Guild Wars 2

Not having as much fun with the game at 80 now the focus is off of obtaining levels and shifted to maxing out my gear. It’s obvious players motivations in open world PvE have shifted to small pockets of the world where they can either farm Karma or kill high volumes of trash mobs for a chance at gear or crafting mat drops.

Meanwhile we have all these Elite \ Champion labeled giants walking around that no one has any interest working as a team largely because they often don’t drop loot.

These Elite and Champions creatures are just window dressing and pointless for anyone to spend any time on. The math just doesn’t work out, kill one Giant Champion for one chance at loot (or no loot at all) or kill 10 trash mops in the same amount of time and get 10 chances for the same loot. People are naturally going to take the 10 chances vs the one right?

I would really like to see some motivation given to players to take on these larger mobs intended for opportunities for grouping by giving them guarantied random loot drops even if there a bag of T6 crafting mats to a rare opportunity at an epic piece of armor.

I was mildly annoyed by the lack of loot drops from the Elite \ Champion labeled giants creatures I killed on my way to cap, but now that we can see one every 100 yards or so in the level 80 zones with players just avoiding them their lack of rewarding motivation has become glaringly apparent.

So lets jazz up the end game a bit ANet and give these Elite \ Champion some cool Drops even some RARE T6 crafting mats would be a good start.

With chests in CoF that drop 1 copper, I’m not going to hold my breath.

I’m not disappointed with the game, this seems like something relatively easy to fix. It would make these end game zones a whole lot more fun if the champion mobs wondering around that need 5 to 10 players to take down had a decent loot table and rewarded a bit of karma.

It would give players something worthwhile to do as a group and a whole lot better them scratching their kitten waiting for the next event driven mob to swarm an outpost.

Not disappointed in the game per se, but a bit disappointed in the end game. Theres no real carrot for me after 80 unless I’m a big pvper which im not. I like new gear as much as the next person, but gear just for looks sake with no in game benefit to me is pointless. These champion mobs probably should drop more and better loot. maybe to balance things they could be made even tougher and require more teamwork. Or maybe they could require you to complete certain events to bring them out?

I avoid champions for the most part. Lots of bother for nothing.

Here’s my idea:

Implement unique bosses in the overworld like in GW1 that wander. They each have a special weapon or armor set (or piece) and elite skill to be capped. Re-introduce skill capping as a mechanic. This will help populate areas and encourage grouping. Of course make the RNG for these items extremely low so that they stay rare and encourage playtime, but do so in a way that doesn’t frustrate the player.

Reasoning: Veteran and Champion #231 is a boring cop out to designing engaging and interesting encounters. Give the content more personality and intrigue (read:longevity).

No thanks to specific unique drops from specific champions. That’s where all the other mmorpgs went wrong and why those mobs were constantly camped. Grind grind grind gotta kill Foombah the StupidlyTall till i get his rare toupee drop. /vomit.

Now a better chance at the random drops we usually get via quality or how often an item will drop would be spiffy because currently they’re not worth killing.

The problem is that ArenaNet tried to be too different to the point of making parts of the game shallow. The one thing that drives RPG players is progression. The problem is that ArenaNet’s idea of progression is not the same as a typical RPG player. No one finds farming the same dungeon over and over for the best gear fun, but what people do find fun is the excitement of a new drop. The former still exists, only you have to farm enough tokens, the latter doesn’t exist anymore. It’s like a big vacuum. Why even have boss mobs?

Other games have had token systems, but as supplementary to the drops. It gave a sense that you are progressing towards something even if you didn’t get anything. It was a way to solve the problem of camping a dungeon a hundred times and never get the upgrade you were after. In GW2, these tokens from dungeons is the only thing you actually get.

Ahhh. Reminds me of the old days, camping NMs in FFXI, spamming a macro and watching tv trying to beat my competition to the tag. At least this game isn’t based on who taps it first gets to keep it. I’m all for it… kinda.

That’s precisely the FUN factor that’s missing, without the anticipation of the reward drop the extra effort to take down these champion creatures becomes ….mah. I’ve felt this throughout the entire game. I thought at first they must be broke then I had to ask in chat about it … I thought I was doing something wrong, then I found out that’s just the way it is.
But now at 80 it really takes the fun out of the game when the level 80 zones are just camping outpost doorways hitting the one key killing wave after wave of trash mobs to farm karma or crafting mats.

