Guild Wars 2

‘give something to (someone) in recognition of their services, efforts, or achievements.’

I’m quite surprised that (unless I’ve missed it) No one else seems to have noticed that the definition of rewards seems to be slowly changing in game.

Time was, you completed an event or series of events and then turned in your ‘tokens’ you receive you reward. lately however (starting with the tower as far as I remember) not only do you have to complete the events to collect your ‘tokens’ but we are now being asked to pay for our rewards.

My main concern here is the main Heirloom reward which not only requires 250 tokens which take some considerable time to collect, but also a staggering 10 Gold!

Can we expect to see more of this thing in the future? Are the days of free rewards over?

Huh…that’s a fair point.

I think the reason for these additional costs is simply because there’s a lot more gold floating around than there was this time last year. It’s inflation costs. If the heirloom potions cost 10g a year ago we’d see a lot fewer people with them than we will this year. Heck, a year ago you could buy common dyes for like 18c. Now they’re 1s. Everything’s gone up.

“Congratulations on winning first prize in tonight’s pub quiz! But if you want your trophy, hand over £10!”

Yyyyeahhh.

Seras.5702:

Huh…that’s a fair point.

I think the reason for these additional costs is simply because there’s a lot more gold floating around than there was this time last year. It’s inflation costs. If the heirloom potions cost 10g a year ago we’d see a lot fewer people with them than we will this year. Heck, a year ago you could buy common dyes for like 18c. Now they’re 1s. Everything’s gone up.

I understand this, but there are enough ‘money drains’ at the moment – the cost of materials to craft ascended gear to name but one. If you are going to advertise items as rewards, they should be just that.

The patch notes state: Found Heirlooms can be used to purchase Selfless Potions or Thoughtless Potions to display the player’s halo or horns, respectively.

What they should say is: Found Heirlooms will allow you the opportunity to purchase Selfless Potions or Thoughtless Potions to display the player’s halo or horns, respectively.

Earning 10g now versus a year ago is very different. 10g used to take some kind of effort to obtain. Now you can make 10g in a matter of hours.

Draknar.5748:

Earning 10g now versus a year ago is very different. 10g used to take some kind of effort to obtain. Now you can make 10g in a matter of hours.

How is that? (Excluding any TP flipping, etc…)

I have been hemorrhaging gold since Ascended equipment came out. Before I had like 500g and made at least a hundred a week crafting/selling exotic armor. Now all my money and efforts go towards Ascended gear and I have under 50g.

There is too much money in the economy. Gold sink.
/thread

Well its indeed a wierd way to “reward” people. ANet is probably desperate for new gold sinks and I am getting tired of everything being tied to gold or gems.

Can’t you make up to an exotic level event limited backpeice out of items that can be entirely gathered or salvaged…

And loot an event exclusive mini and infinite tonics from basic mob drops…

You can also trade 50 belongings and 2 silver for the cheapest source of obsidian shards in the game or free T6 harvesting tools.

Tbh, I thought that was the standard swag and the halo and horns were the fluff added to give people extra incentive that like farming or repeating events. Like the 1200 bag is the incentive for servers that like to coordinate.

The reward system for this release is probably the best one so far with regard to consideration and incentive to all different types of players.

Can’t please everyone.

Yeah I was shocked when I saw the halo cost 10g!!..with the all the work of finding heirlooms it’s very unfair.

But it seems the majority of people don’t really care, a little annoyed but not enough to stop them paying.

I’ve kind of given up on the halo/horns. 10 g is part of that, but the main reason was not having a simple toggle always on/off for them.

AcidicVision.5498:

Can’t you make up to an exotic level event limited backpeice out of items that can be entirely gathered or salvaged…

Sure you can – All you need is:
425 Blade Shards
10 Radiant Dust
50 Iron Ingot
10 Luminous Dust
50 Steel Ingot
10 Incandescent Dust
50 Mithril Ingots
25 Crystalline Dust
25 Orichalcum Ingots

