Guild Wars 2

If you can get to the first waypoint in Verdant Brink…try going through the portal there to go backwards? Good luck!

I heard George RR Martin was going to take over the writing of the story..so there is always hope! LOL!

[img]http://i.imgur.com/a85VKLa.jpg[/img]

Nice job of product placement! <Sorry> Yes, Big Bang Theory, episode that aired last night.

The ghosts aren’t gone…are they! ;P

Test.8734:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

And that’s what MMO devs want, to keep you playing. So yea, it is possible, they just won’t do it.

Which, ironically, came from the days of P2P games. Without that model, having players coming and going as new (paid) content is released could work. But developers are too used to the old mentality, and grind is just too easy to make, that grind is what we get.

It’s what the player base wants, too. They just do not want to have gear REQUIRED to play the game locked behind 600 hours of game play with drops that are random and need or greed dice rolls etc.

Seera.5916:

Leo G.4501:

Seera.5916:

Leo G.4501:

Seera.5916:

So those not wanting to do the event by want to use a nearby waypoint that’s not within the event radius should be punished?

If those same people got killed in the event somehow, then I suppose so. If those people are just passing by, what’s stopping them from running away, getting to safety and out of combat and then WPing somewhere they want to be?

You did not read what I posted correctly.

Person on Map B wants to go to WP 1 on Map A. However, WP 1 on Map A is near an event, but not near enough that it would be contested due to the event. Should THEY be punished and not be able to go to WP 1 because there’s an event nearby?

Because WP’s that are already pretty much on top of any event are already locked out to both participants and non-participants of events.

Your suggestion will just make things worse.

If the WP isn’t contested and you aren’t dead or in combat, then how does that pertain to what is being suggested?

If you are dead and you happen to be in that event, the options should encourage others to rez you.

And it takes an INCREDIBLY long time to rez someone who is fully down. Meaning it takes another person out of the fight.

It’s much better to just let the person WP to a nearby WP so that they can actually actively participate again. Open world isn’t dungeons. They do not need to be treated equally because they are two different things.

WP zerging isn’t a problem in the open world. You’re making a solution to a non-existent problem.

Speccing into healing power, even a little bit decreases this time immensely, but that’s not what the ‘meta’ says spec for. The meta needs to adjust. Someday, it might.

Stop playing MMO’s? Seriously, the MMO community continues to not only accept the desire of addiction to a game, they demand it. Companies are going to find ways to scratch this itch any way they can. I am honestly taking a bit of a break because of this. The implementation of a pure lottery in the Halloween content was my wake up call to this fact. I have logged in to get my free content, and have played it with my friends, but I am not in game much past that.

Just to remind you, the longer you do not log in, the more expensive it will be to open all the content. Each 2 week episode missed is 200 gems to open. You can get the content free by logging in and downloading it during the 2 weeks it is ‘live’.

I enjoy the ‘Honorary Skritt’ title. /15chars

People forget the original design for GW1 was actually to be a PvP game first, utilizing the story mode as a break away for that. Fotunately for us PvE people, they noticed that we were sticking around for the PvE and kept getting better at the story telling in the game. As that increased they realized they needed a new engine to tell the story better, hence, GW2.

spoj.9672:

Roybe.5896:

Ill explain why randomness within an encounter is bad. Say your group gets to a boss which has 3 different skill sets. Its random which one it takes. Say one skill set requires as many interrupts as you can take. And another skillset requires huge amounts of condition cleanse. You have no way to tell which skills you need until you engage. Do you see the problem here?

Actually, no I don’t. Seems a legit problem to overcome under pressure. All plans in life are like this. Perfect until engagement commences. This just seems to be requiring raids to be a logic puzzle than a fight.

Once you have engaged you cannot switch skills. If you do not have the tools available to defeat the boss then you are forced to disengage. This might be acceptible on your first few playthroughs. But after that its just silly and annoying.

Roybe.5896:

On the other hand. Say you get to a room. You know theres a boss there. But it can be 1 of 3 bosses. Each boss requires a different strategy. You see the boss and then you know which skill set you need. But that doesnt mean its easy. The fight should be challenging regardless of preparation. You are not setting up groups to fail at every attempt with this method.

This is my definition of a static fight. The challenge is in figuring it out, one and done kind of content.

All AI results in this in the end. AI is predictable after all. They key is to make a fight fun and challenging even when you know exactly what to do. Many fractal bosses pull this off rather well despite being relatively simply. And there is always room for new innovative strategies.

Roybe.5896:

Anyway Im kind of against randomizing boss spawns because then a raid becomes a bit too much RNG based. Which reduces the competative side. You might not like speedruns. But they are a good method of adding replayability and promotion for content. Despite the many speedrun haters. There are also a lot who were inspired by the same content simply because they keep an open mind.

Again, your assumption. I do not hate speedruns. What I’m trying to do is get people to help come up with other ideas that are outside the general consideration of repetition for the sake of efficiency. To switch this up, why should speed running be considered the ‘gold standard’ since you apparently are unimpressed with ideas that might not be as controllable thus decreasing your efficiency?

I didnt say you hate speedruns. I was merely explaining my reasoning for disliking excessive randomness. There is a competative side to PvE. And that is speedrunning. If things are too random then it works against that community. As a speedrunner myself I would have loved to compete for fractal records. Unfortunately the RNG nature of how instances are selected makes that completely unrealistic to achieve any real competition.

Good points all! Anyone else speaking up thanks for the input.

Yes, I do agree…fighting the UI is not an acceptable issue.

I find myself in most of this content figuring out the puzzle and being satisfied knowing. Once I see the answer the fun is really over, it just becomes a matter of getting past the puzzle and figuring out the next one.

spoj.9672:

Roybe.5896:

Wouldn’t randomness increase the need for coordination and communication. I understand that ‘metas happen’, but, are they necessary? Can a meta be claimed when it’s aim is to ‘be prepared in general’ rather than ‘this is the most efficient way to run this’? More interestingly, are these activities acting as a reward? Can those rewards be attained in a different manner? Can metas be minimized in some way and make the game more interesting overall?

Why is chaos and randomness within an encounter ‘bad design’, but ok in mob placement? What is rewarding about ‘set piece’ fights being scripted?

I remember large content within GW1. Metas in that game eventually trivialized the content. Much of the content became soloable so that min max rewards were obtained to the detriment of the content. We currently have many dungeon paths, content made to be hard enough for 5 man teams, is now soloable to increase the rewards. The answer to these problems have lead many games, this one included, to make uninspiring content (i.e. damage sponges, one shot kills, etc.) for many that enjoy this type of content, or poorly designed content that with ‘proper’ metas, can be beaten with fewer people than originally designed, increasing rewards for those that can and excluding more people from the content because fewer are needed.

