Guild Wars 2

As much as I love this game and its gameplay, I’ve become somewhat disenchanted with its loot of late. This has now got to the point that I barely even look at loot that I receive from Fractals and Raids and I’m certainly not excited about opening chests/bags or even killing specific bosses – with the potential exception of Gorseval the Multifarious due to his unique and prestigious drop.

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought lately and I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason I feel this way is that 99% of the loot I receive either gets sold directly to a merchant or just gets salvaged into materials that I then sell on the Trading Post periodically or, on rare occasion, actually use to craft. Even rares and exotics, which make up the main bulk of “good drops”, are often sold or salvaged after having collected all of the skins.

Essentially, this results in 99% of loot effectively being gold i.e. liquid. This has the obvious advantage of allowing you to spend your hard earned gold however you see fit but comes with the drawback of being incredibly boring and ultimately, feeling unrewarding.

There are far too few exceptions to this rule; the best of which being precursors but they have a justifiably low drop rate and while the prospect of dropping one remains exciting, the feeling of doing so comes very infrequently for most and never for some. I miss the sensation of dropping rare/prestigious weapons from Guild Wars 1 and feel like this is seriously lacking in Guild Wars 2.

It is for these reasons that I am proposing a potentially controversial change. Add Black Lion weapon skins as dropable loot to the core game outside of Black Lion Chests. Black Lion Chests have their own problems but the chance of dropping a Black Lion Key from the core game and then receiving a Black Lion weapon skin from it, is even lower than dropping a precursor and the fact is that this chance is so low that it might as well be 0 in terms of player anticipation.

I’m proposing that the skins be added as potential drops from anywhere in the game (much the same as precursors) with varying drop chances depending on the level/difficulty of content – at the discretion of Anet of course. After discussing the proposal with friends, we think that the skins would have to drop in the following form:

1. As an exotic weapon with a sigil (potentially tied to the specific set)
2. Account bound
3. With a drop rate somewhere between that of an ascended weapon/armor chest and that of a precursor

In this form, nobody could be disappointed by receiving such a drop even if they despised the skin they were awarded. In such a case, they could simply salvage it like any other exotic and receive the liquid gold from its materials. The drops would also be unsellable and untradable due to being account bound so the impact on Trading Post prices would be minimal. Furthermore, due to the low drop chance of getting any skin in the first place, combined with the unlikelihood of dropping a specific desired skin, players either in desperate need of a specific skin or looking to collect large quantities of skins, would still be inclined to place buy orders on the Trading Post or buy Black Lion keys from Anet respectively. This should minimise the impact both on Trading Post prices and on Anet key sales.

A change like this would add some magic and excitement back into the game and, to me, seems like a minor and simple way to give players more to look forward to when reviewing their loot. Guild Wars has never been about gear progression and so the pressure falls on gameplay and item skins to keep people interested. In my opinion, the current method of acquiring the latter is too heavily skewed towards grinding liquid gold and doesn’t provide enough opportunity for random acts of reward and, ultimately, that’s what loot should provide in a game like this.

I hope I’ve made my point clearly and succinctly and I hope that people/Anet see this for what it is and don’t see this as a person complaining about having bad luck. If anyone has any information about why a change like this would never happen, I would love to see some official feedback!

Thanks for reading

We already have loot like this
How many of the exotic listed here under world boss drops do you have mate?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Treasure_Hunter

Same with sunless weapons and wurm armor/minis.
How many of the aether blade path special weapon skins do you have?
Have you finished https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ambrite_weapons ?

Personaly Im 50% done with the first got 3 sunless weapons and 2 of the aetherblade path weapons plenty more to find.

Edit
You are asking them to put gemstore weapon skins in the game so they would lose money, it wont happen mate.

