Guild Wars 2

The whole game seems to consist of finding out which events to fail or complete or redo for the best rewards. And the players are not to blame, the whole reward system is the most horrible I have ever seen in any game. Farming is something other MMORPG do, in GW2, you scrounge.

No failure should get you more than a success, yet GW2 encourages that in many events. People are getting heat for completing stuff all over the place. And no, nerfing champs and events even further is not the answer – this whole madness is actually a result of the horrid reward system in the first place.

Please devs, take the whole reward system back to the drawing board and come up with something that rewards actually playing the game instead of failfarming events. And again: Nerfing is not the answer, no more champs without loot (“because players will just farm them and ignore the event”), no more pseudo “elite” champs. There must be a better way. If anything is the game breaker for GW2, it is the endless, perpetual tagging, scrounging and disappointment in the reward department.

This game’s loot/rewards have sucked since beta. And there’s no end in sight. I’m all for rare stuff, but it’s pretty ridiculous that the only real method of farming is Trading Post Wars.

dansamy.3752:

This game’s loot/rewards have sucked since beta. And there’s no end in sight. I’m all for rare stuff, but it’s pretty ridiculous that the only real method of farming is TPvP.

TPVP does not provide nearly enough loot compared to PvE. It would take a casual player about 1 week to complete a reward track, and the best you can get from that is about 1 dragonite ore, 1 star and 2-3 mystic clovers with perhaps 2-3 rares.

Lol sorry I mean Trading Post Wars. Sorry for the confusion.

I keep repeating myself in multiple threads, now that’s also because it’s what I am annoyed by and so related topics get my attention. So here it go’s again.

Yes the loot system is bad and do you know why?
Almost everything is gold-based. There are not a lot of specific drops from specific places / content. That results in ‘lucky’ drops where many people get items they do not want. But they sell those items and buy what they want. The result is a boring gold-grind. If it’s not gold-grind then it’s often a rush against time what is also not fun.

But why make it this way. Now lets take my default example, mini’s. You can put mini’s in the game. One specific mini can drop from a specific quest or a dynamic event or a dungeon or you create it with crafting or it drops from a specific group of mobs in a specific place.

This means there are reasons to do specific content and people are less likely to get a ‘lucky’ drop they do not want that they then sell. Getting items and farming is more coordinated.

Farming is almost impossible in GW2 and as soon as a way to farm items is found it’s getting patched out in some cases the people who farm it even get a ban.

This of course has everything to do with there income model. It’s not so much B2P where they make money on the game and expansions but the generate most money with gem-sales. So the question is “how do we get people to buy gems”. Well by putting mini’s in the cash-shop in stead of in the world and by making gold very important and then selling gold for gems. It makes the game feel like a job in stead of a game and gems are they cheap way out of that.

That why I want them to be a true B2P game. No cash-shop. Just sell the game and regular expansions. As long as they generate most income with gem-sales we will not see big changes here. This game being B2P and ArenaNet’s name with GW1 being a true B2P game was one of the main attractions for me exactly to not have these sort of cash-shop focus related stuff.

Devata.6589:

This of course has everything to do with there income model. It’s not so much B2P where they make money on the game and expansions but the generate most money with gem-sales. So the question is “how do we get people to buy gems”. Well by putting mini’s in the cash-shop in stead of in the world and by making gold very important and then selling gold for gems. It makes the game feel like a job in stead of a game and gems are they cheap way out of that.

That why I want them to be a true B2P game. No cash-shop. Just sell the game and regular expansions. As long as they generate most income with gem-sales we will not see big changes here. This game being B2P and ArenaNet’s name with GW1 being a true B2P game was one of the main attractions for me exactly to not have these sort of cash-shop focus related stuff.

It’s true that this is the business model for the game. At this stage, however, I don’t see them switching from the gem store model to the expac model as the basis for revenue, because this is how the entire thing was designed. It does mean that drops in the world are impacted — the global TP is the fulcrum of gearing.

Devata.6589:

That why I want them to be a true B2P game. No cash-shop. Just sell the game and regular expansions. As long as they generate most income with gem-sales we will not see big changes here. This game being B2P and ArenaNet’s name with GW1 being a true B2P game was one of the main attractions for me exactly to not have these sort of cash-shop focus related stuff.

I don’t think any big publisher will ever launch a game in 21st century without having a viable revenue stream thru micro-transactions. Some publishers will even do Pay to play with micro-transactions if they actually get hold of a game that is “that” good. It’s how the industry works now.

The only way this will change if someone can come up with a business model that is more profitable thru B2P-XPaC model and if the industry accepts it for venture capitalists or publishers to fund the development of such a game.

It’s a long shot.

That said, on topic, reward system in GW2 is not much different than any other MMO with the exception that you get some guaranteed rare loot from events and gold from dungeons. Over time, any RPG will become all about currency farming. In Diablo series, it was Stones of Jordan, in GW, it was ecto/plats, in AION, kinah, in GW2, gold.

Devata.6589:

I keep repeating myself in multiple threads, now that’s also because it’s what I am annoyed by and so related topics get my attention. So here it go’s again.

