Guild Wars 2

Andraus.3874:

Yeah the RNG system is meh. Wouldn’t work for this game but I liked FF11 loot system where you rolled to obtain drops in your party or “raid” was nice. The drop rates weren’t the best but how the community worked the loot system was great. Most guilds had a point system where your attendance made points and getting a item made you lose some points. The person with the most points would get the item and everyone else would pass on it. If you had tied points with someone else you both rolled. But this allowed for people who put the most time into the game to get the sought out items even though the drops were RNG. Would be nice to have something like this but I think it couldn’t work with the game design.

Yeah going backwards isn’t going to solve anything either.

What they need is a modern system one that knows you spec and drops items accordingly, they need to remove the need to farm items for crafting 100% by making it a token system only for those items so that crafting is not stunted by the loot system’s inability to provide, and they need to remove DR for everything else that would solve every problem with rewards this game faces.

Having specific loot tied to specific activities means it will farmed to death unless that loot is account bound. Making it account bound mean it players who can’t do those activities will never be able to get one because they won’t appear on the player market either. Not making it account bound means the market will be flooded, the price plummets, everyone gets one and now it no longer “special”. What goals will there be left to do once everyone gets the gear they want, relatively quickly? That’s a death knell for an MMO. That’s why WoW keeps cranking up the levels and gear with every expansion and once they get their level and gear they leave until the next. If they keep their subscripition running, no issue. But that is an issue with a game without a subscription because only active players buy gems with cash.

So we have a random chance on any drop for the most valuable items (I get an exotic weapon drop from a critter in Wayfarer Foothills) and a TP where unwanted items can be sold rather than destroyed.

What needs to be done is a combo system, I think that’s 2a, but I recommend hidden from the player, that keeps track of “misses” and when that value gets high enough, bang, they get the reward and the miss count is reset. It leaves the surprise element without having skee-ball tickets to trade in and doesn’t add to many extra drops to the economy.

Note – Editted to highlight:

Broom.2561:

Want a list? I have played since the april closed beta, have been in live for 3000+ hours, and I can remember all my ‘good’ drops…. – I have never looted a precursor; I have never gotten a precursor from the Mystic Fountain in over 600 attempts.
- On average I loot 1 exotic item per week
- I have looted 3 ascended armor chests
- I have looted 4 ascended weapon chests
- I have looted ‘midnight blue’ (rare dye)
- I have gotten a handfull of ascended rings in PVP and WVW.

So you tell me….

Aight.

As noted in point #2, what the game considers lucky doesn’t necessarily agree with what a player considers lucky, because the game engine is agnostic of player value. You just demonstrated that beautifully. Your account looks lucky to me. You’ve got double the free ascended items I’ve ever received. We’re about the same on exotics and precursors. One rare dye isn’t particularly interesting, but I bet you have several others you didn’t think worth mentioning. How often are you getting rares that aren’t guaranteed? Lodestone drops in DT/SW/Orr? On the non-Magic Find front, get any Keepers recipes from Living Story 1? Azurite Orbs? Minis? Back skins?

Your threshold for ‘lucky’ is market value. Would you have called yourself lucky for getting a stack of crappy blue dyes before April 14, 2014? Their value skyrocketed in an instant, but that had nothing to do with their drop rate. ANet didn’t specify the value that they reached; that was all according to the whims of players who foresaw the spike. It’s the same thing with everything on the Trade Post. ANet doesn’t assign values there; the fact that you’re pulling in exotics and ascended gear shows that you’re winning those kitten loot rolls, even if you think you aren’t.

Sariel V.7024:

Note – Editted to highlight:

Broom.2561:

Want a list? I have played since the april closed beta, have been in live for 3000+ hours, and I can remember all my ‘good’ drops…. – I have never looted a precursor; I have never gotten a precursor from the Mystic Fountain in over 600 attempts.
- On average I loot 1 exotic item per week
- I have looted 3 ascended armor chests
- I have looted 4 ascended weapon chests
- I have looted ‘midnight blue’ (rare dye)
- I have gotten a handfull of ascended rings in PVP and WVW.

So you tell me….

Aight.

As noted in point #2, what the game considers lucky doesn’t necessarily agree with what a player considers lucky, because the game engine is agnostic of player value. You just demonstrated that beautifully. Your account looks lucky to me. You’ve got double the free ascended items I’ve ever received. We’re about the same on exotics and precursors. One rare dye isn’t particularly interesting, but I bet you have several others you didn’t think worth mentioning. How often are you getting rares that aren’t guaranteed? Lodestone drops in DT/SW/Orr? On the non-Magic Find front, get any Keepers recipes from Living Story 1? Azurite Orbs? Minis? Back skins?

