Guild Wars 2

Torolan.5816:

So why is it free to watch at then today from most of NY as a symbol of hope and greatness? Would this not basically mean that hardcore people aim to be the statue of liberty, with people watching their trinkets, flaring up the show off and elitism debatte again?

Would it not be much more hardcore to hide it behind a wall and let people do a hard army drill course to reach it and see the symbol of freedom, with drill seargants(hardcore enthusiasts) yelling at people falling behind(casuals), or at the old(people with disabilities or just older people), tired(those coming home from work for a little relaxation) and the homeless(people without guild support)?
Nobody would give a rat´s bottom about the statue of liberty if it was hidden behind a hard to beat content wall, all you have to do is pay a little fee for transport to the isle.

Not taking away from the heroism of the people you mentioned, but it is also common sense to overbear the attacker if you could be next on his shooting list. Of course not everybody would have done this, and their grantings of the highest order of courage from the hands of the French President is well deserved. Also one of the guys was a soldier and so probably more used to weapons, the other guys had simply admirable boatloads of courage.

Because with greatness, there comes choice. The choice to sit down and do nothing. The choice to go forth and do great things. America, as the shepherd of freedom, grants the people the choice of Easy Mode or Hard Mode.

The Statue of Liberty is for all to see. For Americans to bask in her glory. For the immigrants who dream of a better life. The beautiful sight of this symbol of freedom, given as a gift from our French allies, brings tears to my eyes. Let her inspire you to greatness from the river banks (Easy Mode). Or hike up the stairs to her crown (Hard Mode).

America, much like Guild Wars 2, gives you the choice to choose your destiny. She embraces all player types. From the Casual gamer who seeks free stuff (3rd B-day gift), to the Hard Core gamers looking for a challenge (Troll’s Revenge), to everyone in between.

Excuse me for a moment. I need to grab some tissues. America’s and Anet’s greatness filled me with so much pride, that my eyes started to water.

And you still don’t get it. A super optional activity is worth running if it’s worth running. I loved running Fractals up to level 50 but after 100 runs without the fractal skin I wanted it stopped being fun.

and that’s the point where you SHOULD stop running it. It stops being fun, you stop playing, that’s a healthy response to a game.

If I could get that fractal skin by farming in the SW I would’ve stopped running fractals after the 10th run and go to SW instead, and farm while watching a movie.

I think people get too hung up on SW farming as an example. Get a little more creative with your strawmen, put a funny hat on it or something. Let’s assume that if they are capable of creating hard mode content that people find satisfactory, that they can cut down on “sleep walk farming” as well. Let’s assume that in order to get on board the “alternate path to rewards” train, you’ll at least have to pay attention to what you’re doing.

Fun can keep content running for so long, after a while if you aren’t also rewarded for it, it simply stops being fun.

It’s funny though, because that’s partly my point, and you’re the one fighting against me on it. You said you ran Fractals many times, and didn’t get the reward you wanted out of it, and, though you didn’t spell this out, you were making zero practical progress towards that goal either, since it was pure RNG. But consider the upcoming version, where you can buy the weapons using relics. In that way, your 100 rounds might not win you the item you wanted as a drop, but you would at least have that many tokens accrued, ready to buy one as a consolation, you would be making meaningful progress.

That’s sort of what I was talking about with “succeeding on the first or second try, and then continuing to do it, improving each time.” Maybe you clear a dungeon the first try, but it takes you an hour or more, but as you keep doing it, and your skills improve, you can shave that time down to forty, thirty, even twenty minutes. This is not only a factor of bragging rights, but also efficiency, since you can then move on to something else when you’re done.

It’s the same with Arah P4, I love that dungeon, especially fighting Lupicus and Simin, but once you realize running the easy modes in the same time frame results in 100x the rewards you start questioning “why am I running this?”

But, and I think I’m going to totally blow your mind with this one. . . what if the easier modes didn’t offer 100x the rewards in the same timeframe?! Shocked?!

What if they actually balanced it out reasonably well, maybe not 1:1 perfect, but at least like 45:50, something that is within a reasonable margin of error, so that you wouldn’t be choosing between something you enjoyed but that was not rewarding, vs. something that you didn’t enjoy but knew was way more rewarding. Nobody wants you to have to make that choice.

Are you still there? Are their brain bits all over the wall behind you? I’ll keep talking anyways.

Why not? Handing everything to everyone isn’t healthy for any type of game.

Again, nobody is talking about handing anything to anyone. It would always involve time and effort. The only discussion on the table is whether that time and effort should be locked to a specific activity, that the player might not enjoy, or whether there should be multiple options available, and players could choose the one that best fit their skill level and gameplay interests. The easier, more casual methods would take longer than the intense, high skill options, but not by so much that it seems pointless to bother with them.

I gave the minesweeper example, not everyone gets the Platinum badge, only those who finish the harder challenge, yet nobody complains.

The platinum badge is just a trophy. It does not have anywhere near the intrinsic value of a GW2 armor or weapon skin. It may be the best that you can get in that game, but if so then that game clearly doesn’t have as much emphasis on character customization as GW2 does, you can’t reasonably compare the two in that way.

As I said, if they want to hand out actual trophies for achievements, something you can keep in your inventory, or Home Instance, maybe something you could display like rank finishers, then that’s fine by me. Same with achievements and titles, they can keep those reasonably exclusive, but armor and weapon skins just should not fit into that “trophy of accomplishment” category, because they have worth outside of denoting an accomplishment.

I don´t want to trample on your patriotism, I really don´t. But maybe this sounds also familiar to you then:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

That´s written on the statue of liberty, which itself was a free gift from France.

Yes, it went on to say (implicitly) ". . .to work in our sweatshops eighty hours a week for minimum wage. " Personally In prefer the original version though.

I am not specifically talking about ‘hardcore content’. Just the currency grind for items instead of more interesting reward system where content directly rewards you.

As I’ve said time and again, I think both should be an option, the direct rewards for those whom are capable of earning them and enjoy the sort of content attached, and more token collection systems for people who either aren’t capable of taking the direct route, or just aren’t interested in that type of content. More options, not fewer, literally everything you want and more, not less.

That was my point.. They did see people leave and did try to fix that with the NPE.. but imho the main reason for people to leave had nothing to do with skills and hearths being too complicated

But your reason is entirely contradicted by the data at hand. If your theory were correct, players would be leaving the game at an entirely different point than they were, according to what ANet has said on the issue. If players were leaving during the endgame phase, after grind had gotten to them, then ANet would not have been focused on the early game systems, they would have been focused on reorganizing the endgame content.

Again, a theory needs a basis in reality, and your claim does not live up to that. It is not a valid theory, it is just a “I wish that this was the case, because it would justify the changes that I would like to see made.”

Have a read, Colin explaining why they added the NPE, talking about the new system:

Yes, and you read it again too,

We keep very real time metrics of player retention for new users, and we’ll know very quickly how effective the work we’ve done is. I want to make it clear: what we used to have absolutely wasn’t good enough for our standards of retaining new users. Before we do some of the other things we want to do with Gw2, we had to fix this, period.

They were having issues retaining new users, not retaining long term players who might be prone to burnout. If you are a new player and are already burning out on endgame grind, then there’s not likely anything that could satisfy you.

. You simply suggest replacing the currency gold by another currency, but that will not do much.

It will do many things. For one, you could not buy it with gems. For another, the pricing would not be subject to inflation or supply/demand conflict, it would be based on the developers attempting to set a fair market value for the item, meaning the price is likelier to fall over time than rise. It would also allow at least some control over the distribution, as the token methods would not be exactly generic.

There would be exchange rates between tokens, so they could adjust how much each token is worth relative to other tokens based on the difficulty obtaining it, and determine which items are naturally available for which token type. This provides flavor without hard locks. It’s essentially like a food court. It has more variety than a single specialty restaurant, and more uniqueness and focus than a buffet that just carries everything in a single line. It gives you multiple different restaurants with unique flavors, but all within convenient walking distance so you can freely choose which you prefer, or even mix and match a bit.

And again, if you flat out do not enjoy the “token grind,” and I’m sure if the case with you, the you don’t have to participate, and you can just go for the direct route to the item you want. Nobody is taking that choice off the table.

Btw, personally I don’t mind if 50% of the items that are locked behind specific content can still be sold. So allowing you to earn it in another way.

That would allow for both.. at least for 50% of the items.

Again, no solution that does not account for 100% of the items is a worthwhile solution, because even if it’s 99% of the items, of that other 1% contains an item the person wants but cannot get through the l;one method available, then the system has failed. this is not something that can be balanced with just “most of the items.”

And allowing the items to be sold is a terrible solution. All it would do is make high skill players richer and low skill players poorer, which I’m sure many of you would love, but any actual solution needs to be fair to both types of players.

And of course I could just as well say “you are only suggesting the reward mechanisms that you like, and nobody else would be allowed to have the ones they like.”. So it’s a little silly. If one person wants A, and another B and they are opposites (completely locking items behind specific content vs not locking items behind content by allowing multiple ways of getting them) then yes.. BOTH are suggesting a system they want and the other does one.

But it’s a dumb comparison to make. I am saying “you can earn things the way you want, and I can earn things the way I want, we both with,” and you are countering with “No, how about instead, I can earn things the way I want, and you can earn things the way I want?” They are NOT equivalent concepts. You wanting to control how I play and earn rewards is what makes it less just.

And again, just as a friendly reminder because I’m getting the impression that it hasn’t sunk in yet, things that they put on the Gem Store are not up for debate, whether you like that fact or not. Anythign people get off the store or chests and put up on the TP are not available as direct activity rewards, under any circumstances. That is not my fault, it is not that way because I like it that way, but I accept it as a cold hard fact, as should you.

The only rewards we can reasonably discuss are the items that ANet puts into the game to find, which would include all the gear the game launched with, the Fractal gear, the Carapace/Lumi armors, the PvP reward armors, etc. You can complain about the gem store stuff till you’re blue in the face, but it won’t accomplish anything unless you can figure out a way for ANet to make the game just as profitable without them that they haven’t already considered and rejected.

