Guild Wars 2

Hello, I’ve been discussing with some guildmates about ascended and legendary items.
I always had the idea that endgame equipments should be better than normal (exotic) items, because they are hard to get, taking lots of time and farming.
Why GW2 endgame gear is only about 5% better than the exotic?
That does disencourage people to work hard for it.
Such hard work should be rewarded with, lets say a 15% better item than the casual equipment (exotic).
Am I the only one that disagrees about lots of farming for only a 5% upgrade? Am I missing something?
I’ve been told that such a difference would break the meta gaming and lead GW2 player base to ruins, but I don’t see it this way.
What’s the problem with people working hard for some objective, expecting to be fairly rewarded, benefiting from the upgrade and being substantially more powerful than casual players?

Thanks in advance (I’m looking for constructive answers, this question is really bothering me, perhaps more than it should)

It is a game design principle. They (ANet) wants to keep progression after level 80 mostly horizontal and not vertical. All content in the game should be available to everyone at 80 with exotics, that is/was* their goal.

Ascended/Legendary is there more to be something long term to work towards, not meant as an absolute upgrade. After all, Legendaries at launch (before Ascended was added) had Exotic stats.

When you look at how the combat system is actually designed, that makes a whole lot of sense, to not add to big a difference in stats. Playing in PVP/WVW for example makes you realize just how fragile that line of stats can be, and how little is needed to break it.

Anyways, Ascended weapons are really worth it, and a good upgrade in damage. Trinkets you can get for near free anyways. But if I remember the numbers I saw, then Armor is a 2-3% increase only, so not needed.

Trust me, it’s better with Anet’s implementation, it keeps the game fresh and ready to return to if you take extended leaves away like I have been since 2012. When you have a constant “rewarding” end game such as in games like FFXIV and WoW, the reward only exists if you’re willing to grind endlessly for it. Don’t get me wrong, I know this game has legendaries which are a monumental time and resource sink, but they aren’t necessary to complete content like the Artifact Weapon Leveling system that now exists in WoW, or the endless atma drops you have to farm for just one phase of your Artifact weapon in FFXIV. As the poster above me said, exotic gear is usually good enough to do whatever you need to do in the game, maybe except high level fractals or the new raid.

I think that the point is also not just about limiting vertical progression, but focusing on rewards that aren’t related to ‘the next level’ of gear. After all, there is a huge number of skins to collect throughout the game. People need to recognize the game for what it is; it’s not a ‘gear with better stats’ reward kind of game. It’s a ‘cute quaggan backpack’ reward kind of game.

PvE is already considered trivial. More stats will not help. Devaluing exotics would disenfranchise people who bought into the idea that Ascended were a slog put into the game at the request of people who just had to have something to “work at.”

No thanks.

The big benefit of this game over games like WOW for example is that gears grinds are not essential to play the endgame content.
Its not essential to have ascended or legendaries in this game to play the end game content, so if you take a beak from the game , and then come back you arnt behind.
Gear grinds inevitably lead to forever increases in the level cap, which in turn leads to harder and harder content that many players will never be able to do.

Why would I want to play a game where everything I worked for was worthless 6 months later. Do I need to be on some sort of hamster wheel to have fun? Nope. I don’t.

The whole I need better gear to slay these monsters that didn’t exist in the game six months ago has always annoyed me. It always felt contrived, much like the trinity which I also dislike.

The thing you’re complaining about was one of the main selling points of this game.

In fact, when ascended gear was first introduced, a lot of people walked away altogether and many felt betrayed.

This community has very strong feelings against vertical progression.

HauntedCR.8350:

What’s the problem with people working hard for some objective, expecting to be fairly rewarded, benefiting from the upgrade and being substantially more powerful than casual players?

This is what exists now.

Someone who “works hard” is fairly rewarded with ascended gear and is substantially more powerful than those who do not get it.

You don’t need to be “substantially more powerful” than other players by virtue of your fancy gear. All you need is a goal to work toward. The motivation for doing so doesn’t necessarily have to be ever higher stat bonuses.

The trouble is that the reward pool in general is too shallow. For instance, masteries are fairly effective at motivating players to go for them. However, it isn’t long before players either have all of the masteries or stop seeking them because the remaining masteries aren’t worth slogging through less desirable content (adventures and storyline achievements, usually).

What I will agree with is that endgame does feel unrewarding and rather aimless in this game. I simply disagree that the same old paradigm other MMOs have been using for years is the only answer or even a good solution at all. I think it would be very damaging to this game because of its unique playerbase and their expectations. They are extremely sensitive to this issue because they played this game specifically because of choices like this!

