Guild Wars 2

Absconditus.6804:

Devata.6589:

Only the future will tell us.

Well, the very recent past already did, heh. It’s to “make room” for new items. Because a e-store clearly runs out of room to stock their goods. It’s not as if it’s virtual or anything. I think the Gem Store is fair enough as it exists btw., and I’ve never really felt it was Pay 2 Win, even with the boosters. I just dislike when they take items out to create some artificial supply and demand.

Evon Gnashblade

The cubs are entering their fahrars, the days are growing shorter, and the weather grows colder. Summer is over, and with its end, we begin our transition into our winter lineup of items. This week marks your last chance to pick up our summer items before we make room for all-new goods.

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/seasonal-transition-in-the-gem-store/
_____________

Evon Gnashblade

Finishers
It’s time to retire our nonseasonal finisher sales from the Upgrades section of the Gem Store. The entire current line of finishers will be removed from Upgrades after this week, so this is your last chance to purchase them directly using gems.

Is interesting though.. and it almost sounds like they will be possible to earn in-game going forwards. —"this is your last chance to purchase them directly using gems." It could be something they aim to put into the sPvP Leagues and their rewards, e.g., a choice of a finisher for reaching x milestone. Makes some mild sense, I guess.

I have always find it a problem. Don’t matter if you name it P2W or not.

You have a vertical progression game and sell (the best) stats, it’s bad.

You have a horizontal progression game and sell the (best) skins / toys, it’s bad.

I play a horizontal progression game to hunt for horizontal items (like skins and toys and other fluff) in the game.. not to buy it or grind for it. I buy the game to not end up in a free cash-shop game.

Ah, I now notice they throw out a lot of stuff.

So there are two options.

1: Mike’s talk about how he likes B2P and they convince people to buy HoT instead of trying so monetize them holds value. (While he also said the gems-tore would not change.. as if it was not already bad) and those items will soon find their way into the game, and in the future we will see more items come in-game, and less in the gem-store. Them focusing on the gem-store.

Or

2: It is indeed just something they will bring back later… Or not.. who nows.. BUY NOW!, to then have it available again temporary in a way to get people to buy it. Meaning all those nice words about B2P hold no value whatsoever and all there is to say about the ‘model’ is ‘disgusting’.

Knowing how how Mike basically started Anet, not agreeing about another payment-model, I still hold option 1 as possible, but looking at the last 2,5 years of GW2 the second option is more likely. Maybe Mike notice what was going on and so he did something about it?

If a group of items moves in-game and a group would stay in the gem-store, I would prefer to see toys, mini’s and skins moving to the game where they belong, while finishers, and mail carriers stay in the gem-store.

Only the future will tell us.

Embolism.8106:

Devata.6589:

A timer is not but not really necessary. Your cool-down starts when you place the first portal, 60 sec later you must have placed the second portal. So you can use the cool-down as timer, when it hits 30 you lose the portal.

Yeeeaaaah… I get the feeling you haven’t actually used Portal before.

It’s my favorite Mesmer skill.

Justine.6351:

Devata.6589:

A timer is not but not really necessary. Your cool-down starts when you place the first portal, 60 sec later you must have placed the second portal. So you can use the cool-down as timer, when it hits 30 you lose the portal.

Have you ever used portal? You don’t see its cool down while the exit has yet to be placed. Guess, use another skills cd or use an external timer.

That’s the whole point isn’t it. You place the enter portal, then the cooldown starts, so you use that to know how long you have to place the exit portal.

Fox.3469:

Ohoni.6057:

It all comes down to this: “Does a raid having a unique skin mean that you now absolutely have to do that content?”

The answer is no.

All just as true as it is irrelevant.

What it really comes down to is this: "does it benefit anyone to have players in a game doing activities that they do not want to do?

The answer is no.

I don’t even understand your argument anymore. You don’t have to do activities you don’t want to do, that is the entire point of only cosmetics being rewards.

It would be far more damaging to the game to have little to no incentive to do content then it would be to have some skins locked to that content.

Funny right.. it started with “people should be able to get rewards by playing whatever content they like and it should be easy”.

That moved on to the point where “what some people want, is to hunt down exclusive cosmetics behind challenging content” because of what it adds to the content and to the reward itself, also talking about compromises where you could put half of the rewards behind specific (challenging) content and the other half behind multiple things.

So with that, the “people should be able to do what they want” kind of failed as an argument because what the one wants, the other dislikes and a compromise was not an option.

So in an effort to still try to move in that direction, they moved to another argument.. people might simply not be able to do it, so they should be able to do whatever they are capable of in order to get it.

But now that argument is also falling apart, you simply go back to the “People should do what they want” as if you forget that that argument had already fallen apart.

Just as a reminder.

This topic was about an arrow, not about a timer or range indicator. I would also like to see a range indicator if you would really keep a max rage.. personally I would just not want to see a max range at all. but there are many topics about this already.

But a timer is not really necessary. You start a cool-down when you place the first portal (I usually use Prayer of Dwayna, but you might want to use a skill with a 90sec cool-down), 60 sec later you must have placed the second portal. So you can use the cool-down as timer, when the second cooldown hits 5 you lose the portal.

Back to the arrow. So it’s not something they can implement very fast apparently, it however is something that would be very nice to have.. You could also allow a Mesmer to point the arrow themselves, but this would only be really useful when enemies can use the portal as well (and can’t see it’s an enemy portal). So it’s something to keep in mind when the Mesmer gets some coding done.

Edit: My comment obviously was not very clear, so I updated it. Hope this makes it clearer.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Don’t worry “the best” at playing GW2 isn’t as high up there as you might think.

If that’s true, then raids will not solve the problem of lack of a difficult content. Because they can’t be that content without being, you know, actually difficult. And knowledge and experience can’t be considered a serious difficulty nowadays, not where you can consult a guide as soon as the first group figures things out.

Granted, it will be difficult for that first group, but only until they’ll get it right once. If that’s all the challenge the content will have, then all the subsequent runs will be as easy as what some people claim dungeons are now.

The only way to make a challenge that will last longer is to make it skill-based. One where even knowing a winning strategy by heart doesn’t mean that you will be able to succesfully execute it. But if we go that way, then, if it’s to be challenging for those with high skill ceilings, it will need to be near impossible (or flat out impossible) for those with lower skill ceilings. There’s no way to avoid that.

Again, unless what you want is not a challenge, but merely a fake difficulty that only exists as a means to make you feel better by pretending you are somehow superior. Out of respect i will assume that’s not what you are after.

You are 10% right about knowledge and skill not being the same thing, and challenging content should be based more on skill then challenge. Because knowledge becomes a trick at some time.

Having said that.. you can also get more skilled at something, and doing that is similar to getting knowledge only with one addition to it.. practice.

For knowledge you just read “wear this and do that” and that’s it. With skill you read ”dodge in time”, “try to save the speed-skill for when you really need it”, “When jumping, hold your right mouse-button to move.”

But doing that correctly required practice. By practice you will be getting better at dodging at the right time, saving the spells for the right time and jumping from stone to stone before the floor eats you (clock-tower JP).

But you guys are acting as if challenging raids is something nearly impossible for a normal human being to achieve. And this is nonsense. Nearly every gamer is able to complete nearly every challenge (not talking about the time) in every game. Only people with real disabilities might not be able to.

Morlaug.3267:

I don’t get some people in this thread, at all. There are a gazillion rewards in this game, from a lot of different content. Some pieces are harder to get, some are just handed to you. Getting the shiniest fractal backpiece comes to mind, as in contrast to the first +1 power back piece you get as a low lvl reward.

Following the logic of the vocal minority in this thread I will now state that I, as a roleplayer, want all skins (legendary weapons and armor) by just roleplaying in LA. I wish that I could earn a token per emote I do and that I after say 30 tokens can go and get MY Twilight or MY legendary armor in HoT. I want everything accessible by the way I play the game. Because I am entitled to. Why should I need to put any effort into stuff I don’t like?

God forbid challenges, gief all now!

/rant

Be careful, some people might not understand you are being sarcastic!

I remember sarcastic comments like this in threads over a year ago where people sarcastically asked for a reward for logging in.

maddoctor.2738:

But let me ask you though. Say there is a content, and you do it once, and you fail horribly, just completely thrashed by it.

I’ve been there multiple times. And actually I’ve been at that point that reading/watching wasn’t enough, that happened specifically at Simin in Arah P4.

Better, if groups will NOT have this (so are able to complete) the first raid within the first week, you will see many complains (rightfully so) that it’s too easy. If it’s challenging there always is the possibility you fail.. that is what you want because it makes winning more fun.

Is anybody excited for killing a trash mob? No because it’s easy… Well this is completely true.. I do remember killing trash mobs and every kill was kind of fun… you know why? That group had a low probability to drop a special unique reward only they dropped.

Combining the two.. killing a hard to kill boss that you might fail.. and that can drop a unique skill is even better. That is what we need in this game.

One could only hope it’s removed from their cash-shop so they can put it in the game.. You know, in the light of Mike (president Anet) talking about how much he loves the B2P model, where they don’t bother people with the cash-shop but convince them to buy the game (basically what he said at the last big presentation)..

Reality however is that they most likely remove it so they can later put it back for a day, that is basic marketing. Create a feeling of urge, or a feeling of rarity.

They should use that sort of marketing for the game itself, selling a temporary available CE that has some limited stuff items. them being a B2P game, not with cash-shop items, them not being a cash-shop game.

Ohoni.6057:

It all comes down to this: “Does a raid having a unique skin mean that you now absolutely have to do that content?”

The answer is no.

All just as true as it is irrelevant.

What it really comes down to is this: "does it benefit anyone to have players in a game doing activities that they do not want to do?

The answer is no.

Indeed! And their previous attempt at selling gold allowing people to get what they want by doing whatever, has resulted in exactly that.

A huge part of the PvE community is doing content they do not like.. Grinding, grinding and more grinding. At best they find it acceptable, but most just grind (while watching a movie on the other screen) for the gold to buy the items they want.

They don’t like what they are doing but they do it anyway because it’s the most viable way to get pretty much everything they want.

When we put items behinds its own specific content, then some people might still in some cases do something they do not like, because the item they want is behind content they do not like. But overall, a lot of the time they are just playing the game as they should, exploring the world, doing the content they like.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

“Ease of gameplay” is the only part that mentions difficulty in some form, but it means a game that is easy to play/start but it can be hard to master, it doesn’t mean an easy/not challenging game. Casual gamer by DEFINITION doesn’t mean a player who lacks the physical ability to complete content, they CHOOSE NOT TO do it. Once you understand that players who don’t do challenging content choose not to do it and are not prevented by some form of mental disability you will get the point and move on.

And once you get that not choosing to do a content does not preclude not being able to do that content (and in fact quite often goes in pair with it) we might also get somewhere.

There are many people that practice running. Most of them will never reach the heights required to participate in any professional meet, no matter how hard they try. Of those, most will never be able to run at the Olympic level. And of those, most (if not all) will still be inferior to Usain Bolt. And there’s not much they will be able to do about it – an accident of birth assinged to them different skill floors and ceilings. Trying to pretend otherwise, and claim that it was just the effort they put into it is willingly ignoring reality.

In this game we have people at the wildly different levels of ability. That means that the same level of challenge will require different levels of effort from different players. If you will make it challenging for the best, so they really need to put an effort into it to succeed, then the effort required from average players will become astronomically high, and those with below average inborn skill floors will never be able to pass it.

On the other hand, if you make it that anyone will be able to complete the content, assuming they do put a lot of effort init, then it will become a cakewalk for the best.

If you’ll try to circumvent that problem by making the challenge lie in the realm of knowledge and experience, and not skill execution, it will become an easy farm once the solution will become known – because knowledge and experience can be shared, and do not need to be continuously maintained.

“And once you get that not choosing to do a content does not preclude not being able to do that content”

This debate about not being able to is just useless distraction from the subject at hand. But let me address it anyway in the hope it moves on.