I have no problems with smaller groups running, good for them for finding a way…however it does hurt the overall game in the long run..either by concentrating wealth, excluding more people actually running the content, and injecting more goods into the economy devaluing the rewards to a degree ( if these smaller groups are more efficient than larger groups).

Can we avoid putting the blame on solo’ers for hurting the game please. Your last paragraph is completely unjustified and full of incorrect assumptions.

Not the point I was trying to make, however, I will abandon this.

Ill explain why randomness within an encounter is bad. Say your group gets to a boss which has 3 different skill sets. Its random which one it takes. Say one skill set requires as many interrupts as you can take. And another skillset requires huge amounts of condition cleanse. You have no way to tell which skills you need until you engage. Do you see the problem here?

Actually, no I don’t. Seems a legit problem to overcome under pressure. All plans in life are like this. Perfect until engagement commences. This just seems to be requiring raids to be a logic puzzle than a fight.

On the other hand. Say you get to a room. You know theres a boss there. But it can be 1 of 3 bosses. Each boss requires a different strategy. You see the boss and then you know which skill set you need. But that doesnt mean its easy. The fight should be challenging regardless of preparation. You are not setting up groups to fail at every attempt with this method.

This is my definition of a static fight. The challenge is in figuring it out, one and done kind of content.

Anyway Im kind of against randomizing boss spawns because then a raid becomes a bit too much RNG based. Which reduces the competative side. You might not like speedruns. But they are a good method of adding replayability and promotion for content. Despite the many speedrun haters. There are also a lot who were inspired by the same content simply because they keep an open mind.

Again, your assumption. I do not hate speedruns. What I’m trying to do is get people to help come up with other ideas that are outside the general consideration of repetition for the sake of efficiency. To switch this up, why should speed running be considered the ‘gold standard’ since you apparently are unimpressed with ideas that might not be as controllable thus decreasing your efficiency?

spoj.9672:

Roybe.5896:

Blaeys.3102:

hybrid.5027:

You realize that you can change gear and traits and skills at any point out of combat? Each boss, each difficult trash pull etc will have its own meta. If you need condition damage for a particular encounter, the warriors or engineers will throw on their Rabid gear with giver’s weapons and retrait, and then go back to whatever is good for other encounters.

The meta will be determined boss by boss and encounter by encounter. That’s how it should be, by the way.

Very well said.

This is why I think this thread needs to take the toolbox approach several of us advocated several pages back (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/page/25#post4535356).

Let’s put our energy into identifying the tools a raid should be expected to bring (interrupts), those they are likely to have (boon stripping), and those that are very niche (mesmer portal) – and then look at them as a laundry list of soft “roles” players can fill while in raids. That will provide a solid base on which initial raid design can be built.

This was the point of my idea of introducing randomness into the equation. If events cannot be completely planned for, you have, in my way of seeing it, a much more dynamic, difficult, and engaging event. It doesn’t become a LFG needs condi warrior or LFG needs bomb Engi. It becomes a dance of ‘CC that mob so I can get my sword out’ or ‘hang on while I switch out my bleed skill for an interrupt skill’. This type of gameplay works towards this games strengths, rather than knowing every event and bringing prebuilt meta’s.

This is breaking the molds of other games raids based on the above issues. It appears that many do not agree, or think there are other ways to accomplish this goal. Great. I can help find the edge of the box. This is one of them. How to do you get past the box to something new and different that allows for greater flexibility, while allowing raiders to become their own ‘special snowflakes’.

Its best to create challenge through range of abilities and coordination required. Not randomness. You can make mobs and bosses spawn in different locations. That kind of randomness is fine. But when you start making groups engage fights not knowing what abilities it will have especially when those abilities require coordination to be countered. Thats bad design.

Wouldn’t randomness increase the need for coordination and communication. I understand that ‘metas happen’, but, are they necessary? Can a meta be claimed when it’s aim is to ‘be prepared in general’ rather than ‘this is the most efficient way to run this’? More interestingly, are these activities acting as a reward? Can those rewards be attained in a different manner? Can metas be minimized in some way and make the game more interesting overall?

Why is chaos and randomness within an encounter ‘bad design’, but ok in mob placement? What is rewarding about ‘set piece’ fights being scripted?

I remember large content within GW1. Metas in that game eventually trivialized the content. Much of the content became soloable so that min max rewards were obtained to the detriment of the content. We currently have many dungeon paths, content made to be hard enough for 5 man teams, is now soloable to increase the rewards. The answer to these problems have lead many games, this one included, to make uninspiring content (i.e. damage sponges, one shot kills, etc.) for many that enjoy this type of content, or poorly designed content that with ‘proper’ metas, can be beaten with fewer people than originally designed, increasing rewards for those that can and excluding more people from the content because fewer are needed.

I have no problems with smaller groups running, good for them for finding a way…however it does hurt the overall game in the long run..either by concentrating wealth, excluding more people actually running the content, and injecting more goods into the economy devaluing the rewards to a degree ( if these smaller groups are more efficient than larger groups).

Blaeys.3102:

hybrid.5027:

You realize that you can change gear and traits and skills at any point out of combat? Each boss, each difficult trash pull etc will have its own meta. If you need condition damage for a particular encounter, the warriors or engineers will throw on their Rabid gear with giver’s weapons and retrait, and then go back to whatever is good for other encounters.

The meta will be determined boss by boss and encounter by encounter. That’s how it should be, by the way.

Very well said.

This is why I think this thread needs to take the toolbox approach several of us advocated several pages back (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/page/25#post4535356).

Let’s put our energy into identifying the tools a raid should be expected to bring (interrupts), those they are likely to have (boon stripping), and those that are very niche (mesmer portal) – and then look at them as a laundry list of soft “roles” players can fill while in raids. That will provide a solid base on which initial raid design can be built.

This was the point of my idea of introducing randomness into the equation. If events cannot be completely planned for, you have, in my way of seeing it, a much more dynamic, difficult, and engaging event. It doesn’t become a LFG needs condi warrior or LFG needs bomb Engi. It becomes a dance of ‘CC that mob so I can get my sword out’ or ‘hang on while I switch out my bleed skill for an interrupt skill’. This type of gameplay works towards this games strengths, rather than knowing every event and bringing prebuilt meta’s.

This is breaking the molds of other games raids based on the above issues. It appears that many do not agree, or think there are other ways to accomplish this goal. Great. I can help find the edge of the box. This is one of them. How to do you get past the box to something new and different that allows for greater flexibility, while allowing raiders to become their own ‘special snowflakes’.

