Decade of the Dragons achievement

[Ithlia.1830]

I'm not the least bit interested in PvP and that cape isn't going to tempt me. I have half a dozen capes now that none of my girls wear. I must admit that I was disappointed to see the PvP requirement to complete the achievement but PvP is part of this game and ArenaNet seems determined to get us to try it.

[daninumbers.4036]

I do wvw but I'm not into pvp even if they are quite similar. Thing is the 10 pvp matches take a lot longer than simply escorting 10 dolyaks (say 25 mins, just give it swiftness) and you usually wouldn't have to fight anyone if done near your keep, same simply repairing a wall that's being trebbed or taking a sentry. Thankfully it's not strikes or raids or that you need to win the matches. Wvw could also have been way worse, like taking 10 structures instead. Still there would be a chance that you could entirely avoid any fight or letting your blob carry you.

It's their way to promote people trying other gamemodes. It sucks, but at least this time it's easily doable with enough time.

[Labjax.2465]

6 minutes ago, daninumbers.4036 said:

It's their way to promote people trying other gamemodes. It sucks, but at least this time it's easily doable with enough time.

I figured this is their reason too, but I feel I have to question it. The most apt comparison for an MMO like this I can think of is a buffet and a buffet isn't gonna be like "hmm, people don't seem to be realizing there's tacos, but they go for pizza a lot. Here's what we'll do, we'll have an extra special kind of pizza, but you can't eat it unless you eat a taco first." Like wut, just rearrange where the food is, put a sign up, have a promotion, something that calls attention to there being tacos. Like sure, their way might get people to eat tacos more, just at the inconsequential cost of hating them and resenting their existence now, no big deal.

[Sobx.1758]

13 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

I figured this is their reason too, but I feel I have to question it. The most apt comparison for an MMO like this I can think of is a buffet and a buffet isn't gonna be like "hmm, people don't seem to be realizing there's tacos, but they go for pizza a lot. Here's what we'll do, we'll have an extra special kind of pizza, but you can't eat it unless you eat a taco first." Like wut, just rearrange where the food is, put a sign up, have a promotion, something that calls attention to there being tacos. Like sure, their way might get people to eat tacos more, just at the inconsequential cost of hating them and resenting their existence now, no big deal.

Looks like a pretty unrelated comparison. It's closer to you liking the package tacos come with, so now you're somehow repeating they're forcing tacos down your throat in order for you to eat a pizza while having the taco package. But they're not, the package is just that, you can keep eating pizza after pizza if that's what you want. Not getting the taco or its package doesn't prevent you from that in any way.

Remember? You're playing for fun. But apparently the game stops being fun if they don't keep loading every reward behind what you want to keep replaying. 🙄 Want more rewards? Play more content.

Edited August 26, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[daninumbers.4036]

Well in the end all you'd be missing is skins. It doesn't prevent you from playing other things or getting some mechanic like a mastery or mount. Wvw was pretty much promoted with the warclaw. It had a couple weeks of massive queues I hadn't seen before and then things went back to normal, some probably staying. You got exclusive things in pvp and wvw like their legendary armor, backpacks and trinkets. Even promoting them with the announcements of extra exp, magic find and such doesn't really work if people aren't forced into it.

Also this is a set of achievements about the whole game, so it makes sense all gamemodes are in there, just pve is way bigger and has more representation.

[Grishnaakh.2143]

2 minutes ago, daninumbers.4036 said:

Well in the end all you'd be missing is skins. It doesn't prevent you from playing other things or getting some mechanic like a mastery or mount. Wvw was pretty much promoted with the warclaw. It had a couple weeks of massive queues I hadn't seen before and then things went back to normal, some probably staying. You got exclusive things in pvp and wvw like their legendary armor, backpacks and trinkets. Even promoting them with the announcements of extra exp, magic find and such doesn't really work if people aren't forced into it.

Also this is a set of achievements about the whole game, so it makes sense all gamemodes are in there, just pve is way bigger and has more representation.

Still would have made sense to include Dungeons, Strikes, Fractal, and Raids.

[Labjax.2465]

12 minutes ago, daninumbers.4036 said:

Well in the end all you'd be missing is skins. It doesn't prevent you from playing other things or getting some mechanic like a mastery or mount. Wvw was pretty much promoted with the warclaw. It had a couple weeks of massive queues I hadn't seen before and then things went back to normal, some probably staying. You got exclusive things in pvp and wvw like their legendary armor, backpacks and trinkets. Even promoting them with the announcements of extra exp, magic find and such doesn't really work if people aren't forced into it.

