Guild Wars 2

tramwajarz.2369:

Galen Grey.4709:

tramwajarz.2369:

Galen Grey.4709:

What’s this idea that whoever starts the instance/party somehow is more important, all knowing, gets choice of life and death (okey exaggerating a bit but the underling point stands) ?

Your party members are your companions, your team etc.. they’re not your employees or your personal soldiers. (talking in general not to anybody specific).

When someone Joins your team, you’re not doing them a favor by allowing them to tag along… if anything they’re doing you a favor by helping you out with whatever your doing.

This talk of I should dictate who joins or not, or I should be able to kick people off the team but they cannot do the same to me and stuff is frankly exactly what thank gods of game design Arenanet made sure to avoid.

As for OP I dont know what happened but I have a feeling those 3 additions were not friends… if 3 friends want to do dungeons they’d start their own party most likely and the chances that they all join the same group at the same time is kinda difficult.

As for why they all agreed to kick you off the team is probably because you made them feel like you were going to kick them off the team for not fitting your criteria and they did it preemptively themselves. You probably made them feel insecure when you asked them to change to heavies one of them start the kick, the other two figured it may be unfair but if they dont agree probably it will be them off the team hence they agreed.

He got kicked from his own half finished instance. he’s the victim, not those 3 stealing instance rats.

This is why current system is terrible. You start an instance, you look for a party on lfg, you get kicked. This is madness, a crime to logic and rational thinking.

The world is not black and white.

Sure he its not fair that he got kicked out of his own instance. 100% agreed.

Would it be fair if he kicked those 3 off for the simple reason they didnt play the classes he approved off? dont think that would be fair either.

Do I believe it was fair for them to kick him out if he was going to kick them off himself? no, they should have at least discussed it first. Thats exactly the thing here. No one should act like they own a party because no one owns a party. A team has to work together and there shouldnt be any demands of any kind.

The system is designed to support exactly that. There is no madness or crime to logic here. The party starting the group was likely perceived as trying to abuse his standing by demanding changes of them and the party protected themselves by kicking him out. I still dont think OP deserved to be kicked out, especially after doing so much work already but I do think he shouldnt have demanded that everyone should bring a heavy.

Actually he did half the path on his own. If those 3 didnt want to at least try to appeal to his request, he should be able to deal with them OR AT LEAST BE IMMUNE TO THEIR KICK FROM HIS OWN INSTANCE.

Why? strictly speaking he needed “them” more then they needed him. its “them” cause naturally it could have been any other 3 people.

Its like your car breaks down and you need a lift to somewhere but when someone offers to take you, you tell them to get a different type of car. (not a perfect analogy since naturally those 3 benefited from helping him more then someone giving you a lift would benefit) but still they’re helping him out and without help he is likely stuck. Why should he be entitled to any special treatment? (demanding stuff / Untouchable)

Gw2 is a game designed to be as inclusive as possible, people just shouldnt force other players to focus on 2 professions and ignore the other 6 or they just cant join the fans. That is just wrong. Now most of the times they get their way. Sometimes they dont. This was one case where they didnt.

Now maybe its not the case, maybe OP never intended to kick anyone even if they refused to change and if thats the case then this is really sad, but if he did intend to kick anyone refusing to comply then this is more like poetic justice.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Galen Grey.4709:

As for why they all agreed to kick you off the team is probably because you made them feel like you were going to kick them off the team for not fitting your criteria and they did it preemptively themselves. You probably made them feel insecure when you asked them to change to heavies one of them start the kick, the other two figured it may be unfair but if they dont agree probably it will be them off the team hence they agreed.

Too many “probably”.

Galen Grey.4709:

As for OP I dont know what happened but I have a feeling those 3 additions were not friends… if 3 friends want to do dungeons they’d start their own party most likely and the chances that they all join the same group at the same time is kinda difficult.

Not if they wanted to mess with people in lfg.

I am not clairvoyant so sorry I can only tell you what I feel is what most likely happened not what actually happened.

If they wanted to mess with people in lfg, why kick just OP and not his friend? and why even attempt the fight at all?

tramwajarz.2369:

Galen Grey.4709:

What’s this idea that whoever starts the instance/party somehow is more important, all knowing, gets choice of life and death (okey exaggerating a bit but the underling point stands) ?

Your party members are your companions, your team etc.. they’re not your employees or your personal soldiers. (talking in general not to anybody specific).

When someone Joins your team, you’re not doing them a favor by allowing them to tag along… if anything they’re doing you a favor by helping you out with whatever your doing.

This talk of I should dictate who joins or not, or I should be able to kick people off the team but they cannot do the same to me and stuff is frankly exactly what thank gods of game design Arenanet made sure to avoid.

As for OP I dont know what happened but I have a feeling those 3 additions were not friends… if 3 friends want to do dungeons they’d start their own party most likely and the chances that they all join the same group at the same time is kinda difficult.

As for why they all agreed to kick you off the team is probably because you made them feel like you were going to kick them off the team for not fitting your criteria and they did it preemptively themselves. You probably made them feel insecure when you asked them to change to heavies one of them start the kick, the other two figured it may be unfair but if they dont agree probably it will be them off the team hence they agreed.

He got kicked from his own half finished instance. he’s the victim, not those 3 stealing instance rats.

This is why current system is terrible. You start an instance, you look for a party on lfg, you get kicked. This is madness, a crime to logic and rational thinking.

The world is not black and white.

Sure he its not fair that he got kicked out of his own instance. 100% agreed.

Would it be fair if he kicked those 3 off for the simple reason they didnt play the classes he approved off? dont think that would be fair either.

Do I believe it was fair for them to kick him out if he was going to kick them off himself? no, they should have at least discussed it first. Thats exactly the thing here. No one should act like they own a party because no one owns a party. A team has to work together and there shouldnt be any demands of any kind.

The system is designed to support exactly that. There is no madness or crime to logic here. The party starting the group was likely perceived as trying to abuse his standing by demanding changes of them and the party protected themselves by kicking him out. I still dont think OP deserved to be kicked out, especially after doing so much work already but I do think he shouldnt have demanded that everyone should bring a heavy.

What’s this idea that whoever starts the instance/party somehow is more important, all knowing, gets choice of life and death (okey exaggerating a bit but the underling point stands) ?

Your party members are your companions, your team etc.. they’re not your employees or your personal soldiers. (talking in general not to anybody specific).

When someone Joins your team, you’re not doing them a favor by allowing them to tag along… if anything they’re doing you a favor by helping you out with whatever your doing.

This talk of I should dictate who joins or not, or I should be able to kick people off the team but they cannot do the same to me and stuff is frankly exactly what thank gods of game design Arenanet made sure to avoid.

As for OP I dont know what happened but I have a feeling those 3 additions were not friends… if 3 friends want to do dungeons they’d start their own party most likely and the chances that they all join the same group at the same time is kinda difficult.

As for why they all agreed to kick you off the team is probably because you made them feel like you were going to kick them off the team for not fitting your criteria and they did it preemptively themselves. You probably made them feel insecure when you asked them to change to heavies one of them start the kick, the other two figured it may be unfair but if they dont agree probably it will be them off the team hence they agreed.

Tachenon.5270:

KorbenDallas.6729:

If you read at all the quests and discuss with the NPCs and do the events in the Norn lands, you will see they are NOTHING like the Humans.

Hath not a norn eyes? Hath not a norn hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a human is? If you prick them, do they not bleed? If you tickle them, do they not laugh? If you poison them, do they not die? And if you wrong them, shall they not revenge? If they are like humans in the rest, they will resemble humans in that.

if you prick them they dont bleed, they smash you in the face probably. which is the crux of the matter really. They may look the same but look is just a subset of what makes something identical. there is also, story, custom, traditions etc…

everything you said can also apply to the Charr, Sylvari and Asura after all!

also I know you were joking but I thought of hijacking your joke to say something on subject.. hope you dont mind

DarkSyze.8627:

Galen Grey.4709:

ckotoc.5421:

The second most popular mmo atm is FFXIV with 4 million subs.On b2p and f2p games you cant count the players because most of the ppl have more than one accounts for various reasons(more characters,banker characters,multibox etc).

FFXIV definitely doesnt have 4 million subs. Square Enix like to word things in such a way that they make people believe they have 4m subs when in truth they’d be quoting registered accounts for example. They were exposed by Polygon a while ago:http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/2/7480177/square-enix-final-fantasy-14-final-fantasy-11-dragon-quest-10-subscribers

when Square Enix quote 1.5m registered users for FFXIV their financials showed they had less then 1m subs between all their MMOs

Based on the financial report submitted for Dec 2014 there is very far less then 4m subs for FFXIV

http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/15q3earnings.pdf

Thats the last 9 months ending Dec 2014

Revenue for all the Digital entertainment section (includes all games IE MMOs, Browser games and Non Online Games) convered to USD was $632 million… if we divide that by 9 we get an average of $70m per month which is approximately the amount of money 4m subs at $15 per month would generate.

However that $631 million also includes all game sales.
They released Kingdom hearts in oct 2014, as per the report itself they mentioned a browser game and a mobile game that continued to have strong sales, they had 3 mobile game releases that had strong performances. They also mentioned strong sales on games released the previous year. Then you have box sales for FFXIV and Dragon Quest X. And what remains is money split between FFXIV and Dragon Quest X as well as what subs they still have for FFXI.

So while like everyone else I have no clue how many subs they have, whats for sure is its definitely no were near 4m because for that to be true based on their income at the end of 2014 every other property they have would need to be generating not a single dollar for them and based on the report itself thats not the case.

Here is Ckotoc evidence of FFXIV with 4 million subscribers+ from Square Enix: FFXIV main website:- “Celebrating 4 Million Accounts 02/26/2015 3:00 AM”

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/24d3c419fae62ce2771b4b0b7d01c6348ab5d5e5

I play FFIV so that is why i already agree with Ckotoc

Celebrating 4 Million Accounts

In that page they mention Accounts not Subscriptions… I have 2 accounts myself… 1 I used during the beta and 1 after launch to try to evaluation and see If stuff that didnt convince me in the beta got addressed because for some reason if you took part in the beta you arent eligible for a trail even though in my opinion one should never judge an MMO based on beta when stuff is changing constantly. Even though I have 2 accounts though I never subscribed cause the game just didn’t resonate with me.

money doesnt lie.. You can open the report I linked and double check all I have said. The income they had during 2014 just doesnt add up to 4m subs. Well unless everything else didnt make any money at all which is obviously not the case.

ckotoc.5421:

The second most popular mmo atm is FFXIV with 4 million subs.On b2p and f2p games you cant count the players because most of the ppl have more than one accounts for various reasons(more characters,banker characters,multibox etc).

