Bonus Booster weeks should be baseline (a reward update reminder)

[Gorani.7205]

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bonus_Booster

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Extra_Life_Bonus

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Call_of_War

 

Those bonus weeks have been quite regular the past weeks and months due to Extra Life, Beta tests and the Black Friday week, this week. I assume we all agree that under those bonuses reward track progression actually feels kind of rewarding? Perhaps we should remind Anet's devs that making them baseline would be a thing to add to their WvW rewards overhaul.
If you agree with me here, just like the post. Thank you.

[Infusion.7149]

Queue the (figurative) 5000 other threads about WvW rewards.
Honestly Arenanet could probably start by adding an emblem vendor of some sort. Otherwise, the more you WvW the more inventory clutter you have as most of the stuff that drops is either salvage fodder or outright garbage (and the jade sliver bot upgrade doesn't work).

Edited November 26, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Cyninja.2954]

I'd prefer an actual rework and redesign to the reward system which also benefits the mode instead of a band-aid fix.

 

Are the increases in rewards nice, sure. Are they the main focus the reward system needs and/or do they solve any of the underlying problems? No.

[Kozumi.5816]

Rewards are more important than alliances. Alliances are basically a waste of time. Fighting the same people all the time because there's zero incentive for new people to try the mode due to zero rewards is really boring and why I get bored of WvW instantly.

I've taken a 2 year break, come back, and the exact same people using the exact same builds are still in WvW. zzz

[Infusion.7149]

2 minutes ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

Rewards are more important than alliances. Alliances are basically a waste of time. Fighting the same people all the time because there's zero incentive for new people to try the mode due to zero rewards is really boring and why I get bored of WvW instantly.

I've taken a 2 year break, come back, and the exact same people using the exact same builds are still in WvW. zzz

Are we playing the same game? Scrapper just had a huge shakeup.
Since alliances are a far larger project (it's not a copy paste job) and require a different team (rewards is the rewards team) it is not mutually exclusive.

[Kozumi.5816]

Just now, Infusion.7149 said:

Are we playing the same game? Scrapper just had a huge shakeup.
Since alliances are a far larger project (it's not a copy paste job) and require a different team (rewards is the rewards team) it is not mutually exclusive.

They are a bunker stone heart tempest.

[Brandon Uzumaki.1524]

Maybe the participation system could become this, instead of being a requirement to get rewards, it's just a nice bonus, so you don't have to constantly worry about losing it (well, some of us anyways :p), because you are doing certain activities that don't give participation, could work like this:

Participation Tier 1: 5% Magic Find, 3% Karma, 3% WvW Experience, 2% Reward Track Progress.

And then it would still stack to Tier 6, or Anet could add more Tiers dunno, but at Tier 6 it would look like this:

Participation Tier 6: 30% Magic Find, 18% Karma, 18% WvW Experience, 12% Reward Track Progress.
Since this would be nearly permanent for a lot of people, the bonuses are a bit lower, could be even lower if it's to OP, specially the WvW XP and Rewar Track.

Then it could give certain extra bonus at Tier 6, one extra pip, or bonus loot bags on kills (with big cooldowns of course), maybe bonus loot on capturing objectives/killing certain strong enemies (Lords, Champion creatures like Grubb, Veteran Creatures, Grimjack, etc), and more stuff i can't remember now, lot's of possibilities in there.

[TheGrimm.5624]

2 hours ago, Gorani.7205 said:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bonus_Booster

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Extra_Life_Bonus

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Call_of_War

 

Those bonus weeks have been quite regular the past weeks and months due to Extra Life, Beta tests and the Black Friday week, this week. I assume we all agree that under those bonuses reward track progression actually feels kind of rewarding? Perhaps we should remind Anet's devs that making them baseline would be a thing to add to their WvW rewards overhaul.
If you agree with me here, just like the post. Thank you.

 

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Queue the (figurative) 5000 other threads about WvW rewards.
Honestly Arenanet could probably start by adding an emblem vendor of some sort. Otherwise, the more you WvW the more inventory clutter you have as most of the stuff that drops is either salvage fodder or outright garbage (and the jade sliver bot upgrade doesn't work).

