Guild Wars 2

f they are treated equally, it means for every 1 armor skin that’s put in to favor those who go after things for their aesthetic value, 1 armor skin is put in to favor those who go after exclusivity value. Not always to those who prefer the aesthetic value. That’s favoring one and excluding another.

No, but see, that’s the thing, you can’t do it 1:1 like that, because the Aestheticists value CHOICE, and locking things up removes choice, whereas anything locked up is a win for the Elitists. It’s a bit like playing a wargame scenario in which one general views all of his pieces, down to the tiniest pawn, as being precious and not to be lost at any cost, while the other side values his pieces as being disposable pawns, effortlessly discarded if they advance the game. The first type of player cannot possibly “win” on his own terms if the pieces are mutually annihilating, while the second player is perfectly fine with that outcome. If they each lose half their pieces to maintain a stalemate, then the first player would have “lost” by 50%, while the second player would have lost nothing he values.

Basically, you cannot achieve a fair balance in which the Aestheticists are denied any armor or weapon items. The only fair compromise is to figure out something else that Elitists can value, but which does not deny the Aestheticists any character customization. Things like Titles, minipets, name badges (like the one for World Completion), achievement display, guild hall/home trophies, Outfits, equippable trophy bundles, etc. are all on the table, but Armor and Weapon skins are not.

And where is your proof or evidence that your ideas will bring more players in than it will chase away?

Again, that’s a position that nobody on this forum is in any position to prove or disprove, and asking for such proof is pointless. ANet has some metrics by which they could estimate the results, but doing anything, including releasing the Raids in the currently proposed form, has its own risks. My bet is that if they release raids with exclusive stuff that people want, and it turns out that the raids are too frustrating for the vast majority of players, then it will cause more harm to the game than good. I could be wrong on that, as could those that believe the opposite, but that’s the side I would bet on. I don’t need to defend that position any further than what I just said, nor do you have to accept it as your own position if you disagree, but it remains my belief and any theory I support stems from that belief.

Posts here and human nature show me that people tend to prefer exclusive items, especially when it’s the reward for something challenging.

Players that have exclusive items tend to value them over non-exclusive. No doubt. People who do not have those items tend to be annoyed that they don’t have them. For an exclusive item to retain any of that exclusivity value, it by necessity means that most people cannot have it, meaning there will be more people annoyed at not having it than happy about having it. How the relative sizes of those population shift determines the overall effect it has on the game’s population, but since the pleasure in having the item decreases in proportion to the number of people who also have it, it ends up being a lossy equation in which most people are never fully satisfied.

It’s better to just not engage in that game in the first place.

Why do you think “Limited Time Only” sales are successful? They are successful because people don’t want to miss out.

That’s a bit skewed. People take advantage of limited time sales because they actually want the thing being offered, and want to get the best deal for their time. Making something a limited time offer does not make it more desirable, it just presents a smaller window in which to acquire it, or acquire it at the best price. If they don’t want the item then they won’t get it, but if they do want it then they would be foolish to wait until the price increases, or it becomes completely available. That gives no indication that they want things to be exclusive, most people would prefer that the item be listed at the best possible price 24/7.

Prove my hypothesis wrong and yours is right. Stating your hypothesis over again is not proof.

And neither is anything you say, so it’s a good thing that we aren’t going for scientific proof here.

So what you want is just for raids not to have exclusive rewards, but it’s fine for everything else. Just because it might be hard for many people. In other words you are just against raids in general and want their rewards to work in a different way than everything else in the game.

Not exactly. Raids can have exclusive rewards, so long as they are rewards for trying raids, for example one based on an achievement that would take an hour or two inside the raid to achieve, and pretty much any party could get that far into it. If there are exclusive rewards, and if the raids actually are difficult that most groups could be expected to fail without hours of trial and error, then it is unreasonable to demand overall success to hand out these rewards. It is an excessive burden. So raids can have exclusive rewards that are easy enough that anyone can get them, just enough to get people through the doors, and it can have rewards that take weeks and months of effort to earn, but these rewards should not be exclusive because most people would be expected to never get that far, so those players need alternatives.

Ohoni.6057:

So what you want is just for raids not to have exclusive rewards, but it’s fine for everything else. Just because it might be hard for many people. In other words you are just against raids in general and want their rewards to work in a different way than everything else in the game.

Not exactly. Raids can have exclusive rewards, so long as they are rewards for trying raids, for example one based on an achievement that would take an hour or two inside the raid to achieve, and pretty much any party could get that far into it. If there are exclusive rewards, and if the raids actually are difficult that most groups could be expected to fail without hours of trial and error, then it is unreasonable to demand overall success to hand out these rewards. It is an excessive burden. So raids can have exclusive rewards that are easy enough that anyone can get them, just enough to get people through the doors, and it can have rewards that take weeks and months of effort to earn, but these rewards should not be exclusive because most people would be expected to never get that far, so those players need alternatives.

As for the time requirement for the raid rewards, making each Wing drop specific pieces of the legendary armor precursors can help a lot. For example 2 per Wing, 1st Wing drops Gloves and Boots, 2nd drops Helm and Shoulders, 3rd drops Leggings and Chest, so you can go after any of them you wish.

I won’t be happy if those precursors drop from the final boss only (behind RNG too), it’s a perfect opportunity to spread the rewards around the entire raid, instead of making them linear. After all, that’s how raid games do it, why add a raid and not the other good parts of raids.

As for difficulty, there are two things to consider, first they assign the rewards before the content is released, so it’s quite possible they have no idea how hard it will actually be, and second over time something excessively hard will become much much easier. During the first BWE my regular dungeon group had countless trial and error attempts at finishing the Story Mode of Ascalon Catacombs, countless trial and error figuring out Simin in Arah P4, same with Cliffside Fractal and Dredge Fractal. Now they are mostly easy mode for that same group.

So the raid rewards might seem to need an excessive amount of trial and error and countless hours inside to get the rewards, but once the community as a whole figures them out, it will be easier. It’s the same with some LS2 achievements, they might require a lot of replaying, but if you read a guide (Dulfy for example) or ask for help you can get hints and make it a lot easier.

Will the raids ever become “easy mode”? That’s the big question. They will become easier for sure, there is no denying this, so players that think it’s too hard can simply wait until other players figure out the strats. It’s at that point that the excessive part comes into place, if, after you have all the knowledge of what to do, you still can’t reasonably do it or not.

As for the time requirement for the raid rewards, making each Wing drop specific pieces of the legendary armor precursors can help a lot. For example 2 per Wing, 1st Wing drops Gloves and Boots, 2nd drops Helm and Shoulders, 3rd drops Leggings and Chest, so you can go after any of them you wish.

That really depends on what the minimum time is for a PUG on their first try. If it’s under an hour or so, that may be sufficient, if it takes longer, or they might actually even fail, then that’s not a trial reward, that is a “success” reward, and success rewards should not be exclusive.

As for difficulty, there are two things to consider, first they assign the rewards before the content is released, so it’s quite possible they have no idea how hard it will actually be, and second over time something excessively hard will become much much easier.

I have a feeling that you’ve posted this before, but at they very least you should assume that I already know it, and I’ll say what I said the last time to this sort of comment, that while both of these things are true, they have an intended difficulty level in mind, and would likely buff it up if it fell below that difficulty level, and while it would get easier over time, that is no guarantee that anyone can pass it with an amount of effort that is reasonable to them, so it’s a rather moot point.

Also, the thing with raids is that they often have two elements to them. There is the “puzzle” element, of figuring out the exact method of clearing it, and then there is the “performance” element of it, actually going through those motions successfully. The “puzzle” element is rather worthless. It means that the raid might take a while before someone beats it, but once anyone beats it that entire part of the equation becomes meaningless. With the performance aspect, if that part is difficult, then it will remain difficult to new players, no matter how many teams have done it before.

And if a character can be dragged through the raid with little or no effort of his own, then how could an “exclusive” reward gained that way be considered at all “exclusive?” If that is an option, wouldn’t it just be better for all involved if the player could just not enter the raid at all, and earn his reward elsewhere?

Ohoni.6057:

That really depends on what the minimum time is for a PUG on their first try. If it’s under an hour or so, that may be sufficient, if it takes longer, or they might actually even fail, then that’s not a trial reward, that is a “success” reward, and success rewards should not be exclusive.

PUGs on their first try shouldn’t be able to finish it at all, not even the first room of the raid (depends on pug of course). There is no such thing as trial reward, you either complete the content or not, now if you are rewarded for finishing part of it, is another story. How long it takes is dependant on the skill of the group and how much they’ve read about it from other players finishing it. It’s unreasonable to give the reward to someone when he tries something for the first time, try again until you get it, and if you can’t get out and wait until someone else beats it and give you a hint or two.

I have a feeling that you’ve posted this before, but at they very least you should assume that I already know it, and I’ll say what I said the last time to this sort of comment, that while both of these things are true, they have an intended difficulty level in mind, and would likely buff it up if it fell below that difficulty level, and while it would get easier over time, that is no guarantee that anyone can pass it with an amount of effort that is reasonable to them, so it’s a rather moot point.

They had an intended difficulty for Tequatl too, or how hard it would’ve been to get exotic quality gear, in both cases they failed. I don’t think they will ever “buff” the difficulty, but nerfing it might be an option in the long run.

Also, the thing with raids is that they often have two elements to them. There is the “puzzle” element, of figuring out the exact method of clearing it, and then there is the “performance” element of it, actually going through those motions successfully.

As in the Liadri example, although it was a hard/skilled fight, it also had a puzzle Element into it. Even the most skilled player might had a very hard time first time without any prior knowledge of the fight, while even a less skilled player would have an easier time if he understood the mechanics and “puzzle” element of that fight. Same goes for some of the LS2 fights, like the Shadow of the Dragon fight, they take skill to beat and require performance, but are much easier with knowledge of the mechanics. Both are required elements for a good raid, and because it’s 10-man content there is also organization, which includes timing.

For example the Ogre with the 2 devourer pets guild challenge isn’t very demanding in skill, nor it’s a puzzle, but it takes organizing the team to kill them at the same time. A raid can have all these elements combined, so a team that has excellent coordination and puzzle knowledge might not require a massive amount of skill to succeed. On the other hand, a team that has the best possible skill but goes in first time without any prior organization or puzzle knowledge should (if the raid is done right) also fail, even if they are dodge gods.

And if a character can be dragged through the raid with little or no effort of his own, then how could an “exclusive” reward gained that way be considered at all “exclusive?” If that is an option, wouldn’t it just be better for all involved if the player could just not enter the raid at all, and earn his reward elsewhere?

I believe the “puzzle” elements of 10-man content will require 10 players to succeed, so keeping a player as dead weight will be very hard (if not impossible). If they require 10 players just for the extra DPS then that’s not a “raid”, that’s just an excuse for putting ultra high amounts of hit points on mobs.

PUGs on their first try shouldn’t be able to finish it at all, not even the first room of the raid (depends on pug of course).

Then the reward would not be a “try it” reward, and thus should not be exclusive to that content. Try it rewards are handed out to anyone who bothers to give it a shot. It can require completion, but only if completion is a reasonable goal that anyone can do in short order, such as “complete a round of PvP,” or even “complete five rounds of PvP.” Anyone, of any skill level, can manage that in an hour or so.

If there is some sort of “training wheel” area of the raid, one that is no harder than relatively basic dungeon content, then completing that can be a reasonable requirement, but if even the early phases are considered harder than most dungeons, then that is too much to ask for a “try it.”

And I’m not necessarily saying that a group of newbs should be in the first wave and be able to clear it, that’s a bit much to ask, but the actual “performance” elements should not be so hard that a group of players who have watched a Youtube of it being beaten could not duplicate that feat with no special practice.

They had an intended difficulty for Tequatl too, or how hard it would’ve been to get exotic quality gear, in both cases they failed. I don’t think they will ever “buff” the difficulty, but nerfing it might be an option in the long run.

If they wanted to buff Teq, they would have. I think they were ultimately satisfied with how difficult it ended up being, even if portions of the community will never be satisfied. I think that they intend to aim a bit higher on these raids, and their promise to keep an eye on things in the first few weeks and calibrate seem a part of that. If players are clearing things way too easily then I wouldn’t be surprised to see them pulling the plug on the system until they can fix it.