FFXIV definitely doesnt have 4 million subs. Square Enix like to word things in such a way that they make people believe they have 4m subs when in truth they’d be quoting registered accounts for example. They were exposed by Polygon a while ago:http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/2/7480177/square-enix-final-fantasy-14-final-fantasy-11-dragon-quest-10-subscribers

when Square Enix quote 1.5m registered users for FFXIV their financials showed they had less then 1m subs between all their MMOs

Based on the financial report submitted for Dec 2014 there is very far less then 4m subs for FFXIV

http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/15q3earnings.pdf

Thats the last 9 months ending Dec 2014

Revenue for all the Digital entertainment section (includes all games IE MMOs, Browser games and Non Online Games) convered to USD was $632 million… if we divide that by 9 we get an average of $70m per month which is approximately the amount of money 4m subs at $15 per month would generate.

However that $631 million also includes all game sales.
They released Kingdom hearts in oct 2014, as per the report itself they mentioned a browser game and a mobile game that continued to have strong sales, they had 3 mobile game releases that had strong performances. They also mentioned strong sales on games released the previous year. Then you have box sales for FFXIV and Dragon Quest X. And what remains is money split between FFXIV and Dragon Quest X as well as what subs they still have for FFXI.

So while like everyone else I have no clue how many subs they have, whats for sure is its definitely no were near 4m because for that to be true based on their income at the end of 2014 every other property they have would need to be generating not a single dollar for them and based on the report itself thats not the case.

It may sound crazy but in my experiance in Gw2 the more you try to level faster the slower you’ll generally end up leveling up.

Why you may ask? unless you’re grinding dungeons the biggest source of XP is the personal Story (which you get in batches once you reach 10th levels) and dynamic events. Dynamic events are the key … each dynamic event you do (provided you’re matching you area level with your own level) gives you 7% of your level in XP. ergo 14 events = a level. The problem is Dynamic events are kinda elusive if you go running around looking for stuff to do in order to level quickly you’re going to miss a whole lot of them. further more if you’re busy running chances are you’ll miss gathering, reviving and all the other little stuff that adds up quickly.just keep in mind reviving even a death npc gives 0.25% of the area level. But more then that its about not missing dynamic events. So talk to npcs to find out if events occur in an area. If say an NPC complains about the Grawl for example be sure there will be dynamic event dealing with them. More so when one event finishes dont run off looking for the next instead follow the NPC, see what s/he says and does. There is a good chance the Event will chain one or more times. While waiting for things to happen in an area, gather or kill mobs especially none aggressive ones that people are likely to leave alone. The more a mob has been alive the more bonus XP it will give.

The biggest thing is when it becomes available dont forget to do your personal story (its a whole level for every 4 personal story missions) for the rest just keep an eye on your surroundings follow the map’s story do dynamic events, hang around for chain events, do stuff while you wait and you should be leveling a level every hour more or less.

Jai.3058:

Im starting too feel like its just me who takes forever too level. I remember when i leveled my 2nd 80 it took like 2 days. That was doing map completion and WvW. Now days playing in SEA timezones and T1 server i cant WvW for levels considering that most of the time its defending or fighting. EotM is way unbalanced every week im on the side that lacks numbers and gets smashed, which means nobody gets anywhere here. Leveling via map completion seems to only bring me 1 level an hour at the most. Ive already crafted 14 levels, used 20 tomes… my Ele is 10 days old and only level 68, and this is hours every day of trying to level but everywhere is just slow… am i doing something wrong?

well you dont mention doing your personal story which is the biggest source of xp in the game, its also a good idea to complete your dailies they give quite good xp too. Then there is dungeons that also give a good chunk of xp, nearly a whole level per run once you’re high enough to do them.

as other have suggested you can also do some spvp for the tomes, its relatively quick.

that being said If I were you i’d just play and enjoy the game there is no need to rush to lvl 80 at all.

Eidolonemesis.5640:

Galen Grey.4709:

What OP mentioned regarding lion’s arch is actually the very reason why it was all temporary. There is nothing baffling about it, it makes perfect sense.

Lion’s arch went through multiple stages.. First we had untouched lion’s arch then it was attacked, then we had to help survivors get out, then we had to take it back. You cant really have something like that and make it repeatable how would it work? each of those states had a different lion’s arch so to speak (different setup, different models, different npc positioning, different particle effects, even different events etc…)

A good argument is a good argument even I find hard to dispute at this point.

After all this discussion, here is how I think Living Story Season 1 can be brought back:

The only ingenious way, then, to address this Storyline issue, for players who want to re-live Living Story Season 1, is for Anet to make the fall of Lion’s Arch (and other such big events linked to Living World Season 1) visible through the eyes of players as they move their characters around in a dream-like world, observing the fighting, cut scenes, etc. that took place in the past — much like the Dream of Dreams moment that the ‘Pale Tree’ takes players to in the Sylvari’s land.

So if Living Story Season 1 cannot be totally re-created, Anet can at least implement an NPC that appears (during a particular quest leading up to that moment, much like with the Pale Tree) where players can re-live the past through a dream-like vision, and actively walk through it.

You guys make it sound like this is impossible when it is not. All it takes is a little creative thinking on how to bring back Living Story Season 1 in some way, shape or form.

no one said its impossible to recreate it in some different fashion while keeping the story elements, even Anet themselves said they want to bring it back in some form at some point in the future we just said what they did in season 1 could only work because it was temporary. Even for grand scale battles like say battle for LA they could for example have the whole open world battle that led you to the Breachmaker as a sort of narrated cutscene..what happened and how groups of warriors fought valiantly against each of the scarlet’s champions etc.. and after the cutscene you get to fight the breach-maker instance that would work perfectly fine its just it would feel as grandeur, after you play the episode the world doesnt change, you only get to experience part of it rather then being part of the whole thing etc.. nothing is impossible but everything has a cost. With temporary content you had world change huge scale events but you lost the content eventually. with permanent content events have to be more self contained but you get access to them forever. I personally am not sure if sacrificing the scale is worth having permanent access to the content. For new players its great of course because they get to experience the whole thing but my worry is beyond that how many people actually do replay the content once they get all the rewards?

What OP mentioned regarding lion’s arch is actually the very reason why it was all temporary. There is nothing baffling about it, it makes perfect sense.

Lion’s arch went through multiple stages.. First we had untouched lion’s arch then it was attacked, then we had to help survivors get out, then we had to take it back. You cant really have something like that and make it repeatable how would it work? each of those states had a different lion’s arch so to speak (different setup, different models, different npc positioning, different particle effects, even different events etc…)

There is no way you can make that work in a parmanent setting. it wouldnt make sense to play escape from LA in the current LA or the pristine LA. There would just be no one to save! It would even be crazy continuity wise… lets say you just started season 1.. that puts you 18 episodes from lion’s arch destruction yet if you travel to LA you see it destroyed? even if you can live with that the scope of season 1 releases just wouldnt have worked in an instanced enviroment. A party of 5 is able to free lion’s arch after it was taken? but if with so few fighter it is possible to repel the invasion how come the lion guard were not able to stop the invasion themselves? there are far more then 5 of them. (thats not to mention that it would be physically impossible for 5 to win the way the whole event was designed)

season 1 was temporary but that allowed for truely epic world progression. again.. nice perfect LA, bombed LA, LA with tons of people to save, Liberated LA. Its hard to have that level of world progression while leaving things replayable at the same time. biggest reason being you just have to have stuff instanced in order to make it repeatable and that already brings the scope down from something that 100s of players have to deal with with something less then 6 players can deal with.

Merlot.8567:

Galen Grey.4709:

Lets be objective about this, what happened is a tragedy and its okey to have strong feelings about.
Like others have pointed out this april fool joke has absolutely nothing related to what happened.

People that seemingly have no connection to anything that happened in Europe are so upset about it. That’s the kittening mind boggling thing.

Like kitten people. kitten.

upset about the tragedy you mean ? (which I believe is entirely understandable) or upset about the april fool? (not so easy to understand?)/

I dont think location has anything to do with it personally, we do live in a global world and if something awful happens it will not feel any less awful just because it happens on the other side of the world.

On the other hand we do live in a world were something awful happens all the time unfortunately. As I type this someone has just been the victim of violence which is awful regardless of the where or the why. Does that mean we shouldnt have violence in any game? and if not why would that be any different?

Ana.2415:

Guys I think you are misunderstanding my words lol. I’m not saying I care less for a person coz their origin. I’m just talking about I know.

This accident affected in my country :/ so I talk about it. If people from other countries died in this accident ofc I feel bad for them too.

I just let a comment to express I felt bad about this April Fools theme, and you guys are attacking me know, talking about other topic. I understand this don’t affect the same for everybody. I’m just talking for myself now lol

We no longer live in a world were thats true anymore. News is no longer regional is now global. Its not just the countries involved who hear about tragedies like this, its everyone. And like you said yourself everyone who heard about it felt bad because its an awful tragedy and perhaps more because it didnt have to happen.

Lets be objective about this, what happened is a tragedy and its okey to have strong feelings about, I know I had when I heard the news but that being said we can just project everything on to it because if we did we’d have no games to play at all because everything any game does has something analogous happen in real life that’s equally ugly.

Like others have pointed out this april fool joke has absolutely nothing related to what happened. Anet arent trying to make fun of that, who would even think that? This is just us projecting one thing over another.

game is going great.

We had some new things yes. 2 Living story releases, the winterdays event. A feature patch that introduced First person View and FOV + other camera changes.
Expansion announcement.

The Revenant is out with the Expansion (heart of thorns) which we dont know yet when thats going to be.

