Gift of Battle / Gift of Exploration: A petition.

[Tails.9372]

@Zushada.6108 said:Legendaries are called legendary because you are suppose to be a legend of all game modes.No you're not, WvW players for example can get almost full legendary gear without ever having to leave their game mode.

[Dante.1763]

@Tails.9372 said:

@Dante.1763 said:

@Tails.9372 said:

@"Malediktus.9250" said:Map completions are the worst part of making legendaries. The only reason I am still missing many, cannot be bothered to do themBut how can it be "the only reason" when GoE isn't even a necessary requirement for getting these legendaries?

It...is? you need a gift of exploration for all first generation legendaries.You need it if you want to craft one but you don't need to craft one in order to get one. Everything else only requires GoB (except for raid / sPvP armor which requires neither) meaning you can get every legendary in the game without ever having to deal with GoE.

outside of the maybe 1% of players who purchase legendary weapons you need a GoE to obtain one.

[Zushada.6108]

@Tails.9372 said:

@Zushada.6108 said:Legendaries are called legendary because you are suppose to be a legend of all game modes.No you're not, WvW players for example can get almost full legendary gear without ever having to leave their game mode.

Weapons are not gear. The weapons were originally intended for players to achieve in different game modes. The gear was designed to be available in each game mode. Totally different design methodologies so it is a null argument.

[ReaverKane.7598]

First off, you never farmed AP for Gift of Battle. You'd buy it with Badges of Honor (500 of them), never with AP, or even SP.And i've got to say i liked it better that way, i'm more of a PVX player, and i like exploring, i have an abundance of gifts of exploration saved, and plenty Badges as well, so it kinda bothers me to have to play wvw, not because i feel like playing wvw, but because i have this reward track i have to do, that takes several hours to complete.The decision of moving the Gift of battle exclusively into a reward track was one of several steps back taken by Arena Net over the years, in my opinion, along with Grandmaster Marks, time gated materials, etc.

[MauChann.3081]

@ReaverKane.7598 said:First off, you never farmed AP for Gift of Battle. You'd buy it with Badges of Honor (500 of them), never with AP, or even SP.

You get Badges of Honor for every AP milestone, so you could absolutely get a Gift of Battle by farming AP, and never touching WvW ( except for going to the borderlands for the vendor that sold the Gift )

[Rasimir.6239]

@"Kodiak.4213" said:I would love to see the "reward track" carried over into pve, where completing events would grant you a certain amount of reward track experience.That's already done in pve, it's called map rewards. It just doesn't have such a fancy UI as the wvw or pvp reward tracks, but basic function is exactly like that. You can use it to farm the exact materials needed for (for example) crafting your legendary gifts.

Seeing how low the time needed for participating in events is compared to other game modes, and the multitude of things you can do on the side (map exploration, experience gain (which potentially leads to spirit shards), achievements, harvesting, gathering materials from mobs), getting a gift of exploration just by spending 6-8 hours in open world maps tagging enough events to keep your "participation" up sounds vastly easier and cheaper (as you can advance a lot of other goals at the same time) than spending the same time getting and keeping your participation in wvw for a gift of battle reward track.

Personally I occasionally dabble in wvw smallscale with friends but am more of a pve open world player overall. I find both gifts in a good spot right now and have yet to see a suggestion that comes close to offering an alternative to the current aquisition methods that is as engaging (and thus meets ANet's goal of player participation for getting the gift) as the current methods instead of just being a shortcut to the gift for those who don't fancy what's currently required to get them.

[ButcherofMalakir.4067]

@MauChann.3081 said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:First off, you never farmed AP for Gift of Battle. You'd buy it with Badges of Honor (500 of them), never with AP, or even SP.

