Guild Wars 2

I’m no expert on this at all, let me get that out there first. I’m not all-knowledgable on everything Anet does or the community knows, but I do read the forums alot, and you guessed it, I just read about how much the general forum-posters think anet is doing wrong.

So what would you do? For example, loot. People hated that in most mmo’s you had to compete for loot with others who also hit the mob/resource node. This made most optimal gear tedious to get for your character, but made crafting profitable since the nodes were contested, and made things more valuable on the trading posts, since there were fewer of them. In GW2, they’ve made it possible for everyone to get the loot and resources hassle and conflict free, however that makes crafting just a levelling tool, unprofitable and makes it incredibly simple and cheap to outfit your character with exotic gear at lvl 80. So what would you do to fix both problems?

Or as another example, dungeon/dragon rewards/precursors. People are complaining that there are too few rare rewards in this game that you can go into LA, link into the chat and have a couple hundred players either be immediately instilled with jealousy or grovelling to kiss your feet (Slight use of exaggeration, but you get my point). But what would you want as a method for rare gear to be introduced in the optimal manner to obtain? Nobody likes RNG, rare 0.0000005% drops from stupidly easy or difficult bosses, because people want to know that for each hour or two they put into the game they are making tangible progress in their pursuit for the thing they want. Nobody likes grinding for tokens either however, they just see it as a repetitive waste of time doing the same achievement over and over again, they want a one time thing to have an epic reward, and be tangibly progressive. However, that leaves us with scavenger hunts/super tough boss battles/one time events that the player has to complete only once or twice to obtain their “Epic” piece of equipment… but that defeats the point, since if it’s just one thing that people have to do, no matter how long it is, people are going to find the optimal or easiest and fastest way to finish that objective, and sooner or later you’ll see everyone running around with epic gear, making them lose their epic feel.
So, as a community, what are your thoughts on how Anet could make rare gear and loot acquisition a fun, progressive, non-gambling yet intensely challenging and truly “Legendary” experience that won’t be immediately exploited and achieved by those with 100000000000 gold?

Share your thoughts please in a structured and constructive manner.

You do realize that the argument you’re presenting as a question is based on the vocal opinion of a few?

There’s currently nothing wrong with loot distribution, crafting, or having fun. Everything is perfect the way it is. I’m having a blast with all the challenging content, as will protest heavily against any type of nerf or easing of restrictions on certain types of content.

And of course all this is based on my own opinion.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

There’s currently nothing wrong with loot distribution

xD

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

There’s currently nothing wrong with loot distribution

xD

Just to clarify. RNG for loot distribution makes it fair for everyone, since each and every player has the same base percentage chance to get something. In other words, RNG makes the game balanced.

I see no problems with loot in this game. I don’t want them wasting time on an imaginary problem.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

There’s currently nothing wrong with loot distribution

xD

Just to clarify. RNG for loot distribution makes it fair for everyone, since each and every player has the same base percentage chance to get something. In other words, RNG makes the game balanced.

i’m going to have to agree with Waar on this one.

XD

RNG has the same argument as gambling, yes it has it’s merits, but it’s still gambling. People don’t like it when they waste their time, money and effort on something that potentially may never occur for them. I’m sure we all can agree on the fact that we’d prefer to be able to measure our progress as opposed to just throwing our offerings to the RNG gods, but then the issues I highlighted above come into play. So, what do you guys think would solve it?

Saviourslave.6715:

RNG has the same argument as gambling, yes it has it’s merits, but it’s still gambling. People don’t like it when they waste their time, money and effort on something that potentially may never occur for them. I’m sure we all can agree on the fact that we’d prefer to be able to measure our progress as opposed to just throwing our offerings to the RNG gods, but then the issues I highlighted above come into play. So, what do you guys think would solve it?

RNG is not gambling. Just an FYI for you. It means *R*andom *N*umber *G*enerator.

One of the things I really appreciate about this game is that you don’t have to compete against other players in PvE to the extent that you do in some other games:

Crafting: the “Nodes for All” philosophy is great since we don’t have to compete against each other for most resources, and while it probably does contribute to the weak crafting market, so does being able to level easily via crafting and the fact that you can switch your crafts around without losing acquired crafting experience and recipes. IMO, if they substantially cut down the amount of EXP you get from crafting, there would be far less people who’d be compelled to do it. This would make the dedicated crafters happy – less competition – but would probably upset a much larger group who likes to level their toons this way.

Loot: if I had to choose between the drop RNG in GW2 and the somewhat more rewarding RNG plus group loot rolls that lots of other MMOs have, I’d gladly stick with what we have now.

Well let me stop you right there and say, no they didn’t make it hassle free in this game. First, they messed with the drop rates and originally many people discovered thru their everyday dealings with the game that suddenly only certain players were getting everything while others who had a general hold on great drops were getting nothing. That I would say is a big fallacy right there. Then came DR which cuts you off artificially from actually getting higher end loot from mobs. Blaming it on the bots (which we haven’t seen in about a year coming up in a couple of months according to the posts talking about how they are gone in the forums) it went against everything other mmo’s have already experienced. History shows us that every small time mmo that’s used DR on loot has crashed and burned losing almost all of their players overnight, and those larger ones that were sub based lost most of their customers and were forced to instantly work on removing DR and finding better ways of eliminating the bots and gold sellers.

So please don’t give the naysayers anymore fuel this game’s loot is far from typical.

Now with that in mind, I’d say they did great with the handling of the nodes and with the system they use for how loot drops per person in a group. There are no rolls to see who gets what and that eliminates alot of the problems, they also made it so that drops aren’t necessary from bosses alone, they started off the game great with exotics sold by npcs for karma that you had to work together to even get to in the beginning this prevented people from having to run dungeons a million times for a single piece to drop or worry about gear thieves who ran off with pieces their class couldn’t even use.

I’d say that two major things they could do to improve the overall game is eliminate RNG entirely and remove DR from the open world. That would be the best things because they’ve already established a system that takes a while to build to get the better drops from mobs on their newest version of the magic find, and eliminating RNG would allow a much easier better time in the mystic forge for creating items from certain quality items (which they already control without it coming out with duds, especially when trying to create precursors), DR could be eliminated because it’s no longer necessary since the bots have resorted to gathering from nodes for their money because rare and exotic drops actually don’t produce that much gold now.

tigirius.9014:

I’d say that two major things they could do to improve the overall game is eliminate RNG entirely and remove DR from the open world.

I will now address the problems with your idea.

1) Eliminating RNG means you also eliminate the rarity system. This kill the game, as once you provide a guaranteed way to get something, there’s no further need to do the content over. Then a short while later, all players will have the same items, and completely run out of things to do.