NoTrigger.8396:

Roybe.5896:

So you want raids that can be memorized that leads to training so you can finish them faster and faster.

that will happen no matter what you do. you want to learn, become better, kill the boss, and become even better and better and play more perfectly.
analyzing, memorizig, learning, adapting and becoming better is what leads to kills in a raid.
you cant do that vs bosses that are clowns.

Roybe.5896:

How about a final boss that has a random mix of 15 different AI options and 15 different skill sets that randomly change at 3 different points in the fight. You could learn to recognize the various sets, but planning a build related to this boss would be near impossible. I believe this could make the fight very difficult and people would have to play the game rather than faceplant their keyboard. Anything that can add randomness to the overall raid itself would do the same. As I have seen so often this isn’t about fair or easy. This is about difficulty and pain. Randomness is perfect for this type of content. The more random the better.

the randomness you describe here is actually bad game design.
the randomness that could be good is faceing a boss encounter that consists of 3 different bosses in one single room and one of the 3 bosses will be swapped each week with another boss from a pool of 10 different bosses.

and the “special snowflakes melt quite quickly in difficult raids” is aimed towards people who “play how they want” and want to be carried through the content instead of pulling their weight.

using optimal builds and rotations is part of every raid and leads to success.
you cannot change that no matter how much the “play how you want” crowd wants their suboptimal 2-2-2-2-2 builds to become meta.

so instead of “how can we design bosses that eliminate meta” it would be a better way to start with “how can we design bosses that require knowledge, skill, teamwork and coordination”

So we have hit the edge of another desire of raiders. They do not want hard, punishing content that calls for constant analysis and changes during an event that allow for quick thinking and in depth knowledge of classes where, ultimately, those that can play on the fly would shine. They want puzzles and tricks to figure out AFTER they lose so they can improve and find the min/max way to do things.

So, in light of this, how does Arenanet create this content in GW2 without having it become stale? Once builds are set and the puzzle is solved, and rewards awarded, how do you get replayability? RNG?

hybrid.5027:

Roybe.5896:

An here’s my final GW2 based, controversial item (;P):

4. Raid design that, rather than shifts a meta, is done in such a way that a meta cannot be achieved. Since this is the hardest content in the game, knowing your class, race, and profession should trump Ezway meta and should remove any idea of being able to min/max each encounter. ‘Play your way’ should shine in this type of content. That OMG feeling of I have never seen anyone do that before should be the rule, not the exception.

What does this mean? Let me try to parse it a bit…

tl;dr: special snowflakes melt quite quickly in difficult raids.

So you want raids that can be memorized that leads to training so you can finish them faster and faster. How about a final boss that has a random mix of 15 different AI options and 15 different skill sets that randomly change at 3 different points in the fight. You could learn to recognize the various sets, but planning a build related to this boss would be near impossible. I believe this could make the fight very difficult and people would have to play the game rather than faceplant their keyboard. Anything that can add randomness to the overall raid itself would do the same. As I have seen so often this isn’t about fair or easy. This is about difficulty and pain. Randomness is perfect for this type of content. The more random the better.

On reward progression:

Vertical progression is the increase of player power through statistical advantages given through higher numbers on gear and weapons. This is the anathema of GW2 design philosophy. I cannot see any way that this would be a benefit to the game.

Any vertical progression would splinter the overall community, splinter any raid group, and bring in typical MMO community tropes that this game has been designed to avoid.

Horizontal progression can be simply skins, weapons and armor, which diminishes some of the more toxic tropes found in other games. Although an unimaginative possibility, it is working well in GW2

Ideally, I would like to see rewards that were highly visible as rewards for those that beat the particular content and also have an effect of providing fun options for those that haven’t. These could be in the shape of publicly useable toys that are similar in function to the bobble head laboratory, zephyr sanctum or Marjorie’s notebook, or something new that would confer some temporary boon or toy to other players. This turns the usual tropes of community upside down by allowing ‘bragging rights’ without the general dissatisfaction related to exclusivity. How about a full armor set that has a switch to allow for this type of toy to be given or a weapon that has an option to play certain music?

Finally, there should be no final rewards locked behind RNG. The desire to play this content should be created by the desire to complete difficult content and the reward should be completely known. I do not receive rewards for effort randomly, I know what my grade is going to be, I know what my pay is going to be, etc. I will not play this content because of hope. It is better to know that you have to complete given content 10 times, 100 times, 10,000 times rather than hide rewards behind dice rolls. RNG is not a reward system, it is a very poor way to create desire to play content within a community.

On progression which are the game mechanics that a player must complete to move forward in the game.

I like a few ideas expressed here already, particularly rewarding would be:
1. ‘zerg’ splits
2. increased difficulty in NPC mechanics (no DPS sponges) with increasing difficulty partway through an encounter due to shifts in the NPC mechanics and/or AI.
3. Environmental debuffs, with player choice to ‘live with them and mitigate’ or remove and continue questlines.
4. Rush type events, similar to cursed chests in Diablo 3. You have x time to kill y things.

I also like the idea of increasing difficulty from start to finish, if done correctly, with proper rewards, it will bring a semblance of inclusiveness. With proper implementation, each step in the raid also brings an inherent group check, to validate inter-group builds and synergy.

Particularly of interest is GW2 specific possibilities:

1. Importance of synergistic use of profession skills and fields and finishers.
2. Emergent game play options through use of CC and environmental objects and weapons
a.) Using a knock back to push a mob into something that affects the overall success rate, either positively or negatively, that is not obvious…but is logical in retrospect.
b.) In raid potions have a costume brawl type effect important to raid completion…another type of split. (i.e. A potion makes members of part of the group smaller and they have to get ahead of the group to flip a switch..)
3. Inclusivity…some people might not be the best fighters in the game, but they might be able to beat the hardest puzzles with ease (I would say this is similar in attitude as the Asura!). Think about a place kicker in football. They are the most important player in the game for one skill set.

An here’s my final GW2 based, controversial item (;P):

4. Raid design that, rather than shifts a meta, is done in such a way that a meta cannot be achieved. Since this is the hardest content in the game, knowing your class, race, and profession should trump Ezway meta and should remove any idea of being able to min/max each encounter. ‘Play your way’ should shine in this type of content. That OMG feeling of I have never seen anyone do that before should be the rule, not the exception.