One time a champion killed me when I was looking for my POI.
Then as revenge I soloed first stage and people start gathering. We murdered this kitten.
No loot was gotten, but the joy of triumph.

Was it interesting? Yes. Was it rewarded? No.
Basically, there’s no good loot in GW2. I have better chances get 80 lvl rare from 10 undead chickens rather than 10 champions.

arcaneclarity.5283:

The problem is that ArenaNet tried to be too different to the point of making parts of the game shallow. The one thing that drives RPG players is progression. The problem is that ArenaNet’s idea of progression is not the same as a typical RPG player. No one finds farming the same dungeon over and over for the best gear fun, but what people do find fun is the excitement of a new drop. The former still exists, only you have to farm enough tokens, the latter doesn’t exist anymore. It’s like a big vacuum. Why even have boss mobs?

Other games have had token systems, but as supplementary to the drops. It gave a sense that you are progressing towards something even if you didn’t get anything. It was a way to solve the problem of camping a dungeon a hundred times and never get the upgrade you were after. In GW2, these tokens from dungeons is the only thing you actually get.

^ Very well said.

I actually assumed GW2 would have done this. Dungeons drop pieces of the Dungeon Armor/weapons (from the bosses) while tokens act as the filler for that piece that is stubborn and just wont drop.
When I found this wasn’t the case, I was rather surprised (and not in a good way).

This game is not about drops. In order to really enjoy this game you have to get over your lust for gear.

Just to chime in here. I have found recently that I just “tag” (hit champions/vets a few times just to register a gold) then continue on my way. I do this because they drop nothing 99% of the time (if at all) and I find my time in the game better spent moving on to a DE that has trash mobs that drop loot. I have to say I do feel kinda of guilty not staying to help fight, but with the design the way it is champions and veterans seem to be the trash mobs in GW2.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Bosses-and-chests-need-to-give-better-rewards/first#post384145

Made a thread on it in suggestions.

With GW1 being my only online rpg like experience, I grew up with this system. The loot system in GW2 has some similarities to its predecessor, where bosses also had a very small, but marginally higher chance to drop something good. Yes, there were greens, but those lost their prestige within half a year of their introduction. They also dropped elite tomes(used to unlock elite skills), and some people farmed them with specialized builds, but again, 95% of the time they didn’t even drop a max weapon, and that was before loot scaling kicked in, which is now called DR. If you want to spend your time as effectively as possible in regards to earning wealth, grind Orr, harvest t5-6mats and do dungeons. RNG loot table is and has always been RNG.

Its taken me some time to get used to GW2’s ‘endgame’ as compared to other MMOS. GW2 is not about progression(gear, raid, etc) or gear grind like so many of us are used to from other games. A few hours upon hitting 80 you have the best gear avail (i.e you not gonna loot anything better….hence no gear progression) for very little cost. What ‘endgame’ in GW2 is ..is a little vanity….the search for skins and achievements, etc and mostly PvP. If you are like me and have very little interest in PvP then enjoy the game for what it was getting to 80 (for me it was the best leveling experience….both in terms of classes and content) ive ever had in a MMO……..put game on shelf (after all there is no subscription) and wait for first DLC/expansion.

Its just a different beast and it has to be judged for what it was intended to be instead of being judged for what it was not.

@wollie.9751
Just to be clear here, NO ONE is asking for a gear tread mill here. It’s about rewards verses effort, and content that’s in the game but getting ignored because players gravitate to what is rewarding.

I don’t care if Champions drop crafting mats or coin they need to add a loot table appropriate to the time it takes to down one or otherwise they will be continued to be just obstacles to be avoided.

People are getting bored at 80 because there is nothing exciting about the level 80 zones. At this point players hang out in outpost doorways with a stick of bubble-gum holding down their (1) key.

This is largely due to the fact that there is nothing more exciting to do that will either drop T6 crafting mats or earn a bit of karma. At this point its more rewarding to stand in one spot killing waves of trash then it is taking on a Champion and if you ask me that’s upside down and backwards to the way it should be.