The idea behind ascended gear is to give people something to work on if they are the type to focus on acquiring endgame gear. 5% is still a substantial improvement for min-maxers. Although, I’d be fine with 15% increased stats since we have had ages to work on gear with no gear tier increase in sight, I can see why many others would not like the idea.
As it is right now, those not interested in this type of thing can completely neglect ascended gear apart from a few weapons and some easy to acquire trinkets maybe if the difference is just 5%.
Pretty sure that was the compromise they went for.

Take a look here about ascended:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

and here about legendary weapons:
https://www.engadget.com/2012/07/12/arenanet-devs-talk-legendary-weapons-endgame-and-more/

The last point of great interest in the talk revolved around legendary weapons. While legendary weapons aren’t any more powerful than less-rare max-level weapons, their skins are extremely prestigious. Legendary weapons are hard to acquire. They require difficult-to-get components which players have to dedicate time and skill to track down. Additionally, some rare skins can be acquired through the Mystic Forge. Players will be able to trade excess skill points, which still accrue after level 80, for special items to throw into the Mystic Forge to get neat stuff in return.

Legendary weapons are about prestige and unique skins. They also allow you to change their stats when out of combat.

Ascended was added as an extra goal because people were leaving the game because they didn’t have anything to do and because Exotic proved to be really easy to acquire compared to what the devs wanted. It was also added as a bridge between Exotic and Legendary tier of gear. It wasn’t supposed to be a direct increase in stats and power, at least at first, and the main use for ascended was infusions that allow you to get at higher level fractals.

HauntedCR.8350:

What’s the problem with people working hard for some objective, expecting to be fairly rewarded, benefiting from the upgrade and being substantially more powerful than casual players?

HauntedCR.8350:

being substantially more powerful than casual players

The problem is that this game wasn’t made for those people. Luckily, almost every other MMO is like that! May I recommend World of Raid-Or-Quit? It allows you to become much more powerful than the average player and because everyone likes a good grind, the game makes your hard earned gear obsolete every three months. That way you can work hard every year, all year round to avoid becoming a filthy casual scrub.

As other people said it’s a design decision, so that the game isn’t always about grinding the next tier of equipment.

I really like that they’ve done it this way. It means getting ‘end game’ equipment is something I can do once relatively quickly (for exotics) or gradually as and when I feel like it (for ascended) without being locked out of any content because I haven’t got it. And then I only need to re-do it if I want to change my stats.

I like running dungeons sometimes, but I like to do them when I feel like it, not because I can’t continue the story until I’ve got enough dungeon equipment. I like the idea of raiding but won’t be able to commit to even my guilds casual/trainee raid squad until the New Year and I love that I can still go and play in the new maps without having any of the rewards from raids.

And it leaves me time to focus on goals I’m interested in. I like collecting mini pets which takes a huge amount of gold and various other currencies and therefore time. I also like to do map completion (whether I need the rewards or not), jumping puzzles, collect certain skins I’m interested in and sometimes I find an achievement or collection I want to do.

The fact that none of the rewards are required to access other content means it’s up to me which rewards I pursue and in what order instead of having to follow the path the developers have chosen.

It’s not quite the same as the old-school sandbox MMOs – the way my sister played Ultima Online (mainly staying in town crafting, trading and throwing parties) was so different to the way I played (exploring solo and doing dungeons with a guild) that we could have been playing different games. But it’s the same idea of letting you define your character and your activity.

Because Fashion Wars 2 that’s why.

The reason why i cant play other mmos is that i dont have the time to invest so much grind into it , just to get a good gear for PVP for PVE for RAIDS and than when new content comes out you need to reinvest your time again !

not only that
having a casual game that every one is equal like guild wars removes alot of toxicity in the community , the feel of separation and competition from “Elitist” to “Casuals” hurts alot of players and demotivates them , when you have a game that every one can do anything and participate in anything no matter what they wear is amazing .

Guild Wars 1 had the same aspect to its design (even fiercer as you only had to level up to 20) and it worked great and was ahead of its time for this. Horizontal progression is here to stay because people simply don’t have the time to spend on endless powercreep anymore. Just look at the raids we have here, they even forced normalization of completion time through the enrage mechanic, so that a good boss run will take no more than 10 minutes average (even though I hate that), and people already complain how they are dying for 2 hours and they’re wasting time trying to get social and finding a group.

