Guild Wars 2

Hi,

Like a lot of fellow veteran and/or dedicated players, I happen to be an AP hunter. Right now I’m not very happy with the state of AP in the game : on the one hand, objectives are high and on the other hand we’re in a very long AP-drought … that I hope at least ends with HoT release.

Goals

Well, hunting AP is fun for itself but the overall score is tied to rewards, which sets sorts of goals.

• Full armor : you need 30K AP to fully unlock an armor
• Titles : datamined titles reach up to 60k AP

The AP drought

In addition to the non-addition of new content, hence nearly no new AP to gain in months, none of the basic achievement tracks have made it through 3 years of hunting (except WvW achievements in their current form, of course …).

Also, new AP rewards introduced since the last months of 2013 have been very tightfisted.

Lastly, AP hunters have been out of things to do for a long time now, outside of dailies.

Top achievers and AP over time

Top achievers are reaching 29k. In fact, a single player is over 29k (Kast.4053 is now the only owner of a pinnacle skin in the game) and a few are close to it (4 EU players and 2 NA players between 28900 and 28999).

Not being one of them (I’m far behind with 24k due to not farming dailies), I don’t know if they reached the 15k daily limit yet. If not, they’re probably very close to it, so we can safely assume that, after 3 years, top achievers gathered a grand total of 14K AP outside of the limited daily source. This includes both base game achievements, and all the living story, festivals and other temporary achievements.

My opinion

I think that being a top achiever for 3 full years should be enough to get the armor, without a need for a few more months or an expansion.

I also think that it would be reasonable to make the top goal (currently “Uncontrollable Achiever” title) attainable for said top achievers withing 5 years.

Both would still be longer for less dedicated people like me.

With the current situation, the first one is failed (top achievers missing 1100-1200 AP on 3rd anniversary) and the second is very unlikely (assuming expansions and living story bring as much as base + past temporary, it will take 10 years for Kast to reach 60k). Unless the daily limit is changed, but this is unlikely and ihmo would be bad : 15k AP is high enough and takes more than 4 years for a new player, while a lot of old players will be happy to hit it.

Conclusions

Please

• Increase the AP rewards introduced between late 2013 and now, at least to the point where current top 10 achievers immediately reach 30k (+ whatever they gained between 3rd anniversary and today).
• No more AP droughts like the current 10 (!) months. This should please everyone as this is closely tied to content drought. Maybe don’t announce next expansion 10 months in advance saying that things are going to happen fast ?
• Make sure that future expansions (including HoT) along with in-between festivals and LS, bring enough AP over time to at the very least do as much as base game + what we got over the past 3 years, over time. In other words, give us wayt to make at least 5k/years (6k for 1 mini-chest/month). And at best to let top-achievers reach 60k title by 5th anniversary (which, unless my 1st point gives much more than expected, would make 15k/year … nice : 1 skin each month)
• 1 AP achievements should not exist anymore. Go back to the old 2012/2013 way of estimating how much an achievement is worth.

Eowyn

My little feedback is that AP is the one thing that makes a difference between a new player and a vet. Its a nifty little thing GW2 has which I think its cool, a nice way to see n reward whos been with the game for long. On the other side I dont like AP having to much focus/impact on the masses, like it shouldnt really differentiate players or change the way masses sees a player (like some does for dungeon requirements, but thats a different story).

like it shouldnt really differentiate players or change the way masses sees a player

Yeah, have to agree on that. But unfortunately it’s very hard to change people’s mentality.

I’m more here to speak about AP hunting as a fun activity/goal for some of us, and relate that to AP rewards.

Where do people get so many AP’s? I’ve been playing since launch and have ~11K non-daily AP’s and 6k daily ones.

There aren’t really any non-daily AP’s left for me to get… maybe another 500 or so. but there are people with 12k more AP’s than me… where are they coming from? all from dailies?

Mostly from dailies, yes. Top guys probably reached (or will reach in the next days) the 15k limit, which is 9k more than you. I’m myself at 24115, but only 12776 are from “permanent”, not that higher that you.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Where do people get so many AP’s? I’ve been playing since launch and have ~11K non-daily AP’s and 6k daily ones.

There aren’t really any non-daily AP’s left for me to get… maybe another 500 or so. but there are people with 12k more AP’s than me… where are they coming from? all from dailies?

