6:57 am, September 30, 2013
115
Luck in GW2
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.
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.