Showing Posts For Broseph.9283:
Thanks for all your comments, everyone!
- Karma may be an underwhelming common event currency. Many people would like to see it applied towards a greater variety of personal reward goals such as crafting materials, more skins, etc. People seem favorable to region specific rewards, but at some point we have to reconcile the notion that it would probably further devaluate karma. I would also like to submit that karma has another issue which is that whenever you purchase something you are setting back your progress towards other purchases. Of course, that’s a fundamental aspect of currency and yet, it’s less intrinsically rewarding than gold because you can use gold to make more gold (gear upgrades, crafting, trading, etc). At the level 80 end especially, big karma sinks are largely cosmetic and will not help you earn more karma. Personally, I feel that effective reward systems regularly disperse rewards along the path to a longer term goal. (If you haven’t checked out PvP Reward Tracks, you should!)
A few thoughts:
-Chaining events are very important to me. I wish all events chained into others. I like discovering things in the game world that directly lead me elsewhere.
-What if we had PVE reward tracks? They could be exactly like the PVP ones but you would have to do dynamic events or hearts of any level to fill them up. This idea solves many issues in my opinion.
1) No new currency would need to be added. Other systems could remain as is.
2) Incentive to complete old content and go looking for events.
3) Reward progress could be equalized between events from different level ranges so that we could choose to go anywhere we wanted. Progress amount could be determined on a percentage basis like experience is.
4) Small dev time involved (likely) since we could port the pvp system over and add new skins at a later time.
5) You could even make it regional. “Complete Krytan events or hearts to fill out this reward track and earn Krytan themed rewards.”
Again, I am looking for simple ways to spice up old content. I personally love the PVP reward tracks and I wish that I could do something similar in PVE. I could be wrong, but I believe a system like this might make sense in the game world. It might even be possible to hold this feature until a class hits 80 in order to not overwhelm new players and cater specifically to the veterans.
Also, now that I think of it, there are several dungeon armors I wish that I could have without having to grind PVP or dungeons to get. I would seriously take the reward tracks as they are.
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What do we get? I’m not clear on what you get as a reward. Are they items? Or just look you get a new button to press? And do these rewards cover any level gained or only up to and including 80.
I was wondering this as well.
Will we get rewards for leveling up at 80 after the feature pack?
Currently, I don’t really notice much when I level up at 80.
The intent of the Renown Heart system was originally to help players find event content. They also provide a decent method for us to give the player some context and awareness of what’s going on in the area. There are probably a few issues in that design which we could discuss. We could also let it suffice to say that hearts do not make the best repeatable content the game has to offer.
On the topic of keeping players engaged with open world content, I think this goal may be for more approachable from a different angle. Consider Dry Top, which has no hearts. Players on that map are participating in events all the time, largely on the premise that each event contributes to both map-level and personal-level goals. This gives me the notion that with a little help at the system level, events can and should be the bulk of repeatable open world content in Tyria.
I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on that.
In my opinion, the game has two great issues gameplay-wise:
Most content in the world (entire PvE maps) are not capable of providing wanted and valuable loot (Gold is wanted and valuable loot. Green or blue armor parts are usually not.) and the most content is really old.Resetting Heartquests is an easy way for ANet to add additional repeatable content to the world, whether the reward of those hearts is valuable or not.
I think you should be able to go to the Heartvendor and reenable the Heartquest if you like to.
There are different ways how the reward could be structured.
One idea would be, that upon successfully completing the Heartquest, the vendor offers one of his items for free.As for the long-term fix for old content and reward structure, I would like to continue Tobias’ thoughts.
Like already in Dry Top, there should be local currencies, rewarded by events (and Heartquests). Those currencies can be traded at local vendors for items.
But unlike in Dry Top, those vendors should offer meaningful rewards. There should be an option to exchange the local currency for gold, for local (new) armor- and weaponskins, for minipets, local dyes, normal crafting materials and other stuff, that has neither limited, nor one-time usage. Also, the events in all areas shouldn’t be part of a “mega-event” like in Dry Top, so that not entire maps are forced to cooperate in order to unlock vendor items.
The exchange rate for gold can also be influenced by how many people exchange gold for one currency, which will drop the exchange rate. This should assure, that people don’t only camp specific areas or events, but spread evenly over all maps.
