56 replies to this topic

[Ardeni]

Note: This thread is not a QQ about magic find. It actually isn't about magic find at all.

Ever since GW2 was released, I've seen topics which have something to do with luck but as far as I've seen, the actual topic hasn't been  brought up.

I come from games where everything depended on luck. Winning pvp required luck as it was all about who got crits and who didn't. Earning money was totally based on very rare drops, since mostly you edend up running dungeons at a loss when you didn't find anything rare. In this system I learnt that luck-based system was the most terrible thing that a developer can put into the game. It drove unlucky people into madness and got them to hate the game and the lucky players.

Originally I thought that this problem is non-existant in GW2 due to the karma system and many other things that offer you a steady flow of items/currency until you can get to your target. This system is friendly both to casual and hard core players, since you always know how much more you have to farm, how much more gold you need and etc. You can calculate approximately how long it would take you to get the items that you desire.

However, things turned out a bit differently. I don't care about the drop rates that much, since you can eventually get a set amount of gold by doing various of things. It will happen sooner or later. The thing that bothers me is the useless variables in legendary weapon craft. The crafting of mystic clovers is the most annoying part. The success rate for creatign them is 1/3, for no apparent reason. I'd rather have them cost 10x more to create than have to gamble for them not knowing how much more karma and gold you need to make them.

Another thing, that is the most annoying thing for casuals who want legendary weapons (or so I could imagine) are the pre-cursor weapons. It would be great if they had recipes, even though they would be very hard (or time consuming) to create. In the current system where you need to combine random exotics/rares in hope of getting the pre-cursor weapon. This is incredibly unlikely, so most of us need to have hundreds, if not thousands of weapons combined to create the desired weapon. Yes, we can just buy them, but if you're a casual player, the inflation seems to catch up with your income so you can never really reach the goal. Eventually the price will plateau, I guess, but that doesn't really remove the problem of creating the pre-cursors. I'd much prefer crafting the legendary weapons to be a journey that you can do just by yourself without buying anything from others. With the pre-cursors, this isn't really worth it so I will just end up buying mine if I can ever get the gold required.

Somebody could imagine that I've wasted lots of gold on the pre-cursor weapon/mystic clover hunt and am thus whining about these luck based things. However, I haven't done either, but I am still very annoyed by the fact that eventually I'll have to hop in there and start gambling. I don't mind if something is introduced for gamblers, such as a lottery system. Just don't make it mandatory for everybody.

Tl;dr: The small luck-based systems in GW2 have to go. They aren't fun, in my opinion, and adding an alternative option of crafting them with huge amount of materials should be fair for everybody even if the gambling mechanics would still stay for the gamblers.

[Captain Bulldozer]

I mostly agree with you.  As a big fan of GW1 (which had very few elements of random chance outside of drops) the addition of critical crafting success, critical hits via an controlled attribute, magic find, etc all seem to me to be steps back in design.  Even though I'm really enjoying GW2, things like this (as well as numerous other annoying changes) sometimes make the game less fun to play in the long run.

[Lastchime]

Legendaries are the exact opposite of necessary.

[Desild]

Lastchime, on 15 October 2012 - 04:59 PM, said:

Legendaries are the exact opposite of necessary.

Randomness is not strictly necessary either.

They already dumbed down Lendaries to be a rally paper of several materials, only to toss them all into a cauldron with no context. Adding a fractional percitle chance of getting some of the parts is just insult to injury.

[Sonann]

I hate random drops in their entirety. The whole premise never made since to me. Also have the enemies drop what is logical for them to drop. Humanoids drop the weapons and armor they were using. Animals drop skins, teeth, claws, etc. Animals don't drop swords, money, etc. When was the last time you have seen a wolf dragging around a sword in the wild? How many birds carry coins? And at max skill level the chance to craft anything should be 100%. Does a master furniture maker (IRL) make 10 piles of junk before he successfully makes a chair? I do get it, this is a game and some things need to be changed from realism to add to the fun but random does not equal fun. The arguably most fun game in history (Mario) doesn't have randomness. You hit a certain block its a mushroom, another is always a coin, etc.

[SirGamesalot]

This is what makes me not want a legendary

One thing is grinding for an eternity, but grinding en eternity just for the chance og getting the thing i want is just to bad for me.

