Are "Achievement Points" that big of a deal?

[Bakeneko.5826]

12 hours ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

 

I am confused if you are being serious or not. But if you are being serious, than I have to let you know that you don't need to prove yourself to anyone. You should feel happy and confident by just being you and what you already did.  You don't need others approval. Also, most people don't care about your AP.  They look more at how you act over the stuff you have done. It's fine if it is a personal goal for 40k, but you should it for yourself and not to make other people acknowledge you because that would be a battle you will never win.

wow, sarcasm is lost on you

[Doctor Hide.6345]

2 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

wow, sarcasm is lost on you

Wow, I can't believe people with such narrow views on something still exist online!

 

But to answer your rude post, no it was never "lost on me". I knew there was a chance it could be sarcasm, but I choose to ignore it and look at it through more humane lenses. I have known people like that online and IRL who need validation like that, so I picked the nicer and more humane route in my response. I don't expect people like you to ever understand that approach though since all you can think about is snide remarks instead.

Edited December 2, 2021 by Doctor Hide.6345

[Danikat.8537]

I know some people who choose to focus on getting AP because they enjoy the challenge, it gives them a sense of progression through the whole game and an incentive to do things they wouldn't normally try. But even when they use the leader boards to see how their progress compares to other players it's still a personal thing, something they do for their own enjoyment, not something they feel is required or expect anyone else to care about.

I suspect that everyone's interests and priorities influence how they see other players to some extent. For example people who like coming up with themed costumes are more likely to notice when someone else has done that, someone who tries to push for max DPS will notice when someone else is killing things very quickly, and so on. I assume people who care about AP are more likely to look at other players scores.

But even then it should be a personal thing, not something you judge other players on. I like looking at how other people have dressed up their characters, but if I see one I don't like I'm not going to tell them. I assume either they like it or cosmetics just aren't important to them, and either way it's none of my business. (I will sometimes tell people if I do like what they've done, because I think it can be nice to get random compliments.)

As for me, I don't care about AP totals but I will sometimes go out of my way to complete specific achievements, either because I want the reward or because it sounds interesting, and there have been times when I've noticed I'm within about 10 points of the next AP chest and I look for something quick to finish it. Although it's a nice surprise when I finish a meta-event or something and discover one of the chests is an AP reward.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

They just keep adding up. I do not care about my own score and I do not focus to reach certain values. When I do specific achievements, it is only because of the rewards or as a side-effect for aiding someone else fulfilling theirs (legendary collections). 

How about others? When I encounter other players, I usually try to guess their class from their outfit/weapons and obviously make up a few prejudices, because that is what humans do ^^. In a few cases, I /friend or /block players to check their AP score. I'm aware of the weakness of this method, but it helps me to identify newbies and alt-accounts. When I see someone struggling with content, I can quickly decide whether it is worth to PM them or aid directly. It is one of many factors I look at, sometimes it gives me a hint and sometimes it confuses me even more. 

Do I value people with a higher score better?
I come across a lot of players. Whether someone needs assistance or not, has nothing to do with their AP score. There exist achievement hunters with 45k+ AP, who struggle as much as a new player with barely 145. For example with the Jumping Puzzles. Nothing wrong about that, you cannot be an expert in everything. 

What I do, I tolerate noisy/clumsy approaches of players with a lower score more. Thinking they have probably just started with the game and do not know better at the moment. 

17 hours ago, Cynder.2509 said:

Unfortunately I currently only have 32,491 AP and I worry about it so much because I should have 40k at least like all the others that play since 2012 too... I feel pretty worthless having such a little amount of them. I feel like I constantly need to proof myself to others. 

I'm significantly lower than you, also playing since 2012. There is nothing to worry about. As I have wrote above, high score does not equal skilled player. People respect you for your actions and your behavior. 

Edited December 2, 2021 by HnRkLnXqZ.1870

[evlover.6270]

20 hours ago, Sir Arigius.6294 said:

It never was a big deal to me despite the fact you get some rewards depending on how much you've gotten through the years of playing. It was just one of those features where I was like, "Oh cool." and then I just moved on to doing what I wanted in the game after checking it out. 

 

 I did want to get everyone else's opinion on whether or not AP is important to them. Thoughts? 

