Guild Wars 2

Astralporing.1957:

Only when GM is bad, or players are uninterested either in the jewel, or the goblin town.

If they were actually interested in it they would go get it and not go somewhere else with the hidden desire to get it. If you are interested in something and you know where to get it, you go after it, you don’t go to a random other location and magically get it.

The truth that what you claim (“every RPG ever”, lol) is simply not true. Do you know, that there are RPG systems that will let you start the game with a weapon that quite possibly will never be overshadowed by anything you might find later? Yes, they do exist.

And I guess in those RPGs you go after exciting loot right? Oh wait you don’t. If your starting item overshadows everything else you might get, then in that game you won’t ever go to find better items (because you don’t need them). Where is the item reward similarity then? I guess I should’ve said “every RPG that actually has item rewards that make sense”

It always depends on how the item was depicted. If it was a ring that will allow the wearer after a ritual to conquer the world and the players already knew that, then it wouldn’t make any sense to put it anywhere else.

Again though, that’s a “stat item,” not a “cosmetic item,” so perhaps there are story reasons why you might not want to have it in the goblin town (although you could certainly write plausible reasons in). But if it were just a bauble, just a shiny with no practical value, just a “skin,” then it really doesn’t matter where they find it, so long as they find it and finding it makes them happier.

I’d rather see first if those legendary precursors have anything to do with the storyline of GW2 or not which I seriously doubt, but they may surprise us all with an epic storyline surrounding those items.

I really hope that they don’t. They shouldn’t incorporate major story into difficult content that most players are not going to complete, and moreover, it’s clunky to incorporate major story in an instance where there are ten other players who are ostensibly your equals. I always find it hokey in those scenarios when they try to make you out to be the “special snowflake” of the bunch (while of course each of the other players is getting a simultaneous snow-job.)

Instanced story is the only way a compelling story in an MMORPG, can’t have an actual story moving around in the open world because it lacks something important, permanency.

I agree with the instancing, I just don’t agree with making the player out to be anything special. I feel that the player should just be doing his best to help out, not The Hero, but just a hero among many, as reflected in the broader game. The instanced story is about your personal journey, but you can safely assume that other people are having similar, and equally important personal journeys too. I accept the narrative dissonance that my character is “the only one” who is friends with the B-iconics and is part of that particular story, but I don’t like when it gets overly grandiose and puts the player at the pivotal point, I think the player should just be a part of the main action, doing his important part, but others are also doing their important parts. I was happy being a Pact Commander, I don’t need to be the Commander.

At least the Legendary Helm was a reward from some actual story. The problem is, in GW2 what kind of “other ways” do we have? it’s good to have multiple ways to get rewards but it must make sense to get the rewards through them. Sadly there is no story in farming tokens in CoF, gathering geodes in DT, killing VW repeatedly in SW, playing PVP or WvW or any other content type in GW2, that has any kind of relevance to the raid content.

As I said, the story is what you make of it. You don’t see a story in farming dungeon tokens, that’s you business, but I can see the story there, of the brave hero of Tyria who delved into the dungeon numerous times, each time holding the foes at bay long enough to pries a crumpled token of his accomplishment from their corpses. Amassing enough of these to prove himself to the powers at Lion’s Arch, he returns to them, spilling his trinkets at their feet. Greatly impressed by his determination, and his service to the people of Tyria, they present him with a weapon forged from the very tokens he collected, and imbued with the strength of the dungeon itself.

Now granted, GW2 could do a slightly better job of selling this sort of narrative, more unique NPCs that play along with it, but I can maintain the illusion enough on my end for the both of us.

In any case, “the raid chest dropped it” is no better a narrative than “I bought it with tokens.”

Ohoni.6057:

I’d rather see first if those legendary precursors have anything to do with the storyline of GW2 or not which I seriously doubt, but they may surprise us all with an epic storyline surrounding those items.

I really hope that they don’t. They shouldn’t incorporate major story into difficult content that most players are not going to complete, and moreover, it’s clunky to incorporate major story in an instance where there are ten other players who are ostensibly your equals. I always find it hokey in those scenarios when they try to make you out to be the “special snowflake” of the bunch (while of course each of the other players is getting a simultaneous snow-job.)

One of the most serious failures of legendary weapons was that they didn’t have any kind of story behind them they were just skins. The new precursor collection mastery is a good way to add some depth to the legendary weapons, like as explained in the blog post, getting the Moot will require hunting various monsters around Tyria, celebrating and partying at various locations etc. That will give the Moot some extra meaning and reason to exist, adding something like that for the Legendary Armor would be most appropriate.

I don’t understand why you are against stoy in difficult instances. It’s already been said that it will be a different story than the main story of HoT and it might well be a self-contained instance. Outside CoF nobody cares if Gaheron died or is still alive you never hear about it, yet he does have some storyline and depth. I doubt we will kill any Elder Dragons in raids, or any boss like Scarlet that is super important to the overall plot, but the raid, just like any other instance, can have a self-contained storyline and not be just defeating bosses in random rooms.

I agree with the instancing, I just don’t agree with making the player out to be anything special.

Funny how this works. At release players were complaining that their characters weren’t important enough, now they are complaining that they are too important. I guess the devs will never succeed at pleasing everyone.

Now granted, GW2 could do a slightly better job of selling this sort of narrative, more unique NPCs that play along with it, but I can maintain the illusion enough on my end for the both of us.

This is the main issue, the game doesn’t exactly offer enough options to justify the “other ways” in a lore/story way. Sure if you use your imagination everything is possible but I prefer if the game itself tells the story and offers rewards in an appropriate way.

In any case, “the raid chest dropped it” is no better a narrative than “I bought it with tokens.”

How about getting Deadly Blossoms from Citadel of Flame? Killing enough Flame Legion soldiers you get a plant-y sylvary themed armor piece

I don’t understand why you are against stoy in difficult instances. It’s already been said that it will be a different story than the main story of HoT and it might well be a self-contained instance.

Basically, it can’t “matter.” It can’t be anything that would change your character in any way or effect his life moving forward, because it’s an experience that the players can’t be expected to share. It needs to be purely optional, and therefor the amount of story depth it can have is more limited than the LW stuff.

I suppose it could effect the world in some way, but in a way where if your character isn’t a part of it, then it’s just something other characters did, and it all worked out ok. Similar to the Destiny’s Edge novel.

Funny how this works. At release players were complaining that their characters weren’t important enough, now they are complaining that they are too important. I guess the devs will never succeed at pleasing everyone.

Different players, as I said, I was never one of those “make me the hero, down with Trehearn” types. I thought Trehearn played out the only way it possibly could.

This is the main issue, the game doesn’t exactly offer enough options to justify the “other ways” in a lore/story way. Sure if you use your imagination everything is possible but I prefer if the game itself tells the story and offers rewards in an appropriate way.

Sure, but as I showed, the mechanics of “multiple routes” does not discount the possibility for a lore/story-driven experience, they just didn’t happen to bother to include that. They always could, at any time and with fairly limited effort on their part. But basically your insistence that “if there are multiple ways to get an item then it ruins all story potential” is nonsense.

How about getting Deadly Blossoms from Citadel of Flame? Killing enough Flame Legion soldiers you get a plant-y sylvary themed armor piece

You wouldn’t get blossoms from Flame Legions, you’d get Charr Carvings, but there would be an NPC that is too wounded to go into dungeons himself (took an arrow to the knee), but he supports those brave enough to keep the dungeons in check by collecting tokens from them and exchanging them for other tokens they might need. You’d be able to offer him, say, 100 Charr Carvings, and receive 80 Deadly Blossoms in return (they are hard to come by, you know). You could then take these Blossoms to the Lion’s Arch forgemasters and they would be able to provide you with the botanical armaments of your dreams.

That’s the least thematic method, short of no theme, but they could certainly elaborate it if they wanted, like having specific NPCs spread around the world that are enthusiastic about a particular token and will trade you other tokens for that one type, or having multiple crafting NPCs spread across the world that trade those tokens for various loot, instead of the current, more convenient LA vendors.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Ohoni.6057:

Yeah, but if you do have a group of players who insist on raiding the goblins, then you need to adapt to that, and start involving them in the most interesting goblin-raiding story possible, even if that means completely abandoning the story you’d wanted to tell. It’s like improv, "yes, and. . . " not “no, instead. . .” If the players have no interest in an epic world-saving adventure against some mechanically challenging boss, then its your job to not force them into that sort of story.

That’s true. Reaching that point probably means the story teller failed to tell a compelling story so the players got bored or lost interest or he underestimated what kind of story the players wanted. Still they won’t get the epic jewel by raiding the goblin town.

Only when GM is bad, or players are uninterested either in the jewel, or the goblin town.

maddoctor.2738:

Yes, and in an RPG, the GM/dev is NOT the storyteller. They are just a co-equal participant in the story. The players have full autonomy over their own stories, you just control how the world reacts to their choices (including ending, if that’s what happens). they are not being led through your story, you are helping them to write their own.

An RPG GM/dev IS also a story teller. If the story fails to grip the players and they go after random mobs instead that’s a failure of the story to be interesting for the players.

Yes, that’s what we’re saying. A GM that fails to incorporate player wishes in his storytelling is a failure.

maddoctor.2738:

/sigh. I realize at this point that you’re just going to change direction any time you’re confronted with an unpleasant truth, so I’ll leave you to your happy delusions.

What truth? That the best item rewards even in DAI come from specific content, much like in any game ever? That’s how every RPG ever worked, work, and will always work, that’s the truth and I never made that statement as a question.

The truth that what you claim (“every RPG ever”, lol) is simply not true. Do you know, that there are RPG systems that will let you start the game with a weapon that quite possibly will never be overshadowed by anything you might find later? Yes, they do exist.

maddoctor.2738:

The only question is why Guild Wars 2 players when regarding Raid exclusive gear are so against it while it works in every other game AND in Guild Wars 2 itself.

