Guild Wars 2

The problem. Right now, explorable dungeons are hard. They should be. This, I believe, is good. The problem with this is that their rewards are locked behind a staggering number of runs. In general, you won’t get anything particularly useful or rewarding out of a single run of any given explorable mode dungeon; the things you want require large quantities of tokens, and tokens are all you’re really getting, aside from lackluster mob drops that you might be able to salvage an ecto from. In short: Guild Wars 2’s endgame PvE experience leans too heavily on long-term rewards without offering short-term “milestone” rewards along the way.

Where Blizzard made the same mistake: Diablo III. If you haven’t played Diablo III, know that its “endgame” experience suffers from a similar problem. Once you reach max level and begin playing Inferno mode—the game’s hardest difficulty—your efforts no longer feel rewarded. Item drops that are actually useful to you, and worth more than simply salvaging them or attempting to sell them on the auction house, are so far between that players generally give up on ever seeing them. The goal changes from “grind for something I can use” to “grind for coins (tokens) that will eventually get me something I can use.” Many players found this much less satisfying.

Where Blizzard avoided this mistake: World of Warcraft. Say what you will about World of Warcraft: Blizzard made a successful game. While I think Guild Wars 2 is a much better game, it can learn a few things from WoW’s formula. WoW has done very well in offering both short-term and long-term goals for its players. Hardcore players can run 25-man raids and grind for rare mount drops, while more casual players can earn smaller rewards by completing smaller tasks. It keeps a wider variety of players actually playing the game and has earned Blizzard tons of money. Whether the base game is good or not—and I maintain Guild Wars 2 is better—something can be learned from that reward structure.

My suggestion. You know what ArenaNet could also learn from?

Themselves.

Specifically, the reward structure in the original Guild Wars offers solutions to the endgame reward problem Guild Wars 2 has. In Guild Wars, you’d often be rewarded with a unique item—usually a weapon—in exchange for completing something long or difficult for the first time. It feels good to get that unique weapon, even if it might not have the exact inscription or upgrade you want on it. It’s nice to be rewarded. Later in Guild Wars’ lifespan, players could also count on having enough tokens to acquire an Oppressor weapon from the War in Kryta quests, for example. A single run was enough to get some reward.

So how can this be carried over into Guild Wars 2?

Offer a meaningful, memorable reward the first time a player completes all paths of an explorable mode dungeon, and then continue offering tangible rewards after.

A specific example of what I’m talking about: what if a player received an achievement chest the first time he or she completes all paths of an explorable mode dungeon? This chest could work similarly to the ones you get for 100% map completion: you get a stack of valuable crafting materials, possibly something from the gem shop, and then equipment. My suggestion would be to offer a token in this chest that can be redeemed for one of that dungeon’s weapons.

Yes, I know. These weapons cost a lot of tokens right now. I’m suggesting that a player should be awarded one of them, of his or her choice, for completing all paths of an explorable dungeon for the first time. This would give even casual players a very real, very tangible motivation to at least attempt to complete every path of an explorable mode dungeon, and hardcore players will likely want to grind for more than one such weapon to compliment the dungeon set they’re also working towards.

After this, I think that explorable dungeon runs should offer some sort of loot bag at the end that has a chance to contain rare crafting materials, perhaps ectoplasm, and a small chance of a piece of exotic-quality equipment. This way, you’re not doing dungeons just for the tokens: you’re also getting other, smaller rewards along the way that make you feel good.

I was thinking what PvE “endgame” in GW2 reminded me of, and you’re right — it’s D3 all over again. Except in D3 your character actually gets stronger in the end, not just prettier.

Agree with OP.

I really like the idea of offering a unique weapon at the end of the a difficult dungeon for the very first time (like we got in GW1). Utilizing the token system in GW1 in GW2 is another good idea. Loot bag with rare crafting matierals, etc. is another good idea.

/agree

I am not entirely sure what they wanted to achieve with Dungeons.

I haven’t done them all yet but haven’t found any I can’t do in either mode, the problem is I can get through it fine but it is not fun to play. The challenge level is just not consistent with any other content in the game. It will by no means slow down the accumulation of the gear, people will just zerg their way through it enough to get what they want and never go back to it ever again.

It may slow down the average player a little in getting the items but in doing so effectively shuts off one aspect of ‘end-game’ which has been the bread and butter in terms of entertaining casuals, small scale PvE dungeons.

My guild came from hardcore EQ and WoW raiding so doing the content was easy once you got a feel for the mechanics, but the encounters are not fun. I think they are having major issues when it comes to designing hard PvE content for a system that contains no tank/healer/dps mode. You avoid the one shot mechanics or you get one shot and it is very unforgiving if you don’t.

It becomes increasingly more difficult if anyone goes down because other people get flooded with AE effects they have no hope of dodging out of unless you are a thief with a dodge-happy spec.

I think I will nut my way through one set of gear that I can’t craft and then dungeons will be dead to me, I wont set foot back in any of them again. It is pretty sad because I normally like dungeons in MMOs.

I just seriously doubt that was their intention. I would have much preferred a fun, fast paced experience that was visually stunning and just limit the amount of tokens you can earn in a given time period. At least you could do them for experience and items if not tokens.

