Guild Wars 2

I used to get thrills from the loot drop in PvE in other MMORPG.
Farming NPCs, finding a valuable drop and whooping with joy.

GW2’s PvE?
The one and only time I got a precursor (worth about 300g at that time) was about 2 years ago.
TWO YEARS AGO.
THAT WAS THE LAST TIME I WHOOPED WITH JOY OVER A LOOT.
ever since then, I’ve never gotten a loot drop that was worth more than 50 gold.
The drop rate for valuables is really sad.

When was the last time you actually felt thrilled playing PvE?

I got introduced to WvW and never looked back.
This is the only place in GW2 where I can feel thrilled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrwY7C26mzY

Every day when I play …. I have enjoyed the game since beta and head start and have not stopped enjoying the game at all. I also have the expansion and have enjoyed (and still enjoying) that too.

My thrill in PvE doesn’t usually come from loot. It comes from getting stuff done. Like when we have a few seconds left to finish a 30 location guild trek and we’re down to 5 seconds and beat it. That’s what thrills me.

I never got a precursor nor anything amounting to more than 50g. But, when I somehow got a Permanent Hair Stylist Contract about a couple of years ago, I didn’t even realize it was worth over 3K at the time. About 4 months ago, I sold it for 1.3K when all i was doing was clearing some garbage. Didn’t think much of it.

Nor did I have any expectation of ever picking up something like that in PvE any time soon. Today, I’m just thrilled to be gliding in HoT and Core Tyria !

Ignorance is bliss :-)

Thrist.9046:

My thrill in PvE doesn’t usually come from loot. It comes from getting stuff done. Like when we have a few seconds left to finish a 30 location guild trek and we’re down to 5 seconds and beat it. That’s what thrills me.

This. I haven’t ever really seeked for the thrill in PvE through loot, stuff like this where you manage to complete an event or a guild mission is where the thrill comes from though naturally even that eventually might become mundane if it’s constantly the same struggle to finish up an event in time. I can see how the game will become extremely boring and frustrating if you’re searching for awesome loot drops only.

GW2 PvE, especially dungeons, provides me the most fun out of pretty much any game I ever played.
Learning to solo dungeons and finally being able to do it successfully, and faster than full groups, gave me a lot of thrill personally.
I don’t really care about the loot, but since you care, I got 3 pre’s (The Legend, The Chosen and The Hunter), a fair amount of random ascended boxes from champbags and metric kittentons of gold from selling paths before HoT

Last night, when I finally got the Sky Commander achievement. RIP Champion Axemaster Gwyllion.

When I killed Mordremoth.

I also like big pve events when I start a group event solo and other people rush to help.

Last night at shatterer i got the backpack, i didn’t even realise i had got smash the dragon til i had a chest to open. So yer was thrilled at that.

Gw2 loot system is like working salary. That’s say you can make 10gold/hour.

All you need to do is play 30 hours and you can get your “whooping precursor drops the OP is so happy 2 years ago”.

not long ago actually, with the new expansion maps I’ve felt lots of thrilling experiences.

This is where Gw2 went in the last 2 years & how some peeps kept pretending to be exited all this time. (Hype included) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRL8ZL_EUmA

In Frostgorge.

There’s a spot in Snowclimb where you can launch yourself from a small hill, and then glide aaaalllllll the way down the slope, almost to the footpath. Everytime I go to that area of the map now I make sure I hit that gliding spot.

The thrill is gone
The thrill is gone away
You know you done me wrong…
And you’ll be sorry someday
…
Oh I’m free, free, free now
I’m free from your spell
And now that it’s all over
All I can do is wish you well

I’m still pretty excited about the new maps. There’s still a lot for me to discover and do on them, and I just generally have a lot of dumb fun with my friends in PvE doing a whole lot of nothing sometimes!

I recently claimed my second private guild hall with the help of great people I know in game. It took 4 of us to take Gilded Hollow and 5 of us took Cliffside. I now will take both of them up to 10 and see what happens from there but frankly just having the workshop open is fun. That gives me a thrill.
I have gotten several of the lesser precursor weapons as well as an expensive one, spark from junk I regularly throw into the forge (not bought just regular rare drops), did not give me a thrill.

After release and 3.6k hours I finally got my first precursor – Flame of Rodgort. I was satisfied and finally I knew my account can’t be cursed. Be cause I never ever had something more worth than 60g ever.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun the first time I did the Mouth of Mordremoth boss fight. But also was blown away by all the new maps and height, the first time I was in the canopy, the first meta event in AB – the music, he atmosphere etc.