 

1 hour ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

I'd prefer an actual rework and redesign to the reward system which also benefits the mode instead of a band-aid fix.

 

Are the increases in rewards nice, sure. Are they the main focus the reward system needs and/or do they solve any of the underlying problems? No.

 

tl, dr version: There are a lot of common and diverse issues in this that lead to the same thing, how do people define fun and where is the crossroad of fun and the dread word of rewarding. Warning, bad idea of a triple reply below but they all fit the same topic so seemed appropriate.

I am going to use 'rewards' as a baseline term here but after years this seems to be a trigger point for some but we need a baseline term to indicate what drives players. Another way to say it was makes people feel that their time had value, was rewarding, added value, lead to other things, was constructive, was fun, meant to them they won something, they advanced in their goals that all MMOs are meant to achieve versus something like a 15 min game of a FPS that's a one and done. What that something is has many faces and to some it might be loot, others might be winning a skirmish, to others it might be KDR, others it might be PPT, others might be their own kill count and on and on and on. Also to be fair upfront, ANet has said they were going to address this after WR, so a number of us here are for getting that done, just to get to what comes next.

Gorani agree there should be some more consistency in this but its also a good test to see how much different types of rewards drives players. We have a double sided coin on the forums quite often, "We want things to encourage people to come to the game mode", "We don't want people that play for rewards". Why should this be mutually exclusive if both play and have fun but view the end results different? The trigger word 'reward' seems to spin people into spirals. Based on timing ANet is not using these events to measure how motivated people are when extra incentive is applied to draw numbers but they should be since it could be used to see how that impacts population especially as they consider their models for WR and balancing people around. Will save a few paragraphs on why I say that for now to shorten this reply. In short I wouldn't want to see it more regular until its can used to show variance but agree after other things could see certain events be a more common trigger point, example, relink weeks or final link weeks and such. 

Infusion, considering the emblems are a completion point for an achievement its a great example on how WvW gameplay activities and currencies could be tied together and then used as a means to lead to rewards or conversions of rewards to allow people access to other currencies/materials that they feel lead to advancement. More of these types of currencies might be a good foundation to changes to a system. We already have emblems for defeating players so others for other activities. Capture 100 camps emblem of "Camp Killer", kill 100 yaks emblem of "Moo Slayer", cap Stonemist 100 times, emblem of "Mist Slayer". We could also simplify this by just auto-converting these said emblems to a common WvW currency that already has a weighted value for that activity based on its considered value in time. Then have vendors to convert these to other things, be that materials, tickets, coin, gifts, HP or whatever people see as another currency type that makes sense for their time spent.

Cyninja, agree I think when people seem to be against a 'reward' they worry about seeing someone else just come in and take up space to try and game the system to do nothing but get the same as someone else doing things that they would consider as active. The irony is different levels of play in itself will see different activities as being more or less active and go round and about that already so it muddies the conversation even before the word 'reward' triggers any reaction. To balance at least differences in what people consider active the system does need both a passive trigger like we have today with the pip system but something more that activates at the completion of a goal, like we have with the emblems. Now that doesn't need to be just a singular system like do something 'x' times but can be that and more complex goals that include over time goals and limited time goals and buy-ins that can reward more and be more diverse in active play that people can't just stand around and do. Kill 20 players, take 5 camps, get the final blow on 5 players, defend 2 camps, defend 2 towers, apply 100 siege in repairs, build 1 siege in 2 hours and get 'x'. Kill 500 people over a week. Defend 10 towers over a day. Take Stonemist 500 times over a month. There can also be cost sinks to these goal orientated activities that means a risk of failing the goal as well. Since these are over and above the carrot in front of the carrot goals. Aka we need passive goals like pips, short term goals (hourly/2 hour), medium goals (day long goals) and long term (weekly/monthly) goals and buy-in goals that have higher risk/cost/rewards to them. Different people have differing times to play so we need to account for that and provide goals for all to try and achieve. As above these goals would lead to tokens that could be used at vendors to convert to whatever is considered as rewarding to people, coin, materials, skins, titles other currencies that would make the time to have been both fun and 'rewarding'.  

We also need community (WR/Alliance/Guild) goals that are available and tiered. Players should have their own goals as above but add in group goals as well to add things that encourage people to help do together while they are doing their own parts to achieve a larger community goal. I did this myself but it also helped my team do that.

