“Having more time gated but consistent payout systems would alleviate some of the rng pain” no that would not make it better, in a way the gold grind already does that. It’s a really consistent payout but just takes time to get the money you need to buy. Also I do not need to get stuff for free only by putting in ‘waiting time’. That sounds interesting to you?
About the materials, that would already be nice if it would be directly obtainable in a viable way instead of the only viable way being the grind gold and buy it. Even is the total time spend might still be similar (for most).
Perhaps I am the one missing the point, but it seems like this is mostly a case of not being able to have it all, along with the additional need to have multi-month time sinks for players that invest 4+ hours a day.
If you tie rewards to going around the world doing specific goals, then either the dedicated players will blow through everything in a month and complain about there being nothing to do, or you have to set each goal to take 60 hours or so in order to gate it to two goals a month max. If you require 60 hours of, say, jumping puzzles to get a mini or a skin, then you’ve created a typical “grind” of the type Anet is trying to avoid.
To avoid that issue you can substitute gold. If everything generates gold, and gold can buy everything, then you can do whatever you want for 60 hours and buy your item, or just buy gold with cash and fund the game, or be an auction house trader, or whatever strikes your fancy. Of course, the unintended side effect seems to be that people who are playing for direct pursuit of goals find themselves in a permanent “meta grind”…. grind gold, non-stop, for everything you want.
To avoid that issue you can time gate instead, but investing “waiting time” isn’t exactly riveting or challenging game play.
I honestly sympathize with the game designers. I don’t know how you balance people who play two hours a week with those who play 6 hours a day, and people who are highly skilled with people who can’t ever finish a jumping puzzle and just mash buttons as they come off cooldown, and still have everyone feel equally entertained and rewarded.
well they balanced it by p2w option :-/
If you are that dedicated, you can farm enough gold to buy almost anything you want (grind for gold). If you u are that bad that you can’t even finish a jumping puzzle, you can easily use your credit card and buy almost anything you want.
But this system is alienating everyone who wants to get things by doing something challenging alone or with their friends. Farming gold or trading gems is not fun or challenging… it is boring.
Yes there are some things that cannot be obtained by gold but the RNG chances on this type of things are way too harsh. If you are not born under the lucky star you may grind for these for months, maybe even years which is far worst than in other games.