You get Badges of Honor for every AP milestone, so you could absolutely get a Gift of Battle by farming AP, and never touching WvW ( except for going to the borderlands for the vendor that sold the Gift )

You cannot buy gift of battle for badges anymore

[MauChann.3081]

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:

You cannot buy gift of battle for badges anymore

That's why my comment was in the past tense :P

[Tails.9372]

@Dante.1763 said:

@Tails.9372 said:

@Dante.1763 said:

@Tails.9372 said:

@"Malediktus.9250" said:Map completions are the worst part of making legendaries. The only reason I am still missing many, cannot be bothered to do themBut how can it be "the only reason" when GoE isn't even a necessary requirement for getting these legendaries?

It...is? you need a gift of exploration for all first generation legendaries.You need it if you want to craft one but you don't need to craft one in order to get one. Everything else only requires GoB (except for raid / sPvP armor which requires neither) meaning you can get every legendary in the game without ever having to deal with GoE.

outside of the maybe 1% of players who purchase legendary weapons you need a GoE to obtain one.The ratio of people who make their Gen.1 legendary vs. those who buy them is definitely not 99 to 1, judging by the conversations ingame it's more like the opposite but that's beside the point now isn't it? You can skip GoE entierly therefore you nont need one in order to obtain the associated legendary items.

@Zushada.6108 said:

@Tails.9372 said:

@Zushada.6108 said:Legendaries are called legendary because you are suppose to be a legend of all game modes.No you're not, WvW players for example can get almost full legendary gear without ever having to leave their game mode.

Weapons are not gear.And yet the same thing applies to these weapons so my point still stands.

[Ashen.2907]

@Zushada.6108 said:

@Tails.9372 said:

@Zushada.6108 said:Legendaries are called legendary because you are suppose to be a legend of all game modes.No you're not, WvW players for example can get almost full legendary gear without ever having to leave their game mode.

Weapons are not gear. The weapons were originally intended for players to achieve in different game modes. The gear was designed to be available in each game mode. Totally different design methodologies so it is a null argument.

Weapons are gear according to ANet. You can tell because weapons are included in bags of unidentified gear.

[Dante.1763]

@Tails.9372 said:

@Dante.1763 said:

@Tails.9372 said:

@Dante.1763 said:

@Tails.9372 said:

@"Malediktus.9250" said:Map completions are the worst part of making legendaries. The only reason I am still missing many, cannot be bothered to do themBut how can it be "the only reason" when GoE isn't even a necessary requirement for getting these legendaries?

It...is? you need a gift of exploration for all first generation legendaries.You need it if you want to craft one but you don't need to craft one in order to get one. Everything else only requires GoB (except for raid / sPvP armor which requires neither) meaning you can get every legendary in the game without ever having to deal with GoE.

outside of the maybe 1% of players who purchase legendary weapons you need a GoE to obtain one.The ratio of people who make their Gen.1 legendary vs. those who buy them is definitely not 99 to 1, judging by the conversations ingame it's more like the opposite but that's beside the point now isn't it? You can skip GoE entierly therefore you nont need one in order to obtain the associated legendary items.

@Zushada.6108 said:

@Tails.9372 said:

@Zushada.6108 said:Legendaries are called legendary because you are suppose to be a legend of all game modes.No you're not, WvW players for example can get almost full legendary gear without ever having to leave their game mode.

Weapons are not gear.And yet the same thing applies to these weapons so my point still stands.

If you plan on crafting them yes you do, arguing that the vast majority of players buy them, which i highly doubt, and therefore they arent needed is absurd. Thats the point of this bloody thread, for the players who want to craft them, and arguing that "Well, you can skip the whole crafting process if you want to, therefore you dont need anything" is silly, SOMEBODY crafted the legendary in the first place, so they are still needed.

[steki.1478]

I don't understand these "it's legendary so you have to put some effort in it, otherwise it's not legendary" comments.

We could literally buy GoB with currency earlier, you didn't have to do anything in wvw. What's legendary about that?

You can also buy gen1 weaps (which require you to complete map otherwise) on tp without completing neither pve nor wvw. What's legendary about that?

On top of that, prices are a lot lower now than they used to be back when GoB was purchasable, so every gen1 legy you craft now has much less value than you think it does.

