Guild Wars 2

whiteflower.9425:

I cant tell you when it was up cause i cant see my log from 2 days ago but i can tell you for sure that immediately when i saw that the build was available i restart gw2 and start downloading the patch.

It took me 1 to 2 minutes to download and get in (to be noted that my internet speed its 125mb/s). And under a minute to get in in-game and see the gem stuff (Load screen is a pain when a new build comes up)

So like i said, cant give an exact hour but i can tell you the time i waited to download + get in (3min so and so).

Well it certainly sounds like an unbelievable spike, but I don’t think it’s at all impossible. Considering the number of people who play, all it would take is for a significant chunk with higher download speeds to have logged in before anyone else and made large exchanges. Or even a small handful making gigantic exchanges.

Without the data of who makes what exchanges and for how much (something that Anet happens to have) it’s hard to see the specifics of how it could have played out.

Oh, I’m not saying you didn’t hit the mob. I’m saying maybe there’s a bug there with getting credit even when you do hit the mob.

whiteflower.9425:

I agree that the launch of the items you mention would make the market go up but go up to 20g? I think its too much and, just like you, I was surprised to see this drastic increase.

Like Tulki said before:

“Immediately before this patch: 10g = 70 gems.
Immediately after this patch: 10g = 57 gems (going off the 400 gem exchange rate)”

The key word here is “Immediately”.

Like i said to chemiclord.
How is it possible you log in and out of the game to download the patch and, suddenly, theres an increase of 5g+?

Even if you and many other players have an SDD and the best internet ever i think its impossible to change the market that much right after the patch goes live.
Right after
I found it hard to believe that in under 1 min after patch is launch the price goes up by this much.

How is it possible? People cant buy stuff when they are downloading the patch.

Sticking to the facts though, when was the actual time that it went up in relation to the patch? (Or can anyone even confirm when?) Keep in mind that some people have better download speeds and such.

That sucks. I’m rooting for you man.

Weird. Maybe put up a thread in the bug forum? I’m pretty sure, especially considering John’s statement, that no such “diminishing returns” is supposed to occur. It sounds like some kind of issue with getting kill credit.

Zaxares.5419:

I’m not sure that the gem price spike is anything particularly suspicious. It underwent a similar spike back during the 2nd Anniversary sale, and reached similar peaks. This time around, ANet has announced:

1. Chance to get the super rare (and expensive) 2012 Halloween skins again. You can get Foil Wrappers from ToT bags, but if you really, REALLY want to pad your chances, buying Foil Candy in bulk from the gem store is the way to go.

2. New Noble Count outfit, which is almost universally loved, plus the old outfits are back. There is usually a surge of returning players during festivals, who may only now be seeing the Mad King/Witch/Executioner etc. outfits and thus are only buying now.

3. Lovestruck/Fused etc. weapons have been announced to be retiring soon. This may cause a surge in people buying gems for a last chance to gamble for scraps/tickets before they disappear.

Taken altogether, it’s logical that demand for gems would be up.

EDIT: Although, I just checked gw2tp, and wow, it actually shot up to 20g! That IS pretty remarkable, and could indeed be attributed to the currency exchange change.

I agree that it’s pretty explainable given the circumstances. What’s most problematic about no longer having the graph, in my opinion, is that it only fuels conspiracy theories like what we’ve seen in this thread concerning the spike.

What activity are you doing there in the screenshot? Like where are you?

Wetpaw.3487:

……ArenaNet Forum Communications Team Lead……she has nothing to do with the decisions made by NCsoft or Anet, and nowhere near the top of that totem pole. Express concerns to the guys/gals that continue to lead this game…in the direction and state it’s in now (twitter is a good start, gaming sites, and NCsoft).

You don’t go after the mailman when your cell phone bill comes in wrong, go to the source.

Not to go super cynical on the bit (ok, I’m going to) but this is how it is with a lot of companies these days, at least in America (not talking about game companies specifically). The “customer support” types often get to take the brunt of complaints and get verbally abused like mad, while the corporate suits who are making the calls – the calls that cause the complaints in the first place – are sitting in their plush chairs, completely inaccessible to customers.

