Guild Wars 2

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

They should make it a toggle if they are going to have a profession based loot in the game. If you want to have profession loot on okay and if you don’t then that’s okay also. Plus they should fix the recipes. It’s bad enough that silk is used in all armor crafting, it should not also have such high recipe cost.

Since they won’t fix the silk recipes they really should not have this in game. Having certain professions being better for certain things like farming totally messes up class balance. The game shouldn’t be XXXX is best for dungeons and XXXX is best for event farming and XXXX is best for open world farming and XXXX is best for spvp and XXXX is best for wvw. Everything should be just as viable or at least only slightly off from each other. Sadly I think they want it this way so that they can get everyone to get more alts so you have a character for each type of content. Rather than just one character that does it all.

i think a lot of people in the 1-80 range complain about getting drops they have no use for, so they did it. However i dont think at the time the consider how it would effect farming at a micro level (they probably looked at the macro effects)

I think they should allow you to select which proffession bias you want, or 100% random. This would be the best of all worlds.

Torsailr.8456:

Disconnects would be a risk just like any other dungeon.

If you can save and return it kind of feels like regular fractals with a different reward structure. In which case, why not just adjust fractals? By making it a marathon then it creates a new form of challenge and a slightly different game mode.

he didnt say save and return, he said log out there.
Essentially your charachter would be trapped there until you leave, unable to use any sort of inventory/salvage/repair management aside from what you get in the dungeon. They cant get anything sent to them, and they cant get sent out.

So its not like saving your progress, doing something and coming back, its more like putting your game on pause for

my guess is people would dedicate a charachter slot to it, however, in order to get the big drops, they would have to put in the time, and eventually to ever make use of anything they have in there, they would have to leave.

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s not difficult to earn enough gold to beat inflation. Do not confuse inflation with changes that directly impact supply and/or demand.

• The increase in price of scraps and logs last December was not caused by inflation.
• The increase in price of certain legendary weapons last December was not caused by inflation.
• The increase in prices of levendary weapons last April was not caused by inflation.
• The increase in prices for mini’s last month was not caused by inflation.
• The decrease in price of precursors in November 2012 was not caused by deflation.

Whoops I used the inflation word. I meant the trends for value of desired precurors steadily rises at a rate you have to beat in order to get the item.

Fact is the game has been out for maybe 780ish days and highly desired precursors have gone up about 1100 gold.
Roughly 3 months ago dusks were 100 gold cheaper, so this trend is continuing.

Being that this is the case, one cannot argue that 1 gold gets you any closer to a precursor. Getting close to precursor is more about relative earning than absolute value.

I just wanted to make that distinction as people often are quick to blame inflation when it’s often not the culprit. The prices in precursors fluctuate quite a lot. I’ve tracked the prices for a few and the costs for them have actually gone down in the past week.

weekly prices arent too relevant, they may have gone down in last week, and are still 100 gold higher than they were 90 days ago, when people we complaining that they were going up too fast. the overall trend is still upward. and 90 days before that they were lower, and the 90 days before that.

i mean we can theorize we have finally hit the precursor breaking point and prices will now normalize, but somehow i have a feeling some new change will spark them up again, history repeats itself

They are relevant when it comes to the fluctuations and that you can get it for cheaper depending on when you place the buy/sell order. I’m not specifically referring to the average price over time.

ah well the branch of the conversation i was jumping in on, was the assertion that obtaning a precursor is the same as obtaining 1750 mats, every 1 mat you get being 1/1750 the way there, and every gold you get being 1/1500.

For that point, the value of it on a weekly basis isnt as important as the fact that whether that 1 gold is 1/1500 of the way there or not depends largely on your earning in comparison to the amount precursors rise in price of a long period of time.
Essentially, a person saving 1 gold a day, is unlikely to ever get a precursor at this rate. 2 gold a day, also unlikely.

Torsailr.8456:

Kasima.8143:

I’d like to add a suggestion to your suggestion : To make it possible to log off and log back in the same instance, without losing your progress. This way, we could have dungeons that last for days and weeks. It would be awesome!

… because I don’t think that the best loot should be reserved to those who can go over 24 hours without sleeping.

I think the opposite would be more interesting.

Make it an Iron Man/Marathon style dungeon where there is no saving your place. If you leave, you have to start over. If you want the really nice or exotic loot then run the dungeon for 5-6 hours straight. Make it so the longer you keep playing the higher the chance of getting exotic drops to the point where if you can keep playing for 12 hours then you might actually have a 5% chance at exotics per drop instead of the .000001% chance it normally is.

It may be a hardship to try a marathon like that, but if the rewards are worth it, people will do it.

but i dont really think its worth it to do it that way, also how will that work for disconnects and other such things? The iron man part is you only have what you come in with and your resources are dwindling, you can leave at any time, but then you have to start over.

calyx.9086:

phys.7689:

calyx.9086:

Vayne.8563:

Would you believe there are people in this game for which dungeons are still challenging?

And those people need to go back to Candy Crush or the Sims or minesweeper or solitaire where they belong. All they do is contribute to the dumbing down of a game with a lot of potential.

sorry man, but candy crush, solitaire, and minesweeper are substantially more difficult than this game. minesweeper is a logic puzzle, solitare involves greater memory prediction organization skills, and candy crush has like 100 levels of difficulty that statistically small % of millions of players ever reach.

Your hardcore MMO game is the one for simpletons, not the facebook/microsoft accessory pack games.
All we got really going for us difficulty wise is more buttons, and less clarity on what is happening in game.

Yeah I should not have included Candy Crush here. I stand by minesweeper and solitaire.

man minesweeper with like a bunch of 4s and 3s and 2s mixed in, logically figuring out where the bomb must be is substantially more brain power than this game has ever asked you for.

i mean you could just guess, but unless you are pyschic you will have a fairly low completion rate.

Ayrilana.1396:

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s not difficult to earn enough gold to beat inflation. Do not confuse inflation with changes that directly impact supply and/or demand.

• The increase in price of scraps and logs last December was not caused by inflation.
• The increase in price of certain legendary weapons last December was not caused by inflation.
• The increase in prices of levendary weapons last April was not caused by inflation.
• The increase in prices for mini’s last month was not caused by inflation.
• The decrease in price of precursors in November 2012 was not caused by deflation.

Whoops I used the inflation word. I meant the trends for value of desired precurors steadily rises at a rate you have to beat in order to get the item.

Fact is the game has been out for maybe 780ish days and highly desired precursors have gone up about 1100 gold.
Roughly 3 months ago dusks were 100 gold cheaper, so this trend is continuing.

Being that this is the case, one cannot argue that 1 gold gets you any closer to a precursor. Getting close to precursor is more about relative earning than absolute value.

I just wanted to make that distinction as people often are quick to blame inflation when it’s often not the culprit. The prices in precursors fluctuate quite a lot. I’ve tracked the prices for a few and the costs for them have actually gone down in the past week.

weekly prices arent too relevant, they may have gone down in last week, and are still 100 gold higher than they were 90 days ago, when people we complaining that they were going up too fast. the overall trend is still upward. and 90 days before that they were lower, and the 90 days before that.

i mean we can theorize we have finally hit the precursor breaking point and prices will now normalize, but somehow i have a feeling some new change will spark them up again, history repeats itself

hybrid.5027:

phys.7689:

hybrid.5027:

Hyper Cutter.9376:

The rest of the legendary process works perfectly as a long-term goal: assemble the gifts bit by bit, one by one, over whatever time frame works for you (even if it’s a year or more), and then you get to the precursor and you have to grind gold, either to pay the Toilet or to pay someone much luckier than you. That’s where the whole thing falls apart.

You need 250 of each t6 mat. When a t6 mat drops in a dungeon you are 1/2000th closer to that goal.

Dusk costs 1500. When you complete a dungeon and 1g drops, you are 1/1500th closer.

I don’t see the difference. It’s incremental progression. The only thing I can think of is the belief that inflation is constantly moving the goal post, but that hasn’t been particularly true for the last two months and 2 months is plenty of time to get gold for a Dusk if that was what you desired.

the price of dusk changes over time, you are not 1/1500 closer to your goal when you complete a dungeon. by the time you get 1500 it maybe be 2k, by the time you get 2k it maybe 2.2k.

only once you surpass the earning speed of inflation do you make progress, and even then how much progress you make is still relative.

someone who earned one gold a day in the beginning of the game could get a precursor in like 120-250 days. someone who earns one gold a day now needs an infinite amount of days because in the last 90 days, dusk has gone up 120 gold. and that is the difference/problem with high price precursors

Wow. I even addressed you bad point premptively when I mentioned how the price hasnt really risen in the last two months and you STILL went with it anyway. did you fail to read it? Did you fail to believe it?

So I’ll say it again; the price of Dusk has been stable for over 60 days. 60 days is more than enough time to get that much gold without really going out of your way to do so. So now whats your excuse?

precursors move in bursts, i looked at some random day in july and it was 1360 selling price and today it is 1470 thats 110 gold in 90 days. perhaps for 60 days it will be stable but for enough time to earn it at 1 gold per day it has always as history has shown, gone up faster than it would take earn that amount of money making 1 gold a day. You can say hey, i believe now precursors of high demand have finally stabilized and will no longer increase in price, but everyone who said that before has been wrong, i would go with the data that shows that it is not true, and precursors will continue to up in value.

oh yeah, and the fact that you think getting 1470 gold in 2 months is feasible shows you have a fairly skewed perception of earning, and are probably in the upper echelon of relative money earning. which is why you dont really get the precursor complaints.

calyx.9086:

Vayne.8563:

Would you believe there are people in this game for which dungeons are still challenging?

