Guild Wars 2

A lot of PvE players in Guild wars 2 feel like the only thing that matters is Gold. Gold can be traded in the gem shop for transmutation crystals and new skins. You need Gold to level crafting to get ascended gear, etc.

My solution to this problem is to add more Soulbound/Account-bound rewards that cannot be bought on TP with gold. (a.ka. they are RNG drops).

Of course, we already have Soulbound/Account-Bound rewards in the form of Dungeon Armor, Mystic-Forge crafts, and Cultural armor.

• The problem with Cultural Armor is that it is bought with Gold (more of the “gold is the only thing that matters” mentality).

• The problem with Dungeon Armor and Mystic-Forge crafts is the time-frame it takes to get these items. When the game launched it might have taken a while to get a dungeon armor-set, but now that everyone knows the dungeons you can get dungeon armor in about two weeks.

• Mystic Forge gear, on the other hand, takes too long to get. If I played 2-3 hours a day it would take me 4-6 weeks to make the money to craft a skin in the mystic forge (and it’s more of the “gold is the only thing that matters” mentality").

My solution is to add new Soulbound/Account-bound rewards that take an “in-between” time to get. I was thinking maybe new Cultural or Class-based skins that are traded for “gift-boxes” that drop from specific events or types of content (like dungeons, fractals, or even daily activities).

This could be a method to filter people a way from gold farming by giving them a goal they cannot buy with gold. We wouldn’t feel like we have to solely focus on gold in order to progress our characters.

I was thinking maybe they could add a new armor set for each Class, and two new Cutural sets for each armor class. Once you loot a “gift box” you could take it to your race’s home-city and trade it for the skin you want.
It would take 4-6 weeks to complete a set, but it wouldn’t seems as long as a Mystic Forge skin because you’re getting it in pieces rather than all at once.

EDIT: In retrospect, this whole write up now seems pointless because this is essentially what Karma could be. Too bad they don’t have more cool things to purchase with it. And generally, things that get you Gold also earn Karma so you still have the “Gold = Everything” problem.

Like or Dislike? What’s your solution to this problem?

Gold being useable for everything is one of the positive aspects of this game. Its what mostly keeps it from benefiting only gemstore users, because even gemstore items can be bought with gold, and the trading post keeps gold having real value, so it is not simply forgotten like the main currency in some other games. In fact, I would say that Soulbound and Account bound are more of a poison than anything.

Hannelore.8153:

Gold being useable for everything is one of the positive aspects of this game. Its what mostly keeps it from benefiting only gemstore users, because even gemstore items can be bought with gold, and the trading post keeps gold having real value, so it is not simply forgotten like the main currency in some other games. In fact, I would say that Soulbound and Account bound are more of a poison than anything.

Oh, I agree about its positive aspects. I’m not suggesting removing the emphasis of gold. I’m simply suggesting adding some rewards that are not linked to gold. When almost every reward in the game can be purchased with gold you farmed from champions, world-bosses, or dungeons it creates a mentality in PvE where farming gold is the only thing that matters.

While I agree, you are unlikely to get any traction on this. As stated the ability to not have “soulbound” items was a big selling point and seems to be one of the core ideas in this game.

The ability to buy anything with gold, combined with the fact that anyone can buy gems and convert it to gold cheapens the prestige of almost every single item.

I’ll have to agree with you OP. I wrote a post about this a week ago, to no avail. My solution was to make gold accountbound, useable in NPC shops only. I guess your approach is less radical and better overall, though it would require Anet to add a large chunk of new content for it first, which is rather questionable.

You cant buy top level rings earrings and neck items with gold. Gold should be important in an mmorpg or you will get something like what happen in GW1 where gold was pointless it was ecto that where used to buy things.
That and mmorpgs that you pay a fee for there “gold” is the most important thing you could get in there games.

The last few updates include more grind for account bound crafting components such as empyreal and dragonite. That’s loot that can’t be bought from the trading post. If that’s what you’re wanting then there will unfortunately be more of that to come.