Devata.6589:

I really don’t see how collections would work to reduce the grind, in fact as I see it they might even make it worse, however maybe I did miss something some announcement somewhere that means collections work different from how I understand it / how it now works. So with collections you get a specific item for having a complete set of items right? Now there is completely nothing wrong with that by itself, but how does that reduce the grind? Getting those items for the set still is the same grind as it is now, I really don’t see how that changes. The only difference is then that to get the item rewarded by collection now requires you to first get all those other items that all are grinds. So when you have a system where getting items is a grind, this would only increase the grind. But maybe I missed something?

because of inflation essentially. lets take precursors as an example. lets say they want precursors to take a month to earn for the sake of argument. if you want to do that with crafting its problematic. if you use normal material, people who grind all the time can afford most of that easily so you really need to make it a steep requirement (or use time gating tricks) but with collections you can make it a lot more exciting. You can do things like say require 35 specific jumping puzzle essence from each of 35 different jumping puzzles. people can use the wealth gathered in the last 3 years to speed that up. everyone, new or otherwise can work towards it bit by bit.

phys.7689:

1)Completing every map didnt take that long, i probably did it shortly after hitting 80, it may have taken me a couple extra hours. and by that point i had done most of the things to do. The things i hadnt done werent really implied by the game design.

That depends what completing a map means to you as someone who wanted to see the different dynamic events there was a lot of waiting involved and when you need to wait 30 mins for an event to trigger 20 – 30hrs go by rather quickly!

phys.7689:

3) you dont have to funell people, you should have compelling design built into each one of your mini designs/encounters. If they want to design a game that has an open world focus, they should reward the best designed open world things.

I have to strongly disagree here. The moment you have 1 content compelling or otherwise reward more you’ll be funneling people. Players made it happen even without being by design by using large numbers.

phys.7689:

4) its the fault of the design, If they really want open world to be their focus, they need to come up with ways of either not letting people go 20 versus 1, or making it not really more easy/profitable to go 20 versus 1. Definately not easy, but its really what they need to figure out how to do.

how can they do that without being too punishing on legitimate players? its easy to say they should do this or that but sometimes there just isnt a viable answer.

phys.7689:

5) a society that is designed where people breaking the law win most of the time is flawed. But the key here is they are not breaking the law, they are playing the game in the ways the law says. Its like if the law said that if you could beat someone up, you can take whatever they have legally, Now you are creating a society where people are rewarded for beating people up.

like i said society tries to stop people from breaking the law but it cannot entirely stop it without going full on 1984 which would be in a way much worst then what we have. Like wise they could stop this abuse going on sure, they could have the reward equaly split between the number of players, or stop rewarding anyone when numbers go over the threshold etc.. but then you destroy a lot of what makes this game great. You see a new player… ohh man i hate that guy he’s taking a fraction of my reward. Or even worst, “dude couldnt you see we’re already 5, thanks for ruining our event now go away” etc.. or simply introduce mob tagging. they’d all work but make the game a lot worst and all this because players need to be forced to play how they claim they want to play?

phys.7689:

6) because there is the third option between content or reward. play less, or quit. Someone who wants both reward, and to be happy is not served in the situation.
Some one who only cares about reward is happy
Some one who only cares about content could be happy

but people who want both in varying degrees? they are unhappy, and there are a lot of people like that.

??? People can have both content and reward. Thats the whole point of the system. The problem is people want reward first, as quickly as possible second and content third. content and as quickly as possible tend to not mix well together thats the problem.

phys.7689:

7) One solution to make the rewards better fit the content and have those rewards that fit the content be obtained primarily(most effeciently, even if there are other methods) by playing said content Things that would amuse jumping puzzle people in jumping puzzles, things that amuse battlers in battle, open worlders in the open world, etc.

Which is great if thats something you enjoy doing or a nightmare if its something that you hate. imagine the item you most want hidden behind months of repeating the content you most hate in the game, do you think thats better?

phys.7689:

8) as i said before, they dont have to reward just one thing, they just have to reward the best designs of various things.

which is exactly what they do right now. but of course brute forcing content to go quicker then is designed to go will naturally be more rewarding so thats what people do. its important to note grinding isnt the baseline income, its an accelerated form of income.

Devata.6589:

If I know for a fact it will drop at run 100? No. But if it’s a just a random drop that on average drops once every 100 runs for me it feels much less like a grind. Likely because every run basically is a separate chance. It can drop every time, there is always that rush of ‘will it drop’. With the currency where you know you need to do 100 runs it simply is counting up to 100. What indeed is more of a grind.

now see funny thing is thats its exactly the opposite for me, never mind I wouldnt be able to run 100 times the same dungeon the thought alone would make want to quit the game but getting nothing for 10, 20, 50, 100, maybe even 200 runs would be super demoralizing while doing a single event I am got 2s closer to my goal. ooo green drop 1.5s closer. ooooo wow yellow drop 50s closer. No way, exotic drop… 1.5g closer! I still get my lucky moments and without having to repeat anything and without having to live with being unlucky and getting absolutely nothing for it. what you find none grindy is exactly what grind is to me i am afraid so Anet can never do this one right I am afraid

Devata.6589:

When content does not involve other players / pvp or very, very good AI (so every run will be pretty much the same, and at some point you simply did learn the trick) then the joy of the content will dissipates after you have done it a few times, but the reward can be the reason you still enjoy it, yes. That is similar to many casino games. A lot of the games are really boring if you look at the content but people enjoy is simply because of that same rush of ‘will I win’.

which is why Gw2 is so great, you dont need to do it again for 100s more hours!

Devata.6589:

So this question depends on some factors but you could say for most PvE content after having done it a few times, then yes. The first few times you do it or if there is some more competition / pvp going on than no, in fact then you would not need a reward at all. So from that perspective these mini leader-board per specific content in HoT can be a really, really good addition to the game. (While I don’t think it will resolve the grind, it will however be able to keep content fun for a longer time when implemented correctly imho)

yeah the mini leader boards can be interesting… It will be fun to try getting onto them i guess

phys.7689:

its pointless for you to add your HoT predictions to the equation, because Devata has always claimed that expansions is a better model. If hot is big, it will only further show that perhaps expansions was always the way to go, and a cash shop focus is not really the best plan.

also, i doubt hot will sell as well as the initial sales, because i feel they waited too long and lost too many players before releasing the expansion. Also, HoT seems like it will be fairly small by expansion standards, it may not have enough to make people think they should come back.
time will tell though

How is it pointless when its actually whats happening? Thing is Devata believes that its somehow viable for Anet to release an expansion every year, what if the amount of work needed makes it impossible for them to release one more frequently then every 2 years.. maybe even 3 years? does it make sense then for them to focus excursively on an expansion and essenitally drop the cash shop?

if you feel HoT is going to be too small, keep in mind an expansion every year might be 1/3 the size of what we get in HoT!

phys.7689:

endgame, when i say it, doesnt refer to raids specifically, it refers to what you do when you reach max level. GW2, on ship, didnt have that much to do.

Didnt have much to do ? It took me around 800hrs more or less to finish all the zones I was max level by the 70th hour or so? That not counting PvP and WvW which I dont do much off. and it wasnt just the living story by the end of the first month they were already adding stuff each and every month. Thats also not counting that even know some 2000hrs in I still havent done every personal story line.

phys.7689:

I didnt say people only care about content

okey this could be true, its kind of hard to say… its a bit of like what comes first the chicken and egg question… do people get the gear because they want to experiance the next raid or do they do the raid to get the best gear? could be either way. not enough data.

phys.7689:

Essentially you put the best rewards into the thing that you have designed best, that ensures the players are playing the best parts of your game.

which is a problem in Gw2 because by design its trying to avoid funneling people. it wants them to play everywhere and keep the whole world relevant that I personally think is the right thing to do !

phys.7689:

the game rewards the least compelling parts. Champion fights might be compelling, when you two-5 man them, but its not very compelling when you 20 man them.

But who’s fault is that? naturally 20 man against a champion is going to easier / quicker then 2 man vs champion and naturally because its faster its going to be more rewarding. thats not what the design is though is it? design is 5 vs champion like you stated yourself, the 20+ vs champion is essentially allowed “abuse” of the system.

phys.7689:

it doesnt change the fact that the least compelling gameplay is the most rewarding.

but its not! thats like saying society is design in such a way that breaking the law is most rewarding ( its true that breaking the law is profitable else we wouldnt have phrases like crime pays) but is that social design? society doesnt its upmost to reward lawful contribution (bonus systems, employee of the month etc..) but there are limits on how much it can prevent unlawful stuff without hurting law abiding members. Its unfair to blame society for people who choose to abuse though dont you think?

phys.7689:

I do think people value content more than rewards, but they also desire rewards. thats why your reward system has to work WITH your content systems to reinforce each other.

Then why is this an issue? I like many others have no problem playing the content I enjoy without giving up on the rewards I am interested it. The only ‘downside’ to it is it will take longer for me to get said rewards. but why should that be a problem for someone who values content more then the reward?

phys.7689:

people will be disatisfied if the do something but get nothing, or less for it
people will be dissatisfied if they get something, but in order to get it, they have to be bored.

none of that is a thing though. whatever they do they will get something for it. less? there is always something that more profitable thats unavoidable should that make you unhappy? should I be unhappy because I dont make as much money as a drug lord?

phys.7689:

Thats why you put your best rewards in your most compelling gameplay.

thats a mistake simply because whats most compelling for you might not be most compelling for me. What Anet do though they let you play whatever you feel is more compelling and get rewarded for it.

phys.7689:

and no, i never had a nice skin i would use drop

not one? really? I dont farm or anything of the sort and I had Arc, Cobalt, Knowledge is power , jormag’s needle, 3 dragon weapon tickets and my personal favorite (sarcastic) the game trying to kill me with a hearth attack I did get Khrysaor, the Golden Sword drop on me (shares the same skin with dawn ad the right stats I equiped it and I am like.. omg did I just equip dawn by mistake?)

phys.7689:

tequatl has one, and worm, are there any others?

They do part of some events like halloween we had quite a few.

phys.7689:

All of my drops were destroyed,
its not that satisfying for a lot of people.

