Guild Wars 2

This is something I wished WOW had done instead of going the route of easy raiding with LFR.

Have it so that whenever you defeat a boss the first time you spawn a chest that everyone can loot that contains something that everyone needs.

So lets say you kill a boss that first time. You get the normal loot from the boss that might give you 5 precursor crafting mats. But you also get another chest that has 2 of the same crafting mats multiplied by the number of people who have killed that boss for the first time.

What this will do is make getting bosses down that first time extra rewarding.

It will also do something else.

It will encourage guilds to try to get people on the team who have yet to do that boss for future runs. Depending on how difficult the boss is or how good the raid team is they will be able to incorporate 1, 2 or more new players into their attempt. Imagine that! Groups in group finder actually asking for noobs to come play with them. The rewards just have to be enough to be better than farming with a fully experienced group would bring.

The new players will have learned the mechanics and will be able to easier find groups for farming if they wish or will be happy to have simply seen the content and got the achievement.

Doing this simple thing will ensure that the difficultly of raids can be maintained while ensuring that everyone will get to do them. People won’t be able to complain that they are being excluded from legendary armours because they are not good enough at raids. And the dedicated raider will get extra rewards, feel good about himself (probably) and be more confident that arenanet won’t start bringing in nerfs down the road to appease the players who feel left out.

My idea is to encourage the community itself to make raiding more inclusive by rewarding suboptimal play with greater rewards.

It was always satisfying to me as a raid leader in WOW to take those guild members who were poorer players through raids once we had defeated them that first time. I believe our natural inclination to do this is often discouraged because raids are tough to organise and run and strangers unpredictable. It is especially discouraged in a game like GW2 that has a high focus on time efficient play due to large grinds for legendaries etc. A reward that makes doing the cool sociable thing the time efficient best choice is win win for everybody.

While I like the sentiment behind the suggestion, I do not like the suggestion.

There should be incentives to include players in content, but this suggestion is too extreme. The fact that it would be a non-repeatable bonus is probably the main problem, with the ‘greater rewards for sub-optimal play’ being a close second.

In the current form, this suggestion wouldn’t work, as ‘elite raiders’ would not in fact include inexperienced players, they would instead (if the rewards from raiding were good enough) create alts and run them to the raiding location to fulfill the same function. If this bonus was account bound, you would solve some of this issue, but then you run into the second pitfall: it is non-repeatable.

Perhaps you would incentivise new players being exposed to new content, but eventually you will run out of a reliable stream of ‘new players’ that will provide this added bonus. This will change the already toxic “zerk or kick” problem into a worse problem: “bonus or kick”; which would exclude players who chose to learn how to run the raids properly and enjoy this content in favor of those who may never run the content again. It is possible new players exposed to raids may enjoy them, but their experience that made them decide that is flawed because they received extra rewards in that first run. It is not wise to alienate the fanbase of certain content in favor of players who are not guaranteed to continue using that content.

Lastly, rewarding sub-optimal play over optimal play is anathema to any game design I have ever heard of. It would foster poor practices in the playerbase and likely lead to more toxic community interactions. This is not to say that there should be no rewards for the less skillful or commenting on whether raid rewards should be accessible from another method (that would be off-topic), but rather that degrading the experience for those players that have learned how to do something properly — just so that others who have not invested the same amount of time and dedication can receive the same rewards — is a bad choice for the longevity of any game.

If a player wants a reward from a certain type of content, that player will do what it takes to get that reward. It is unfortunate that some community members may exclude others from certain groups, but most any form of incentive will not truly correct this behavior. Any incentive system will be gamed by those elitists to their own benefit and the net result will likely be the same: inexperienced players will still get the shaft (by those elitist groups). The end result is those elitists will gain the bonus just as often as the inexperienced and there will be no real reason to include the inexperienced, so long as there is some work-around to achieve the bonus (which there almost always will be).

I am not saying this is right. I am not saying that I don’t want incentives for including more of the population into difficult content. I am saying that players that purposefully exclude others will continue to do so, as is their prerogative in the game.

I think Gw2 has a great community overall, and there are plenty of guilds, groups and players that are supportive and inclusive. There are, of course, elitists in the game, but overall I think the percentage of these players is far, far fewer than in other contemporary games.

Well Oberon is right, designing such a function actually would need to be handled with very much care. Amount of reward should scale off of actual skill performance achieved.

