Guild Reward System MEGATHREAD - An Essay on Raiding and its Rewards
April 25, 2016 9:18AM
edited April 2016
UPDATE: CG has heard us loud and clear, and have put out changes giving every member of Tier 5/6/7 raids the guarantee of at least a minimum amount of raid gear every attempt. This is a very positive change in the right direction, and with time I'm sure the numbers will land on the right place if this first iteration isn't quite there yet. We will know soon enough. For now, I am very satisfied to see CG take initiative and try to make this right! Let's hope it continues to get better.
For now, I am leaving the original post in tact with no edits below.
This post is quite long. This is not something I take lightly, and I realize this is a good 5 to 10 minutes of reading. If you skim through it, thanks for at least trying. If you take the time to read the whole thing, thank you. No matter what though, please understand that it is not my intention to shed light on this topic from the angle of someone that cares about being at the top. I'm speaking on behalf of an entire group of people, and we all feel very strongly about this. A lot of us are P2P, it's true, but we're also passionate gamers that are active in more games across more genres than you would probably expect.
This post is being written by someone that enjoys raiding as a guild.
Like many others, this recent patch was the make or break moment for my interest in SWGOH as a whole. I've been a member of Team Instinct for months now, and they've more or less become the reason why I play this game at all. We keep up to date on everything CG feeds us, and we've been focused solely on maximizing our rosters while patiently waiting for Guilds and Raids for months, and we couldn't be more excited to actually try some real content in this game.
Raiding has always been, first and foremost, about playing with your friends. Sure, pick up raids exist; they can be a means to an end in scooping up some last second loot when you need it. There aren't nearly as many people out there with memorable PUG raid experiences as there are those with genuine lasting memories of the games they played at times in their lives with groups of people they felt at home with, though.
My personal experiences with raiding include the tried and true World of Warcraft for many of it's expansions, SW:TOR for most of it's early life, and most recently Wildstar, a game with the most punishing and brutal raiding I've ever seen to date. No matter the title or style of raid though, one thing was always constant – raiding was something you couldn't do alone. Raiding was something that meant coordination, teamwork and effort. It usually wasn't easy, you usually weren't enjoying countless wipes, and you certainly had a difficult time explaining to friends and family why you weren't available to go out that night, but you sure did feel that addicting adrenaline rush every time you beat a new progression boss.
It's difficult to really pin down expectations for “Raiding” in what is very much a freemium model game. Sure, SWGOH is extremely merciful to it's free to play crowd, in ways some would argue are very difficult to find in rival games, but at it's core is still that grinning little devil of freemium addiction. Regardless, the notion of Raiding carries with it a very real sense of camaraderie with your guild mates – it's something a lot of us have many, many hours of experience with across a vast collection of games. When we hear the word, it instantly triggers many thoughts about where the possibilities could go. How does it play out in a mobile setting, though? Is it the same sense of collaboration and effort, or is it just another freemium-designed cash grab?
Well, early signs have pointed to the idea of it just maybe being something more engaging than one would initially expect from a mobile offering. We're genuinely excited for it. The concept seems fun, the encounter seems to have a lot of rules and gimmicks in place, and it FEELS like raiding should feel... preparations and comp tinkering, studying abilities and their cooldowns and devising strategies to best suit different situations... all of the pieces are here. This could actually work!
However, the rewards are a glaring issue for us.
Here's the thing – I understand the need for any freemium game to keep it's pay wall in place. I get it. Everything can't be for free, people need to pay to keep the engine moving, it's nothing new. Anyone here from the smallest minnow to the biggest blubbery whale understands that money has to keep coming in. What we are saying though, and what we're saying louder than we've ever said before, is that there needs to be a point in this game's life cycle where it finally feels like we're actually just being rewarded for what we've done.
Let me elaborate on that last part a bit.