We can discuss how we would like the game to change, but they aren’t going to make changes that cripple their revenue streams, so it’s pointless to do so. Restrict the conversation to changes that could actually happen within their game world.

Ohoni.6057:

We can discuss how we would like the game to change, but they aren’t going to make changes that cripple their revenue streams, so it’s pointless to do so.

Making challenging content will cripple their revenue streams, cause people will stop playing that kind of content after a few weeks or months (or some people will never play it)
Some people will even left the game after completing it and getting the achievements/rewards attached to it.

They will buy HoT, ok, they will win income there, but then they’ll quit. and 0 income from that point.

Ohoni.6057:

And again, just as a friendly reminder because I’m getting the impression that it hasn’t sunk in yet, things that they put on the Gem Store are not up for debate, whether you like that fact or not. Anythign people get off the store or chests and put up on the TP are not available as direct activity rewards, under any circumstances. That is not my fault, it is not that way because I like it that way, but I accept it as a cold hard fact, as should you.

The only rewards we can reasonably discuss are the items that ANet puts into the game to find, which would include all the gear the game launched with, the Fractal gear, the Carapace/Lumi armors, the PvP reward armors, etc. You can complain about the gem store stuff till you’re blue in the face, but it won’t accomplish anything unless you can figure out a way for ANet to make the game just as profitable without them that they haven’t already considered and rejected.

We can discuss how we would like the game to change, but they aren’t going to make changes that cripple their revenue streams, so it’s pointless to do so. Restrict the conversation to changes that could actually happen within their game world.

If they are not up to debate for you then don’t debate it. They are a huge part of the problem (if not, the biggest) so they are very much up for debate when talking about the reward system and the grind as we have it now. Also acting as if that could not change is nonsense, but I have already said enough about that in this thread so will not go into that discussion again.

Ignoring the biggest part of the problem, is useless when trying to solve the problem.

Anyway, ignore it as much as you want. I won’t.

Ohoni:
because its not about getting the item just to have the item
Its about getting the item from doing the content.

There would be no joy for Maddoctor to get the item a different way, what he wanted was to get something from doing fractals.

Its like gifts, some people value gifts for the gift, some people value gifts more for what they represent. What mad and many others want is both the types of gifts to be present. You dont want any gifts that are more about what the represent than what they are.

know that in game design, rewards (not necessarily items) are generally more about what they represent than what they are.

also any valuable reward, you would want to be able to get, a good reward has to be something people want, something that compells them. So essentially you would never be satisfied if challenging content gave anything compelling

Silicato.4603:

Ohoni.6057:

We can discuss how we would like the game to change, but they aren’t going to make changes that cripple their revenue streams, so it’s pointless to do so.

Making challenging content will cripple their revenue streams, cause people will stop playing that kind of content after a few weeks or months (or some people will never play it)
Some people will even left the game after completing it and getting the achievements/rewards attached to it.

They will buy HoT, ok, they will win income there, but then they’ll quit. and 0 income from that point.

I disagree but even if you would be right it would not be a huge problem as long as there are enough people there to keep the world alive and if they then release an expansion 1 – 1,5 year later and those people will buy that again. Now let that be part of my solution.

Ohoni.6057:

And you still don’t get it. A super optional activity is worth running if it’s worth running. I loved running Fractals up to level 50 but after 100 runs without the fractal skin I wanted it stopped being fun.

and that’s the point where you SHOULD stop running it. It stops being fun, you stop playing, that’s a healthy response to a game.

No. Content shouldn’t be created to stop being run after some runs, it should stay relevant and still rewarding for a very long time. That includes it having enough rewards to justify running it AND better reward per effort/time ratio than other types of content that require no effort.

If I could get that fractal skin by farming in the SW I would’ve stopped running fractals after the 10th run and go to SW instead, and farm while watching a movie.

I think people get too hung up on SW farming as an example. Get a little more creative with your strawmen, put a funny hat on it or something. Let’s assume that if they are capable of creating hard mode content that people find satisfactory, that they can cut down on “sleep walk farming” as well. Let’s assume that in order to get on board the “alternate path to rewards” train, you’ll at least have to pay attention to what you’re doing.

I thought you always said all types of content should give access to rewards that includes SW farming. Alright let’s see other types of content, you want Dry Top farming? Champion trains? World bosses? Edge of the Mists karma trains? They are all the same type of “sleep walk farming”, I used SW farming as a loose term to describe most content that is not instanced. I guess I will call it “sleep walk farming” instead from now on so you are happy and not call it SW farming, but in effect it’s the same thing.

Fun can keep content running for so long, after a while if you aren’t also rewarded for it, it simply stops being fun.

It’s funny though, because that’s partly my point, and you’re the one fighting against me on it. You said you ran Fractals many times, and didn’t get the reward you wanted out of it, and, though you didn’t spell this out, you were making zero practical progress towards that goal either, since it was pure RNG. But consider the upcoming version, where you can buy the weapons using relics. In that way, your 100 rounds might not win you the item you wanted as a drop, but you would at least have that many tokens accrued, ready to buy one as a consolation, you would be making meaningful progress.

The token system is a great addition to fractals of course. But if “sleep walk farming” could also get me tokens, comparable to a fractals run, why should I even bother with actually running fractals in the first place?

It’s the same with Arah P4, I love that dungeon, especially fighting Lupicus and Simin, but once you realize running the easy modes in the same time frame results in 100x the rewards you start questioning “why am I running this?”

But, and I think I’m going to totally blow your mind with this one. . . what if the easier modes didn’t offer 100x the rewards in the same timeframe?! Shocked?!

Yes. Because they can’t balance it at all. Different players run Arah P4 at different speeds. Others take an hour, others 30 minutes, others 3 hours. “Sleep walk farming” is nearly the same time frame no matter your skill level.

Are you still there? Are their brain bits all over the wall behind you? I’ll keep talking anyways.

Since the lowest skill players can do Arah P4 in 4 hours, if one run of Arah P4 got the same rewards as 4 hours of “sleep walk farming” it would be fine I guess, otherwise no point in even talking about it. So 4 hours of “sleep walk farming” = Arah P4?

Why not? Handing everything to everyone isn’t healthy for any type of game.

Again, nobody is talking about handing anything to anyone. It would always involve time and effort. The only discussion on the table is whether that time and effort should be locked to a specific activity, that the player might not enjoy, or whether there should be multiple options available, and players could choose the one that best fit their skill level and gameplay interests. The easier, more casual methods would take longer than the intense, high skill options, but not by so much that it seems pointless to bother with them.

But there is no effort in “sleep walk farming”, so it’s the exact same as handing everything to everyone. Which is what some players are only capable off, I won’t call names but there are players who specified on this thread that they can only do those. Or they think so at least.

I gave the minesweeper example, not everyone gets the Platinum badge, only those who finish the harder challenge, yet nobody complains.

The platinum badge is just a trophy. It does not have anywhere near the intrinsic value of a GW2 armor or weapon skin. It may be the best that you can get in that game, but if so then that game clearly doesn’t have as much emphasis on character customization as GW2 does, you can’t reasonably compare the two in that way.

The badges are the ONLY thing in the game. So they are the only way to differentiate players, it’s their “skins”

phys.7689:

know that in game design, rewards (not necessarily items) are generally more about what they represent than what they are.

And I think this is the main reason we are having this thread in the first place. For some people rewards are about the rewards themselves (if I like the skin) but for others is about accomplishment. We can never reach an agreement on both sides because both sides calculate the worth of items in a very different way.

Let’s see on Saturday how Anet thinks about rewards.

maddoctor.2738:

And I think this is the main reason we are having this thread in the first place. For some people rewards are about the rewards themselves (if I like the skin) but for others is about accomplishment. We can never reach an agreement on both sides because both sides calculate the worth of items in a very different way.

I’m afraid that’s unfortunately true.

maddoctor.2738:

Let’s see on Saturday how Anet thinks about rewards.

Knowing them, they will want to satisfy as much people as possible, and end up satisfying noone.

Making challenging content will cripple their revenue streams, cause people will stop playing that kind of content after a few weeks or months (or some people will never play it)
Some people will even left the game after completing it and getting the achievements/rewards attached to it.

They will buy HoT, ok, they will win income there, but then they’ll quit. and 0 income from that point.

Well, yeah, but that’s more of a long term vague enui thing, they wouldn’t do that deliberately, but might do so by accident. It’s a far different thing then just deciding “hey, you know how we make most of our income from the gem store? Let’s just make all that for free instead, and pay our mortgages with Karma instead of dollar bills.”

I don’t disagree with you, but I do accept that not liking the system doesn’t mean that we have the power to do anything to change it.

If they are not up to debate for you then don’t debate it. They are a huge part of the problem (if not, the biggest) so they are very much up for debate when talking about the reward system and the grind as we have it now.

But it’s complete fairydust nonsense, it’s not a thing that could actually happen on the Earth we both share. It’s like trying to debate potential solutions to sea level rise, and the other person keeps insisting that the answer is for a few billion gallons of the Earth’s water to just spontaneously make a break for it and immigrate to Mars. You don’t have to like that it’s a fact, but it is a fact, and one that is necessary to accept to have any plausible dialog about the future of the game. You can discuss what the future of the game would be like without the gemstore, but that’s pure science-fantasy, or you can discuss how the game could possibly be like in the real world, and actually come up with relevant concepts that could actually occur. I just find the latter considerably more productive.

And no, you cannot say that they are “just as up for debate as the reward system,” because they aren’t. The reward system is the same to ANet either way. The reward system they’d be fine with doing anything that would keep the players happy. The Gem Store is the fuel that allows them to live, they would like us to be as happy with it as possible, but so long as it’s their most viable income stream, they ultimately love it more than they love our feelings about it.

Ohoni:
because its not about getting the item just to have the item
Its about getting the item from doing the content.

There would be no joy for Maddoctor to get the item a different way, what he wanted was to get something from doing fractals.

Then he can get it from doing Fractals. Again, I’ve not suggested removing even a single current option for achieving a reward (except maybe by making the SW farming less rewarding, which others are very serious about, and I don’t have the motivation to disagree). My proposals have all been additive. If you want to earn it from Fractals, you should be able to earn it from Fractals. If you don’t want to earn it from Fractals though, that’s where I offer options. Everybody wins.