Which is why, as a consumer, I virtually never get belligerent with lower echelon employees, just on principle. I know that 99% of the time, the problems are not within their power to fix and most of the time they would love to be able to help you, despite having very little power to actually do so.

Labjax.2465:

I haven’t tried large-scale stuff yet, such as world bosses (I’ll report back if they are unplayable).

So far so good with these. Did some EotM zerg encounters and everything seemed ok. I’ve never had amazing FPS in those cases, but it’s always been playable (prior to the FPS issue) and it seems it is again now after the patch with character model settings above lowest (which is what I was able to use before).

After thinking about it more, I believe I was wrong about there being no technical constraints. That is, depending on how you look at it.

Notice how in the store, every skin set is for a specific armor class (heavy, medium, or light). There are a few exceptions to this rule: Single helmets, single gloves, single shoulders, and single boots (usable by any weight class).

But… no single pants and no single shirts. And I believe it was precisely that part of it (pants/shirts) that they said is designed in a specific way with rigging for each armor class. So doing something like making the dress outfit into a skin for each armor class may not even be logistically possible without horrific-looking graphical glitches, due to the way the models are set up.

I believe outfits (despite it not seeming like an intuitive answer) are an exception to this because they can work more like an overlay, as opposed to mixable pieces of armor. If that makes sense.

I’m not sure if all (or any) of what I said is true. But from what they have said about models before, I think something along those lines makes it harder than just clipping.

Hmm, maybe something was added to the loot tables for Karka?

xarallei.4279:

To be honest I don’t get the rage against Gaile. She didn’t say anything to justify rants against her. Most of what she said was just relaying info behind the decisions…which we may not have liked, but that certainly isn’t her fault. And she was right in that a lot of people were just raging and not being constructive at all.

She was the one red poster, so she became a scapegoat. She also gave the thread the kind of responses that you would expect for a random QQ thread with 5-10 people raging. Probably not realizing in the process just how many people were upset about the change.

She got unlucky, basically.

On the one hand… I get it. People want to stand out and be counted. Part of that’s just human psychology and it’s not going anywhere, so the allure of exclusive items isn’t going anywhere either.

On the other hand, making new stuff for every yearly holiday update is development time that can be spent on other things; new game systems, new content, maybe even expansions (cough cough cough).

Development is always a game of tradeoffs. You do X and that leaves you less resources to do Y. I can’t really defend Anet specifically because for all I know, their development process is a royal mess and isn’t getting much done.

But the flip side is also possible; they may be getting more work done on cool new stuff at the expense of a couple seasonal shinies. I don’t expect that to appease anyone, but it’s something to keep in perspective with any MMO.

John Smith.4610:

His resolve hardened, one more attempt, he starred at yet another dulled blade, one more chance for results…this wasn’t going to be fun.

While I think the theory of Karka Shells or some such is on the right track, the above seems to imply that it’s a rare drop in the zone. Karka Shells drop easily, but Lemark is talking about one more attempt and one more chance for results.

Which implies he hasn’t even gotten one of the item he’s looking for (and he only needs one).

Malediktus.9250:

This game is about cosmetic progression. How am I supposed to “progress” if everything is easy to get at any time? Dont tell me legendaries, most of them look like they could as well be exotics to me. And the most expensive armor is 119g for a whole set lol. Thats like 1 day of farming for me, less if I combine with trading.

Which could be worth debating, except that you’re talking about items you already have and how you feel cheated because they’re easier to get for other people.

edit 3 (in story form): Lemark wasn’t much of a haggler. the merchant had taken almost every copper he owned, but it was worth it. He was positive this time, no more fakes, no more copies, forgeries or lies, this was it. He could feel it, sinister…ghostly, it felt weird to hold, but he didn’t care, his journey was one quarter complete.

Posting this as a refresher for the first item^

I know someone mentioned glob of ectoplasm. I think that would fit the description. Though it’s also problematic in that there’s no mention of quantity and one glob isn’t worth that much.

We of course have the Ghostly Doubloon theory, but I don’t think that combines with most MF mats (Coins, Wine, Crystals, etc.).