Yet the OP idea is actually very good in intention and the original idea to give multiplicative “starter” bonus loot is kinda workable.
On an all new raid encounter an all new group will thus get a very substantial big shower of first time only starter farm mats tokens or whatevers this content is dropping to collect. So on your first win, the big one you get something substantial out of it and not end up: okay 1 of 2337 Apexis Crystals, farm to go, but you may have enough to at least get a first step ahead. There will be still lots left to come back for you choose so, and the one time raider “yay now I’ve seen and beaten it” will have a little sum to have at least a minor price instead of having just a few tokens he’ll never collect enough of to make use of.
Also rewarding veterans to take in noobs into their trained raid is actually true to the nature to reward additional difficulty, the more total noobs you take the more difficult it will be train them all and to have your veterans compensate for what the noobs are not yet as good at, a kind of trainer reward therefore would be totally legit to give out.

The extra reward for trainers and the extra reward for first time completers should be different though and tailored to fit the totally different situations these players are in.
First time reward would be super cool if it gave you a little nice shiny reward just because you succeeded in beating a hard thing so you derserve the shiny, NOW!

Trainer reward should be given to veterans who replay the encounter depending on how many noobs have been brought to the table. And yes supply won’t be infinite. And it does not matter, this bonus should be a bonus for the players that use their time and patience to make raiding accessible to a wider audience. As noob supply runs thinner over time organizers will have to compete by quality training and politeness to attract people for bonus or just the fun of sharing.
The “Bonus or GTFO” can just do what they already do in “LFG META need GUARD gearping”, if there is actual reward for being a polite inclusive trainer there will be enough nice quality trainers so that you can just ignore that dumbo stack faction when choosing which group to join.
There will be many of the “META RAID BUILD #XYZ or GTFO” farm group announces who cares, that is fun to some people also, so let them do it.
But with substantial trainer rewards, there will be an incentive to compete for noob bonus by creating an enjoyable experience for them and take the hardships of less proficient players in order to get the trainer bonus reward. Trainers will actually play the “even harder because partially like first time”-mode, while the “META OR GTFO”-faction will play the “this on farm state let’s evade any unneccessary difficulty so we can get the goodies quick while playing texas holdem on second screen”-mode.
With trainer rewards you open new incentives for both approaches to exist and be viable, without everything will be similar to what LFG currently often looks like, with the GTFO group ads outnumbering the “all welcome” group ads.

We don’t even know how we will get the Legendary Armor and we get suggestions on how to change it?

maddoctor.2738:

We don’t even know how we will get the Legendary Armor and we get suggestions on how to change it?

I didn’t see Legendary Armour talk in this thread just a general idea of how to incentivise new approaches to inclusive group building by whatever reward system is tied to a specific group content. Could apply to any clearly seperated group content like dungeons as well.

I believe I remember one of the main tyria masteries involving mentoring new players, perhaps any ‘bonus’ could be derived from some perk from this line? This way it would help cultivate a general inclusive mindset across multiple game modes/areas rather than a straight up perk everyone gets just for showing up.

There will be people who will max out all masteries, and if a perk is worth it people will get it, but having an ‘inclusive’ perk be at the end of a mastery track that promotes general community well-being may be a way to incentivise this mindset — after all with the introduction of all the new masteries there will be a host of things people want to get quickly, and a powerful perk related to rewards at the end of a ‘community wellbeing’ track might help skew those elitists into more directly powerful masteries that may involve reducing clear time vs ones that promote inclusiveness at the cost of clear time by boosting the end reward.

Thanks for the replies. It’s a good point that you could have this reward work in all different sorts of ways.

I see what you mean Oberon with the only first time problem. My thinking was that it would at least get people through the door, learning the fights, getting their feet wet. They would be less kitteno try raiding if they were encouraged to do so and told their lack of experience wasn’t a problem. But another way to go about it – more complicated though – would to give every player Raid Points. The more times you beat a boss, the more bosses you kill the more your points. This can help get experienced players into groups and to show off a bit. But the raids could give more loot depending on how low the overall raid point total of the group was. So if you take a few lesser experience players your overall score is lower and there will be 10% or 20% more crafting mat in the chest at the end. This will solve the only once problem. If you have 9 players who have done the boss 10 times and there is a new player who has done it once he is still lowering your score and improving your loot. Groups will want the big scores for easy runs and won’t mind taking one or two low scores due to the extra loot. The low scores get to improve their scores which will help them get in groups as big scores down the road.

