Rewards for beating the story

[The Boz.2038]

Beating the base game and expansions stories is... pretty much done once. It takes a fair while, and is fairly unrewarding. People that start the story more than once mostly do it for an achievement or two, and even then, they don't often even go all the way to the end. 

Let's see, base game personal story conclusion, Victory or Death, rewards you with a Pact weapon (Unique skin, yay! This one is actually not bad), 3 loot bags, 10 bags of loot (not the same thing, lol), 10 Dragonite, 5 Spirit Shards, 1000 Karma, 5 Mentorship tomes and one piece of bad rare leveling gear, and... that's it. That's the reward. For about 15-20 hours of content.

Heart of Thorns finale, Hearts and Minds? This one actually kinda almost tickles you with the Broken Caladbolg! It's a precursor for an ascended weapon in the form of one of five most popular weapons (dagger, sword, greatsword, shield, scepter). You get to craft an ascended weapon at approximately 30% discount, get an idea how precursors work, and get a piece of gear to tackle harder content! So far so good! The rest of the rewards are a mostly useless exotic Leystone armor piece(but yay, skin!), 5 Spirit Shards, 15 Crystalline Ore (honestly not bad), 2 rare or exotic random drops, a component for one of three different backpieces (yay, skin!), and once, just once, for the first time you beat it, you get a little tiny drop of Maguuma experience. For about 3 to 5 hours of content, this is almost not bad.

Path of Fire. This is newer, more modern, surely the rewards will be better, right? 6 common unidentified gear, Battered Forged Components (which means 2-4 more unidentified gear of random rarity, and some materials), an Elonian coat (yay, skin! But unlocks all 3 pieces.), 1100 Karma, 1-3 more common or uncommon gear, 20-40 Trade Contracts, and a component for one of three (leading to 4! Ancouragement to beat it three times even more than before!) backpieces. That's it. That's the reward. For about 3 to 5 hours, again, like HoT.

The times to beat are based on just the story instances and required other steps. Not counting mapping, getting masteries, etc., so just "2nd playthrough". It can be done faster, but not that much faster.

Kinda pitiful, isn't it?

Ending PvE story content looks like the perfect hook for a reward that leads the player into other, more challenging content. A +9 agony infusion could find itself there, no issues. Maybe even a, gasp, gold coin? Or, more extremely, a Mystic Coin? Or, dare I say it, if you fear economic impact and trade implications, a Mystic Clover!? Or, or, how about this, brace yourselves, this one is big. Black Lion Key! We can literally farm those in 30 minutes, one per week. Why not just.. give us one more, just that one more, for actually beating the story? Raid CMs can reward you with a massive amount of food or utility items of your choice. Why not include a very tiny, small platter of such choice food or utility, say, 5 pieces, in the endgame chest, too? Something useful, something that makes you go "huh, I can use this in challenging content now, nice", and not just "well, let's bring out the salvage kit"...

[Danikat.8537]

I know of quite a few people, myself included, who repeat the entire personal story on multiple characters and not just for achievements. But I also don't do it for the rewards. I do it because I like the story itself and I want all my permanent characters to have completed it.

I think it's misleading to suggest that the rewards from the final story step are all you get for 15-20 hours of playing. Each preceding story step also has it's own rewards, so if you want to talk about what the story gives you in total you should really add them all up. That final reward is just what you get for doing the final step in the process.

I'm also not sure that adding more rewards, even something like a black lion key, would get more people to complete the story. The level 40 and 60 story steps already give a black lion key and relatively few people take the time to do them, even when they're already making a key farmer for the level 10 story and have more than enough tomes of knowledge to get them to level 40 or 60. (Incidentally if anyone is doing this with tomes it's best to only boost your character to the level needed for the next story step, because each chapter will give you a few levels of XP, so it will save some tomes.)

It would be nice for those of us who are already replaying the story multiple times, but unnecessary because we're already doing it, and I'm not convinced it would be enough of an incentive for people who just want to farm rewards because other options are almost certainly faster.

[Dawdler.8521]

I got the dagger precursor from a random core story lootbag (the one with the mouth in the basement). I dont even know which playthrough count. So done once for no loot is... relative.

[The Boz.2038]

20 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

The level 40 and 60 story steps already give a black lion key

Do you not find that strange? That a level 10, 40 and 60 story step awards a BLK, but not the finale?

[Danikat.8537]

28 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Do you not find that strange? That a level 10, 40 and 60 story step awards a BLK, but not the finale?