Is there a difference.. Sure there is, if somebody puts a gun to your head and he tells you to grind you can grind.. I personally did try to grind and within no-time I got so bored out of my mind I ‘could not go on’.. but your right, when forced to I would be able to.. So far the part where the people talking about “those not capable of doing it” are right.

But now to the practice..
1: Does it matter if I ‘can’t’ and won’t do it because it bores the hell out of me, or that I can’t do it because I am unable to? No it does not.. This is a game, it is supposed to be fun. The question if you are able to when somebody puts a gun to your head is irrelevant.. So looking at it from the relevant part both ‘cant’s’ are equal.

2: Physical not being able to.. Seriously, how many people would literally not be able to do any of that content? If we take away time-gate (as challenge has been the subject at hand, not time) so “not having the time to do it” is not being counted, we might talk about a hand full of people who are just not able to do the content.
And you can’t and should not base your design on these cases. It’s similar to the RNG thread where some people are focusing on the 1% possibility something will not drop vs the 99% it will. Or two politicians debating, where uses numbers and statistics, and the other then says you should not generalize and comes with this one exceptional example. You can’t and should not base the game around the 0,5% of the people who might not be able to do it.. And when people will put in the effort I am convinced 99,5% can do it.. It’s really a matter of being willing to put in the effort.

I did also time being mentioned as a reason for people not to put in the effort. But then you could just as well say ‘What would you consider a reasonable amount of time being bored of grinding before one should probably do something else with their time?’.

So really this debates about those that are not able to is some new bad excuse in an effort to push the “everybody should be able to get everything” agenda.

Look at ranger pets.. Who cares about those in GW2?.. yeah it’s nice to have some of them but that’s about it.. There is no real thrill in getting them. Now compare that to games where there are also rare and hard to get ranger pets (GW1, WoW). There the collecting of pets is fun. It’s game-play value.. Here where getting a ranger pet means walking up to him and pressing ‘H’ it’s not. It’s a perfect example in practice where you see that this “everybody should be able to get everything” idea is just bad.

Arkanthor.2307:

Devata.6589:

Disclaimer: I base my answers on math.
This comment is mainly to show how most of the RNG-hater focus way to much on the RNG as being used in GW2, forgetting that is can also be used in a good way. It has really become a blind hate where the focus has moved to the unrealistic low chance something might never drop instead of the mathematical numbers of runs a RNG item would take you to drop based on a given drop-rate.

(…)

I like your post. But let me ask you one thing: How does your RNG concept works? It is like “if I dont get it I will be more likely to get it next time”?

Well yes and no.. It’s not so much “my RNG” is just how RNG works when it’s more doable.. (so reasonable drop-rate) and when you make a reward drop from one place it can be lower then when it drops from many places.

The problem here is that people look at the RNG the way it’s used in GW2 and then start to hate it, not seeing it for what it is.. When you talk about 1/250 drop-rate what they see is 1/250 what is a lot, and the next run it’s again 1/250 so the possibility it drops is always far away in their eyes.

But while every run indeed is 1/250 (your previous run dos not increase your change for the next run) it’s still a mathematical truth that if you do 173 or more runs, there is a bigger possibility it will have dropped for you then it did not.

It’s this truth people just can’t seem to see because of the blind hate for RNG. Like you see in this thread, they are like.. Well even with 1130 runs you are not 100% sure it drops, it might never drop.. And yes that is truth.. But the possibility it did not drop after 1130% is about 1%.. So they are focusing on this one percent (or do not understand the math) and base their idea’s about RNG on that.. Well it’s not a good idea to base your idea’s on incorrect information.

Having an one specific item drop from one specific boss with a drop-rate of 1/250 is similar (not exactly the same, but similar) to having that boss drop one currency every time you kill is and selling that weapon for 173 of that currency. And you should understand that while theoretically indeed you might need > 1130 kills and still not have the items.. that is very unlikely.

So that is really how it should be viewed.. And when you can do that, you can have a decent discussion about about the pro’s and con’s or RNG (when implemented in that way). And then honestly the pro’s are bigger then the cons when compared with a currency.

Astralporing.1957:

Devata.6589:

Fun fact.. here is what Anet indirectly said about content / a challenge giving value to an item.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Romke's_Final_Voyage
Trahearne: Nothing worthwhile is easy, or without a price.

So everything you can earn with a brainless grind is nothing worthwhile.

Notice there’s nothing here said about exclusivity however.

That was also not my point with this quote.

In this topic something was said about how all items should only require low skill to obtain them. But that also devalues the item value.. and that was the point here.

The topic really talks about two things.. locking rewards behind a challenge and making rewards exclusive to content. This comment only addressed that first element.

Fun fact.. here is what Anet indirectly said about content / a challenge giving value to an item.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Romke's_Final_Voyage
Trahearne: Nothing worthwhile is easy, or without a price.

So everything you can earn with a brainless grind is nothing worthwhile.

Disclaimer: I base my answers on math.
This comment is mainly to show how most of the RNG-haters focus way to much on the RNG as being used in GW2, forgetting that is can also be used in a good way. It has really become a blind hate where the focus has moved to the unrealistic low chance something might never drop instead of the mathematical numbers of runs a RNG item would take you to drop based on a given drop-rate.

Arkanthor.2307:

This game bases a big part of its rewards on RNG based drops.

Mostly extremely low RNG but with items that drop from a lot of places.. Something I am also against.. But that type of RNG is hugely different from a more doable RNG where one item drops from one place (when an item drops from one place the RNG can also be more doable).

So not all the RNG is the same.. seeing how you talk about the RNG in GW2 I presume you are talking about the RNG as we see it mostly in GW2 (or you might not clearly thouth about the different types).

Arkanthor.2307:

This means that the only thin you can do in orde to get the item you want is hope that you are lucky and repeat the same content over and over again.

For the RNG as mostly applied in GW2 this is true. It’s even worse.. Hoping something drops is pretty meaningless, better you look at what grinds reward the best currency, grind that and buy the item.

For the more doable RNG for one item that drops from one place this is false. With a 1/250 drop-rate it’s not really anything about hope.. On average you will need to do those things 173 times for it to drop, you might be very unlucky and drops the 500th run, or very lucky and it drops the first run. But the possibility it does never drop for you (when doing the right amount of runs) is extremely low.. You would have to hope for it not to drop.. not hope for it to drop.

Arkanthor.2307:

RNG sistems are cool as an alternative way to get things _"Oh while i was doing X to get Y I got this shiny Z by random .

This is indeed bad and something you have with the RNG as implemented in GW2. Again, not so much with the RNG as I suggest. I however think (my) RNG can be a good way to get things, where you also have a currency to get other things along the way. And there should be guaranteed rewards as well. That is a good mix.

Arkanthor.2307:

Cool!"_ but it isn´t right when RNG is the only way to get those things you want.

However, there should only be one way per item ideally. Else people will just do whatever turns out to be the fastest / easiest creating a grind.

Arkanthor.2307:

It doesn´t give the player the progress sensation. It´s simply yes or not. And almost always is not.

Again, with the RNG as used now yeah true. With the RNG I talked about no.. When you know the drop-rate is 1 / 250 there is the magical number of 173 to focus on. That is no grantee but it is something you can focus on. It’s fictional but it works. How does it work.. well as you say “And almost always is not” doing more runs then 172 and getting the drop is almost always a yes.

Arkanthor.2307:

-Make sure the amount of things you have to do to get the reward is fair and fun. The experience of playing the game to get the shiny can be part of the reward.

That, I sort of agree with. With RNG there is the possibility it does drop the first run what is first.. I am guessing you are more focusing on the possibility it did still not drop after 345 runs. But overall it’s fine if you use the correct RNG. So lets say you think an item should require you to do about 173 runs, you make the drop-rate 1/250.. Not 1/10 or 1/10000.

Arkanthor.2307:

-The player gets to know the progression to their goal such as collections or token sistems.

Very much no to this! Well for a few items, but not exactly knowing that makes it more fun. Currency (tokens are a currency) is boring and feels like a grind.

Again the 1/250 drop-rate would require about 173 runs of the content where every run rewards you 1 token.

Doing that you just simply see this number slowly going up, one by one by one. This is extremely boring and feels grindy.. Reward-wise there is nothing interesting about doing the first run, or the second, or the third. The drop is not exciting and when you do finally get to the 173th run it’s still not very exciting because you know (for the last 172 runs) that you will get the reward after that run. Only thinking about it already makes me feel boring and wants me pull me hair out.

With the RNG version of a 1/250 drop-rate there is always the rush of “Will it drop”, and the “YEAAHH!! It dropped.” That little uncertainty makes it more fun, while at the same time it’s not completely uncertain.

Arkanthor.2307:

-No reward should be gone forever.

True.

Arkanthor.2307:

-Mystic weapons (The anomaly-ish): As Legendries you get what you want at the end. can be expensive but fair.

You forget that many of those weapons require material you can’t really work towards other then grinding (what is also RNG-based) for gold to but them.. This because those items you need are being rewarded with the bad RNG-system.

So for the weapons where this applies (what is most of them) is is in fact an example of a bad, not a good. Now if there would be more direct less general bad RNG /grind to get those mats.. then this would be a good example.. But currently it’s a bad one.
PS: I noticed now that a little later you indeed say this is bad.

Arkanthor.2307:

-Dungeon weapons/armor: The currency is always given when u finish a path or go trough a PVP route. You know what you´ll get and when.

As a side reward from a dungeon, yes. As the main reward people would be after no. Personally I see most of those items as side rewards (while the dungeon lacking main rewards). So yeah then it’s good.

Arkanthor.2307:

-Actual exotic skins: There are dropped everywhere and nowhere at the same time. You have a chance these will drop.. or not. Things as Bonetti´s rappier or Genesis don´t have an actual way to get them more than RNG. This is not right.

I completely agree.. But want to mention again.. this is because of the way RNG and drops are implemented.. not just because RNG is involved. With good RNG this would not be a problem.

Arkanthor.2307:

-Unreachable content (tribal armor and such): These were lost with the wardrove overhaul (I guess) and are no longer available.

Agree but not related to any RNG.

Arkanthor.2307:

-Black Lion ticket skins (Unexpected right?):

Agree.

Arkanthor.2307:

TLDR: There should be a safe and sure way to get the reward and never should be RNG based. RNG is cool as an alternative way but never as the only way.

RNG can be pretty safe and secure. It’s not, the way it’s implemented but in GW2 mostly, but good RNG is very (not 100%, but still very) safe and secure.

Arkanthor.2307:

For a more rewarding game.

The game rewards a lot, biggest problem is does not feel rewarding, and the rewarding needs to be fun.. Be careful with your words, before we know it we get free chests for every 10 min we are online, and get a stack of 250 purses for every kill. And that will not make it feel any more rewarding.

Arkanthor.2307:

I support the 2.5-ish.

Me too.. if the token-system is also for a secondary reward.. not for the same one as the main reward obviously. But honestly, seeing how RNG is implemented in GW2, 1, 2 and 2.5 are all bad.

To prevent a person from really having to do something to many times you could make it so if it did not drop after x run (with the 1/250 I would think a number between 345 and 500), it will always drop one for sure..

As developer I would not tell the player this but say something like “We have a system in place to prevent you from never getting the reward if you really do it a lot but are very unlucky” There is no real need for it, but it might help to take away this unfounded fair some people have about the possibility RNG results in never dropping a reward for you.

