Guild Wars 2

I’ve seen tons of confusion amongst users over how the new system will work. But worry not citizens! As a superhero, I’m here to help and hopefully soften the panic. As my superpowers are, Observation, Reasoning and Logic. So let’s tackle these one at a time.

(Disclaimer: These are solely my opinions and mine alone. I’m not really a superhero so please don’t call me if your cat get’s stuck in a tree, thank you).

Achievement points the new currency!?
I don’t see any benefits whatsoever in making it a spendable currency and with current systems like the leaderboard and so on. It would make it absolute.
This is not going to happen and it will instead be a progression system.

I have 10,000+ achievement points, will I be able to unlock all the stuff with my pro points?
Most likely not. I suspect this will be their new ‘progression’ aka laurels system etc.
Meaning that this will progress over time, so a system that would for example unlock an account bonus of your choice every 2000 achievement points. For example, every 2000 AP, you will get to choose something like:
0.5%+ Magic find / Gold find etc

What about the gear?
Something in a similar system to the one mentioned above. Every 5000 AP, you will get to unlock one armor and this could be an ongoing system with new skins being added to the system over time.

One time reward skins? HoM System?
HoM system is the one that makes the most sense. Once the skin is unlocked, it’s forever unlocked and you can acquire the piece whenever you feel like. However.
The most logical thing would be an item with no stats itself in a similar fashion to Fractal skins. This simply means that you will not be able to apply the skin directly like regular skins by just double clicking it. But you will however be required to use transmutation stone / crystals.

Simply put, we get what we want, they get money. Everyone wins.

Daily and Monthly points shouldn’t count!
In a sense to keeping your playerbase playing the game. This will most likely not happen. This would be a perfect system for encouraging people to do their dailies and monthly for the points to get the rewards and for having a healthy playerbase logging in daily.
In other words, daily and monthly points will count as normal towards the achievement points progression system.

Achievement points are not balanced at all across the different modes (PvE, s/tPvP, WvW
Well first of all, PvE is the “main” mode. Meaning that it will always offer the most achievement points in comparison to the other modes. I do however find it to be strongly imbalanced atm and although my superpower senses are slightly blurry. I think that along with the Achievement point system revamp, there will be point balancing between the three. Right now it’s like:
PvE: 95%
s/tPvP: 4.8%
WvW: 0.2%

In terms of where the achievement points come from. A balanced aspect should look something like:
PvE: 70%
s/tPvP: 16%
WvW: 14%

That’s all I could think of right now. You’re more than welcome to throw any other confusion matters at me regarding this topic and I will use my superpowers to give the most logical and reasonable answer possible. Naturally, my superpowers are limited and will cease to exist on 9th of July, those were the terms.

I dont get why you think its okay for 5x more achievement point gain to come from PvE then WvW.

So what if its “primairily” a PvE game. Does this mean WvW players shouldnt get achievement points as fast as PvE players?

Whats your reasoning for saying this? Other then sheerly forcing WvW players into PvE or they will yet again miss out greatly on reward.

Terrahero.9358:

I dont get why you think its okay for 5x more achievement point gain to come from PvE then WvW.

So what if its “primairily” a PvE game. Does this mean WvW players shouldnt get achievement points as fast as PvE players?

Whats your reasoning for saying this? Other then sheerly forcing WvW players into PvE or they will yet again miss out greatly on reward.

Seems you’ve misunderstood me. These are merely answers of current topics regarding the new achievement system, based on past observation and logical aspects.
These are not in any way reflected upon what I personally think “should” be and whatnot.

If you want my personal opinion regarding this. Then I think it should be 34% for PvE, 33% for PvP and 33% for WvW. But this is not going to happen from a logical aspect. As I mentioned before, the main mode of this game is PvE, this is not something you or me can change. As well as being the most populated mode.
Based on that, I threw a reasonable number of what I think would be considered balanced in regards of the system we currently have.
Based on the numbers I mentioned, WvW currently being 0.2% and me wanting it to be at around 14%. That’s a 700% increase in achievement points for WvW. Basically 70 times more than it is right now. Surely that would be more reasonable than it is right now and at the very least a step in the right direction don’t you think?

These are interesting ideas, but I don’t really see what’s ‘mythbusting’ about them. You’re just giving your personal and mostly unevidenced ideas.

I do agree though that the achievement point thresholds will likely be quite high, the idea being that it will give players something to “work toward” rather than just giving people stuff for points they’ve had for a while. Just seems like the Anet style, though perhaps they’ll start low and add things with the future Living Story // two-week updates.

