Guild Wars 2

I’m getting a little tired of reading all the complaints about RNG. Here’s why.

Why does RNG exist? To keep you playing of course. Let’s take Tequatl as an example. Let’s remove RNG and say, after 5 runs, you earn enough tokens to get his skin chest from him. Let’s say you’ve also finished all the achievements. Would everyone keep doing Tequatl again? I’m willing to bet that Tequatl would see a significant drop off in attendance, due to the fact there’s nothing more to gain.

This is not a monthly subscription game. Don’t tell me you didn’t feel a greater urge to play a game that was taking $15 dollars a month out of your wallets to make sure you were getting something out of it vs. not having to pay per month. Even then, raids included heavy RNG. Unfortunately for you, that RNG was for gear you actually needed to progress. Thus forcing you to keep playing.

RNG exists in GW2. It has to exist for them to make money. That is why there is RNG in the gemstore and RNG for certain items. To keep you playing, thus increasing your chances you might pick something out of the store. Or buy more things from the store to get that one special item you crave.

But there’s a stark difference. RNG in this game exists for things you WANT. Not things you NEED. Gear is relatively irrelevant and any tiers you need to get to are done without RNG.

So, the lesson of the day. Control your desire to want things that you don’t factually need, which in turns controls your frustration over RNG.

But it can also deter from playing. For example I am not doing fractals since I have seen and completed them all (multiple times) and since there is nothing new in them and chances for weapon skins drop is so low, I will not go there unless they add something new (fractal or better boss etc.) or change RNG of weapon skins drop

It is needed and it is healthy for a game, but it has to be implemented smartly. Otherwise players feel “cheated” out of their victory, or hard earned work. Take the luminecent armor for ex. you have to grind an insane amount of tokens, and sometimes you can get a box through rng ,this is nice , but then, you have the plant parts, which are total rng. I can’t tell you how frustrating is to camp one boss for one specific plant part that just refuses to drop, this is where you feel “cheated” out of your work.

Now take dungeons, where rng is present everywhere except in the encounters ( which is a shame imo). How many times did you look at that chest and said " do i even bother to go to it and pick 2 blues and 1 green if i’m lucky"? Point is RNG is good but with moderation.

Oh and by “15$” and “raids” i assume wow, which had problems with loot and such (loot ninja , remember that term) . They also switched their loot table format, RNG is still present but they get some gear relevant to their class and build ( in a game that has geartreadmill none the less) /rantover.

RNG gave me so much frustration, especially in Silverwastes. I see no sense at all in it and am the verge of quitting again, as I had already done for 8 months. I belong to the outliers at the lower end, thus farmed my heart away for bandit crests (12000 alone for boots/shoulders and preparing for chest/head). My bad luck with RNG results in a terrible mood, asking myself why do I continue to waste my time doing something I hate and seeing people left/right getting what they need.

As for the money anet needs – I see your point, Stark. I spent a lot of RL money for things that interested me, but am unwilling to use my credit card anymore, as long as RNG is not evened out! I already try to keep my frustration low by avoiding world bosses, only do fractals when it is a daily and I can’t compensate it with other PVE options, but my tolerance limit is overstepped.

Everytime I read the word “chance for xxx” or “you have to be lucky” I cringe, my mood goes down.

And i m getting tired of people justifying bad, inconsistent game design.

RNG is neccessary when it brings anticipation, hope and joy to the masses on getting something; not when it brings disappointment, anger and frustration. And especially not when its the only thing that stands between you and a full armor set, title and an
ascended piece.

It’s actually 6,000 for boots and shoulders, not 12,000.

Ah, let me rephrase, 12000 in total up to… and then preparing for head/chest – which were partly wasted due to the change for the chest.

Horus Nightlight.1276:

RNG is neccessary when it brings anticipation, hope and joy to the masses on getting something; not when it brings disappointment, anger and frustration. And especially not when its the only thing that stands between you and a full armor set, title and an
ascended piece.