And those people need to go back to Candy Crush or the Sims or minesweeper or solitaire where they belong. All they do is contribute to the dumbing down of a game with a lot of potential.

sorry man, but candy crush, solitaire, and minesweeper are substantially more difficult than this game. minesweeper is a logic puzzle, solitare involves greater memory prediction organization skills, and candy crush has like 100 levels of difficulty that statistically small % of millions of players ever reach.

Your hardcore MMO game is the one for simpletons, not the facebook/microsoft accessory pack games.
All we got really going for us difficulty wise is more buttons, and less clarity on what is happening in game.

IndigoSundown.5419:

phys.7689:

people keep saying this, and it is false.

people who want rewards are not the opposite of people who want challenge. This idea that you are either one or the other is a false ideaology. People who like easy games are the ones in opposition to the ones who want challenge.

I never suggested that wanting challenge and wanting rewards are mutually exclusive. You made that up. Demographics are not always of one mind. There are some “want challenge” players who don’t give a care about rewards. Some care more about rewards than the challenge. Some care equally. Some want the bragging rights. It’s a continuum. The issue in this thread has migrated from, “More challenge.” to “More challenge and better/exclusive rewards.” In these type of threads, it always does.

phys.7689:

lets be clear the current assumption in america is most people want rewards, regardless of the level of challenge they enjoy. (the entire economy is based on this principle)

ANet has obviously established a pattern of rewarding some play styles more than others. If you don’t care to run dungeons and don’t want to train, rewards are pretty well either not going to be gained at all, or will accrue drastically more slowly. However, they’ve also implemented what is, in large part, an egalitarian reward design. Most rewards can be gotten by anyone, but some play styles will get them sooner. There are exclusive rewards, but they are not the norm.

phys.7689:

So all that your saying is that some players who want challenge but also want reward must choose between easy grind, and leaving the game (for the far majority of rewards) whereas the people who want easy content and reward do not have to choose.

Let’s widen the perspective a bit. How many games offer better/exclusive rewards linked to challenge? Those games offer no choice to those who want egalitarian access to rewards. Challenge players have a choice in GW2, they just don’t like it.

Yes, there is certainly an issue around rewards created by ANet because they don’t want to make too many rewards that are not available to all play styles. I get that you — and others — don’t like it. I can see why ANet did it though. They believe it is better for the health of their game. Of course, they could be misreading the numbers of those who want the same old challenge/reward play-style from older games.

the main reason i dont like it is because it promotes really degenerative gameplay, IF you want rewards. The most profitable playstyles are the most tedious, boring playstyles.
Back when i was trying to grind my legendary, most of the entertaining things my guild wanted to do were actually ineffecient time wise towards working to my in game goals. Its like hey, get more players together, do this harder content, use more time, now get 1/3rd what you would have gotten on the champ train, watching netflix with a tiny window in the corner of your screen.

The systems they have presented are working against the game design, and making it more vapid, less entertaining, and actually more grindy (because when things are money based, it is about competitive earning potential, so you got to grind more) This is where the current reward system to not reward people differently for different tasks leads to.

Hayashi.3416:

Farm in mesmers. If you have problems tagging random mobs in groups, GS4 + Mantra of Pain are your best friends. If others are using projectiles (nearly a guaranteed thing in large zergs), drop glamours on the targets for combo-tags. Null fields on the mobs that like to use boons or conditions, Feedback on the mobs that use projectiles.

If you have problems tagging champions… then use another class.

feedback works, when they get to attack, but in big zergs? Orr event farm zergs? regular mobs die super fast.

Mystic.5934:

phys.7689:

Asmodeus.5782:

lakdav.3694:

I dont quite get the rage against this feature. Im completely indifferent about it. What is so bad about it being prof-specific on lvl80 and how does that effect the economy of the game so badly?

Leather is almost worthless.
Silk is really pricey.

Light classes > medium classes

And to be precise, the best farming class now would be mesmer, to also have a chance for the best (GS) precursor material.

unfortunately no, mesmer is one of the slowest classes to claim, they simply cannot compete in terms of claiming monsters. most of their skills are single target, and slow to hit.
if you had a pack of say 10-15 people mesmer can do alright, but 20+ they arent making enough claims to capitalize on their loot.

you need to play mesmer more. my strategy: hit you with clone, hit you with clone, hit you with clone, stand there, and… Mind Wrack and tag all the mobs! (20) admittedly it’s a bit slower than guardian AA, but tags far mobs when it happens. you can then repeat with Cry of Frustration for the next wave. Instead of the typical tag, tag, tag, tag, it’s: charge, TAG, charge, TAG. the other great one is Phantasmal Berserker, which can tag up to 20 targets, and Mirror Blade, plus you need to target far away mobs so GS AA hits all the ones inbetween.

i used to be able to do that in events, but megaserver is too fast for that, by the time a clone spawns everything that is not a veteran is already dead.
the best way is to dodge roll mind wrack really fast on spot you know enemies will spawn, ( have level 30 grandmaster trait so you guarantee to at least wrack around yourself) but thats on a 10 second cool down, so after the initial spawns you are trying to land single targets.

beserker hits guys, but then it dies because the target dies, you really have to hope your target doesnt die before you can press the button cause then you wasted a cool down with no zerker.

cry doesnt even get to proc enough dmg to claim a lot in these situations.

Vayne.8563:

Crovax.7854:

There most definitely is an audience for games that treat you like an actual adult.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/05/08/dark-souls-ii-sells-1-2m-units-in-three-weeks/
1,2m in 3 weeks is pretty good if you ask me but I get where you’re coming from.
It just feels so incredibly insulting being handheld all the way, especially when they changed it from a good system to one that aims to bring in people with zero initiative (Is that the right word in english? What i mean is the ability to think for oneself and make calls based on good judgement/common sense).

I’m not against the NPE, I think it’s a good thing if it makes people actually better at the game. It’s just that my gut feeling tells me that the Sept. patch wasn’t a crash, more of a ‘brace for impact’ sign before all the really bad players reach max level.
And when they do… May god help our poor souls.

Maybe I’m wrong though :/

First of all, Dark Souls is available on both PC and console. Console is a bigger audience, which means selling that many copies is just okay. Anet sold more than that before the game launched and it’s only available on PC.

Now, what percentage of people who bought the game actually played the game for any length of time. People buy games for all sorts of reasons, but for a game like Dark Souls, the purchase is it. It doesn’t have to hold you for an hour. They’re not going to make millions of dollars off their cash shop.

That’s the thing. MMOs last longer, have higher overhead. If people don’t stay with the game, the game is in trouble. This doesn’t just mean long term players. It means people playing the first ten levels. Anet obviously had a problem with how many people were actually graduating to become players. They had to fix this.

But it’s not hand holding all the way. Most of the hand holding is in the first ten levels, which is pretty much what most MMOs do. There is NOTHING wrong with teaching a game to people. Nothing at all.

anet sold that many on PC before the game launched, under the assumption that it would be similar in challenge to GW1. I will say it really is not. Though i prefer gw2 combat, exploration, etc. DOA Underworld, challenge missions, hard mode vanquishing, heck for some missions, normal mode was harder than gw2,

So basically most the people who bought GW in the first month, believed it would be like gw1, even if they never played it, they would be going off how hard other people said it would be. This implies not everyone is as incapable, or non desiring of challenge as you imagine

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Beldin.5498:

NoTrigger.8396:

and the game will die if we dont get new and challenging content.

Yepp :

With 3 Million players and growing since launch

http://ch.tbe.taleo.net/CH05/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=NCSOFT&cws=1&rid=1884

I don’t think NCSoft would write the same about Wildstar with all its challenging content.

You believe in truth I. Advertising? Novel concept. Once again wildstar isn’t really hard. Maybe high level raids are, but that is a minority of its content. Hve you played the game?

A lot of people did find Wildstar hard. It’s certainly harder than GW 2.

you have any source on this? because i played it, and i never got up to the hard parts, most of the hard stuff was supposed to be high end dungeons. In fact they had soloable small scale dungeons. Since i played for 1.5 months, i doubt casuals ever hit the possible wall of high end content in that time. (i played more than a few hours a day on average) They did have some cool design elements here and there that wasnt hard, but if i had to say why people probably quit….

Old school graphics, overly cartoony world, poor aethetics, quest hub progression, and monthly fee, basically because the WoW clone elements, while familiar, dont really make you want to keep coming back to that game specifically. They probably made people want to play wow again. after all, if it costs 15 bucks a month you got to choose. And while you could buy subscription with gold, it still makes you watch your dollars, and try to decide if its worthwhile.

Lishtenbird.2814:

phys.7689:

Lishtenbird.2814:

I do not think that 30 minutes are in any way a representative sample for such kind of statistics. I can get 3 exotics within one 30 minute window on one char and 0 on another char; does it mean that one of my characters will always get exotics?

you have a point in theory, but in reality it is inline with the design intentions of the last patch. A change that was unnoticeable would serve no purpose in their intentions.
While his data may be slightly off, its highly likely it closer to accurate than it is not.

1) The change was supposed to be unnoticeable:

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

The adjustments to the loot system are fairly subtle and the goals are that, after a certain time, your characters will effectively have more components you can use. So it may take some time for you to see a difference, or not, but it’s not going to feel like a very visible change each time you loot a mob. We want players, in particular new ones or those creating alts, to more often be able to use the items they loot directly or get something that is relevant to their profession. It does not mean that you’ll get less varied loot overall. We’ll keep monitoring the changes to kitten its affects.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

Morsus.5106:

Does this mean that it will affect level 80s?

