The WvW Skirmish Reward Track Takes Far Too Long To Complete

[Kori Jenkins.9017]

1 hour ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

I got to Gold tier in just one night with only Silver rank and completing Wood last week. Its really not that bad.

 

But all ranks below 500 should definitely require less XP, maybe even half.

While you may have done that, just reaching gold rank only gives you 22% of your weekly tickets. You essentially have to do whatever you did 4 more times to finish the week.

 

That is simply asking too much in a game this big. There's PvE content to do, sPvP rewards, and neither of those force you to dedicate nearly 100% of your time you allocate to the game to them, yet WvW does unless you're rank 1000+ 

[Metzie.3012]

1 hour ago, Kori Jenkins.9017 said:

IMO this is even more of a reason why it's a dreadfully bad system. It exists solely for this one purpose, but has no real one afterwards. 

 

I completely understand what you mean. When you play GW2, sooner or later (or not at all) you have to or should come to terms with the fact that in many cases the focus of the game is on or in other elements (when it comes to end content). The developers or makers don't necessarily tell you that what you are doing makes sense, no, you are required to "create" the sense yourself. GW2 is, in many cases, about "just wanting" something, even though it may or may not give you a significant advantage in the game afterwards. 

 

GW2 in its "bandwidth" (this can be quite limited or restricted and, in many cases, it is) gives you the opportunity to develop your own creativity within this framework. If you can handle it or have come to terms with it, you know what the game has to offer you or ... even not.

 

Last but not least: The game itself can or could do so much more ... just ANet can't do it, because they are not able to (and that has its reasons, too). The limits of their own creativity don't stop at ANet either. 😊

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, Kori Jenkins.9017 said:

20 hours dedicated weekly to one piece of content in this game is still totally reasonable. You'll never actually get that in the hypothetical you created because odds are the server will not be in first for the majority of the matchup

 

It's absurd to pretend outnumbered can last more than one or two ticks. And no, attaining rank 150 might be easy, but it isn't something you're going to do in a week. I've been in WvW long enough to reach Mithril this week and have only gone from about 250-280.

 

Even if a new player somehow did this in the most efficient and fast way possible, you're still asking them to sink in 20 hours of freetime per week to finish out things that take too long as is. Not to mention progress is outright gated behind a 5 minute arbitrary timer which cannot be sped up in any way. Performing well in sPvP as an example allows you to gain more pips per match, yet capping towers, camps, keeps, and SMC in WvW rewards nothing, not even 1 pip, just more war score. 

 

Entire system needs to be reformed, especially with WoW crashing and burning. Massive chance for Anet to capture a chunk of the audience rather than let them flock to the mediocre FF, but it seems like they're content to leave broken and stupid things in the game (beta specs in Ranked sPvP as a basic example). 

 

You are approaching this from the perspective of:

- diamond chest has to be completed (likely due to some non WvW related goal of getting maximum tickets for legendary armor asap). 

- a "new" PvE player entering the mode just for legendary armor with the goal of leaving the mode asap

- pips being the primary and only reason players would/should play the mode

 

In short: you want the reward as fast as possible with near no regard for player retention or the mode as a whole.

 

News flash: the rewards in this game mode are not catered to PvE players who suddenly realized they need legendary armor asap. If you want that, go raid (or in some cases, Spvp). The first legendary armor from raiding will be faster acquired than via WvW.

 

The WvW rewards and progress towards those rewards were designed with longer player attention times, similar to other progression in the mode.

 

There is no reason to change how rewards work only to please the PvE crowd. 

 

There is no reason for you needing to get legendary armor in 22 weeks. You could just as easily set a goal to acquire legendary armor over the course of a year, and suddenly, the required time in WvW drops significantly. 

 

As to your claims about outnumbered, I've gone hours with outnumbered buff when my server was permanent last in matchups. If this is of a huge concern, then transfer to one of the T5 servers that are empty, and bam, easy near permanent outnumbered buff. I was merely pointing at flaws kn your reasoning. The 40 hours for diamond is a mathematical possibility which almost never comes to pass. 20-25 hours is much more realistic, and as mentioned, that is only for clearing diamond, which is not needed.