And that leads into the Karma tread mill end game debate. If you want that epic set of Karma gear for a quarter of a million in Karma that equates to about 3 months for an average player standing in doorways in mobs of players with there (1) key stuck down…..not much fun.

So this is about the fun factor and putting some verity into the end game zones so people that Really want to play the game can have some fun.

i agree champion mobs are tough especially high level ones and they yield no good reward,it’s impossible to take down solo too

Imaginos.3756:

No thanks to specific unique drops from specific champions. That’s where all the other mmorpgs went wrong and why those mobs were constantly camped. Grind grind grind gotta kill Foombah the StupidlyTall till i get his rare toupee drop. /vomit.

Now a better chance at the random drops we usually get via quality or how often an item will drop would be spiffy because currently they’re not worth killing.

Then what’s the point of champion/veteran mobs other than to be annoying? We have enough mobs in dungeons with large damage/large health pools for no reason.

IMO the devs are doing to much as in trying to be different. Some people need a carrot on a stick to play the game and if they dropped good loot people would be willing to play that part of the game.

I actually agree with this. In some parts. I declare that they shall reward Karma/1 silver.

Gear progression is not the hallmark of an MMORPG. Gear progression exist solely to get people to keep playing a game they would have otherwise stopped playing months ago. And unfortunately they don’t do it for the players benefit but for the as a way to make money.

Not to say they should change the rewards because nothing says FU than having to loot a big chest and getting blues constantly.

Gear progression is not the hallmark of an MMORPG. Gear progression exist solely to get people to keep playing a game they would have otherwise stopped playing months ago.

People keep bringing up gear progression… that’s not what is being asked for in this thread. People are asking for random rare drops from the champions that are scattered all over the world that literally drop nothing most of the time.

It’s like playing a slot machine. Most of the time you get vendor trash, but every now and then you get something that you can sell for a couple gold on the Trade Post. It works like that now, somewhat, but only on random mobs. (I pulled an Abyss dye off of a Moa.) IMO, those rare drops should come from champions, with a very small chance to drop in world.

100% chance for a rare on champions would be a good start to making people want to kill them.

Stevoli.8795:

Gear progression is not the hallmark of an MMORPG. Gear progression exist solely to get people to keep playing a game they would have otherwise stopped playing months ago.

People keep bringing up gear progression… that’s not what is being asked for in this thread. People are asking for random rare drops from the champions that are scattered all over the world that literally drop nothing most of the time.

It’s like playing a slot machine. Most of the time you get vendor trash, but every now and then you get something that you can sell for a couple gold on the Trade Post. It works like that now, somewhat, but only on random mobs. (I pulled an Abyss dye off of a Moa.) IMO, those rare drops should come from champions, with a very small chance to drop in world.

Guild wars 1 had something like that and it resulted in people farming them, A LOT. The thing you seem to be forgetting is once you give certain mobs rare loot, people will start farming them and we end up with a system very similar to quest mobs. Actually it will be exactly like quest mobs and it will make the problem surrounding those 3 DE chains in orr punks.

Also my statement was just a statement based on post on this thread not the op.

Deistik.7802:

100% chance for a rare on champions would be a good start to making people want to kill them.

Champions should be something you want to do because you want to test yourself, if you are doing it for any other reason then don’t. If you need incentives to do in game content then you should really consider doing something else (not an absolute statement).

Unfortunately, most encounters such as killing a champion mob aren’t fun or challenging enough to do w/o reward.

Why would I WANT to slowly kite a champion mob for 10 minutes til it’s dead, it’s not hard, it’s not rewarding.

The “do it for fun” argument holds absolutely no water lol.

silvermember.8941:

Stevoli.8795:

Gear progression is not the hallmark of an MMORPG. Gear progression exist solely to get people to keep playing a game they would have otherwise stopped playing months ago.

People keep bringing up gear progression… that’s not what is being asked for in this thread. People are asking for random rare drops from the champions that are scattered all over the world that literally drop nothing most of the time.

It’s like playing a slot machine. Most of the time you get vendor trash, but every now and then you get something that you can sell for a couple gold on the Trade Post. It works like that now, somewhat, but only on random mobs. (I pulled an Abyss dye off of a Moa.) IMO, those rare drops should come from champions, with a very small chance to drop in world.