As in the Liadri example, although it was a hard/skilled fight, it also had a puzzle Element into it. Even the most skilled player might had a very hard time first time without any prior knowledge of the fight, while even a less skilled player would have an easier time if he understood the mechanics and “puzzle” element of that fight.

Yes, but “puzzle” elements are basically worthless in an MMO, because all it takes is one person to figure out the puzzle and then everyone knows it. Then it all comes down to whether they can perform it or not. In the lifetime of a raid, the puzzle lasts only a few weeks, sometimes only a few days for each puzzle, the entire rest of the time is performance.

I believe the “puzzle” elements of 10-man content will require 10 players to succeed, so keeping a player as dead weight will be very hard (if not impossible).

But then we get back to “many players will never be able to complete it,” which is permanently excluding that reward from too many players. You have to accept that not all players can “git gud.” While even if all ten players are required in some capacity so complete it, they might not all be in actual challenging roles, like that video that was posted earlier where this guy was wailing on a training dummy for like ten minutes, and this was apparently helping the raid in some fashion.

Ohoni.6057:

Then the reward would not be a “try it” reward, and thus should not be exclusive to that content.

I don’t think there is such a thing as “try it” reward. It also depends when you try it, going head first, first try before nobody else isn’t the same as going after there is certain mastery of said content by the community.

And I’m not necessarily saying that a group of newbs should be in the first wave and be able to clear it, that’s a bit much to ask, but the actual “performance” elements should not be so hard that a group of players who have watched a Youtube of it being beaten could not duplicate that feat with no special practice.

Watching a youtube video and actually knowing what it shows are different things. I watched a couple of Dulfy’s guides on how to get some very hard to get gold coins in the Silverwastes, it helped, but didn’t allow me to get them with no effort, watching the video, reading the guides shouldn’t remove the effort completely.

If players are clearing things way too easily then I wouldn’t be surprised to see them pulling the plug on the system until they can fix it.

It’s possible but I hope they don’t.

Yes, but “puzzle” elements are basically worthless in an MMO, because all it takes is one person to figure out the puzzle and then everyone knows it. Then it all comes down to whether they can perform it or not. In the lifetime of a raid, the puzzle lasts only a few weeks, sometimes only a few days for each puzzle, the entire rest of the time is performance.

No they aren’t worthless, especially in a game like Guild Wars 2 where the combination of professions is so vast and there are no clear roles. Knowing how to do the raid with 2 Warriors, 2 Elementalists and 6 Guardians will be vastly different than doing it with 10 Rangers. The “puzzle” element can change a lot.

But then we get back to “many players will never be able to complete it,” which is permanently excluding that reward from too many players.

It depends on the individual player as much as the content itself. I know many players who started playing the game at release but only got to finish Arah P4 recently. The content didn’t change much, it’s the players that changed. They “skipped” the hard part of a 4-hour run and got it in 45 minutes instead. I don’t think excluding the reward from a player “permanently” is good but as with all types of content, after enough time passes maybe they will get it in the future.

There is also one more thing, they gave an example in the raid of a boss encounter where you fight a boss on a platform. The boss will perform an attack that covers the entire platform dealing massive damage, the raid needs to use a glider to escape, but there is a catch. The encounter will require at least some players to stay on the platform and tank the damage, because dodges and blocks won’t be enough. I suspect the boss will need to be hit, otherwise the aoe will expand and cover the entire room and kill even the gliders.

So, if a player lacks the “skill” (player not character) to glide around, they don’t have good spatial awarness for example, and can’t identify the “updrafts” to stay afloat, they can instead play the “tank” role on that fight which requires less “reflex” and spatial awareness and more build and cd management skill.

Having multiple roles to fill in the raid is one way of making it more accessible to more people, as in the example above, some roles will require more reflex skills, while others will require more expert cd management.

Each player will need to find which role are they best at filling, then adapt to it, get the proper build/gear. Some players will permanently be blocked from getting the rewards, yes that’s true. I’d hazzard a guess that most of those will be players who won’t bother to change their builds/gear/playstyle to fit any of the roles required, or are those who play alone. Yes solo players who don’t want to join groups will have a problem accessing those rewards.

I don’t think there is such a thing as “try it” reward. It also depends when you try it, going head first, first try before nobody else isn’t the same as going after there is certain mastery of said content by the community.

There are plenty of “try it” rewards in this game, things that you can earn relatively early into attempting a give task that do not require an exceptional amount of skill or effort. But either way, this is the only appropriate role for an exclusive reward, because otherwise you punish people for not enjoying the content, which is not something they can control.

Watching a youtube video and actually knowing what it shows are different things. I watched a couple of Dulfy’s guides on how to get some very hard to get gold coins in the Silverwastes, it helped, but didn’t allow me to get them with no effort, watching the video, reading the guides shouldn’t remove the effort completely.

Yes, because many of those require significant performance skills, which no “try it” reward should do.

Each player will need to find which role are they best at filling, then adapt to it, get the proper build/gear. Some players will permanently be blocked from getting the rewards, yes that’s true. I’d hazzard a guess that most of those will be players who won’t bother to change their builds/gear/playstyle to fit any of the roles required, or are those who play alone. Yes solo players who don’t want to join groups will have a problem accessing those rewards.

Which you should recognize as a problem, yet seem to refuse to do so.

Ohoni.6057:

Which you should recognize as a problem, yet seem to refuse to do so.

It’s not a problem with the content if a player refuses to join a team to do it. If someone wants to play an MMORPG solo avoiding joining teams then it’s not the content’s problem. Those solo players don’t have to get all the rewards the game has to offer, some will obviously require a team effort and be out of the league of solo players.

Also, it’s not the content’s problem if players want to play in a specific way and can’t adapt to it. I was once doing Crucible of Eternity and to make the Subject Alpha easier players go in melee range and hug Subject Alpha. Yet there was that person who said “I don’t want to hug him, he is too ugly” (true story) and staying at range he missed might stacks, he forced extra red circles to appear, he was away of rez range and in general made the content harder than it should be.

I’m sorry but I don’t see why the game should offer all its rewards to all kinds of players. Some content will be unavailable to them, and it’s a good thing that it will be.

maddoctor.2738:

Ohoni.6057:

Which you should recognize as a problem, yet seem to refuse to do so.

It’s not a problem with the content if a player refuses to join a team to do it. If someone wants to play an MMORPG solo avoiding joining teams then it’s not the content’s problem. Those solo players don’t have to get all the rewards the game has to offer, some will obviously require a team effort and be out of the league of solo players.

Also, it’s not the content’s problem if players want to play in a specific way and can’t adapt to it. I was once doing Crucible of Eternity and to make the Subject Alpha easier players go in melee range and hug Subject Alpha. Yet there was that person who said “I don’t want to hug him, he is too ugly” (true story) and staying at range he missed might stacks, he forced extra red circles to appear, he was away of rez range and in general made the content harder than it should be.

I’m sorry but I don’t see why the game should offer all its rewards to all kinds of players. Some content will be unavailable to them, and it’s a good thing that it will be.

This is my main problem with his stance, buying the game does not automaticly mean you have to be able to get every reward. It means you can play the game. Certain rewards need a group, wich is only logical to me, and to most players i know. Just not to him. I bet he hasn’t even bothered asking the community ingame if they agree with him or not. It’s just a solo opinion.

Astralporing.1957:

FrizzFreston.5290:

Nike.2631:

Expression of identity is CRITICAL in MMOs.

Isn’t that bold part is an argument for exclusive rewards?

Quite the opposite. Make the armor an exclusive mark of achievement, and suddenly all succesful raiders look exactly the same. Make it available through multitude of choices, and people will start dressing as they like, which introduces greater variance.

FrizzFreston.5290:

I don’t necessarily mean behind a challenge, but at least belonging to different parts of the game and thus you can tell by someone’s armor what type of player and or person they are.

That completely kills any expression of individuality. Instead of being yourself, you suddenly are just a nameless member of a bigger group. It elevates a single aspect of your identity to the front, but at the cost of destroying all others.

This would only be true if there would only be one set available per content, and there is no option to mix and match. As long as you put a lot of rewards behind it’s specific content the items have the identity linked to the content and the ability to mix and match it as they like them self.

They could use the sword from Raid x, hat from Raid Y, the shoes from JP A, axe from dungeon A, mini from guild content V, shoulders from PvP rank 2, backpack from the scribing craft, as color for the shoulders they use the dye from dungeon B.. well you get the point.

Now the identity is based on your personal mix and match (what can count up to millions, even billions of possibilities), no reason why everybody would look the same while at the same time the items link to the content what also adds to the identity.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

By your reasoning, having G.E.C.K available through the second way should have destroyed any worth of the first approach. And yet the only people going for the second route were those that aimed solely at the speed completion record.

I think someone answered that back on page 27:

Conski Deshan.2057:

A quick google search pulls up http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3_unique_weapons
Listing a couple of dozen unique weapons only acquired in one specific way…
Not to mention I know from playing , that several of the rewards such as companions, and houses all have one specific path to obtaining them. If you’re talking about the conversation options as “different” paths I’d Argue that’s like dungeons, you’re still in the dungeon but you can choose p1,p2 or p3, it’s the same content to the same difficulty just with different flavors.

---

Ha ha, that’s a good requirement. Now you will likely claim that if an item is being accessible through more than one way, it is no longer unique, so doesn’t qualify…

If a game doesn’t have unique items then what’s the point in using for the argument?

There’s no real difference between this and running silverwastes. In both cases you are repeating a content you wouldn’t do otherwise for rewards.

If you can’t see the difference between repeating content to get multiple rewards (without RNG) and repeating content to pray to the RNG gods to get your rewards I can’t help…

When RNG is reasonable there is no requirement to pray to the RNG gods. Let’s say that the drop-rate is 1/10 (where 10 is the reasonable number) you would need to pray to the RNG gods to NOT have it drop before the 20th run.

RNG is fine, if the numbers are reasonable.

Devata.6589:

When RNG is reasonable there is no requirement to pray to the RNG gods. Let’s say that drop-rate is 1/10 (where 10 is the resendable number) you would need to pray to the RNG gods to NOT have it drop before the 20th run.

RNG is fine, if the numbers are reasonable.

That’s true. But if there multiple rewards from content then RNG becomes an extra pain, for example even if the chances were better, the current Fractal skin acquisition would still be bad. In the case of multiple rewards, RNG for the chance to get a reward is enough, then you can choose which one you want. Double RNG is always bad, like first RNG for a Fractal skin to drop, then a second RNG to get the weapon you want.

Keep it simple, and have reasonable chances, that’s fine.

Ohoni.6057:

Which you should recognize as a problem, yet seem to refuse to do so.

Oh we recognize its a problem – but the problem is only for solo players who don’t want to do anything except play their own way and demand everything be available through solo content.

This is an MMORPG. MMORPGs tend to have group content. If you don’t do group content, than its 100% YOUR PROBLEM for being a solo and expecting to get rewarded for something that takes a GROUP effort.

Play the game how you want, but anet is currently trying to make it rewarding for group content (raids,fractals, high lvl team PvP) and solo content (silverwasted/Dry top/new open world zerg snooze fests)

There is no problem in my eyes. Only in yours because all you care about is getting rewards the way you want. You should recognize this, but you seem to refuse to do so.

Because once again, you are sad that group content is getting exclusive rewards, thus solo players like yourself are feeling left out….you need to recognize that anet has given plenty of rewarding solo content….. you demanding 100% of the rewards be available to you IN YOUR PREFERED WAY is ridiculous and you don’t deserve it..

phys.7689:

actually he never said that.

Sure he didn’t

maddoctor.2738:

Still specific content and not something that can apply to a game without balance problems. If wayB of getting the item is so much easier then it completely invalidates wayA.

Yeah, right.

maddoctor.2738:

Unique items ARE required in RPGs, there is no RPG (to my knowledge, that’s why I’m asking) that doesn’t have unique items, so by extension Guild Wars 2 should also have unique items, that’s the whole point.

You seem to skip over the part where any RPG game with good GM will deliver those uniques only through content that players want to play. Therefore, following the same way of thought, GW2 uniques should be available to players through avenues they choose.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Unique items ARE required in RPGs, there is no RPG (to my knowledge, that’s why I’m asking) that doesn’t have unique items, so by extension Guild Wars 2 should also have unique items, that’s the whole point.