Yes the loot system is bad and do you know why?
Almost everything is gold-based. There are not a lot of specific drops from specific places / content. That results in ‘lucky’ drops where many people get items they do not want. But they sell those items and buy what they want. The result is a boring gold-grind. If it’s not gold-grind then it’s often a rush against time what is also not fun.

But why make it this way. Now lets take my default example, mini’s. You can put mini’s in the game. One specific mini can drop from a specific quest or a dynamic event or a dungeon or you create it with crafting or it drops from a specific group of mobs in a specific place.

This means there are reasons to do specific content and people are less likely to get a ‘lucky’ drop they do not want that they then sell. Getting items and farming is more coordinated.

Farming is almost impossible in GW2 and as soon as a way to farm items is found it’s getting patched out in some cases the people who farm it even get a ban.

This of course has everything to do with there income model. It’s not so much B2P where they make money on the game and expansions but the generate most money with gem-sales. So the question is “how do we get people to buy gems”. Well by putting mini’s in the cash-shop in stead of in the world and by making gold very important and then selling gold for gems. It makes the game feel like a job in stead of a game and gems are they cheap way out of that.

That why I want them to be a true B2P game. No cash-shop. Just sell the game and regular expansions. As long as they generate most income with gem-sales we will not see big changes here. This game being B2P and ArenaNet’s name with GW1 being a true B2P game was one of the main attractions for me exactly to not have these sort of cash-shop focus related stuff.

works in other games which have reasonable “rare drops”. they sell cosmetic items, items with perks (yeah, a bit of p2w, who cares), or “fastlanes” to items. Actually, I just started one recently (not a MMORPG) and man, how exciting it is to get that rare, sought after item that was hard to aquire, yet would actually appear from time to time. That made me realize how frustrated I was with GW2. I spend less and less time in here and more in other games. If many players reach that level of frustration, it certainly is not a good business model. I still think GW2 is a beautifuly crafted game that offers a lot of fun, but the frustration level is just so insane.

I hate to mention other games but for this topic it seems apt. I am playing another game (while I still log in here for daily and tPvP/WvW as well now and then) mainly for this reason. The basic mob drops are just so much more rewarding. And no I don’t necessarily mean in the value of the item.

There are certain drops you can only get from certain mobs. Not only that you get a drop 99% per kill (that 1% failure is an anomaly that means you could have actually got a very valuable/rare drop, hard to explain lol). It also takes no longer than maybe 2-5 seconds to kill these mobs if you are at the top of your game and killing them the “right” way.

The drops are also varied in many different ways. Here all we get are:

1 – Possible fine crafting mat specific to each mob type.
2 – Loot bag replaces the above for humanoid creatures (generally).
3 – Some random weapon/armour drop (which really seems out of place for non humanoid creatures).
4 – Now and then but it seems rare (to me at least anyways) you can also get some coins with a drop.

5 – Damaged versions of the crafting mats to vendor, basically trash drops.

That’s it, it’s all pretty much crafting based or some weapon armour. Now let’s compare this to the drops I can get from mobs in this other game I play:

1 – Specific rare weapons or armour pieces from certain mobs/boss (usually just 1).
2 – Coins, these make up pretty much 80-90% of the drops for pretty much 80% of the mobs. They are usually low amounts but all of the drops add up to make the trip or farming worth it in the long run.

3 – Various crafting mats for various crafting professions. Examples: herbs to make potions, seeds to grow and farm herbs to make potions, hides/metals for weapons/armours, bones to level a combat type prayer skill. There are many here that cover a great deal of various skills. Sure you could say it’s all crafting in the long run but the differences with how each skill works and plays out makes the drops seem varied and worth something to a great deal of different players.

4 – Ammunition for various combat skills such as arrows and runes (needed ammo so to speak to cast magic).

5 – Treasure map item – basically an item sets you off on an adventure to find and locate treasure which could lead to very valuable rewards.

6 – Weapons/armours, just like here but you don’t see silly things like a wolf for example dropping an axe! They are more logical for the most part lol.

7 – Very rare drop that gives you experience in a certain skill of your choosing. We don’t really have anything here that could work for something like that. But instead it could be learn a certain new utility/weapon skill or possibly the new traits with the new system.

8 – Rare keys to open chests in places, again with chances at nice loot.

9 – Items that would be similar to boosters here for when you train certain skills (crafts).

There are a lot more that I wont bore you all with. Basically for me it seems more than anything it’s the lack of VARITEY of items that we get as drops from mobs if anything in this game that makes them seem worthless.

Not only that its’ the fact that it even seems like Anet don’t even want us killing mobs for rewards unless it’s part of something such as an event, story or something other. The mobs in 99% of the world that are just standing around or walking to and fro seem to be there just to hinder our movement around the place (to slow down our map explores as well as to make the world feel real I guess) they are not meant to be killed by camping near them and farmed. This is something I guess I have to get used to because it’s the complete opposite in the other game I come from. The only way to level up there is to camp/kill mobs over and over. But again this is fun/rewarding because of the loot system lol.

They NEED to create more possibilities of things to do in game which could create the possibilities of these mobs having more VARIED/interesting drop tables.

For me with this other game, every single kill/drop is like that feeling you get on xmas day when you are about to open a gift (what is it what is it!?). You know the feeling I mean, even if you know 80% of the time it’s gonna be a few coins (worth anything from maybe 1 copper to a couple of silver in GW’s value system) it still has that possibility of being something you are not expecting and could even be a surprise due to the fact the drops are all so varied and rewarding in many different ways.