Also this is a set of achievements about the whole game, so it makes sense all gamemodes are in there, just pve is way bigger and has more representation.

It doesn't matter what the player is missing. My point is that if you put it in perspective, the design looks extremely silly. Unfortunately, video game discourse is chock full of excuses being made for design, instead of people holding studios accountable to explain themselves and at least try to justify their design choices. Recently, this game's class balancing actually got held accountable a little bit and the result was that people were listened to some and anet acknowledged a shortcoming or two in their balance philosophy. Something we never would have gotten if people had just insisted anet knows what they're doing with balance.

Not everything can be like that, I don't expect a design doc to be shared for everything made, but when something persistently crops up as a point of contention (such as this style of design of pressuring people to do different game modes with special rewards), I think it deserves some explanation. I think at the very least they should be willing to stand behind what their design philosophy is, openly, even if people don't like it. Because otherwise, it's very easy to get away with doing stuff based on whim, without any overarching design goals, which creates an inconsistent game over time and makes it hard for players to have a clear picture of what kind of game they're playing.

[Sobx.1758]

28 minutes ago, Grishnaakh.2143 said:

Still would have made sense to include Dungeons, Strikes, Fractal, and Raids.

I agree, it would.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

16k hours and I have NEVER done a PvP match ranked/unranked before. I pushed myself through because that cape is bomb.

 

The requirement for long matches is high compared to fast to complete events in WvW. Why? 3 would have been fine. At least it didn't require victories.

 

I would have liked to have the collection include dungeons or fractals, but it makes sense that everything could be done by yourself without having to form a party.

[Astralporing.1957]

6 hours ago, daninumbers.4036 said:

Well in the end all you'd be missing is skins. It doesn't prevent you from playing other things or getting some mechanic like a mastery or mount. Wvw was pretty much promoted with the warclaw. It had a couple weeks of massive queues I hadn't seen before and then things went back to normal, some probably staying. You got exclusive things in pvp and wvw like their legendary armor, backpacks and trinkets. Even promoting them with the announcements of extra exp, magic find and such doesn't really work if people aren't forced into it.

It doesn't work even if people are "forced" (well, strongly encouraged) into it. The first seasons of Ascension (when they introduced the SPvP legendary backpack) bought a ton of PvE players to that mode. The end result? After that wave passed, SPvP population massively plummeted down. And it has never recovered since. The same was, btw, when they first made a WvW event ("season 1") back in 2013, and repeated it (with the spring/fall tournaments) in 2014 - which was exactly the explanation given for why Anet has discontinued those.

Each of those heavy handed attempts to pull bigger number of players into one of the PvP modes has always eded in a net loss of players there. Especially for SPvP, for some reason (perhaps WvW is just more capable of taking in some amount of farmers not really interested in the mode itself without disturbing the gameplay of others).

As such, Anet trying to repeat again and again something that has already been proven to not work is mystifying.

[Labjax.2465]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

It doesn't work even if people are "forced" (well, strongly encouraged) into it. The first seasons of Ascension (when they introduced the SPvP legendary backpack) bought a ton of PvE players to that mode. The end result? After that wave passed, SPvP population massively plummeted down. And it has never recovered since. The same was, btw, when they first made a WvW event ("season 1") back in 2013, and repeated it (with the spring/fall tournaments) in 2014 - which was exactly the explanation given for why Anet has discontinued those.

Each of those heavy handed attempts to pull bigger number of players into one of the PvP modes has always eded in a net loss of players there. Especially for SPvP, for some reason (perhaps WvW is just more capable of taking in some amount of farmers not really interested in the mode itself without disturbing the gameplay of others).

As such, Anet trying to repeat again and again something that has already been proven to not work is mystifying.

Wasn't there even a reason given for the WvW thing, that they stopped doing tournaments because people would get burned out trying to win?

I wonder if similar happened with the legendary backpack.

Edit: Also, I will say, if part of it is that they want people to know / be reminded that certain game modes exist, my thoughts go to the global events system (idk what it's officially called). Sometimes there is an event going on (festivals, etc.) but not always. There are open time slots in there sometimes. They could use some of these to promote game modes they think are less visible every so often. Just really basic stuff, nothing that's going to get people feeling like they have to show up for super duper bonuses. Just stuff like "it's PvP week, 10% bonus to PvP reward tracks, come try PvP at the heart of the mists." Or "it's WvW week, 10% bonus to WvW reward tracks, come try WvW by entering one of your team's borderlands." They could do this for raids, strikes, fractals too. Anything they think needs more visibility. Just a very minor bonus for a week and it uses the global notification thingy, maybe with some tutorial-like info.