Perhaps because lot of them are in this game specifically due to raid exclusivity not working for them.

TL/DR;
You claim that exclusivity works in every other game, but fail to notice that it works for you, but not necessarily for others. Yes, we get that something you like works for you, but you have to realize it only works because you like it. And that many people think otherwise. And that you liking it doesn’t mean it’s automatically a good idea.

But if you’ve got half wanting to follow the story the GM planned and half wanting to do something else, what do you do? (Since neither side can claim numbers, I’m using the fairest division possible – each side having half of the population.) If I was the GM, I would stick to my plan for this mission and then for the next get input from the other half. This isn’t a case of all wanting something or no one wanting something.

Interesting experiment for the loot discussion: Try describing the current system without using ‘earn’ or ‘should’.

Me First:
They want to encourage the players to use the gametype, unique loot is a strong tool for that
There’s a tradition of doing it that way.

Windsagio.1340:

Interesting experiment for the loot discussion: Try describing the current system without using ‘earn’ or ‘should’.

Me First:
They want to encourage the players to use the gametype, unique loot is a strong tool for that
There’s a tradition of doing it that way.

A series of game systems designed to prevent a player from remaining stagnant in one area endlessly generating new rewards. Designed to encourage a gradual increase in the difficulty of content played along with encouraging and rewarding playing a larger verity of content. Several of which are designed to force co-operation or competition between the player-base to drive game play. Also double as a means of adding value to content independent to the volatile gold value.

Windsagio.1340:

Interesting experiment for the loot discussion: Try describing the current system without using ‘earn’ or ‘should’.

Me First:
They want to encourage the players to use the gametype, unique loot is a strong tool for that
There’s a tradition of doing it that way.

Raids reward people who can and do raid. Anyone who cannot, for any reason, cannot get the “unique” rewards. Customers who feel disenfranchised are not loyal, happy customers, and customers who feel alienated or tossed aside are generally VERY vocal about their displeasure. “Tradition” is not sufficient when a large number of the most loyal customers bought this game specifically BECAUSE it broke with traditions.

But if you’ve got half wanting to follow the story the GM planned and half wanting to do something else, what do you do? (Since neither side can claim numbers, I’m using the fairest division possible – each side having half of the population.) If I was the GM, I would stick to my plan for this mission and then for the next get input from the other half. This isn’t a case of all wanting something or no one wanting something.

Split the party, let each half do their own thing. There’s absolutely no reason for half the players to be beholden to what the other half want to do.

Me First:
They want to encourage the players to use the gametype, unique loot is a strong tool for that
There’s a tradition of doing it that way.

No, that’s a failure of the system. Unique loot can be used as a “free trial” prize, but never as a long term goal to specific content. If you want to get players to try a new kind of content, or to retry existing content that has been updated since the last time they tried it, it’s perfectly reasonable to say something like "If you play in this new mode for about an hour or two, and put forth a reasonable amount of effort (not even necessarily “winning” it if winning is not a sure thing), then we will give you a unique prize for going out of your way like that."

That sort of thing is fine and a valid use of unique rewards.

Placing unique rewards as long term goals of specific content, however, fails at this purpose. It does so because if you’ve played something a few hours, and decided that you do not enjoy it, then you’re probably right. Playing it a few dozen hours more isn’t going to make you like it more, it’s just going to make you hate the game more for forcing you to do things you do not enjoy. At that point the reward is not rewarding you for trying new things, it’s punishing you for being too stubborn to quit.

So ideally, rewards in the game would be broken up into two types, relatively short term unique rewards that are designed to get you to try every aspect of the game, and long term non-unique rewards that reward you for playing the game types you actually enjoy.

The game and its developers have no interest in players who are not having fun at their current task.

Raids reward people who can and do raid. Anyone who cannot, for any reason, cannot get the “unique” rewards. Customers who feel disenfranchised are not loyal, happy customers, and customers who feel alienated or tossed aside are generally VERY vocal about their displeasure. “Tradition” is not sufficient when a large number of the most loyal customers bought this game specifically BECAUSE it broke with traditions.

Perfect.

Ohoni.6057:

But if you’ve got half wanting to follow the story the GM planned and half wanting to do something else, what do you do? (Since neither side can claim numbers, I’m using the fairest division possible – each side having half of the population.) If I was the GM, I would stick to my plan for this mission and then for the next get input from the other half. This isn’t a case of all wanting something or no one wanting something.

Split the party, let each half do their own thing. There’s absolutely no reason for half the players to be beholden to what the other half want to do.

Can you find a GM that’s able and willing to do two stories simultaneously? Because the moment you let the parties split up, it may be hard to get them to come back together if you let the party completely control your story. That’s twice the work for the GM and he has to keep in mind that the group synergies will no longer be completely present when he designs the encounters. What if the situation is a one or the other and there is no both option? Yes, the GM has to take into consideration what his group wants to do. But his desires are also part of the agreement. If it was going to be completely up to the players what happens, why do they need a GM directing the story at all? If the GM has any control over the story, then his desires for what happens and where things can be earned, bought, rewarded, etc. are a big part. They can take my desires into consideration, but they are under no obligation to follow through.

Ohoni.6057:

Playing it a few dozen hours more isn’t going to make you like it more, it’s just going to make you hate the game more for forcing you to do things you do not enjoy. At that point the reward is not rewarding you for trying new things, it’s punishing you for being too stubborn to quit.

You’re not really forced to do it, though. You can get equally good gear elsewhere. If you want the sword you can only get from pulling it out of the fallen king of giants in the lost city of titans then you best get to pulling. You can purchase or craft an equally good sword and find any number of styles for it elsewhere.

You’re kind of relying on painting a large percentage of the playerbase as immature people who can’t emotionally handle a practically inconsequential item being difficult for them to get.

Can you find a GM that’s able and willing to do two stories simultaneously? Because the moment you let the parties split up, it may be hard to get them to come back together if you let the party completely control your story.

Ever read Table Titans? They split up on there once. Same with the gaming session on Community. Seemed like fun. Ultimately, if you have a play group that involves players that have diametrically opposed ideas as to what makes for a fun campaign, it’s probably a bad group and should be permanently split and reformed.

Yes, the GM has to take into consideration what his group wants to do. But his desires are also part of the agreement. If it was going to be completely up to the players what happens, why do they need a GM directing the story at all?

The GM is only one co-equal member of the group. His interests matter, but should not override the players’. The point of the GM isn’t to “direct,” he’s a performer like any of the others, he just performs all the various roles that they do not.

But back to relevance to this game, if players don’t want to raid, you have no interest served in making them raid, let them go off and do their own thing and feel that they aren’t missing out on anything by not wanting to raid. There’s plenty of game to go around.

You’re not really forced to do it, though. You can get equally good gear elsewhere. If you want the sword you can only get from pulling it out of the fallen king of giants in the lost city of titans then you best get to pulling. You can purchase or craft an equally good sword and find any number of styles for it elsewhere.

No, that’s a failure of an argument. If it’s true for you, then that’s great, for you, but it’s not an argument that you can apply to anyone who isn’t you. “Equally good” is highly subjective, and what doesn’t matter to you might matter a great deal to someone else. If a player really wants a specific weapon, then he really wants it, and you can’t convince him that he shouldn’t care. If that item is placed in content that he genuinely does not enjoy, then that too is a fact that you cannot dispute.

So then he’s left with the choice between either doing this content that he will not enjoy, or forever miss out on having this item that he really wants, and NEITHER of those choices is a net benefit for him, you, or anyone else. It’s not about whether he can make that choice and move on with his life, it’s about whether he should have to, and who that could possibly benefit.

Ohoni.6057:

“Equally good” is highly subjective, and what doesn’t matter to you might matter a great deal to someone else.

“Equally good” isn’t at all subjective. A weapon of one particular rarity with one set of stats is the same whether it was dropped, crafted or bought with tokens. You are not forced to have any one given weapon. There is no external pressure on you to play a lot of WvW to get the Axe of WvWing A Lot so you can stand on equal terms with everyone else who has the best weapon.

If a player sets a personal goal for themselves it isn’t a failure of the game developers if that player can’t complete that goal and especially not if that player doesn’t actually want to complete that goal.

If we want a game environment that makes an attempt at being a world and not simply a pretty loot dispenser then some things will only be found in certain places. Not like you could go anywhere and do just anything to get your sword in the stone. It’s fine to have rewards with certain themes bound to accomplishing a themed task. Going into the lava factory to get lava machine armour, going into the ghost pit to get ghost bows etc etc. The items are visually bound to the character of the task you undertook to acquire them. A weapon being all melty because you took it from the factories of the stone king who had ordered the construction of a million fire warriors to ravage the surface world but was stopped by the plucky underdog maniac adventurer is a much nicer explanation for why it exists than “it’s cool, I bought it”. It gives a reason for things being the way they are that ties you to the game environment.

Kjell, how do you feel about the conception that they are explicitly making it ‘not equal’ by putting a prestige tier of a gear type only on one game segment?

Legendary items are not sufficiently more powerful than exotics to really be a concern. You yourself even call it a “prestige tier”. If someone needs ascended gear then there is already a way to get that without needing to raid, anyway.

“Equally good” isn’t at all subjective. A weapon of one particular rarity with one set of stats is the same whether it was dropped, crafted or bought with tokens. You are not forced to have any one given weapon. There is no external pressure on you to play a lot of WvW to get the Axe of WvWing A Lot so you can stand on equal terms with everyone else who has the best weapon.

Equally good is entirely subjective. It’s all about how much you care about it. Sunrise is, by stats, “equally good” as any other Ascended GS, and was “equally good” to any other Exotic when the game launched, and yet it was going for thousands of gold when other “equally good” weapons were going for 1-2g.

