Rewards Balance?

Thank you for explaining. I agree with you that something should be changed in regards to farming+powertrading etc., but,as you can see, I don't think your solution is optimal. I'm also not sure if a truly grindless MMO can exist, or even one that meets your standards. I will admit that you have a few good ideas though.

And my thoughts on the GW economy debate: Just because there is a potentially unlimited supply of everything in Guild Wars doesn't mean that supply and demand will have no effect on them. Supply in this scenario simply refers to the amount that are in existence at any point in time. Food and paper are two things that, as long as we put time into creating them(farming, quite literally lol), we will never run out of. They still follow "real-world" economic rules. In fact, if you think about it, most things we buy are renewable. The only exceptions are things like original art by dead artists and petroleum based products(I'm sure there are a few other things, but I can't think of them right now).

It isn't about just plain increasing drops as much as BALANCING drops between areas.

Example: Frostmaw HM vs. FoW NM

Which one's harder? Frostmaw HM of course.
Which takes longer? Frostmaw HM
Need to go through explorable? Frostmaw HM

Reward? Frostmaw HM: 2 Gems + bag of junk. FoW NM: 3-4 shards + bag of junk.

Sigh...

I find it funny, the people are are super "anti-grind" are the people who only care about the gold value of doing a dungeon/vanquish/whatever.

Same boat here. Nearly all of my toons run inexpensive items, all customized. Makes no sense to cut off your nose to spite your face. 20% extra is neat, might as well make use of it.

I've had every rare skin there is. Not to waggle 'em, not to fulfil any other need than the one that says, "If it's there, I may as well aim for it." Then I sold em, and got back to the trusty inexpensive/collector items..

Too easy. Even so, I've done over about 20 more bosses since my last post on the matter of drop rates, and I think I got a non-max blue and a couple whites for my efforts. Silliness IMO. They're bosses, yet their minions are generally richer. Go figure.

I'm not super anti-grind either, as Eragon said its likely that balancing an MMO with no grind is close to impossible.

It seems you always miss the point/issue/meaning behind every post I make, whether this is intentional or not I have no idea.

Suffice to say, I think my earlier posts are relatively self-explanatory. In the event that you miss the simple points, I'll try to make them even simpler:

Most of the game is dead/empty

The reason in many cases is that the reward for doing an area is well below the reward for farming/grinding somewhere else much easier (i.e. a 2 hour dungeon giving junk, vs. spending two hours in Chaos Plains for several ectos)

One of the ways to make MORE of the game interesting and engaging is to change/up/balance the reward scale of various areas to attract players, such as drops exclusive to one area at a high or unique rate (i.e. ectos in UW) could be spread to the rest of the game world at a much lower rate, this would allow playing the game with a much reduced need to "farm"

Realize that with a level 20 cap achievable in short order means the majority of the game is spent on cosmetic customization, so the argument against it is an argument against a larger playerbase and ANet support.

I realize that the economy is likely an inescapable evil of MMOs with tradeable gear, and that the design philosophy of GW in particular like any other MMO is made to suck players in and keep them around, which grinding for "achievements" does.

But I contend that the economy is not intrinsically linked to the gameplay, and that the game could be made much more interesting and varied IF players felt they were rewarded for playing through quests and missions, and not farming vaettirs and raptors. And changing the drop system to encourage this would only be beneficial to the game.

No!

After the loot nerf, gold sellers became a much bigger problem. The value of gold went up and made it far more profitable for the bots, which kept on doing what bots alwasy do, farm.

Gold sellers started going away some time later when ANet/NCSoft actually started banning them for a change!

Well then... Even less point in loot scaling.

You think people don't do most of the game because it isn't "rewarding" enough? Is that really why you think people aren't waiting in line and joining PuGs to do Frost Gate?

No matter how "rewarding" a place is, people who are actually chasing after the virtual dream of e-wealth will still do the place with the least risk of failure and highest chance of reward. The dream you have of the entire game becoming populated with droves of people wanting to party with you is a delusion at best.