Edit: What all items are listed as “unique”? Perhaps “no fakes/forgeries/etc.” is a hint about the uniqueness of the item.

Greymarch.3291:

The Item that is constantly guarded and mundane has to be the gold back in the old lions arch bank…..and you cant get away stealing it cause the guards always knock you down.

Hmm, perhaps that would go with the Mystic Coin theory? Making item #2 Mystic Coins.

Still not sure what item #1 would be though (the one he bought from the merchant).

lordkrall.7241:

Sure a response would be nice, but when people are abusive like they are in here I don’t really think anyone at ArenaNet is all that interested in actually giving a response.

People also have to keep in mind that things takes time. They need to make decisions and such before giving an actual response.

If people really want a response, maybe they should start by understanding that the red posters are actual people as well?

See, although I understand your desire to defend them because (yes) they are people, there are plenty of people who are willing to have an adult conversation about the change and react in a calm manner.

That a lot of people are angry or “toxic” only goes so far as an excuse not to communicate. If everyone is screaming, then yes, it’s not going to do a whole lot, but everyone isn’t screaming. In fact, a lot of people are rather calm about the whole thing – they just disagree very strongly with the change.

The problem is, every time they (or someone defending them) uses toxicity as an excuse for them not communicating, it just irritates the people who do their darnedest to remain calm and reasonable. And it also screws over the people who are willing to put their best foot forward.

In short, it’s like saying, “Some of it’s bad, so that’s why they won’t go near it.” I mean, life in general has good and bad. You can’t live under a rock because you’re going to encounter the bad sometimes.

For every rude post toward a dev, I see plenty of showering of praise and reasoned discussion when they actually take the time to talk. I think the reaction to Gaile’s posts in this thread was largely an exception to the rule and it’s probably because she didn’t know enough to be reassuring at all.

I imagine she probably saw “angry feedback thread” and assumed it was much less significant of an issue than it actually is. Which would be understandable, considering the number of negative threads that get posted.

Faux.1937:

Im at a lost… I’ll look to you guys for more maybes to give me some ideas.

Yeah, I’m getting a bit lost too tbh. Lot of ambiguity.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

I know I’ve posted many times that I think the whole situation is out of their hands but still there has to be someone there with their head screwed tightly to their shoulders and know that silence is not helping. I do feel bad for the existing staff but more so for all those before them and those still there that have thrown their heart and soul into building the game only to watch what is happening today. That has got to be disheartening and quite depressing to say the least.

Indeed. I would certainly not want to be a dev on this day.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

The Real Point of No Return! I’m quite stunned at the total lack of feedback on their end considering the backlash here, on Reddit, Ten Ton Hammer. What’s it going to take to get a response on the plans to fix yet another unwanted change? While I’m at it, where is management during all of this, are they oblivious or that uncaring that they can’t take two minutes to come and give us some feedback?

Something tells me the lack of any reassurance on this matter means that a whole bunch of team members were just “following orders,” as companies sometimes go, and nobody is really sure what to say. It may even be that they can’t be reassuring because they’re getting pressured from on high.

Either way, this would have been the perfect opportunity for them to show that their communication has improved. Every hour that ticks by with them giving us little more than (love ya Gaile!) barely-knows-what’s-going-on-with-this-change PR responses is an hour of people feeling like Anet just can’t get their communication together.

That said, I hope the effects aren’t as bad for the company as the mood would make it seem. Cause honestly, that’s a lot of jobs in limbo.

So let’s see…

We know he got something ghostly from a merchant and spent all his money in the process. We know he tried to steal something common involving sensitive heritage but apparently failed.

Then he had a productive week and got one of something that is a favorite of Zommoros and is powerful when you have a lot of them.

And we know it’s two items (which make sense with: bought > failed thievery > productive week).

My question is, do we even have reason to believe that what he attempted to steal is the same thing he now has from the productive week? Or is that just a red herring?

It’s most likely a marketing decision. Look at what Mountain Dew did with their limited-time flavors. Some of them they bring back seasonally, but they were never intended to be for sale perpetually.

Fact is, when something desirable goes out of stock, that makes people all the more pliable when it comes back in stock.