Now “equally balanced” is less subjective, if an item has identical stats to another then it is objectively balanced against that item, but how much you care about stat balance is subjective. If appearance matters more to you then you might take under-balanced items over stronger ones purely for the appearance, and that is your subjective choice to make.

As for going to a specific location for a specific reward, I’m fine with that, so long as you don’t need to expend any significant time or effort while there. If you can just go to a location, and relatively easily recover the item you want, then fine, link it to that location. But if you’re expected to spend weeks grinding away at that location to earn the item, then the time spent doing an unenjoyable task far outweighs any thematic benefits.

Kjell.8379:

Legendary items are not sufficiently more powerful than exotics to really be a concern. You yourself even call it a “prestige tier”. If someone needs ascended gear then there is already a way to get that without needing to raid, anyway.

Perception is everything, that’s a basic concept of loot & rewards in GW2.

It is the only way to get the highest rarity tier, gameplay differences or not. Isn’t there an implied ‘doing this is better’ element as compared to granting unique skin sets (as fractals or other pve content or for that matter Pvp do?)

I clearly don’t use “equally good” to mean that it’s matching anyone’s particular aesthetic preferences, but that something is of the same quality as another thing. Sunrise is as good as Twilight or any other legendary greatsword they care to introduce. Only reason it’s so expensive is the immense time needed to be put into it. A more popular skin isn’t necessarily found on a superior weapon.

Ohoni.6057:

so long as you don’t need to expend any significant time or effort while there.

What even is “significant effort”?

You could just as well have a model viewer and a chat room. That’d save you a lot of time. Why go somewhere at all in this case? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you’re better off wanting every skin freely available to everyone from the start regardless of anything. It’s a much more respectable thing to argue for than these half-measures. I’ve already played a lot of City of Heroes which got a lot of praise for the costume system and would not mind seeing it again.

Windsagio.1340:

Perception is everything, that’s a basic concept of loot & rewards in GW2.

It is the only way to get the highest rarity tier, gameplay differences or not. Isn’t there an implied ‘doing this is better’ element as compared to granting unique skin sets (as fractals or other pve content or for that matter Pvp do?)

Legendary weapons already being time-consuming enough to make hasn’t proved to be a problem, despite requiring you to play WvW. Legendary armour having components you need to raid for isn’t going to be a problem either.

I clearly don’t use “equally good” to mean that it’s matching anyone’s particular aesthetic preferences, but that something is of the same quality as another thing.

Well, that’s fine, so long as you understand that this factor is not of equal importance to everyone.

Sunrise is as good as Twilight or any other legendary greatsword they care to introduce. Only reason it’s so expensive is the immense time needed to be put into it. A more popular skin isn’t necessarily found on a superior weapon.

Partially true, partially not. Sunrise currently sells for a median 3100g, while Twilight sells for a median 3500, a difference of 400 gold, even though they are functionally identical and require nearly identical effort to produce, aside from the gift of light/dark, which actually costs several times MORE for Sunrise.

This is also true of rare and exotic weapons, which have a more stable market because it’s been oversaturated, yet still have higher values on skins that are viewed as desirable, even though most of them can be found in roughly equal amounts.

People do put a premium on appearance, even if two items are mechanically identical. You cannot argue that just because two items have identical stats, that a player has no right to value one over the other, and be upset for not having the one he prefers.

What even is “significant effort”?

You could just as well have a model viewer and a chat room. That’d save you a lot of time. Why go somewhere at all in this case? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you’re better off wanting every skin freely available to everyone from the start regardless of anything.

All of this is strawman nonsense that has already been addressed and dismissed ad nauseum.

Kjell.8379:

Legendary weapons already being time-consuming enough to make hasn’t proved to be a problem, despite requiring you to play WvW. Legendary armour having components you need to raid for isn’t going to be a problem either.

One of these has a significantly greater barrier of entry than the other.

Ohoni.6057:

People do put a premium on appearance, even if two items are mechanically identical. You cannot argue that just because two items have identical stats, that a player has no right to value one over the other, and be upset for not having the one he prefers.

A player can feel whatever because people don’t really have control over their emotions. That’s what emotions are. But it isn’t a flaw in the game that someone has trouble with or doesn’t at all want to fight the giant wrestler to win his champion belt, when that belt doesn’t confer any advantage compared to one you can get elsewhere, craft or purchase.

Giving the champion belt meaning by having to understand what the game fundamentally is and proving mastery of it through defeating its current holder because it is a champion belt and not some random other belt is good game design. Giving items a reason for existing and looking like they do that ties them into the world and makes it more tangible and alive is good game design.

That’s why not all things are available everywhere. This causes no harm because gear that is just as strong is available somewhere and nobody is actually left out.

Ohoni.6057:

All of this is strawman nonsense that has already been addressed and dismissed ad nauseum.

I am not misrepresenting your arguments and then defeating them. I am telling you what would be a better thing to argue for. Why are you fine with having to go to a particular place to get something? Why is requiring thoughtless tedium acceptable but demanding that someone engages with the game is not? You don’t want people to do things they don’t like to get gear so you might as well have everything available from the start. It’s only the logical conclusion. I’ve played and loved games that largely do this. I don’t have a problem with it. I do have a problem with a half-baked system, tho.

Windsagio.1340:

One of these has a significantly greater barrier of entry than the other.

So what? Legendary weapons are still not the expected norm and aren’t needed for anything. The belief that striving for a legendary weapon is the best way to improve your character’s power level isn’t really widely held. Legendary armour is highly unlikely to change that.

I dunno man, I find the focus on power level to be a little iffy.

everyone at this point knows the stats aren’t better. That’s not what it’s about, and it hasn’t been for some time.

It is a prestige item of higher (game-defined) quality. Of course many people are going to feel that they’re losing out for not doing the associated content.

~~~~

Ohoni aside, this would be a much smaller issue if the rewards were unique skins as in fractals and pvp.

Windsagio.1340:

Kjell.8379:

Legendary weapons already being time-consuming enough to make hasn’t proved to be a problem, despite requiring you to play WvW. Legendary armour having components you need to raid for isn’t going to be a problem either.

One of these has a significantly greater barrier of entry than the other.

So you know what all is going to go into legendary armor? You know how time consuming and hard raids are going to be exactly and just how nit picky the players are going to be?

No one can claim which will be easier or harder to get between legendary armors and the current legendary weapons or the new legendary weapons because we don’t know the exact specifics and likely won’t until HoT launches.

Ononi, a thought-experiment if you may.

Let’s presume for a moment that a system extremely similar to what you suggested was created. The rewards in the Raid are categorized into different levels of ‘difficulty’ in terms of acquisition, and then spread across all types of gameplay in GW2, from WvW to SPvP and PvE, even so far as Daily Activities. Everything in the Raid, including the legendary armor, can be acquired elsewhere.

Now, each exclusive item that comes from the raid, like I talked about before, has a certain threshold of difficulty earning it in the raid, making it either shorter or longer to get in other activities. Perhaps a unique exotic skin that drops off Raid Trash, versus a much more common drop that comes from the boss encounter, things like that are put into these ‘difficulty’ categories I discussed.

Thus, I don’t think it would be too far to suggest the Legendary Precursor Armor piece (and therefore the Legendary Armor Piece) would be at the hardest level, it seems like the crowning ‘achievable’ piece you can get from the raid.

Now, as much as I hate speculation, let’s presume that the Legendary Precursor is a rare drop from a weekly chest that involves completing all three wings of the raid in question…I think I can hear everyone moaning at this mere thought thankfully this is hypothetical and I hope not to see RNG…

Let’s then say on average RNG (We don’t know the number, this number could vastly fluctuate) of the drop for any one person would be 10 full runs of all three wings. Again, more speculative numbers, each wing takes an hour in a flawless group, so 30 hours in a Raid Setting to get your precursor drop. Woohoo, yeppie.

What…given these obviously silly numbers would you say the average person in Silverwastes working on Vinewrath runs, who enjoys butchering that Flower everyday and the ambient loot in the area, would have to spend proportionally to meet the requirement at the same chance at that drop?

1 to 1? 1 to 5? 1 to 10? 1 to 50? Are the conditions for forming a successful raid so difficult that it is 100x EASIER just to run Silverwastes forever? Is a person’s time or effort more important in this case, or perhaps time = effort?

We could go into discussing other areas like SPvP or WvW, but from a simple event farmer in Silverwastes who adores the zone, what scale would they measure against a raider who has to flawlessly do the raid would you say?

Seera.5916:

Windsagio.1340:

Kjell.8379:

Legendary weapons already being time-consuming enough to make hasn’t proved to be a problem, despite requiring you to play WvW. Legendary armour having components you need to raid for isn’t going to be a problem either.

One of these has a significantly greater barrier of entry than the other.

So you know what all is going to go into legendary armor? You know how time consuming and hard raids are going to be exactly and just how nit picky the players are going to be?

No one can claim which will be easier or harder to get between legendary armors and the current legendary weapons or the new legendary weapons because we don’t know the exact specifics and likely won’t until HoT launches.

Sure we do.

We know raids are meant to be exclusive.

Even more, we know from the nature of raids as multi-group time-locked content there will be extra barriers to access as compared to other game modes.

To go all absurdum, it would be like saying “the precursor requires that you beat Liandri” All the other bits are the same, but that one part being outside the access of a huge% of players makes it much much less accessible to players.

~~~

The somewhat irksome thing here is that it’s almost certainly not going to be difficulty (as in Liandri), but rather straight up logistical limitations.

Which goes back to the non-reward issue: They promised hard content, they gave us less-accessible content.

This annoys me to no end, and I don’t give a kitten about actually getting the loot.

Seera.5916:

But if you’ve got half wanting to follow the story the GM planned and half wanting to do something else, what do you do? (Since neither side can claim numbers, I’m using the fairest division possible – each side having half of the population.) If I was the GM, I would stick to my plan for this mission and then for the next get input from the other half. This isn’t a case of all wanting something or no one wanting something.

