Guild Wars 2

Yes champion loot bags are both good and bad. Finally we are rewarded for spending time killing those champs, it feels really rewarding for solo-players and groups. The thing is: people tend to do the more rewarding stuff than the stuff they consider fun.

Now we got the dungeon reward revamp. It’s the first step of rewarding players based on difficulty and time spent. There may be some balance-issues and the numbers could need a bit of tweaking, but the idea is the right one imho.

The next step I think would be applying it to the rest of the game. Reward players for all kinds of things they enjoy – based on time spent and difficulty. Not pure rng. This probably would look like this:

• rewards for explorers: randomly spawned artifacts on maps, a bonus reward for doing a variety of different events (like a bonus chest for doing 4 unique events in a row),…
• rewards for people who enjoy grinding: while some people enjoy exploring others enjoy farming the same spot over and over. Give a bonus in magicfind to players who kill an enemy type for a certain amount of time.

the important part: none of these 2 different playstyles is superior to the other. 2 kinds of players should have the freedom to do the thing they enjoy most.

• meta event encounters get their redesign as devs stated. The rewards have to be adjusted. It can’t be that it’s more profitable to teleport from one boss to the next (via. the information from dragon-timers) instead of putting effort in finding different events.

What we also know about future implementation: we get a chance to increase magicfind via. consumables out of blues and greens. What will happen then? Will people farm the same event over and over with huge groups so that more enemies spawn? A lot of players would feel punished to run in small groups. This has to be adressed… I don’t know how though.

TL;DR: Anet started balancing rewards with the new dungeon revamp (time+difficulty=reward). Next step would be applying this to open world content. Spending time doing events shouldn’t feel like a waste of time. Farming shouldn’t feel like a waste of time. Running around on maps shouldn’t. Nothing should

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

TL;DR: Anet started balancing rewards with the new dungeon revamp (time+difficulty=reward). Next step would be applying this to open world content. Spending time doing events shouldn’t feel like a waste of time. Farming shouldn’t feel like a waste of time. Running around on maps shouldn’t. Nothing should

This is such a great post!

No kind of gameplay should be punished. Instead, all kind of gameplay should be rewarded. There should be no diminished return punishment for farmers for example. Also, exploring the world should be more rewarding. Like the OP said, there should be some kind of a randomly generated treasure on every map that you could only find by exploring. I would love that since I love the huge and beautiful world of GW2 but right now all the maps are empty and there’s nothing to do, all the greatness is going to waste at the moment…

And don’t get me started with WvW… It is insane how mindless zerging is rewarded but defending a keep or escorting Dolyaks is not encouraged at all because the rewards either suck or are nonexistent…

To be honest I feel like they’re skewing rewards in turn for one piece of content and then another, but they’re never finding any balance. That’s ok for temporary living story content but they ultimately need to find permanent balance in permanent content. Giving a rare item for this or a purse for that has just pushed obsessive players from this to that.

I think dynamic events should reward more silver. I mean what’s the highest amount of money from an event? Like 20 silver? It’s no wonder people prefer to focus on the champs instead who have a chance to reward hundreds of gold worth of stuff.

Among many issues, one of the reasons I gave up on WvW is zergs. The other issues being having to walk too much (I play mesmer, Im sure you can feel my pain), having to pay repair (imagine if you had to pay repair every time you died in sPvP?!), broken stealth for thieves, and finally the lack of rewards as how I like playing WvW, which is simply running around in a small group capping stuff and defending.

As to exploring, I have one toon with 100% map, another with 5x% and another with 1x% and as much as I loved it everytime, Im not doing 100% map again unless my two gifts of exploration get used. Not only could I be doing better things to make some profit, but certain classes (COUGH Mesmers COUGH) have an incredible hard time moving around due to the lack of 25% mov speed signet or ways to speed things up that dont cost nearly 15 gold in runes (or more depending on TP’s mood)

Overall I found the champion reward and Dungeon reward a good step towards making the game for us casuals better.

I do however disagree with you and farming. I understand that some people just like to sit back and start click 111112111111 on mobs for 4 hours straight, but the thing is; if you make it profitable, then we will fall back into the same CoF issue we had; gold inflation, people having to farm to make profit, more gold inflation, back to the old farming spree wich the vast majority of players dont enjoy.

Most people dont realize this, but getting gold only make things worse, you are pumping out gold into the system, raising its value without actually adding any items which could sink that gold, ending up with precursors which are worth 600 gold, only attainable if you farm CoF a thousnd times, which creates a vicious cycle.