Its like gifts, some people value gifts for the gift, some people value gifts more for what they represent. What mad and many others want is both the types of gifts to be present. You dont want any gifts that are more about what the represent than what they are.

And yet, pretty much any gift you could receive (aside from home made gifts), you always have the option of buying one for yourself, if the “receiving it as a gift” option doesn’t work out. You can even home make your own gifts (crafting!). Again, nobody is trying to take away any secondary meaning from your rewards, however you end up earning it, you’ll have a story to it.

know that in game design, rewards (not necessarily items) are generally more about what they represent than what they are.

That really depends. In this game, where character customization is so important and varied, “what they are” still matters quite a bit, and whether it matters more or less than “what they represent” is entirely subjective. For the people to whom “What they are” is definitely the more important factor, shouldn’t they be able to get the “what” that they want, regardless of the “what it represents to others?”

also any valuable reward, you would want to be able to get, a good reward has to be something people want, something that compells them. So essentially you would never be satisfied if challenging content gave anything compelling

Again, people once spend hundred of hours and thousands of dollars in arcades for nothing more than a string of numbers sitting next to “high score.” Don’t tell me that people need a pair of shiny shoulders to get them to play content that they are enjoying and that presents a compelling gaming experience. Make the reward available, but let the player decide what compels him.

If he feels compelled to run a dungeon because it has a unique fancy hat in it, but doesn’t feel compelled to run that dungeon if he just gets some coin and tokens and random items, then maybe he doesn’t really want to run that dungeon, and maybe he shouldn’t have to. Maybe there’s something he’d rather be doing with his time, and maybe he should.

No. Content shouldn’t be created to stop being run after some runs, it should stay relevant and still rewarding for a very long time. That includes it having enough rewards to justify running it AND better reward per effort/time ratio than other types of content that require no effort.

Why? Why should the content that you like offer better rewards than the content that other people like? Equal, yes, I’m on board with that, but if you want “better,” you have to justify that.

I thought you always said all types of content should give access to rewards that includes SW farming. Alright let’s see other types of content, you want Dry Top farming? Champion trains? World bosses? Edge of the Mists karma trains? They are all the same type of “sleep walk farming”, I used SW farming as a loose term to describe most content that is not instanced. I guess I will call it “sleep walk farming” instead from now on so you are happy and not call it SW farming, but in effect it’s the same thing.

SW farming is a bit of a step above, as there’s no actual gameplay, you just run around in a loop and press ‘f’ every now and then. And as I said, they could stand to tighten those activities up a bit, but many of them do involve actually playing the game, and ANet sees fit to make them rewarding activities. If they see them fit to reward gold and loot, then why should they not be fit to reward anything else the game has to offer? You can get Legendary weapons from just running those trains, why not Fractal weapons too?

The token system is a great addition to fractals of course. But if “sleep walk farming” could also get me tokens, comparable to a fractals run, why should I even bother with actually running fractals in the first place?

Well, it’s a good question, so I guess I’ll answer it with a flow chart:
Do you enjoy playing Fractals?
Yes- – - – → You should play Fractals
No – - – —> You can, and probably should be doing something else that you do enjoy, your time is precious.

Did that help?

To expand on that, they are offering tokens for Fractals, so now the question becomes "why bother with any Fractals over level 10? They get much less convenient at that point, of course. So if they offer tokens, and you can just keep running Fractal 1 and collecting tokens and eventually get the rewards, then why bother with higher level Fractals? You might answer “because they drop a higher quantity of tokens per hour of play,” and ah, you’ve hit upon the other answer to your question, if you have any interest in Fractals, then Fractals will be a more time-efficient method of earning them than other activities would be.

Yes. Because they can’t balance it at all. Different players run Arah P4 at different speeds. Others take an hour, others 30 minutes, others 3 hours. “Sleep walk farming” is nearly the same time frame no matter your skill level.
. . .
Since the lowest skill players can do Arah P4 in 4 hours, if one run of Arah P4 got the same rewards as 4 hours of “sleep walk farming” it would be fine I guess, otherwise no point in even talking about it. So 4 hours of “sleep walk farming” = Arah P4?

I don’t think it would be reasonable to balance it based on the worst case, lowest possible outcome. If you lack the core competency to manage a median run on the content, then you don’t deserve to match the efficiency of other activities. I’d have to see the Metrics that ANet has access to, but if most teams took, say, two hours to complete Arah 4, then 2-3 hours of farming loot would be reasonable. If you can beat it faster than the median, then you would come out well ahead that way, which is further incentive to keep pushing yourself to improve, even if you can complete the activity.

But there is no effort in “sleep walk farming”, so it’s the exact same as handing everything to everyone.

SW, minimal effort. Most world bosses take at least a bit of effort though, most champ farms do too. You have to move around, you have to not die, they aren’t completely effortless. They are low-engagement activities, but they do involve engagement. Again though, since they are low engagement, they should not be as rewarding, and ANet could certainly up the engagement needed to participate in these events.

The badges are the ONLY thing in the game. So they are the only way to differentiate players, it’s their “skins”

No, the game HAS no “skins.” The simpler a game is, the less actual systems it has, and the less relevant comparisons to higher orders become. You can’t use an ant as an example for human emotional trauma, for example, they are just incapable of that response. The game in your example only had badges, those badges equate most closely to GW2 titles, and I’ve already said titles can be whatever, I don’t care. The game you described has nothing that can be used as an analog for GW2 skins.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

And I think this is the main reason we are having this thread in the first place. For some people rewards are about the rewards themselves (if I like the skin) but for others is about accomplishment. We can never reach an agreement on both sides because both sides calculate the worth of items in a very different way.

I’m afraid that’s unfortunately true.

maddoctor.2738:

Let’s see on Saturday how Anet thinks about rewards.

Knowing them, they will want to satisfy as much people as possible, and end up satisfying noone.

How I see it, is they will add exclusive / unique rewards to that challenging content then try to find ways to give it to as many players as possible, so it might be completely exclusive at release (like fractal rings or dungeon skins) but eventually it might open up to more and more players.

But I seriously don’t expect them to add the rewards to any “old” content at release, maybe at a later time. And I think this might be the best solution to satisfy as many players as possible. A timed exclusive might be the best choice in the end.

Ohoni.6057:

No. Content shouldn’t be created to stop being run after some runs, it should stay relevant and still rewarding for a very long time. That includes it having enough rewards to justify running it AND better reward per effort/time ratio than other types of content that require no effort.

Why? Why should the content that you like offer better rewards than the content that other people like? Equal, yes, I’m on board with that, but if you want “better,” you have to justify that.

There is no way to have “equal rewards”.

I thought you always said all types of content should give access to rewards that includes SW farming. Alright let’s see other types of content, you want Dry Top farming? Champion trains? World bosses? Edge of the Mists karma trains? They are all the same type of “sleep walk farming”, I used SW farming as a loose term to describe most content that is not instanced. I guess I will call it “sleep walk farming” instead from now on so you are happy and not call it SW farming, but in effect it’s the same thing.

You can get Legendary weapons from just running those trains, why not Fractal weapons too?

The idea is to make it so you get less and less from those activities, so as to redirect players away of “sleep walk farming”, which is evident in how SW (excluding chest farm), DT and the upcoming Verdant Brick are harder zones than old ones. Even EotM had much better and harder mobs they just can’t show their strength due to the blobs. It’s obvious that they making the game more engaging. I wouldn’t call it harder though, having to use your entire skillbar and pay attention should’ve been the normal in the game, using only auto attacks shouldn’t be possible.

The token system is a great addition to fractals of course. But if “sleep walk farming” could also get me tokens, comparable to a fractals run, why should I even bother with actually running fractals in the first place?

Well, it’s a good question, so I guess I’ll answer it with a flow chart:
Do you enjoy playing Fractals?
Yes- – - – -> You should play Fractals
No – - – —> You can, and probably should be doing something else that you do enjoy, your time is precious.

That’s a very simple way of doing it. But I will redirect you back to the Fractal 50 being run 100 times example. I might like some content a LOT but if it offers nothing (or less than other easy-mode content) then the “fun” can last so long.

Yes. Because they can’t balance it at all. Different players run Arah P4 at different speeds. Others take an hour, others 30 minutes, others 3 hours. “Sleep walk farming” is nearly the same time frame no matter your skill level.
. . .
Since the lowest skill players can do Arah P4 in 4 hours, if one run of Arah P4 got the same rewards as 4 hours of “sleep walk farming” it would be fine I guess, otherwise no point in even talking about it. So 4 hours of “sleep walk farming” = Arah P4?

I don’t think it would be reasonable to balance it based on the worst case, lowest possible outcome. If you lack the core competency to manage a median run on the content, then you don’t deserve to match the efficiency of other activities. I’d have to see the Metrics that ANet has access to, but if most teams took, say, two hours to complete Arah 4, then 2-3 hours of farming loot would be reasonable. If you can beat it faster than the median, then you would come out well ahead that way, which is further incentive to keep pushing yourself to improve, even if you can complete the activity.

Yet nothing of the sort happens with the game now and that’s one of the problems.

Still, this requires them having METRICS in the first place. What happens with new content that is released? You won’t even know how long it will take for teams to finish it, 30 minutes, 12 hours? How long? And knowing Anet they always overestimate their content. So how can you identify how to award anything for NEW content?

Maybe timed exclusives are the best solution after all

Ok, and I just realized I left out the best part. Not only would you still be able to keep running Fractals to earn Fractal weapons, as you might today, but you could also keep running fractals and earn other things too! If you really love Fractals, but don’t care about Fractal Weapons, or have all the ones you want, then you could run Fractals and earn Silverwaste tokens, or WvW badges, or Legendary mats. The exchanges rates would be less favorable in some cases, they should lean towards the default activity, but you could meaningfully progress other goals from within the Fractals if you liked.