2) Removing DR hurts the economy. Certain players would benefit from continuous runs, allowing them unlimited income potential. Other players with limited time can’t complete, thus a huge wealth gap is created. The players that can afford to play more will have more available money, and will then control the Open Market. Inflation will be rapid, and all casual type players will hurt more.

Both these ideas are bad for the game, and will never happen.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

tigirius.9014:

I’d say that two major things they could do to improve the overall game is eliminate RNG entirely and remove DR from the open world.

I will now address the problems with your idea.

1) Eliminating RNG means you also eliminate the rarity system. This kill the game, as once you provide a guaranteed way to get something, there’s no further need to do the content over. Then a short while later, all players will have the same items, and completely run out of things to do.

2) Removing DR hurts the economy. Certain players would benefit from continuous runs, allowing them unlimited income potential. Other players with limited time can’t complete, thus a huge wealth gap is created. The players that can afford to play more will have more available money, and will then control the Open Market. Inflation will be rapid, and all casual type players will hurt more.

Both these ideas are bad for the game, and will never happen.

Why would I want to be forced to do content again? Secondly, nothing in this game requires tons of gold.

Saviourslave.6715:

I’m no expert on this at all, let me get that out there first. I’m not all-knowledgable on everything Anet does or the community knows, but I do read the forums alot, and you guessed it, I just read about how much the general forum-posters think anet is doing wrong.

~

When I complain about something I usually also say how I think it should be but to answer your questions fast.

Craft. I want fun crafts that get you a fun nice thing every level so you are working towards that all the time in stead of just going for the max level because only then it because useful or fun. At the same time crafting can send you all over the world by putting special recipes and so on after quest (addition of traditional quest) or in dungeons and so on.

Farming. You should be able to farm the stuff you need, not need to do a lot of stuff you don’t want to get gold to then buy what you need / want. That is boring. Now it’s to gold-driven.

Loot. Same, I want items to drop that I want not gold or other currency that allow me to buy it. Thats just not fun.

Open word bosses can not be hard because there will be always people who don;t know what they are doing and they can mess it up for the whole group (see Tequatl). But easy bosses are boring so in addition to that they should add raids with really hard bosses that require tactics. Because you are with a raid you can do those thinks.

Dungeons need to be rewarding (in gold but also in drops like skins, armor, mini’s or mounts) they might be hard but not to long (like Arah or the new dungeon). MF was a good example. Not to long, rewarding and required tactics.

I would like to see traditional quest added.

I want Anet to focus on expansions for income so there is no need to put hair in the gem-sotre but we can get a barber in-game and there is no need for temporary stuff to create a feeling of urgency.

I would want an open world in stead of instance maps.

I would add mounts and remove many of the waypoints, and poi’s.

Open world housing.

Fractions

open world WvW with guild castles and so on.

That are so some of the thinks.

And for the people who think.. much of that has nothing to do with how Anet could make rare gear and loot acquisition. It does. Part of it is new loot (like mounds). Quest can send you on an journey over the world and then give a reward, Open world WvW with guild castles means there are ‘castles’ as a reward and you need material you can gather with a whole guild and so on. It all tights in to some form of loot / reward.

Sanduskel.1850:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

tigirius.9014:

I’d say that two major things they could do to improve the overall game is eliminate RNG entirely and remove DR from the open world.

I will now address the problems with your idea.

1) Eliminating RNG means you also eliminate the rarity system. This kill the game, as once you provide a guaranteed way to get something, there’s no further need to do the content over. Then a short while later, all players will have the same items, and completely run out of things to do.

2) Removing DR hurts the economy. Certain players would benefit from continuous runs, allowing them unlimited income potential. Other players with limited time can’t complete, thus a huge wealth gap is created. The players that can afford to play more will have more available money, and will then control the Open Market. Inflation will be rapid, and all casual type players will hurt more.

Both these ideas are bad for the game, and will never happen.

Why would I want to be forced to do content again? Secondly, nothing in this game requires tons of gold.

So what you’re saying is that you want to do something just once. And when you’ve done everything in the game just once, do you quit? Players need an incentive to do something. Without it, the game becomes stale, and then dies. All game companies know this.

And I’m sorry I can’t point out what’s wrong with your second point. I’d have to explain how the economy works, and that would more time than I have ATM. I would recommend visiting the Black Lion Trading Company forums. We have regular discussions about the economy there.

No. I play wvw or Spvp. Don’t make me go back to do things. Let me choose. I don’t need incentives shoved down my throat, thanks.

Sanduskel.1850:

No. I play wvw or Spvp. Don’t make me go back to do things. Let me choose. I don’t need incentives shoved down my throat, thanks.

So then you’re actually contradicting yourself. WvW and SPvP require doing the same content over and over. In WvW, you attack and capture Keeps, as well as fight other players. In SPvP, you attack and claim flags. The incentive here is that you’re trying to win a competition.

No, they aren’t the same

Sanduskel.1850:

No, they aren’t the same

That’s true that WvW and SPvP aren’t the same. WvW is a 3 way battle between worlds (servers), and has PvE elements in it. SPvP is a pure battle of skill and strategy in an enclosed setting with a small group of players.

The key here is that SPvP in enclosed in its own system. You don’t need to upgrade, since everyone plays on the same level, with the same gear type. I can understand why content in the Open World might not affect you if you do only SPvP.

WvW relies more on the economy, having a Trading Post in all battlegrounds, as well as merchants, crafting stations, and weapon/armor vendors. There, you don’t get everything for free.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Everything is perfect the way it is.

White-knighting in a nutshell.

Everyone else may refer here for a detailed explanation of what’s not quite perfect with the RNG.

OP, the answer to that has historically been introduction of Crafting, but that has its own pitfalls. Usually the right answer involves not having extremely rare drop-rates in the first place, as in regulating extreme rarity of content by locking it behind behind extremely challenging one.

Personally, I would not seek to create extremely rare items in the first place. I see no value in producing something the only value of which comes from its rarity.

Saviourslave.6715:

So, as a community, what are your thoughts on how Anet could make rare gear and loot acquisition a fun, progressive, non-gambling yet intensely challenging and truly “Legendary” experience that won’t be immediately exploited and achieved by those with 100000000000 gold?

Share your thoughts please in a structured and constructive manner.

You didn’t need to make this post. There’s countless posts in general Discussion/Suggestions about this…. if you whole heartedly wanted just what I quoted above. I’m not trying to be a kitten, but people have been endlessly giving ideas on possible improvements or what they think about this subject.
Thing is, those opinions don’t matter much, since “they’re the minority”.