Essentially, pay walls already exist well before we get to the Rancor – first, you need to spend energy to build up Guild Coins for the guild. While this doesn't necessarily take money to complete, it does take time and effort. Daily Guild Activites, however, definitely bring in the money... and plenty of it. We don't mind competing with each other over this – in fact, it can be kind of fun. Some days are easier to split the purse on, so having a few other days be friendly rivalry is okay with us. But, that's not all... you also need teams of worthy characters, plenty of gear to flesh them out, and star ranks to ensure they're raid-worthy.
All of this adds up to a lot of work. The raid itself is basically the culmination of everything you've done finally being put to the ultimate test. It's the “end game” this game has so desperately needed.
This is where things fly off of the rails, though.
Any game that has ever had even halfway decent raiding, has never had mindless raiding. It's never been about “who does the most damage,” as there's almost always more at stake. Even when damage is an absolute priority, it usually almost always has balanced loot systems in place that ultimately reward everyone, too. You see, that's the best part about raiding... that's why everyone sticks through it even if they're the weakest link; in time, everyone gets that moment of feeling like they received the best loot the encounter has to offer. Everyone. Not the top performers, not just the leaders, everyone.
That's an important part of the raiding process. That's the part that makes the whole working as a team bit fulfilling.
Having a system where a small handful of players out of a large group of fifty are handed the keys to the best loot kingdom, based on a metric that doesn't even really make sense (more on that in a second) is essentially eviscerating the spirit of guild raiding without mercy. It's taking the fun of celebration and the motivation of “maybe this week is my week for loot,” and instead replacing it with a Rich Get Richer scheme of appointing the best loot to those already performing at the top levels, thus ensuring their chances at repeat performances are higher.
The metric in place doesn't even really make sense to me, either. The Rancor Encounter is divided in to three phases, and as you progress through each phase he becomes increasingly more difficult and deadly. The first phase, he attacks slower and is more susceptible to effects, whereas by the last phase he attacks upwards of three times at once and is incredibly hard to finish off. Naturally, what this means is the last phase will result in more character deaths, and players will need to focus more effort on throwing bodies at the beast to deliver the final points of damage needed. Keep in mind, though, that the metric for “success” on this “leaderboard” is nothing more than damage done! Phase 1, the Rancor is far less deadly, meaning anyone inclined to maximize their positioning on the leaderboard will be more concerned with utilizing every ounce of their five attempts on the weakest, simplist phase, and less inclined to help assist on the final back-breaking onslaught.
This metric for loot determination is undermining the entire emphasis on teamwork and planning ahead. An all too common pet peeve for any experienced raider is the tunnel vision focus of only caring about the DPS Meter – a trap many a guild leader have sacrificed years of their life yelling over in an effort to try and get raids back to focusing on what's actually supposed to matter. Here, not only is the DPS Meter front and center, but it's become judge and jury for determining the best part of the raid... the loot everyone gets when it's over. This really is the worst possible outcome.
Again, the Rancor should be that moment where we finally feel like we're just being rewarded. It shouldn't have to feel like competition among our friends, it shouldn't be a poorly veiled attempt at “getting us to pay more,” and it shouldn't be something that people get burned out over because they “didn't do enough damage.” We've already paid everything we can to develop our characters, help develop the guild and accomplish all of the activities associated with preparing for the raid, so what exactly is it you think we're going to suddenly need to engage in to make us feel more competitive on a raiding leaderboard?
If I ask the question, “Why does the raiding leaderboard need to even exist in the first place?” you're all going to say the exact same thing in response: “Because they want you to compete with each other so they can try to make more money.” Do we have any other valid excuse? Is this seriously where the bottom line is drawn? Is the countless amount spent on Chromiums, crystal refreshes for gear and energy and store shipments and Aurodiums and every other expense not enough? Must we be at each others throats over something so depressing as this, too? And, again, where is one even supposed to maximize efforts here if they're already performing on all levels in all areas of the game?