You seem to skip over the part where any RPG game with good GM will deliver those uniques only through content that players want to play. Therefore, following the same way of thought, GW2 uniques should be available to players through avenues they choose.

Right and we have many GMs in video games.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Unique items ARE required in RPGs, there is no RPG (to my knowledge, that’s why I’m asking) that doesn’t have unique items, so by extension Guild Wars 2 should also have unique items, that’s the whole point.

You seem to skip over the part where any RPG game with good GM will deliver those uniques only through content that players want to play. Therefore, following the same way of thought, GW2 uniques should be available to players through avenues they choose.

Right and we have many GMs in video games.

Here they are called devs.

You still don’t get it, it seems. Pen and paper RPGs can get away with giving out uniques by the way of specific content only because both the uniques and the content are custom-tailored for the players that want them. If you are using existence of uniques in those games as an argument, then you cannot do that while at the same time ignoring how they are handled.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Unique items ARE required in RPGs, there is no RPG (to my knowledge, that’s why I’m asking) that doesn’t have unique items, so by extension Guild Wars 2 should also have unique items, that’s the whole point.

You seem to skip over the part where any RPG game with good GM will deliver those uniques only through content that players want to play. Therefore, following the same way of thought, GW2 uniques should be available to players through avenues they choose.

Right and we have many GMs in video games.

Here they are called devs.

You still don’t get it, it seems. Pen and paper RPGs can get away with giving out uniques by the way of specific content only because both the uniques and the content are custom-tailored for the players that want them. If you are using existence of uniques in those games as an argument, then you cannot do that while at the same time ignoring how they are handled.

LOL comparing devs with GMs you are getting even funnier.

Judging by your posts you are the one who has never played any Pen and Paper RPG in actual organized play. Let me guess, you are only playing with friends, using the GMs story/adventure and he creates it as you go, based on the player actions. He might even say “let’s stop for tonight” when you reach a cave entrance because the dungeon isn’t ready so you give him time to prepare the dungeon until you meet again.

That’s fine and good, it’s like asking for the server files for Guild Wars 2 so you can set your own rules and play the game how you want. Unfortunately (or Fortunately) Anet won’t give us the server files so “on the fly” GMing isn’t possible.

I don’t know if you know what Living Forgotten Realms or Pathfinder Society is for DnD and PF respectively. And from your posts I get that you’ve never played an actual published story. Just like a video game, a published story has an actual storyline, fixed encounters and fixed rewards.

I once applied for DM position for Living Forgotten Realms and they sent me a nice DM package, it even had reference cards you have to fill for your players. The idea is to have an RPG that is balanced and comparable between hundreds of thousands of players, so the Game Masters in that case are very careful in what rewards they give, you can’t give items that do not belong to the content your players are playing.

Some of those adventures are also very challenging and demanding, requiring players to think, have more balanced teams and even better than usual builds. They are more like games than acting. Ever heard of the Tomb of Horrors? That’s an epic adventure designed to test the best teams, and it also gives rather unique rewards.

Your table DM during your friendly game might use those rewards in his game, but in organized play he isn’t allowed to. Guild Wars 2 being a video game requires structure, it requires balance of rewards, it has pre-defined rewards, it has pre-made dungeons and content that cannot change on the fly. Obviously it requires organization of rewards for the millions of players.

And even if you remove organized play from the equation, your “the story follows the players” doesn’t make any sense. If the party is doing whatever they want and skipping content, your GM is either bad at story telling, bad at characterization (of villains), bad at world building or bad at lore building (for the unique items). One or more might apply to your GM.

If your story is good the players will follow it. If your villains are good, your players would WANT to defeat them. If your world building is good, players will be invested in the world and not run off doing random things. If your lore building is good, your players will do whatever it takes to get specific items because there something awesome behind them.

You play pen and paper random games based on the imagination of the GM, where the game can change on the fly, that’s impossible in a video game or even in organized P&P play.

maddoctor.2738:

Judging by your posts you are the one who has never played any Pen and Paper RPG in actual organized play.

I did. This is an inferior form of play, used when GM lacks the imagination and skills to run his own game, or the players lack experience to participate in something more complex.

maddoctor.2738:

I don’t know if you know what Living Forgotten Realms or Pathfinder Society is for DnD and PF respectively. And from your posts I get that you’ve never played an actual published story.

Again, i did. Look above.

maddoctor.2738:

Just like a video game, a published story has an actual storyline, fixed encounters and fixed rewards.

Yes. This is why it’s an inferior form of play. It lacks the freedom and creativity of a GM-run story, and is even impossible to run in some systems (try to run a fixed story/encounters in Exalted, for example, and the whole game will get out of rails the moments players will really start using their capabilities and brains. You can’t make a Living World game for Exalted without something blowing up sooner or later. And i’d even more like to see you try do something like that to Nobilis…).

maddoctor.2738:

I once applied for DM position for Living Forgotten Realms and they sent me a nice DM package, it even had reference cards you have to fill for your players. The idea is to have an RPG that is balanced and comparable between hundreds of thousands of players, so the Game Masters in that case are very careful in what rewards they give, you can’t give items that do not belong to the content your players are playing.

Again, it’s an entry-level gaming, made to make people interested in RPG. Veterans in general aren’t going to stay long on premades however – they are way too limiting for everyone (GM included).

Yes, some small subgroup of players do like that type of play. Even they usually go for only specific systems, or will check what type of module/game it is beforehand (a Vampire or Mage player for example is not likely to be thrilled with having to run a DnD dungeon-based classic module). They are also unlikely to limit themselves to only those games.

A good GM should also verify beforehand that all players are on the level.

And even then many players will not end up enjoying it, and will eventually graduate to more advanced games.

maddoctor.2738:

And even if you remove organized play from the equation, your “the story follows the players” doesn’t make any sense. If the party is doing whatever they want and skipping content, your GM is either bad at story telling, bad at characterization (of villains), bad at world building or bad at lore building (for the unique items). One or more might apply to your GM.

Sure. Because a good GM would not introduce a story his players would not want to follow. A story must be tailored to the players. Ignoring their likes will always end up in trainwreck and bad feelings, no matter how good is GM’s storytelling.

maddoctor.2738:

If your story is good the players will follow it. If your villains are good, your players would WANT to defeat them. If your world building is good, players will be invested in the world and not run off doing random things. If your lore building is good, your players will do whatever it takes to get specific items because there something awesome behind them.

With the caveat, that what is awesome for one player, won’t be for another. To create a content players would WANT to interact with, you have to know your players, and you have to know what they expect from the game.

You will not run a social based game for a player that only enjoys stacking corpses sky-high. You would not run a hack-n-slash for someone that is interested mainly in social interactions. And a greatest story may be discarded by a player that is strongly Simulationist-aspected and will want a more sandbox approach.

If you think you can get around that, and ignore your players, you are a bad GM, and deserve your game to go down in flames.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

This video is very relevant and I hope Anet takes a look at this and takes notes. The video also explains why and how Ohoni is so wrong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9r34qSyYg0

Good video for the most part. Especially the part around 7:30. Killing that epic boss that was so hard to kill creates that effect.. getting some epic reward gives a similar (well not as big as the one you did see in the video) effect.

Also on a smaller scale, the video was about WoW, there I loved the engineering craft what did the same on a smaller scale..
I always had the goal to work towards, the next item, and getting that next item was never about grinding levels or farming mats, getting those mats where pretty easy, and the levels between cool items you wanted was always short.

No, getting that next item often required this one hard to get item, being it a recipe or a specific item (like a precursor). So every time you logged in, you had a goal, and reaching that goal was epic.

So that is a way you can create similar things for the more casual or cosmetic / toy focused players.

You don’t get this feeling when grinding a currency and buying the item. Not even a little.

I hope Anet employees will have a look at the video and at least thing about what they see there.

Devata.6589:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

This video is very relevant and I hope Anet takes a look at this and takes notes. The video also explains why and how Ohoni is so wrong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9r34qSyYg0

Good video for the most part. Especially the part around 7:30. Killing that epic boss that was so hard to kill creates that effect.. getting some epic reward gives a similar (well not as big as the one you did see in the video) effect.

Also on a smaller scale, the video was about WoW, there I loved the engineering craft what did the same on a smaller scale..
I always had the goal to work towards, the next item, and getting that next item was never about grinding levels or farming mats, getting those mats where pretty easy, and the levels between cool items you wanted was always short.

No, getting that next item often required this one hard to get item, being it a recipe or a specific item (like a precursor). So every time you logged in, you had a goal, and reaching that goal was epic.

So that is a way you can create similar things for the more casual or cosmetic / toy focused players.

You don’t get this feeling when grinding a currency and buying the item. Not even a little.

I hope Anet employees will have a look at the video and at least thing about what they see there.

Personally, the idea behind Precursor crafting likely had this in mind, but I don’t think we will see something like a ‘Progressive PvE endgame’ such that we saw in Vanilla WoW and BC, and few parts of WotLK (Ulduar specifically).

…What they could do however is make the progression in the form of achievements, a list of difficult achievements that fill a meta-reward like a Legendary item. These achievements could be from all sorts of areas in the Magumma Jungle and even perhaps some parts of the Core game. Imagine a super meta achievement that was accomplished by doing absolutely everything, something that everyone could work towards both hardened players and casual alike?

Sykper.6583:

Devata.6589:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

This video is very relevant and I hope Anet takes a look at this and takes notes. The video also explains why and how Ohoni is so wrong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9r34qSyYg0

Good video for the most part. Especially the part around 7:30. Killing that epic boss that was so hard to kill creates that effect.. getting some epic reward gives a similar (well not as big as the one you did see in the video) effect.

Also on a smaller scale, the video was about WoW, there I loved the engineering craft what did the same on a smaller scale..
I always had the goal to work towards, the next item, and getting that next item was never about grinding levels or farming mats, getting those mats where pretty easy, and the levels between cool items you wanted was always short.

No, getting that next item often required this one hard to get item, being it a recipe or a specific item (like a precursor). So every time you logged in, you had a goal, and reaching that goal was epic.

So that is a way you can create similar things for the more casual or cosmetic / toy focused players.

You don’t get this feeling when grinding a currency and buying the item. Not even a little.

I hope Anet employees will have a look at the video and at least thing about what they see there.

Personally, the idea behind Precursor crafting likely had this in mind, but I don’t think we will see something like a ‘Progressive PvE endgame’ such that we saw in Vanilla WoW and BC, and few parts of WotLK (Ulduar specifically).

…What they could do however is make the progression in the form of achievements, a list of difficult achievements that fill a meta-reward like a Legendary item. These achievements could be from all sorts of areas in the Magumma Jungle and even perhaps some parts of the Core game. Imagine a super meta achievement that was accomplished by doing absolutely everything, something that everyone could work towards both hardened players and casual alike?

I agree, I don’t expect it to become exactly as you see in the video, but something along those lines would be nice.

Indeed I also think Legendary weapons where supposed to be like this, they do even have a similar tree to obtain them, but that mainly boils down to a lot of grinding and buying what you need. So pretty much failed in that perspective.

But my point was exactly that rewards (when rewarded from specific content) can create a similar, while possible more casual (when you don’t include the big tree) effect. There is always this goal (reward) to work towards, some requiring multiple steps or challenges. Complete JP x get reward 1, complete JP x in under 2 min and get reward 2 BTW, reward 2 is a precursor for reward 6 but then you need another precursor (reward 3) from JP y.

You make your own list of rewards you like and the content act as the tree, so there is always something to do when playing, and it feels more epic when you get the reward compared to the grind and buy.. In fact the grind and buy feels so uninteresting that even many of the items I usually care for in other games (like mini’s) and I could easily get in GW2 because they are cheap… I don’t even am interested in anymore. When the whole experience of getting them becomes boring, also those who I can get without any efforts become uninteresting so I literally only get the ones I purely like for the look. While usually it’s a combination of look and the way they are rewarded.

It’s not a problem with the content if a player refuses to join a team to do it. If someone wants to play an MMORPG solo avoiding joining teams then it’s not the content’s problem. Those solo players don’t have to get all the rewards the game has to offer, some will obviously require a team effort and be out of the league of solo players.

But they don’t have to be. It’s possible to provide more convenient options to people.