Gear grind is a hugely outdated mechanic, and do not mistake the reason for this with being that people don’t want to make an effort (there are people doing T4 fractals every single day after all in spite of rarely getting any prestige gear out of it, not to mention the silly exotics you get from raiding). The average player has “grown up” in a certain sense (not meant to take young people out of this…we are all on a tighter schedule nowadays) and do not want to spend their time “getting ready for the next thing”, most people just want “the thing” already and be done with it. There might be something wrong with that if you try to apply it to your own life, but it’s certainly not “wrong” inside a MMO environment.

Besides, Anet has already proved from raids and the new fractals that they can lash out a challenge to us without introducing a gear treadmill, and since we’re going to have a good challenge anyways, why not let people feel relatively powerful and fabulous while doing it? When you beat a low level raid in WoW you feel like there’s still so much more to go, but when you beat the Vale Guardian, that’s it, you’re the best kitten around because the same stuff you used can also beat Xera, so it’s all a mindset thing.

Cuz GW2 is exceptionally bad at horizontal progression, so it still uses vertical progression to incentivize players… only it offers that vertical progression with massive diminishing returns.

tl;dr meaningful character progression is toxic.

Loot and upgrades are intentionally terrible and will probably stay that way because anet can get away with it thanks to the business model. And because of the business model horizontal progression (selling skins) works much better than vertical (selling better gear).

The endgame is unrewarding because literally the endgame is unrewarding

Horizontal Progression has serious flaws and that unrewarding feeling is a major one

This game lacks level increases and stat increases meaning your gear is set in stone meaning that easy to aquire rewards such as slight increments in stats on gear are non-existant. In fact basic easy to acquire rewards in other games simply don’t exist in this game. The reward structure is such that everything is on a grind system for rewards. A new skin in WoW can be simple since it also rewards stats you get a wardrobe unlock and you get some stats and thus you feel rewarded. New skins in Gw2 are locked behind excessive crafting, acheivements, gathering and so forth because they can’t reward a simple stat increase.

Furthermore stat increased item as a reward system has to have methods to unlock it and that is typically your dungeon and raid loot. You have to add content for players to do that will unlock that new stat increase in order to keep the hamster wheel spinning. GW2 doesn’t have to spin the wheel and doesn’t have to create content to unlock items in fact they tie it into crafting. Dungeons are very few and allowed to decay and running a raid doesn’t garrentee you a reward you can use but rather it offers crafting material to grind to unlock a reward that’s not even in the game yet. Raids are supposed to allow a person the ability to aquire Legendary armor but it’s not in the game yet and they don’t have too put it in anytime soon. This game may not have a hamster wheel but it does have a wheel and that wheel is crafting materials that need to be grinded out in order to get even the smallest of rewards.

Thus endgame isn’t rewarding because the game likes to think giving items to unlock an item that can unlock another item to finally collect the item is the reward. The crafting mats and collection lists items are disguised as rewards but your not going to be given any sense of accomplishment until months down the road when those items can eventually be turned into something usable like a simple skin.

I haven’t met anyone yet who truly feels the endgame is rewarding and those that do go back to my issue on no short term rewards everything is a long term goal in this game and the grind to finally get that reward at the end of the long tunnel isn’t very fun.

Character progression is world building and creating the proper hamster wheels to reward the player for a job well done. That new gear is a new skin and new stats gathered in a new area using new skills. The hamster wheel is a wheel of rewards and reinventing ones self.

Some of us still feel that ascended should never have existed. Some left, some grudgingly came to accept it, some ignore it all together.

I don’t necessarily agree with the assessment that “endgame” isn’t rewarding, since to me the game is what you make of it. Do I think some things have exorbitant crafting material requirement? Yes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I find the game “unrewarding” in general. There is a difference.

It’s more than 5%.. Full exotic to full ascended is more like 10-15%.

The game is balanced around a certain tier of gear. Massive variance makes it very difficult to design future content to maintain accessibility. It creates pressure for people to grind in order to keep up. When the gains aren’t that big, it’s simply not mandatory.

And success in the game should be determined by experience and knowledge of mechanics. That’s how you should get better, not by doing the same repetitious tasks millions of times.

I think the concept of trying very hard at content so you can find ways to trivialize the very same content a tedious and meaningless game mechanic.

Why should a better or more dedicated player get a crutch to finish the same content easier? And for us that play mostly WvW, a lot would not appreciate being made to grind pve content more.

If you do fractals, Ascended gear won’t seem so worthless to you.

Ascended gear is so easy to get, it’s sad. With the price of mats dumping so hard in the TP over the last few months, I was able to buy the mats needed for roughly 150 to 200g for a piece of gear. And I didn’t even do any kind of hardcore farming, just did Silverwastes everyday for a couple of hours.

