WvW Skirmish Claim Tickets

[ArchonWing.9480]

@CutesySylveon.8290 said:Changing this would be a positive all around for newer players and have zero negative impact on vets, but for some reason, WvW is full of people that treat new players like a bad thing and not what we need to not become completely dead.

You have to understand that people don't actually care about balance unless it actually affects them.

The other thing is that WvW is a relic in terms of the game's design and people have been conditioned to see this lack of support or care is the norm.

[Voltekka.2375]

@CutesySylveon.8290 said:

@Voltekka.2375 said:

@Bright Oblivion.2856 said:

@CutesySylveon.8290 said:If we're going to have a cap on tickets like we do, the pip acquisition needs to be bumped up drastically for lower rank players. It's bad enough it takes like 20+ weeks of getting diamond

every week

to have enough to make legendary armor, assuming you don't spend them on anything else, but if you're a lower rank player, it can take up to over 24hours of playtime a week at 5 pips per tick, which is about what lower leveled players can expect to get. Even assuming you got outnumbered pips on every tick, or just got 10 pips every tick in general, you're still looking at 12hours a week just to get to diamond. When getting diamond the previous week does literally nothing for the next week, you're looking at a real slog.

The idea that this kind of time gating prevents burnout is just wrong, it directly contributes to it because of the time it takes to reach the cap and the trickle you're given tickets early on. It means that if you want to make legendary armor is less than a year, you have to dedicate an absolutely ridiculous amount of time just because of skirmish tickets.

If they want to cap tickets, increase pip gains across the board or increase ticket gains from lower tier chests. Alternatively, remove the cap so people who want to grind as many tickets as they want can. It hurts literally no one either way.

This 100%. The way the ticket cap, pip system, and ticket placement within the skirmish chests interact doesn't reduce burnout. It directly contributes to it. As mentioned above, even assuming you can reach the ticket cap each week, you're looking at 20+ weeks for a set of legendary armor or about 6 weeks for Slumbering Conflux. There's no way to catch up or to reduce that time. Bad matchup? Too bad. I guess you're spending more time in WvW this week. Great matchup? Too bad. You can still only get 365 tickets a week.

But to get those 365 tickets, even with 5 pips per tick (which isn't incredibly difficult, provided you reach at least rank 150 and maintain your Commitment pip), you're still looking at 24 hours and 10 minutes of WvW every single week. That's 4 hours a day, 6 days a week, week after week, in order to get enough tickets for whatever it is you're going for. You're able to reduce this to an extent by being in a higher placed server (which has more to do with your server's coverage at a given time than anything else), by being a higher rank (your next pip comes at rank 620, and then at 1395, so you're looking at an exponentially increasing time investment there), or by finding an outnumbered map and taking camps, herding yaks, or defending/repairing structures that are under attack, but there's only so much you can do, and you're still restricted to 365 tickets.

And then there's how the tickets are distributed into the skirmish chests themselves. Of the 365 total tickets for the week, 90 of them are tossed into the Diamond chests. If you stop short of Mithril, that's an additional 83 tickets every single week that you're missing out on. In other words, by skipping the last two sets of chests each week, you'd be cutting your weekly ticket gains almost in half. Those 20+ weeks to get a full set of legendary armor? They're now 40+.

The kicker in all of this is that one of the major draws of being a higher rank or being on a server that does better in the skirmish is that you get more pips and finish the skirmish track faster. This means that those on the higher end are getting tickets faster than they can find something to do with them (and then not getting much else from repeating the diamond chests), and those on the lower end are basically working a part-time job trying to reach the cap each week.

All in all, if the goal of the system is to reduce burnout, it's not doing a good job of it. In any event, I've got one more week until I finish the last piece of my medium legendary armor, and then another few weeks for Conflux. After that, I'm probably going to take some time to see what the game is like when I'm not spending 20 hours a week, every single week, chasing skirmish tickets.

Edit: To be clear, it's not that I don't enjoy WvW. I generally do. Or did? It's just, with as much time as goes into trying to max the weekly skirmish track, it's truly beginning to feel like the rest of the game is passing me by, and it's getting to be especially draining. In any case, it's one of those things that should probably change somehow, but also probably won't.

They already buffed base pips, they buffed skirmish tickets / week (it used to be 175). If this is another "give low rank ppl stuff faster so they can just get their shinies already" argument, I will disagree. You like wvw? Chances are you're well above silver rank. Don't like it/rewards take too long for leggy armor? Do raids. Ten weeks for the first set, twenty for each set after that. "but I am new here, pips too low, ma shinies!" That's why people afk in outnumbered maps and cap a sentry every 5 mins or a camp every 10 mins. Good matchup or not, even someone who gets 5 base pips plus another 5 from outnumbered is effectively diamond rank in pipgain. Yes, it is natural for people who committed to the mode to get rewards faster. This is a game, not a full time job. Wvw leggy armor is the EZ MODE armor. If you feel burnt out, do what you actually enjoy.