This is my main problem with his stance, buying the game does not automaticly mean you have to be able to get every reward. It means you can play the game.

True, but you’re confusing “must” and “should.” Does it mean that you “have” to be able to get every reward? No. They can lock things however they like. But should they? If all it does is make more people less happy, then what is the upside in their doing so? Their goal is to make as many players satisfied and having fun as possible, and bribing players to not have fun is of benefit to no one. I don’t understand why so many of you insist on disputing this point.

When RNG is reasonable there is no requirement to pray to the RNG gods. Let’s say that the drop-rate is 1/10 (where 10 is the reasonable number) you would need to pray to the RNG gods to NOT have it drop before the 20th run.

RNG is fine, if the numbers are reasonable.

Yes, but really the whole point of RNG is to be a bit unreasonable. If the rates are too low then what’s the point of the rate at all? Why not just give the reward on every run? I’m by no means in favor of Precursor-level rates, but I think incredibly high drop rates are kind of bad too, because then each time you don’t get ti it seems like even more of a slap in the face. I mean, every time I kill a moa it might drop a Dawn, but the chances are super low so it really doesn’t bother me if I don’t. If it were like one in five, and I killed six, or even three without seeing one drop, I’d be like “what the kitten game? Drop already!”

I think the best solutions involve having RNG in the middleground where it actually has a risk to it, while also having a “streak breaker” mechanic to resolve really bad luck, like token collecting.

This is an MMORPG. MMORPGs tend to have group content. If you don’t do group content, than its 100% YOUR PROBLEM for being a solo and expecting to get rewarded for something that takes a GROUP effort.

That might be true of other MMOs, MMOs that are not being played by GW2 players, but GW2 is a very particular type of MMO, one that has a player base that much more values their independence, of being “one in a crowd,” without having to formalize into an “official” group. That was one of the great selling points of GW2, and a common criticism against every MMO since, that GW2 allows you to wander the open world, get attracted to an event in which you cooperate with other players and are each rewarded for your efforts, and then you can wander off again, without at any point having to say “you want to group?” That was a revelation to a lot of burnt out MMO players who always hated forced grouping in previous games.

Now it’s true that sever since launch they’ve been eroding at that pillar bit by bit, and maybe raids will finally collapse it, but to a lot of players that feature is one that makes GW2 special, and worth playing instead of those other MMOs.

Ohoni.6057:

When RNG is reasonable there is no requirement to pray to the RNG gods. Let’s say that the drop-rate is 1/10 (where 10 is the reasonable number) you would need to pray to the RNG gods to NOT have it drop before the 20th run.

RNG is fine, if the numbers are reasonable.

Yes, but really the whole point of RNG is to be a bit unreasonable. If the rates are too low then what’s the point of the rate at all? Why not just give the reward on every run? I’m by no means in favor of Precursor-level rates, but I think incredibly high drop rates are kind of bad too, because then each time you don’t get ti it seems like even more of a slap in the face. I mean, every time I kill a moa it might drop a Dawn, but the chances are super low so it really doesn’t bother me if I don’t. If it were like one in five, and I killed six, or even three without seeing one drop, I’d be like “what the kitten game? Drop already!”

I think the best solutions involve having RNG in the middleground where it actually has a risk to it, while also having a “streak breaker” mechanic to resolve really bad luck, like token collecting.

You need to find the right balance with RNG.

If it comes to other systems.. as I have said before, what I think is best is a guaranteed reward you get once, this must be something people want but will be less rare as everybody who completes it, gets it.
Some RNG rewards, this should be the rewards people are really after and really want (best looking).
And you can then have a token system for some items you earn along the way.. nice-to have but not something people are usually specifically after.

Ohoni.6057:

This is an MMORPG. MMORPGs tend to have group content. If you don’t do group content, than its 100% YOUR PROBLEM for being a solo and expecting to get rewarded for something that takes a GROUP effort.

That might be true of other MMOs, MMOs that are not being played by GW2 players, but GW2 is a very particular type of MMO, one that has a player base that much more values their independence, of being “one in a crowd,” without having to formalize into an “official” group. That was one of the great selling points of GW2, and a common criticism against every MMO since, that GW2 allows you to wander the open world, get attracted to an event in which you cooperate with other players and are each rewarded for your efforts, and then you can wander off again, without at any point having to say “you want to group?” That was a revelation to a lot of burnt out MMO players who always hated forced grouping in previous games.

Now it’s true that sever since launch they’ve been eroding at that pillar bit by bit, and maybe raids will finally collapse it, but to a lot of players that feature is one that makes GW2 special, and worth playing instead of those other MMOs.

Speak for yourself.
You realize it says “GUILD” wars 2.

How many ppl do you see running around with a guild tag compared to solo?

You want some solo adventure, you play skyrim. MMORPGs are usually played with friends… you know, thats why there are 500 man guilds?

You honestly believe this game is catered for solo players? Look at all the guild stuff coming, why would anet use resources in creating group content, guild halls, etc etc???

Solo players lol you serious? there’s hardly any as you claim.
Once again, you need to get out of your little own bubble and realize you are not going to get 100% of everything anet creates.

NO MMORPG focuses on catering towards making sure you can “solo” your way towards every single content for every single reward. You know how dead this game would be without anet developing group/guild content?

If it comes to other systems.. as I have said before, what I think is best is a guaranteed reward you get once, this must be something people want but will be less rare as everybody who completes it, gets it.

And see, I’m sure everyone would love that, but it’s completely non-viable in an MMO, because when they spend the time to make content, they need for everyone to run it dozens of times. This is why content should not be balanced around having exclusive rewards. If you instead balance them on being fun, then players will run them dozens of times just because they want to, not because they’re being press-ganged into it by the loot system. If you balance around fun, then you CAN give the best rewards out the first time, because they’ll keep coming back anyways.

Speak for yourself.
You realize it says “GUILD” wars 2.

People say that as if it’s not ironic when they say it. Yes, it’s called Guild wars 2 because it’s a sequel to Guild Wars 1, and Guild Wars 1 was barely even about guild wars, because it turned out people liked the other stuff better. The guild wars were more about lore than as a practical gameplay feature.

You know, they make an MMO called Final Fantasy XIV, which means it’s the 14th one, and if that isn’t red flag enough for you, there was actually a previous MMO called Final Fantasy XI, and it wasn’t the final one either, and guess what? There will be a 15th!

How many ppl do you see running around with a guild tag compared to solo?

I don’t know how much that means, really. I’m in a “real” guild at the moment, but I was running in a guild for about the first two years of the game that included eight members, all of whom coincidentally shared my account. I was never not displaying a guild tag after the first day, but we stayed very small and didn’t talk much to each other, a bit like how Clark Kent and Superman rarely attend the same social functions. There’s absolutely no way of knowing how many guild tagged players full under similar circumstances.

Really though, even if someone is a member of an official guild, that doesn’t mean they want to engage in much content with those people, they might just like having a shared chat channel as they’re all over the map.

You want some solo adventure, you play skyrim. MMORPGs are usually played with friends… you know, thats why there are 500 man guilds?

I’m used to this sad attitude from players of other MMOs that don’t know better, but most GW2 players are aware that you can play an MMO, and enjoy playing around other players, without particularly enjoying having to play with other players, where you have responsibilities to them and they have responsibilities to you. How long have you actually been playing this game, that this seems a foreign topic to you.

You honestly believe this game is catered for solo players? Look at all the guild stuff coming, why would anet use resources in creating group content, guild halls, etc etc???

And notice that it took them three years to get any of that stuff in. If it were such a priority, you’d think they’d have launched with that stuff.

You know how dead this game would be without anet developing group/guild content?

I would assume it would be exactly as “dead” as it actually is right now, which strikes me as “not at all.”

I actually have to kind of agree with Ohoni regarding guilds. I joined a mass guild by randomly accepting an invitation and met there a few people I talk with in TS now before they broke away from the guid. I even joined their new guild, but I divide my representation between the mass guild where I can mind my own business and the smaller, more personal one.
I also know some people that have one man guilds for whatever reason, most just don´t want to be bothered to be asked to join a random guild or want the bank account for reasons of space.

This game should of course also include soloable content for the casual people that are looking for some simple click loot repeat after work. Every MMO that wants to succeeed should have that in my opinion. Raiders don´t have to like it, but it should be there. I am not a fan of raids, but if there are enough people playing them, who am I to forbid them?

But contrary to soloable stuff, I don´t think raids are a must, neither are dungeons, fractals or duelling(to take one in that is often asked for and not available too) if you make a “theme park” mmo some people mentioned here. I loved open world stuff like ls1, but sadly, it did not generate enough revenue for Anet to continue it as priority, so they try to attract other people right now. Understandable in my eyes.

Astralporing.1957:

<snip>

If you can’t see the difference between a “GM-run” story which is on the fly and can change when you want and a pre-made story and how a video game can only have a pre-made story there is nothing more to say. I thought it’s just plain logic and common sense

Ohoni.6057:

It’s not a problem with the content if a player refuses to join a team to do it. If someone wants to play an MMORPG solo avoiding joining teams then it’s not the content’s problem. Those solo players don’t have to get all the rewards the game has to offer, some will obviously require a team effort and be out of the league of solo players.

But they don’t have to be. It’s possible to provide more convenient options to people.

No it’s not. Remember what the first two Ms mean in MMORPG? It’s unreasonable to allow solo players to have access to everything. Same goes with players who just want to cosplay, or role play specific in-universe characters, or those who just use the game as a glorified chat box.

Torolan.5816:

This game should of course also include soloable content for the casual people that are looking for some simple click loot repeat after work. Every MMO that wants to succeeed should have that in my opinion. Raiders don´t have to like it, but it should be there. I am not a fan of raids, but if there are enough people playing them, who am I to forbid them?

And who said otherwise?

Ohoni.6057:

That was a revelation to a lot of burnt out MMO players who always hated forced grouping in previous games.

You mean the great selling point was hiding behind the work of others, get carried by a big crowd to finish content you couldn’t otherwise, tagging then waypointing, afking while getting the same rewards as those who actually play, skipping entire bits of content to go to the “good staff” as others will do all your prep-work and all the other “nice” things about the GW2 system.

Is it better than questing in other MMORPGs? Yes it is, but it can in no way or form replace a higher level of play. It’s an abusable/exploitable system that throws any kind of effort to the garbage bin, and even worse, it allows players to capitalize and take advantage off the work of others, while having the same rewards. That’s a terrible system for end-game rewards.

I also know some people that have one man guilds for whatever reason, most just don´t want to be bothered to be asked to join a random guild or want the bank account for reasons of space.

I like my personal guild for the 200 units of free storage, and my own guild logo is the coolest one in the game, so good I bought the Guild Finisher for it, even though I rarely play anything with finishers (unless they add them to PvE Impact Strikes, I hope!). I also hope I’ll be able to get a guild hall, so that my regular guild has one style and I have the other. That’s not a deal-breaker though.

No it’s not. Remember what the first two Ms mean in MMORPG? It’s unreasonable to allow solo players to have access to everything.

No. Like I said to Skits, this is a misconception that I expect from non GW2-players, who are used to games where you have to log in, five 4-7 other people, and then set out for the night to get anywhere, but GW2 is and always has been about multi-player that doesn’t require organization. That is it’s primary selling point (aside from the no subscriptions thing). They have supported other types of play, most of which were added after launch, but they are an afterthought to the design.

Massively Multiplayer doesn’t mean segregating yourself into small groups of 5-8 players. When people tell me that if I want to solo I can play Skyrim, my response is that if you want to play small groups, you can play Neverwinter Nights (before they made an MMO of it), or Dragon Age Inquisition multi. Small group content is really the biggest possible waste of an MMO’s potential, which is one of the reasons I was never particularly interested in GW1.

The true potential of an online world is in interacting with hundreds of players in an open world environment, as you would with actual people. In real life you don’t “party up,” you just are around other people, and then you’re around more people, and then around less, and sometimes off by yourself, and at no point do you “sign in.” When most people say that they want to “solo” in an MMO, they don’t mean that they should be able to take on all content as the only guy there, it just means that you shouldn’t have to formally link up with anyone, you can just engage the content with the people who are around, for as long as they or you care to be around, and when anyone wants to leave, that’s their business and not a matter for debate or recriminations.

