Make the unique infusions accessible to all and not as expensive please.

[Achillies.2860]

Dear Anet, 

 

I rarely post here at all but thought I'd give it a shot. I enjoy all your content you produce and hope the Guild Wars franchise thrives for years to come. It has brought me so much joy and satisfaction over the years and MOST aspects of the game I feel rewarded for my time invested. 

 

But then comes the rng..... I get it, its an MMO. MMO's are inherently meant to be grindy to keep the audience engaged and hooked in to attempt to attain that shiny reward at the end.  I believe some grind is necessary, or 'time investment'. If I put X hours into fractals every X amount of days I will eventually get X amount of gold that I need to buy X whatever, T4 mats, mystic coins etc etc. You get rewarded guaranteed, you get currency to work towards that shiny that you wanted. 

Another example is the pvp pip system reward, you grind your face off and take all the smack talk from salty pvp'ers, eventually you will get those 120 ranked match wins for the emblem needed to create that legendary trinket! Thats good reward, good and worthwhile time investment!  

You are not handed the shiny thing on a silver platter, you are rewarded instead based on the amount of hours you invest into the game! 

 

Which comes to my point, unique infusions. Most notably; The Chak infusion, Liquid Aurillium, The Confetti Infusion, The Queen Bee Infusion etc etc and now most recently of March 19 2021, The Pristine Dragon Eye Infusions. 

I remember seeing these on the trailer for the last Champions Icebrood Saga release and thought they were a reward that I wanted and could obtain. But the drop chance is obscene for once per day.  Yes, Dragonstorm takes about 20 minutes of my time, yes its easy to do and doesn't require set up and having to be on a map early to guarantee a good Meta map ( Im looking at you chak gerant). It doesn't matter! I play this latest content, which I personally find cool and engaging ,just for a very very minuscule chance at a reward that I want. Everytime I successfully complete a Dragonstorm encounter I am not satisfied in the knowledge that I am slowly progressing towards the shiny goal that I want. I am hoping beyond hope that I get that lucky drop that I wish to attain, only then to discover that all i got was an unidentified rare instead?..... yay? My hopes are dashed yet Im a sucker and come back the next day just for the same thing to happen again.

 

There is only so much monotonous and frankly, pointless grind a gamer can take before they grow a brain and put down the mouse and keyboard and venture outside to make a life for themselves, know what I mean?  

 

I am sure there are many, MANY fans of this game who actively play and enjoy that rng aspect, that enticing carrot on the stick where you try to grab it yet the stick just keeps growing and growing beyond your arms reach.  "But annoying player ranting on the forums!" I hear you cry; "Why not just do fractals and buy the infusion on the tp?" 

Because the infusions cost over 5k in game currency, if not more. Convert that from gems to real life currency.... it adds up and becomes a bit ridiculous. That is the same for all the unique infusions! They cost more than a generation 1 legendary. 

 

My solution at the end of this, is simple. Make it so we can outright buy the Prisitine Dragon Eye infusions for the defense tokens. Make it cost 1000. Heck it, make it cost 90000 if you really want to keep it as a 'prestige' item. Have it tied to obscure, hard achievements that the player needs to complete first in order to even unlock the option to buy that sweet infusion of their dreams! Make it cost a different currency altogether (but dont make it super grindy like the Frost Legion Infusion for the love of God please dont).

The infusions as they stand are more expensive than a legendary and seem more prestigious and therefore more 'legendary' than all the legendary gear in the game currently. 

Im sorry for the waffle but I just wanted to get my thoughts out there for a game that I have enjoyed for so many years and hopefully many more years to come.  I hope some aspect of what im trying to convey across comes under consideration for the health of the game and the longevity of the player base. 

 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Achillies.2860

[Achillies.2860]

Just an add on to this, a link to a reddit post that inspired me to write all that stuff out that basically summarises in a more concise way what i've been talking about. 

 

 

[Hobin Rude.1672]

I complelty agree. I also posted something similar (with less words) a minute ago and then found this.
Give us ways to earn this high end stuff, not just very rare drops, that you never get.
This only creates frustration and finally look for other ways to spend the time with less frustration...

[Will.9785]

Cosigned.  The trailer showing characters with multiple dragon eye infusions feels like false advertising because the fact is the vast majority of players will never be able to achieve that.