If it happens only occasionally, you can often negotiate. Sometimes you can get by even if there is a strong dislike involved that might cause one of the players to sit the whole story out (it happens). The key here is that every player needs to get the same attention from GM (and know it). Content that satisfies player A cannot be treated as better than one player B likes, and definitely cannot offer better rewards (be it gear, advancement possibilities or prestige involved). What’s more important is that rewards for every player need to be offered through the content they like. If that’d require that player A and player B should receive similar/identical rewards through two separate and unconnected stories, so be it.

In the long run however, the best choice is to group according to likes and dislikes. Games that try to cater to wildly different playing styles usually end up quite badly. And you have to decide on most of this beforehand, because misjudging your players/co-players preferences can end up killing the game for everyone.

Windsagio.1340:

Even more, we know from the nature of raids as multi-group time-locked content there will be extra barriers to access as compared to other game modes.

To go all absurdum, it would be like saying “the precursor requires that you beat Liandri” All the other bits are the same, but that one part being outside the access of a huge% of players makes it much much less accessible to players.

~~~

The somewhat irksome thing here is that it’s almost certainly not going to be difficulty (as in Liandri), but rather straight up logistical limitations.

Which goes back to the non-reward issue: They promised hard content, they gave us less-accessible content.

Why is logistical difficulty not a valid form of difficulty in your example? In the same way the Liandri aspect of the fight is a combination of reflexes,learning the positioning and dps. Co-coordinating a group of 10 players in a highly organized fashion is a form of challenge and difficulty by itself.

I also don’t see the issue with Liandri being a theoretical requirement for a legendary? The function of a (new gen) legendary is to be a highly desirable and high prestige/rarity item.
What would you design as the alternative gate then? say that your quota is 5% of the player-base being able to access (No all the players can’t have access as then it no longer fulfills any of its functions)

I’m going to preempt that you’ll take issue with the previous statement and go on to my next point from it:
In your version of the game, how does a player in say the top 100, get rewarded compared to a player in the bottom 100? Secondly within that top 100 how do you differentiate each game-play modes top 100?
More of the same currency? that’s not rewarding to them, they can gain as much of it as they wanted already, A lone title? probobly not going to be enough of a driving factor.

Sykper.6583:

1 to 1? 1 to 5? 1 to 10? 1 to 50? Are the conditions for forming a successful raid so difficult that it is 100x EASIER just to run Silverwastes forever? Is a person’s time or effort more important in this case, or perhaps time = effort?

We could go into discussing other areas like SPvP or WvW, but from a simple event farmer in Silverwastes who adores the zone, what scale would they measure against a raider who has to flawlessly do the raid would you say?

I would say those are non-comparable, How many hours of being a waiter does it take to qualify as a surgeon? Or How many bananas does it take to make an apple?

A player can feel whatever because people don’t really have control over their emotions. That’s what emotions are. But it isn’t a flaw in the game that someone has trouble with or doesn’t at all want to fight the giant wrestler to win his champion belt, when that belt doesn’t confer any advantage compared to one you can get elsewhere, craft or purchase.

Ok, apparently we need to spell out a few ground rules.

1. GW2 is a game.

2. A game is an entertainment product, designed to cause people to have fun.

3. Any design element that causes people to have less fun than they otherwise might, is a failure of the game.

Therefore, keeping these three things in mind, any element that causes more players to enjoy the game less, is a failed design element. That doesn’t mean that a game cannot survive some, or even many such failures, but they should make effort to correct as many of them as they possibly can.

That’s why not all things are available everywhere. This causes no harm because gear that is just as strong is available somewhere and nobody is actually left out.

Except that this is only relevant to someone who values “strength.” To someone who instead values “how it looks” over strength, “because gear that is just as strong is available somewhere” does nothing for them, they ARE left out. To satisfy that player, you would also need to have “an item that looks exactly like that item is available somewhere else.”

I am not misrepresenting your arguments and then defeating them. I am telling you what would be a better thing to argue for.

If you would like to argue for those things, then go ahead, but they are not things I have any interest in arguing for, they are not “better” versions of my positions.

(1)Why are you fine with having to go to a particular place to get something? (2)Why is requiring thoughtless tedium acceptable but demanding that someone engages with the game is not? (3)You don’t want people to do things they don’t like to get gear so you might as well have everything available from the start.

(1) Because it usually is a minor hassle, and that would be worth thematic unity. It cannot be compared to having to grind out a raid for several weeks.
(2) This has nothing to do with anything I’ve said, so I don’t really have an answer for you.
(3) If there is nothing that they like in this game then they have no reason to be playing it. It is fair to have rewards that require effort in the game to acquire, but when the game consists of many different elements, which a reasonable player might only enjoy portions of, it is best to ensure that they can earn whichever rewards they are trying to get, by playing those portions that they do enjoy most. This should NEVER be confused with a demand that everything should be “given away for nothing.”

What…given these obviously silly numbers would you say the average person in Silverwastes working on Vinewrath runs, who enjoys butchering that Flower everyday and the ambient loot in the area, would have to spend proportionally to meet the requirement at the same chance at that drop?

Ok, first, it’s hard to compare RNG to a token system. Ideally in this scenario even raids would involve some sort of token mechanism so that if you don’t get the drop you want after X tries, you can still afford to just buy it instead. But setting that aside, You say it would take an average of 30 hours for a flawless group to earn the reward. Can we posit that a reasonably successful, but less flawless group could take perhaps 40 hours in total?

If that’s the case, then someone doing the Vinewrath, to completion, could perhaps expect to earn it in 50 daily runs, taking a total of maybe 50-70 hours and with possibilities of failure along the way. Now keep in mind, this would include some slight changes to how the map gets rewarded, it would require that the player run the entire event chain from near the beginning, not just map in right as the VW starts and kill it, that would, if anything, offer a significantly lesser amount of reward, and I believe the daily requirement would help limit the grind aspect. But yeah, about 50 kills would be good.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that the raiders would not be getting nothing aside from the Legendary. They would be getting plenty of reward packets along the way, so that their total rewards would be comparable or greater than what the VW player would be earning even if we factor the Legendary out of the equation. Their time would be fully valued by the game.

1 to 1? 1 to 5? 1 to 10? 1 to 50? Are the conditions for forming a successful raid so difficult that it is 100x EASIER just to run Silverwastes forever? Is a person’s time or effort more important in this case, or perhaps time = effort?

If the conditions to form a raid are so onerous, then the solution is to make them lekittenous, not to further reward the players for accomplishing it. If a person’s time is so valuable to them that a long raiding session is an inconvenience, then that should not be raiding. The only people who should be raiding are those for whom raiding is the most fun thing they can think of to do with that block of time.

I also don’t see the issue with Liandri being a theoretical requirement for a legendary? The function of a (new gen) legendary is to be a highly desirable and high prestige/rarity item.
What would you design as the alternative gate then? say that your quota is 5% of the player-base being able to access (No all the players can’t have access as then it no longer fulfills any of its functions)

Quotas should be based on time and effort spent, not on personal ability. They should not go to the “best” players, they should go to those who put in the time and dedication needed, to their best of their own abilities.

In your version of the game, how does a player in say the top 100, get rewarded compared to a player in the bottom 100? Secondly within that top 100 how do you differentiate each game-play modes top 100?

With exactly the same rewards, because it doesn’t matter whether you are in the top 100 or the bottom 100.

Ohoni.6057:

I also don’t see the issue with Liandri being a theoretical requirement for a legendary? The function of a (new gen) legendary is to be a highly desirable and high prestige/rarity item.
What would you design as the alternative gate then? say that your quota is 5% of the player-base being able to access (No all the players can’t have access as then it no longer fulfills any of its functions)

Quotas should be based on time and effort spent, not on personal ability. They should not go to the “best” players, they should go to those who put in the time and dedication needed, to their best of their own abilities.

In your version of the game, how does a player in say the top 100, get rewarded compared to a player in the bottom 100? Secondly within that top 100 how do you differentiate each game-play modes top 100?

With exactly the same rewards, because it doesn’t matter whether you are in the top 100 or the bottom 100.

Raids are predicated on time and effort sent, as compared to ability, that’s my personal annoyance.

Ohoni.6057:

Ok, first, it’s hard to compare RNG to a token system. Ideally in this scenario even raids would involve some sort of token mechanism so that if you don’t get the drop you want after X tries, you can still afford to just buy it instead. But setting that aside, You say it would take an average of 30 hours for a flawless group to earn the reward. Can we posit that a reasonably successful, but less flawless group could take perhaps 40 hours in total?

Sure, 40 hours sounds reasonable. Given the Raid won’t reset when everyone wipes and waypoints to the beginning to run back to whatever they fell victim to, some reasonably successful raids I can see 10 hours at the maximum ‘extra time’ put into honing their level of skill.

Ohoni.6057:

If that’s the case, then someone doing the Vinewrath, to completion, could perhaps expect to earn it in 50 daily runs, taking a total of maybe 50-70 hours and with possibilities of failure along the way. Now keep in mind, this would include some slight changes to how the map gets rewarded, it would require that the player run the entire event chain from near the beginning, not just map in right as the VW starts and kill it, that would, if anything, offer a significantly lesser amount of reward, and I believe the daily requirement would help limit the grind aspect. But yeah, about 50 kills would be good.

I…see. You understand that’s a near 1 to 1 metric to the end-game PvE right?

Ohoni.6057:

It’s also worth keeping in mind that the raiders would not be getting nothing aside from the Legendary. They would be getting plenty of reward packets along the way, so that their total rewards would be comparable or greater than what the VW player would be earning even if we factor the Legendary out of the equation. Their time would be fully valued by the game.

I think this might not be a good enough compensation. You mentioned the proportional rewards, but the Legendary Armor does seem to be the centerpiece behind the Raid in question. The reward packets you mentioned would have to be extremely extravagant rewards to even warrant the Raiders pursuing the raid. Raiders do value their own time as well, and if the Raid doesn’t at least grant them some amount of timely edge over those who would stick to Silverwastes then it diminishes their experience of wanting to do the Raid more! The Raid has to be the fastest method of acquisition in your system given that the content, although you can literally ‘walk in’, might prove too difficult to complete for the less-than-average players without spending lots of time on it and maybe even downright impossible for the lowest. It has to be a good proportion in your system!

I can barely imagine anything under 500 VW kills as a bare minimum, start to finish, to warrant the persistence of doing that Vinewrath content the player in question loves. That is around 500 hours of flawless VW runs, which we could grant the same value of ‘some not being perfect’ so the number will come around the upper part of 600s. And yes I know what those hundreds of game hours mean. From those who do VW once a day to three or more times, will likely spend months or even years working at it, but they will enjoy it at least!

Ohoni.6057:

If the conditions to form a raid are so onerous, then the solution is to make them lekittenous, not to further reward the players for accomplishing it. If a person’s time is so valuable to them that a long raiding session is an inconvenience, then that should not be raiding. The only people who should be raiding are those for whom raiding is the most fun thing they can think of to do with that block of time.

I don’t necessarily agree with the bolded statement, I don’t know how raids can be implemented in GW2, but raids carried lockouts and tracked progress during the week in other MMOs. Maybe a system can be in place where an casual group of players can raid together…maybe a half hour a day and still be able to make progress each week towards completing the raid in the week. That’s not taking away from the difficulty of the raid, but if that functionality were implemented it would be a huge extra step towards lending a hand for players of most play-times. …But we don’t have that right now, so that’s a moot point, would be nice though.

The biggest hurdles for raiding as far as we know in GW2 though are the heavily hinted mastery requirements, the heavily hinted role/gear requirements and the difficulty which is up in the air. Also, I couldn’t translate what ‘lekittenous’ was meant to be, I apologize if that lead to a misinterpretation of the quote.

Ohoni.6057:

Ok, apparently we need to spell out a few ground rules.

1. GW2 is a game.

2. A game is an entertainment product, designed to cause people to have fun.

3. Any design element that causes people to have less fun than they otherwise might, is a failure of the game.

Therefore, keeping these three things in mind, any element that causes more players to enjoy the game less, is a failed design element. That doesn’t mean that a game cannot survive some, or even many such failures, but they should make effort to correct as many of them as they possibly can.

By your definition all games are a failure.

GW2 is a failure because it doesn’t have a trinity and some people are having less fun in GW2 because of that. WoW is a failure because it has a trinity and some people are having less fun in WoW because of that.

Sims 3 is a failure because it has an open world and some people have less fun when dealing with what the open world brings. Sims 2 is a failure because some people have less fun dealing with what a closed world brings.

Sometimes what is fun for one person is not fun for another person and they completely opposite of each other with no room for compromise.

For the sake of the rest of this post, people = everyone who plays GW2 that are not jerks or engage in jerk like behavior. Jerk like behavior includes behavior like that of a sibling who goes “na na na na na” to their younger sibling when they win.

Exclusive rewards makes games fun for some people. They don’t win the exclusive item to show off to others in a mean spiteful manner. They take a quiet pride in knowing they beat whatever it is that awarded that item.

Exclusive rewards makes games less fun for some people. For some, knowing that for whatever reason, be it laziness or disability, that they won’t be able to do the content and that really bothers them. They also don’t want to just buy their way into it because that feels cheap to them and lessens the worth of the item for the players who can.

To please one group, you have to displease the other group. And there’s no real compromise that can make both groups completely happy. Because in a compromise, no one gets exactly what they want, they just get something that they can live with. Both groups give up a little bit of what makes the game fun for them. So in that case, all game’s are failures if they compromise because people have less fun under those circumstances. ANet can’t have a success no matter what it does so it might as well just leave the issue alone because that’s less money and time on their end.

Conski Deshan.2057:

Windsagio.1340:

Even more, we know from the nature of raids as multi-group time-locked content there will be extra barriers to access as compared to other game modes.

To go all absurdum, it would be like saying “the precursor requires that you beat Liandri” All the other bits are the same, but that one part being outside the access of a huge% of players makes it much much less accessible to players.