When I said rewarding sub optimal play I did not mean that it ought to be encouraged. I meant that it will reward people for the extra effort it takes to train or take up the slack for new players. Normally groups are very efficiency focused. I think this is especially true of GW2 due to the farming nature of the game when it comes to things like legendaries. So these groups I think usually shy away from the new player not because they are against new players they just don’t want to be slowed down. Impatience is something I think that slowly infests the population of mmos. This is just because they are so goal orientated and time consuming. Yet what raids need is patience and patience with new players. Most of the friction you get in raids is due to that impatience IMO. By rewarding players for taking a slower route by inviting new players to see the content you are actually only encouraging players to play the way most of them would want to play if they were not so rushed (IMO).

I agree, though I am still concerned for the consistency of the experience. It would be amazing to finally beat hard content (with all new players your first time) and receive tonnes and tonnes of loot for this accomplishment. But I’m concerned that the following runs producing much less reward (whether everyone has already done it once, or there are simply fewer new people in your group than last time) would degrade the experience.

It would be like winning a massively on your first try while gambling then making next to no progress (comparatively) for the rest of the night. It would hurt the over-all longevity of the content type and create a point of friction between players.

I do want some form of incentive for new players to experience difficult content (whether its raids or higher lvl fractals or anything else) but it doesn’t make sense to me to have rewards decrease over time. I think the key is to not make the bonus as extravagant as your original post described. Yes, that many chests would convey a sense of accomplishment and reward, but those elitists would not care about instructing new players or ensuring they have a positive experience, they only care about the end result; ie, the rewards they get for putting up with the inexperienced.

I would suggest a series of achievements that produce a loot-able chest for the group whenever a person unlocks it (much like your suggestion) BUT this bonus chest is limited in number, and perhaps only one extra chest can be redeemed per run. This would make it a boost to rewards without being exceedingly over rewarding. Any extra ‘unlocks’ would be tracked and kept for future runs.

Perhaps it could work with items. Whenever a player unlocks one of the raid-specific achievements, all group members receive a key item that will allow the player to unlock a bonus chest at the end of the raid (that may or may not have unique rewards) but this chest can only be opened ONCE per player per run and only ONE key can be received per run (progress to other achievements is blocked once an achievement is earned). This would incentivise players to help others with achievements, and a player who as done nothing in the raid so far would be a source of many keys — and thus valuable to the raiding community. As the keys are limited to being rewarded once per run and can only be cashed ONCE per run, it would encourage players to repeat the content with the same player — this would allow the inexperienced to gain experience in the content while being valued by the group.

I believe the tl;dr of the original post is:

• Increase the rewards for raids if the party includes accounts running the content for the first time.
• This adds an incentive for veterans to invite newbies and gives newbies and incentive for joining up with veterans.

I support the sentiment and I’m content for others (especially ANet) to figure out the details, so that that the overall rewards are still ‘better’ for those who can master the content and competitive (in terms of value+fun per time) compared to other game modes.

I appreciate the sentiment, but the idea is bad. One of my guilds is a very large guild. Everyone is very excited about raiding, but the way things are I highly doubt we’ll be able to get everyone into raids as is. Now this type of bonus would be beneficial at the very start. People would rotate in and out. But what happens when the whole guild does the raid? Then they start bringing in strangers and benching our own guildies. That’s not right.

Oberon Vex.1389:

I agree, though I am still concerned for the consistency of the experience. It would be amazing to finally beat hard content (with all new players your first time) and receive tonnes and tonnes of loot for this accomplishment. But I’m concerned that the following runs producing much less reward (whether everyone has already done it once, or there are simply fewer new people in your group than last time) would degrade the experience.

It would be like winning a massively on your first try while gambling then making next to no progress (comparatively) for the rest of the night. It would hurt the over-all longevity of the content type and create a point of friction between players.

I do want some form of incentive for new players to experience difficult content (whether its raids or higher lvl fractals or anything else) but it doesn’t make sense to me to have rewards decrease over time. I think the key is to not make the bonus as extravagant as your original post described. Yes, that many chests would convey a sense of accomplishment and reward, but those elitists would not care about instructing new players or ensuring they have a positive experience, they only care about the end result; ie, the rewards they get for putting up with the inexperienced.