So there’s a grand total of 4 actually helpful posts that actually respond to the subject matter in a constructive non-argumentative manner… Guess that’s GD for you, honestly expected more. If you just started reading this post, and are about to decide not to contribute because it’s a hostile environment or it’s got stupid arguments in it, please reconsider, I value your opinion.

Well in terms of legendary weaps (ie precursor) they could design something like DoA (Domain of Anguish for those who don’t know) in GW1. This would take some work but that was an elite repeatable area that could be run in segments or as a complete run. At the end of each sub-mission on the run, you got a chest that awarded several types of gems. you had to amass a certain number of each of type then exchange them for Armbrace of truth, which then u could exchange for Torment weapons. or other special items like Mallyx mini , the main boss on the run.

For scavenger hunt, they could do something similar and make it so its not easy to get but you know that eventually you will get it if u stick with it. in gw1 those gems were tradable too. the gem drops from chest were random so sometime you would get more of one type than the other and u could trade with players for those you’re missing or simply sell them for money.
I thought that was a good system. it was flexible and they could also add other type of items you could acquire with those gems or w/ever such as t6 or t7 mats, if u already had a precursor and didn’t want another one. it would make such an area viable forever more.

Draco.2806:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Everything is perfect the way it is.

White-knighting in a nutshell.

Everyone else may refer here for a detailed explanation of what’s not quite perfect with the RNG.

---

OP, the answer to that has historically been introduction of Crafting, but that has its own pitfalls. Usually the right answer involves not having extremely rare drop-rates in the first place, as in regulating extreme rarity of content by locking it behind behind extremely challenging one.

Personally, I would not seek to create extremely rare items in the first place. I see no value in producing something the only value of which comes from its rarity.

Draco, thank you for providing feedback. Rare loot is needed in MMO’s for either stat superiority, looks, and/or bragging rights. Because of Anet’s stance on gear stats, the only things left are looks and bragging rights. They give players a goal to achieve, and thus reward them with the skin they prefer and the player respect they desire. If you take rarity away, and just give everyone every weapon, people would run out of goals very quickly as there is no challenge or incentive to get the items you want other than for looks. People would finish their goals quickly, finish how they want all their chars to look and leave as they feel they’ve finished with the game, leaving LA a ghost town. Rarity as a whole I believe is needed, but also the manner in which it is incorporated must be reasonable and achievable, and definitely challenging. But how? What system would reward without feeling like a grind, a farm, or a once off trivial thing to complete? I was thinking maybe the same system used to create Shadowmourne in WotLK, but I have to research that again as I have forgotten the mechanics, and also it may take a very very large amount of time and effort to design such systems for every rare weapon….

Tiger Ashante.1792:

Well in terms of legendary weaps (ie precursor) they could design something like DoA (Domain of Anguish for those who don’t know) in GW1. This would take some work but that was an elite repeatable area that could be run in segments or as a complete run. At the end of each sub-mission on the run, you got a chest that awarded several types of gems. you had to amass a certain number of each of type then exchange them for Armbrace of truth, which then u could exchange for Torment weapons. or other special items like Mallyx mini , the main boss on the run.

For scavenger hunt, they could do something similar and make it so its not easy to get but you know that eventually you will get it if u stick with it. in gw1 those gems were tradable too. the gem drops from chest were random so sometime you would get more of one type than the other and u could trade with players for those you’re missing or simply sell them for money.
I thought that was a good system. it was flexible and they could also add other type of items you could acquire with those gems or w/ever such as t6 or t7 mats, if u already had a precursor and didn’t want another one. it would make such an area viable forever more.

I like the idea of a challenging elite player area that most players won’t be able to access easily but would reward those who can enter it heavily, however that would just kitten off the majority of more casual players. I consider myself as a casual player, my latency bars me from PvP, my skill is not nearly as great as most “Hardcore” players, and I don’t have the time or dedication (Or desire) to run the most profitable thing in the game over and over and over again for money and rare loot drops. As a casual, I play the game for fun (Not saying hardcore players don’t), and if I’m getting bored I try and shake things up a bit, maybe play on an alt, try something challenging, etc.
What I’m getting at here is that if challenging elite player only content is introduced most players who’ll want a precursor/legendary/rare skin will feel like they’re left out and will never get to have that content because they don’t live drink and eat GW2. Look at Tequatl for instance. Yes there are guilds who run him constantly and obtain great rewards for it, but… it’s only the guilds who run him constantly that actually run him at all. Normal PUGs and randoms, no matter how well they know the encounter, will never be able to kill Tequatl consistently without a voice chat system and a core group of super organised players with optimal builds for their roles. Don’t get me started on overflows… the point is that the encounter is just too inaccessible and too much effort to complete.
Now that is only group content, it is a dragon fight, I’m not complaining about the diffiiculty of Tequatl. I’m just using an example of elitist content. Those without the skill or latency who want the content baaaaadly, will never get it.
I think I’m going a little off-track :P But hey, it’s a discussion, let’s discuss. I think for each rare weapon or piece of gear or whatever (In the ideal world), maybe there should be a combination of all three mechanics: a bit of random luck, a scavenger hunt and token collecting. Random luck for rarity and ZOMG I’M SO LUCKY (There is so much merit to that feeling alone), the scavenger hunt as incredibly difficult content that rewards you for every bit of progress you make, and the tokens as an alternative to the “elitist” or difficult content. 3 ways to get it, three ways to satisfy every player out there. Yes there will be players that will still say “Oh but that’s too much effort, GW2 is a game not a job”, but the point of rare weapons is that they must NOT be easy to get, there SHOULD be a challenge involved. People just don’t like the randomness of RNG, the grind of token collecting and the difficulty or tediousness of scavenger hunting. So give them all three

Saviourslave.6715:

They give players a goal to achieve, and thus reward them with the skin they prefer and the player respect they desire. If you take rarity away, and just give everyone every weapon, people would run out of goals very quickly…

Quite right. But that’s only true if you base your rewards on finite content (i.e. armors and weapons still have to be made by someone). It’s the fallacy that plunges most MMOs to lock down their rewards behind a +10 Concrete Wall of Mindless Grind.

One way to solve this, as I mentioned, is to lock desirable content behind extremely challenging content (which is hard to do in itself), but even then, a very good number of players will eventually rise to the challenge. Still, it’s an improvement over grinding.

I don’t think bragging rights and rare items are a worthy goal in any way. These are illusory goals – although you want to reach them, there’s no satisfaction once you have them. Ultimately it’s a form of betrayal, and no player appreciates it.