I was even thinking what if you did have every Fractal weapon, then you’d have no good reason to run Fractals for the rewards, right? So what if they had the collection achievement, and if you completed it, maxed out all the loot worth picking up in that content, then it would offer you an exchange rate bonus for other currencies, so that since you’d have nothing good to spend Fractal Relics on natively anymore, you could now convert them to other tokens at a better rate, making them more valuable to you again. Cool idea, huh?

Ohoni.6057:

“But it’s complete fairydust nonsense, it’s not a thing that could actually happen on the Earth we both share.”

However, it did happen in the previous version of GW, GW2 was announced with a system where this happened, the numbers suggest it is possible and they recently charged €50,- for an expansion.. a price more fitting with that system (so they might very well already be planning the shift).

But again, if you see it as fairydust you are not required to talk about it, you can leave it out of your part. However I will not leave it out as the problem will not be solved when ignoring this part.

Ohoni.6057:

You don’t have to like that it’s a fact, but it is a fact.

Because you say so? No I already did show it was feasible (that there are alternatives) so it’s not a fact… in fact, it’s a fact that it is feasible. Is it a big thing? Yes it is, not denying that. They really have to understand the problem of it before they even might consider the change, but it is possible and they might very well have already planned the change.. Again, that might explain the €50,- price. btw, I did never talked about a future with completely no gem-store.. just to have the facts strait.

There is no way to have “equal rewards”.

Within a reasonable margin of error and accounting for subjective tastes, sure there is. I mean, it might be too much for some and too little for another, but that’s true of the current breakdown too, perfection isn’t possible, but you aim for a fair average and as long as you’re close, everyone’s happy enough with it. Note that I do not consider the current balance to be “close enough” yet.

The idea is to make it so you get less and less from those activities, so as to redirect players away of “sleep walk farming”, which is evident in how SW (excluding chest farm), DT and the upcoming Verdant Brick are harder zones than old ones. Even EotM had much better and harder mobs they just can’t show their strength due to the blobs. It’s obvious that they making the game more engaging. I wouldn’t call it harder though, having to use your entire skillbar and pay attention should’ve been the normal in the game, using only auto attacks shouldn’t be possible.

And that’s fine. I’m all for “more engaging,” and I’m not defending the “sleepwalking.” The point where I stop is when we get to the seriously frustrating content, particularly in instances.

That’s a very simple way of doing it. But I will redirect you back to the Fractal 50 being run 100 times example. I might like some content a LOT but if it offers nothing (or less than other easy-mode content) then the “fun” can last so long.

Yes, but as I told you, it shouldn’t offer nothing, and shouldn’t offer less than anything else. It should offer equal rewards to activities that take equivalent time and effort, and at least slightly more than activities that take less effort. I’m not saying that it is that way now, but it should be, and making it so would have to be a part of the sort of overhauls I’m discussing. But beyond that, the difference should be that while the quantity of loot should be sufficient to make it worth your time, it should not come in the form of items that cannot possibly be earned through other means. A specific type of content can be the most efficient way of earning a themed reward, but there should be plenty of other, less efficient alternatives for those who will not run the default content.

Yet nothing of the sort happens with the game now and that’s one of the problems.

When have I ever defended the current state of the game as the ideal? Oh, if I have free reign to re-balance the economy, you can bet there would be some serious changes. I’m by no means saying that things are right the way they are now, I’m saying that they could be though.

Still, this requires them having METRICS in the first place. What happens with new content that is released? You won’t even know how long it will take for teams to finish it, 30 minutes, 12 hours? How long? And knowing Anet they always overestimate their content. So how can you identify how to award anything for NEW content?

I sort of discussed this like ten pages ago, but I would actually have leaderboards, and have the reward sharing systems be based on actual player performance. Like it would be impossible to get the rewards via alternate means until at least one group had earned it the intended way. Then, the more groups complete it, and the easier they complete it, the easier it would become to earn it through alternate means, relative to how the community is doing on the core version.

As for the generic loot of the new content, the gold and such, they’d have to take a guess on it based on testing, but they would need to be fast and flexible. If exploits were found that allowed people to plow right to the end way easier than intended, then they’d have to decide to either punish those involves and close the hole immediately, or just cut the loot greatly until it’s fixed. Early adopters could profit though. If it turns out that almost nobody can pass it but the loot is balanced for something as bit easier, then they could up the loot a bit.

This is ANet’s main problem currently, that they seem very hesitant to course correct, to tweak the reward level of a given type of content. It takes them weeks, months, or even years to get around to it. They need to become more agile, more adaptive to how players are encountering their game.

However, it did happen in the previous version of GW, GW2 was announced with a system where this happened, the numbers suggest it is possible and they recently charged €50,- for an expansion.. a price more fitting with that system (so they might very well already be planning the shift).

Perhaps, but given how people complained about that $50 price, I bought they’re banking on doing that again any time soon.

But again, if you see it as fairydust you are not required to talk about it, you can leave it out of your part. However I will not leave it out as the problem will not be solved when ignoring this part.

Well, please just discuss it elsewhere, because it’s incompatible with a rational discussion of this game’s reward structures. Try to frame your responses here to things that could happen within GW2.

Because you say so?

Of course not. It’s not a fact because I say so, it’s a fact because it’s a fact. I only say it’s a fact because it is a fact, not the other way around. You’re confusing the causal relationship.

Again, that might explain the €50,- price. btw, I did never talked about a future with completely no gem-store.. just to have the facts strait.

No, but you have been talking around the idea of them taking items currently on the gem store, or that would end up on the gem store in future updates, and instead making them available as ingame loot drops through various means, which just won’t happen because it would devalue them as gem store items. However you want to redesign the system, it needs to accept that every gem store item that enters the economy, has to have been purchased by someone using cash first.

Ohoni.6057:

I sort of discussed this like ten pages ago, but I would actually have leaderboards, and have the reward sharing systems be based on actual player performance. Like it would be impossible to get the rewards via alternate means until at least one group had earned it the intended way. Then, the more groups complete it, and the easier they complete it, the easier it would become to earn it through alternate means, relative to how the community is doing on the core version.

Timed exclusive rewards is similar but takes a lot less effort to implement. Leaderboards are fine too I guess. In either way the “alternative way” won’t be valid for quite some time pleasing the exclusive / hardcore crowd, then the exclusivity is over and more and more players will access the rewards. In an ideal world at that point a new set of exclusives could be added (with new content releases) and the cycle continues, pleasing most (if not all?) kinds of players.

This is ANet’s main problem currently, that they seem very hesitant to course correct, to tweak the reward level of a given type of content. It takes them weeks, months, or even years to get around to it. They need to become more agile, more adaptive to how players are encountering their game.

Yes I agree. I remember when they added gold rewards in dungeons they said “We will monitor and adjust the rewards as needed”, yeah good joke, just look at SE P2 and it’s obvious they have no clue of what they are doing.

Timed exclusive rewards is similar but takes a lot less effort to implement.

Sure, and I’m not opposed to timed exclusives either, but leaderboards would be more adaptive, properly implemented ANet wouldn’t even have to pay much attention to them once set up. And also, even without the loot relationship I think leaderboards would be a positive function, something to give competitive people to compete over, which tends to keep them occupied and out of everyone’s hair. It’s like giving a toddler Spongebob (or whatever the kids these days are watching).

In either way the “alternative way” won’t be valid for quite some time pleasing the exclusive / hardcore crowd, then the exclusivity is over and more and more players will access the rewards.

Assuming the content is not so crazy hard that barely anyone is completing it, I would expect timed exclusives to last no more than a month or two. Of course the reward mechanisms could phase in, with it being much harder to earn at that point than it would be six months or more down the line. If you want to be an “earliest adopter” then you have to run the content, if you want to be a “lightly less early adopter” then you need to spend a good amount of alternate currency or alternate efforts, but if you’re willing to wait a bit the efforts needed are likely to become more reasonable.

Ohoni.6057:

<snip>

A self-sustaining/maintaining system would be awesome really, like the material trading in GW1 for example. It’s obvious that they don’t have the time or the luxury to constantly update the rewards so an automated system would be the best option. However, let’s start small first, assuming such an automated system is too much work for them.

A question to everyone that is watching this thread:
What’s your opinion on time-exclusive rewards?

For example, challenging group content might reward SKINA, for a limited time, until players beat it, until players reach a certain speed, or simply after a set amount of time (or any other system really), that exclusive stops being exclusive and is added to other types of content. Then, another piece of exclusive reward is added to new content and the cycle continues.

Do you find that satisfying as a hardcore player? Do you find that satisfying as a casual player?

maddoctor.2738:

A question to everyone that is watching this thread:
What’s your opinion on time-exclusive rewards?

For example, challenging group content might reward SKINA, for a limited time, until players beat it, until players reach a certain speed, or simply after a set amount of time (or any other system really), that exclusive stops being exclusive and is added to other types of content. Then, another piece of exclusive reward is added to new content and the cycle continues.

Do you find that satisfying as a hardcore player? Do you find that satisfying as a casual player?

I think that is probably the best solution.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Which is why America the beacon of hope to many.

Best joke I’ve read in these forums in a long time.

Ohoni.6057:

However, it did happen in the previous version of GW, GW2 was announced with a system where this happened, the numbers suggest it is possible and they recently charged €50,- for an expansion.. a price more fitting with that system (so they might very well already be planning the shift).

Perhaps, but given how people complained about that $50 price, I bought they’re banking on doing that again any time soon.

But they did not complain about GW1 campaigns being €50,- You know what.. maybe there is a correlation between a model and what people are willing to pay for an expansion? For one model €50,- is completely acceptable and people will overall be fine with it, for another it’s not. Now that people see GW2 as a cash-shop game, €50,- is unreasonable high for an expansion. If they would see it (again) as a B2P game you would likely see less complains.

Ohoni.6057:

But again, if you see it as fairydust you are not required to talk about it, you can leave it out of your part. However I will not leave it out as the problem will not be solved when ignoring this part.

Well, please just discuss it elsewhere, because it’s incompatible with a rational discussion of this game’s reward structures. Try to frame your responses here to things that could happen within GW2.