I would not mind gold so much, if the karma armors from the Orr temples were as flexible to set up as the dungeon armors.

Dungeon armors come in 3 different stat sets, but all share the rune of that dungeon.

Karma armor come in a fixed mix of 3 stat sets pr temple, so if you want the same rune but a different stat combination you need a stack of transmutation crystals.

End result is that you can’t experiment as much with karma armor as you can with dungeon armors or piles of gold (and running dungeons are a good way to get both armor tokens and gold).

Wait. Let me get this straight. You guys are complaining that the Copper Coin, Silver Coin, and Gold Coin we can earn, are being used as currency? Not only do I think you guys are of of your rocker, it appears your attempting to out smart, common sense.

We already have a plethora of gear, weapons, trinkets, armor, and other items that cannot be acquired with gold.

Jski.6180:

Gold should be important in an mmorpg or you will get something like what happen in GW1 where gold was pointless it was ecto that where used to buy things.

As far as I know, that only happened because there was a limit to how much money you could carry in your inventory/bank, so people started using ectos as a form of currency to get pass the “wealth ceiling”.

I have never liked RNG.

I would much rather be able to craft or buy stuff that I want. I don’t mind dungeon tokens because you can figure out how many runs you need to get what you want from that selection.

Currency driven gameplay is indeed part of the problem. Farming a currency and then buying something is simply boring while farming for the item you want is more fun.

Lets take mini’s for example. Who still cares about them? They are just some gem-store items. It would be way more fun if they could drop from specific dungeons and mobs and so on. It would make farming them more fun and would be a better reason to get your stuff. Now you farm gold and buy them. That is boring.

Of course it also has to do with the fact that Anet wants to sell gems and when gold is worth a lot there is more reason for people to buy gems.

some people may say they don’t like that because they prefer farming gold or they don’t like to need to do one specific dungeon to get that one mini for example. However when the drops are non account-bound (and while a few special should be, most should not be) then those people are still able to buy them with gold. The difference is that then people have an option while now everybody is forced to do it the more boring gold grind way.

It’s related to the micro transaction focus to generate income (in stead of expansion based focus). I mentioned that in multiple threads and this is one of those examples a micro-transaction focus results in. It’s just bad for the game.

Hannelore.8153:

Gold being useable for everything is one of the positive aspects of this game. Its what mostly keeps it from benefiting only gemstore users, because even gemstore items can be bought with gold, and the trading post keeps gold having real value, so it is not simply forgotten like the main currency in some other games. In fact, I would say that Soulbound and Account bound are more of a poison than anything.

Gold being usable for almost anything is 1 thing. Gold being required (in stead of having a real option to farm for the items / material itself) it yet a total other thing.

Devata.6589:

Currency driven gameplay is indeed part of the problem. Farming a currency and then buying something is simply boring while farming for the item you want is more fun.

No it is not more fun to farm for what I want. I already do that with champs and gold and I can veg and watch TV while I do that. If I have to farm and do a dungeon, I don’t find that fun at all, especially since the PvE in this game sucks.

If we are going to farm for something that is RNG, the person may or may not get what they want in a reasonable amount of time. Doing a quest the first time is fun, maybe a few times after, not after I’ve done it 10 times and all I want is that stupid item that I may get the next run or may take another 100+ runs.

Pandabro.8743:

While I agree, you are unlikely to get any traction on this. As stated the ability to not have “soulbound” items was a big selling point and seems to be one of the core ideas in this game.

I have to agree. I think if ArenaNet wanted more Soulbound/Account-bound skins they would have added them already.

coglin.1867:

Wait. Let me get this straight. You guys are complaining that the Copper Coin, Silver Coin, and Gold Coin we can earn, are being used as currency?

I think you took my post to an extreme. I’m not complaining about gold being a currency, or the existence of the TP. I’m complaining about a lack of rewards not tied to Gold, and rewards tied to Gold (Legendary items, Mystic Forge skins) take too long to get. It would be nice to have rewards in between Dungeon armor and Mystic-Forge skins in terms of how long they take to get.