Yes it will but the change will not be easily noticeable.

2) A barely noticeable change at the very minimum serves the PR purpose of “making the game friendlier” and having something nice to put in the blog about the Feature Patch.

SKATE.1394:

Lishtenbird.2814:

I do not think that 30 minutes are in any way a representative sample for such kind of statistics. I can get 3 exotics within one 30 minute window on one char and 0 on another char; does it mean that one of my characters will always get exotics?

Not even gonna bother picking this post apart. Add to the discussion then, post your own results.

I added to the discussion the most important part: the reliability of the data on which you based the whole discussion. Again, 30 minutes of killing a random amount of random mobs on most likely randomly geared classes is not a representative sample.

As our statistics professor used to quote, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, kitten ed lies, and statistics”.

P.S. I can also add that on my staff guardian I’m getting tons more loot than on my mesmer, and that I didn’t feel like I got enough profession-specific loot as drops on the warrior which I’ve been leveling for around 50 levels.

Guardians tag super easily and mesmers are the worst at tagging. I said earlier in the thread mesmers will always be crappy for farming mobs in groups.

Also I’m sorry but the dev comment was meant to placate, and she uses subjective phrases that no one can challenge.

Beldin.5498:

NoTrigger.8396:

and the game will die if we dont get new and challenging content.

Yepp :

With 3 Million players and growing since launch

http://ch.tbe.taleo.net/CH05/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=NCSOFT&cws=1&rid=1884

I don’t think NCSoft would write the same about Wildstar with all its challenging content.

You believe in truth I. Advertising? Novel concept. Once again wildstar isn’t really hard. Maybe high level raids are, but that is a minority of its content. Hve you played the game?

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s not difficult to earn enough gold to beat inflation. Do not confuse inflation with changes that directly impact supply and/or demand.

• The increase in price of scraps and logs last December was not caused by inflation.
• The increase in price of certain legendary weapons last December was not caused by inflation.
• The increase in prices of levendary weapons last April was not caused by inflation.
• The increase in prices for mini’s last month was not caused by inflation.
• The decrease in price of precursors in November 2012 was not caused by deflation.

Whoops I used the inflation word. I meant the trends for value of desired precurors steadily rises at a rate you have to beat in order to get the item.

Fact is the game has been out for maybe 780ish days and highly desired precursors have gone up about 1100 gold.
Roughly 3 months ago dusks were 100 gold cheaper, so this trend is continuing.

Being that this is the case, one cannot argue that 1 gold gets you any closer to a precursor. Getting close to precursor is more about relative earning than absolute value.

Vayne.8563:

Harper.4173:

I’m not saying that the majority of the players who play are hard core. In fact I doubt that’s the case. But we don’t know.
Just like you don’t know if the majority is casual.

One thing I think is pretty much certain is that the hardcore players are the ones that are funding the game most likely.
Why ? Because the more hardcore you are the more you’re going to care about the game. The more you care about something the more you’re willing to spend on it.

I doubt it’s Casual Chris or No-Worries William who longs in now and sometime next week who dumps hundreds of dollars in the gem store upgrading his account and looks.

Marionette people doing badly isn’t about casual vs hardcore- it’s about new content being new.
I’m a hardcore player and I had trouble at Marionette before I researched it and figured out what to do.

But you’re right – there’s a lot of people who have no clue. And I believe that’s because they don’t care enough about the game. So I doubt they’ll care enough to spend.

A whole lot of casuals I know spend a whole lot of money in the gem store. Just saying. It would be a big mistake to think hard core players are funding the game.

As far as me knowing or not know, you’re right I don’t know. But I DO remember comments that devs have made over the years at least implying that hard core players were a minority, the most recent one from a Lotro dev, which has been posted many times on the forums.

So you have no evidence and I have circumstantial evidence, but neither of us know.

The thing is, if hard core players were some kind of majority, why don’t we see more hard core games? Why is the industry constantly being dumbed down?

you keep talking about hardcore, and not hardcore, its not black and white, there isnt kitten easy, and impossible. people i knew who barely played games enjoyed mario which was harder than most of this game. Pacman is harder than this game.
The casual player is not a scrub, or mentally weak. They can handle various levels of difficulty and enjoy it. Their brain doesnt explode when they die in a game.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Harper.4173:

bri.2359:

@KalaGrey

I roundly applaud your efforts in taking on Vayne’s myopic opinions, however, you must realise it is a lost cause, and in the end not worth the effort.

The sad thing is this game has already been left to the Vaynes and the super casuals coming and going through the revolving door. Oh, and lets not forget the multiple account gold sellers, bot runners, etc, All these are the ecosystem of GW2, each thriving off each other, driving theANET/NCSoft business model.

Veteran players have no place in this system, and we are being firmly frog-marched out the door.

The problem with Vayne isn’t that he’s myopic. The problem is that whether he knows it or not he’s a herder. The kind of player that feels the intrinsic need to look out for others.

He’s also in a guild of massive casuals ( which he himself has pointed out numerous times).
From what I gather – the people in his guild are really inexperienced and what could only be summed up as “bad at the game” whether because they don’t care enough or don’t want to improve.

He feels somewhat obliged to defend them, their way of playing and their “rights” in the game.

I don’t know if he himself realizes this or not.
The sad part is that everyone has a guild – and while his might be super casual the people in my guild are mostly hardcore.
It’s like he looks at the 100-150 casuals he plays with daily and assumes most players are like that ( which probably isn’t the case).

Yes there’s a casual player base. But not all of them are “hyper-casual haven’t even touched Arah or fractals”.
Most of them aren’t completionists that will burn their copy of the game once a few exclusive items are out.

The way I see it – the majority of casuals are so casual they’re clueless. Not in a bad way. They’re so disconnected from the game they pick it up – mash some stuff and log in some other time.
They have no idea what’s been added/changed, patched, updated.
They have no idea what most of the content is or does.

I doubt they’d get mad over stuff they’ve likely never seen and probably wouldn’t even know what it is if they saw it.

You’re completely wrong. I mean completely.

I am a herder and I do feel the need to defend certain people, but not the people in my guild. There are many people in my guild who are awesome at the game, and run through everything. Just not the majority of my guild. But I don’t think they’re doing anything wrong, so I don’t need to defend them.

What evidence do you have that most people that play these games are hard core? Have you EVER heard a dev say it?

Did you or did you not stand around at the Marionette and see quite easy fights become quite difficult people people didn’t really know what they were doing. I say most people are casual because I look around me at how most people are playing.

If they aren’t casual, they’re not very good. I don’t need to defend them to point out that they’re a majority.

There are a handful of people at the marionette that knew what was going on and a bunch of people who had no real clue.

That’s how it normally is in games. I’ve seen devs speak in numerous games about how few people do the hardest content. I’ve never seen a dev say that hard core players were some majority.

this is most because the game never asked them to learn anything for 90% of the game they were playing. IE, the casual skill level is low, because most of the game requires no skill. Its not because casuals are unable/lack desire, its because the game told them they didnt need to think about anything to win most encounters.

That’s a theory. Unfortunately I’ve seen a huge number of bad players in almost every game. The genre isn’t continually dumbed down because everyone gets it. That would make no sense.

If every MMO company is continually lowering the bar, then there’s got to be a reason for it. Somehow I don’t think that most players are great at the game is that reason.

games that have sold millions upon millions are harder than this game. Billion dollar game industries are harder than this. Its possible the game has design flaws in how they execute challenge, but the majority of people arent as skill less as you believe.

Vayne.8563:

Harper.4173:

bri.2359:

@KalaGrey

I roundly applaud your efforts in taking on Vayne’s myopic opinions, however, you must realise it is a lost cause, and in the end not worth the effort.

The sad thing is this game has already been left to the Vaynes and the super casuals coming and going through the revolving door. Oh, and lets not forget the multiple account gold sellers, bot runners, etc, All these are the ecosystem of GW2, each thriving off each other, driving theANET/NCSoft business model.

Veteran players have no place in this system, and we are being firmly frog-marched out the door.

The problem with Vayne isn’t that he’s myopic. The problem is that whether he knows it or not he’s a herder. The kind of player that feels the intrinsic need to look out for others.

He’s also in a guild of massive casuals ( which he himself has pointed out numerous times).
From what I gather – the people in his guild are really inexperienced and what could only be summed up as “bad at the game” whether because they don’t care enough or don’t want to improve.

He feels somewhat obliged to defend them, their way of playing and their “rights” in the game.

I don’t know if he himself realizes this or not.
The sad part is that everyone has a guild – and while his might be super casual the people in my guild are mostly hardcore.
It’s like he looks at the 100-150 casuals he plays with daily and assumes most players are like that ( which probably isn’t the case).

Yes there’s a casual player base. But not all of them are “hyper-casual haven’t even touched Arah or fractals”.
Most of them aren’t completionists that will burn their copy of the game once a few exclusive items are out.

The way I see it – the majority of casuals are so casual they’re clueless. Not in a bad way. They’re so disconnected from the game they pick it up – mash some stuff and log in some other time.
They have no idea what’s been added/changed, patched, updated.
They have no idea what most of the content is or does.

I doubt they’d get mad over stuff they’ve likely never seen and probably wouldn’t even know what it is if they saw it.

You’re completely wrong. I mean completely.