 

On a related note, I'm sick of ANet calling items with infinitesimal drop rates "rewards".  An example of that would be the volcanic stormcaller weapons, which up until recently could only be obtained via a low drop chance.  I still haven't gotten 1 as a drop even after 100+ DRMs.  I've had to buy every single one from the vendor.  Another example is the 2nd dragon eye.  Calling something a "Reward" implies that it is earned.  These items aren't earned.  You either get lucky or (more often than not) you don't.  Someone could get lucky and get the item on their first run.  Did they earn it?  And someone else might not get it after 1000 runs.  Have they not earned it?

 

Someone could literally do Vine Wrath, Chak Gerent, Dragonstorm, and AB meta, once a day, every day, until GW2 shuts down and never see a drop from any of them.  In fact, that's the most likely outcome.  Don't try to trick players into thinking they aren't wasting their time by calling them rewards.  Call them something else like 1 in a million drops because that's what they really are.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Will.9785

[mindcircus.1506]

2 hours ago, Hobin Rude.1672 said:

Give us ways to earn this high end stuff, not just very rare drops, that you never get.

Then it stops being "high end stuff" and just becomes more "obnoxious crap everyone has"

[Infusion.7149]

The only one I can see changing is Pristine Dragon Eye Infusion really.

The rest are openworld items so don't expect them to change.

P.S. You forgot about others such as Crystal Infusion & Heart of Khan Ur, so I guess you only listed ones you care about.

[Fenom.9457]

Yeah, I agree. In a way you can still have the “guaranteed working towards the goal but it’ll take forever” in the sense that you can buy them with gold, so anytime you earn gold you slowly inch forward.  However, the goal is so monstrously huge that it leaves me discouraged after an hour or two each day, PLUS you could argue it’s NOT a guaranteed type thing since the goalpost moves and can disappear. 
 

I do really, really greatly appreciate that they made the drop rates of the of the rarest like chak and confetti better so that they actually appear on the TP at all, but I do wish they’d make it just a tiny bit more common still. They’re just so high, getting one of each of the few rarest ones (not even counting khan ur which I won’t even address) is more expensive than a full legendary character. Imagine how much money those of us who want to do both are faced with having to acquire. To get a fully outfitted character with a relatively decent variety of infusions instead of the same one 18 times is obscenely expensive, so any adjustments are very welcome

[Sobx.1758]

I don't see anything wrong with having some super-rare items, especially when they're just cosmetic in and as shiny as most of these infusions are, so nah, I don't see some overwhelming reason to do this. The exception to that might be the pristine eye, as it's not as overwhelming visually and the decision to give everyone just a single eye is a bit weird (but still not bad), but either way it's still just a rare cosmetic so w/e. Having some super-rare items in mmo is perfectly fine if they don't grant power.

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

2 hours ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

Then it stops being "high end stuff" and just becomes more "obnoxious crap everyone has"

Well let's say, for the sake of argument, the item drops 1 in 1000 and you get 1 token per event.  Then, again, for the sake of argument, the cost of buying this 1 in 1000 drop was 2000 tokens.  This leaves it as high-end while also putting a ceiling on the item to require potentially infinite farming. (Lookign at you Teq and Aurene weapons.)

[AgentMoore.9453]

A couple of things on my infusion wishlist:

- Add them to the wardrobe somehow so that when you finally obtain your hyper-RNG 10,000 gold aesthetic, it's a skin instead of a one-use item for one character

- Add show/hide functionality to infusions so you can turn them on or off at your leisure as you can with armor and weapons

- Give infusions their own slots in the hero panel rather than incorporating them into the gear pieces themselves

- Provide slow & steady ways of obtaining infusions alongside the RNG chance (maybe these should be account-bound?)

 

Rare items in games are fine, and I'm happy to take a long time playing through content and putting in effort to get them, but when your only choices are to roll the dice or spend more than the cost of a legendary weapon to receive a cosmetic for a single character, the motivation to try and get the thing drops pretty sharply. In short, I want infusions themselves to work better and I want more ways of obtaining them that still require effort/playing the game.

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

18 minutes ago, AgentMoore.9453 said:

A couple of things on my infusion wishlist:

- Add them to the wardrobe somehow so that when you finally obtain your hyper-RNG 10,000 gold aesthetic, it's a skin instead of a one-use item for one character

- Add show/hide functionality to infusions so you can turn them on or off at your leisure as you can with armor and weapons

- Give infusions their own slots in the hero panel rather than incorporating them into the gear pieces themselves

- Provide slow & steady ways of obtaining infusions alongside the RNG chance (maybe these should be account-bound?)