Well if you want to ‘fix the reward issue’ you better take it into the equation.. because it can’t be fixed without. Or to use your worlds, ignoring it is incompatible with a rational discussion about the reward structure. It’s really silly (and useless) to try and find a solution when you are not willing to take the biggest reason for the problem into consideration.

Ohoni.6057:

Because you say so?

Of course not. It’s not a fact because I say so, it’s a fact because it’s a fact.

Only, it isn’t.
Have explained enough times why, even showing numbers.

Ohoni.6057:

Again, that might explain the €50,- price. btw, I did never talked about a future with completely no gem-store.. just to have the facts strait.

No, but you have been talking around the idea of them taking items currently on the gem store, or that would end up on the gem store in future updates, and instead making them available as ingame loot drops through various means, which just won’t happen because it would devalue them as gem store items. However you want to redesign the system, it needs to accept that every gem store item that enters the economy, has to have been purchased by someone using cash first.

It’s funny you say it would not be possible because it would devaluate them, while you also keep saying the rewards that could be put in the game should be available from multiple sources and then it has to be balanced to be fair. So easy content required more grind while very hard might reward it directly..

That is what you have been saying.. (While I personally don’t think you get it balanced)

May I then remind you that those items are already available in game.. Currently you can get them by doing a lot of very easy content.. You grind gold and buy them.

If your solution would work, then you could just as well make those items available behind hard content without the grind.. you know, to balance it out and reward the same items with multiple types of content.

Not seeing why it would be no problem for hardcore casuals / grinders to get the items from the game, but it would be if people who prefer challenging content could have access to it.

Torolan.5816:

maddoctor.2738:

A question to everyone that is watching this thread:
What’s your opinion on time-exclusive rewards?

For example, challenging group content might reward SKINA, for a limited time, until players beat it, until players reach a certain speed, or simply after a set amount of time (or any other system really), that exclusive stops being exclusive and is added to other types of content. Then, another piece of exclusive reward is added to new content and the cycle continues.

Do you find that satisfying as a hardcore player? Do you find that satisfying as a casual player?

I think that is probably the best solution.

One vote from me too on that one. It’s a great compromise as long as the time frames are right, not too short or too long so both groups feel happy about it.

Most casuals are doing things in their own pace anyways so time for them isn’t an issue. They can wait or prepare for it. And most hardcore players would probably enjoy the challenge of having a deadline to acquire the skin before it loses some of its value (and maybe a cool title/achievement to help ’em along).

ReiCH.6273:

Torolan.5816:

maddoctor.2738:

A question to everyone that is watching this thread:
What’s your opinion on time-exclusive rewards?

For example, challenging group content might reward SKINA, for a limited time, until players beat it, until players reach a certain speed, or simply after a set amount of time (or any other system really), that exclusive stops being exclusive and is added to other types of content. Then, another piece of exclusive reward is added to new content and the cycle continues.

Do you find that satisfying as a hardcore player? Do you find that satisfying as a casual player?

I think that is probably the best solution.

One vote from me too on that one. It’s a great compromise as long as the time frames are right, not too short or too long so both groups feel happy about it.

Most casuals are doing things in their own pace anyways so time for them isn’t an issue. They can wait or prepare for it. And most hardcore players would probably enjoy the challenge of having a deadline to acquire the skin before it loses some of its value (and maybe a cool title/achievement to help ’em along).

haha
i mean I dunno if i care too much, but you guys are like animal farm. Slowly recreating the very things everyone said they didnt like.
you are basically proposing a cosmetic gear treadmill.

maddoctor.2738:

Ohoni.6057:

<snip>

A question to everyone that is watching this thread:
What’s your opinion on time-exclusive rewards?

For example, challenging group content might reward SKINA, for a limited time, until players beat it, until players reach a certain speed, or simply after a set amount of time (or any other system really), that exclusive stops being exclusive and is added to other types of content. Then, another piece of exclusive reward is added to new content and the cycle continues.

Do you find that satisfying as a hardcore player? Do you find that satisfying as a casual player?

No, in a way it’s similar to the biggest complain you hear about vertical progression MMO’s, and what Anet wanted to prevent resulting in not upping the level.

It would devaluate the previous effort (gear treadmill).

Look at it from another point.. Let’s say today you win a gold medal for running 100 miles in x seconds. Then 6 months later the reduce the x seconds by 50% and that becomes the new standard for the gold medal. You would feel in a way cheated.. Or they should upgrade your reward to a platinum one (and still having the platinum available if you still complete it in the old x seconds).

A system like that would be fine, but then you keep the problem that people want to be able to get the platinum one in an easy way.

I still think the closes solution is having multiple rewards for different difficulties that are basically the same base skin. Complete a JP and get the basic silver skin, complete it within 3 min and get the same skin but with gold details, complete it in under 2 min and unlock some effect for both skins.

phys.7689:

ReiCH.6273:

Torolan.5816:

maddoctor.2738:

A question to everyone that is watching this thread:
What’s your opinion on time-exclusive rewards?

For example, challenging group content might reward SKINA, for a limited time, until players beat it, until players reach a certain speed, or simply after a set amount of time (or any other system really), that exclusive stops being exclusive and is added to other types of content. Then, another piece of exclusive reward is added to new content and the cycle continues.

Do you find that satisfying as a hardcore player? Do you find that satisfying as a casual player?

I think that is probably the best solution.

One vote from me too on that one. It’s a great compromise as long as the time frames are right, not too short or too long so both groups feel happy about it.

Most casuals are doing things in their own pace anyways so time for them isn’t an issue. They can wait or prepare for it. And most hardcore players would probably enjoy the challenge of having a deadline to acquire the skin before it loses some of its value (and maybe a cool title/achievement to help ’em along).

haha
i mean I dunno if i care too much, but you guys are like animal farm. Slowly recreating the very things everyone said they didnt like.
you are basically proposing a cosmetic gear treadmill.

YES. It’s a treadmill but it’s a cosmetic one. I don’t know, if it keeps both sides happy then what’s the problem? Otherwise we go back to square one with arguments of this and that and never reach any compromise. It’s not perfect, but at least it takes into account desires from both sides, unlike any other solutions.

If there was an easier one we would have it after 21 pages :P

phys.7689:

ReiCH.6273:

Torolan.5816:

maddoctor.2738:

A question to everyone that is watching this thread:
What’s your opinion on time-exclusive rewards?

For example, challenging group content might reward SKINA, for a limited time, until players beat it, until players reach a certain speed, or simply after a set amount of time (or any other system really), that exclusive stops being exclusive and is added to other types of content. Then, another piece of exclusive reward is added to new content and the cycle continues.

Do you find that satisfying as a hardcore player? Do you find that satisfying as a casual player?

I think that is probably the best solution.

One vote from me too on that one. It’s a great compromise as long as the time frames are right, not too short or too long so both groups feel happy about it.

Most casuals are doing things in their own pace anyways so time for them isn’t an issue. They can wait or prepare for it. And most hardcore players would probably enjoy the challenge of having a deadline to acquire the skin before it loses some of its value (and maybe a cool title/achievement to help ’em along).

haha
i mean I dunno if i care too much, but you guys are like animal farm. Slowly recreating the very things everyone said they didnt like.
you are basically proposing a cosmetic gear treadmill.

If someone is bent on spending his gaming time in a single dungeon for days or weeks, who am I to forbid him? I won´t participate in that endeavour as it is not my taste, but best of luck to him.
If I can get the item and it´s useful, for example if it has a stat that you don´t find elsewhere in a given item, I will be glad when I can aquire it more easily after some time.
If it is only a skin and not really a good looking one, you barked against the wrong tree from the start with me with your animal farm theory. If I did not care when my main character was running around in fresh out of the factory steel color for months, why should I care for a random skin behind a wall of content.

Ok heres what i got.
certain items are account bound, BUT
you can earn (through various content, with high rarity or grind or time lock but would require some type of targeted play) a sellers liscence.

Sellers liscense makes a knockoff of the account bound item. There will be a visibile diffrence, it may be color, the orginal may say number 1 on it, and the knockoff number 2, A star on the weapon pommel, something not too crazy, but its there.

This allows people to sell items, and decide an items value, but it puts a limit on how many will be the market, and automatically makes getting the item directly the best way to get, as well as maintaining a small uniqueness factor.

This would of course generally be useful only for items that require a lot of effort, or skill, that are account bound.

that said, this would require them creating a bunch of new systems, item variations, and i doubt they d want to do that.

Devata.6589:

Look at it from another point.. Let’s say today you win a gold medal for running 100 miles in x seconds. Then 6 months later the reduce the x seconds by 50% and that becomes the new standard for the gold medal. You would feel in a way cheated.. Or they should upgrade your reward to a platinum one (and still having the platinum available if you still complete it in the old x seconds).

That’s an excellent example but since this is a video game and not real life I will give you a new one which works in a similar way.

You are on the top Legendary League in PVP and you get that Legendary back. A few months later you are playing in League 6 because you aren’t a “pro” anymore. If they add a new Legendary back after a few months, it will give reason to identify the “new” best PVP player. Your legendary back isn’t so good anymore, it doesn’t show you are the best of the best because you aren’t anymore. So, go prove you are still the best and win the NEXT reward.

Your reward shows you were the best in the 2015 PVP season, the 2016 PVP season will need a new reward

Torolan.5816:

phys.7689:

ReiCH.6273:

Torolan.5816:

maddoctor.2738:

A question to everyone that is watching this thread:
What’s your opinion on time-exclusive rewards?

For example, challenging group content might reward SKINA, for a limited time, until players beat it, until players reach a certain speed, or simply after a set amount of time (or any other system really), that exclusive stops being exclusive and is added to other types of content. Then, another piece of exclusive reward is added to new content and the cycle continues.

Do you find that satisfying as a hardcore player? Do you find that satisfying as a casual player?

I think that is probably the best solution.

One vote from me too on that one. It’s a great compromise as long as the time frames are right, not too short or too long so both groups feel happy about it.

Most casuals are doing things in their own pace anyways so time for them isn’t an issue. They can wait or prepare for it. And most hardcore players would probably enjoy the challenge of having a deadline to acquire the skin before it loses some of its value (and maybe a cool title/achievement to help ’em along).

haha
i mean I dunno if i care too much, but you guys are like animal farm. Slowly recreating the very things everyone said they didnt like.
you are basically proposing a cosmetic gear treadmill.

