It is Time to Update WvW Rewards...

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

This is long overdo. I was going to reply to the Pip reward chest thread, but the issue with rewards in WvW goes beyond that really.

 

First things first.

**Participation:**

As it is now the participation system encourages an inactive gameplay style (euphemism of the year I know).

 

Here is what I propose. Once you hit tier 6 participation every time you fill the participation bar it resets to being empty. The timer stays, the tier 6 participation stays. When the bar resets to being empty you "cash out" for pips. Whether this is the same number of pips you would get every 5 minutes or a lesser amount can be freely debated, the answer is something between 1 and 20, I suggest however you receive your war score component in pips. The more active you are, the more pips you receive, and the faster you get rewards in general. Keep the pips per tick so that scouts and siege refreshers get their rewards.

 

**Rewards**

**Skirmish Reward Track**

1. Add a gold component to each chest received. The amount of gold rewarded should be relative to the pips required to get the chest, about 10s per pip. This includes the repeatable Diamond chest. I.E a Wood minor chest gives 2.5 gold, a Diamond minor chest gives 5.5 gold. It takes 1450 pips to get the final Diamond chest, so this would be 145 gold per complete track. with an extra 5.5 gold every time you get the repeatable Diamond chest.

2. Add more Mystic Coins to the final chest of each tier: 1 for Wood and Bronze, 2 for Silver and Gold, 3 for Platinum and Mithril, and 4 for Diamond. Comes out to 16 coins per week just by playing WvW. You'll see a population increase just for this.

 

**Skirmish Chests**

Add new options to the chests. Shiny Baubles, T5 crafting mat bag, T6 crafting mat bag, or Bags of Masterwork Gear are all options.

 

**Reward Tracks**

1. Add in a Crafter's Reward Track, which drops T5 mat bags, T6 mat bags, Mist packets, Mist Bundles, Grandmaster Mark Shards (3 per track), with the final chest being a choice of 2 of the same ascended crafting mats. This can be purchasable from the new vendor for gold, badges or some other WvW currency. Make it repeatable.

2. Add in a Mist War Reward Track, which drops extra WvW currencies including badges, testimonies, and skirmish claim tickets. Purchasable with gold, probably 200g if we know Anet… Make it repeatable. This lowers the barrier of entry for new players (new to WvW that is).

3. Add in another reward track (blanking on what to call it), that gives extra WvW xp, like the drops of liquid world experience, thimbles, and tastes, no swigs or kegs. This track should also give loot similar to a Box of WvW supplies at the minor tiers. Make it purchasable, 10g. Repeatable, but only if you repurchase it. This also lowers the barrier of entry for new players, and gives older players some extra WXP for more ranks. A complete track should give between 3-5 Ranks.

 

Just my stab at it, I'm sure some people may disagree on a few things, and that is fine. What is more important is to have a cohesive discussion on WvW rewards as a whole, but also structuring them in such a way as to also entice new players into the game mode and make it a viable choice as far as getting more shinnies is concerned.

 

If these changes would create too large of a population increase, then return pips to EotM and let the overflow play there and still get their rewards.

[EremiteAngel.9765]

Personally I would like to see the feature of semi-afk pip farming remain.

 

A large part of why I liked old school runescape was because it contains features that rewarded both active and semi-AFK playing.

 

As a gamer who used to play 8 hours straight, one cannot remain fully active and engaged for such a long duration 24/7.

 

You can go slay active dungeon monsters for 2 hours, then semi-afk fishing for 2 hours etc.

 

Semi-Afk pip farming offers a break in gaming but still make you feel continuously rewarded, and rightfully less due to partial activity.

 

This attracts me because I can continuously grow stronger or richer without having to be fully engaged which can lead to burn out over prolonged periods.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

I would rather Pip chests change from weekly rewards and instead follow the pattern of sPvP, which goes by seasons. WvW could use 'link' periods as seasons (roughly 2 months)

 

There have been weeks where I finished Diamond by Sunday afternoon, and others where I was only able to complete Platinum, and from Monday -> Friday only made it as far as 2nd Tier Diamond. It feels bad knowing that playing on Monday, you're getting mediocre rewards because you already finished Diamond, and it feels just as bad not being able to get the 'maximum' rewards because during the week you have other time commitments, and you split your time in game between various game modes.