That’s what we are missing here in my mind….

I wont even touch on event rewards…but there’s my 2 copper, do what you will with it but please don’t give it to the beggars because that only encourages them…..

Well, the reason they reward failures is because the dynamic event system can spawn some interesting results if you fail at a task, so success isn’t always the only way to have fun in the game. But, yeah, like any MMO what ends up happening is people figure out where the biggest payout comes from and then pressure other players into doing that instead of just having fun playing the game.

What I hate about the reward system is the pure randomness of it, to the point where I almost never get a useful drop from a major event – seriously, I think maybe once at most twice since release have I ever picked up an item from a boss fight that I could actually use. Every other time I’ve got stuff for other classes and ended up tossing them into the trading post … which, sure – fine – money reward … but I tell ya what, I’d rather have a useful item drop from an event 9 times out of ten than something I have to turn around and sell. I’d rather even have a slightly worse item than what I’m wearing, but what my class could use and looked keen, drop from an event than something I’ve got no use for and have no choice but to sell (or salvage I suppose – yipee!).

Jack of Tears.9458:

Well, the reason they reward failures is because the dynamic event system can spawn some interesting results if you fail at a task, so success isn’t always the only way to have fun in the game. But, yeah, like any MMO what ends up happening is people figure out where the biggest payout comes from and then pressure other players into doing that instead of just having fun playing the game.

What I hate about the reward system is the pure randomness of it, to the point where I almost never get a useful drop from a major event – seriously, I think maybe once at most twice since release have I ever picked up an item from a boss fight that I could actually use. Every other time I’ve got stuff for other classes and ended up tossing them into the trading post … which, sure – fine – money reward … but I tell ya what, I’d rather have a useful item drop from an event 9 times out of ten than something I have to turn around and sell. I’d rather even have a slightly worse item than what I’m wearing, but what my class could use and looked keen, drop from an event than something I’ve got no use for and have no choice but to sell (or salvage I suppose – yipee!).

yes, that´s one of the problems. Sure, we get some random stuff from time to time, sometimes even a – gasp – exotic. Go, go gadget salvage kit, and on. There is no excitement there, no magic moment of getting something you will value and keep for its own sake (don´t get me started on random ascended boxes in a world with 1 or 2 favourable stat combinations). We more resemble peddlers in here than treasure hunters.

velmeister.4187:

Devata.6589:

That why I want them to be a true B2P game. No cash-shop. Just sell the game and regular expansions. As long as they generate most income with gem-sales we will not see big changes here. This game being B2P and ArenaNet’s name with GW1 being a true B2P game was one of the main attractions for me exactly to not have these sort of cash-shop focus related stuff.

I don’t think any big publisher will ever launch a game in 21st century without having a viable revenue stream thru micro-transactions. Some publishers will even do Pay to play with micro-transactions if they actually get hold of a game that is “that” good. It’s how the industry works now.

The only way this will change if someone can come up with a business model that is more profitable thru B2P-XPaC model and if the industry accepts it for venture capitalists or publishers to fund the development of such a game.

It’s a long shot.

That said, on topic, reward system in GW2 is not much different than any other MMO with the exception that you get some guaranteed rare loot from events and gold from dungeons. Over time, any RPG will become all about currency farming. In Diablo series, it was Stones of Jordan, in GW, it was ecto/plats, in AION, kinah, in GW2, gold.

“I don’t think any big publisher will ever launch a game in 21st century without having a viable revenue stream thru micro-transactions.”
GW1 was from the 21st Century. Many if not most non MMO games do (well they tend to have some DLC crap). Many people do say “you can’t compare it to an MMO because they need to keep working on an MMO and they need to keep the servers running”. That is not a valid point because many non-MMO games need to get fixes and have MP options that requires servers to keep running.

It should not be a big problem. However in an MMO cash-shop seem to be the easy cash grabbing and there are enough people throwing there money at it. So why go for the hard way if there is an easy way.
I would say “Because the hard way is better for the product in the long run” and for Anet and the gamer that would be true but for the investor Ncsoft it’s less valid. By the time GW2 would shut down or generate less income they have the next game. People who don’t like elements in GW2 because of this simply move on to Wildstar.. another Ncsoft game.

I think that if there is a company that loves the game and has it’s own money in the game (the game is the company) then you might very well see an MMO that uses that model. Also in the 21st century. In the meanwhile I will not support this model simply buy not buying cash-shop items and trying to support those companies that do things ‘the correct’ way.

Anyway, my point was mainly to just show where a big part of this “loot problem” is coming from. It would be more fun if all that sort of content is really available and mainly available buy playing the game / going for that item. But for as long as they keep monetizing that part of the game you will not see it change any time soon. So maybe first ask for the system to change..

“Over time, any RPG will become all about currency farming“ == “Over time, any RPG will become extremely boring and will fell like a job”. I farm for currency at my job, not when playing some game.

“No failure should get you more than a success, yet GW2 encourages that in many events. People are getting heat for completing stuff all over the place. And no, nerfing champs and events even further is not the answer – this whole madness is actually a result of the horrid reward system in the first place.”