Its not that I dont understand your point, I did have zuzu the cat of darkness drop on me (and I wanted it) but I still value mini liadri more because it was FAR more challenging to get that one. Its more satisfying for sure, I just its a worthy trade off simple because I dont have to grind content I dont enjoy, if rewards were tied to content that would be a very distinct possibility though.

@Devata

did you really say “income is irrelevant”. not once but twice?

Do you think NCsoft will care more about getting 100% sale numbers more then they care about the actual money? I find that pretty hard to believe.

but anyhow lets assume thats true somehow its still to early to draw your own conclusion. Because you’re not factoring in HoT sales.

Lets add stuff up. Numbers in KRW

income starting from mid 2012 → 164m+123m+85m+206m* = 579M

Now you might be asking where did that 206m come from. it assume hot comes out at the end of q2 and that it sells as much as the original game like expansion did for gw1 it also adds 1/2 the cash shop sales of 2014.. ie 42m+164 = 206m
if we take that 579M and average it for the 3 years we get 193m which is more then 100% income you mentioned.

This doesnt even factor in that now that people know there is going to be expansion and that living story is just the stuff we get in between not the whole story, more people might actually join the game or come back increasing the year to year gemshop income.

Thats not even counting the chinese revenue either.

if we compare that to gw1, in the first 3 years it generated 117m making gw2 on average 5x more money.

even if gw2 costed 5x more to make which i doubt in the long run it will always be more profitable. income isnt irellevant its like everything.

see it like this… which would you rather have product A that cost 10 to develop and makes 50 every year
or product B that cost 50 to make but makes 250 , 150,80 then 300,150,80 and so on and so forth? ?

would you really care you’re getting 60% and 40% the 2nd and 3rd year when over all you’re making so much more?

phys.7689:

But GW2 DOES maintain the same level of player interest, the graph is stable, it’s the GW1 graph that shows the complete opposite with high fluctuations.

it doesnt maintain its initial earnings/players. It has consisdently loss player interest/earnings.

you are looking at the graph wrong. look at the total earnings per year, compared to the total earnings per year.

when you look at it that way you will see that for the first 2-3 years, gw1 basically increased or maintained earnings, whereas GW2 consistenly goes down.

first year of release, 43k million kwan
2nd year of release 53k million kwan
3rd year of release 41k million kwan
fairly consistent, even considering halfway through 3rd year they took resources away from eye of the north, and put them towards gw2, and officially told people gw1 was ending.

now look at gw2
year one 160k million kwan (only 2 quarters)
year two 126 million kwan (4 quarters)
year three 84 million kwan (4 quarters)

did they make a lot more? hell yeah, are they maintaining earnings/interest in the game as well as gw1 did? not really.

if the same business plan worked as well as it did for gw1, based on gw2 initial sales, the numbers should have looked like this
year one 160
year two 192
year three 152

it doesnt really matter how much sales fluctuated throughout the year with gw1, its business plan was based on selling boxes, so of course when there will be drop offs, gw2 is nowhere near as consistent as gw1 is in interest/earnings when you look at it by year.
[/quote]

I fail to see the correlation between money and interest you’re making. There are just so many variables you’re ignoring really.

1. do all the players that are ready to buy an expansion also always pay for stuff in the cash shop? of course not. So there is no relationship between box sales and cash shop sales which in turn means the spike for the gw1 campaigns sale dont indicate any more / less interess when compared to gw2 gemshop sales.

2. Is no sale indicative of no play? b2p is a subset of free to play which means you can play the game without spending anything (outside of buying the box of course) ergo when we compare Q2 2013 with Q4 2014 on gw2 we can clearly see a drop but can we say for sure its because people stopped playing? could it be because say people are now richer in game and using in game money more then gems for example? or could it be Q2 2013 had more stuff people desired then Q4 2014?

3. box sales to gem ratio… we dont know how much of it is box sales and how much is gem shop… if its 1:10 in favor of gems that tells one story, if its 10:1 in favor of boxes that tells a completely different story.

4. Box price to average gem shop transaction. Campaign sales show a nice spike but boxes cost might be a lot more then average cash shop transaction. what I mean is if a box sale is say $60 while the average player spends $10 on the cash shop a $600k box sale spike may seem to represent more players then $200k cash shop sales when in truth cash shop sales may actually be twice as many people.

5. box sales fall but dont really go down to 0. looking at the graph for gw1 it may seem that every new campaign release generated more interest than the last but because they were so close to each other it may simply be sales of the previous campaign made the current release look more successful than it really was. Its impossible to say if each subsequent one was more successful or that each subsequent one was less successful.

Also your premise is based on the notion that it is possible for Anet to come up with an expansion per year. Creating content for gw2 isnt the same as creating content for gw1. takes way more work to do stuff for gw2 without a doubt perhaps they just cant do it any faster then every 2 years. how would that change things?

phys.7689:

gw2 did not provide enough depth of play to keep people interested when they reached 80.

That depends on the player. I personally dont much care for end game dungeons / raids. in most MMOs I end up quiting once I reach max level because of that. Most MMOs tend to become too repetitive at max level, sometimes even much before then.

phys.7689:

people talk about raid progression, and dont really realize, the raids themselves are more important than the rewards.

somehow i doubt that because if that were true why do most games hide their best gear behind raids? cant talk specifically about WoW never raided there.

phys.7689:

Gw2 rewards the least compelling parts of the game, or makes you play things with so many people that it becomes uncompelling.

Thats not true, Gw2 rewards everything. Its also not true saying the least compelling parts of the game reward more. The game itself doesnt make you do anything either. Its people who decide that they dont want compelling content they want quick rewards… what can the game do about that? Champion fights? Ever tried to take them one as 2 person team? they can be really fun and challenging. As we all know they only scale up to 10 people though so when people decide to band into trains of 100 people they obviously get steamrolled but who’s creating that issue? the game? what can the game do? stop rewards altogether when there are more then 10 people? Scale up numbers in definitely so much so at 100 people the champion essentially becomes unbeatable? Stop giving full rewards to everyone and start instead sharing it based on the number of people so much so 100 people get essentially nothing out of champion mob? there is no easy answer!

phys.7689:

Most people didnt stop playing GW1 when they hit 20, do you know why? because there was still a lot to do. There was still challenges to overcome. Still things to find. The truth is, its not the rewards that drive MMOs, its the content.

The same is true for Gw2 but you know whats also true for both games? in both games the vast majority of players where only interested in how to make money as fast as possible. That was no different in Gw1 which is why you can find tons of guides how to solo farm the most profitable content quickly and efficiently. While its impossible to say I somehow doubt the majority of the players where found in the open world zones seeing the sights rather then farming profitable instances such as Auspicious Beginnings.

phys.7689:

gw2 reward system generally works against the content. Very few satisfying rewards, they focus on giving you a lot of stuff, rather than giving you quality stuff. Very few people ever got a very satisfying drop playing gw2, even though they may have earned a lot of wealth over time.

do you really believe that? you never had a nice skin drop for you? A nice dye you wanted? a nice rare mini pet? a nice rare weapon skins (when they used to drop) ?
thats also excluding the ones you could earn every update!

phys.7689:

Now, this doesnt mean you make getting everything easy, but you dont design things as simply as we want people to play this game for 200 hours before they get X item.

thats basic game design. Every single game does it. Some do it through step requirements others do it through evil RNG. just take unique items in gw1, you know those unique skins that dropped from specific bosses. why did they have a low drop rate? just because they wanted to keep them in play for X hours.

phys.7689:

your goal isnt to give people something for playing 200 hours, your goal is to make them want to play for 200 hours. Reward can be a part of that, but you have to design it so that it reinforces compelling play.

I am not saying dont do compelling play just do awesome rewards. I am saying compelling play means nothing without awesome rewards (unfortunately). The compelling play is there regardless. Now its true Gw2 lacks a bit, well quite a bit in the hard content camp but there is some. There is a lot if you team up in small teams of 2 – 3 people. Hey I am sure no one thats still playing this game doesnt find some of it that is enjoyable to do. Those same rewards are achieveable doing that compelling content yet people skip that compelling content for brain death boring content (overwhelmed by numbers its not designed for) because it gets them, that reward quickly.

You seem to think people value content more then rewards but this situation itself makes it clear the opposite is true. people value rewards first and foremost which is why its the reward that dictates the content they play rather then their personal tastes.

maddoctor.2738:

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Obtena.7952:

I didn’t say you did. The fact it’s subjective is why anything that is a grind is not Anet’s fault though. Their definition is pretty crafty that way. It’s basically saying “If you choose to not play the game in a way that’s not boring to you, it’s not a grind”. Brilliant IMO.

Anet simply provide many different ways for players to enjoy themselves that reward play to get gear, even ascended. It’s, in essence, what a sandbox MMO allows you to do.

What I consider fun / not boring it working directly towards items, doing task that belong to the items (Like getting a dragons head for.. well killing that dragon).. Hunting down items. Not grinding gold to buy them.

This is a bit perplexing though.

so lets say if you repeat a dungeon 100 times to earn 200g to buy a certain great sword. doing the 100 dungeon runs is boring.

but doing 100 dungeon runs where 99 times you get absolutely nothing, not even 1c but on the 100th run the great sword you’re after drops. you find that fun?

I mean is it really possible the content you’re playing has no baring on your enjoyment only the reward and how exactly you got that dictates is whatever you’re doing is fun or not?

That’s the GW1 system, to get some high end skins you had to grind the specific content that dropped them for ages. Alternatively, you could earn gold by doing things you actually liked and buy those items.

In GW2 they removed the first option (grind specific content) and use the second option (earn gold how you want without grinding by enjoying the game). However there are lots of items that are acquired through content lately, glorious armor, carapace / luminescent armor etc

The GW1 system was equally grindy, or even way more grindy based on if you liked the content or not because it was pure RNG.

The Collection system is far superior than both systems and if it’s successful with precursors, maybe they will use it for lots of other things too

I’ve been there and done that in Gw1 too

yeah I also have high hopes for the collection system, the only think I would improve on it is making it tell the player where they can get items from the collection, or better yet have some npcs give you direction when you talk to them about collections.

Devata.6589:

Obtena.7952:

I didn’t say you did. The fact it’s subjective is why anything that is a grind is not Anet’s fault though. Their definition is pretty crafty that way. It’s basically saying “If you choose to not play the game in a way that’s not boring to you, it’s not a grind”. Brilliant IMO.