Guild wars 1 had something like that and it resulted in people farming them, A LOT. The thing you seem to be forgetting is once you give certain mobs rare loot, people will start farming them and we end up with a system very similar to quest mobs.

Even if they were guaranteed a blue drop they still wouldn’t be worth your time. There’s no reason NOT to increase their rewards, even just a little bit.

silvermember.8941:

Gear progression is not the hallmark of an MMORPG. Gear progression exist solely to get people to keep playing a game they would have otherwise stopped playing months ago.

Thing is, Legendaries are there to replace that.

Once you’ve hit 80, gotten all your gear, do the content atleast once. Why would you do them again? To start gathering money, skill points, karma etc for Legendaries or whatever new carrot Anet decides to add.

There’s nothing wrong with that though, they should be adding more carrots, people shouldn’t be condemning gear progression because it keeps people playing, they should condemn it on it’s implementation. WoW eventually made gear progression feel terrible.

Guild wars 1 had something like that and it resulted in people farming them, A LOT. The thing you seem to be forgetting is once you give certain mobs rare loot, people will start farming them and we end up with a system very similar to quest mobs.

I could see that being a valid argument if tagging a mob made it so no one else could get loot from it, but the way this game works, everyone gets loot. You just need to be there and hit it a couple times.

Champions should be something you want to do because you want to test yourself, if you are doing it for any other reason then don’t. If you need incentives to do in game content then you should really consider doing something else (not an absolute statement).

That too I could see being a valid argument if champions were actually challenging, as they are now you just need a decent number of people there, and the champion goes down fairly quickly. I don’t agree that they should have 100% chance for rare since they can be zerg’d very easily, but they should at least have a small chance to drop something that people can sell.

I guess any way you look at it though, people will take the path of least resistance, and farm the champion that’s easiest to kill, it’s the nature of the beast.

Knote.2904:

Unfortunately, most encounters such as killing a champion mob aren’t fun or challenging enough to do w/o reward.

Why would I WANT to slowly kite a champion mob for 10 minutes til it’s dead, it’s not hard, it’s not rewarding.

The “do it for fun” argument holds absolutely no water lol.

It does if you are playing a game for FUN. I know its a tough concept to gasp. And if you are not having fun, then don’t do the mobs. You know what sane people do when they are trying to have fun and the current task is not fun? The quit and go do something else, in this game quitting would mean you go fight another mob or do something you genuine enjoy.

silvermember.8941:

Knote.2904:

Unfortunately, most encounters such as killing a champion mob aren’t fun or challenging enough to do w/o reward.

Why would I WANT to slowly kite a champion mob for 10 minutes til it’s dead, it’s not hard, it’s not rewarding.

The “do it for fun” argument holds absolutely no water lol.

It does if you are playing a game for FUN. I know its a tough concept to gasp. And if you are not having fun, then don’t do the mobs. You know what sane people do when they are trying to have fun and the current task is not fun? The quit and go do something else, in this game quitting would mean you go fight another mob or do something you genuine enjoy.

I’m going to have to break this down for you.

Rewards are PART of “fun”.

If something is genuinely fun, but not rewarding, that’s fine.

If something is NOT fun, but rewarding, that’s fine.

If something is not fun, and not rewarding, that’s not fine.

Most champion mobs aren’t fun to kill/fight after the first time, some aren’t fun or challenging EVER, and on top of that aren’t rewarding at all. I DON’T bother with them.

I don’t see how fixing the messed up risk/reward ratio in this game hurts you and causes you to be defensive.

Don’t be afraid of rewards, they’re part of these games, this game is full of them. Rewards are fun.

Don’t be afraid of rewards, they’re part of these games, this game is full of them. Rewards are fun.

I have to agree. If they didn’t want this game to be rewards based, then we wouldn’t get rewards after every storyline quest, and every map completion. They need to go one way or the other, not half-kittened like it is now.

silvermember.8941:

Deistik.7802:

100% chance for a rare on champions would be a good start to making people want to kill them.

Champions should be something you want to do because you want to test yourself, if you are doing it for any other reason then don’t. If you need incentives to do in game content then you should really consider doing something else (not an absolute statement).