But players do need a goal to work towards. What’s important to remember is that goal doesn’t have to be loot. What can it be instead? Well, everything else in the game, really. You just need to think outside of the MMO box a bit when you start designing your game.

Saviourslave.6715:

So, as a community, what are your thoughts on how Anet could make rare gear and loot acquisition a fun, progressive, non-gambling yet intensely challenging and truly “Legendary” experience that won’t be immediately exploited and achieved by those with 100000000000 gold?

Share your thoughts please in a structured and constructive manner.

I think high level rewards (gear, weapons and skins) should be acquired primarily through the game content we actually enjoy – a mix of combat, exploration and puzzles. Having actual quests to do would help this, I’d be in favour of a reputation system for that. Let’s say……….. You’d have to complete a series of tasks for each race or faction that increase in challenge and scope as you level up. As your reputation increases you’re rewarded, or have access to vendors.

Of course, this would require a major overhaul in game design.

Loot should be scaled with the difficulty of whatever activity you’re doing. I’m also fine with it being a ‘once per day’ for the specific task. For example, you solo a champion and get a guaranteed exotic. Same for completion of the harder jumping puzzles. The problem with this though, is that it would disadvantage lesser skilled and casual players. RNG at least screws everyone over, and is equally hated by casuals and hardcores alike, lol. I suppose that makes it fair.

Draco.2806:

Saviourslave.6715:

They give players a goal to achieve, and thus reward them with the skin they prefer and the player respect they desire. If you take rarity away, and just give everyone every weapon, people would run out of goals very quickly…

Quite right. But that’s only true if you base your rewards on finite content (i.e. armors and weapons still have to be made by someone). It’s the fallacy that plunges most MMOs to lock down their rewards behind a +10 Concrete Wall of Mindless Grind.

One way to solve this, as I mentioned, is to lock desirable content behind extremely challenging content (which is hard to do in itself), but even then, a very good number of players will eventually rise to the challenge. Still, it’s an improvement over grinding.

I don’t think bragging rights and rare items are a worthy goal in any way. These are illusory goals – although you want to reach them, there’s no satisfaction once you have them. Ultimately it’s a form of betrayal, and no player appreciates it.

But players do need a goal to work towards. What’s important to remember is that goal doesn’t have to be loot. What can it be instead? Well, everything else in the game, really. You just need to think outside of the MMO box a bit when you start designing your game.

What would you say would be a good new type of goal to work towards? Anet already said that they’ll be adding new traits and skills to progress towards, but I don’t think that’s what you’re getting at essentially?

RNG for some items makes sense. but not for others.

Consider a system wherein the most precious items are obtained through feats of skill rather than luck. Or at the very least, involve workable goals that dont include heavy amounts of RNG. Ascended weapons and the dungeon armor sets are a good example of this, and while im not a massive fan of the time-gated ascended crafting, it’s still fully manageable, and very few if any of the items involved in the crafting require me to be lucky.

Now compare that to a legendary, in which you absolutely have to be lucky, or you have to spend a lot of gold to buy something from someone who was lucky. This doesnt make a whole lot of sense!

Items like precursors, or even some of the cooler exotic weapons, should be created in a similar way to the ascended items, or through other challenging tasks. Additionally, if you have hard content, it’s alright to make them guaranteed to give epic loot. Consider if tequatl always gave at least 1 exotic or even ascended, given that it’s quite difficult, that would in my mind be a better system.

RNG drops from normal monsters, and even just world champions is fine. I like the bag system that pretty much assures you at least some profit, and the idea behind being able to get lucky off a random monster has it’s appeal. The issue is when you move this RNG system to drops that deserve to be based around a players skill, or some other quantitative measure that isnt just luck. So RNG isnt always a bad thing. but you shouldnt be forced to rely on it if you ever want to obtain the “best” items. That’s a very very silly system.

Saviourslave.6715:

So there’s a grand total of 4 actually helpful posts that actually respond to the subject matter in a constructive non-argumentative manner… Guess that’s GD for you, honestly expected more. If you just started reading this post, and are about to decide not to contribute because it’s a hostile environment or it’s got stupid arguments in it, please reconsider, I value your opinion.

Well you want them to take the game in a direction that would be annoying to most of us, lol. What did you expect?

Saviourslave.6715:

I’m no expert on this at all, let me get that out there first. I’m not all-knowledgable on everything Anet does or the community knows, but I do read the forums alot, and you guessed it, I just read about how much the general forum-posters think anet is doing wrong.

So what would you do? For example, loot. People hated that in most mmo’s you had to compete for loot with others who also hit the mob/resource node. This made most optimal gear tedious to get for your character, but made crafting profitable since the nodes were contested, and made things more valuable on the trading posts, since there were fewer of them. In GW2, they’ve made it possible for everyone to get the loot and resources hassle and conflict free, however that makes crafting just a levelling tool, unprofitable and makes it incredibly simple and cheap to outfit your character with exotic gear at lvl 80. So what would you do to fix both problems?

Or as another example, dungeon/dragon rewards/precursors. People are complaining that there are too few rare rewards in this game that you can go into LA, link into the chat and have a couple hundred players either be immediately instilled with jealousy or grovelling to kiss your feet (Slight use of exaggeration, but you get my point). But what would you want as a method for rare gear to be introduced in the optimal manner to obtain? Nobody likes RNG, rare 0.0000005% drops from stupidly easy or difficult bosses, because people want to know that for each hour or two they put into the game they are making tangible progress in their pursuit for the thing they want. Nobody likes grinding for tokens either however, they just see it as a repetitive waste of time doing the same achievement over and over again, they want a one time thing to have an epic reward, and be tangibly progressive. However, that leaves us with scavenger hunts/super tough boss battles/one time events that the player has to complete only once or twice to obtain their “Epic” piece of equipment… but that defeats the point, since if it’s just one thing that people have to do, no matter how long it is, people are going to find the optimal or easiest and fastest way to finish that objective, and sooner or later you’ll see everyone running around with epic gear, making them lose their epic feel.
So, as a community, what are your thoughts on how Anet could make rare gear and loot acquisition a fun, progressive, non-gambling yet intensely challenging and truly “Legendary” experience that won’t be immediately exploited and achieved by those with 100000000000 gold?

Share your thoughts please in a structured and constructive manner.

This with only open the door to botting and gold sellers.

”Nobody likes RNG, rare 0.0000005% drops from stupidly easy or difficult bosses .” No at difficult bosses it could be 0,01. Mobs can be 0,005. Yes for some items I would like that because it gives a great feeling if you then finally get that item. And personally I would not want a rare item so people could kiss my feet but so I can create a unique look.