If someone is bent on spending his gaming time in a single dungeon for days or weeks, who am I to forbid him? I won´t participate in that endeavour as it is not my taste, but best of luck to him.
If I can get the item and it´s useful, for example if it has a stat that you don´t find elsewhere in a given item, I will be glad when I can aquire it more easily after some time.
If it is only a skin and not really a good looking one, you barked against the wrong tree from the start with me with your animal farm theory. If I did not care when my main character was running around in fresh out of the factory steel color for months, why should I care for a random skin behind a wall of content.

Im just pointing out its a treadmill, btw this has never really been about stats, just about cosmetic rewards. Its highly unlikely they will put unique stats, or power behind extremely exclusive content. The only thing i can think of is dungeon runes. But you can actually get those without doing any dungeons with the mystic forge, so ehh

phys.7689:

Im just pointing out its a treadmill, btw this has never really been about stats, just about cosmetic rewards. Its highly unlikely they will put unique stats, or power behind extremely exclusive content. The only thing i can think of is dungeon runes. But you can actually get those without doing any dungeons with the mystic forge, so ehh

I don´t think that is set into stone to be honest. If I was sure that something like lumi armor won´t happen again on a really hardcore level, I´d gladly salute the hardcore gamers for their endurance and determination and walk away whistling.^^

Torolan.5816:

phys.7689:

Im just pointing out its a treadmill, btw this has never really been about stats, just about cosmetic rewards. Its highly unlikely they will put unique stats, or power behind extremely exclusive content. The only thing i can think of is dungeon runes. But you can actually get those without doing any dungeons with the mystic forge, so ehh

I don´t think that is set into stone to be honest. If I was sure that something like lumi armor won´t happen again on a really hardcore level, I´d gladly salute the hardcore gamers for their endurance and determination and walk away whistling.^^

what? im confused luminiscent armor is a cosmetic item as far as i know? I thought you said you dont care about cosmetics

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

Look at it from another point.. Let’s say today you win a gold medal for running 100 miles in x seconds. Then 6 months later the reduce the x seconds by 50% and that becomes the new standard for the gold medal. You would feel in a way cheated.. Or they should upgrade your reward to a platinum one (and still having the platinum available if you still complete it in the old x seconds).

That’s an excellent example but since this is a video game and not real life I will give you a new one which works in a similar way.

You are on the top Legendary League in PVP and you get that Legendary back. A few months later you are playing in League 6 because you aren’t a “pro” anymore. If they add a new Legendary back after a few months, it will give reason to identify the “new” best PVP player. Your legendary back isn’t so good anymore, it doesn’t show you are the best of the best because you aren’t anymore. So, go prove you are still the best and win the NEXT reward.

Your reward shows you were the best in the 2015 PVP season, the 2016 PVP season will need a new reward

Only this is incorrect. The items does not ‘show’ you where is best in 2015 as now everybody has access to it. (I am also not in favor of time-limited access to make it as you say).

phys.7689:

Ok heres what i got.
certain items are account bound, BUT
you can earn (through various content, with high rarity or grind or time lock but would require some type of targeted play) a sellers liscence.

Sellers liscense makes a knockoff of the account bound item. There will be a visibile diffrence, it may be color, the orginal may say number 1 on it, and the knockoff number 2, A star on the weapon pommel, something not too crazy, but its there.

This allows people to sell items, and decide an items value, but it puts a limit on how many will be the market, and automatically makes getting the item directly the best way to get, as well as maintaining a small uniqueness factor.

This would of course generally be useful only for items that require a lot of effort, or skill, that are account bound.

that said, this would require them creating a bunch of new systems, item variations, and i doubt they d want to do that.

And that serves what purpose, other than to separate the player base in an extremely artificial and ugly way? Who would buy the lesser version with the “you bought it on the TP” stigma mark on it. You don’t want to find a solution that’s acceptable by both groups. You’re just searching for extra ways to humiliate the “unskilled” players. Not only you want the cool skin on you to boast on LA, you want everyone else who doesn’t have the skill to have a stigmatized version so everyone would know how much of a bad player they are?

It’s comments like this that have me believe that if you guys could, you’d have non hardcore players (whatever that means) dressed in rags and publicly ridiculed in the game word in regular intervals.

Good thing we’re the “friendliest community” huh?

Cosmetic treadmill sounds like paradise compared to your vision.

phys.7689:

Torolan.5816:

phys.7689:

Im just pointing out its a treadmill, btw this has never really been about stats, just about cosmetic rewards. Its highly unlikely they will put unique stats, or power behind extremely exclusive content. The only thing i can think of is dungeon runes. But you can actually get those without doing any dungeons with the mystic forge, so ehh

I don´t think that is set into stone to be honest. If I was sure that something like lumi armor won´t happen again on a really hardcore level, I´d gladly salute the hardcore gamers for their endurance and determination and walk away whistling.^^

what? im confused luminiscent armor is a cosmetic item as far as i know? I thought you said you dont care about cosmetics

I don´t care about the lumi armor itself, it is that ls2 hides jewelry and the bioluminescence reward is an ascended chest I would have liked to have. It´s nothing that keeps me awake at night, but was annoying enough for me to still spare a thought.

Devata.6589:

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

Look at it from another point.. Let’s say today you win a gold medal for running 100 miles in x seconds. Then 6 months later the reduce the x seconds by 50% and that becomes the new standard for the gold medal. You would feel in a way cheated.. Or they should upgrade your reward to a platinum one (and still having the platinum available if you still complete it in the old x seconds).

That’s an excellent example but since this is a video game and not real life I will give you a new one which works in a similar way.

You are on the top Legendary League in PVP and you get that Legendary back. A few months later you are playing in League 6 because you aren’t a “pro” anymore. If they add a new Legendary back after a few months, it will give reason to identify the “new” best PVP player. Your legendary back isn’t so good anymore, it doesn’t show you are the best of the best because you aren’t anymore. So, go prove you are still the best and win the NEXT reward.

Your reward shows you were the best in the 2015 PVP season, the 2016 PVP season will need a new reward

Only this is incorrect. The items does not ‘show’ you where is best in 2015 as now everybody has access to it. (I am also not in favor of time-limited access to make it as you say).

In the real world that 2015 season reward would only be available in 2015, then each season would have a new exclusive reward (much like the gold medals, they are all gold but they are not the same). However, since this is a video game played by a variety of players and to keep as many as possible happy, the older reward becomes available through easier content. The “best” can continue to prove they are the best by “fighting” to stay at the top for as long as possible. A title or achievement can be used to signify the best of each release, but the skin will be available through easier content as time passes on.

It’s how in other MMORPGs dungeons become easier and easier as the level cap is increased or new gear tiers are introduced, making it easier for players to get their rewards. We won’t have new gear tiers or new level caps in GW2 (which is a very good thing) but we need another “solution” to the problem, time-exclusives is one such solution.

The idea here is to not find a solution that is the best for some group but exclude the other, but find a solution that has merits to all types of players. Is it the best? Probably not the best for anyone, but still better to compromise.

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

Look at it from another point.. Let’s say today you win a gold medal for running 100 miles in x seconds. Then 6 months later the reduce the x seconds by 50% and that becomes the new standard for the gold medal. You would feel in a way cheated.. Or they should upgrade your reward to a platinum one (and still having the platinum available if you still complete it in the old x seconds).

That’s an excellent example but since this is a video game and not real life I will give you a new one which works in a similar way.

You are on the top Legendary League in PVP and you get that Legendary back. A few months later you are playing in League 6 because you aren’t a “pro” anymore. If they add a new Legendary back after a few months, it will give reason to identify the “new” best PVP player. Your legendary back isn’t so good anymore, it doesn’t show you are the best of the best because you aren’t anymore. So, go prove you are still the best and win the NEXT reward.

Your reward shows you were the best in the 2015 PVP season, the 2016 PVP season will need a new reward

Only this is incorrect. The items does not ‘show’ you where is best in 2015 as now everybody has access to it. (I am also not in favor of time-limited access to make it as you say).

In the real world that 2015 season reward would only be available in 2015, then each season would have a new exclusive reward (much like the gold medals, they are all gold but they are not the same). However, since this is a video game played by a variety of players and to keep as many as possible happy, the older reward becomes available through easier content. The “best” can continue to prove they are the best by “fighting” to stay at the top for as long as possible. A title or achievement can be used to signify the best of each release, but the skin will be available through easier content as time passes on.

It’s how in other MMORPGs dungeons become easier and easier as the level cap is increased or new gear tiers are introduced, making it easier for players to get their rewards. We won’t have new gear tiers or new level caps in GW2 (which is a very good thing) but we need another “solution” to the problem, time-exclusives is one such solution.

The idea here is to not find a solution that is the best for some group but exclude the other, but find a solution that has merits to all types of players. Is it the best? Probably not the best for anyone, but still better to compromise.

Well it is not my preferred solution. Is still removes the meaning from the item, removes rarity, undermines the effort you put in it.

I know it’s how other MMO’s do it, but it’s also one of the biggest complains about those MMO’s.

I guess my point about this creating more divisive behavior is proven considering we have 21 pages and nobody even knows what this content is yet. Every argument I’ve read here is a regurgitation of arguments on WoW boards among many others for over a decade now and it’s quite funny if not somewhat sad to be honest. Saturday will tell the tale but I highly doubt this will end well if this becomes another raid chase the unique items concept…carrot meet stick, stick meet carrot, GW2 is like every other MMO now hoorah!

Devata.6589:

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

Look at it from another point.. Let’s say today you win a gold medal for running 100 miles in x seconds. Then 6 months later the reduce the x seconds by 50% and that becomes the new standard for the gold medal. You would feel in a way cheated.. Or they should upgrade your reward to a platinum one (and still having the platinum available if you still complete it in the old x seconds).

That’s an excellent example but since this is a video game and not real life I will give you a new one which works in a similar way.