[Lastchime]

So what's the alternative? 1000 tokens or something, each token given by grinding up 4 rares? That sounds roughly equivalent to the cost of a legendary atm (assumed 600 gold just buying it all outright if you could).

[Ardeni]

Lastchime, on 15 October 2012 - 04:59 PM, said:

Legendaries are the exact opposite of necessary.

Such a stupid argument. Playing the game isn't necessary either. Nothing is necessary when you go far enough. The thing is that they've made the process of acquiring legendaries annoying while it could be a fun and rewarding (in terms of looks) journey. The point of constructive criticism is that you want to make something better. If everybody used your argument when somebody criticises something, nothing would ever be imrpoved in any way.

Lastchime, on 15 October 2012 - 05:35 PM, said:

So what's the alternative? 1000 tokens or something, each token given by grinding up 4 rares? That sounds roughly equivalent to the cost of a legendary atm (assumed 600 gold just buying it all outright if you could).

I am not talking about changing the process entirely. I'd only like to have a recipe for the pre-cursors. Perhaps some karma, skill points, crafting materials and such things. The mystic clover recipe is okay, but the luck element should be removed while the actual requirements of creating one could be increased by 300-500% to compensate the randomness that was lost.

Edited by Ardeni, 15 October 2012 - 05:42 PM.

[alucard13mmfmj]

Sonann, on 15 October 2012 - 05:15 PM, said:

I hate random drops in their entirety. The whole premise never made since to me. Also have the enemies drop what is logical for them to drop. Humanoids drop the weapons and armor they were using. Animals drop skins, teeth, claws, etc. Animals don't drop swords, money, etc. When was the last time you have seen a wolf dragging around a sword in the wild? How many birds carry coins? And at max skill level the chance to craft anything should be 100%. Does a master furniture maker (IRL) make 10 piles of junk before he successfully makes a chair? I do get it, this is a game and some things need to be changed from realism to add to the fun but random does not equal fun. The arguably most fun game in history (Mario) doesn't have randomness. You hit a certain block its a mushroom, another is always a coin, etc.

the last game i played that had non-random drops andeach monster has its own items to drop was Ragnarok Online. lol. i like it cause i had more control on where to hunt for the items i need...

i used to kill 30,000 thara frog for a thara frog card (equivalent to a rune) because it was a 0.01% drop rate and I had bad luck. it was relatively satisfying to finally have it drop.

[Zhaitan]

Quote

Another thing, that is the most annoying thing for casuals who want legendary weapons (or so I could imagine) are the pre-cursor weapons.

If you'd take my suggestion, lay off the legendary weapon if you are a casual player. It is not meant for casuals unless you are planning for a 12 months haul. GW by nature is not an RNG driven game. But, there are certain populace in the playerbase that likes something to distinguish themselves - in GW, it was Phoenix, GWAMM, Gold Capes etc. As this franchise is in its early phase of evolution, people are doing so with legendaries. Imagine a town full of flashy sword animations or dagger flashes and then imagine your FPS.

When I was a kid, I found a TJ quote that probably answers your worry about getting what you seek.
“If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.”

So, if you really want it, you gotta get on the good side of RNG Gods or farm the needed gold or get other people to help you with money and mats or simply show 'em the greenbacks. Nothing's wrong with any of the approaches. If you consider getting a legendary item is an achievement, realistically speaking, any achievement that can be bought by ingame currency will eventually be categorized lolsauce.

[RandolfRa]

Maybe the randomess exists there to manipulate economy. The chances of getting a particular item out of mystic forge isn't necessarily fixed.

[smakrat]

I have terrible luck and always have done. I've farmed for 200+ hours in cursed shore with no exotic drop. I must be easily over 2000 greatsword thrown into forge with no pre cursor.

Then I see players claiming 2 exotics when they follow a chain of events and lately seeing people getting pre cursors even though they just got to cursed shore =\

[Ardeni]

Zhaitan, on 15 October 2012 - 06:58 PM, said:

If you'd take my suggestion, lay off the legendary weapon if you are a casual player. It is not meant for casuals unless you are planning for a 12 months haul. GW by nature is not an RNG driven game. But, there are certain populace in the playerbase that likes something to distinguish themselves - in GW, it was Phoenix, GWAMM, Gold Capes etc. As this franchise is in its early phase of evolution, people are doing so with legendaries. Imagine a town full of flashy sword animations or dagger flashes and then imagine your FPS.