And if you want to upgrade it to ascended, that will be an additional:
Recipe: Gift of Blades – purchased from the Mystic forge vendor for 5 gold or from refugee vendors for 3 gold and 250 Found Belongings
500 Blade Shards
1 Augur’s Stone – purchased from Mystic Forge vendor for 20 skill points
30 Obsidian Shards
500 Dragonite Ore
500 Empyreal Fragments
500 Bloodstone Dust
10 Pile of Crystalline Dust
500 Watchwork Sprockets
AND
15 Elonian Leather Square which equates to 600 Thin Leather Sections, 300 Coarse Leather Sections, 600 Rugged Leather Sections, 2250 Thick Leather Sections, 15 Glob of Ectoplasm, 150 Thermocatalytic Reageant
OR
15 Bolt of Damask which equates to Wool Scrap, 300 Cotton Scrap, 600 Linen Scrap, 4500 Silk Scrap, 15 Glob of Ectoplasm, 375 Spool of Gossamer Thread
OR 15 Deldrimor Steel Ingot which equates to 1350 Iron Ore, 1500 Mithril Ore, 600 Platinum Ore, 15 Glob of Ectoplasm, 150 Lump of Coal, 300 Lump of Primordium, 150 Thermocatalytic Reagent

Daroon.1736:

AcidicVision.5498:

Can’t you make up to an exotic level event limited backpeice out of items that can be entirely gathered or salvaged…

Sure you can – All you need is:
425 Blade Shards
10 Radiant Dust
50 Iron Ingot
10 Luminous Dust
50 Steel Ingot
10 Incandescent Dust
50 Mithril Ingots
25 Crystalline Dust
25 Orichalcum Ingots

And if you want to upgrade it to ascended, that will be an additional:
Recipe: Gift of Blades – purchased from the Mystic forge vendor for 5 gold or from refugee vendors for 3 gold and 250 Found Belongings
500 Blade Shards
1 Augur’s Stone – purchased from Mystic Forge vendor for 20 skill points
30 Obsidian Shards
500 Dragonite Ore
500 Empyreal Fragments
500 Bloodstone Dust
10 Pile of Crystalline Dust
500 Watchwork Sprockets
AND
15 Elonian Leather Square which equates to 600 Thin Leather Sections, 300 Coarse Leather Sections, 600 Rugged Leather Sections, 2250 Thick Leather Sections, 15 Glob of Ectoplasm, 150 Thermocatalytic Reageant
OR
15 Bolt of Damask which equates to Wool Scrap, 300 Cotton Scrap, 600 Linen Scrap, 4500 Silk Scrap, 15 Glob of Ectoplasm, 375 Spool of Gossamer Thread
OR 15 Deldrimor Steel Ingot which equates to 1350 Iron Ore, 1500 Mithril Ore, 600 Platinum Ore, 15 Glob of Ectoplasm, 150 Lump of Coal, 300 Lump of Primordium, 150 Thermocatalytic Reagent

Quoted for truth. It’s so simple, really.

Daroon.1736:

/shopping list

I said “up to exotic”. And yes, that mats required are totally reasonable. They can be salvaged, gathered, or bought off trading post if you are impatient. On top of that, every evolution is made in the mystic forge. So any character can make it without any pre-requisite crafting level.

You could actually make this backpeice for a low level character and evolve it as your character hits new level milestones.

That is awesome.

Kal Spiro.9745:

There is too much money in the economy. Gold sink.
/thread

This will be a bit off topic to the OP but, no… there’s absolutely not too much gold in game. For regular players whom PvE the zones, there isn’t a lot of gold. Just like in the real world, the problem is a small percentage appears to have the lions share of gold. Because the reward system has been too generous to certain activities only. The same flaws in the U.S. economy are being recreated in game. Where’s John Smith with Census like data for us?

For Rewards, I’d like to see a new one that take time but, without risk. I’d also like to see things to build or grow in cities. Tyria would become a dead wasteland the way we behave in game.

AcidicVision.5498:

Daroon.1736:

/shopping list

I said “up to exotic”. And yes, that mats required are totally reasonable. They can be salvaged, gathered, or bought off trading post if you are impatient. On top of that, every evolution is made in the mystic forge. So any character can make it without any pre-requisite crafting level.

You could actually make this backpeice for a low level character and evolve it as your character hits new level milestones.

That is awesome.

I’m not sure it’s awesome, but I agree with all your other points.

