Guild Wars 2

The problem with GW2’s loot/reward system and why I’m not happy with it:

The problem is that loot comes in quantity but not in quality. By playing GW2, no matter how I play it, I get a lot of loot and that’s fine if the loot was actually worth something. But the loot in GW2 basically comes down to a whole lot of nothing. And a whole lot of nothing is still nothing.

Sure, you can salvage loot for materials and luck, or you can sell it for a bit of gold. But with the amount of useless loot you get thrown at you by simply casually playing this game you’ll eventually get so much materials that you don’t even know what to do with them other than sell them at the Trading Post. Usually the prices for these materials are super low though and won’t get you a whole lot of gold. At the end of the road after salvaging and selling all your loot, you’ll be left with a very meager amount of gold and maybe a small handful of useful crafting mats.

For me, getting gold isn’t an issue. So I’m not complaining about that. Getting the materials I need isn’t an issue either because I can simply buy everything from the TP, so I’m not complaining about that either.

What I’m complaining about is that this quantity-over-quality loot system feels incredibly unrewarding and if you play a lot it’s actually feels like a burden. It’s not fun. Dealing with all the loot you’ve accumulated is sometimes a long and tiresome process with many mouse clicks involved (it actually gave me RSI at one point). And for what? A few silver, some crafting mats which you already have too much of and some worthless items that you can’t even sell? Not once did I actually get a weapon or item that was actually useful for me. Everthing I need and everything I use is all bought from the TP or crafted using mats that are mostly bought from the TP.

The biggest offenders are bloodstone bricks, dragonite ore and empyreal fragmets. These materials fill up your inventory bags faster than you can blink your eyes and for what? Not even the most dedicated ascended crafter needs that many bloodstone bricks/dragonite ore/emyreal fragments. So these materials are literally just glutter that take up precious inventory space and are of no use at all past a certain point. They only serve as an annoyance. Making these materials sell-able would not fix this problem, but it would still be better than having to ‘rightclick > destroy’ on all of the stacks after every hour or so.

Now with Wintersday it has become even worse…

By doing Wintersday events I get handed out literally hundreds of Wintersday Gifts. You can easily accumulate a full stack of them by playing 1 or 2 hours worth of Wintersdays events. That sounds good right? Well it’s not so good if half of the rewards inside these gifts are useless and the other half can’t be sold. Going through a full stack of Wintersday Gifts and dealing with all the junk that comes out of them by having to ‘rightclick > destroy’ on all of it (because I can’t even sell it to a vendor or on the TP) is not fun.

It has become so bad that I rather just sell my Wintersday Gifts on the TP and let some other poor sodd open them and deal with the junk that comes out of them. The money that I get from selling the Wintersday Gifts, as little as it is, actually feels more rewarding.

When selling presents feels more rewarding than opening them you know that something is not right.

Conclusion + Possible Solution:

So basically, what all this comes down to, is quality versus quantity. I would love to see a lower quantity of loot and a higher quality of loot. Give us less loot, but make the loot better or more interesting, for example items with unique skins or new armors specifically designed after certain world bosses, which can then only be obtained by defeating that world boss multiple times, or something along those lines.
The same thing could be done with Wintersday. Instead of making that cool new winter outfit a gemstore thing, why not turn it into an actual armor set and put the different armor pieces in the gift boxes? Or design another winter-themed armor set for heavy, medium and light, put them in the gift boxes and allow players to either use, salvage, sell or trade them so they can collect all the pieces of each set through opening a ton of gifts or simply trading duplicate skins with other players.

But I don’t know, maybe I’m the only person who feels this way. Or not? Does anyone else feel this way? And if so, what does Anet have to say about it?

Little long, read most…

I’ve gotta disagree.
I love the quality of loot I get. I’m a pretty casual player, but when I get loot it’s always pretty fulfilling.
And I sell my excess materials for a good chunk of change whenever I sell them. I’ve played for a few hours since the patch came out and did not receive ‘hundreds’ of Wintersday gifts. Not even close to that. But I also haven’t just done Wintersday activities. Think maybe you’re playing too much? Or incorrectly?

It’s a psychological trick that casinos in Vegas use. You get a bunch of flashing lights and beeping sounds to trick your senses into thinking that you’re getting something when you pull that slot handle.