It's my firm belief that there shouldn't even BE an inner-guild leaderboard for the raid itself, and that loot should just be distributed 100% evenly, but I know that will just fall on deaf ears. So, instead, let me give my second best suggestion: the loot rewards should be tinkered so that everyone gets paid out way, way deeper in the “good stuff,” with the good stuff having higher variance. The “red boxes” can be all sorts of stuff, right? Sometimes good, sometimes junk? Sometimes it's what you want, other times it isn't? Well, isn't that more or less the same raid loot system I described above? THIS is what the game should be focusing on. THIS is what should be taking place.
If 30 people get a red loot crate for killing a Heroic Rancor, but only 5-10 get the high high end loot out of those crates, you've essentially re-created the randomness of typical loot in any raiding scenario of any MMO in the last 15 years. As developers, you have the power to control those numbers so that only so many people out of the 50 are still walking away with the top end loot, but the difference from the current system is many, many more players in the group get to experience the rush of opening loot. Yeah, some will win and some will lose, but at least everyone had a chance. At least it wasn't decided on an entirely superfluous metric no one should actually care about.
Raiding has a chance to be a real game changer for SWGOH. It has a chance to take this game to a brand new level. However, this reward system is really, really holding it back... you're shooting yourself in one foot while trying to show off the gold plated shoe on the other. You're so close to making this great, why sell us short on the most important aspect? Why ruin something so close to greatness?
The ball's in your court CG. We really hope you re-consider this approach. Deeper payouts, splashed with variance - take the reigns and make this as close to real video game raiding as a freemium game can be.
-Naec out
For now, I am leaving the original post in tact with no edits below.
This post is quite long. This is not something I take lightly, and I realize this is a good 5 to 10 minutes of reading. If you skim through it, thanks for at least trying. If you take the time to read the whole thing, thank you. No matter what though, please understand that it is not my intention to shed light on this topic from the angle of someone that cares about being at the top. I'm speaking on behalf of an entire group of people, and we all feel very strongly about this. A lot of us are P2P, it's true, but we're also passionate gamers that are active in more games across more genres than you would probably expect.
This post is being written by someone that enjoys raiding as a guild.
Like many others, this recent patch was the make or break moment for my interest in SWGOH as a whole. I've been a member of Team Instinct for months now, and they've more or less become the reason why I play this game at all. We keep up to date on everything CG feeds us, and we've been focused solely on maximizing our rosters while patiently waiting for Guilds and Raids for months, and we couldn't be more excited to actually try some real content in this game.
Raiding has always been, first and foremost, about playing with your friends. Sure, pick up raids exist; they can be a means to an end in scooping up some last second loot when you need it. There aren't nearly as many people out there with memorable PUG raid experiences as there are those with genuine lasting memories of the games they played at times in their lives with groups of people they felt at home with, though.
My personal experiences with raiding include the tried and true World of Warcraft for many of it's expansions, SW:TOR for most of it's early life, and most recently Wildstar, a game with the most punishing and brutal raiding I've ever seen to date. No matter the title or style of raid though, one thing was always constant – raiding was something you couldn't do alone. Raiding was something that meant coordination, teamwork and effort. It usually wasn't easy, you usually weren't enjoying countless wipes, and you certainly had a difficult time explaining to friends and family why you weren't available to go out that night, but you sure did feel that addicting adrenaline rush every time you beat a new progression boss.
It's difficult to really pin down expectations for “Raiding” in what is very much a freemium model game. Sure, SWGOH is extremely merciful to it's free to play crowd, in ways some would argue are very difficult to find in rival games, but at it's core is still that grinning little devil of freemium addiction. Regardless, the notion of Raiding carries with it a very real sense of camaraderie with your guild mates – it's something a lot of us have many, many hours of experience with across a vast collection of games. When we hear the word, it instantly triggers many thoughts about where the possibilities could go. How does it play out in a mobile setting, though? Is it the same sense of collaboration and effort, or is it just another freemium-designed cash grab?
Well, early signs have pointed to the idea of it just maybe being something more engaging than one would initially expect from a mobile offering. We're genuinely excited for it. The concept seems fun, the encounter seems to have a lot of rules and gimmicks in place, and it FEELS like raiding should feel... preparations and comp tinkering, studying abilities and their cooldowns and devising strategies to best suit different situations... all of the pieces are here. This could actually work!