Of course, I readily admit that I can't even begin to grasp the people who do content solely for the amount of virtual e-wealth they get (which you seem to fall into). You are even more confusing since you seem to not even agree with yourself. You say you have a desire to play everywhere in the game, yet want "phat lewt" no matter where you go. I can't for the life of me understand why you just don't do the places that you want to do. Are you letting the temptations of an equally-powered-yet-expensive skinned weapon drive you away from places you want to do? I just don't f'ing understand you at all.

Post full of win.

Dungeons End chest should give 2 rare materials + <number of levels> gold drops (x2 in HM) or something like that . The existance of dungeon runners doesnt justify non balacing the rewards and thats it.

PS: I forgot , and for god sake , those chests revealed with Light of deldrimor .... 42g ...... REALLY ? i mean REALLY ? taking a bloody slot just to reveal some lvl 24 allies and some chests that give ...... 42-200g and a tiny % of a rare mat ? ooooo CMON ! -.-

I think you really should stop using "reward". People's "reward" for playing the game is enjoyment and having fun. Nobody is "rewarded" for having e-wealth in this game. Nobody with over 9000 ectos is any better than someone with 1 ecto. The people who farm like mad aren't rewarded with anything.

I'm still struggling to grasp your thought process. I'm thinking it is just an elaborate troll.

lol i have to laugh at mirolos and his shit theory covered by elaborate words which create a sense that he actually understands....
and give kudos to kalebam for good use of /facepalm.
@neo; he wasn't talking about obsi...and anyway the only tjhing peope strive for in this game are cosmetics, they grind for cosmetics....what happened to no grind.
@targen; nice stats man especially like the info on minimum price did not know a-net set a floor price

I think you might want to step back and look at the big picture...

GW is a dress-up game; stats on the weapons aren't important compared to other mmos. Where other games reward players with strong weapons after clearing an area, GW rewards players with a pretty skin. So you max out early your equipment and beat the game...now what? You have three options:
A) move on to pvp
B) Title grind
C) farm for cash to buy pretty skins.
That's it, there's no "elite" weapon that you can get from farming an area, just a pretty skin. Some people might be content with the stuff that they have, but now they're left with two options- title grind or pvp, which do not require a lot of cash compared to buying weapons. When people can't afford the pretty skins unless using gimicky farms/SCs because of lootscaling and other bot related farming nerfs, they are left with two other options (both become pretty boring after a while.)
I'm not advocating that everyone should be able to afford FoW, but that GW keeps their items inflated and actually FIX the bot problem.

Prices will never return to their original form (you have inscriptions to thank for that), and only the high-end items will rise. GW1's economy cannot be fixed at this point, hopefully Anet's learned from it's mistakes in GW1 so that GW2 doesn't turn out to be a mess of a game.

Even though I disagree with you in general...

The "GIVE US MORE ECTOS STUPID ANET" crowd just wants to completely remove C.

Failban is saying "I want to do Frostmaws HM and get more loot than FoW". If he wants to do Frostmaws HM, then he should do Frostmaws HM.

I'm failing to grasp the "I want to do X, but I won't do X because Y offers more gold". If you want to f'ing do X, then do X. Don't petition so that you can do X and get more gold than doing Y.

Perhaps you should stop putting words into others' mouths, take a deep breath and actually try to grasp the point you're arguing before engaging your jaw?

Its not about me, I'm not so arrogant as you are to believe that ANet would cater to a single player.

I am looking at the big picture, about the behaviour of the entire playerbase as a whole. There is a large group that still play PvE and have been doing so for the last four and a half years. Why then are all the outposts barren wastelands? Because the largest contingent of PvE players restrict themselves to playing areas with the greatest reward, as any human with a limited amount of free time is likely to do, especially considering they've seen the rest of the game.

People are reward motivated, just look up Pavlov's Dog on Wiki, or go read a Psychology 101 text. A game like GW (and most MMOs and RPGs) are reward motivated, especially ones that allow replay of content ad nauseum. I can't believe that I have to explain stuff like this, but apparently you're too thickheaded to understand.