When I was a kid, I found a TJ quote that probably answers your worry about getting what you seek.
“If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.”

So, if you really want it, you gotta get on the good side of RNG Gods or farm the needed gold or get other people to help you with money and mats or simply show 'em the greenbacks. Nothing's wrong with any of the approaches. If you consider getting a legendary item is an achievement, realistically speaking, any achievement that can be bought by ingame currency will eventually be categorized lolsauce.

I am not a casual player myself. I am somewhere in between casual and harcore having played about 380 hours between the headstart and this day. There is nothing wrong with playing the game for 12 months to reach the legendary weapons. I am not complaining for the process being hard or time consuming, but the problem is the randomness. So far I have found none reasons to justify the randomness in the crafting process as things can be hard enough without random recipes and luck based crafts. As I said in the original post, I don't want the process of acquiring a legendary be easier. I just want the randomness out of it so analytic people like me can calculate how much more items you exactly need and you can be sure that with a steady flow of money and items you can eventually reach your goal.

I am not sure whether to consider getting the legendary weapon as an achievement, at least for now. Currently the people who have legendaries have most likely recieved huge amounts of help, which is something that I don't especially respect. It is a great thing that people are willing to help others, but earning something for much lowered costs due to lots of help isn't quite the same as earning something by working on your own, for me at least. As for the gambling, I don't think I will waste my time on this and thus the farming is my solution. However, without these gambling elements (luck is not an achievement) the weapons could be considered as an achievement.

Your quote would perhaps apply to a casual player. However, since I have farmed dungeons and whatnot in other games so there is nothing new in this for me. Due to my experience, I know what parts of the legendary crafting process will be annoying (well, who doesn't hate losing a lot of money when gambling?). There is a huge difference to spend 400g to actually get closer to your goal or to spend it on mystic forge recieving nothing.

[Coren]

As a casual, I have no intention in getting legendaries. I am just glad that my exotics are just as good as them. If you ever played GW1 in it's early stages, getting obsidian armor was just as time consuming and just as grindy, and yet it had the exact same stats as that cheap armor you got near the end of the story line.

Bottom line, if you're complaining that legendaries are too hard to get... That's the point.

[Havana Crab]

Coren, on 16 October 2012 - 06:07 AM, said:

Bottom line, if you're complaining that legendaries are too hard to get... That's the point.

Not sure he was saying they were too hard.  I think he's saying he'd rather have them make it even harder, but drop the random element.  So if it usually takes 100 tries to get something you need, he'd rather pay the cost of a lot more tries, but have it guaranteed.  I think I agree.

[B3aT]

The topic should be named Luck in legendary, not in GW2, legendary are only a small unnecessary part of the game, only for bragging.

If people wants to grind for months to make a bigger weapon/armor skin, they should suffer based on luck, they deserver it

The reason of chance existence are multiple, they make items more valuable, more desirable and more prestigious, like they should be I guess. Its the end game of a crafter, it must take longer in order to do something in the game, and crafting must have a chance of success of some sort, gold can be bought, luck no.

The luck in general will only speed your way to the top gear, but is not required. With the regular loot you will get an end game 80 exotic full gear without a problem.

[Coren]

Havana Crab, on 16 October 2012 - 06:40 AM, said:

Not sure he was saying they were too hard.  I think he's saying he'd rather have them make it even harder, but drop the random element.  So if it usually takes 100 tries to get something you need, he'd rather pay the cost of a lot more tries, but have it guaranteed.  I think I agree.

Well one might also say that getting the materials is down to luck. I have a terrible point of view regarding the crafting of legendaries, I have no idea what the odds are in making them,but I do know that the difficulty of acquiring these items should be there.

As you said, it's best to make the materials harder to get, but guaranteed to get the end result.

[Ardeni]

B3aT, on 16 October 2012 - 06:59 AM, said:

The topic should be named Luck in legendary, not in GW2, legendary are only a small unnecessary part of the game, only for bragging.

If people wants to grind for months to make a bigger weapon/armor skin, they should suffer based on luck, they deserver it

The reason of chance existence are multiple, they make items more valuable, more desirable and more prestigious, like they should be I guess. Its the end game of a crafter, it must take longer in order to do something in the game, and crafting must have a chance of success of some sort, gold can be bought, luck no.

The luck in general will only speed your way to the top gear, but is not required. With the regular loot you will get an end game 80 exotic full gear without a problem.