Right now we need o bring the price of gold down, diminush the value of items , let the TP normalize, make it so that everyone has an equal chance at getting said items without having to farm

Pumping gold into the system is not the answer, that only inflates the economy.

To be honest, they should re-evaluate their dungeon reward system before they go on and screw up the rewards elsewhere in game.

1.5g for each AC path, 3g for Arah p1, 2 and 4, 1.5g for Arah p3 and 1g for every other path? That’s not a revamp, that’s lazy and terrible design.

Here is a list I made with more sensible dungeon rewards based on actual difficulty and length. I feel like some guy woke up the day before the update and thought

“Holy crap! I still need to come with the numbers for the new dungeon rewards! Well, I heard some people say AC is hard, I’ll just make that 1.5g each. I actually have no idea about any other dungeon, so I’ll make those 1g each. And, well, Arah seems hard, so let’s make them 3g! Oh wait, if I make all of them 3g, I’ll look lazy, okay, I’ll make path 3 1.5g, that way they might think I actually put effort into this!”

So, although they took a step in the right direction, they also took two steps to the side, bumped their head against a support beam and lost their ability to read/listen, because it’s pretty obvious they didn’t take any player feedback when they came up with the rewards for the paths.

IDK if the devs are on the right track (except that they seem to recognize that something needs to change.). Fighting champions and world bosses bore me to tears, I’m fine if other people like it and I’m not suggesting that the changes aren’t good for people who do.

But I would much rather seen the quality of drops increased across the board rather than in a few isolated places.

Edit: in general, my advice to devs has always been, if you want me to do something, make it fun. I do fun things. Rewarding me for doing something dull isn’t a good long term solution.

TooBz.3065:

Edit: in general, my advice to devs has always been, if you want me to do something, make it fun. I do fun things. Rewarding me for doing something dull isn’t a good long term solution.

the thing is, there are many things I consider fun and those aren’t rewarding at all… I doubt that many players would continue doing that fun stuff long, when there is no outcome. Best example: I love hidden secrets, so I enjoy exploring the world. Probem is: I rarely find something valuable out there. Hidden underwater-caves with a veteran inside, and nothing else? wtf?

If they’re skewing things by turns, that suggests they’re datamining to see how the playerbase reacts to the skews. i.e. they’re not really balancing at the moment so much as they’re experimenting and seeing what people prefer (by how they vote with their feet, as opposed to selective moaning on forums).

Xenon.4537:

I think dynamic events should reward more silver. I mean what’s the highest amount of money from an event? Like 20 silver? It’s no wonder people prefer to focus on the champs instead who have a chance to reward hundreds of gold worth of stuff.

20 silver ? That would be great .. Events all give the same like 1.20 Silver or so no matter how long they take.

Xenon.4537:

I think dynamic events should reward more silver. I mean what’s the highest amount of money from an event? Like 20 silver? It’s no wonder people prefer to focus on the champs instead who have a chance to reward hundreds of gold worth of stuff.

The problem with upping the rewards for dynamic events is you’re ultimately just increasing the amount of gold in the economy, and thus creating inflation. Inflation is something that needs to be held in check.

TooBz.3065:

IDK if the devs are on the right track (except that they seem to recognize that something needs to change.). Fighting champions and world bosses bore me to tears, I’m fine if other people like it and I’m not suggesting that the changes aren’t good for people who do.

I’m with you on this one. I do the things I consider fun (open world PvE, Dynamic Events, etc), but I have no problem with others farming ‘till their eyes bleed. The problem arises when rewards for a select few activities become so high that inflation starts creeping in. This means those who spend their time doing the fun-yet-unrewarding activities will be forced to spend their time doing something else for gold or falling below the game’s poverty line.

darkace.8925:

Xenon.4537:

I think dynamic events should reward more silver. I mean what’s the highest amount of money from an event? Like 20 silver? It’s no wonder people prefer to focus on the champs instead who have a chance to reward hundreds of gold worth of stuff.

The problem with upping the rewards for dynamic events is you’re ultimately just increasing the amount of gold in the economy, and thus creating inflation. Inflation is something that needs to be held in check.

True, but then champ loot and dungeon gold is doing the same thing.

Beldin.5498:

Xenon.4537:

I think dynamic events should reward more silver. I mean what’s the highest amount of money from an event? Like 20 silver? It’s no wonder people prefer to focus on the champs instead who have a chance to reward hundreds of gold worth of stuff.