And probably other past season 1 releases that you missed ^^

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Where do people get so many AP’s? I’ve been playing since launch and have ~11K non-daily AP’s and 6k daily ones.

There aren’t really any non-daily AP’s left for me to get… maybe another 500 or so. but there are people with 12k more AP’s than me… where are they coming from? all from dailies?

Some of them were from Season 1 of the Living Story. Did you get those?

Yup, it’s relatively easy to reach around 10-12k non-dailies AP if you did all the updates. Especially the first season, they used to give a couple of hundred AP. After that TOP achievers have the 15K from dailies to reach around 25-27k AP. After that you need to farm some extremely boring or costly stuff like Black Lion skins collection or WvW Achievement.

On Topic, I like the way it is. They planned the reward for the next couple of years with updates and expansion. Maybe they will increase the daily limit to 20K and add a couple of thousands new AP. And we already know that they will decrease the amount of some of the insane WvW achivement. I don’t think it will be long after the expansion that we’ll see a bunch of people with 30K+

You could have got about 4,987 AP from historical events Reference" . I feel that new players (or those who missed out) shouldn’t be hindered from such a significant amount of AP from just not being around. A fix would be to add JUST the AP value from the historical achievements to the Daily cap (15,000 + Missed Historical AP). That way there wouldn’t be a need to reintroduce the unique events that gave them, those who missed out just have to that many more dailies, and those who already got the historical achievements don’t gain more AP, but keep their unique rewards from playing at that time.

That being said, since the Daily cap is almost reached by the top AP players which is roughly 50% of the ENTIRE possible achievement list AFTER 3 years of playing. The Daily Cap shouldn’t be raised (rather, doesn’t have to), but newer content should have enough to get the rest of ~30k AP to hit the 60k AP mark a bit faster and get rewarded for their time (since a bulk of it is simply just devoting time).

I apologize if I went a bit off topic. I’m supportive of making those “top achievers feel like they are top achievers”…and I just so happen to be supportive of new and old players ability to join them eventually (if they devote the same time and value AP).

P.S. Or just cap the max AP to 60k, if it isn’t already, and have enough content for everyone to eventually hit that (despite if they missed past events—meaning those who did the events will get 60k sooner).

Vayne.8563:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Where do people get so many AP’s? I’ve been playing since launch and have ~11K non-daily AP’s and 6k daily ones.

There aren’t really any non-daily AP’s left for me to get… maybe another 500 or so. but there are people with 12k more AP’s than me… where are they coming from? all from dailies?

Some of them were from Season 1 of the Living Story. Did you get those?

I did miss a couple holiday events, and one of the SAB releases. Probably lost 1K points there I guess.

I’m personally hoping that HoT adds another 15-20k AP’s. I’m thinking raids should give some big achievements, like 50+ point ones for downing each boss.

If HoT adds 15k AP’s that would get people up to ~45k which is a pretty good jump.

I am always happy with getting more AP. It something fun to go for now and then, when required to kinda actively seek.

A lot of the OP’s post is moot, since there all sorts of things that didn’t happen in 2015. We had a long content drought — I hope that’s not the pattern for future expansions. In fact, one of the reasons I was against an expansion was I expected the expansion would become the focus and the Living Story/World would be forgotten for 6-12 months.

Most of the rest of the OP’s post is also moot, since HoT is coming, along with a ton of new and/or updated achievements.

About the only one that seems in doubt is whether the cap on Daily achievements should be increased. Personally, I think it should have a longevity bump 1x/year; I don’t think it should be capped for the game’s life time. (That said, I don’t feel very strongly about it, so if the current cap is permanent, I can live with that, too.)

It’s just like every feature or content addition they implement in the game. They put in a fairly robust system(Guild Missions, Mini Dungeons, Dungeons etc.)and then they abandon it. Heck, shouldn’t they have added new account bound weapons for achievements? They built in a system for doing so, but what’s the point if you don’t add to it? There are guild bounties that are flat out broken and have been for a long time and they have done zero to address it. Gem Shop stuff gets a lot of love though. I am all for spending money in the gem shop if the developers prove to me that they are adding content to the game. They are adding an expansion, but the gem shop ain’t subsidizing it. You have to pay for it separately and you can bet there will be gem shop stuff you can get week #1 of release. Heck, I’d hazard an outlandish assumption that you will see more gem shop outfits than you will see armor sets you can earn by playing the expansion itself. Double dipping at its finest.