I think you need to be even more specific in your complaint. Your original post isn’t going to get noticed if it is seen as “It’s all rubbish so fix it all, now!” I think a lot of your ire surrounds loot changes in the past that were uneven and unbalancing. These problems were not there in the first place! Making more knee jerk changes now are going to cause even more problems. Let’s be specific:

- Players complained that they didn’t get karma for a wide range of activities. It was then given away (in bottles) for all activities and players amassed millions of karma. People complain that gold is too important and that is partly due to karma getting broken as a currency.
- Players complained that champions had poor loot so purses were added to champions. Because champions were already in the game world with no balance for this type of loot, rewards were immediately imbalanced. Raid groups killed unscaled group mobs (champions) rapidly for loot. The players who shouted abuse at each other for killing champion mobs were always outside the design intent. It’s much better for the game to rebalance with players returning to an Orrian event/champion train, with scaling, in end game war zones.
- Players complained that world bosses gave no real loot so rares were added to world boss events. This meant that players watched for event times and went from one event to the next in sequence and killed them with auto-shot. This wasn’t good gaming but players always seem happy with bad gaming and good loot.
- Players complained about overflow problems so megaservers were introduced to equalize gameplay and add more population to zones. This meant event times were standardized and new problems are arising all the time.

Anyway, I’m sure you’re getting the theme here. The more that GW2 drifts away from the original design the more complications and problems are introduced. The rewards system has been broken, is broken, will still be broken, but just asking for a blanket rewrite with no offered solutions isn’t going to get us anywhere. The basic reward principle, that anyone who participates gets a full reward, still holds true and it is players who push this to the limits and then complain when other players cause them problems.

Stooperdale.3560:

“No failure should get you more than a success, yet GW2 encourages that in many events. People are getting heat for completing stuff all over the place. And no, nerfing champs and events even further is not the answer – this whole madness is actually a result of the horrid reward system in the first place.”

I think you need to be even more specific in your complaint. Your original post isn’t going to get noticed if it is seen as “It’s all rubbish so fix it all, now!” I think a lot of your ire surrounds loot changes in the past that were uneven and unbalancing. These problems were not there in the first place! Making more knee jerk changes now are going to cause even more problems. Let’s be specific:

- Players complained that they didn’t get karma for a wide range of activities. It was then given away (in bottles) for all activities and players amassed millions of karma. People complain that gold is too important and that is partly due to karma getting broken as a currency.
- Players complained that champions had poor loot so purses were added to champions. Because champions were already in the game world with no balance for this type of loot, rewards were immediately imbalanced. Raid groups killed unscaled group mobs (champions) rapidly for loot. The players who shouted abuse at each other for killing champion mobs were always outside the design intent. It’s much better for the game to rebalance with players returning to an Orrian event/champion train, with scaling, in end game war zones.
- Players complained that world bosses gave no real loot so rares were added to world boss events. This meant that players watched for event times and went from one event to the next in sequence and killed them with auto-shot. This wasn’t good gaming but players always seem happy with bad gaming and good loot.
- Players complained about overflow problems so megaservers were introduced to equalize gameplay and add more population to zones. This meant event times were standardized and new problems are arising all the time.

Anyway, I’m sure you’re getting the theme here. The more that GW2 drifts away from the original design the more complications and problems are introduced. The rewards system has been broken, is broken, will still be broken, but just asking for a blanket rewrite with no offered solutions isn’t going to get us anywhere. The basic reward principle, that anyone who participates gets a full reward, still holds true and it is players who push this to the limits and then complain when other players cause them problems.

I think it is rather clear what I am aiming at. And I do not have to offer a solution. I am no game designer, I have no qualifications as a game designer, I don´t get a paycheck from a game company and I have no intention of starting a liken career. But guess what, there are people with these traits, possibly working at anet.

I absolutely have idea how you can misunderstand what I asked for. No, knee jerk reactions, “hotfixes” and the iron fist are exactly the opposite of what I am asking for.

And “ire”? Give me a break. I don´t really get worked up about a game, there are millions of others if I ever reach breaking point here.

The reason why rewards “feel” so terrible and are RNG-based in Guild Wars 2 is exactly because everyone, no matter their contribution, has the exact same chances at getting their loots.

Unfortunately, not competing for loot with other players is also one of the greatest features of the game, I’d dread the day I see Need/Greed rolls in a game again.

However, some sort of way to allow people to earn better rewards by performing better is needed in some way or form (no, the amount of DPS isn’t a good performance measurement) but I can’t think of anything good. So, we get RNG

It’s quite simple really. Anet wants us to buy Gems with real money, so they make gold as hard to come by as possible.

Rewards in this game are truly atrocious. I understand. Gems to gold. That’s what it’s all about for this company.

But it makes your game tedious and boring and frustrating. Just sayin’.

What fun would it be to get some interesting loot? It would even be cool to get actual “cash” from mobs, so you can see your bank slowly increase. But no. Nope. Nada. Same boring, useless stuff over and over and over.

At this point, I dont’ think the company gives two hoots what we would actually enjoy. Grind away friends, grind away.

The rewards in this game are awful and the biggest obstacle in me convincing my friends to play/keep playing. Even my gf has curbed her gameplay time and we’ve both played since beta.