:/

I would sympathize, but it appears to be a theme with you, lobbying for exclusive items to stay exclusive in whatever capacity you happen to own them or are going for them.

I find it hard to believe that this has anything to do with boredom, unless you somehow find it more entertaining to walk around feeling special than not?

Chad Taylor.3487:

1. Create a new shortcut for Guild Wars 2 or make a copy the existing one with a different name.

2. Then right-click on it and select “properties”. A window should pop-up with a edit box titled “Target” that shows the Gw2.exe.

3. Add [ -nosound] after the exe without brackets. Make sure there is a space before the dash.

4. Click OK and launch the game with the shortcut.

5. Verify it worked by ensuring the game isn’t outputting audio.

Ok, thanks.

So since the patch, I tried adjusting my character model settings beyond “lowest” and so far I think there is improvement to what I was experiencing before. I haven’t tried large-scale stuff yet, such as world bosses (I’ll report back if they are unplayable).

The -nosound adjustment appears to have made a difference. I ran around Mystic Plaza with and without, and the difference wasn’t huge, but I did notice that my FPS hovered at high 20s/low 30s with the adjustment and something like low 20s/high20s without it. If I recall correctly, the low point for with -nosound was roughly 4 FPS higher than without.

It’s a bit hard to tell for sure cause the spikes definitely happen most around people and I don’t have a static group of people to move in and around.

Anyway, appreciate the effort trying to track this stuff down. I will report back with anything pertinent I notice.

Chad Taylor.3487:

If you are still seeing performance stuttering or fluctuations please try running the client with “-nosound” and let me know if it helps.

Where do you put the “-nosound” to try it?

froacus.6892:

just waited a bit.

also, its nothing new (unless you weren’t around in 2012). i did some googling.

Ah ok.

froacus.6892:

found something interesting from Sampson

Sampson

hide spoiler

part of Mad memoires part 2.

How did you get him to talk?

Getefix.9150:

has anyone tried the ghostly spineguard yet? if its a back item, like people wnt, makes sense that a back item is needed o craft it.. IF its a back item

Just checked it out. Ghostly Spineguard doesn’t show up in forge at all, so looks like that’s a no.

“He was surprised they hadn’t given up, they must be very sensitive about their heritage here, the item itself was a bit too everyday to inspire this kind of rage.”

This seems to imply that the item is both somewhat generic and perhaps named in some special way pertaining to the culture in question and its heritage.

Just posting thoughts as they come.

“an endeavor likely to leave one examining refuse closer than generally preferable”

I wonder if this is a hint to where he was running in or just part of the story. Is there a place where you would find garbage?

Kross.6428:

Suggestions:

• Keep the new system…
  AND
• Add option for smaller increments like 50 gems and 100 gems.
  AND/OR
• Add advanced options to purchase custom amounts. (For example, I want to buy X gems, and it tells me it will cost Y gold. Vice versa.)

I assume most of this “confusion” in regards the old system was due to the fact that players would have to guess around with gold amounts to get a certain number of gems, instead of ordering a specific quantity of gems and seeing the market value. I think this was the issue that they were trying to alleviate. The way I see it, with my third point, this problem is eliminated, and it allows players to happily purchase their desired amount.

If the goal was truly to alleviate confusion, I don’t understand why they didn’t just do #3 in the first place. As in, “I want to purchase 54 gems with gold. Type in 54 gems into a box, other box says how much gold it will cost.” Boom. Not complicated. All they would have needed to do at that point is make sure the UI reads clear in terms of what currency you’re exchanging and what currency you’ll be receiving. Could have even done an “are you sure?” prompt that tells you what you’ll lose and what you’ll gain.

I am finding it hard to believe that confusion was the issue here.

I just looked closer and now I’m really feeling like this change was rushed without proper examination at all. Every single amount has a “buy” button for more gems… it’s the height of redundancy and wasted UI real estate.

Those buttons make sense for the LEFT side, where you exchange gems for gold. The RIGHT side, where you exchange gold for gems – why would you put the buy gems buttons there? You already have a big one, saying Buy More Gems right at the bottom of the row.