Edited August 25, 2021 by Cyninja.2954

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

2 hours ago, Kori Jenkins.9017 said:

It's absurd to pretend outnumbered can last more than one or two ticks. And no, attaining rank 150 might be easy, but it isn't something you're going to do in a week. I've been in WvW long enough to reach Mithril this week and have only gone from about 250-280.

I've gone hours at a time on an outnumbered map. It happens 😉

2 hours ago, Kori Jenkins.9017 said:

Even if a new player somehow did this in the most efficient and fast way possible, you're still asking them to sink in 20 hours of freetime per week to finish out things that take too long as is. Not to mention progress is outright gated behind a 5 minute arbitrary timer which cannot be sped up in any way. Performing well in sPvP as an example allows you to gain more pips per match, yet capping towers, camps, keeps, and SMC in WvW rewards nothing, not even 1 pip, just more war score. 

People have suggested that taking objectives give pips, but people that are allergic to rewards clutched their pearls at the mere thought of potential ktrains happening again.

2 hours ago, Kori Jenkins.9017 said:

Entire system needs to be reformed, especially with WoW crashing and burning. Massive chance for Anet to capture a chunk of the audience rather than let them flock to the mediocre FF, but it seems like they're content to leave broken and stupid things in the game (beta specs in Ranked sPvP as a basic example). 

It's apparently very well played according to the devs believe it or not.

[Gorani.7205]

Do you guys notice the basic problem we discuss here?

Time spent in WvW

Time spent in WvW is the limiting factor for gaining tickets, which is the base resource for the legendary armour (which most of us are trying to acquire). It is not the intensity of participation (dedicated WvW squad warriors vs. "filthy casuals", killing one sentinel every 5 min and then return to spawn). Other ways of resources are not used and that is the fundamental problem of getting tickets at a pace that feels OK.

- adding a tactic to a structure could "refund" a small amount of tickets

- doing a guild mission could award a small amount of tickets

- skirmish reward chests could award a small amount of tickets

- Badges of Honour could either come back to buy you WXP Potions or award you a small amount of tickets

- Memories of Battle could award a small amount of tickets

- Emblems of the Avenger / Conqueror could award small amounts of tickets

- Laurels could buy you a small amount of tickets

- Even Karma could fill that role ...

Of course there is the factor of limiting the ability to buy tickets in bulk, should a new option be in place (e.g. the weekly trader Lan.Deathrider claims to have invented 😘), but at least it would be an option to go away from a purely time based reward system.

Edited August 25, 2021 by Gorani.7205

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

1 hour ago, Gorani.7205 said:

Do you guys notice the basic problem we discuss here?

Time spent in WvW

Time spent in WvW is the limiting factor for gaining tickets, which is the base resource for the legendary armour (which most of us are trying to acquire). It is not the intensity of participation (dedicated WvW squad warriors vs. "filthy casuals", killing one sentinel every 5 min and then return to spawn). Other ways of resources are not used and that is the fundamental problem of getting tickets at a pace that feels OK.

- adding a tactic to a structure could "refund" a small amount of tickets

- doing a guild mission could award a small amount of tickets

- skirmish reward chests could award a small amount of tickets

- Badges of Honour could either come back to buy you WXP Potions or award you a small amount of tickets

- Memories of Battle could award a small amount of tickets

- Emblems of the Avenger / Conqueror could award small amounts of tickets

- Laurels could buy you a small amount of tickets

- Even Karma could fill that role ...

Of course there is the factor of limiting the ability to buy tickets in bulk, should a new option be in place (e.g. the weekly trader Lan.Deathrider claims to have invented 😘), but at least it would be an option to go away from a purely time based reward system.

*Cough*
Add in Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Vendors into WvW - World vs. World - Guild Wars 2 Forums

[Zyreva.1078]

The reason rewards are mostly about time spend is to grant equal rewards regardless of playstyle and server state/population (which unfortunately includes afking) instead of disproportionally favouring large worlds/zergs (which already gain by far the most loot/wxp/karma/etc). And as long rewards are not split between players and there is zero risk/effort vs reward balance it should stay that way. Don't need even more incentives for bandwagoning.