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

maddoctor.2738:

We’ve already been through this and going in a circle. Individual player wants do not matter as far as exclusives are concerned. It’s the entire playerbase that matters and if you can get the vast majority of what you want by doing any type of content. Then you put a select few behind exclusive content to cater to the other side, having a small amount of items that way is in no way invalidating the fact that the majority is not exclusive. Therefore, by using let’s say 90/10 percentage you appeal to both, which is the compromise. Individual players that might want that 10% is irrelevant, unless you can prove that the entire playerbase wants that 10%

Just for the record.. I find 90 / 10 unacceptably low. 50/50 is the least we need. The reason why 90/10 does not work is also simple.. If you like to hunt and collect items.. with 90/10 is means (let’s take mini’s as example) you would be able to collect 10% by doing the hunt you like.. but to get even close to getting the full collection you would still have to grind, grind, grind for 90%.. What really means you lose interest in the collection as total.

So for people who like to hunt and collect some rewards this is unacceptable low.

50/50 is impossible thanks to the gem store, gem store rewards require only gold so it’s a non-exclusive reward. I think it’s a bit unreasonable to have exclusive rewards equal to the amount of gem store items. If you don’t count the gem store then 50/50 is doable

“I think it’s a bit unreasonable to have exclusive rewards equal to the amount of gem store items.” I think it’s unreasonable to have 50% of the items in the gem-store.. especially for a B2P game.. Don’t forget, this is a B2P game, not a F2P game something Mike mentioned multiple times in the last Pax reveal.. He said they try to sell the games, or expansion in this case.

That means there is less need to selling stuff in the gem-store.

The reason the reward system in GW2 is as it is, is imho for a big part because of to much focus on the cash-shop the last 2,5 years. (What was the result of the LS approach vs expansion approach as they did in GW1).

So if this is the underlaying problem.. not wanting to touch that means you will not be able to get a good system. 50/50 is imho simply the least you need to get a interesting, fun and rewarding game. And not only that, it also means the hardest content should reward you better skins.. Not having the best skins being sold / grinded and having some lesser looking ones behind challenging content.. that does not feels rewarding, that feels unfair tbo.

I know the cash/shop is the biggest problem to get this solved (get to at least 50/50) but that does not mean it should then be ignored. Anet did try to solve the problem they had with rewarding and it failed because they try to work around this. And I don’t think it’s an unreasonable thing to ask because again.. I say it again: this is supposed to be a B2P game, something Anet’s president talked about during the last major presentation (so while it looks they stepped away from that, they are back on that idea now). If this was a real F2P game (what it’s not) then you had a point and asking this would be unreasonable. But now it’s not.

maddoctor.2738:

We’ve already been through this and going in a circle. Individual player wants do not matter as far as exclusives are concerned. It’s the entire playerbase that matters and if you can get the vast majority of what you want by doing any type of content. Then you put a select few behind exclusive content to cater to the other side, having a small amount of items that way is in no way invalidating the fact that the majority is not exclusive. Therefore, by using let’s say 90/10 percentage you appeal to both, which is the compromise. Individual players that might want that 10% is irrelevant, unless you can prove that the entire playerbase wants that 10%

Just for the record.. I find 90 / 10 unacceptably low. 50/50 is the least we need. The reason why 90/10 does not work is also simple.. If you like to hunt and collect items.. with 90/10 is means (let’s take mini’s as example) you would be able to collect 10% by doing the hunt you like.. but to get even close to getting the full collection you would still have to grind, grind, grind for 90%.. What really means you lose interest in the collection as total.

So for people who like to hunt and collect some rewards this is unacceptable low.

Fox.3469:

Ohoni.6057:

Because there have constantly been complaints about the more difficult to acquire exclusive skins.

By a vocal minority on the forums, you said to me a few pages ago i can’t prove that many people want raids of a vocal minority asking them on the forums, so only you can use the forums in your advantage right? You are using 2 standards to justify your claims and devalue mine.

Not to mention that I have not seen many of those complains.. heck the content with those rewards, Liadri, SAB, MF have mainly been applauded and has been use as examples we should get more of, or that should come back.

So the contrary seems to be true.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

There have been constantly complaints about the game not being rewarding too. Exclusive rewards = a rewarding game, non-exclusive rewards = a massive grind.

Heh, you make here a nice leap between the first and second sentence.

Yes, there have been constantly complains about the game not being rewarding enough, but if you look closer, you will see that mostly those are complains about the quantity, not exclusivity, and complains about exclusivity are for both sides. With most of those being about not getting something because it is locked beyond content player do not play, not the other way around.

How from this you got to your second part, i have no idea.

Well, the complains usually did not really specify it and mainly said the game did feel unrewarded but yeah, in also many just asked for more or better rewards, and I dear to say people making those complains where just wrong.. they did feel unrewarded so asked for more or better rewards..

Anet give them exactly that! People still did feel unrewarded so Anet added even more.

These days you get rewards for logging in (I remember threads where people talked about rewards where this option was brought up as a joke.. an honestly, a reward for logging in is a joke), and when doing any content, you bags are getting filled up with bags full of stuff.

I have never ever played any game that did gave you so many ‘rewards’. It’s come to a point, that collecting all the rewards is giving you carpal tunnel syndrome.

Yet it dome not feel rewarding.. Why.. Let me show you why:
Rewarding: http://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jaT4eqKJWbfQYwxWtaaxnumwuW4=/0x250:5274x3217/1600x900/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/46680134/usa-today-8682481.0.jpg

Not rewarding: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02396/VietnameseDong_2396164k.jpg

Rewarding: http://snd1.splashpress1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/germany_lucky_number_7.jpg

Not rewarding: http://famouswonders.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/cambodian-riel.jpg

Quantity does not mean a d@mm thing. The more you give of something, the leas it’s value per piece. Exclusivity does mean something.

And again, if you lock specific rewards behind specific content all over the place. Most items will be available for people, but for those who like / are good in JP’s the exclusive JP rewards would be the wants they would / could go for while the raid-players have they rewards.

Robert Gee.9246:

Adding a timer buff is simple, but having a range or direction indicator is much more difficult due to how the skill is implemented. Portal is managed heavily through code rather than script due to its unique functionality so adding something like this would likely require changing some of the underling structure of the skill.

I obviously don’t know the code but would expect the portal being an object with a coordinate as one of it’s properties and a reference to the other portal object.

Then you have all the information you need to show the pointer in the right direction..

Well I guess that’s not how it works in the code as you say it’s hard.. But that is how I envisioned it to work so I though it would be reasonably ‘easy’.

Thanks for the reply, appreciate it.

Zord.6457:

If any upgrade is made to portal it should be timer between entre/exeunt and a range indicator… this has probably been said a million times though

You can use the cool-down as a timer.

If you would have a max distance then yes, that needs to be indicated. But honestly, I would not want a distance indication but a Mesmer portal should have no max range.. or at least it should be able to portal people everywhere within one map but preferably every-where on the world. (this does require a loading screen when using a portal to the other side of the map, and I think the distance is now related to the distance where you don’t need to load).

This would create some interesting game-play in WvW.

Dondagora.9645:

Then how else will us mesmers screw and troll others by porting them onto suicide cliffs?

Add the skill to place a spy-portal (making up the name on the spot). With the spy-portal you can decide yourself what direction the arrow points (there are many skills you point in one direction, so the engine has this ability already) and the best part is.. enemies can use the portal as well and can’t see it’s an enemy portal.

If friendly can see it’s a spy-portal (and so understand the arrow might be false) it up to Anet. But best would be not to, else people will always use spy-portals and so you always know then it’s an enemy-portal (when it’s not a spy-portal). So showing this takes away the usefulness of this skill.

You can still troll, but if you are a nice Mesmer people at least know in what direction they are going.

Ayrilana.1396:

Xbon.9086:

Ayrilana.1396:

Kordash.2197:

Misread your first post seems. End of the week is hard, sorry for that ><

It’s no problem. I’ve done it many times before as well.

when I say unlucly accounts, you should know what I mean by that; rather, unlucky players, people can be unlucky, and what you explained in what I initially quoted is gambler’s fallacy, think if something has a 1/250 chance, by a simple formula you can see that the way to get 99% chance (should you not have had a drop yet) is about 1130~ tries, however, there is no way to get 100% chance, there’s a possibility that one person never gets something that is very common to others, those outliers should be fixed.

Please don’t throw “gambler’s fallacy” around without understanding it or what people are saying.

There is so much wrong there.. Gamblers fallacy is when you throw a dice 6 times you always pick the same number because it must drop at some point.. While not picking random numbers because the 1 might drop when you guessed 6 and the 6 dropped when you guessed 1.

This is a false idea.. You simply have 6 times a 1/6 possibility the number you pick drops, whatever number you pick

Another example would be the Roulette, where it was 3 times red and so now you pick black because black has to drop at some point.. But in reality it does not matter what you pick. The possibility red or black drops is the same.

At the same time, many people also use that wrong by suggesting RNG is always completely random because your previous runs don’t increase your chance that the next one will be bigger.

And this is right and false at the same time.. Yes, the possibility it drops stays the same.. however the possibility it keeps not dropping drops, because your total number of runs gets higher. (will come back on that later).

RNG can be great.. It creates a rush of “Will it drop” and if it does “Yes it dropped”. Something currency and direct rewards won’t do. (While really challenging content can create a similar feeling for beetling it). But RNG needs to be reasonable or doable. What this really means is that the drop-rate is within decent numbers compared to the times you would do the content.

Many talk here about how RNG means you need to pray to the RNG-gods, but this would only be true when it’s unreasonable RNG, so like when you have 12 tries to guess a number between 0 and 1000. Then you have to pray to the RNG-gods yes (not that it will help anything).

But with the 1/250 Xbon’s example it is false, especially the way he uses it (while it depends on the content.. is it something you would be fine with doing 250 times?). First of all, you should not try to get to 100% but to get >50% (the possibility is higher to get it, then it is to not get it).

With a drop-rate of 1/250 it means then when you do 173 runs the chance it has dropped is higher then that it did not drop. Basically you start praying to the RNG-gods if you would NOT want it to drop when doing 173 runs or more!
So trying to dismiss that drop-rate (by making it look bad) with numbers as 1130 because you try to get to 100% only shows how you don’t understand how it works.. and frankly that is true for most of the RNG-haters. Yes it’s possible it did not drop after 1130 runs, but the chance it did NOT drop after those 1130 runs is about 1%.

RNG is fine, it’s even great. It creates re-playability and adds the rush of “Will it drop” as long as the drop-rate is reasonable! The hate for it is just based on incorrect assumptions / not understanding the maths or focusing to much on the 1% it can not drop in 1130 runs (in this last example) instead of the >50% it will drop in 173 runs.

If I had to pick between content that required me to do it 173 times to earn the currency to buy the item, or that has a drop-rate for the item I like of 1/250, I would take that RNG version every time. If you do that with all the content your average number of runs will be about the same as with the currency (some times you might only need 50 runs, another time you need 300), so not much changes there. But the currency feels like a boring grind while the RNG version always gives you the rush of “Will it drop.”.

[Interesting link for those who have a hard time getting these numbers: http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/13/drop-chance-probability/ ]

Ohoni.6057:

Wrong. This is why we are getting Legendary Armor behind Raids in the first place, this is why Arenanet explicitly stated that they wished they handled Legendary Weapons better.

You have absolutely no basis to this claim, and it runs contrary to everything about GW2 being successful over the past three years.

GW2 was successful but had troubles holding players (their words) and income did kept dropping (until the announcement of HoT). So it was successful but no perfect, and did not even do what Anet hoped it would do over the longer term, because then we would indeed not make these changes and even would not have had HoT but another LS instead.

Ohoni.6057:

Devata is pushing for an agenda that would prevent people from getting what they want.

What a complete nonsense. What I (some of us) suggest here, does not hold any item away from anybody. Anybody can get those items, they might just have to do some content they don’t like to get some of the items they might like.

Just as your suggestion does exactly the same. Because in your way, if you like that hunt / content for exclusive never have that game-play / content in the game.

Ohoni.6057:

Some would argue it might be more selfish to take away the exclusive rewards from content,

Some might, but let’s not pick on them, they have enough challenges in their lives. Let’s stick to intelligent people like you and me and the other people capable of typing.

