Guild Wars 2

Edit: Lol, it appears that I have asked the question in too subtle a manner.
What I’m actually asking is, “What kinds of activities should ANet make rewarding, and what should they make not rewarding?”
And the answer can’t be “Everything should be rewarding”, because that means nothing is – wealth is relative. Unless you prefer a game without an economy where everyone earns personal rewards.

Here’s a philosophical question for you all.

Who deserves to be rich? (in GW2)

Let’s accept that GW2 is a game with trading, money and scarce items (as opposed to say, an FPS where you build up points to unlock weapons on your account, and everyone has the same menu of unlocks.)

So what type of player, in your opinion, “deserves” lots of money? “Deserves” the precursor, the legendary?

In other words, what activities in the game should be well rewarded?

- Is it the person who spends a lot of time farming? (and bots)
- Is it the person who plays with the market?
- Is it the person who completes extremely difficult content? (ie. 1% of the population)
- Is it the person who got lucky on an RNG roll? (and spent 1000’s of gold rolling over and over…)

Personally, I feel that only two types of activities should be well rewarded:

• Skillful activities.*
  Winning PvP tournaments. Being the first to reach a deeper level in Fractals than anyone else. Getting top score in some kind of dungeon Hard Mode speedrun ladder. Completing all jumping puzzles, etc.

Skillful activities are things that are difficult to do. Not everyone can do them, and in fact, some people may never be able to. But they can try, and maybe get some consolation prizes along the way.

• Once-off activities.*
  These are things that you can only get once in a playthrough of the game. (whether you can do reset/loop and start from scratch is up to the designers.)
  Map completion, attempt all jumping puzzles, finish the storyline, complete all dungeon story paths, win your first PvP match, etc.

I like these because they give you something to work towards, without being abusable over and over. They also tend to spread out your gameplay – rather than farming a single area over and over, getting your Precursor via map completion (for example) will take you all over the world.

These are rewards that anyone can get, with a bit of time. Still, that does mean the items are not as rare anymore. If you could get a Legendary via map completion, then most people would have one. But would that be a terrible thing?

Who do you think deserve to be rich?

So… you believe only those who do group activities should be rewarded, for the first part. You would try to make it so that only the elitists / group players can gain. No, I disagree.

And one-off activities such as achievements would hardly gain you enough for anything worthwhile. Plus, there are already achievement goals.

In my case, i do not think I deserve to be rich but I do deserve to be rewarded. I have been PvPing since launch, have rank 80 and consistently score in top 500 players. But once I leave the heart of the mists, there is no recognition at all of my achievements. I don’t have a trimmed cape like in the original game or a special guild emote.

The only thing I have is a rank 80 emote, which unfortunately does not show skill at all only grind.

IF I were to dedicate the exact same time to PvE, I would have had a legendary and tons of achievement points; and a lot more recognition.

Everyone starts off in the same game with the same resources and the same opportunities.

Anyone who is rich deserves to be rich. Games are the ultimate in equality, there is no discrimination, so anyone can do anything.

The only variable is RNG which gives some people precursors, but getting a single precursor just makes you middle class, not rich. 2k+ in gold and assets is what I would consider “rich”.

The problem is that there is not enough challenging content in this game to scale rewards accordingly.

Trading is the most rewarding because its profits (and losses) actually scale with your skill compared to other players and it is balanced through other players decisions, not game mechanics.

Everyone deservers to be rich i.m.o. the only problem is rich people bring bad influence to the market which makes it impossible for new people to buy normal stuff.

People may get rich by die-hard farming something, they pumped their time and energy into it.

People may get rich by playing the tradepost, they understand the way things work and make good use of it.

People may get rich by by difficult content, they have the skill to do so, and maybe some small degree of luck.

In the end it doesn’t matter how one gets rich, it all needs the same amount of luck, effort and as many attempts as it should take for that single person.

People who invest a lot of time and effort are the ones who deserve to be rich and rewarded. Naturally there should be a stratification where the top 1% is the richest because not everyone puts in as much effort as those few who are truly dedicated and have the time and skill.