This particular part of Halloween is the most disturbing to me. Games have become more transparent towards the idea of utilizing the chemical reinforcement of the brains pleasure center, moving drops from particular enemies (thiefs can only drop daggers, archers only drop medium armor, etc.), to any item can fall from any mob. Now, in this case, they’ve said game play doesn’t matter at all. Buy a ticket and take your chances. It would have only been slightly better to have the foil slips drop only in game. I firmly disagree with this form of ‘reward’ or ‘gameplay’. It is not what RPG’s/MMO’s should strive towards, they should run away from it.

A lot of the players I know would enjoy a reworked map of Underworld. The various missions leading to a conclusion was a great idea. It was originally designed for 8 players so the scaling to 15 shouldn’t be tremendously difficult.

I would like to see some of the quests within this be splitting quests. 3 5 man groups have to do something to advance to a bring up an NPC that gives the next quest in the chain.

I also would enjoy seeing an environmental debuff that is removed after the successful completion of a particular quest (it could even be a bonus quest rather than a main quest, so it increases the difficulty for speed clearing..you have to make the choice to do this quest or go for the faster way dealing with mitigation as you go).

If the underworld is utilized (or any other previous map) lore must be preserved with as little reconning as possible. Otherwise, the long time players will have issues that will decrease their desire to play.

Underworld had some timed events, kill x in y time or you lose. This is a nother valid quest type.

One quest could release NPC’s throughout the map, to either open doors or portals, provide small levels of support, or need to be saved before they all are killed…possibly another case can be made for a split party quest.

Just a few ideas

Orpheal.8263:

Based on which kind of Fractals and which Level you did, will influence the End Amount of Fractal Knowledge that you will gain.

Is this fractal type gated behind the FoTM’s? If so, not sure this is a good idea. How many raiders are playing these? How inclusive does this feel to the rest of the community? Does everyone have to do Fractals to gain access to all of the raid content…or just this one type?

Cormac.3871:

Roybe.5896:

A series of links about random factors, perception, and business decisions based on these perceptions

https://www.princeton.edu/~osherson/papers/Ranperc.pdf

https://www.problemgambling.ca/EN/Documents/HPG%20Probabilty%20Final.pdf

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jun/08/slot-machine-lose-lose-situation

There are a lot of pages here and you didn’t give a summary, so I went to a random paragraph and read it. I didn’t find that paragraph useful, just bad RNG I guess.

The first article deals with a scientific study/peer reviewed paper on peoples ability to spot non random items and their ability to explain why something is none random.

The second deals with the myths of gambling (RNG) I cannot get it to come up, here’s a different link with similar points:

http://www.rgrc.org/en/problem-gambling/gambling-myths

The last one is an article discussing the above, within the context of business and how these businesses have altered the experience with slot machines to increase profitability.

My reason for posting this here is to add to the discussion of RNG, and how it’s important, how to design proper experiences, and discuss ways to design healthier uses of this method of ‘reward’.

This is an NCSoft game. NCSoft is in charge. Monetization is the goal, profits are the reason. Arenanet is only building the world, trying to balance players demands with profit driven motives of a large, multinational company, who’s major stockholder is one of the most egregious FtP game publishers. An expansion into the worlds largest market (whose potential playerbase is larger than all of WoW’s 11 million players) means we have to enjoy the ride.

Panic ensues. Rage rises. Tables are flipped. The end of the world is nigh!

Blaeys.3102:

KngGilgamesh.3481:

Blaeys.3102:

Its not an optimal solution, but the only way I could see 15 or fewer player raids working is if the difficulty was designed around having 10 players.

Groups wanting the challenge could limit their size to 10 or fewer players and guilds like mine would still have some flexibility in the size of the teams they could field. Win-win.

Im not going to let this topic drop. If this is going to be a collaborative development initiative, then we need to collaborate and not ignore significant concerns from anyone.

You don’t really seem to understand what Chris has been trying to say.
They want to create a raid in which knowledge and mechanics are more important than number of players. He has stated this multiple times now.
To reiterate again, difficulty is designed based on knowledge of the fight and the skill of the players rather than the amount of people participating.

This is why he suggested 15 size limits, since the size isn’t as important. They want us to move on to how we would like the raids to be specifically (what kind of encounters, mechanics, how to employ the mechanics in fun ways etc.) The limit can be be subject to change based on how the raid is designed.
In other words the raid influences the size of player. The size of players don’t influence the mechanics of the raid. Much less constraints this way and we don’t have to be stuck on a single point to the detriment of all other points.

If raids are designed to be completed by 15 or fewer people, you’re going to end up with the same concerns you would have with dynamic scaling. You risk making the raids either too easy with 15 or too hard with fewer than 15. Either would be problematic

If the intent is to allow completion with fewer than 15 to begin with, then you might as well be scaling the raid.

Regardless, all Im asking for is dialogue – a real discussion of the impact that a single set raid size would have on guilds and groups of friends – and the merits of multiple raid sizes (or other potential solutions). As its worded now, that option is either off the table – or at least being heavily discouraged.

Ive seen firsthand what having to play this number game can do to a guild of even the closest friends. Ive been on the other side – the guy who had to take the heat when X number of people had to be left out every week. Its not fun – in fact, it’s the single biggest issue with raiding, imo.

Something that important (even if its just important to a small number of us) deserves a place in the discussion. I would much rather be discussing the raid itself, but Im not going to let something this important fall to the wayside so early.

I would suggest that the problem that you were facing was that those left behind weren’t as upset about not being able to play with the group. I’d wager they were more upset about being left behind from the vertical progression. THAT I can see as a huge problem. Remember we have no vertical progression.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I’m not happy about the fixed raid-size statement since it excludes friends from playing together in most cases, but if it helps to focus on moving to another topic… allright.

What I think worked quite well (e.g. in Queens Gauntlet, Evacuation of LA,…) was the option for players to choose your next encounter while others do theirs. Good players can try the challenging harder bosses while newbies go for the relatively easy route.

Very organised teams can send players to their suggested encounters and those sub-teams organize themselves via. a number of teamspeak-channels.

Queens Gauntlet had the mechanic to give the best reward if people get all bosses down at a specific time-limit. It was a nice challenge (though the rewards were very underwhelming: quantity over quality rewards).

Proposal:

What if a instance starts in a room with 6 portals.

• each portal is open for 5 players at most
• the raidgroup spreads their players to their portals of choice
• once they enter a portal/path, the timer starts ticking. You can’t go back from there on.

• example A (small group): 8 players spread:
  4 at portal 2,
  4 at portal 4.
  Each portal has a specific endboss with a unique skin-drop. Defeating both bosses in a certain time unlocks a mega-boss where all come together. He drops 2 reward chests for everyone (rare rng reward) and a special reward chest (token/unique skin choice).