So everybody who feels different from you is stupid?
With that statement you basically undermined everything you said here and I am happy you are not on ‘my side’. No user arguing any further with you if this is how you look at thigs.. Besides, everything I have to say I did say anyway. Let the readers decide. Because I think they are not stupid.

Edit:

Ohoni.6057:

Not really, because in my system, the content is balanced against the generic rewards.

People will still get bored by the content. That does not change.

Ohoni.6057:

But just as you can hunt an animal in the wild, you can also hunt the same animal in domesticated conditions…. If my having other options bothers you, then that’s too bad, really.

You can get a boar also in another place yes.. Just as you can get a skin also from other content. But when hunting, you spot one animal and set your sights on it, on that specific one and try to get that one.

Ok so finally we agree in both systems not everybody gets what he wants. So then you would look for a compromise (what you did not want before because your system would give everybody what he wanted.. according to you) that brings us back on the 50/50 deal.

Ohoni.6057:

Ok, then it removes the value from the item. I’m sorry for you. That does not mean that you are entitled to tell other people how they can earn the item.

Just as it does not mean you are entitled to take that value away from other people. need a compromise.. again there is the 50/50

Ohoni.6057:

And yet plenty of people who are not you love this element. Have some empathy for people who are not you.

I have, I would like to have all items exclusive behind content.. but as a compromise.. out of empathy I suggest the 50/50

Ohoni.6057:

I believe that the ideas I argue in favor of would be supported my the majority of the game’s population.

Anet did try to implement it and we don’t know why the people who did leave, leave. But the (bad) reward system is a topic, or subject in many topics, that pops up a lot in these forums. So that says something.

I believe that the ideas I argue in favor of, would be supported by the majority of the game’s population. Especially just after HoT gets released as those who did leave for a big part are back then.

Ohoni.6057:

I have offered several compromises as to various items that could be awarded as “exclusive rewards,” that are not weapon or armor skins

That is not a compromise if it comes to skins right.. That is saying.. I like skins, I don’t care for titles, you can do with the tiles what you like and I say this is a compromise.

Edit: as I said, I won’t argue any further because you simply call people stupid if they feel different about something. There is no arguing with anybody like that. You however answered these last thing before I posted that so to be polite I have answered those and added them here.

Ohoni.6057:

And I think that you feel that way because you want to feel that way, you want it to be true. I think that if you enjoyed MF before, and do not enjoy it now, there are other factors at work in that, such as time to “cool off” from doing it,

I know that is what you think, you said that before. But as I told you, you are wrong.
You simply have a problem understanding (empathy) what other people like.

It is shown in how you ignore so many things because according to you those don’t really matter.

Added value to items is not really important according to you, and the fact that the content somebody wants to do, is content with exclusive rewards, is also a concept you don’t seem to get.

So then in your world, your solution is best for everybody.. but that is simply because you find it hard understanding other people’s world, so according to you they are at least similar.

I understand that’s hard.. I also can’t understand how some people don’t like some drinks, or how they can like a brainless grind.. But you need to just accept that, instead of concluding those people think they like or don’t like something, but they are wrong in that. (what you are saying here).

Ohoni.6057:

But what about after you already had the rewards? I mean, if they’d left it alone for 2-3 months, then most players would have ended up earning all the unique rewards, and then what? It would have been a ghost town for the next two years.

That it’s not completely true, there will always be people who don’t have the item yet and want to get it but also new players and some people who just to do that raid and so keep doing it.

But yes, the rewards have then increased the life-spawn (where many people do it) but does not keep it alive for ever. Something that also happens in your solution. Its’s a fact of life. You could try to add new rewards in an effort to try and squeeze out even some more game-play time, but you can wonder if you really want to do that. Come with an expansion with new content, it is not a problem that part of the game is not being played as active as it was when it was just introduced.

Ohoni.6057:

You can still hunt for items if you choose, that option is still available to you, it is just not the ONLY item, just as people can choose to throw exotic weapons into the forge to get a Pre, but they have other options available.

I guess you miss a part of what hunting items means.. It’s the same as hunting wild. You have to find where the animal is, than see how to best take it.. You are working towards something specific and that sends you all over the world (or forest). That is a completely different experience then “I want to hunt down that item, what are my challenges”.. “uhhm yeah whatever, just do something. And then you will get / be able to buy the meat) that is a completely different experience.

So no, that hunt is not there anymore. You can still try to get those weapons.. but the hunt is gone when items are not exclusive to content.

Ohoni.6057:

If you got it from that mob, then you got it from that mob. If you got it from a random drop then you got it as a random drop. You will likely not care about it as much in the latter case

Again you make an assumption about how somebody else must feel. No, while you don’t understand it, just accept it. Knowing that you can get the same item by doing a brainless grind removes the value from the item.. heck purchasing it might not even be interesting anymore. It does then not matter anymore that you got it from a hard to kill boss.. In fact doing it that way even can feel punishing.

Ohoni.6057:

. . . to you. You left that part out. It’s the biggest negative to you. And admittedly to at least several other people,

No, not “to me” but “according to me”. I think this is the biggest negative for the game. Not for me, but for the game.

Ohoni.6057:

Stop trying to pretend that they are equivalent positions, they are not. I am saying that you can get everything you want, so long as I also get everything I want. You are saying that you want to get everything you want, and the right to prevent me from getting everything I want.

Nonsense.. You can get everything you want in our solution as well. You just have to do some content you might not like, while other items are behind content you will like.

In your example, we can get everything but also by doing content we not want.. because we want to do content that has unique reward.. our content might be the hunt for unique items.

A fair compromise would be to have 50% of the items exclusive items behind specific content, and 50% being distributed in multiple ways.

Imagine that, calling someone “selfish” for trying to hold things away from other people. . .

Like how you are trying to hold the hunt for those unique expansion away from people, or like how you try to hold the feeling of getting that reward that is linked to that content (so has content value), or like you hold the experience from “Will it drop” “yes it dropped” away from people, or like how you try to hold dungeons with unique rewards away from people?

Or you mean how we are not holding anything away from you, only say you will need to do some specific content for it.

Ohoni.6057:

Look, if someone else wants to make the case that titles are truly essential to them, that they genuinely would mind if raiders wanted exclusive titles? Then I would not argue against them, but that’s their case to make and I would not make it for them because I do not believe it myself.

I don’t doubt that, you don’t care for titles so it does not matter to you.. But it does show you are also acting from a ‘shellfish’ viewpoint, so drop the attitude as if you solution gives everything to everybody while the other people are selfish.
You are the one who won’t accept a compromise.

Ohoni.6057:

I don’t think that’s really true, I think that’s just how you interpret it.

You think wrong, for many people it does make it more fun. I gave multiple examples.

Ohoni.6057:

I think that while it’s possible to add value to items, I think that items have enough value within themselves, and do not need value added to them. If you want to add value to things, do it to things with little to no intrinsic value, such as titles.

You think wrong, for many people it does add the value that they are looking for.

Ohoni.6057:

Just so long as you understand that this is your personal feeling on the matter, and should not dictate how everyone else plays the game.

I completely understand that.. the only person who does not seem to understand he talks about his personal feeling is you.. because you keep acting as if your solution is what everybody wants.. while that is clearly false.

Ohoni.6057:

No, content is only fun so long as it is fun. When it stops being fun, then rewards do not keep it fun.

Again your wrong. It keeps it fun for longer for many players and MF was a perfect example. I liked.. had fun doing the content (as many, proven by the people asking for it to return) and consider it a fun dungeon.. But without the reward there is no reason for me to do it again.. part of the fun (chasing that reward) is now gone. The content itself might still be good but now has the state of ‘been there done that’. Something that it would not have had when the rewards where still there.. been there yes, done that no, because I did not get the reward yet.. what is part of the “done that.”

So yeah.. you might think it does not add to the fun.. but your wrong, because for many it does. It might however not do that for you.

Ohoni.6057:

My solution makes more people happier though, because they can always do the things they want to get the rewards they want. The worst case is that other methods are slightly more efficient. Your solution means that people either have to do content that they don’t enjoy (worse), or never get the thing they want (worse), so while my solution is by no means perfect, it is at the very least better.

Your solution where everything is balanced near perfect (what is impossible) you mean?
Ignoring that Anet basically did try that and it resulted in the grind we have now?

Still no, because you keep ignoring the hunt for items as reward.. if that is your preferred game-play it’s reward driven so now you will end up in the grind you don’t like, where the other solution sends you on an adventure all over the world.

Also you keep ignoring the added value to the items because they belong to content. While you keep ignoring this one, it is in fact a huge thing.. Whats the value of an item when you know it might drop from a hard to kill boss, but can also be rewarded by hours of brainless grind? From a reward perspective none.. because you did not have to do anything reward-wordy to get it.

And you keep ignoring the fun such specific items add to the content.

Ignoring all those things.. then on paper your solution is better, and Anet did try to implement it what resulted in a boring grind. Making GW2’s reward-system the biggest negative it has.

Because you should not ignore those things, you can’t balance it out and so it does not work in reality as it does on paper.

Ohoni.6057:

Not in any way whatsoever. There is no “WvW themed” armor that WvW players are more likely to be interested in than PvPers, dungeon runners, or chest farmers.

That is very well possible.. While it’s indeed never a guarantee, but i’m pretty sure the more colorful flashy items will on average be more popular with PvE people, while the more though looking items will on average be more popular with the WvW people.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s because they get what they deserve, not necessarily what they want. I don’t doubt that you guys would prefer to have exclusive access to things just for doing the content you prefer to do, that’s a perfectly reasonable desire, but you aren’t entitled to actually get it

You do understand, the same holds true for you, only where you want non-exclusive items so you can always get them by doing whatever you like and prevent people from getting content exclusive rewards. It’s maybe what you want, but not what you deserve. (to use your words).

Ohoni.6057:

Which works fine, so long as you can guarantee that the grinders will never want the rewards made exclusive to the dungeon runners, and vice versa. Can you guarantee that? If not, then not, that is not “fine.”

It’s also fine without guaranteeing that. Some elements you might like, other you don’t.

It’s also funny how you act as if you try to come with a solution that is social, and works for everybody and you try to put the other options as a selfish one where they try to hold something away from other people..
But in reality your solution is just as (if not more) selfish.. You simply want to be able to get all items without doing raids (and maybe some other content).

It is also shown by the fact that you did not mind if titles where exclusive but with skins it was a problem. Why? some people might add more value to titles then to rewards so then they should also be able to do everything they like to earn those titles.?

But no.. you want to be able to get all the things you like (what happens to be mainly skins) and so people should not be able to get exclusive rewards because it would mean you could not get everything you want in the way you want to get it.

Astralporing.1957:

SkiTz.4590:

Theres no exciting “drops” in this game that you go out to a particular location and farm for and pray to RNGesus that it drops (aside from like, fractal skins)…

And that’s a very good thing.

“Theres no exciting “drops” in this game that you go out to a particular location" That is a very bad thing. As that is the fun of chasing rewards, exploring the world and so on.

“pray to RNGesus that it drops " That is a good thing (if it was true) because it means the drop-rate are to low.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, but “getting people to do the content” isn’t the goal. The goal is to “keep people having FUN,”

Good then we agree on that, thats why I suggest what I do.

Ohoni.6057:

Having unique or OP rewards don’t make people enjoy the content for longer, they just make them put up with content they aren’t enjoying longer.

No, as I explained before.. it makes people enjoy the content longer. People enjoyed the MF every time they did it, that’s why they asked for it to be put back. But when it was back and there was no reward they did not start doing it again.

Like I said.. Reward and Fun of content go’s hand in hand.

Ohoni.6057:

“excessive gold rewards cause people to enjoy champ training longer.” I suspect you’d personally disagree with the latter’s draw for you, well just accept that the former has no more draw to other players.

You suspected wrong. I do think some people enjoy the champ train longer. I also have no problem with that, as long as we don’t all have to run the champ trains (or the few other grinds there are) to get all the rewards.