If it worked before, it can work now too, but instead of just pvp having gift in vendor/tp, all game modes should.

[Sindariel.2354]

The only problem with Gift of Exploration are the freaking hearts.If those wouldn't count to map completion, there'd be no problem at all.

[Vayne.8563]

The OP seems to have forgotten that originally you couldn't just use badges of honor to buy gifts of battle, because even if you could do it that way, you needed a minimum level to buy a gift of battle and more to the point, when legendaries first came out, you needed to complete all four WvW maps to get your world complete for your gift of exploration. So from launch the game has required you to play some WvW particularly for your first legendary.

It's not so onerous as the OP posts. You can't be banished from the mists because no one can kick you out of the mists. At worst, you can be kicked from a squad, but very little stops you from following a squad even if you're not in it. However, there are plenty of things you can do in small groups or even solo in WvW without ever joining a squad.

It's just not that big a deal either way.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@MauChann.3081 said:

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:First off, you never farmed AP for Gift of Battle. You'd buy it with Badges of Honor (500 of them), never with AP, or even SP.

You get Badges of Honor for every AP milestone, so you could absolutely get a Gift of Battle by farming AP, and never touching WvW ( except for going to the borderlands for the vendor that sold the Gift )

Ah, ok, true... It's a bit of a roundabout way, so i didn't even consider it. You could more easily just do the JPs in the borderlands and EBG and get the badges. I used to run guild "badge farms" in those JPs, back in the REALLY early days.

[TheNecrosanct.4028]

As a PvE player I'm also fine with the way we obtain both GoB and GoE. sPvP doesn't have to be a requisite to make a legendary weapon, because WvW is PvP as well, just on a larger scale. But it gives you more freedom to decide how to obtain the GoB, while sPvP is a very limited game mode in comparison. It's no problem doing your own thing in WvW, but that's impossible in sPvP, since you're stuck with only 4 other people doing a specific thing.I am not a WvW player but I don't mind running around on those maps, doing PvE stuff, or tagging along with a zerg. I've never encountered toxicity in WvW aimed towards myelf either. And I don't put in a lot of effort. I do WvW with my PvE gear (which is either full Berserker or Viper) and don't bother fighting other people unless I'm in a zerg since it's not an efficient use of my time there. And with full Berserker or Viper gear I don't stand much of a chance anyway, except against the really unskilled players. And with full boosters you can get to almost 200% reward track gain, which enables you to get a GoB in less than 8 hours as long as you keep your boosters and participation up. I even use WvW to obtain the dungeon tokens I need to buy dungeon gifts, since the current pug community is worthless when it comes to dungeons and friends aren't interested in doing them anymore. After 6 years of GW2 I don't feel like playing dungeons as if the game had just been released a week ago, with people dying all around and not knowing what to do (which is basically what dungeons are now if you decide to pug them).

So yes, WvW is a means to an end, one I am perfectly able to work with. As soon as my goals are achieved, I will turn my back on WvW again. Nothing but certain rewards has ever drawn me into WvW. In my opinion the game mode itself is boring and lacklustre, lacks story and versatility and the varying degrees of skill on servers can make one week a walk in the park while the next is fighting against the tide. And while I agree with a previous poster that The Ascension is the best looking legendary back item, I will never get it because I refuse to set foot in that cesspool of toxicity, negativity and misplaced arrogance called sPvP. The day sPvP is absolutely required to get legendaries is the day I stop making legendaries.

These kinds of topics (acquisition of GoB/GoE) pop up quite regularly on the forum, and the verdict is always the same: the majority of people have no problems with it. So a change to the system 6 years down the line is highly unlikely, especially if ANet actively reads these topics.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@Vayne.8563 said:The OP seems to have forgotten that originally you couldn't just use badges of honor to buy gifts of battle, because even if you could do it that way, you needed a minimum level to buy a gift of battle and more to the point, when legendaries first came out, you needed to complete all four WvW maps to get your world complete for your gift of exploration. So from launch the game has required you to play some WvW particularly for your first legendary.