By the way here is a semi-related analogy that I think brings a proper perspective on this topic. In the US there’s been a huge fuss in recent years over how much taxes rich people should pay. Politicians have been getting average citizens stirred up thinking rich people aren’t “paying their fair share.” They talk about “the distribution of wealth” as if it’s a thing to be evenly allocated like rations.

The truth is that if the US were like a row boat with 10 people in it, 1 person would be busting their kitten rowing, and the other 9 would be sitting around complaining that the 1 person rowing isn’t rowing enough. The lion’s-share of taxes in the US are paid by the top 10%. The top 1% pay something like 30% of the taxes, and the bottom 50% pay nothing.

Now there’s all kinds of discussion to be had about the US economy and that analogy, but the thing to take away here is that the few people who do have wealth are also the ones busting their kittens. If you look at real success stories, people who make it in life had to get up off their bum and work really hard to earn it. My rich friends in GW2 have over 20k AP and don’t spend time faffing about on forums, or complaining that the can only play X hours per day. In fact my richest friend works 40 hours a week, has 5 legendaries, and still finds time to play his guitar (he’s really good).

I guess what I’m trying to say is people shouldn’t feel entitled to gold and wealth in GW2. They should play the kitten game and earn it. Now if you get a random precursor, good for you. But those things should just be seen as a once-in-a-lifetime bonus, not an entitlement.

Xenon.4537:

People who invest a lot of time and effort are the ones who deserve to be rich and rewarded. Naturally there should be a stratification where the top 1% is the richest because not everyone puts in as much effort as those few who are truly dedicated and have the time and skill.

By the way here is a semi-related analogy that I think brings a proper perspective on this topic. In the US there’s been a huge fuss in recent years over how much taxes rich people should pay. Politicians have been getting average citizens stirred up thinking rich people aren’t “paying their fair share.” They talk about “the distribution of wealth” as if it’s a thing to be evenly allocated like rations.

The truth is that if the US were like a row boat with 10 people in it, 1 person would be busting their kitten rowing, and the other 9 would be sitting around complaining that the 1 person rowing isn’t rowing enough. The lion’s-share of taxes in the US are paid by the top 10%. The top 1% pay something like 30% of the taxes, and the bottom 50% pay nothing.

Now there’s all kinds of discussion to be had about the US economy and that analogy, but the thing to take away here is that the few people who do have wealth are also the ones busting their kittens. If you look at real success stories, people who make it in life had to get up off their bum and work really hard to earn it. My rich friends in GW2 have over 20k AP and don’t spend time faffing about on forums, or complaining that the can only play X hours per day. In fact my richest friend works 40 hours a week, has 5 legendaries, and still finds time to play his guitar (he’s really good).

I guess what I’m trying to say is people shouldn’t feel entitled to gold and wealth in GW2. They should play the kitten game and earn it. Now if you get a random precursor, good for you. But those things should just be seen as a once-in-a-lifetime bonus, not an entitlement.

You should fix that to play the game and earn it, unless you PvP

Also rich people can buy their legendary without effort at all, it only costs like $400 per legendary with gems.

I do not believe, that anybody “deserves” to be rich (or poor) in this game. You are trying to decide which kinds of fun are “better” and “more deserving” of a reward. This is a highly subjective thing, and because of that no such statements should be applied globally and equally to everyone.

To put it in opposite perspective, everyone deserves to get rich by doing things they consider fun, and all such options should give equal opportunity.

Xenon.4537:

The lion’s-share of taxes in the US are paid by the top 10%. The top 1% pay something like 30% of the taxes, and the bottom 50% pay nothing.

hmmmmm

Notice how close the taxes revenue is to the income percentage? Yeah, seems noone is really “rowing” beyond their share. Now, notice that the top 1% seems to have 20% of the total income? And top 20% has about 60% of the total income?
In that example you supplied, out of the 10 rowers 2 make for over half of the rowing strength, but only because they eat so much out of the common share, that the remaining 8 are underfed.

lorddavito.2395:

Everyone deservers to be rich i.m.o. the only problem is rich people bring bad influence to the market which makes it impossible for new people to buy normal stuff.

People may get rich by die-hard farming something, they pumped their time and energy into it.