 

Rare items in games are fine, and I'm happy to take a long time playing through content and putting in effort to get them, but when your only choices are to roll the dice or spend more than the cost of a legendary weapon to receive a cosmetic for a single character, the motivation to try and get the thing drops pretty sharply. In short, I want infusions themselves to work better and I want more ways of obtaining them that still require effort/playing the game.

By "Give infusions their own slot" Do you mean the effects or the +Agony +Stat?  I agree with the effects having their own slots (And ANet can limit these to stop people from just having 18 infusions stacked), but I don't agree with giving the infusion slot as their own thing as they're part of the ascended armor progression.

[HotDelirium.7984]

Still have not seen anyone to date displaying any eye infusions let alone two. Its quite sad how they think a super rare drop is somehow good game design? If they sell for thousands of gold RN I have to assume people will be selling them and are not going to be wearing them...which defeats the purpose of even having said infusion.

[AgentMoore.9453]

18 minutes ago, Sir Alymer.3406 said:

By "Give infusions their own slot" Do you mean the effects or the +Agony +Stat?  I agree with the effects having their own slots (And ANet can limit these to stop people from just having 18 infusions stacked), but I don't agree with giving the infusion slot as their own thing as they're part of the ascended armor progression.

I mean the fluttery bits. The confetti sparkles, bees, and magic woobles. They're currently inseparable from their stats and their visuals can't be toggled. Maybe that means separating them and calling the visual something else like an 'aura', but it'd be nice to be able to toss bees on a character without having to remember which amulet has the bees in it. I have no interest in changing the stats infusions offer; people seem plenty happy with those currently.

[mindcircus.1506]

1 hour ago, Sir Alymer.3406 said:

Well let's say, for the sake of argument, the item drops 1 in 1000 and you get 1 token per event.  Then, again, for the sake of argument, the cost of buying this 1 in 1000 drop was 2000 tokens.  This leaves it as high-end while also putting a ceiling on the item to require potentially infinite farming. (Lookign at you Teq and Aurene weapons.)

And you honestly think the people in this thread losing their minds over this stuff would be happy with this level of grind?

[Sobx.1758]

1 hour ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

Still have not seen anyone to date displaying any eye infusions let alone two. Its quite sad how they think a super rare drop is somehow good game design? If they sell for thousands of gold RN I have to assume people will be selling them and are not going to be wearing them...which defeats the purpose of even having said infusion.

And yet people are wearing other expensive infusions despite them still selling for 8k+, so maybe not exactly true and those auras/effects are just more exclusive than anything else, while at the same time not being an actual issue, because they're nothing more than cosmetic items.

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

1 hour ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

And you honestly think the people in this thread losing their minds over this stuff would be happy with this level of grind?

It's no worse than a legendary and the infusions aren't required.  If they want just the +Agony Resistance & + stat, they can get those infusions f or far cheaper.  The method I described puts an upper limit on the RNG, meaning, even if you're terribly unlucky, you'll get it eventually by just grinding.

[HotDelirium.7984]

2 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

And yet people are wearing other expensive infusions despite them still selling for 8k+, so maybe not exactly true and those auras/effects are just more exclusive than anything else, while at the same time not being an actual issue, because they're nothing more than cosmetic items.

 

The fact you think there is absolutely nothing wrong going on here is just as sad because its that attitude that gives ANET permission to keep doing it. RNG is not great game design; thresholds are:

Farm instance for 1% chance of drop or Farm instance 100 times for drop- can safely assume people would prefer the latter. A guarantee is some sexy game design. Bloop bloop

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

And yet players are not pleased with having to do content 50 times...or even 20 or 10 times.

Plenty of laments about that to be found on the forums. 

[mindcircus.1506]

1 hour ago, Sir Alymer.3406 said:

It's no worse than a legendary and the infusions aren't required.  If they want just the +Agony Resistance & + stat, they can get those infusions f or far cheaper.  The method I described puts an upper limit on the RNG, meaning, even if you're terribly unlucky, you'll get it eventually by just grinding.

The idea that someone would say this community would be ok with grinding an event for a single eye infusion 1000 times is ridiculous.