WvW ranks were addded much later, the original requirement was lvl 80.Then they added WvW ranks and put a rank requirement of 14 on it.

And yeah, WvW was a part of world completion, but then they removed it, and yet they increased the time requirement (not the level of participation, mind you) in WvW.Their message has been inconsistent at best.

It's not so onerous as the OP posts. You can't be banished from the mists because no one can kick you out of the mists. At worst, you can be kicked from a squad, but very little stops you from following a squad even if you're not in it. However, there are plenty of things you can do in small groups or even solo in WvW without ever joining a squad.

It's just not that big a deal either way.It's still several hours of gameplay that a person will most likely not be enjoying. Truth be told, PvE is the game mode that keeps the game running, and yet the least rewarding, and the one that gets less concessions.The 10% (if that much) of WvW-exclusive players got their chance to unlock Hero Points without participating in PvE, they keep getting concessions that allow them to exclude themselves from PvE. And yet, the vast majority of players who only play PvE (because lets face it, it's the only good thing left in GW2) are still forced to endure the crap-quality of the other two game modes to unlock stuff that is used for PvE only.

Arena Net, basically lost the ability to make PvP content in GW2 appealing, they either lost the minds behind GW1 and the original GW2 content, or they don't have the resources to put them to work effectively, whatever. The point is, since even before HoT, WvW was dying a slow death, and after HoT both PvP and WvW started a slow spiral of decay in quality and population (wvw saw a inversion of this due to the legendary back and the news of the rework, but still not even close), and their only solution has been to make it so that people that would not touch the game modes have almost no choice but to participate in it, either because the rewards are so damn enticing, or because they're actually forced to, due to requirements for legendaries.This of course leads to a big % of the already small population being composed of people that don't care the slightest about what's essentially a competitive team game mode, which, in turn reduces the ability of the team's they're inserted in to be as competitive, which then reduces the competitive people's enjoyment of the game, and with their dissatisfaction, they start caring less or just leaving, which increases the % of people in the already small population game modes that doesn't care about it, which creates a snowball effect.

All because of a lack of creativity when it comes to creating motivators for people to participate in the game mode.

The example of the most ridiculous of these changes in GW2 was when they started adding ascended gear as a reward in sPvP (the only mode that doesn't use it) and made it so cheap it kinda became the only way to obtain it. Then instead of removing it, or just making it more expensive in PvP (again the only game mode that doesn't use it), their choice was, lets make them craft stuff to avoid crafting stuff, and lets make it so that the best ways to avoid crafting stuff to avoid crafting stuff, is again through the only game mode that doesn't use them!!! That's some genius stuff going on in Arena Net's headquarters!

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"steki.1478" said:I don't understand these "it's legendary so you have to put some effort in it, otherwise it's not legendary" comments.

We could literally buy GoB with currency earlier, you didn't have to do anything in wvw. What's legendary about that?

Which is why ANet changed the system.

You can also buy gen1 weaps (which require you to complete map otherwise) on tp without completing neither pve nor wvw. What's legendary about that?Which is why we can't do that with Gen2 weapons.

On top of that, prices are a lot lower now than they used to be back when GoB was purchasable, so every gen1 legy you craft now has much less value than you think it does.Only because the supply of people with enough currency has increased, the demand decreases each year (as people obtain their legendaries and not as many new players join the game), and there aren't any new Gen1 legendaries to change that dynamic.

If it worked before, it can work now too, but instead of just pvp having gift in vendor/tp, all game modes should.It didn't work before, at least not according to ANet.

[GoodWithGravy.8019]

A legendary weapon should require playing every part of the game - I am surprised all the PvP components can be obtained over the TP.

If any way of converting or crafting the gifts is introduced, I think the recipe should be locked behind an achievement based on obtaining them first, so players have to get at least 1 legit legendary first.