I would also not mind doing the champ train if that rewarded let’s say 5 unique rewards, if the other rewards where behind other content.. even tho I do not like the champ train myself.

Ohoni.6057:

My point was that it had an imbalanced reward scheme.

Yeah, and while I think it could be better, I also think it can’t be balanced perfectly like I explained.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m basically not making the case that unique rewards don’t work as a draw, to a point, I’m making the case that they are a bad tool for that purpose

I am not suggesting specific rewards behind specific content just to pull people towards that content.. It’s part of it but not the mail thing.

I suggest it, to make the game-play of the hunt for items a more fun interesting item.. I suggest it to make content more fun, I do it to give more value to the items. and yes, drawing people towards different content is a part of that, but not the sole, or even the main reason.

Ohoni.6057:

that create unhealthy distortions that ultimately cause more harm than good. It’s like you could use heavy pain killers for a minor headache, and it would work, but the long term effects might be worse than the headache you started with.

Funny enough, that is exactly how I feel about your solution, and at least the way Anet implemented your solution has so far proved to work like this.

Ohoni.6057:

But if you want to do that, then you should do that. If you are bored enough with the dungeon that you want to do something else, then something else is the thing you should be doing. The solution to that is not better bribes, it’s better content.

What you don’t seem to grasp, is that the unique reward are a reason to not be bored with the content so far. Again, MF is a great example of that. It required good content and good specific rewards.

Ohoni.6057:

It really doesn’t make up for it. the amount the good experience is made better does not counteract the amount that the bad experience is made worse.

For the person who does just not like that content you mean? Yeah your right.. Like I said, you can’t make everybody always happy. Your solution does not do that, mine does not.. That can’t be done.

Ohoni.6057:

You can still have random drops, and go for those, you just wouldn’t be left with ONLY that option. It’s like in Marvel Heroes, if you want Dokitten’s tentacles, you can fight him in one of the single player instances, or you can fight him in one of the open world instances, or there are several different currencies you can grind to get RNG chests that might contain it, so you can get it without ever fighting him at all, up to you.

It’s not the same effect. It might be “nice it dropped”, but it’s not the same as when you are directly working towards that one item that drops by that boss.

Ohoni.6057:

First of all this is impossible.. What is hard for you might be easy for me.. So even if you could prevent the brainless grind we have now by balancing it better, it will still not work, especially for those who like a challenge..

The same can be said for any system. You talk about having “some rewards for raids, and also some rewards for other content, so it balances,” but that’s no less subjective.

I don’t really try or need to balance it.. Yeah there is some general consensus over what is harder content and some general consensus over what are better items so you put those behind the harder content.. Also doing a JP under x sec is harder as just completing it. So you have some things to work with, especially within a genre content it becomes easier.

But that’s it, I don’t try to balance all content / time and effort to know how to reward (what you need to do). I just put specific items behind specific content where those items are themed around those items, and if it comes to the balance I have enough information with things I just talked about.. general idea of what is harder, and different difficulties within a genre content.

Ohoni.6057:

So your solution is “give me what I want, and subject everyone else, everyone who currently enjoys GW2, to the same feelings I’m having now.” How nice of you.

“everyone who currently enjoys GW2” You mean.. everybody who likes the brainless grind.. Well I still give them grind options, but yes the grinders will be the group who have a reason to complain as they would lose the ability to get most of the rewards by simply brainless grinding.

Ohoni.6057:

It does nothing on that front. Absolutely nothing. Themed rewards have nothing to do with content. Wanting to have “plant armor” does not make me more or less likely to enjoy the content of Twilight Arbor.

I said it would not solve it completely but “Absolutely nothing” is also false.

WvW themed armor is something WvW-players will overall likely enjoy more than PvE players.. while indeed it’s not a guarantee. A guild who does not do any WvW might have less reason for wanting a portal to a WvW map.

So it absolutely does something, it’s just not prevent it completely. And honestly, I also find it’s no problem to require some specific plant armor, to do the plant dungeon. Makes perfect sense.

Ohoni.6057:

In my solution, nobody would have to grind, because everyone could do the content they enjoy. If you don’t enjoy any of the content, then you have no reason to be playing the game.

On payer yes.. it’s what Anet did.. on paper.. But we all know how it worked out in reality. It can also not work out in reality as on paper because of the balance problems we talked about before.

Ohoni.6057:

In my scenario everyone gets what they want, they just don’t necessarily have as much control as they might like over what other players get.

Why do you think, multiple people tell you that they don’t like it.. because they get what they want with your solution?.. guess not.

Ohoni.6057:

First of all, that’s why content also needs to be fun..

But all content is not fun to all players. It’s impossible to make one event that all players will enjoy, and if it is possible, raids are definitely not it.

As you do multiple times, you cut out the part of my answer that addressed what you then start arguing about.. here is what I said.

First of all, that’s why content also needs to be fun.. but of course, even if it is, it might not be your type of content, and then getting those rewards will not be fun to you or feel like a grind to you.

There I agreed it’s not a complete solution.. Some content can be general considered more fun than other.. that’s the type of ‘fun’ I talk about.. but yes some people will never like it anyway.

Stop cutting out parts to then argue about something that is addressed in the part you cut out.. It makes you look like a unfair debater or a troll.. both things that don’t help you getting your point across.

Ohoni.6057:

Running content you do like does not take away from having to run content you don’t.

I never said, it did.

Ohoni.6057:

I (and with me, many) value the combination of it..

Well I’m sure you do, it’s always nice to be able to eat your cake, and have it too, but that isn’t fair to everyone else. I’m not arguing that raiders would not prefer exclusive armor over an exclusive title, I’m saying that they don’t deserve exclusive armor, so if they want something exclusive, a title should do (or some other substitute that is not armor skins).

“Well I’m sure you do, it’s always nice to be able to eat your cake, and have it too, but that isn’t fair to everyone else.”
So your solution does not give everybody what they want, someting you claimed, not saying mine does.. and indeed..

“it’s always nice to be able to eat your cake, and have it too, but that isn’t fair to everyone else.”
So don’t come up with a system that caters to the brainless grinding and not to anybody else.. but instead put rewards behind specific content.. Grinders will get their rewards, raiders theirs, dungeon-runners theirs and so on, and so on.

Ohoni.6057:

From the start I’ve been fine with “exclusive rewards” in some sense, it’s just that usually when we’ve been using the term we’ve been using it to refer to weapon and armor skins. I’ve always granted that things like titles could be offered as exclusives, anything that has value ONLY as a trophy, and not intrinsic worth.

Well you talked about pretty and non-pretty. With titles you don’t really speak about pretty and non-pretty.

Ohoni.6057:

He should be able to earn a reward that has that value, but is not “pretty.” If he values “the reward” simply for being “the reward,” then it shouldn’t really matter what, exactly, that reward is. Make it a trophy, or title, or something else that is of no value except as “the reward.” Give them other rewards too, the trophy isn’t all they get, but the other rewards are generic. It’s like the Nobel prize, greatest achievements in human history, and all you get is a chunk of metal that people wouldn’t wear on the street even if everyone had one. And also a million dollars. But who cares about the million dollars, you got that unique hunk of metal! That is the compromise. The player that cares about “pretty” gets access to all the pretties, the player that cares about exclusive status gets exclusive access to the not-pretties.

I (and with me, many) value the combination of it.. I like to get a specific reward from some hard boss.. but it feels underwhelming to me if all the effort then results in a bad looking skin.. No, all that work should result in the best looking skin.

Anyway.. we made progress.. You are now in favor of exclusive rewards, as long as the best looking skins can be obtained in any manner.

Ohoni.6057:

It came back, but people did not really care.. other than “it’s an easy run in Fractals” in general people don’t care about it anymore. (SAB was similar, where the first addition it was fun to do it on all characters, this was not the case with SAB 2 because it was not rewarding you anymore when playing on an alt. It was still fun to do on that first character but instead of then doing it on the second one as well, you just did it the day after again.)

Yes, but the same is true of any content. People wanted Molten Facility back because it went away before they got tired of it, but that doesn’t mean that they never would have gotten tired of it. The people who were playing it the first time around would have kept playing until they got all the rewards, and then would have gotten as bored as in the Fractal version. And sure, the occasional new players would want to give it a shot, but nothing long term~

I did not say it would keep the content alive (to the same extent) forever, I said it would increase the life-spawn.. Exactly what you seem to agree on in your comment.

Of course as you say, there is also a reason for new players to keep doing it, while without the rewards there would be less reason for them to do it.. their veteran friends don’t do it, there is no real reason for them to do it without special rewards so in that case there is even less activity. With specific rewards at least you will always have people who have a reason to do it and so will do it.

Ohoni.6057:

Content can be fun, but if you have done it a few times you will start caring less, especially when it’s not PvP (with PvP there is always the interaction with other players that keeps it fresh). But if you have a reason (the reward) to keep doing it, you will be doing that fun content, and you will have fun doing it. So yes.. content needs to be fun, and exclusive rewards are a big element in that.

I don’t think that’s true. It may be true for you, but I don’t think it holds up in the big picture. I think that if unique rewards are the driving force, then players will still give up the instant they have the unique reward involved. I know I stopped running DT soon after getting the full Ambrite set, but it wasn’t because I wasn’t having fun, it’s that I couldn’t buy anything useful with geodes anymore, aside from clay pots, and those had lost too much value for me to care. If you could buy cool stuff from other areas with geodes in some transaction, I might still be playing DT on a weekly basis, at least.

You start with saying it is not true, but then what you say basically says it is true. While you are partly talking about a currency here. And yes, in that case you might have been still doing it… if that content rewarded the most currency (geodes). But as GW2 shows, if other content would reward it better, most will move to that. So a currency you can spend everywhere does not help.. in fact, it decreases the life-spawn because as soon as you have seen the dungeon you might already move towards the content that rewards that currency the most. So you get a similar effect as having no (specific) rewards at all.

Ohoni.6057:

I think unique rewards run on sort of a parallel track to fun, they are not the same thing. Think of it like you’re riding down those two tracks, with each foot on a roller skate on one of the two. If the reward is cool and the event is fun, then everything’s fine, you’re stable and having fun. If the reward is great but you’ve gotten tired of the content, then one of the rails falls away and you’re wobbling on one foot, you’re still sliding down the track, but it’s not fun anymore, it’s just gear-grind to get that thing you want.

On the flipside, if the content is fun and rewarding, but then you get that unique reward, then it’s still fun, but again, wobbly, because now the rewards you do get are mediocre, you could be getting much better someplace else, so playing there is a waste of your time.

So both need to be good, together they enhanced the experience. For some rewards you might need to do content you personally don’t like so much (or leave that reward), for others you do the content you prefer. If you still want to go for the rewards that are behind content you don’t like, that will be a lesser experience, that is true. The other however will be even a better experience.

If you make it so you can get rewards everywhere (pretty much the currency-grind we already have) then doing any content that required more effort or that rewards less feels like a waste of you time as you say. So now you are only in luck if the content you happen to prefer also happens to be the best at rewarding the currency you need. And I will repeat it again.. you are still missing that “will it drop” effect and the “Yes is dropped!!” effect.

Ohoni.6057:

The stable solution is to never have the unique reward, to rely on the fun of it, and just have rewards that are balanced and worth the time invested, not unique, just of a sufficient quantity.

First of all this is impossible.. What is hard for you might be easy for me.. So even if you could prevent the brainless grind we have now by balancing it better, it will still not work, especially for those who like a challenge.. I am very good in X (better than the average, and the best Anet can do, is balance it around the average), but I prefer a challenge so don’t want to do x buy Y because I find that more challenging. Now I might be under the average because many people might find X challenging and Y less challenging. This means that doing a challenge still rewards me less. So the balance is impossible.

And lets for a moment act as if we are in the impossible universe where it would.. you still miss the “will it drop”, “yes it dropped” feeling.

