To start off, rewards should feel like an accomplishment. In my opinion, Guild Wars 2 does this well, but in the wrong ways. It’s really difficult to get an exotic armor drop from a monster that you’re fighting, and even more difficult if you’re not equipped with magic find. (I know, mf will be removed) In over 3000 hours of playing, I’ve only received a single exotic gear drop that was worth 1 gold. Not only that, but the drop rate of tier 6 materials and many other valuable items is incredibly low. I actually think I’ve probably gotten around 6 rares that dropped from monsters. I feel that if monsters in the open world (not in dungeons or instanced areas) dropped better, more valuable items, it would provide a little bit more incentive for people to get out and explore while taking the time to kill monsters on their way.
Those are the bad ways that Guild Wars 2 rewards. The good rewards always come from fighting dragons. I feel that this was a step in the right direction here, because I definitely feel that a rare worth 20 silver is a pretty good reward for the time I just devoted to killing Jormag or other dragons. The Living Story also has a pretty good way of rewarding the players. It (kind of) forces the players to do new content if they want that shiny new backpiece, or that awesome looking skin, which is a good thing because I have fun while earning AP and rewards.
Now back to the bad. At this current moment, Diablo 3 is more rewarding than GW2. I haven’t played D3 in about 7 months, so when I got back on and got a bunch of awesome gear, I felt that my time is worth more in D3. D3 actually has a fantastic system where you gain buffs of Magic Find when you kill elite enemies. That is the perfect system. The harder you work, the better the gear you get. I feel that this isn’t the case with GW2. I mean, I go to the dragon events and the Living Story events, yes, but other than that, the awesome items I get are all based on luck. Maybe Anet could implement a system such as Blizzard did where if you kill all the monsters in a dungeon, you have a chance to get much better items. In open world, if you do all the quests, get all the vistas, see the important places, and get all the waypoints you could gain magic find for that map only.
I know what you’re thinking: “What brought this on? He’s probably complaining about nothing, or he got a single grey item.” Nope, I get several meaningless items every time I kill monsters in an open world area. That’s what brought this on. I’m tired of looking at the items the monsters drop and saying “Oh look, 90% junk, 10% stuff I can sell for 10 copper.” I just don’t feel rewarded when I play GW2. Please, do not say I’m lazy and want easy money. I hit max level in D3 in a week and farmed almost every day, and gladly traded my hard work for items, but GW2 lacks that type of system.
I’d like to give some suggestions to go with my rant as well. Make the blues, the greens, and the less meaningful tier 1-5 materials worth more. I was surprised at the reaction I had when I first got a blue item in GW2. I threw it out of my inventory in place of some materials.
Secondly, make the monsters in open world drop those blues/greens more frequently.
[~Galtrix~] [~Level 80 Elementalist~] [~GoM~]
Hopefully Anet will change something about that soon.