The idea that playing a hard dungeon just to get money to buy an item is backwards and stupid, tbh. The items that people like or want should be gotten from the bosses and dungeons themselves. I get it that the TP is a double-edged sword because it also gives you instant access to certain items you may otherwise have to spend effort in finding, but I think the reliance on that creates a system where it feels like earning money is more important than possibly getting a really awesome item drop, and thats one of the funner things in RPGs in general, not just MMO’s.

There’s lots of things that can be done to encourage better gameplay while giving better rewards.
——
For example, moving drops to the success of events.

That way those staying behind in at the doors preventing enemies from getting in a WvW location will get as many rewards as those who headed directly to defeat the location’s key NPC. And those who force others to fail events no longer have a reason for that.

There has to be a few better guaranteed rewards, time gated so they can’t be farmed. Daily rares are just too low, and people end up getting them just to salvage for ecto.

For example, there could be a repeatable achievement for killing all world bosses (excepting the hardcore ones). Get it done, and you get a loot bag that always has some gold, one weapon and one armor drop, at least exotic, with a chance for ascended. Once done, the achievement reward and progress reset go into cooldown until the next month.

Same with dungeons. Do all stories and explorations again, and like GW1’s story books, the achievement gives you a monthly bonus bag with gold and stacks of generic tokens that do not go into the wallet but you can exchange for any of the other dungeon tokens in another tab in their respective vendors,

Devata.6589:

I
Yes the loot system is bad and do you know why?
Almost everything is gold-based.

Still though, I take gold over crafting/tokens/tickets anyday.

Gold ftw.. alternate currency is annoying and boring! Get rid of Karma and Badges of Honor.
Why do I have to farm dungeon tokens? That is so boring.. Drop recipes and complete gear pieces in the Dungeon instead.

The problem with the loot is, there is only one kind of interesting loot, and those are those rare exotic drops that are actually worth more than 1 gold. Most gamers get them about once in a life time..

Make loot more diverse! Maybe drop something useful once in a while..

If you would stop account bounding ascended items, maybe they would be interesting too.. But the fifth ascended ring is more annoying than anything.. There is something wrong with the game if you are more grateful for an exotic drop than an ascended one…

The only drops i had that actually were exciting, were unidentified dye drops, because you had a high chance to get something useful or expensive out of it.. of course, you had to relocate them to the gemstore..

I don’t understand why ANet can’t improve the rewards….

If the inflation and TP is a concern then make the good rewards account bound so they can’t be traded.

That is the worst thing they could do. To get a “good” reward, and not be able to do anything with it because you already have it, or it just isnt useful to you specifically is even worse than getting nothing at all…

Every event should be tied into an eventchain. At the end of a chain, you’ll get a reward based on the chained events you’ve done. Worldbosses should be no thing you could farm, they should be the “great finale” of a huge eventchain and offer special loot.
Furthermore, lots of new events should be implemented, so there can be multiple “layers” of eventchain active at one time in one area. It would be also nice to have some cross-map events. Each event should also offer better loot based on the time you spent to complete it.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Devata.6589:

I
Yes the loot system is bad and do you know why?
Almost everything is gold-based.

Still though, I take gold over crafting/tokens/tickets anyday.

Crafting can be fun. I like fun crafts that let you go all over the world to collect materials and recipes and so on. We don’t have such crafts in GW2 but they can be fun.

About the gold.. Well is really currency driven where gold is the main currency, and currency driven is boring. Tokens and tickets are boring.

Just play the game for your loot and have gold as an extra option.

Jack of Tears.9458:

What I hate about the reward system is the pure randomness of it, to the point where I almost never get a useful drop

What do you mean by useful drop? All drops can be translated to the amount of gold it gives. There is no such thing as useful drop in Gw2. There is no reason to do anything in this game besides the gold you will get for doing it.

So the reward system in Gw2 is boring for a single reason. Rewards have no meaning outside their value. What I mean is that you don’t need anything that the game can give you if you have enough money already.

Not only failfarming, but dungeons have crappy rewards as well. Just saying it again in case the devs doesn’t know about that yet

Devata.6589:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Devata.6589:

I
Yes the loot system is bad and do you know why?
Almost everything is gold-based.

Still though, I take gold over crafting/tokens/tickets anyday.

Crafting can be fun. I like fun crafts that let you go all over the world to collect materials and recipes and so on. We don’t have such crafts in GW2 but they can be fun.

Maybe then crafting would be fun. But in gw2 you sometimes have to grind thousands of hard and boring to get stuff. Crafting is nice to have as an extra option, but for many pieces of gear there is no other way but crafting (looking at you, Ascended). I really don’t get why Ascended gear isn’t tradable.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Devata.6589:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Devata.6589:

I
Yes the loot system is bad and do you know why?
Almost everything is gold-based.

Still though, I take gold over crafting/tokens/tickets anyday.

Crafting can be fun. I like fun crafts that let you go all over the world to collect materials and recipes and so on. We don’t have such crafts in GW2 but they can be fun.

Maybe then crafting would be fun. But in gw2 you sometimes have to grind thousands of hard and boring to get stuff. Crafting is nice to have as an extra option, but for many pieces of gear there is no other way but crafting (looking at you, Ascended). I really don’t get why Ascended gear isn’t tradable.