Starting on a fresh map and going all the way to VW netted me 15 gold. Did that twice for 30. Every day for a month is 900 gold.

900 gold. Just buy your mats and use a quick guide for crafting. That’s just 2 runs of SW a day. Imagine your money if you go ham.

It’s a matter of perspective. Most MMOs tend to reward you with better gear (power creep, gear grind, etc.) but this game does it with skins. In my eyes, the game is plenty rewarding, with new skins and stat combos, especially at endgame. Besides, I’d rather not have gear grind in this game (gear grind for better armor in particular).

Personally, I love vertical progression. I love working my butt off preparing for the next big thing. I love the satisfaction of accomplishing really difficult raids with friends. These are things I love in an MMO.

I’m still adjusting to the idea of horizontal progression. However, I quit WoW recently because the new expansion basically demands more time than I’ve ever seen before (I’ve been there since Vanilla). Basically every free moment was spent in WoW to meet not just my demands, but my guild’s. The final straw was realizing that I would never have a free weekend. Travel? Nope. Raid requires high attendance. Party at night? Nope. I have to work my butt off on dailies and grinding. Don’t get me wrong. The new expansion is great. So much to do. I just don’t want to put the time investment needed atm because honestly, in a game like that, I can’t be a casual player. I just can’t.

I fear the day I feel I run out of stuff to do here. But I know that day won’t be for a long time. It’s the perk of being a return player who really didn’t accomplish much the first time.

As far as stuff to occupy time, I imagine there are things that aren’t vertical progression that could be time sinks. Housing/decorating/crafting furniture is just one thing that comes to mind. Look at Rift. And what a huge potential financial gain for ANet in the item store.

^^ yup, big difference between having lots to do and having to do lots.

From experience, I know that suggesting housing in a game with no housing is a touchy, controversial subject. I was just throwing one idea out there that didn’t include vertical progression. Another might be to put out a new vendor. There are threads about people complaining that the rewards after you are level/mp capped are disappointing. Maybe add a new currency and add a new vendor.

I don’t know. There are probably a ton of ideas for things they could implement.

I feel like I should bump this with my opinion instead of creating a new thread, as it is not too old.

GW2’s endgame is unrewarding because it is unrewarding.

Vertical progression exists, but it’s not meaningful. It was designed that way to appeal to two different playerbases, but it ended up appealing to no one. Lovers of horizontal progression design hate ascended gear. Lovers of vertical progression design would much rather play games entirely dedicated to it than waste their time for months to get a subtle and optional 10% boost.

Horizontal progression is apparently the big focus of GW2, but it’s generally mediocre or highly flawed. Masteries are finite, and only a few of them are truly meaningful outside of a single map – same for purchasable map bonuses. Legendaries are too hardcore and niche, but there’s little else giving you that sense of adventure that comes from collections, meaning that your averagle player is left empty-handed. Visual-wise, Anet takes too long to implement new, complete armor skins, and they are generally mediocre: bland or ridiculous, copy-pastes of other existing skins, etc. Wardrobe is driven by a rental mechanic, which is unsatisfying, and there’s not even a feature to save and load customised skin sets.

On top of that, the entire loot system is based around collecting an endless amount materials that have no immediate use. Looted gear is nothing but salvage fodder. And if you don’t care about crafting, all you can do with the massive material spam is to sell them at the TP one by one until your patience runs dry.

When the “best” rewards GW2 has to offer in the last patches are a single piece of skin, or an item that converts excessive useless materials into slightly less useless crap, then it’s safe to say that GW2 is one of the most unrewarding RPGs I’ve ever played.

Not to mention that most of the interesting skins and horizontal convenience items are locked behind the trading post and/ or the gem store, leaving little opportunity to have good rewards placed on in-game activities.

It’s a solid game otherwise, and some rewards ARE meaningful and impactful (some of the masteries, for example. Some good skins here and there. Etc.), but Anet has had trouble at designing a rewarding game since day 1, regardless of game design philosphy, and regardless of their focus on horizontal progression.

All MMOs must have an end.
If the “endgame” is not the “end of the game”, then when is the end of the game?

“End game” in Guild Wars 2 is open to interpretation.

I hate MMOs in which I must grind (several hours a day) gear for a year just to be even remotely competitive, specially in PvP.

In that sense Archeage was an eye opener and a absolute crap, with the end gear doing like x4 the damage of the exotic gear equivalent in GW2. I leave that boat in the second month.

BDO isn’t half as bad, but still you have to grind for months for even being able to compete; if you like to PvP to have months of grinding before being able to have fun is just disgusting.