 

A few seasons ago I was able to earn sufficient pips for all the chests in sPvP by playing 1-2 games a day at roughly a 54% win rate. That's like 20-30 mins per day, and hardly an example of stellar game play, so I think we can suspend the usual argument of 'afk pip farming' we tie to WvW. You get far more rewards for far less effort in sPvP, and all that is required is to have a few players on your team carry at your rank level so you win half your games.

 

By comparison in WvW, if you're focused on completing pip chests, you might find yourself ignoring calls for help on /t, and instead continue to flip the same camps and sentries so long as your map has [Outnumbered]. Not an efficient system imo.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

> @"EremiteAngel.9765" said:

> Personally I would like to see the feature of semi-afk pip farming remain.

>

> A large part of why I liked old school runescape was because it contains features that rewarded both active and semi-AFK playing.

>

> As a gamer who used to play 8 hours straight, one cannot remain fully active and engaged for such a long duration 24/7.

>

> You can go slay active dungeon monsters for 2 hours, then semi-afk fishing for 2 hours etc.

>

> Semi-Afk pip farming offers a break in gaming but still make you feel continuously rewarded, and rightfully less due to partial activity.

>

> This attracts me because I can continuously grow stronger or richer without having to be fully engaged which can lead to burn out over prolonged periods.

 

I am not advocating for the removal of pips/tick, just adding in a more active component to dissuade abuse of afk ppting, you would still be free to semi-afk. There are times where I do that, like while folding laundry or working out.

 

> @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:

> I would rather Pip chests change from weekly rewards and instead follow the pattern of sPvP, which goes by seasons. WvW could use 'link' periods as seasons (roughly 2 months)

>

> There have been weeks where I finished Diamond by Sunday afternoon, and others where I was only able to complete Platinum, and from Monday -> Friday only made it as far as 2nd Tier Diamond. It feels bad knowing that playing on Monday, you're getting mediocre rewards because you already finished Diamond, and it feels just as bad not being able to get the 'maximum' rewards because during the week you have other time commitments, and you split your time in game between various game modes.

>

> A few seasons ago I was able to earn sufficient pips for all the chests in sPvP by playing 1-2 games a day at roughly a 54% win rate. That's like 20-30 mins per day, and hardly an example of stellar game play, so I think we can suspend the usual argument of 'afk pip farming' we tie to WvW. You get far more rewards for far less effort in sPvP, and all that is required is to have a few players on your team carry at your rank level so you win half your games.

>

> By comparison in WvW, if you're focused on completing pip chests, you might find yourself ignoring calls for help on /t, and instead continue to flip the same camps and sentries so long as your map has [Outnumbered]. Not an efficient system imo.

 

What I am advocating for here is to place an active component to the participation system. This would mean Zerging and actively killing other players and capping objectives will end up giving more pips than playing in an Outnumbered map. This creates a more efficient reward system than rewards active response to calls for help. You will end up completing the reward track much more quickly with what I am proposing here.

 

Also the cash out pips I suggested is still something that can be discussed. It could be the full pip allotment you would get per tick sans the Outnumbered buff, so War score + commitment + rank bonus.

[Mighty Cole.7849]

I would like to see some improvements to the Gift of Battle WvW Reward Track. It was designed to help people get the items they need to make legendary weapons and gear but it only rewards you with two Mystic Clovers. Considering that other reward tracks give the same amount, it makes GoB feel a bit anemic.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

> @"Mighty Cole.7849" said:

> I would like to see some improvements to the Gift of Battle WvW Reward Track. It was designed to help people get the items they need to make legendary weapons and gear but it only rewards you with two Mystic Clovers. Considering that other reward tracks give the same amount, it makes GoB feel a bit anemic.

 

100% agree. More clovers, coins, and mats in general would be welcome.

[lodjur.1284]

No. We don't need more incentives to form map blobs. Which is what most of these system encourage.

