New Lake Doric rewards

[Kondor.2904]

I mean I like decent rewards as much as everyone else, but isn't 500 jade shards (and potentially other map currencies) for such low intensive activities too much ?  I get it, you need to make these retrospective achievements attractive until the expansion comes out, but they already are with legendary amulet and other stuff. Like, even 250 of the map currency was kinda yikes for the amount of effort required and it's doubled now, really ?

All this excessive rewarding does not just simplify the item/achievement acquisition (giving out 100 for chopping some trees could be called simplifying), but it straight up invalidates any kind of effort and the need to actually play the game. No need to spoil the playerbase to such extent imo. 

[wolfsblut.9435]

Right-click -> consume

[DanAlcedo.3281]

It's called a catch up mechanic. 

 

Old player's don't need it anyway and newer players get a speedboost. 

 

Remember that we have a week per map. Not like, when they first released, months. 

[Cyninja.2954]

The rewards are there to entice new players to play the content. For veterans, the currencies can be consumed and used in other capacities.

 

That said, here is my assumption as to the current approach:

 

The current filler content, for veterans players, in form of repeat episodes is designed multi-fold and with a future use in mind. The developers are trying to:

1. get more players to play the past story as to facilitate a better bond with the games lore/story (look at FF14 which does this successfully and the player retention this game has)

 

2. extend play time per player and provide more of a guide and road for them to play (think core story and what happens once player finish that one on trial accounts).

 

3. provide a highly desirable item at the end, making this approach valid in the future too. As well as useful intermediate rewards to help newer players (think Season 4 materials and Skyscale coming up).

 

4. provide rewards to veteran players who might not have a need for the direct intermediate rewards but can make use of them in other ways (convert to Unbound Magic and materials, Mystic Coins, etc.)

 

This is obviously aimed at both retaining players now as well as provide better guidance for players in the future, think new and returning players for EoD.

 

The current implementation of the returning episode is one of the things which make me hopeful for EoD, because it shows the developer are taking into account how to better occupy and retain players both veteran and new.

 

EDIT:

Once this entire recurring episodes implementation is done, any time a new players asks: What should I do at 80? There will be a clear path for them to follow (which will remain optional, but be far more enticing with all the rewards provided).

Edited July 21, 2021 by Cyninja.2954

[Omega.6801]

I'm kinda on board with you, when you say don't spoil the players. People get used to this and will "demand" it in the future. Playes are never satisfied and by setting the bar relatively high, trying to fulfill these unsatiable wants(not needs) will only become more difficult in the future.

 

On the other hand, I think in this particular instance, where ANet wants to recap LS2/3/4 for newer players, I think it's ok. Because it also brings newer players up do speed, or gives them a slight headstart in comparison to when the vets were doing it back in the days, when it comes to the more grindy goals like Aurora or the Skyscale(given the newer players don't blow these mats on other stuff).

[Quench.7091]

I do see the issue, because the rewards are a huge part to play the map. Jade Shards aren't the most demanded resource. I can see Winterberries being justified, as those are extremely useful. On the other hand, you only need about 700 Jade Shards or so for the collectables plus Gift of Bloodstone Magic? 500 is a lot in those terms.

[Kondor.2904]

5 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

The rewards are there to entice new players to play the content. For veterans, the currencies can be consumed and used in other capacities.

 

That said, here is my assumption as to the current approach:

 

The current filler content, for veterans players, in form of repeat episodes is designed multi-fold and with a future use in mind. The developers are trying to:

1. get more players to play the past story as to facilitate a better bond with the games lore/story (look at FF14 which does this successfully and the player retention this game has)

 

2. extend play time per player and provide more of a guide and road for them to play (think core story and what happens once player finish that one on trial accounts).

 

3. provide a highly desirable item at the end, making this approach valid in the future too. As well as useful intermediate rewards to help newer players (think Season 4 materials and Skyscale coming up).

 

4. provide rewards to veteran players who might not have a need for the direct intermediate rewards but can make use of them in other ways (convert to Unbound Magic and materials, Mystic Coins, etc.)

 

This is obviously aimed at both retaining players now as well as provide better guidance for players in the future, think new and returning players for EoD.

 

The current implementation of the returning episode is one of the things which make me hopeful for EoD, because it shows the developer are taking into account how to better occupy and retain players both veteran and new.

 

EDIT:

Once this entire recurring episodes implementation is done, any time a new players asks: What should I do at 80? There will be a clear path for them to follow (which will remain optional, but be far more enticing with all the rewards provided).

No, I get the general idea behind this and I'm not against it. The whole Seasons of Dragons thing is pretty decent, and I think it's already enough of a reason to replay content for older players and it already provides incentives and a clear activities outline for newer players to play the maps alongside with the existing achievements. 

I am, however, concerned about the extent of this thing. The amount of excessive rewards removes any incentive to play the area past map completion because you get enough of currency to literally acquire most of the relevant rewards from the heart and unbound magic vendors. And put other maps rewards into perspective too, it even further simplifies an already extremely streamlined ascended gear acquisition.