It gets repetitive ofc. but that’s with all those content. I had a lot of thrill after I created Astralaria, the collection was pretty fun to do and quite original. At least until I had to make 250 crystalline ingots

Nightmare tower from season 1 I think? Farming those key pieces and fighting evil tybalt, since then this game has been really bland. I’ve got like 5 precursors and I just can’t be bothered to farm the same t6 junk over and over.

Loot? Who cares about loot? Of course, getting a precursor would be amazing, but I don’t think I will be “thrilled” about it. I felt thrill when discovering new things on the maps, or when I finally get to overcome some challenges.

Yesterday I finally had the luck to fight the Regurgitant with a decent pug and defeat it. That was thrilling. Maybe my thrill thresold is too low? or high? Don’t know.

I’m new to HoT, so every time I try something new and challenging. GW2 is probably not the best game for you if you’re motivated by loot.

If you are in it for the loot I suggest a different genre. ARPGs are much more likely to fill that role since itemization and therefore loot is often a lot more important. MMO is more likely to provide bigger numbers and in the case of GW2 different sparkles.

Last time I felt thrilled in PvE? I dunno… I’m not a “loot centric” player, so I don’t think I’ve ever really gotten excited over a drop. Unless it was a skin I was specifically farming for. Which is more of “yay!” reaction, as to opposed to a “HELL YES!” reaction. Generally speaking I enjoy my open world play, even when it’s something as silly as farming mithril. Which I did…for an hour last night. ANd whooped the snot out of the vet risen chickens in Orr…twice. Felt pretty good (I remember when those things felt difficult ages ago).

Of course… anytime I survive a zerg on zerg class in EotM is pretty “thrilling” too. Gets the adrenaline pumping, and I end up grinning like a loony. Winning 1v1s on point in sPvP has that effect too.

So maybe PvE is more about “relaxed” play, as opposed to adrenaline pumping wall bouncing hyperness induced by pvp based activities.

Everywhere in the HoT zones. Especially when I complete a meta event with high participation and get the reward I was grinding for.

PvE…. only loot that really stood out for me when was I pulled Dusk.

In this game I seldom have had thrills of the adrenaline rush kind. Last time I really had that in a game was in DDO when all sorts of stuff hit the fan and we still won.

But what do I really enjoy… when more lore bits are fleshed out for us. More story, back story, history, or even plot lines moving forward. These bits I do seek out.

I feel accomplishment not by getting mastery points, not by XP… I outgrew that sort of “carrot”… a decade ago roughly. I feel good when I can pull something that someone needs. Helping friends/guildies/utter strangers who need help in meeting their goals. I feel accomplishment in a completion of a goal such as crafting a legendary. (The new legionaries I’ve taken one look at and said “No.” with a capital Grumpy Cat.)

Every time we get to T4 on VB at night or TD with pugs. Every time I raid.

If you get thrilled by loot, you got the wrong game, bud.

Loot means nothing except in the content it opens, just a code on a server somewhere, and none of GW2s loot opens any content since everything these days is being balanced for stats only available by an obscene amount of time consuming gold farming.

Gameplaywise, last time PvE felt thrilling for me was the Battle for LA, how long ago was that?

EremiteAngel.9765:

I used to get thrills from the loot drop in PvE in other MMORPG.
Farming NPCs, finding a valuable drop and whooping with joy.

GW2’s PvE?
The one and only time I got a precursor (worth about 300g at that time) was about 2 years ago.
TWO YEARS AGO.
THAT WAS THE LAST TIME I WHOOPED WITH JOY OVER A LOOT.
ever since then, I’ve never gotten a loot drop that was worth more than 50 gold.
The drop rate for valuables is really sad.

When was the last time you actually felt thrilled playing PvE?

I got introduced to WvW and never looked back.
This is the only place in GW2 where I can feel thrilled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrwY7C26mzY

I agree with this post 100%
PVE has no function or purpose if there is little to no reward for killing the mobs.
In most games it is a way to obtain useful things for the open pvp aspect.
In that way if you are not fighting other players it doesnt feel useless going to attack some “elite” mobs…here it kinda does.

Yesterday when I finally found my way up to the vista close to the top of the map in Tangled Descent and spent quite a while taking screenshots, then just drifting around between updrafts and random ledges, trying to see how high I could get and what else I could find. I think I almost found a way over the edge of the map but I couldn’t quite reach it. I’ll have to come back at some point.