[blp.3489]

Speaking as a wvw newbie I think adding some reward tracks that target what you are interested in would be really great. I've played PVE up until now and I don't find the current reward tracks very rewarding/interesting. A reward track that helped me build my world abilities (world experience points) quicker would be the most attractive to me at the moment. Why not have a straight forward coin reward track? Just show me the money! Given that the amount of coins can be set to be equivalent to other tracks why not make it straightforward? As suggested, crafting tracks and legendary materials tracks would be great. In any case, there are not enough tracks that give something goal oriented if you aren't interested in more armor and weapon skins and other things you already got from pve.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

> @"blp.3489" said:

> Speaking as a wvw newbie I think adding some reward tracks that target what you are interested in would be really great. I've played PVE up until now and I don't find the current reward tracks very rewarding/interesting. A reward track that helped me build my world abilities (world experience points) quicker would be the most attractive to me at the moment. Why not have a straight forward coin reward track? Just show me the money! Given that the amount of coins can be set to be equivalent to other tracks why not make it straightforward? As suggested, crafting tracks and legendary materials tracks would be great. In any case, there are not enough tracks that give something goal oriented if you aren't interested in more armor and weapon skins and other things you already got from pve.

 

The Skirmish track would be the track for coins. But yes, there needs to be more interesting reward tracks that support other aspects of GW2 endgame. This was supposed to be the perpetual endgame content, but the current rewards do not support it.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

I want things so lets devalue the price of gold for everyone.

lol no dood. i'm no economist but i'm pretty sure what you're asking would mess up things big time.

what big easy farmable rewards would bring is bots. yes, people who run tons of bots to farm gold to sell on the black market. pvp is already lousy with em, more incentive and they will come to wvw for sure.

[Ben K.6238]

This would just encourage karma training, as that's the fastest way to fill up the participation meter at the moment. Due to the long timer, you can still perform defensive duties when your participation bar is full without losing out on any rewards. Looks to me like this system would turn that into "lost productivity" and start to actually penalise people who do the helpful tasks the participation system doesn't currently recognise.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

> @"Ben K.6238" said:

> This would just encourage karma training, as that's the fastest way to fill up the participation meter at the moment. Due to the long timer, you can still perform defensive duties when your participation bar is full without losing out on any rewards. Looks to me like this system would turn that into "lost productivity" and start to actually penalise people who do the helpful tasks the participation system doesn't currently recognise.

 

Feel free to contribute alternatives. The current system for participation encourages afking at spawn. Simply roaming and capping camps would fill a bar easily as well without out the need to K Train. Remember not everyone's PC can take blob v. blob content.

 

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> I want things so lets devalue the price of gold for everyone.

> lol no dood. i'm no economist but i'm pretty sure what you're asking would mess up things big time.

> what big easy farmable rewards would bring is bots. yes, people who run tons of bots to farm gold to sell on the black market. pvp is already lousy with em, more incentive and they will come to wvw for sure.

 

Your concern is noted, but the discussion involves more than just gold, but also WvW currencies, WXP, and in general making life easier when playing WvW relative to the amount of rewards of other game modes.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

> @"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:

> Your concern is noted, but the discussion involves more than just gold, but also WvW currencies, WXP, and in general making life easier when playing WvW relative to the amount of rewards of other game modes.

 

noted huh. if its **only** wvw currencies, wxp, and in general making life easier when playing wvw then you have my vote.

 

[Ben K.6238]

> @"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:

> > @"Ben K.6238" said:

> > This would just encourage karma training, as that's the fastest way to fill up the participation meter at the moment. Due to the long timer, you can still perform defensive duties when your participation bar is full without losing out on any rewards. Looks to me like this system would turn that into "lost productivity" and start to actually penalise people who do the helpful tasks the participation system doesn't currently recognise.

>

> Feel free to contribute alternatives. The current system for participation encourages afking at spawn. Simply roaming and capping camps would fill a bar easily as well without out the need to K Train. Remember not everyone's PC can take blob v. blob content.

 

If you're going to have a system where players get rewarded equally for actively participating no matter whether they're blobbing and karma training or not, it needs to have a cap to the rate at which you can gain credit. This is effectively what the system does already. Removing the timer so participation is always degrading might help prevent AFKing, but it is useful to have at least a small buffer there while you move between fields of activity.

 

What throws a spanner in the works is that some of the things people can be doing to participate are very hard to recognise programmatically, in a way that doesn't encourage exploitation. For example:

 

* Refreshing siege is not rewarded. It's helpful to your server if done at least once per hour. It's not helpful if done at least once per minute, which is what would happen if jumping on siege gave you credit - and people would start to build flame rams in places they could not possibly be useful just to farm participation.