I fully agree, Horus. Thank you for wording it better than I could.

The real reason we have RNG is so casuals have a chance to get dropped more precursors and hoards than hardcore veteran players.

Us no-life hardcores aren’t going to spread the word about GW2, we have no friends.

Meanwhile the casuals: “bro! gw2 keeps giving me l33t stuff! u gotto play this game lol”

Squeeks.8496:

Horus Nightlight.1276:

RNG is neccessary when it brings anticipation, hope and joy to the masses on getting something; not when it brings disappointment, anger and frustration. And especially not when its the only thing that stands between you and a full armor set, title and an
ascended piece.

I fully agree, Horus. Thank you for wording it better than I could.

Indeed, nicely worded.

Would a reasonable solution to this be that rare pieces are able to be sold?

RNG is never necessary. It is not only unnecessary it is purely aggravating when the item is account bound. If I can’t sell it the only use RNG has is to prevent me from having it. That is not a good thing for players.

The problem you’re pointing at has nothing to do with RNG. Players ignoring Tequatl once they’ve got the weapon(s) they wanted would actually mean that the event is not competitive on the game wide market.

Most items/materials in the game are tradeable, so any player can sell the outcome of performing some activity A and then use the profit to buy some unbound items that are rewarded on another activity B.
If A happens to be much more profitable (and not specially more difficult or prone to failure) than B, then we might be looking at some serious design failure.
If B is the only source of some desirable but marketeable item, then there’ll be some hope for that content. On the other hand, if the profit comes from rares, crafting materials and other common and widespread items (which is the most common case), then there are serious chances on B being abandoned by most of the playerbase and only those who really like it to remain.

In the current state, Tequatl caters only to players that satisfy at least one of the following:
- They want some Tequatl exclusive skin(s).
- They enjoy the bossfight enough to give up loot for it.
However, with a proper bump on the loot, the event can easily become interesting for a much wider population, even if they’re not interested in Tequatl hoards at all.
If the activity is competitive profit wise AND has a chance on exclusive skins on top of it, then we just shift the problem from some piece of content to another. Fortunately, this is something which a token system has an easy solution for. Lets go into specifics:

Lets say that Tequatl RNG loot is set to 1/50 chance of a Tequatl hoard and another 1/50 chance of a random ascended weapon box.

First of all, that random weapon box is terrible loot.
Ascended weapons can be obtained by crafting through a process that can be reduced to gold for the most part and which doesn’t rely on RNG, so any player looking for a specific weapon would be better performing any other high rewarding activity.
Since developers seem to want some alternative way of obtaining ascended gear, we would introduce it later but, for now, we will merge those droprates so there’s a 1/25 chance of getting a hoard.

We can split this 1/25 chance into two smaller ones. 1/35 and 1/88 could work.
1/88 would be the new chance on getting a Tequatl Hoard by pure RNG. We keep it just because receving some unexpected loot is always welcomed.
The 1/35, on the other hand, will be converted on tokens for a guaranteed Tequatls Hoard. That is, players will receive a token each time they succesfully take the dragon down and there’ll be a merchant somewhere who will exchange 35 of them for a weapon box.

This is the place where we will reintroduce the alternative method of getting ascended weapons. The same merchant could, for example, offer each specific weapon box for a higher amount of tokens, lets say 50-60.
This means that, even if the player is not interested on Sunless weapons/skins, they would still have some nice use for the tokens, which adds to the overall profitability of the content for those not interested on its exclusive rewards.
On top of this, for those interested on fast profit, each token could be also exchanged for lets say a bag of t6 crafting materials.

As we can see, a token system can not only coexist with the RNG but also allows to balance rewards so an activity remains competitive for every single player, no matter if they’re interested or not on the exclusive goods it offers.

Vargamonth.2047:

The problem you’re pointing at has nothing to do with RNG. Players ignoring Tequatl once they’ve got the weapon(s) they wanted would actually mean that the event is not competitive on the game wide market.