I'm not against incentives, I'm against excessive incentives that will make you effectively skip a huge portion of content because there's either no reason to play it more than once or no reason to play it at all, since you got all the things you wanted by simply doing map completion elsewhere. 

[Raizel.1839]

Screw new players, I don't want them to have the reward I warked hard to get back in the day so easily, they have to work hard too!

[Blocki.4931]

Who cares, they need thousands anyway.

[Vayne.8563]

Coming late to an MMO is always hard enough. Everyone has everything unlocked, you have nothing unlocked. This is a smart move an Anet's part.  Doesn't matter to me, I need neither the currency or unbound magic. But if a new player can get an ascended backpack, really what's the big deal. There's plenty of stuff for them to do that doesn't involve grinding currencies for gear or mounts or whatever. 

 

That currency is mostly meaningless to me.  It's a lifeline to a new guy though.

[Veprovina.4876]

Yes, let's constantly complain about the nice things.

WE WANT MORE GRIND!

I swear, this community sometimes... 🙄

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I already have too many Jade Shards.  And every other map currency.

Doesn't seem like much of a reward to me. 

In fact, I don't open the boxes because they take up less space.  

[Crystal Paladin.3871]

The rewards are nice imo. I havent spent much ub magic and lws3 currencies to unlock the unique map specific resource nodes before... Now that they giveaway lots of currenccies, I can spend 11k ub magic without any worries and it always get replenished on next lw spotlight week after I spent them. 

[jwaz.1908]

I'm sure players in the process of crafting Aurora will be very grateful, especially when we return to Draconis Mons... fire orchid drop rates are abysmal.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

It is a common thing in MMOs to at some point 'fast track' new players into the newer content. After each of these weeks the episodes won't be free anymore outside of any promo weeks they may do. Even then, lets say next year, a new player buys everything they'll have lots of story and grinding to catch up on, so these kinds of rewards are for them.

 

The fact that you are getting so many of the LW currencies means you can consume them, then go open bundles for gold to go get the rewards that you do want.

[Voltekka.2375]

"Map grind is awful! IsTHIS how youre supposed to keep players in the map, anet? Shame!"

 

*Weekly achievs drop*

 

"NOOOOES! WHY U GIVE SO MUCH CURRENCY ANET? SHAME"

 

 

Imagine leggy amulet requiring 1000 currency from each map. Oh boi. I guess you cant please people...

[Dante.1763]

14 minutes ago, Voltekka.2375 said:

"Map grind is awful! IsTHIS how youre supposed to keep players in the map, anet? Shame!"

 

*Weekly achievs drop*

 

"NOOOOES! WHY U GIVE SO MUCH CURRENCY ANET? SHAME"

 

 

Imagine leggy amulet requiring 1000 currency from each map. Oh boi. I guess you cant please people...

Hey now, im happy with the currency drops! I need all the currench and im a veteran player xD

[ugrakarma.9416]

On some post i suggested they(anet) bring up players to old LS contents, giving stuff for free, so people get "connected" to LS lore and them inclined to continue on xPac.

 

i guess their marketing team have same idea and is investing it, so why these rewards....

 

[Kondor.2904]

I don't get why everyone brings up grind themes and struggles of being a new player. Like I mentioned in my post, there's a difference between giving new players a hand and literally letting them skip the "working on something" part straight to "getting something" part.

Yeah, let's remove any achievements and currency gates from legendary trinkets, include a complete ascended set as a "gift" when you finish your personal story because why playing the game at all, why putting any effort into obtaining long term end game goals, right ? Just give everything to everyone for free, why bother. And then players complain about someone afking on meta events like Dragonstorm. This kind of rewarding does nothing but promotes exactly this kind of passive behavior. Aka if anything requires more than 5 mins of my time and doesn't reward me with full on overstacked rewards, there's not point doing it.

I'm also not sure if anyone posting checked the amount of currency you need for aurora and related items, but as for Lake Doric, you only need 350 of jade shards in total to get everything you need for aurora. You have spare 150 shards without counting map completion rewards/heart vendors/jade nodes. Like, you can get everything you want from this map without investing more than an hour of your time, half of it spent on chopping trees. And I don't understand how this tendency can be viewed as a positive thing, where you are directly discouraged from actively playing on the map. 

Again, I'm not saying we should not have rewards and new players should have it as hard as veterans and stuff. I'm saying it's not a good thing when you flood your new and existing playerbase with enormous rewards of such an extent that lets them obtain end game items and skip through numerous achievements with little to no effort.

And Effort does not mean Grind btw.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Kondor.2904

[Kondor.2904]

1 hour ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

It is a common thing in MMOs to at some point 'fast track' new players into the newer content. After each of these weeks the episodes won't be free anymore outside of any promo weeks they may do. Even then, lets say next year, a new player buys everything they'll have lots of story and grinding to catch up on, so these kinds of rewards are for them.

 

The fact that you are getting so many of the LW currencies means you can consume them, then go open bundles for gold to go get the rewards that you do want.

Okay, that makes sense. But you don't need this kind of fast tracking in this game. A slight boost is nice, but It's a game with horizontal progression where you don't need to constantly upgrade your gear, so since ascended and legendary will always be top gear, it still needs to require effort, even more so than in the other games with vertical progression.