I was easily able to make the ascended back piece from items already in my bank and 10g for the heirlooms potion; as another poster pointed out, is easier to collect (once you are lvl80) than the time and effort it takes to gather the 250 heirlooms – but I’m not a casual player and I think it is wrong for others who have less time to play than I do to ask them to invest both the time to effort to collect 250 heirlooms AND then ask them to pay 10g for their reward. 10g IS still a lot of money for many players.

GuzziHero.2467:

“Congratulations on winning first prize in tonight’s pub quiz! But if you want your trophy, hand over £10!”

Yyyyeahhh.

Don’t some pub quizzes make you pay to participate anyway?

I dunno, maybe its just my perspective from the “not everyone gets a trophy” generation. I fully believe there should be tiers of rewards for the levels of effort people are willing to make.

Content tourist, here you go, have some tonics, a basic backpiece you can forge, some tokens to trade for crafting materials or tools, a little luck and some achievement points.

Weekend warrior, level that backpack up, check out this mini, infinite tonics, a few sky ship passes, more achievement points, boxes of supplies for more luck and shards, yay!

Dedicated dailies, visit LA, do the rubble run, at the end of the week you might be able to buy yourself a halo, a few more days and score some horns. Premium reward, but you put in the effort buddy…way to go!

God bless them, got the halo, got the horns, making the back-pack glow and farming 1200 runs with a server recognized guild to farm that jetpack and monocle.

This is pretty much how I believe it should be. Its pretty much how other video games, and life in general works. Put more in, get more out.

—As a side note, I have the halo, and I like it a lot. One of the reasons I like it is because everyone doesn’t have it, it is still unique. Everyone doesn’t have it because they either didn’t want to do the runs or 10g was too much in their opinion. And both of those are perfectly reasonable. If the halo was just another LS “thanks for coming, have a prize” reward, it would probably go in my bank and end up never used because everyone would have it. Like holographic dragon wings. A horizontally progressing game means a huge emphasis on aesthetics, and uniqueness. The more people that have a thing, the less unique it is, the less desirable it is. Price and/or time requirements are the quickest and easiest ways to limit the amount of people that will acquire a thing.

I don’t really mind that SOME of the rewards require an extra effort with gold or materials.

However, it is a bit of a problem when ALL of the rewards require it. Which is pretty much the case here. If you don’t want to spend money or materials, the only things you can get are…. tonics. And maybe if you’re really lucky a Magnus mini, but that seems pretty darn rare. Possibly some previous LS rewards, but those are even rarer. Speaking purely of LS-exclusive stuff, of course you get stuff like material drops and regular weapons and armor from the bags as well, but that’s nothing beyond what you can normally get.

Other than that, you need materials for the back piece (a lot of materials if you go for the higher levels), and you need money for all the heirloom and lost item trades.

Even the meta-achieve just gets you more stuff to trade. Which is perhaps the biggest issue, since the meta-achieve is what usually gives you something useful and unique. And instead its just giving you more of the same.

1. Ignore the ugly spinal blade backpack
2. ignore the ugly halo creating potions
3. ???
4. profit

We all know it’s not fair to “tax” event rewards. For some people, the 10G is a pittance and for others, it is a significant burden.

The economy is becoming a bigger and bigger mess and gating earned rewards by taking a 10G tax for accepting them is not going to do anything to make the economy better.

What the economy has needed for a long time are luxury gold sinks for those with the most accumulated wealth. Prestige character effects, individual and guild housing, (with 80% of the options affordable by most, but with opulence available at a significant cost), higher tier WvW Commander Ranks with obscene price tags, etc…

Tax luxury, not event rewards.

Kal Spiro.9745:

There is too much money in the economy. Gold sink.
/thread

It’s asinine to make an event that pumps tons of new gold into the economy while functioning as a gold sink.

Fiontar.4695:

… higher tier WvW Commander Ranks with obscene price tags, etc…

I can already see players dropping 1000g for a double sized dorito

The problem with events like these is they’re designed to keep the loot-locusts playing. Ergo, they give lucrative rewards. This leads to inflation, which hurts those who cannot play as much as the loot-locusts. And so gold sinks are added to the game in an effort to keep inflation in check. This, of course, is a double-edged sword. The gold sinks are designed to remove money from those who have it. This means those who don’t – those who don’t play as much as the loot-locusts – are again getting hurt. Those with limited play time get hurt coming and going.

Between the backpieces, old items returning and tonics, more money is drained from the economy than injected into.