I didn’t say we didn’t have any unique drops. Plus a lot of those drops are craftable/incredibly cheap on TP or useless exotic trinkets that have nothing to do with skins and are worse than ascended trinkets which are far easier to get…

DUNSTAN.8529:

A change like this would add some magic and excitement back into the game

Nah. Killing the boss for the nth time and still not getting the drop you want gets tiring really fast. The excitement of getting that rare drop is based on a low drop chance, which practically guarantees that most players will either never see it, or will need to grind for it for a long time. making those drops unobtainable in any other way is going to create a lot of frustration and anger.

“Unobtainable”? I’m talking about making items more obtainable. I don’t understand what you’re getting at.

Sorry, i’m tired at this hour and misread your post. Just ignore my earlier comment.

They can whip up weapons fast enough for the Black Lion chests. Surely a couple times a year they could make and put into the loot tables a set of new weapons, and rotate out an old set. Then bring back previous sets periodically for a while.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

They can whip up weapons fast enough for the Black Lion chests. Surely a couple times a year they could make and put into the loot tables a set of new weapons, and rotate out an old set. Then bring back previous sets periodically for a while.

Can agree with that for every x number of sets in store lets say 4, 1 set should get into game.

Kinda funny that they could make armor skins for store before then suddenly it was to much work when policy changed to outfits in store and armor skins in game.

I think the OP has missed one of the reasons why current loot seems unexciting: we’re used to it. Add anything to the drop table and, after playing long enough, that will also become less interesting. Low-rate drops fall into a couple of categories: those that everyone hates and don’t care about, those that everyone wants and end up being too expensive, and those that drop too frequently, so that folks no longer think they are special.

The Lightward’s Battlestaff and Battlehammer have similarly low rates. One is worth 400g on the TP; the other less than 35g (i.e. not even 10%). The first is coveted; the second isn’t. And that’s all that makes one “exciting” as a drop after all this time and the other not so much.

Regardless, even if ANet decided to add 300 skins to the drop tables, they wouldn’t be adding BL skins. First, those are one of the big draws for BL chests & lots & lots of people (who are not investors) would be rightfully annoyed at the change. And second, those are one of the big draws for the BL chests and making them available anywhere else cuts into gem shop sales.

There is a good point lost in the text: people have been playing a long time. The game needs to evolve to maintain their interest and that probably includes new drops in older zones.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

There is a good point lost in the text: people have been playing a long time. The game needs to evolve to maintain their interest and that probably includes new drops in older zones.

I totally agree with new drops in old zones. It would be nice if every map had an exotic set that was only found within that map and had a theme that matched the map. Queen’s Dale could have very peasant weapons: a Butcher’s Cleaver for an axe, a Pitchfork for a staff (yes I know of Peasants Solution, but an example). It would add some extra spice to all the zones.

Azoqu.8917:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

There is a good point lost in the text: people have been playing a long time. The game needs to evolve to maintain their interest and that probably includes new drops in older zones.

I totally agree with new drops in old zones. It would be nice if every map had an exotic set that was only found within that map and had a theme that matched the map. Queen’s Dale could have very peasant weapons: a Butcher’s Cleaver for an axe, a Pitchfork for a staff (yes I know of Peasants Solution, but an example). It would add some extra spice to all the zones.

I should mention that much as I think this would be important to the game and the community of veterans, I doubt very much if it’s likely. Our appetite for new skins is insatiable; there are just not enough artwork teams in the world to satisfy it (especially since our tastes vary so much).

I have a problem with the GW2 loot system, the game is perfect, but until today I did not find anything that was worth more than 4g in the TP, a lot of junk that is worthless, I already noticed that I want something of value, I’ll have to play for years gathering bronze to buy. Plus the frustration of never finding anything worthwhile, I participate in all events on all maps, PVP, WvW, world bosses, and nothing .., I always liked to trade in MMO games, they should have a better rewards system , Some way to rotate the items, some way to improve the current items with other items, so it would not accumulate on the server, and the reward is worth the time played.