Your threshold for ‘lucky’ is market value. Would you have called yourself lucky for getting a stack of crappy blue dyes before April 14, 2014? Their value skyrocketed in an instant, but that had nothing to do with their drop rate. ANet didn’t specify the value that they reached; that was all according to the whims of players who foresaw the spike. It’s the same thing with everything on the Trade Post. ANet doesn’t assign values there; the fact that you’re pulling in exotics and ascended gear shows that you’re winning those kitten loot rolls, even if you think you aren’t.

Value is always subjective. So is luck in terms of acquiring things of value. If the game’s, “threshold for lucky,” is out of touch with player determined value (at least on an aggregate level) then it is the problem.

Behellagh.1468:

What needs to be done is a combo system, I think that’s 2a, but I recommend hidden from the player, that keeps track of “misses” and when that value gets high enough, bang, they get the reward and the miss count is reset. It leaves the surprise element without having skee-ball tickets to trade in and doesn’t add to many extra drops to the economy.

This. Re: This topic, my thoughts:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

I think that RNG is fine for certain items. The hardest part for that is being able to accept that you may not get it.

That being said, I also think some RNG dropped items need to also have a completely invisible tally system that rewards players with an increased chance of obtaining gear of a high rarity after they have put substantial effort into attempting to find it. RNG is ultimately fair, but the end result of its fairness often rewards players who are putting in significantly less effort than their peers.

There should be an unmentioned threshold that guarantees an item drop. Taking the beta portal as example, it should drop guaranteed once a player kills 3,500 mobs(could be adjusted) that spawn in the Maaguma wastes. That way players who get it luckily get to relax, and the others can eventually have a reward for their hard work.

Hopefully it just keeps working in favor of ArenaNet’s bottom line and not in favor of the players getting enjoyment form the loot they get.

It’s either that or they can take over a year to address this. The RNG in this game is a debacle.

IMO – RNG is horrible and a bad idea for player entertainment.

1) It subtracts from skill base rewards.
2) It subtracts from time played pay offs to all players equally.
3) It is more for gating access to create value by rarity than earning a reward of rarity by skill or Level Of Effort.

Personally the RNG in several games I have played I have found so repulsive I quit playing them. I understand why RNG is added and the logic behind the “y to the x” curve of gating access. The problem as mentioned by the OP was what falls outside the bell curve. To me it is a cheap fallback method of how do we drag out content and the access to the “Best Stuff” and gating lacks creativity; but seems most MMOs resort to it. Of course the problem is that if there is a clear achievement path to the “Best stuff” then how do you make it rare? RNG is the easiest method. Making the materials time gated and requiring more and more really hard to acquire items and the needed quantity of them exponentially increasing is another method.

The creative way takes a higher level of effort on the game designers part, that is make it where the “Best Stuff” is achievable by 50% or better of the active dedicated player base, then when they have it, make an xpac and raise the bar rinse and repeat. When I start feeling the time sink gates to the next level of gear and my game play is all about grinding time gated mats, I usually leave to another game. Just that I play for entertainment, not a second job. However, since the higher LOE on devs part isn’t likely going to be cranking out awesome huge xpacs, I would say choice #2 is moving in the right direction … if we must have RNG. Just keep in mind dev can work on RNG; but there is always another new game as well as the tour of returning to the loop of old games that have done something new to try and pull a player base back.

RNG is a paradigm block and should not be in a game that is about skill or awesome item acquisition from time played. RNG seems to just be a stalling method DEV teams use to not spend a LOE to add new content and character levels. But … this game has done really well in many areas and the RNG items don’t do that much more as to create a vast disparity in performance. In this game RNG is just a time sink for the most part. Still RNG is what repells me to looking for other games.

So… did we point out that RNG is bad already? Because the game still utilises RNG heavily.

I really hope they address their RNG/loot system by the time HoT comes out. Even a hybrid system would have its merits. Just think: we’re practically getting mailed gold every single day just by logging in. Log-in rewards are zero-effort, 100% gain. Slowly but surely they’re contributing to inflation.

Would it really be so gamebreaking to have the choice of one account-bound precursor every time your account has a birthday? They’ve got to have records of that sort of thing. This would solve a lot of the QQ about playing for years with hundreds of Mystic Forging attempts with no precursor, and it wouldn’t even contribute to inflation like Log-in rewards if the precursor we got was account-bound like they will be from collections in HoT.

Edit: legendaries still cost 1000+ gold even if you get a precursor for free, which you can if you’re lucky. Legendaries crafted from birthday precursors might have to be account-bound like the new HoT legendaries will be, unless they change that.

Mal.1670:

Would it really be so gamebreaking to have the choice of one account-bound precursor every time your account has a birthday?