Say you want about GW2, but the game at least has a fair, instantly accesible PvP game mode with normalized stats and a WvW in which you can afford to play a decently geared character in a couple of weeks. And now that you can get ascended armor as PvP rewards the landscape is even more friendly.

I have no problems with the grind of cosmetics (I have Eternity, Bolt, The Ascension and I’m now finishing the Flameseeker) as long as don’t interfere with having fun, but all those games in which you win due you spent more time or more money instead of because you’re more skilled or have more experience are terrible.

The only unrewarding high end is WvW.

Atm, raids are rewarding due to legendary armor requirements.
sPvP its been rewarded with tournaments and lots of stuff like ascended armors, materials and gold wise.

What about WvW? WvW should get some love in this aspect. Winning or losing should reward something more than a few greens.
I must admit that i play WvW not for rewards but for fun. However, as WvW requires lots of players to become a really fun gamestyle i believe that it needs some WvW exclusive stuff so people work together to win matchups.

so the OP’s first port on the forum is about how the game in unrewarding. I’m going to guess you where not here when the game launched, so you probably missed a lot of things, so I’ll just sum things up for you.

legendary weapons originally where just a weapon with fixed stats, they where no better than exotic weapons at the launch of the game. Over time ANet though that it was kind of bad that if you wanted a set stat, but the look of a legendary weapon that you had to transmute it. So they added the stat swap, and when Ascended weapons came out, they got there power bumped to be in like with the top end of gear.

Now as for ascended weapons and armor, they are only meant to be used in fractals, and I believe raids are now made with the Idea you are going in with full ascended level gear. So there is a good chunk of the game where you do not need them, so if you do not intend to play high end fractals or raids, then why waste time and gold on something that is pointless to what you play?

And also Ascended gear is so easy to get now, I’ve only ever made my self one set of ascended armor, and about 3 weapons, the rest have come as drops from PvP, I’ve something like 14 weapons, 3 full sets of armor, and I’m half way through collecting a set of medium and another heavy set. I’m not crafting any of these, I really don’t see the point when it’s so easy to get them from drops. and the power boots is not really needed. it was just a hook to get people to start to craft them back when mat prices where in the toilet, the only thing that had any value was the items used to exotic items, everything else was vender trash.

HauntedCR.8350:

What’s the problem with people working hard for some objective, expecting to be fairly rewarded, benefiting from the upgrade and being substantially more powerful than casual players?

Thanks in advance (I’m looking for constructive answers, this question is really bothering me, perhaps more than it should)

My response is more of a personal preference on gaming. A lot of players, especially mmo people, think hardcore gaming comes from long hours and farming better gear for stats.

My stance is hardcore gamers focus on improving their own skill and comes from the player’s personal improvement whether reflexes, awareness, split second decision making or mechanical skill.

I’ve played a very wide variety of genres and rewarding gameplay for me comes from making calls and pulling it off at a moment’s notice. Sadly, gw2 pve has had huge potential since release but does not allow much depth in terms of their combat system, mostly due to enemies. Key thing I look for is interaction between player and enemy and a few elements in combat such as spacing, timing and opportunistic plays.

To me item grind for stats is not a reward, it’s a bother. I want to improve myself in any game I play than grind for stats and copy a build in (insert meta build sites here) like typical rpgs; performance should mostly come from player than stats.

When you experience that 3-5 seconds of “pro play” in games where u can sit back and just tell yourself “i did that, yeah”, then I think you’ll see what I mean.

Personally, as someone who used to raid in that other MMO for quite some time the gear is nice, having your gear score go up a bit was good but for the most part the true reward was finally taking down that boss, (taking the Lich King down was one of the best gaming moments I’ve had). I prefer guild wars stat cap, you don’t need to grind you just go for the content. The game definitely needs more unique skins that you get from that content but it’s much better IMHO.

Edit: OMG why do you hate me, autocorrect?

DiogoSilva.7089:

I feel like I should bump this with my opinion instead of creating a new thread, as it is not too old.

GW2’s endgame is unrewarding because it is unrewarding.

Vertical progression exists, but it’s not meaningful. It was designed that way to appeal to two different playerbases, but it ended up appealing to no one. Lovers of horizontal progression design hate ascended gear. Lovers of vertical progression design would much rather play games entirely dedicated to it than waste their time for months to get a subtle and optional 10% boost.