There’s a post on reddit about the absurdity of the current state of GW2 looting with respect to mouse clicks. You open a bouncy chest to get a container to open the container to get a bag to open the bag to get and item that you’ll either end up salvaging or selling.

Atlas Tsahalla.2456:

Little long, read most…

I’ve gotta disagree.
I love the quality of loot I get. I’m a pretty casual player, but when I get loot it’s always pretty fulfilling.
And I sell my excess materials for a good chunk of change whenever I sell them. I’ve played for a few hours since the patch came out and did not receive ‘hundreds’ of Wintersday gifts. Not even close to that. But I also haven’t just done Wintersday activities. Think maybe you’re playing too much? Or incorrectly?

What exactly did you receive as loot that was actually useful and fulfilling to you? I’m curious, because all I got from my Wintersday Gifts are a ton of the same tonics (which most of them can’t be sold), a ton of the same toy weapon skins (I already had all those skins unlocked after opening merely +/- 50 gift boxes) and a ton of runes and sigils with absolutely horrible stats (you can buy better runes/sigils on the TP for just a handful of silver, so they’re really useless).

Am I playing too much? No, I’m not playing too much. I said I played for merely 2 hours in DR doing the Wintersday activities. Not that it matters.

Playing incorrectly? Because I get way more gift boxes than you? Euhm, what kind of reality do you live in where getting more rewards = “playing incorrectly”? Maybe you’re the one “playing incorrectly”? Anyway, I’m just casually doing all the events that Wintersday has to offer me. Not sure what’s “incorrectly” about that.

what rewards are you exactly looking for. You want Anet to throw 100 stacks of ascended zojja gear at you? Or thousands of skins which is already in the game?

Every single loot in the game is material for ascended armor or legendary weapon or upgrade component.

America.9437:

It’s a psychological trick that casinos in Vegas use. You get a bunch of flashing lights and beeping sounds to trick your senses into thinking that you’re getting something when you pull that slot handle.

There’s a post on reddit about the absurdity of the current state of GW2 looting with respect to mouse clicks. You open a bouncy chest to get a container to open the container to get a bag to open the bag to get and item that you’ll either end up salvaging or selling.

Yeah, you’re right. It’s so bad that playing GW2 actually gave me RSI simply from dealing with the loot that I accumulated through just casually playing the game. I’m not even kidding.

And before people say “you probably play too much”. I play 3 hours a day on average. Is that really too much? I’ve played many MMOs in my life. Some of them I’ve played both more and longer than GW2 but none of them gave me RSI.

The RSI I got from GW2 is not even from doing long raids or defeating difficult bosses (GW2 doesn’t have any of that). No, I got RSI from the ridiculous loot system…

Atlas Tsahalla.2456:

Little long, read most…

I’ve gotta disagree.
I love the quality of loot I get. I’m a pretty casual player, but when I get loot it’s always pretty fulfilling.
And I sell my excess materials for a good chunk of change whenever I sell them. I’ve played for a few hours since the patch came out and did not receive ‘hundreds’ of Wintersday gifts. Not even close to that. But I also haven’t just done Wintersday activities. Think maybe you’re playing too much? Or incorrectly?

Really you love getting blues and greens all the time (non t6 mats)? That’s rather in-comprehensive, and I want to -1 you for that. Also, there is no correct or incorrect way of playing, you just play.

Nonetheless, the system is meant to be that harsh even though we do not like it, and for a specific reason and it’s that if the loot was favorable to everyone in the game, then there would be less value on items that currently have high value. In fact, loot is only a factor of what makes gold for the player, the real source of wealth comes from being an experienced economist in the game while at the same time playing the game itself.

Yeah wintersday stuff is incredibly useless. I asked people in my guild if it was just me but everyone seemed to be of the same opinion: loot from Xmas bags is utter trash.

Rest of the game is fine though imho.

laokoko.7403:

what rewards are you exactly looking for. You want Anet to throw 100 stacks of ascended zojja gear at you? Or thousands of skins which is already in the game?

Every single loot in the game is material for ascended armor or legendary weapon or upgrade component.

No, that’s not what I want. What I want is already described at the end of my OP.