You are on the top Legendary League in PVP and you get that Legendary back. A few months later you are playing in League 6 because you aren’t a “pro” anymore. If they add a new Legendary back after a few months, it will give reason to identify the “new” best PVP player. Your legendary back isn’t so good anymore, it doesn’t show you are the best of the best because you aren’t anymore. So, go prove you are still the best and win the NEXT reward.

Your reward shows you were the best in the 2015 PVP season, the 2016 PVP season will need a new reward

Only this is incorrect. The items does not ‘show’ you where is best in 2015 as now everybody has access to it. (I am also not in favor of time-limited access to make it as you say).

In the real world that 2015 season reward would only be available in 2015, then each season would have a new exclusive reward (much like the gold medals, they are all gold but they are not the same). However, since this is a video game played by a variety of players and to keep as many as possible happy, the older reward becomes available through easier content. The “best” can continue to prove they are the best by “fighting” to stay at the top for as long as possible. A title or achievement can be used to signify the best of each release, but the skin will be available through easier content as time passes on.

It’s how in other MMORPGs dungeons become easier and easier as the level cap is increased or new gear tiers are introduced, making it easier for players to get their rewards. We won’t have new gear tiers or new level caps in GW2 (which is a very good thing) but we need another “solution” to the problem, time-exclusives is one such solution.

The idea here is to not find a solution that is the best for some group but exclude the other, but find a solution that has merits to all types of players. Is it the best? Probably not the best for anyone, but still better to compromise.

Well it is not my preferred solution. Is still removes the meaning from the item, removes rarity, undermines the effort you put in it.

I know it’s how other MMO’s do it, but it’s also one of the biggest complains about those MMO’s.

It all depends on how many new rewards they add. The time-exclusive system works best with fewer rewards, so one piece of content (instance/raid/zone/whatever) at a time. If they add loads of them then it might not work so well. We’ll know soon enough

Vlad Morbius.1759:

I guess my point about this creating more divisive behavior is proven considering we have 21 pages and nobody even knows what this content is yet. Every argument I’ve read here is a regurgitation of arguments on WoW boards among many others for over a decade now and it’s quite funny if not somewhat sad to be honest. Saturday will tell the tale but I highly doubt this will end well if this becomes another raid chase the unique items concept…carrot meet stick, stick meet carrot, GW2 is like every other MMO now hoorah!

I wouldn’t say it’s caused any more discussion/consternation than any other change that has been implemented. We’re in a quiet period game content wise so discussions fall back to the core ones (TP,Rarity, bring back old items, meta, this class is broken etc). The discussion is an ever present element in MMO’s.
Every time someone starts a topic on it, the other side has to respond least it falsely be believed there’s no opposition to either idea.

GW2 will never be like other MMO’s, it’s already different. I do think people took some of the statements made about GW2’s development and saw it as “we will do absolutely nothing than any other MMO does” and every time they have to implement or do something another MMO does they’re shocked.
The carrot is not functional in this case it causes no functional difference in the abilities of a raid capable player and a non-raid capable player. The game still needs carrots, but they are different carrots in this different game.
Cosmetic progression , was repeatedly mentioned by the Devs so it’s not surprising for them to continue along that line.

This conversation again! I remember having the same argument in regards to fractals, so I’ll posit the same opinion:

Functional rewards should never be content gated. They aren’t. Mastery tracks and all forms of mechanical advancement should remain accessible to those simply willing to put time in.

Cosmetic rewards on the other hand absolutely should be uniquely offered for unique and challenging content. Those cosmetic rewards do not create the dreaded gear treadmill and remain optional, but add tangible rewards for completing said content.

GW2s largest problem is currently that there is little incentive or reward for tackling difficult content (and that there is precious little, if zero difficult content)

There is nothing wrong with giving out unique skins for winning a wvw season, or completing a particularly hard boss fight or instance. Those items are trophies to signify an accomplishment, and without the trophy those accomplishments feel hollow in a game where the primary reward model is loot.

Simply put, loot in GW2 is boring. This is a bad thing in a loot focused game. Loot in GW1 was interesting because loot, while still cosmetic, was all tied to specific pieces of content, be they world regions, specific instances, bosses, or quests.

Nobody wants to see a gear treadmill raid progression style system. Nobody wants to be forced in to doing content they don’t like just to access other content they might love.

Cosmetics are the reward model of GW2 for this very reason, and they were the reward model in GW1 as well. What contributed to the longevity of the first game were those rare, difficult to acquire skins that could only be acquired by tackling challenging content.

As long as the entry barrier is fair there’s no reason to expect everyone to be entitled to every reward avaliable just because they’re willing to put the time in. Everyone can easily acquire, with simply an investment of time, a full set of stat-appropriate ascended gear. That is the top of the mechanical gear limit, and that shouldn’t change.

Asking for a game in which everything is acquirable just by doing the equivalent of farming silverwastes leads to a ton of wasted and useless content. Expect that some rewards will be more geared toward collecting a large number of open world tokens over time, and some rewards will be geared toward mastering particularly challenging content.

The content is all still very much optional. You’ll never require to tackle a piece of content you hate to access other content you enjoy. You will, however have to tackle the content appropriate for the individual rewards you desire.

ReiCH.6273:

phys.7689:

Ok heres what i got.
certain items are account bound, BUT
you can earn (through various content, with high rarity or grind or time lock but would require some type of targeted play) a sellers liscence.

Sellers liscense makes a knockoff of the account bound item. There will be a visibile diffrence, it may be color, the orginal may say number 1 on it, and the knockoff number 2, A star on the weapon pommel, something not too crazy, but its there.

This allows people to sell items, and decide an items value, but it puts a limit on how many will be the market, and automatically makes getting the item directly the best way to get, as well as maintaining a small uniqueness factor.

This would of course generally be useful only for items that require a lot of effort, or skill, that are account bound.

that said, this would require them creating a bunch of new systems, item variations, and i doubt they d want to do that.

And that serves what purpose, other than to separate the player base in an extremely artificial and ugly way? Who would buy the lesser version with the “you bought it on the TP” stigma mark on it. You don’t want to find a solution that’s acceptable by both groups. You’re just searching for extra ways to humiliate the “unskilled” players. Not only you want the cool skin on you to boast on LA, you want everyone else who doesn’t have the skill to have a stigmatized version so everyone would know how much of a bad player they are?

It’s comments like this that have me believe that if you guys could, you’d have non hardcore players (whatever that means) dressed in rags and publicly ridiculed in the game word in regular intervals.

Good thing we’re the “friendliest community” huh?

Cosmetic treadmill sounds like paradise compared to your vision.

so you are concerned with the perception of an item and not the item itself? My suggestion was more along the likes of more stars on a general uniform, or gold platinum and silver medals.
after all, appearance wise there isnt much difference to an item with a star on it or not, in fact, the TP version may be more liked just for aestheitics, its also more work to create than the account bound one.

but it sounds like you want not only the same items, but no one being able to tell the difference between a how a player obtained an item.

which sounds more like fear of persecution than an actual desire for items.

Which doesnt invalidate your concerns, but i wouldnt nec say it justifies not having any means of distinguishing what a player has accomplished. Anyhow, you dont have to worry, i doubt anet would do it, as a formal system.

edit
ok, to avoid persecution, but still have diffrentiation,
special effect that randomly triggers on kill.
and, in the item description, it is signed by whomever created/got the drop.

So Hidden blade Of Death that got made TPable, is signed .Maddoctor
and the orginal might randomly cause a special visual effect when he kills an enemy.

unique, not something easily observable, but a nice bonus and reason to hunt unique items, that the players can see and enjoy.

phys.7689:

which sounds more like fear of persecution than an actual desire for items.

Which doesnt invalidate your concerns, but i wouldnt nec say it justifies not having any means of distinguishing what a player has accomplished. Anyhow, you dont have to worry, i doubt anet would do it, as a formal system.

edit
ok, to avoid persecution, but still have diffrentiation,
special effect that randomly triggers on kill.
and, in the item description, it is signed by whomever created/got the drop.

So Hidden blade Of Death that got made TPable, is signed .Maddoctor
and the orginal might randomly cause a special visual effect when he kills an enemy.

unique, not something easily observable, but a nice bonus and reason to hunt unique items, that the players can see and enjoy.

Let me reverse the question for you.

Let’s say that the item you get is very bland and ugly. But the tp version is awesome and has cool effects on it. Imagine you getting twilight without the afterimages attached to it. No footsteps, no cool curves when you swing. So the people who buy it on the TP get the cool effects, and you get the bland and ugly one, yet trully unique and a sign of your achievement. Every time you swing that baby everyone knows it’s the real deal. While the other guy with the glows is just a copy cat. Would that be acceptable to you?

Would you think that the game gave you a stigmatized version? Even when such stigma would have a positive connotation and would clearly indicate to everyone how good you are?

ReiCH.6273:

phys.7689:

which sounds more like fear of persecution than an actual desire for items.

Which doesnt invalidate your concerns, but i wouldnt nec say it justifies not having any means of distinguishing what a player has accomplished. Anyhow, you dont have to worry, i doubt anet would do it, as a formal system.

edit
ok, to avoid persecution, but still have diffrentiation,
special effect that randomly triggers on kill.
and, in the item description, it is signed by whomever created/got the drop.

So Hidden blade Of Death that got made TPable, is signed .Maddoctor
and the orginal might randomly cause a special visual effect when he kills an enemy.

unique, not something easily observable, but a nice bonus and reason to hunt unique items, that the players can see and enjoy.

Let me reverse the question for you.

Let’s say that the item you get is very bland and ugly. But the tp version is awesome and has cool effects on it. Imagine you getting twilight without the afterimages attached to it. No footsteps, no cool curves when you swing. So the people who buy it on the TP get the cool effects, and you get the bland and ugly one, yet trully unique and a sign of your achievement. Every time you swing that baby everyone knows it’s the real deal. While the other guy with the glows is just a copy cat. Would that be acceptable to you?