The word Buy is listed 10 times on that page and at least 4 of them make no sense in their placement at all. I am having a really hard time not taking this as blatant money-grabbing design.

I understand having easy buttons for usability, but you should really implement a “put in your own amount” button for experienced users, alongside the change.

I’m not blaming anyone in particular – you guys are just doing your jobs, probably for some generalized bottom line. But this seems like a massive oversight.

It’s a situation where having a Test Server would be downright essential. You would have heard feedback almost immediately on the problems of having it restricted to set numbers.

Namely: Leftover gems and small transactions.

It’s strange that the gem store team put Foil-Wrapped Candy in the store at a 25 gem cost, on the same day that the exchange overhaul happened. Means if you want to trade gold for gems to get one, you have to invest in 400 gems? Makes no sense.

The lack of choice for small numbers is just going to estrange tons of people who make use of the gold>gem exchange. I would guess that the gem>gold crowd won’t care as much, but they are still going to encounter the “strange number of remaining gems” problem.

On the positive side, I’m thoroughly enjoying the Halloween festivities. It’s just I expect more from you guys with a change like this.

I’m pretty sure there aren’t any technical limitations? I thought it was just extra work because of potential clipping.

I thought the “technical limitations” aspect was only in relation to the notion of allowing armor classes to wear stuff that isn’t their class.

Maybe it’ll be a fix for every problem with the game that people have mentioned in the past 6 months (gotta stay grounded in reality, ya know).

:P

If you do a fashion segment, I would be happy to be a judge, assuming I’m available at the time.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Labjax.2465:

And as usual, someone is making a point to represent the farmers as nothing but bad and mean.

I’m confused as to why YOU don’t make points to represent them as helpful and benevolent in their quest for riches? Oh, because they aren’t? Right.

I’m sure there are those farming the Event failures that keep their disdain for those completing the events off map chat and that’s very mature of them. I’d say the ones acting like children throwing tantrums when things don’t go their way might be responsible for the bad reputation being applied to the term “Event Fail Farmers”. Not really the fault of those pursuing the Event as designed, is it.

Lol, why does it need to be one or the other? “They are either bad and selfish or benevolent and helpful.” A handful represent the extremes, but most are just human beings who fall somewhere in the middle.

I don’t know why you’re prejudiced against them. Not everyone who farms is sitting there in disdain the moment anyone disrupts their plans.

pdavis.8031:

Dasenthal.6520:

pdavis.8031:

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

I would like to throw 4 Anet Developers into the Mystic Toilet.

Would that make one super developer? Although the idea is….interesting…the question is: Do we want to sacrifice 4 great devs for 1 better dev? Even if we did, I can’t think of anyone I would want to give up. :P

There is a rumor that there are more than one John Smith… Maybe that’s it!
We throw in John Smith + John Smith + John Smith + John Smith and we get Back “JOHN SMITH” the ultimate John Smith…

LOL

The multiple John Smiths must be his horcruxes, so by combining them into the forge, we will get the original John Smith back, and then he can once again come back on the forums and put those who think they know what they are talking about back into their place. :P

Maybe John Smith is an AI, like in the Matrix…

Wait a minute. What if John Smith is Zommoros? It all makes sense now!

Yoroiookami.3485:

You mean that we will smith John Smith? That’s the punniest thing of the day.

Well we’ve still got time for more, as the details get hammered out.

Stooperdale.3560:

Labjax.2465:

And as usual, someone is making a point to represent the farmers as nothing but bad and mean.

The OP has claimed that farmers are shouting abuse at other players for completing events, presumably because it interferes with their wealth creation. That would be my definition of mean spirited behavior.

Right, it’s farmers who are (allegedly) doing the abuse. That doesn’t mean all farmers shout abuse and are only out for their own, selfish profit. A distinction you’re probably aware of, but it wasn’t really represented in your post.

Stooperdale.3560:

As usual the farmers are hitting the weakest point they can find in the game design and trying to abuse it for their own wealth. As usual they are not respecting other players, since that would slow down their personal wealth creation scheme. As usual they claim they are within their rights and it is other people that are causing problems. As usual, the events will be modified so that the farmers will have to take their toxicity elsewhere and everyone else will casual on as they did before.