The acquisition of one currency through events should also be gated by the amount of players participating. More players at one event means that the event becomes easier, which should lead to less currency being awarded.
This system could be enhanced in multiple directions. For one, repeating Heartquests could also grant the local currency and the Heartvendor could also accept the local currency. Dungeon tokens could become the new local currencies, which would incorporate dungeons into the local currency.
All in all, I think that local currencies are the most ideal way to deal with the reward lacking PvE maps. But in order to get players doing those events all over Tyria, the reward has to be appropriately.On a side note: This could be a great way to implement a precursor hunt:
For each precursor, you have to get items from all over Tyria, bought with the respective local currency. If you add enough local currencies (not one for each map but mybe one for each race?) and combine the items bought from these currencies with other “special” items, that can be acquired differently, you have implemented a working system, that wont flood the market with precursors.
These are fantastic ideas! I would go for this.
… further ideas related to the dungeon-token for events/exploring-idea:
- Put the dungeon vendor also in the map where you get the tokens for doing the events (in front of the dungeon)
- Increase his loot-offer…
- dungeon-specific lockpicks: You buy one for 5 dungeon token (equals doing 5-10 events)
- spawn randomly chests in the map (and the dungeon in hidden locations) which get you 1-2 champion loot bags —> makes exploring much more rewarding
- lockpicks are also rare drops from mobs (higher dropchance from mobs with bonus xp for not being killed for a while)
This!
Karma prices are static. Back in august 2012 the temple armors were 42,000 Karma a piece just like they are today. They are just as hard to get for a new comer as they were to us when we started.
Heh. No.
See, when I started? There were no Jugs of Karma when I completed my Daily Achievements. Ten months later, I was swimming in Jugs of Karma and buying a full set didn’t even dent the incoming flow for long.
Today, they stepped it back from Jugs to something else, I forget what but it’s not to the same amount as it was. It’s still easier than the time when Daily Achievements awarded nothing other than AP and some neat lil items.
Actually they were even harder to get because karma was bound to our character and couldn’t be traded through our account. If I wanted a karma armor for a specific character, I had to for farm the karma with that character.
Jugs were not bound, and indeed the preferred way to farm up a ton of Karma for just such a reason. Just get thee hence to doing your Dailies for two hours a day and you too could arm your alts with Temple Armor.
All this and more is why there are people swimming in that purple currency and going “what the heck do I do with it”.
I think it would be safe to say that these sources of Karma might need to be nerfed if new karma reward systems were put in place.
Basically, I only see karma having 3 uses atm.
1. Gearing up alts with temple gear. (useful till out of alts)
2. Buying the random boxes for lodestones, since anything else in it is pointless. (RNG)
3. Buying level 80 greens and putting in the forge. (RNG)You can spend on the ascended crafting stuff, but you get that easily from dry top now.
If anything, just convert a large amount of it to another form of currency like laurals, then we can at least buy dyes or something for it.
See, this is precisely what depresses me about karma currently. The problem is, this is our reward for going out in the world and doing these events…
We are lacking new PVE armor skins since release; I feel this would be a good way to implement them.
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A karma reset then! Haha. They could let us know to spend our current karma before they do, and then reset it at some feature patch.
One of the reasons I am so focused on karma specifically is that the systems are already in place and development time would probably be smaller compared to adding other reward systems in the game. I could be wrong about this, but I was approaching this from the angle of something that could be done in a reasonably short period of time.
If hearts had better rewards the second/third/fourth time around, I don’t see why this would be a problem. Better yet, each time you get map completion on a zone, the zone resets and you get better rewards for each heart and event you do afterwards.
No, please, just stop, just stop right now. It’s a MISERABLE idea. Hearts are terrible, having them be repeatable to unlock the vendor again is just an awful idea.
I reiterate
This is the absolute WORST idea I have EVER read on these forums or seen in chat, or on any other forums or boards, it’s TERRIBLE.
Hearts are by far the worst content in the game.
They were only added for World of Warcraft zombies who are used to quests and quest hubs. Just stop. Hearts are a compromise, a tutorial, not a fundamental part of the Guild Wars 2 formula. I for one am glad by Orr they are gone and in Southsun and Drytop they’re gone. I wish they could have removed them from all zones over level 25, because they are miserable to do. When I go through doing world completion I do all the exploration and skill challenges first usually, and end up postponing doing hearts for another time because they’re so awfully boring. If anything remove hearts from some zones, don’t make them repeatable.
