Guild Wars 2

So I just created my first legendary – Sunrise – and I have to say I feel pretty empty about it… [TL:DR make loothunt exciting again]

This is not to say that I’m not pleased with how it looks or that I regret making it. From day one when I first saw the sword, I’ve thought it was awesome and I’ve wanted one ever since, but getting here (as a casual player) all these years just doesn’t fill me with excitement.

I think this is fundamentally a problem with itemization and the loot hunt in GW2. In this game, everything is designed as an achievement. That’s fine. This is an MMO. But part of the magic of aquiring the items we so desire is being able to find them out in the world. Nothing compares to hunting an area for an item/skin that you want, spending countless hours searching, until you finally get it to drop (as loot).

And that’s the problem. I never loot anything interesting in this game. Don’t get me wrong! I’m not arguing that my Sunrise should have fallen from the sky. It’s okay to keep things difficult, but we need to feel like our explorations into the world mean something other than unlocking reward tracks and collections.

I’ll give you examples from a better game – yes I’ll say it – Guild Wars 1. My fondest memories in Guild Wars 1 were of the loothunt. Some of them were removed from the game, like the Crystalline sword chest run where you could solo run to a chest in Lornar’s Pass and open a strongarms chest with a chance to drop one (I found 4 Crystallines this way). Others remained a routine joy, like kiling imps for a chance to drop an Icy Dragon Sword, Sorrow’s Furnace to get a few Greens, or just running Fissure of Woe just to find a few Chaos skins.

Look maybe I’m wrong and some of this loothunt can be replicated within GW2. Again, I’m pretty casual (only exotic armor and no max 500 crafting for ascended). If there are exciting loothunts in the game, I’d be happy if you could point me towards it.

I hope that Path of Fire makes the loothunt exciting again.

Well, for Legendary Weapons, the exciting loot drop would be the Precursor. There are many named exotics that drop as loot; some could be considered exciting loot drops. There are even some exciting (for some) Ascended item loot drops.

The Wiki provides information on where/how specific items can be attained.

Good luck.

‘member Voltaic spear farm in Slaver’s Exile? Those were the days …

If I understand correctly, you’re advocating for more random loot, with high-enough drop rates that you can get the ones you want. You’re not alone.

However, there are also plenty who hate that. Generation 2 legendaries use account bound precursors that must be ‘collected’ and can’t be found or traded, because people asked to eliminate those aspects. People also weren’t happy with the randomness of Silverwastes armor acquisition, which is why a lot of HoT skins require specific achievements. In other words, for some people, “spending countless hours searching” isn’t rewarding at all; it’s just busy work.

ANet has always tried to find a balance between those extremes. Unfortunately, it’s mathematically certain that some people won’t be happy with it. Some, like yourself, really like farming for the one thing they want; some can’t stand it and there isn’t a good compromise.

The closest the game can get is having a mix of things. So there are super-rare items (e.g. Chak Egg Sac) and very rare (e.g. Lightward Battle Hammer & Staff) and simply rare (e.g. Jormag’s Breath. You can choose whether to farm them or buy them in the market place, same as in GW1 where you could sit in Kamadan to buy an Icy Dragon Sword or farm (was it ice imps?) yourself.

tl;dr there is some “loothunting” in GW2, but since many people seem to hate it, there’s also a lot of achievement-associated skins, too.

OP buyers remorse.

/thread

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

If I understand correctly, you’re advocating for more random loot, with high-enough drop rates that you can get the ones you want. You’re not alone.

However, there are also plenty who hate that. Generation 2 legendaries use account bound precursors that must be ‘collected’ and can’t be found or traded, because people asked to eliminate those aspects. People also weren’t happy with the randomness of Silverwastes armor acquisition, which is why a lot of HoT skins require specific achievements. In other words, for some people, “spending countless hours searching” isn’t rewarding at all; it’s just busy work.

ANet has always tried to find a balance between those extremes. Unfortunately, it’s mathematically certain that some people won’t be happy with it. Some, like yourself, really like farming for the one thing they want; some can’t stand it and there isn’t a good compromise.

The closest the game can get is having a mix of things. So there are super-rare items (e.g. Chak Egg Sac) and very rare (e.g. Lightward Battle Hammer & Staff) and simply rare (e.g. Jormag’s Breath. You can choose whether to farm them or buy them in the market place, same as in GW1 where you could sit in Kamadan to buy an Icy Dragon Sword or farm (was it ice imps?) yourself.

tl;dr there is some “loothunting” in GW2, but since many people seem to hate it, there’s also a lot of achievement-associated skins, too.