Stooperdale.3560:

The last few updates include more grind for account bound crafting components such as empyreal and dragonite. That’s loot that can’t be bought from the trading post. If that’s what you’re wanting then there will unfortunately be more of that to come.

Ascended gear still costs money to craft though. Going from 400-500 level crafting costs 180g in crafting materials. So again… more “gold is the only thing that matters” mentality.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

I have never liked RNG.

I would much rather be able to craft or buy stuff that I want. I don’t mind dungeon tokens because you can figure out how many runs you need to get what you want from that selection.

This was along the lines of what I was thinking. Maybe Karma could be traded for unique skins too.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

If we are going to farm for something that is RNG, the person may or may not get what they want in a reasonable amount of time. Doing a quest the first time is fun, maybe a few times after, not after I’ve done it 10 times and all I want is that stupid item that I may get the next run or may take another 100+ runs.

Items that can be bought and sold on the TP have their drop rates balanced around that concept. My vision is to loot a “gift box” you can exchange for the skin you want, and the drop rates would be tuned so that it takes about 6 weeks to get complete the armor set you want.
An alternative way of doing it would be to make the skins bought with Karma. That would eliminate the RNG aspect.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

Devata.6589:

Currency driven gameplay is indeed part of the problem. Farming a currency and then buying something is simply boring while farming for the item you want is more fun.

No it is not more fun to farm for what I want. I already do that with champs and gold and I can veg and watch TV while I do that. If I have to farm and do a dungeon, I don’t find that fun at all, especially since the PvE in this game sucks.
If we are going to farm for something that is RNG, the person may or may not get what they want in a reasonable amount of time. Doing a quest the first time is fun, maybe a few times after, not after I’ve done it 10 times and all I want is that stupid item that I may get the next run or may take another 100+ runs.

Like I already said. Even if it can only drop from one thing that does not mean it has to be account bound so it means if you really don’t want that and you prefer farming champs while watching TV to get gold then you can still do that and then simply buy it with that gold.

So the people who prefer gold farming to buy there stuff can still get most of the stuff and the people who prefer going for the goal itself can do that. Now everybody is forced to go for the boring brainless gold grind.

Because while you might not like to farm for an item, I do not like to farm for gold but want to farm for the item. That simply makes the content more fun for me and many others.

About the RNG. Lets say the drop change is 10% to get that item then you would need to do a specific dungeon a maximum of 10 times (on paper) to get it. Now (with gold farming) you need to do whatever dungeon 10 times to get the required money to buy that item. So that does not change a single thing. The input required is still the same.

Farming for gold usually is also doing something 100+ times, even worse, people will search for the best way to get the gold and do that single thing 100 times (CoF P1 rings a bell).

So the times you need to do something does not change, the repetitiveness does not changes and if you prefer the gold grind option thats also still an option. The only thing that changes is that those who prefer to go for the item itself have the option to do so and so in effect gold != everything anymore because there are then 2 options.. 1 gold or 2 just go for the item you want.

I don’t understand what the issue is. Is it that you want items of varying value? Or is it that you want more RNG? If it’s that you want more RNG, then no, that is a terrible terrible idea. In fact, one of the best features of GW2 is that players are not left at the mercy of RNG. That’s not to say that there is no RNG, but rather, that even with terrible luck with the RNG, players can still get whatever they want. If it’s that you want items of varying value, well, that already exists. Take daggers for example. A quick look at the TP, sorted by price, daggers are available at the following price points:

Spark: 600g
Jormag’s Needle: 55g
Tear of Grenth: 48g
Stinger: 38g
Destroyer Dagger: 28g
Corrupted Shard: 23g
Orrian Dagger: 19g
etc…

The price points are fairly well distributed, and players can choose how rare the items they work towards are.