Then I tried to drop down through all 4 layers in one go and spent a while exploring the caves. At one point I thought I’d found a jumping puzzle but it was ‘only’ a vista and one of those random chests.

I also took a lot of screenshots of the massive tree in the middle of Tangled Depths and the waterfalls around it. I think this might be my favourite HoT map, but then I thought the same about Auric Basin when I first went there, so I’ll have to wait and see.

Oh, wait… you were talking about loot, not actually playing PvE. Oh. In that case probably never? I don’t really care about drops. Occasionally they’re useful on low level characters and sooner or later they add up to enough gold to buy something from the TP (usually a mini) but they’re at most a secondary aspect to me.

But I would say if the only drop you’re going to be happy with is the 20 rarest items in the game, which are only so valuable because they’re so rare (and I assume the 3 underwater ones also don’t count since they’re not worth over 100g right now) then it’s hardly surprising you’re disappointed by almost everything you get.

Thrist.9046:

My thrill in PvE doesn’t usually come from loot. It comes from getting stuff done. Like when we have a few seconds left to finish a 30 location guild trek and we’re down to 5 seconds and beat it. That’s what thrills me.

Andulias.9516:

Every time we get to T4 on VB at night or TD with pugs. Every time I raid.

If you get thrilled by loot, you got the wrong game, bud.

Both of these.

If you haven’t figured out that GW2 is not about loot, no one can help you.

That being said:

- entering VB at HoT launch and figuring out the new areas was awesome
- Queen’s Gauntlet and other events similar to it

Haven’t cared about loot for ages now. Sure getting that nice item here and there which sells for good gold is nice, but not important.

Hmm actually if it is loot the much more common situation is “oh hey I got an exotic … wait why the hell did I get a lv58(somewhere around that level) exotic on a lv80 character in a lv80 zone?”

Didn’t really feel much excitement from getting Spark. Mostly because after 3 years I didn’t really care anymore. It was just a dagger shaped pile of gold. Also because I’ve already had Incinerator for over 2 years.

Quite a bit with the new maps. I love the new areas in terms of beauty and verticality.

The story on the other hand. Not really since the game came out. I still find the stories, missions, and characters from GW1 much more compelling.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the game, just in the lore and story telling I find it to be lacking.

The very first TD kill I had (3rd week of HoT I think?), had so many close attempts before, n finally we get it with a full pug map, felt pretty awesome. Was also on the first ever Teq kill, also pretty awesome (which makes me so sad that it’s now a faceroll boss again).

Those few pvp matches in ranked where your full pug team goes against a full guild team, and you pull off the win by a hair’s breadth.

Or taking a T3 keep filled with siege and protected by a map blob (preHoT), haven’t really had comparable fights in wvw lately.

The times where you’re pulling out all the stops, and hoping your allies are doing the same, but even then you have the potential for failure in the back of your mind, that I feel to be most fun.

Never. Just PvP and jumping puzzles (i love this kitten)

Maybe someday when i kill VG and he doesn’t 1 shot me.

The Karka event……………

PvE is where I grind endlessly for crafting materials, which I then waste on crafting. I like crafting but it is too easy while ascended and legendary crafting is expensive. There is no “Congratulations, you have crafted something amazing by RNG accident for having 4 L500 crafts equipped at one time! You also accidentally consumed a full stack of Ectoplasm but we think the reward is worth it!”

I forget how much AP I have but it is well over 10k.
Never had a precursor drop and the forge has been stingy, too.
There are few benefits to grouping compared to other games. 5 individuals is not much worse than 5 in a group.
There is no integrated audio chat.
There is little progression, though Masteries helps.

laokoko.7403:

Gw2 loot system is like working salary. That’s say you can make 10gold/hour.

All you need to do is play 30 hours and you can get your “whooping precursor drops the OP is so happy 2 years ago”.

At 10 gold per hour (this presumably doesn’t count mat farming) it’ll take 100 hours to save up for Zap :(

Since I’m outta obsidian shards I’ll work on the precursor and I should have enough ectos for finishing clovers and have 250 extra handy for the gift of fortune. I have 59 clovers so far.

For me, the last “thrilling” experience in PvE was when they first released Silverwastes. It was fun, challenging, and if you didn’t get a good, organized team, you faced a real risk of failure.

Now, Silverwastes is still fun, but because most everyone has it down to a science, the risk of failure is pretty low.

In terms of loot drops, the thrills are few and far between.

