Guild Wars 2

…is completely and utterly kittened.
That a pink Moa or a Fresh Water Crab could somehow be hoarding an axe, gold coins or other man-made loot is ridiculous and breaks any immersion one might wish to find in a game.

As ‘yucky’ as I feel this is, I can’t see this changing any time soon. But could someone try and explain the mentality behind such a ‘design’ decision?

All mobs use the same loot table for most of their drops, with the exception of materials and trophies.

Is this your first video game? GW2 isn’t trying to emulate real life. Most games aren’t. Cries of immersion breaking with regards to loot tables is just trolling.

~EW

WYSIWYG (“What you see is what you get”, i.e. enemies can only drop what they are carrying) is a loot system that works great in single player games. It is impossible to balance in multiplayer games (because they have economies) which is why they use loot tables that break your immersion.

It’s just putting certain gameplay needs over flavor needs. If certain enemies drop certain types of loot, people would be farming the good ones and ignoring the bad ones. Since regular mobs don’t scale, people would be competing against each other for loot, which goes against the GW2 ethos.

It might be less immersive for a wolf to drop a dagger, but it’s not unusual. I have the occasional, “Hah, why did that DEER have BOOTS!” moment, but I prefer that to the alternative.

“Why is that rabbit carrying money?” A question asked since the beginning of video games. Probably even longer.

You might be surprised to realize that many real life animals do carry “man made loot” around, be it inside their digestive systems (naturally hurting and eventually killing them), or stuck on their bodies because they were swimming around some area with lots of trash.

Now, surely we wouldn’t expect to kill turtles IRL and carve whole pistols out of their stomachs, but the creatures in Tyria are profoundly different from their IRL inspirations, to the point a veteran wolf might actually be able to swallow an armor whole! (or at least digest it into some disgusting indistinguishable, but salvageable, garment)

This is certainly not immersion breaking: you might think that while carrying lots of bags around while dodging and jumping and gliding, some stuff is gonna fall off on the ground. The logical jump from there to animals eating that random stuff we occasionaly lose (specially very wild ones like trolls and savage rabid bunnies) is not a big one, if you can suspend your disbelief just enough to allow fantasy animals to be able to eat some gold coins.

Pure Heart.1456:

…is completely and utterly kittened.
That a pink Moa or a Fresh Water Crab could somehow be hoarding an axe, gold coins or other man-made loot is ridiculous and breaks any immersion one might wish to find in a game.

As ‘yucky’ as I feel this is, I can’t see this changing any time soon. But could someone try and explain the mentality behind such a ‘design’ decision?

I think trying to reconcile all of GW2 mechanics to something in the ‘real world’ is an exercise in futility; one is bound to be disappointed with the results.

• ‘Mussels’ are considered in the same class as vegetables & spices for gathering. Tarragon & Vanilla drop from the exact same plant and Chili drops from that plant, instead of the vanilla, if in a different region.
• Loot is never melted by the massive amounts of damage unleashed on foes.
• A foe with 1 point of health does equal damage to like-foes with 100% health.
• Some fires will cause ‘burning’; some won’t.
• There isn’t any friendly fire: projectiles pass unhindered through allies, AoE damage is really “Area of Anti-Foe Effects,” and traps can’t be triggered by friends.
• The same piece of armor can be worn by norn and asura alike.

In the context of other mechanics, of course moas will drop coins, axes, and even chest armor.

Use the axe dropped by the crab to kill the tree that’s somehow walking around unrooted. You’d be suprised what that tree can hide in his branches.

When you realize why the rabbit was carrying a pistol after you killed it you’ll realize you did the countryside a huge favor.

/it probably gored some hapless bandit and ran off with the gun

lioka qiao.8734:

When you realize why the rabbit was carrying a pistol after you killed it you’ll realize you did the countryside a huge favor.

/it probably gored some hapless bandit and ran off with the gun

That is why the bandits are always ready to kill anyone that passes by. It is all the bunnies fault.

Yargesh.4965:

lioka qiao.8734:

When you realize why the rabbit was carrying a pistol after you killed it you’ll realize you did the countryside a huge favor.