Yes.

And you do base your statement on what facts exactly?
I’d like to see the graph that shows that the game would break if everyone would get a free precursor once a year. Not that I agree with the statement, since legendaries are supposed to be… you know… legendary, but, I mean, you can buy them already within your first hour in GW2, so what does it matter?

Wuselknusel.4082:

And you do base your statement on what facts exactly?
I’d like to see the graph that shows that the game would break if everyone would get a free precursor once a year. Not that I agree with the statement, since legendaries are supposed to be… you know… legendary, but, I mean, you can buy them already within your first hour in GW2, so what does it matter?

Just take the existing supply graphs of the precursors and add 5.000.000+ to them.

Edit: Want to craft those pres into legendaries? Say hello to farming 10 billion t6 fine mats.

Well, you quoted Mal with account-bound precursors. As for the mats, people will finally have to play the game to get the mats instead of just getting gold and buying them. Maybe even ANet will then realise that the current economy, due to the gold standard, is crappy.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Well, you quoted Mal with account-bound precursors. As for the mats, people will finally have to play the game to get the mats instead of just getting gold and buying them. Maybe even ANet will then realise that the current economy, due to the gold standard, is crappy.

But those precursors would still be in game, meaning most people would never have to acquire a precursor from other sources again because they forge less than 1 legendary per year.
It would have massive implications on the demand for mithril, elder wood and t5 fine mats, rare and exotic weapon drops and subsequently ectos and other mats.

And as you already stated that you dont agree with it anyways, I guess its up to you now, to state some facts or show some graphs why this would be a good idea.

Good Luck.

RNG has two things going for it. First it’s “fair” when everyone has an equal chance to get X. Second on the macroscopic scale the game is delivering the right amount of gear X relative to all the checks.

The major negative is the distribution of those items because of the nature of n-independent trials. There will be some who will have to endure many more checks before they receive an X while others will frequently get X.

With a 1 in 500 chance and 1000 reward checks the distribution is the following.

0 – 13.51%
1 – 27.07%
2 – 27.09%
3- 18.06%
4 – 9.02%
5 – 3.60%
6 – 1.20%
7 – 0.34%
8 – 0.08%
9 – 0.02%

Over 40% got less than the layman’s estimate of 2 per 1000 attempts and over 32% got more. Also 14.27% got 4 or more while 13.51% got none. And that is perceived by players as lucky and unlucky.

The problem is that the unlucky may feel disenfranchised and leave the game dissatisfied while the metric tracking the number of reward Xs being handed out is spot on at 1 in 500. And since you don’t unsubscribed and simply vanish, there are no exit interviews as to the reasons why so the developers have no idea if the reward system has any bearing on a players departure.

AivenPrimus.9184:

2. Idea directly supports low-end players who never get anything (just like me… and I am 100% sure that I am in top 10 Most Unluckiest Player List).

2,5. Idea, supports everyone…but it wouldnt resolve issue with low-end players, since high-end players would just keep being lucky.

I would say that If both 2. and 2,5. Idea was implemented, it should somehow give hope for low-end players.

Yes I hope something happens soon, seems this thread has been a bit ignored lately.

Wanze.8410:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Well, you quoted Mal with account-bound precursors. As for the mats, people will finally have to play the game to get the mats instead of just getting gold and buying them. Maybe even ANet will then realise that the current economy, due to the gold standard, is crappy.

But those precursors would still be in game, meaning most people would never have to acquire a precursor from other sources again because they forge less than 1 legendary per year.
It would have massive implications on the demand for mithril, elder wood and t5 fine mats, rare and exotic weapon drops and subsequently ectos and other mats.

And as you already stated that you dont agree with it anyways, I guess its up to you now, to state some facts or show some graphs why this would be a good idea.

Good Luck.

You mean that the economy, or rather the reward system, is broken?
Well, just look at Snowden Drifts or Timberline Falls or Brisbane Wildlands or Fields of Ruin or Iren Marches. Do you know what they have in common? They don’t get visited very often, rather, they get visited almost never. Why is that? Because there is no way of efficiently farm gold in these maps.

The usual GW2 player usually does one of the following tasks:
- Farm in Orr to get T6 mats to sell them
- Farm the boss rotation to get rares/exotics to get ectos or worthy drops
- Farm dungeons to get gold directly
- Farm championtrains

They all do that because of one reason: The chance to get something specific in this game is minimal and dependant on RNG, while buying it with gold is not dependant on luck and is easy to anticipate when you will be able to get it.
The game is build around casuals to such an extent that the designers wanted the player to be able to get anything they want while doing anything they want.
This is the reason why the game lacks specific loot. There is no way to say “I’m gonna farm X to get Y” exept for gold.
The traidingpost shouldn’t be your first choice but your last choice, you should always be constrained to farm the item you want for yourself before considering to buy it from the traiding post, but you are not currently.