 

Also don't play WvW (or the game in general) just to grind rewards. Nothing is mandatory. Play for fun and enjoy the free rewards on top. If it starts feeling like a chore, it's not the game's fault. It is the player's fault.

Edited August 25, 2021 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Sylvyn.4750]

On 8/23/2021 at 10:54 AM, Infusion.7149 said:

Nobody is forcing you to complete it.

In about 8 hours of gameplay you should be able to get roughly gold tier (about half of the tickets) even if you have no WvW rank.

Let's get some facts straight here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/WvW_Skirmish_Claim_Ticket

Finishing Gold chests only results in 132 tickets out of 365 total possible, roughly 36%.  You'd have to finish Platinum chests before you'd cross the 50% mark, which means nearly half of all tickets are locked behind the Mithril and Diamond chests.

Also, I recently started an alt account on TC...we're in last place this week, and so with zero rank, no outnumbered, but with wood chest earned the week before, it will take me 8.25 hours to finish just the Silver chests and another 4 hours on top of that to finish Gold.  So yes, noobs have it rough...as it stands, it is more efficient for new players to go farm LS3 currency for ascended trinkets/backpieces, or go run Fractals, than to continue earning skirmish tickets and memories of battle for the same ascended items in WvW.  And if you need to buy more Memories of Battle, they cost 30-40 times more on the TP than the PvP equivalent Shards of Glory...that's a whole 'nother discussion there.  If we want to have more new players get interested in and stay in WvW, something has to change.  After all, NA used to have 8 battle tiers in WvW instead of 4 tiers with links, and it seemed that Anet anticipated more interest in WvW when they released the larger DBL maps...but here we are.

[Kori Jenkins.9017]

3 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

The reason rewards are mostly about time spend is to grant equal rewards regardless of playstyle and server state/population (which unfortunately includes afking) instead of disproportionally favouring large worlds/zergs (which already gain by far the most loot/wxp/karma/etc). And as long rewards are not split between players and there is zero risk/effort vs reward balance it should stay that way. Don't need even more incentives for bandwagoning.

 

Also don't play WvW (or the game in general) just to grind rewards. Nothing is mandatory. Play for fun and enjoy the free rewards on top. If it starts feeling like a chore, it's not the game's fault. It is the player's fault.

If a game ever feels like a chore, that is 100% the game's fault for creating content so mediocre that it can be un-fun. 

[Dawdler.8521]

3 minutes ago, Kori Jenkins.9017 said:

If a game ever feels like a chore, that is 100% the game's fault for creating content so mediocre that it can be un-fun. 

Well we're not talking about PvE here, just WvW where players are the content.

[Zyreva.1078]

31 minutes ago, Kori Jenkins.9017 said:

If a game ever feels like a chore, that is 100% the game's fault for creating content so mediocre that it can be un-fun. 

Every content in every game is going to be unfun for some players, because not every one likes everything. But unlike many other games, GW2 does not gate mandatory gear or other neccessary stuff behind certain game modes, so players can actually chose to play the fun parts and ignore the not so fun parts (most of PvE for example in my case). All the "hard" to get and grindy stuff, including everything "legendary" is entirely optional, and as a result it is absolutely the players' fault for not choosing the content they enjoy.

Edited August 25, 2021 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Kori Jenkins.9017]

31 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Well we're not talking about PvE here, just WvW where players are the content.

They are fully capable of improving WvW and remedying things such as this fundamentally flawed reward system, they simply refuse to do it. 

[vilkanor.3072]

"wvw is the most unrewarding activity in the game" is not a news, it has been 9 years like this

[Kori Jenkins.9017]

43 minutes ago, Sylvyn.4750 said:

Let's get some facts straight here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/WvW_Skirmish_Claim_Ticket

Finishing Gold chests only results in 132 tickets out of 365 total possible, roughly 36%.  You'd have to finish Platinum chests before you'd cross the 50% mark, which means nearly half of all tickets are locked behind the Mithril and Diamond chests.

