Reward Tracks Need An Overhaul | WvW and PvP

[EnferReine.8043]

I have been thinking this over for a little while now and there are two main reasons that I feel like this should be the case. I know there will be people who feel this has no place coming from a primarily PvE player, but I hope you will hear me out because I would like to hope this would benefit all involved.

Firstly, there is so many tracks that it is quite frankly overwhelming to choose from if you don't know what you are doing. I would wager a lot of new players going in to give it a try probably don't even put much thought into the tracks and get given loot that is of no real value to them. More than that, it is so many tracks for the majority of long term players to only end up using so little of them because of what they value out of their tracks.

Secondly, how much of the tracks feel filled with filler "junk" when people have a set goal in mind and makes the track feel so much less rewarding. When I choose to play WvW without being focused on something I need from a reward track, but rather am waiting for loot from PIPs, I generally have much better time playing compared to when I am actively going for something in the tracks. Something about the tracks feels so unrewarding when you actually want something from them.

Thirdly, the current design forces people who are primarily or only PvE people to play and leaves them unsatisfied with their time played which I feel ruins the experience and chances of allowing newer players trying it for the first times to actually give it a chance. PvE players will complain about how awful of a time they are having which would make newer players reluctant to give it a chance and the more of these PvE players being forced to play the mode for long periods of time means that there are larger groups of players that are weaker in this environment making the mode look less fun than it is because your large group might die to a much better structured group causing new players to think the mode isn't balanced well, etc.

Ideally, you want to attract new players and bump up the cycle of players coming through but not keep them so long that they ruin the experience for others. All the filler items stops people from being able to quickly achieve their goals and get the things they want. The reward track system feels like it should offer tokens as rewards that can then be taken to a merchant that contains the loot from the tracks for people to pick and choose, helping players get what they want quickly without as much dread of how long they might be forced to sit there and be steam rolled to reach their goal. Not only that, but getting to choose the loot you want a little bit more streamlined might help cycle these players through more often with less frustration because knowing they can come in, get some token for their play time and skip straight to the skins they want and leave. Rather than being bogged down for hours just to get 1 skin and bags of loot they were already happy to farm somewhere else in the game. A merchant to spend the tokens at would likely also allow for a much simpler way of obtaining loot that many players are familiar with rather than going into a menu and switching it around a bunch of times which a new player might even miss or not notice that you have to make them repeatable or they might switch to another one, etc.

This would hopefully feel much more respectful of everyone's time and getting everyone back to the content they enjoy and hopefully cycling these players around in a much better way than how they are currently being forced into the mode in droves and ruining the fun for many WvW and PvP enjoyers.

Edited September 7 by EnferReine.8043

[Cyninja.2954]

TLDR::

Make players get the rewards from reward tracks faster while allowing them to skip all the "filler" items.

 

The issue here:

The reward tracks are designed around the high demand item, at least most are. A Gift of Battle reward track is designed around the Gift of Battle at the end. The "filler" items are there to not make you go through the entire reward track without any loot.

Your suggestion thus amounts to either:

A. essentially cut down the time to acquire the highly desired item (which equates pretty much just more loot)

or

B. having to re-balance the desired items to still take as long if specifically targeted, which results in less loot because now you forgo all the "filler" items

 

and while I am sure we would all love to spam GoB, or Clovers, or end of reward track skins, etc. That does seems to throw the entire system in disarray.

If the abundance of reward tracks is an issue, a clearer and more concise and/or descriptive menu would do the trick just as well. Which is something I actually agree with, just as there are tons of other menus which could use some touching up.

Edited August 31 by Cyninja.2954

[EnferReine.8043]

2 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

TLDR::

Make players get the rewards from reward tracks faster while allowing them to skip all the "filler" items.

 

The issue here:

The reward tracks are designed around the high demand item, at least most are. A Gift of Battle reward track is designed around the Gift of Battle at the end. The "filler" items are there to not make you go through the entire reward track without any loot.

Your suggestion thus amounts to either:

A. essentially cut down the time to acquire the highly desired item (which equates pretty much just more loot)

or

B. having to re-balance the desired items to still take as long if specifically targeted, which results in less loot because now you forgo all the "filler" items

 

and while I am sure we would all love to spam GoB, or Clovers, or end of reward track skins, etc. That does seems to throw the entire system in disarray.

If the abundance of reward tracks is an issue, a clearer and more concise and/or descriptive menu would do the trick just as well. Which is something I actually agree with, just as there are tons of other menus which could use some touching up.

