Raid - rewards need to be improved

[Rubyn]

Amount of gold and gear rewards are not good, I would rather receive no money and gear than what I get usually.
Raids after lv20 should give guaranteed epic gear, and after lv35 legendary gear (it's gear rarity you need to do those levels). After achieving some desired raid lv, there is no motivation to spend consumables (food, mana/hp pots, etc) for common/inferior rewards.
That also means that those who could help others in group will only be on loss for helping (time spent, consumables...) which is significantly different from dungeon rewards.

Few examples of rewards:

 

[Primum Auxilium]

At level 40,getting an common gear is worse than a slap and insults the intelligence. Get serious.

 

[Primum Auxilium]

 

[Trinity]

Wow! I am just hitting lvl 20 across all raids thinking ok things are about to get good. I am really having a hard time staying motivated here.
I know changes are coming.... I hope this is addressed as well.

 

[Nestor Power]

I think from above comments and screens everything is clear. I do not even consider epic or legendary item if it does not fit the stats I need. Here we need to revise the reward items system, possibly instead of equipment give extra ducats and for them an opportunity to buy the armaments with epic and legendary stats?

 

[Ildranach]

To paraphrase someone from Discord:
Raids should give gear that you can use to complete raids.

You can drop gear better than common and inferior off any random bounty in the Overworld, with near zero investment.

People run raids in blue gear at minimum. Let them be rewarded with blues at the bare minimum.

Why should players spend untold amounts of resources and push themselves through punishing content just to be rewarded with trash?

 

[Primum Auxilium]

30min gather (doing nothing) =200g
30min l95 elder run (doing something) =200g
30min raid=38 silver coins

 

[Helos]

So much this, and if it hasn’t already been said, relics need to be progressively higher in tier as you go up.

 

[V]

In an effort to prevent the Raids from becoming the supreme source of anything (loot, gear, exp), they have become the worst providers of everything.

Raid rewards are best compared to bounty runs, as both follow a similar format albeit the Raids are more structured and culminate in a boss battle. Raids are far costlier than bounties in terms of resources and require a certain standard of build quality. One would assume that Raids would then amply reward players due to the increased barrier of entry. That is not the case though, as can be clearly seen from some of the images above from other users.

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Below are my experience gains from running a very low level 5 Rookery:

Not much of course, as it is only a level 5. I ran this to assist another player but it would have been nice to make a bit of progress towards my next level at the same time. Due to this being a low level Raid I received a -70% experience penalty though. Raids should be encouraging a cooperative environment rather than hindering it.

I need 250,000,000 experience to level up. This Raid (which took 10 minutes and cost a dozen potions) granted me 30,000 experience.
I would need to run this Raid 8,333 times to level up. Do we really need that 70% penalty? I don't think so.

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Below are my experience gains from a rank 11 Bandicott Woods:

Note that this is the highest level Woods I personally have run - it's not very high, but it is a Bronze Tier Raid. I also had a Daily Bonus from the run.

I gained 163,200 experience from this run.
I would need to run this Raid (with the daily bonus) 1,533 times to level up.

This is the amount of experience I gained from defeating a single bounty without any pies or other temporary experience buffs.

So I gained 179,000 experience from a single bounty, and 163,200 from a Raid which included multiple bounties as well as an Elder Boss, took 120x as long (5 sec vs 10 min) and cost multiple potions.

Even the lowest level Raid should be worth more than an at level bounty, because it requires so much more to complete. Perhaps something like this:

• Bronze Tier: Worth 5 bounties worth of EXP
• Silver Tier: Worth 10 bounties worth of EXP
• Gold Tier: Worth 20 bounties worth of EXP
• Platinum Tier: Worth 35 bounties worth of EXP

Is this too much, too little? The daily bonus will also multiply this reward of course. Raids are much more intense and difficult than normal bounty runs, but players would earn more experience as a reward, which seems fair to me.

In terms of Gold and Gear, I don't think Raids should provide a competitive amount of gold. I do suggest that they provide enough to offset some of the cost in consumables.

Raids should be competitive in terms of loot however. Common and Inferior gear is unacceptable. Each Raid should guarantee the following for completion:

• Bronze Tier: Rare Item (15% chance of an Epic)
• Silver Tier: Rare Item (40% chance of an Epic item)
• Gold Tier: Epic Item (5% of a Legendary item)
• Platinum Tier: Epic Item (increased chance of a Legendary item for each additional level)

Not only that, but each bounty should guarantee a loot drop to encourage players to defeat them.

 

[Ildranach]

Raids can be run multiple times a day so they are not directly comparable to bounties. If they choose players can also do both. I agree rewards are not in a good place right now but the logic behind increasing them should be based on the raids themselves and not other content.

The difficulty of the raids themselves demands an increase in reward: why do them if bounties give orders of magnitude better xp for nearly no resource/time consumption, little to no need to learn mechanics, and no combat strategy required?
The reason why we are comparing to bounty runs is because that's the baseline for combat content. Difficulty-wise, 95 elder runs are likely halfway between high-level raids and bounty runs, but give much better rewards than either, which makes sense compared to bounty runs.

You don't even recoup your costs when you run raids.

 

[Ildranach]

If we increase the xp rewards for raids as another option comparable to running bounties several times a day combat leveling will be much faster for players running raids than for those who do not. If only certain classes can run raids effectively and get the higher xp rewards that creates a problem for game balance. An option would be to reward something other than xp that players would accept, such as more ducats per run.