I think the dragon fights should have been the epic hard mode encounters with the awesome loot instead of the fights you can slip into a coma and still come out with gold achievement and leave the dungeons for the fun PvE content for those that are not totally into WvW/sPvP.

well elaborated post, and i cant disagree, 25 internet points for you good sir/lady i hope this can be addressed soon enough.

and i do think gw2 its way better, kinda biased i know but i do think is way better

44 more runs in SE explore and I can get my uber set >_>

Really solid post.

If we got one item guaranteed from the first completion of the explorable mode it would be a nice reward for effort, but more importantly act as an incentive to go on and get the rest of the set.

Probably the easiest way of implementing this would be to give out enough of the usual currency tokens upon that first completion such that you are guaranteed to have just enough to buy something.

Maybe I’m a masochist but I don’t like the idea of getting a participation award just for doing arbitrary content. If we’re going by comparison to WoW I personally feel the whole inclusion of cheap dungeon gear/badge rewards etc. as cheapening the entire process. I personally like working for something and getting the reward at the end of the process.

chase.2613:

I was thinking what PvE “endgame” in GW2 reminded me of, and you’re right — it’s D3 all over again. Except in D3 your character actually gets stronger in the end, not just prettier.

There’s a difference between D3 and GW2 “endgames”.. we know that GW2 has the content for it but not the rewards for it. So its a matter of due patience to see what ANet does.

D3 however… the endgame started at Normal and repeated itself 3 more times after that.

Tradewind.6913:

Maybe I’m a masochist but I don’t like the idea of getting a participation award just for doing arbitrary content. If we’re going by comparison to WoW I personally feel the whole inclusion of cheap dungeon gear/badge rewards etc. as cheapening the entire process. I personally like working for something and getting the reward at the end of the process.

I think my suggestion preserves both—and I also think the more apt comparison is with the first Guild Wars.

In the first game, you’d get a unique weapon the first time your character completes a campaign, or you’d be guaranteed to have the right amount of tokens to get one reward. To get anything beyond that took quite a bit of effort—but there was something achievable in the short term.

My intention with this suggestion was to leave the long-term rewards exactly how they are right now—requiring long-term dedication to get dungeon sets, for example—while adding some rewards that are achievable with less time dedication as well.

No I get what you’re proposing, I still don’t like that you get to cherry pick something off the cart of goodies just for completing it the one time. Or for completing the Explorable paths once. There needs to be some preservation of the body of work needed to look awesome, since that is what we’re talking about in the end. I would however support a weekly or a daily idea that completion of explorable modes perhaps rewarded a few extra emblems. But not a free item, not ever.

Well, of course it is. It’s just that one weapon isn’t necessarily going to contribute meaningfully to your ability to look awesome. Hell, in the first Guild Wars you’d get an entirely unique weapon for completing a campaign the first time—there wasn’t any other way to get them.

I think it’s reasonable to grant a single one-time weapon reward. It’s not an armor piece—you’d still have to run the dungeon dozens of times to get the armor set—and it’s not multiple weapons.

I understand that this would “devalue” the dungeon weapons, but I’m okay with that, because it also serves as incentive to play that dungeon more to get a matching armor set, or to get more weapons (or an off-hand) to match your “free” weapon.

EDIT: Also, I think the more important part of the suggestion is that dungeons should have a decent chance of offering tangible rewards on every run—not just the first, and not just after you’ve stockpiled tokens. A loot bag or chest at the end of a dungeon that has a decent chance of giving you desirable things like rare crafting mats or possibly a “generic” piece of exotic equipment would go a long way towards making the grind towards a dungeon set feel less like a slog, without actually decreasing the amount of time involved.

/signed

I enjoyed reading your post as it was well-written and had proper grammar. I also agree with almost everything you said, with a slight discrepancy that the first run should perhaps offer some bonus tokens, but not a full special shiny weapon.

Yes, engame for hardcore players is there poor, like D3

+1, good post.

It seems the reward system is just screwed up in general. While leveling, I got the best drops from killing regular mobs 5-10 lvls higher. Actually, you don’t even have to kill them yourself… just “tagging” them seems enough.

Dungeons, chests, bosses, meta-events… Rewards for all of these are pretty underwhelming.

edit: Also, dungeon tokens are unique to each dungeon, right? Why does GW2 force players to grind the SAME dungeon over and over again? I don’t get it…

Great post however there needs to be a fine balance between rewarding hard work and not trivializing gear. Where Blizzard fell short was the trivialization of ‘epic gear’ which has become more common than ‘common’ gear!

Grinding dungeons over and over for upgrades sounds pretty awful. I would like to see the best gear be more about skill than who has the most time to play.

Spitwyld.1963:

Great post however there needs to be a fine balance between rewarding hard work and not trivializing gear. Where Blizzard fell short was the trivialization of ‘epic gear’ which has become more common than ‘common’ gear!

Grinding dungeons over and over for upgrades sounds pretty awful. I would like to see the best gear be more about skill than who has the most time to play.

Absolutely. I agree that it’s dangerous to trivialize rewards. I think offering a tangible reward the first time you complete all the paths of an explorable dungeon is good, but it should definitely take real work after that. I’m glad that the dungeon gear isn’t an upgrade from crafted gear, so that grinding isn’t required to make your character more effective at any point.

I also wanted to add: does anyone think it would be a good idea if dungeons—or at least explorable dungeons—rewarded karma? As it stands, many players don’t find event grinding particularly fun. Would you feel more motivated to do dungeons if they gave karma as well as tokens?