Tokens would allow for more choice in where you want your loot to go. Tons of people aren't interested in the filler loot, they want to get their skins and leave. You are asking people to hate the mode to invest more time into it. If a merchant had the loot from the reward tracks, skins and such would definitely be worth more but if you were skipping more filler items of loot you didn't care for to skip straight to your desired skins, then all the players who don't want to be there and ruin the game for others are gone much faster and not all piling into the mode at around the same time.

Even if it was just for the cosmetic items only. You have a Gift of Battle Track and the Triumphant Track, but for all other skins that seem like they were PvE related to allow the other modes to get them, surely a cosmetic token track to get these people in and out faster would be better.

[genjonah.1253]

28 minutes ago, EnferReine.8043 said:

Tokens would allow for more choice in where you want your loot to go. Tons of people aren't interested in the filler loot, they want to get their skins and leave. You are asking people to hate the mode to invest more time into it. If a merchant had the loot from the reward tracks, skins and such would definitely be worth more but if you were skipping more filler items of loot you didn't care for to skip straight to your desired skins, then all the players who don't want to be there and ruin the game for others are gone much faster and not all piling into the mode at around the same time.

Even if it was just for the cosmetic items only. You have a Gift of Battle Track and the Triumphant Track, but for all other skins that seem like they were PvE related to allow the other modes to get them, surely a cosmetic token track to get these people in and out faster would be better.

… so you’re admitting he’s exactly right about your intentions?

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, EnferReine.8043 said:

Tokens would allow for more choice in where you want your loot to go. Tons of people aren't interested in the filler loot, they want to get their skins and leave. You are asking people to hate the mode to invest more time into it. If a merchant had the loot from the reward tracks, skins and such would definitely be worth more but if you were skipping more filler items of loot you didn't care for to skip straight to your desired skins, then all the players who don't want to be there and ruin the game for others are gone much faster and not all piling into the mode at around the same time.

Again, you are asking for the 1 item for which most of these reward tracks be designed around to be faster accessible, not realizing that this 1 item might be the central reason this reward track takes that long, otherwise the reward track would reward multiple of said reward.

So let's say I don't want anything just the Mystic Clovers at the end of a reward track, what would stop me from spamming just that reward with tokens?

Now suddenly the entire games economy is affected because it has become far more efficient to spam Mystic Clovers from idling in WvW or Spvp than using resources in PvE.

1 hour ago, EnferReine.8043 said:

Even if it was just for the cosmetic items only. You have a Gift of Battle Track and the Triumphant Track, but for all other skins that seem like they were PvE related to allow the other modes to get them, surely a cosmetic token track to get these people in and out faster would be better.

Correct, these reward tracks were introduced, at least some of them, so that players of Spvp amd Wvw are able to acquire them.

Why is it suddenly of concern how PvE players feel?

Even worse:

Altering, say the reward track for a dungeon, to include all the cosmetics would also have a direct impact on that PvE content. Suddenly players might decide "oh, it's more time efficient to waste my time in WvW/Spvp instead of running dungeons".

I am unsure how you can not see the issues here.

Edited August 31 by Cyninja.2954

[SlateSloan.3654]

The reward tracks are rather unrewarding.

they need more honeyflowers, lowland pinelogs, charged titan ores, rotted titan ambers and the last chest does not reward any runestones...

 

Edited September 1 by SlateSloan.3654

[Gop.8713]

Not every newly released track is going to be more profitable that the one previous, and I'm okay with that. I think the primary purpose of the JW track was the Woad armor, and now that they let us buy that from vendor the track is greatly devalued, which is okay, just stick with w/e you were using before. The relatively low number of mats & map currencies is just an indicator that these tracks were not intended as a major source of those . . .

[EnferReine.8043]

On 8/31/2024 at 11:59 PM, genjonah.1253 said:

… so you’re admitting he’s exactly right about your intentions?

When I compare earning skins in PvE to WvW and PvP via reward tracks, it is so painfully unrewarding. Just to try and get this armor set faster I have had to switch my dailies to WvW to get bonus reward track progress. I have been doing this since last weekend and I have been playing when I can for a whole week not doing the content I enjoy doing more, to do the content I only enjoy sometimes because I want to get the armor set.

All week and I only have 2 pieces to show for it and I am using boosters for reward tracks too. This is such a ridiculously high time commitment for so much nothing and then a single skin. Or a single gift of battle.

I can go into PvE and sometimes just do an achievement for like 20 minutes give or take and come out with the exact thing I wanted. I don't mind working for something, but this is realistically not worth the time invested. Switching to the dailies has been my only blessing because I just jump in, do them slower than I would do the PvE dailies and then leave so I get some reward track progress and then stop touching the mode, because this reward cycle makes me hate the mode and then I end up feeling so demotivated and unrewarded I don't even want to play the game at all.