This mindset right here is why we can't keep players in the game mode. It's already bad we have absolutely no semblance of balance, which I'm not faulting Anet for in this situation because it will never be balanced with PvE stats freely accessible, but we have a specific set of people who act as if new players should be forced to endure the years of shallow rewards we had for years. It's not 'Give new players their shinies faster', it's give them incentive to actually get those shinies without farming outnumbered maps on a regular basis. Or alternatively, remove the cap on tickets so they can farm to their hearts content and add more things to spend them on for people with a lot.

People play a mode for rewards. EotM was popular cause people actually avoided the pvp element, ktrained all day long, got full wvw and pve rewards. Guess what happened after pve exp was removed and pips were introduced for wvw maps, EotM died. How strange. The same applies here. People couldnt care less about wvw, its the rewards theyre after. You can see how maps flood when a new wvw shiny gets introduced (warclaw or warclaw skin obtainable from reward track), endless queues that vanish just as fast as soon as non wvwers get what they need by half afking. People dont want to see their pixels getting killed, You cannot simply make someone like wvw. Make the rewards even easier and people will just afk more, get their shinies faster week after week, more will join for virtually free legendary armor, actual wvwers will be stuck in queues (you know, those still willing to put effort in the mode).I've already laid out an estimate on how long it takes to make legendary armor assuming diamond every week, and an estimated time to get diamond every week. If you're response to that is 'Do raids', then congratulations on encouraging players to go to a different game mode for what they want, I'm sure that will make them play WvW more.

Like or dont like the mode. Play it or dont. If time is an issue for people, 10 weeks is less than 22 weeks, last i checked. Again, this is a GAME. If it feels like a job, maybe some people should get their priorities straight.Changing this would be a positive all around for newer players and have zero negative impact on vets, but for some reason, WvW is full of people that treat new players like a bad thing and not what we need to not become completely dead.'Veterans do this", "veterans do that", "veterans dont accept rangers", "veterans expect specific builds from people", "veterans are responsible for COVID pandemic". Giving people free shinies (cause this is what its all about, make no mistake. PvE raids are waaaaaaay more toxic and negative for new players, pvp is pvp, so what does that leave us with? Yes, wvw, the semiafk mode where you can get legendary armor!) wont make veterans not ask for specific builds, wont make people like wvw, wont make people fight, wont stop people from afking. On the contrary, experience has shown that people prefer the path of least resistance, aka wvw, EXACTLY cause it is easyyyyyyyyyyyyyy mode. And it should be made... Easier? Lazier? Just cause 5 people will stay in wvw as it is dying from the sheer and utter neglect from ANET? May i remind you that when pips were introduced, queues were 100+ on ALL maps? I was there, and as soon as people realised they need to spend time in wvw, they left, and asked for things to be made easier. Then base pips were increased and skirmish tickets were more than doubled. Still, people ask for even easier wvw timegates. Maybe we just should accept this and give people stuff just by logging into a borderland?

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@Bright Oblivion.2856 said:This 100%. The way the ticket cap, pip system, and ticket placement within the skirmish chests interact doesn't reduce burnout. It directly contributes to it. As mentioned above, even assuming you can reach the ticket cap each week, you're looking at 20+ weeks for a set of legendary armor or about 6 weeks for Slumbering Conflux. There's no way to catch up or to reduce that time. Bad matchup? Too bad. I guess you're spending more time in WvW this week. Great matchup? Too bad. You can still only get 365 tickets a week.

But to get those 365 tickets, even with 5 pips per tick (which isn't incredibly difficult, provided you reach at least rank 150 and maintain your Commitment pip), you're still looking at 24 hours and 10 minutes of WvW every single week. That's 4 hours a day, 6 days a week, week after week, in order to get enough tickets for whatever it is you're going for. You're able to reduce this to an extent by being in a higher placed server (which has more to do with your server's coverage at a given time than anything else), by being a higher rank (your next pip comes at rank 620, and then at 1395, so you're looking at an exponentially increasing time investment there), or by finding an outnumbered map and taking camps, herding yaks, or defending/repairing structures that are under attack, but there's only so much you can do, and you're still restricted to 365 tickets.

And then there's how the tickets are distributed into the skirmish chests themselves. Of the 365 total tickets for the week, 90 of them are tossed into the Diamond chests. If you stop short of Mithril, that's an additional 83 tickets every single week that you're missing out on. In other words, by skipping the last two sets of chests each week, you'd be cutting your weekly ticket gains almost in half. Those 20+ weeks to get a full set of legendary armor? They're now 40+.