The steps to complete a heart aren’t much different or less interesting than the escort events, or events where you stand in a red circle, etc. If the rewards are equivalent then how is it such an awful idea to expand the things that you can do in a zone after completion?
I would really recommend shifting the focus from the hearts in the zones to the dynamic events. There are MANY more dynamic events in each zone than hearts, and this content wouldnt mess with the completionists.
You have valid points; I especially like your idea about the wallet being divided to allow an additional regional currency category. I honestly just think that the pros simply outweigh the cons here for using karma more heavily. I would also emphasize that much of the rewards I would argue for would be cosmetic (skin based) and disconnected from the ideas of stats. I probably wouldn’t recommend this be used for ascended items.
For example, a very expensive piece of piece of Obsidian armor for example could cost 500,000 karma per piece, and would have the text “Double click this item to add this skin to your account” or something along those lines and be clearly cosmetic.
I am somewhat in agreement with one of your earlier posts about having too many currencies…I am very surprised that they have not opted to make karma a more mainstream currency on the reward end and instead have used gold or additional currencies. The only reason I suggested possibly having additional currencies is that I wanted to see if there was a way to keep rewards region/location specific.
If they don’t wish to create new armor/weapons, it would be wonderful to see the kinds of weapons and armor that would be on the gem store available in this way.
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Anthony, can you tell me why karma seems much less important now that it has been at release?
We have added a few karma sinks along the way but typically new content comes with a new currency, eg. candy corn or geodes. I haven’t personally implemented all of this content or currency but if I had to guess I would say that this pattern exists because we actually want to give you specific rewards for specific content.
Have you guys considered allowing old temporary content items to be purchased with a combination of karma and laurels sometime in the future? I personally feel the buying of equipment types (practically skins) through WvW with Badges of Honor and Silver/Gold is a nice touch, and would love to see something similar unfold in PvE using a combination of Karma and Laurels.
What if we used Karma, Laurels, and a rare drop item (mysterious fossil, ect.) from specific zones?
I responded to you actually in that thread, but in summary, I really don’t think there is a problem with having certain armors or weapons cost several hundred thousand karma.
Karma rewards should be more dominant:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Karma-should-be-more-dominant-as-a-currency/first#post4339681No. They should not be.
Karma is something many long-time players have in tremendous bulk, specifically because there is nothing to spend it on. I think at some point I had upwards of seven figures until I decided to start buying Lost Orrian Jewelry Boxes.
If you moved to Karma-based rewards? There would have to be either a reset of Karma or an astronomical amount set as the goals to prevent older players from just going “huh, 5000 Karma for this new shiny thing? Sure, I’ll get fifty . . .”.
What if we had very high end armor sets cost several hundred thousand karma each?
What if we could purchase transmutation shards with karma?
Im just brainstorming here; Karma was implied to be a useful currency (everything in the game rewards it) and the reason you have so much karma is because it has no relevant purchasing power. I think significant effort should be put into rediscovering its use. If you had to make choices on which awesome items to buy with your karma, you would be more careful in how you spend it and would likely not be stockpiling it.
Also, you have a point about the different currencies getting out of hand…perhaps we could borrow from the dungeon currency system? For example, if a person wanted a certain item, they could farm the respective zone or dungeon (or both!).
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The devs should further incentivize the current dynamic event system in sub-max level zones and tap into the already robust core leveling experience that the game offers.
I think that a good way to get people back out into the leveling zones experiencing dynamic events is to add region specific “Geode” type currency in addition to karma to purchase region specific cosmetic gear including armor and weapons.
Development time would be limited to creating said armor/weapons rather than going back and adding in events and other larger features and it would revitalize large amounts of content.
The events are already in place and provide repeatable content; In fact, if I leveled a new character right now, I am confident that I would see many events that I have never before seen. The problem is, I have no incentive to seek them out on their own because the karma rewards aren’t very good, and there are far better ways of obtaining gold.