/it probably gored some hapless bandit and ran off with the gun

That is why the bandits are always ready to kill anyone that passes by. It is all the bunnies fault.

And bunny ears just appeared on the Gem Store!!!

ANet why do you conspire with the bandits!?!?!?

~EW

This is not new or unique to GW2. It’s by no means universal in games but certainly very common.

If in doubt see: http://thenoobcomic.com/comic/24/ (From 2004, and a very common idea even before then.)

If it helps you could tell yourself they nicked someone else’s Hammerspace bag, ate the food and forgot about the other stuff.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

• Loot is never melted by the massive amounts of damage unleashed on foes.

If it’s so melted as to be unusable, the game probably just doesn’t drop it. How do you know how many precursors YOU’VE melted on random mobs?

GW1 mobs would drop items and salvage stuff, but never armor, running by the same logic: “why does this moa have perfectly battle-ready plate mail, that magically fits every single person? That’s ridiculous!” and so you salvaged for materials and bought the rest to make every piece of armor. At the time, responding to hack and slash games and traditional MMO structure it felt nice, but honestly, unless you go ALL THE WAY and mobs are WYSIWYG, it’s just much better gameplay to have them drop everything.

Once I found out I could throw fire from my fingertips or have pistols/bows that never run out of ammunition I stopped worrying about whether or not a rabbit could have a set of leggings inside him.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

bows that never run out of ammunition

Something else I’m glad that almost every game after Diablo II did away with.

The Crab ate a Lumberjack.

Artemid.3925:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

• Loot is never melted by the massive amounts of damage unleashed on foes.

If it’s so melted as to be unusable, the game probably just doesn’t drop it. How do you know how many precursors YOU’VE melted on random mobs?

GW1 mobs would drop items and salvage stuff, but never armor, running by the same logic: “why does this moa have perfectly battle-ready plate mail, that magically fits every single person? That’s ridiculous!” and so you salvaged for materials and bought the rest to make every piece of armor. At the time, responding to hack and slash games and traditional MMO structure it felt nice, but honestly, unless you go ALL THE WAY and mobs are WYSIWYG, it’s just much better gameplay to have them drop everything.

That explains my lack of precursors. I so thoroughly destroy every creature i come across that they take the legendary with em to oblivion.

lioka qiao.8734:

Artemid.3925:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

• Loot is never melted by the massive amounts of damage unleashed on foes.

If it’s so melted as to be unusable, the game probably just doesn’t drop it. How do you know how many precursors YOU’VE melted on random mobs?

GW1 mobs would drop items and salvage stuff, but never armor, running by the same logic: “why does this moa have perfectly battle-ready plate mail, that magically fits every single person? That’s ridiculous!” and so you salvaged for materials and bought the rest to make every piece of armor. At the time, responding to hack and slash games and traditional MMO structure it felt nice, but honestly, unless you go ALL THE WAY and mobs are WYSIWYG, it’s just much better gameplay to have them drop everything.

That explains my lack of precursors. I so thoroughly destroy every creature i come across that they take the legendary with em to oblivion.

Especially because I suspect the precursors may be more fragile than typical weapons. When I got The Lover bits kept falling off it! I was lucky to have any feathers left by the time I made The Dreamer!

If you were a cute fuzzy bunny and knew that swarms of random, “heroes,” were wandering the region just waiting for an opportunity to kill you, wouldnt you carry a gun too.

Logic son!

Pure Heart.1456:

…is completely and utterly kittened.
That a pink Moa or a Fresh Water Crab could somehow be hoarding an axe, gold coins or other man-made loot is ridiculous and breaks any immersion one might wish to find in a game.

As ‘yucky’ as I feel this is, I can’t see this changing any time soon. But could someone try and explain the mentality behind such a ‘design’ decision?

Those Moas and Crabs will eat anything!

The way I’ve looked at it in various MMO’s is to assume the creatures aren’t carrying the items but that in the course of the fight and the aftermath you come across something dropped and mostly buried in leaves or some such. No pistol on the bunny but maybe someone shoved one in the bunny’s burrow to hide it and then never got back for it. That sort of thing.