• example B (big group): 28 players spread:
  5 at portal 1
  5 at portal 2
  5 at portal 3
  5 at portal 4
  4 at portal 5
  4 at portal 6
  Each portal has a specific endboss with a unique skin-drop. Defeating all bosses in a certain time unlocks a mega-boss where all come together. He drops 6 reward chests for everyone (rare rng reward) and a special reward chest (token/unique skin choice).

TL;DR: A group can freely choose how many paths (portals) they would like to try. The more paths they do, the higher the rng-chance for the rng reward. The other chest (token/unique skin for completing) are constant, no matter how many paths are done.

Interesting idea. Keeping to the proposed 15 man max size, 5 portals available, any combination can be attempted, with optimum prizes being given for all being finished by 3 player teams in a given time limit. My concern for smaller number of portals we are back to 3 portals with 5 man teams. To ‘dungeony’.

BilboBaggins.5620:

Crystal Reid.2481:

cesmode.4257:

Hi, I mentioned this in my first post a few moments ago. I could be out of date as well as this mind set that we were given early on…but isn’t the entire game ‘endgame’ ? Hop in, do whatever you want to do. No pressure, nada. Take your time, the whole thing is your oyster. When you start creating level 80 content only, ala raids, you segregate the playerbase much like other games where its then a rush to max level to do the raids. All of the gorgeous 1-80 content you have in this game becomes completely trivial and a stepping stone to the real game. You might as well just allow people to boost to 80 via potions or something and skip leveling all together because it becomes absolutely meaningless. A meaningless time sink. I didnt need 80 levels to learn my class. Maybe less than two dozen and I had it down. The rest was just enjoyment because the 1-80 content was nice. I leveled through it without any pressure. Put max level content in the game, and we will feel rushed to get to the real stuff. Its human nature.

For this reason, I do not think raids belong in GW2. But if they are to be implemented, I do have suggestions which I have shared

I bolded a section of this that I wanted to inquire about. Do you think the fact the game has been live for over 2 years now change your thoughts on this? This is definitely a common occurrence with new MMO’s that launch with raiding, but what about a game that didn’t launch with raiding? Is there still an issue of players “rushing to 80” when a large percentage of the player base already has at least one 80? Thoughts?

I honestly believe this is a non-issue. Players that view end-game content as the end-all / be-all will always consume low level content at an extreme pace. They are the “first” group, the kind of player that wants to be the first in the game or their group to consume the content.

Then there are players in it for the experience, “role-players” and the like who are going to enjoy the content at their own pace regardless of what waits at end-game. GW2 didn’t have raiding at launch, but you still had a significant portion of the players consuming content faster than you could create it. You will always have this group and you will NEVER be able to produce content fast enough for them.

Although no one can suppress the appetite of gamings equivalent of locusts <BEG> should design reward them for these efforts. The point being, you are not only encouraging those that consume the content this way, but are also encouraging others to feel ‘forced to keep up’. Another discussion, entirely, but definitely a risk, nonetheless.

Another interesting mechanic/game play option from GW1 would be to be given a particular set of skills and traits and have to play what you were dealt. Obviously, this might be problematic for min/maxers, but would do away with the idea that there is a best way to do this.

Another idea on raids and positive influence, allow the raiders to benefit the world, in similar way as WvW, their activities provide everyone with buffs. Announcing the raid group/players/guild “Thanks X.Y.Z for killing big bad monster!” Your world recieves 30 minutes of x % of magic find. This provides recognition, allows for skins, and possibly garner thanks to those recognized for the effort! Allow whipers in game to go those named..I know in GW1 I always was whispering people thanks for buffs and related goodies for their efforts.

Another possible mechanic I can see as interesting, at least for ele’s is the idea that if two ele’s are present neither can be in the same attunement. If they are damage from both are negated. It can be an environmental effect or an effect from an AoE with timer.

spoj.9672:

Roybe.5896:

*Because frankly you cant create epic difficult raids without causing exclusion. Its impossible from a logical standpoint. And with exclusion comes elitism. So I will repeat they are non avoidable issues.

Im not sure what you are trying to achieve by trying so hard to be inclusive to everyone. If you go down that route we wont be getting epic difficult content. We will be getting more bland easy stuff with poor rewards.*

THIS needs to be talked about. Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic rewards is another way to look at this. However, keep those emotions in check. THIS is a very important issue and needs to be focused on. This is my next concern past the issue of rewards.

How do we create inclusive raid material? Is it possible? Our reward discussion has been interesting and shows we can do this. Why is exclusivity so important?

Can you come up with any suggestions? Because ive thought about it a lot. And whatever solution I came up with either doesnt solve the issue or it hurts the content. Which is exactly why I said its impossible to solve and the issues are non avoidable.

Id be curious to see if anyone has any ideas. Because i seriously doubt its something you can find a compromise on.

I honestly have never raided. I have heard so many discussions on them that I know what I do not want. However, the problem we are facing in this discussion is that those that want raids already have preconceived notions on what raids are and need to tell us why it’s so important to split a community up into raiders and non-raiders. If the only reason the rewards are wanted is to segregate the community, then I agree. This task is impossible in this game. However, if raiders come to the table with suggestions on how to be rewarded that doesn’t split up the community, that scratches their itch for recognition, I want to hear it.

This is why my suggestion of in game toys is important to me. If you got the Unholy bubble maker of joy that is placed for all others to use and enjoy, it (in my world) solves the issue of exclusivity (only raiders have it) and diminishes the poor behavior that accompanies exclusion. Everyone would have fun in the end because of the raiders dedication. It could have the bonus effect of creating desire in people to play that content.

My problem with this is the built in bias that something cannot be changed because that’s the way it is. If we look at what rewards are, then we can understand why they are important maybe understand a way to come to a compromise.

Intrinsic rewards are those that are internal and self motivating. Beating hard content and walking away with a sense of pride is an intrinsic reward. An extrinsic reward is one based on what you show, armor, weapons etc. These are problematic in that they create separation between people. This becomes a larger problem when these items can be utilized to judge peoples worth over their personal character. These type of judgements are what creates toxicity within a game.

Many pro raid people claim they are all about the intrinsic value of the play, they love to play challenging and hard content. If that’s the case then why do you want an extrinsic reward? Aren’t the ‘feels’ of beating content important enough? Shouldn’t that trump extrinsic rewards in a game where you’re really only playing to show yourself how good you are?

That’s why I say the following, their belief in ‘proper rewards’ plays much stronger to their playing this content than knowing how well they did against the content. If the content was provided that was the most awesome hardcore, elite only can win, content, that made your eyes blur, you fingers bleed, and your brain explode in myriad shades of OMG, knowing there would be NO drops, would you play it at all?

