Guild Wars 2

I’ve recently taken a different direction in the game from mainly solo roaming in WvW and playing sPVP (both hot-join and tournaments), and have been trying to make my characters cosmetically look better. I’ve found a number of different weapons and armor that appeal to me, and have already obtained many of them. I’m still working on my fractal capacitor, but have recently stopped since I may like the upcoming dragon wings better anyway at likely zero costs (500 ectos??? wat?).

In the search for trying to update my characters I realized that there are basically no skins out there that really stand out and say to me, “Wow, he’s got one of those- He’s a bad kitten. I want to try and get one.” The closest to that for me was the fractal capacitor, but even that can be achieved by simply grinding through Fractals, whether you’re good at it or not. We do have legendaries, but in my opinion, these do not involve overcoming any admirable feat to actually obtain. When I see someone with a legendary weapon I simply think that person has a lot of extra time on their hands, has deep pockets and/or is just really lucky. None of these attributes are exactly appealing to me and because of that, I’m not really interested in obtaining any of the legendaries (I don’t really like the look of most of them anyway).

I am looking for challenges in this game, and the items that reward those who overcome those challenges. I feel like there is a major flaw in this beautiful game because both of these aspects are missing in it. I’m not interested in items that involve mindless, boring grinds, RNG, or real-life money. Having those in the game is fine. But additionally, I want to be able to get items that I can show off. Without this, I honestly just feel like I’m playing a dress-up game with virtual dolls when choosing how to customize my characters. Maybe the next professions should include Barbie and Ken.

Perhaps I’m missing something, and there are some cool skins that are indeed a challenge to obtain. If this is the case, please fill me in.

You’ve put your finger on a significant issue with the reward system in GW2.

Much of the lack of challenge came from rushing this game to beat Mists of Pandaria (or whatever it’s called). You can see that traits and skills were hastily designed, and that dungeon bosses had to be given the Defiant band aid because there really wasn’t enough time to design meaningful encounters.

I don’t fault the developers for business decisions made by their corporate overlords, but I do think they need to seriously consider revamping the mechanics in this game to allow for challenging content that’s accessible to everyone, yet difficult to master. There have been several useful ideas on this front (see, for example, here and here).

You might have to wait until an expansion to see rewards that are truly commensurate with a high level of skill and dedication (here dedication having nothing to do with raw time spent auto-attacking mobs!). But if we keep asking for it, we might very well get it, and this game can become more than a flash in the pan in a stagnating genre.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

You’ve put your finger on a significant issue with the reward system in GW2.

Much of the lack of challenge came from rushing this game to beat Mists of Pandaria (or whatever it’s called). You can see that traits and skills were hastily designed, and that dungeon bosses had to be given the Defiant band aid because there really wasn’t enough time to design meaningful encounters.

ArenaNet announced the release date of Guild Wars 2 before Blizzard announced the release date for Mists of Pandaria.

MOP was rushed out to compete with GWII, not the other way around.

That said, it is fairly easy to see that GWII was rushed out as well. It just wasn’t rushed out in order to compete with anything.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

ArenaNet announced the release date of Guild Wars 2 before Blizzard announced the release date for Mists of Pandaria.

I don’t want to get into a nitpick about this, but official release dates don’t correlate (at least strictly) with the decisions companies make about when they think a competing product is going to be released.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Guns and Giblets.9308:

You’ve put your finger on a significant issue with the reward system in GW2.

Much of the lack of challenge came from rushing this game to beat Mists of Pandaria (or whatever it’s called). You can see that traits and skills were hastily designed, and that dungeon bosses had to be given the Defiant band aid because there really wasn’t enough time to design meaningful encounters.

ArenaNet announced the release date of Guild Wars 2 before Blizzard announced the release date for Mists of Pandaria.

MOP was rushed out to compete with GWII, not the other way around.

That said, it is fairly easy to see that GWII was rushed out as well. It just wasn’t rushed out in order to compete with anything.

Unfortunately, most games these days seem to be rushed out with the idea that all will be fixed once the game is live (and once they know how much interest is in their game). This is something I hate, but most of us (myself included) seem to fall for it every time (who wants to wait a year or 2 to buy a game just so we get the product that should have been released….we want to play the game NOW!).

Back to the OP, I would love skins that are a reward for certain challenges (ie some achievements granting a certain skin unlock), but then you have to think…what achievements are their in game that can’t simply be grinded out?

I think a full set of Arah still has a small bit of impressiveness.
FOTM weapon skins = REALLY persistent and/or lucky.
Rng boxes = rng lucky.
Everything else = meh.

my 2 cents.

I agree with the OP.