But who am I telling this, you heard this plenty of times already.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Wanze.8410:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Well, you quoted Mal with account-bound precursors. As for the mats, people will finally have to play the game to get the mats instead of just getting gold and buying them. Maybe even ANet will then realise that the current economy, due to the gold standard, is crappy.

But those precursors would still be in game, meaning most people would never have to acquire a precursor from other sources again because they forge less than 1 legendary per year.
It would have massive implications on the demand for mithril, elder wood and t5 fine mats, rare and exotic weapon drops and subsequently ectos and other mats.

And as you already stated that you dont agree with it anyways, I guess its up to you now, to state some facts or show some graphs why this would be a good idea.

Good Luck.

You mean that the economy, or rather the reward system, is broken?

No, I meant that its a good idea to give every account a precursor each birthday.

Wanze.8410:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Wanze.8410:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Well, you quoted Mal with account-bound precursors. As for the mats, people will finally have to play the game to get the mats instead of just getting gold and buying them. Maybe even ANet will then realise that the current economy, due to the gold standard, is crappy.

But those precursors would still be in game, meaning most people would never have to acquire a precursor from other sources again because they forge less than 1 legendary per year.
It would have massive implications on the demand for mithril, elder wood and t5 fine mats, rare and exotic weapon drops and subsequently ectos and other mats.

And as you already stated that you dont agree with it anyways, I guess its up to you now, to state some facts or show some graphs why this would be a good idea.

Good Luck.

You mean that the economy, or rather the reward system, is broken?

No, I meant that its a good idea to give every account a precursor each birthday.

Like I said, I’m no advocate of that idea, so I’m not willing to pull up facts.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Wanze.8410:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Wanze.8410:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Well, you quoted Mal with account-bound precursors. As for the mats, people will finally have to play the game to get the mats instead of just getting gold and buying them. Maybe even ANet will then realise that the current economy, due to the gold standard, is crappy.

But those precursors would still be in game, meaning most people would never have to acquire a precursor from other sources again because they forge less than 1 legendary per year.
It would have massive implications on the demand for mithril, elder wood and t5 fine mats, rare and exotic weapon drops and subsequently ectos and other mats.

And as you already stated that you dont agree with it anyways, I guess its up to you now, to state some facts or show some graphs why this would be a good idea.

Good Luck.

You mean that the economy, or rather the reward system, is broken?

No, I meant that its a good idea to give every account a precursor each birthday.

Like I said, I’m no advocate of that idea, so I’m not willing to pull up facts.

Why do you need me to pull up prove against it then?

Because an 4 character long response is not very convincing.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Because an 4 character long response is not very convincing.

Its 4 characters more than it needed to convince you in the first place.

I rather craft a precursor, then be given one for free. Handing out free reward just does not encourage gameplay, which is what reward should do in the first place.
I support RNG supplemented with a token system. The amount of token just need to be reasonable.

Wanze.8410:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Because an 4 character long response is not very convincing.

Its 4 characters more than it needed to convince you in the first place.

People aren’t convinced when they don’t understand why. And Mal doesn’t understand why.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Wanze.8410:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Because an 4 character long response is not very convincing.

Its 4 characters more than it needed to convince you in the first place.

People aren’t convinced when they don’t understand why. And Mal doesn’t understand why.

Then you should have told him.

No, I just like to nitpick if I see unsatisfying answers.

Wuselknusel.4082:

No, I just like to nitpick if I see unsatisfying answers.

alright, gonna ignore you from now on.

bye then~

Not to mention that you did give reasons you are basing your judgement on when I asked for them, so I don’t quite see the problem.

I think this video sums up how a lot of people feel about RNG in games and also about replay value. If enough game makers keep preying upon the gambling proclivities of their user bases maybe they can convince the players that the only way to make games “fun” is through the use of RNG and hiding really desirable items in gambling boxes.

Put desirable items back into the game via playing the game.

http://www.gamespot.com/videos/the-point-destiny-the-hardcore-gamers-slot-machine/2300-6425852/

There is two types of RNG in the game, standard loot drop which can drop something that is highly desirable but it’s extremely rare.

Then the content that is advertised up front as RNG like themed dye packs, BLTCs, MF and now the Ecto trader. The MF is there to eat excess items and the Ecto trader, I assume, to eat excess ectos being horded away and stimulate prices of rare gear which ectos are salvaged from.