Certain areas of GW have much larger reward/time ratios than others (i.e. DoA, UW, FoW, etc.) leaving fully 95% of the game dead. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that by making other areas also fiscally rewarding that they would then be played more often.

As a simplistic example:

UW monster has 2%-8% (w/e) to drop an ecto
Maguuma monster has 0.02%-0.08% to drop an ecto

You have to slaughter a LOT more monsters in Maguuma to get the same reward as UW, but you don't have to pay the 1k gold entry and they're easier to kill. ANet could tweak the numbers so that a player playing non-UW would take two to three times as long to gain the same number of ectos, but in the long run this would open up more of the game to players, both solo and guild affiliated, and possibly make it more noob friendly as well, given that the population of various outposts may increase as well.

The above is just one example, for your simple mind I am NOT advocating free FoW armor for all. You and others REALLY need to quit beating that dead horse my friend.

Instead of being an obstinate, stubborn mule, try realizing the causes behind the dearth of players in most of the game, and how best to entice players to migrate to these deserted outposts. Its as simple as making it more rewarding, something you and others seem unable or unwilling to grasp or accept.

Because 95% of the game is completable with henchmen, all PuG players have the mental capacity of Jello, and most of the game is boring?

Do you really think people are going to magically start playing in Maguuma if there's a .08% chance of an ecto drop?

No he's not an elaborate troll, he has a serious point and it's the reason why several of my friends have left GW for other games because it's not rewarding enough anymore and nothing is done about it.

People's reward in PvP is beating a team of real humans, which is a dynamic and changing opponent. In PvE the reward comes from progressing your character. A part of that progression is cool loot and gear.

This is not about ectos. The popularity of ectos is just a side effect of the real problem and the money cap doesn't help that either.

I'll give only one example how to make a dungeon interesting and in this case I'll add something for the puggers too: In Dungeon X, an elite armor can be found (5 parts and for every class a different look). The creeps only drop parts of the armours if a complete human team plays the dungeon. Replayability and trade guaranteed.

What do people do to get an elite armor they can just craft? They make money by powertrading or farming ectos, and craft the armor. It would be more interesting to play for the armour and exchange/buy parts from other players to complete a set. It's a game mechanic I saw in Titan Quest (Diablo clone) and it's great fun.

It's the argument where both sides are right:
"It just looks different, there's no reason to bar it from anyone."
"It's rarity is all it has going for it, best to leave it that way."

I personally fall under the latter argument. Items that do provide benefits or effects should be attainable by the player within reason, but things that only change your appearance should be a bit harder to reach. It was like the older days in GW where a person with a suit of FoW made everyone's jaws drop to the floor: that should be part of vanity items!

But there's also that feeling of reward: as seen in this glorious episode of Zero Punctuation, a grilled cheese sandwich made out of thin air with zero effort is not going to taste anywhere near as satisfying and victorious as one that took a hell of a lot of work to do.

I personally would love to see a huge and epic as hell quest chain in GW2 that rewards you with either a suit of armor or awesome looking sword. That would be an awesome gem to hold onto.

Based on very old interviews, this sounds a bit like what ANet had stated i.e. scaling areas/dungeons/etc. based off of party size: a team of 2 entering an area would have a very different experience than a team of 4. I just hope they stick to that, and if I heard wrong...well, I sure hope I didn't...

Quick side note:

So? PvE was never meant to have endgame. You beat the campaign, you're done.

Which is a big problem if you have a large PvE playerbase and you don't provide or come up with PvE endgame content.

You should notice the contradiction and fail on Anet's part in that sentence itself: 'PvE was never meant to have endgame'.

As I just said: PvE wasn't supposed to have an endgame. That's like advocating for the Legend of Zelda - or pretty much any single player game - to have an endgame.

PvE was Story Mode. You complete the story, you are set; you've beaten the game. Once you've read a book you can hope for a sequel, but that's about it. When you buy an apple you can't complain that it doesn't taste enough like an orange.