I really believe in trying stuff like that, that's focused on visibility, over this "tie it to desirable rewards" stuff that they do. Like sometimes people really just don't know what all you can do in a game, or they forget because it's a big game.

Edited August 26, 2022 by Labjax.2465

[Sobx.1758]

6 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

Wasn't there even a reason given for the WvW thing, that they stopped doing tournaments because people would get burned out trying to win?

Because it involved repeated grind if they wanted to win. It has nothing to do with this set of achievements, but great attempt at making a straw man again in an effort to demonize "participation in an activity 10 times". Literally do it once daily for 10 days or twice a day for less than a week, no matter the result. Duh, it's not even time-limited, so do it once a week or once a month if that's somehow the recovery time you need after every match. Such burn out potential.

Edited August 26, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[yoni.7015]

6 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

 

Edit: Also, I will say, if part of it is that they want people to know / be reminded that certain game modes exist, my thoughts go to the global events system (idk what it's officially called). Sometimes there is an event going on (festivals, etc.) but not always. There are open time slots in there sometimes. They could use some of these to promote game modes they think are less visible every so often. Just really basic stuff, nothing that's going to get people feeling like they have to show up for super duper bonuses. Just stuff like "it's PvP week, 10% bonus to PvP reward tracks, come try PvP at the heart of the mists." Or "it's WvW week, 10% bonus to WvW reward tracks, come try WvW by entering one of your team's borderlands." They could do this for raids, strikes, fractals too. Anything they think needs more visibility. Just a very minor bonus for a week and it uses the global notification thingy, maybe with some tutorial-like info.

I really believe in trying stuff like that, that's focused on visibility, over this "tie it to desirable rewards" stuff that they do. Like sometimes people really just don't know what all you can do in a game, or they forget because it's a big game.

They already do that, there are bonus weeks for PvP and WvW … 

In the blog post they clearly wrote that getting armor and cape will involve WvW and PvP, so why are people now complaining? 
Played three PvP matches just now and it was a lot of fun, no toxicity, just 10 players fighting each other. 

Edited August 26, 2022 by yoni.7015

[Ashantara.8731]

13 hours ago, DexterousGecko.6328 said:

I got three done before i had to just logoff from boredom.

Okay. I'd associate many words with PvP, but "boredom" sure isn't one of them. I could have understood complaints along the lines of "toxicity" or "lack of proper teamplay" etc. 😅

Don't you feel the adrenaline rush on a killing streak? 😇

Edited August 26, 2022 by Ashantara.8731

[notebene.3190]

After having done 10, and not really understanding what I was supposed to do on some of the maps, and not having any good builds (finally just took my open world Mech in and did sorta okay), it wasn't as horrible (unranked mind you) as I had it built up in my mind. I am considering trying out some PvP dailies moving forward, should the open world dailies seem meh to me, and/or WvW doesn't happen to work out that day. I can see why they would like some more maps and stuff to play and do, and I would thumbs up that idea.

So, yeah, I was not entirely accurate for 10 years. It's aight, as the kids say. 🙃

[DexterousGecko.6328]

2 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

Okay. I'd associate many words with PvP, but "boredom" sure isn't one of them. I could have understood complaints along the lines of "toxicity" or "lack of proper teamplay" etc. 😅

Don't you feel the adrenaline rush on a killing streak? 😇

killing streak? lol, I've gone 1-4 in five matches. The only "killing streak" was on my single win when the whole other team was just running straight at us and not actually fighting. Every match has been a complete stomp.

[mikansei.5742]

All the arguments that the achievement is about doing "every game mode" and so making the PvP and WvW achievements mandatory for meta completion is somehow necessary fall a little flat since there are no dungeon, fractal, raid or strike achievements at all. Surely instanced PvE qualifies as a "game mode?" Why is its lack of representation not a problem, but people who want the option to avoid PvP/WvW are somehow unreasonable and entitled? If people "should" be forced to do PvP and WvW for the achievement, surely they "should" be forced to do instanced PvE as well.

This could so easily be solved if Anet added dungeon, fractal, raid and strike options to the meta achievement and simply didn't raise the number of achievements needed for the meta so there could be some leeway in which ones you chose to complete. Why they design some meta achievements with this leeway and not others continues to baffle me.

[Ashen.2907]

11 minutes ago, mikansei.5742 said:

. Surely instanced PvE qualifies as a "game mode?"