As a player that is in Fractals quite often and has not gotten the 1h Sword skin with over 2k runs in fractals I really, really want option 2.5

It is a complete letdown, that I know it might be impossible for me to ever attain that 1h Fractal sword skin I want because of the stupid rng in this game. I get like 1 skin every 20-30 fractals ran and out of that it has a chance of 1/12 to get the actual right skin but in essence I have some swords, staffs and other crap but not those I want.

So please can we get more token systems in the game instead of this stupid rng.

Wuselknusel.4082:

You mean that the economy, or rather the reward system, is broken?
Well, just look at Snowden Drifts or Timberline Falls or Brisbane Wildlands or Fields of Ruin or Iren Marches. Do you know what they have in common? They don’t get visited very often, rather, they get visited almost never. Why is that? Because there is no way of efficiently farm gold in these maps.

The usual GW2 player usually does one of the following tasks:
- Farm in Orr to get T6 mats to sell them
- Farm the boss rotation to get rares/exotics to get ectos or worthy drops
- Farm dungeons to get gold directly
- Farm championtrains

They all do that because of one reason: The chance to get something specific in this game is minimal and dependant on RNG, while buying it with gold is not dependant on luck and is easy to anticipate when you will be able to get it.
The game is build around casuals to such an extent that the designers wanted the player to be able to get anything they want while doing anything they want.
This is the reason why the game lacks specific loot. There is no way to say “I’m gonna farm X to get Y” exept for gold.
The traidingpost shouldn’t be your first choice but your last choice, you should always be constrained to farm the item you want for yourself before considering to buy it from the traiding post, but you are not currently.

But who am I telling this, you heard this plenty of times already.

Pretty much what I said five months ago, and since release. I absolutely hate GW2’s loot system. They’ve always said from the start they didn’t want to fragment the playerbase and have older zones dead once players level-up past them. So what’d they do? Implement RNG bags the entire playerbase farms in the current FotM zone.

They should have kept it somewhat the same as GW1. Specific content rewards ( eventually ) specific skins and materials. For instance, lock Cobalt behind a specific dungeon path or something. While say, Kryta’s Embrace would only come from somewhere in Kryta. By having the option to get the large majority of items from stupid Champion Bags, you ruin any and all incentives to do the content that may or may not be a better source for the item(s) because it’s easier to run around pressing 1, it’s more profitable that doing that specific dungeon/Event/whatever, and eventually you’ll have made enough to buy one of the hundreds or thousands that inevitably show-up on the TP because of over farming.

It’s kittening stupid and boring.

Some accounts are lucky…some are not. In my case, that would be a not; no matter how long or much I play gw2 I will never see a ‘lottery’ item drop; it hasn’t happened in 3 years so it won’t happen ever. And when I mean ‘lottery’ item, I really mean anything I can sell for over 10 gold…every thing I have earned in this game is from grinding and selling items that are worth pennies. Thank goodness for craftable ascended item though.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that bad but it just gets rather….depressing to know a good thing will never drop for me in this game. Never seen a precur drop after three years. Sigh.

<- not lucky

Just keep it as it is

The economy is doing fine because the system is working

Answer for option #2 of OP: The silver and gold dropped IS the fail safe. You can buy the stuff from other players with this. The mystic forge is a gamble and it is a risk taken with knowledge of the consequences. Higher the risk higher the value. Lower the risk and the value will decrease. It’s simple economy. The implementation of a fail-safe will just decrease the value. Simply increasing drop rates would have the same effect.

Answer for option #1 of OP: This is simply increasing the drop rate of the items in a mundane way. Just increase RNG drop rate. It’ll have the same effect. Cheaper to buy, easier access etc. Or just leave it as it is, it’s working.

I have never gotten a pre-cursor in my 2.5 years of playing. However, I did get items drops that were 50g-90g range. With that I was able to save enough gold to start buying things on the market for a cheap price, and then later sell it when the demand got high. Overall, RNG makes it so that everyone will make gold somehow. Sure someone will get lucky and the Tickets or gold will flow to that person. Then that person will spend it and it will flow to others who found loot that was desirable.

This creates and maintains a good economy, and also promotes motivation to play and hunt. RNG can reward anyone and everyone at any given time. The ones rewarded are the ones who play regularly and consistently. This is the way it should be.

Soleil.1304:

However, I did get items drops that were 50g-90g range.

You may have not found a precursor but on other hand you are lucky to find items worth that much to sell, after three years my the most expensive item I have ever sold was an exotic beserker ring I found a few weeks ago…I made 13g. 3 years and biggest item I have sold is 13g lol. Also, playing the auction house is not my idea of fun…I rather kill stuff and play the game to get nice things. Weird, I know.

The ones rewarded are the ones who play regularly and consistently. This is the way it should be.