No, because I think it's done primarily as a way of advertising black lion chests/keys rather than a reward for players.

The level 10 key ensures almost everyone gets at least one, so they try opening a chest and see all the 'amazing' stuff they get from it, which in theory gives them an incentive to buy more keys. The level 40 and 60 keys act as a reminder of the chests and (depending on how fast you're levelling) give you a try at a different reward table, again giving you an incentive to buy more keys to get more of the new items. I suspect that Anet thinks by level 80 players will have made up their minds on it and if they're not already buying keys another freebie isn't going to persuade them.

I think most games with loot boxes give players at least one free try, and those usually come relatively early on because it's in the companies interests to get players buying them as soon as they can.

[The Boz.2038]

1 hour ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

I got the dagger precursor from a random core story lootbag (the one with the mouth in the basement). I dont even know which playthrough count. So done once for no loot is... relative.

What an amazingly irrelevant point.

Thank you for this.

[Omega.6801]

Never played story for the rewards tbh. That one time, where I saved the world and the world's leaders rewarded me with two blues and five junk items, I was kinda upset, but outside of that, I'm fine. Just come out of the closet OP, what is it you want? A Legendary, a GoB, 3000g?

[Danikat.8537]

1 hour ago, Danikat.8537 said:

It would be nice for those of us who are already replaying the story multiple times, but unnecessary because we're already doing it, and I'm not convinced it would be enough of an incentive for people who just want to farm rewards because other options are almost certainly faster.

I just re-read this and realised I'd made a mistake in assuming those are the only possibilities.

So, assuming I've understood correctly and this suggestion is not simply about giving those of us who already repeat the story more rewards (and it doesn't sound like it is) what is the intended benefit? If there is a way to encourage more players to replay the story on multiple characters why should Anet do that? What's the benefit for those players or for Anet?

I'm not against the idea of adding more rewards to story instances, I'm just not sure what the point is.

[The Boz.2038]

3 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

If there is a way to encourage more players to replay the story on multiple characters why should Anet do that? What's the benefit for those players or for Anet?

A consistent player retention issue for this game seems to be the "did the daily farms, logging off" routine, and that can tax some people. Adding more activities (which is why the seasonal events exist) is a good idea, and the way most people treat the story (a chore they have to go through) is also a problem that can be solved with the same move.

Currently, engaging with any content other than farming really does feel like a slap in the face. The story takes hours to complete, rewards pennies. Someone commented that I should count all the rewards, not just the end, yeah, sure, okay, do so. It doesn't look good, either. 

The community has had a taste of what could be through the Seasons of the Dragons rewards. Why not, you know, ride the wave and beef up some other rewards while we're here?

And finally, hours-engaged vs hours-developed. ANet spends thousands of hours of development crafting story areas, triggers, dialogue, etc. Easily equal to what they spend creating the repeatable content, outside of a common shared zone itself. And yet, 95% of the playerbase will engage with that content once, if at all. You can check what achievements people unlocked on gw2efficiency, see how many played through a story, and how many did it two or more times (mentioned backpieces are somewhat handy in that). Sad part is, as far as MMO stories go, ANet's stuff is actually good, and they do put in the effort. Why not incentivize engaging in the content just a tiny tad bit more?

inb4 EoD also rewards 10 bloodstone dust, 4-6 unidentified gear, and a backpiece component.

[LSD.4673]

Lots of guff in the 1-80 story can be skipped (e.g., the dumb, drawn out risen "ambush" in Timberline can just be run through, or the "escort pretend Demmi Beetlestone" step you can just run the opposite way and fight nobody. Meanwhile you get some levelling gear, some craft bags and some decent boosters for WvW. The rewards aren't too bad. The real issue is how long the story missions take -- a problem compounded since they removed the skippable dialogue. Now you have to sit there and watch a poorly scripted, poorly written, poorly voiced scene play out to progress. Eugh.

[kharmin.7683]

One problem that I see with increasing the rewards is that those players who do the complete story X number of times would then do the story X number of times and then complain about that level of rewards not being enough and we'd be back to where we are now.

[Mungo Zen.9364]

6 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

A consistent player retention issue for this game seems to be the "did the daily farms, logging off" routine, and that can tax some people. Adding more activities (which is why the seasonal events exist) is a good idea, and the way most people treat the story (a chore they have to go through) is also a problem that can be solved with the same move.