 

They're just as important as someone wants to make them, but in the end they mean nothing. I got 42k and the only thing you know by that is that I've probably been playing the game for a long time and did most of the achievements but that's it. Skillwise it doesn't say anything because someone that only plays wvw/pvp or raids and doesn't bother with any pve achies can have under 5k while knowing their profession inside out. I think the reason some people brag with them or feel superior is cause people used to put AP reqs in lfgs instead of killproof cause the (false) logic behind that was that someone with more AP had spent more time playing and thus would be a better player than someone who had a low amount.

 

It's the same with the KP reqs nowadays in raids/fracts, people ask for them cause it indicates you've done them a certain amount of times, while it still doesn't actually say anything about how you do/did them. A "good" player can perfectly know what he's doing after doing it just a few times and come close to benchmarks, while someone else might have been doing them with a group of friends for half a year while barely having a clue if they never had to do any mechanics, or gets carried every time. AP/UFE/KP/LI are all just a false indication of superiority but people are sheep and just copy eachother while there's plenty of people with <10k and few KP/UFE that would easily outdps 30k+ people. Not promoting to be dps elitist either btw, just using dps to show the other reqs don't mean anything except for a "slightly" higher probability. But again, in daily fracts cm's I've had just as many people in parties with low reqs that were really good, as people in parties with high reqs that couldn't outdps a support alac. In the end it doesn't matter who you get teamed up with anyway, the best players are simply those that don't care and carry whoever they end up with 😜

[Excursion.9752]

When I look at AP I use it to measure three things.
Dedication to the game
How long you've been playing
Experience in breadth of content

Sub10k newish to the game
10k to 20k veteran to the game
20k to 30k Expert to the game
30k to 40k Pro to the game
40k and up Achievement Hunter

Notice I did not say skill haha! Basically AP to me show how much you have been through.

I personally have a decent amount of AP and I am not an achievement hunter. Most of mine came through natural play.  Most days I play for at least a few hours and I don't get the daily done. There are a few exceptions of course. For example when I need to do specific things to gain an item like a legendary trinket.

[Gregg.3970]

@Sir Arigius.6294 personally I would take that 30K player with a pinch of salt, well not even that I wouldn't give them a second thought and if they behaved as you said they did would happily add them to my block list. I've zero tolerance for ignorant, bragger types.

 

Used to think myself that AP was some measure of game skill or at the very least game experience, albeit of course not conclusively but how wrong I was. I've met and played with my fair share of truly awful 40K+ AP players in all major game modes including an hfb with 43K AP that didn't know how to heal in Fractals, and similarly awful in Raids, WvW and sPvP.  Conversely  I've met some extremely skilled players with only 2-3K AP so clearly AP certainly =/= game skill. 

 

I tend to play in squads/groups in all the major end of game modes and really couldn't care less if a player has 3K AP or 40K AP.  All that matters in such instances is that ideally players know their individual builds, role, rotation to the best of their abilities, group has fun (the important bit). 

 

[ArchonWing.9480]

More AP means you went through a larger variety of content, which is nice, but that's about it.

Also remember that dailies can be a very large part of people's AP (15k) so that bloats numbers. I only have 9.5k permanent points and 15k worth of dailies, for example. So it's very possible for someone with 18-20k AP to have done a lot more than me. There are also many achievements beyond the core games (especially Living Story) which are barely worth points. So achievements themselves aren't really balanced properly in terms of points vs effort.

Edited December 2, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[Ision.3207]

1 hour ago, Friday.7864 said:

They're not. You just came across a very special snowflake.
Personally, the only thing I find impressive nowadays is a player with some skills.

 

 

bravo !

[Batel.9206]

I saw this discussion yesterday and went to reply, saying something like "I have about 6k AP, I think..." ...and I stopped because I couldn't remember exactly how much AP I do have. So I hopped in-game to check. It's somewhat less than 6k.

And now that I'm commenting on it again today...I can't remember what the number was again aside from that rough estimate.

My point is, I really don't care aside from milestone rewards (which are nice, but not a goal I'm actively working toward). I've been playing for about four years now. I'm not a completionist, nor do I do raids or fractals or ranked PVP or whatnot. I just play for the story, for RP, for wandering the beautiful world, exploring, seeing what I can find and having fun. AP doesn't matter to me, and when I see someone with a very high AP...I just think, "cool, they've played the game a lot."