Agree but this hasn’t happend to me thus I kinda feel all this work is like working for sweat shop wages. :\

W/e. As said, some accounts got the luck and others do not. People say RNG is RNG but in my case it really feels like it was pre-determined the moment I made the account on launch day….

Not having the brain power for 20 pages of nearly a year old posts, I want to make a few points based on the now.

The game economy is completely out of whack because the sources, consumptions and sinks don’t average out properly. This is evident throughout crafting V1, which had a shortage of mid-teir and max-tier supplies due to lack of reliable sources. Remember pre-ecto salvage dust being the single most demanded item with the least amount of sources in the drop tables.

This problem happened again with Ascended mats in their attempt to drain T2-T5 materials that were sitting around doing nothing. T1 mats had some slight demand because players were tempted to get into crafting early, but couldn’t effectively farm the large amount of mats needed (especially fine rarity) to level crafting. We are still feeling the effects with T4 Linen scraps being more expensive then T6 basic mats, as the drop table eligibility for salvage is narrow, and bag drops are rare overall.

This is where the fundamental problem with the loot system is exemplified…… we are expected to get level relevant drops, but crafting lines operate on a completely different leveling track.

Originally the promotion system was intended to address this… but the materials utilized in the promotion recipe are often more expensive then the resulting materials. You literally get a better conversion rate by selling off the mats you have on TP (including the 15% fee) and buying the mats you need. But this will only work for so long, as buy orders for excess mats will start dwindling over time.

The overall process of Mat conversion via Mystic Forge is also a huge problem. MF needs to split into 2 menus, one for Mystic Toilet/Named gear recipes based on the existing design; and a second mode for bulk recipes like promotions, siege upgrades, or anything that would logically be done back to back.

You can also take a page out of the Black Lion Chest UI, and allow people to queue up multiple attempts by predictive best match based on the first item loaded. Put a Greatsword in the first slot, and if it sees 3 more compatible Greatswords it ghost loads them into the menu. If the player is ok with the selection, he can hit “Forge” right away, with the system consuming the ghost loaded items. If the player wants to refine the recipe input, he fills the other slots.

…… Continued below

The next biggest issue is mat sources verses their use in popular crafting. Basic armor crafting is majorly disproportional when it comes to cloth…. so much so that cloth is always in shortage. We have too few sources, too many recipes that rely on it, and no semi-reliable way to generate a specific type if needed. Lodestone prices are another example of a major flaw in the crafting/aesthetics/material guide used to generating new crafting recipes. Charged Lodestones are in high demand, and should be the most expensive by virtue of that demand…. but the degree of price disparity between it and the other lodestones should had a been a red flag with your Economist. So rather then try to boost underutilized mats with desirable skins (which should help normalize the price disparity and take pressure off the charged lode stone), Anet released a whole new crafting line that consumes large amounts of Lodestones, and binds them to an Collection.

This leads to the second biggest example of source problem, now via salvage. Oricalcum is surprisingly plentiful within the market…. and is so for 2 reasons. Most weapons drop ore on salvage, and only takes 2 ore to make an Ingot. But then theres Ancient wood. Ancient wood is theoretically equal chance to an ore on salvage for an item containing both…. But you need for 4 logs to make 1 plank, and most recipes taking multiple planks but only one or ingots. This consumption is further compounded with inscriptions consuming 2:1 Logs vs Ore.

I bring this up, because many named crafting recipes require 250 of a component. With wood, this is incredibly expensive, and what I think is the primary hindrance to an otherwise powerful ecto sink…. Exotic MF skins. At first I was somewhat excited for Ecto gambling as a sink….. but this actually going to cause people to not want to craft named exotics, as the 97% return rate is already bleeding ectos out of the economy.

TL:DR: This hugely lopsided material supply/pricing is the reason most of the game’s sinks aren’t being utilized anywhere near as much as it should.

The solution would involve redesigning the entire loot, salvage, crafting, TP, and conversion to include small failsafe mechanisms to let us convert or trade glut materials into ones we can use AND must work at a conversion rate practical enough for us to want to use it. The inclusion of material Demotions and Horizontal conversions at a “slight” loss will help redistribute glut materials across the economy…. but that won’t mean anything unless the supply and consumption disparity are addressed. So we either need more semi-reliable sources for specific material, or greatly reduce (or at least normalize) the recipe requirements for basic materials.

There’s a lack of mid tier mats because it is flyover country.

Nobody was willing to spend any time there except leveling through it. The price of mats isn’t enough for some to go and strip mine those areas or farm for bags regularly.

Low level zones (<25) are frequented because dailies are done easily there and level 80 zones are full because … SW farms. So there is plenty of kitten and T5 mats and a trickle of T6. T3 and T4, forget about it. Players only show up for a boss and then leave for the next stop on the train.