Most items/materials in the game are tradeable, so any player can sell the outcome of performing some activity A and then use the profit to buy some unbound items that are rewarded on another activity B.
If A happens to be much more profitable (and not specially more difficult or prone to failure) than B, then we might be looking at some serious design failure.
If B is the only source of some desirable but marketeable item, then there’ll be some hope for that content. On the other hand, if the profit comes from rares, crafting materials and other common and widespread items (which is the most common case), then there are serious chances on B being abandoned by most of the playerbase and only those who really like it to remain.

In the current state, Tequatl caters only to players that satisfy at least one of the following:
- They want some Tequatl exclusive skin(s).
- They enjoy the bossfight enough to give up loot for it.
However, with a proper bump on the loot, the event can easily become interesting for a much wider population, even if they’re not interested in Tequatl hoards at all.
If the activity is competitive profit wise AND has a chance on exclusive skins on top of it, then we just shift the problem from some piece of content to another. Fortunately, this is something which a token system has an easy solution for. Lets go into specifics:

Lets say that Tequatl RNG loot is set to 1/50 chance of a Tequatl hoard and another 1/50 chance of a random ascended weapon box.

First of all, that random weapon box is terrible loot.
Ascended weapons can be obtained by crafting through a process that can be reduced to gold for the most part and which doesn’t rely on RNG, so any player looking for a specific weapon would be better performing any other high rewarding activity.
Since developers seem to want some alternative way of obtaining ascended gear, we would introduce it later but, for now, we will merge those droprates so there’s a 1/25 chance of getting a hoard.

We can split this 1/25 chance into two smaller ones. 1/35 and 1/88 could work.
1/88 would be the new chance on getting a Tequatl Hoard by pure RNG. We keep it just because receving some unexpected loot is always welcomed.
The 1/35, on the other hand, will be converted on tokens for a guaranteed Tequatls Hoard. That is, players will receive a token each time they succesfully take the dragon down and there’ll be a merchant somewhere who will exchange 35 of them for a weapon box.

This is the place where we will reintroduce the alternative method of getting ascended weapons. The same merchant could, for example, offer each specific weapon box for a higher amount of tokens, lets say 50-60.
This means that, even if the player is not interested on Sunless weapons/skins, they would still have some nice use for the tokens, which adds to the overall profitability of the content for those not interested on its exclusive rewards.
On top of this, for those interested on fast profit, each token could be also exchanged for lets say a bag of t6 crafting materials.

As we can see, a token system can not only coexist with the RNG but also allows to balance rewards so an activity remains competitive for every single player, no matter if they’re interested or not on the exclusive goods it offers.

Let me guess. You’re one of those people that feel precursors should be obtained this way as well. Where everyone in the game can have everything. I’ve always supported the fact that “Life’s tough, not everyone is going to get everything” in an MMO.

On a side note, people do the Tequatl fight because he does give quite a bit of loot and he was nerfed enough that he’s easy enough to do now with a random group in your instance.

Stark.1350:

Let me guess. You’re one of those people that feel precursors should be obtained this way as well. Where everyone in the game can have everything. I’ve always supported the fact that “Life’s tough, not everyone is going to get everything” in an MMO.

On a side note, people do the Tequatl fight because he does give quite a bit of loot and he was nerfed enough that he’s easy enough to do now with a random group in your instance.

I’m one of those people who thinks that sheer luck is a terrible way of rewarding hundreds of gold worth items.

By the way, I don’t understand what you mean with everyone being able to have anything.
If the rate of getting some item by pure RNG is 1/X, and you modify the system so you can now get that item either from a 1/2X RNG or 2X tokens (each one obtained every attempt), the amount of items across the game doesn’t change at all. There’ll be the same amount of people without the item than before; you just have ensured that those that “deserve” it are among those that have it.