~~~

The somewhat irksome thing here is that it’s almost certainly not going to be difficulty (as in Liandri), but rather straight up logistical limitations.

Which goes back to the non-reward issue: They promised hard content, they gave us less-accessible content.

Why is logistical difficulty not a valid form of difficulty in your example? In the same way the Liandri aspect of the fight is a combination of reflexes,learning the positioning and dps. Co-coordinating a group of 10 players in a highly organized fashion is a form of challenge and difficulty by itself.

I also don’t see the issue with Liandri being a theoretical requirement for a legendary? The function of a (new gen) legendary is to be a highly desirable and high prestige/rarity item.
What would you design as the alternative gate then? say that your quota is 5% of the player-base being able to access (No all the players can’t have access as then it no longer fulfills any of its functions)

I’m going to preempt that you’ll take issue with the previous statement and go on to my next point from it:
In your version of the game, how does a player in say the top 100, get rewarded compared to a player in the bottom 100? Secondly within that top 100 how do you differentiate each game-play modes top 100?
More of the same currency? that’s not rewarding to them, they can gain as much of it as they wanted already, A lone title? probobly not going to be enough of a driving factor.

First point: It takes organizational skill for 1-2 players, order-following skill for 8-9. It’s invalid as a skill-check, if that’s the intent.

Second point: I’d put legendaries under the mastery gate they’re doing for legendary weapons 2.0. Raids can use the pattern established for all other game modes.

Third point: I think unless you’re doing Pvp (which is actually meaningfully competitive) there shouldn’t be any kind of ’you’re good’ reward beyond the most basic (titles, possibly skins). Difficulty in this game is a joke.

If the game mode can stand on its own, leaderboard it and throw out titles based on reaching certain rankings. Assign skins to certain ranks with special versions (as in the Glorious Pvp armor, which you can get straight progress on with special effects for champions). Shoehorning legendary quality in still strikes me as an attempt to prime the pump for raids.

Seera.5916:

Ohoni.6057:

Ok, apparently we need to spell out a few ground rules.

1. GW2 is a game.

2. A game is an entertainment product, designed to cause people to have fun.

3. Any design element that causes people to have less fun than they otherwise might, is a failure of the game.

Therefore, keeping these three things in mind, any element that causes more players to enjoy the game less, is a failed design element. That doesn’t mean that a game cannot survive some, or even many such failures, but they should make effort to correct as many of them as they possibly can.

By your definition all games are a failure.

GW2 is a failure because it doesn’t have a trinity and some people are having less fun in GW2 because of that. WoW is a failure because it has a trinity and some people are having less fun in WoW because of that.

Sims 3 is a failure because it has an open world and some people have less fun when dealing with what the open world brings. Sims 2 is a failure because some people have less fun dealing with what a closed world brings.

Sometimes what is fun for one person is not fun for another person and they completely opposite of each other with no room for compromise.

For the sake of the rest of this post, people = everyone who plays GW2 that are not jerks or engage in jerk like behavior. Jerk like behavior includes behavior like that of a sibling who goes “na na na na na” to their younger sibling when they win.

Exclusive rewards makes games fun for some people. They don’t win the exclusive item to show off to others in a mean spiteful manner. They take a quiet pride in knowing they beat whatever it is that awarded that item.

Exclusive rewards makes games less fun for some people. For some, knowing that for whatever reason, be it laziness or disability, that they won’t be able to do the content and that really bothers them. They also don’t want to just buy their way into it because that feels cheap to them and lessens the worth of the item for the players who can.

To please one group, you have to displease the other group. And there’s no real compromise that can make both groups completely happy. Because in a compromise, no one gets exactly what they want, they just get something that they can live with. Both groups give up a little bit of what makes the game fun for them. So in that case, all game’s are failures if they compromise because people have less fun under those circumstances. ANet can’t have a success no matter what it does so it might as well just leave the issue alone because that’s less money and time on their end.

Its not worth arguing with someone like ohoni, who no matter, believes his way is the right way and anet is on the path of failing…

There is absolutely no logic in his “opinion” and very few ppl actually want the game to be like the way he is envisioning.

There is no logic with such a ridiculous reward system like the way he wants it.

If it were up to him, fractal skins were to be awarded by completing an hour of chain events in frostgorge sound.

or teq’s hoard to be dropping from Fire elemental.

There’s a bloody good reason why anet (and any gaming company in general) doesn’t follow such ridiculous principles on reward.

It’s like a football player crying about being locked out of getting a basketball trophy.
He’s a football player that likes to play football, but sees that the basketball trophy is cool and also wants that, but doesn’t want to actually play basketball. So hes asking anet to make that basketball trophy available through football.

That’s not ridiculous at all is it…..

Traditional raids are famous (or infamous depending on your perspective) for excluding a large portion of the player base due to the difficulty involved and the time required. It remains to be seen what spin ANet takes on raids.

Ohoni.6057:

If the lack of unique rewards mean that most of the game’s population gravitates towards a few specific activities, then that means that most of the game’s population finds those activities to be the most fun. Instead of trying to bribe players away from those activities, the appropriate reaction is to figure out how to make the other activities more fun for those players, so that they’ll actually WANT to do them, rather than just being WILLING to put up with them if it means getting the loot that they want.