Funny you mention that. I bought Zelda the day it came out, nes, then snes, and it has endgame. Random World FTW.

When GW was just Prophecies, the PvE endgame was PvP. Nostalgia alone is enough to tell me that it's no longer the case, unfortunately. As for rewards, I agree that nothing in this game really needs a reward (if you want to do a dungeon then just do it, regardless of whether it gives a 100g gem or a 100k gold weapon). However, as we do have rewards in-game, they should be balanced and consistent, and the contrast between Frostmaws HM and FoW NM given above illustrates it very well. Maybe this is something that will be addressed in the 5th anniversary update.

And what I say is that with some creativity and effort, the replayablity of this game could have been drastically improoved. Doesn't matter if it originally wasn't meant for that, the customer is always right they say. The PvP dream ended 6-12 months after release.

The game attracted a large PvE playerbase, because it was advertised as a free to play online RPG , so people bought an apple thinking it would taste like an apple, but it tastes like an orange.

Without a subscription fee, what would you expect?

There's a reason ANet never called their own game an "MMO", and this is just one of those reasons. When people think of those three letters they think "ZOMG so much content/endgame/replayability!" But many people tend to miss that the chief reason for games like WoW having "so much" is because they're backed by the "half a buck a day" $15 bucks a month.

Not only that, but why do you assume everyone felt that they "deserved" endgame content, or that so many were displeased when they beat the game to find out there was little else to do? How many people actually saw GW's campaign mode for what it was intended to be, a start-to-finish co-operative hack-and-slash RPG?

Simply put, ANet only makes money off of your initial purchase. They gain very, very little in keeping you pre-occupied for extremely long periods of time. This isn't to say they're jerk-offs, they just knew of their situation: they didn't have the funds and thus means to provide tons of end-game content. So instead they put all of their effort and talent to create entertaining and polished story campaigns with co-operative play.

You're indeed correct when saying "the customer is always right", though: at 6 million copies sold by April '09, the Guild Wars franchise has been quite an awesome success. For reference Halo 3 reached 8mil copies sold by January of '08.

this:
http://kotaku.com/5488149/the-never+...on-borderlands

Creative devs and marketeers and you don't need a subscription fee to extend the life of a game and keep the playerbase interested.

That's something else than selling a costume for 10 bucks isn't it and it started out as a console game.

DLC is pretty cool, but I prefer something more akin to expansion packs for my games.

Not to mention the PvP for that game is shit-tastic awful, christ. It put like all the worst things of Diablo and made it first person.

Try to look at the bigger picture, it just to show what is possible and they'll prolly release a big expansion in the future too. More importently, they realise the importance of cool loot and character progression. They even have skills that double your loot etc. Yes GW PvP is superior, but that doesn't solve GW's dull and unrewarding PvE.

I like new content, no matter what form it comes in. It's always better than no content at all.

It's just DLC. It's nothing special. The reason it's doing "so good" has less to do with the DLC and more with the game itself: it's a barebones and incredibly simplistic FPS with drops and a gear curve, just one look at WoW can see why this would be so appealing to the 360 crowd.

But still: This is a pretty poor comparison, and I just realized there's little to no point to it. Guild Wars is two and a half years older than Borderlands. At least compare it to Guild Wars when it was at that age (which is the time I'm pretty sure most if not all of us were addicted to it like crack).

I am not a farmer, though I have farmed for my titles and generally played the game at all levels and areas. Nor have I really spanked the SC endlessly. PvP and lots of playing have netted me tons of cash, too much to be honest and there is little I want to buy in the game that I cannot afford. I have to buy elite armors just to clear cash.

Having said that, I am working on my second account and having to repeat dungeons again the rewards are just pitiful, out of 6 dungeons I got 1 gold drop, rest were Onyx and Diamonds, now I nearly have a stack of them from previous forays.

