Guild Wars 2

If you don’t do the activity you don’t get its reward. Why is this a hard concept?

It’s not, but that’s why I’m trying to explain to you that this is not a satisfactory answer for people who want that reward. Why is that such a hard concept?

Coulter.2315:

Ohoni.6057:

Erm.. You can get the skins you just need to play to the standard they require.

Unless you can’t play to that standard.

and even if you are capable of playing tot hat standard, if you don’t find it fun, you shouldn’t have to.

If you don’t do the activity you don’t get its reward. Why is this a hard concept?

im not debating over whether its do this content to get this reward. I have no problem doing the content I.E. pvp… what we have a problem with is the legendary backpiece being blocked from all but the top 10-100 players in the entire game here.

Ohoni.6057:

If you don’t do the activity you don’t get its reward. Why is this a hard concept?

It’s not, but that’s why I’m trying to explain to you that this is not a satisfactory answer for people who want that reward. Why is that such a hard concept?

Your concept cannot be implemented…

My way : You want Fractal weapons? Do Fractals.
Your way : You want Fractal weapons? Do ???? Point at it and cry?

Seriously what are you asking for? Everything free? Everything available on the Gem Store?

Activity → Reward is tried, tested, satisfying and fair to players.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

Coulter.2315:

Ohoni.6057:

Erm.. You can get the skins you just need to play to the standard they require.

Unless you can’t play to that standard.

and even if you are capable of playing tot hat standard, if you don’t find it fun, you shouldn’t have to.

If you don’t do the activity you don’t get its reward. Why is this a hard concept?

im not debating over whether its do this content to get this reward. I have no problem doing the content I.E. pvp… what we have a problem with is the legendary backpiece being blocked from all but the top 10-100 players in the entire game here.

I don’t know how the PvP Legendary Backpiece will be implemented and neither do you at this point.

Ohoni.6057:

Erm.. You can get the skins you just need to play to the standard they require.

Unless you can’t play to that standard.

and even if you are capable of playing tot hat standard, if you don’t find it fun, you shouldn’t have to.

So can I say the same about Living Story rewards? I’m not a fan, should I be able to get Luminescent/Sinister rewards in other ways? What about the Mini Llamas from PVP and Glorious Armor?

Does the idea carry over to all realms or only to what you dislike? If it carries over, well, I agree, I actually really liked how you could basically buy anything you wanted in this game when I started, so everything had that alternate option of monetary value, but as time has gone on things have been locked in to certain bits of content, I think it’s only fair that if you do it for some you do it for all, give something special to all types of play.

Perhaps we all could have saved the effort and just agreed on the OP’s choice of a thread name and moved on, because yes some people don’t like hard mode, and a crocodile tear will be shed when a skin they want is locked behind the challenge, not gained through other means like gold or karma or gems.

Though, admittedly thanks to this thread next week’s announcement ought to be quite amusing as well as hyped to watch.

Coulter.2315:

CorrynnStarr.7942:

Coulter.2315:

Ohoni.6057:

Erm.. You can get the skins you just need to play to the standard they require.

Unless you can’t play to that standard.

and even if you are capable of playing tot hat standard, if you don’t find it fun, you shouldn’t have to.

If you don’t do the activity you don’t get its reward. Why is this a hard concept?

im not debating over whether its do this content to get this reward. I have no problem doing the content I.E. pvp… what we have a problem with is the legendary backpiece being blocked from all but the top 10-100 players in the entire game here.

I don’t know how the PvP Legendary Backpiece will be implemented and neither do you at this point.

in a broad scince we do… they have already said that to get parts for the legendary backpiece, you will have to make it to the legendary tier of the pvp leaderboards…. which described on DULFY is tiers that you can move up or down in, based on your win loss ratio… that effectively puts items you need into the hands of players that dominate the field in pvp already. in essence, their success keeps you from getting anything from it.

My way : You want Fractal weapons? Do Fractals.
Your way : You want Fractal weapons? Do ???? Point at it and cry?

Seriously what are you asking for? Everything free? Everything available on the Gem Store?

As I explained, multiple paths.

What Fractal weapons?:

• Do Fractals, get them as drops.
• Do Fractals, collect relics that can be turned in for them
• Do PvP in the Fractal Reward Track, get a chance of a Fractal Weapon in the final box.
• Do PvP in the Fractal Reward Track, collect relics that can be turned in for them
• Do PvE in the Fractal Reward Track(see below), get a chance of a Fractal Weapon in the final box.
• Do PvE in the Fractal Reward Track, collect relics that can be turned in for them
• Do other content that rewards tokens, such as dungeons or Silverwaste badges, convert those tokens into Fractal Relics at a steep conversion rate.

Maybe other options too. Basically there are all sorts of reward mechanisms in the game, and all sorts of potential reward mechanisms, just make them a bit more unified, so that players have more flexible choices.

So can I say the same about Living Story rewards? I’m not a fan, should I be able to get Luminescent/Sinister rewards in other ways? What about the Mini Llamas from PVP and Glorious Armor?

Obviously.

(PvE Reward track): The PvE Reward track would basically be like the PvP one, just advanced by completing PvE goals, perhaps just gaining XP, perhaps by completing events of a certain level, perhaps a combination of various factors, but basically a method by which you could set a reward target, and do a variety of PvE content to advance towards that target, instead of each activity being its own pool.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

Coulter.2315:

CorrynnStarr.7942:

Coulter.2315:

Ohoni.6057:

Erm.. You can get the skins you just need to play to the standard they require.

Unless you can’t play to that standard.

and even if you are capable of playing tot hat standard, if you don’t find it fun, you shouldn’t have to.

If you don’t do the activity you don’t get its reward. Why is this a hard concept?

im not debating over whether its do this content to get this reward. I have no problem doing the content I.E. pvp… what we have a problem with is the legendary backpiece being blocked from all but the top 10-100 players in the entire game here.

I don’t know how the PvP Legendary Backpiece will be implemented and neither do you at this point.

in a broad scince we do… they have already said that to get parts for the legendary backpiece, you will have to make it to the legendary tier of the pvp leaderboards…. which described on DULFY is tiers that you can move up or down in, based on your win loss ratio… that effectively puts items you need into the hands of players that dominate the field in pvp already. in essence, their success keeps you from getting anything from it.

Well I would suggest looking at the system Hearthstone has with ranks and “Legend” rank which is open to many more than the top 100 and achievable through having sufficient win/loss ratio after a certain point. The Legend rank in GW2 may be far more achievable than you think – as in there isn’t a quota of people who can reach it.

Ohoni.6057:

My way : You want Fractal weapons? Do Fractals.
Your way : You want Fractal weapons? Do ???? Point at it and cry?

Seriously what are you asking for? Everything free? Everything available on the Gem Store?

As I explained, multiple paths.

What Fractal weapons?:

• Do Fractals, get them as drops.
• Do Fractals, collect relics that can be turned in for them
• Do PvP in the Fractal Reward Track, get a chance of a Fractal Weapon in the final box.
• Do PvP in the Fractal Reward Track, collect relics that can be turned in for them
• Do PvE in the Fractal Reward Track(see below), get a chance of a Fractal Weapon in the final box.
• Do PvE in the Fractal Reward Track, collect relics that can be turned in for them
• Do other content that rewards tokens, such as dungeons or Silverwaste badges, convert those tokens into Fractal Relics at a steep conversion rate.

Maybe other options too. Basically there are all sorts of reward mechanisms in the game, and all sorts of potential reward mechanisms, just make them a bit more unified, so that players have more flexible choices.

So can I say the same about Living Story rewards? I’m not a fan, should I be able to get Luminescent/Sinister rewards in other ways? What about the Mini Llamas from PVP and Glorious Armor?

Obviously.

(PvE Reward track): The PvE Reward track would basically be like the PvP one, just advanced by completing PvE goals, perhaps just gaining XP, perhaps by completing events of a certain level, perhaps a combination of various factors, but basically a method by which you could set a reward target, and do a variety of PvE content to advance towards that target, instead of each activity being its own pool.

So you are choosing to remove the encouragement to go to new areas and do new things. You will ruin the game and people will just grind the one spot for best returns on their time – removing the gameplay and turning it into a grindfest.

Bad design.

You are correct, I am assuming and guessing at things along with everyone else here. If it has a cumulative effect like hearthstone, then there is nothing wrong with it going that way imo. my only concern was locking the end reward down to the top players of pvp… which makes it exclusive and controllable by the elite players. which imo is a bad idea.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

You are correct, I am assuming and guessing at things along with everyone else here. If it has a cumulative effect like hearthstone, then there is nothing wrong with it going that way imo. my only concern was locking the end reward down to the top players of pvp… which makes it exclusive and controllable by the elite players. which imo is a bad idea.

With non-regressive tiers, its possible for anyone to reach legendary with enough games played, since the moment you pass the tier you never go back.