Also, for Gen 2 legendaries the early collections require huge amounts of PvE, well beyond the relevant map gifts...the time spent WvWing is incredibly small.

Unless you are happy with the Dev team sinking months into developing PvP and WvW only legendary crafting routes most likely at the expense of PvE content - because the PvP and WvW teams are small and fully tasked for the foreseeable future - it’s probably best to just make the most of your 4 hours in WvW.

Heck you can even get the gift in Edge of the Mists which is pretty much an old school champ train.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

At the time I am typing this,

• 93 people voted for the status quo.
• 50 people voted for a change.

[Vayne.8563]

@ReaverKane.7598 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:The OP seems to have forgotten that originally you couldn't just use badges of honor to buy gifts of battle, because even if you could do it that way, you needed a minimum level to buy a gift of battle and more to the point, when legendaries first came out, you needed to complete all four WvW maps to get your world complete for your gift of exploration. So from launch the game has required you to play some WvW particularly for your first legendary.

WvW ranks were addded much later, the original requirement was lvl 80.Then they added WvW ranks and put a rank requirement of 14 on it.

And yeah, WvW was a part of world completion, but then they removed it, and yet they increased the time requirement (not the level of participation, mind you) in WvW.Their message has been inconsistent at best.

It's not so onerous as the OP posts. You can't be banished from the mists because no one can kick you out of the mists. At worst, you can be kicked from a squad, but very little stops you from following a squad even if you're not in it. However, there are plenty of things you can do in small groups or even solo in WvW without ever joining a squad.

It's just not that big a deal either way.It's still several hours of gameplay that a person will most likely not be enjoying. Truth be told, PvE is the game mode that keeps the game running, and yet the least rewarding, and the one that gets less concessions.The 10% (if that much) of WvW-exclusive players got their chance to unlock Hero Points without participating in PvE, they keep getting concessions that allow them to exclude themselves from PvE. And yet, the vast majority of players who only play PvE (because lets face it, it's the only good thing left in GW2) are still forced to endure the crap-quality of the other two game modes to unlock stuff that is used for PvE only.

Arena Net, basically lost the ability to make PvP content in GW2 appealing, they either lost the minds behind GW1 and the original GW2 content, or they don't have the resources to put them to work effectively, whatever. The point is, since even before HoT, WvW was dying a slow death, and after HoT both PvP and WvW started a slow spiral of decay in quality and population (wvw saw a inversion of this due to the legendary back and the news of the rework, but still not even close), and their only solution has been to make it so that people that would not touch the game modes have almost no choice but to participate in it, either because the rewards are so kitten enticing, or because they're actually forced to, due to requirements for legendaries.This of course leads to a big % of the already small population being composed of people that don't care the slightest about what's essentially a competitive team game mode, which, in turn reduces the ability of the team's they're inserted in to be as competitive, which then reduces the competitive people's enjoyment of the game, and with their dissatisfaction, they start caring less or just leaving, which increases the % of people in the already small population game modes that doesn't care about it, which creates a snowball effect.

All because of a lack of creativity when it comes to creating motivators for people to participate in the game mode.

The example of the most ridiculous of these changes in GW2 was when they started adding ascended gear as a reward in sPvP (the only mode that doesn't use it) and made it so cheap it kinda became the only way to obtain it. Then instead of removing it, or just making it more expensive in PvP (again the only game mode that doesn't use it), their choice was, lets make them craft stuff to avoid crafting stuff, and lets make it so that the best ways to avoid crafting stuff to avoid crafting stuff, is again through

the only game mode that doesn't use them

!!! That's some genius stuff going on in Arena Net's headquarters!

I don't know where you get your 10% number from. My memory is that, according to MO, 10% of the playerbase consider themselves PvP players, but 30% consider themselves WvW players. 60% consider themselves PvE players. Something along those lines if I'm not remembering the quote right.