I am not asking these questions rhetorically. Pro raid people need to provide honest answers to why these things are important to them.

If extrinsic rewards are so important then you, as a player, have to understand why they are problematic, and help alleviate these problems, otherwise these issues will create the same problems within this game that others suffer from.

If they aren’t as important as it appears you need to get your opinion out also. This is about balancing the needs of one group with those of another. We cannot accept ‘they can’t be fixed because they are exclusionary’. We have to find a way to make pro raiders happy while satisfying all the other players who have been promised inclusion since the game was designed.

*Because frankly you cant create epic difficult raids without causing exclusion. Its impossible from a logical standpoint. And with exclusion comes elitism. So I will repeat they are non avoidable issues.

Im not sure what you are trying to achieve by trying so hard to be inclusive to everyone. If you go down that route we wont be getting epic difficult content. We will be getting more bland easy stuff with poor rewards.*

THIS needs to be talked about. Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic rewards is another way to look at this. However, keep those emotions in check. THIS is a very important issue and needs to be focused on. This is my next concern past the issue of rewards.

How do we create inclusive raid material? Is it possible? Our reward discussion has been interesting and shows we can do this. Why is exclusivity so important?

Nick.6972:

Why all the talking about armor?

The topic spun out of control a little.:) The concern being expressed comes down to attitude, meta, and what people consider a ‘problem’ within the game currently.

It is arguably fastest/efficient to run any high level content with a group that has maximum DPS output. This meta excludes many players from comfortably playing the content the way they enjoy doing it since their way is less efficient. Both sides have good points, but it does cause player conflict due to exclusion.

Basically, what one side wants from this is to not make it into a DPS race to the end. They want access to groups without having to have specialized gear. They do not want to be called out for not bowing to the meta. The other side feels that efficiency is the hallmark of expertise and is diametrically opposed with the other side.

Ohoni.6057:

It would also lead to exclusion in all other ‘hard’ parts of the game.

Are you saying that just players would insist on other players having raid armor just as proof that they “know what they’re doing,” even if the armor is worthless for the content they want to be doing? Certainly a possibility. Maybe make it so that it’s impossible to tell whether someone has raid armor or not? Like you already can’t inspect people, make it so that if you chat-link a raid armor it just shows as standard Ascended, so if someone says “100 raid level only!” you can sign up and there’s no way they could prove you aren’t. Maybe you could do gear-checks inside of raid zones though, where it actually would matter. I was thinking for convenience that if you’re in a raid zone, it’d be cool if it projected your raid stat in the boons column under your portrait and in the team UI, so that you’d be able to tell at a glance what everyone’s raid stat is (but ONLY inside raid areas).

Note that if they can manage without any sort of armor tiering, that’d be fine by me, I just see the unique stat proposal as being better than other options like armor that is universally better than Ascended at all content, or armor with unique skins to it that non-raiders might want.

My point in the discussion was to limit the problem of exclusivity that would leak over into other parts of the game. This is probably an impossible task, so yeah, there’s that. A point in my book against raids in this game. Any reward is going to cause elitism and possible conflict between players.

guardian.6489:

Conski Deshan.2057:

A token system is bad (with the assumption that tokens are dropped throughout the dungeon) as it allows a person who can’t get past the first boss to eventually get the item in question, this is an exercise in your abilities , if you fail to make it past the first boss 1000 times you still get nothing but the first bosses rewards, the items are not a “participation reward” they are a medal for completing the content.

Hmm, I got a way we could solve that.

I’m going to assume they’re going to ship a bunch of achievements out with this Raid. Let’s have a token system in place but if you want to redeem them the NPC won’t talk to you unless you’ve beaten enough achievements to prove that you’ve completed the Raid.

So basically you can earn tokens even if your wiping after the first boss but if you want to redeem you gotta suck it up and finish the Raid.

I have no problems with this. However, I think for those that want a truer raid experience you just get 1 guaranteed, account bound , non-time gated, stackable token from the final chest. A number of these are redeemable for rewards.

This is a true reward, not relying upon tickling the desire to gamble, purely based on skillful outcome to doing content.

spoj.9672:

@Blaeys

It seems to me that you want open world bosses in instances. Whereas the rest of us want actual raids. Open world bosses in instances is kind of just allowing exclusion to content we already have. Having proper raids will obviously create exclusion and it wont be for everyone. But its something the game sorely needs.

I think the game is at the point where anet just needs to ignore the excessive entitlement people feel they deserve and just create something epic in terms of challenge and reward. And to do this they need to forget about problems such as exclusion and elitism. Obviously dont completely forsake them or encourage them but they should be a very minor factor when designing a raid. Those are problems you cant really solve no matter what you do. And if you hold back on development because of those issues you will get nowhere. You cant create something amazing if you are afraid to displease people. Its not possible. If you try to please everyone it will be half baked and wont really satisfy either side of the spectrum.

Not much I can say about this that wouldn’t derail this whole thread. So, I strongly disagree with this sentiment.

Ohoni.6057:

Proposal Overview

Associated Risks
Any sort of armor tiering would lead to some amount of elitism and exclusion in raiding groups, as players would only want to team with other players of equal or greater tier armor

It would also lead to exclusion in all other ‘hard’ parts of the game. No MMO needs a gear check for acceptance into a group. ‘LFG For FoW, need 100 Raid level’. I do not disagree with the idea, but it needs to be worked out to prevent conflicts throughout the game.

Sages.3496:

Just talked about this in guild chat, What the hell anet. get your kitten togeather and fix it, NCsoft doesnt make every decision for you. you need to stand your ground as well.

Why do you believe this? NCSoft is Arenanets owner. Arenanet has no free will on anything that NCSoft demands.

Conski Deshan.2057:

Roybe.5896:

Symph.8407:

Astralporing.1957:

The raids, if they are implemented, would indeed need a reward system that is equivalent to time and effort investment. It should not however be visibly more rewarding than other forms of content (again, relatively to time and effort invested). Running raids should definitely not be less rewarding, that running dungeons. It shouldn’t be more rewarding either – or at least the differences should not be huge. So, rewards from, for example, 2 hours of raiding should not be higher that, say, ~4 hours of any other alternate content. And if raids are to offer unique rewards, then any other alternate content should offer equivalent unique rewards as well (though personally i think that there should be nothing in this game that would be available through less than at least two alternate methods – not including TP).

Other content should reward unique rewards, and most of them do. What we miss are unique rewards acquired through skill. We have unique rewards acquired through every other aspect of the game.
And the unique rewards from raids should in no way be available elsewhere, escpecially not on the TP.