And no, not every single loot in the game is material for ascended armor, legendary weapons or upgrade components. That’s not even remotely true.

Lukyromero.6780:

In fact, loot is only a factor of what makes gold for the player, the real source of wealth comes from being an experienced economist in the game while at the same time playing the game itself.

Yeah, that’s another problem that I have.

Most of my income comes from dungeon speed clears and TP flipping. The loot I get from simply playing the game adds almost nothing to my fortune. It’s just there to annoy me and give me RSI. What’s the fun in that?

Sounds like there’s more problem with you than with the game. If you have an issue deleting excess bloodstone dust, that’s on you. If you’re not having fun, you’re wasting time playing at all, and that’s on you. It’s easy to find things you don’t like with the game if you’re trying to.

I’ll admit the tonics and weapon skins are pretty useless, all they do is take up space.

I just farm the gifts and sell them whole. It makes a decent profit, since there’s really nothing to special about the loot inside of them.

But over all, I don’t mind the loot quantity vs quality they have in Guild Wars 2. When I pick up trash, I throw them into the toilet for a chance of something better.

If I want quality loot, I farm dungeons for dungeon gear or fractals for their higher chance of ascended loot.

If your asking for new gear, there’s the living world story you can do for its new armor. And the Anet team seems to be coming out with new outfits ever month or so.

It just sounds like you’re dissatisfied with the RNG system, but every MMO I’ve ever played used a similar RNG system.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with the system Guild Wars 2 has now, but the actual obtainable rewards themselves for the Winters’ Day festival aren’t that great. What is there? A new mini, new title and a bunch of old rewards from the previous Winter’s Days (which isn’t so bad for the new players just started playing and for old players that didn’t get them last year)

Winters’ Day is one of those repeatable content that’s for new players that haven’t experienced them before and for old players that missed out on them. I mean SAB and Mad King’s Festival are also content that they reuse from time to time. Its not something you should get angry about, it gives developers time to work on new content (have a little faith, LWS 2 has blown my mind compared to LWS 1, it gives me hope)

LucosTheDutch.4819:

What exactly did you receive as loot that was actually useful and fulfilling to you? I’m curious, because all I got from my Wintersday Gifts are a ton of the same tonics (which most of them can’t be sold), a ton of the same toy weapon skins (I already had all those skins unlocked after opening merely +/- 50 gift boxes) and a ton of runes and sigils with absolutely horrible stats (you can buy better runes/sigils on the TP for just a handful of silver, so they’re really useless).

Am I playing too much? No, I’m not playing too much. I said I played for merely 2 hours in DR doing the Wintersday activities. Not that it matters.

Playing incorrectly? Because I get way more gift boxes than you? Euhm, what kind of reality do you live in where getting more rewards = “playing incorrectly”? Maybe you’re the one “playing incorrectly”? Anyway, I’m just casually doing all the events that Wintersday has to offer me. Not sure what’s “incorrectly” about that.

Well, the whole experience really. It’s Wintersday – presents and the meaning of Christmas and whatnot :/ I didn’t get any super weapons, but I do enjoy just receiving loot. I don’t have to have my mind blown in order to enjoy the loot I receive.

And my mistake, I just thought since you were receiving so many gift boxes maybe you needed to take a break..?
Also, please forgive me: by playing incorrectly I simply mean: Don’t forget it’s a game. Along the same lines of playing too much; go enjoy it for what it is, then relax. But I understand you’re already doing this, so well done. One thing you could try, in this mmo-RPG, is Role Playing. It might help take your mind off loot, that way, when you’ve RPG’d your heart out, you can return to looting and it might mean more to you

Andred.1087:

Sounds like there’s more problem with you than with the game. If you have an issue deleting excess bloodstone dust, that’s on you. If you’re not having fun, you’re wasting time playing at all, and that’s on you. It’s easy to find things you don’t like with the game if you’re trying to.

Did you even read my posts? I’m not complaining about GW2 as a whole, I’m complaining about only 1 certain aspect of the game (the loot). So your “advice” of me just stop playing GW2 doesn’t really apply here.