Also, I recently started an alt account on TC...we're in last place this week, and so with zero rank, no outnumbered, but with wood chest earned the week before, it will take me 8.25 hours to finish just the Silver chests and another 4 hours on top of that to finish Gold.  So yes, noobs have it rough...as it stands, it is more efficient for new players to go farm LS3 currency for ascended trinkets/backpieces, or go run Fractals, than to continue earning skirmish tickets and memories of battle for the same ascended items in WvW.  And if you need to buy more Memories of Battle, they cost 30-40 times more on the TP than the PvP equivalent Shards of Glory...that's a whole 'nother discussion there.  If we want to have more new players get interested in and stay in WvW, something has to change.  After all, NA used to have 8 battle tiers in WvW instead of 4 tiers with links, and it seemed that Anet anticipated more interest in WvW when they released the larger DBL maps...but here we are.

You're on TC and I'm on FC, and I'm in the boat of "we're either in 2nd or 3rd when I play and outnumbered doesn't last more than 1-2 ticks"

 

Currently at Mithril 2.

 

Major issue with the reward distribution, aside from the absurd weight towards the later tiers, is outnumbered being as massive as it is. I'd rather be in dead last and outnumbered than in first, and that shows an issue with the rate of rewards.

 

By far the biggest problem is the 5 minute arbitrary timer to wait. Simply put, this should not be the only way to earn pips whilst being active in WvW, yet it is. Capturing objectives should reward, at minimum, 1 pip. If people want to say this will favor larger better servers, fine, whatever, I really don't care. I care far more about what it earns everyone instead of the 1% that benefit slightly more. 

[Kori Jenkins.9017]

5 minutes ago, vilkanor.3072 said:

"wvw is the most unrewarding activity in the game" is not a news, it has been 9 years like this

This isn't meant to be breaking news. I'm using the forums, as a consumer of GW2, to voice my concerns that this aspect of the game is severely lacking.

 

Ideally Anet will come to their senses and not continue to allow sub-par content like this to exist, especially with the collapse of WoW going on in the background and the impending release of an expansion. Huge opportunity to steal from that playerbase instead of letting them all end up on FF, but it's squandered with horrifically bad reward systems like the one WvW has.

 

1/3 major parts of your game should not be this unrewarding, and part of the reason it isn't fun is you feel like you're wasting your time for pips in wood-plat tier. 

[Justine.6351]

There is literally zero reason to even care short of legendaries and that is a one and done time sink as others here have pointed out. If the carrot on a stick is what motivates your wvw playtime you won't be around long enough to enjoy supposed increased pips before burnout kicks in.

[Zyreva.1078]

40 minutes ago, Kori Jenkins.9017 said:

1/3 major parts of your game should not be this unrewarding, and part of the reason it isn't fun is you feel like you're wasting your time for pips in wood-plat tier. 

It is only unrewarding and a "waste of time" if you don't enjoy the game mode itself. And that's not an issue that's getting fixed by changing the reward system. All you want is getting your legendary armor faster. Which has nothing to do with improving the game or gaining (and keeping) new players, so don't bother bringing those points up, they are irrelevant for this discussion and just an attempt to hide your very selfish demands.

 

Btw not having long term grind is a frequent point of complaint from (PvE) players from other mmos, who are used to endless gear treadmills, increasing lvl caps and bis gear gated behind rng drops with abyssmal drop chance, so maybe we should take the opportunity to actually increase the difficulty of aquiring legendary gear. Like adding certain - for legendary crafting mandatory - components which exclusively drop from enemy players - with a 0.00001% drop rate and only if you are the one who actually finishes off the kill. Oh and each legendary pieces requires 10 of those. At minimum. Sounds much better, doesn't it?

Edited August 25, 2021 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Sylvyn.4750]

2 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

It is only unrewarding and a "waste of time" if you don't enjoy the game mode itself. And that's not an issue that's getting fixed by changing the reward system. All you want is getting your legendary armor faster. Which has nothing to do with improving the game or gaining (and keeping) new players, so don't bother bringing those points up, they are irrelevant and just an attempt to hide your very selfish demands.