There are multiple things ArenaNet could have rewarded the players for. They decided, however, to follow other MMOs and reward just time spent, instead of skill.

In pay to play MMORPGs, take makes sense. Those games are catering to the lowest denominator – they don’t want only the skilled players to be rewarded, they want everyone to have access to every reward… As long as they play long enough, which equals to as long as they keep paying those monthly fees for a very long time.

This is the aspect that has defined pay to play MMOs – the need to have mindless and rewarding time sinks to keep people hooked. Be it raids, mounts, gear-based PvP and etc, that’s the point of a pay to play MMORPG. The issue is that free to play and buy to play MMOs are following the same design, although it doesn’t make much sense in the absense of a pay to play scheme. It’s almost skeuomorphism.

Topher.1684:

…what achievements are their in game that can’t simply be grinded out?

Dungeon Master: you have to do each dungeon exactly once, instead of doing a single dungeon one hundred times.

World completition: you have to do each area once, instead of doing the same thing over and over.

I’m still waiting for Anet to mail me a free legendary.

Wethospu.6437:

I’m still waiting for Anet to mail me a free legendary.

I think it was lost in the mail have you called the postal service about it?

Erasculio.2914:

I agree with the OP.

There are multiple things ArenaNet could have rewarded the players for. They decided, however, to follow other MMOs and reward just time spent, instead of skill.

In pay to play MMORPGs, take makes sense. Those games are catering to the lowest denominator – they don’t want only the skilled players to be rewarded, they want everyone to have access to every reward… As long as they play long enough, which equals to as long as they keep paying those monthly fees for a very long time.

This is the aspect that has defined pay to play MMOs – the need to have mindless and rewarding time sinks to keep people hooked. Be it raids, mounts, gear-based PvP and etc, that’s the point of a pay to play MMORPG. The issue is that free to play and buy to play MMOs are following the same design, although it doesn’t make much sense in the absense of a pay to play scheme. It’s almost skeuomorphism.

Topher.1684:

…what achievements are their in game that can’t simply be grinded out?

Dungeon Master: you have to do each dungeon exactly once, instead of doing a single dungeon one hundred times.

World completition: you have to do each area once, instead of doing the same thing over and over.

I’m sorry, but how do you figure Anet rewards time spent in-game? I have about 2600 hrs in-game and have lousy rng, have never gotten the fractal skin that I have run probably 2000+ fractals for, have never seen a precursor drop for me anyway even though I have put countless rares into the toilet and done countless more meta events for the blues and greens to get my 1 rare and I see no way they reward time spent. They reward us in no way but nerfing and with temp content. They know nothing of skill also, which is very sad cause I like many players that I have come across have it and think there should be challenging content in-game but feel bad there isn’t, I like this game though I may sound like I don’t, I just wish the people who made it thought more of the players and less of those idiots looking over their shoulders.

The fractals skins are a perfect example of how they could have implemented rewarding players for completing progressively more challenging content. Similarly to the different version of the capacitor, they could have made different versions of the fractal weapons, one without effects obtainable after level 30, another with effects after level 40 and so forth. No, this wouldn’t eliminate grind, but it at least gives players a challenge and goal to work towards, and rewards them for doing so.

Not everyone can actually complete level 50 fractals, so those skins would actually mean something. This is better than the situation now, which doesn’t show anything about how a player achieved their skin. Is the player level 60? Or has he just been running their level 30 daily for months? Or did he just get lucky doing level 20 the first time? I’m not saying that this is the perfect example of how to reward players, but I think this suggestion is better than the current RNG system in place.

Why not make challenges? Literally. Like “Do Dungeon Path X in under Y minutes.” Or “Defeat Lupicus alone”, and so on. There’s probably hundreds of ideas a lot better than mine. You get my point.

Zerbo.5381:

The fractals skins are a perfect example of how they could have implemented rewarding players for completing progressively more challenging content. Similarly to the different version of the capacitor, they could have made different versions of the fractal weapons, one without effects obtainable after level 30, another with effects after level 40 and so forth. No, this wouldn’t eliminate grind, but it at least gives players a challenge and goal to work towards, and rewards them for doing so.

Not everyone can actually complete level 50 fractals, so those skins would actually mean something. This is better than the situation now, which doesn’t show anything about how a player achieved their skin. Is the player level 60? Or has he just been running their level 30 daily for months? Or did he just get lucky doing level 20 the first time? I’m not saying that this is the perfect example of how to reward players, but I think this suggestion is better than the current RNG system in place.