If there are more people like me, then it’s clearly not my problem, it’s Anet’s problem. If I am indeed the one of the few people who feels this way then it probably is my problem. But that’s why I made this topic, to put my thoughts on paper and see if other people feel the same way. If they do then maybe Anet can do something about it. It’s called discussion and giving constructive feedback.

If the options are either 1) me giving feedback on the forum 2) me stop playing GW2, I’m sure Anet will want me to choose option 1 and not option 2.

So please, stop saying “just stop playing the game” because it’s the dumbest advice I frequently see from fanboys on this forum.

Lukyromero.6780:

Really you love getting blues and greens all the time (non t6 mats)? That’s rather in-comprehensive, and I want to -1 you for that. Also, there is no correct or incorrect way of playing, you just play.

Well, yes actually. I do. I don’t think I could tell you what t6 mats even were.

At the moment, I’m fascinated with the Mystic Forge, and so every blue and green I get goes right in there. Or to one of my lower levels, but usually I throw them right into the fountain in Lion’s Arch.

I negative-one you for negative-one’ing me sir/ma’am. En garde.

Atlas Tsahalla.2456:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

What exactly did you receive as loot that was actually useful and fulfilling to you? I’m curious, because all I got from my Wintersday Gifts are a ton of the same tonics (which most of them can’t be sold), a ton of the same toy weapon skins (I already had all those skins unlocked after opening merely +/- 50 gift boxes) and a ton of runes and sigils with absolutely horrible stats (you can buy better runes/sigils on the TP for just a handful of silver, so they’re really useless).

Am I playing too much? No, I’m not playing too much. I said I played for merely 2 hours in DR doing the Wintersday activities. Not that it matters.

Playing incorrectly? Because I get way more gift boxes than you? Euhm, what kind of reality do you live in where getting more rewards = “playing incorrectly”? Maybe you’re the one “playing incorrectly”? Anyway, I’m just casually doing all the events that Wintersday has to offer me. Not sure what’s “incorrectly” about that.

Well, the whole experience really. It’s Wintersday – presents and the meaning of Christmas and whatnot :/ I didn’t get any super weapons, but I do enjoy just receiving loot. I don’t have to have my mind blown in order to enjoy the loot I receive.

And my mistake, I just thought since you were receiving so many gift boxes maybe you needed to take a break..?
Also, please forgive me: by playing incorrectly I simply mean: Don’t forget it’s a game. Along the same lines of playing too much; go enjoy it for what it is, then relax. But I understand you’re already doing this, so well done. One thing you could try, in this mmo-RPG, is Role Playing. It might help take your mind off loot, that way, when you’ve RPG’d your heart out, you can return to looting and it might mean more to you

What? That doesn’t even remotely make sense, do you just play this game to chat with strangers and npcs? and run around in circles in a city?

Atlas Tsahalla.2456:

Well, the whole experience really. It’s Wintersday – presents and the meaning of Christmas and whatnot :/ I didn’t get any super weapons, but I do enjoy just receiving loot. I don’t have to have my mind blown in order to enjoy the loot I receive.

That’s cool that you enjoy receiving loot, but what’s the point in receiving loot when that loot literally has no value after a certain point (and that point is reached rather quickly and easily, especially with the content of the Wintersday Gift boxes). At that point loot just becomes an annoyance.

I like getting a lot of gifts, but not if 90% of those gifts contain worthless trash. If the choice is between getting a lot of trash or getting nothing at all, I choose getting nothing at all (e.g. I just sell the Wintersday Gifts). That experience, that’s probably not what Anet intended, or is it?

Atlas Tsahalla.2456:

And my mistake, I just thought since you were receiving so many gift boxes maybe you needed to take a break..?
Also, please forgive me: by playing incorrectly I simply mean: Don’t forget it’s a game. Along the same lines of playing too much; go enjoy it for what it is, then relax. But I understand you’re already doing this, so well done. One thing you could try, in this mmo-RPG, is Role Playing. It might help take your mind off loot, that way, when you’ve RPG’d your heart out, you can return to looting and it might mean more to you

I know it’s an RPG. Loot is a very important part of the RPG genre. It’s not something you can just choose to “not focus on”. No matter what you do in GW2, you’re going to receive (useless) loot in and it’s something you’re gonna have to deal with sooner or later (when your inventory is full).