There are many activities that do offer better rewards than story.  Yet, if a player is logging in and not playing that content, does it really matter what the rewards are?  Usually, those who are playing for rewards will play the most efficient way to get those rewards.  Those who are playing activities in the game because they enjoy the activity, will get the rewards as a benefit of enjoying the game.

 

However, the game does incentivize playing and replaying the story content already.  It just doesn't come by a single reward for finishing a single story step.  There are layers of achievements and rewards for playing through the story and associated content.  Look at PoF and the Ascended Banners you can work on for each of the three factions.  It starts with making a choice in the Story and pushes the player into various parts of PoF content.  The player is also incentivized to play the content 3 times, once for each faction.

The same can be said of Living World Season 3 and 4, where the Meta achievement is to work towards Legendary items; Vision and Aurora as well as Roller Beetle and Skyscale.  You do have to play a lot more than just story but, completing the story and the achievements within are required just as much as any other part.

 

6 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

The community has had a taste of what could be through the Seasons of the Dragons rewards. Why not, you know, ride the wave and beef up some other rewards while we're here?

Anet sells Living World content.  Seasons of the Dragon rewards are locked behind a paywall unless you happened to have been playing when they gave the chapters away for free.  Why would they incentivize free content like the Personal Story over paid content like Living World?

 

[Sobx.1758]

Story -other than the plot itself- always seemed to me as a type of an introductory content for each of the new released map. I don't think it's necessarily the goal of an mmorpg to incentivize players to close themsleves in single-player instances they could infinitely farm for rewards. So I don't really see any compelling reason for why we'd suddenly need to increase the rewards there.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Dawdler.8521]

10 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

What an amazingly irrelevant point.

Thank you for this.

You're welcome. People will never be satisfied. Even if Anet gave a free legendary at the end of the story it would OmGWhyOnLy1LeGeNDaRY?!?!?

[Redfeather.6401]

Boz, I agree that heart of thorns was the best. Getting that morphing ascended weapon is pretty wild. Every campaign should have something unique like that.

[Khisanth.2948]

13 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Let's see, base game personal story conclusion, Victory or Death, rewards you with a Pact weapon (Unique skin, yay! This one is actually not bad), 3 loot bags, 10 bags of loot (not the same thing, lol), 10 Dragonite, 5 Spirit Shards, 1000 Karma, 5 Mentorship tomes and one piece of bad rare leveling gear, and... that's it. That's the reward. For about 15-20 hours of content.

That is the rewards for Victory or Death which is probably closer to 45m-1h. The rest of the rewards are after their individual steps

 

[mindcircus.1506]

15 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Let's see, base game personal story conclusion, Victory or Death, rewards you with a Pact weapon (Unique skin, yay! This one is actually not bad), 3 loot bags, 10 bags of loot (not the same thing, lol), 10 Dragonite, 5 Spirit Shards, 1000 Karma, 5 Mentorship tomes and one piece of bad rare leveling gear, and... that's it. That's the reward. For about 15-20 hours of content.

 

Actually you got MUCH more than this over the course of the 15-20 Hour core story. There's been several decent bags of crafting materials. More bags of unidentified gear than you can shake a stick at and at least 2 Black Lion Keys. Countless gear upgrades, many of them level relevant....the list goes on.
Basically you've said it's 15-20 hours of content but for some reason you (and only you) only saw a reward from the final mission.

And since we all know that is a load of baloney...

Starting your argument with this level of intellectual dishonesty sucks any value from the rest of your post. It's clear you are engaging in false rhetoric rather than actual discussion.

But by all means continue your diatribe about how the Big Nose Ted encounter isn't rewarding enough, or how pressing F to beat Victory or Death should give LI.

Quality content.

Edited February 16, 2022 by mindcircus.1506

[Ashen.2907]

18 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Beating the base game and expansions stories is... pretty much done once. It takes a fair while, and is fairly unrewarding. People that start the story more than once mostly do it for an achievement or two, and even then, they don't often even go all the way to the end. 

 

 

Beating the game and expansion stories is...something I only do once. It takes a fair while and I find it fairly unrewarding. If I start the story more than once I mainly do it for an achievement or two, and even then I often don't go all the way to the end.

 

 

 

Fixed it for you.

[The Boz.2038]

3 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Beating the game and expansion stories is...something I only do once. It takes a fair while and I find it fairly unrewarding. If I start the story more than once I mainly do it for an achievement or two, and even then I often don't go all the way to the end.