Yeah I was also referring to ‘fun’ crafts not only to the way it’s implemented. An famous example of a fun craft is for example engineering (like in WoW) where you just create some fun items. But also something like breeding animals for rangers or mini, or musician and so on.

Well chef sort of is a fun-craft. But the items you make are also mainly there to give effect not just to transform you into something else. If that would be the focus chef would be a fun-craft.

And then you need to implement a fun-craft in a fun way. Like I said in my previous comment.

the reason rewards are so bad, is two fold.
A) almost everything in the game is totally rng based.
B) for some reason they tend to design with really large numbers in mind for everything.

since mobs can drop any and everything, most time hunting/targeting specific monsters/places is worthless. Also since mobs can drop any and everything, thier drops are balanced around giving you small pieces or chances around good loot.

the designers have a tendency to pick fairly large numbers. 300 silk scraps, 10000 candy corn, 250 orichalcum blades, heck look at even blues and greens
24 mithril ore 12 elder wood and 8 teir 5 mats for a green. Whats the value of said item on TP? 1 copper over npc sale price.

now as someone has said, because drops are random, the game forces you to TP the vast majority of items you find, at the same time none of these items have any value to you, so you just want to get rid of them. also for any item you want to get, since the drops are 100% random, your best bet is the tp. the only targeted methods of creating items is crafting, but the value of items is based around all the people who got random drops they didnt need taking up space, so crafting is generally the worst option.

In the end the best way to get anything ends up be gold, but the game doesnt want to have players creating too much gold, so most methods of obtaining gold are highly regulated.

so yea rewards generally have to be bad in this system. They would need to overhual loot aquisition in general, and probably overhual how much things are brought to market.

Well we do have some exciting rewards, such as dyes…..oh wait. >_>

Cotheer.2806:

Well we do have some exciting rewards, such as dyes…..oh wait. >_>

You can get a unidentified dye. It’s not like a specific pink mob could drop a cool pink dye or a dark dungeon can drop some cool dark dye. So no we don’t. (Not a lot, there are a few)

Now that would be cool.

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Well we do have some exciting rewards, such as dyes…..oh wait. >_>

You can get a unidentified dye. It’s not like a specific pink mob could drop a cool pink dye or a dark dungeon can drop some cool dark dye. So no we don’t. (Not a lot, there are a few)

Now that would be cool.

Haven’t dyes been removed from loot tables?

Cotheer.2806:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Well we do have some exciting rewards, such as dyes…..oh wait. >_>

You can get a unidentified dye. It’s not like a specific pink mob could drop a cool pink dye or a dark dungeon can drop some cool dark dye. So no we don’t. (Not a lot, there are a few)

Now that would be cool.

Haven’t dyes been removed from loot tables?

Unidentified dyes you mean? No I am pretty sure I did get a dye after the patch. But am not 100% sure.

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Well we do have some exciting rewards, such as dyes…..oh wait. >_>

You can get a unidentified dye. It’s not like a specific pink mob could drop a cool pink dye or a dark dungeon can drop some cool dark dye. So no we don’t. (Not a lot, there are a few)

Now that would be cool.

Haven’t dyes been removed from loot tables?

Unidentified dyes you mean? No I am pretty sure I did get a dye after the patch. But am not 100% sure.

should be removed from the loot table. If i read their patch notes right.

phys.7689:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Well we do have some exciting rewards, such as dyes…..oh wait. >_>

You can get a unidentified dye. It’s not like a specific pink mob could drop a cool pink dye or a dark dungeon can drop some cool dark dye. So no we don’t. (Not a lot, there are a few)

Now that would be cool.

Haven’t dyes been removed from loot tables?

Unidentified dyes you mean? No I am pretty sure I did get a dye after the patch. But am not 100% sure.

should be removed from the loot table. If I read their patch notes right.

That would be stupid.. and why would they do that?

So you mean you can only get them from the cash-shop / trading post? Like most mini’s.

Devata.6589:

phys.7689:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Well we do have some exciting rewards, such as dyes…..oh wait. >_>

You can get a unidentified dye. It’s not like a specific pink mob could drop a cool pink dye or a dark dungeon can drop some cool dark dye. So no we don’t. (Not a lot, there are a few)

Now that would be cool.

Haven’t dyes been removed from loot tables?

Unidentified dyes you mean? No I am pretty sure I did get a dye after the patch. But am not 100% sure.

should be removed from the loot table. If I read their patch notes right.

That would be stupid.. and why would they do that?

So you mean you can only get them from the cash-shop / trading post? Like most mini’s.

They have been removed and the reason is because our dyes are account bound now, thus we need less. It also assures that the vast majority of them well be gained by people from buying them from the gemstore now. There are other ways in game such as buying with laurels but they have made that even more costly, 5 laurels.

Paulytnz.7619:

Devata.6589:

phys.7689:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Well we do have some exciting rewards, such as dyes…..oh wait. >_>

You can get a unidentified dye. It’s not like a specific pink mob could drop a cool pink dye or a dark dungeon can drop some cool dark dye. So no we don’t. (Not a lot, there are a few)

Now that would be cool.