For new players playing the game, it must be such an anti-climax when you beat the dungeon and end boss to get a double gem drop. I remember when you could pug Deep, now go there and its pretty much deserted because there is little reward that you cannot get by farming like others have said.

Playing the game nets little wealth compared to SC, farming and grind way which is a real shame. That is what has 'killed' pugging and balanced play. I whole heartedly agree, add extra rewards for full team players for end chests and maybe those new players will stick around.

Even now I am shocked that bosses in this game give very little and whoever said their minions are wealthier are quite right.

Balanced play is not rewarding enough to allow pugging, that is the key problem and it is good to see some of the posters here agree in this thread.

Silver

The reason why I brought that game up is mainly its interesting weapon generator and replayability that's linked with it. I mentionned it earlier in this thread.

The reason why I mentionned Titan Quest is its interesting approach how to acquire and play for armor. Torchlight approach to loot and replayability of dungeons (their dungeon generator) is also something inspiring.

The point is not what the best game is and strictly compare them, the point is how to make GW's PvE more fun and rewarding which at the same time should increase replayability even for long time PvE players.

We'll see what they'll come up with in GW2, because a revamp of PvE in GW1 is most unlikely imo. So yes, it's all hypothetical, but interesting, just like loot should be

It's interesting how you mention multiple recent games when they are all quite literally borrowing those elements directly from Diablo. Best to give credit where it's due.

That said, the only thing I'd look at would most likely be the random dungeon generator, but I feel we'd see an EotN dungeon generated through that. The reason you can't say "just look at how loot is handled in TQ/Torchlight/Diablo/Xdungeoncrawl" is because GW doesn't follow similar mechanics. The gear and level cap are both reach relatively quick, having everything else be up to aesthetics.

Now should this be something in mind for GW2? If given indications are correct then "no shit sherlock", of course it will. As evidenced above, loot sells. As much as I enjoyed GW1's unique handling of gear I won't mind missing it as long as the gameplay holds up.

And pardon me for saying so, but you've been playing and farming for years and GW's loot system now becomes boring and unrewarding?

I'm not saying they should just copy everything. I'm well aware GW has other game mechanics, yet I believe much more can or could have been done to make PvE more rewarding.

First 3 years I farmed for myself to get the titles and full hall. The last 2 years I have mainly been duo farming to play with and help out friends, often giving away my ectos and golds etc. because I don't care about gold anymore, but I like messing around with builds etc.

So it's been boring for me for a while now. That doesn't take away it's still some kind a 'thrill' when an ecto drops.

That's aside from 'normal' play ofcourse. But I really have enough of playing mission x or dungeon x for the 10th time just to help out a friend. Give me a reason to pug for example and by that I don't mean forced pugging like we had the first years.

That would be me. An addendum to my previous posts, another 15 bosses today, yet again more whites, nothings, non-max blues. No greens. No Golds. Nothing.

Lets now proceed to do the maths,

120 bosses. (At least, not mentioned are the other bosses beaten to get to the skill cap target.) No golds, no greens, nothing but shite white and poo blue. Can anyone honestly say that those are even shit drop rates, let alone decent or good?

Nope, those drop rates plain, straight-up suck. Said it before, say it again, it needs addressing. Yes, the greens and golds are meant to be rare, but are they meant to be so rare that after at least 120 bosses, I have not had a single(Worthless) green drop, nor gold?
Where is the incentive, besides a worthless title for HoM? Anyone who thinks a full HoM is going to grant them something game-breakingly neat is a fool. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that there will be so many people with it(whatever it is) that it'll be about as kewl as the /bonus items.

Also, to reinforce the point that I made earlier, The Legend of Zelda, released in 1986, which I bought upon release, had wicked endgame, just by having the world totally rearranged for your second time through. GW, released in 2005, doesn't even have that, which is probably why the series will never even go close to the 52 million plus Zelda games sold since '86.