I am a herder and I do feel the need to defend certain people, but not the people in my guild. There are many people in my guild who are awesome at the game, and run through everything. Just not the majority of my guild. But I don’t think they’re doing anything wrong, so I don’t need to defend them.

What evidence do you have that most people that play these games are hard core? Have you EVER heard a dev say it?

Did you or did you not stand around at the Marionette and see quite easy fights become quite difficult people people didn’t really know what they were doing. I say most people are casual because I look around me at how most people are playing.

If they aren’t casual, they’re not very good. I don’t need to defend them to point out that they’re a majority.

There are a handful of people at the marionette that knew what was going on and a bunch of people who had no real clue.

That’s how it normally is in games. I’ve seen devs speak in numerous games about how few people do the hardest content. I’ve never seen a dev say that hard core players were some majority.

this is most because the game never asked them to learn anything for 90% of the game they were playing. IE, the casual skill level is low, because most of the game requires no skill. Its not because casuals are unable/lack desire, its because the game told them they didnt need to think about anything to win most encounters.

hybrid.5027:

Hyper Cutter.9376:

The rest of the legendary process works perfectly as a long-term goal: assemble the gifts bit by bit, one by one, over whatever time frame works for you (even if it’s a year or more), and then you get to the precursor and you have to grind gold, either to pay the Toilet or to pay someone much luckier than you. That’s where the whole thing falls apart.

You need 250 of each t6 mat. When a t6 mat drops in a dungeon you are 1/2000th closer to that goal.

Dusk costs 1500. When you complete a dungeon and 1g drops, you are 1/1500th closer.

I don’t see the difference. It’s incremental progression. The only thing I can think of is the belief that inflation is constantly moving the goal post, but that hasn’t been particularly true for the last two months and 2 months is plenty of time to get gold for a Dusk if that was what you desired.

the price of dusk changes over time, you are not 1/1500 closer to your goal when you complete a dungeon. by the time you get 1500 it maybe be 2k, by the time you get 2k it maybe 2.2k.

only once you surpass the earning speed of inflation do you make progress, and even then how much progress you make is still relative.

someone who earned one gold a day in the beginning of the game could get a precursor in like 120-250 days. someone who earns one gold a day now needs an infinite amount of days because in the last 90 days, dusk has gone up 120 gold. and that is the difference/problem with high price precursors

Mizenhauer.6713:

Interesting note: Arenanet is seeking a raid developer. Can’t say I know what that means, but an 8+ man against crippled Zhaitan would probably get me to send Anet flowers.

personally, i will probably never do any high man content, did it before, it ranged from headache, to annoying. But i wont say they shouldnt do it.

I will say they should not concentrate the bulk of their challenging content on 8-20 player content. There are many people who want depth/challenge in game who arent particularly enamored to the high man content style.

Ashen.2907:

phys.7689:

Ashen.2907:

phys.7689:

If only 5% of the population is interested in raids in LOTRO, i think only 5% of the population is interested in getting every visual/mini/title in the game. So its a battle of the completitionist who doesnt like hard content versus the people who like hard content, neither of them = the majority of players.

What do you suppose is the difference between the content development resource allocation between mini-pets and raids ?

People keep saying that a casual player will not be impacted by the introduction of optional more hardcore content with unique rewards… This would only be true if Anet had infinite development resources for the game. As it stands putting content designers etc into producing hardcore content, which (assuming it is not just more HP for the same sort of extremely casual content we see now) generally requires more time and effort than casual content, means less content for the casual minority.

Now I personally think that allocating some resources to developing harder content (with appropriate rewards) is worth the effort. In some cases this provides some longevity of gameplay even for casual players. But claiming that reducing content development for casual players will not affect them is ludicrous.

This is probably why most times harder content uses pre existing resources, (hardmode) or an instance that uses creatures, spells, and background art that also exists somewhere else. Hard content doesnt usually require much more work than having a level designer with a different focus iterate on a design.

Which means, its generally isnt stealing much resources from casual players.

To me hard mode content is more than adding health and more damage to existing mobs. It means better AI, more complicated encounters, more detailed and developed mob/group design, etc. AI development and programming are not inconsequential. Raids, to use your LoTRO example, are major resource investments.

I think it would be worth the cost, but the cost would not be insignificant. If the cost (in time, effort, money) was minimal we would probably already have it.

Personally I think that adding a hardmode setting that affects instanced content, allowing replay of the personal story, and increasing the chances for better drops from the existing loot tables in HM, adding new rewards that have a better net chance to drop in HM, all implemented so that new instanced content inherently included the HM templates so that going forward new (instanced) content addition added to both casual and hardcore player options, would be awesome.

actually its not so much about better AI, as much as better designed monster behaviors, and better designed ways for players to react to those behaviors. All groups can benefit from such technology.

Once you tighten these basics, you can increase challenge greatly by combining them.

For example fighting a monk, a warrior and an ele at once is not mechanically more difficult, but more difficult complexity wise. The amount of work for creating this difficulty, is getting a level designer to say put 3 complimentary mobs here instead of 1.

Harpy fractal with knockdowns versus without (even though the ring graphic is pretty crappy there). the only difference here is basically giving a monster one more skill, but combine the level design with this skill and the battle is more complex without being an HP bag event.

It would of course have a cost, but i think the cost would be comparitively small (its not new content really) The most cost effective way i think would be to design the encounters with high difficulty, and then scale them downwards. Its easier to make something challenging not challenging, than it is to make something not challenging challenging.

anyhow more on focus with the topic, the answer IMO, is to make players able to set thier drop bias to any proffession.
This would have the best effects of all systems.
It could balance the economy, or give people the option to get more items they can use.

no one would be pigeonheld, and people could choose what to hunt for. The supply of low value mats would go down, and high value up, based on the demand in the market.

maddoctor.2738:

The reason light materials are more expensive than the others is because all weights of all tiers use light materials. Jute, wool, cotton, linen, silk and gossamer are used in the creation of all armor types in the game. However when you salvage the armor you only get one type of material, here is the main problem.

Maybe (a big maybe) the change to affect levels 80 was implemented to “force” players in using light armor character when they farm to produce more Silk. Of course, such a big change should’ve been known to the players, if all farmers know this they will only farm with light armor classes, so in the long run everyone will profit, more Silk, less prices. I won’t rule out that this was intentional.

However, a far easier way of solving the Silk issue is by allowing all items in the game to drop materials that were used in their creation and not tie an item type to a specific material. A Medium coat would salvage into both Leather AND Silk, a Hammer would salvage into both Wood and Iron and so on.

There, simple way to solve the issue with Tailor materials being so rare.

to be honest this was a known problem that existed when the game was new. They implemented the ascended system with the same template BUT MADE THE CLOTH REQUIREMENT EVEN WORSE. Silk eventually petered out in value due to people playing at level cap forever, and not having insame grind required to get the gear you want.

essentially the item/crafting design was poor and still is,

Ashen.2907:

phys.7689:

If only 5% of the population is interested in raids in LOTRO, i think only 5% of the population is interested in getting every visual/mini/title in the game. So its a battle of the completitionist who doesnt like hard content versus the people who like hard content, neither of them = the majority of players.

What do you suppose is the difference between the content development resource allocation between mini-pets and raids ?

People keep saying that a casual player will not be impacted by the introduction of optional more hardcore content with unique rewards… This would only be true if Anet had infinite development resources for the game. As it stands putting content designers etc into producing hardcore content, which (assuming it is not just more HP for the same sort of extremely casual content we see now) generally requires more time and effort than casual content, means less content for the casual minority.

Now I personally think that allocating some resources to developing harder content (with appropriate rewards) is worth the effort. In some cases this provides some longevity of gameplay even for casual players. But claiming that reducing content development for casual players will not affect them is ludicrous.

This is probably why most times harder content uses pre existing resources, (hardmode) or an instance that uses creatures, spells, and background art that also exists somewhere else. Hard content doesnt usually require much more work than having a level designer with a different focus iterate on a design.

Which means, its generally isnt stealing much resources from casual players.

btw raids is not the definition of challenging. They can have easy 8-20 player content and hard 8-20 player content.
Just look at most of the world bosses in the game, the amount of players in there has nothing to do with difficulty at all.

Lishtenbird.2814:

I do not think that 30 minutes are in any way a representative sample for such kind of statistics. I can get 3 exotics within one 30 minute window on one char and 0 on another char; does it mean that one of my characters will always get exotics?

you have a point in theory, but in reality it is inline with the design intentions of the last patch. A change that was unnoticeable would serve no purpose in their intentions.
While his data may be slightly off, its highly likely it closer to accurate than it is not.

Vayne.8563:

So I’ve said a number of times, I’d have no real issue with harder content if the rewards were sellable.

It would give people who like hard content something to do. It would give people who don’t like hard content something to farm for.

Those who say they want hard content would have stuff to do. But I get the distinct feeling that people are so resistant to it, because they just want to show off in a video game.

I’ve said it as a compromise several times in this thread, and people still say I’m against hard content being added to the game.

I’m against rewards being added to the game that only a small percentage of people can get…and you know, I’ll probably do the hard content myself anyway. I almost never buy rewards. But I really do think it will affect the game.

And it was the standard in Guild Wars 1 anyway. Guild Wars 1 players would be right at home.

my main beef is not the show off aspect. Its because unique reward items are automaticaly exempt from ingame economic descions. Lets take dungeon skins, because they have no value in money, they can make require you to beat a dungeon 15 times for a set. However, if they were unique items for the general economy, and they wanted them to have value, they would require something like 10000 items or make it low drop rate, and thus the gold option would be like 200 gold.