Horizontal progression is apparently the big focus of GW2, but it’s generally mediocre or highly flawed. Masteries are finite, and only a few of them are truly meaningful outside of a single map – same for purchasable map bonuses. Legendaries are too hardcore and niche, but there’s little else giving you that sense of adventure that comes from collections, meaning that your average player is left empty-handed. Visual-wise, Anet takes too long to implement new, complete armor skins, and they are generally mediocre: bland or ridiculous, copy-pastes of other existing skins, etc. Wardrobe is driven by a rental mechanic, which is unsatisfying, and there’s not even a feature to save and load customized skin sets.

On top of that, the entire loot system is based around collecting an endless amount materials that have no immediate use. Looted gear is nothing but salvage fodder. And if you don’t care about crafting, all you can do with the massive material spam is to sell them at the TP one by one until your patience runs dry.

When the “best” rewards GW2 has to offer in the last patches are a single piece of skin, or an item that converts excessive useless materials into slightly less useless crap, then it’s safe to say that GW2 is one of the most unrewarding RPGs I’ve ever played.

Not to mention that most of the interesting skins and horizontal convenience items are locked behind the trading post and/ or the gem store, leaving little opportunity to have good rewards placed on in-game activities.

It’s a solid game otherwise, and some rewards ARE meaningful and impactful (some of the masteries, for example. Some good skins here and there. Etc.), but ANet has had trouble at designing a rewarding game since day 1, regardless of game design philosophy, and regardless of their focus on horizontal progression.

100% this.

It’s a good thing I have checklists, that I enjoy the actual gameplay, and that I’m attached to my characters, because if I were just going for the graphical carrots the game dangled in front of me, I wouldn’t stick around for the excessive grind and drip-release of crafting materials as rewards.

Also, some of the GW2’s defenders in this thread are proving the topic creator’s point. He said that GW2’s rewards are underwhelming, and some of you folks are justifying why they are meant to be underwhelming. Conclusion: rewards in GW2 are underwhelming.

Here’s a big question for all of you: can a game that focus on horizontal progression be rewarding? If so, why is GW2 failing at it?

Think about it:
- Wouldn’t GW2 feel more rewarding if the karma map bonuses that you can purchase from the latest new maps applied to all of them at once, instead of forcing you to buy them again whenever a new map comes out?
- Wouldn’t GW2 feel more rewarding if the glider skills could be usable everywhere in the game and not only at bloodstone fen?
- Wouldn’t GW2 feel more rewarding if we had more collection adventures like the ones we’ve gotten in HoT for elite specs?
- Wouldn’t GW2 feel more rewarding if it rewarded you with entire armor or weapon sets each new map, like Dry Top and Silverwastes did, instead of a quaggan backpack or a pair of gloves? And wouldn’t it be even more rewarding if, following GW1’s wonderful model, which Silverwastes also did, if you could unlock a more prestigious version of a new armor set by simply playing the new content?
- Wouldn’t GW2 feel more rewarding if runes and sigils were actually exciting to salvage, if loot had more to it than collectible materials, if Luck was a more interesting investment than merely a stat with diminishing returns that becoems too subtle too fast?
- Wouldn’t GW2 feel more rewarding if you could work for more account upgrades, QoL changes, etc. like we once did with Tyrian masteries, instead of having most of them be placed behind gems?
- Wouldn’t GW2 feel more rewarding if its horizontal progression systems were simply better and more streamlined (wardrobe, stat swaps, rune/ sigil swaps, build templates, skin templates, etc)?

Not to mention potential future additions:
- Mounts? (One of the most popular horizontal progression systems in the entire genre).
- Housing? (Same as above).

All of those features or improvements would have made GW2 more rewarding without having it rely on vertical progression.

Unfortunately, most of the features I’ve mentioned are as they are either because of the business model (which is fine, I guess), or the trading post, the later which forces Anet’s designers to add huge money sinks behind every little thing in order to keep its precious economy in check, but at the expense of a fun and rewarding gameplay experience.

Excellent post, Diogo.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Unfortunately, most of the features I’ve mentioned are as they are either because of the business model (which is fine, I guess), or the trading post, the later which forces Anet’s designers to add huge money sinks behind every little thing in order to keep its precious economy in check, but at the expense of a fun and rewarding gameplay experience.

There’s no doubt that building the game around it’s economic system, rather than the other way around has been a thorn in most players’ sides since day one, but most of the features you mentioned are absent because Anet is simply unable implement them. Some of the most frequently requested ones are either too costly (hence the lack of armour sets) or too much work (build templates and an option for race changing, for example).

HauntedCR.8350:

Thanks in advance (I’m looking for constructive answers, this question is really bothering me, perhaps more than it should)

I think the most constructive answer for you is that you shouldn’t play games you don’t feel entertain (which is the reward you get for games) you for your time. I can only assume you tried most of what this game has to offer before making such a bold statement so unless there is something missing, I see little reason for you to continue subjecting yourself to the game experience, or attempting to ask rhetorical questions, attempting to find truth where it doesn’t exist.