Would you think that the game gave you a stigmatized version? Even when such stigma would have a positive connotation and would clearly indicate to everyone how good you are?

in my first iteration, it was arbirary.
Is a different color better than not a different color?
Why is an item with a star better than one without it?
I chose small arbirary differences.
basically the value of these things is determined by the prestige that comes with them. They are virtually identical except for a small difference that primarily is generally defined as being better only due to prestige.

And yeah i think people would still want the non effect version. Footsteps isnt intrinsically better than no footsteps. Its subjective. A whole lot of the obsidian armor didnt look that good in GW1 and people wanted it for years and years.

But its interesting, your basically saying someone who earned something through overcoming whatever tasks the game set forth, shouldnt be able to have an item with a little star on the chest? or get to choose a digit to place on the sleeve?
I guess you dont feel they should be able to visually diffrentiate themselves in anyway at all?

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSLV7rOMKKYa1-GUrwKd1iOPyC6mEikQU6RnbpvtLnOgo-l3Iv8

is one of those swords drab and disgusting compared to the others?

http://cdn2-www.superherohype.com/assets/uploads/2015/04/war-machine-header-3.jpg

if they changed the number to a 003 or 000 would it be intrinsically better?

my second suggestion took made the difference completely undetectable, with a small chance when you actually land a finishing blow to get a special effect. Essentially no costume difference at all, and rarely any difference, but thats too much?

I don’t know how people would feel about this… well, I know how the OP will react, but not sure about everyone else. What if skins had different versions — like Cara and Lumi. The base version could be gained through a variety of means, the enhanced version via specialized content.

I know, I know, it’s a compromise and those sometimes please no one, but maybe some would prefer this.

phys.7689:

And yeah i think people would still want the non effect version. Footsteps isnt intrinsically better than no footsteps. Its subjective. A whole lot of the obsidian armor didnt look that good in GW1 and people wanted it for years and years.

But its interesting, your basically saying someone who earned something through overcoming whatever tasks the game set forth, shouldnt be able to have an item with a little star on the chest? or get to choose a digit to place on the sleeve?
I guess you dont feel they should be able to visually diffrentiate themselves in anyway at all?

Good then, we’ve reached and agreement already. The really unique stuff that would drop from the super extra hard difficult content would be drab and ugly, and only the people who were there could yield them. While the flashy no substance version would be yieldable by the people who never did the content. That way you could differentiate easily.

It is indeed interesting in what i’m saying. I’m saying that the content should be doable by most people should they apply the time to do it. And not hidden behind the elusive term skill. Without out of game tools like voice communication and without a dedicated group to the task at hand. Sure the players who are in a hurry can get it faster with their ts and guild groups, but it should also be content that can be done without those things provided the person going for that actually tries and applies the time necessary to learn what he’s supposed to do. So if we’re going to have exclusivity, I’d love it if accessibility would go hand in hand with that. And it would be in the spirit of the game also. Plus a pvp track with the same rewards for the pvp people.

if people dont like hard mode, plz play hello kitty online pvp.

A question to everyone that is watching this thread:
What’s your opinion on time-exclusive rewards?

For example, challenging group content might reward SKINA, for a limited time, until players beat it, until players reach a certain speed, or simply after a set amount of time (or any other system really), that exclusive stops being exclusive and is added to other types of content. Then, another piece of exclusive reward is added to new content and the cycle continues.

Do you find that satisfying as a hardcore player? Do you find that satisfying as a casual player?

Yeah, again so long as the exclusive period is not more than a couple months.

But they did not complain about GW1 campaigns being €50,- You know what.. maybe there is a correlation between a model and what people are willing to pay for an expansion? For one model €50,- is completely acceptable and people will overall be fine with it, for another it’s not. Now that people see GW2 as a cash-shop game, €50,- is unreasonable high for an expansion. If they would see it (again) as a B2P game you would likely see less complains.

You underestimate people’s ability to complain.

Well if you want to ‘fix the reward issue’ you better take it into the equation.. because it can’t be fixed without.

Well, maybe not you your satisfaction, but there are elements that can be fixed, and should be fixed, even if some of the portions you care about can be. It’s like say you lose your leg below the knee in an accident, and hop into the doctor to see what the next step is, and he goes “well, we can get you one of those fancy new power-assisted artificial legs and you should be able to walk pretty well.”

“Nope, I need my leg back how I had it, just regrow the leg.”

“Well, that’s not something that is possible right now, but there are all sorts of options available that can restore a great deal of mobility.”

“Nope, regrow the leg first, then we can talk about whatever that is. . .” and so on. It’s just not a conversation that is productive or worth having, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a productive conversation around what’s left.

It’s funny you say it would not be possible because it would devaluate them, while you also keep saying the rewards that could be put in the game should be available from multiple sources and then it has to be balanced to be fair. So easy content required more grind while very hard might reward it directly..

That is what you have been saying.. (While I personally don’t think you get it balanced)

Yes, because I’ve been talking about balancing ingame content vs. ingame content, and play-based rewards against play-based rewards. You’re talking about trying to incorporate “profit based” rewards into that, and there’s just no way to balance those, any attempt to do so would cost ANet money, whereas everything I’m talking about would not cost ANet even an additional penny, assuming that the players enjoy it (which is debatable, but my position is that they would).

May I then remind you that those items are already available in game.. Currently you can get them by doing a lot of very easy content.. You grind gold and buy them.

But you don’t. You grind gold, and you buy them from another player, and HE paid cash money for them. At some point, someone paid cash for it or it would not have entered into the game’s economy. The only way to get some BLTC loot into the game without anyone paying any money is through “key farming,” but this activity can’t account for most of the volume of BTLC items on the market, and if it were cutting seriously into their key profits then you can bet they would just disable the free keys entirely, or push them even higher up the leveling chain until people no longer found the effort worth it.

And that’s my point, if you want those items to drop as loot in some fashion into the game world, then you need to figure out a way that doing so causes some player to have to pay money for that to happen. Like I said, perhaps this could come in the form of having to pay cash to buy “dungeon tickets” and only if you use one of these tickets to run the content could you win a gem store prize for completing it, but personally I would find such a system abominable.

If it makes you feel better, I have been talking from the start about the gold loot from all content being better balanced, so if you feel that the best way to earn gold today is by doing “loot trains” and don’t like that, then running “hardcore content” after this change should make you the same or more money, so it would be an equally viable way to save up gold to buy these items on the TP.

i mean I dunno if i care too much, but you guys are like animal farm. Slowly recreating the very things everyone said they didnt like.
you are basically proposing a cosmetic gear treadmill.

Perhaps, but unlike a practical gear treadmill, as in many previous games, this one would be far more optional. If you really cared about being all shiny, then sure, you’d want to have the next big thing ASAP, but nobody would force you to. Let’s say every two months a new shiny came out, A one month, B, the next, and so on. If you were on item C, and item D came out but didn’t interest you, you’d never have to get it. If E came out and you wanted that, you could go for it, and your lack of D would not hold you back. This is unlike the practical treadmills, where if you try to skip a step then you might find the next step practically impossible to complete.

And for those who say this would be terrible. . .

It already happened three years ago.

Boom, minds blown. This game has always had this sort of progression. They’ve constantly been adding new content, and the “shiny people” have been trying to snag that new content as fast as possible to show off that they have it. Practically every new patch has included something like this.

I still think the closes solution is having multiple rewards for different difficulties that are basically the same base skin. Complete a JP and get the basic silver skin, complete it within 3 min and get the same skin but with gold details, complete it in under 2 min and unlock some effect for both skins.

But what if you want those gold accents or the cool effect but don’t want to or are not able to complete it in under 2min? Then you’re out of luck. It’s entirely subjective as to whether you’d actually care, but it’s likely that at least some people would care, and who benefits from them being sad?

certain items are account bound, BUT
you can earn (through various content, with high rarity or grind or time lock but would require some type of targeted play) a sellers liscence.

So basically high skill players could farm and sell the items to low skill players? Nope, sorry, figure out a way that does not involve making high skill players richer at low skill players’ expense.

so you are concerned with the perception of an item and not the item itself? My suggestion was more along the likes of more stars on a general uniform, or gold platinum and silver medals.
after all, appearance wise there isnt much difference to an item with a star on it or not, in fact, the TP version may be more liked just for aestheitics, its also more work to create than the account bound one.

When it comes to stats, you can have one item that is 1% stronger than another and say “well, that doesn’t really make a big difference, it’s fine.” With cosmetic items, it’s entirely subjective, so you can’t just say “this one has a star and this one doesn’t, but they’re basically the same, it’s fine.” What’s fine to you might make a lot of difference to someone else, depending on the theme they’re going for and how the item looks to them. Use this line as a simple and inalienable goal moving forward “There is no such thing as a cosmetic item that is ‘ok’ to deny people.”

but it sounds like you want not only the same items, but no one being able to tell the difference between a how a player obtained an item.

The important thing is that the item look the same. If you offer “Sunless” weapons for beating Teq, and also “Sunless” weapons for collecting Sparkfly tokens, it should be the same Sunless weapon. If you want to use that armor to show off that you beat Tequatl, then you can also throw on the Sunbringer title, and then people will know have fancy you are.

basically the value of these things is determined by the prestige that comes with them. They are virtually identical except for a small difference that primarily is generally defined as being better only due to prestige.

From my understanding, after HoT they will be making it so that Precursors will all look like “unfancied” versions of the Legendary, so Dawn will look like Sunrise, only without any of the fancy effects. Are you saying that there will be plenty of people who will have earned Sunrise, but choose to run around with the Dawn skin on instead?

I know, I know, it’s a compromise and those sometimes please no one,

Yup.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Vayne.8563:

But the portion of the people who post on forums are going to be the most dedicated people, because it takes effort outside the game. Most casual players aren’t going to post here and those are going to be the ones most affected.

Players who post on forums aren’t always the most dedicated. Casual players aren’t always the ones who are giving up the easiest.

“Casual players aren’t always the ones who are giving up the easiest. " I agree.

If you want an item right away then you need to do the hard content, if not, then you wait longer doing easier content. Its the way it should always be.

Time and difficulty equal reward. If the content is hard then you should receive the rewards faster, if it is easier then it should take you longer to get the rewards, simple.

Everyone gets it in the end doing it their own way.