It's not a measure of one's skills or even one's knowledge of the game. It just means you've played a lot of content and did the daily tasks for a long while. Congrats. I don't see why it matters.

[Ashen.2907]

My view of AP is based on the "achievements" they represent. Great, so you followed some dolyaks around in WvW, or killed some ambient creatures, perhaps you spent some time standing in LA and clicked a few buttons repeatedly to craft some armor with zero chance of failure. Yeah, that high AP score means so much.

 

That isn't to say that there are not in game "Achievements" tied to tasks requiring skill, significant effort, and the like (many of them come with a title). However, much of anyone's AP score is going to be derived from mindless, no skill, low effort, repetitive chores not worth bragging about. I cannot remember the last time that I bragged about loading the dishwasher after dinner (+5 AP) 100 times.

[Cuks.8241]

If they continue the trend from IBS, APs will only be indication of how much you can grind boring events without falling asleep. Move arctic tunas from point A to B 200 times, hit inanimate tree and bush objects gazillion times... 

[Tiilimon.6094]

Never cared about AP in any games, it's just a useless number.

 

Strangely, some of the worst players I've seen have had some of the highest AP scores as well, which probably means they're so focused on achievement hunting that learning their character like the back of their hand isn't as important for them. Quantity over quality 😄

 

People like this also try to single out the lowest AP player as a "noob" for some reason, even when there aren't any problems with group performance.

Sometimes it's even pretty funny when these "AP gods" try to lecture a player who is either a veteran MMO player from the 90s or is on his 3rd account ín GW2 and actually carrying the team 😄

 

This used to be a lot more common before HOT too, as most of the dungeon LFGs required a certain amount of AP or they kicked, it was so silly.

 

I got 3049 hours played on this engi and my AP is only 5664 😄

 

[Shadowmoon.7986]

Ap give xp boost that allow spirit shards acquisition to increase allow more gold to be earned. If you listen to any video from tp barons, they openly state that spirit shards are their biggest gates. I would recommend watching wp video about tp barons.

[Sinmir.6504]

On 12/2/2021 at 9:51 AM, Alcatraznc.3869 said:

When I see someone with low AP (between 0 to 2k) I know the guy is a new player. So yeah when I see a 200AP player join my T4 fractal group, let's just say I am very skeptical about his knowledge of the fractal (or fractal in general).

 

Not always, it could be a player's second account.

I suppose something else about AP, I'm currently approaching 19500, Can probably count on one hand the number of fractals I've done. Last time was ages ago, I think I've just done the ones required for the collection to be able to craft Zap, and I've had Bolt for ages. To top it off, although I have full ascended gear my infusions are WvW, either extra offence or defence against WvW NPCs, which I do fight a lot of. But they don't give Agony resistance. So there is a good chance that a lot of players with low AP  would do better in a fractal than me.

[Lord Scave.4835]

If you don't care about the rewards you get from it then no, it's not important.  But some of the rewards are pretty nice.  Check it out and decide for yourself if it is worth it or not.  Play the game how YOU want to.  Not how someone else tells you you should.  unless you want to play by having someone else tell you how you should, then join wvw zergs. lol

[TwiceDead.1963]

You shouldn't care.

I have 10k and I have played for 10 years, very actively. I am more or less useless and if you took my veterans advice I'd tell you to go to Tangled Depths and sight-see to get a grip on the game.

[Danikat.8537]

19 hours ago, Sinmir.6504 said:

Not always, it could be a player's second account.

I suppose something else about AP, I'm currently approaching 19500, Can probably count on one hand the number of fractals I've done. Last time was ages ago, I think I've just done the ones required for the collection to be able to craft Zap, and I've had Bolt for ages. To top it off, although I have full ascended gear my infusions are WvW, either extra offence or defence against WvW NPCs, which I do fight a lot of. But they don't give Agony resistance. So there is a good chance that a lot of players with low AP  would do better in a fractal than me.

I've just started working on the legendary backpack from Fractals and I'm running into that problem too.

I've never gone above T1 Fractals and only done it at all when I wanted something from it or when that special event was running (then I did 1 per day). I've got 1 character with 8AR and 1 with 9 (and then only because the purple infusion comes with AR). But because I have just over 25k AP people keep assuming I must know all the Fractals by heart and will have far more AR than required for T1 or T2.