That feeling is also parlyt why fun and reward are not parallel but can belong to each other. Look at gambling, many people like gambling, and those games itself are not even that great, but they purely have fun doing it because of the “Will my number drop” and the “Yes it dropped” feeling.

Ohoni.6057:

And then of course you have the situation in which a player wants the reward but NEVER finds that content fun, and he’s forced to either play the content he does not enjoy, or never get the thing he wants, and not ONE of you has suggested a solution that would actually satisfy this player, the best you can offer is “don’t care what he thinks.”

For sure you have that.. I have that all the time, because what you suggest here is what Anet did try to implement and resulted in the grind. The content I do like will not in any viable way get me to the rewards I like.. No, to get to those rewards I need to grind, grind, grind.. Something I will NEVER like. basically that has destroyed the complete game-play of changing rewards for me. I could be fine with it, if a few items required such a grind, but currently by far most items require that grind.

The solution is to make items exclusive to specific content and theme the rewards around that content. This reduces the change that the item you want is behind content you dislike.. while not taking it away completely.

Yes then there will be people who want a reward that is behind something they do not like and that is indeed then to bad. At the same time, there are many other rewards he might like that are behind the content he likes.

your solution or at least the way it worked out, results in the group who likes to grind to indeed be able to get all rewards the way they like it (grinding), while those who don’t like the grind will have to do something they don’t like (grinding) for nearly all rewards. Notice the difference?

I / We completely understand it means some people will need to do content they don’t like if they want a reward, but just as we say “To bad, heey there are many items you like that are behind content you like”, you say “you want rewards from specific content because To bad”. So not sure what your point is.

In both scenario’s there will be cases where not everybody always gets everything he wants.

Ohoni.6057:

You know what really burns out a lot of people?. Answer: grind. And this “you should be able to get everything by doing whatever” results in the currency grind we already see way to much in GW2.

Yes, and “you have to keep doing this raid until the skin you want drops, even though you didn’t enjoy it the first time” is just as much grind as anything else. There is no magical one-size solution to grind, if there were someone would have bottled it and made a mint by now. Just always be aware that the type of grind that you hate, is not hated by everyone as much as you hate it, and the type of grind that you enjoy, perhaps even to the point of refusing to see it as grind, is not necessarily the type that other people enjoy. The best solution is to offer multiple types of grind that all lead to the same outcome, and letting players choose which type they prefer.

First of all, that’s why content also needs to be fun.. but of course, even if it is, it might not be your type of content, and then getting those rewards will not be fun to you or feel like a grind to you.. Luckily in my way of putting all rewards behind specific content, there are also a lot of other rewards behind content you do like. So you can ignore the few items behind the content you dislike, or do a run of that raid (in your example the content somebody does not like) once in a while to get the reward while spending most of the time still doing fun and rewarding content you like.

Ohoni.6057:

That was a revelation to a lot of burnt out MMO players who always hated forced grouping in previous games.

You know what really burns out a lot of people?. Answer: grind. And this “you should be able to get everything by doing whatever” results in the currency grind we already see way to much in GW2.

Basically you end up with 3 groups, 1 those who don’t really care about the items, 2 those that did find other stuff they like (like WvW) and 3 the grinders.
Anybody who does like to get those items, likes the chase but is no grinder, will and did burn out. Many of them will be back with HoT but if the reward system would not improve they will be burned out again and won’t be back for the next expansion.

Edit: Added example: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Does-GW2-feel-unrewarding-for-anyone-else

Ohoni.6057:

If it comes to other systems.. as I have said before, what I think is best is a guaranteed reward you get once, this must be something people want but will be less rare as everybody who completes it, gets it.

And see, I’m sure everyone would love that, but it’s completely non-viable in an MMO, because when they spend the time to make content, they need for everyone to run it dozens of times. This is why content should not be balanced around having exclusive rewards. If you instead balance them on being fun, then players will run them dozens of times just because they want to, not because they’re being press-ganged into it by the loot system. If you balance around fun, then you CAN give the best rewards out the first time, because they’ll keep coming back anyways.

The only thing you forget here, is that the rewards are part of the fun. Yes, content needs to be fun by themselves, but especially to keep them fun to do for multiple times rewards help a lot.

The Molten Facility and to some extend SAB are the best examples fort hat in GW2. Molten Facility was a great dungeon, people loved to do it (they liked the content) and where screaming on the forums they wanted it back.

Remember? I do.. I also remember I said in those thread.. I want to see it back, but only if it comes with the same exclusive rewards, else people will not care about it.

It came back, but people did not really care.. other than “it’s an easy run in Fractals” in general people don’t care about it anymore. (SAB was similar, where the first addition it was fun to do it on all characters, this was not the case with SAB 2 because it was not rewarding you anymore when playing on an alt. It was still fun to do on that first character but instead of then doing it on the second one as well, you just did it the day after again.)

Content can be fun, but if you have done it a few times you will start caring less, especially when it’s not PvP (with PvP there is always the interaction with other players that keeps it fresh). But if you have a reason (the reward) to keep doing it, you will be doing that fun content, and you will have fun doing it. So yes.. content needs to be fun, and exclusive rewards are a big element in that.

Content that is just not fun with good rewards is not good, but fun content without rewards is only good for a limited time, the RNG rewards increases that time.

Ohoni.6057:

When RNG is reasonable there is no requirement to pray to the RNG gods. Let’s say that the drop-rate is 1/10 (where 10 is the reasonable number) you would need to pray to the RNG gods to NOT have it drop before the 20th run.

RNG is fine, if the numbers are reasonable.

Yes, but really the whole point of RNG is to be a bit unreasonable. If the rates are too low then what’s the point of the rate at all? Why not just give the reward on every run? I’m by no means in favor of Precursor-level rates, but I think incredibly high drop rates are kind of bad too, because then each time you don’t get ti it seems like even more of a slap in the face. I mean, every time I kill a moa it might drop a Dawn, but the chances are super low so it really doesn’t bother me if I don’t. If it were like one in five, and I killed six, or even three without seeing one drop, I’d be like “what the kitten game? Drop already!”

I think the best solutions involve having RNG in the middleground where it actually has a risk to it, while also having a “streak breaker” mechanic to resolve really bad luck, like token collecting.

You need to find the right balance with RNG.

If it comes to other systems.. as I have said before, what I think is best is a guaranteed reward you get once, this must be something people want but will be less rare as everybody who completes it, gets it.
Some RNG rewards, this should be the rewards people are really after and really want (best looking).
And you can then have a token system for some items you earn along the way.. nice-to have but not something people are usually specifically after.

Sykper.6583:

Devata.6589:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

This video is very relevant and I hope Anet takes a look at this and takes notes. The video also explains why and how Ohoni is so wrong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9r34qSyYg0

Good video for the most part. Especially the part around 7:30. Killing that epic boss that was so hard to kill creates that effect.. getting some epic reward gives a similar (well not as big as the one you did see in the video) effect.

Also on a smaller scale, the video was about WoW, there I loved the engineering craft what did the same on a smaller scale..
I always had the goal to work towards, the next item, and getting that next item was never about grinding levels or farming mats, getting those mats where pretty easy, and the levels between cool items you wanted was always short.

No, getting that next item often required this one hard to get item, being it a recipe or a specific item (like a precursor). So every time you logged in, you had a goal, and reaching that goal was epic.

So that is a way you can create similar things for the more casual or cosmetic / toy focused players.

You don’t get this feeling when grinding a currency and buying the item. Not even a little.

I hope Anet employees will have a look at the video and at least thing about what they see there.

Personally, the idea behind Precursor crafting likely had this in mind, but I don’t think we will see something like a ‘Progressive PvE endgame’ such that we saw in Vanilla WoW and BC, and few parts of WotLK (Ulduar specifically).

…What they could do however is make the progression in the form of achievements, a list of difficult achievements that fill a meta-reward like a Legendary item. These achievements could be from all sorts of areas in the Magumma Jungle and even perhaps some parts of the Core game. Imagine a super meta achievement that was accomplished by doing absolutely everything, something that everyone could work towards both hardened players and casual alike?

I agree, I don’t expect it to become exactly as you see in the video, but something along those lines would be nice.

Indeed I also think Legendary weapons where supposed to be like this, they do even have a similar tree to obtain them, but that mainly boils down to a lot of grinding and buying what you need. So pretty much failed in that perspective.

But my point was exactly that rewards (when rewarded from specific content) can create a similar, while possible more casual (when you don’t include the big tree) effect. There is always this goal (reward) to work towards, some requiring multiple steps or challenges. Complete JP x get reward 1, complete JP x in under 2 min and get reward 2 BTW, reward 2 is a precursor for reward 6 but then you need another precursor (reward 3) from JP y.

You make your own list of rewards you like and the content act as the tree, so there is always something to do when playing, and it feels more epic when you get the reward compared to the grind and buy.. In fact the grind and buy feels so uninteresting that even many of the items I usually care for in other games (like mini’s) and I could easily get in GW2 because they are cheap… I don’t even am interested in anymore. When the whole experience of getting them becomes boring, also those who I can get without any efforts become uninteresting so I literally only get the ones I purely like for the look. While usually it’s a combination of look and the way they are rewarded.

I just hope they don’t forget about the rangers and the pets.

Pets still need some better AI, and rangers need more control over their pets.

Also there should come more special and rare pets that actually have fun game-play mechanics to catch them.

With a new specialization there is the possibility the original one gets less attention and things as the above will not be implemented.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

This video is very relevant and I hope Anet takes a look at this and takes notes. The video also explains why and how Ohoni is so wrong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9r34qSyYg0

Good video for the most part. Especially the part around 7:30. Killing that epic boss that was so hard to kill creates that effect.. getting some epic reward gives a similar (well not as big as the one you did see in the video) effect.

Also on a smaller scale, the video was about WoW, there I loved the engineering craft what did the same on a smaller scale..
I always had the goal to work towards, the next item, and getting that next item was never about grinding levels or farming mats, getting those mats where pretty easy, and the levels between cool items you wanted was always short.

No, getting that next item often required this one hard to get item, being it a recipe or a specific item (like a precursor). So every time you logged in, you had a goal, and reaching that goal was epic.

So that is a way you can create similar things for the more casual or cosmetic / toy focused players.

You don’t get this feeling when grinding a currency and buying the item. Not even a little.

I hope Anet employees will have a look at the video and at least thing about what they see there.

Please place an arrow in the Mesmer portal, pointing towards the other portal.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

By your reasoning, having G.E.C.K available through the second way should have destroyed any worth of the first approach. And yet the only people going for the second route were those that aimed solely at the speed completion record.

I think someone answered that back on page 27:

Conski Deshan.2057:

A quick google search pulls up http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3_unique_weapons
Listing a couple of dozen unique weapons only acquired in one specific way…
Not to mention I know from playing , that several of the rewards such as companions, and houses all have one specific path to obtaining them. If you’re talking about the conversation options as “different” paths I’d Argue that’s like dungeons, you’re still in the dungeon but you can choose p1,p2 or p3, it’s the same content to the same difficulty just with different flavors.

---

Ha ha, that’s a good requirement. Now you will likely claim that if an item is being accessible through more than one way, it is no longer unique, so doesn’t qualify…

If a game doesn’t have unique items then what’s the point in using for the argument?

There’s no real difference between this and running silverwastes. In both cases you are repeating a content you wouldn’t do otherwise for rewards.

If you can’t see the difference between repeating content to get multiple rewards (without RNG) and repeating content to pray to the RNG gods to get your rewards I can’t help…

When RNG is reasonable there is no requirement to pray to the RNG gods. Let’s say that the drop-rate is 1/10 (where 10 is the reasonable number) you would need to pray to the RNG gods to NOT have it drop before the 20th run.

RNG is fine, if the numbers are reasonable.

Astralporing.1957:

FrizzFreston.5290:

Nike.2631:

Expression of identity is CRITICAL in MMOs.

Isn’t that bold part is an argument for exclusive rewards?