People may get rich by playing the tradepost, they understand the way things work and make good use of it.

People may get rich by by difficult content, they have the skill to do so, and maybe some small degree of luck.

In the end it doesn’t matter how one gets rich, it all needs the same amount of luck, effort and as many attempts as it should take for that single person.

you know if everyone was ‘rich’, that would just increase the prices of everything, resulting in inflation?

It’s an unfortunate reality in the real world and game world that some people have to be poor.

Rieselle.5079:

Here’s a philosophical question for you all.

Who deserves to be rich? (in GW2)

Let’s accept that GW2 is a game with trading, money and scarce items (as opposed to say, an FPS where you build up points to unlock weapons on your account, and everyone has the same menu of unlocks.)

So what type of player, in your opinion, “deserves” lots of money? “Deserves” the precursor, the legendary?

In other words, what activities in the game should be well rewarded?

- Is it the person who spends a lot of time farming? (and bots)
- Is it the person who plays with the market?
- Is it the person who completes extremely difficult content? (ie. 1% of the population)
- Is it the person who got lucky on an RNG roll? (and spent 1000’s of gold rolling over and over…)

---

snip

Who do you think deserve to be rich?

IMO,

• First of all, all bots deserve a perm ban. This includes farming bots and TP bots,

(My opinion about them getting rich is Anet should up their enforcement)

• Person who spends a lot of time farming – Not sure about rich but as much as RNG (for random drops) and his wares will get him,

(Assume its legit farm, my opinion about them getting rich is “well deserved” for the effort and business savvy)

• Person who plays with the market – There is risk involved so fortunes can be made and broken here. What I object to very much is the data from the TP can be downloaded by websites and used by TP players to find opportunities TP-wide with a few keystrokes. I would like this ‘gap’ to be closed. If a player used his whole day to manually search and calculate, I would have no objections.

(My opinion about above group getting rich is… mainly disgust)

• Person who completes extremely difficult content (ie. 1% of the population) – certainly more deserving that the one who runs around in a group just spamming ‘1’.

(My opinion about above group getting rich is mainly admiration. Wish I was skilled enough too)

• Person who got lucky on an RNG roll? (and spent 1000’s of gold rolling over and over…) – if everyone who did that got rich, then there is something wrong with the system. If out of 10 people who did that, 6 or more were ‘financially ruined’, then its acceptable to me.

(My opinion about above group getting rich is “you got lucky this time”).

GuzziHero.2467:

So… you believe only those who do group activities should be rewarded, for the first part. You would try to make it so that only the elitists / group players can gain. No, I disagree.

Yeah .. the old elite-raider garbage you meet in all of these other MMOs.
One of the main reasons i play GW2 and will never touch again any of this
so called “progress orientated” MMOs.

I’m pretty poor in game, too, but I have to agree that I deserve to be. I’m no good at PvP or WvW and don’t put the time in to get better. I know very little about playing the market, so of course I’m not going to make money from it. As for going out and farming resources, the ones who make it their job and do so for hours (bots excluded, screw those guys) are the ones who’ll make money off it.

However, I would love for there to be some kind of reward for completing all the jump puzzles. Not a precursor or anything, but maybe some of the harder to obtain stuff toward legendaries or ascended gear, like a stack of empyreal fragments or 10 icy runestones.

Chase.8415:

unless you PvP

Not sure what you are getting at. Are you saying PvPers can’t earn legendaries? Yes they can. They just need to get off their pvp high horse and go play the other 66% of the game.

Inb4 “enjoy”

I don’t care if they only enjoy pvp. Legendaries are designed from the ground up to be a game-encompassing goal. If they want to reach a goal which is defined as covering the entire game, they need to play more than a small portion of that game.

I’m sorry but I just get really ticked off at “entitlement” attitude. Not that you said you were entitled, but you brought the idea up.

Also rich people can buy their legendary without effort at all, it only costs like $400 per legendary with gems.

If they want to spend their hard earned real world money for that, then that’s their business. If there were really that many people converting that many gems, the gold price of gems would be a heck of a lot lower than it is now due to a massive flood of supply. People paying real money for legendaries is neither here nor there.