 

Btw not having long term grind is a frequent point of complaint from (PvE) players from other mmos, who are used to endless gear treadmills and increasing lvl caps, so maybe we should take the opportunity to actually increase the time it takes to aquire legendary gear. Like adding certain - for legendary crafting mandatory - components which exclusively drop from enemy players - with a 0.00001% drop rate and only if you are the one who actually finishes off the kill. Oh and each legendary pieces requires 10 of those. At minimum. Sounds much better, doesn't it?

Except that you're adding to the already long treadmill of WvW legendaries where the PvE crowd can crank them out much faster, and if they are the ones complaining about the lack of a treadmill, add it to their burden...WvW takes long enough.  However, putting aside how long it takes to earn full sets of legendary armor in WvW...even earning a single ascended item for a new player takes weeks in WvW, and lots of gold if they need to buy more Memories of Battle to match up with their Skirmish Tickets. 

In the meantime, my friends that primarily do fractals get multiple ascended drops every day, and stabilizing matrices that help their journey to legendaries go a lot faster/cheaper.  I prefer WvW...but boy, the carrots on the other side of the fence are just so yummy looking even if I don't care for the harvesting method required...

[Zyreva.1078]

26 minutes ago, Sylvyn.4750 said:

Except that you're adding to the already long treadmill of WvW legendaries where the PvE crowd can crank them out much faster, and if they are the ones complaining about the lack of a treadmill, add it to their burden...WvW takes long enough.  However, putting aside how long it takes to earn full sets of legendary armor in WvW...even earning a single ascended item for a new player takes weeks in WvW, and lots of gold if they need to buy more Memories of Battle to match up with their Skirmish Tickets. 

In the meantime, my friends that primarily do fractals get multiple ascended drops every day, and stabilizing matrices that help their journey to legendaries go a lot faster/cheaper.  I prefer WvW...but boy, the carrots on the other side of the fence are just so yummy looking even if I don't care for the harvesting method required...

And yet PvE players come to WvW just for the legendary armor (which does not even have a unique skin), to then complain about how long it takes. Kinda dumb when there are so much better alternatives for them, no? But i guess the carrots aren't good enough for everyone on the other side of the fence. Or maybe it's not the carrots that aren't good enough ...

 

(Btw i wouldn't mind reducing the cost of WvW ascended armor. But legendary shouldn't be something you scoop up after a few weeks of facerolling through WvW.)

Edited August 25, 2021 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Topics like this puzzle me when PvE related legendaries are so much more grind intensive.  

 

Take Aurora...16 days doing the same exact hearts, and then if you don't look ahead another 21 days crafting the same exact ingots.  All of that is at the END of a massive set of collections that requires everything from jumping puzzles to arbitrary things like building a doll for Aurene (that ends up costing 40g or so).  

 

WvW...you just play the mode.  Put in as much or as little time as you want, it doesn't matter; tickets are not even a timegated grind because  you can speed pips up by having higher ranks, outnumbered, etc.  

[Cuks.8241]

Play the mode, have fun, pips come faster if you don't care about them.

If you're here only for the rewards, you won't stay long.

Edited August 25, 2021 by Cuks.8241

[AlCapwnd.7834]

On 8/23/2021 at 2:34 AM, Kori Jenkins.9017 said:

Title should sum it up. Just go here, put in the lowest possible pip gains, and be amazed.

 

Assuming low personal rank for new players, assume last place, and assume not outnumbered.

 

40 hours. It takes FORTY HOURS to earn all of the rewards in a week at the lowest rate. An actual full-time job. Even if you assume average gains, you're asking far too much of a player to put in 4+ hours per day into a single part of the game when there are other aspects of it that demand attention. 

 

It shouldn't be something you just casually do, like capping arena points in WoW, but it also does not need to take nearly as long as it does and needs reform. Even the system where higher ranks offer faster progress with more pips per tick is fundamentally broken, because by the time you're at that rank, you've likely unlocked everything useful anyway. 