I actually created a thread on the subject of a karma dominated reward structure, and I will provide a link below. Since I know a dev is looking for thoughts in this thread, I would really like to draw folk’s attention to the lack of end-game relevant karma rewards in the game.
Karma rewards should be more dominant:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Karma-should-be-more-dominant-as-a-currency/first#post4339681
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Karma should have a dominant role in the game’s reward structure.
I propose that continued development in Gw2 place a large emphasis on karma based rewards. I feel significant development of karma based rewards will result in a large amounts of currently stale content to become relevant again. These points are based off of my personal opinion that this game’s core experience is actually it’s leveling experience. I wanted to brainstorm some ideas which would bring the “magic” of the leveling experience back to max level players.
Karma as we currently experience it:
1. Karma is account bound and is mostly disconnected from the gold economy.
2. Karma is a reward for most activities and is already integrated deeply into the game.
3. Karma has limited uses for a max level player, and the emphasis shifts over to gold for progression.
4. Karma is a currency reward which allows players to choose how they wish to be further rewarded.
Considering these points, here are a few of my thoughts regarding karma as it relates to Gw2’s reward structure.
1. Karma currently does not have enough uses at max level. The leveling experience places much emphasis on the acquisition of karma, but the need for karma as it relates to progression falls off at max level (outside of legendary weapons). I think the gear changes on the temple vendors were a step in the right direction and I would like to see more of that sort of thing but with the addition of location relevant cosmetic items (more on this later).
2. There should be more of a connection between dynamic events/hearts/map completion and equipment/skins/cosmetic rewards. The game already provides karma as a reward in all the right places; there should be more of a direct connection between completing all of these activities (even events in low level zones) to interesting item acquisition. This game’s leveling experience makes up much of the core game play and should provide a sense of progression at 80. Speaking personally, I would say that I desire to spend more time in all of the game’s leveling zones but I am missing much of the fun as it relates to a relevant reward. I enjoy Orr/Frostgorge/Dry-Top but I would like the other zones to be more relevant.
3. Region specific armor and weapons should be implemented in most of the zones. First of all, we need more armor skins in the game that don’t come from the gem store. Having region specific weapon and armor skins on karma vendors in each zone would be awesome. You could have a Shiverpeaks armor and weapon set, as well as a Krytan, ect. These items would be found only on vendors in their respective areas.
4. Dry top currency (geodes) could serve as a model for other zones. I propose introducing other unique region specific currencies in addition to karma to ensure that people who want a Shiverpeak’s weapon/armor set actually spend time in Shiverpeak zones. We already have a currency for the Maguma jungle zones.
5. Vendors for special karma rewards (weapon and armor skins) should be accessed only under certain conditions. An example of this might be placing certain vendors with location specific cosmetic items behind certain barriers like meta events or even in WVW at the center of the castle in Eternal Battlegrounds. Again, I would also recommend the use of a region or activity specific currency.
6. People currently only farm dynamic events which involve champions or several packs of monsters. The main reward in these situations is never actually coming from the events themselves but from monster loot. I would like to shift the general incentive to do an event to the event itself.
7. Most things should be purchasable with karma since most activities reward it. What if things like Cultural Armor Skins, Crafting tools and reagents, Transmutation charges, ect. could be purchased with varying amounts of karma?
8. Gold should be reserved as a secondary currency for use with trading post. I am not an economist, and so I am not sure how to keep gold’s value tied to something but I do believe that it should be disconnected from karma, and that karma should remain disconnected from the gem store. We need more items only obtainable by playing the game itself.
That’s it for now. Much of these suggestions come from what I would personally like to see while I wait for expansion content. What do you guys think?
Is it possible to have too many gold sinks in a game? Like more money is taken out of the economy than being added? Just a thought…
Mikpet,I dont know if I understand the repair portion of your comment. What choice do people have other than to repair when their gear breaks if they want to continue? Are the repair costs different directly at the dungeon vs elsewhere?
As far as trading post is concerned, I believe the current issue is more of a supply exceeding demand sort of thing; I could be wrong however.
At risk of derailing the thread, I can’t respond to your tax comment; I will say that I still believe in some taxation and feel I should pay.
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I am a libertarian and not much a fan of taxes, haha. But in a game, gold sinks do something different than taxes, they help prevent the currency from losing value (otherwise everyone would gain so much wealth that prices would have to rise on things to counterbalance that).