I'd like to know about another aspect of the game that actually requires luck apart from the crafting of legendaries (and mystic forge in general as well) because I can't think of any. To me this indicates that Arenanet doesn't really want the game to be about luck, so why even have some elements of luck in it? Sure there are things that you can call lucky such as winning or losing in WvW or capturing the temple of Balthazar but that kind of luck is not based on the system but rather on the players themselves.

I don't really think that it is luck is the only thing that can make items desirable. Another thing that can have the same effect is hard work, which is the whole point of this thread (luck based systems should be changed to work based systems with guarenteed results).

[Lastchime]

Ardeni, on 16 October 2012 - 08:52 AM, said:

I'd like to know about another aspect of the game that actually requires luck apart from the crafting of legendaries (and mystic forge in general as well) because I can't think of any. To me this indicates that Arenanet doesn't really want the game to be about luck, so why even have some elements of luck in it? Sure there are things that you can call lucky such as winning or losing in WvW or capturing the temple of Balthazar but that kind of luck is not based on the system but rather on the players themselves..

  Variable combat damage, critical hits, chest and mob drops in general, unidentified dyes, black lion chests, gathering nodes (mainly herbs, but also bonuses from others)...we're surrounded by "luck", it's a fairly common element in even table top RPGs.

  But I also would much rather see the legendaries be equivalent difficulty to say FFXI's relics, where after like 10 years you have maybe a dozen total on a server.

[Zhaitan]

Ardeni, on 16 October 2012 - 04:22 AM, said:

I am not complaining for the process being hard or time consuming, but the problem is the randomness. So far I have found none reasons to justify the randomness in the crafting process as things can be hard enough without random recipes and luck based crafts.

There are two ways to get what you need. One thru randomness (aka Mystic Forge) and the other by paying gold (TP). I do understand that the cost of the item on TP will be quite high and the reason being the randomness at its genesis. If someone could pay X to get Y, why would a third person pay Z to get Y where Z > X? Only if there is some randomness involved. Also, these legendary crafts provide some means to remove excess surplus of mats from the economy. The Devs probably saw it as probable a way to remove the surplus and keep the supply/demand ratio of the ingredients in balance.

I have a fundamental issue with tying a weapon to world completion. If I have conquered the world with my shoddy Machete (exotic in the case of GW2), why would I really need the Excalibur (Legendary in case of GW2) for? To kill the dead things all over again. Realistically speaking, if I have spent hundreds of hours in farming for something and completed pretty much majority of the 100% of the content in the process, what use does it have for me? I can settle for title, particle effects, flashy emotes, and even nice incremental glitter to my toon as I traverse that path towards being legendary..but, a weapon? meh..

[RandolfRa]

Quote

  But I also would much rather see the legendaries be equivalent difficulty to say FFXI's relics, where after like 10 years you have maybe a dozen total on a server.

So that I may see a Legendary when I'm 32? No thanks.

[Ardeni]

Zhaitan, on 16 October 2012 - 05:34 PM, said:

There are two ways to get what you need. One thru randomness (aka Mystic Forge) and the other by paying gold (TP). I do understand that the cost of the item on TP will be quite high and the reason being the randomness at its genesis. If someone could pay X to get Y, why would a third person pay Z to get Y where Z > X? Only if there is some randomness involved. Also, these legendary crafts provide some means to remove excess surplus of mats from the economy. The Devs probably saw it as probable a way to remove the surplus and keep the supply/demand ratio of the ingredients in balance.

I will most likely buy my pre-cursor at some point. I'd much rather just collect the materials and craft one (the journey to the desired weapon that I was talking about...), should that be possible though. Actually, when you buy expensive items from others, you never know how much money you will need to farm either. Their price is at 100-300g now, but who knows if its 50g or 1000g at Christmas when I'd most likely posess such amounts of gold? However, even when the pre-cursor weapons can be bought with no randomness included, the mystic clovers still require gambling. Currently there's no way to avoid gambling when you want to craft one of these weapons.

[Mournblade]

I can relate to GW1 as well, and this topic is close to me as I also have never had 'good luck'. Year after year I got the white birthday presents while watching a few get the gold presents and cashing them in for $$$. Some birthday present huh? I got you a clay bowl for your birthday but your brother got a Ferrari.... Anyway, I totally agree with the OP. I don't mind working hard for something I want, even if it  is only cosmetic. Thats what the game is about - a series of challenges. But leave out the randomness! Give us a path, and for gods sake add some sort of back story regarding the Legendary items...