Meh. I was going to post a loooong, bitter comment on how irritated I am by all these, eh… creatures… that suddenly realized, in a day, the achievement system is incredibly flawed and all achievement points related to dailies should be removed to help casual players catch up (???), else the game will be doomed.
I mean, we all know removing rewards from a gamer is the best way to encourage further playing in an MMO.
I’ll just tell you that against this…. this written externalisation I typed above (can’t really call that a thought) no amount of logic will save you from the kittystorm that’s going to rise. I sincerely hope you have an umbrella in your superhero gadgets.
And, uh… no, I doubt this is going to help. One could argue that your opinion isn’t worth more than theirs, since logic doesn’t exist on the webz. I read it on the wiki.

deSade.9437:

Meh. I was going to post a loooong, bitter comment on how irritated I am by all these, eh… creatures… that suddenly realized, in a day, the achievement system is incredibly flawed and all achievement points related to dailies should be removed to help casual players catch up (???), else the game will be doomed.
I mean, we all know removing rewards from a gamer is the best way to encourage further playing in an MMO.

This isn’t removing anything from anyone. Points would still be tallied as they are now for leaderboards and stuff. They would just not be counted towards the rewards system. Not having rewards given is not the same as having rewards taken if the system hasn’t yet been implemented.

I think people are also overestimating the amount of achievement points it would take to reach certain thresholds. I’m currently sitting on 5993 points, and I’m apparently in the 90th percentile bracket of all players in Guild Wars.

From looking at the leaderboards filtered by my Friends, someone as high as 7300 is STILL in the 90th percentile, and someone as low as 3500 is ALSO still in the 90th percentile. Someone on 2500 points is in the 80th percentile. The lowest is on 1200 points, and they’re STILL in the 60th percentile.

From that, we can conclude that the vast majority of GW2 players actually have very low achievement points, 1000 or less, and I seriously doubt that ANet wants to alienate these players by giving massive advantages to people above them. Therefore, I think it’s very likely that the AP threshold rewards will be quite generous, and most of the valuable rewards like account bonuses and exclusive skins/minipets will be frontloaded at 50% percentiles or lower. The higher percentiles, perhaps 75 – 80% onwards, will be mostly titles, similar to the way the HoM reward system worked.

Blackwyn.8127:

In terms of where the achievement points come from. A balanced aspect should look something like:
PvE: 70%
s/tPvP: 16%
WvW: 14%

hmmmm i disagree.

achievements, that, obviously, takes much more time and effort to achieve, should give significantly more achievement points.

Myth Generation With Opinions!

But seriously, I would love if this were set up like a skill tree. You can eventually unlock everything, but you can kinda choose what order you get things.

Blackwyn.8127:

Seems you’ve misunderstood me. These are merely answers of current topics regarding the new achievement system, based on past observation and logical aspects.
These are not in any way reflected upon what I personally think “should” be and whatnot.

LOL!!

Really….looks more like your thoughts (insert opinion) to me. As much info as you think you have on non released content….

Gestankfaust.4216:

Blackwyn.8127:

Seems you’ve misunderstood me. These are merely answers of current topics regarding the new achievement system, based on past observation and logical aspects.
These are not in any way reflected upon what I personally think “should” be and whatnot.

LOL!!

Really….looks more like your thoughts (insert opinion) to me. As much info as you think you have on non released content….

I certainly see how this can be puzzling to fully understand as they may seem to contradict each other. But it’s really quite simple so I’ll try to elaborate on it further.

These are my opinions and thoughts, you are fully correct. But there’s a difference.
The opinions and thoughts are based on how the game has progressed and what the most logical ‘solution’ would be in terms of where the game is heading and how the game works. Like I’m trying to put myself in their shoes and see it from their point of view for how it would work the best for the game and the company as a whole.

These are not ‘personal’ opinions and they’re two entirely different subjective views.

For example: I’ve worked in a company for 2 years and I’m getting a raise. How much more money will I be getting?
1. As my personal opinion, I know I’ve worked hard and I consider myself a great worker. So I think I deserve like a 200$ raise at the very least. This is however very unlikely due to other aspects mentioned in point 2.

2. Based on logic and observation. Every other guy that has received a raise in the company for the past 10 years, never has exceeded over 50$. So based on that, my raise will most likely not go over 50$.

Both are my personal opinions and thoughts. But fundamentally from different point of views.

Hopefully that clears up any confusion citizen!