So, after you’ve done it once (to see if you could), no point in doing it again? That doesn’t help with wanting people to actually kill them instead of avoiding them.

Well if they dropped some cash and bags it would be a start. Like the most basic loot.

silvermember.8941:

Deistik.7802:

100% chance for a rare on champions would be a good start to making people want to kill them.

Champions should be something you want to do because you want to test yourself, if you are doing it for any other reason then don’t. If you need incentives to do in game content then you should really consider doing something else (not an absolute statement).

Champion mobs alone aren’t fun it’s a gankfest they 1 or 2 shot you that isn’t fun. It’s just a kiting game with them and if you hit wild life or get to far you leash the mob or you chain pull adds.

Champions should all drop rares or above only, relative to your level. And always drop something.

Vetrans for the large part are worth passing by tbh. Some rewards could do with a tweak.

I don’t think guaranteed rares or anything like that is a good idea.

Just make them drop the same stuff as normal mobs, but more of it. Like several items, 10 crafting mats, more cash.. the idea of them granting karma is also a good one.

Just so if it takes ages to kill them, compared to normal mobs, you get a stack of stuff like you would have if you’d spent that time killing a bunch of normal mobs.

Same here I stop attacking champion or veteran mobs , they drop nothing an champion kiting is no fun at all. The risk of dying and getting a repair bill is high.
so risk : reward , 1 : 0 no point at all unless some unfortunate player trigger the champion and I would try to help him escape .
Sometimes the guy got away and I got btich -slapped hard by the champ.

But the point that if a champ mob drops rare stuff, they are going to get farmed is very true though . Sight…

People defend it, saying “fun” is all the reward they need, but I wonder if someday, it’ll turn out the devs just haven’t gotten around to itemizing them, yet. Maybe its just unfinished content, and they let us go on thinking that its intentional, because that doesn’t sound as bad.

Fun is only relative to the individual and we all measure fun from our own unique perspective.

The problem however is not the fun factor it’s the motivation factor that’s lacking.

Now most players will take on one of these Champion characters once or twice, but as soon as you realize that you’re risking your skin and the climax of the encounter is to watch the mob fall over and disappear most will find something better to do with their time.
Now regardless of if you think Champion mobs are worth fighting just for the fun of it or not we all have bills to pay in the way of repair and travel costs. Because of this most players are naturally going to gravitate to content that pays off and help pays the bills.

The net result is the Champion mobs put in the game to spontaneously encourage multiplayer teams forming to take on the greater challenge of taking them down are not working as intended.

Instead the bulk of players are learning to just avoid them for content that has a pay check. So even the players that would like to just take on the Champion mobs for the fun of it have a hard time finding others to enjoy the content with.

Fun example would be the “bonus event” in AC where you have to kill a legendary spider. Did 3 AC runs in the last few days all of which had this “bonus event” and what did I get…a white quality glove….a white quality belt and a blue helmet…all level 34. Yup awesome event…didnt even get the “Event Successful” trigger that gives exp, karma and gold…which implies its not even an event.

WoW was the same way. The thing with champion mobs is if they dropped better loot or loot at a higher rate than regular mobs than people would ONLY kill champions. There would be a champion killing zerg that would run around in search of them. People would be calling out that champions were up and everyone would drop what they were doing to run off and kill that champ.

Some of the champion fights I have participated in this game have been the most fun I have had (a few others have been truly awful though). I don’t think the loot needs to be any different. I DO think that there should be consistency on which dynamic events result in a chest reward at the end of a chain though.

You bring up wow.

People avoided elite mobs also because the loot was terrible.

It is kinda silly that the easiest way to get the best loot in this game is to farm mass mob events. Only reason it is better is due to the higher chance if said loot dropping.

I was shocked when I found out that killing boss mobs basically got me nothing but a “chance” at rares/exotics. I do not like it and since turning 80 have practically stopped doing PvE. Only PvE do now is level and alt. All my end game play is done in WvW on my 80.

A.Net needs to seriously adjust the rewards for killing bosses in dungeons and in events.