Also, your math is terrible. a 10% drop rate does not mean it takes at most 10 tries to get something. Take a coin flip for example. That’s a 50% chance. Does that mean if you flip two coins you’re guaranteed to get heads at least once? No. 25% of the time you’ll get tails twice. How does that apply to your 10% drop rate? Well, 10% drop rate means 90% of the time it won’t drop. That means the probability of the item not dropping after 10 rounds is .9^10. That’s 34% of the time. The probability of the item not dropping after 20 rounds is 12%. After 30, 4%. After 50, .5%. Let’s be conservative and say that there are 100,000 people trying to get that item (with over 3.5 million copies sold, this is a very small percentage of the population), 500 of them can be expected to not have gotten the item even after doing the content 50 times.

Finnway.2183:

My solution to this problem is to add more Soulbound/Account-bound rewards that cannot be bought on TP with gold. (a.ka. they are RNG drops).

Get the kitten outta Dodge. Seriously, just go away.

The last thing this game needs is more soulbound, and more RNG.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Finnway.2183:

My solution to this problem is to add more Soulbound/Account-bound rewards that cannot be bought on TP with gold. (a.ka. they are RNG drops).

Get the kitten outta Dodge. Seriously, just go away.

The last thing this game needs is more soulbound, and more RNG.

While I don’t agree on more Soulbound/Account-bound. (I think some of those drops should be soulbound or account-bound but there is already a lot of that so the number should for sure not increase, better it decrease) but the RNG is a whole other story.

Everybody hates the RNG you see in this game. Buying boxes and then have x% change to get something and thats why everybody complains about that but in the end most drops in MMO’s are always RNG. there is nothing wrong with that. So there is RNG and there is RNG. The type of RNG OP is talking about is not bad. It just means you have an option to go for the item you want (you know it can drop from dungeon x) in stead of having to farm dungeons for gold to buy it.

In many of those cases the RNG is now already there but extremely low change yet it can drop from many places. Meaning you can’t really farm for that one item. Instead you need to farm gold to buy it from somebody who was also farming for gold and got the item you want.

Devata.6589:

Currency driven gameplay is indeed part of the problem. Farming a currency and then buying something is simply boring while farming for the item you want is more fun.

Lets take mini’s for example. Who still cares about them? They are just some gem-store items. It would be way more fun if they could drop from specific dungeons and mobs and so on. It would make farming them more fun and would be a better reason to get your stuff. Now you farm gold and buy them. That is boring.

Of course it also has to do with the fact that Anet wants to sell gems and when gold is worth a lot there is more reason for people to buy gems.

some people may say they don’t like that because they prefer farming gold or they don’t like to need to do one specific dungeon to get that one mini for example. However when the drops are non account-bound (and while a few special should be, most should not be) then those people are still able to buy them with gold. The difference is that then people have an option while now everybody is forced to do it the more boring gold grind way.

It’s a problem I takes multiple times about in threads where I talked about how the micro transaction focus to generate income (in stead of expansion based focus) is bad for the game.

Probably the best posting about “money” period. We want rewards, not gold.
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If the “item” we are looking for has an “if/then” times 1000 with permeatations that can be mixed and matched, there would be an uncountable WAY to get each and every item in the game without “gold”.
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Gold is a good thing. What? You just said…. NO, I said IF.
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But what if only certain items were put into this model – things that are not impossible to find but take six to eight months to put “together” from the above model of a very complex “if/then” trail that is so convoluted that it would be rare to see two people following the same path – but it can happen mathematically.
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I don’t know if anyone can see where I am going – that the items we want more than anything are better than what others are willing to go to more FOR. So we need more challenging ways to get TO that “item”, yes it is content but what RICH content for what could be the crowning achievement that any player can accomplish and shows just as much or more than a legendary.
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I have grand ideas for this game – as I know many others do as well..
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The gold is a commodity that is traded for another commodity – all well and good.
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Those of us who need a challenge to find items to put together our ascended items should be given a hearing at Anet. Not jumping puzzles, but intelligent puzzles that have fighting, logic, NO MATH (!), and some choosing that gives us a unique experience while being long enough to warrant the “item’s worth”.
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Anet is doing a good job on the game, now they just need to make it more dimensional and brain-worthy.