Nope…only clears up your personal experience…..citizen!

Terrahero.9358:

I dont get why you think its okay for 5x more achievement point gain to come from PvE then WvW.

So what if its “primairily” a PvE game. Does this mean WvW players shouldnt get achievement points as fast as PvE players?

Whats your reasoning for saying this? Other then sheerly forcing WvW players into PvE or they will yet again miss out greatly on reward.

To be fair they also “force” PvE players to WvW to get their legendaries

deSade.9437:

Meh. I was going to post a loooong, bitter comment on how irritated I am by all these, eh… creatures… that suddenly realized, in a day, the achievement system is incredibly flawed and all achievement points related to dailies should be removed to help casual players catch up (???), else the game will be doomed.
I mean, we all know removing rewards from a gamer is the best way to encourage further playing in an MMO.
I’ll just tell you that against this…. this written externalisation I typed above (can’t really call that a thought) no amount of logic will save you from the kittystorm that’s going to rise. I sincerely hope you have an umbrella in your superhero gadgets.
And, uh… no, I doubt this is going to help. One could argue that your opinion isn’t worth more than theirs, since logic doesn’t exist on the webz. I read it on the wiki.

I suppose we should thank the Six that our prophet savior is here to save us.

…Lol.

Some of you, at first sight, think the reason for some players suggesting removing dailies from the reward system for achievement points are because they want to stay TOP, or to show how good they are etc…

Well, i don’t have a lot of AP and i don’t give a kitten about them. HOWEVER, i care for the Achievements as they were conceived.

After starting playing GW2 for the first 2 weeks, i wondered why dailies granted me achievements….but i was ok with that because this was just adding and addicting as in any other mmo.

However, at the right moment they announce they will implement rewards for achievement points, this creates a new problem that didn’t existed so far:
I would remove purpose of achievements completely. Well, there is already a bunch of stupid, boring, ridiculously hard to achieve, fun, easy and all kinds of achievements.
The average player don’t care about them, but some do. Not for an elitis or selfish reason like to show off how good you are or how you completed something that the other didn’t. But because achievements are fun and i see them as a challenge, and i love challenges.

Some players are good on PvP, other on Pve, other in dungeons, and there even some that are good in nothing but really add to the social experience in game.

Since there will be a rewards for achievement points, the “achievement” part of “achievement points” is meaningless becaus you can earn these points doing repetitive, easy and fast tasks.

Well There were already stupid, and easy and fast tasks that granted us acheivements, so why bother now? Because before, they had a single purpose: To increase the sense of satisfaction of all the kinds of players, becasue no matter what they do, there is an achievement for it.

And now, adding this new PURPOSE for achievement points, all kinds of players will be driven into a wild hunt for points, because of the rewards and not because of the fun or challenge at all.

People will still be able to do everything they want though, which is a good thing. But also it will discourage them to do hard things because you can do easy things do earn fast and easy points.

Well, i hope this clarify things.

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Terrahero.9358:

I dont get why you think its okay for 5x more achievement point gain to come from PvE then WvW.

So what if its “primairily” a PvE game. Does this mean WvW players shouldnt get achievement points as fast as PvE players?

Whats your reasoning for saying this? Other then sheerly forcing WvW players into PvE or they will yet again miss out greatly on reward.

To be fair they also “force” PvE players to WvW to get their legendaries

Not nearly as much as WvW players are forced into PvE for the legendary. And WvW can be cheesed by just portaling with a Mesmer in the JP.

Terrahero.9358:

I dont get why you think its okay for 5x more achievement point gain to come from PvE then WvW.

So what if its “primairily” a PvE game. Does this mean WvW players shouldnt get achievement points as fast as PvE players?

Whats your reasoning for saying this? Other then sheerly forcing WvW players into PvE or they will yet again miss out greatly on reward.

I still don’t get why this should ever be different. You chose to only play WvW, so you choose to only play a small portion of the game so getting less achievement points then people playing all of the game is a pretty logical thing.

Krosan.2890:

I still don’t get why this should ever be different. You chose to only play WvW, so you choose to only play a small portion of the game so getting less achievement points then people playing all of the game is a pretty logical thing.

No. The issue is that the people who only play PvE will get a lot more achievement points then the players who only do WvW.

The WvW achievements are very limited, award very few achievementpoints and the higher tiers on most achievement (tier 4, tier 5) are pretty much impossible to do.