The only way to satisfy the OP is to implement the WOW model, which means forever increasing the level cap, and this then requires an increase on all the weapon and armor stats, which in turn requires an increase in the stats of all the monsters, and the difficulty of all the content has to be raised, and the rewards all have to be raised to make the more difficult content worth doing.
Anet have chosen not to go down this road and for good reason, as the above model essentially creates an ever ongoing gear grind.
If you have run out of things in this game to do , and whats left isnt fun for you, then its time to move on, as this game is no longer suitable for you.

Obtena.7952:

I think the most constructive answer for you is that you shouldn’t play games you don’t feel entertain (which is the reward you get for games) you for your time.

For some players, it may be the opposite: the rewards ARE the entertainment, and not vice-versa. And, usually, the best games strive to acchieve both ways: to have entertaining content with entertaining rewards on top of that. And I assume plenty of gamers would rather have both in a single package, instead of having one at the cost of the other. If GW2 has a hard time achieving both forms of entertainment, then players should definitely speak out, and developers should listen to them.

I consider end game to be only if you already have all your max gear, with all your desired skins, on every toon you care about. At which point it’s time to kill players, afk in town, farm skins you either don’t want and probably don’t like or care about, RP, or wait till new content.

If you like to kill players… unfortunately there are much better options than our conquest with high TTK.

Sitting and AFKing in towns is like a chat room.

WvW gives a nice hybrid of both killing and sitting, afking, and chatting.

Also there is nothing wrong with just waiting for new content, this is how A-net built their business model.

If you want to have a talk about if ascended gear should have more stats… Well I don’t think it matters. As long as it’s the optimal people WILL go for it, so no one is truly discouraged and those who are will still eventually get it.

But it’s a lot more rewarding to those who want optimal stats and to frac, otherwise they’ve already hit endgame and are in the same situation as everyone else who already has everything they want.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Obtena.7952:

I think the most constructive answer for you is that you shouldn’t play games you don’t feel entertain (which is the reward you get for games) you for your time.

For some players, it may be the opposite: the rewards ARE the entertainment, and not vice-versa. And, usually, the best games strive to acchieve both ways: to have entertaining content with entertaining rewards on top of that. And I assume plenty of gamers would rather have both in a single package, instead of having one at the cost of the other. If GW2 has a hard time achieving both forms of entertainment, then players should definitely speak out, and developers should listen to them.

Maybe … but my advice doesn’t change does it … in that case it’s even easier to determine if it’s a game a person will enjoy playing.

Rewards in the form of virtual stuff given for participation and/or “winning” in an MMO drive the MMO genre. Why? The average human brain is going to get bored doing MMO content long before the developer can produce something new. So, developers use virtual carrots to keep players playing (and paying). Over time, the MMO consumer has come to expect rewards. It doesn’t hurt that the fantasy game paradigm was fueled by fantasy PnP RPG’s in which characters kill things and take their stuff. By this time, rewards are hard-wired into both RPG’s and MMO’s.

What GW2 tried to do was to present a tiered reward system in which most things are very easy to obtain. This was (probably) done to allow people who don’t want to devote the (large amounts of) time usually required for typical MMO reward systems. Based on reports, WoW has also been moving towards more immediate gratification. However, back in GW2, some rewards (Legendaries, some MF recipes, and to some degree full Ascended) take more effort. With some exceptions, though, most of what’s needed to get those time-consuming rewards can be gained via a wide variety of play-styles. It’s worth noting that we still see complaints about the exceptions.

So, what GW2 offers is a lot of rewards that are easy to get, and most of what’s left is gained via incremental means (250 T6 Mats, for instance). What GW2 has little of is serendipitous rewards (usually RNG drops of things that actually produce gratification that one’s character has “progressed.”) This is typically in MMO’s a power gain, though it could easily be a horizontal or even cosmetic gain.

There is a fundamental disconnect between players complaining about lack of reward and ANet. How do I know? Every time the complaints about lack of reward reach a kind of critical mass, ANet increases player ability to gain the incremental rewards needed to make their endgame goals, all of which require massive collections that a lot of people will use a spreadsheet or 3rd party site to track, they increase player ability to gain those materials. Just look at the amount of rewards HOT maps throw at us compared to core maps. Despite the (to me) ludicrous drops of salvage bait, these increases make no impact on the “not rewarding” complaints.