Anet simply provide many different ways for players to enjoy themselves that reward play to get gear, even ascended. It’s, in essence, what a sandbox MMO allows you to do.

What I consider fun / not boring it working directly towards items, doing task that belong to the items (Like getting a dragons head for.. well killing that dragon).. Hunting down items. Not grinding gold to buy them.

This is a bit perplexing though.

so lets say if you repeat a dungeon 100 times to earn 200g to buy a certain great sword. doing the 100 dungeon runs is boring.

but doing 100 dungeon runs where 99 times you get absolutely nothing, not even 1c but on the 100th run the great sword you’re after drops. you find that fun?

I mean is it really possible the content you’re playing has no baring on your enjoyment only the reward and how exactly you got that dictates is whatever you’re doing is fun or not?

Astralporing.1957:

Obtena.7952:

Bernie.8674:

Obtena.7952:

I totally ambiguous because nothing there define what Anet means by grind. Besides, that’s not a promise of a grind free game either.

I’ll repeat it again. I was talking about ascended gear. Why are you generalizing my statement to “grind-free game?” Also, read the post I linked. The definition of grind is contained there.

Yes, I see that … and according to their definition IN THE POST YOU LINK, you don’t need to grind for Ascended gear because they define grind as having to repeated do the same boring content over and over again. IN GW2 you don’t need to do that to get ascended gear.

Yeah, right. It’s about as correct as saying that you don’t need to work to live comfortably. Because you can earn money by doing things you like, or win a lottery (not going event o mention trying to define “living comfortably” to mean “at a subsistence level”, because you don’t need more, right?). So, technically true, but in practice a lot of bullkitten.

no its not the same as saying you dont need to work to live comfortably. Its like saying you can do a single job you enjoy in order to living comfortably as opposed to getting the 2 or 3 highest paying jobs you can regardless if you enjoy them or not.

phys.7689:

game design includes player behavior. The simple answer, is stop developing rewards based around 500 hours of play. Why isnt chess grindy? because it isnt designed around 500 hours of play, that is most likely to succeed with repetive play. Why isnt basketball grindy? because its not designed that way.

You mentioned this before, when you say content should last a player 100 hours. Yes, you want to design content that is highly replayable, no, the best answer to that is not to make you have to repeat it for 200 times to get some reward, that just makes the journey less entertaining. It actually tends to make the repetions themselves, less entertaining.

You’re simplifying things way too much.

For starters there is quite a substential difference between chess and mmos. MMOs are reward driven, chess is not. If you find chess boring there is no reason for your to play chess and you’re not going to force yourself to play chess for 100s of hours because there just isnt a compelling reason to do so. Not so in case of MMOs. In MMOs its unfortunately all about the rewards which is why we have this issue in the first place. Even if its entirely possible to put game play first enjoy your time in Gw2 and get your reward many players put the reward first. They make the reward dictate the game play (what gets you there quickest).

What would happen if you make an MMO more like chess and remove the reward element entirely? Well we can go back to launch and even today actually you can see plenty of people who reject cosmetics as a viable reward system. Did any of those player stay and recommend it to their friends cause even though it might not have any worthy rewards it offers fun gameplay?

Like it or not and trust me I dont like it, Rewards are at the core of MMOs.

This brings us to the next issue. When rewards are at your core you must make sure they never run out. If you go to a fast food burger place if they run out of salads it might not be a big deal, but if they run out of burgers? big no no! same thing here an MMO cannot afford to run out of rewards. Vertical progression games have it easy. Dish out a new tier, lock it behind a time gate make it last enough until you’re ready to release a new tier. You have no worries in that you know once you release a new set everyone and their alts will want to get it and they will get it. With horizontal progression its not that easy unfortunately. You can still release a new cosmetic set every 6 months like a vertical progression MMO does but until a vertical progression game its not going to be something everyone and their alts will want to get because

1. you have people who dont care about cosmetics
2. you have people who will not like it
3. you have people who may like it but it doesnt fit their current characters
4. people who may like it and find it a good fit for their characters but dont feel like putting in the effort required to get it.
5. People who may not like the set as a whole but fancy just a single or a few pieces of the set.

None of what gw2 does is to make content more replayable. if they really wanted to say make your run AC 200 times then why not make vision of the mists weapons acquirable by the tokens one gets on average from 200 runs? Its just about keeping the rewards in play. If you could get vision of the mists or any other named exotic within a few hours of play what would you do a couple of months in when you fully equipped all your alts the way you want?

phys.7689:

Galen Grey.4709:

phys.7689:

playing things many times to get better isnt really grind, because its not based on how many times you do it, but how well you do it. I mean, you may find it boring, or frustrating, but thats not a grind.

That’s actually precisely what a grind is.

What makes something grindy is a repetition of an action that is essentially boring.

now if its a challenging content and that you have not conquered it makes you want to try again.. than sure, that could make repetition completely non-grindy but the moment you become frustrated and bored if you’re forced to repeat that content or else you have no other option than thats where grind begins.

frustration just means you are annoyed, that can happen at any time on one try or the 1000th
boredom is the same. If you define something as being bored, as grindy, then even doing something once is grindy, which is not what grind is about.

Also, i contend that repetition to achieve skill/knowledge isnt really grindy, because doing the same thing(that doesnt work) will not allow you to progress.

now this isnt to say you want people to quit from frustration, but just that frustration and grind are two different types of issues

Its not reptition on its own, its no frustration on its own, its not boring…ness? on its own, its all those element coming together that create grind.

Repetition on its own is not grind.
When you’re exploring around strictly speaking you’re pressing w over and over and over again. its probably the most repetitive task you do in an mmo but its not boring, hence it doesnt feel grindy.

The mad clock tower was pretty frustrating until you got the hang of it, it was pretty repetitive too, same level design, the same condition etc… but it was challenging enough that for people who like jumping puzzles it wasnt boring hence not a grind.

for a purely pvp player, pve may be boring but if once in a while they join a guild mate on a dungeon run cause they’re missing 1 player its not going to be a grind (there is no repetition there)

its all these elements coming together that makes a grind. Take the mad clock tower as an example. it was repetitive and frustrating but since i enjoy jumping puzzles it didnt turn into a grind. What if I didnt enjoy jumping puzzles though? after a while I would get bored. So I am repeating this activity, I am frustrated and I am getting bored. dont you think the whole thing will feel like a grind?

I dont see whether you conquered the challenge or not making much difference. Sure once you conquer it some of that “I must win this” drive goes away and that may cause boredom to set in quicker but i dont think anyone is really persistent enough that after a long time trying without success they’ll resist boredom setting in anyway.

Thing is there are 2 elements to grind. Game design and player behaviour.

I personally think its a mistake to except any game design alone will ever solve the grind issue. Case in point there were examples given of what Arenanet could do to make the game less grindy that people pointed out would actually make the game more grindy if implemented.

It has to come a bit from both.

Anet can only provide the tools essentially but its players who have to use them.

That gold like in real life is a token system meant to translate one value into another is one such tool. You want reward X? put Y work doing whatever you feel like and you can get X. That makes it possible to avoid repetition for a long long while. I am sure if people wanted they could spend at least 500+ hours doing stuff that earns them gold without repeating a single thing, even on a complete new alt if they choose. repeating everything once every 500 hours isnt really that grindy is it? but like its been pointed out many many times thats something that players have to choose at the expense of time which is where behaviour comes in.

phys.7689:

playing things many times to get better isnt really grind, because its not based on how many times you do it, but how well you do it. I mean, you may find it boring, or frustrating, but thats not a grind.

That’s actually precisely what a grind is.

What makes something grindy is a repetition of an action that is essentially boring.

now if its a challenging content and that you have not conquered it makes you want to try again.. than sure, that could make repetition completely non-grindy but the moment you become frustrated and bored if you’re forced to repeat that content or else you have no other option than thats where grind begins.

Devata.6589:

The scope compared too what? If they would push out an expansion a year I would personally be fine with those expansions being a little smaller then your average expansion you see in a game like WoW that pushes out an expansion every 2 years. Or they could do one smaller expansion and then one bigger and then small again and so on.

The scope compared to HoT of course. Its not easy to compare one game with another. Enviroments in Gw2 take a ton more work to create then in WoW. Dynamic events take also considerable longer to create then regular quests. etc..

Devata.6589:

So yes I would personally be fine with a smaller scope if they pushed it out every year.

thing is people are already a bit uneasy that HoT might not be that big based on Devs statement regarding number of maps. Its still early, we dont know how big it is so its kind of hard to state whether or not 33% or 66% smaller expansions would be fine or not.

Devata.6589:

About when they started with HoT, based on what developers said (indirectly) it seems like they had some things going on for a longer time but the biggest part of the development for HoT started after the Chinese release was up and running.

For example, in one interview (I think with Angry Joe) Colin was asked why it took 3 years, on what Colin said that the Chinese release had a lot of their attention. In another interview (or maybe the same) they also said something like they first went for the LS but now decided to go for this (mixed) approach. Of course we also know they recently hired a raid guy. Bare in mind, I say this all out of memory, things might been said slightly different.

Its also possible that work on content started years ago but only recently they decided to release it as an expansion and thus the work he was talking about what that of consolidating stuff into an expansion. After there has to be sizeable team working on the expansion and that team has been missing from like day 1.

Devata.6589:

It’s hard to say when HoT will be released but lets say they they release it on the 3 year anniversary and we assume that the biggest part of the development indeed started after the Chinese release, that means the bulk of the work will have taken them 1 to 1.5 year. And that is then while also having been pushing out LS. Besides, because people have been waiting for 3 years they likely expect a very big scope now (so that is another possible trap).

I doubt that for the reasons already stated. I think he probably meant that work on the expansion paused while they focused those resources to get the Chinese version done rather then there was a skeleton crew working on this before the Chinese release.

Caelus.7139:

I’d like bloodstones, emp frags and drag ores become currency pls.

Galen Grey.4709:

Astralporing.1957:

Galen Grey.4709:

42K karma meant 100 events at max level.

Yes. Once. Now it’s 4 teq events.