You do realize that many of the “junk” can be worth quite a bit right? For example if you play in Auric Basin this week you would be getting a bunch of Shiny Baubles which vendors for 30s. Sometimes it also gives you 10 at once. That is 3g right there.

I think the way this game handles the income of raw materials through salvageable drops and gathered resources is brilliant.

I am always exited with bags full of salvageable goods. And the vendor trash with the odd 30 silver baubles is fine as well. I tend to save em as long as possible and then sell all of em in one fel swoop

I get a reasonable amount of directly sellable yellows, sometimes a few more and sometimes a few less. No reason for me complaining there tbh.

And as a new player with 4x 15 slots bags (5x 18 on my first 80’er) i have no problem wit the ocasional bag cleaning. I bought an automatice salvager for that and put it in the 1 shared slot.. it’s brilliant

But then i like loot and i like sifting throught piles of it and i don’t mind spending a bit of time on it. Bags full of all types makes me feel like Ali Baba coming home from a succesfull raid and turning over his bags of plunder.

I think it would be sad to see it streamlined into something ‘more efficient’. Really dislike the constant calling for more convenience and efficiency.

I agree with OP. Getting loot has become unrewarding….same old stuff for the most part.

I know this won’t happen, but why not make it possible that anything in the game might drop on any given kill.

Obviously, many things would have to have a very low drop rate, even as low or even lower than precursors. I get you don’t want to mess up the economy or even Gem store sales. It would just be nice to know its possible.

There are many things that could be added to drops that wouldn’t change anything. Like rare dyes, food buffs, maybe even mini pets. Again make the item drop rate appropriate.

The point is, we need more variety so its at least worth the time to see what you got.

I’d like to see the loot tables shaken up some but I think we are casually overlooking the fact that loot shouldn’t be exciting every time. Sometimes it just needs to increase our stock so we can craft something, or we need 4 rares for the mystic forge, or 50 or 250 to promote to the next level. The idea is that if we take part in some game event or activity we don’t usually get what we want, but we do get items we keep and oddly we don’t complain about them when we eventually use them.

I think a big part of this is lost to many players because the costs to promote items may just be too steep. It’s not difficult but those costs for the results can stop players quick and maybe from considering doing it ever.

With any kind of loot system there are only 2 possible outcomes.
One is a loot system where everyone can get everything, which then means little incentive to try harder, or a loot system where some players always have better stuff than other players, no matter how hard the other players try.
GW2 currently has the 2nd option.
Which would you prefer.
No amount of fiddling the loot tables can change these outcomes.

Okay my 2 cents, im playing GW2 just for over a year now.. lately im getting really frustrated with the amount of clicking that goes on sorting loot and opening chest – bags .

Some say its exciting, well it is not.. i barely do fractals and don’t raid.. sometimes guildy’s link those nice chest (ascended stuff etc) and i think d**n i had to craft that 50-100 gold.. but all good and fine.

The thing is when i do berrie farm with some events or bloodstone farm with some events or Silverwastes events etc.. you end up with all those chests.. shiny right ? wrong.

Open it it will spam you with greens, blues, minor sigils, major sigils, junk.. its a glorious click fest, bags within bags, more clicking.. after about 20 chests yeah i got some Karma, UB magic and 2 gold tops and not enough stuff i really need but in the end im thinking , what just happened?.

When i started playing a year ago i found a sword i believe that was worth 300G, somewhere in Verdant Brink, after that the biggest reward i got were exotics worth 2-3 gold.. maybe once a month.

But to the point, what do i want then.. moar linen, cotton, wool.. leather scraps all kind..you know materials you really need or are actually worth something, how many times i find myself short of this is just frustrating.
Make for example a ascended back item..15 yes i repeat 15 ! eloning leathers thats ALOT of raw leather scraps you know what i mean.

The amount of gold-materials that goes in an ascended item is alot so i don’t even bother with legendary’s.. there just no way now i can farm enough materials , only option would be switch weapon and dual wield my credit card.