Farming needs proper DR. We were told long, long ago that there’s something like that, but honestly, after 2 years, I’m still waiting to see it.

People that find an opportunity and take advantage of it. People that find the most profitable play style and consistently use it.

Like in real life, the rich either are better at finding opportunities then you are or are willing to work at something that may not be the most “fun” job in their eyes.

No one deserves a kitten thing innately. Zaybug summarizes it nicely for you OP.

I would say all deserve equally, but that’s just not how it is, we all know TP flippers are the richest.

There was this game a long time ago called puzzle pirates.

To get rich, you needed to invest a month or of income to purchase a ship and use (and risk) that ship to tackle very hard dungeons. Ships could sink and be lost permanently.

If you had a ship, you needed to invite other players (4 to 100 or more) onboard to act as your crew. They would play puzzles and this would allow you as captain to perform actions with your ship such as moving it around, firing cannons and repairing damage.

When the dungeon was completed, loot would be distributed between captain and crew automatically; ofc the captain and any officers would get a much larger share than simple crewmen. But this was OK because the captain is the one to put his ship at risk and allowed many other players to access the dungeon.

Good captains got much rewards and could eventually buy bigger ships (and entertain more players) while bad captains lost their ship and had to start at the bottom of the ladder. Anyone could pile up money and buy a small ship and try to climb the ladder, but few had the skills to become successful.

I think such mechanics are fair and awesome.

there is no such thing as desrving something, you get what you get in life

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Everyone starts off in the same game with the same resources and the same opportunities.

Anyone who is rich deserves to be rich. Games are the ultimate in equality, there is no discrimination, so anyone can do anything.

The only variable is RNG which gives some people precursors, but getting a single precursor just makes you middle class, not rich. 2k+ in gold and assets is what I would consider “rich”.

This is bullkitten because not everyone has the same amount of time to play, and in most MMOs time = power.

Lol, it appears that I have asked the question in too subtle a manner.
What I’m actually asking is, “What kinds of activities should ANet make rewarding, and what should they make not rewarding?”
And the answer can’t be “Everything should be rewarding”, because that means nothing is – wealth is relative. Unless you prefer a game without an economy where everyone earns personal rewards.

So yeah, from a game design point of view, I prefer the greatest rewards (like huge cash, precursors, etc) be given to high-skill activities and one-off activities, like I said in my OP.

who deservers to be rich IRL?
- the person who tells others to do their job (CEO)
- the person who does hard labor for 80 hours a week (McD cashier)
- the person who has a good idea, spends a few weeks to put it into action, then retires (tech startup)
- the person who is directly responsible for the quality of our children (teacher)

Rieselle.5079:

Here’s a philosophical question for you all.

Who deserves to be rich? (in GW2)

Let’s accept that GW2 is a game with trading, money and scarce items (as opposed to say, an FPS where you build up points to unlock weapons on your account, and everyone has the same menu of unlocks.)

So what type of player, in your opinion, “deserves” lots of money? “Deserves” the precursor, the legendary?

In other words, what activities in the game should be well rewarded?

- Is it the person who spends a lot of time farming? (and bots)
- Is it the person who plays with the market?
- Is it the person who completes extremely difficult content? (ie. 1% of the population)
- Is it the person who got lucky on an RNG roll? (and spent 1000’s of gold rolling over and over…)

---

Personally, I feel that only two types of activities should be well rewarded:

• Skillful activities.*
  Winning PvP tournaments. Being the first to reach a deeper level in Fractals than anyone else. Getting top score in some kind of dungeon Hard Mode speedrun ladder. Completing all jumping puzzles, etc.

Skillful activities are things that are difficult to do. Not everyone can do them, and in fact, some people may never be able to. But they can try, and maybe get some consolation prizes along the way.

• Once-off activities.*
  These are things that you can only get once in a playthrough of the game. (whether you can do reset/loop and start from scratch is up to the designers.)
  Map completion, attempt all jumping puzzles, finish the storyline, complete all dungeon story paths, win your first PvP match, etc.

I like these because they give you something to work towards, without being abusable over and over. They also tend to spread out your gameplay – rather than farming a single area over and over, getting your Precursor via map completion (for example) will take you all over the world.