This forum tilts over achievements that require 10 repeats.

Edited May 20, 2021 by mindcircus.1506

[AgentMoore.9453]

8 minutes ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

The idea that someone would say this community would be ok with grinding an event for a single eye infusion 1000 times is ridiculous.

I dunno man, I prefer goals over chances, you know? If the reward is something worthy (Which I'd say an infusion is given how versatile they can be for fashion), people will grind if they know they'll eventually be guaranteed to get it.

 

For example, dungeon skins. In the beginning, if you wanted those weapons and armors, you did the dungeons and you did them a lot until you had the tokens to get the stuff. Nowadays there are other ways to obtain those skins (WvW tracks, EotN community events and vendors, etc.) but the principle is the same. Do the content a bunch in exchange for tokens. Exchange the tokens to get the nice thing.

 

If the infusions and other high-end RNG loot had a grind for a guaranteed reward, I can at least say I'd do it. Of course, I'm also the person who'd want infusions to act more like skins, but that's kind of a separate issue.

[Sobx.1758]

1 hour ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

The fact you think there is absolutely nothing wrong going on here is just as sad because its that attitude that gives ANET permission to keep doing it. RNG is not great game design; thresholds are:

Farm instance for 1% chance of drop or Farm instance 100 times for drop- can safely assume people would prefer the latter. A guarantee is some sexy game design. Bloop bloop

Because there is nothing wrong with that and I already said why, not sure what this non-answer is supposed to be -you straight up dodged everything I wrote and it wasn't really a lot in the first place.

 

 

Edited May 20, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Sugar Min.5834]

I have always come across comments that said it happens because it's RNG. But do you really believe that these RNGs have never been manipulated?

 

Take the BLC for example. For years, not months but YEARS, i have been buying keys to open those chests whenever i see an uncommon skin or stuff i really like. And all those years I had never spend more than 15 keys to get what i wanted.

 

Until this past year.

 

On average i have to spend 75-100 keys just to get an uncommon item i wanted. The first two times this happened I told myself it's probably bad RNG. But it does not stop there. It becomes a minimum of like 50 - 75 keys to get what you want from the chest. Every time. And recently it got worse, I opened 20 chests without getting even one uncommon item, i am talking about any uncommon items not specific one. Nothing. It's robbery. Not going to spent any more money on keys.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Mil.3562

[mindcircus.1506]

1 hour ago, AgentMoore.9453 said:

I dunno man, I prefer goals over chances, you know? If the reward is something worthy (Which I'd say an infusion is given how versatile they can be for fashion), people will grind if they know they'll eventually be guaranteed to get it.

 

For example, dungeon skins. In the beginning, if you wanted those weapons and armors, you did the dungeons and you did them a lot until you had the tokens to get the stuff. Nowadays there are other ways to obtain those skins (WvW tracks, EotN community events and vendors, etc.) but the principle is the same. Do the content a bunch in exchange for tokens. Exchange the tokens to get the nice thing.

 

If the infusions and other high-end RNG loot had a grind for a guaranteed reward, I can at least say I'd do it. Of course, I'm also the person who'd want infusions to act more like skins, but that's kind of a separate issue.

I don't doubt your point of view, and while I personally don't find things like infusions an engaging reward, I certainly agree that most people do. I personally noped out on the new cape when I saw what was involved.

I also agree that people would like things to work towards.

 

I do however doubt VERY highly that if Anet said "here is your path to a guaranteed second eye infusion, you just need to do Dragonstorm 1000 times"  this forum would be very receptive to the idea.

 

Finally I will just say I see absolutely nothing wrong with the drop rate on these infusions, I think the game needs more rare and exciting drops.

I feel that those arguing against the rarity like the OP are doing so in the name of avarice and entitlement.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with items in this game, particularly cosmetic ones being rare.

 

[mindcircus.1506]

20 minutes ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

then give me all the reasons why RNG is such a better game model then every other reward system out there.

8 years after launch people show up for Ogre Wars in Fields of Ruin over and over every day just for a chance at Sam. They tag up and a call it out in Map Chat many many times a day.

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

11 hours ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

Then it stops being "high end stuff" and just becomes more "obnoxious crap everyone has"

This. Also, the ultra rare drops are another carrot some players live to chase. Keeping a reason for people to keep playing is always better than removing the reason.