What do you consider a ‘unique reward’? How should you receive it, since you want it based on skill? Availability should be very low on these rewards while demand should be very high, why should you limit the income potential of the ‘leet’ professional raider?

Unique skins for weapons and Armor , Cosmetic infusions , Minis, Tonics, play items, titles there is a lot of potential.
On income potential: Raiding should not be about farming for gold, doing a raid is trying to make a statement of your skills and being rewarded for it, like doing liandri. If it was just about gold a raider would still loose to a farmer (TOT’s are potentially 40g an hour) or a gem buyer (unlimited gold).

On Acquisition: I made a proposal around more unique rewards the further you can progress into a raid as guaranteed rewards from bosses (with a caveat of no skipping/piggybacking allowed. With some of the rewards also being RNG. A token system would be a major no no for this type of content.

Unique skins and cosmetic infusions are problematic. Their worth is subjective. I might think that these skins are the most daring and beautiful thing ever created within a game. If many raiders hate them, there is no reward.

Acquisition: I’m dead set against RNG. RNG is not a reward system for skill. It’s a reward for perseverance, and then there’s no guarantee that you will be able to out persevere a run of bad rolls, particularly on 1:1000 chances or worse 1:10,000 chances (these are very common odds on rare items), on content that takes hours to receive a roll. Please explain why a token system is so bad. If you get one guaranteed token at the end of a run for beating the boss and it takes 1,ooo tokens to get a full set of armor and 1 weapon skin, where’s the harm? Other than having the goal to run the content successfully 1000 times.

Symph.8407:

Astralporing.1957:

The raids, if they are implemented, would indeed need a reward system that is equivalent to time and effort investment. It should not however be visibly more rewarding than other forms of content (again, relatively to time and effort invested). Running raids should definitely not be less rewarding, that running dungeons. It shouldn’t be more rewarding either – or at least the differences should not be huge. So, rewards from, for example, 2 hours of raiding should not be higher that, say, ~4 hours of any other alternate content. And if raids are to offer unique rewards, then any other alternate content should offer equivalent unique rewards as well (though personally i think that there should be nothing in this game that would be available through less than at least two alternate methods – not including TP).

Other content should reward unique rewards, and most of them do. What we miss are unique rewards acquired through skill. We have unique rewards acquired through every other aspect of the game.
And the unique rewards from raids should in no way be available elsewhere, escpecially not on the TP.

What do you consider a ‘unique reward’? How should you receive it, since you want it based on skill? Availability should be very low on these rewards while demand should be very high, why should you limit the income potential of the ‘leet’ professional raider?

Blaeys.3102:

Astralporing.1957:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Personally I would also want to see raids as end game content and by that I mean level 80 only.

Chris

If that’s all what it means, it’s not that big of a problem (depending on how strict the level requirement is – fractals for example are level 80 content as well, but you can still run early ones with level 70-s and hope to succeed). If raids were to be designed around level 80s with perfect BiS (ascended) gear however…
Also, there’s a question whether they are meant to be one of many endgame activities, or the endgame. Again, lot of the voices in this thread seems to show desire for the latter (which would be a massive change to the game principles). That’s especially visible where rewards are mentioned.

Erichermit.6018:

Ensure that rewards properly drive players to engage in challenging and difficult content instead of choosing the easier content because it is more profitable (not simply because it is easier.)

I disagree. The game should not drive players towards “challenging and difficult” or “rewarding” system. If it even has to drive players anywhere, it is towards fun content. Something they would like to play. And since no two people like the same things, the game should not attempt to drive them anywhere, but rather open up multiple options.

Basically, if someone decides to play the game for rewards, no single content should leap immediately to their mind, Of course, consequently, no content should also be visibly last in that category.

If people are going to play raids primarily for rewards, then they have failed as a design, and the game would be better without them being introduced at all. If GW2 is going to have Raids as only one important PvE endgame option, then again, it would be better without them being introduced at all.

I think this post brings up some very important points and I agree with every one. The content should be enough to draw players to a particular aspect of the game.

Rewards (in GW2) shouldnt drive gameplay decisions. Let us play the content we find the most fun without having to worry about missing out on the special shinies. That is what can lead to a single mode or aspect taking over the game, which would not be good for this game.

Raiding should be about the experience more than it is about the reward (which should be true of every aspect of the game, imo).

I completely agree with this, personally. However, this is not the case here. The majority of people appear to want ‘commensurate’ rewards for the time a raid would take. ‘Commensurate’ takes on a meaning of ‘best’ gear in reward for ‘hardest’ content. A visual way to show they have more leet skills than those that can’t, won’t, or are unable to play the same content. This game has tried the route of ‘harder’ content with similar rewards, with horrible success, with many ‘hard core’ players refusing to do the content because it took to long for the resulting rewards.

This is why I keep steering this conversation back to the reward system that is going to be put in place. If it is done incorrectly, it will literally destroy the game. Arenanet is laying out a promise to those that are clamoring for this content. We hear you, we are listening, and we will deliver a gameplay experience BASED upon the ideas we are discussing.

Content design aside, unfullfilling rewards, or rewards locked behind time, RNG, or some other gating function, will lead to levels of rage that will make our previous community problems appear to be tempests in a teapot. Until we get a handle on what will be acceptable rewards, everything else is moot. People do not play these games any more for fun, apparently, they play them for the rewards.

I’ve seen some discussion on this with varying amounts of expectability vs. randomization, but I’m also interested in what defines a ‘good reward’…subjective artistic skins, in game coin, BiS gear, shareable toys offering the overarching playerbase some fun options? Is it better to have this delivered to the player through RNG? Why or why not? Is it better to receive tokens and turn them in? Why or why not?

Again, design is important, but for the majority that play this type of content, 1 guaranteed yellow drop, a handful of blues and greens, and extreme RNG drops for uber items off the main boss, will not provide a reward system worthy of their time.

Conski Deshan.2057:

lunacrous.6751:

Crystal Reid.2481:

Let’s assume that because raiding would be a very new type of content for the game that it’s possible for us to re-write the principles of the game that we have seen so far.

That’s…. a bit scary to hear. I’m sure it’s intended in reference to game mechanics and encounter design, but I can’t help but read it as relating to rewards and the dreaded specter of gear progression. I’d like some reassurances that it doesn’t.

I wouldn’t worry about that happening, A majority of both sides don’t want gear progression long term it hurts both sides.

What I do want rewards wise is a reward that unequivocally states you have made it into the top x% of the playerbase combat wise (where x is the completion rate of the hardest raid). To me thats worth 1000 pretty skins and what I feel raids should be trying to achieve.