I suppose it’s just a matter of when that matters.

Gene Archer.8560:

FrizzFreston.5290:

PorceleinEve.2973:

Actually you’re the reason he’s mad about. He wants less people like you in the game. I do too. You’re everything that’s wrong with the community you represent.

I’m glad you show your true colours. This is pure discrimination.

Huh, I missed that post. Dude shouldn’t say what I’m mad about, but I answered the question anyway that he was responding to, so whatever.

Yeah, no worries. I agree with you on the answer either way. It shouldn’t become something at the whims of “hard core players”, but instead well designs and paced content. If it’s not, then the game falls apart. And Tequatl is indeed a nice example that rewards you as well for even trying and hitting the 25% reward as such, but then failed on servers where getting that many people facing in the same direction was logistically too hard, or basically never done before. Especially without any handholders before tequatl on how to take on such a logistic task, it just wasn’t any fun for most people. Technically raids of 15-20 people could fit that position.

But it’s like Orr used to be, or what fractals sometimes is which is the reason to update it to be shorter and easier to repeat, more accessible makes it more likely to learn and succeed.

However, it’s not good for the game to gain everything the way they please, because players that set a goal, then the easiest progression path is the path they take. Even worse, other parts of the game get neglected, because most players will be crazy to take the hard route as opposed to the easy route. Nothing is as disappointing as putting in alot of effort into a piece of content, wherethat effort put in is then basically invalidated when the person next to you just buys the same reward for running in circles. And instead of thinking about what rewards you may or may not get, it’s alot more important what the content is that provides the reward and whether you will have fun doing that content.

Dungeons have unique rewards with a secondary option of aquistion through PvP, mind you these skins were available to PvP in the wardrobe locker through chests through-out the ranks before they wardrobe system was universalized between the full game. So that is why the rewards tracks are there, mind you these tracks are only fully unlocked permanently if you have completed story mode of that dungeon since the change otherwise you have to wait till they are the weekly choice. All these are account bound on aquire

Fractals, you can get skins at as early as lvl25 and you have a higher chance of acquisition with progressing to higher levels. These are account bound on aquire and rather grindy to get, but kept fractals alive for a good amount of time and also made it available to all, mind you this is not the best implementation of hard content since all that happened here is higher health pools and more damage was added to the mobs the higher you got rather then new mechanics to add a new challenge after level 10.

TA:Aether has a unique many gotten through completeing the dungeon and got people to do it multiple times and has very low droping uniquish skins that can be sold on the TP, this didn’t last that long since most people were done doing it after they got their unique many and all you had left were those trying to build groups to get a chance at a skin they wanted or to sell.

Tequatl and Triple Toruble, with their unique items require a massive zerg and good cordination or experienced players.

Karma venders also have unique skins and recipes, but this currency is more open world and available through most things you do compared to the next two.

Dry Top has a unique curreny with items tied to venders that the list grows as the level goes up, problem is now you have to find a specialty group to get the zone to higher levels, bad implementation of open world aquistion system, but it was a trial and proved an error.

Thus we have Silverwastes, the farm that you all love that I think should award you everything in the game. Yet it has it’s own set of unqiue rewards associated with it in the forms of the luminescent gear that also ties in to the second half of the Living Story 2 leading up to HoT.

WvW seasons, come and gone but as the one the only way to get mistforge hero weapons to this point.

Achievements all of which I have seen are account bound and require you to have a goal and some requiring you to do specific content. like Living Season 1 and the barrage of skins through out it that are generally no longer obtainable. (Some may have been obtained other ways, I did miss a few parts of it.)

Gemstore, which is also associated to Silverwastes and other gold farms.

So those are the current major places with unique acquisition methods of items, as you see it is already there and has been there since the start of the game, so why did it take so long for it to become this massive issue? Oh wait because minus fractals you can get every skin in the game from farming gold, be it PvP daily servers or Silverwastes, and this has made you feel entitled to be able to get everything.

Here is the thing, they have already proven to shy away from a universal currency and to specific ones. For example the new area seems to have an Airship Parts currency should point that they don’t seem to think it was for the worst but for the better. And Fractals system gave fractals a long enough time-span that it is now seeing a second rehash of the system.

This is why you need the content to be rewarding, so it will last and not be useless waste of time to produce. And don’t tell me you think Fractals would still be here if it didn’t have rewards, because apart from the skins it was lacking, and as harder content it also has not seen a PvP line. So I wouldn’t expect that with the new content either.

I want to see the content last and be able to enjoy learning it as well as getting everything I can from it before it dies out. And if there is no rewards everything will be down to a list of achievements they stick with it, and if TW:Aether is any proving grounds, that can take a grand total of 2-5 runs and everyone will be done. This does not only effect the players that enjoy this content but also the players that want to try out this content down the road becuase it will be harder for them to make groups when you generally may have a friend from a guild to join you but mostly you are going to be going with a bunch of people new to it and making it harder and close to like those of us that like the learning curve of trial and error to get things down.

I am not blind that some do it for the prestige, but I also am not blind that rewards are a bigger motivation to keep doing the content and if there is an easy way that is profitable and nearly as quick it will be done and the content will die out as well and we are back to the same problem with those who want the achievements linked to it. So you have to find a way to balance it and that tends to gravitate towards unique rewards for said content to make it last longer with last chance of being prone to failure. The only other way to do so would be to make the easier aquistion take much longer in order to make it not as appealing as actually trying to do the other method. So a 10% to 100% rate would in the end have to be the bare minimum we see to make it remotely feel more worthwhile for players as otherwise we end up with the same game where the path of the least resistance is the route to the most rewards and that just takes the fun away from the game for many and in the end will kill it.

Guild Wars 1 had unique drops tied to certain bosses or content and while yes they were sellable, they generally were not in the category of worth to farm gold over worth to farm item, and that was great as getting it be it to sell or for yourself felt like a reward rather then a grind and enabled the ability for much more content to see the light of day for a longer amount of time. This by general nature is considered good basic game design, it is not about limiting players from content it is about giving players access to the greatest amount of content and giving them a choice in what they want to play, with choice comes different rewards. This is how GW2 system has always been designed and what your asking for is a complete redesign of the reward system to equally reward everyone with everything, which at this point would require a full re-design of tons of past content as well as close future content and while what you asked for could work with proper balancing of currency it would require them to re-do account bound crap and figure out how to factor it in to the exchange.

So yes I am for unique rewards for GW2 harder content for as the system is now it gives the most longevity to the content when it has unique rewards and I see nothing wrong with that. I also understand that some players are afraid to even try and do “difficult” content be it dungeons, WvW, PvP, or harder world bosses, and that is by their choice in the current system saying they don’t see that as a viable goal to get said skins. As you know there is no vertical progression in this game only horizontal, having unique skins tied behind a minimal vertical wall of learning more about the game is not a bad thing. While yes it can pull people out of their comfort zone, but unless you try something at times you will never know if you like or dislike doing it, heck I know a few people that actually liked dungeons after I introduced them to doing some and helped them out after having the nope they are to hard idea till then. That is why I will always recommend finding a good guild for making friends and a mega guild for missions.

It’s perfectly fine to have different things attainable through different means. There isn’t any problem with having something that tells you that this player has done a lot of dungeons or has max crafting level or has played a lot of PvP. Knowing what people have done just by looking at them is a great way of adding flavour to the game environment. If there’s a particular helmet at the end of a jumping puzzle then people who have it can bond over how nerve-wracking the timing on the last section was. If there’s a staff available only through achieving high rank in WvW then people who have it can know they have someone to exchange tips with or reminisce about past bouts.

Someone brought up Dark Souls earlier and that’s kinda funny to me because while that game challenges the player the whole point of doing so is how good it feels once you figure the trick out. The game isn’t even always that hard, it just demands that you keep your eyes open and your head screwed on properly. Even the game mechanics are more tactical than raw twitch. If GW2 had more Dark Souls in it that would be great.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

You are correct, I am assuming and guessing at things along with everyone else here. If it has a cumulative effect like hearthstone, then there is nothing wrong with it going that way imo. my only concern was locking the end reward down to the top players of pvp… which makes it exclusive and controllable by the elite players. which imo is a bad idea.

since you brought up hearthstone and now whining about legendary backpeice locked into legendary tier…. its the same as the legendary card back tied into legendary ranks in hearthstone dude

EVERYONE can achieve legendary.

You all you need to do is pilot a deck with a minimum 51% win rate.
There’s a lot of decks out there that can do that

The thing is, it takes a LOT of games to hit legend(unless you have a high win rate)
I’ve hit legend 3 times out of the god knows how many seasons there have been in hearthstone and I never dropped a cent on that card packs.

Its a matter of dedication.