“because people want to know that for each hour or two they put into the game they are making tangible progress “ if it’s 0,005 you know that for each kill the change of getting it is better. What I don’t like is that you now need items to make something but farming go’s way to slow.. that item has a 0,01 drop change and ten you need 250 of it and to make it worse you can’t really farm them because the thinks you need are not all in the same place or are time-gated and so on. so you can better just farm gold and buy it. Thats not fun. And indeed grinding for tokens or better said currency is not fun. ‘Grinding’ for the items you need (crafting materials / recipe’s) or the items you want (special / fun items, mini’s, armor, skins) is much more fun.

“they want a one time thing to have an epic reward, and be tangibly progressive.“ That would not work because you can onlyu do it once but a few of those think might be in the game and then make it really really really really hard. Might also be part of 3 challenges. A raid challenge, a personal fight challenge (you can only do alone) and a JP challenge. If thats really really hard you show skills on multiple levels and can get some reward for it but if that is one reward then you would do it only once so while you should have a few of those thinks in, dungeons and bosses and raids you do in the hope of a rare item drop should also be in there. And token can be an addition thats fine. The token system with dungeons is not that bad but it should not be the main reward but a side reward. A dungeon should have a few rare items it can drop and then while going for that item in the meanwhile you also get your tokens for the armor-set.

Zenyatoo.4059:

RNG for some items makes sense. but not for others.

Consider a system wherein the most precious items are obtained through feats of skill rather than luck. Or at the very least, involve workable goals that dont include heavy amounts of RNG. Ascended weapons and the dungeon armor sets are a good example of this, and while im not a massive fan of the time-gated ascended crafting, it’s still fully manageable, and very few if any of the items involved in the crafting require me to be lucky.

Now compare that to a legendary, in which you absolutely have to be lucky, or you have to spend a lot of gold to buy something from someone who was lucky. This doesnt make a whole lot of sense!

Items like precursors, or even some of the cooler exotic weapons, should be created in a similar way to the ascended items, or through other challenging tasks. Additionally, if you have hard content, it’s alright to make them guaranteed to give epic loot. Consider if tequatl always gave at least 1 exotic or even ascended, given that it’s quite difficult, that would in my mind be a better system.

RNG drops from normal monsters, and even just world champions is fine. I like the bag system that pretty much assures you at least some profit, and the idea behind being able to get lucky off a random monster has it’s appeal. The issue is when you move this RNG system to drops that deserve to be based around a players skill, or some other quantitative measure that isnt just luck. So RNG isnt always a bad thing. but you shouldnt be forced to rely on it if you ever want to obtain the “best” items. That’s a very very silly system.

I like this train of thought very much, yes monster drops should still be based on RNG, but I believe that the rarest of rare items like Mjolnir, Infinite Light, The Eye of Rodgort, Volcanus and precursors should be obtainable without the use of:

1: RNG only
2: Incredible amounts of farming rare materials and monotonous tasks
3: Moneeeeeeh

Items like these should be EARNED, not farmed. Like imagine, plundering a harpy nest or even better a fleshreaver nest-like dungeon for the opportunity to grab one of their weapons, the prized Infinite Light. Or doing an insanely difficult but aesthetically awesome jumping puzzle all the way to the clouds where you somehow grab the fabled Mjolnir. Or even travelling deeper and deeper into the caverns of Mount Maelstrom to retrieve a fiery fang of Primordus, Volcanus. This concept has soooooo much potential. I also liked the concept earlier mentioned of a dungeon-esque sort of instance, where you can do multiple segments one by one or go through the whole complete run right up to the end. I think this would be PERFECT for rare loot and skins, even black lion exclusive weapons such as fused weapons.
Imagine this example: A massive dungeon in the Deeps, let’s call it the Fleshreaver catacombs, is discovered by Asuran explorers. They contract you to explore and plunder its depths for a reward. The Fleshreavers reproduce very quickly however, so clearing parts of the cavern would be great for them, but temporary, so your reward would be less but still there. Or you could clear the entire dungeon in one go, severely crippling the Fleshreaver’s ability to repopulate the cave, giving the Asurans more time to explore and catalogue their discoveries within. If you complete seperate parts of the dungeon one by one, you’d be rewarded with tokens that you can turn in for good rewards if you amass enough. However, if you complete the entire dungeon in one go (Maybe completing specific and difficult objectives as well), you will receive not a token, but a freshly retrieved Infinite Light from the depths of the Flesh-matriarch’s lair.

HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE?!?!?!?!?!

Yes I know that Anet has it’s own pipeline in progress atm, and yes I know the sceptical of you would believe that they hate providing us enjoyment and rather would suck money out of us, but honestly, my opinion is that this game still has unbelievable potential, and these living story updates are just the tip of the iceberg
I’m looking forward to every patch that Anet produces for us, and I’m grateful to know that they are listening to us very closely

Zenyatoo.4059:

RNG for some items makes sense. but not for others.

Consider a system wherein the most precious items are obtained through feats of skill rather than luck. Or at the very least, involve workable goals that dont include heavy amounts of RNG. Ascended weapons and the dungeon armor sets are a good example of this, and while im not a massive fan of the time-gated ascended crafting, it’s still fully manageable, and very few if any of the items involved in the crafting require me to be lucky.

Now compare that to a legendary, in which you absolutely have to be lucky, or you have to spend a lot of gold to buy something from someone who was lucky. This doesnt make a whole lot of sense!

Items like precursors, or even some of the cooler exotic weapons, should be created in a similar way to the ascended items, or through other challenging tasks. Additionally, if you have hard content, it’s alright to make them guaranteed to give epic loot. Consider if tequatl always gave at least 1 exotic or even ascended, given that it’s quite difficult, that would in my mind be a better system.

RNG drops from normal monsters, and even just world champions is fine. I like the bag system that pretty much assures you at least some profit, and the idea behind being able to get lucky off a random monster has it’s appeal. The issue is when you move this RNG system to drops that deserve to be based around a players skill, or some other quantitative measure that isnt just luck. So RNG isnt always a bad thing. but you shouldnt be forced to rely on it if you ever want to obtain the “best” items. That’s a very very silly system.

In gw2 there is no best loot, only most desired and subjectivley prettiest. At moment, most desired things are put behind challenging content, and luck. Tequatl mini and new nightmare skins both meet those conditions. If they were obtained thru some token system or something like those achivement wings, everybody would be flapping one within a week. Nothing special about that.

If tequatl would be giving 1 certain exotic each defeat, do you know how many exotics would flood market? One teq defeat and instant 100-200 exotics would be injected. And counting how many times teq gets killed daily, it would mean thousands exotics would be coming into market. They would be worth 50s in no time.