Anet has consistently, since the beginning of the game, described GW2's game modes as PvE, sPvP, and WvW. They include instanced PvE content with, well, PvE. Note that there are separations for balance between PvE, sPvP, and WvW, but not between Instanced PvE and open world PvE despite pretty massive differences in performance expectations between the two.

Edited August 26, 2022 by Ashen.2907

[Voyant.1327]

On 8/24/2022 at 7:31 AM, Alik.9651 said:

Hey Anet, do you really think it is a good idea to ruining other 9 player's game for PvP newbie like me to just want to get the cape?

Don't worry PvP players are used to all this. Its a fairly neglected mode with little competitiveness, not balanced at all/meta dominance, and the ranked mode is 60-80% rng...

Beyond the short 2v2/3v3 season or private arenas don't really view the game having PvP as its only capture the circle not like deathmatch or anything competitive. 

[Sobx.1758]

1 hour ago, mikansei.5742 said:

All the arguments that the achievement is about doing "every game mode" and so making the PvP and WvW achievements mandatory for meta completion is somehow necessary fall a little flat since there are no dungeon, fractal, raid or strike achievements at all. Surely instanced PvE qualifies as a "game mode?" Why is its lack of representation not a problem, but people who want the option to avoid PvP/WvW are somehow unreasonable and entitled? If people "should" be forced to do PvP and WvW for the achievement, surely they "should" be forced to do instanced PvE as well.

This could so easily be solved if Anet added dungeon, fractal, raid and strike options to the meta achievement and simply didn't raise the number of achievements needed for the meta so there could be some leeway in which ones you chose to complete. Why they design some meta achievements with this leeway and not others continues to baffle me.

If the argument for you is to include "all modes" while you want to count "instanced content" (each instanced content?) as its own mode, then the solution isn't to "not raise the number of achievements", but instead to increase it with additional content added to it. Maybe they didn't want it to be that grindy. Or maybe they didn't want to make it based on success, but instead on participation. All of the achievements are basically based on "show up, press a key on something and you're done". And that's because -again- the reward connected to "10 year of the game's existance celebration" isn't really aimed at veterans, it's aimed just as much at new players (like the ones comming from steam) as long as they'll decide to get the past content. All you need to do there is try a bit of this and a bit of that and the fact some people are still complaining even about something like this is rather ridiculous.

Edited August 26, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Hageniusz.6301]

Do not worry if you don't get the cape guys. Dont force yourself. After all

Quote

S P O I L E R

 

[Ashantara.8731]

2 hours ago, DexterousGecko.6328 said:

killing streak? lol, I've gone 1-4 in five matches. The only "killing streak" was on my single win when the whole other team was just running straight at us and not actually fighting. Every match has been a complete stomp.

Did you play Unranked per chance? Those are terrible unless you have 4 GW2 friends you can team up with.

[DexterousGecko.6328]

18 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

Did you play Unranked per chance? Those are terrible unless you have 4 GW2 friends you can team up with.

yea, all 8 so far have been unranked. I didn't want to subject my teammates to a ranked loss, that's not cool. 2 more and I won't have to do this ever again, so in the grand scheme of things, it's not that bad.

[Ashantara.8731]

1 hour ago, DexterousGecko.6328 said:

yea, all 8 so far have been unranked. I didn't want to subject my teammates to a ranked loss, that's not cool. 2 more and I won't have to do this ever again, so in the grand scheme of things, it's not that bad.

You really should try those last two matches in Ranked. You will have a different experience for sure.

[Labjax.2465]

6 hours ago, mikansei.5742 said:

All the arguments that the achievement is about doing "every game mode" and so making the PvP and WvW achievements mandatory for meta completion is somehow necessary fall a little flat since there are no dungeon, fractal, raid or strike achievements at all. Surely instanced PvE qualifies as a "game mode?" Why is its lack of representation not a problem, but people who want the option to avoid PvP/WvW are somehow unreasonable and entitled? If people "should" be forced to do PvP and WvW for the achievement, surely they "should" be forced to do instanced PvE as well.

This could so easily be solved if Anet added dungeon, fractal, raid and strike options to the meta achievement and simply didn't raise the number of achievements needed for the meta so there could be some leeway in which ones you chose to complete. Why they design some meta achievements with this leeway and not others continues to baffle me.

Good point and it's reasons like this I think people should be asking anet what the reasoning is, instead of speculating and making excuses for them. It could be the case there is a clear through-line of design intention here with this and other like designs. Or it could be they are just making stuff up as they go along and the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. And if it's the 2nd one, I think people would want to know so they can ask for better. And if it is the 1st, well then it gives the chronic defenders something they can quote at people. Really a win-win for the players to just ask.