[Blixcoe]

if you're a casual player and you're going for legendary weapons, then you're not a casual player no more.

[Ardeni]

Blixcoe, on 17 October 2012 - 01:52 PM, said:

if you're a casual player and you're going for legendary weapons, then you're not a casual player no more.

There are many definitions for a casual player. Yours is very different to mine.

[krautrock]

Companies have a choice to make.

A. Make a game that requires effort to "win" that becomes a beloved, but marginal, franchise often used to point out flaws in modern "apps"

B. Make a game-like credit-card transaction process with a few angry, knee-jerk responses to players now and then in order to keep the cash flowing for as long as possible

I'd say the 2 roads diverged around 2004, because I haven't seen anything that fits the first definition in 6+ years.

GW2 is an app for non-gamers who want to "game."  It was pretty, but the antithesis of PC-MMORPG.  There's not a thing they can do to save it either.  It's quite obvious their A-team of dev's deserted ship before launch, and who can blame them.

(edit: B ) with no space becomes ... wtf emoticon is that?)

Edited by krautrock, 17 October 2012 - 02:55 PM.

[Blixcoe]

Ardeni, on 17 October 2012 - 02:22 PM, said:

There are many definitions for a casual player. Yours is very different to mine.

you could gain it playing casually. But that would tale 2 years?

[B3aT]

Is not the only thing, but it is a factor to make them more desirable, luck will split the hard worker players in lucky and unlucky, and players wants to brag that they were lucky..and have a big special weapon ..and they grinded or bought gold ..
. Lots of men works all their life, but many doesn't achive nothing, got sick or die poor ..

I agree to the topic, legendaries should not be chance based, it takes too much grind to make them, I got the same bad feeling like from the other Ncsoft chinese grinding games

Ardeni, on 16 October 2012 - 08:52 AM, said:

...
I don't really think that it is luck is the only thing that can make items desirable. Another thing that can have the same effect is hard work, which is the whole point of this thread (luck based systems should be changed to work based systems with guarenteed results).

[Specialz]

I think legendaries should have some RNG only to cut down the amount of people that can possibly have them. Do I enjoy blowing my money on materials to craft bows to dump in the mystic forge? No but if it can cut the amount of people that get it then i m cool with that (its a little pettish but whatever). Legendary will only stay legendary if there is a factor beyond the control of the masses. If legendary was a RNGless system, then everybody will have them which will make them no different than the current exotics.

I would agree with the OP if this was  a vertical progression game (at level 80) but its not, so I don't agree. The thing is a lot of things in life are not entirely achievable via hard work and skill, sometimes you need a little luck.

[Ardeni]

Blixcoe, on 17 October 2012 - 03:02 PM, said:

you could gain it playing casually. But that would tale 2 years?

Exactly. I can imagine that there are quite a few casuals who will play for 2 years.

Specialz, on 17 October 2012 - 03:50 PM, said:

I think legendaries should have some RNG only to cut down the amount of people that can possibly have them. Do I enjoy blowing my money on materials to craft bows to dump in the mystic forge? No but if it can cut the amount of people that get it then i m cool with that (its a little pettish but whatever). Legendary will only stay legendary if there is a factor beyond the control of the masses. If legendary was a RNGless system, then everybody will have them which will make them no different than the current exotics.

I would agree with the OP if this was  a vertical progression game (at level 80) but its not, so I don't agree. The thing is a lot of things in life are not entirely achievable via hard work and skill, sometimes you need a little luck.

There is no reason to extend the luck element to the game, though. I can't see the reasons why a recipe for the pre-cursor that would require a lot materials couldn't be something that controls the amount of both pre-cursors and legendaries. The fact is that eventually a lot of people will have the legendaries whether there is a luck element or not. I bet that dozens of pre-cursors are created every day and eventually it will lead to legendaries being something that is hard to achieve, but not that uncommon (after a couple of years perhaps).

This happens in every game, though. Items that are rare and very desirable in launch get more and more common as the time passes. It is unavoidable unless the developers set a specific limit on the amount of those items (such as there can never be more than 1000 of them) or that they are impossible to create after a certain time limit, which leads to a fixed amount of the items as well.