I'm fine with owning up to being the newbie, I'll always say if I haven't done this Fractal, or I don't remember it, or if I'm not sure what's required for an achievement, but it surprises people when I do.

Which seems odd to me because Fractals don't give that many AP so if someone spent the majority of their time there they wouldn't necessarily have many achievement points.

I think I have about 9k from daily achievements (and the old monthly achievements) and then mainly ones from story achievements and collections.

[Nata.9812]

High AP doesn´t mean skill or knowledge. Specially because this game has so many features and modes that is near impossible someone to be good at everything or know everything.

I have very high AP on my main account. However, I suck at pvp and wvw, and also, I don´t play group contents (raids, dungeons) very often. My points came from solo contents that I saw a tutorial somewhere and focused to complete it, just that.

High AP players are usually the ones who tried everything in the game, but they are probably worse than someone who has lower AP but just play one kind of content.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

To me, they're the primary long-term goal I play for. However, the game currently lacks rewards for them except for a few exclusive skins that are not worth the effort. AP are the primary reflection of the long-term dedication of a player to Guild Wars 2. It says nothing about skill.

AP are for Guild Wars 2 what titles were for Guild Wars 1. And in Guild Wars 1, the rewards for achieving maxed titles came much later in the life of the game. Nowadays, titles are the primary goal to go for in Guild Wars 1. They contribute to respected legendary (meta) titles and are the primary focus of the Hall of Monuments.

 

I still proudly wear my GWAMM title in Guild Wars 2. GW2 currently brings nothing like it. I hope that one day, Guild Wars 2 will get proper long-term rewards for AP accumulation but we'll have to see about it. GW1 needed the Nightfall and Eye of the North expansions to do it.

Edited December 5, 2021 by TheQuickFox.3826

[Maikimaik.1974]

I'm nearing 2.5k hours played and still have only around 10k AP, simply because I've never really bothered doing dailies.

It's meaningless.

[Voltekka.2375]

I hunt ap for the skins. Yes, the jumping puzzles and the killing of skritt/ogres etc made me a better raid and wvw player. *Sarcasm off*

Ap mean grind. Thats it.

[zityz.6089]

The only time I ever check AP points is in Fractals, Generally, anyone with 6k AP or over I feel have a bit more grasp on player mechanics, so when doing fractals it won't feel like you have to babysit those players. I have taken people under 5k  before and the results were...mixed. 

It's not to say that having LOW AP makes you a bad player, just that the more things you've accomplished, the more understanding of the mechanics overall since the game rewards you for doing stuff.

Raids maybe? It's the only content I've never done personally, so I can't speak out on that if there is an AP check.

[Handsel.2891]

13 minutes ago, zityz.6089 said:

The only time I ever check AP points is in Fractals, Generally, anyone with 6k AP or over I feel have a bit more grasp on player mechanics, so when doing fractals it won't feel like you have to babysit those players. I have taken people under 5k  before and the results were...mixed. 

It's not to say that having LOW AP makes you a bad player, just that the more things you've accomplished, the more understanding of the mechanics overall since the game rewards you for doing stuff.

Raids maybe? It's the only content I've never done personally, so I can't speak out on that if there is an AP check.

On 12/2/2021 at 6:26 PM, Excursion.9752 said:

Sub10k newish to the game
10k to 20k veteran to the game
20k to 30k Expert to the game
30k to 40k Pro to the game
40k and up Achievement Hunter

By these standards, I am a Pro at the game. It's good to know finally... /s

Low AP is not the measure of a bad player, nor is high AP the measure of a good one. I am close to 35k and both of you would be lost with me in Fractals. Judging a player's skill based on their AP count is rarely a safe bet. Asking them about their experience with the content might be a better way to get that information.

Although, 40k+ does mean that they have done EVERYTHING, extensively.

[Balsa.3951]

38.5 k AP here.

The good thing on going for Ap it extends ur game dramatically. 

People sometimes say they have nothing to do game is boring and when u look at their ap count u can see that they just woosh over some content or straight out ignored specific parts of the game.

And AP gives u bonus to xp and gold and karma not much but it all adds up over time.