Quite the opposite. Make the armor an exclusive mark of achievement, and suddenly all succesful raiders look exactly the same. Make it available through multitude of choices, and people will start dressing as they like, which introduces greater variance.

FrizzFreston.5290:

I don’t necessarily mean behind a challenge, but at least belonging to different parts of the game and thus you can tell by someone’s armor what type of player and or person they are.

That completely kills any expression of individuality. Instead of being yourself, you suddenly are just a nameless member of a bigger group. It elevates a single aspect of your identity to the front, but at the cost of destroying all others.

This would only be true if there would only be one set available per content, and there is no option to mix and match. As long as you put a lot of rewards behind it’s specific content the items have the identity linked to the content and the ability to mix and match it as they like them self.

They could use the sword from Raid x, hat from Raid Y, the shoes from JP A, axe from dungeon A, mini from guild content V, shoulders from PvP rank 2, backpack from the scribing craft, as color for the shoulders they use the dye from dungeon B.. well you get the point.

Now the identity is based on your personal mix and match (what can count up to millions, even billions of possibilities), no reason why everybody would look the same while at the same time the items link to the content what also adds to the identity.

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

E) and the other alternative is to simply keep it locked behind that raid without making it easier.

Reposting from another post above, what will happen if they do that:

The thing is, by the time they add Raid B and Raid A rewards are more accessible, most “raiders” will already have the Raid A rewards and move on to Raid B. Let’s say that Raid A is doable by 10% of the population, that 10% will get their raid gear and then later on Raid B will be released. That 10% will move on to Raid B, not running Raid A anymore. The 90% that couldn’t run Raid A won’t magically become better at it and do it. So the amount of players running Raid A will be a nice 0% of the population.

And how would, making the rewards available in other parts of the content solve that?

In fact, as long as there are items rewarded that people want / require for something, there will be reasons for them to do it. So by making rewards available in other parts you might even increase this problem.

maddoctor.2738:

Devata.6589:

Seera.5916:

phys.7689:

Nike.2631:

maddoctor.2738:

Nike.2631:

Ultimately it’s about identity in our shared space. Mounts, minis, and titles all float around ‘you’ in your vicinity. Tonics completely replace ‘you’. Even weapons are something ‘you’ are holding. But clothes doth make the man and armor skins have the most direct aesthetic impact on ‘youness’.

That’s good and understandable/reasonable, at least you give some “room” for any kind of compromise by not dismissing everything exclusive.

I like to think I’m reasonable . Ohoni has never responded to my posts in this thread that I recall, so I suspect they’ve either blocked me in some fashion or they simply consider me a traitor to the cause for not being militant/radical enough .

It’s funny if you consider the fact that Armor is by far the worse option to “show off” because unlike weapons, minis or titles, it is affected by graphic settings. In a crowd you won’t be seen at all.

That’s not a coincidence… it’s a byproduct of the exact crux of the difference in the two use cases: People who want exclusive visual rewards want to be seen by others as determined, capable, and skillful. People who want accessible cosmetic rewards want to be able to see themselves as pretty, scary, or tastefully refined.

I think the question we were all arguing about on this thread for many pages has been wrong all along. The question “should we have exclusive rewards?” isn’t the right one, because I think everyone that ever posted here agreed to some form of exclusivity, be it titles, minis, outfits, armor or weapons.

The real questions are:
What kind of rewards are better suited as exclusives. and the follow up:
Are those exclusives enough to make the content desirable.

Making progress after 30 pages

Indeed. Now you’re asking interesting questions.

I’ve said my piece on the first – visual cues are important, but armor is in a different class from other flags. And just to clarify, if they were to offer access to hairstyles and faces as rewards, I’d be as protective of those as I am of armor.

The second question… wooo. That one’s a doozy. As a successful raid leader in multiple MMOs… I don’t play raids for rewards. Ok, maybe a little when there’s stat advancement on the line that’ll makes the next run more likely to succeed, but really, I play for the pleasure of winning. I’m happiest when I’m there for the gameplay, not the chest. Ok, I also like enough coin to cover the cost of expenses for the evening (travel, consumables). In general all the people I care to convince I won were either in the raid with me or know me well enough to believe me when I’m in the mood to brag or regale them with a story of how we had this awesome time where things went pear-shaped but we pulled it out anyway… And for really awesome runs, posting a good video is way more effective than any in-game reward.

Titles, armor, etc. are for showing off to strangers. Not a big priority to me, but I understand the impulse. I do want a good reward structure – because happy raiders gives me a bigger pool to draw team members from. I want raiders with a variety of outlooks eager to participate. (ooo, enlightened self-interest)

nah, in most of those cases in other games, i wanted it for myself. Im not really an external validation type. However, a reward that i can get doing something else diminishes my motivation to do specific tasks.

Also armor is not part of your charachters self imo, its a representation of what proffession/race they are, and what they achieved.

tatttos, hairstles, skin colors, those are the things that should be easy access always. But Armani suits, Military clothes, these things are about what you have earned (like armors)

That said as long as items are cool and compelling, it doesnt matter if they want to give those instead, but I wouldnt want to rule out clothes/armor for cosmetic progression rewards as an option.

So would you have an issue with Legendary Armor Skins Set 1 being exclusive to raids for say a year before being added to other areas of the game and Legendary Armor Skins Set 2 being added as a new raid exclusive reward. Then later set 2 going non-exclusive and set 3 being added as exclusive and so on and so on?

I would. It devalues the items after that year.

There is an interesting discussion we can have about this part. I made a post early in the thread about a timed-exclusive, making the armor exclusive for a period of time, then putting the precursors behind other content types. That has a lot of benefits:

A) It allows Armors to be exclusive rewards without many issues/complains, it’s something that can appeal to both sides of the exclusive vs inclusive argument (a compromise)

B) It gives the devs time to evaluate how hard their raids actually are, so when they add the legendary armor precursors through other content they can adjust the time/effort required. It’s unreasonable to expect them to add multiple ways to get them from release, but over time that might be possible

C) It will only work, if when Legendary Armor set A becomes non-exclusive, a new Legendary Armor set B will be introduced. So there is always an exclusive set to go for. this is important

D) It works in a similar way like how other MMORPGs make their raids more accessible, the early raids are far easier than the later ones, because of the new tiers of gear and new level cap. In GW2 we will never get a level cap increase, or a new gear tier, so another method of making the raid rewards easier to get over time is needed.

E) If they don’t do this, the alternative is to nerf the raids themselves, or have them rather easy from the start. This defeats the purpose of “challenging group content”.

The big problem with this concept of timed exclusives is once Raid A rewards become non-exclusive and Raid B is released, Raid A will be useless. In other games they solve this by the famous gear treadmill, where you have to do the raids in some sort of order to progress.

In GW2 we won’t get anything like this, at least I hope, so before something like this is done, we need to find a way for Raid A to stay important in the long run, even once it loses exclusivity. Is there such a way?

A) It’s not exclusive, it’s temporary exclusive.

B) This is still pretty much impossible.. how would you for example ever be able to put a difficulty-scale to a time-scale, not to mention that it keeps changing because up balance changes and inflation.

C) Creating a cosmetic tier grind. Isn’t the tier grind something Anet said they wanted to prevent? Not to mention that it’s one of the complains you do hear about MMO’s in general.. the tier grind. People feel like their previous done actions become devalued because of it.

D) It’s not the same, armor gets better, so raids get easier, the items do however still get locked behind the raid.. but again, this is the tier grind that is one of the most hearth complain with MMO’s.

E) and the other alternative is to simply keep it locked behind that raid without making it easier.

Seera.5916:

phys.7689:

Nike.2631:

maddoctor.2738:

Nike.2631:

Ultimately it’s about identity in our shared space. Mounts, minis, and titles all float around ‘you’ in your vicinity. Tonics completely replace ‘you’. Even weapons are something ‘you’ are holding. But clothes doth make the man and armor skins have the most direct aesthetic impact on ‘youness’.

That’s good and understandable/reasonable, at least you give some “room” for any kind of compromise by not dismissing everything exclusive.

I like to think I’m reasonable . Ohoni has never responded to my posts in this thread that I recall, so I suspect they’ve either blocked me in some fashion or they simply consider me a traitor to the cause for not being militant/radical enough .

It’s funny if you consider the fact that Armor is by far the worse option to “show off” because unlike weapons, minis or titles, it is affected by graphic settings. In a crowd you won’t be seen at all.

That’s not a coincidence… it’s a byproduct of the exact crux of the difference in the two use cases: People who want exclusive visual rewards want to be seen by others as determined, capable, and skillful. People who want accessible cosmetic rewards want to be able to see themselves as pretty, scary, or tastefully refined.

I think the question we were all arguing about on this thread for many pages has been wrong all along. The question “should we have exclusive rewards?” isn’t the right one, because I think everyone that ever posted here agreed to some form of exclusivity, be it titles, minis, outfits, armor or weapons.

The real questions are:
What kind of rewards are better suited as exclusives. and the follow up:
Are those exclusives enough to make the content desirable.

Making progress after 30 pages

Indeed. Now you’re asking interesting questions.

I’ve said my piece on the first – visual cues are important, but armor is in a different class from other flags. And just to clarify, if they were to offer access to hairstyles and faces as rewards, I’d be as protective of those as I am of armor.

The second question… wooo. That one’s a doozy. As a successful raid leader in multiple MMOs… I don’t play raids for rewards. Ok, maybe a little when there’s stat advancement on the line that’ll makes the next run more likely to succeed, but really, I play for the pleasure of winning. I’m happiest when I’m there for the gameplay, not the chest. Ok, I also like enough coin to cover the cost of expenses for the evening (travel, consumables). In general all the people I care to convince I won were either in the raid with me or know me well enough to believe me when I’m in the mood to brag or regale them with a story of how we had this awesome time where things went pear-shaped but we pulled it out anyway… And for really awesome runs, posting a good video is way more effective than any in-game reward.

Titles, armor, etc. are for showing off to strangers. Not a big priority to me, but I understand the impulse. I do want a good reward structure – because happy raiders gives me a bigger pool to draw team members from. I want raiders with a variety of outlooks eager to participate. (ooo, enlightened self-interest)

nah, in most of those cases in other games, i wanted it for myself. Im not really an external validation type. However, a reward that i can get doing something else diminishes my motivation to do specific tasks.

Also armor is not part of your charachters self imo, its a representation of what proffession/race they are, and what they achieved.

tatttos, hairstles, skin colors, those are the things that should be easy access always. But Armani suits, Military clothes, these things are about what you have earned (like armors)

That said as long as items are cool and compelling, it doesnt matter if they want to give those instead, but I wouldnt want to rule out clothes/armor for cosmetic progression rewards as an option.

So would you have an issue with Legendary Armor Skins Set 1 being exclusive to raids for say a year before being added to other areas of the game and Legendary Armor Skins Set 2 being added as a new raid exclusive reward. Then later set 2 going non-exclusive and set 3 being added as exclusive and so on and so on?

I would. It devalues the items after that year.

But why not have one set of Legendary Armor skins in Raids that are themed around the raids, and maybe another set behind some other content that are themed around that content.

Of course raid are supposed to be hard content, so it makes sense to put the ‘best’ items behind the ‘hardest’ content. But overall this would work. Raids have their own skins themed around those raids (much like dungeon-armor but then not currency-based and really exclusive). JP’s have their own skins , mini, toys themed around that JP.

Of course this means that if you want a skin themed around a specific raid, you will need to do that dungeon.. I know, I know, this is complete outrageous according to some people. But strangely, to make it makes perfect sense.
It’s like the WvW portal example I used before.. Let’s give guilds the ability to build a Portal in their guild-hall to one of the WvW maps. The way to get that portal is by claiming and holing a keep for x days in that map. This has skin value and functional value for the guild, but to get that WvW portal you need to do some WvW with the guild.. Complete outrageous to some, but makes perfect sense to me.