Get rid of those anoying stuff like sigils that we can’t even sell as junk.. click delete*yes*click delete yes click click delete yes.. seriously stop that.

Rant over, thanks for listening.. i feel much better now :-)

Its simply not possible to make a loot table that drops lots of stuff thats worth a lot on the TP.
The value of items on the TP is proportional to their scarcity, so increasing the drop rate of anything instantly makes that item worth less on the TP.
Balancing drop rates of common vs rare items is a difficult task, and this game does it fairly well.
If everyone is given stuff thats worth a lot, then the stuff is instantly worthless.

Abakk.9176:

I think the way this game handles the income of raw materials through salvageable drops and gathered resources is brilliant.

I am always exited with bags full of salvageable goods. And the vendor trash with the odd 30 silver baubles is fine as well. I tend to save em as long as possible and then sell all of em in one fel swoop

This is honestly something I’ve only recently discovered even after starting the game near launch with several breaks in between. Most of the time, I just play the game and have fun. Sometimes the activities I participate in can net me some interesting rewards and sometimes gambling pays off (only got 1 precursor from the forge using rares) but what I really had to discover was just how much the junk I have collected can be worth and what I can put it toward to get interesting stuff. For instance, I just recently rolled up a Guardian (said I wouldn’t until they release a new race but I was bored) and decided to get him Foefire’s Essense as his “signature thing” and I already had 3/4 of the stuff for it in my bank and didn’t even know it (of course, I didn’t have the leather tho). That’s a skin worth 700 gold and I still have lots of other junk I could probably sell and/or make into something worthwhile.

But I suppose if you’re a person who has played the game extensively and you have lots of goodies, trinkets and skins, perhaps the loot tables are pretty sparce for interesting things to aim for. I considered, once upon a time, a kind of customizable loot table that you can fix (perhaps on a per-week basis) to drop more of what you want/need. If too many people fix their loot tables to be similar, there might be shortages for other things (like if everyone changed their loot table to max leather, for instance, ore might start to become super rare or valuable). But that’s more a market type of suggestion. With the pact supply line deal going, you have somewhat control over certain loot although you are obligated to participate in certain maps…

The problem is that taking skins earmarked for revenue production and using them as in-game rewards cannot help but have an impact on revenue. Low drop rates will not ameliorate the revenue loss unless the only people who’d try to farm them are those who would never buy them. That seems highly unlikely.

BL weapon skins are sold on the TP. Sure, there are players who will only go for such skins by buying off the TP. However, the people selling the skins on the TP are buying keys. If they are spending gold rather than cash, well, someone is spending cash and exchanging for gold. A reduction in demand for the skins would tend to reduce TP prices, making the whole process less attractive to everyone involved.

It’s too bad, really. I’d like to see more good-looking weapon skins as in-game drops. The in-game weapon skins ANet has produced over the last few years have been, with a few exceptions, unappealing.

There are many weapons in the game for which there are no skins at all.
eg Engineers Flame Throwers,Elixir gun, Mortar.
Im not that familiar with the other classes so there may be more, but Id pay heaps for skins for the above, even if they are only available from the gem store.

mauried.5608:

There are many weapons in the game for which there are no skins at all.
eg Engineers Flame Throwers,Elixir gun, Mortar.
Im not that familiar with the other classes so there may be more, but Id pay heaps for skins for the above, even if they are only available from the gem store.

Well those are not weapons but enginer kit skills.

the problem is in this game it is too easy to get stat capped
once you are full ascended with infusions its all about the skins

if the game had further stat improvements to ascended gear which came exclusively from drops then maybe drops would get more exciting. but I dont even need to say how opposed to this sort of idea everyone in the game is

right now for me the only “exciting” drops are black lion key and a precursor. i dont even care about ascended boxes anymore just because i have plenty of sets and spare boxes in my bank.

thats a big reason why i mostly play wvw now, because everything else feels pointless.