Hi there,
You guys should just tell how your RNG works, I think most people here would feel better. We would blame the algorithm and not our luck (for good or worst).

Well let me go first then,
Last night after 3 years i got an exotic and 3 rares to drop in Crucible of Eternity dungeon path 2 to be exact.
That should say alot about my RNG….
If they are going to do it right they must start giving out those chests that you can get with selectable loot(not with only the weapons it has today),that way no more unhappy, unrewarded players and randomness,oh and also make them drop by champ events when completing some bonus and challenging tasks,i think that it would be great!!
And no,doubling and tripling their HP doesnt create challenging content…nuff said…

Edit: The exotic was a crappy one with wrong stats than i wanted and hada useless rune for any of my classes,thought i should mention this to add to the…“randomness”..

faltonico.8159:

Hi there,
You guys should just tell how your RNG works, I think most people here would feel better. We would blame the algorithm and not our luck (for good or worst).

Without listing drop rates, there’s really not much else for them to tell. Everything else is just math.

There’s no way this can be tweaked to the extent where no one will be unhappy. Any change to a system will engender both approval and disapproval from the entire spectrum of the community. What RNG in GW2 needs is to look at the most extreme examples of effort-vs-reward in the game and improve on them, such as:

1. Hundreds of Hard-core Boss Kills Without a Single Premium Reward:

I’ve been lucky enough to get Tequatl’s Hoard three times after killing him hundreds of times for the past 18 months. But I’ve seen raid leaders mention they’ve got nothing at all in the same amount of time.

I hope I’m not an example of being extremely lucky since I’ve gotten an ascended weapon box from the grand chest of the Shatterer and Golem Mark II and one from a Fallen Champion’s Bag, but have never heard anyone mention they’ve gotten ascended boxes from those sources before.

Solution: Allow players to trade an extremely large number of Sunless Runes and/or Carved Bone Spoons for a Tequatl’s Hoard. OR a high number of Connie’s Lost Wedding Ring and/or Amulet of Triple Curiosity for a Pile of Regurgitated Armor. Make it a really high number if you have to, but give that option so players at least have a distant goal to work towards instead of this sense of hopelessness where they don’t know when their bad luck streak will come to an end.

2. Pre-cursors

I know this issue is sorta addressed with the HoT Mastery feature, but other than an inordinate amount of Mystic Forge gambling, I’ve done just about everything there is to do in the game, AND STILL I’ve not gotten a single precursor drop.

I’m relatively active despite my professional life, and I’ve amassed 11k AP in my 3 year tenure in GW2. That should count for something. Instead, I’ve had to pay through my nose to buy precursors on the Trading Post for all three of my Legendaries (Juggernaut, Bifrost, Sunrise). The 10k AP achievement mark should be nothing to scoff at. It isn’t a milestone that can be easily reached in a short time playing the game casually. It would be very much appreciated if ArenaNet can offer more consideration for their loyal players by doing something like giving an account-bound precursor (I’ll even settle for a random precursor), for every 10K AP earned.

Look at it this way, even if the player were to do nothing at all except daily achievements, that would still take the person 1000 days to get a precursor. That’s a significant investment of time and effort. C’mon, it’s time to do something about this.

Seems like the only people defending this terrible RNG system are the ones who get exotics/precursors about once a day. lol… meanwhile so many people have been playing since launch with no such luck. I myself have only gotten a total of 4 random exotic drops since launch.. .. not Precursors… just generic exotics.

Others probably mentioned this in this 20 page thread.
I think a good idea is something like in Dota 2. Increasing a chance to activate and ability-on-hit after each time it didn’t activate.
Its still RNG but a bit of kindness from the side of the designers. First time some one kills the mob its 0.1% to drop, next time its 0.2%… and so forth. Something like that.

I don’t want to say anything about the RNG, I will leave it to you expert at ANET to make sense of it all. If you have to ask us, then you really don’t have a freaking clue on what you were doing.

Here is my “story” about the loot I got.
I started playing 1 month after GW2 launch (Thanks to Diablo 3). Leveling my first char took me a while.
The first thing I noticed is that my Ele gets rare stuff from normal mobs more than from the boss chest or special chest in dungeons. I usually get fine/masterwork from chests and dungeons.
Then 1 year later, I notice I am getting more white items. Even from Bosses. I still get them till this day. WHITE items from champs and Bosses.
That is from my Ele.

My ranger though is a different story. My ranger regularly gets rares and exotics. And from the Mystic Toilet, I have gotten 2 pre-cursors using my ranger. I have one precursor that I got from a normal drop, but I can’t remember from which char. Most probably from my Ranger too.