So then you would either have to grind this content, or grind gold. Having unique items is the only way that things have even a chance of not being designed grindy, and yet still mean something to get.

Astralporing.1957:

phys.7689:

by doing it the way you suggest, you ensure that the game will always be about whatever is the most effecient gold farm.

Not quite. I’d rather see the items being more easily acquirable directly, than through gold farming. I just don’t want that direct method require high difficulty, or be limited to only a single playstyle (well, both could be possible if it would not be that much easier than farming gold, i guess). Nothing should also be locked behind low % rng, with no alternate way to obtain it.

phys.7689:

If everything is tradeable (which im not saying is the worst thing in the world) you should actually go out of your way to make items directly obtainable through specific playstyles.

No argument there, besides that it should never be only a single playstyle, and it should require at best moderate difficulty. Current dungeon armor, for example, is good (tokens instead of rng, most players can do it if they actually put some effort into it, and is alternatively available through pvp reward tracks. Is not sellable, but we can’t have everything i guess).

if the items are tradeable, it wouldnt be a problem if things are hidden behind higher difficulty, because the other means of obtaining them would be the TP. And lets be honest, even if an item is hard to get, people will have people who help them go past their limits.

If the items are not tradeable, i would reccomend that the changes be small, like texture/pallete swaps. or small insignias, ripped version etc. Even though i didnt get to play world 2 SAB, i had no problem with the concept that yellow skins was for hard modes only.

Ohoni.6057:

Point is it doesnt matter, catering to the 5% who must have every item with low effort, is actually more damaging than catering to the 5% who want raids.

Again, you’re either misusing terms or misunderstanding the situation, but there hasn’t been any call for making every item available with low effort, just for making it available with a low skill threshold. The low-skill method of acquiring items could require considerably more effort, just effort put forth diligently by a player who doesn’t have the physical and/or mental dexterity to engage in high skill gameplay.

My guess is people would meet the challenge and after awhile regularly do this content for better rewards.

It depends on how entertaining it is though. There are plenty of activities in the game that are more rewarding than my current rotations, but not as much fun (for me), so I don’t do them.

i dont really have a problem with rewards that you can achieve through easier means through more work.
However, i dont think it would be that damaging to have some small variation of an item that requires you to actually beat something hard.

Im guessing you didnt like the idea of the special color SAB skins? I thought it was fine to have a pallete swap for actually doing the harder content.

However, if they HAD to choose (which i dont think they do) I would prefer challenging content that has rewards that are much easier to get through challenging play, but also obtainable by doing something easier for longer periods, or slower.

Mostly i want challenging content that i can play without it being in direct opposition to what will get me the most reward for my time.

The reason some people suggest uniques, is it gives you rewards that can be valuable, but arent tied to their current focus on extremely high grind, that they feel an item must have to be of value. No one has to worry about over production of account bound liadri pets, or have their value lower based on other peoples perceptions. Yellow SAB skins mean you mastered SAB. And people who get good at this cant put a time value on it, because the item they get from it has no time value.

when they decided an item must be valuable, the halloween II it, or ascended cloth armor it. People who want challenge, often dont like extremely grindy goals, because they become easy after awhile. Non uniques of value will always be designed by the economy/item guys to be grindy, because their rarity will determine their value.

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

Astralporing.1957:

KarlaGrey.5903:

To sum up Harper’s point(s) so far:
In adding unique rewards linked to challenging content, a player would not be forced to obtain a special pet, title, or cosmetics, as it would not reduce or hinder their viability/desirability of their class nor the ability to play the game as such.

Yet many oppose adding challenging content with unique rewards – even if it would not constitute gear threadmill or other forms of vertical progression – merely because they would
1) feel "compelled/forced to get it (however that is an ’it’s all in your head’ issue), and/or
2) they might not be able to obtain it (although it is generally agreed that completionists are a minority of the playerbase).

However these same players have no issues with pvp-only rewards nor with gem-store additions, and much else with the ill-designed rewarding system (the most rewarding content atm seems to boil down to Tp flipping, Champ train, EOTM and Ascended mats, which can be summed up as rather boring and extremely unchallenging ways of playing the game).
Dat sense, much logic.

No. Vayne specifically seems to okay ascended gear as if it were somehow any different than cosmetic rewards (pvp-only rewards were not mentioned, from what i can see). That is only Vayne, though. I think it is equally bad as the unique rewards tied to difficult content. And while i do agree, that not everything is okay with gemshop, and that the reward system in this game is not that good, the fact that you can buy most of things for gold is actually okay (as it allows for getting them through multitude of options, instead of locking them behind only one).

Yes, farming is boring, and a better reward system is desperately needed. Some gemshop problems (like having lot of more valuable items from the shop hidden behind rng, for example), as well as disparity of introducing new skins to gemshop compared to the game should also be looked at. But at the same time having unique rewards hidden behind high difficulty content (or any single narrow playstyle) is also bad – whether they are purely cosmetic, or offer stat advantage.

There’s no hypocrisy in this.

by doing it the way you suggest, you ensure that the game will always be about whatever is the most effecient gold farm.

If everything is tradeable (which im not saying is the worst thing in the world) you should actually go out of your way to make items directly obtainable through specific playstyles.
Then people will be trading value based on what they feel items(different tasks) are worth. If everything is obtainable anywhere, and buyable, you essentially assure that the only measure will be how much overall gold you can grind in the easiest way possible, Which will tend to make anything boring and degenerative after awhile.

Really?

So in your mind, doing anything you want is this awful thing, while pigeonholing rewards at (whatever) narrow niche is awesome.

Yeah, no. Do you ever wonder why you dont HAVE TO clean toilets to get a TV?

thats what gold is for.
gold is supposed to the means of exchange whereby people can choose the value of various activities.

Now if a small % of non essential reward is dedicated to people who have certain playstyle, that isnt horrible.

I find it odd though that people complain about this idea, when they have already gated essential items AND high value cosmetic items, behind specific playstyles.

Once again it comes down to the completionist who wants things easily versus the people who want challenging content. Both are edge case players.

The problem is the completionist who wants things easily, has an overall negative effect on the economy and design of the game when you cater to him. While the challenging content player does not.

Astralporing.1957:

KarlaGrey.5903:

To sum up Harper’s point(s) so far:
In adding unique rewards linked to challenging content, a player would not be forced to obtain a special pet, title, or cosmetics, as it would not reduce or hinder their viability/desirability of their class nor the ability to play the game as such.

Yet many oppose adding challenging content with unique rewards – even if it would not constitute gear threadmill or other forms of vertical progression – merely because they would
1) feel "compelled/forced to get it (however that is an ’it’s all in your head’ issue), and/or
2) they might not be able to obtain it (although it is generally agreed that completionists are a minority of the playerbase).

However these same players have no issues with pvp-only rewards nor with gem-store additions, and much else with the ill-designed rewarding system (the most rewarding content atm seems to boil down to Tp flipping, Champ train, EOTM and Ascended mats, which can be summed up as rather boring and extremely unchallenging ways of playing the game).
Dat sense, much logic.

No. Vayne specifically seems to okay ascended gear as if it were somehow any different than cosmetic rewards (pvp-only rewards were not mentioned, from what i can see). That is only Vayne, though. I think it is equally bad as the unique rewards tied to difficult content. And while i do agree, that not everything is okay with gemshop, and that the reward system in this game is not that good, the fact that you can buy most of things for gold is actually okay (as it allows for getting them through multitude of options, instead of locking them behind only one).

Yes, farming is boring, and a better reward system is desperately needed. Some gemshop problems (like having lot of more valuable items from the shop hidden behind rng, for example), as well as disparity of introducing new skins to gemshop compared to the game should also be looked at. But at the same time having unique rewards hidden behind high difficulty content (or any single narrow playstyle) is also bad – whether they are purely cosmetic, or offer stat advantage.

There’s no hypocrisy in this.

KarlaGrey.5903:

The main Q Harper was asking, and which (to my knowledge) remained unanswered was why was it inherently wrong that challenging content gives better rewards, but not inherently wrong that unchallenging content gives better rewards.

I have answered that already (on page 2, maybe that’s why you missed it)

Astralporing.1957:

phys.7689:

why is inherently wrong that challenging content gives better rewards, but not inherently wrong that unchallenging content gives better rewards?

It’s not inherently wrong. It’s just a different gaming philosophy, one to which most MMO’s are dedicated, but not every player likes. This game was made for people that didn’t like this approach, and is one of the very few such MMO’s on the market.
Basically, there’s nothing wrong in wanting to eat meat, but that doesn’t mean that it is a good idea to make all vegetarian restaurants add meat to their meals. Or to come to such restaurant and complain because they serve only vegetarian food.

Basically, phys and Harper come to the vegetarian restaurant and demand meat, then get surprised when other people react with displeasure.

the game was never sold as a vegetarian restaraunt though, in fact they said dunegeons would be highly challenging and have unique rewards. (they do have unique rewards, but their challenge has not kept up with the skill of the playerbase) They went out of their way to say they have something for everyone.

This game wasnt meant to be a game designed for gold farm, thats why they have repeatedly nerfed many gold farms.

However they are not that good at achieving their goals, gold farm degenerative play is always the most played, when they nerf people find the next best thing. Dungeons havent been challenging for most the people running them for some time, and the best rewards for dungeons come from the most degenerative dungeons.

a lot of this is because they choose the wrong ways to reward players, they encourage type of play through rewards that they dont want players to have, and most of the content offers nothing that you wouldnt get more effeciently by buying gold.