However, the rewards are a glaring issue for us.
Here's the thing – I understand the need for any freemium game to keep it's pay wall in place. I get it. Everything can't be for free, people need to pay to keep the engine moving, it's nothing new. Anyone here from the smallest minnow to the biggest blubbery whale understands that money has to keep coming in. What we are saying though, and what we're saying louder than we've ever said before, is that there needs to be a point in this game's life cycle where it finally feels like we're actually just being rewarded for what we've done.
Let me elaborate on that last part a bit.
Essentially, pay walls already exist well before we get to the Rancor – first, you need to spend energy to build up Guild Coins for the guild. While this doesn't necessarily take money to complete, it does take time and effort. Daily Guild Activites, however, definitely bring in the money... and plenty of it. We don't mind competing with each other over this – in fact, it can be kind of fun. Some days are easier to split the purse on, so having a few other days be friendly rivalry is okay with us. But, that's not all... you also need teams of worthy characters, plenty of gear to flesh them out, and star ranks to ensure they're raid-worthy.
All of this adds up to a lot of work. The raid itself is basically the culmination of everything you've done finally being put to the ultimate test. It's the “end game” this game has so desperately needed.
This is where things fly off of the rails, though.
Any game that has ever had even halfway decent raiding, has never had mindless raiding. It's never been about “who does the most damage,” as there's almost always more at stake. Even when damage is an absolute priority, it usually almost always has balanced loot systems in place that ultimately reward everyone, too. You see, that's the best part about raiding... that's why everyone sticks through it even if they're the weakest link; in time, everyone gets that moment of feeling like they received the best loot the encounter has to offer. Everyone. Not the top performers, not just the leaders, everyone.
That's an important part of the raiding process. That's the part that makes the whole working as a team bit fulfilling.
Having a system where a small handful of players out of a large group of fifty are handed the keys to the best loot kingdom, based on a metric that doesn't even really make sense (more on that in a second) is essentially eviscerating the spirit of guild raiding without mercy. It's taking the fun of celebration and the motivation of “maybe this week is my week for loot,” and instead replacing it with a Rich Get Richer scheme of appointing the best loot to those already performing at the top levels, thus ensuring their chances at repeat performances are higher.
The metric in place doesn't even really make sense to me, either. The Rancor Encounter is divided in to three phases, and as you progress through each phase he becomes increasingly more difficult and deadly. The first phase, he attacks slower and is more susceptible to effects, whereas by the last phase he attacks upwards of three times at once and is incredibly hard to finish off. Naturally, what this means is the last phase will result in more character deaths, and players will need to focus more effort on throwing bodies at the beast to deliver the final points of damage needed. Keep in mind, though, that the metric for “success” on this “leaderboard” is nothing more than damage done! Phase 1, the Rancor is far less deadly, meaning anyone inclined to maximize their positioning on the leaderboard will be more concerned with utilizing every ounce of their five attempts on the weakest, simplist phase, and less inclined to help assist on the final back-breaking onslaught.
This metric for loot determination is undermining the entire emphasis on teamwork and planning ahead. An all too common pet peeve for any experienced raider is the tunnel vision focus of only caring about the DPS Meter – a trap many a guild leader have sacrificed years of their life yelling over in an effort to try and get raids back to focusing on what's actually supposed to matter. Here, not only is the DPS Meter front and center, but it's become judge and jury for determining the best part of the raid... the loot everyone gets when it's over. This really is the worst possible outcome.
Again, the Rancor should be that moment where we finally feel like we're just being rewarded. It shouldn't have to feel like competition among our friends, it shouldn't be a poorly veiled attempt at “getting us to pay more,” and it shouldn't be something that people get burned out over because they “didn't do enough damage.” We've already paid everything we can to develop our characters, help develop the guild and accomplish all of the activities associated with preparing for the raid, so what exactly is it you think we're going to suddenly need to engage in to make us feel more competitive on a raiding leaderboard?