Loot system is fine. Greedy people will always be greedy and want more no matter how much they get.

Saviourslave.6715:

I like this train of thought very much, yes monster drops should still be based on RNG, but I believe that the rarest of rare items like Mjolnir, Infinite Light, The Eye of Rodgort, Volcanus and precursors should be obtainable without the use of:

1: RNG only
2: Incredible amounts of farming rare materials and monotonous tasks
3: Moneeeeeeh

Items like these should be EARNED, not farmed. Like imagine, plundering a harpy nest or even better a fleshreaver nest-like dungeon for the opportunity to grab one of their weapons, the prized Infinite Light. Or doing an insanely difficult but aesthetically awesome jumping puzzle all the way to the clouds where you somehow grab the fabled Mjolnir. Or even travelling deeper and deeper into the caverns of Mount Maelstrom to retrieve a fiery fang of Primordus, Volcanus. This concept has soooooo much potential. I also liked the concept earlier mentioned of a dungeon-esque sort of instance, where you can do multiple segments one by one or go through the whole complete run right up to the end. I think this would be PERFECT for rare loot and skins, even black lion exclusive weapons such as fused weapons.
Imagine this example: A massive dungeon in the Deeps, let’s call it the Fleshreaver catacombs, is discovered by Asuran explorers. They contract you to explore and plunder its depths for a reward. The Fleshreavers reproduce very quickly however, so clearing parts of the cavern would be great for them, but temporary, so your reward would be less but still there. Or you could clear the entire dungeon in one go, severely crippling the Fleshreaver’s ability to repopulate the cave, giving the Asurans more time to explore and catalogue their discoveries within. If you complete seperate parts of the dungeon one by one, you’d be rewarded with tokens that you can turn in for good rewards if you amass enough. However, if you complete the entire dungeon in one go (Maybe completing specific and difficult objectives as well), you will receive not a token, but a freshly retrieved Infinite Light from the depths of the Flesh-matriarch’s lair.

HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE?!?!?!?!?!

Yes I know that Anet has it’s own pipeline in progress atm, and yes I know the sceptical of you would believe that they hate providing us enjoyment and rather would suck money out of us, but honestly, my opinion is that this game still has unbelievable potential, and these living story updates are just the tip of the iceberg
I’m looking forward to every patch that Anet produces for us, and I’m grateful to know that they are listening to us very closely

How cool would be to have everyone and their mothers running around with infinite light? Or everyone crying on forums that its impossible while those 100 ppl that can do it are getting filthy rich meanwhile…

Smooth Penguin.5294:

tigirius.9014:

I’d say that two major things they could do to improve the overall game is eliminate RNG entirely and remove DR from the open world.

I will now address the problems with your idea.

1) Eliminating RNG means you also eliminate the rarity system. This kill the game, as once you provide a guaranteed way to get something, there’s no further need to do the content over. Then a short while later, all players will have the same items, and completely run out of things to do.

2) Removing DR hurts the economy. Certain players would benefit from continuous runs, allowing them unlimited income potential. Other players with limited time can’t complete, thus a huge wealth gap is created. The players that can afford to play more will have more available money, and will then control the Open Market. Inflation will be rapid, and all casual type players will hurt more.

Both these ideas are bad for the game, and will never happen.

Actually no. There’s a game I’m playing right now that doesn’t use the RNG system like this game does, but still manages to make the game interesting and fun and not a grind to upgrade your gear. It has a 1 hour timer sale on it’s vendors in which you have to have a sizeable amount of the currency (equivalent to this game’s karma) in order to purchase the said item. The sales people are spread out across the map and the items bought cannot be sold. They are high quality special weapons with great damage. So you see you can have a better system then the 1999 version of RNG that this title uses and keep the game honest and fun while eliminating the grind or the chance to get 0.

DR is no longer necessary as bots have resorted to farming nodes. Removing DR wouldn’t harm the economy now that they’ve made proper changes to how MF works and how MF can be accumulated. You either have to craft to death and salvage everything or collect lots and lost of green blue items and salvage those to get enough of the material to max your MF in order to do anything with drops now and most bots aren’t going to bother really. Combine this with the fact that they have nerfed the dungeons loot recently as evident by the complaints I’ve been reading both in forums and in game in map chat and there’s no real problem.

And Finally, it would benefit the players to remove the DR because DR combined with the ongoing lopsided loot algorithm would pretty much ensure that players who were and are cutoff from the loot that those who don’t have this bug with their account would once again get loot properly again. This market has already been plagued by players who had entirely too much control simply from the methods they used in the loot system in the first place that allowed only certain players the ability to gather together multiple precursors during certain events and the costs of the items is growing with DR in place, making items MORE available would even the playing field and allow certain items to come back DOWN in price not the other way around.

Saviourslave.6715:

Or as another example, dungeon/dragon rewards/precursors. People are complaining that there are too few rare rewards in this game that you can go into LA, link into the chat and have a couple hundred players either be immediately instilled with jealousy or grovelling to kiss your feet (Slight use of exaggeration, but you get my point).

Honestly, that’s the last thing I want encouraged. By far the least dignified player I ever saw was a guy decked out in pure Celestial-colored Arah dungeon armor, with expensive weapons, totally full of himself and expecting others to be impressed. Behavior and tasteful aesthetic decisions are much more impressive to me than legendary weapons. Actually, there are quite a few weapons that impress me more than legendary weapons when I see them used, because I see a boatload of legendaries on the world boss circuit. I know it feels good when you’re decked out in Cool Guy Armor with Cool Guy Weapon, but I wonder how many people who complain about rare gear not being rare enough are in love with the rarity, the exclusivity, more than with the weapon/armor art.

Saviourslave.6715:

But what would you want as a method for rare gear to be introduced in the optimal manner to obtain? Nobody likes RNG, rare 0.0000005% drops from stupidly easy or difficult bosses, because people want to know that for each hour or two they put into the game they are making tangible progress in their pursuit for the thing they want. Nobody likes grinding for tokens either however, they just see it as a repetitive waste of time doing the same achievement over and over again, they want a one time thing to have an epic reward, and be tangibly progressive. However, that leaves us with scavenger hunts/super tough boss battles/one time events that the player has to complete only once or twice to obtain their “Epic” piece of equipment… but that defeats the point, since if it’s just one thing that people have to do, no matter how long it is, people are going to find the optimal or easiest and fastest way to finish that objective, and sooner or later you’ll see everyone running around with epic gear, making them lose their epic feel.
So, as a community, what are your thoughts on how Anet could make rare gear and loot acquisition a fun, progressive, non-gambling yet intensely challenging and truly “Legendary” experience that won’t be immediately exploited and achieved by those with 100000000000 gold?