If you are dedicated and hold a minimum of 51% win rate, you can get the PvP backpeice…

I guarantee you more than 10-100 ppl will have the backpiece…. this isn’t some kind of you have to be ranked top 10 in the Legend league to achieve the reward.
Its just achieve legend rank. thats it. Just like hearthstone. You don’t need a top legend rank for the card back. Just need to hit the legend ranks. Which thousands and thousands of players do…

So you are choosing to remove the encouragement to go to new areas and do new things.

No, I’m not at all. I’m just respecting people’s choices to know what things they do and do not enjoy.

As I’ve discussed, I think it’s fine for developers to implement rewards to players for trying new content, but these should be short term goals, achievable in only a few hours of work in that area. Any long term goals, those that take weeks or months of effort, should respect the player’s time, and allow them to choose where they want to spend it.

So basically, if you want to get players to try WvW, sure, have a reward that can only be earned through WvW, but it should be something where if they play WvW for a few hours they can earn it, and then make up their own mind about whether they want to continue in WvW. If they do, then yay! If they don’t, they can go do something else and not miss out on a cool item they want.

You will ruin the game and people will just grind the one spot for best returns on their time – removing the gameplay and turning it into a grindfest.

If they do that then they either really enjoy that content, in which case, let them, or the rewards have been poorly balanced and one area gives out more than it should. They would need to fix that.

However, it’s not good for the game to gain everything the way they please, because players that set a goal, then the easiest progression path is the path they take.

That only happens when either A: none of the options are actually fun, or B: one of the options is significantly more rewarding than others. Either would be a sign of bad design. Assuming that the player actually enjoys one or more of the activities, and that they are designed to be even close to equal in reward over time, players will choose the activities they enjoy most, even if they are slightly less efficient.

So those are the current major places with unique acquisition methods of items, as you see it is already there and has been there since the start of the game, so why did it take so long for it to become this massive issue?

It’s not that it’s “become” a massive issue, it’s been a problem the entire game, I just wanted to bring it up against because the first major expansion is coming out, they are designing a lot of new content, which proposes to be high in difficulty, and I wanted them to keep this position in mind.

This is why you need the content to be rewarding, so it will last and not be useless waste of time to produce. And don’t tell me you think Fractals would still be here if it didn’t have rewards, because apart from the skins it was lacking, and as harder content it also has not seen a PvP line. So I wouldn’t expect that with the new content either.

Any content that would not be played if it does not have unique rewards, should not exist. Period. It would be a complete waste of time to design and implement content that players clearly do not actually want to do.

If content is worth existing, then people would do it, just so long as the quantity of reward they get is not significantly less than from other content.

Gene Archer.8560:

Huh, I missed that post. Dude shouldn’t say what I’m mad about, but I answered the question anyway that he was responding to, so whatever.

It was more of a figure of speach, glad you didn’t get upset by that still, apologies.

I’m not really a mean person, but it’s players like Ohoni that gives GW2 a bad reputation. Granted, it’s Arena Net’s fault for listening to and catering to the “casual” market these past few years, but those like OP reinforces that decision which resulted in the stagnation of the game.

I’m just glad Arena Net realizes what a large portion of the player base wants and, what their games reputation’s like outside of GW2 circles. The upscale in difficulty’s a great move and, hopefully the trend of locking rewards behind actual content ( not zerg farming ) continues post-HoT.

Gene Archer.8560:

SkiTz.4590:

for the thousandth time, there’s already easy content thats stupidly well rewarded , now they are adding hard content to be well rewarded. They are adding diversity to the game. Whats your problem with that?

My problem with it is that I’ve seen this song and dance already in games like WoW. It is never enough for the “hardcore” crowd. They won’t be satisfied until they are the only ones with all the shinies and rewards. They won’t be satisfied until they are the only ones making progress. They don’t want anyone else to make progress, they ACTIVELY don’t want anyone ever getting near their progress.

I don’t want this game to turn into WoW. I don’t want ANet to even come close to feeding that elitist raid or die mentality. There is no going back from it once you start.

SkiTz.4590:

You mad because you can’t spam auto attack and acquire the unique loot anymore?

The only time I’ve ever spammed auto attack and nothing else was against the random wolf and moa mobs in Queensdale, because apparently unlike you and all the other people seeking challenging content, I actually understand that utilizing all of my skills against every enemy, whether Vet, Elite, World Boss, or Dungeon Boss, causes more damage and as such ends the fight faster and more likely in my favor.

Alternatively, I must have a defective copy of the game, because my auto attacks don’t crit for 10k. I’ll be sure to file a ticket with support, since apparently there’s a problem.

SkiTz.4590:

You actually have to use the dodge button and that’s too hard for you now?

I’ve always had to use the dodge button because stacking armor in this game is worthless since everything is designed to hit like a truck or status effect you to death.

I wish I had your version of the game, because then maybe I’d have a couple seconds to think through my plan rather than to miss a single dodge and lose half my health.

SkiTz.4590:

The only ppl that see anet wasted their time are ppl like you who are too casual to see beyond your own selfish views.

Yes, I’m the selfish one for daring to want everyone to be able to obtain everything in the game in the fashion they please. How dare I. There’s nothing selfish at all about wanting rewards to be exclusive to the few. Nothing selfish about that at all, nope. Clearly you are the selfless one. The unwashed masses should wish they were as dong endowed as you!

SkiTz.4590:

You want everything to be obtained from just running circles in silverwastes because its super easy and relaxing right?

Sure, or from doing jumping puzzles, or from doing x, or from doing y, or from doing whatever a person finds fun.

SkiTz.4590:

You really wish you could obtain the PvP legendary backpeice by farming some nodes and opening 500 chests in a PvE map dont you?

I mean, if you want to throw that crap around, then sure. I’ll just agree with it so you can feel superior or whatever. I’m not sure what your point is going to be, but you’re going to try and point at it to say I’m wrong somehow.

SkiTz.4590:

the heck with unique progression, who needs it right,

I certainly don’t. But I also don’t need to have things that others don’t to feel good about myself.

SkiTz.4590:

thats not what MMORPGs are about right!?

Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize GW2 was just another dime a dozen WoW clone. Silly me, I was under the impression that this game was trying to break the mold and be something different for a change.

If you just want another WoW, might I recommend you go play WoW? There’s a free to play option through time tokens these days. Or how about Wildstar? Their hardcore stuff was so successful that they’re going free to play, soon.

phys.7689:

this idea that people do challenging content for fun is bull.

Fixed that for you.

phys.7689:

if this is the case why are 90% of the maps empty when nothing profitable is going on?

If challenging content is so fun, why was Orr empty for so long until it got several nerfs? If challenging content is so fun, why don’t more people take part in triple trouble?

phys.7689:

regardless of enjoying easy or hard, people are playing the game chasing progress.

I don’t disagree. But you’re ignoring a huge difference between the two mindsets when it comes to progress.

One is asking for progress. The other is asking for progress exclusive to them.

phys.7689:

point is people want challenging content, and they want it to be worthwhile. this is not mutually exclusive.

If the only reason you’re doing challenging content is for the shinies, then yes, it is in fact mutually exclusive. If you actually liked and had fun with challenging content you would freaking do it because it’s fun.

But you don’t. And “worthwhile” rewards? Please. You don’t want worthwhile rewards. You want completely exclusive rewards, and yes there is a difference.

So again, if you won’t do challenging content without exclusive rewards, then you don’t want challenging content. You want exclusive rewards and you happen to know that challenging content is the best method of making sure you remain exclusive.

phys.7689:

If you enjoy cooking, does that mean you want to repeatedly cook for 30 people for no benefit?

My folks did it all the time. It was called having a party.

I feel bad for you if you’ve never been to a party. Your life must be sad.

you have a lot of disengunous answers that seem like you are just trying to argue, without considering realities.
1) you have a party sometimes, when you want to, for the benefit of those you have chosen, you arent expected to throw parties for people on a regular basis, thats why i said repeatedly.
2) the reason i am a proponent of unique rewards doesnt have to just with difficulty but the realities of economics. The type of economy that would justify the prices properly based on difficulty or skill are hard to maintain, and not very rewarding to most players, which is why i wouldnt use them.
3) The whole fun aspect is two teir, because lets be honest, a big part of fun in an MMO is progress. so while challenging content is fun, not progressing in a progression game is unfun. So naturally most people wont do the fun things that hamper progress.

just like in regular sports people may not use fun tactics that are likely to lose them the game. while throwing a hail mary pass in football may be fun, losing is not fun.

While bunting may be more boring than swinging for the bleachers, winning is also fun

the fact that you act like you dont know that rewards drives gameplay, i find to be hard to believe.