My WvW Guardian also regularly gets rares and exotic from drops and chests.

My other chars though, they have never gotten anything better than rares. And the rares are acquired from the boss daily bonus chests. Not from the normal World boss chest.

My current mesmer (non level 80) is quite good in drops for the moment. But she also suffers from getting WHITES frequently.

Which ever system you choose to implement about dropping loot, just don’t make it so easy to drop a pre-cursor. The whole point of calling them rare items, well is because they are RARE. If they start dropping at a more common rate, then what is the point?

Well, yeah a change on the looting system would be really nice. I vote for something like 2 or 2.5.

The ideal system for me would be one that still has a RNG but everytime you don´t get a reward you are more likely to get that thing you want to the point that if you are extremely unlucky you´ll get to the point that your chances of getting the item are so hight that is imposible for you not to get the item. Of course once you get that item the “lucky meter” will reset.

It it wants to be done by items the following explanation could be a thing. Let´s say you are trowing GS at the Mystic Forge in order to get Dawn. There would be a new currency called “Mystic greatsword essence” that would be given to you if the result isn´t an upgrade. With the proper amount ofMystic greatsword essence along with some exotic greatword you could mystic forge the GS you want. Of course legendary itmes would be excluded and precursors would require a lot of Mystic GS essence.
The idea is: wathever you throw your items on the forge you get closer to the thingie you want and you feel rewarded for it. What do oyu guys think about a system like this?

I´m really looking forward ti a looting change in Hot.

I think, in light of hearing about Ascended salvaging, we ought to consider drumming up the topic again. Because we haven’t been heard, apparently.

Meanwhile, can we get some alternate collections or forge recipes available for earning the collection exotics? Anecdote: I’ve purchased some of the reasonably available exotics, but others are hideously out of reach.
While I’d like to see similar options for all unique exotics, it’s mainly the collection-based ones that should be attainable by more realistic means.

I think that Anet hit the jackpot with introduction of Mawdrey. It removed rng and added complex but meaningful mix of interaction with environment and gathering. Its challenging but not in a “hurr durr get 250 charged lodestones” kind of way.

- Item is cool looking
- it sends me on an adventure across Tyria
- it put some meaning into 500 crafting
- it gives me additional functionality in a form of Mawdrey II
- no praying to RNGesus required

What else could one want? It’s perfect!

It’s most likely that they recognized the potential of such system, considering that they are introducing similar structured way of obtaining precursors, but I can only hope they revisit everything, all item pool, including Mystic Forge crafted exotics.

As someone who is playing since release (with one pause) and has almost nothing to show off except random rares and extremely rare exotic no one needs, I’m naturally opposed to current rng system. In fact I detest it.

Zergs.9715:

I think that Anet hit the jackpot with introduction of Mawdrey. It removed rng and added complex but meaningful mix of interaction with environment and gathering. Its challenging but not in a “hurr durr get 250 charged lodestones” kind of way.

- Item is cool looking
- it sends me on an adventure across Tyria
- it put some meaning into 500 crafting
- it gives me additional functionality in a form of Mawdrey II
- no praying to RNGesus required

What else could one want? It’s perfect!

It’s most likely that they recognized the potential of such system, considering that they are introducing similar structured way of obtaining precursors, but I can only hope they revisit everything, all item pool, including Mystic Forge crafted exotics.

As someone who is playing since release (with one pause) and has almost nothing to show off except random rares and extremely rare exotic no one needs, I’m naturally opposed to current rng system. In fact I detest it.

While I still don’t particularly care for the overall play style and gamer types I seem to meet (whether or typical or not), Dos Mawdrey got me into a ‘few’ fractals, just enough. I still don’t care for fractals, but I’ll try to muddle through them yet again in search of a back pack, I suppose.

Fractals aside, I found the overall experience of working on the Dos Mawdrey quite fun. I don’t often fractal, but when I do, it’s for Dos Mawdrey.

John Smith.4610:

2.5: “Add secondary reward mechanisms (ie. token based system) alongside the primary RNG system; allow progress to be made even when you don’t get the result you want.”

You mean like Karma?
It’s given for participation in events… Regardless of outcome.

However, it’s not really utilized in end-game (outside of legendary crafting).
I’d like to see it utilized for more things.

We already have plenty of “tokens”… I guess we could get more map-specific ones. (Like Geodes and Bandit Crests.)

I ran Tequatl probably a 100 times… Never gotten any special loot out of the chests.

I then got fed up with the lack of rewards and stopped bothering.

Clearly, RNG as a concept is nice because it allows you to have “rare” items that people can strive for.
But when the rates of getting good loot are 1% or less, it’s really just tiring for the majority of players.