A return of monthly achievements.

[Chocofox.9503]

I think monthly achievements should be brought back but in a new way. The issue with the old monthly system is the achievements were very general. You could just go into fractals and kill vets or farm pvp and wvw. What I am proposing is a reworked system that focuses on certain maps or metas much like the season of the dragons replay did. This would create a way to direct players to lesser populated areas of the game both allowing new players a chance to receive some aid and veterans to revisit metas that are rarely done. The same could be done with dungeons each moth focusing on one dungeon in particular to try and use the assets already in the game. Rewards could vary based on the activities but the over all I would suggest much like seasons of the dragon a selection of skins from different black lion sets that are not in the current rotations or a selection of mats that can vary from crafting mats like t6 to clovers, laurels, mystic coins, gold...ect.  I think a reworked monthly system could help both new and veteran players by prodding them towards a variety of content and use the assets that are already in game to encourage gameplay when between content updates. It may mean a bigger surge near the beginning and end of the months with players either rushing to finish the monthly quickly or trying to rush to finish near the end meaning gem store releases could be targeted around these times to encourage more support of the game and be directed to a larger active player base. 

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

I would be even down for return of the weeklies as well 😉

[Alcatraznc.3869]

I remember when dailies used to give you mystic coin. That's how I got my first 250 stack and afterward I just kept selling them for barely 2 silver.  I remember completing few monthly but I dont remember what they give at the end. 

 

Oh boi time have changed. 

[The Greyhawk.9107]

I enjoyed the old monthlies and wouldn't mind their return.

[b k.1648]

Wouldn't be eligible for any extra AP from them, but I'd prefer monthly stuff over dailies. Don't care to log in every day but spreading a wider goal out over a month might be more appealing.

[kharmin.7683]

43 minutes ago, Ben K.6238 said:

 Don't care to log in every day ...

Which is probably why Anet moved to daily achievements from weekly or monthly ones.  They want players logging in every day.

[Rasimir.6239]

I'm probably the odd one out here, but I don't get this desire for the game to tell me what to play. It's actually one of the things I love most about GW2: I can decide what to play without seriously gimping my gaming experience/account progression.

 

In my opinion we already have way too many daily achievements, and even weekly ones (fractals, festivals, raid reset, strike mission prophet shard chests, wvw skirmish reward tracks). If you don't know what to do with your gaming time, you can spend hours each day and week going through the daily achievement category and ticking every one off your list, then spend even more hours grabbing all the weekly gated rewards.

 

Why exactly do you feel the need for even more content "on wheels", or carrots-on-sticks, that the current daily and weekly rewards don't give? If you want to play the game, why not just play whatever content is fun to you that day? And if you really don't find anything entertaining to play in this game, why do you want the game to give you an incentive to play anyway, when you could spend your entertainment time better elsewhere?

 

Or is it really not the content but the rewards you are after? The return-to achievements were rewarding, possibly too rewarding compared to other gameplay (and especially other daily/weekly rewards), but they are one-off achievements. I seriously doubt that you would see rewards that far above regular gameplay rewards for repeatable achievements, since it would throw off the whole "comparable rewards for comparable time investment" that is the basis of this game's reward system.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Rasimir.6239

[DarcShriek.5829]

Monthlies were horrible.

[Keitaro Dragonheart.9047]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who misses Monthlies. I would love to see them come back in one form or another.

[mythical.6315]

To be honest, while they were considered monthlies years ago, players would grind them all out within the first day or so.

Exactly how are monthlies any different from dailies?

[AgentMoore.9453]

10 minutes ago, mythical.6315 said:

Exactly how are monthlies any different from dailies?

Had a chat with a friend about this exact thing last night, actually. The biggest difference is the window of availability. Dailies require you to log in, well, daily to get maximum rewards. Monthlies give you an entire month to do the same. If you're a person with limited time available to play GW2, it might be nice knowing you can skip a week or two and then come back to get your monthly credit.

Apart from this, there really wasn't a difference. The objectives for monthlies were more broad than the targeted nature of dailies, but you were still being given a shopping list to go do x things in y places.

And this isn't really related to your post, but our discussion also veered to things that you can craft once per day and how it might be preferable to change that to being weekly instead. You'd still be restricted in how many things you could produce per week, but you could knock them all out in the same day provided you had the materials on hand.

[b k.1648]

7 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Which is probably why Anet moved to daily achievements from weekly or monthly ones.  They want players logging in every day.

They can certainly try, but for players who can't/won't make the commitment to log in every day, I'd wager they get lower play hours than they would if there was a more achievable goal.

[Rasimir.6239]

39 minutes ago, Ben K.6238 said:

They can certainly try, but for players who can't/won't make the commitment to log in every day, I'd wager they get lower play hours than they would if there was a more achievable goal.

That's certainly a possibility. What we don't know (since we don't have access to those numbers) is if those numbers are actually bigger than the extra hours played by those who do log in more often because of those daily achievements.

 

ANet has the numbers of how many players log in daily/weekly/monthly, for how many hours, and how many of those do what kinds of repeatable achievements. They likely also have people that can crunch those numbers to give them an idea of what works best for the general playerbase. I certainly hope that they don't make decisions based on anecdotal evidence from individual players.

[Vayne.8563]

If they came back they wouldn't come back in the old form anyway. The new "monthlies" are festivals every other month. Having monthlies and festivals would be too much in my opinion.

[Ellye.9123]

The less chore lists, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

Dailies, weeklies, monthlies - those things only exist to be psychological traps. I want them out of videogames.

Now, if it's a choice between dailies or monthlies, then I do prefer monthlies in the way the OP described them.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Ellye.9123

[DarcShriek.5829]

The daily AP are to condition players to logging in daily and sticking around for a few minutes.  After 1500 days the player is typically conditioned properly and the AP are no longer needed.