I’m sorry, but this is really ignorant imo. In the same way you are “forced” to go into certain content for certain rewards, players farming for one of the many rediculously expensive items in this game are currently forced to do speedclears or silverwastes/drytop, and many don’t enjoy that either. But they do it because it is the only way to get to the rewards they want in a decent timeframe. They could be leveling new characters, since some people’s favorite content is just to make many different toons. But that content isn’t rewarding. So they have to choose between what they want and go for rewards. To say that the most played content is also the most enjoyed one is like saying everyone loves their job because that is what they do for the most time in their life. Silverwastes/drytop isn’t the most enjoyed content right now, it’s the most rewarding one. And that is exactly why people are drawn to it. I say different things to do having different rewards is fun, because it spreads your progress, keeping you engaged in different things for longer. If people play differnent aspects of the game, they don’t get bored or burned out so fast, wich is the entire system an mmo is build on. If you make one thing optimal, many people will burn themselves out doing just that one thing, even tough they could be doing many things. And while this may not be a problem for you, it is for A-Net.

What you are asking for is for Arenanet to give the players all the options and just hope they can handle it. As someone who would love GW2 to grow, and keep doing well for the next few years, i really hope they are not that stupid. Keep the exclusives.

You may argue that people simply going for rewards, and letting that guide them trough content, are idiots. Arenanet certainly can’t take the same stance. And here lies the problem, you think your ideas are gonna fix things, while they just are gonna make more people leave the game, in frustration of always doing the same thing. It doesn’t matter how you view them, they are still just as important as you.

And here is the reality of things, ask yourself the question, will more people be upset by a skin being a unique reward (while most mmo players come from games where unique stats and skins are rewarded for content, with powercreep rewarding for skill), or will more people be upset because in their eyes, (we both know different) they are forced into the same content day in day out? I would say the skin thing is a minority, and not having unique rewards and incentives, that would upset more people, and most people coming from other mmo’s wouldn’t even understand it.

Now you can keep going for what you want, no problem to it, but the company sure as hell isn’t going to listen to you, because it involves taking a giant leap of faith, that people will still play content even if it’s not an optimal to get rewards. And that is a leap of faith an mmo developper can never take. The time new content comes out isn’t the problem either, it’s times when there isn’t any new content. If pve people play something once and then go back to farming, their week when there is no new content will look like this: farm, farm, farm, farm, maybe a guildmission, farm more, farm some more. If different content has different rewards, all unique to the content, then their week looks like this: fractals, dungeon, raid, maguuma jungle events, silverwastes event, guild mission, fractals.
Forcing people into content may not be a perfect system, but it makes it so players have more things to do, keeping them in the game longer. As an mmo you really cannot afford to have a different approach.

Raids are predicated on time and effort sent, as compared to ability, that’s my personal annoyance.

Not really though. Raids typically require you to spend large amounts of time in a single dose, which is a very different thing than just time and effort, and puts it out of reach of a great many people. It’s also supposed to be “challenging,” which typically involves greater than average skill from at least the majority of the participants.

I…see. You understand that’s a near 1 to 1 metric to the end-game PvE right?

Yeah, it should be fairly close, they’re both players playing the game, you wouldn’t want one of the activities to present an unbalanced level of reward, and you wouldn’t want anyone raiding because they see it as a “shortcut” to the best rewards, even if they don’t enjoy it. It’s not like raiding is some “superior” type of content entitled to superior rewards.

The Raid has to be the fastest method of acquisition in your system given that the content, although you can literally ‘walk in’, might prove too difficult to complete for the less-than-average players without spending lots of time on it and maybe even downright impossible for the lowest. It has to be a good proportion in your system!

Well, that’s why at least some of the reward has to be paced along the way, so that even “failed” attempts will typically be as rewarding as playing other content for the same amount of time. You make the end rewards enough of a perk that people will want to hit that point as often as possible, but you also reward them along the way so that they don’t walk away empty handed.

I can barely imagine anything under 500 VW kills as a bare minimum, start to finish, to warrant the persistence of doing that Vinewrath content the player in question loves.

That is completely insane. You’re basically saying “there can be other methods, so long as they are completely pointless to pursue.” You understand that if someone did kill the VW every singleday under such a system, it would take them a year and a half to complete that objective?

I don’t necessarily agree with the bolded statement, I don’t know how raids can be implemented in GW2, but raids carried lockouts and tracked progress during the week in other MMOs. Maybe a system can be in place where an casual group of players can raid together…maybe a half hour a day and still be able to make progress each week towards completing the raid in the week.

Perhaps, but this starts to get very complicated. Would it have to be the same group each time? If so then every member of the group would need to be available at the same time each day, which may not fit their schedules. If you can switch groups for each portion, how is that tracked? The more convenient they can make it, the better, but it’s still fair to say that the raiding lifestyle will never be for everyone, and it’s unreasonable to assume that everyone will raid, or that those who don’t raid should have to do without.

The biggest hurdles for raiding as far as we know in GW2 though are the heavily hinted mastery requirements, the heavily hinted role/gear requirements and the difficulty which is up in the air.

The hinted mastery requirements don’t seem like they will be a big deal to me. Just over the past two betas (with severely limited zone progression) I earned three levels in gliding and two in shrooms, I imagine between HoT’s launch and when the raids launch I would have a dozen or so different masteries unlocked, and I would expect those of the raider mindset to have far more unlocked, so unless they require the absolute highest end stuff, and I doubt the first raid will, at least, I don’t think it’ll really hold anyone back.

By your definition all games are a failure.

Not true, but it is fair to say that all games contain some element that is a failure, that could have been done better. Nothing is perfect. That’s my point, not that them failing on this one point would make the entire game a failure, just that it would still be a failure on this one point, and they should continue to work to improve it.

Sometimes what is fun for one person is not fun for another person and they completely opposite of each other with no room for compromise.

Yes, so in some cases some sad people are inevitable, so success or failure is judged by making more people happy about a feature than sad about it. My assertion, which might be wrong, is that more people who play GW2 will be sad if they cannot get Legendary Armor, than will be happy because those people can get Legendary Armor. I have a lot of faith in GW2’s population that this is the case, but you might disagree.

Exclusive rewards makes games fun for some people. They don’t win the exclusive item to show off to others in a mean spiteful manner. They take a quiet pride in knowing they beat whatever it is that awarded that item.

That’s not true. If it were true that they take quiet pride in their achievements, then they would take that quiet pride whether it offered a unique reward or not. If they require the item take pride, then it is in owning something that other people do not.

If it were up to him, fractal skins were to be awarded by completing an hour of chain events in frostgorge sound.

Again, it encourages me that you have to resort to ridiculous strawmen to contradict me, because it shows that the points I actually make are correct enough that you can’t actually challenge them. Keep it up.

I’m sorry, but this is really ignorant imo. In the same way you are “forced” to go into certain content for certain rewards, players farming for one of the many rediculously expensive items in this game are currently forced to do speedclears or silverwastes/drytop, and many don’t enjoy that either

I agree. They should do a better job of balancing rewards so that these players do not feel forced into those tasks, and can instead be doing something else for equivalent reward/hour.

To say that the most played content is also the most enjoyed one is like saying everyone loves their job because that is what they do for the most time in their life.

It should be. The only reason it’s not in the real world is because there are some jobs that need doing, and people do need to be incentivized to do those jobs even if they don’t enjoy it. But that is not an issue that translates to gaming. If the real world were like a game, then only people who really enjoyed being a garbage man would ever have to be a garbage man, and if nobody wanted to be a garbage man then that would be ok, nobody would and trash would still take care of itself just fine. Everybody could be a pro athlete if that’s what they wanted to do.

This is why trying to use real world examples of disproportionate reward make absolutely no sense in the context of a game. They’re based on the idea that certain roles need to happen, and that there are set amounts of need for given roles, while in gaming, no role needs to happen, and every role exists entirely for those that enjoy it.

I say different things to do having different rewards is fun, because it spreads your progress, keeping you engaged in different things for longer.

This is also true, which is why all the content should be in balance, but it’s also fair to say that perfect balance is difficult to achieve, so perhaps a better solution is to “swing” the balance slightly in favor of various activities on a rotational basis. Make it so that if the average activity provides 100 “points” per hour, then most activities provide at least 95 “points” at all time, but one or two of the activities will provide 105-110 at any given time, so people who are about absolute efficiency will gravitate to those activities, and change up tasks every week or two as the balance shifts, while those who truly enjoy something can continue to do it and not fall all that far behind everyone else.

If you make one thing optimal, many people will burn themselves out doing just that one thing, even tough they could be doing many things. And while this may not be a problem for you, it is for A-Net.

Like raiding, you mean?

And here lies the problem, you think your ideas are gonna fix things, while they just are gonna make more people leave the game, in frustration of always doing the same thing. It doesn’t matter how you view them, they are still just as important as you.

Conski Deshan.2057:

Windsagio.1340:

Even more, we know from the nature of raids as multi-group time-locked content there will be extra barriers to access as compared to other game modes.