20 silver ? That would be great .. Events all give the same like 1.20 Silver or so no matter how long they take.

Really? Even the temple events? I mean honestly I just click the icon to make it go away without reading how much reward I got, so I have no idea, but it certainly feels like DEs ain’t worth the effort.

darkace.8925:

Xenon.4537:

I think dynamic events should reward more silver. I mean what’s the highest amount of money from an event? Like 20 silver? It’s no wonder people prefer to focus on the champs instead who have a chance to reward hundreds of gold worth of stuff.

The problem with upping the rewards for dynamic events is you’re ultimately just increasing the amount of gold in the economy, and thus creating inflation. Inflation is something that needs to be held in check.

You could say this… but lets say, for example, that farming ambient creatures is the most profitable thing in game rewarding 10g/hr. Now lets assume everyone is doing that. If Arenanet then made events give 10g/hr, that wouldn’t suddenly increase inflation as the people who want to then run events are no longer farming ambients… everyone is still making 10g/hr.

What balancing rewards across the board does is not increase inflation but give options as to how you can play the game without being penalized.

Am I the only one who doesnt get real rewards from champs?

I got one exotic and probably 2 rares from this whole week and I killed champions on that pavillion almost everyday (well, they are legendaries, but you got my point).

In DGs, I killed some champions and didnt get anything at all….

but then again, this week I mystic forged my Colossus, so is it god just compensating?

Reihert.1509:

Am I the only one who doesnt get real rewards from champs?

I got one exotic and probably 2 rares from this whole week and I killed champions on that pavillion almost everyday (well, they are legendaries, but you got my point).

In DGs, I killed some champions and didnt get anything at all….

but then again, this week I mystic forged my Colossus, so is it god just compensating?

They don’t give an exotic every time. I found you get 1 exotic about every 100 bags.

They are easy to farm, i’ve opened about 400 bags so far. If you are just killing 2 champs every 10 minutes in the pavillion then you don’t have much of a sample size.

What I think they should do, if possible, is shift the rewards to the success of DE’s. For every champ you kill in a DE the DE reward should be increased. It could be through a bonus chest or something else, but it needs to be successfully completed and should scale. This would stop the open world non-scaling champ farming, would encourage people to do DE’s and not fail them.

The bonus chest should also be limited to say 3 bonuses a day of each DE to prevent people from just farming a single event. This would encourage people to do an event a couple times if they like it, but then spread out to do other events.

Additionally the reward should also increase based on the time since the event was last completed. An event that hasn’t been finished in 2-3 days should reward a lot more then an event that is completed every 5 minutes. This would make people spread out into the mid level zones as well and make them more rewarding.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Reihert.1509:

Am I the only one who doesnt get real rewards from champs?

I got one exotic and probably 2 rares from this whole week and I killed champions on that pavillion almost everyday (well, they are legendaries, but you got my point).

In DGs, I killed some champions and didnt get anything at all….

but then again, this week I mystic forged my Colossus, so is it god just compensating?

They don’t give an exotic every time. I found you get 1 exotic about every 100 bags.

They are easy to farm, i’ve opened about 400 bags so far. If you are just killing 2 champs every 10 minutes in the pavillion then you don’t have much of a sample size.

What I think they should do, if possible, is shift the rewards to the success of DE’s. For every champ you kill in a DE the DE reward should be increased. It could be through a bonus chest or something else, but it needs to be successfully completed and should scale. This would stop the open world non-scaling champ farming, would encourage people to do DE’s and not fail them.

The bonus chest should also be limited to say 3 bonuses a day of each DE to prevent people from just farming a single event. This would encourage people to do an event a couple times if they like it, but then spread out to do other events.

Additionally the reward should also increase based on the time since the event was last completed. An event that hasn’t been finished in 2-3 days should reward a lot more then an event that is completed every 5 minutes. This would make people spread out into the mid level zones as well and make them more rewarding.

I like this idea.. you should throw it up on the suggestions forum ;-)

ZudetGambeous.9573:

They don’t give an exotic every time. I found you get 1 exotic about every 100 bags.

You’re kidding, right? I haven’t counted, but I’ve looted several hundred of those bags, and no exotics. But then, I’ve only looted 2 exotics total in this game since launch.