I agree with many others in this thread – with GW2, you really have to move away from the loot=happiness mentality that other games rely on.

for me, I can tell you two times in the past 1.5 weeks that Ive felt that tinge of excitement – the first was in killing the Vinetooth Prime and the second was participating, with my guild, in a successful Tangled Depths meta event. Now, while many would argue that neither are overly difficult achievements, the accomplishment is definitely more satisfying than some arbitrary RNG loot drop.

For me it’s helping to turn the tides on what many may perceive as a botched event like auric basin and tequatl, or dragon’s stand. I love love love commanding, but I’m so kitten afraid I’m gonna screw up something cause I took a break. I helped first command DS back when both groups would attack preservers and pods but when I came back and did that Oi did I get flamed. Still first group done though once I figured out wtf was going on. -_-

The loot thing is the result of a couple of things.

• The desirable stuff is mostly crafted in the Mystic Oubliette. Precursors only have a wow factor because they’re needed to make a Legendary. That and the rarity of the drop ensures that if you don’t want that Legendary you can sell the thing for a good bit.
• Every other drop is common enough that it isn’t worth that much. I make more gold selling mats than items. I’d say selling mats makes up about 95% of what gold I bring in.

So why are the most desired rewards gained by increment (crafted or MF’d) rather than by serendipity (random drops)? There are a lot of players who don’t like random drops for highly desired items. ANet even advertised pre-launch that they’d be using incremental rewards. To be even-handed, at the time it seemed like they were talking about dungeon tokens and karma, but it was there.

The thing is, while there may be some wow factor in finally making a Legendary, you can kind of see it getting close. Random drops, though, there’s anticipation every time you fight Mob X that drops Item Y. When it hits, it’s sudden. It’s a different type of anticipation —-> fulfillment than getting an incremental reward.

So, to answer the OP’s question:

• I guess it was about a year or so ago that I got a Teq’s Hoard. Ascended Weapon, nice skin. Now it even has the stats I prefer. That was about as “wow” as I get.
• I tend to get more enjoyment out of the game play to be honest. Then again, I don’t play that often, or for that long when I do play, so maybe the game stays fresher for me.

Today

I led an attempt at vinetooth prime on a seemingly empty map. It was thrilling to see people coming from every notches and crags. Plus we made it with 5 sdcs left on timer. Very nice cheers at the end

What if they made gemstore and/or BL skins rare drops?

So, not enough to really impact their income from the gemstore/gems, but enough to make it slightly more exciting, for those who like getting drops, rather than just currency to buy stuff?

I mean, actually, you’re generally better off with currency (assuming you get enough of it), because then you can buy exactly what you like; rather than getting whatever you end up with, from a drop.

But, I can also see how that is less exciting, for those who like random, valuable, drops.

In the case of BL skins, they could be sold-on on the TP, anyway, if you didn’t want them.

So, wouldn’t make much difference I guess.

Doing world first Triple Trouble.

I don’t really care about loot. I care about combat and love fights that go right to the wire.

This game has that, in spades.

Well, never. After all AI is AI. It’s all just one giant math game and enemies don’t really do the “unexpected” like in PvP against real players. An encounter is an encounter and every encounter is essentially the same against the same enemy.

In the last couple of weeks;

- Gliding in Tyria. Jumping off Rata Sum was awesome
- Finally finishing the Triple Trouble meta. The organisers made it look so easy..
- Defending the clocktower for a few minutes on my ele in spvp against 2 players. I should add I suck at pvp (I know you said pve, but I’m counting it anyway)

First time I did Dragon Stand. I love the battle, and I love a fully coordinated map.

Yea, joining something like DS, having it start failing, then tagging up n bringing it to completion despite all the naysayers feels pretty good too:D

Beating the Ancient Karka after hours of that lagfest event is probably the only time I’ve ever truly been thrilled in the game.

I don’t need to be thrilled, though. I just need to enjoy it, which I do.

Three Words: Super Adventure Box

It broke up the mundane nature of the game “go here and kill this by pressing 1 button repeatedly.” Close behind that are the jumping puzzles themselves. Third would be the Marionette fight which has trumped anything that has come before or after it. Of course tied for fourth place would be the Queen’s Jubilee solo fights, and the Labyrinthine Cliffs map. Even some of the dungeon paths introduced in season one were fun before they were reintroduced and broken up within fractals. Down the list would be other dungeon paths that people don’t normally run. Including the Aether Path in Twilight Arbor.