Doing this dailies cycle will be slower but at least I won't have to spend a full day playing (like more than 10 hours) with boosted reward track progress like last weekend to only get one thing and then just feel like crap about it.

[Gop.8713]

From the sound of it I'd agree you should stop. You're not actually required to finish wvw tracks, they were originally designed to give wvw players access to pve items that they otherwise would not be able to obtain, and as such intentionally took longer, the same way the 'alternative' wv objectives take longer than the primary event. There is also the gob ofc, which has unquestionably introduced many players to wvw who otherwise would have never considered it and as such should never be removed, but you can even skip that via the tp so no complaints there . . .

Now over time as anet has marginalized the competitive modes and are just now throwing a few things back to those players you can say well gee I guess I "have" to do those modes now to get those things, or you can accept that not everything in the game is for everyone, and move on to the content that you enjoy . . .

[Tula.6021]

On 8/31/2024 at 11:13 AM, EnferReine.8043 said:

Secondly, how much of the tracks feel filled with filler "junk" when people have a set goal in mind and makes the track feel so much less rewarding.

That's impudent.
In WvW and PvP you play what you want and how you want it, and a track you want is filled on the side.

PvE players can only dream of this (unlocking something completely different on the side while playing whatever they want in PvE).
If they want something, they have to travel to the corresponding maps and play the corresponding content.

 

On 8/31/2024 at 11:13 AM, EnferReine.8043 said:

Firstly, there is so many tracks that it is quite frankly overwhelming to choose from if you don't know what you are doing. I would wager a lot of new players going in to give it a try probably don't even put much thought into the tracks and get given loot that is of no real value to them.

Yes, that's right.
The first thing a WvW player should activate would be the path for the Triumphant Armor, because unlocking it gives you access to the ascended variant of it and thus also to the legendary variant.
It takes a while to play through the track 6 times to complete an armor set. Bummer if you waste your time with something else.

But everything else is pretty open. There's nothing that you absolutely have to do next.
If you go into WvW for the Gift of Battle, you will only activate this track.
Otherwise, do all the tracks that don't have a repeat sign and then check the locked tracks to see what's available and how to unlock it. The core tracks must be done in a certain order to be unlocked. But they are not necessary. They are goodies.

You can also go into PvE for most of the rewards. Like the dungeon skins, desert skins, dry top stuff etc

But it's a lot more effort and takes a lot more time getting the PvE stuff from PvE than from a reward track.

When I look back at what Anet has done to wvw in the last few months. Then please hands off. It can only get worse. Worse improvements.

Edited September 8 by Tula.6021

[Gorani.7205]

On topic of the JAW reward track (not in general, which seems to be the intention of OP and @Cyninja.2954 responses to that post.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Janthir_Wilds_Reward_Track and https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Janthir_Wilds_Gear_Box

seem to follow the same problem the SotO track had. It focuses on some map currencies (but not all) and covers two JAW maps only (and no the following maps)
You get Ursan & Full Moon Weapons (lets just call them map weapons from Lowlands and Syntri), but not the map weapons from upcoming maps. You get  Ursus Oblige coins (which look to be the global currency of JAW), Honeycombs and Mursaat Currency (which buy you keys to open dig up caches), again for the first two maps.
You don't get map harvesting mats (like Honey Flowers and Lowland Pine). You get indirect access to https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Serpent's_Wrath_Weapon_Choice_Box (via Honeycombs), but not via the final box.
Woad armour seems to be the main reason to get through the track for players at the moment, but after the next update, those will be available for Badges & Memories as well. Relics can be acquired  (which at the moment can only be unlocked via PvE and not via WvW Testemonies).
But, what about the new maps? The SotO track ignored all of Nayos and unless we get a second JAW track, the current track will ignore the map specifics of JAWs upcoming maps.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

3 hours ago, Tula.6021 said:

Yes, that's right.
The first thing a WvW player should activate would be the path for the Triumphant Armor, because unlocking it gives you access to the ascended variant of it and thus also to the legendary variant.
It takes a while to play through the track 6 times to complete an armor set. Bummer if you waste your time with something else.

But everything else is pretty open. There's nothing that you absolutely have to do next.

That's not entirely accurate. You also have to do the track for the reverse-grip sword dagger, because it's just that cool. 🙃

You can also say the same for the Hero Weapon track as the armor, since AFAIK, it's the best way to get ascended weapons in WVW, which are more impactful than armor stats per piece. Would be nice if that served as a path for a legendary weapon, but new players usually aren't investing in legendaries yet.

[Tula.6021]

5 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

You can also say the same for the Hero Weapon track as the armor, since AFAIK, it's the best way to get ascended weapons in WVW, which are more impactful than armor stats per piece.