Now those rewards are expired. Which veteran doesnt have millions of karma stored? Anet definitely no longer see them as something that keeps player interested in playing. In fact I wonder how many players actually care about karma anymore.

I was naturally speaking at launch when those rewards were still in play as an item to provide longevity to the game. Thats why I said “meant” not “means”

Wanna know who cares about karma? New and current people who are interested in making a legendary. Don’t be selfish just cause you think you don’t need karma.

sorry I meant veteran players wasnt clear enough. As for karma, its far from a bottle neck to craft legendary weapons. it takes what 500k-1m karma to craft a legendary weapon? how many veterans dont have 2m+, I bet most have 3m -5m. Thats enough for 4-10 legendary weapons. I doubt anyone has enough gold to get 4-10 precursors though.

Also I think you may have missed what the argument is about somewhat. I have like 3.5m karma but what we’re saying is cap that to say 1m perhaps 1.5m I am personally willing to loose the 2.5m – 2m karma specifically because i care for new players and am being the opposite of selfish.

As is right now either Anet never release another karma reward or like op said they have no choice but to price it high enough so that people like me cant just outright buy it without playing any of the content. In turn that means someone who is just starting out needs to earn millions of karma just to get to the baseline of when his effort to earn the reward starts.

Lets say for the sake of argument they make precursors buyable by karma and lets say they want people to play an average of 6 months to earn a precursor. As is they cant simply charge 6 months worth of karma because most players would be able to buy 3 – 5 precursors the moment that goes live. So they need to charge a lot more. average amount of karma people have + 6 months on top of that. For us it means 6 months more work, for new players it will mean 2 – 3 years work.

Thats just no fair and is bad for the game. of course in escense the result is what maddoctor said, Anet will simply not use karma for such rewards and use something else. In fact ironically they’re using collections which is in a way a capped currency

Astralporing.1957:

Galen Grey.4709:

42K karma meant 100 events at max level.

Yes. Once. Now it’s 4 teq events.

Now those rewards are expired. Which veteran doesnt have millions of karma stored? Anet definitely no longer see them as something that keeps player interested in playing. In fact I wonder how many players actually care about karma anymore.

I was naturally speaking at launch when those rewards were still in play as an item to provide longevity to the game. Thats why I said “meant” not “means”

Devata.6589:

I did not say it was not optional (All grind is optional), I said it was required TO get those items. That is something else. Pretty big difference in fact.

Just for clarification purposes I feel this statement "(All grind is optional), I said it was required TO get those items. " is wrong. you dont need to grind to get any item in game. I can log in today play whatever I choose and it will get me that little closer to whatever reward I am interested in be it an ascended piece of gear, a named exotic or even a legendary weapon. That means that even if you want to get an item grinding is still something optional. You can engage in grinding and get the item faster or you can choose not to grind for it and still get it abit in a longer time period.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Age.4190:

It didn’t have the grind that this GW2 has and depending on what game.I know in PWI if you got the cash you can be leveled fast.

Lol yes, GW1 absolutely does have as much grind as GW2. In fact, in Factions there is one instance of required grind to even progress to the next mission. (Yeah, gather 10k faction, I’m looking at you). By the end of the game, if you were still pugging, especially the higher end areas, groups required higher levels of the pve skills…which required title grind (light bringer, ebon vanguard, etc). The base leveling process in Prophecies was a “grind” (bu many people’s definition of the term), if you played the game “as intended” you didn’t even reach 20 until you hit the desert, doing crap ton of killing and questing along the way.

I really like how people claim GW1 has no grind or less grind than it’s sequel. It’s absolutely not true. As someone that played GW1 for more than 7 years, I know better.

you’re right, people keep saying you level really quickly in gw1 but thats only true with the shortcuts they gave in the campaigns. in Prophecies I am pretty sure it took longer then it does in gw2 or at least just as long.

phys.7689:

longevity doesnt really come before player satisfaction, you will lose too many players. Also you get more people hooked by giving them satisfying rewards each time. Like when you give a dog a treat.

Yes if you can keep giving out threats at that pace. Of course thats the ideal scenario but whats better getting a reward every week for a month and then 2 months of no rewards at all or you get a piece of the reward each week until in 3 months you finally get the big reward and something new to work for?

I think its way more likely to loose more players in the first scenario then the 2nd personally.

phys.7689:

Something that requires 100 days before you get any satisfaction isnt really a good plan.

Game developers know that and they cheat to get around it. There is a reason why something that is long term requires 250 of this and 250 of that. So that you’re not really left with 100 days of no rewards but simply small threats each and every day until you finally get the big threat once you’re done collecting the small threats.

Works like that in real life too. A single month of wage is not really something to write home about. (provided you’re not part of the 1% of course ) Its not going to change your world, all it will allow you to do is pay your expensive, have something to eat, pay some of that debt and perhaps have something left for entertainment. 6 months – a year down the line that little wage means you get a car, a new tv, go on holiday, etc.. thats the big goal but even though you’re not getting the big goal on pay day 1 it doesnt mean you’re not happy with the little money you manage to save that brings you a little closer I dont think thats really the main issue here.

phys.7689:

This is why i say that was mistake. They have to reward the journey, and have many satisfying points along the way.

Its like, if you get some subways cupon where you have visit 30 times and you get a free meal, its too far away, i would just throw it in the garbage. Unless, you were planning to go 30 days anyhow, in which case the coupon isnt keeping you interested.

from where I am sitting its exactly what they’ve done. Reward the journey is a big reason why this is my favourite MMO. Just look at dynamic events. Just recently I had a discussion with someone who said DE are a gimmick because they dont change anything and he mentioned the aquadot event near shaemoor specially. Now while i remembered how if the water gets poisoned people got sick in shaemoor i just couldnt remember what happens if the pipes get blown up. Yesterday I was goofing around testing the new camera and FOV and where better to do that then on one of those pipes overlooking divinity’s reach? Sure enough that event played out and I was a alone so the bandits blew up the pipes one by one… the moment 1 pipe blew up I could see irrigation one of the towers down the valley stop watering the crops and while that alone already makes the journey rewarding enough but Anet didnt even stop there.

1. the irrigation towers didnt all stop the moment the event failed, each pipe was feeding a tower and the moment the corresponding pipe blew up the tower dried up without the event having to finish first

2. once a pipe blew up the water didnt just stop immediately, no thats not enough for Anet, for a couple of seconds nothing happens then the water pressure starts to drop and the water spray starts getting smaller and its range starts getting smaller until it drys up.

Just think how much work went into that, work that really does add anything to the game per-se, in the sense that because of that detail its not like players are kept busy for an extra hour or make combat more exciting etc.. Its their to simply reward the journey. Its just beautiful to see if you see it because lets not forget generally you’re busy fighting the bandits at this point not looking down the valley. Case in point i did this even quite a few times yet never seem to notice this (I dont think I would have forgotten something like this otherwise)

But this brings us back to our discussion, how you play the game and grind / rewards. If what you’re doing is trying to get to the reward quickly you dont care what’s happening to the environment you only care where the next source of income is and thus will make you feel like the journey is not that rewarding. If you make the reward something secondary to the game experience, that changes things? This journey is rewarded like no other MMO has ever rewarded a journey in my experience.

Devata.6589:

“When the majority of the ppl have already bought GW2 and they dont need to spent real money to BUY AGAIN GW2 , then what kind income they will have each quarter?”

That is why I talked about yearly expansions. So the first quarter (after initial sales) they will have made less, then the Q2 also less than with the cash-shop, 3Q also less but then the 4th will be the expansion what will make up for that lost.

Are you familiar with project management triangle? you have 3 items on said triangle. Cost, Scope and Schedule. Project management rules state you can only focus on two of those at a time. So you can control how long a project takes but you have to sacrifice cost or scope. A Developer like arenanet just dont get control on cost. I am sure they cant wake up tomorrow and ask NCSoft to triple their personnel it just will not be approved which means they’d have no choice but to sacrifice scope. Is it really something we want? We dont know when they started working on hearts of torns, we dont know what scope it has but based on what is being said I dont feel it something that can afford to have its scope 1/2 or 1/3 so that they can push it out each year rather then each 2 – 3 years.

Truth be told I think LS and Expansion need to both exist to keep this scope. they may have only made 19 per quarter but thats probably more then enough to sustain a team of 350 people and keep ncsoft happy until the big expansion payouts. People like to quote blizzard numbers on how 350 people is not that big of a team but when we get to know team after team of different mmos 350 seems the largest team after blizzard. This week we got to know cryptic let go 18 employees unfortunately whats more its been reported that 18 was 14% of the company which means they had 128 people working on both neverwinter, startrek online and champions online.

maddoctor and phys are absolutely right. If they ever want to release something cool using karma again it will either need to have an insane cost, or be hidden under insane rng like say a chest that drops stuff. Thats a tragedy because karma is one of the few reasons that incentives doing events properly IE with the intention to actual win the event rather then fail it.

Same thing with gold really. Does it make sense to release a new cultural set for gold? either if you price it so high that new players will run away screaming or instead of a long term goal it will turn into a quarter of an hour goal.

What about dungeons? does it make sense to release new rewards to incentive dungeon runs again? If they’re prized the same as existing rewards whats the point? most people can get them without running that dungeon again. I dont do dungeons and would still be able to out right buy them from 1/2 the dungeons.

laurels? Same story, Mystic coins? ditto

What Maddoctor says is absolutely right. Think about it, if they add a new armor skin akin the karma skins in Orr can they sell them for 42k karma each? those are rewards aimed at keeping you busy for months. 42K karma meant 100 events at max level. if they put an armor set for 42k each it will mean instant buy for the majority of the players. So what can Anet do? either no karma sets or what? 1 million karma per item? and even though that sounds absurd i bet most people would still be able to out right buy close to 5 pieces. What about new players? is it fair to ask them to invest close to 3 years play time to earn the same set we can nearly buy instantly?

I too think this is a real issue, It just doesnt make sense to have a new main currency every 6 months. Would love to hear John Smith’s thoughst on the subject. Think this may make good material for a blog post or maybe a future CDI?

phys.7689:

you should never want your reward to require X days, thats the flaw.

you may want your reward to require X skill, or X effort, but deciding you want it to last 100 days basically screws up the design.

but people will get bored! see its fine for people to get bored, if they enjoyed something, they will come back.

many people get bored when they have something limiting their progress.