And as usual, someone is making a point to represent the farmers as nothing but bad and mean.

Stooperdale.3560:

Any surprises?

Nope!

Tentonhammr.7849:

250 thick leather sections + 250 thick leather sections + 250 thick leather sections +250 thick leather sections= 1 bank space voucher

This made me smile.

Tanith.5264:

Let’s throw four complainers into the Mystic Toilet and see what happens.

If you do, you get a chance to get a Legendary Complainer. This Complainer, when activated, quits the game, buys a bunch of copies of the game, and then makes a video burning them all in a bonfire while talking about how much better a game GW1 was.

Is it a rock? I hope it’s not a rock. :O

phabby.8945:

John Smith.4610:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

John Smith.4610:

The idea is to discuss RNG as a concept inside of games and reward systems. I think more discussion will lead to better understanding of the problems current systems may have, and the pros and cons of other possible systems.

John, could you give us a bit direction here? I’m not quite sure what specifics we could/should discuss… it seems pretty one-sided that many think RNG is bad and tokens could work.

At the heart, there’s 3 basic options:
1. Mostly RNG
2. No RNG
3. Hyrbid RNG (where most games are)

starter concepts for cons of each system:

1. Many players can feel like they have “bad luck”, in fact players with standard to pretty good luck are still likely to feel bad because of how humans interpret data.

2. A completely predictable experience lacks moments when something fantastic happens.

3. You run the risk of getting the cons of both systems without very precise design

An important question may be to ask if a model is still a good concept and a great implementation just needs to be focused on or if the model doesn’t work fundamentally.

What was the system in GW1? That seamed to work well didn’kitten

I just tried to edit the very last 2 words and umm I never put the word kitten in there its spose to say Didn’t It

For future reference tip, I believe if you remove the apostrophe, it circumvents the overactive filter. It’s treating the two words as if there’s no space between them and as if didn ends at the apostrophe.

Zaklex.6308:

Most events that create this toxicity end up having a ‘’fail’ restart of under 5 – 10 minutes, and the person that suggested 20 doesn’t quite get that even that amount of time between restarts is insufficient. Simple solution is to have all restarts on fail be a minimum of 1 hour; 60 minutes might sound like a lot, but it gives plenty of time to do something else while waiting for the event to restart, you can’t realistically repeat the event in a reasonable time frame but it still allows for event completion. Or you could just go the route of improved rewards for success/completion.

I wasn’t meaning to suggest that 20 minutes is a magic number for avoiding the problem. Merely that a large enough period of time in-between (whatever that may be) would dissuade people from failing.

But yes, I largely agree that doing so isn’t any sort of real solution to the problem. It’s just a band-aid deterrent.

Behellagh.1468:

If you find this thread annoying just understand the feeling some of us get when we defend the TP and economy.

I understand how frustrating it can be when people misrepresent knowledge. And I equally understand the urge to mock, as it takes a fraction of the effort that it would take to inform people.

But the truth is, it doesn’t serve any constructive purpose. At the end of the day, the people who don’t understand probably still don’t understand and a bunch of people who do understand now feel vindicated. That’s about it.

If the goal is to improve the quality of discussion and inform people, those who understand economies are better served with providing straightforward information on how they work (a great example of this is John Smith’s Q&A thread).

That said, I’ve done my fair share of mocking over the years and I probably wouldn’t be batting an eyelid at this thread, if it wasn’t for the persistent bumping to keep it in the limelight and the persistent refusal to evolve beyond refutations of its premise.

Tim.6450:

Labjax.2465:

Hmm, ok. Thanks for the ideas. I don’t have the glorious set right now, but I may look into going for it.

You also could go strider’s chest but then you get closer to some armored ninja-ish get up which may remove the cyborg aspect.

I see what you mean. I’ll have to experiment with some coloring on the previews and see if I can determine anything from there.