GW2 does this better than almost any game on the market, and people love them for this, which is why it’s disappointing whenever they make moves away from it.

Anyways, I don’t mind that they are including raids as an option for those that want to do them, that’s fine, some people like them, let them play. I do, however, mind if they put systems in place that try to pressure me into those raids to get the items I want, and don’t you dare try to tell me that it’s “optional” if it’s the only method of earning those skins. It may be optional for you under those circumstances, but it is not optional to me, or to others of a similar mindset.

You mean the great selling point was hiding behind the work of others, get carried by a big crowd to finish content you couldn’t otherwise, tagging then waypointing, afking while getting the same rewards as those who actually play, skipping entire bits of content to go to the “good staff” as others will do all your prep-work and all the other “nice” things about the GW2 system.

Is it better than questing in other MMORPGs? Yes it is, but it can in no way or form replace a higher level of play. It’s an abusable/exploitable system that throws any kind of effort to the garbage bin, and even worse, it allows players to capitalize and take advantage off the work of others, while having the same rewards. That’s a terrible system for end-game rewards.

If it’s the best you can do with that sort of content, then I don’t care. I prefer it to all alternatives. Ideally there would be a way to track the progress of the event by the zerg, while more efficiently tracking your own personal progress separately, so that even if the group succeeds in their tasks, your own personal rewards would be based on what you specifically did to improve the encounter. But again, if that can’t be managed, then it’s still better to have a system that is too generous to players enjoying themselves in open world massively multiplayer content, than to force them into tiny boxes with members they can count on their fingers.

Ohoni.6057:

You mean the great selling point was hiding behind the work of others, get carried by a big crowd to finish content you couldn’t otherwise, tagging then waypointing, afking while getting the same rewards as those who actually play, skipping entire bits of content to go to the “good staff” as others will do all your prep-work and all the other “nice” things about the GW2 system.

Is it better than questing in other MMORPGs? Yes it is, but it can in no way or form replace a higher level of play. It’s an abusable/exploitable system that throws any kind of effort to the garbage bin, and even worse, it allows players to capitalize and take advantage off the work of others, while having the same rewards. That’s a terrible system for end-game rewards.

If it’s the best you can do with that sort of content, then I don’t care. I prefer it to all alternatives. Ideally there would be a way to track the progress of the event by the zerg, while more efficiently tracking your own personal progress separately, so that even if the group succeeds in their tasks, your own personal rewards would be based on what you specifically did to improve the encounter. But again, if that can’t be managed, then it’s still better to have a system that is too generous to players enjoying themselves in open world massively multiplayer content, than to force them into tiny boxes with members they can count on their fingers.

Sure for regular PVE the system works in an excellent way, it’s when the rewards of it become way too good and force huge blobs to form that it gets out of hand and the system breaks. It’s not a bad system, just un-suitable for end-game rewards

Ohoni.6057:

If it comes to other systems.. as I have said before, what I think is best is a guaranteed reward you get once, this must be something people want but will be less rare as everybody who completes it, gets it.

And see, I’m sure everyone would love that, but it’s completely non-viable in an MMO, because when they spend the time to make content, they need for everyone to run it dozens of times. This is why content should not be balanced around having exclusive rewards. If you instead balance them on being fun, then players will run them dozens of times just because they want to, not because they’re being press-ganged into it by the loot system. If you balance around fun, then you CAN give the best rewards out the first time, because they’ll keep coming back anyways.

The only thing you forget here, is that the rewards are part of the fun. Yes, content needs to be fun by themselves, but especially to keep them fun to do for multiple times rewards help a lot.

The Molten Facility and to some extend SAB are the best examples fort hat in GW2. Molten Facility was a great dungeon, people loved to do it (they liked the content) and where screaming on the forums they wanted it back.

Remember? I do.. I also remember I said in those thread.. I want to see it back, but only if it comes with the same exclusive rewards, else people will not care about it.

It came back, but people did not really care.. other than “it’s an easy run in Fractals” in general people don’t care about it anymore. (SAB was similar, where the first addition it was fun to do it on all characters, this was not the case with SAB 2 because it was not rewarding you anymore when playing on an alt. It was still fun to do on that first character but instead of then doing it on the second one as well, you just did it the day after again.)

Content can be fun, but if you have done it a few times you will start caring less, especially when it’s not PvP (with PvP there is always the interaction with other players that keeps it fresh). But if you have a reason (the reward) to keep doing it, you will be doing that fun content, and you will have fun doing it. So yes.. content needs to be fun, and exclusive rewards are a big element in that.

Content that is just not fun with good rewards is not good, but fun content without rewards is only good for a limited time, the RNG rewards increases that time.

Ohoni.6057:

That was a revelation to a lot of burnt out MMO players who always hated forced grouping in previous games.

You know what really burns out a lot of people?. Answer: grind. And this “you should be able to get everything by doing whatever” results in the currency grind we already see way to much in GW2.

Basically you end up with 3 groups, 1 those who don’t really care about the items, 2 those that did find other stuff they like (like WvW) and 3 the grinders.
Anybody who does like to get those items, likes the chase but is no grinder, will and did burn out. Many of them will be back with HoT but if the reward system would not improve they will be burned out again and won’t be back for the next expansion.

Edit: Added example: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Does-GW2-feel-unrewarding-for-anyone-else

Sure for regular PVE the system works in an excellent way, it’s when the rewards of it become way too good and force huge blobs to form that it gets out of hand and the system breaks.

No. That is not a thing. If a huge blob forms, then the system should be designed to account for that. If the system cannot be designed to account for that, then huge blobs should be impossible to form. You should not blame the quality of rewards for too many people showing up.

Admittedly, there are plenty of places that GW2 does not do a great job at this, but rewards have absolutely nothing to do with it. The way to fix this is to either A: have the hardware and content be capable of scaling up to handle a full standard map in a single location without slowing to a crawl and the enemy basically being a pushover, or B: do not allow an entire standard map’s population to arrive at a single location.

Now for Ba: One way to achieve this is to just cap the map smaller. A raid sort of does this, but at a very low cap, and it’s restricted to only people that are part of a single group, rather than letting people come and go as they please. It wouldn’t hurt though to have maps with 50-100 player hard caps, come and go as you please, and events that can scale up from small groups to being perfectly reasonable challenges for that large scale team. Obviously these maps would need to be fairly small and with few distractions, so that players would not spread too thin.

Bb. Instead of capping the entire map at the level the content can handle, force the players to split up. Teq does some of this, DT does some, SW does some, the Marionette and LA invasion did, etc. The methods are occasionally clumsy, but they’ve gotten better at it, and it does largely work, forcing each group to do their own tasks. The problem is that it means that your individual reward often ends up tied up in a fight on the other end of the map, over which you can have no influence.

To that end, I tend to favor methods like the Scarlet fight, where only a limited number of players are permitted at each location, rather than one in which a certain number are “necessary” at each location or it will fail, but players are allowed to mob up only one location if they feel like it, ruining it for everyone. However, one thing that they’ve gotten wrong pretty much every time on this sort of event, is that if you need to be halfway across the map in order to be effective, then they need UI elements that will let you know what number they have, and what numbers they need.

For example if a map is hard capped at 50, and there is an even that needs three distinct groups of 50 at three different locations, and no more than that, then you should be able to tell from the map or the sidebar exactly how many players are at each location, so you know where you’d be of most use. Such an event would also need to scale to allow as few as 25 players to hold each location successfully, to account for inefficient splits.

But no, the type of reward these events offer is not a factor in whether they succeed or not. It is entirely about gameplay quality.

It came back, but people did not really care.. other than “it’s an easy run in Fractals” in general people don’t care about it anymore. (SAB was similar, where the first addition it was fun to do it on all characters, this was not the case with SAB 2 because it was not rewarding you anymore when playing on an alt. It was still fun to do on that first character but instead of then doing it on the second one as well, you just did it the day after again.)

Yes, but the same is true of any content. People wanted Molten Facility back because it went away before they got tired of it, but that doesn’t mean that they never would have gotten tired of it. The people who were playing it the first time around would have kept playing until they got all the rewards, and then would have gotten as bored as in the Fractal version. And sure, the occasional new players would want to give it a shot, but nothing long term. Even if it’d stayed exactly as it launched, by this point in the game people would be playing it about the same as the less efficient dungeon paths, nothing more.

SAB’s kind of the same, I’d like to see it brought back, but if they’d left it up as a permanent feature, almost nobody would be running it at all in a given day (and I played SAB a ton as they actually released it).

Content can be fun, but if you have done it a few times you will start caring less, especially when it’s not PvP (with PvP there is always the interaction with other players that keeps it fresh). But if you have a reason (the reward) to keep doing it, you will be doing that fun content, and you will have fun doing it. So yes.. content needs to be fun, and exclusive rewards are a big element in that.

I don’t think that’s true. It may be true for you, but I don’t think it holds up in the big picture. I think that if unique rewards are the driving force, then players will still give up the instant they have the unique reward involved. I know I stopped running DT soon after getting the full Ambrite set, but it wasn’t because I wasn’t having fun, it’s that I couldn’t buy anything useful with geodes anymore, aside from clay pots, and those had lost too much value for me to care. If you could buy cool stuff from other areas with geodes in some transaction, I might still be playing DT on a weekly basis, at least.

I think unique rewards run on sort of a parallel track to fun, they are not the same thing. Think of it like you’re riding down those two tracks, with each foot on a roller skate on one of the two. If the reward is cool and the event is fun, then everything’s fine, you’re stable and having fun. If the reward is great but you’ve gotten tired of the content, then one of the rails falls away and you’re wobbling on one foot, you’re still sliding down the track, but it’s not fun anymore, it’s just gear-grind to get that thing you want.

On the flipside, if the content is fun and rewarding, but then you get that unique reward, then it’s still fun, but again, wobbly, because now the rewards you do get are mediocre, you could be getting much better someplace else, so playing there is a waste of your time.

The stable solution is to never have the unique reward, to rely on the fun of it, and just have rewards that are balanced and worth the time invested, not unique, just of a sufficient quantity.

And then of course you have the situation in which a player wants the reward but NEVER finds that content fun, and he’s forced to either play the content he does not enjoy, or never get the thing he wants, and not ONE of you has suggested a solution that would actually satisfy this player, the best you can offer is “don’t care what he thinks.”

You know what really burns out a lot of people?. Answer: grind. And this “you should be able to get everything by doing whatever” results in the currency grind we already see way to much in GW2.

Yes, and “you have to keep doing this raid until the skin you want drops, even though you didn’t enjoy it the first time” is just as much grind as anything else. There is no magical one-size solution to grind, if there were someone would have bottled it and made a mint by now. Just always be aware that the type of grind that you hate, is not hated by everyone as much as you hate it, and the type of grind that you enjoy, perhaps even to the point of refusing to see it as grind, is not necessarily the type that other people enjoy. The best solution is to offer multiple types of grind that all lead to the same outcome, and letting players choose which type they prefer.

Ohoni.6057:

One way to achieve this is to just cap the map smaller.

Making the map cap smaller has a serious problem, it doesn’t allow guilds or even parties to play together. A guild of 20 might want to do Tequatl, even now it’s hard for them to do so, unless they game the system and go hours and hours earlier. Unless they give guilds and any other such big team the ability to “reserve” instances of a map, then lower caps cause more problems than they fix.

The methods are occasionally clumsy, but they’ve gotten better at it, and it does largely work, forcing each group to do their own tasks.

I’d agree that they are getting better, except for the latest Mordrem Invasion event which was a huge step backwards.

Such an event would also need to scale to allow as few as 25 players to hold each location successfully, to account for inefficient splits.

Right now the only method to “tell” is by counting the leveled mobs, if the amount of elite/champion mobs is high, then it’s probably time to move on to another event because this one is overcrowded (which is a horrible thing)

And then of course you have the situation in which a player wants the reward but NEVER finds that content fun, and he’s forced to either play the content he does not enjoy, or never get the thing he wants, and not ONE of you has suggested a solution that would actually satisfy this player, the best you can offer is “don’t care what he thinks.”