PorceleinEve.2973:

phys.7689:

no, just because you want challenge doesnt mean you want to be ineffecicient.

lets be honest, no one like working hard and getting a crappy reward. Even if they enjoyed the work.
I enjoy painting, but if someone tells me he will give me 5 dollars per painting, i wont do it.
casual players are also annoyed by this. I remember the first time i beat arah in a pug long ago, and the newish guy, was like thats it? (back then you got very little silver, and most chests were garbage)

acting like anyone likes working hard for less reward than doing something easy is disengenous.

it would be different if there were no rewards in the game at all, but as i said once you add rewards it will come into play.

Since we’re on the jobs analogy. Nobody works for a different kind of money that you get by doing a specific job. Yes? Everyone gets the same currency in different amounts. So going by that, you shouldn’t be asking for unique and exclusive rewards, but for more than what others with easier “jobs” get.

You enjoy painting, but you still expect to be paid in dollars right? and you clearly want more dollars for your work, not a new currency. So why is it that in challenging content you want exclusivity? You should get what everyone else is getting, just more. How much more is open for debate. But nobody gets “special dollars” for working.

And again nobody here is asking for getting less or the same for working hard. In fact most say that you should get more, just not exclusives. People who do hard content should be rewarded by more of what it is people who don’t get. But the same stuff, not different. Just more.

But then again it’s not about that is it? It’s about the bragging rights and the feelings of superiority. You just want to stand out from the plebs. All there is to it. The rest as i said before is just rationalizations. And since someone is going to ask what’s wrong with that. The answer is, that’s not a community I want to be part of. The only thing that remains, is what kind of community anet wants for the game. It hasn’t been such a community untill now, I, personally, want it to stay that way.

The problem with non exclusives, is they have to balance themselves against economics. Which in an MMO = grind. The moment something can be sold on the market, the items design people have to consider how many can be created, how to keep it at the set monetary value they have in mind, how to adjust its rarity, how it will effect the economy.

now, once they correctly find this balance, it means grind. like precursors, which are 1/700 combines of 3 or more items. Or drop rates so low, most people who have played for 3000 hours have not seen a drop.

the main reason i say they should be exclusive is to eliminate grind, and make objective based, instead of repetition based gameplay.

They simply wont design an item that is supposed to have value, without grind, if it has to interact directly with the economy. Once it interacts with the economy, its value is determined by grind. Thats reality.

there are other non economy based ways they could solve this, but they would require extensive systems added to the game, and even those would need various balances. They arent going to do all that, so exclusives is the only way they can reward gameplay appropriately without opening a huge can of grind.

keep in mind this shouldnt just be for challenging content, but for many content types.

People keep saying it’s to show off or brag and yet I have the distinct feeling that if there was no other reward but a good deal of gold people would still happily do the content….again reward proportional to the effort.

To be fair, in some other mmos you are thankful for reasonable people like SkiTz instead of the moron parade that can be witnessed there.

And speaking of content that gets harder, not softer:
Everyone who was around when Marionette was an issue will quickly see the ties this event has to Vinewrath. 5 lanes of hard monsters (rather full lanes wiped sometimes) an a high number of objectives to achieve. There were hardcore gamers wading through salt seas for weeks then, people camped at the spots they thought would be most vulnerable and blocked by terrible or new players in an attempt to beat the event, accusations, frustration etc etc. Simply a glorious event even when it failed. Thank you, Mr. Designer, I still use salt from that event in the kitchen from then to salute you every day.

Then what happened?
The mechanic resurfaced with Vinewraith, but only had three lanes and the champions and lanes are reasonably easy. So even when it is a big step up from the vanilla opponents of other maps, it is still a downgrade from a harder content, and VW is not even on the level of Tequatl, sitting somewhere between the Karka Queen and Tequatl. Does not exactly speak for the idea that more really hardcore stuff is what Anet is looking for.

I miss Marionette so much. I wish they’d bring it back. It was a lot of fun.

Making facts out of thin air.
Typical.
Luckily anet does not agree with your “fact”. Hence the exclusive rewards coming to fractals/pvp. Enjoy.

No, it’s not “making up facts out of thin air,” it’s just “accepting facts that exist, and always have existed, regardless of people not wanting to believe them.”

No, it’s your opinion.

That’s not how opinions work, although you do share that misconception with a lot of people.

I’m not really a mean person, but it’s players like Ohoni that gives GW2 a bad reputation.

GW2 has a great reputation, probably the best out there. It only has a “bad reputation” among elitist raidista types, and the game is better off for not having them around, because they tend to poison the community for everyone else. Anyone who has the impression that Guild Wars 2 is not for them, is probably right and we’re all better off that they understand this, including ANet.

The problem with non exclusives, is they have to balance themselves against economics. Which in an MMO = grind. The moment something can be sold on the market, the items design people have to consider how many can be created, how to keep it at the set monetary value they have in mind, how to adjust its rarity, how it will effect the economy.

That’s why most alternative methods for acquiring these items should result in account-bound versions. They are for you, because you want them, not so that you can turn a profit. I do not trust the GW2 gold economy enough to open the faucets on new loot that can be sold. At most, you could maybe convert items you don’t want into something else useful to you, but not gold.

there are other non economy based ways they could solve this, but they would require extensive systems added to the game, and even those would need various balances. They arent going to do all that, so exclusives is the only way they can reward gameplay appropriately without opening a huge can of grind.

That is an immensely shortsighted and pessimistic way to look at it. They already have all the tools that they need for this, in the form of PvP reward tracks, map achievement tracks (ala Silverwaste), dungeon tokens, and map currencies. All they need to do is broaden how these mechanisms are used, and unify them.

Ohoni.6057:

What Fractal weapons?:

• Do Fractals, get them as drops. good
• Do Fractals, collect relics that can be turned in for them good
• Do PvP in the Fractal Reward Track, get a chance of a Fractal Weapon in the final box. that’s just grind so no
• Do PvP in the Fractal Reward Track, collect relics that can be turned in for them that’s just grind so no
• Do PvE in the Fractal Reward Track(see below), get a chance of a Fractal Weapon in the final box. then remove option 2 two similar ways of getting one reward aren’t needed
• Do PvE in the Fractal Reward Track, collect relics that can be turned in for them sure, see above
• Do other content that rewards tokens, such as dungeons or Silverwaste badges, convert those tokens into Fractal Relics at a steep conversion rate. absolutely not

All I see from your “alternative” ways is a request to make everything available through effortless grind. i don’t have a problem with alternate ways of getting rewards, but PVP tracks that can be farmed on PVP arenas and random badges are just a way to get the rewards for “free”.

All I see from your posts is that you want to get everything by not doing anything, you can’t expect everything to be handed to you.

phys.7689:

you have a lot of disengunous answers that seem like you are just trying to argue, without considering realities.

Like the reality that people doing hard content for fun is bull?

Sorry, you don’t get to make a stupid comment like “nobody does easy content for fun” and then turn around and say I’m disingenuous. Stuff it up your nose.

1) you have a party sometimes, when you want to, for the benefit of those you have chosen, you arent expected to throw parties for people on a regular basis, thats why i said repeatedly.

But why do you throw that party? Because it’s fun? Or because you expect to get presents that none of your party-goers have?

Again, my problem with the challenging argument is that people are saying they want challenging content but then turning around and saying they wouldn’t do it unless it gives them rewards that only they are allowed to have.

How much can they care about the challenging content if the only reason they want it is to flaunt their kitten around? How can content like that be worth developing? The only way the challenging content community is going to have it’s itch scratched is with content that only a small portion of the playerbase will be able to complete. It has to be a minority that can complete the content otherwise it’s not challenging. That is a waste of resources.

If that’s the kind of game you want, then I’m sorry, but you are literally playing the wrong game. ANet sold this game on being able to do the content you like to get the rewards you want, with things like Legendaries for the more hardcore grind side.

Stop trying to turn this game into something it was never meant to be.

phys.7689:

2) the reason i am a proponent of unique rewards doesnt have to just with difficulty but the realities of economics. The type of economy that would justify the prices properly based on difficulty or skill are hard to maintain, and not very rewarding to most players, which is why i wouldnt use them.

This point makes no sense. What you’re saying seems to be that exclusive rewards tied to difficult content are in fact not sustainable.

So then how is it a good idea to tie exclusive rewards to difficult content? It makes no sense!

I get the feeling that’s not what you’re trying to say, so please clarify.

phys.7689:

3) The whole fun aspect is two teir, because lets be honest, a big part of fun in an MMO is progress. so while challenging content is fun,

How many times do I have to say that challenging content is not automatically fun?

You can’t just say “challenging content is fun” because that isn’t some kitten immutable fact.

phys.7689:

not progressing in a progression game is unfun. So naturally most people wont do the fun things that hamper progress.

So then ANet should make sure that all content allows progress so that all content is fun.

But that doesn’t neccesitate the existence of exclusive gear.

phys.7689:

just like in regular sports people may not use fun tactics that are likely to lose them the game. while throwing a hail mary pass in football may be fun, losing is not fun.