What’s really going on is that players who are complaining miss the sensation of satisfaction from serendipitous rewards. While GW2 has some, the incremental rewards are more desirable (Asc. and Legendaries) and complaints about low chance RNG mar the player experience of the existing serendipitous rewards.

So, players looking for the exhilaration of a rare drop are by and large doomed to disappointment while players looking to amass gold by selling the huge numbers of component mats needed for incremental rewards make virtual bank.

Mizhas.8536:

The only unrewarding high end is WvW.

Atm, raids are rewarding due to legendary armor requirements.
sPvP its been rewarded with tournaments and lots of stuff like ascended armors, materials and gold wise.

What about WvW? WvW should get some love in this aspect. Winning or losing should reward something more than a few greens.
I must admit that i play WvW not for rewards but for fun. However, as WvW requires lots of players to become a really fun gamestyle i believe that it needs some WvW exclusive stuff so people work together to win matchups.

It has the potential to offer the most fun experience in the game. :P

Winning and losing matters less than fight(s) that lead to the conclusion. For WvW the journey is definitely more important than the destination. That is also important for getting and retaining people for it. A whole week is a lot of time and opportunities to lose someone’s interest.

I just found it annoying after playing for 3+ years and have no pre but someone who joined for free got one in a week xD

I can enjoy many of the aspects of gameplay, but I also require a reason to play them. Rewards give me that reason. For example, why have legendary weapons? It’s just a skin, right? But more than that it’s a means of giving players something to strive for. In the process, they feel motivated to play the game they enjoy. Take away that motivation and it’s a nice game that doesn’t hold your interest as well.

This game does a poor job with rewards. HoT didn’t offer near enough of the rewards players enjoy and the mastery system lacks depth. Instead of depth what we got was a whole lot of grind for skills that, for the most part, aren’t very fun or useful. For example, the hated Itzel poison lore. It exists for no other purpose than to force you to grind for it. There is nothing rewarding about it at all. They could have done a much better job of this and provided far more skins to work for.

As some have said, its unrewarding because they didnt design that many rewarding systems. They also are not very creative when it comes to rewards. The thinking and reasoning of the item developers often falls into a number system mentality, but their over all design philosophy is at odds with simply increasing the numbers.

End result is you get 100000s of items needed for a minute progression.

Also, the monetization strategies, and the trade system dominance also works against most of the possibilities for creative progression.

Cool things need to be sold for real money, And Big gains for achieving certain goals doesnt lend itself well to the massive marketplace with tons of players.

Sadly, it really is one of the least gratifying games, but increasing the powerlevel wouldnt do much to help. End game gear is not ungratifying because its not enough of a power boost, its ungratifying because the process of obtaining it is usually so tedious, that by the time you get it, its like taking off a burden instead of unlocking something new and cool.

phys.7689:

Sadly, it really is one of the least gratifying games, but increasing the powerlevel wouldnt do much to help. End game gear is not ungratifying because its not enough of a power boost, its ungratifying because the process of obtaining it is usually so tedious, that by the time you get it, its like taking off a burden instead of unlocking something new and cool.

There are two commonly used ways of blocking players from obtaining something:
a) Put it behind some type of content that not everyone will be capable of finishing
b) Put it behind heavy grind, either repetition of the same content, heavy material grind, gold or gems

Since a) is something players of this game dislike with a passion, the most widely used method by Anet as their reward acquisition system is b). It also helps with their gem store, as impatient players can skip some of the grind by paying and converting to gold. Which leads us to the problem at hand, of the items not giving a feeling of accomplishment when you get them. It’s more like “finally I got my legendary, now it’s time to do something fun”

maddoctor.2738:

There are two commonly used ways of blocking players from obtaining something:
a) Put it behind some type of content that not everyone will be capable of finishing
b) Put it behind heavy grind, either repetition of the same content, heavy material grind, gold or gems

Since a) is something players of this game dislike with a passion, the most widely used method by Anet as their reward acquisition system is b). It also helps with their gem store, as impatient players can skip some of the grind by paying and converting to gold. Which leads us to the problem at hand, of the items not giving a feeling of accomplishment when you get them. It’s more like “finally I got my legendary, now it’s time to do something fun”

It also doesn’t helps that, outside of legendaries, there’s very few rewards to work outside of farming gold to buy rare skins from the TP.

More collections like Mawdrey or HoT’s elite spec items, or an improved/ slightly less annoying version of Silverwastes’ carapace armor collection, would be lovely, as they engage players into quests that make use of newly-released content, and aren’t either too easy as story rewards/ achievements usually are, nor too hard and long as the legendary journey, filling a gap for medium-term rewards that GW2 generally lacks.