Still loving the game, but you pose a valid criticism. Here’s something I think would work or could be tweaked a bit to work:

1. Heavy/Med/light Armor set for the 5 regions (Ascalon, Tyria, Magumma, Shiverpeaks, and Orr)

2. Everytime you a champion is killed, it is guaranteed to drop 1-5 tokens appropriate for that region. Tokens can be used to exchange for a piece of armor from that region (50 tokens a piece would be nice, but w/e). These pieces are masterwork (no stat advantage over other masterwork gear).

3. If you are level 80, champions have a 1/10 chance to drop a random WEAPON from that set. These pieces are rare (no stat advantage over other rare gear)

4. If are level 80, champions have a 1/50 chance to drop a random piece of EXOTIC ARMOR from the set. These pieces look the same, except that they each have a unikittenfect (fire, aura, mist, smoke, footsteps, w/e)

This would keep people interested, I think. Or at least something similar. I like some of you guy’s ideas as well.

Well, back to playing

Deistik.7802:

silvermember.8941:

Deistik.7802:

100% chance for a rare on champions would be a good start to making people want to kill them.

Champions should be something you want to do because you want to test yourself, if you are doing it for any other reason then don’t. If you need incentives to do in game content then you should really consider doing something else (not an absolute statement).

So, after you’ve done it once (to see if you could), no point in doing it again? That doesn’t help with wanting people to actually kill them instead of avoiding them.

Exactly. Fight one champion, you’ve basically fought them all in GW2. I haven’t seen any do anything besides hit people really hard. By them not dropping anything worth while, there is zero incentive to fight them. I think there is a segment here who really don’t understand the concept of incentives. It’s not about just loot. Also regarding farming champions for loot, what do you think people are doing to gain karma? Farming…because you HAVE TO in order to earn enough of it to buy anything worth while.

So farm for karma to buy lackluster gear or farm boses for something worth while? I’ll take both please so at least I have the chance to get something I want, since unles I start farming dungeons for weeks or months, what else is there to do PVE wise? Yes, you have to farm dungeons to earn gear too. Hello, this game has has a major gear treadmill. The difference here is the stats mean diddly compared to other MMOs. Is all about skins instead…so you trade one grin for another but it’s all the same.

If you create specific drops on these type of mobs, then we will start to see camp farming, and then the QQ’s will start because peeps never get the drops after bashing the same mob 40+ times a day.

Personally I avoided these type of mobs mainly for the same reasons most others do, and they are just time consuming.

Cod Eye.1632:

If you create specific drops on these type of mobs, then we will start to see camp farming, and then the QQ’s will start because peeps never get the drops after bashing the same mob 40+ times a day.

Personally I avoided these type of mobs mainly for the same reasons most others do, and they are just time consuming.

If people know you can only do it a few times due to DR, then there is no all-day farming. You would have to move on to something else. Make the DR OBVIOUS, like a big message right in the middle of your screen, “You’ve done this event too many times…ect…” Make it lore related even.

How does making tough mobs drop SOMETHING worthwhile become a bad thing for anyone? Once exp is no longer an issue there is no progression in this game besides money and karma and frankly karma kind of sucks when the gear available is mostly useless or doesn’t even look good. Rare items…oh please. I can buy that easy on the TP.

Not everyone can do dungeons, since it takes a while until you really learn the thing and then, the whole group has to know what they’re doing for it to be a quick run. 2-3 uninterrupted hours isn’t exactly casual. Multiply that by 40 times or more…no thanks. After the 5th time its really not going to be fun any more. You’re ONLY doing it for the gear anyway.

Besides, having MORE options is a good thing. It would spread out the zergs. Didn’t AC back in the day have storms that spread everyone around once too many people got in the same place? How about if dragons just did a fire bombing run once a certain threshhold was reached? Its not a targetable dragon, but it wipes the zergs. It just whooshes through and kills everyone in the area. Don’t tell me the cost of a death ruins your day, because its mostly peanuts. It almost makes sense since why wouldn’t a dragon take the opportunity to wipe out an army all in one place=)

Another side effect to giving these open world Champion creatures the best drops is it would make it tough on botters since they rove the map and they take a more logical effort on the part of the player then to stand in one spot and spam an AOE over and over again.

At least I’d feel like I was playing with other players then just assisting the bot camps in the level 80 zones.

Anet, reward your players for buying your game and spending many many hours playing it. Stop ripping us off on chests and boss drops at least.