Judging from my experience, the pve community is mostly focused on rewards. The maps with the greatest populations are the maps that are the most lucrative. As such, we are missing a huge percentage of the game. I have two ideas to use rewards to entice players to empty content: institute area-specific unique rewards that are desirable, or equalize rewards for all content based on the time invested (thereby making running constant events in zone Y for an hour as lucrative as running the Frostgorge Sound champ train for an hour).
Solution 1: area/content specific unique rewards
I propose that the best solution is to tie specific unique rewards to every zone, and perhaps even more locally in some cases. If we look at the current state of the game, The only reason people do the temple of Balthazar event at all is because it has a unique reward, obsidian shards. People do dungeons for unique gear. We see that unique rewards draw players to content.
Anet has already been slowly heading in this direction since release, and it shows in the content they have updated rewards for. People now fight champions, kill world bosses, run fractals, guild missions, dailies, and work on achievements. I think it is safe to say that all regularly played pve content gives unique rewards or reliably gives valuable rewards.
How would you implement zone-specific rewards?
- Before anything else, make them account-bound. This is the only way to make them unique and meaningful.
- One way to do it is with a karma vendor who appears once an event chain has been successfully completed, just like the current temple of Balthazar.
- RNG (boo, hiss)
- Reward players with an item piece on successful completion of an event, and when they get all the fragments from other events they can double-click them to assemble the reward like with tri-keys.
- Zone-specific currency (this would get super annoying when you open your wallet).
- Give a specific crafting material or narrow range of materials on event completion, with only events in zone Y giving material X.
- Tie new traits and skills to bosses in specific zones and bring back the signet of capture from GW1.
(Off-topic: pvp and wvw could use their own unique reward skins.)
Solution 2: rewards based on time to complete
There is definitely something to be said for this on a selective basis (it has helped populate dungeons and world bosses), but I don’t like this idea as the sole solution because ultimately I don’t think it will work. Basing the content on time invested doesn’t take into account the difficulty. People, especially gamers, look for the path of least resistance and would naturally coalesce in the easy content zones. We would be back at square one.
What are your thoughts? Any ideas for what should give unique rewards, or what the rewards should be?