To go all absurdum, it would be like saying “the precursor requires that you beat Liandri” All the other bits are the same, but that one part being outside the access of a huge% of players makes it much much less accessible to players.

~~~

The somewhat irksome thing here is that it’s almost certainly not going to be difficulty (as in Liandri), but rather straight up logistical limitations.

Which goes back to the non-reward issue: They promised hard content, they gave us less-accessible content.

Why is logistical difficulty not a valid form of difficulty in your example? In the same way the Liandri aspect of the fight is a combination of reflexes,learning the positioning and dps. Co-coordinating a group of 10 players in a highly organized fashion is a form of challenge and difficulty by itself.

Probably because GW2 was not a hotel manager game where someone has the role of entertainer, with his goal being to herd vacationers to participate in such stupid activities as water jogging.
It was supposedly also not the office of unemployment where clerks try to find a suitable job or enforce the laws of your given country upon you.

I replaced “is” with “was” while typing this, realizing that we now are on the way of getting both a hotel manager game and the office of unemployment all at once with this risen level of organization required.

I didn’t read the entire thread, but I saw some people were talking about rewards in MMOs, the exclusivity of such rewards ad whether those rewards should be exclusive. I’d like to give my 2 cents on that.

So, should specific content have specific rewards exclusive to that content? Absolutely. Why? Because it gives the rewards and the players wearing them a stronger identity. It makes the rewards more meaningful, it makes both the rewards and the players stand out more. Let me explain with an example.

I’m a big PvPer. I love PvP. I do it a lot and I’m quite good at it. Being a dedicated PvPer is something I take pride in and something I’d love to show to other people. When other players see me, I want them to think “hey, that guy loves PvP and he’s probably quite good at it!”.

This can only be achieved through PvP exclusive rewards, which the game luckily has. I can get my PvP-exclusive titles, PvP-exclusive armor skins and soon I’ll be able to get a PvP-exclusive legendary back item. That’s great!

When I get my legendary PvP back item, I’ll be able to show everyone that I’m a boss at PvP. Not only that, but I’ll be able to recognize other dedicated PvP players. When I see someone else with the legendary PvP back item, I’ll know that he’s a PvP veteran too, which would be an incentive for me to chat him up, ask him about his experiences, share tips and builds and maybe become friends.

Exclusive rewards is a great way to spot like-minded people and make new friends.

Now imagine if these PvP-exclusive rewards would be made available in PvE or worse, make them items that can just be bought with gold, meaning basically everyone with enough gold can get these items. All of the sudden the Glorious armor sets, the Champion titles , PvP rank finishers and PvP legendary back item would completely lose their meaning. No longer will wearing it be an indicator that you’re a dedicated PvPer who loves PvP. No longer will it be a way to stand out from the other non-PvP players. No longer will I be able to spot like-minded dedicated PvPers based on their gear, titles or finishers.

If this were to happen, it would suck, big time.

So yes, having PvP-exclusive rewards is a great thing and that should never change.

So, now that we’re getting raids, I fully 100% believe that raids also should have their own exclusive rewards. Not only should these rewards be exclusive to raids, they should be hard to get as well, only available to the most dedicated raiders. That way, when I see someone in legendary raid armor, I’ll know that he loves raiding and is good at it. I know that he was among the few people who managed to beat the hardest PvE content in the game. I’d have a sense of respect for that person.

And who knows, maybe one day I’ll give raiding a shot too. Maybe I’ll even become good at it and get my own legendary armor and count myself among the few people who managed to beat the raids and have something to show for it.

So I’m VERY HAPPY that Anet has announced that raids will get their own exclusive legendary armors as rewards.

And who knows, maybe one day Anet could add other legendary armor sets to the game for other difficult content. If they do that though, the other legendary armor sets should look different and be a clear visual indicator that you managed to beat that specific content that this specific legendary armor set belongs to.

Ohoni.6057:

Exclusive rewards makes games fun for some people. They don’t win the exclusive item to show off to others in a mean spiteful manner. They take a quiet pride in knowing they beat whatever it is that awarded that item.

That’s not true. If it were true that they take quiet pride in their achievements, then they would take that quiet pride whether it offered a unique reward or not. If they require the item take pride, then it is in owning something that other people do not.

So you’re saying the fact that I don’t gloat and rub it in people’s faces when I earn something unique is a lie? That everyone who likes exclusive rewards is a rude immature braggart? Newsflash, we’re not all like that. Stop assuming the majority are like the vocal minority. Just because the rude immature braggarts are the loudest when they get something exclusive doesn’t make them the majority.

And no duh it’s taking pride in earning something not many people have as it is a reward for doing something difficult and that doesn’t make them a horrible person. How they broadcast their pride, or not, does. The ones who run around Lion’s Arch and flash it in people’s faces for hours on end and spamming it in chat are the rude immature braggarts. The ones who go yea! with their friends and guild mates when they get it and then quietly go about their business are the polite mature players.

Lucos: My position is that exclusive rewards are basically ok – but they should all be of equal quality and prestige.

Windsagio.1340:

Lucos: My position is that exclusive rewards are basically ok – but they should all be of equal quality and prestige.

No, the quality fo the reward should be on par with the amount of skill and/or dedication needed to get them.

But if you’re saying that other game modes should also get their own way of obtaining their own unique exclusive legendary armors then I agree.

Windsagio.1340:

Lucos: My position is that exclusive rewards are basically ok – but they should all be of equal quality and prestige.

No, the quality fo the reward should be on par with the amount of skill and/or dedication needed to get them.

But if you’re saying that other game modes should also get their own way of obtaining their own unique exclusive legendary armors then I agree.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Windsagio.1340:

Lucos: My position is that exclusive rewards are basically ok – but they should all be of equal quality and prestige.

No, the quality fo the reward should be on par with the amount of skill and/or dedication needed to get them.

But if you’re saying that other game modes should also get their own way of obtaining their own unique exclusive legendary armors then I agree.

“Skill” doesn’t have much to do it, I’ll grant dedication though.

As I said, I think if they’re going to do legendary armor, I wish they’d done it the way they’re doing the new weapons, and made really over-the-top skins instead – it serves a similar purpose, but in my opinion better.

Of course, I’m in a weird place – I’ll likely do some raiding (time permitting, my career eats into game time a lot), but I’m not likely to grind out all the other crap you’ll need to make the outfit even if I have the tokens.

~~~

In all honesty I don’t feel that raiding is something that is well served by special rewards. People love them of course, but it ends up being part and parcel of the whole negative culture that seems to develop around raiding systems (although the GW2 case seems like it’ll be better for that for a few reasons)..

So, should specific content have specific rewards exclusive to that content? Absolutely. Why? Because it gives the rewards and the players wearing them a stronger identity. It makes the rewards more meaningful, it makes both the rewards and the players stand out more. Let me explain with an example.

But it also means that players who don’t care about that “identity” and just like the look of that armor or weapon, do not have the choice of being able to wear that look without participating in that content, which they may not want to do. I believe that their inability to have that appearance trumps any value in “identity.”

I’m a big PvPer. I love PvP. I do it a lot and I’m quite good at it. Being a dedicated PvPer is something I take pride in and something I’d love to show to other people. When other players see me, I want them to think “hey, that guy loves PvP and he’s probably quite good at it!”.

So why not just rock a PvP-based title? If I see someone with a difficult to earn PvP title, I’ll know they PvP. If I see them in fancy armor, I’m far less likely to know off the bat where that armor comes from. More importantly, in either case, I will not care in the slightest.

When I get my legendary PvP back item, I’ll be able to show everyone that I’m a boss at PvP. Not only that, but I’ll be able to recognize other dedicated PvP players. When I see someone else with the legendary PvP back item, I’ll know that he’s a PvP veteran too, which would be an incentive for me to chat him up, ask him about his experiences, share tips and builds and maybe become friends.

Again, why would a title not serve this purpose?