Fixed it for you.

The achievements breakdown on gw2e confirms my point, though: 60% of the players complete a story, 10% complete an achievement that require you to do it more than once.

You fixed nothing. If you insist that my claim stands on nothing, then yours does, also.

7 hours ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

That is the rewards for Victory or Death which is probably closer to 45m-1h. The rest of the rewards are after their individual steps

 

You realize that this also isn't, like, good, right? 

12 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

Anet sells Living World content.  Seasons of the Dragon rewards are locked behind a paywall unless you happened to have been playing when they gave the chapters away for free.  Why would they incentivize free content like the Personal Story over paid content like Living World?

HoT and PoF aren't free, though. 

Edited February 16, 2022 by The Boz.2038

[Rasimir.6239]

2 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

The achievements breakdown on gw2e confirms my point, though: 60% of the players complete a story, 10% complete an achievement that require you to do it more than once.

Did you consider that the remaining 40% simply aren't interested in the game's story, and that the remaining 90% might not care about achievements? Why do you want to force incentivize those people to play the story if they don't enjoy it?

 

I get it, your motivation to play this game (any game?) is rewards, and you're looking for more activities you could squeeze rewards out of. That's just you though, not everybody. People play this game for a variety of reasons, and the game does a great job at distributing rewards so that no matter what you enjoy, you feel decently rewarded (unless material rewards are your only motivator, in which case you obviously will find differences since all of the non-material rewards drop off the face of your world).

 

Leave story rewards the way they are. They are in a good place for people who enjoy playing the story, and at the same time allow people that don't enjoy story to ignore it and gather their shinies elsewhere.

 

Sincerely

an altoholic who enjoys to replay this game's stories dozends of times simply because this kind of "interactive storybook" is fun to me

[The Boz.2038]

Just now, Rasimir.6239 said:

Did you consider that the remaining 40% simply aren't interested in the game's story, and that the remaining 90% might not care about achievements? Why do you want to force incentivize those people to play the story if they don't enjoy it?

I did. And maybe adding a tiny incentive will convince a tiny part of that population to, you know, do it (again)?

[Rasimir.6239]

Just now, The Boz.2038 said:

I did. And maybe adding a tiny incentive will convince a tiny part of that population to, you know, do it (again)?

But why??? What's in it for you (or them) to "convince" people to play the story that don't care for it now?

 

Side note: if we're talking first playthrough you're missing a very big part of the rewards: a mastery point.

[The Boz.2038]

Just now, Rasimir.6239 said:

But why??? What's in it for you (or them) to "convince" people to play the story that don't care for it now?

I did answer this already.

More varied engagement pattern. Content that took *a lot* of devtime to make gets interacted with more. People engage with that stuff instead of just the hyper-rewarding farms.
 

[mercury ranique.2170]

On 2/15/2022 at 10:49 AM, The Boz.2038 said:

 People that start the story more than once mostly do it for an achievement or two, and even then, they don't often even go all the way to the end. 

 

Where do you base this on?
Who are you to tell how people play and enjoy the game?
I personally enjoy the story. The moment I start playing this game for ingame rewards, I would doubt my sanity. I play this game cause I enjoy it. I only play those elements that I enjoy (you wont find me in PvP for example).

A few tips when writing am opinion.
1: It is your opinion. Do not project it on others caliming to have a mandate while you do not have it. your opinion matters no matter who shares it or does not share it. Others are perfectly capable of saying they share  it ir not. Claiming you speak on behalf of others makes it actually appear less strong.

2: Ask yourself what you want to achieve. If it is just for venting, I do think you should be carefull. Clearly state your goal and stick to that.

3: You catch more bees with honey.
Saying how bad something is, is less likely to change something then saying what is good and what you want to change. Be constructive, but also honest. You seem to actually care enough about the story to post on this forum about it, yet you sound very negative about it. So perhaps (if this is true) try to explain what you like about the story and how you find the rewards lacking. Try not to sum up how they lack, but how you would like to have it improved.

 

[The Boz.2038]

5 minutes ago, mercury ranique.2170 said:

Where do you base this on?
Who are you to tell how people play and enjoy the game?
 . . . 
A few tips when writing am opinion.
 . . .
3: You catch more bees with honey.

Don't pontificate. I already listed my sources; you can check them easily yourself. 
And if you want to change something that you think is not good, you should first demonstrate how it is not good. This is how it works. And I literally did sum up how I wanted it improved.