John Smith.4610:

At the heart, there’s 3 basic options:
1. Mostly RNG
2. No RNG
3. Hyrbid RNG (where most games are)

starter concepts for cons of each system:

1. Many players can feel like they have “bad luck”, in fact players with standard to pretty good luck are still likely to feel bad because of how humans interpret data.

2. A completely predictable experience lacks moments when something fantastic happens.

3. You run the risk of getting the cons of both systems without very precise design

An important question may be to ask if a model is still a good concept and a great implementation just needs to be focused on or if the model doesn’t work fundamentally.

In the interest of not hitting the character cap on my post (which I already did while trying to submit T_T) I have gone through and shaved down my post to the essentials:

I think it can be said that there are a few key principles at work here – Namely: fairness, control, information, and desire.

Fairness, because it’s so subject to interpretation, is most important as perceived fairness. It’s rather easy for us to write a program that uses some kind of pseudo-random number gen, but it’s another thing entirely to convince people that their odds are the same as the next guy.

Control (or “empowerment”) is, again, most important as a perceived thing. If people have perfect control over the outcome (as with a token system) then we see the negatives of that, including – but not limited to – the loss of the “fantastic moment” (as you described it). So instead, people need to feel like they have control over the outcome, without actually having as much control as they think they do.

Information is tied to feeling empowered. I think it’s a key part of allowing the player to be empowered, but once again, too much information means a loss of the fantastic moment, among other detrimental feelings, such as overwhelm with the enormity of the number of tokens needed for every item you want.

Desire is probably the most subjective of all of them and it’s also something that’s subject to the game’s rules. People tend to desire most what is difficult to obtain or has the higher perceived value, regardless of what its inherent value is.

I will mostly talk about empowerment and information. Perhaps pure RNG is something that can provide more information and maintain some of the empowerment of the more predictable alternative (such as tokens) while keeping the fantastic moment intact.

For example, say you loot a mob and then you are asked to literally roll a die for loot, which then tells you what number you got and what loot “pool” you pulled from. Setting aside for the moment the practically of making something like that work in the middle of intense combat, the concept is that the player can now take ownership of the result on a more psychological level.

I remember in another game, where there was a Need vs. Greed system on some loot items, my buddies and I would sometimes joke about one of our guildies hacking the results of his die rolls because he got high rolls really often (you could see the roll number people got when needing/greeding for an item). The point is, we instinctively gave ownership of the roll to him, despite it ultimately being a computer program that calculates the result.

Using a Tequatl kill as an example for how to empower more, let’s say the minimum player expectation (or “desire”) is to get four rares in total, from the boxes if nothing else. We empower the player by letting him/her roll the die and see the result. He rolls a 4, a 6, a 2, and a 7 (out of 20). All very low numbers. He gets two rares (we’ll say the 6 and the 7 pass the necessary threshold). But he’s not happy. He didn’t even get close to his expected minimum.

But we leave him with a mystery box now. He can put a rare into that mystery box and go for another roll. He can put an additional rare in to slightly raise his odds of getting something valuable out of the box. He puts both in, rolls, and gets a 12 out of 20 this time, which is enough to net him two rares. He breaks even.

At the end of it, he’s left with exactly what he had before. But now he feels like he chose his fate. He rolled the die and broke even, but it is his choice in the matter that ended with him having two rares.

I’m not necessarily saying implement a mystery box but the general idea is:

TL;DR – Give people more perceived empowerment and more information to power that perception, without taking away the fantastic moment, and we might have something that is more psychologically gratifying, if nothing else. Any thoughts on this are of course welcome.

Obtena.7952:

If a player could set some of these parameters on a character, RNG could give drops more appealing to the player by virtue of how useful they would be. I think recent decision to align some fraction of the armor drops to your class was a good one. That idea could be expanded.

I think I’ve seen a few people mention the idea of players setting some kind of parameters. I feel like the idea has potential, but I do have to ask, how would we handle things like market trends?

For example, the player who sees that X item is selling for more, so he sets his parameters to get more of that item.

Or how would we handle the supply of certain items that potentially dries up because demand for those items goes down (the loss of demand meaning that players change their parameters to other stuff that they want).

Including even large groups of players changing their parameters in an organized manner to affect the supply of a particular item.