Not needed. You can buy ascended Mist Lord weapons without doing anything to unlock them. Same vendor (skirmish supervisor), same costs.
https://wiki-en.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skirmish_Supervisor#Ascended_Weapons

Best ascended equipment is the ring (Mist Band). Since you can buy an infused version of it and can attune it for cheap (infusing is usually the expensive/annoying effort as wvw player) and have 3 slots for infusions. Beats the ascended rings from the laurel vendor.

[bq pd.2148]

7 hours ago, Gorani.7205 said:

Relics can be acquired  (which at the moment can only be unlocked via PvE and not via WvW Testemonies).

relics where for me the main reason to do that reward track. if you get them once from the reward track, they unlock for both heroics and the legendary relic.

given that with SotO the relics from the later updates were instantly in old reward track end chests, i certainly will ready 6 of those for each patch to instantly get access to them, better than trying some potentially bugged PvE way to get them.

[Cuks.8241]

On 9/7/2024 at 8:35 AM, EnferReine.8043 said:

When I compare earning skins in PvE to WvW and PvP via reward tracks, it is so painfully unrewarding. Just to try and get this armor set faster I have had to switch my dailies to WvW to get bonus reward track progress. I have been doing this since last weekend and I have been playing when I can for a whole week not doing the content I enjoy doing more, to do the content I only enjoy sometimes because I want to get the armor set.

All week and I only have 2 pieces to show for it and I am using boosters for reward tracks too. This is such a ridiculously high time commitment for so much nothing and then a single skin. Or a single gift of battle.

I can go into PvE and sometimes just do an achievement for like 20 minutes give or take and come out with the exact thing I wanted. I don't mind working for something, but this is realistically not worth the time invested. Switching to the dailies has been my only blessing because I just jump in, do them slower than I would do the PvE dailies and then leave so I get some reward track progress and then stop touching the mode, because this reward cycle makes me hate the mode and then I end up feeling so demotivated and unrewarded I don't even want to play the game at all.

Doing this dailies cycle will be slower but at least I won't have to spend a full day playing (like more than 10 hours) with boosted reward track progress like last weekend to only get one thing and then just feel like crap about it.

So this is just a Woad Armour qq thread in disguise?

Reward tracks are fine for those that play the modes regurarly. Its some extra loot and a nice item here and there.

No  need to change  just because  you decided that you will grind an activity you dont like for a skin.

I just wish they went back to track per map and not like  now, track per expansion (want those first time clovers)

[EnferReine.8043]

On 9/9/2024 at 8:34 AM, Cuks.8241 said:

So this is just a Woad Armour qq thread in disguise?

Reward tracks are fine for those that play the modes regurarly. Its some extra loot and a nice item here and there.

No  need to change  just because  you decided that you will grind an activity you dont like for a skin.

I just wish they went back to track per map and not like  now, track per expansion (want those first time clovers)

Yeah, the Woad Armor was the source of these complaints but it also resurfaced every other time I have had to do it for other skins, not to mention that I am also trying to get a second legendary set through WvW, so sitting there for hours upon hours a week and feeling so minimally rewarded for time versus the rewards I get from PvE in a much shorter time. I don't know how people play WvW as their main game mode with how much worse you get rewarded overall.

[EnferReine.8043]

On 9/8/2024 at 7:34 PM, Tula.6021 said:

PvE players can only dream of this (unlocking something completely different on the side while playing whatever they want in PvE).
If they want something, they have to travel to the corresponding maps and play the corresponding content.

PvE players like playing PvE though, not to mention the time it takes to get their reward they are aiming for is much shorter and they can move on to the next thing they want or the next thing they want to do.

[Gop.8713]

33 minutes ago, EnferReine.8043 said:

Yeah, the Woad Armor was the source of these complaints but it also resurfaced every other time I have had to do it for other skins, not to mention that I am also trying to get a second legendary set through WvW, so sitting there for hours upon hours a week and feeling so minimally rewarded for time versus the rewards I get from PvE in a much shorter time. I don't know how people play WvW as their main game mode with how much worse you get rewarded overall.

This is going to blow your mind but there are ppls who actually do thing just bc they enjoy them, and see rewards and ancillary to that . . .

[EnferReine.8043]

2 hours ago, Gop.8713 said:

This is going to blow your mind but there are ppls who actually do thing just bc they enjoy them, and see rewards and ancillary to that . . .

I don't mind playing WvW, when it is more on my own terms as something else to do. I get doing something for enjoyment.
Doesn't mean the rewards shouldn't feel good/fulfillling, like you can have both.