The fact that we have so many options is, in a way, a solution to this problem. If there are one of the methods you don’t like, you have alternatives. You can’t get every skin through every alternative, but that provides some level of exclusivity to those items, preventing you from seeing, say, half of the 1h sword users wielding Jormag’s Breath. (A weapon that, come to think of it, I have never seen anyone use.)

“Stupidly low” RNG is really the most easily implemented, practical way to keep rare weapons rare, if you’re concerned about players figuring out the most optimal way to obtain guaranteed gear like dungeon or crafted gear, because that is always going to happen. You can also make items limited-time, like SAB weapons that become less common once their season is over, but people will also be disappointed that once they’re out of season, they’ll either be super common from leftovers (Toy weapons,) or no longer available (A lot of Living Story reward gear.)

Is the most effective method so far that used for Ascended Weapons, which combine a time-gate (material refinement,) an enormous gold expense (for basic materials,) account binding (to prevent market sales,) and a diverse requirement of hard-to-obtain materials? Apparently. I haven’t seen many ascended weapons out and about yet, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see if effective it is, as the people who need to show off the rarest of rare equipment scramble to put together the new hot, difficult-to-obtain thing.

Personally, I’m glad that there’s a wide variety of methods for earning/locking skins. Frustrating as RNG or enormous cost might be if I want a weapon, at least it’s keeping the number of Twilight users I see in check. (Even so, it’s long past the point where I go “Ooh! Shiny!”) As for myself, none of my armor or weapon skins are very expensive, and it’s all available on the trading post for a pretty meager amount of gold. That doesn’t diminish my enjoyment of them, however, because my characters look darn good in them, whatever anyone else is wearing.

tigirius.9014:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

tigirius.9014:

I’d say that two major things they could do to improve the overall game is eliminate RNG entirely and remove DR from the open world.

I will now address the problems with your idea.

1) Eliminating RNG means you also eliminate the rarity system. This kill the game, as once you provide a guaranteed way to get something, there’s no further need to do the content over. Then a short while later, all players will have the same items, and completely run out of things to do.

2) Removing DR hurts the economy. Certain players would benefit from continuous runs, allowing them unlimited income potential. Other players with limited time can’t complete, thus a huge wealth gap is created. The players that can afford to play more will have more available money, and will then control the Open Market. Inflation will be rapid, and all casual type players will hurt more.

Both these ideas are bad for the game, and will never happen.

Actually no. There’s a game I’m playing right now that doesn’t use the RNG system like this game does, but still manages to make the game interesting and fun and not a grind to upgrade your gear. It has a 1 hour timer sale on it’s vendors in which you have to have a sizeable amount of the currency (equivalent to this game’s karma) in order to purchase the said item. The sales people are spread out across the map and the items bought cannot be sold. They are high quality special weapons with great damage. So you see you can have a better system then the 1999 version of RNG that this title uses and keep the game honest and fun while eliminating the grind or the chance to get 0.

DR is no longer necessary as bots have resorted to farming nodes. Removing DR wouldn’t harm the economy now that they’ve made proper changes to how MF works and how MF can be accumulated. You either have to craft to death and salvage everything or collect lots and lost of green blue items and salvage those to get enough of the material to max your MF in order to do anything with drops now and most bots aren’t going to bother really. Combine this with the fact that they have nerfed the dungeons loot recently as evident by the complaints I’ve been reading both in forums and in game in map chat and there’s no real problem.

And Finally, it would benefit the players to remove the DR because DR combined with the ongoing lopsided loot algorithm would pretty much ensure that players who were and are cutoff from the loot that those who don’t have this bug with their account would once again get loot properly again. This market has already been plagued by players who had entirely too much control simply from the methods they used in the loot system in the first place that allowed only certain players the ability to gather together multiple precursors during certain events and the costs of the items is growing with DR in place, making items MORE available would even the playing field and allow certain items to come back DOWN in price not the other way around.

In that game you are also farming for currency and then buying the stuff you want and that is boring.

However you need a mix of ways to get your items. Tokens in dungeons for armor is fine but make also some rare items (including skins) drop with a low drop-change (So RNG).

Make very hard content and give it a skin / weapons/ itwem it will always drop but at the same time you can also implement a rng drop for the same content.

make vendors sell stuff including selling it with a limited available number for an x period.

Make some very rare world drops,

Make some even lower drop change on a type of mob people can easily farm in one area but it is still very hard because of the rng,

Make traditional quest that reward thinks,

use achivements,

and then indeed also have a few weapons like infinitive light that are extremely extremely extremely hard to get and rare. Problem with those weapons here now is that a legendary is not ascended and can change stats while those extreme rare exotics are not. Getting them might however even be harder.

The first thing I want them to do is add a new “bound” type, the partybound gear, gear that binds to the enite party until the party is finished with the current dungeon or until the party is split.

Players in the party can then choose which one will take which type of gear. To avoid serious issues with kicking/exploiting etc the first thing that this system could be easily applied to are Fractal Skins and Ascended Rings in fractals.

I’m puzzled why I can’t give the fractal sword skin that just dropped for me (but I already have one) and a party member that dropped a dagger but doesn’t want it and can’t give it to me… It’s horrible loot design and the prime reason I hate fractal skins. In addition, I can’t see any kind of issue with making those types of loot party-based instead of character/account bound.

The system could be expanded to incorporate more loot types, or make it a toggle feature in parties (with full vote requirement to change not majority vote) and before those who only play with pugs start complaining, good organised groups of friends/guildies have been punished by the loot system since release, it’s time to change something.

maddoctor.2738:

/snip.

I have played a lot of games. Allowing one person or a group of people decide who gets the loot is a convention that some games use because the players are forced into it. I’m sorry, but no… just no… I don’t want anyone else deciding whether or not I get the Uber Staff of Greatness.

A lot of people still have the idea that RNG means that if you run an instance (dungeon, boss, event, whatever) a certain number of times, then you will eventually receive said item.

That’s not the way RNG works. RNG works similar to rolling a die. You have the same chance of rolling a 6 on the first roll as you do on the 300th roll. It doesn’t get more “certain” the more often you roll the die.

As for the OP’d question, I would do nothing. RNG is RNG. If I get that Uber Staff of Greatness, I’ll be happy, but I am not going to come to the forums and complain about RNG if I don’t get it.