Agreed. I feel like they should add in weapons/armors that you can aesthetically “upgrade.” Perhaps a system where you can get a weapon, then take it to a specific dungeon to get parts to change it to a new one. For instance, if you got a normal Greatsword and then take it to Ascalonian Catacombs, and get some drops from trash mobs (adding in a way to make trash mobs more meaningful in dungeons), you can then upgrade it to a ghastly skin for that Greatsword. And if you took it to Twilight Arbor instead, you could get drops from those trash mobs to make it into a more plantlike Greatsword.

Just my two cents. Upgrading weapons in games is always fun, and it feels like a progression, even if it’s just aesthetically.

Both of those are great ideas and would make this game much more fulfilling and fun.

Once again it all comes down to risk vs reward. While I’d love to see something like this I doubt we will since the casual players will howl about not being able to get said item. And if there’s one thing we should all know by now is that Anet’s main focus is on the casual players.

if you make content exclusive to ‘skilled’ players then I’m afraid you’d have a bunch of casuals complaining here.

You already have that with casuals who want a legendary handed to them – just imagine if there was something better than that?

I agree, there should be something out there that you can show off to say “check me out, i accomplished X and it was hard.”

The problem is that if Anet introduces items like that (as opposed to titles) you’re gonna see tons of QQ from people whining about how it’s unfair and Anet is catering to the elites and that they want it too and why are you excluding PvPers, etc etc etc.

Which isn’t a reason not to do it, just saying what’s gonna happen if they do.

Seras.5702:

I agree, there should be something out there that you can show off to say “check me out, i accomplished X and it was hard.”

The problem is that if Anet introduces items like that (as opposed to titles) you’re gonna see tons of QQ from people whining about how it’s unfair and Anet is catering to the elites and that they want it too and why are you excluding PvPers, etc etc etc.

Which isn’t a reason not to do it, just saying what’s gonna happen if they do.

Yeah it’s incredibly difficult designing ‘skillful’ content. You have so much variety in this game in weapons and classes, it’s only natural that certain classes will succeed better than others. If you make it ‘group skill’, then certain group set-ups will be better than others.

If you make ‘skillful’ content all about player movements, such as jumping puzzles, you will have certain people who are incapable of reacting and making precision moves.

Either way, there will be people who feel it is unfair and will most likely rage about it on the forums.

You can’t have ‘skill’, ‘reward’ and ‘MMO’ in the same sentence without a whole lot of raging going on.

Seras.5702:

I agree, there should be something out there that you can show off to say “check me out, i accomplished X and it was hard.”

I just want to enjoy the clothes my character wears and have good memories of accomplishment associated with them. I mean, I still use HoM skins on most of my characters because I like the look so much, and they remind me of the fun I had in GW1 to get them. Yet, whenever I look at my Asura T3, I feel a little dirty inside because I farmed instigators to get the money for it—and that was really boring.

No matter what A-net decides to do, there will be people who will complain and rage. It already happens here daily about all of the items that can only be received via farming, gems, gold or RNG. There are plenty of skins that can be earned through these paths. I think that the best way A-net can appease everyone as much as possible is by having a balanced reward system- something for everyone in all aspects that the game has to offer.

For example, how can we tell if someone is a parkour-style jumping puzzle professional? There is no way of knowing. There are some players who find this aspect of the game especially entertaining. Why can’t those players who master this particular part of the game be rewarded in a way that will help identify their accomplishments, like a pair of shoes with wings on the back or something? It gives a goal for those players, which adds another element of fun to the activity itself by giving more depth and meaning to the activities that they actually accomplish. In doing so, it indirectly offers more longevity to the game. I guess that players are already being rewarded with achievements, but it’s hard to wear your achievements on your sleeves with pride.

I understand that providing unique rewards for completing challenges won’t be easy, and getting a “perfect” balance isn’t really plausible. But at least trying to offer more rewards that require an effort with any form of skill involved is better than the current system in place- virtual dress-up with skins bought, farmed/grinded or received by just getting lucky.

I also would like something that takes a challenge to get. Things in solo-instances so no one can just run you through it. Places where you’re not allowed to die, jumping puzzles, mini-games… Either a sort of scavenger hunt or maybe put a reward to every one of them, all of them having a different objective or achievement that must be met before you get your special skin.

Sure, some challenges might be easier for some classes/builds. But if they can make quests race-specific, why not class-specific..?

Vol.5241:

Seras.5702:

I agree, there should be something out there that you can show off to say “check me out, i accomplished X and it was hard.”

The problem is that if Anet introduces items like that (as opposed to titles) you’re gonna see tons of QQ from people whining about how it’s unfair and Anet is catering to the elites and that they want it too and why are you excluding PvPers, etc etc etc.

Which isn’t a reason not to do it, just saying what’s gonna happen if they do.