These are rewards that anyone can get, with a bit of time. Still, that does mean the items are not as rare anymore. If you could get a Legendary via map completion, then most people would have one. But would that be a terrible thing?

---

Who do you think deserve to be rich?

I like both your options. I would say the farmer should be able to get rich cause that is literally the only thing he’s doing. I think the market should only lead to monetary wealth. Market Management should be for making money, but I don’t feel that should be how you get those major achievements like Legendaries.

I feel that everyone should be capable of becoming “rich” just by playing the game for the game.

Xenon.4537:

The lion’s-share of taxes in the US are paid by the top 10%. The top 1% pay something like 30% of the taxes, and the bottom 50% pay nothing.

Now there’s all kinds of discussion to be had about the US economy and that analogy

I sure hope you don’t major in economics.

Xenon.4537:

My rich friends in GW2 have over 20k AP and don’t spend time faffing about on forums, or complaining that the can only play X hours per day. In fact my richest friend works 40 hours a week, has 5 legendaries, and still finds time to play his guitar (he’s really good).

Maybe he uses income from that 40 hours per week to fuel his game. Or maybe he only plays Guild Wars 2 and doesn’t focus on anything like a social life, a relationship, kids, movies, other games, books, television…

Your logical fallacy is anecdotal.

Chase.8415:

Also rich people can buy their legendary without effort at all, it only costs like $400 per legendary with gems.

Eh, it would probably cost more than that due to how much the gem:gold ratio would drop after so many gem purchases. However, yeah, it takes about $400-$500 to get a Legendary. Tbh, though, I would imagine if someone had that kind of money they aren’t playing Guild Wars 2…if I had $500 to spare, I sure as kitten wouldn’t.

Rieselle.5079:

Edit: Lol, it appears that I have asked the question in too subtle a manner.
What I’m actually asking is, “What kinds of activities should ANet make rewarding, and what should they make not rewarding?”
And the answer can’t be “Everything should be rewarding”, because that means nothing is – wealth is relative. Unless you prefer a game without an economy where everyone earns personal rewards.

---

Here’s a philosophical question for you all.

Who deserves to be rich? (in GW2)

Let’s accept that GW2 is a game with trading, money and scarce items (as opposed to say, an FPS where you build up points to unlock weapons on your account, and everyone has the same menu of unlocks.)

So what type of player, in your opinion, “deserves” lots of money? “Deserves” the precursor, the legendary?

In other words, what activities in the game should be well rewarded?

- Is it the person who spends a lot of time farming? (and bots)
- Is it the person who plays with the market?
- Is it the person who completes extremely difficult content? (ie. 1% of the population)
- Is it the person who got lucky on an RNG roll? (and spent 1000’s of gold rolling over and over…)

---

Personally, I feel that only two types of activities should be well rewarded:

• Skillful activities.*
  Winning PvP tournaments. Being the first to reach a deeper level in Fractals than anyone else. Getting top score in some kind of dungeon Hard Mode speedrun ladder. Completing all jumping puzzles, etc.

Skillful activities are things that are difficult to do. Not everyone can do them, and in fact, some people may never be able to. But they can try, and maybe get some consolation prizes along the way.

• Once-off activities.*
  These are things that you can only get once in a playthrough of the game. (whether you can do reset/loop and start from scratch is up to the designers.)
  Map completion, attempt all jumping puzzles, finish the storyline, complete all dungeon story paths, win your first PvP match, etc.

I like these because they give you something to work towards, without being abusable over and over. They also tend to spread out your gameplay – rather than farming a single area over and over, getting your Precursor via map completion (for example) will take you all over the world.

These are rewards that anyone can get, with a bit of time. Still, that does mean the items are not as rare anymore. If you could get a Legendary via map completion, then most people would have one. But would that be a terrible thing?

---

Who do you think deserve to be rich?

i think first of all you should break up wealth into different types of wealth.

Everyone should deserve to be “rich” within thier baliwick. Their “wealth” should reflect the type of gameplay they are good at.
The trade in value on that wealth should be determined by the market.