If I ask the question, “Why does the raiding leaderboard need to even exist in the first place?” you're all going to say the exact same thing in response: “Because they want you to compete with each other so they can try to make more money.” Do we have any other valid excuse? Is this seriously where the bottom line is drawn? Is the countless amount spent on Chromiums, crystal refreshes for gear and energy and store shipments and Aurodiums and every other expense not enough? Must we be at each others throats over something so depressing as this, too? And, again, where is one even supposed to maximize efforts here if they're already performing on all levels in all areas of the game?
It's my firm belief that there shouldn't even BE an inner-guild leaderboard for the raid itself, and that loot should just be distributed 100% evenly, but I know that will just fall on deaf ears. So, instead, let me give my second best suggestion: the loot rewards should be tinkered so that everyone gets paid out way, way deeper in the “good stuff,” with the good stuff having higher variance. The “red boxes” can be all sorts of stuff, right? Sometimes good, sometimes junk? Sometimes it's what you want, other times it isn't? Well, isn't that more or less the same raid loot system I described above? THIS is what the game should be focusing on. THIS is what should be taking place.
If 30 people get a red loot crate for killing a Heroic Rancor, but only 5-10 get the high high end loot out of those crates, you've essentially re-created the randomness of typical loot in any raiding scenario of any MMO in the last 15 years. As developers, you have the power to control those numbers so that only so many people out of the 50 are still walking away with the top end loot, but the difference from the current system is many, many more players in the group get to experience the rush of opening loot. Yeah, some will win and some will lose, but at least everyone had a chance. At least it wasn't decided on an entirely superfluous metric no one should actually care about.
Raiding has a chance to be a real game changer for SWGOH. It has a chance to take this game to a brand new level. However, this reward system is really, really holding it back... you're shooting yourself in one foot while trying to show off the gold plated shoe on the other. You're so close to making this great, why sell us short on the most important aspect? Why ruin something so close to greatness?
The ball's in your court CG. We really hope you re-consider this approach. Deeper payouts, splashed with variance - take the reigns and make this as close to real video game raiding as a freemium game can be.
-Naec out
Post edited by Naecabon on
0
Replies
Haha, it's late, I'm tired. Fixed for you
Of course, there is nothing to stop a strictly run guild setting up the raids and activities so that there is a much fairer distribution of rewards (e.g. those who have already won big that week holding back a bit on later days). Would just be very hard to implement and succeed with though and only needs a few people to 'do their own thing' to go wrong.
In before the trolls
It is incredibly difficult to try to do this when the metric is something as ridiculous as damage done. When you're trying to beat the hardest mode with 50 people at once, sitting there calculating damage per run is just more headache than it's going to be worth.
I just signed in for the very first time just to say thank you for the perfect summary @Naecabon
Raids have been done and done and done for literally decades and the reward process has been refined to an art - the point of raids is to get people of all levels and abilities working together to a common goal; if you make only the top players get the good rewards, lesser players won't even bother.
The devs have had a long time to bring a new element to the game that would bond guild members together and create communities within the game, but instead they have decided to create smaller competitive environments within guilds.
I can only believe they sat down with the development list that was:
1) Money
2) AOB
Other than there being a leader board there also appears to be no real inter-guild rivalry where guilds fight for rewards.
+1
Letting greed ruin what could be great is just bad business, we already have so many ways to spend and don't need this kind of competition, i wouldn't mind if top10 would get little extra, but the basics should be available to every1, leaderboarf could also be just a wall of fame or it shouldn't exist at all.
With so many possibilities im shocked how it turned out so far!
The raid reward distribution just doesn't seem right in design.
Gugek
The randomness of rewards is what makes freemium models so addicting anyway, I'd be much happier (even as someone at the top of their guild relatively) with a random reward as it makes it that much more exciting when you open your loot box, even if you might get nothing.