This isn’t a sport. Unless you’re in PvP or WvW, you aren’t competing with anyone. The PVE of this game is cooperative. You can’t even fight over nodes for kitten sake.

phys.7689:

the fact that you act like you dont know that rewards drives gameplay, i find to be hard to believe.

Okay, so how does any of this neccesitate the existence of exclusive rewards? If content A is challenging a drops a shiny, and content B is easier, but contains a grind or time factor, and drops the same shiny, and you like content A, THEN YOU SHOULD DO CONTENT A.

If you take the “path of least resistance” while claiming that you like challenging content, then you have nobody to blame but yourself.

phys.7689:

They arent going to do all that, so exclusives is the only way they can reward gameplay appropriately without opening a huge can of grind.

You are literally arguing for ANet to take another easy way out, like how grind is an easy way out.

You should want them to put the work and the systems in. You should want them to make this game the best it can be. Your idea of exclusive rewards is just as short sighted a fix as you think my ideas are.

PorceleinEve.2973:

phys.7689:

you really dont understand people who want challenge, i think you are confusing it with people who want fame/respect.

If the people who want challenge want it to go along with unique and exclusive rewards, he’s not confusing anything, it’s the same group.

The rest is just convenient rationalizations used to wrap up the need for fame under a more “noble” cause, that of challenge.

PorceleinEve.2973:

SkiTz.4590:

Than nobody is going to play the new challenging content if it doesn’t have “unique progression/reward system”.
Ppl won’t quit the game, but at the same time,
I highly doubt anet wants to see their new challenging content that they worked kitten as dead content…

I can already taste the frustration from some of the ppl here that already assume they won’t be able get the unique rewards from the new challenging content. It’s delicious.
Some of you people are just going to be extremely salty when it gets revealed next saturday that unique rewards/progression will be tied into the challenging content.

It’s not about the loot, but the joy of the challenge, unless it’s got no loot, in which case challenge means nothing. But it definitely isn’t about the loot, no sir. Only about the challenge, as long as the loot is there of course.

Gene Archer.8560:

SkiTz.4590:

Than nobody is going to play the new challenging content if it doesn’t have “unique progression/reward system”.

Then those people shouldn’t have wasted ANet’s time asking for challenging content since they clearly don’t actually care about challenging content.

They should have just been honest and said “I want to be a special snowflake, give me exclusive rewards. Stroke my ego.”

How is it hard to get that it isn’t that black and white, its not about either great loot, or either great challenge. This has been stated over and over in this thread yet seems to fall on deaf ears.

People want challenging content, and they want to feel appropiatly rewarded for it. Why is that so wrong? And no it’s not about being that “special snowflake” or to “stroke ones ego”. It’s about feeling you accomplished something. You managed to defeat this hard boss, congratulations ahve this as a reward. For all i care, no one else but me is able to see the reward i got, make the unique skin/wep/Whatever invisible to all players. But when i defeat something challenging, it’s fun and exciting. And people should be appropiately rewarded for doing so.

No need to portray everything as purely black and white when there are plenty of greytones that you choose to completely ignore.

then remove option 2 two similar ways of getting one reward aren’t needed

Multiple methods don’t hurt anything. A player might choose to actually run fractals and collect relics, while at the same time having his PvE reward track set to “Glorious” or “Twilight Arbor” or “Silverwastes Region.” Running Fractals while using the Fractals reward track would, of course, greatly increase your progression speed and chances if you wanted to focus on just one thing.

All I see from your “alternative” ways is a request to make everything available through effortless grind. i don’t have a problem with alternate ways of getting rewards, but PVP tracks that can be farmed on PVP arenas and random badges are just a way to get the rewards for “free”.

ANet has already decided that PvP reward tracks are fine. PvE reward tracks would be no different. Now they can control how you can increment the PvE reward tracks, so that the most “effortless” methods are off the table, but I do think it’s a sound idea in principle. And if that style of play does not appeal to you, you will have other options, which is unarguably an improvement on the current methods, in which if you don’t like the method assigned to a particular reward, you typically have zero alternatives.

All I see from your posts is that you want to get everything by not doing anything, you can’t expect everything to be handed to you.

You clearly aren’t paying attention, all the methods I listed would require the player actually going out into the world and doing something that is considered by ANet to be a valid gameplay activity. If you mean that the player would be doing tasks, and then after some amount of effort he would be “handed a reward” for having worked at those tasks long enough, then yeah, but that’s how EVERY reward in EVERY game works. All rewards are generated out of nothing and “handed to” players after they’ve reached some pre-set milestone.

All I’m changing is that instead of reward A being tied only to activity A, there would be methods of acquiring any reward from any activity, some more efficiently than others, but all methods of progression, giving players choice as to which activities they prefer.

People want challenging content, and they want to feel appropiatly rewarded for it. Why is that so wrong? And no it’s not about being that “special snowflake” or to “stroke ones ego”.

There’s nothing wrong with that. If enough people want challenging content to justify the expense, then ANet should provide it. And people who play that challenging content should be appropriately rewarded for it. They should receive a quantity of loot that is appropriate to the time they put in achieving that task.

Those rewards should not come at the expense of other players though. If someone says “I want to do hardcore content, and I want to be able to earn the cool gear that I want that way,” then great, I’m right there with him on that. If he instead says “I want hardcore content, and I want to be able to earn the cool gear that I want that way, and I want them to keep that cool gear out of the hands of anyone who doesn’t run that content,” then no, he’s lost me there. Now he’s moving into elitist kitten territory, the “I deserve better because I am better” attitude that breed toxicity in other games, and has been kept relatively minimal by GW2’s current design.

It’s about feeling you accomplished something. You managed to defeat this hard boss, congratulations ahve this as a reward.

That’s what an achievement is for. A skin has intrinsic value, it is not a trophy to stroke one’s ego or make one feel like a special snowflake. The feeling of accomplishment comes from having passed the difficult content, not from being handed a skin after doing so.

But when i defeat something challenging, it’s fun and exciting. And people should be appropiately rewarded for doing so.

Totally agreed, the only difference of opinion is that “appropriately rewarded” doesn’t mean “uniquely rewarded.”

Ohoni.6057:

ANet has already decided that PvP reward tracks are fine. PvE reward tracks would be no different. Now they can control how you can increment the PvE reward tracks, so that the most “effortless” methods are off the table, but I do think it’s a sound idea in principle. And if that style of play does not appeal to you, you will have other options, which is unarguably an improvement on the current methods, in which if you don’t like the method assigned to a particular reward, you typically have zero alternatives.

Alternative ways are fine but within the same type of content.

All I see from your posts is that you want to get everything by not doing anything, you can’t expect everything to be handed to you.

You clearly aren’t paying attention, all the methods I listed would require the player actually going out into the world and doing something that is considered by ANet to be a valid gameplay activity.

And this is the problem. Not all activities are the same and not all activities should reward all items.

All I’m changing is that instead of reward A being tied only to activity A, there would be methods of acquiring any reward from any activity, some more efficiently than others, but all methods of progression, giving players choice as to which activities they prefer.

And this is the problem. Giving ultimate choice to players to get anything in any way they want isn’t a solution. Adding ways to acquire rewards WITHIN the same activity is the solution.

All you want is for everything to be handed with the least effort possible, that’s the MAIN problem with the game NOW, there is no reason to continue with this as the game goes forward.

And one more thing, what’s the point in adding all those reward tracks in the first place. If you want everything acquired with anything we already have the universal currency of gold (and karma), if any activity gives progress for all rewards, rewarding gold or karma is the same thing as tokens or reward tracks.

And the heavy emphasis on gold (and the grind for it) is the major problem with rewards here. This is a problem that needs a solution, your solution isn’t solving the problem just makes it a bit different.

dsslive.8473:

People want challenging content, and they want to feel appropiatly rewarded for it. Why is that so wrong?

Let me ask you a question, then.

Why do you suddenly feel less rewarded if the item you get can be obtained by someone else doing different content? Why does how they obtain the reward matter? Why does the item you’re going after have to be exclusive for you to feel good about it?

(These questions assume you feel this way, as I’m not entirely sure how you actually feel about it. So feel free to alternatively treat these questions as me asking if you feel this way)

dsslive.8473:

And no it’s not about being that “special snowflake” or to “stroke ones ego”.

It is if you also want that reward to be exclusive.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I don’t care if they throw in the hard content as long as they don’t go down the route of exclusive rewards. I would rather everyone be able to get the things they want doing the content they love most. That goes for the new content they are making, as well as retroactively.

Ohoni.6057:

People want challenging content, and they want to feel appropiatly rewarded for it. Why is that so wrong? And no it’s not about being that “special snowflake” or to “stroke ones ego”.

There’s nothing wrong with that. If enough people want challenging content to justify the expense, then ANet should provide it. And people who play that challenging content should be appropriately rewarded for it. They should receive a quantity of loot that is appropriate to the time they put in achieving that task.