So what needs to happen? all major forms of content need more depth, for some content this may be challenge, for other content it may be dedication, for other content it may be results, for other content it may be ingenuity.

People like to feel good at something, they like either be able to get better at, or do what they like a lot. They want what they like to do to be valuable, and hope that what they do can make them better at what they do.

“Wealth” shouldnt just be about gold, rewards shouldnt just be about their gold equivalence.

lets say for doing some mining activities, you unlocked new mining utilities/traits like swiftness time per item gathered, targeted boosts to specific items occuring on mining success, ability to see phantom nodes which move everytime you zone, node hot and cold meters, etc. Random chances to get ascended metals. Random access to hidden mining areas.
Now this miner would be wealthy in terms of his ability to mine, and would get more value out of mining in the same time frame as someone else.

wealth in terms of hunting treasure chests might be different, wealth in terms of running dungeons would be different. Wealth for event organizers/community organizers would be different.

If you just make one type of gameplay the defacto most rewarding, many people will flock to it, or feel like they have to do it to succeed. By making each type of gameplay rewarding in different ways, and having depth, you will have people choosing the things they are best at, or enjoy more. And since the type of rewards they can get for doing it fit the type of play they enjoy, they will be happier, even if they arent actually running around with gold bags

I think people who excel at what they do should be rewarded most. There are good PvP players (who are adequately rewarded in tournaments). There are good PvE players (who solo Arah and make a lot money). There are good WvW players…who don’t make kitten.

I think your question should be, “What play styles should Anet reward with the most gold?”

Which ever it is will be the one a large number of people focus on. So, whatever kind of gameplay GW2 wants to encourage should be what they make the most financially rewarding.

Who “deserves” to be rich is irrelevant.

hannah mee.7925:

Eh, it would probably cost more than that due to how much the gem:gold ratio would drop after so many gem purchases. However, yeah, it takes about $400-$500 to get a Legendary. Tbh, though, I would imagine if someone had that kind of money they aren’t playing Guild Wars 2…if I had $500 to spare, I sure as kitten wouldn’t.

What does your access to disposable income have to do with what games you play? I could drop $500 on a legendary if I really thought it was important enough. I just never would because of course it isn’t.

I would say that the real problem isn’t so much that some players can get money and some can’t, it’s more that money is pretty much the be all and end all in terms of rewards. When you can buy so much of what constitutes the result that players want, be it through in game Gold or through the cash shop, money is too powerful. What ANet needs to do is create rewards that are either central to the specific style of gameplay though which they are earned or just make the current rewards achievable in ways other than just buying them. For example, if you could legitimately get a Legendary through some way other than buying it off the auction house then there wouldn’t be anywhere near as much need to be rich, and consequently the auction house prices would probably drop as well.

In short, the question shouldn’t be “who deserves to be rich?” but instead should be “what can be done to make being rich in GW2 less desirable?”

Everyone, supply is infinite in a videogame.

Traidingpost flippers don’t deserve it, plain simple. They don’t need “skill” you would think you need to be good in a MMO, yet they make by far the most reward.

No one is entitled to anything; no one ‘deserves’ to be rich.

Please enlighten me about how a market economy makes sense in a videogame which is a universe where you can control every single economic variable to create a system where ever single economic agent can (hypothetically) have access to a infinite supply of everything.

Actually, I WOULD be interested in playing a game where every player can earn all rewards just by doing whatever content they enjoy. To do this, we’d need to do three things:

1. RNG is eliminated, and supply vastly increased. There are no truly rare things in the game. Players get a Precursor of their choice for completing their Personal Story (and another one for completing LS1, LS2 etc.) Stuff like Infinite Light may still require 250 Charged Lodestones, but now you always get a guaranteed Charged Lodestone from killing a level 80 Champion Air Elemental. If there is something you want, you look up what creature or activity drops it, and you go do it. From there, it’s just a matter of time.

2. Every single item in the game can be bought and sold on the TP. Nothing is account bound/soulbound. So if that skin you want is only available from SAB, and you absolutely HATE doing JP’s, you have the choice of buying it from someone who likes the activity and has oodles of the skin to spare.