I agree that gold>everything else is an issue in this game. I do not agree however the solution to it is to make more binded items.

My main gripe with items is that gold is the only realistic way of getting things. Going out and getting the items ourselves is simply not a realistic option when compared to gold.

If play acquisition were viable then the whole deal with gold goes away.

Essence Snow.3194:

I agree that gold>everything else is an issue in this game. I do not agree however the solution to it is to make more binded items.

When an item can be bought and sold in the Trading Post its drop rates have to be balanced around that concept. If the drop rate is too high then the item becomes too common and the price drops. This means that, no matter the drop rate of an item, it will almost always be cheaper/more time efficient to buy it off the TP than to farm it yourself.

The way around this is to make an item Soulbound/Accountbound and raise the drop rates high enough that you can farm it in a reasonable period of time, OR to make the item tradable for an Accountbound currency, like dungeon tokens or Karma.
This is why I am suggesting making more Accountbound/Soulbound rewards to fix the gold problem this game has.

Almost every LS update comes with an item that can not be bought for gold…

The more things that can be bought for gold, the more chance Anet has of people buying gems to exchange for gold.

Or we can just move completely away from this notion that RNG = Problem solved.

RNG itself is a problem. Give people more options to set goals and have those goals be the deciding factor in getting the rewards. A branching system that says oh your want x item ? Cool go do Y, Z, Q and you’ll have it.

Crafting materials should be account bound.

Sirendor.1394:

I’ll have to agree with you OP. I wrote a post about this a week ago, to no avail. My solution was to make gold accountbound, useable in NPC shops only.

Was this a joke? I will leave the game completely if they implemented this. Everything in the game should be able to be bought by gold. Gold = Universal currency. Remember Anet doesn’t send you gold to your account everyday. You have to earn it. With that said, I don’t support the ability to convert gems to gold a.k.a using real world money to buy ingame gold.

Finnway.2183:

Essence Snow.3194:

I agree that gold>everything else is an issue in this game. I do not agree however the solution to it is to make more binded items.

When an item can be bought and sold in the Trading Post its drop rates have to be balanced around that concept. If the drop rate is too high then the item becomes too common and the price drops. This means that, no matter the drop rate of an item, it will almost always be cheaper/more time efficient to buy it off the TP than to farm it yourself.

No that is not true. When done correctly the gold-price would not be lower, possibly even higher. Lets just take a very basic example. A red mini moa drops from a group of moa’s in a remote area in Brisban Wildlands (game could use some remote area’s but thats another discussion). There are about 25 Moa’s and by running in a circle you can keep killing them. The drop-change is 1/1000 (rares with 1/10.000 should also work). If you really want that mini then farming that area is an option. One in a while you go there and kill moa’s for a while. Eventually you will get the drop. Changes that somebody who is not going for the mini-moa gets it is very slim because he will not be killing moa’s there all the time and thats the only place where they drop. Somebody who likes to farm gold will also not be likely to go there killing one moa after the other for hours and hours hoping to get the mini so he can sell it. He is more likely to go somewhere we he will see more progress when farming gold.

That means that farming the red mini-moa is an real option while the moa that end up on the TB will be extremely low and so there gold-price will be extremely high.

Now this example requires a brainless grind of killing moa’s and that should be one of the ways to get special items but this can be done in many ways. However it proofs that the gold-price does not always has to be lower then the time it would take you to farm the item.

That only happens when you can not specifically go and farm one item (like you could in my red mini moa example) but all such items drop random from some general place / group (like champions) that people will then all farm for the gold. So the way it works now in GW2. Then people don’t get the item they specifically want so you can many items in the TP making the gold-price drop.

TexZero.7910:

Or we can just move completely away from this notion that RNG = Problem solved.

RNG itself is a problem. Give people more options to set goals and have those goals be the deciding factor in getting the rewards. A branching system that says oh your want x item ? Cool go do Y, Z, Q and you’ll have it.

No RNG at all will not be an option but having a branching system for part of the items would indeed work very well. Most MMO’s have that the way you describe it. It are called quest / quest-lines.