This goes beyond difficulty. Its actually faster to grind gold, than to farm silk. More money earned from the easiest dungeon path in the game, than the hardest fractal.
And since there is comparitively nothing that is only obtained through specific means, the people who hunt items dont really set its value.

Astralporing.1957:

KarlaGrey.5903:

To sum up Harper’s point(s) so far:
In adding unique rewards linked to challenging content, a player would not be forced to obtain a special pet, title, or cosmetics, as it would not reduce or hinder their viability/desirability of their class nor the ability to play the game as such.

Yet many oppose adding challenging content with unique rewards – even if it would not constitute gear threadmill or other forms of vertical progression – merely because they would
1) feel "compelled/forced to get it (however that is an ’it’s all in your head’ issue), and/or
2) they might not be able to obtain it (although it is generally agreed that completionists are a minority of the playerbase).

However these same players have no issues with pvp-only rewards nor with gem-store additions, and much else with the ill-designed rewarding system (the most rewarding content atm seems to boil down to Tp flipping, Champ train, EOTM and Ascended mats, which can be summed up as rather boring and extremely unchallenging ways of playing the game).
Dat sense, much logic.

No. Vayne specifically seems to okay ascended gear as if it were somehow any different than cosmetic rewards (pvp-only rewards were not mentioned, from what i can see). That is only Vayne, though. I think it is equally bad as the unique rewards tied to difficult content. And while i do agree, that not everything is okay with gemshop, and that the reward system in this game is not that good, the fact that you can buy most of things for gold is actually okay (as it allows for getting them through multitude of options, instead of locking them behind only one).

Yes, farming is boring, and a better reward system is desperately needed. Some gemshop problems (like having lot of more valuable items from the shop hidden behind rng, for example), as well as disparity of introducing new skins to gemshop compared to the game should also be looked at. But at the same time having unique rewards hidden behind high difficulty content (or any single narrow playstyle) is also bad – whether they are purely cosmetic, or offer stat advantage.

There’s no hypocrisy in this.

by doing it the way you suggest, you ensure that the game will always be about whatever is the most effecient gold farm.

If everything is tradeable (which im not saying is the worst thing in the world) you should actually go out of your way to make items directly obtainable through specific playstyles.
Then people will be trading value based on what they feel items(different tasks) are worth. If everything is obtainable anywhere, and buyable, you essentially assure that the only measure will be how much overall gold you can grind in the easiest way possible, Which will tend to make anything boring and degenerative after awhile.

SKATE.1394:

phys.7689:

lakdav.3694:

But if one can get a specific material more reliably because of the class they play/farm with, wouldnt that reduce the demand for that material on the TP for those who want to get it while keeping the rest relatively on the same level as before? Wouldnt that practicly be a balancing aspect in the “leather=worthless – silk=new black gold” equation?

In the long term it could be a balancing factor, farmers will try to play the most effecient class and balance the influx of certain materials. But it kinda sucks for the common joe who has a low value spread of gear.

I wonder if it effects bags/chests/daily rewards as well though

See my other posts for the results of me recently opening 823 champ bags. The results there are very, very different from what I’ve experienced with the open world trash mob farming here in this thread. I’ve been spending most of my time recently in Fractals of the Mists where I dump all my loot after each run, not paying much attention to what’s what, but more whether something should be sold to merchant or listed on the TP. I list/sell/salvage everything like I’m on autopilot. I will now be paying more attention to what I receive from trash mobs in instances, but I can say that chest loot seems to be unaffected.

It wasn’t until now that I decided to pay close to attention to what was dropping out in the open world, and the results honestly surprised me. I speculated profession specific bias could be in effect in the 10-12% range in my thread on champ bags, the results here pretty much prove that loot containers are largely unaffected, while open world mobs are showing an extreme level of profession specific bias, at least in the zone I was in.

yeah thats what i figured. So EOTM/champ train style farming is only moderately effected, but event monster hunting and lone player killing of monsters is highly effected.

Kasima.8143:

I’d like to add a suggestion to your suggestion : To make it possible to log off and log back in the same instance, without losing your progress. This way, we could have dungeons that last for days and weeks. It would be awesome!

… because I don’t think that the best loot should be reserved to those who can go over 24 hours without sleeping.

what they could do, is have waiting areas, say at the beginning of the level, you can choose to leave the game via waiting area.
At waiting areas you can also recruit new players.

People would essentially create charachters solely for this mode.

Now, the tricky part here, is how do you fail this dungeon? is it only when you choose to leave? I suggest you give players ways of getting continues/lives, or you make it so that if all your gear breaks, you get kicked out.

I would probably make some special endless dungeon only skills/weapons you can get only in this dungeon. As well, some side paths/events that may like unlock a vendor. (protect Merchant billy from the troll!) success unlocks a merchant.

It seems like it could be a pretty fun, highly repeatable content. How does it scale in difficulty? or does it scale?

lakdav.3694:

But if one can get a specific material more reliably because of the class they play/farm with, wouldnt that reduce the demand for that material on the TP for those who want to get it while keeping the rest relatively on the same level as before? Wouldnt that practicly be a balancing aspect in the “leather=worthless – silk=new black gold” equation?

In the long term it COULD be a balancing factor, farmers will try to play the most effecient class and balance the influx of certain materials.
On the other hand, if most of the population doesnt change, it may create new scarcities.
In either case it will find a new equilibrium
But regardless kinda sucks for the common joe who has a low value spread of gear.

I wonder if it effects bags/chests/daily rewards as well though

Ferever.7014:

Description

Do you have passion and experience for creating repeatable epic game play experiences? ArenaNet is looking for a Game Designer to work on some exciting content and features. Candidates must have extensive game playing experience across a wide variety of genres, and be able to work using our in-house editing/scripting tools. Please note: This is not an entry level position.

With multiple gaming awards such as: 2012 Time Magazine’s #1 Game of the year, Gamespot’s PC game of the year and countless other awards to their name, this multi-award winning business employs about 300 people and is taking the MMO gaming world by storm. With 3 Million players and growing since launch, this is a fantastic opportunity to take the design team to the next level by growing Guild Wars 2 worldwide success.

Responsibilities
• Design, document, and implement content features and systems using our in house tools
• Collaborate effectively with artists, programmers, designers, and the community
• Give input on design issues

Qualifications
• Strong communication skills, both verbal and written
• Ability to contribute creative and innovative ideas to the game
• Understanding of how game play affects the end user experience
• Experience using game level and world building tools (i.e. Neverwinter Aurora Toolset)
• Strong problem solving abilities
• Able to be a self-starter and act proactively
• Understanding of project scoping, milestones, and deliverables

Desirable
• Previous game development experience creating the following: large scale bosses and encounters, repeatable group content for a live game, large scale rewards systems, combat systems for multiple players
• Balance and iteration of end game systems and features for a live game
• Passionate player of co-operative end game group content
• Passion for Guild Wars 2 and a deep understanding its game mechanics
• Creative writing ability
• Experience with scripting languages
• Hard-core gamer with extensive experience playing games
• Experience of working within scrum teams

This is a full time on-site position at our studio in Bellevue, Washington. A casual, friendly work environment, comprehensive benefits package, a competitive salary, and more are all part of what makes ArenaNet a great place to work.

Let’s discuss what this could mean either 8 man dungeons or 25 man lets discuss.

it doesnt have to be raids (large scale content) but its good they they are looking to make interesting repeatable encounters, that work on an endgame level.

That said, im not sure its a great idea to look for people in the industry who have already done this. We know what the standard formulas for this type of gameplay are. Most would not fit/be entertaining in a GW2 framework

Smooth Penguin.5294:

With all the World Events and Dry Top chest farming, I’ve discovered that there seems to be a bit too much Dragonites in the game. At this point, my Dragonites outpace my Bloodstone drops. So that begs the question: Should Anet come up with more ways to utilize excess Ascended mats like Dragonites? I would love to be able to trade 3 Dragonite ores for 1 Emryreal fragment. Throw in some coin and Karma costs, and you have another effective sink in the game.

Anyone else have the same problems as I?

the simple answer is that the grind of crafting materials for making ascended far outweighs the grind for ascended materials.

to address this, they could make consumables out of ascended mats, or if they ever do guild halls, make people build their halls out of solid dragonite bricks.

lakdav.3694:

I dont quite get the rage against this feature. Im completely indifferent about it. What is so bad about it being prof-specific on lvl80 and how does that effect the economy of the game so badly?

basically engineer is the worst class to play in terms of generic loot.
Pistols, rifles, and leather gear is the lowest of the low in value.

Asmodeus.5782:

lakdav.3694:

I dont quite get the rage against this feature. Im completely indifferent about it. What is so bad about it being prof-specific on lvl80 and how does that effect the economy of the game so badly?

Leather is almost worthless.
Silk is really pricey.

Light classes > medium classes

And to be precise, the best farming class now would be mesmer, to also have a chance for the best (GS) precursor material.

unfortunately no, mesmer is one of the slowest classes to claim, they simply cannot compete in terms of claiming monsters. most of their skills are single target, and slow to hit.
if you had a pack of say 10-15 people mesmer can do alright, but 20+ they arent making enough claims to capitalize on their loot.

i dont jack about lotro, but i know that vayne has said multiple times that lotro dev said only 5% of people play raids. Point is it doesnt matter, catering to the 5% who must have every item with low effort, is actually more damaging than catering to the 5% who want raids.
Another key here is raids does not equal challenging content, raids are primarily large group of player content. You can have challenging content anywhere, for any number of players.

the truth is rewards or penalties are the entire means of making a game.