When i play WvW all day why shouldnt i get as much reward as people who do PvE all day? My contribution helps the whole server with serverwide boosts. PvE players help only themselves.

Krosan.2890:

I still don’t get why this should ever be different. You chose to only play WvW, so you choose to only play a small portion of the game so getting less achievement points then people playing all of the game is a pretty logical thing.

If you look at the long grind and low achievement point payout for WvW and PvP vs PvE and see no problem, then you’re not looking at it. As PvE players, we have many more, and many easier, options for gaining achievement points. The PvP and WvW do need more attention by the designers so as not not punish them unfairly. And at least in PvP they are aware of the issue.

Nah.. It’ll probably be like WXP ranks and laurels.

Use the points both in a panel for unlocks and in a vendor for perishable items.

I hate how all gem store and special vent skins, non-tradable everlasting potions and non-tradable miniatures are perishable instead replicable unlocks, like with the upgrades in the PvP locker.

I’m only getting unlocks.

From the article ANet is helpfully linking to when you log into the game client:

“Don’t worry – the system is retroactive! Every point that you’ve earned while adventuring across Tyria will count towards exciting rewards”

I think it’s pretty clear from that quote that they are not in fact going to be divorcing points accumulated from completing dailies and monthlies from your effective total, nor should they – the notion that new players need to be able to “catch up” is silly. As they describe it, these are essentially rewards for playing as long/as much as we have – would you suggest that people who just created a character in guild wars 1 should automatically receive 8 years of birthday presents, because the people who’ve had characters around for that long have an unfair advantage over the poor newbies who can never ever catch up?

If you would, well you really shouldn’t, because that’s stupid – the people with high achievement scores have been around longer and play more often than you do, ergo, they get more rewards for the achievement point reward system. And whenever you eventually catch up to where those folks were when the new system rolls out, well then you’ll have whatever they got unlocked at that particular tier as well.

Gildan Bladeborn.2198:

From the article ANet is helpfully linking to when you log into the game client:

“Don’t worry – the system is retroactive! Every point that you’ve earned while adventuring across Tyria will count towards exciting rewards”

I think it’s pretty clear from that quote that they are not in fact going to be divorcing points accumulated from completing dailies and monthlies from your effective total, nor should they – the notion that new players need to be able to “catch up” is silly. As they describe it, these are essentially rewards for playing as long/as much as we have – would you suggest that people who just created a character in guild wars 1 should automatically receive 8 years of birthday presents, because the people who’ve had characters around for that long have an unfair advantage over the poor newbies who can never ever catch up?

If you would, well you really shouldn’t, because that’s stupid – the people with high achievement scores have been around longer and play more often than you do, ergo, they get more rewards for the achievement point reward system. And whenever you eventually catch up to where those folks were when the new system rolls out, well then you’ll have whatever they got unlocked at that particular tier as well.

At that point they are rewarding not achievements but how loyal you are. I have no problem with that, but if that is the case then the ‘Achievement Point Rewards’ name is a massive misnomer.

And don’t assume that everyone that is arguing for this system is a new player with few points.

Allowing points earned from completing dailies and monthlies to count towards these rewards also helps people feel that they are making progress towards a goal even if they can’t play for a significant chunk of time that some of the other achievements may require. IMO, this is a good reason for them to be counted.

Terrahero.9358:

Krosan.2890:

I still don’t get why this should ever be different. You chose to only play WvW, so you choose to only play a small portion of the game so getting less achievement points then people playing all of the game is a pretty logical thing.

No. The issue is that the people who only play PvE will get a lot more achievement points then the players who only do WvW.

The WvW achievements are very limited, award very few achievementpoints and the higher tiers on most achievement (tier 4, tier 5) are pretty much impossible to do.

When i play WvW all day why shouldnt i get as much reward as people who do PvE all day? My contribution helps the whole server with serverwide boosts. PvE players help only themselves.

Then the problem isn’t how rewarding pve achievements are. It’s how unrewarding wvw achievements.

Achievement points the new currency!?

They can keep your overall achievement score as high as it once was with added points the further you collect, so if you had 11k points in the leaderboards and spend them all, but gain 200 more afterwards they could make it so that person now had 11,200 achievement points in the leaderboards while only having 200 SPENDABLE achievement points in his/her hero panel. Not highly unlikely and only time will tell how this system works (quite soon I believe) and I don’t care which system ArenaNet goes about spending the achievement points for rewards, I’ll still play the game unlike some folk who need the cosmetic chocolate-covered carrot on the end of the stick every month through achievements, did them for the hell of it before this and sure will continue to do them at my leisure.