I don’t think I’m advocating for random loothunt as exists in the current GW2. I know there are named exotics and precursors, but these are impossibly difficult to get the ones you might be after. What I am advocating for, I think, is ‘targetted loothunt’ where we know that certain item skins of a type drop in specific areas and we can go out and try to get them.

The problem, I am sure, is the fact that the Auction House exists and so if any rewarding loothunt was offered to the community, the AH would be flooded with everything and thus defeat the purpose of the hunt.

The only solution as I see it would be to Bind on Account the rarest of skins when they drop.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

OP buyers remorse.

/thread

Not really. I only had to spend my PoF gems on buying the Precursor Dawn. And I don’t regret it. Mystic forging precursors is not worth my time.

Grr….I hope the new forums, should they appear, don’t have the irritating lose-your-post-because-the-forum-decided-it’s-time-to-log-in-again.

But, there are items that drop from specific areas/mob/bosses. The drop-rate might be rare, but not impossibly difficult (with a very few exceptions, and still not impossible). If the drop-rates were more common, those items probably wouldn’t be near as desired or coveted. And, there’s almost always another way to acquire them.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Grr….I hope the new forums, should they appear, don’t have the irritating lose-your-post-because-the-forum-decided-it’s-time-to-log-in-again.

But, there are items that drop from specific areas/mob/bosses. The drop-rate might be rare, but not impossibly difficult (with a very few exceptions, and still not impossible). If the drop-rates were more common, those items probably wouldn’t be near as desired or coveted. And, there’s almost always another way to acquire them.

Nice, can you give me a few examples? What areas/mob/bosses? What drops and skins?

bladezero.9470:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

OP buyers remorse.

/thread

Not really. I only had to spend my PoF gems on buying the Precursor Dawn. And I don’t regret it. Mystic forging precursors is not worth my time.

you do know that Precursor also drop right ? bassicaly what you want is there hunt for loot but you bought it instead this does sound like a buyers remorse….

Here’s one list: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Named_weapons

An example from said list: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Old_Reliable

Good luck.

i know what he mean. legendary are kinda generic and easy to make if you have the cash. the HOT legendary partly address this but there is no way anet can “fix” the old legendaries.

bladezero.9470:

The only solution as I see it would be to Bind on Account the rarest of skins when they drop.

Which is pretty much what a lot of folks don’t want. (And, it’s not what we had in GW1 — there was a marketplace there, too, even if you didn’t participate in it.)

Plus, once we change this to “bind-on-acquisition,” then it’s no longer about loot hunting — you are still free to farm for items now & ignore the TP.

There are, in fact, lots of cool skins that drop at the frequency you desire, including things like Infinite Wisdom (from JP chests), Twin Talons (from human champs), Combustion & Stardust (from icebrood, destroyer champs, among others), and so on.

In other words, some of what you want already exists in the game and it’s balanced with some of what other people want. It might just be that, like most humans, you tend to dismiss skins if they seem “too easy” to obtain or “too hard”, some of that judgment coming from whether it’s available on the TP for cheap.

bladezero.9470:

Nice, can you give me a few examples? What areas/mob/bosses? What drops and skins?

You might also want to check out the items for the Treasure Hunter and Exotic Hunter collections. Some of them got nice skins and some of them are really pricey.

Zoltreez.6435:

you do know that Precursor also drop right ? bassicaly what you want is there hunt for loot but you bought it instead this does sound like a buyers remorse….

I have around 6k~ hours on my account and I’ve gotten 1 precursor so far. One! That’s not really comparable to what the OP is talking about.

Feothyr.6072:

bladezero.9470:

Nice, can you give me a few examples? What areas/mob/bosses? What drops and skins?

You might also want to check out the items for the Treasure Hunter and Exotic Hunter collections. Some of them got nice skins and some of them are really pricey.

Zoltreez.6435:

you do know that Precursor also drop right ? bassicaly what you want is there hunt for loot but you bought it instead this does sound like a buyers remorse….

I have around 6k~ hours on my account and I’ve gotten 1 precursor so far. One! That’s not really comparable to what the OP is talking about.

Thank you! And yes!

There is also a whole set of HoT container exotics … as for drop rate I’ve seen maybe 4 or 5 drop from the set.

Well, there’s the Lightward Battlestaff and Hammer in VB…

I really wish this game didn’t have so many of its cosmetics tied up in the Gemstore. Half the glider skins should have been earnable in-game (Auric and Vine-Touched Destroyer stand out here), and most of the Black Lion weapon box skins should have been in-game as well – I prefer those skins to be unrelated to the game’s actual content. Timekeeper weapons are great for the Black Lion chests. Pact Fleet (Tied to the HoT story) and Fused weapons (Tied to way-back-when’s Living Season 1 episode)- not so much.