I feel gold sinks are necessary. I would like to pay it in a different form rather than not paying it. I would gladly pay more in repair costs, or a higher % cut on the TP, and so on. My preference is to pay nothing to teleport and more on something else that still affects me, but doesnt limit my options so directly.
Edit: Katie Feathermoore, your answer rocks.
It’s just unnecessary. Extra steps. Extra time spent; the game could be more efficient…that is all I am saying. I see your point; your point is exactly how I am currently working around the issue. I still think it is unnecessary, and quite possibly an unintended consequence.
Edit: I would like to be able to port directly from various zones (checking for major events quickly), port to Divinity’s Reach from Orr, or to any places I have previously been where I just like the atmosphere (like Queensdale and some of the earlier norn zones). This last thing I mentioned is what is currently impacted the most by WP costs, because it is unnecessary, but desired. The costs make it to where I only travel when necessary.
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Well, everyone wants to jump around…but they aren’t jumping around nearly as much as they would be if there were no costs associated. Some of the cities wouldn’t be so empty already.
The costs say to me: “if you would like to travel, you need to work for it or else you will run out of money, AND, if you would like to travel and at the same time continue to accumulate money for whatever it is you are saving for, then you need to travel ONLY when necessary or else you will reduce your efficiency.”
I am basically saying that while most aspects of the game respect our time, this one is somewhat inconsistent with that premise. The WP tax acts as both a gold sink AND a determent, and I am questioning whether or not this is exactly what A-net had in mind, given their experience with the first game.
…but I want to jump around as I please. I will just flat out admit it…it’s one of those little things I liked about GW1 that would increase my enjoyment of GW2.
Oh no, the respec costs are perfectly reasonable. My argument is more of a nod to what I liked about Guild Wars 1; the fact that these costs exist and that you have to go and find a specific trainer reduces how much you might tweak the smaller details in your build.
…and instead, have a gold sink else where? (or slightly adjust current ones to make up for this?)
I feel the current gold sinks are doing a good job of preventing runaway inflation but at the same time, the way point costs are deterring me from what I would normally do if they did not exist. I only travel where I ‘need’ to go, as opposed to traveling where I’d like to go.
For example, in GW1, whenever I was in game, but not actively doing anything, I would port to a location that I found nostalgic, or enjoyable, while talking with a guild or with my friends. In Gw2, I feel that this goes against acquiring wealth (at the very casual and slow rate that I have been working towards that goal)…I feel this is having a larger effect on the community as cities are feeling somewhat deserted other than Lion’s Arch. If WP costs were free; I would find myself in Divinity’s reach a heck of alot more often. I have the urge to port there often as it stands, but 3 silver says no…
Respec costs, although not NEARLY as big of an issue as WP costs, still bother me; this cost includes having to visit a trainer and pay a direct fee + WP cost…If I did not have to go through this, I would find myself experimenting with builds much more often. If I had it my way, I would have a little minus icon right below the plus icon on the traits, so that I could pull points out as I pleased and move them around, similiar to guild wars 1 (or a button at the top like in the mists area). Perhaps making it only possible to respec in one of the large cities may prevent excessive retooling of builds (like in dungeons for example, as that is not my desire here).
To summarize, I feel these 2 “taxes” have a noticeable effect on the decisions I make when playing the game including how often I travel using waypoints (and where I would travel to) and restricting how often I experiment with my build. I feel Guild Wars 2 is very respectful of my time and directly contrasts the time sinks like Wow and other related games; however, in these 2 specific areas, I feel Guild Wars 2 slightly goes against the casual spirit of the first game.
It is likely possible to eliminate these 2 costs for the sake of increasing the feeling of freedom and choice of desired game play, and make up for the removed costs in a less noticeable way such as repair costs, tradepost fees, trait manuals, ect…
Thank you. I would love to hear another answer or two on this subject if possible. Also, what the heck is this fascination with the word kitten? I do not understand.
Edit: I now know what kitten is for…hahaha.
So a few friends and I were thinking about getting into WvW, but we never know which map to queue for so we just pick at random. Being that queue times are really long to change maps, I am wondering if there is away to know what is going on in the battlefield before selecting a map to queue for….
What do you guys do? Do you just randomly pick the map?