* Following an enemy zerg or watching for enemies from your towers is not rewarded unless you can kill some of them in the process. Being in the same area as enemies is not helpful in itself: you have to be able to relay information to your team, and it's seldom useful to get the same information from more than one person.

 

Because you can't rely on shared credit being available when doing constructive but uncredited work, it is necessary in my opinion to have a reasonable buffer on participation degradation. So my point of view is that, aside from some tweaks to what gives you credit and how much, the system we've got is probably about right. It allows people to play WvW in a broad variety of ways without losing out on rewards, and the side effect of allowing AFKing for a few minutes at a time is better than the side effects we'd have to deal with under other systems.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> > @"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:

> > Your concern is noted, but the discussion involves more than just gold, but also WvW currencies, WXP, and in general making life easier when playing WvW relative to the amount of rewards of other game modes.

>

> noted huh. if its **only** wvw currencies, wxp, and in general making life easier when playing wvw then you have my vote.

>

 

I do get your concern, but WvW is not known for being rewarding like PvE, so I disagree it.

 

Putting in more reward tracks for things like currencies and wxp would help new players and help keep them in WvW for longer, giving more liquid wealth like Mystic Coins does the same.

 

> @"Ben K.6238" said:

> > @"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:

> > > @"Ben K.6238" said:

> > > This would just encourage karma training, as that's the fastest way to fill up the participation meter at the moment. Due to the long timer, you can still perform defensive duties when your participation bar is full without losing out on any rewards. Looks to me like this system would turn that into "lost productivity" and start to actually penalise people who do the helpful tasks the participation system doesn't currently recognise.

> >

> > Feel free to contribute alternatives. The current system for participation encourages afking at spawn. Simply roaming and capping camps would fill a bar easily as well without out the need to K Train. Remember not everyone's PC can take blob v. blob content.

>

> If you're going to have a system where players get rewarded equally for actively participating no matter whether they're blobbing and karma training or not, it needs to have a cap to the rate at which you can gain credit. This is effectively what the system does already. Removing the timer so participation is always degrading might help prevent AFKing, but it is useful to have at least a small buffer there while you move between fields of activity.

>

> What throws a spanner in the works is that some of the things people can be doing to participate are very hard to recognise programmatically, in a way that doesn't encourage exploitation. For example:

>

> * Refreshing siege is not rewarded. It's helpful to your server if done at least once per hour. It's not helpful if done at least once per minute, which is what would happen if jumping on siege gave you credit - and people would start to build flame rams in places they could not possibly be useful just to farm participation.

> * Following an enemy zerg or watching for enemies from your towers is not rewarded unless you can kill some of them in the process. Being in the same area as enemies is not helpful in itself: you have to be able to relay information to your team, and it's seldom useful to get the same information from more than one person.

>

> Because you can't rely on shared credit being available when doing constructive but uncredited work, it is necessary in my opinion to have a reasonable buffer on participation degradation. So my point of view is that, aside from some tweaks to what gives you credit and how much, the system we've got is probably about right. It allows people to play WvW in a broad variety of ways without losing out on rewards, and the side effect of allowing AFKing for a few minutes at a time is better than the side effects we'd have to deal with under other systems.

 

Shared participation was created for this reason, if tags aren't handing it out, then scouts and refreshers need to find a tag/guildmate that will.

 

If you need a cap then put it on the number of repeatable diamond chests you can receive, or if these proposed rewards are enough then get rid of the repeatable diamond chest and have the cash out go towards regular reward tracks.

[blp.3489]

Another track could give you food and banners and similar.

[XenesisII.1540]

PSA: The rich people in these forums who have too much gold tickets badges think we don't need more rewards, we need more time sinks, for example the mount skin reward track. Thank you for your concern.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

> @"XenesisII.1540" said:

> PSA: The rich people in these forums who have too much gold tickets badges think we don't need more rewards, we need more time sinks, for example the mount skin reward track. Thank you for your concern.

 

And we do need more of those, but we also need new players in WvW. Creating a rewarding game mode for them will entice them to both come try it out and stick around. This is Fashion Wars 2, either shinnies or gold to buy shinnies must be present for the general populace to stick around. Putting gold and more hard to get items like Mystic coins/clovers into the reward tracks will get more people to try out the game mode.