There a lot of potential in a rework of what's considered the dread 'reward' system but it can lead to more active play as well and still account for people just trying to game the system while they tab out to do something else.

 

 

[Xenesis.6389]

2 hours ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

Rewards are more important than alliances. Alliances are basically a waste of time. Fighting the same people all the time because there's zero incentive for new people to try the mode due to zero rewards is really boring and why I get bored of WvW instantly.

I've taken a 2 year break, come back, and the exact same people using the exact same builds are still in WvW. zzz

Depends on the rewards.

If you want more group based rewards, like for your server winning the week or a tournament, then alliances is needed first.

If you want more personal rewards based on your performance or time spent, then rewards tracks or skirmish track can be improved first.

Rewards can only lure people into wvw, but they would actually have to like pvping and wvw systems in order to stay, many have in the past, but it really isn't for everyone and only come for the legendary items cause it's easier than raids. The same people you see playing after two years aren't there for the rewards(cause we all know it's the worse in the entire game), they're there because they enjoy the overall game mode and combat, if you're only after rewards there's two other game mode better for it.

Exact builds is a meta and balancing problem, not much happened since the great reckoning in feb 2020, it's only this year they've bothered to shake things up again, especially since their new elites made little impact on the group meta.

[TheGrimm.5624]

19 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Depends on the rewards.

If you want more group based rewards, like for your server winning the week or a tournament, then alliances is needed first.

If you want more personal rewards based on your performance or time spent, then rewards tracks or skirmish track can be improved first.

Rewards can only lure people into wvw, but they would actually have to like pvping and wvw systems in order to stay, many have in the past, but it really isn't for everyone and only come for the legendary items cause it's easier than raids. The same people you see playing after two years aren't there for the rewards(cause we all know it's the worse in the entire game), they're there because they enjoy the overall game mode and combat, if you're only after rewards there's two other game mode better for it.

Exact builds is a meta and balancing problem, not much happened since the great reckoning in feb 2020, it's only this year they've bothered to shake things up again, especially since their new elites made little impact on the group meta.

 

Valid point on when to release changes. Rewards for winning do need to wait for the WR project. Adding in goal orientated, personal and overtime achieved goals could be done as they go. But these should also be considered overall in an order to attempt to balance them up front even if they are then released as stages. Translation, start the conversations next year versus after the WR is completed or near so.

[Xenesis.6389]

16 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Valid point on when to release changes. Rewards for winning do need to wait for the WR project. Adding in goal orientated, personal and overtime achieved goals could be done as they go. But these should also be considered overall in an order to attempt to balance them up front even if they are then released as stages. Translation, start the conversations next year versus after the WR is completed or near so.

Actually the conversation should have started already with them making the pips change and mentioned increased rewards for support specs the last two years. But knowing anet it'll take them another two years for WR, another 2 years for reward considerations, and another 5 years to actually implement better rewards. Meanwhile pve gets new rewards every living story every 3-4 months. 🤷‍♂️

I swear, anet would rather we quit wvw at this point with the terribad rewards, terribad balance, eroding game play, no chance for a new map, taking 5 years to build a world system in the time it takes to build an entire new mmo.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Xenesis.6389

[Infusion.7149]

I'm of the belief that people should be rewarded for doing things related to the matchup even in the current system.  15 people at the warg because Arenanet won't remove that particular daily is a super waste of server resources. It has nothing to do with fun in that case. If it were simply about low effort then a yak defender daily could be implemented.

There's also a severe lack of reward for pushing through a defended T3 keep which is why people will often do it when they outnumber or severely outskill (guild group or groups versus PUGs). That would be a prime place to put memories of battle for example : similar to how PvE has fractal tiers there could be a memories of battle bonus for T2/T3 keep.