I did tequatl every day after revamp, till last month. Still didn’t get any skin or mini… i’ve just decided to never go there again.
I’ve opened thousands tot bags, didn’t got amulet i wanted.
Now, rng awsome bee amulet at SW, i’m sure i won’t see it either and ill just stop going there at some point.

Rng is needed to some point, but alternative wouldn’t hurt.

There needs to be a balance between getting a reward and working for it, and it’s hard to maintain. GW2 doesn’t certainly give things to players too easily, and there’s a lot of frustration about the RNG. The players need to be able to bite that carrot dangling in front of them every now and then to keep motivated, in order to feel at least a bit rewarded for their effort.

If we are to use the famous coat boxes as an example, you either get it or you don’t. If you don’t, I doubt you feel rewarded by the plethora of blues and greens you will get. I still feel like they will add it to the crest vendor eventually, and I understand why they don’t want to do it right away – people have saved up their crests. Maybe a middle ground would work – you get tokens from killing the different lieutenants of Vinewrath and once you have them all, you can exchange 1000 crests for a coat box, if you don’t get a drop? Or something.

And by no means I’m advocating that everyone should have everything. There needs to be prestige, something that’s obtainable by high skill, like a raid armor set or weapon skins in other games. Prestige shouldn’t be foremost available by luck. (or course, someone will claim that there should be no prestige but that’s a debate for another day.)

Tequatl is a very poor example in order to try and justify RNG.

To me personally, Tequatl was never about the weapon-skins as I find them quite ugly (I have 2 unopened boxes in my bank, but I’ll come to that later…). However, even past the achievements, Tequatl happens to be a great source of karma. Having played the encounter since its rework, I still do it these days whenever I happen to be in need of said karma.

However, having done it a great many times since its implementation, I’ve “only” ever got 2 of the weapon boxes as well as 1 Tequatl minipet. I did not actively count, but I’m guessing I’m well over 200 kills. 200+ kills for… 3 actual decent drops? Where exactly does this add up?

This is the same as playing the game since headstart and never seeing an actual precursor drop, even though I’m actively playing dungeons, word-bosses, etc. and looting all kind of chests where they should potentially be in and so on.

So, nope, RNG isn’t what keeps someone like me playing… decent content is… and a feeling of steady progress. Locking stuff behind RNG that never works in my favour clearly isn’t.

Stark.1350:

Would a reasonable solution to this be that rare pieces are able to be sold?

By all means, yes!
I have terrible luck, just let me buy the things I want

I agree with you, Stark, for the most part. But the chest carapace box is not valuable, other than for salvage. It only has personal value to players who I guarantee you have jumped through several hoops to complete the armor skin collections. They did all the storylines and achievements for the chapters. They collected all the mordrem parts by doing numerous breaches. They spent at least 20g and 2k crests on trinkets. They most likely farmed sw extensively in anticipation of the latest chapter.

So we get to the final armor piece needed, and we can’t just jump through the final hoop. We get one piece guaranteed, but have to redo the world boss and rely on RNG. But because most players are doing the same thing, we can’t even map hop because maps are filling up when the Foothold is around 50%. Further, players are afk on the map to keep the magic find buff, so there are less players helping defend forts while we all just want to get to the world boss.

And while some people can be happy that they got all 3 pieces in their first few tries, there are many more people like me that have gone 0 for 10 since getting the guaranteed piece. And every day will make it harder for those of us not lucky. Because it takes around 30 people to succeed, and there will be fewer people to help as the more lucky finish their collections and move on to something else.

The decision to employ RNG to the chest armor box was a disappointing and frustrating one. It has resulted in firmly planting players like me in one place to grind this garbage until it’s done. I have spent a ridiculous amount of hours on the lumi collection. They messed up in this case, and they should fix it. They risk deflating any anticipation players like me would have in an expansion. Yes I know you can’t please everyone. But I am someone who doesn’t complain too much. When something is out of balance, I can feel it. This chest box mystic-toilet style RNG is the first thing in over 2 yrs that bothered me enough to post about it.