Do the same with skins, toys, mini’s and so on, and your golden.

Ohoni.6057:

The answer was in the part you cut out.

Yeah, I got that bit, but what’s the harm in personal housing? I’d think people would like that. That’s not an answer, it’s a non-sequitur.

It is the answer. My point was, that there is a difference between a reward and getting an item. Same as there is a difference between a guild-hall and personal housing.

There is nothing wrong with personal housing, but if you make a guild-hall accessible for every person (not- guild related) you can’t consider it a guild-hall anymore.

It was not a non-sequitur, it was just an example. And in your reaction you proof it yourself by saying “what’s the harm in personal housing?”

Ohoni.6057:

That is what adds the value to that item, that is what makes obtaining it more interesting.

Perhaps, but you don’t need to gild the lily. The item should be good enough to stand on its own merits, it doesn’t need to have added value.

For you maybe not, for many it does.

Ohoni.6057:

In an MMORPG at least. If not, what is the fun of an MMORPG.. You get a game to grind / buy items in that game to change the look that you only use to grind more items? That is not fun, that is boring.. heck that is not even a game. A game gives you challenges to overcome and in an MMO rewards those challenges with items.

Then what have you been doing playing this game every day for the past three years?

Not for the fun of obtaining the items.. the hunt for rewards… An element I very much do like in the other MMO’s (a huge part of MMO’s in general), An element I would love to experience in this game as well.. But I have not been playing that part of the game.. I do guild-stuff and WvW mainly. sometimes I run an event, but the hunt for items I do not do because it’s not really here other than grinding..

Ohoni.6057:

Not rewarding directly from content makes all challenges optional what really means it’s not a game anymore.

That makes no sense, of course all challenges should be optional. That’s part of the fun of an MMO, that it gives you a wide variety of things you can do and you can freely pick and choose the ones that most interest you. If you enjoy high challenge, you do high challenge. If you enjoy casual play, you play casually.

Optional for reaching a goal. maybe I should have added that.

Ohoni.6057:

You are basically asking to remove all those key components of a game or at least make them optional.. leaving you with something that not resembles a game.. but resembles work. We have had that to much already.

The system I described would still involve all those components. It would involve many goals, with their own rules, and their own challenges, some harsh challenges, some easier challenges, and of course interaction would be the most important thing through all of them. the only thing that would be different is that it wouldn’t try to impose a single standard of challenge on all players, it would allow players to choose the activities that suited themselves.

In a way, there are few MMOs out there that are a single “game” by the way you seem to be using the definition (and is not, btw, the definition you cited). An MMO is too complex for that (as are numerous single player games). Most games, especially MMOs, are more like a linked construct of numerous minigames, there is the sPvP minigame, the WvW minigame, the Citadel of Fire minigame, the Twilight Arbor minigame, the Queensdale minigame, the crafting minigame, etc., a lot of different games, some similar, many with almost nothing to do with the others, but all happening in a shared space, where the efforts at completing one can translate over to the others. I think it’s great that there are so many options, but if you’re forced into all of them then it becomes oppressive, and ultimately destructive. The great thing about a large menu is choice, not that you have to eat everything on it until you throw up.

What you are doing here is from moving inside of the context to out of the context then back in it.. Yes there are challenges and games in it.. But obtaining the item is not a game anymore.

Ohoni.6057:

That’s just a terrible grind. You really don’t understand anything about what this “other” side wants right?

Well what do you expect, that you’ll be able to beat the thing once and get the grand prize? Unlikely, but if that were the case then you’d only have to run it once to get the ultimate title. I was positing the more likely scenario, the one you should accustom yourself to right now, that you likely will have to successfully run the raid dozens of times to get the full suite of rewards, so likewise, I would plan you’ve have to run exactly that number of times to earn the sweet, EXCLUSIVE title.

In a good system you can work towards a reward in a reasonable way (so doable RNG is an option, extremely bad RNG is not as an example) and you might in fact be able to get it the first run while that is unlikely. They game needs to trigger you to do it multiple times but not simply by saying.. you need to do it x times. Then it becomes boring and feels grindy.. That is why currencies are a boring system but your “do it 20 times to get that title” is basically the same and just as bad.

Your examples of “complete side activity” or “complete it under x time” are good examples of how it could work.

Ohoni.6057:

But that’s not a compromise. You get everything you want, you get your exclusive items. I don’t get what I want, I don’t get access to all items.

No, if I had what I want, than pretty much all interesting items where behind specific content. Because that makes it an interesting game.

With a compromise we both don’t get what we want but there is something in the middle you will then pick.. Not always the best but it is a compromise.

Ohoni.6057:

If any of the items I want are exclusive, then I can’t get them, if any of the items you want to be exclusive, aren’t exclusive, you can still get those items.

It’s more about the reward model itself than it is about the ability to get the item. Also you would very much be able to get the item, you would just have to do content you don’t like to get it.. and that is also the same way for the other side.. When we have it your way it basically becomes grinding some currency to buy the item… that happens to be doing something I / many of the other side don’t like.

maddoctor.2738:

Ohoni.6057:

The raiders arent asking that every item be available through raids, The unique item lovers arent asking that every item be unique.

Both true points, but also true, the raiders are asking that some items be unique to raids, and the unique item lovers are asking that some items be unique, both positions are diametrically opposed to the idea that players should be able to get the items they want via a variety of means. You might agree with those positions, but do not portray them as being “more reasonable,” they are just on the opposite side of the spectrum.

You should learn what a compromise is. here I will help you:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/compromise

We have 2 opposite sides, one wants unique/exclusive rewards, the other wants to get everything through a variety of content. How do we compromise? Put items behind both systems, that’s what a mutual concession is. If there are enough items behind both system then both sides can be happy, simple and effective solution.

Also, this is exactly how the game already works, so in effect they won’t be changing anything just keep using the same system they always did. It’s the best of both worlds, making everything available through all types of content is something we will never see, they’d need to change so many of the current rewards already, too much trouble, and besides it doesn’t have anything for the “other” side so it’s not a compromise. Putting everything behind specific content is the other side, which also isn’t a compromise. So, let’s take the best of both worlds, make a good compromise and finish it.

Fine let’s do is 50 / 50. I would be happy with that. Don’t forget, currently it’s more like 90 / 10 where 90% you can on paper get in any way by earning gold doing the content you like (while realistically only by grinding gold) and 10 % is really behind content. I would be for 50 / 50. Making sure also the “best” items are at the very least be 50 / 50, not that 90% of the best items are still currency / gold grind.

Ohoni.6057:

The problem is similar to a discussion I did see about guild-halls. That small guilds should also have access to guild-halls. That is fine but from what size are you even considered a guild? I would say 15 but in that discussion within no-time people said they wanted a guild-hall for there personal guild. If you disagree you where of-course somebody who did think he was entitled to stuff and other weren’t.

Why not? You can do it in Wildstar. Of course it would be harder to max out a personal guild hall, but no reason you shouldn’t be able to make one.

The answer was in the part you cut out.

But the real reason is because if 1 person can get a guild-hall, a guild-hall is not a guild-hall anymore but it becomes personal housing.

Ohoni.6057:

Same with reward.. If you win at a match you get a medal, representing the sport you won at.. That is a reward. If you work, you earn money (that sort of is a reward) and then you buy stuff.. but that stuff is stuff, not a reward and that is how it is in GW2.

And an armor skin is not a medal, a medal is a medal. If they want to give raiders a medal, I’m all for it, if they want to give them exclusive skins, we have a disagreement.

A armor skin very well can serve as and even should serve as a medal.

That is what adds the value to that item, that is what makes obtaining it more interesting. In an MMORPG at least. If not, what is the fun of an MMORPG.. You get a game to grind / buy items in that game to change the look that you only use to grind more items? That is not fun, that is boring.. heck that is not even a game. A game gives you challenges to overcome and in an MMO rewards those challenges with items.

Not rewarding directly from content makes all challenges optional what really means it’s not a game anymore.

Let’s see how wiki defines a game.

“A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. ~ Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction. Games generally involve mental or physical stimulation, and often both. Many games help develop practical skills, serve as a form of exercise, or otherwise perform an educational, simulational, or psychological role.”

You are basically asking to remove all those key components of a game or at least make them optional.. leaving you with something that not resembles a game.. but resembles work. We have had that to much already.

Sykper.6583:

xarallei.4279:

Ohoni, just curious….what would you consider an “appropriate” alternative to get the reward exactly?

He’s already described it, an equivalent amount of time spent doing something else that attracts a player as opposed to one piece of content.

If they could put a scale on how many Bandit Crests could amount to how much time the average raider would spend in the Raid in question, that amount of crests would be the cost for the same Legendary Armor.

That’s his proposition, of course perhaps it doesn’t have to be Silverwastes, maybe it is Jumping Puzzles, or perhaps Dungeon runs. Anything else that makes it less exclusive than tying it strictly to a raid is something Ononi wants. That’s the only ‘solution’ he has suggested.

Other than the fact that the reward loses it’s real value (that comes with the content it is linked to) and it being a lesser more boring reward model that will result in grind.

There are also implementation-problems with it.

Let’s say they reward it for a raid and for a JP, then you still lock it out for anybody else.. So really the only way to make it accessible for everybody is to reward one currency for everything and then simply sell the item. Basically the way gold already functions for most items… the reason GW2’s reward model is such a big problem for the game.

The other problem is the balance.. You talk about the amount time spend grinding chest vs the amount spend in a raid. But it’s not a time thing.. Maybe somebody can do the raid in 1 hour and get the item.. but 1 hour of raiding (when it’s a good hard raid) cannot even closely be compared to 1 hour of grinding. So how would you put difficulty on a scale? and if you have that, how then to balance it against a brainless grind? The only way you sort of do it, is by only rewarding those items in raids and make them not account-bound so people can sell them.. What would be fine for some of the items, while other should be really excusive to the content simply for that value it’s add.

SkiTz.4590:

Ohoni.6057:

Don’t you believe that players should be able to request things that they believe would improve the game?

Except your belief is not an improvement to this game… that is evident from this thread as you have very few supporting your idea…

anet has an idea of how the reward system should be and there has been very little outcry or complaining regarding the reward structure revealed for raids…

You can keep requesting things to be “your way” to anet.

I’m going to keep saying your way is terrible and should not even be considered to be implemented.

Once again, it’s great knowing you are not in charge of making reward decisions. This game would be disaster following your ideals

Honestly, GW2 has been pretty close to how Ohoni wants it for the last few year. It was however the biggest negative and the reward-system can be considered a disaster for the most part. However, it looks like with HoT there are finally coming some positive changes to it. Still have to wait and see as one big reason for them to have this reward-system is linked to the cash-shop. But we will see. Lets hope GW2 will get a better reward system.. Sadly for Ohoni not the system he likes.

The problem is similar to a discussion I did see about guild-halls. That small guilds should also have access to guild-halls. That is fine but from what size are you even considered a guild? I would say 15 but in that discussion within no-time people said they wanted a guild-hall for there personal guild. If you disagree you where of-course somebody who did think he was entitled to stuff and other weren’t.

But the real reason is because if 1 person can get a guild-hall, a guild-hall is not a guild-hall anymore but it becomes personal housing.

Same with reward.. If you win at a match you get a medal, representing the sport you won at.. That is a reward. If you work, you earn money (that sort of is a reward) and then you buy stuff.. but that stuff is stuff, not a reward and that is how it is in GW2.

Pretty much since the beginning we have seen complains about bad rewards in GW2 and Anet has been increasing the drops more and more.. At this moment if you do some content you bags all full with stuff including bags full of stuff, you even get stuff for logging in. Most of all the stuff you sell to get gold to buy. But still people complain about no rewards. Simply because those things do not feel like a reward. The stuff you get in GW2 feels like “earning” just like a job earns you money.. But the items you get don’t feel like a reward.

This system where you get a reward based on the content you complete is a reward.