I had my Diamond chests completed on Monday. I normally complete diamond by Wed-Thurs. It isnt hard. Use boosters, join a good commander, get in discord or Team Speak and HAVE FUN! WvW is an amazing and really fun game mode. You just have to play it the right way to fully enjoy it. If you just want to roam you are going to get ganked a lot and that isnt fun. WvW is a team based game style.

[Sylvyn.4750]

16 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

And yet PvE players come to WvW just for the legendary armor (which does not even have a unique skin), to then complain about how long it takes. Kinda dumb when there are so much better alternatives for them, no? But i guess the carrots aren't good enough for everyone on the other side of the fence. Or maybe it's not the carrots that aren't good enough ...

 

(Btw i wouldn't mind reducing the cost of WvW ascended armor. But legendary shouldn't be something you scoop up after a few weeks of facerolling through WvW.)

I guess some people are into collecting carrots of all different colors, shapes and sizes and can't understand why some take longer to harvest...😉

Agreed...the ascended stuff shouldn't be as time/gold gated in WvW as it is.  The biggest deal breaker is the price of Memories of Battle, at roughly 20s per memory, that means the full stack that would normally be required for an armor item or weapon could be sold on the TP for 50 gold, which can then be used to buy the mats for crafting the item for less, around 30 gold, and still give you 20 gold left over.  This wasn't an issue when memories used to run around 6 silver each...now it's made WvW ascended items the most expensive ones to obtain.  Better off selling your memories and using the gold to craft the item, plus there is no time gate if you buy the ascended mats directly without having to wait for the ecto refinement process.  Way to make WvW ascended items not worth the effort, Anet...

[Sylvyn.4750]

37 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Topics like this puzzle me when PvE related legendaries are so much more grind intensive.  

 

Take Aurora...16 days doing the same exact hearts, and then if you don't look ahead another 21 days crafting the same exact ingots.  All of that is at the END of a massive set of collections that requires everything from jumping puzzles to arbitrary things like building a doll for Aurene (that ends up costing 40g or so).  

 

WvW...you just play the mode.  Put in as much or as little time as you want, it doesn't matter; tickets are not even a timegated grind because  you can speed pips up by having higher ranks, outnumbered, etc.  

The only comparable thing WvW has to Aurora is Conflux, which I haven't done yet but it appears to have at least a 6 week time gate if you earn the maximum tickets each week, as there are 2,200 required skirmish tickets needed for some of the ingredients.  It also requires 5 Gifts of Battle, which could also be done in 2-3 weeks.  The materials run 100g more for Conflux than Aurora, and in WvW, we aren't swimming in materials or gold compared to those running PvE events and farms. 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

15 minutes ago, Sylvyn.4750 said:

The only comparable thing WvW has to Aurora is Conflux, which I haven't done yet but it appears to have at least a 6 week time gate if you earn the maximum tickets each week, as there are 2,200 required skirmish tickets needed for some of the ingredients.  It also requires 5 Gifts of Battle, which could also be done in 2-3 weeks.  The materials run 100g more for Conflux than Aurora, and in WvW, we aren't swimming in materials or gold compared to those running PvE events and farms. 

 

Ya, I think a lot of times gold costs are tricky too. 

 

For the 100g, if we're talking icy runestones, you need that for both Conflux and Aurora, and you need an additional ~45g for Aurora for Gift of Aurene.  The rest boils down to earnable mats...but for Aurora you also need things like 400 Artificer (at least 10-15g from 0-400 if you have a stockpile of existing mats) and if you bought all the Xunali Ingots, you'd be out another ~85g at current prices.  

 

So I usually look at the other intangible aspects.  The WvW stuff is all literally grinding out a track without any thought put into it (including the Gift of Battle); PvE stuff requires so much time to grind out masteries, do map completion for hearts, do jumping puzzles, do various metas for collection items....it just really isn't comparable to me.

 

So I don't think the main frustration is really the timegate, it's the fact WvW is pretty boring if you don't like theorycrafting builds or fighting other people.  It's a mode that also requires investment into the 'guild and server pride' aspect to even be remotely fun, and if someone isn't into that I can fully see why they would think it's a chore.