They could also use some sort of name-badge flair, like the World Completion star, something that lets people know “hey, that guy does a lot of PvP! I should be. . . impressed? Sure, let’s go with impressed.”

~~~~

So you’re saying the fact that I don’t gloat and rub it in people’s faces when I earn something unique is a lie?

No, but if you have to have the item to take pride in your accomplishments then you are clearly taking pride in something other than your accomplishments themselves.

If you say that you do not actively “gloat” then I believe you, but on some level you must feel good that you have these things, and that other people do not. If you take pride in the accomplishment itself, then you would take that pride whether the game rewards you at all or not. The reward itself should have nothing to do with your pride in accomplishing somethign difficult.

If everyone had the item, would you value it as highly? If not, then you are taking pride in ownership of the item, and in other people not owning it, rather than in whatever task you had to complete to earn it. Ironically, this is not an impulse that you should take pride in.

You don’t have to be loud to brag, and just because you’re quiet doesn’t make you humble.

And again, if it is not about taking pride in the object, if it is about taking pride in the accomplishment, but you want some physical representation of that accomplishment, then there are plenty of alternatives to weapon and armor skins. The simplest and most humble would be the achievement, just a box ticked that yes, you did that difficult thing, and now you know that. Then there’s also the title, all the braggadocio of a fancy skin, but without depriving anyone of a desired look. Then there’s also the potential for an inventory object, like the Flames of Kryta torch, which you could wave around and show off to people that you’re special and have a thing. Or there could be a trophy placed in your Home Instance or Guild Hall, to show that you did a thing to anyone who saw it.

There are plenty of ways to mark off that you did a thing, without having to get armor or weapon skins involved.

Ohoni.6057:

snip

You seem to be suggesting in your post that Arenanet should just make the perfect balanced system. And that is the illusion. Even if they could balance it for one player, perfect balance is different for everyone. For a hardcore raider the raids may be optimal, and for a casual the event trains may be optimal. Without unique rewards both aren’t encouraged to do the other things, wich means both are far more likely to burn out on the game without trying other things. It’s just that simple.

Arenanet wants to encourage people to try everything, and there is not a single way a token system can provide this in a decent working way. Even if you rotate rewards sizes, for the people on both edges on the scale, doing their own thing will still be optimal and GW2 will loose players for it, far more then they will because someone can’t get some skin.
You are asking a game that already is very different and takes allot of risks, to do something that has not worked yet in any other mmo, and just take the leap of faith because it’s something you would like. It won’t happen, again, because people don’t care enough about not being able to get skins to quit the game, most people even find it logical, and they are used to way way worse in other mmo’s due to gated powercreep. However not having a decent incentive to do certain content, especially the hardcore content, is something people will quit the game for. It’s the easiest choice to make for Arenanet tbh.

You seem to be suggesting in your post that Arenanet should just make the perfect balanced system. And that is the illusion. Even if they could balance it for one player, perfect balance is different for everyone.

As I said, perfect balance is unlikely, but should be the goal, and it could be a lot closer than it’s turned out to be. All of you complaining about “having” to do SW farming to make gold are a symptom of that, and no better than people complaining about having to farm raids for Legendary Armor. If the system were better in balance, you would never feel compelled to do anything you didn’t want to be doing. You would never have to say “well, I need gold for that [something] I want to buy, guess I’ll have to farm Silverwastes.” You would instead be able to say "well, I need gold for that [something] I want to buy, guess I could run dungeons, or run event chains in any of a dozen zones, or do the World Boss circuit, or run raids, or PvP a bit, or WvW, or do map completions, and it’ll all work out to about the same rewards.

Someone even mentioned leveling alts, and honestly, that would interest me as a valid option (I’m mostly done with alts, Rev aside, but I was doing a lot of that at one point). It might be interesting if they had a method by which a player who already has a level 80 character, could gain level 80-esc gold rewards while leveling an alt. It would need to figure out how to avoid things like using crafting or scrolls to power-level the characters, but it doesn’t seem like an impossible goal that they could balance it out so that leveling a character from 1-80 in the “traditional” manner would result in equivalent rewards to doing whatever else you could be doing with that time.

For a hardcore raider the raids may be optimal, and for a casual the event trains may be optimal. Without unique rewards both aren’t encouraged to do the other things, wich means both are far more likely to burn out on the game without trying other things. It’s just that simple.

If a player is burning out on the content he’s doing, then he can do other content. Burn out happens when players feel that the ONLY way to reasonably progress is to keep doing the thing they’re doing, whether that’s champ trains or raids, and they do not enjoy that activity anymore. I’m switched my own primary activities around numerous times, and it usually had nothing to do with any rewards specific to that activity. So long as people do not feel that their time would be wasted in doing something else, they are more likely to change roles than quit, what makes them likely to quit is if they believe that no other role would be worth doing.

And as I said, if that alone isn’t enough, they can offer rotating minor incentives to the balance, so that maybe this week champ farming is slightly more efficient than other activities, next week it could be dungeons, the next week it could be raids, and so long as you’re perfectly happy doing what you’re doing, it wouldn’t be enough to be worth chasing, especially if you really dislike that particular activity, but if you are burnt out and vaguely interested in something different, or if you enjoy all elements equally, then you would follow the largest bonuses.

They already do this to some degree, with scheduled PvP XP buffs, WvW XP buffs, and daily tasks that sometimes send you to Fractals, sometimes to harvest various areas or run events in a given area. The bonus reward is usually not worth the effort, but it could be.

Arenanet wants to encourage people to try everything, and there is not a single way a token system can provide this in a decent working way.

And again, wanting people to try everything is fair, and they can do this with unique rewards that you can earn very quickly, after you’ve tried the activity. But expecting every player to enjoy every activity is just an unreasonable goal, you have to accept that most players will dislike numerous elements of the game and not want to do them, and you have to respect their choices, so providing unique rewards that insist they stick around well after they’ve decided they are not enjoying themselves is an unreasonably overbearing decision.

So sure, unique rewards attached to content, if and ONLY if those rewards are for trying the content, and can be earned by any player within an hour or two of attempting the content. Any reward that does take long term and serious effort, and there should be such rewards, should not be unique to specific content, and should allow players to pursue the content that interests them personally.

Ohoni.6057:

But it also means that players who don’t care about that “identity” and just like the look of that armor or weapon, do not have the choice of being able to wear that look without participating in that content, which they may not want to do. I believe that their inability to have that appearance trumps any value in “identity.”

It absolutely does not trump any value in identity.

Exclusive rewards are like medals. A medal is something you have to earn and sometimes that means being the best at a specific activity. Just because you don’t like said activity but like the specific medal that comes with it doesn’t mean you should get that specific medal handed to you through some other kind of activity. The world doesn’t work that way and neither should GW2.

Ohoni.6057:

So why not just rock a PvP-based title? If I see someone with a difficult to earn PvP title, I’ll know they PvP. If I see them in fancy armor, I’m far less likely to know off the bat where that armor comes from. More importantly, in either case, I will not care in the slightest.

A shiny piece of armor is much more impressive than a title. Getting some exclusive swag that allows you to show of your dedication feels much more rewarding than just a title.

Ohoni.6057:

Again, why would a title not serve this purpose?

Again because some actual visual swag is much more fun than just a title. It adds more identity to your character. It visually shows: “this guy is a PvP boss”, which makes the character more interesting and gives him/her more of an identity that says something about the character or the person playing it.

It’s much more fun to see your accomplishments visually reflected in your character than just getting and wearing a title and you know this, otherwise you’d be against exclusive titles as well. But you and I both know that titles aren’t as impressive or fun as visual shinies. We both clearly care less about titles than the visual shinies. That’s why you complain about exclusive shinies but not about exclusive titles.

Ohoni.6057:

No, but if you have to have the item to take pride in your accomplishments then you are clearly taking pride in something other than your accomplishments themselves.

O really? And what would that “something other” be then?

The pride comes from pulling off an impressive feat. The sense of reward comes from the exclusive prize that comes with it.

The impressive feat would not feel as rewarding if it didn’t have a nice prize and in turn the prize would also not feel as rewarding if it was easy to get through multiple means.

I mean lets use the current legendary weapons as an example. I’ve made several legendaries so far: Sunrise, Twilight and Bolt. I obviously like them and enjoy having them, but I don’t really take pride in any of them. Why not? Because it wasn’t really an impressive feat to get them. All it took was mindless, boring grinding for gold to buy the precursors and T6 mats to craft them. Not really an impressive feat right? Not really something to be proud of.

Right now, legendaries are a grind and poorly implemented in the game. You have to grind to get them and people only do the grinding because they want the legendary skins, not because they like grinding so much.

I want it to be the other way around. I want people to play the game-modes they like, become good at it and eventually have a nice exclusive reward to show off for it, something they can show their friends and say “look what I got, isn’t it shiny? I got it for beating this incredibly difficult raid”.

Ohoni.6057:

If you say that you do not actively “gloat” then I believe you, but on some level you must feel good that you have these things, and that other people do not. If you take pride in the accomplishment itself, then you would take that pride whether the game rewards you at all or not. The reward itself should have nothing to do with your pride in accomplishing somethign difficult.

We both know that’s BS. Yes I take pride in the accomplishment itself, but merely achieving an impressive accomplishment without being rewarded for it gets incredibly boring really fast.

Being able to show off your accomplishments through exclusive shinies is half the fun. It greatly extents the amount of joy I get from the accomplishment and I’m sure that you all feel that way too, each and every one of you. Lest be honest, who doesn’t like to receive a big golden medal and wear it proudly on his chest after proving that you’re the best?

Ohoni.6057:

If everyone had the item, would you value it as highly? If not, then you are taking pride in ownership of the item, and in other people not owning it, rather than in whatever task you had to complete to earn it. Ironically, this is not an impulse that you should take pride in.

If everyone would have the item then clearly I wouldn’t value it as highly. However, the reasons for not valuing that item as much has absolutely nothing to do with what you just said.

I once again will bring up legendary weapons and how they’re currently implemented in the game. I don’t really value legendary weapons all that much and I don’t take much pride in having them, despite the fact that not everyone has them and many more players don’t have them.

The pride and value doesn’t come from the exclusivity, it comes from being the best at something and having something nice to show for it.

Ohoni.6057:

And again, if it is not about taking pride in the object, if it is about taking pride in the accomplishment, but you want some physical representation of that accomplishment, then there are plenty of alternatives to weapon and armor skins. The simplest and most humble would be the achievement, just a box ticked that yes, you did that difficult thing, and now you know that. Then there’s also the title, all the braggadocio of a fancy skin, but without depriving anyone of a desired look. Then there’s also the potential for an inventory object, like the Flames of Kryta torch, which you could wave around and show off to people that you’re special and have a thing. Or there could be a trophy placed in your Home Instance or Guild Hall, to show that you did a thing to anyone who saw it.

There are plenty of ways to mark off that you did a thing, without having to get armor or weapon skins involved.

And none of those are as fun as having an armor or weapon skin that I can wear on my character. You know it, I know it, we both know it and we both know that’s the only reason why you’re so vehemently against exclusive armor and weapon rewards.

You sir, strike me as either a very jealous type of person or a very greedy type of person, or both. You want all the shinies you like and you want them your way. In your world people are not allowed to have exclusive shinies that show off their accomplishments because you might not have them and you might not be willing or able to put in the effort to get them.

You might complain about people enjoying exclusive shinies that they can show off and gives them bragging rights, but your behavior is much worse. I rather deal with a bragger who actually earned his bragging rights than a spoiled jealous type who feels he’s entitled to all the shinies.

Ohoni, the false premise you have, is that armor is only about customizing your look. Some armors are more about what they represent than how a player wants his/her avatar to look.

which isnt to say people shouldnt be able to get them, but rather they should be able to wear them, when they can represent what the armor is supposed to represent.

basically sometimes the game has to come before the personal appearance.

phys.7689:

Ohoni, the false premise you have, is that armor is only about customizing your look. Some armors are more about what they represent than how a player wants his/her avatar to look.

which isnt to say people shouldnt be able to get them, but rather they should be able to wear them, when they can represent what the armor is supposed to represent.

basically sometimes the game has to come before the personal appearance.

Exactly.

I mean how far do you want to take this “inclusive” approach Ohoni? Do you think the exclusive dungeon armors (that you can only get by grinding the specific dungeon that the armor belongs to) should no longer be exclusive?

What about the Order armors (Vigil, Whispers and Priory armors), should they no longer be exclusive to the specific Order they belong to?

What about the Tequatl weapons that you can only get from Tequatl’s Hoard, a box that only drops from successfully killing Tequatl?

Or what about the Triple-Trouble Jungle Wurm armors?

Obviously a piece of armor is much more than just a fancy decoration item. Sometimes a piece of armor represents something. Sometimes it sends a message. Sometimes it shows off that you have done a specific activity and sometimes it shows off you’re the best at something.

That’s what makes armors fun and it greatly enhances their value.