There is no option that can satisfy that player. What about a player who likes the rewards for what they mean as rewards and not for how pretty it looks? A player who values the rewards from how you get them and not from the reward itself. Those two types of players can never be satisfied at the same time, unless you put items in both categories. Satisfying both 100% at the same time is impossible

Making the map cap smaller has a serious problem, it doesn’t allow guilds or even parties to play together. A guild of 20 might want to do Tequatl, even now it’s hard for them to do so, unless they game the system and go hours and hours earlier. Unless they give guilds and any other such big team the ability to “reserve” instances of a map, then lower caps cause more problems than they fix.

Ah, yes, a BIG part of this, and essential no matter what else they do, is to provide better map control options. You should not have to “trick” the system to set up a map, and you sure as kitten shouldn’t have to show up well in advance and throw coats over all the seats. At the very base level, they need to have something Champions Online had years ago, the ability to view all open maps, listed by either ip (as you can currently view them) or by a fixed name (such as “Queensdale 7”), and it needs to show the current map population, and then allow you to manually select the exact one you want to go to. The default choice would be the one it would currently put you on, but if you prefer another one, you’d have options.

Second, they do need a way for organized players to open a “fresh” map and flood it. I don’t believe they should have the ability to “lock” the map and prevent others from entering, that’s too anti-social, but there could at least be a “soft lock” of a few minutes before it is advertised to people outside the intended group, giving them time to flood it. I think there needs to be a cost to this, and it’s perfect for the Guild Hall system, either being in the hall itself, or just something you can build in one.

It shouldn’t be a problem for guilds and other groupings of players to be able to fill maps with as many of their own members as it can hold, while at the same time the content should be balanced so that random groups of reasonably skilled players can manage it. Oh, and one more thing, you should be able to label maps in some way, like maybe have a map-wide vote where you need at least 20-30 people to vote yes and twice as many yes as no or something that would be reasonably fair, that would allow you to set the name of the map to include options off a checklist, so for example you could change your SW map to “Chest Farming,” or “Vinewrath,” or “General/Story.” While this wouldn’t be binding on anyone’s behavior, it would at least let people self-select out of content that they didn’t want, for example if I wanted to do story stuff or the JP, I wouldn’t want to be on a VW map, taking up space.

I’d agree that they are getting better, except for the latest Mordrem Invasion event which was a huge step backwards.

Certainly, but hopefully they learned from that one.

Right now the only method to “tell” is by counting the leveled mobs, if the amount of elite/champion mobs is high, then it’s probably time to move on to another event because this one is overcrowded (which is a horrible thing)

But event then you have the problem of taking time to reach other events, and of having no idea how they are doing before you get there. If there are locations A, B, and C, then even if you know that A is overcrowded, do you head for B or C? Turns out you run all the way to C and it’s overcrowded too, while B is in real trouble. No way of telling that from the map (unless they make the UI better). Sure, you can use chat for some of this, but it’s hectic in combat, and you shouldn’t have to. The information you need to decide should be on the screen.

There is no option that can satisfy that player.

Sure you can, you just provide him an alternative method to the reward, one that he does find fun. It’s not hard, you guys just refuse to allow that option.

What about a player who likes the rewards for what they mean as rewards and not for how pretty it looks?

He should be able to earn a reward that has that value, but is not “pretty.” If he values “the reward” simply for being “the reward,” then it shouldn’t really matter what, exactly, that reward is. Make it a trophy, or title, or something else that is of no value except as “the reward.” Give them other rewards too, the trophy isn’t all they get, but the other rewards are generic. It’s like the Nobel prize, greatest achievements in human history, and all you get is a chunk of metal that people wouldn’t wear on the street even if everyone had one. And also a million dollars. But who cares about the million dollars, you got that unique hunk of metal! That is the compromise. The player that cares about “pretty” gets access to all the pretties, the player that cares about exclusive status gets exclusive access to the not-pretties.

Ohoni.6057:

It came back, but people did not really care.. other than “it’s an easy run in Fractals” in general people don’t care about it anymore. (SAB was similar, where the first addition it was fun to do it on all characters, this was not the case with SAB 2 because it was not rewarding you anymore when playing on an alt. It was still fun to do on that first character but instead of then doing it on the second one as well, you just did it the day after again.)

Yes, but the same is true of any content. People wanted Molten Facility back because it went away before they got tired of it, but that doesn’t mean that they never would have gotten tired of it. The people who were playing it the first time around would have kept playing until they got all the rewards, and then would have gotten as bored as in the Fractal version. And sure, the occasional new players would want to give it a shot, but nothing long term~

I did not say it would keep the content alive (to the same extent) forever, I said it would increase the life-spawn.. Exactly what you seem to agree on in your comment.

Of course as you say, there is also a reason for new players to keep doing it, while without the rewards there would be less reason for them to do it.. their veteran friends don’t do it, there is no real reason for them to do it without special rewards so in that case there is even less activity. With specific rewards at least you will always have people who have a reason to do it and so will do it.

Ohoni.6057:

Content can be fun, but if you have done it a few times you will start caring less, especially when it’s not PvP (with PvP there is always the interaction with other players that keeps it fresh). But if you have a reason (the reward) to keep doing it, you will be doing that fun content, and you will have fun doing it. So yes.. content needs to be fun, and exclusive rewards are a big element in that.

I don’t think that’s true. It may be true for you, but I don’t think it holds up in the big picture. I think that if unique rewards are the driving force, then players will still give up the instant they have the unique reward involved. I know I stopped running DT soon after getting the full Ambrite set, but it wasn’t because I wasn’t having fun, it’s that I couldn’t buy anything useful with geodes anymore, aside from clay pots, and those had lost too much value for me to care. If you could buy cool stuff from other areas with geodes in some transaction, I might still be playing DT on a weekly basis, at least.

You start with saying it is not true, but then what you say basically says it is true. While you are partly talking about a currency here. And yes, in that case you might have been still doing it… if that content rewarded the most currency (geodes). But as GW2 shows, if other content would reward it better, most will move to that. So a currency you can spend everywhere does not help.. in fact, it decreases the life-spawn because as soon as you have seen the dungeon you might already move towards the content that rewards that currency the most. So you get a similar effect as having no (specific) rewards at all.

Ohoni.6057:

I think unique rewards run on sort of a parallel track to fun, they are not the same thing. Think of it like you’re riding down those two tracks, with each foot on a roller skate on one of the two. If the reward is cool and the event is fun, then everything’s fine, you’re stable and having fun. If the reward is great but you’ve gotten tired of the content, then one of the rails falls away and you’re wobbling on one foot, you’re still sliding down the track, but it’s not fun anymore, it’s just gear-grind to get that thing you want.

On the flipside, if the content is fun and rewarding, but then you get that unique reward, then it’s still fun, but again, wobbly, because now the rewards you do get are mediocre, you could be getting much better someplace else, so playing there is a waste of your time.

So both need to be good, together they enhanced the experience. For some rewards you might need to do content you personally don’t like so much (or leave that reward), for others you do the content you prefer. If you still want to go for the rewards that are behind content you don’t like, that will be a lesser experience, that is true. The other however will be even a better experience.

If you make it so you can get rewards everywhere (pretty much the currency-grind we already have) then doing any content that required more effort or that rewards less feels like a waste of you time as you say. So now you are only in luck if the content you happen to prefer also happens to be the best at rewarding the currency you need. And I will repeat it again.. you are still missing that “will it drop” effect and the “Yes is dropped!!” effect.

Ohoni.6057:

The stable solution is to never have the unique reward, to rely on the fun of it, and just have rewards that are balanced and worth the time invested, not unique, just of a sufficient quantity.

First of all this is impossible.. What is hard for you might be easy for me.. So even if you could prevent the brainless grind we have now by balancing it better, it will still not work, especially for those who like a challenge.. I am very good in X (better than the average, and the best Anet can do, is balance it around the average), but I prefer a challenge so don’t want to do x buy Y because I find that more challenging. Now I might be under the average because many people might find X challenging and Y less challenging. This means that doing a challenge still rewards me less. So the balance is impossible.

And lets for a moment act as if we are in the impossible universe where it would.. you still miss the “will it drop”, “yes it dropped” feeling.

That feeling is also parlyt why fun and reward are not parallel but can belong to each other. Look at gambling, many people like gambling, and those games itself are not even that great, but they purely have fun doing it because of the “Will my number drop” and the “Yes it dropped” feeling.

Ohoni.6057:

And then of course you have the situation in which a player wants the reward but NEVER finds that content fun, and he’s forced to either play the content he does not enjoy, or never get the thing he wants, and not ONE of you has suggested a solution that would actually satisfy this player, the best you can offer is “don’t care what he thinks.”

For sure you have that.. I have that all the time, because what you suggest here is what Anet did try to implement and resulted in the grind. The content I do like will not in any viable way get me to the rewards I like.. No, to get to those rewards I need to grind, grind, grind.. Something I will NEVER like. basically that has destroyed the complete game-play of changing rewards for me. I could be fine with it, if a few items required such a grind, but currently by far most items require that grind.

The solution is to make items exclusive to specific content and theme the rewards around that content. This reduces the change that the item you want is behind content you dislike.. while not taking it away completely.

Yes then there will be people who want a reward that is behind something they do not like and that is indeed then to bad. At the same time, there are many other rewards he might like that are behind the content he likes.

your solution or at least the way it worked out, results in the group who likes to grind to indeed be able to get all rewards the way they like it (grinding), while those who don’t like the grind will have to do something they don’t like (grinding) for nearly all rewards. Notice the difference?

I / We completely understand it means some people will need to do content they don’t like if they want a reward, but just as we say “To bad, heey there are many items you like that are behind content you like”, you say “you want rewards from specific content because To bad”. So not sure what your point is.

In both scenario’s there will be cases where not everybody always gets everything he wants.

Ohoni.6057:

You know what really burns out a lot of people?. Answer: grind. And this “you should be able to get everything by doing whatever” results in the currency grind we already see way to much in GW2.

Yes, and “you have to keep doing this raid until the skin you want drops, even though you didn’t enjoy it the first time” is just as much grind as anything else. There is no magical one-size solution to grind, if there were someone would have bottled it and made a mint by now. Just always be aware that the type of grind that you hate, is not hated by everyone as much as you hate it, and the type of grind that you enjoy, perhaps even to the point of refusing to see it as grind, is not necessarily the type that other people enjoy. The best solution is to offer multiple types of grind that all lead to the same outcome, and letting players choose which type they prefer.

First of all, that’s why content also needs to be fun.. but of course, even if it is, it might not be your type of content, and then getting those rewards will not be fun to you or feel like a grind to you.. Luckily in my way of putting all rewards behind specific content, there are also a lot of other rewards behind content you do like. So you can ignore the few items behind the content you dislike, or do a run of that raid (in your example the content somebody does not like) once in a while to get the reward while spending most of the time still doing fun and rewarding content you like.

Ohoni.6057:

He should be able to earn a reward that has that value, but is not “pretty.” If he values “the reward” simply for being “the reward,” then it shouldn’t really matter what, exactly, that reward is. Make it a trophy, or title, or something else that is of no value except as “the reward.” Give them other rewards too, the trophy isn’t all they get, but the other rewards are generic. It’s like the Nobel prize, greatest achievements in human history, and all you get is a chunk of metal that people wouldn’t wear on the street even if everyone had one. And also a million dollars. But who cares about the million dollars, you got that unique hunk of metal! That is the compromise. The player that cares about “pretty” gets access to all the pretties, the player that cares about exclusive status gets exclusive access to the not-pretties.

I (and with me, many) value the combination of it.. I like to get a specific reward from some hard boss.. but it feels underwhelming to me if all the effort then results in a bad looking skin.. No, all that work should result in the best looking skin.

Anyway.. we made progress.. You are now in favor of exclusive rewards, as long as the best looking skins can be obtained in any manner.

Ohoni.6057:

He should be able to earn a reward that has that value, but is not “pretty.”

Why can it be both “pretty” and “valuable” at the same time?

And we go back to the earlier argument, some content rewarding skins, and other content rewarding titles for the simple reason that “it’s harder”. So the type of reward is based on the difficulty, which isn’t the same for all players anyway and impossible to quantify. Someone will find grinding difficult, another will find certain jumping puzzles difficult and another will find raids difficult, different players find different things as “difficult”.

If you agree that content in general can have exclusive rewards, then why pick different types of rewards based on difficulty? Why are the “difficult” ones going to give titles and the “easy” ones skins? They are all types of different content and need the same type of rewards.