Sometimes, taking a leaf out of an older book, and sticky-taping it to a new book, is not such a bad idea..If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

When I did my elite skill title, from all the bosses that I killed I got 1 green item. In as many VQs I probably netted 2 greens from all areas in Tyria, Factions, Nightfall and EoTN. I did get many dyes from their minions though including black and white ones!

Silver

That's a pretty subjective thing to define since all rewards in this game are subjective.

The problem here isn't really the droprates, it's more the fact that it's random. No matter how random the system is, there will be at least one totally unlucky person who will only see about 1 awesome drop per 500 boss kills.

What GW2 will need in this instance is 100% "you'll get 'em" rewards, either by doing tough quest chains or choosing an item from an endgame chest (as opposed to random'ing a diamond).

Fortunately money is pretty easy to make in the game and every single thing - save for what Upier mentioned - can indeed be bought with cash. But there's a difference between buying something as opposed to earning it (although one could argue that you "earned" your cash, I'd rather fight for my sword than pay for it).

Things sure were simpler back then, only being in 8-bit with a 320x200 resolution...

Even the latest game to have randomization, Torchlight, suffers for this, because you eventually feel like you're running into randomly arranged templates, not truly randomized areas.

This isn't to say it's impossible to have an actually decent randomly generated and immersive game, rather that the people who started developing it are likely still working on it : o

It's called...moving on to a different game.

I mean damn, GW has been around for 5 years, and 3 years have passed since any significant content was added. There's a point in time where you just need to hang up the hat and call it a day.

The sooner you realize that nothing is going to make the game more enjoyable the better. Do you think dungeon x that you have done a dozen times is going to somehow become more entertaining if you have a chance of an ecto from the end chest? It will undoubtedly be slightly better for farming to get more virtual e-wealth, but it is the same exact content.

It doesn't change my view that when it comes to loot and rewarding gameplay, GW could have been less unforgiving.

Yes yes, we know how you feel. Obviously moving on to a new game is an easy and simple solution for the player.

What you fail to notice as always is that this discussion isn't about what a single player should do, but about what ANet could do to ensure player retention.

If the game is made better, more people play, both old and new alike. That's a pretty simple observation really. The whole "if you don't like it, leave" mentality is so childish and destructive.

And as has been noted GW PvE is largely playing dress up by earning/buying your gear. Some people play the Sims, some play GW. Its not just about slaying monster X for the billionth time.

Also the "5 year old" argument is stupid as well, since many games have been around much longer, such as Diablo 2 which STILL has a large playerbase, or games like Starcraft, or for that matter any Blizzard game lol.

The simple fact is, if people feel they're being better rewarded they're more likely to play. And if the reward/time ratio of playing UW is equivalent to playing Maguuma, or Crystal Desert (the ratio includes drop rates, relative monster difficulty, party size, etc.) or wherever, then yes, more of the game will become attractive to play again. I don't know how you keep missing this simple, basic fact, but there you go.

I'm sorry, but I really just don't understand what you are saying. Are you suggesting that players who have been playing the game for 5 years and have done everything in PvE 10+ times will stop being bored and will find the game attractive again because they can earn more money? Most of these people already have loads of money and have bought everything that they desire. Granted, some people start collections of the older weapons that don't drop anymore, but if they can get the cash to finish these they have no reason to keep playing. I must misunderstand you, because I don't think anyone could actually believe something that stupid.

back to the OP...

I dont reallly have a problem with rewards of gameplay. In my opinion, the reason we should play games is because they are fun to us. The end-of-the-area/dungeon rewards are just icing on the top. If you arnt having fun, then dont play the game. If a lot of people arnt having fun, then the problem is with the game, in which case rather than increasing rewards, the gameplay needs to be made more fun.

The only exception I think would be quests. Quest rewards in prophesies-nf have always (at least since Iv played the game) been pretty useless.

The thing that pisses me off the most is gettin a normal sin tome from a HM chest or 2 onyx/diamonds from a Hard HM dungeon. Personally I dont think Normal tomes should drop from Hm chests, and they should limit gem drop from end chest to a max of 1, so at least u always get a Gold item.