Purely as an experiment for a limited time event, GW2 devs should take the average amount of money earned in eotm/champ train/easy path running per hour. Create some moderately difficult content, and make it pay 1.5x that amount per hour. Then look at how many people play this event.

this will give a lot of information about why people play, and how they will respond to rewards.

My guess is people would meet the challenge and after awhile regularly do this content for better rewards.

SKATE.1394:

Yeah, I originally had the classes I used posted, but decided to edit it out and see if people could guess just to be cynical. And you’re correct, engineer for the first session, warrior for the second.

Remember when they said profession specific loot wouldn’t be noticeable? This is beyond blatantly obvious which weights were used, and fairly easy to tell which specific profession was used as well.

This is not good for the balance of the economy.

well its kind of obvious they wouldnt make a change that has no effect, otherwise it wouldnt be a change. They basically always want to take a wait and see approach. Sometimes it really irks me how the team is so opposed to logical/reasonable/predictive behavior. Its like they never beleive anyone can know anything by understanding the variables.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Cinnamon Goddess.3869:

Whatever gets done it needs to require less people to accomplish. If group requirements are too large then content eventually becomes dead and undo-able. This game desperately needs a auto-matching system similar to Tera. The original complaint about getting bad groups is irrelevant. Not being able to do the content because of no groups is much worse on the game experience. Finally harder content MUST have better rewards otherwise what is the point. If people can blow through content 10 times as fast on easy and get similar rewards why waste the time with harder content. Ultimately this is the issue, people will always do the easiest most beneficial content.

Which content one does is a choice. If someone follows the path of least resistance, then one chose that option. If the point is to be challenged, then the challenge itself would be the reward. But, many players don’t roll that way and want the whole ball of wax. Once the initial challenge is overcome, only rewards make repeating the challenge palatable.

If someone truly wanted the rush of facing challenge and stretching themselves, they’d play PvP. Opposing players are always going to adapt and throw new wrinkles at players. Thus, the physiological rush inherent to facing challenge is most always available. PvE cannot provide that with the current state of programming. This is true in raid games also, with the exception that mastery might take longer (at least until someone reads the fan site walk-through). Tell me people don’t get bored with raids once the raid is on farm.

Throw in that many who want hard content are going to be among those who will master new hard content quickly. When you do, you have an audience that is insatiable, hard to please and demanding. Case in point — virtually every piece of content added going back to SSC has upped the difficulty level (compared to launch mobs) to some degree. There are always complaints about the added content being too hard. Yet, the “more challenge” players soon chime in, complaining it’s too easy. No duh! You mastered it, then demanded more. Insatiable.

people keep saying this, and it is false.

people who want rewards are not the opposite of people who want challenge. This idea that you are either one or the other is a false ideaology. People who like easy games are the ones in opposition to the ones who want challenge.

lets be clear the current assumption in america is most people want rewards, regardless of the level of challenge they enjoy. (the entire economy is based on this principle)
So all that your saying is that some players who want challenge but also want reward must choose between easy grind, and leaving the game (for the far majority of rewards)
whereas the people who want easy content and reward do not have to choose.

Vayne.8563:

KarlaGrey.5903:

Not quite.
It’s purely an objective matter that your statistical performance is not affected by cosmetics, titles, or minipets (unless they’d by some rather silly decision grant the user special bonuses).
It is however subjective to say you feel forced/compelled to play challenging content just so you can have everything completed. It is also subjective to say players would feel disenfranchised if a couple of such features were to be implemented (some might, but you cannot say with certainty how many that would be, nor can you prove it would have serious negative impacts on the game, i.e. gemstore revenues).

My point, which is basicaly Harper’s point, is that adding in challenging content with unique rewards would not hinder you to play your game, because it’d be completely optional and would not add to vertical progression. That is pure logic. Now, if I take your approach to putting everything in % and playerbase minority vs majority , I dare say that the number of vets who would benefit from such change would dwarf the number of disappointed completionists by far, and it is an estimate I consider quite accurate.

But to say that the only fact is intentionally misleading. It’s a fact that completionists exist. That’s not theory, that’s a fact. It’s a fact even that some people will do content they don’t enjoy to get rewards. If you think those aren’t facts, I’m not really sure what to tell you.

The fact that your statistical performance isn’t increased or decreased is mostly relevant to min/maxers and people who care about stats. Are they are majority? A minority? Clearly, you’re one of the people to whom stats are massively important, so you come to the erroneous conclusion that it’s okay to have rewards that other people want, because they don’t need them.

But you don’t need those stats, even if they are better. It’s not a fact that you need them. It’s your desire for them. It’s that you want them. It wouldn’t be okay to you if these rewards gave higher stats. And that’s the difference. There are people who care less about stats and more about minipets or skins. That’s also a fact, by the way.

So your suggestion that they give no reward means you don’t need them is just your opinion. You don’t need higher stats, but you’re basically saying you would if they offered them.

That’s what we’re arguing about. You think your way is the only way. I think the issue is more complex.

thing here is, the game already does this. They already lose customers based on having the best rewards behind repetitive simple tasks.

Now i understand you have agreed that it may not be right, but you theorize it may be best for business.
I disagree whole heartedly, most casual players, are either satisfied taking longer, or are perfectly ok with their being higher levels of something that only people with more time/interest/energy can achieve.

Do 10 year olds quit lego because they make advanced lego kits IN ADDITION to their low end kits?
DOes the existence of high end super detailed expensive car models make people quit buying matchbox cars?
Does having optional super hard to beat bosses in final fantasy 7 make people not finish the game?
The most played facebook game right now has like 2000 levels and has extreme difficulties in addition to normal difficulty.
Do you think the casual players here are unique? somehow they are not heavily invested in the game, but are heavily invested in possible item dropping?

lets be honest, this is a battle of hardcore players of different types, because for the casual player something that requires them to grind 2000 hours, is probably a lot more unlikely than something that requires them to master hard levels that last 1 hour each. In fact most of those players will be able to be carried by people good enough.

If only 5% of the population is interested in raids in LOTRO, i think only 5% of the population is interested in getting every visual/mini/title in the game. So its a battle of the completitionist who doesnt like hard content versus the people who like hard content, neither of them = the majority of players.

Ohoni.6057:

yeah, but the reason there is no risk is because anet didnt want to design it so people might fail. In order to have risk, you need to have a chance of failure.

Not really. There are a lot of lesser-participated events that are impossible to fail and yet difficult to succeed. If you don’t succeed then they just stick around, not being beaten, for hours if necessary. You may not be able to fail it, but it might take a while if you aren’t very good at it. The real kicker, the thing that makes events frustrating, is when you’re working diligently towards success, and then either the enemy just gives up and goes home, or the entire group wipes and everything resets. Those are fun stealers.

Now that doesn’t mean that the encounter shouldn’t be able to kill you, that you shouldn’t have to keep on your toes to stay alive. You might get knocked down, so that people have to wake you up, you might even die and have to rez (relatively near by) and run back (perhaps costing you more in WP fees than you earn if you are really terrible), but eventually the action should complete.

So your suggestion is to make sure that hard content isn’t repeatable for rewards. Meaning people who want hard content unable to get any reward for replaying their content. While people who like easy content can spam “1” all day, every day, and still get rewarded.

No, that’s not what I said. Of course the hard content would offer a repeatable reward, just that the repeatable reward shouldn’t be that much greater than any other repeatable reward. If the challenge is in making the event easy, then once you do that, you get one huge payout, then the content is relatively easy, so you get the smaller, easy mode payout. If you enjoy doing it, do it, it will pay out as well as anything else you could be doing, but you don’t deserve a huge bonus.

And at that, you think good rewards are a minipet that you can’t sell and a title. How’s this for an idea: replace all rewards from world bosses with a single, non-sellable minipet, and a title. No reward after that. You can still have your easy content fun! (Or are you only in it for the reward? Because that’s what ‘you’ keep accusing ‘us’ of, when we’re the ones actually doing thing that effectively don’t even HAVE a reward like level 50 uncategorized fractal champ solos, when for the most part you guys are chasing the most rewarding zero effort zerg farms).

So how would you do it?

How would you design repeatable hard content that even once you have it on farm it does not provide significantly higher reward per hour than running the other content in the game?

And no, you do not deserve the right to get consistently higher reward just because you enjoy hard content.

Your whole post, especially that last paragraph, is saying that you don’t think demonstrating player skill should have better rewards than not demonstrating any player skill.

Eh, I think that’s a slight exaggeration of my position, I don’t think demonstrating high player skill should have better rewards than only demonstrating moderate player skill. You should still have to display some skill, just not a crazy amount of it. Normal mode, not hard mode.

One will always carry greater rewards than the other in the long term.

Ok, then if that’s the case, and there must be a disdparity, then obviously you would make the more rewarding content the one that the most players can achieve, since that would make the most players happy. Clearly you wouldn’t want to make most rewarding the activities that only a small minority can achieve, how silly would that be?

bah lost most my post.
you need to give rewards to encourage proper play, if yu designed a good game, proper play should make people happy. From a game design perspective rewards dont exist to make players happy, they exist to make people play the game in ways that make the game better to play.
The game itself is to make people happy.

sorreh for fake +1ing you

Ohoni.6057:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Labjax.2465:

JohnnySupernova.9182:

Arena net has some of the worst communication out of any game company I can think of. When they’re not giving crappy non-answers and ignoring problems, they’re outright lying to the playerbase.

you really wont see a change in communication. Josh foreman got yelled at for communicating TOO MUCH. Even if anyone at anet WANTED to communicate, they wont be able to because the higher ups deemed it bad for business.