I have 10,000+ achievement points, will I be able to unlock all the stuff with my pro points?

Agreed, crying on the forums is inevitable though as casual players will come out and point out their limited schedules = not as many achievement points earned = less rewards/less gold find/less magic find. Doesn’t make sense that ArenaNet would release all of the rewards for points that someone already has in the leaderboards, unless they plan to pull another HoM and give everyone all the goodie item rewards for the first easy points (30 HoM) and just titles for the large amouns of points (50 HoM). All I know crying will happen.

One time reward skins? HoM System?

Yep, though I’ve seen people suggest that they act just like the skins in the HoM rewards calculator. There’s some differences between how HoM points were earned and how achievement points were earned though..

• The HoM rewards calculator was released when two of the three founders of ArenaNet were still intact, one left in 2009 and the other followed him out the door in 2010. The Eye of the North expansion came with the Hall of Monuments and everyone pretty much knew collecting stuff would mean a reward(s) in GW2, this was back in 2007. Don’t know if the new ArenaNet wants to roll with that kind of system again.
• The HoM rewards required a campaign + Eye of the North + Guild Wars 2, so they made money. Making them as reusable skins forever with no new expansion/no gemstore item would mean they get no money = not likely to happen. So transmutation stones/crystals will probably have to be used. I mean, we’re talking about developers who pretty much say “you’re kittened” if you deleted gemstore items through deleting characters you don’t like anymore. Those are items you pay for, why would it be different for items you earned through the new AP system?

Daily and Monthly points shouldn’t count!

Agreed, PvE dailies alone would give 25 points a day. You can’t just quit and leave for 5-6 months then come back expecting to have the same achievement points as someone who played the game frequently since beta. People “trying to catch up” are just whining when they should be doing achievements.

Achievement points are not balanced at all across the different modes (PvE, s/tPvP, WvW)

I haven’t completed ALL of the achievements in the game and will probably never will since WvW achievement supposedly take like 8 years to complete and nobody has reached rank 80 in sPvP yet.. there’s also some PvE achievements like Giant Slayer when there’s only like 2-6 giants that count towards that achievement in the entire game and glitched achievements stuck at 82/83, cough cough.

But let’s say that all the achievement points in the game doesn’t earn you all the rewards, maybe that’s unintentional or something or maybe it is, who knows, but what will someone do in that situation if the new tier requires another 5,000 achievement points? Earn 5/9 a day from PvE dailies and 4 a day from sPvP dailies? You’d need a minimum of 384 days to a maximum of 555 days if you do both dailies every day.

If that’s the case the reward better be worth it lol, unlike the final 50 point HoM reward. It will probably take more than 555 days for me since I don’t complete both my sPvP and PvE dailies everyday and I’m fine with that, all I want to do it play the game.

Blackwyn.8127:

In terms of where the achievement points come from. A balanced aspect should look something like:
PvE: 70%
s/tPvP: 16%
WvW: 14%

This forum had a number of good points from everyone and I thought I would add my two cents with regard to the balancing of achievements issue.

I think the reason that the PvE has so many more achievements is that there is simply a wider variety of things to do. A good symbol of this is the number of maps. WvW has five if you count the jumping puzzle while PvE has over twenty. Its much easier to come up with a lot of achievements for over twenty maps than it is five. That being said I think the ability to earn achievement points should be balanced, but not by making more achievements, but rather by making more WvW and PvP achievements repeatable. WvW and PvP naturally will have more repetitive actions due to their playstyles (not saying they are grindy, repeatedly trouncing an enemy zerg is awesome) so repeatable achievements make sense. There is precedent for this already in the agent of entropy salvage achievement, it simply needs to be expanded in WvW and PvP in my opinion.

Blackwyn.8127:

Right now it’s like:
PvE: 95%
s/tPvP: 4.8%
WvW: 0.2%

In terms of where the achievement points come from. A balanced aspect should look something like:
PvE: 70%
s/tPvP: 16%
WvW: 14%

Why do your percentages add up to 100?
It’s impossible because of the overlap of several achievements.

Whenever you capture something in WvW, you gain a point in that WvW capture track.
However, it is also an event, so your event completion track goes up a point, which most people count as only a PvE achievement track.

The same as the combat healer track. Whether you revive someone in WvW or PvE it doesn’t matter, this track counts for both.

It’s a lot more complicated than most people make it out to be because of this kind of overlap.
The total can never be just 100%.