[Solvar.7953]

While weekly/monthlies give you more time to complete them, presuming the rewards are worth it, it also leads to the situation where maybe you didn't complete it (on vacation, busy with life), and you see you have 3 days to complete a bunch to get the good rewards, and now you cram to get it in.  I certainly ran into that a bit with the old weekly/monthly system.

 

[b k.1648]

9 hours ago, Rasimir.6239 said:

That's certainly a possibility. What we don't know (since we don't have access to those numbers) is if those numbers are actually bigger than the extra hours played by those who do log in more often because of those daily achievements.

 

ANet has the numbers of how many players log in daily/weekly/monthly, for how many hours, and how many of those do what kinds of repeatable achievements. They likely also have people that can crunch those numbers to give them an idea of what works best for the general playerbase. I certainly hope that they don't make decisions based on anecdotal evidence from individual players.

Good point, but as much data as they have access to, the tricky bit is always going to be interpreting it. The data can tell you what players are doing, but it doesn't tell you why. Individual player anecdotes can help to shed a bit of light on that.

[Mungo Zen.9364]

We have had these in recent years; "Rush Weeks"

Bonus Events - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W)

I can't think of a reason why what you are suggesting is better than these Rush Weeks.

If you go back in time, to another game (which may soon be far, far away), Daily and Weekly rewards were created and shaped over time as a way to limit player time in game.  People felt compelled to keep playing as long as there was a reward given.  By giving capped rewards, players could log in, do the thing, and leave knowing they weren't leaving anything on the table.

By adding another way to attain rewards that most likely would be in line with the efficiency of doing dailies (spend 5-10 minutes, earn 2g and bonus loot), players may feel compelled to focus on those as well.  Especially if the value of a monthly is between 25g and 200g as a lot of BL skins are valued at on the BLTC (even if the reward was Account Bound).  It would be fair to expect to have to play for 1-5 hours for a reward of that value.

But, does that really do anything about bringing players to underpopulated or older content?  Does it inspire people to log in and play more in a way that anyone can appreciably notice?  Or will players just find the most efficient way of completing their task and move on?

The advantage of a Rush week is that it focuses the community into one area of the game, has those players play it repeatedly, as much or as little as they want and everyone share in the rewards (as long as you meet the minimum attendance, usually 1 event).  I think these are the type of bonus events that Anet should invest into more and expand upon going forward.

I look at the guild I am in, and friends I play with, and at how Boss Rush engaged a lot of new players into Boss trains and Zerging metas.  Fractal Rush also had a positive impact on the same people, many of whom had never been in a Fractal before, and now are regulars there.  This feels like the type of result you are suggesting you want, engaging new and veteran players to focus on one facet of the game that may be underappreciated.

 

[DarkValkirian.3158]

An extra source of rewards/income would be good if the achievements were fun to do and rewarding enough to do them. I barely remember to do my dailies for the 2 gold because it's just not worth the time unless it's quick ones 

[Danikat.8537]

I'm not opposed to monthlies coming back but I don't miss them and wouldn't make an effort to complete them if they were back.

I think the first one I finished was about February or March 2013, I'd been playing every month since the game launched (in August 2012) but never completed the monthly achievement because it didn't line up with what I wanted to do and I wasn't willing to go out of my way to finish it. I still haven't hit the cap for AP from daily/monthly achievements (with about 7,000 hours in-game over 9 years) for similar reasons, I usually only do dailies if I'm playing WvW or notice I've finished 2/3 and look for something quick to finish it off.

It's the same with the other categories of dailies. For example I recently started working on the Fractal legendary backpack and when I just need fractal relics I'll do whichever Fractals count for the daily, and once I completed enough for the weekly achievement, but if I just want specific ones or don't feel like doing it today I'm not going to do the achievement just because it's there.

I also agree that it would clash with festivals, new releases and other regular things we've got going on. Unless they were designed to coincide - so for example during Wintersday the monthly achievement would be 'complete X Wintersday activities', and then it would be redundant.

[Gibson.4036]

14 hours ago, Solvar.7953 said:

While weekly/monthlies give you more time to complete them, presuming the rewards are worth it, it also leads to the situation where maybe you didn't complete it (on vacation, busy with life), and you see you have 3 days to complete a bunch to get the good rewards, and now you cram to get it in.  I certainly ran into that a bit with the old weekly/monthly system.

 

I have the opposite problem. Anxious about an open to do list hanging there, I end up cramming it at the beginning of the month. So what’s supposed to happen over thirty days dominates my game for a bit.

Feels too much like real life responsibility, not like a game I play for enjoyment.

I know, that’s all on me. I could just play and if I’ve made progress across the month, finish up the ones within reach. But it is something I struggle with.

Edited January 25, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[OriOri.8724]

I'd like to see some of the current dailies shifted into weekly achievements with bigger rewards. Mostly the LWS3/4/IBS ones. And change the daily strike mission to a weekly as well. That way you could just do all of the strikes on one day and be done with it for a week, instead of having to do a strike every day. There's just too many kitten dailies now.

[jokke.6239]

On 1/25/2022 at 2:14 AM, DarcShriek.5829 said:

The daily AP are to condition players to logging in daily and sticking around for a few minutes.  After 1500 days the player is typically conditioned properly and the AP are no longer needed.

But do you get a treat for being a good boy? 🐕‍🦺

Edited January 26, 2022 by jokke.6239

[Gibson.4036]

3 hours ago, jokke.6239 said:

But do you get a treat for being a good boy? 🐕‍🦺

Two shiny coins, oh boy!