Haven’t dyes been removed from loot tables?

Unidentified dyes you mean? No I am pretty sure I did get a dye after the patch. But am not 100% sure.

should be removed from the loot table. If I read their patch notes right.

That would be stupid.. and why would they do that?

So you mean you can only get them from the cash-shop / trading post? Like most mini’s.

They have been removed and the reason is because our dyes are account bound now, thus we need less. It also assures that the vast majority of them well be gained by people from buying them from the gemstore now. There are other ways in game such as buying with laurels but they have made that even more costly, 5 laurels.

I can’t moan about this change; I got all 403 non-gemshop dyes.

They can’t change the reward system. The interdependence between gold and gems won’t allow it. It will destabilize their economy and they’ll lose revenue.
I played for a year and never got a good skin drop. Best thing was a 6g exotic amulet from a world boss chest a while ago. That’s in ONE YEAR of playing.
So yeah, I’m one who doesn’t enjoy this crappy loot system but it’s here to stay because the game is designed this way. RNG and sucky rewards all around.

Devata.6589:

phys.7689:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Well we do have some exciting rewards, such as dyes…..oh wait. >_>

You can get a unidentified dye. It’s not like a specific pink mob could drop a cool pink dye or a dark dungeon can drop some cool dark dye. So no we don’t. (Not a lot, there are a few)

Now that would be cool.

Haven’t dyes been removed from loot tables?

Unidentified dyes you mean? No I am pretty sure I did get a dye after the patch. But am not 100% sure.

should be removed from the loot table. If I read their patch notes right.

That would be stupid.. and why would they do that?

So you mean you can only get them from the cash-shop / trading post? Like most mini’s.

they descreased supply, and increased utility of each dye, as has been said they are account bound now. Its not as bad as it seems though because the supply is pretty large.
You can in fact get them though if you need them, by crafting and mystic forge.
The main gameplay way to get dyes now is through crafting/cooking.
It may in the long term give cooking more value, maybe ascended cooking will be about crafting a new dye teir… hmm

At the very least a streak busting algorithm should be implemented. It would not flood the market as it would work both ways. Those that rng heavily favors would be averaged down against those who rng hates being favored up.

Ionut.2307:

They can’t change the reward system. The interdependence between gold and gems won’t allow it. It will destabilize their economy and they’ll lose revenue.

Lol. ArenaNet is the one who can change the exchange rate. That’s not a viable objection.

Ionut.2307:

They can’t change the reward system. The interdependence between gold and gems won’t allow it. It will destabilize their economy and they’ll lose revenue.
I played for a year and never got a good skin drop. Best thing was a 6g exotic amulet from a world boss chest a while ago. That’s in ONE YEAR of playing.
So yeah, I’m one who doesn’t enjoy this crappy loot system but it’s here to stay because the game is designed this way. RNG and sucky rewards all around.

the gold/gem exchange has always been more about time in game versus out, as well as whats in the gem store.
As long as gold is the main medium for exchange, and you have to spend your time doing something, people will use it to exchange for goods they dont like the methods of getting. So buying gold will always be a shortcut based on time, and the activity required in the game to get X. People buy gold in every MMO, because even if the economy is inflated or whatever, that only changes the gold exchange rate, not the fact that you can buy it.

I think the main reason for the design descion is the that they are trying to make everything equal. You can do whatever you want, because generally its as likely as anything else to drop whatever you need. The side effect though is that everything becomes about your paycheck, and whatever means gives the fastest gold end up being the most effecient route to most items in game.

Essence Snow.3194:

At the very least a streak busting algorithm should be implemented. It would not flood the market as it would work both ways. Those that rng heavily favors would be averaged down against those who rng hates being favored up.

streak busting would imply that rng was just about chance of success. Its also used to pick possible outcomes.
How do you have streak busting when rng is used to pick gold, armor, trophies, loot bags, salvageable items, weapons as possible drops. Which streaks do you bust? and would that even help?
the only thing that is mob specific is crafting materials, and the drop rates are low enough, that you are generally better off hunting more of something else, since mob density is more important, and the best path to that is dynamic events that are scaled up.

Algreg.3629:

Devata.6589:

I keep repeating myself in multiple threads, now that’s also because it’s what I am annoyed by and so related topics get my attention. So here it go’s again.

Yes the loot system is bad and do you know why?
Almost everything is gold-based. There are not a lot of specific drops from specific places / content. That results in ‘lucky’ drops where many people get items they do not want. But they sell those items and buy what they want. The result is a boring gold-grind. If it’s not gold-grind then it’s often a rush against time what is also not fun.

But why make it this way. Now lets take my default example, mini’s. You can put mini’s in the game. One specific mini can drop from a specific quest or a dynamic event or a dungeon or you create it with crafting or it drops from a specific group of mobs in a specific place.

This means there are reasons to do specific content and people are less likely to get a ‘lucky’ drop they do not want that they then sell. Getting items and farming is more coordinated.

Farming is almost impossible in GW2 and as soon as a way to farm items is found it’s getting patched out in some cases the people who farm it even get a ban.

