This morning, the boyfriend and myself had a passionate discussing about GW2, like we do, and suddenly everything seemed so obvious.
The solution to all our woes (Achievement grind! RNG! Monthlies too easy bore-out! Monthlies too hard burn-out!) or How to shut up 90% of forum critics in 3 easy steps.
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Step 1: Reward players for looking at all the new content – at least once.
ANet is putting out new content for us and wants us to pay attention to it. This is fair enough, and it makes sense to motivate people to seek out the new stuff by tying achievements to it.
The current living story achievements are already pointing in that direction: tier 1 of pretty much any achievement is reached when you do something once: bash 1 pinata, light 1 effigy, win 1 game of Dragon Ball.
Let people admire the new content, free from any grind:
- Reward (special item like the dragon helmet) for players for achieving tier one (say, after between 1 and 5 actions) in all available achievements.
I know, too easy! So here comes step 2.
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Step 2: Reward players for grinding out more tiers by giving them the sodding weapon ticket
Yes, one guaranteed weapon ticket per player – if they go through all the achievements. They will suddenly feel a lot less grindy, because the holy grail of rewards is waiting on the other end. This will also end 90% of the I hate the RNG! threads.
Don’t have the time for 20 win in Dragon Ball? —> buy boxes
Don’t want to kill 250 holo creatures? --> buy boxes
Want more than 1 ticket? —> buy boxes
Want it right now? --> boy boxes
Plenty of people will still buy boxes, because they don’t have the time or patience.
- Reward (weapon ticket) for players who feel they want to complete all achievements and don’t mind the grind.
But what does “completing achievements” mean? How difficult should it be to get the weapon ticket?
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Step 3: Reward players for the amount they play – but reward them for doing things they like.
I’ve brought up the idea before for monthlies, but I might just as well apply it to Living Story achievements.
Say a specific Living Story achievement (or monthly…) has unlimited tiers, but each tier takes longer to complete than the last.
Tier 1: 1 action
Tier 2: 30 more actions
Tier 3: 90 more actions
Tier 4: 270 more actions
Now let’s say you need a total number of x achievement points in the Living Story chapter to get your weapon ticket. The fastest way to get them would be to work on all achievements in roughly equal amounts – achieve tier 4 (or whatever) in each category. OR you might pick the five things that you think are fun, and spend the entire month mainly playing Dragon Ball, and still accumulate achievement points towards your weapon ticket.
ANet would have complete control over how hard it would be to get the final reward by deciding how many total achievement points you need.
- Reward players for playing a lot, but let them choose where to put the focus – fully scalable with unlimited tiers (non-linear formula).
In case of monthlies, at the end of the month these counters would be reset and you could start over. And Living Story chapters only last roundabout a month anyway.
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TL;DR: This is what we could achieve by the three highlighted steps above:
- You hate achievement grinding but want the helmet/wings? You can have them, just appreciate the work that went into the new content at least once.
- You hate RNG and want a guaranteed weapon ticket? Work for it.
- You want more/faster tickets? Give ANet money.
- You hate Dragon Ball? Do something else instead, you’ll still get achievement points!
- You run out of things to do too quickly? There’s more tiers for you now!
Everybody wins.
~ Whips ~ City Minigames ~ City Jumping Puzzles ~
(edited by Pixelpumpkin.4608)