It doesn’t matter how you play the game or how much you play the game, worthless loot = worthless loot. It’s never going to get more meaningful, only less meaningful once you progress further in the game.

Therefor I wish Anet would improve their loot system. Maybe take a good look at how other MMOs do the looting and try to take some ideas from those MMOs?

I had to make a new toon with my last character slot and equip it with 9g worth of 18-slot bags just to hold all the junk the xmas event has given me alone. I agree with OP that at least the holiday event creates wayyy too much cluster in inventory. I’m not going to go as far as to say it’s designed that way to make the option of buying more bag slots for real money more desirable, but at times it does feel like Anet always has the gem shop in mind as of late.

Just look at the new dailies for example; some of the PvP dailies require you to be on a specific class (win 1 match on engineer). Well, you only get 5 character slots, so if you want to be able to do all your PvP dailies every day, you essentially HAVE to drop 200+gold or ~$20-30 on gems to buy 3 more character slots to have 1 of each class.

It’s not game-breaking or anything, but it does take away from the holiday event itself when every 20-30 minutes I have to do a complete inventory cleanup due to all the junk those presents give you.

Atlas Tsahalla.2456:

Think maybe you’re playing too much?

If that’s the case, than it was a pretty bad decision to make the loot feel terrible for the people who play the game a lot.

Or incorrectly?

I love the logic behind your statement. He isn’t enjoying the game as much as me, so he must be doing something wrong.

Dabis.6240:

I had to make a new toon with my last character slot and equip it with 9g worth of 18-slot bags just to hold all the junk the xmas event has given me alone. I agree with OP that at least the holiday event creates wayyy too much cluster in inventory. I’m not going to go as far as to say it’s designed that way to make the option of buying more bag slots for real money more desirable, but at times it does feel like Anet always has the gem shop in mind as of late.

Just look at the new dailies for example; some of the PvP dailies require you to be on a specific class (win 1 match on engineer). Well, you only get 5 character slots, so if you want to be able to do all your PvP dailies every day, you essentially HAVE to drop 200+gold or ~$20-30 on gems to buy 3 more character slots to have 1 of each class.

It’s not game-breaking or anything, but it does take away from the holiday event itself when every 20-30 minutes I have to do a complete inventory cleanup due to all the junk those presents give you.

well , not rly , you only need to buy one character slot , if you dont have any left, and then create the class needed for daily , go to pvp ,do daily , delete charater and repeate next day
you know lvl 1 is more then enough for pvp, thats why you can create and delete a charater every day

Morsus.5106:

Or incorrectly?

I love the logic behind your statement. He isn’t enjoying the game as much as me, so he must be doing something wrong.

Oh no, not at all. What I mean to say is…well, imagine a CoD fanboy that gets upset and throws his controller whenever he can’t “360 no scope”. Is it the games fault? Or is he putting a little too much emotion into the wrong aspect of the game, and not enough into the game itself?

Is the game being played incorrectly when someone no longer sees enjoyment in the simple things that make the game fun? Is loot the only reason they’re playing?

So I don’t say “Are they playing incorrectly?” because I’m enjoying it and they aren’t; I’m asking if they’ve lost site of the game itself, and are focusing on things that are trivial. Of course they can still be having fun, getting enjoyment out of it.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

laokoko.7403:

what rewards are you exactly looking for. You want Anet to throw 100 stacks of ascended zojja gear at you? Or thousands of skins which is already in the game?

Every single loot in the game is material for ascended armor or legendary weapon or upgrade component.

No, that’s not what I want. What I want is already described at the end of my OP.

And no, not every single loot in the game is material for ascended armor, legendary weapons or upgrade components. That’s not even remotely true.

you want for example, “ascended armor to take 10 times less silk, but there are 10 times less cloth, or gree/blue cloth armor to drop?”.

Or do you mean, you just want to get loot more easily, because as far as I can tell things like world boss dropping skins is already there. But the drop rate is so low, the average players might take month if not years to get say teq, or wurm gear. Fractal skins isn’t so bad to get a few piece, but once you get a few, it become harder and harder to get new one etc.

almost every single loot is just money in this game which take you a bit closer to ascended armor or skins you want.

The game is already spaming us with skins, just all the easy one people dont’ really care.