This of course has everything to do with there income model. It’s not so much B2P where they make money on the game and expansions but the generate most money with gem-sales. So the question is “how do we get people to buy gems”. Well by putting mini’s in the cash-shop in stead of in the world and by making gold very important and then selling gold for gems. It makes the game feel like a job in stead of a game and gems are they cheap way out of that.

That why I want them to be a true B2P game. No cash-shop. Just sell the game and regular expansions. As long as they generate most income with gem-sales we will not see big changes here. This game being B2P and ArenaNet’s name with GW1 being a true B2P game was one of the main attractions for me exactly to not have these sort of cash-shop focus related stuff.

works in other games which have reasonable “rare drops”. they sell cosmetic items, items with perks (yeah, a bit of p2w, who cares), or “fastlanes” to items. Actually, I just started one recently (not a MMORPG) and man, how exciting it is to get that rare, sought after item that was hard to aquire, yet would actually appear from time to time. That made me realize how frustrated I was with GW2. I spend less and less time in here and more in other games. If many players reach that level of frustration, it certainly is not a good business model. I still think GW2 is a beautifuly crafted game that offers a lot of fun, but the frustration level is just so insane.

i get 30 rares a day. and yesterday just salvaged 50 exotics i stored cause i realized i would get the skins. If anything everything in this game is to easy to get and the only thing you truely have to work hard for is a legendary but the gap between exotic and legendary isn’t truely filled by ascended where you almost get zero stat gain. So the game is constantly in limbo of everything is to easy or burning your self out to get a legendary.

Paulytnz.7619:

Devata.6589:

phys.7689:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Well we do have some exciting rewards, such as dyes…..oh wait. >_>

You can get a unidentified dye. It’s not like a specific pink mob could drop a cool pink dye or a dark dungeon can drop some cool dark dye. So no we don’t. (Not a lot, there are a few)

Now that would be cool.

Haven’t dyes been removed from loot tables?

Unidentified dyes you mean? No I am pretty sure I did get a dye after the patch. But am not 100% sure.

should be removed from the loot table. If I read their patch notes right.

That would be stupid.. and why would they do that?

So you mean you can only get them from the cash-shop / trading post? Like most mini’s.

They have been removed and the reason is because our dyes are account bound now, thus we need less. It also assures that the vast majority of them well be gained by people from buying them from the gemstore now. There are other ways in game such as buying with laurels but they have made that even more costly, 5 laurels.

If thats true it would be even more currency driven.

Not sure if we need less. How many people where going to outfit all there chars with dyes? I am pretty sure that now it’s account-bound more people are likely to go and collect them then before.
I personally used more dyes (all except for 2) in the week after the patch then I did in the 1,5 year before.

Besides they are needed for some legendary weapons..

Then again it fits with discussions I had before. Many ‘problems’ in the game are because of a cash-shop focus. (char-bound dyes was one of them that I did refer to before) But as long as they don’t change that reason behind those ‘problems’ (cash-shop focus) you will keep having them. Like now, they did improve the dye system by making it account-bound but if it’s true what you said they also made it worse by not letting them drop in the world anymore. What make sense as they still want to generate income with the dyes (in stead of for example expansions) or they find another way to try and sell more gems. Thats also possible.

All that is missing is merit-based rewards for difficult solo-content. That is all. The only good example of this was Liadri. Hardcore difficulty (on a ranger, at least), and a non-sellable cool reward only awarded by overcoming the challenge.

phys.7689:

Devata.6589:

phys.7689:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Devata.6589:

Cotheer.2806:

Well we do have some exciting rewards, such as dyes…..oh wait. >_>

You can get a unidentified dye. It’s not like a specific pink mob could drop a cool pink dye or a dark dungeon can drop some cool dark dye. So no we don’t. (Not a lot, there are a few)

Now that would be cool.

Haven’t dyes been removed from loot tables?

Unidentified dyes you mean? No I am pretty sure I did get a dye after the patch. But am not 100% sure.

should be removed from the loot table. If I read their patch notes right.

That would be stupid.. and why would they do that?

So you mean you can only get them from the cash-shop / trading post? Like most mini’s.

they descreased supply, and increased utility of each dye, as has been said they are account bound now. Its not as bad as it seems though because the supply is pretty large.
You can in fact get them though if you need them, by crafting and mystic forge.
The main gameplay way to get dyes now is through crafting/cooking.
It may in the long term give cooking more value, maybe ascended cooking will be about crafting a new dye teir… hmm

Ok if you can craft unidentified dyes in a reasonable way then thats ok.

Buttercup.5871:

All that is missing is merit-based rewards for difficult solo-content. That is all. The only good example of this was Liadri. Hardcore difficulty (on a ranger, at least), and a non-sellable cool reward only awarded by overcoming the challenge.

Solo arah path you can sell spots for a total of 25-80g so there is that for hard solo content

Buttercup.5871:

All that is missing is merit-based rewards for difficult solo-content. That is all. The only good example of this was Liadri. Hardcore difficulty (on a ranger, at least), and a non-sellable cool reward only awarded by overcoming the challenge.

Now only if it’s not temporary.
I never did Liadri because people said it was bugged. Later I found out it was not bugged but it used to be easy and then they made it very hard for some classes. Now I can’t do it anymore. This is something that will come back but it’s the same with the molten mini and backpack. That content did came back but the reward did not and thats part of what made that content so much fun.