Those rewards should not come at the expense of other players though. If someone says “I want to do hardcore content, and I want to be able to earn the cool gear that I want that way,” then great, I’m right there with him on that. If he instead says “I want hardcore content, and I want to be able to earn the cool gear that I want that way, and I want them to keep that cool gear out of the hands of anyone who doesn’t run that content,” then no, he’s lost me there. Now he’s moving into elitist kitten territory, the “I deserve better because I am better” attitude that breed toxicity in other games, and has been kept relatively minimal by GW2’s current design.

It’s about feeling you accomplished something. You managed to defeat this hard boss, congratulations ahve this as a reward.

That’s what an achievement is for. A skin has intrinsic value, it is not a trophy to stroke one’s ego or make one feel like a special snowflake. The feeling of accomplishment comes from having passed the difficult content, not from being handed a skin after doing so.

But when i defeat something challenging, it’s fun and exciting. And people should be appropiately rewarded for doing so.

Totally agreed, the only difference of opinion is that “appropriately rewarded” doesn’t mean “uniquely rewarded.”

And i have absolutely no problem with it being the same as fractals where you can earn tokens from the easier parts, but rewards being tied to specific content, there is nothing wrong about. Fractal weapons should be earned by doing fractals, dungeon armor should be earned by beating said dungeons. make the difficulty scale as you go on so people who are average on skill can still get tokens from that content and eventually get the same reward for longer work.

(and yes, i know pvp tracks offer dungeon armor, but pvp and pve are such different experiences, plenty of people only like one or the other. So i’m fine with that, there, another option to get it)

No, that’s something i disagree about, a skin is just as much a trophy as an achievement. Again, as i said before, nothing to do with elitism or wanting to be special snowflake, i don’t see why people can’t get it into their heads that just because people want rewards tied to certain content it must obviously mean they just want to show off their superiority over all others who can’t do that content. Like that’s just ridiculous way of thinking. I don’t think that way of people wearing glorious gear or the balthazar backpack, both only available by playing pvp, i don’t feel like they’re trying to be a “special snowflake” or are “stroking their ego”. It’s just an easy way of dismissing someones opinion when there is nothing else to say. Not to say such people don’t exist, but to take them and make them out to be all of the people who want challenging content with a great reward. Generalizations enver worked out for anyone.

As i said earlier in ths post, i’d be more than happy with a token system and with difficulty that scales with time/lvl/similar to fotm, so that people can still get tokens for the skins they want that’s tied to said content.

Having unique rewards to certain content, is not even remotely a wrong thing. There are so many types of players , openworld/dungeons/fotm/wvw/pvp/etc and anet should make every effort to get people to try out different content, get people to step outside of their comfort zone, whether it be grinding the sw or wvw or fractals. All of the different types should ahve unique rewards tied to them. Wvw has, pvp has, dungeon (with the exception of reward tracks) have and even grinding has. I don’t grind, it bores me to hell. Which means a ton of items are out of my reach because of the sheer amount of gold or materials they need. But i don’t really mind. If i want that skin, i have the chance. It’s not out of reach.

Ohoni.6057:

Nobody has to say it, it’s a fact regardless.

Scientific question, do you have a tumblr account?

dsslive.8473:

Should AC armor be available by grinding SW?

Sure, absolutely.

I know you typed out a lot more, and I did snip it, because this one question sums up that we aren’t going to see eye to eye on this, so I don’t see as much point responding to the rest. I did read it, though, so I do see where you’re coming from.

I simply disagree.

Gene Archer.8560:

dsslive.8473:

Should AC armor be available by grinding SW?

Sure, absolutely.

I know you typed out a lot more, and I did snip it, because this one question sums up that we aren’t going to see eye to eye on this, so I don’t see as much point responding to the rest. I did read it, though, so I do see where you’re coming from.

I simply disagree.

Its marvelous you dont get to make development decisions.
You know who else you wont see eye to eye on? Anet. With your statement, you might as well stop making posts for anet since they clearly arent following your logic.

Exactly what kind of logic do you have where you believe you should be able to get a fractal skin drop from a wurm in queensdale or a teq hoard drop from a centaur in Harathi hinterlands?

Idk why you keep arguing when anet has continued to give out exclusive rewards and has stated they are going to still be giving them out with HoT…

Gene Archer.8560:

dsslive.8473:

Should AC armor be available by grinding SW?

Sure, absolutely.

I know you typed out a lot more, and I did snip it, because this one question sums up that we aren’t going to see eye to eye on this, so I don’t see as much point responding to the rest. I did read it, though, so I do see where you’re coming from.

I simply disagree.

The idea of everything being available through all content is the same as having gold as the currency. What’s the point in creating all these new reward tracks for all types of content if you can just use gold (or karma). There is a reason they are trying to go away of gold as the currency, they aren’t doing it because they don’t like gold, but because they don’t want every reward being available through all kinds of content. Can’t change that.

maddoctor.2738:

The idea of everything being available through all content is the same as having gold as the currency. What’s the point in creating all these new reward tracks for all types of content if you can just use gold (or karma).

The point would be to use those reward tracks if that’s the method you want to use to obtain things?

I don’t get what’s so hard to understand about that.

maddoctor.2738:

There is a reason they are trying to go away of gold as the currency, they aren’t doing it because they don’t like gold, but because they don’t want every reward being available through all kinds of content. Can’t change that.

And you’re so certain that can’t be changed because…why exactly? Do you have a crystal ball? Mind PMing me the next winning lotto numbers?

SkiTz.4590:

Idk why you keep arguing

Because I own the game and as such have access to these forums.

If it bothers you so much, stop replying to me and ignore my posts from here on out.

Gene Archer.8560:

maddoctor.2738:

The idea of everything being available through all content is the same as having gold as the currency. What’s the point in creating all these new reward tracks for all types of content if you can just use gold (or karma).

The point would be to use those reward tracks if that’s the method you want to use to obtain things?

I don’t get what’s so hard to understand about that.

maddoctor.2738:

There is a reason they are trying to go away of gold as the currency, they aren’t doing it because they don’t like gold, but because they don’t want every reward being available through all kinds of content. Can’t change that.

And you’re so certain that can’t be changed because…why exactly? Do you have a crystal ball? Mind PMing me the next winning lotto numbers?

SkiTz.4590:

Idk why you keep arguing

Because I own the game and as such have access to these forums.

If it bothers you so much, stop replying to me and ignore my posts from here on out.

By all means keep posting. I find it comical how badly your arguments are going. You realize anet has not followed your logic one bit and yet you continue to believe you are 100 % correct and anets doing it wrong by adding exclusive content..

Gene Archer.8560:

maddoctor.2738:

The idea of everything being available through all content is the same as having gold as the currency. What’s the point in creating all these new reward tracks for all types of content if you can just use gold (or karma).

The point would be to use those reward tracks if that’s the method you want to use to obtain things?

I don’t get what’s so hard to understand about that.

maddoctor.2738:

There is a reason they are trying to go away of gold as the currency, they aren’t doing it because they don’t like gold, but because they don’t want every reward being available through all kinds of content. Can’t change that.

And you’re so certain that can’t be changed because…why exactly? Do you have a crystal ball? Mind PMing me the next winning lotto numbers?

SkiTz.4590:

Idk why you keep arguing

Because I own the game and as such have access to these forums.

If it bothers you so much, stop replying to me and ignore my posts from here on out.

What’s the difference between having everything available with gold and making reward tracks on each type of content? Both have the same effect (everything available from all content) and what changes is the amount of gold you earn (tokens/reward track in the other case)

If they wanted everything to be available through all types of content they would still make everything available with gold. But they don’t

SkiTz.4590:

. You realize anet has not followed your logic one bit and yet you continue to believe you are correct

Yes, because obviously ANet has never made any mistakes or anything. Nope, every single decision and implementation they’ve done has 100% worked and been 100% right. None of their decisions have ever backfired on them, no siree.

Hard content is my favorite content to complete, but at the same time its my least favorite to do. I need a reward that I want to give me a reason to do it, otherwise I’ll rage quit and do something easier.

For example; back when I played WoW during Wotlk, my guild was working on the heroic mode Lich King fight. We much have wiped 50, maybe a hundred times, I dreaded showing up to raids, but I wanted the gear that you could get from that fight, great stats, looked great, and there was no way I was going to not get it. When we finally killed him, my guild cheered and shouted, we would have hugged each other if we were in the same room. It was one of the greatest moments in all my years of gaming. That is what hard mode content bring for those who will put in the effort to complete it, and I wouldn’t have done it if I could have got the loot any other way.

While I understand that people don’t want to put in the effort, its worth it to the few who do it, but we still need a reason to do it.

maddoctor.2738:

What’s the difference between having everything available with gold and making reward tracks on each type of content?