I’ve only been around for a few months, but in that time, I’ve seen them not only make an effort to communicate more, but Gaile now has the title “ArenaNet Forum Communications Team Lead” and has been posting in several threads.

If that’s non-answers and outright lying, then consider me fully duped.

Duping!!?! ~gasp!~ Oh, sorry, different type, gotcha.

Things aren’t going to change overnight, but we are making a concerted effort to improve communications. Not every thread gets — or realistically can get — a reply. That is driven not so much by a particular topic but more critically by sheer volume. And yes, not every question can be answered, but maybe it just can’t be answered in the short term, or maybe it’s taken under consideration for a more focused means of communication, such as a CDI, or maybe you’ll see an answer in the Update Notes. And sure, I guess some questions will go unanswered, too, but not for lack of effort or interest.

The truth is, you’re noticing, or I hope you’re noticing: We’re actively taking steps to be more communicative and involved, and we’ll continue to do so as time passes.

I feel that it’s important that we get a higher quality of communication rather than quantity of communication. We don’t need a red flag on every thread, and we certainly don’t need devs popping in to say “I’ve read this” using way more word than that. What we do need is devs making it clear that they understand where we have serious issues with the state of the game, and that they are actually working to fix those things.

There are numerous very common complaints and concerns that come up on a weekly or even daily basis, and we have no idea where the developers are headed on those topics. We need less player-to-dev communication, less “dev-telling-us-they-read-our-posts” communication, and more “dev actually talking about the future of the game in a comprehensive manner” communication, and yes, I’m aware of the “company policy” that prevents talking about future development, but that policy MUST go, no question.

in all i would say this is the case. The devs or the forum mods need should probably, on major issues, do a run down to see if they can understand the issues being brought up,

the point is, it should be clear that each party understands the other party, and what type of response one can expect.

Guhracie.3419:

Labjax.2465:

JohnnySupernova.9182:

fractal playerbase is still waiting for anet to answer what the hell is up with the drop rates. and the fractal playerbase is still waiting for anet to explain just what happened to leaderboards and the fractal weapon box (and evidently, the fractal tonic)

i guess you’ve only been here for a few months, but basically, anet’s got a big history of screwing around with the players, and a few red posts on the forums wont change that

wake me up when they say something actually concrete about anything beyond “we’ll look into it maybe it’s not off the table”

It sounds to me like there are a lot of areas that don’t get solid dev communication. I understand it being frustrating and I don’t mean that in a placating way. I’ve been there.

It just sounds more like priority struggles on their part than intentionally screwing around with players (which they would gain nothing from).

Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Maybe you fractal folks should bring that stuff up a bit more. That is, if you don’t already have active threads on the issues you’re seeing.

After a year of no communication, fractals players have largely given up. In fact, when pressed about some of these issues in the Fractal CDI , people were told that they were being off-topic and to please post elsewhere if they wanted to discuss those things. There was plenty of squeak to that wheel.

yeah, it was slightly off topic, however, i agree that anet really totally failed, and have yet to remedy what happened with the fractured patch.
selling points that didnt exist
reasons for doing things that didnt every come to pass
bugs galore

and no answers or even a look at known issues. And even though it was off topic, Dev basically said im not ever going to give that community any answers.

yup the whole fratcal thing was very sad to see, and made me lose a lot of trust in the anet team. But hey, they are people too you know. Sometimes people make mistakes, and often they dont really want to face, or deal with them. Normal human behavior, sad to see it though

MikaHR.1978:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t the think the personal story was as well received as Anet wanted it to be. We all know what people thought of Trahearne and the Zhaitan fight. We’ve all seen people talk it down. While it did have people who liked it, many many people disliked it. The open world has always been the strength of this game.

I think Anet really wanted to shift the focus to the world and away from the story.

See personal story isnt great, but its actually generally better in the first 20 levels, (depending on your race/choices) But it does provide a backdrop or narrative.

The open world on the otherhand isnt that strong early, its ok, but its not stirring. Also the open world actually loses more with the arrow. Its good for completion, but its bad for making you feel like the game is free and open.

What they really needed to have, was an open world means of leading newbs. Lets think of some newbie like dynamic event chains that tell a story, The truth is the dynamic event system is one of the main strengths, and a well crafted chain in the beginning could be a lot more satisfying than the starter story, and hold them over till level 10.

They should also kind of make it clear when your next personal story missions will unlock.

point is, if they want to keep people, a more riveting starter experience will probably go further than a more easy one, imo.

They are actually steamlining early play experience with NPE (doing exatcly what you want them to do) so now you complain its not streamlined enough? And needs even MORE hand holding than it already has?

By forums i thought “everyone” hates hand holding.

its not about streamlining, its adding an actual adventure/narrative to the starting area, that no longer exists now that story starts at level 10. Its actually the opposite of streamlining, its about adding depth and substance to the starter experience.

i dont know why i respond to you though

Ohoni.6057:

The problem is far beyond the content being not difficult enough. Just today some people admitted they’ve never even seen events like Frozen Maw or Fire Elemental failed. It’s quite impossible in today’s arrangement.

Yeah, but I don’t see that as a problem. Content shouldn’t have to fail. The challenge is in completing content as quickly and as efficiently as possible, not in just completing it at all. That isn’t to say that they can’t tweak content a bit, Fire Elemental in particular has terrible balance to the current zerg sizes, and is one of the few mobs that would actually benefit from having a massively higher HP bar at highest scaling, and probably have it get much more aggressive about laying fire fields and other attacks, I’m just saying, I don’t think the fact that it doesn’t fail is as big a problem as the fact that it tends to die within thirty seconds and with almost no risk.

yeah, but the reason there is no risk is because anet didnt want to design it so people might fail. In order to have risk, you need to have a chance of failure. This most likely means that something can kill you if you play wrong. Which means there has to be patterns or things you can react to, which means a more challenging fight, which is what people in here are asking for.

and unfortunately, if they made it challenging, it would need to pay more, or people would skip it. because it doesnt give them as much gold/drops as eotm, or failing some event somewhere else.

The reward structure is screwed, really bad, its not just screwed in terms of difficulty, but also in terms of game design. and nerfing isnt really the answer, the real answer is to properly encourage good play (not just difficult) through rewards.

i mean they can nerf events people fail repeatedly, but winning the event barely gives anything, so why would people want to win?

MikaHR.1978:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Ohoni.6057:

Because calls for “harder” content typically comes packaged with this sort of elitist bullkitten that makes us not want you to have what you want because you want it.

That’s a generalization. I could say that current dungeon farming is filled with elitism, yet dungeon farming is mindless easy. Elitism will be there regardless of content.

In the end, harder content being more rewarding comes to common sense: it’s simply fair that players who work harder deserve better rewards. Of course, “work harder” might mean different things to different players, and by no means should it imply that players should be forced to do a specific piece of content to ever get a good sense of reward.

But if the entire game is driven by instant gratification, there’s no long term satisfaction, fulfilment or sense of acchievement neither.

What common sense? If i want to run marathon ill “work” towards that goal and have personal staisfaction and pat on the back. Same as someone doing 5 km. I never saw marathon runners demanding better rewards than those doing 100m sprints. So i ask you again: what common sense?

the both get paid, if they are good enough, but only the best. so they get paid based on how well they do at difficult tasks.

and yeah the 100 m runner gets paid more per step.

Vayne.8563:

It’s not unfair that if you get into an NBA ring to play a championship, you don’t get a ring if you don’t win one. But presumably you enter the NBA playoff knowing that’s the case.

People play this game for all sorts of reasons. People play professional basketball to win. I don’t really see the comparison.

It would be more like if we were having a casual game of basketball, throwing the ball around with a couple of friends and suddenly someone says, okay, person who scores the most points gets $1000. It changes the game. Whether you need the thousand bucks or not, it changes it.

Of course you have to balance and control what you reward. But if you rewarded 1000 dollars for winning the game, you would not have changed it in a bad way.

This is what i mean by good game design. Placing reward in the proper places, in the proper way, can enhance game play.
The other factor is that these things of course should be opt in things. Every person shouldnt have to always play for money. But the fact that 3 on 3 tournaments/prizes/etc, and the NBA exists does not diminish the sport of basketball. Its an option and a possibility, IF you want to work harder and compete, you can get a greater reward.

The problem is you are saying playing basketball, and walking around a basketball court with a ball in your hand doing whatever you want should give the same rewards. If that was a game you made up, it would be a poorly designed game.

In fact is it is worse than that, to continue the analogy, some random acts in the basketball game give you points while other dont.
imagine if;
for dribbling for over 2 minutes, you get 10 extra points
for scoring while an opponent defends you get 1 point
you can only score up to 5 points from baskets every 10 minutes
passing the ball reduces your next points earned by -1 points
paying vayne gives you 1 point per 100 dollars.

what i am getting at, is it really important to appropriately reward actions in games, otherwise you create degenerative gameplay. Right now the game gives the most points for things which dont really enhance the game. It would in fact be better for the game, for say a hard dynamic event chain to reward more than an easy one. By the exact same ideaology, a hard dungeon rewarding more than an easy one would be a better design.

yes people play the game for many different reasons, and you should reward them differently, as well as reward them the better they are at it. Then money will actually be a method for exchanging value, but thats a whole different topic.