Now there can be some things where time may be a useful tool, or by combining it with other mechanics, create something different.
but simple hard lockouts on time, is more frustrating than it is useful imo.

You’re seeing the issue from a player perspective, I am looking at it from a developer perspective. What developers need to address primarily is the longevity of the game. Secondary its trying to have that meet what players want/need. Rewards are at the core of a game longevity. You can have the best content in the world but for most people if that content doesnt give some kind of reward they arent going to play it. That means that if developers focus on what people want but that turns out to excaust rewards too quickly the game will suffer.

Thats where fluff comes into the picture. Instead of a straight up timer for receiving a reward they do what you said, they break it down into components that feel less cold… Skill and Effort. When you have something like 250 ecto to craft item x its merely a time frame translated into effort because they believe for the majority of the players gathering those 250 ecto will take the amount of time they want that reward to be in play.

That being said you’re right.. time gates are frustrating not disagreeing with you there. The problem I believe they are facing is when you go in a direction other then vertical progression you’re kinda forced to give a long time frame to your rewards which is where the crux of the problem is in my opinion.

People find it hard to accept a reward may take up to 100 days to earn. hence without a time gate they’ll grind far more then what the developers intend to get that down substantially. Grind isnt exactly exciting either for most people and doing far more then required is what you get. So in the end I guess it will depend on the individual. What do they prefer? time gated rewards but enjoyable game play or quicker rewards but grindy game play.

Whats for sure is I dont envy the devs. Anyway they go its a minefield.

maddoctor.2738:

Galen Grey.4709:

maddoctor.2738:

tl;dr make all currencies work like guild merits (give them an upper cap), then the game won’t need any new currencies at all

You are so right you really need to get a star.

This is most definitely a big problem.

Its also probably a reason why some of us are really weary of changes. As great as a non-farmer play style is, it just puts people at a huge disadvantage when it comes to currencies. Anet are essentially forced to price things based on the player with the most currencies which would mean disaster for the non-farmer.

Its not like Anet can zero everyones currencies so its a problem with no easy solution either.

But yes, you hit the nail right center on its head here. I hope everyone considers what you said.

The “easy” solution would be to not allow players to earn any more of that currency, until they are below the cap

That doesnt take care of the existing stashes though. until those are depleted pricing will remain an issue

phys.7689:

artificial time gates are stupid.
Its a bad mechanic. Especially ones like 100 day things. Keep people logging in by making a good game, not by limiting progress.

It doesnt really matter if someone does something that takes 24 hours, in 24 hours, a week or a month.
the same time was invested.

the type of mechanical, simulation inspired changes you are talking about, are part of why the game feels grindy.
the average person/group taking a week to master a fight is not the same as making someone wait a week to do something.

time gating isnt about making people logging in or some way around a bad game.

Think about it, why would you log in every day to get rewards in a game you dont enjoy playing? no time gate is going to force you to play a game you have no intention of playing.

A time gate is a great mechanic when it comes to remove grind.

An MMO is made up from a ton of fluff to hide cold boring mechanics.

A reward’s cost always boils down to time. If something requires 250 ectos to craft its not because it needs said raw material but because its a reward for playing x amount of time where x is the average time needed to gather 250 ectos. This however creates a ton of problems.

Player A might play 1hr per day and what they usually play gives them .5 ectos per day.
Player B might play 8hrs per day and what they do gives them 10 ectos per day.

You want your reward to “cost” 100 days but for Player A that means 50 ectos while for player B that means 1000 ecto so what do you do? You may find if you take all players in consideration that means 250 ecto but obviously thats not perfect. Far from it. You’re forcing player A to work 250 days for his reward.
You’re over rewarding Player B by giving him his reward in 25 days instead of 100. The majority of the players need to spend 100 days going after ecto.

Enter time gating. With time gating you dont need players to spend a whole day doing a specific thing so you can keep your target time cost for the reward. With laurels Anet had us spend 30 mins in game and that was enough. Hence Player A and Player B could do what they want and still both get their reward after a 100 days. Perfect timing for all.

More importantly no need to spend a whole day potentially doing something you dont enjoy only cause it gets you your reward faster.

Like you said though that also means you cannot rush your reward… is that really a bad thing though? its exactly whats causing people to feel the game super grindy. You’re compressing 100 days of work down to 25 days. Thats like working 4 jobs at once, of course its going to feel grindy!

That time gating is forcing to log in is also a fallacy really.

Yes if you dont log in, it will take you 101 days instead of 100 but then again without time gating, you could slave and get your reward in 25 days instead of 100 sure.. then again if you dont log in one day that 25 will become 26… how is it any different?

maddoctor.2738:

tl;dr make all currencies work like guild merits (give them an upper cap), then the game won’t need any new currencies at all

You are so right you really need to get a star.

This is most definitely a big problem.

Its also probably a reason why some of us are really weary of changes. As great as a non-farmer play style is, it just puts people at a huge disadvantage when it comes to currencies. Anet are essentially forced to price things based on the player with the most currencies which would mean disaster for the non-farmer.

Its not like Anet can zero everyones currencies so its a problem with no easy solution either.

But yes, you hit the nail right center on its head here. I hope everyone considers what you said.

Devata.6589:

Tokens are nice thing to have to the side. Like Dungeon x reward something with 100% change (complete it, and get it) then some RNG but at the same time some token system at least allows you to get some other things that should not be the mean goal but more like a nice to have. (much like the dungeon sets).

Make tokens the main way and it’s just as bad as what we already have. Tokens are just a currency and all the currencies in the game help to create this grind.

I also said that, in that thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/RNG-as-a-concept-Discuss/page/11#post4521223.
and
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/RNG-as-a-concept-Discuss/page/18#post4758907

From a developer viewpoint tokens / currencies are easy way to have control over the economy but from a game perspective it is sort of boring.

“If this was a new game it would be easier to set up” Well, it would be a option for HoT.

Currencies are the only way to get rid of grind not what is creating grind.

The problem thats creating grind is at its core Anet not wanting to add a new gear tier every 6 months (and thank god for that ) . Some people just dont find cosmetics something worth playing for. They want their chars to become more powerful. Even people who go for cosmetics , releasing a new cosmetic set to work towards every 6 months will not work because some might not like it, others might find it a bad fit for their chars etc.. That forces Anet to make sure their rewards last a really long time which means it has to take a long time to earn that reward which is where the grind is coming from.

The least grindy way to achieve that is when they first introduced ascended gear. 30 laurels and you get a nice piece of ascended gear. All it takes to take 30 laurels is on average (strictly speaking you can do it in 20 days but..) is finish 30 dailies which back then was really play 30 minutes of whatever you feel like. That was really 0 grind thanks to 2 elements, a currency (IE you’re not forced into specific content types you might find boring) and time gating (IE they could just require 30 mins of game time from us just to reward us with a day worth of effort). Problem is people hated that. they felt they were wasting their time since only 30 mins of a potentially 8 hour game session was put towards their goal and they just didnt want to wait 30 days for their reward.

What made it grindy was dropping those 2 elements. without time gating the effort required could no longer be 30 mins per day, it had to be average play hours per day. Whats more for the most part it allowed people to pursuit their goal 24/7 IE while before people were free to play what they wanted all the time they can forced themselves to just work for the rewards and not have any actual fun make the grind feel much worst.

Currency was just never the problem. It was the solution but unfortunately one which went against human nature. Tragedy is while people complain about the grind its really what they want subconsciously. I know its a bold statement. But ask yourselves this.. would you rather have what we have now or we you rather go back to the old daily system (assume zeroed laurels)

Devata.6589:

When looking at this thread I would think some of “defenders” / supporters of Anet are the biggest threat for the game. They come in here, dismiss everything without any real arguments, leave again to come back and do exactly the same a day later. If you really like the game you should try to participate but just trolling (as that really, is what it is) in a way to try and disrupt an ongoing discussion can at best harm the game.

hold your horses now… what do you mean no real arguments?

Devata.6589:

When I am a collector, some other game sends me all over the world, rewarding a specific item for a specific content. Giving more meaning to the item and making the hunt for items more fun.

When you are a collector in GW2 you can’t hunt down most of the items directly. It’s all about gold (or some other currency) and maybe there are then 6 or so methods to get that gold. (dungeons, farm train (of what we have 3? types) and farming world-bosses)

So while you have some choice in how to grind the gold, it still is, want item x? grind gold, next item, grind gold, next item grind gold and so on.

Of course at the same time new items are being added all the time, and let not fool each other. In the current system it’s supposed to be a grind in the hope people will buy there way out of it by buying gems to buy gold or buy the item. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CbWr0zO7Ac&t=2m26s

So there is a very big difference from being a collector in GW2 or in such other game.

Only in the short term, every single collection item is an item that drops and every single one of them drops from multiple places so yeah you’d burn out if you try going farming every item in the exotic collection. But if you’re playing the game you’ll be killing champions and earning champion bags and what not. In turn that will give you one of the collection items now and again. Granted personally I had 4 drop on me. Thats like 4 in a year.. out of 34 so baring duplicates it will take 8 years to finish it all which is crazy long no doubt. 1 is already in… had this been something added at launch I’d already be nearly 1/2 way in without even having to put any effort into it.

As for other games, which games are you talking about? cause the ones that do collections that I am aware of (rift, eq2, neverwinter, WoW) arent really that much different. Both in rift and Eq2 what is called shines are heavily dependent on rng. they’re not much different then what gw2 does. you either spend a really long time hunting them down or much easier you buy them. Most people do a bit of both.

Neverwinter is even worst. some collections require massive grinds while others require buying directly for real money.

Wow has a mix, but it too has some collections that can only be completed by spending real money (and thats with a sub no less) while others require massive grinds or you buy what you need off the AH which we know what most people do when faced with this choice

Gw2 seem pretty in line with what others too, make no mistake, not saying gw2 is better, its not. while strictly speaking its entirely possible to complete every collection without spending a single cent its not really realistic. I am not sure anyone can really make enough gold to finish all those black lion weapon sets in an entire life time. but likewise I dont think its possible to complete every collection in the other mmos either not even if you have access to unlimited amount of in game money. Dont think collections are things you’re meant to ever fully complete.