My personal opinion on the matter is the loot system in GW2 is very unrewarding. The very, very few exotics I have ever had drop for me from playing a wide range of content were just so bad that the best thing to do with them was to salvage them. Kind of feels like Diablo where I just grind and grind and grind to get enough mats to craft something or enough gold to buy something off the TP. Very unsatisfying stuff.

If I could create a system for them, I would do something that at least is a lot more rewarding. I’d most definitely ban the possibility of green and blue gear with level 1 skins dropping at all for levels 80s. I’d also make specific rewards for specific things. For instance this jumping puzzle has a chance to drop this rare chestpiece. The chest piece would be designed to look like it belonged in that jumping puzzle… then I would attach lore to it, something like this chest piece was worn by the creator of this jumping puzzle or so on.. I’m just brainstorming. Giving meaning behind things would be a neat way to increase value to not only the piece of loot but the player’s time invested.

Anyway, I’m not holding my breath/ There are plenty of games that already feel rewarding on the market.

Ashabhi.1365:

maddoctor.2738:

/snip.

I have played a lot of games. Allowing one person or a group of people decide who gets the loot is a convention that some games use because the players are forced into it. I’m sorry, but no… just no… I don’t want anyone else deciding whether or not I get the Uber Staff of Greatness.

A lot of people still have the idea that RNG means that if you run an instance (dungeon, boss, event, whatever) a certain number of times, then you will eventually receive said item.

That’s not the way RNG works. RNG works similar to rolling a die. You have the same chance of rolling a 6 on the first roll as you do on the 300th roll. It doesn’t get more “certain” the more often you roll the die.

As for the OP’d question, I would do nothing. RNG is RNG. If I get that Uber Staff of Greatness, I’ll be happy, but I am not going to come to the forums and complain about RNG if I don’t get it.

I didn’t say for this type of system to work on everything. Account bound on acquire gear that is NOT salvageable just takes space. Allowing players to trade among them Fractal Skins / Fractal Ascended Rings / Ascended Weapon Boxes / Tequatl Weapon Boxes etc wouldn’t harm the game in any way or form, it will only benefit those who run dungeons regularly as a team while pugs won’t be affected.

It’s a win-win for Accound bound on acquire items. Now the inclusion of a similar system for everything is open for debate/suggestion, I can see many issues with that but they could be fixed. Still, everything is better than the current system which relies only on your personal luck and at the same time punishes organised teams.

All I’m asking is why can’t I give the useless (for me) item to a friend that wants it, and the only thing I can do with it is destroy (not even salvage) Isn’t that a total waste?

kRiza krimos.1637:

If tequatl would be giving 1 certain exotic each defeat, do you know how many exotics would flood market? One teq defeat and instant 100-200 exotics would be injected. And counting how many times teq gets killed daily, it would mean thousands exotics would be coming into market. They would be worth 50s in no time.

That’s fine, since exotic isn’t top tier any more and we need to salvage dozens of them for dark matter to use in ascended crafting.

As a side note it really ticks me off how much effort is put into managing the economy, often at the cost of keeping actual gameplay fun and rewarding.

Personally I would revert the way loot was before November 2012, back when you could open world farm any and everything in Orr and get 10+ rares an hour every single hour to your hearts content.

Cheers to anyone that was around back then that still plays.

I think one of the things that hasn’t been looked at with the loot and crafting system is the community.

I’ve played a game which has, bar none, the most hostile player community I’ve ever seen in an MMORPG. It was a bit of a mystery, with people blaming everything from the age group to the advertising campaign, but one of the things that contributed to this game’s hostility was that all other players were essentially your enemy:

#1: All gathering nodes were shared globally and could be depleted by one player. You had to fight other players for space and race against other players to get materials.

#2: Monster loot was only given to one player in most circumstances, meaning that it was a competition to get to the monster and “kill stealing” was a huge thing. Again, monster numbers were limited.

#3: All of the best items were all from extremely rare random drops. I’m talking about killing thousands and thousands of a single kind of enemy and never seeing one, so because of this items took on a stock-market like pricing system really quickly.

#4: The PVP system was a “winner gets everything the loser was wearing” system, so a lot of the PVP was factionless backstabbing in an attempt to get the extremely rare + wealthy stuff.

The community was literally given every reason to hate each other. From taking nodes, to taking loot, to literally stealing the clothes off of your back.. It is hard to be cooperative and understanding when literally everyone else in the game is a detriment to you.

It was early in GW2s design that they talked about the philosophy of a cooperative gaming environment, and this is one of the things that sold me on the game. Individualized loot meant no incentive to kick players and no kill stealing. Individualized crafting nodes meant I could craft at my own pace instead of having to buy from some no-life or bot. Dynamic event mechanics mean that other players don’t hinder your own quests (special exceptions apply). The lower equipment ceiling means that all content in the game isn’t some gear check. Multiple ways to gain equipment allowed for individual play styles, and instances meant no “crashing” other parties.

To that end, I think they’ve done quite well with how loot is handled. There are some obvious complaints, such as DR (implemented only as an anti-botting measure) and how many events are based around RNG loot boxes, but no one is perfect.

Ashabhi.1365:

maddoctor.2738:

/snip.

A lot of people still have the idea that RNG means that if you run an instance (dungeon, boss, event, whatever) a certain number of times, then you will eventually receive said item.

That’s not the way RNG works. RNG works similar to rolling a die. You have the same chance of rolling a 6 on the first roll as you do on the 300th roll. It doesn’t get more “certain” the more often you roll the die.

This is slightly misleading. You have the same chance of rolling a six on the first roll as you do on the 300th, which means that any particular roll has exactly the same chance of rolling a six as any other roll. So, if the odds of rolling a six are 1/100 (on a d100,) then I only have a 1% chance that my next roll is going to be a six; that’s very low, and I can pretty much write off my chances of rolling a six.

I’m not just rolling once, however, and I don’t care which die gets it, so if I roll 100 times, my odds of rolling a six somewhere in those hundred rolls are substantially better than 1%. It’s certainly not guaranteed, but that’s the nature of RNG and probability. Put another way, if I flip four coins, I’m not going to get 2-2, but the odds of getting at least one heads are substantially better than 50%, even if those are the odds for any given flip. (Say, the third one.)

Of course, if your odds of getting a drop are .000001%, even if you roll the die a thousand times, your odds are still negligible. More runs can improve your odds, but whether or not they improve your odds significantly is another matter. Someone is going to win the lottery, but whether you buy one ticket or ten, it’s probably not going to be you.

Then again, probability is freaky math, unlike good ol’ calculus, and I avoid its witchcraft when I can, so I’m sure plenty of people know more about it than I do.