I would understand if they increased the amount of experience you get from events to boost mastery gain, maybe additional mastery points, events frequency, etc. But currency basically only relevant for gearing ? There's very little catching up needed in terms of gearing when exotics is more than enough to beat the whole game and they were massively streamlined not long ago.

[Dante.1763]

6 minutes ago, Kondor.2904 said:

Okay, that makes sense. But you don't need this kind of fast tracking in this game. A slight boost is nice, but It's a game with horizontal progression where you don't need to constantly upgrade your gear, so since ascended and legendary will always be top gear, it still needs to require effort, even more so than in the other games with vertical progression.

I would understand if they increased the amount of experience you get from events to boost mastery gain, maybe additional mastery points, events frequency, etc. But currency basically only relevant for gearing ? There's very little catching up needed in terms of gearing when exotics is more than enough to beat the whole game and they were massively streamlined not long ago.

Alot of people buy skins and minis with the currency too you know. Its why i have 0 of most of the currencies. I spent it all on skins and minis for the most part.

[Kondor.2904]

11 minutes ago, Dante.1763 said:

Alot of people buy skins and minis with the currency too you know. Its why i have 0 of most of the currencies. I spent it all on skins and minis for the most part.

How is that related to in-game progression again ? If a new/veteran player chooses to prioritize cosmetics, that's on him, and you are not supposed to double or tripple rewards because someone's gear/mini needs a proper skin too. 

Edited July 21, 2021 by Kondor.2904

[Dante.1763]

Just now, Kondor.2904 said:

How is that related to in-game progression again ? If a new/veteran player chooses to prioritize cosmetics, that's on him, and you are not supposed to double or tripple rewards because someone's gear/mini needs a proper skin too. 

According to whom are you not supposed to?

 

This whole thread basically boils down to: "i dont want others to have an easier road to things years later".

 

These maps needed the massive influx of players to them even if only for a week. Doing collections/achievements on these maps have only gotten harder as time has gone on due to how empty they where.

 

When i went out to ember bay that was the most players id seen on it, since that episode was released. Every other time ive gone out there, none of the events where getting done. Same with Lake Doric.

 

Frankly im doing then for the black lion skins, the map currency is just a huge and much needed benefit given how bad some of the drop rates are for the map currency.

 

 

[Kondor.2904]

24 minutes ago, Dante.1763 said:

According to whom are you not supposed to?

 

This whole thread basically boils down to: "i dont want others to have an easier road to things years later".

 

These maps needed the massive influx of players to them even if only for a week. Doing collections/achievements on these maps have only gotten harder as time has gone on due to how empty they where.

 

When i went out to ember bay that was the most players id seen on it, since that episode was released. Every other time ive gone out there, none of the events where getting done. Same with Lake Doric.

 

Frankly im doing then for the black lion skins, the map currency is just a huge and much needed benefit given how bad some of the drop rates are for the map currency.

 

 

According to whom ? According to me, that's why I created the thread and am expressing my opinion about the new rewards. Most of the relevant things in the game include trade-offs where you can't just get everything at the same time with low effort imput, which I think is the right thing. 

Well, if anyone keeps projecting their own experience on the purpose of this thread, it may boil down to that. I stated several times that it has nothing to do with me having to put more effort than newer players into something. It's more about putting any sort of effort, and I don't think you should encourage apathetic player behavior such as that, which may lead to even more unhealthy tendencies within the game imo.

I also don't agree with your points about older maps being more difficult or empty. I actually started doing HoT, LW3, as well as all the subsequent achievements and collection way after its initial release and popularity spike. I had absolutely zero troubles doing any event or any achievement, or completing Chalice of Tears, or finishing any meta event, or obtaining any item. Absolutely zero troubles, and I'm not exactly sure why and what causes this weird propaganda. Yeah, sure it's not as faceroll as it is during launch, but it's far far from being hard or impossible. I actually also relatively recently finished all my core Tyria achievements from the side stories, and I still had absolutely zero troubles doing any of the events or achievements even though the maps are much less populated and player engaged.

I'm also continuing to work on my aurora collection right now, and it's absolutely disgusting how everything just effortlessly gets handled to me compared to when I did few first achievements prior to Seasons of Dragons thing. Absolutely doesn't feel like anything legendary related. 

Edited July 21, 2021 by Kondor.2904

[Quench.7091]

I took a gander at the Jade Shard items again.

250 for 1 Gift of Bloodstone Magic
150 for 6 minis.

100 for 2 weapon skins.
200 for 1 back skin.

 

700 Jade Shards for those. The rest are a stat combination that doesn't seem to have much synergy and an amulet that will be replaced by the legendary amulet. Yeesh! I mean, the map was dead before, if I recall correctly. It will be interesting to see if the legendary amulet achievement keeps it more active or less active when the initial waves pass through.

 

I'm sure the main contributor for making the map come back to life was the legendary amulet and the free story unlock they've granted. No other reward was really needed, as those two things are a huge factor in moving players around maps. The 500 Jade Shards might be counter productive, if the goal was to keep the map alive, as demonstrated above.