Well, for one, gold hits a snag because of the marketplace (thus other currencies being recommended), for a second, it depends on how those reward tracks are and what they give and where they give it. (Example: Is there a PVE track that gives a fractal skin outside of fractals, is there a PVP track that gives, say, HoT World Boss Reward #27)

In other words, does the reward track actually allow progress through doing content that the person wants to do. You say both have the same effect, but that depends on how they handle reward tracks overall.

maddoctor.2738:

If they wanted everything to be available through all types of content they would still make everything available with gold. But they don’t

Okay, but how is this something that can’t change? You’re treating it like it’s a forgone conclusion that will always be.

I think what you meant to say was “I want this to be something that can’t be changed”

If nothing should be any kind of challenge to get we might as well simply have the skins available to everyone from the start. It would be much more sensible than putting it behind an arbitrary grind. Playing for rewards instead of playing for the sake of playing wouldn’t be possible.

Guys i’m trough my popcorn, let’s put an end to this nonsense, it’s 3 to 4 people trowing insults at everyone who comes in and disagrees with them at this point. The healthy discussion is lost about 5 to 6 pages back. Just don’t feed the trolls anymore.

Alternative ways are fine but within the same type of content.

Then how is that an alternative? “You can have any color car you want, so long as it’s black?” The idea is to allow people to play the type of content they want, that’s the essential element.

And this is the problem. Not all activities are the same and not all activities should reward all items.

It is precisely BECAUSE not all activities are the same that it’s important to respect people’s choices in what they want to do, and not shoehorn them into just the content that offers the rewards they want. Now, obviously some content is harder or easier, more or less time consuming, I’m not saying that they all need to progress towards a goal at the same rate. You would balance the easier content to take longer to accrue towards the goal, with the intent being that players could honestly look at both options, and view each as being a viable path towards their goal, and make their choice as to which to do based on which they would enjoy doing if neither offered any rewards.

And this is the problem. Giving ultimate choice to players to get anything in any way they want isn’t a solution. Adding ways to acquire rewards WITHIN the same activity is the solution.

How is that the solution? I tell you two facts, 1. I want to get Fractal weapons. 2. I hate running Fractal content. You tell me how you would square those two facts in a way that would leave me a satisfied customer, one in which I would walk away from the process with a Fractal weapon, and I wouldn’t have to do any Fractals to get it (or at least not more than a “trial” amount of them).

Not forcing players into content they do not enjoy is the entire premise of my position.

All you want is for everything to be handed with the least effort possible, that’s the MAIN problem with the game NOW, there is no reason to continue with this as the game goes forward.

No.

Just no.

“The least effort possible” does not even remotely factor into my position. My position is about players being able to choose the FLAVOR of their effort, not in reducing the quantity of effort involved. A player could progress towards his goal via dungeons, or Fractals, or PvP, or world boss trains, or WvW, or “map events,” or any number of ANet-approved means of progressing your character, and have the freedom to choose the one that he most enjoys doing. That is the goal. It is NOT to quantitatively reduce the amount of work involved in the process.

And one more thing, what’s the point in adding all those reward tracks in the first place. If you want everything acquired with anything we already have the universal currency of gold (and karma), if any activity gives progress for all rewards, rewarding gold or karma is the same thing as tokens or reward tracks.

If I were designing the game from scratch, those might be viable methods, but in the live game, both have been made insolvent. Karma is WAY too common to balance out at this point, any system they made to allow you to buy highly desirable rewards using Karma would either be WAY too cheap for current players, to the point that I could go out and buy up every possible skin right now, or it would be way too punishing, to the point that a new player would never be able to afford anything cool.

And the gold economy is just a mess, the distribution of it is way too uneven, way too prone to market abuse, it’s junk currency. Besides which, if you could buy and sell these weapons on the market then people definitely would just aim for the most efficient methods, gain as many as they can, and just resell them.

No, this is why the alternate methods should be account bound, and if you “purchase” them, it should be off of NPCs in a closed economy. They should not be tradable commodities, they should be about acquiring the one item that you personally want, not acquiring the item that is most in demand by the community.

And i have absolutely no problem with it being the same as fractals where you can earn tokens from the easier parts, but rewards being tied to specific content, there is nothing wrong about.

Unless you fundamentally do not enjoy anything about Fractals, even the easy bits. I do not like Fractals. I have done all the Fractal stages, I’m not terrible at them, I could likely get to the higher Fractal tiers if I wanted to, but I don’t. At all. It is just not gameplay that appeals to me in the slightest. The changes they’ve proposed, allowing you to do one at a time, will definitely help, and when that goes in I might at least do the daily Fractal or something, but I really just am completely uninterested in the entire mechanic. I don’t begrudge people that do enjoy Fractals, if you do, that’s great, but I don’t want to be a part of it, and I don’t appreciate when the game says I have to be if I want a certain skin.

It is worth pointing out though that even at Fractal scale 1, there are some people that cannot function well enough to complete it without being entirely carried, they just do not have the jumping skills or reflexes needed for certain aspects of the stages.

(and yes, i know pvp tracks offer dungeon armor, but pvp and pve are such different experiences, plenty of people only like one or the other. So i’m fine with that, there, another option to get it)

You can understand that PvE and PvP are distinct experiences, just broaden that understanding to include that Fractals, Dungeons, and open world content are _also_equally as distinct an experience, and also split player opinion.

No, that’s something i disagree about, a skin is just as much a trophy as an achievement.

It should not be. A trophy is a useless hunk of metal, given value ONLY by the accomplishment attached to it. Nobody ever said “I want a bowling trophy because I think it’ll really highlight the room.” If they want to hand out trophies, they can hand out trophies, but skins should not be used as trophies, because skins have intrinsic worth. People want the skins whether they are attached to an achievement or not.

Again, as i said before, nothing to do with elitism or wanting to be special snowflake, i don’t see why people can’t get it into their heads that just because people want rewards tied to certain content it must obviously mean they just want to show off their superiority over all others who can’t do that content.

No, look, if you want the item, that’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with that. If you want others to NOT have that item, then you are by definition trying to exclude them, trying to be more special than they are. Even in your hypothetical in which nobody else could see your special skin, you would know that you had something they don’t, that you are a special snowflake. Why can’t they have that skin too? I think there’s a relevant story about this somewhere. . . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes

I don’t think that way of people wearing glorious gear or the balthazar backpack, both only available by playing pvp, i don’t feel like they’re trying to be a “special snowflake” or are “stroking their ego”.

Again, it’s not about villainizing people who are playing the game as it stands, it’s about pointing out the villainy of those fighting against making it better. I don’t have any problem with people playing the game now that have Glorious armor on, heck, two of my characters are wearing some right now. I’m just pointing out that it is wrong and exclusionary to fight against letting other people have those armor pieces too. It’s basically like if someone is well off, I don’t begrudge them having a nice house, nice car, eat nice food, etc. But if they then fight to keep the poor people poor, then yeah, at that point we have a problem.

There are so many types of players , openworld/dungeons/fotm/wvw/pvp/etc and anet should make every effort to get people to try out different content, get people to step outside of their comfort zone,

I’ve had to repeat this on just about every page now, but this is a distorted view of how “get people to try new things” should work. A “try new things” reward is fine, IF it is over a very short amount of time and effort, a few hours at most. If you wnt to give players a little prize for “stepping out of their comfort zone,” then that’s great, and serves a valuable function. But once they’ve gotten past that part, many hours into the process, they are already out of their comfort zone, they are fully in this new content, and you should respect their decision as to whether they enjoy it or not. If they don’t enjoy it, you should let them go, because they will be happier for it. Rewards that take weeks or months of effort to achieve, should NOT be about “getting players out of their comfort zone,” they should be about letting players enjoy themselves every step of the way, however they enjoy playing (within reason and deftly avoiding the army of strawmen that such comments often summon).

Scientific question, do you have a tumblr account?

Scientific answer, I, in fact, do not.

Does this mean everyone with the liadri mini is elitist scum? coze that was a unique reward behind challenging content.

I think my answer above covers this question, but I just wanted to make clear that I read the comment.

What’s the difference between having everything available with gold and making reward tracks on each type of content?

Why are they adding Precursor crafting? A little research should answer that question for you, and armed with that knowledge you could answer your own question here.

That is what hard mode content bring for those who will put in the effort to complete it, and I wouldn’t have done it if I could have got the loot any other way.

While I understand that people don’t want to put in the effort, its worth it to the few who do it, but we still need a reason to do it.

That is your choice, to play it or not play it depending on the rewards, but what about people who don’t want to play it even with the reward, but still want that item? Why does your interest in being “encouraged” to do content that frustrates you trump their interest in getting that item without involving that frustration at all? Why are you more important than they are?