3. All game activities reward the same amount of gold for the same amount of time. (Will probably need tweaking to ensure it remains in balance.) 1 hour of PvE rewards the same as 1 hour of PvP and the same as 1 hour of crafting.

Now, this will result in a game where you can expect the vast majority of players to be running around with the same, flashiest, most expensive gear. (But honestly, players already try to do that anyway.) Then again, I’m also the type of player to whom status or “bragging rights” or even uniqueness is irrelevant. I don’t care what another player is using, and I don’t care what they think of what I’m using either. I outfit my character to satisfy my own preferences and aesthetic choices. What other players do with their characters is their own business.

Many players may feel a game like this is pointless and/or ruined, but I’d still be happy to play it. Of course, I understand that I’m in the minority here, so I’m well aware ANet or any other game company would never take this approach. It would turn off far too much of the player base.

Rieselle.5079:

And the answer can’t be “Everything should be rewarding”, because that means nothing is – wealth is relative. Unless you prefer a game without an economy where everyone earns personal rewards.

Everything and nothing should be rewarding. I’d be fine with a game where every item is unlocked by default. The economy is just a sideshow, that’s not where my fun comes from. I don’t care how many NPCs, the legions of pseudonymous internet folk, have the same items as I do.

What i’m really interested in is fun, engaging, repeatable content. The game itself is the reward. For example, if I’m playing an FPS, I don’t play for loot, I play because the game is fun. Shooting down helicopters and attacking bases are interesting, hoarding hats and unlocking weapons are not.

Does one need to be paid to enjoy a game of basketball or chess?

voidwater.2064:

Rieselle.5079:

And the answer can’t be “Everything should be rewarding”, because that means nothing is – wealth is relative. Unless you prefer a game without an economy where everyone earns personal rewards.

Everything and nothing should be rewarding. I’d be fine with a game where every item is unlocked by default. The economy is just a sideshow, that’s not where my fun comes from. I don’t care how many NPCs, the legions of pseudonymous internet folk, have the same items as I do.

What i’m really interested in is fun, engaging, repeatable content. The game itself is the reward. For example, if I’m playing an FPS, I don’t play for loot, I play because the game is fun. Shooting down helicopters and attacking bases are interesting, hoarding hats and unlocking weapons are not.

Does one need to be paid to enjoy a game of basketball or chess?

yeah, actually a lot of people do. they have basketball tournaments, chess tournaments, i remember my father talking about how back in the day him and a buddy used to try to make cash traveling all over the place for chess tournaments.

I get your point, but its not really about loot, its about incentives. Once a game system incorporates reward into it, it has to be done consistently with the game design, or it messes up the game. If you have no rewards, you dont have to worry about that.

For example, once you decide to have a chess tournament with a prize. If you make it so that players get money based on how many peices they kill, you are messing up the game design.
The most profitable way to play now is to kill as many peices as possible. You change the very nature of your game with a reward structure that goes against the game design.

Say if in basketball you got paid more if you score with a defender, suddenly instead of trying for open shots, players are waiting for the defense.

point is, if you have rewards at all, it must be consistent with your desired game design

Anyone and everyone.

Period.

And different means to make it possible, with or without skill and/or luck.

And seeing as Anet have 3 major game modes (PvE,PvP,WvW) they’re encouraging people to play, these should be equally rewarding.

people who are skilled (including tp flippers) or invest lots of time into the game

Well according to arenanet the person who is a lucky kitten and gets lots of precursors and other rare drops without doing anything for it deserves to be rich the most

This is frankly just an inflammatory thread with no real reason to exist other than insight RNG hate directed at ANet….isn’t that a challenging prospect here?

The use of the term “deserves” directly relates to the generally entitled point of view that far too many players carry around like badge of honor.

Brother Grimm.5176:

This is frankly just an inflammatory thread with no real reason to exist other than insight RNG hate directed at ANet….isn’t that a challenging prospect here?

The use of the term “deserves” directly relates to the generally entitled point of view that far too many players carry around like badge of honor.

actually i dont think the OPs point was rng, i think the point is designing rewards that incentitvize player behavior better.

And questioning what type of behaviors do you think they should incentivize. Apparently a lot of people have a problem with random drops
that said, i think some random is a good thing, when its targeted properly.