That's a class balance issue, not a raid reward issue. Both need fixing.
More ducats per run would be very nice, but would fall under the same issue of certain classes having an easier time to farm them.

It's just a shame since Ivar did say they were supposed to be good sources of exp and loot.

 

[Ildranach]

I would love to see class balance issues addressed and raids may well be the motivating force behind this. We have the quality of life update coming and while class balance would certainly fit my definition I don't think that is what the devs have in mind. I suspect we differ in the definition of 'good' too.
It won't hurt my feelings too much if raiders race past me in leveling, but maxed players have a tendency to move on to other games. We need incentives to keep them and I fear xp just wont do it.

I agree that we need incentives for player retention but would like for raids to at least be on par with bounty runs given the relative scarcity of mobs and the difficulty/resource drain.
Plus, many raiders are max level regardless; toons that are leveling naturally have less power due to having less talent points and socketed gear and endgame preps.
I just think that it is a bit misleading to say current xp rewards don't need an increase. Frustration over balance issues and lack of engaging content that provides good rewards will often drive a player away long before endgame.

 

[Lalocat]

XP is the last thing I want from raids. First would be relics, followed by ducats, followed by gear. Currently, I'm only getting enough of the second item. Enough meaning, enough to bother. Ducats are the only reason I'm still doing raids.

 

[Halleebell]

If gear was actually decent I’d do raids just for that. Meaning if it would give me something that I could actually use instead of crafted gear. But that is a big fat nope! At least with dungys you had a chance at getting something that might actually be better then what you were wearing. Cant tell you how many boots i had that could possibly elevate my build if I decided to rework it and that was when lvl cap was 90. But this common/inferior/uncommon gear for lvl 95 players is a waste of time/resources and space. I like the ducats but at the moment with the rings and what not you can get it’s ehhh okay. The boosts are okay but shouldn’t be that expensive or they should last for a day. I feel they can go really far with the vendor but right now it’s just not good. Xp is also just mehh but I’m doing that on a lvl 95 so really all I’m gaining is elder soul lvls. And I can do that far more quickly in bounty zones.

 

[sirbabbo]

I think going through Pyron quest on my lvl 63 toon is more fun then doing a raid on my lvl 95 toon. Rewards are better.
Also tired of the rings, necklace, and braces in the ducat shop being terrible stats, always blasting or lifesteal in them even when they become epic. Then when it comes somewhat decent I get mana and mana or health regen lol.
I’m at 20 all the way and most I’ve gotten is rare and not looking forward to lvl 30s. Maybe at the end I’ll switch to magic find gear and see if that helps >_<
Agree on hallee that the dungeon runs have everything we wanted and we had a huge base of players involved on server 3.

Good post!

 

[Zelric]

wow.. Glad i read this. coming from wow.. raids were always the best place to get gear. guess not so much with this game. this game dont like to reward you for the effort? Guess i wont be raiding in this game ?

 

[Majenta]

wow.. Glad i read this. coming from wow.. raids were always the best place to get gear. guess not so much with this game. this game dont like to reward you for the effort? Guess i wont be raiding in this game ?

Raids were designed to provide exactly what players said they wanted - challenging content.

The problem is once the challenging content asked for was added, players decided they wanted rewards, not challenge.

 

[Halleebell]

I think most players wanted both. I know when dungeons had the reward change a lot of players were confused. They up the difficulty but they lowered the reward. A lot of players were miffed. So to speak and that’s when dungy died. They took that same concept added a few touches. But still didn’t even come close to making up for the resources lost when running a raid. In my mind personally and from what Iv seen amongst other games, raids or dungys are meant to be something that’s high risk but with a good reward. Something that compensates the players. Personally I’m not seeing that. But to say that players only wanted challenging content and only cared about the reward there after, is wrong. It was because of the good rewards we enjoyed the challenging content.

 

[Majenta]

I think most players wanted both. I know when dungeons had the reward change a lot of players were confused. They up the difficulty but they lowered the reward. A lot of players were miffed. So to speak and that’s when dungy died. They took that same concept added a few touches. But still didn’t even come close to making up for the resources lost when running a raid. In my mind personally and from what Iv seen amongst other games, raids or dungys are meant to be something that’s high risk but with a good reward. Something that compensates the players. Personally I’m not seeing that. But to say that players only wanted challenging content and only cared about the reward there after, is wrong. It was because of the good rewards we enjoyed the challenging content.

(My emphasis)

I agree entirely. Challenging content is popular because it allows people to get uber powered gear.

The point is players asked for challenging content, not rewards.

It was only after the challenging content was delivered as requested that they said "Oh, yes, but when we asked for difficult content what we wanted was special rewards for doing that content."

I agree with those who say raids aren't worth doing for the rewards given the heavy resource requirement. My problem isn't with that complaint. My problem is with players who asked for something then complained when they got exactly what they asked for. If players wanted high risk high reward content, they should have asked for that. They didn't, and Devs have, in my opinion, wasted 18 months designing content that appeals to a tiny proportion of the player base, because people didn't ask for what they actually wanted.

 

[Argus]

Why would anyone want to put time and effort without getting a good reward in return? Isn't it supposed to be default for raids. Players asked for challenges so we got raid nice but isn't it should also have some really good rewards built into it on its own.

Higher reward higher challenge more effort
Lower reward low challenge less time
Why players need to ask rewards when it should be available by default with higher challenge in raid?