Also your memory of those first years of making legendaries may be faulty or you may have been lucky. I remember one tower I needed that my side could never cap because we never ended up that color, so I ended up having to transfer servers to get that point. It took me months of checking before I made that decision. It's not so cut and dried as you remember.

In fact, there were far more complaints back then about having to complete WvW maps for world complete than we get now about how hard it is to get a gift of battle.

More to the point, just because only 30% of the population consider themselves WvWers doesn't mean that 60% of the PvE'ers dislike WvW so immensely anyway. I run a casual PvE guild and even people who dislike WvW, seem to enjoy it on the rare occassions we go in there to work on gifts of battle. It's something else to do. We're not looking for big fights, or zergs. We just run around and cap stuff and it works fine.

Does it take a while? Sure. But even as a PvE player that doesn't mean I can't get some enjoyment out of it. I might say I don't like dungeons but when it started I had to do 9 dungeon runs. There were no reward tracks anywhere. Now you can do five or either PvP or WvW if you prefer for dungeon tokens.

PVE doesn't need concessions in this because 80-90% of the time in making a legendary is PvE anyway. In reality you could just do dailies like wait for big spender 80 times and use badges from your chests to buy something cheap, which would give you 80 WvW reward potions which would give you a gift of battle.

Doing easy WvW dailies (veteran creature slayer, daily ruin capture) would make this much faster. It's really not as hard as some people are making it out to be.

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

@"Edgy McEdgelord.4790" said:correct me if im wrong but isnt the gift of battle purchaseable from mayani at the mystic toilet for like 200 spirit shards?

You're thinking of the Bloodstone Shard. See: Gift of Mastery.

[Kodiak.4213]

@"Rasimir.6239" said:That's already done in pve, it's called map rewards. It just doesn't have such a fancy UI as the wvw or pvp reward tracks, but basic function is exactly like that. You can use it to farm the exact materials needed for (for example) crafting your legendary gifts.

Seeing how low the time needed for participating in events is compared to other game modes, and the multitude of things you can do on the side (map exploration, experience gain (which potentially leads to spirit shards), achievements, harvesting, gathering materials from mobs), getting a gift of exploration just by spending 6-8 hours in open world maps tagging enough events to keep your "participation" up sounds vastly easier and cheaper (as you can advance a lot of other goals at the same time) than spending the same time getting and keeping your participation in wvw for a gift of battle reward track.

Personally I occasionally dabble in wvw smallscale with friends but am more of a pve open world player overall. I find both gifts in a good spot right now and have yet to see a suggestion that comes close to offering an alternative to the current aquisition methods that is as engaging (and thus meets ANet's goal of player participation for getting the gift) as the current methods instead of just being a shortcut to the gift for those who don't fancy what's currently required to get them.

Hey Rasimir, I'm well aware of what map rewards are, i just thought that this would be a separate "global pve" track that would carry over from map to map. To your second point, the gift of exploration track wouldn't be available in open world, just WvW. Personally, i wouldn't care if WVW players managed to get it in the same amount of time as a GOB, as they wouldn't get the title or badge and it would only be a single GOE instead of the two you get for actually completing the map. Anyway, it's all hypothetical so it doesn't matter much anyway. cheers!

[Tails.9372]

@Dante.1763 said:If you plan on crafting them yes you doBut that was never the argument so what's your point?

@Dante.1763 said:Thats the point of this bloody thread, for the players who want to craft themThat's not the point of the thread. Read the OP it's not about "crafting", it's about not having to play a gamemode you "don't really like, or find boring, or don't want to play because of bad experiences with players" which you obviously don't have to if you can just buy the thing on the TP unlike with all the other stuff that requires GoB.

[Sasatsuma.3147]

At first I strongly hated the idea that I'd have to go do some WvW, since I have never been interested in pvp type of game content.But oh boy, when I finally gathered the courage to go an try, I actually had so much of fun.Now I want to learn more about WvW and start gearing up a character for it.So from my point of view, it is nothing bad to "force" players to go and try different game modes this way.