Can we talk about this particular idea guys? Art is subjective, what I find an awesome skin, you might hate. That removes the sense of reward for you.

I believe that most Raid folks are mercenary in their reasons for wanting this content rather than altruistic. They want the best looking stuff for accomplishing the content, not a title stating they did. They want ‘proper rewards’ for completion, rather than the sense they did it. Otherwise everyone would be happy with the Aetherblades path, the ability to kill any of the map bosses, Tequatl, and Jungle worm. I find no one is truly happy with these because they lack a sense of reward.

We need to nail down what ‘proper rewards’ are and if they are within the defined reward system of Guild Wars 2. If we do not raids will fail.

To me, personally, a fantastic reward would be some community building toy that you get after completion. A bubble machine that allows for bubbles that pick up players. A flaming bagpipe that is playable. Something that allows you to use it in a way that encourages social play, but everyone knows that you beat the crap out of some hard content. This removes the ’I’m sooper leet’ armor tea bag feeling from those that do not play, cannot play, the content and provides them more fun BECAUSE of your leet abilities!

@Crystal In GW2 everything is considered endgame. Now this might be considered a fallacy by some, and this is where my problems with traditional raid content in this game come in.

The devs are giving up on their idea of being different. The idea behind this game is that you are relevant in all parts of it regardless of your level. By creating ‘real’ end game content, we are supporting the idea that we play until level 80 and /switch, the game changes.

So to answer your question, this HAS to remain part of the overall game. Otherwise GW2 is moving closer to being indistinguishable from other MMO’s. I am truly hoping for a GW2 twist to raids..otherwise, we are watching an inexorable walk towards mediocrity.

I actively hunt Moas and raptors, screaming ‘Poultry Node’ in VOIP as I run in.

I hunt rabbits as a water ele, just to hear their death cries and watch the animation.

Crystal Reid.2481:

runeblade.7514:

Controversal Topics that I see around this thread.

• Difficulty- Should Raids be easy enough for casual players, or should raids be difficult so it requires skill on the risk of excluding casual player.

We need to clarify casual? What does it mean? Competent or incompetent? Goods vs. Bads? Or some other gray, meaningless, pairing of x vs. y, that somehow annoys someone?

• Stacking- What steps should be taken to remove stacking or should it even be removed at all?

The premise of this game was cooperation, interactivity between professions and their skills, and a sense of organic grouping. The fact that content becomes easier in the face of numbers is a problem related to groups scaling above events. Fix the scaling, add some mechanics that make stacking unreliable, but still viable, and you would be on the way to fixing this issue.

• AI- What AI should be in place? Hard to say on this one since I ma not an AI wizard. hoping the contractor you guys have on board since April this year are ironing this one out.

• Rewards- How rewarding should Raids be? The rewards should be:

1. Highly desirable because of looks not stats
2. Difficult to obtain
3. Wholly attainable through active play that reinforces goal setting, rather than trying to entice players through RNG and tickling those addictive neural pathways.
4. Exclusive to the dungeons, cannot be recolored and sold in the gem store

• Punishment- How punishing should failing a raid be? How punishing should dying be?

It should cost something to get your ticket to get in. The rewards would have to be worth the price of admission. The coin used to get in should be an amount to cause some distress if lost.

You wipe? You start over from the beginning. You wipe to many times? You are removed from the instance with a thanks try again later. This actually does two things:

1. It allows for mistakes to be overcome and not feel totally punitive
2. It makes the content last longer because it will take a while to build up the coin to get access to the raid.

Proposal Overview

Many players want raid type content to bring about another layer for rewards. I would like the idea of rewards to mean that people successfully completed challenging content, not that they were lucky after completing the content.
Goal of Proposal

A discussion of RNG and rewards was started here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/RNG-as-a-concept-Discuss/first#post4488821

After reading and responding to this thread I have come to understand rewards a little differently. Well designed rewards elicit player dedication through healthy means. Poorly designed rewards create player dedication through unhealthy means.

Well designed rewards work because people know what the reward is ahead of time, setting goals to achieve them, and accomplishing each goal. This leads to better player retention and attitude.

A poorly designed reward is exemplified by an attempt to access core brain functioning that leads to addictive behaviors, leaving players frustrated, unfulfilled, and disliking content.

Proposal Functionality

Basically, to keep players happy, the reward system must reward players for the effort put forth. This is undermined by RNG drops. If I finish a raid I expect some symbol that I have finished it. As long as I know I am working towards that symbol I will play the content. I will not play the content as much if I have no idea when I would receive the reward. I would look at some type of token system, or some sort of pseudo RNG that increases ones chance of getting an item the longer one goes without that particular item dropping.

Associated Risks

The risks of min/max over farming are inherent to this design desision, however, the risk of player dissatisfaction with pure RNG is more corrosive to the game at this time.

IPhyton.2348:

Roybe.5896:

Here’s the problem with a boycott. NCSoft doesn’t care about concurrency. It costs them money. The more people that play, the more resources it costs. The are extremely concerned for retention. The likelihood you are ‘walking through the door’. WalMart doesn’t care if you go to Sears, they care if you go to Sears MORE than WalMart. That’s retention. To measure retention, in this game, actually costs YOU more money. Because you have to stop logging in completely. If you do that during the LS, you’ll have to pay to catch up.

So boycotting is actually expensive to do, for the player, since the best way to check retention is to count the logins during new release dates to see if interest is being maintained. If you miss, you either come back and pay some gems to get caught up or you never come back, and are replaced by new sales of ‘boxes’. (now you see the importance of the NPE!)

I totally get that, I used the boycott term as it is usually the last line of hope to get anything done IRL. As we have been repeatedly ignored by the devs and as they have repeatedly implemented controversial systems with every update lately.

Ok, so if you understand my point, explain how boycotting leverages pressure upon NCSoft. How would a boycott be enacted? What would you boycott? I see no pressure any group of people could possibly place upon this company. The only pressure that could be placed against them would lead to the closing of the servers.

Mesket.5728:

dekou.6012:

Beldin.5498:

Is 15-60 minutes of gameplay really worth all that drama ?

Not by itself. However, the goals and quality of NPE are telling of the direction this game is going in.

^This. It was never a changed in particular that scared the community. It’s the lack of transparency and the intentions behind those changes that scares us.

When it becomes obvious to me that I no longer will enjoy myself in this game, due to choices the company is making, I will no longer play it. I have received a fair value for my initial purchase. I suggest the same to anyone that plays.

GW2 is fine. No need to ‘save’ it. If it needed saving, we would have seen major layoffs in the latest news.