I would suggest a series of achievements that produce a loot-able chest for the group whenever a person unlocks it (much like your suggestion) BUT this bonus chest is limited in number, and perhaps only one extra chest can be redeemed per run. This would make it a boost to rewards without being exceedingly over rewarding. Any extra ‘unlocks’ would be tracked and kept for future runs.

Perhaps it could work with items. Whenever a player unlocks one of the raid-specific achievements, all group members receive a key item that will allow the player to unlock a bonus chest at the end of the raid (that may or may not have unique rewards) but this chest can only be opened ONCE per player per run and only ONE key can be received per run (progress to other achievements is blocked once an achievement is earned). This would incentivise players to help others with achievements, and a player who as done nothing in the raid so far would be a source of many keys — and thus valuable to the raiding community. As the keys are limited to being rewarded once per run and can only be cashed ONCE per run, it would encourage players to repeat the content with the same player — this would allow the inexperienced to gain experience in the content while being valued by the group.

I really like the key idea. It reminds me of the key chest mechanic in silverwastes.

I had the same thought later about the loot getting worse over time. I had another idea based on your suggestion of using reward tracks or masteries. If there was a Raid Mentor mastery this mastery could be earned only when you complete a boss with someone in the raid with less raid experience than yourself. They could give each player a raid score based on previous successes and give them xp for their mastery track based on the difference between that score and the score of others in the raid. The lower the score of others the more xp. I suppose there will be a point as others have also mentioned when you just can’t find other people with a lower score or might be forced to go outside the guild to find them. I think though that this mentor track could always increase a small amount as standard but increase a larger amount when with less experienced players.

xarallei.4279:

I appreciate the sentiment, but the idea is bad. One of my guilds is a very large guild. Everyone is very excited about raiding, but the way things are I highly doubt we’ll be able to get everyone into raids as is. Now this type of bonus would be beneficial at the very start. People would rotate in and out. But what happens when the whole guild does the raid? Then they start bringing in strangers and benching our own guildies. That’s not right.

Good point. I think if the rewards are too good this sort of thing might happen. Benching is always a problem with fixed raid sizes and this would just rub salt in the wound. I had an idea later though about using mastery track where you always got some xp towards it by raiding but you got more if you raided with people with less experience. That might work as I doubt guilds would bench guildies just to speed up the mastery track but everyone would be rewarded for taking the new guildie through the content.

But the more I think about it the more complicated it seems. Glad I am not a game designer. :P

Grumwulf.9602:

…the more I think about it the more complicated it seems.

Yeah, that’s why I’m never quick to criticize ANet when they try something and it fails (I am, however, perfectly prepared to give them a hard time about some of the seemingly-easy stuff that borks). Balancing profs, encounters, challenges, and rewards — there are no simple answers.

Still, I’m glad you offered up the idea, because maybe ANet can (or already has) thought of how to implement the principle: offer incentives that encourage bringing newbies, while still leaving the best rewards to those who master the challenges.

There’s little point. I suspect Raids will get abandoned just like dungeons and fractals did. If anet put in some time and effort into creating a matchmaking LFG system for the game, I can guarantee dungeons and fractals would see much, much more activity and raids would actually be something worthwhile (if a matchmaking LFG was implemented for those too).

As it currently stands, if they add more dynamic events like we’ve seen in The Silverwastes, the majority of people will defer to doing those for gear farming and simple fun as they are highly repeatable and individuals and groups can jump in and out at any time however they please.

But this is just my speculation based on anets previous history with instanced group content.

(yes, I’m aware that dungeons and fractals do get run, and players do play them, but it is a very small portion of the community that does so. Raids won’t be much different I imagine, and anet isn’t going to cater to a tiny portion of the community that likely isn’t paying their bills).

myself.2143:

There’s little point. I suspect Raids will get abandoned just like dungeons and fractals did. If anet put in some time and effort into creating a matchmaking LFG system for the game, I can guarantee dungeons and fractals would see much, much more activity and raids would actually be something worthwhile (if a matchmaking LFG was implemented for those too).

Since it isn’t obvious to me what the problem is with the current LFG, can you (or someone else) please say what you want to see in an improved LFG?