Kal Spiro.9745:

hannah mee.7925:

Eh, it would probably cost more than that due to how much the gem:gold ratio would drop after so many gem purchases. However, yeah, it takes about $400-$500 to get a Legendary. Tbh, though, I would imagine if someone had that kind of money they aren’t playing Guild Wars 2…if I had $500 to spare, I sure as kitten wouldn’t.

What does your access to disposable income have to do with what games you play? I could drop $500 on a legendary if I really thought it was important enough. I just never would because of course it isn’t.

Having the kind of disposable income to spend $500 without seriously considering the ramifications just leans toward a wealthier culture. I’m sure they might still dabble in GW2, but with that kind of money I imagine someone would probably invest in something a bit more collaborative to, I don’t know, their social health? Belonging to clubs, theater and owning offsite vacation spots are just a few ideas.

It wouldn’t apply to everyone, obviously – but it’s apply to a majority. That agf crap doesn’t really fly on game forums.

hannah mee.7925:

Kal Spiro.9745:

hannah mee.7925:

Eh, it would probably cost more than that due to how much the gem:gold ratio would drop after so many gem purchases. However, yeah, it takes about $400-$500 to get a Legendary. Tbh, though, I would imagine if someone had that kind of money they aren’t playing Guild Wars 2…if I had $500 to spare, I sure as kitten wouldn’t.

What does your access to disposable income have to do with what games you play? I could drop $500 on a legendary if I really thought it was important enough. I just never would because of course it isn’t.

Having the kind of disposable income to spend $500 without seriously considering the ramifications just leans toward a wealthier culture. I’m sure they might still dabble in GW2, but with that kind of money I imagine someone would probably invest in something a bit more collaborative to, I don’t know, their social health? Belonging to clubs, theater and owning offsite vacation spots are just a few ideas.

It wouldn’t apply to everyone, obviously – but it’s apply to a majority. That agf crap doesn’t really fly on game forums.

Rich people tend to spend money, its actually generally reccomended to burn money if you want to be rich, because that feeds the desire, the pursuit of wealth and all the useless crap you can buy with it.

This is why rich people have fancier suits, more expensive clothes, the newest tech, Paintings worth millions.

point is, what does a rich person spend their money on? basically anything they please. Its not a big deal either way. They dont have to make choices, they can burn 500 on an item in GW, 1000 on some wine, 100, 000 on a car.

Your thought process is of a working class/poor individual, or someone trying to get rich.

trading post flippers and credit card players deserve to be rich.

But I think exclusive rewards for example Excalibur should be given to adventurer over merchant. Players are called merchant for a reason, they should be rich in money, but not necessary shinny gears.

On the other hand Credit card players deserve eveything since they paid more to support the game.

I often wonder why the people who are so good at creating bucketloads of wealth ingame aren’t out doing it in real life…

If I had that talent…yea

Chuo.4238:

I often wonder why the people who are so good at creating bucketloads of wealth ingame aren’t out doing it in real life…

If I had that talent…yea

I have to say it is much easier to make money from the virtual GW2 stock market than the real one.

Buy exclusive event item, hoard them for a few month and sell them. Much easier than real life. That being said, Anet start to re-release event items regularly, it is a bit harder now.

Rieselle.5079:

- Is it the person who spends a lot of time farming? (and bots)
- Is it the person who plays with the market?
- Is it the person who completes extremely difficult content? (ie. 1% of the population)
- Is it the person who got lucky on an RNG roll? (and spent 1000’s of gold rolling over and over…)

---

All four of them!

Another example as to why the TPcentric focus of the game is never good.

And yes they can make it so that all activities and all gameplay styles have rewards there’s never been a game where this was implemented and it was a bad thing ever in the history of mmos.

Right now they already do have a philosophy of who can be rich and it’s centered around dungeons/Eotm.

Chuo.4238:

I often wonder why the people who are so good at creating bucketloads of wealth ingame aren’t out doing it in real life…

If I had that talent…yea

some are, but mostly its not as easy to get into, track, and the risk is real. A lot of people are super soldiers in game, but they lack the personality traits to do it irl.