Kaamau.5341:

For example; back when I played WoW during Wotlk, my guild was working on the heroic mode Lich King fight. We much have wiped 50, maybe a hundred times, I dreaded showing up to raids, but I wanted the gear that you could get from that fight, great stats, looked great, and there was no way I was going to not get it. When we finally killed him, my guild cheered and shouted, we would have hugged each other if we were in the same room. It was one of the greatest moments in all my years of gaming. That is what hard mode content bring for those who will put in the effort to complete it, and I wouldn’t have done it if I could have got the loot any other way.

So from a neutral, non emotional perspective, you spend weeks at a given project, dreaded to even enter it and felt good and relieved when it was over, to get an item that was of non-permanent value because of improving equipment in Wow.

Sounds exactly like drawing a bilancing account at the end of the year or a big project in some random company for me. When it is over, it starts anew and has mainly buffering, archiving and cosmetic value.

If that is your prefered form of entertainment is up to anyone individually, but surely it is not my type of entertainment.^^

Ohoni.6057:

.

Again, as i said before, nothing to do with elitism or wanting to be special snowflake, i don’t see why people can’t get it into their heads that just because people want rewards tied to certain content it must obviously mean they just want to show off their superiority over all others who can’t do that content.

No, look, if you want the item, that’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with that. If you want others to NOT have that item, then you are by definition trying to exclude them, trying to be more special than they are. Even in your hypothetical in which nobody else could see your special skin, you would know that you had something they don’t, that you are a special snowflake. Why can’t they have that skin too? I think there’s a relevant story about this somewhere. . . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes

I’m more than okay with others having it too, they are all capable of doing the same content, i’ve mentioned the token system several times with easier bosses with less tokens. I’m not excluding anyone, but jsut like i have to do pvp to get the glorious armor they’d ahve to atleast beat the easy bosses to get the tokens for the reward they want.

They can have that skin, there is a compromise right there, keep it tied to specific content but make it so the first few bosses are easier and give small amount of tokens compared to later/higher lvl bosses -, there they can now get their reward too.

There’s clearly no compromising here, it’s either everyone have everything doing whatever you want to do, no matter the difficulty , no matter the type, heck why not give legendaries as jp rewards? right? coze people should get what they want through doing just what they want to do? I’m fine with a token system so people who can’t handle or aren’t able to beat the really hard stuff still have smaller bosses/ easier levels to get there rewards from. But ofc there’s only one way to make things “better” (better being subjective, and without any numbers whatsoever even irrelevant) as long as “better” fits within your own view. (Which we already know is not the view of anet) So there’s really no point continuing this.

But if you want to generalize, villainize people (your comment on ppl arguing agaisnt you being “elitist scum”) a whole range of people just because they don’t agree with you what’s “better” for the game longterm, then this discussion is nothing more than beating a dead horse and this is my stop, have fun with all that.

Gene Archer.8560:

If that’s the kind of game you want, then I’m sorry, but you are literally playing the wrong game. ANet sold this game on being able to do the content you like to get the rewards you want, with things like Legendaries for the more hardcore grind side.

No that is not what they sold this game on, they sold it on an empty promise that WvW was going to be a great thing and it was going to be the next gen eSport PvP. Now they failed on those two aspects in the first year as they gave no love and failed at balancing and adding a legit gamemode like what we currently see coming with Stronghold hopefully and they lost a good chunk of population for that. So they changed who they advertised towards, and honestly I think that hurt them more then it has helped.

Ohoni.6057:

GW2 has a great reputation, probably the best out there. It only has a “bad reputation” among elitist raidista types, and the game is better off for not having them around, because they tend to poison the community for everyone else. Anyone who has the impression that Guild Wars 2 is not for them, is probably right and we’re all better off that they understand this, including ANet.

Note to self: I am a elitist raidista type becuase I enjoy gaming with friends. Good to know for the future, I will make sure to share with them that we are all elitist raidistas because we all enjoy challenging content for different reasons.
And on the topic of reputation, no GW2 is not sitting as one of the best reputations out there, if that was so there would not be a decline in players currently as an expansion is coming but rather an increase. Even though, yes the current decline is more for the reasons of lack of content to complete then the reputation, but that reputation keeps many players from joining, even if it is only because their group of friends is not coming along. Thus is why ANet is being smart and taking a step in this direction and why I can’t understand why it has to be all about you and your group. This is one of the reasons GW2 has a bad name, lack of rewards and progression and if you keep removing more and more and keeping it about the grind you will not grow any bigger it is now.

Ohoni.6057:

bla bla bla I re-wrote what you said to fit my opinion to fit my argument and really just ignored what you said because I just care about my opinion and have no care about any arguement so everyone else is my opinion of elitist if they do not fit in to my model of give me everything on a silver platter while I sit here and twiddle my thumbs following a zerg in silverwastes…

See I can do it too, see how easy it is to change peoples words? Shoot I just re-did a whole long winded post and made it a super long run-on sentence! Man it must feel good to be able to totally ignore peoples argument and shove your opinion up their kitten and in their face!

They made Fractals rewarding with unique skins to it, they tried to make TA:Aether rewarding with sellable skins and failed due to extremely low RNG numbers, So they either have to look at the the Fractals system or figure out how to reward the correct amount of gold according to effort placed in to the dungeon/raid that is to be the harder content.

Not to mention they have yet to say the skill level of the players they are aiming it, it could be the top 50% on this for all we know or the top 33% and I highly doubt they go past the top 33% as that would cause to much of a disparity between the rest of the players and as well make it progressively harder to climb that small vertical wall of getting better at the game through your own skill alone. All we know is they said they are adding challenging content, and it has brought so many in to this hussyfit about rewards, which should give you an idea why rewards tend to draw people to content, you seem to want them before they even have said they are there! So call me elitist all you want, hell I am far from it, I like progression, I am sorry if that means in GW2 more wardrobe unlocked. Be glad their isn’t vertical progression in GW2 where those players that complete harder content are generally the only ones to get the better gear. This is all about wanting to follow X Y or Z champ train or doing Silverwastes to get everything in the game, and at that point you have neglected more then 70% of the game to begin with. What I am asking for is more of the game to be enticing to players so you may end up running in to them as you travel the grand world of Tyria in GW2 instead of following X Y or Z zerg. I already have faced the wall of not being able to complete something and do you know what, I bowed down defeated and moved on. And as of yet only have compelted the Clock Tower JP once and it was by pure accident (was drunk and don’t even remember doing it just know I have the achievement.)

So what I am saying is people shouldn’t be able to achieve everything by the current choice of grind grind grind but by actually exploring the world of GW2, because right now the world is empty and lack-luster, I ran in to more players in GW1 outposts in the last couple years before GW2 then I find in some GW2 maps while clearing them. And that right there is absolute bullcrock.

Ohoni.6057:

ANet has already decided that PvP reward tracks are fine. PvE reward tracks would be no different. Now they can control how you can increment the PvE reward tracks, so that the most “effortless” methods are off the table, but I do think it’s a sound idea in principle. And if that style of play does not appeal to you, you will have other options, which is unarguably an improvement on the current methods, in which if you don’t like the method assigned to a particular reward, you typically have zero alternatives.

As I said and you ignored earlier, you were able to get most everything in PvP that is available now. The only things that have been added are the Balthazar back and Glorious track and the two new zones and the temporary ones during the holidays. Honestly just as much got removed like persay Tribal Armor, but lets not get in to that tid-bit. So while yes they made the tracks, they also made you have to permanently unlock them by doing the dungeon otherwise waiting for them to be the weekly. And that is a lot more required then all the way up to the addition to the rewards track, so it added more steps to aquire the same loot rather then less and did not tell players what was being removed and what would be added when it was to change. The biggest change during the addition to reward tracks in PvP was the unification of the Wardrobe closet between PvE and PvP rather then just being for PvP and a much cleaner UI for the Wardrobe closet. So stop using a fallacious arguement to push your means.

And for a closing arguement that is related to some of the posts here, you find easy stuff fun, that is all fine and dandy, good for you. Others find challenging stuff fun, good fine and dandy for them. Now each is rewarding in a different way, what you guys want is the challenging stuff not to be rewarding because or die out because the rewards is a trophy in your log-in window or an achievement without a title because anything that can be displayed has to be achievable by everyone so what is the point of making content that will be done 1-5 times to get all the achievements and die? And why does your zerg farming have to have the same rewards as someone doing totally different content then you? Give me a logical arguement why everything should be available to everyone just by doing one single thing in the game since if you want everything achievable by everyones choice of fun it can come down to logging in and chatting in LA or RPing in the cities or trying to sneak around the open world while agroing no mobs. Yes all those are forms of things I know people to have done, and by the ideology that everything should be acquirable by everyone you end up there. But now if you add stipulations of actually having to kill something you are then still being just as much of a selfish as you call the hardcore players for wanted to be rewarded for doing their content. So yes your arguement is the same as arguing that every thing should be unlocked by logging on since that is what is fun and engaging to some players in this game.