I’ve looted maybe 3 or 4 rares from those bags so far. For me, the champ bags are all about green items.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

TooBz.3065:

Edit: in general, my advice to devs has always been, if you want me to do something, make it fun. I do fun things. Rewarding me for doing something dull isn’t a good long term solution.

the thing is, there are many things I consider fun and those aren’t rewarding at all… I doubt that many players would continue doing that fun stuff long, when there is no outcome. Best example: I love hidden secrets, so I enjoy exploring the world. Probem is: I rarely find something valuable out there. Hidden underwater-caves with a veteran inside, and nothing else? wtf?

Right. But if there were occasionally chests or a cool skin or better loot drops from the veteran you’d explore for a long time. That’s what I mean, reward things that people already enjoy and they will love the game more.

Reward boring and tedious tasks and people will stick around because they’re stuck in a rut. But once they leave, they’ll never come back.

Fortus.6175:

Most people dont realize this, but getting gold only make things worse, you are pumping out gold into the system, raising its value without actually adding any items which could sink that gold, ending up with precursors which are worth 600 gold, only attainable if you farm CoF a thousnd times, which creates a vicious cycle.

Precursor are at 600gp because there is no incentive to make them cheaper, and are thus not influenced by offer and demand:
* There is no cost associated with keeping it forever stashed in the TP.
* If the seller has enough gold to pay for the transaction fee of asking 600gp, probably he doesn’t mind if the precursor sell or not. Had she want a fast sell she would have sell it so any buy order or by a lesser price.

Those priced way below 600gp for a quick sell are sold so fast that we never get to see them.

You cannot measure inflation by luxury items like precursor or dyes, or scarce items like high tier materials. In this game you must measure inflation observing commonly traded items (copper, silver, wood, etc) as they are more affected by offer and demand.

Soronthar.7236:

Fortus.6175:

Most people dont realize this, but getting gold only make things worse, you are pumping out gold into the system, raising its value without actually adding any items which could sink that gold, ending up with precursors which are worth 600 gold, only attainable if you farm CoF a thousnd times, which creates a vicious cycle.

Precursor are at 600gp because there is no incentive to make them cheaper, and are thus not influenced by offer and demand:
* There is no cost associated with keeping it forever stashed in the TP.
* If the seller has enough gold to pay for the transaction fee of asking 600gp, probably he doesn’t mind if the precursor sell or not. Had she want a fast sell she would have sell it so any buy order or by a lesser price.

Those priced way below 600gp for a quick sell are sold so fast that we never get to see them.

You cannot measure inflation by luxury items like precursor or dyes, or scarce items like high tier materials. In this game you must measure inflation observing commonly traded items (copper, silver, wood, etc) as they are more affected by offer and demand.

People say this to discount the importance of the price of luxury goods in the game. I don’t think that’s valid. In the real world, most of us are normal people with normal jobs who make normal incomes. We accept that most of us won’t ever own the cars shown on Top Gear, live in mansions, have manservants, etc…

An MMO is different in two ways. First, we are suppose to be the “hero”. And second, we can opt-out.

The hero is suppose to find the unique weapon, pull the sword from the stone, overcome all obstacles, etc… (As an aside, this is why people get kitten ed off that “rare” drops are rare.) For people playing the game, these “luxury” items are the goal. As the “luxury items” get more expensive the “goal” gets further and further away and that’s important.

If the goal stays out of reach, frustration sets in, and people engage in the second difference, we can opt-out. We don’t have to play. There are other games out there that are fun and engaging and that don’t keep pushing the final goal out of reach. You pay money, get to be the hero, have better gameplay, and in the end you win.

Finally, another difference between a virtual economy and a real life economy is that in the virtual economy there is no need for the “commonly traded items” beyond a point. I haven’t used copper / iron / silver / gold / platinum / jute / etc… in months. So there’s a pooling effect where as people hit level 80, more and more of there income is spent chasing “luxury goods” and practically none of their money is spend on “commonly traded items”.

I won’t call it inflation, because it’s not. But I think it’s a big fallacy to pretend that normal economic theory can be applied full stop to a virtual economy of an MMO. Or that a high price of luxury goods isn’t a problem.

TooBz.3065:

I won’t call it inflation, because it’s not. But I think it’s a big fallacy to pretend that normal economic theory can be applied full stop to a virtual economy of an MMO. Or that a high price of luxury goods isn’t a problem.

I totally agree with these two points:
* Norma economic theory can’t be applied to virtual economy (one of the reasons is the lack of some forces that drive real world economy)
* High price of luxury goods is a problem, you can’t just let the "free market’ dictate the price without some kind of control. And by control, I don’t mean price capping.

And here I was thinking that we were in disagreement