Of course as you say, there is also a reason for new players to keep doing it, while without the rewards there would be less reason for them to do it.. their veteran friends don’t do it, there is no real reason for them to do it without special rewards so in that case there is even less activity. With specific rewards at least you will always have people who have a reason to do it and so will do it.

Yes, but “getting people to do the content” isn’t the goal. The content doesn’t mind if nobody is doing it, and the devs shouldn’t either. The goal is to “keep people having FUN,” and if people are not having fun, then even if they are running the content that is a loss. If the content is fun and rewards fairly, then people will continue to run it until it stops being fun, and then they should stop. Bribes that keep them going past that point are to no one’s benefit. Having unique or OP rewards don’t make people enjoy the content for longer, they just make them put up with content they aren’t enjoying longer.

Just as you argue that “unique rewards cause people to enjoy running the content longer,” someone could equally make the argument that “excessive gold rewards cause people to enjoy champ training longer.” I suspect you’d personally disagree with the latter’s draw for you, well just accept that the former has no more draw to other players.

You start with saying it is not true, but then what you say basically says it is true. While you are partly talking about a currency here.

My point was that it had an imbalanced reward scheme. The “unique” rewards were “too good,” in that if you wanted them, you had to DT whether you enjoyed it or not, while the non-unique rewards were not good enough to account for the hassles involved in DT. Now they could go a long way towards making DT less of a hassle, and I explained that long ago, but they could also do a better job of making the “generic” rewards for it more attractive, so that other content wouldn’t be overall better to someone who already has the unique rewards.

I’m basically not making the case that unique rewards don’t work as a draw, to a point, I’m making the case that they are a bad tool for that purpose, that create unhealthy distortions that ultimately cause more harm than good. It’s like you could use heavy pain killers for a minor headache, and it would work, but the long term effects might be worse than the headache you started with.

it decreases the life-spawn because as soon as you have seen the dungeon you might already move towards the content that rewards that currency the most. So you get a similar effect as having no (specific) rewards at all.

But if you want to do that, then you should do that. If you are bored enough with the dungeon that you want to do something else, then something else is the thing you should be doing. The solution to that is not better bribes, it’s better content. If you were enjoying the dungeon enough, then you wouldn’t want to move on. It’s not that DT wasn’t providing more reward than other areas, it’s that it was providing a lot less, for a lot more effort. It should have been providing more for the effort it took to harvest. And even then I wouldn’t want to spend all my time there, but maybe a few runs a week.

So both need to be good, together they enhanced the experience. For some rewards you might need to do content you personally don’t like so much (or leave that reward), for others you do the content you prefer. If you still want to go for the rewards that are behind content you don’t like, that will be a lesser experience, that is true. The other however will be even a better experience.

It really doesn’t make up for it. the amount the good experience is made better does not counteract the amount that the bad experience is made worse.

And I will repeat it again.. you are still missing that “will it drop” effect and the “Yes is dropped!!” effect.

You can still have random drops, and go for those, you just wouldn’t be left with ONLY that option. It’s like in Marvel Heroes, if you want Dokitten’s tentacles, you can fight him in one of the single player instances, or you can fight him in one of the open world instances, or there are several different currencies you can grind to get RNG chests that might contain it, so you can get it without ever fighting him at all, up to you.

First of all this is impossible.. What is hard for you might be easy for me.. So even if you could prevent the brainless grind we have now by balancing it better, it will still not work, especially for those who like a challenge..

The same can be said for any system. You talk about having “some rewards for raids, and also some rewards for other content, so it balances,” but that’s no less subjective. It still involves someone typing to rate which rewards are “fair” for what content, which rewards people “deserve” for completing a raid. This balance will never be perfect, for any system including the one they have been using, or the one they currently intend to use, there will be people who make out too easy or struggle too much, that’s inevitable.

Nothing I’ve suggested would really change that at all, all it would do is give people more options if they hit a wall.

For sure you have that.. I have that all the time, because what you suggest here is what Anet did try to implement and resulted in the grind. The content I do like will not in any viable way get me to the rewards I like.. No, to get to those rewards I need to grind, grind, grind.. Something I will NEVER like. basically that has destroyed the complete game-play of changing rewards for me. I could be fine with it, if a few items required such a grind, but currently by far most items require that grind.

So your solution is “give me what I want, and subject everyone else, everyone who currently enjoys GW2, to the same feelings I’m having now.” How nice of you.

The solution is to make items exclusive to specific content and theme the rewards around that content. This reduces the change that the item you want is behind content you dislike.. while not taking it away completely.

It does nothing on that front. Absolutely nothing. Themed rewards have nothing to do with content. Wanting to have “plant armor” does not make me more or less likely to enjoy the content of Twilight Arbor. Wanting “Shiny metal winged armor” does not make me more or less likely to enjoy PvP. All themed rewards to content does is make sure that if you like a certain reward, you MUST do the content arbitrarily assigned to it. It’s completely impossible for them to design armor such that the majority of people who would enjoy that content would enjoy that armor, while the majority of people who would not enjoy that content would not care about that armor. theya re two completely separate factors.

your solution or at least the way it worked out, results in the group who likes to grind to indeed be able to get all rewards the way they like it (grinding), while those who don’t like the grind will have to do something they don’t like (grinding) for nearly all rewards. Notice the difference?

In my solution, nobody would have to grind, because everyone could do the content they enjoy. If you don’t enjoy any of the content, then you have no reason to be playing the game.

In both scenario’s there will be cases where not everybody always gets everything he wants.

In my scenario everyone gets what they want, they just don’t necessarily have as much control as they might like over what other players get. You would still be able to earn specific content from specific areas if that’s what you want, but other players would have the ability to earn those items from other areas, if they preferred, which is something you should have no say over, or interest in.

First of all, that’s why content also needs to be fun..

But all content is not fun to all players. It’s impossible to make one event that all players will enjoy, and if it is possible, raids are definitely not it. So since you can’t make all content fun to all people, the best solution is to make some content fun to each person, which is pointless if you make them do everything anyway. Once you have some content for everyone, you need to respect their choices as to which content they prefer to run, and not punish them for it.

Luckily in my way of putting all rewards behind specific content, there are also a lot of other rewards behind content you do like. So you can ignore the few items behind the content you dislike, or do a run of that raid (in your example the content somebody does not like) once in a while to get the reward while spending most of the time still doing fun and rewarding content you like.

Running content you do like does not take away from having to run content you don’t. You say you don’t like “grind,” but there are “non-grindy” things in the game, and you can run those, and yet you still complain about grind incessantly, so clearly it is still a problem for you. Same here, the game forcing you to do things you don’t enjoy is not made up for by allowing you to sometimes do things you do enjoy, you should be able to do the things you enjoy ALL the time.

I (and with me, many) value the combination of it..

Well I’m sure you do, it’s always nice to be able to eat your cake, and have it too, but that isn’t fair to everyone else. I’m not arguing that raiders would not prefer exclusive armor over an exclusive title, I’m saying that they don’t deserve exclusive armor, so if they want something exclusive, a title should do (or some other substitute that is not armor skins).

Anyway.. we made progress.. You are now in favor of exclusive rewards, as long as the best looking skins can be obtained in any manner.

From the start I’ve been fine with “exclusive rewards” in some sense, it’s just that usually when we’ve been using the term we’ve been using it to refer to weapon and armor skins. I’ve always granted that things like titles could be offered as exclusives, anything that has value ONLY as a trophy, and not intrinsic worth.

And we go back to the earlier argument, some content rewarding skins, and other content rewarding titles for the simple reason that “it’s harder”.

I would like you to acknowledge, because you typically avoid explicitly making clear that you do, that when I say that content like raids should reward “an exclusive title,” I am also saying that it would reward armor skins and other things, in a quantity that people should be happy with, it’s just that these things would not be exclusive to just that raid, they could be earned through other means, while only the title (or equivalent “trophy”) would be exclusive to that content.

Someone will find grinding difficult, another will find certain jumping puzzles difficult and another will find raids difficult, different players find different things as “difficult”.

Yes, so you aim for the average and let people sort it out, the same as with ANY loot system, past, present or future. Nothing will ever be perfect, my solution is no less perfect than the existing one, but let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the good.

If you agree that content in general can have exclusive rewards, then why pick different types of rewards based on difficulty? Why are the “difficult” ones going to give titles and the “easy” ones skins? They are all types of different content and need the same type of rewards.

Again, the “difficult” would reward both, please tell me you get that by now, but that aside, it’s because “difficult” is by nature exclusionary, not everyone can do it, whereas “easy” is not. Anyone can. So obviously, if you gate exclusive rewards behind “difficult” content then less people would be able to get it, meaning less people would end up happy. This shouldn’t require explanation.

Ohoni.6057:

I would like you to acknowledge, because you typically avoid explicitly making clear that you do, that when I say that content like raids should reward “an exclusive title,” I am also saying that it would reward armor skins and other things, in a quantity that people should be happy with, it’s just that these things would not be exclusive to just that raid, they could be earned through other means, while only the title (or equivalent “trophy”) would be exclusive to that content.

“Exclusive” titles don’t have the same value as “exclusive” skins. There is thing thing called path of least resistance. Quantity between content types is very hard to balance, there is a reason players do the silverwastes chest farm, it’s the best income for the time/effort needed. If the raid rewards are also available in the sw chest farm then there is no reason to add them in the raid at all.

Again, the “difficult” would reward both, please tell me you get that by now

But you are saying it shouldn’t reward both exclusive skins and exclusive titles, so how do you say now that it should reward both? How is it both if you only want exclusive titles and not exclusive skins?

Yes, so you aim for the average and let people sort it out, the same as with ANY loot system, past, present or future. Nothing will ever be perfect, my solution is no less perfect than the existing one, but let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the good.

What is difficult varies between people. You either put exclusive behind content or you don’t, if you do, all content gets the same types of exclusives. Who sets the “difficulty” barrier? Who says what is difficult and what is not? There is no such thing as “average” especially for un-released and un-tested content.

I might find raids super easy by my standards, but farming world bosses so boring that is “difficult” for me to do, so I avoid them. Why are world bosses going to have exclusive rewards and not raids? I find Liadri easy to fight because it’s a good encounter for me, but I despise the SW chest farm, as extremely grindy/farming content is for me extremely difficult. So by your definition using the “average”, why is the chest getting exclusive rewards and not Liadri?

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, but “getting people to do the content” isn’t the goal. The goal is to “keep people having FUN,”

Good then we agree on that, thats why I suggest what I do.

Ohoni.6057:

Having unique or OP rewards don’t make people enjoy the content for longer, they just make them put up with content they aren’t enjoying longer.

No, as I explained before.. it makes people enjoy the content longer. People enjoyed the MF every time they did it, that’s why they asked for it to be put back. But when it was back and there was no reward they did not start doing it again.

Like I said.. Reward and Fun of content go’s hand in hand.

Ohoni.6057:

“excessive gold rewards cause people to enjoy champ training longer.” I suspect you’d personally disagree with the latter’s draw for you, well just accept that the former has no more draw to other players.

You suspected wrong. I do think some people enjoy the champ train longer. I also have no problem with that, as long as we don’t all have to run the champ trains (or the few other grinds there are) to get all the rewards.

I would also not mind doing the champ train if that rewarded let’s say 5 unique rewards, if the other rewards where behind other content.. even tho I do not like the champ train myself.

Ohoni.6057:

My point was that it had an imbalanced reward scheme.

Yeah, and while I think it could be better, I also think it can’t be balanced perfectly like I explained.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m basically not making the case that unique rewards don’t work as a draw, to a point, I’m making the case that they are a bad tool for that purpose

I am not suggesting specific rewards behind specific content just to pull people towards that content.. It’s part of it but not the mail thing.

I suggest it, to make the game-play of the hunt for items a more fun interesting item.. I suggest it to make content more fun, I do it to give more value to the items. and yes, drawing people towards different content is a part of that, but not the sole, or even the main reason.

Ohoni.6057:

that create unhealthy distortions that ultimately cause more harm than good. It’s like you could use heavy pain killers for a minor headache, and it would work, but the long term effects might be worse than the headache you started with.

Funny enough, that is exactly how I feel about your solution, and at least the way Anet implemented your solution has so far proved to work like this.

Ohoni.6057:

But if you want to do that, then you should do that. If you are bored enough with the dungeon that you want to do something else, then something else is the thing you should be doing. The solution to that is not better bribes, it’s better content.