Devata.6589:

It’s just my idea and it’s not something I am really passionate about.

Anyway, there are a few ‘problems’ with your scenario. First of all there is the 100 day limit you want to keep in order. I understand why you do that but by doing you limit the possibility too reduce the grind to less than 100 runs.

That is simply a limitation you put on there. Then there are the eco’s. I usually refer to gold as that is the main currency in GW2 but it really is about currency and in a way eco’s are the currency here.

Personally for crafting all the mats (where you need many of) I would not make the mats hard to get. It should be something you should be able to get pretty easy, so go to one spot, farm it for half an hour and be done with it. The hard thing to get would be one ingredient you only need 1 of, or the recipe itself. Depending on what you want to achieve.

Anyway, for your example I will keep myself to the 100 day limit (what is already a compromise to what I suggested, but to make it work in your scope) but I will drop the eco’s.. I mean, the whole idea of what I say is working directly towards your item, not with some currency between it.

What you then could do is making a drop-change of 0,5% (This is not exact math, not going to do the exact math now but it’s good enough for the example) for the weapon itself, that means on average it will drop once every 100 runs. Then to hold on to the 100 day time-gate you let the dungeon only give the reward once a day.

So now the average number of runs would be 100 instead of 300 or 600 in your example, while keeping onto the 100 day time-gate.. on average that is.

I know that the 100 day limit makes it impossible to reduce the 100 run limit but as you know its necessary. Its the one thing that is probably immutable in the design and any solution / suggestion we come up with will need to respect that if we are to have any chance for it to be adopted by the devs. Thats why I stress on it.

Well yeah strictly speaking ecto is a currenct, if you change to that to a single rare drop, that rare drop would be currency itself but wouldnt it feel a ton more grindy if you’re trying to get something that will drop once in an average of 100 days then it is trying to get something that drops an average of 3 per day? technically its exactly the same but the fact you’re doing a little progress each and every day tricks us into thinking its less grindy.

I can see a number of issues with your final plan.

1. 100 runs instead of 600 is definitely a lot better but 100 runs of doing something you dont enjoy is still much worst then doing something else you enjoy and will still feel more grindy (being you dont enjoy it)

2. time gating. based on past experience people hate being forced to limit their effort to just 30 minutes a day out of their game session working towards the goal they want.

3. for an average of 100 runs you will get nothing of value towards your goal, there will be no small gratification to offset that grindy feel which i do believe will make the feeling worst

4. some people just like to play solo and hate grouping and hate dungeons, are they cut out from all rewards that require this particular drop? because while they may be open to do a dungeon once or twice, 100 times seems a bit far fetched for these kind of players

now though I am pointing out the negative, dont get me wrong I also see advantages on what you propose.

1. Incentives people to run more dungeons
2. force people to not burn out (if you dont enjoy it at least you only have to do it for 30 mins a day max)
3. potentially help pugs find more teams to play with due to larger dungeon demand
4. make the reward feel more meaningful since you had to do specific work rather then just “goof” around for 100 days.

Do you agree with the adv / disadv i came up with and if so do you think the adv are bigger then the disadv?

maddoctor.2738:

Galen Grey.4709:

3. That might actually make it worst. People might get suspicious others in their group got items they’re keeping secret to sell for profit. For this to work transparency is a must and item drops would have to be visible to all in the party. I dont see it working otherwise.

I’m not saying to use this system on everything in the game, the couple of silver from Ascended Armors/Weapons/Rings isn’t worth the inventory slot. And if anything only guilds / friends will use the system, or good hearted individuals who want to share their luck with others.

OK you can salvage some accound bound exotics for ectos, or salvage that Carapace Coat you got for some extra Silk. That’s why keeping them hidden is important, otherwise we get the “pay me 5s before I give it you”.

Do you suspect someone of getting a Fractal skin when you finish a Fotm run? I certainly don’t because there is hardly any reason to lie.

In short I am sure we all got good drops that we really didnt care for. Essentially its a good drop thats “wasted”. your system makes that 5 times less likely to happen on average. The question is did designers take that into consideration when choosing drop rates?

I think the developers should focus on the individual chances of an item dropping, no matter where it will end up in the end. But of course that’s a question for the devs and how they see it

5s before I give it to you is great, I am more worried about hey you want this chest piece give me 25g or continue taking your chances with the rng gods up to you. But anyhow even if drops are secret they can still happen. That and potentially much worst scamming. Hey send me 10g and I send it to you. Tks for the 10g I think I will keep the item to bye bye tks for your donation etc…

maddoctor.2738:

Galen Grey.4709:

maddoctor.2738:

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Indeed.

The ability to obtain items directly is what I would consider less grindy (when done right!) then the current system, but I can agree to disagree if you would still find it just as grindy. At least it would feel less grindy to a group of players so that is already a win, while it might not yet do the job for everybody. That is also why everybody can give his solution in this thread.

I know you’re really passionate about this idea but honestly I just cannot see it. Can you help me see your point because from when I am standing this would be much much worst.

Or scenario 3: make Vision of the Mists itself drop from content, say a 0.1% to drop from the Temple of Lyssa event. So players who want Vision of Mists will either grind to get gold to buy it, grind to get the ectos themselves to forge it, or grind the Temple of Lyssa event to directly get it.

I think that’s more like it for a “rewards through content” idea.

A single temple run gives you more then 1g which means not only a single temp run gives you more money then target required per day but its possible to do multiple runs. granted the other runs will not make as much money but they’ll still make a substantial amount. with a 0.1% chance to drop if you just do temple of lyssa events chances are you’ll be able to craft 10 vision of mists weapons before you even get a single drop. Not sure that would make it feel less grindy!

For scenario 3 to be viable, the drop rate needs to be much higher, say 0.5% but that would mean you’d need to double the crafting requirements to make up for it. not sure that would make it feel less grindy.

I gave a terrible example but I think you can understand how it will work, grind for gold, grind for mats to forge, or grind for the item directly.

I think the best solution for expensive items is getting them through collections. They are already adding precursor collections, so why not add Vision of the Mists collection, or Volcanus collection or Mjolnir collection or any other expensive item collection.

I think collections could be the GW2 answer to grinding for specific items. I’ll reserve judgement about how it works until I see how the HoT Precursor Collections are implemented, but we’ll see how feasible it will be to add collections for other items too!

Yes I understand what you mean. my point was simply that adding a new way to acquire an item thats prefectly balanced with the others (ie going for the mats would take as long as going for the gold which would take as long as going for the item directly) would mean everything else gets 33% worst which in turn might make things feel more grindy then less so.

I like collections and yes I agree collections might be a good solution to the issue. To avoid the same issue of making something meant to be rare much more common and without increasing the requirements for the other methods I fear it may require a lot of work to get rare stuff through collections. Then again as long as you dont have to repeat the same content over and over again it may be a good option. I too am curious to see how it will work for precursors.

maddoctor.2738:

1. I don’t think they need to decrease drop rates at all. The chances of getting an item drop will be the exact same. The only difference is where it is distributed, instead of having players with 2 or 3 account bound items, they will be more spread out, but the amount of items dropping will be the exact same. No reason to change RNG chances, just tweak distribution so it is more fair for everyone.

2. Even in the open world, it will promote players grouping up, that’s not the same as making the game solo unfriendly. That’s why I gave the Carapace Coat example, allowing players to give it freely to other players in their group, so if they already have it, share the fun! I’m more concerned about HoT more than anything else, based on how they do their new “hardcore” guild content, the current reward system might to be very good.

Even so, in this game you are considered to be in a party with everyone around you. So let’s make a more far fetched proposal and make it so players can “opt-out” from rewards they already have, and instead allow others to get them. That could be transparent and not requiring a party. Although it might be extra work

3. Since you can’t see the drops of others that’s not an issue. If they get something account bound that they already have, they can ping it and ask in party who might need it. Otherwise they can just keep to themselves and not say or ping anything if they don’t want to. There is no visible dice roll that you see what everyone picks and rolls

4. This all depends on how transparent the new system is.

1. You could be right here, it really depends how well game designers did their job. I am saying this because there are multiple RNGs at play. Do you get a rare drop? Do you get the desired rarity drop? and if so do you get the desired item time to drop? and then to you get the desired item stats to drop? Like you said whether you get a rare drop or not is unchanged but the fact you can trade now it means you have 5x more chance for a positive answer to the other questions. In short I am sure we all got good drops that we really didnt care for. Essentially its a good drop thats “wasted”. your system makes that 5 times less likely to happen on average. The question is did designers take that into consideration when choosing drop rates?

2. Thats true provided doing this system doesnt result in a nerf to drop rates.

3. That might actually make it worst. People might get suspicious others in their group got items they’re keeping secret to sell for profit. For this to work transparency is a must and item drops would have to be visible to all in the party. I dont see it working otherwise.

maddoctor.2738:

Galen Grey.4709:

Devata.6589:

Indeed.

The ability to obtain items directly is what I would consider less grindy (when done right!) then the current system, but I can agree to disagree if you would still find it just as grindy. At least it would feel less grindy to a group of players so that is already a win, while it might not yet do the job for everybody. That is also why everybody can give his solution in this thread.

I know you’re really passionate about this idea but honestly I just cannot see it. Can you help me see your point because from when I am standing this would be much much worst.

Or scenario 3: make Vision of the Mists itself drop from content, say a 0.1% to drop from the Temple of Lyssa event. So players who want Vision of Mists will either grind to get gold to buy it, grind to get the ectos themselves to forge it, or grind the Temple of Lyssa event to directly get it.

I think that’s more like it for a “rewards through content” idea.

A single temple run gives you more then 1g which means not only a single temp run gives you more money then target required per day but its possible to do multiple runs. granted the other runs will not make as much money but they’ll still make a substantial amount. with a 0.1% chance to drop if you just do temple of lyssa events chances are you’ll be able to craft 10 vision of mists weapons before you even get a single drop. Not sure that would make it feel less grindy!

For scenario 3 to be viable, the drop rate needs to be much higher, say 0.5% but that would mean you’d need to double the crafting requirements to make up for it. not sure that would make it feel less grindy.