Realistically Arenanet aren't going to change the weekly skirmish ticket cap (and they should not cave on this) even if they have sped up pips previously. The skirmish tracks don't provide immense value with the drop in Mystic Coin prices and because they are semi-passive they shouldn't be the primary driver for reward structures. Rewards should be linked to actual gameplay and even implementing all WvW dailies active at the same time (or implement a weekly or bi-monthly that is on the same schedule as the relinks) would not be a far fetched idea. Outright liquidity of rewards should not be a primary concern since unless someone is buying legendary weapons the primary issue is getting T6 materials for a legendary weapon or an associated ascended item (marauder and minstrel being the most common). Mist trinkets already exist for WvW players so I don't see that as a limiting factor as exotic armor is not huge stat difference to ascended while people work toward ascended or legendary WvW armor (which has no unique skin by the way: they could add dye channels perhaps).

Older reward tracks (such as Ascalonian Catacombs which you need for monk runes) do not provide clovers whatsoever and some festival tracks don't provide memories of battle nor clovers. Reward tracks that provide selectable boxes of random garbage (such as the infamous lentil box , coffee box, or the soybean box in EoD tracks) ought to have an option to use all at once. Desert Armor boxes should lose the no salvage flag from the exotic armors.

Emblems are deprecated yet still drop. Ascended food was added yet none of the seeds are even possible to drop from the synthesizers.

I've voiced my concern that God of WvW doesn't allow for Eternity as a possible reward from the vendor but that was controversial. The way I see it even if someone was outright Ktraining in EoTM the person would have had way more revenue in PvE. Seems anticlimactic to get 2 blues and a green for that dedication even if it isn't "effort" per say.

I would say that ascended weapons are fairly accessible through the current Mistforged and Mist Lord weaponsets even if they are more pricey if you craft the grandmaster marks. That leads me to my next point which is why do grandmaster mark shards still exist?

That's the low-hanging fruit so to speak. Just slapping bonus WvW reward track progress on doesn't solve any of the above.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[TheGrimm.5624]

12 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Actually the conversation should have started already with them making the pips change and mentioned increased rewards for support specs the last two years. But knowing anet it'll take them another two years for WR, another 2 years for reward considerations, and another 5 years to actually implement better rewards. Meanwhile pve gets new rewards every living story every 3-4 months. 🤷‍♂️

I swear, anet would rather we quit wvw at this point with the terribad rewards, terribad balance, eroding game play, no chance for a new map, taking 5 years to build a world system in the time it takes to build an entire new mmo.

 

lol, not saying you are wrong, but from my sig you can see I am also playing New World and a backer to Ashes of Creation and Camelot Unchained but 2 of those 3 are also moving at similar paces. Don't really like Amazon as a company but I admit they are putting out the most changes overtime of the WvW style games out there. Still recommend WvW here better but can appreciate when Amazon rolls up other game's concepts that seem to be well received and integrate them in and its worth some playtime. Would give GW2 sPvP a run for the money in both Destiny2 sPvP and New Worlds though and since WvW and sPvP have similar feels its one of the reasons I say GW2 risks more population when they just seem to kick back and act like they have a corner on the market. I agree they are 3 years now behind on the other conversations about the other restructures and changes that were already behind WR. So more active communication going forward is well advised.

[Xenesis.6389]

23 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

lol, not saying you are wrong, but from my sig you can see I am also playing New World and a backer to Ashes of Creation and Camelot Unchained but 2 of those 3 are also moving at similar paces. Don't really like Amazon as a company but I admit they are putting out the most changes overtime of the WvW style games out there. Still recommend WvW here better but can appreciate when Amazon rolls up other game's concepts that seem to be well received and integrate them in and its worth some playtime.

Would give GW2 sPvP a run for the money in both Destiny2 sPvP and New Worlds though and since WvW and sPvP have similar feels its one of the reasons I say GW2 risks more population when they just seem to kick back and act like they have a corner on the market. I agree they are 3 years now behind on the other conversations about the other restructures and changes that were already behind WR. So more active communication going forward is well advised.

Eh I tried new world in the beta, too much pve to go through. At least amazon is putting in work, but that's to be expected on new releases.

Ashes of creation, hearing too many red flags with that so not really considering it.

Camelot looked to have the most potential to replace wvw, based on daoc/warhammer online from Mark Jacobs, but at this point sadly it'll probably just end up like Crowfall, constantly delayed, dead on arrival, with subs no less.

Anet doesn't care about competition to wvw or spvp, they've already given up on those areas long ago, it's side projects to doodle with when there's a break from pve.