The kicker in all of this is that one of the major draws of being a higher rank or being on a server that does better in the skirmish is that you get more pips and finish the skirmish track faster. This means that those on the higher end are getting tickets faster than they can find something to do with them (and then not getting much else from repeating the diamond chests), and those on the lower end are basically working a part-time job trying to reach the cap each week.

Well said.

The people who likely need the currency the least are the ones who can get it the fastest, and right now we have two polar extremes: veterans who get max currency but have nothing to use it for, and newer players struggling to get what they need in a reasonable time frame.

At least ANET is consistent with WvW, where lack of balance permeates everything.

[thehipone.6812]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:Would just be better for them to make a dedicated WvW track for them to be honest. Keeps people from AFK'ing for longer stretches of matchups to get the pips. People get in, blob for a while, get their stuff, and leave if they don't want to be there, instead of taking a spot for weeks at a time.

I'd like this option. A track that strips out some of the other loot for more tickets, and maybe some more memories of battle too. Or even just take the gift of battle track and make the last reward a chooseable chest with either a GoB, some tickets, or memories maybe. I play all three game modes and have real life commitments that mean I'm lucky to get much past silver end chest most weeks. 365 tickets a week is a pipe dream. I'd happily trade off some of the reward track end reward to be able to make a bit faster progress on tickets in a way that carried over a bit from week to week.

[LetoII.3782]

Legendary armor is a lie.The answer to "what's the best stats?" Has barely budged the entire course of the game.

[Ototo.3214]

As a lower level player that's lucky to get maybe 6 pips per tick, i'd personally greatly appreciate an extra pip bonus from the diamond chest for the next week. Seems weird to me you get that bonus for the next week at the beginning of the skirmish chests but nothing better for bothering to finish them all.

[Cristalyan.5728]

@"CutesySylveon.8290" said:

_The idea that this kind of time gating prevents burnout is just wrong, it directly contributes to it _because of the time it takes to reach the cap and the trickle you're given tickets early on. It means that if you want to make legendary armor is less than a year, you have to dedicate an absolutely ridiculous amount of time just because of skirmish tickets.

If they want to cap tickets, increase pip gains across the board or increase ticket gains from lower tier chests. Alternatively, remove the cap so people who want to grind as many tickets as they want can. It hurts literally no one either way.

I agree with what you say. The only way to avoid burnout is to be a WvW only player, who tried every other mode in the game and found only WvW to be on its liking. For this kind of player the burnout is not possible. Also, the rewards are not so important for this kind of player, so an increased number of pips may pass unobserved.

But for a "normal" player, playing equally all the game modes, this model of gating leads indeed to burnout. I have 4 sets of armors from WvW, working to the 5-th. Every time after completing one armor set I took a break from WvW. Something between 4-6 weeks. To gain the desire to play WvW again.

I saw here the opinion that the veterans can complete the armor faster than a beginner. WRONG. No matter the rank or on what outnumbered map you play, you need 22 weeks for the first tier armor. A veteran can complete the armor in an easier way, not faster. Completing the armor faster, negates the meaning of the time-gate. A time gate means the same time for any player.

Note: I don't know if I'm hoping too much but what I saw in PvE (in Grizzly map) - I mean the "reward track" implemented by ANet for the PVE- makes me think to a Legendary Armor for PvE. And these are testes to see how much can the players work for it.

Hm - dreams !!

[XenesisII.1540]

@Cristalyan.5728 said:I saw here the opinion that the veterans can complete the armor faster than a beginner. WRONG. No matter the rank or on what outnumbered map you play, you need 22 weeks for the first tier armor. A veteran can complete the armor in an easier way, not faster. Completing the armor faster, negates the meaning of the time-gate. A time gate means the same time for any player.

Obviously you don't complete the armor set faster since tickets are capped per week, but you can complete the skirmish track for those tickets faster at almost 2-3x less time, so yes the overall time spent in acquiring is much faster for a veteran (if we don't count their previous times to level and just strictly to the 22 weeks, we know those levels could have been as easy as mindless ktraining eotm for 10k levels, which obviously doesn't happen anymore). But that's the loyalty reward for the veterans who spent the previous 1-5 years in wvw for their levels, so again they have no place to complain when they were handed a huge head start.

A new player coming into the game and wvw now thought, will have to sink a ton of time per week to match up to those 5 year head starters, not to mention the tickets are also back loaded in the track as well. While I don't disagree that new players should have to spend a lot of time in wvw to acquire it's rewards, and not be some fly by night dailies collector, I think the entry level is a bit steep and one of the wvw barriers that should be relaxed a bit (it's not like we're flooding with new recruits every day now are we), especially since population is still dwindling over time. Why do they need to gate the time to acquire so heavily, when they already gate the tickets with a weekly cap anyways.