What you don’t seem to grasp, is that the unique reward are a reason to not be bored with the content so far. Again, MF is a great example of that. It required good content and good specific rewards.

Ohoni.6057:

It really doesn’t make up for it. the amount the good experience is made better does not counteract the amount that the bad experience is made worse.

For the person who does just not like that content you mean? Yeah your right.. Like I said, you can’t make everybody always happy. Your solution does not do that, mine does not.. That can’t be done.

Ohoni.6057:

You can still have random drops, and go for those, you just wouldn’t be left with ONLY that option. It’s like in Marvel Heroes, if you want Dokitten’s tentacles, you can fight him in one of the single player instances, or you can fight him in one of the open world instances, or there are several different currencies you can grind to get RNG chests that might contain it, so you can get it without ever fighting him at all, up to you.

It’s not the same effect. It might be “nice it dropped”, but it’s not the same as when you are directly working towards that one item that drops by that boss.

Ohoni.6057:

First of all this is impossible.. What is hard for you might be easy for me.. So even if you could prevent the brainless grind we have now by balancing it better, it will still not work, especially for those who like a challenge..

The same can be said for any system. You talk about having “some rewards for raids, and also some rewards for other content, so it balances,” but that’s no less subjective.

I don’t really try or need to balance it.. Yeah there is some general consensus over what is harder content and some general consensus over what are better items so you put those behind the harder content.. Also doing a JP under x sec is harder as just completing it. So you have some things to work with, especially within a genre content it becomes easier.

But that’s it, I don’t try to balance all content / time and effort to know how to reward (what you need to do). I just put specific items behind specific content where those items are themed around those items, and if it comes to the balance I have enough information with things I just talked about.. general idea of what is harder, and different difficulties within a genre content.

Ohoni.6057:

So your solution is “give me what I want, and subject everyone else, everyone who currently enjoys GW2, to the same feelings I’m having now.” How nice of you.

“everyone who currently enjoys GW2” You mean.. everybody who likes the brainless grind.. Well I still give them grind options, but yes the grinders will be the group who have a reason to complain as they would lose the ability to get most of the rewards by simply brainless grinding.

Ohoni.6057:

It does nothing on that front. Absolutely nothing. Themed rewards have nothing to do with content. Wanting to have “plant armor” does not make me more or less likely to enjoy the content of Twilight Arbor.

I said it would not solve it completely but “Absolutely nothing” is also false.

WvW themed armor is something WvW-players will overall likely enjoy more than PvE players.. while indeed it’s not a guarantee. A guild who does not do any WvW might have less reason for wanting a portal to a WvW map.

So it absolutely does something, it’s just not prevent it completely. And honestly, I also find it’s no problem to require some specific plant armor, to do the plant dungeon. Makes perfect sense.

Ohoni.6057:

In my solution, nobody would have to grind, because everyone could do the content they enjoy. If you don’t enjoy any of the content, then you have no reason to be playing the game.

On payer yes.. it’s what Anet did.. on paper.. But we all know how it worked out in reality. It can also not work out in reality as on paper because of the balance problems we talked about before.

Ohoni.6057:

In my scenario everyone gets what they want, they just don’t necessarily have as much control as they might like over what other players get.

Why do you think, multiple people tell you that they don’t like it.. because they get what they want with your solution?.. guess not.

Ohoni.6057:

First of all, that’s why content also needs to be fun..

But all content is not fun to all players. It’s impossible to make one event that all players will enjoy, and if it is possible, raids are definitely not it.

As you do multiple times, you cut out the part of my answer that addressed what you then start arguing about.. here is what I said.

First of all, that’s why content also needs to be fun.. but of course, even if it is, it might not be your type of content, and then getting those rewards will not be fun to you or feel like a grind to you.

There I agreed it’s not a complete solution.. Some content can be general considered more fun than other.. that’s the type of ‘fun’ I talk about.. but yes some people will never like it anyway.

Stop cutting out parts to then argue about something that is addressed in the part you cut out.. It makes you look like a unfair debater or a troll.. both things that don’t help you getting your point across.

Ohoni.6057:

Running content you do like does not take away from having to run content you don’t.

I never said, it did.

Ohoni.6057:

I (and with me, many) value the combination of it..

Well I’m sure you do, it’s always nice to be able to eat your cake, and have it too, but that isn’t fair to everyone else. I’m not arguing that raiders would not prefer exclusive armor over an exclusive title, I’m saying that they don’t deserve exclusive armor, so if they want something exclusive, a title should do (or some other substitute that is not armor skins).

“Well I’m sure you do, it’s always nice to be able to eat your cake, and have it too, but that isn’t fair to everyone else.”
So your solution does not give everybody what they want, someting you claimed, not saying mine does.. and indeed..

“it’s always nice to be able to eat your cake, and have it too, but that isn’t fair to everyone else.”
So don’t come up with a system that caters to the brainless grinding and not to anybody else.. but instead put rewards behind specific content.. Grinders will get their rewards, raiders theirs, dungeon-runners theirs and so on, and so on.

Ohoni.6057:

From the start I’ve been fine with “exclusive rewards” in some sense, it’s just that usually when we’ve been using the term we’ve been using it to refer to weapon and armor skins. I’ve always granted that things like titles could be offered as exclusives, anything that has value ONLY as a trophy, and not intrinsic worth.

Well you talked about pretty and non-pretty. With titles you don’t really speak about pretty and non-pretty.

Slapinator.4196:

I think the real problem is people PrePurchasing the expansions before Arenanet revealed what it offered to players. If that’s the case no one holds responsibility if someone ended up not liking the content or the way things are going to be but since there was a recent statement concerning rewards in raids in the official site I don’t think there is any point in discussing this anymore.

It needs to stop, they’re not running out of copies. This does more harm than good but as soon as their favourite company starts doing it, they’re on board. Same people yelling at EA and the same people that led Deus Ex to the most notorious pre-order bonuses ever.

It’s getting ridiculous now, people need to understand what’s happening around them.

maddoctor.2738:

Torolan.5816:

This game should of course also include soloable content for the casual people that are looking for some simple click loot repeat after work. Every MMO that wants to succeeed should have that in my opinion. Raiders don´t have to like it, but it should be there. I am not a fan of raids, but if there are enough people playing them, who am I to forbid them?

And who said otherwise?

Skitz.

It is probably a bit out of context if he just meant that they should not get big ressources of develompement, but still he says that Anet should not cater to solo people. And this will never fly, they should invest in them and you can bet your lucky dollar on it that they will do it again in the future after their futile attempt to satify the hardcore crowd is over. Not gloating or suggesting here, I just think this is the ebb and flow of this game. The number of annoyed dads, soccer moms and other people that are deeply rooted in society pay the bills for Anet, not the basement dweller hardcore gamer who wants nearly everything hard and at best have received it yesterday already, which would probably be only possible if raids were random from start to start, but this would probably be impossible to make.

Just look at Eve online. Open World PvP, a thing you often hear from hardcore gamers, has cost CCP hundreds of thousands accounts over time, and look how the simple promises of exciting but casual star citizen makes people flock at their banner, bombarding them with money for some simple beginners videos. Yes, I know, you can play solo in eve, but it´s mostly garbage and really annoying then. Do you play a game to be harrased if you only have 1 or 2 hours for yourself in the evening? Certainly not.
What does that mean? The market is there and the ocean is big, but he biggest fish is only just willing to swim in the deepest depth where he can only attract a few other predatory fish with his lumi lamp to swim with him.
In DAOC, Camlann, the open PvP server, was a piece of garbage and always the smallest servers in the years I played DAOC. I am very sure that a large majority of DAOC players never set a foot in it, and if they did, unlogged quickly.

Maybe you think right now “Huh, why is this guy mumbling about open PvP in a raid theme?” Because of the mindset of hardcore gamers, their raid/group obsession and their possible manpower in general.

Torolan.5816:

maddoctor.2738:

Torolan.5816:

This game should of course also include soloable content for the casual people that are looking for some simple click loot repeat after work. Every MMO that wants to succeeed should have that in my opinion. Raiders don´t have to like it, but it should be there. I am not a fan of raids, but if there are enough people playing them, who am I to forbid them?

And who said otherwise?

Skitz.

It is probably a bit out of context if he just meant that they should not get big ressources of develompement, but still he says that Anet should not cater to solo people. And this will never fly, they should invest in them and you can bet your lucky dollar on it that they will do it again in the future after their futile attempt to satify the hardcore crowd is over. Not gloating or suggesting here, I just think this is the ebb and flow of this game. The number of annoyed dads, soccer moms and other people that are deeply rooted in society pay the bills for Anet, not the basement dweller hardcore gamer who wants nearly everything hard and at best have received it yesterday already, which would probably be only possible if raids were random from start to start, but this would probably be impossible to make.

Just look at Eve online. Open World PvP, a thing you often hear from hardcore gamers, has cost CCP hundreds of thousands accounts over time, and look how the simple promises of exciting but casual star citizen makes people flock at their banner, bombarding them with money for some simple beginners videos. Yes, I know, you can play solo in eve, but it´s mostly garbage and really annoying then. Do you play a game to be harrased if you only have 1 or 2 hours for yourself in the evening? Certainly not.
What does that mean? The market is there and the ocean is big, but he biggest fish is only just willing to swim in the deepest depth where he can only attract a few other predatory fish with his lumi lamp to swim with him.
In DAOC, Camlann, the open PvP server, was a piece of garbage and always the smallest servers in the years I played DAOC. I am very sure that a large majority of DAOC players never set a foot in it, and if they did, unlogged quickly.

Maybe you think right now “Huh, why is this guy mumbling about open PvP in a raid theme?” Because of the mindset of hardcore gamers, their raid/group obsession and their possible manpower in general.

My stance on “catering to solo” was in regards to the reward design from anet, not overall design of the game. just rewards.

If you play solo and you expect to have some birth right to 100% of this games rewards by playing “solo” , than you are mistaken.

Some rewards will absolutely be locked behind grouped content that requires interaction with a group of friends/guildies. Ohoni see’s this as a major problem.
That was my point…. this is an MMORPG… grouped content NATURALLY exists in MMORPGS and you will be rewarded for that group content accordingly…it takes a bit more skill/communication/organization than zergging silverwastes… hence it will probably and rightfully be rewarded better.

As much as I personally dislike RNG when the chances are really low, it is a shot of excitement for the addicted. I personally know reasonable and educated people that can burn through an evening of grinding and go to bed satisfied if they found something only remotely good and thrilled if they found a jackpot item. So I am not really sure if a group reward should be superior to a solo reward, coming from a business position only with the idea that I can fill my servers with solo grinders if nothing else.

The idea that group content should always be better of course also appeals to me for the sake of fairness and for the pain to assemble 5 or 10 people in TS.

Torolan.5816:

As much as I personally dislike RNG when the chances are really low, it is a shot of excitement for the addicted. I personally know reasonable and educated people that can burn through an evening of grinding and go to bed satisfied if they found something only remotely good and thrilled if they found a jackpot item. So I am not really sure if a group reward should be superior to a solo reward, coming from a business position only with the idea that I can fill my servers with solo grinders if nothing else.

The idea that group content should always be better of course also appeals to me for the sake of fairness and for the pain to assemble 5 or 10 people in TS.

I’m not saying soloing stuff should be unrewarding.
Its already the best. Solo zerg farming crap in open world has been the best method of farming since this game released….. because the system revolves around farming enough scraps till you have enough to buy whatever it is you want from the TP.

Theres no exciting “drops” in this game that you go out to a particular location and farm for and pray to RNGesus that it drops (aside from like, fractal skins)…

Anet is finally acknowledging the fact group content probably needs to be rewarded a bit more fairly and evenly, which we will see in HoT.

fractals have been worthless to farm for years. Dungs? people only do it daily one time, and thats PURELY for the 1 gold reward chest lol, not because of rewards, just for a daily gold chest!!!

NO one is asking to take away the rewarding solo open world zerg stuff. Just make group content more rewarding and balanced….which anet has decided they finally will in HoT

SkiTz.4590:

Theres no exciting “drops” in this game that you go out to a particular location and farm for and pray to RNGesus that it drops (aside from like, fractal skins)…

And that’s a very good thing.