grind that many tokens and turn away in disgust.

So, what about a hybrid? Lets call them Crystals.

- Crystals come in 2 sizes: Orbs and Fragments. Orbs are worth 5 Fragments. (or whatever.)

- They might also come in varying grades. (eg. poor, average, fine etc.)

- Whenever you do something in-game (kill a boss, complete a JP, finish a quest) you get a Crystal Orb as a reward.

• You can “shatter” a Crystal Orb at any time, to get 1 chance to roll on a RNG loot table. You get your item and 1 Crystal Fragment.*

• You can also buy any in-game item directly from Vendors, using Crystals. (remember that 1 Orb = 5 Fragments, etc.)*

Each grade of Crystal has its own loot table / vendor menu. So for example, low level monsters can drop Poor Crystal Orbs, which can be exchanged for white/blue/green gear. Whereas completing difficult dungeons might reward an Epic Crystal Orb, which has Precursors and Ascended items on offer. etc

So this gives us a hybrid reward system that offers both RNG excitement and steady progress. You can either save up your Orbs to purchase the loot faster, or you can gamble by shattering your Orbs to get a chance at RNG loot. But even if you do, you’ll still make a small amount of progress because you still get a Fragment.

This seems to me like a system that can please most players.

your suggested system would eliminate ‘unkown chance’ factor.

(which is not necessarily a good thing)

because obviously if something cost a lot crystals then it would have very low roll chance

Most people will calculate how long it would take for them to grind that many tokens and turn away in disgust

ofcourse only assuming there is fair balance between roll chance and vendor prices

fun fact, we allready have this system – orbs are called gold. “shatter” → buying stuff for gold, putting them in mystic forge for precursor chance. fragments → useless reuseable junk you get back from mf.

Saulius.8430:

your suggested system would eliminate ‘unkown chance’ factor.

(which is not necessarily a good thing)

because obviously if something cost a lot crystals then it would have very low roll chance

Most people will calculate how long it would take for them to grind that many tokens and turn away in disgust

ofcourse only assuming there is fair balance between roll chance and vendor prices

fun fact, we allready have this system – orbs are called gold. “shatter” -> buying stuff for gold, putting them in mystic forge for precursor chance. fragments -> useless reuseable junk you get back from mf.

1. I think players already understand the relative chances of things that drop in game. They already know that precursors are very rare, etc.

2. The major difference between my system and the MF is that in my system, players can choose whether or not to participate in RNG. Whereas currently, when you complete content in-game you are rewarded with random items that convert to different amounts of gold. So even if you try to slowly save up gold to achieve your goal, your reward for completing content is quite random to begin with.

On the flipside, Dungeon Tokens & Laurels are completely token based, which means they suffer from the “perceived grind” effect I describe. There’s no opportunity to try and get a lucky drop of a Dungeon or Laurel item.

This is why a hybrid system that covers the whole game is better than each individual system that operates in different areas. Players are free to choose the reward mechanism that fits their risk-aversion the best.

Trying to please everybody is what is resulting in almost a dozen different currencies in this game.

They need to come up with something, stick with it, perfect it as it matures, and not worry about pleasing everybody, because it’s just not going to happen.