Yeah it’s incredibly difficult designing ‘skillful’ content. You have so much variety in this game in weapons and classes, it’s only natural that certain classes will succeed better than others. If you make it ‘group skill’, then certain group set-ups will be better than others.

If you make ‘skillful’ content all about player movements, such as jumping puzzles, you will have certain people who are incapable of reacting and making precision moves.

Either way, there will be people who feel it is unfair and will most likely rage about it on the forums.

You can’t have ‘skill’, ‘reward’ and ‘MMO’ in the same sentence without a whole lot of raging going on.

It’s also a bit hard designing ‘skilfull’ content with the current state of the Trinity in GW2. Even with there only being 5 man dungeons, Anet can’t seem to get it right. One of the reasons I think we don’t have challenging content is becuase it would really bring to light the poor design of some parts of GW2 (Targeting, Camera, Boss Tells ETC.)

Stonecaduceus.5638:

I think a full set of Arah still has a small bit of impressiveness.
FOTM weapon skins = REALLY persistent and/or lucky.
Rng boxes = rng lucky.
Everything else = meh.

my 2 cents.

This is basically Guildwars 2…in a nut shell.

Vol.5241:

Yeah it’s incredibly difficult designing ‘skillful’ content. You have so much variety in this game in weapons and classes,

If anything, the variety is limited due to skills being tied to weapons.

Honestly, I’m surprised they didn’t figure out how to balance what they had to make challenging content.

Kaaboose.3897:

Once again it all comes down to risk vs reward. While I’d love to see something like this I doubt we will since the casual players will howl about not being able to get said item. And if there’s one thing we should all know by now is that Anet’s main focus is on the casual players.

It’s kind of sad, though, isn’t it? If ANet were to make a dungeon that was challenging to players and have great new skins out for it, casual players would complain. Instead of wanting to better themselves and get a better handle on how to play the game/their character, they would just complain that it’s too hard. And it ruins it for people that understand the idea of risk/reward. So terrible.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Guns and Giblets.9308:

You’ve put your finger on a significant issue with the reward system in GW2.

Much of the lack of challenge came from rushing this game to beat Mists of Pandaria (or whatever it’s called). You can see that traits and skills were hastily designed, and that dungeon bosses had to be given the Defiant band aid because there really wasn’t enough time to design meaningful encounters.

ArenaNet announced the release date of Guild Wars 2 before Blizzard announced the release date for Mists of Pandaria.

MOP was rushed out to compete with GWII, not the other way around.

That said, it is fairly easy to see that GWII was rushed out as well. It just wasn’t rushed out in order to compete with anything.

It was rushed to save NCSofts massively failing stock prices. If the rumors were true, GW2 box sales, plus the massive 600 million dollar bailout from Nexon, basically saved NCSoft from having to declare bankruptcy. They had been in the toilet for over a year at that point and NCSoft was getting pretty desperate. So yeah, they made ANet release the game before it was ready.

Erasculio.2914:

Dungeon Master: you have to do each dungeon exactly once, instead of doing a single dungeon one hundred times.

World completition: you have to do each area once, instead of doing the same thing over and over.

Yes. Now, if only they would make these repeatable, especially the Dungeon Master… make it repeatable, add substantial reward (chest like the final chest in Lost Shores, or even better) and suddenly dungeons will be full of life again. Even story modes. It worked in Guild Wars 1 with the story/dungeon books, it could easily work in Guild Wars 2.

World Completion could be repeatable as well, and offer great rewards too, no the current reward is plain idiotic. Great for your first character, but after that how many gifts of exploration someone could possibly need over their entire time in the game?

In addition to the above, another high reward for anyone that does every single jumping puzzle, filling again and again the whole “Jumping Puzzles” achievement page

The irony of some of the posts in this thread is that people often don’t want to run challenging content without a special reward. Arah is hard and AC got a boost. But nobody runs em because the rewards are the same as CoF. So why do it? Nobody cares about fun, only getting stuff and titles. And ya gotta have some motivating factor, but requiring a reward for every dang difficult thing can’t be the way either.

Seras.5702:

The irony of some of the posts in this thread is that people often don’t want to run challenging content without a special reward. Arah is hard and AC got a boost. But nobody runs em because the rewards are the same as CoF. So why do it? Nobody cares about fun, only getting stuff and titles. And ya gotta have some motivating factor, but requiring a reward for every dang difficult thing can’t be the way either.

It’s not fun after the first few times. Running AC for the sake of running AC? No, thanks. The only reason people run any dungeon now is to make profit, which is why people run CoF. There’s nothing else to get inside of them because of how the game is currently set. It’s not that people need a reward for every single thing they do. But they need a reason and an incentive to go back and repeat the exact same thing multiple times. And currently, there really is none.