TL;DR I wouldn’t hold your breath thinking AP will be a steady stream when they are working on an x-pac, but the gem shop will always have a steady stream of content. Isn’t the gem shop stuff supposed to subsidize a steady stream of content?

LUST.7241:

You could have got about 4,987 AP from historical events Reference" . I feel that new players (or those who missed out) shouldn’t be hindered from such a significant amount of AP from just not being around. A fix would be to add JUST the AP value from the historical achievements to the Daily cap (15,000 + Missed Historical AP). That way there wouldn’t be a need to reintroduce the unique events that gave them, those who missed out just have to that many more dailies, and those who already got the historical achievements don’t gain more AP, but keep their unique rewards from playing at that time.

That being said, since the Daily cap is almost reached by the top AP players which is roughly 50% of the ENTIRE possible achievement list AFTER 3 years of playing. The Daily Cap shouldn’t be raised (rather, doesn’t have to), but newer content should have enough to get the rest of ~30k AP to hit the 60k AP mark a bit faster and get rewarded for their time (since a bulk of it is simply just devoting time).

I apologize if I went a bit off topic. I’m supportive of making those “top achievers feel like they are top achievers”…and I just so happen to be supportive of new and old players ability to join them eventually (if they devote the same time and value AP).

P.S. Or just cap the max AP to 60k, if it isn’t already, and have enough content for everyone to eventually hit that (despite if they missed past events—meaning those who did the events will get 60k sooner).

No. That would make the historical achievements pointless if they were included in the daily cap. I dont want to see the whole top 1000 with exactly the same AP. Since most achievements are trivial in this game and just require a time investment, the historical achievements are one of the limited ways to stand out on the leaderboard.

I do have to wonder if APs have gone up or down because of the daily change? Yes, you get more APs if you do 3 but gone are the days when you could do one or two and get something. What the average time a new player will take to hit the AP limit from dailies will be interesting to see. Since 15000 divided by 6 is 2500, or around 6 1/2 years and it is now closer to 4 1/2 I am wondering what the effect of people going ‘meh’ at dailies will be?

I need to count up my AP from actual achievements and see what earned what. It does seem a bit bizarre that dosomehugetask is one AP. Meanwhile AFKing in an event/view from a WP you have been to countless times/throw some random junk in the mystic toilet is worth 10 AP?

For calculating things like chests, sure, include dailies. For what gets displayed to others: only show the total from ACTUAL achievements, not something a vet could do with their eyes closed.

Malediktus.9250:

No. That would make the historical achievements pointless if they were included in the daily cap. I dont want to see the whole top 1000 with exactly the same AP. Since most achievements are trivial in this game and just require a time investment, the historical achievements are one of the limited ways to stand out on the leaderboard.

How? They still won’t catch-up…and when they do they’d still behind years worth of AP. AP is just as trivial, right now the only value to AP are titles associated to them and for elitist smugs to deny other players from parties.

There should be no reason to deny new players or players who unfortunately missed out on such a significant amount of AP that took seconds to hours to complete prior…when they can take years to get those missed points back.

Those who actually got the historical achievements will still have the items, titles, and whatever rewards granted by them. Those are the only things really showing the historical value.

Again, those AP leaders will still be leaders for plenty of time…literally years of AP ahead already and will continue to do so IF they wish to continue AP hunting, if they don’t: people have a chance to overtake them (albeit, years later)…which is why leaderboards even exist. There should be something that threatens their current spot; it won’t be immediate, it will take years to take a spot from the top achievers.

By the time you see 1000 players with the same AP: GW4 will be out and we’ll all likely be dead. Assuming AP isn’t capped at 60k, top achievers won’t lose their spot even then. However, if it is capped, top achievers still will retain their position and still lead in the amount of time it took to get there and have leads ranging in years.

There is no downside enabling players to get the AP they missed.

I hope to god they don’t ever raise the AP cap. There is no point to it other than bigger numbers. Yes, you have players who play for only AP and nothing else. Do those players really add that much to the game? Also what is the point of AP? To kick out newer players who don’t have thousands upon thousands of AP? Right now we already have people kicking others for low AP because they haven’t played for 3 years. I just see this as someone who is on the higher end of AP wanting to stay on the higher end.

Yes, you have players who play for only AP and nothing else. Do those players really add that much to the game?

You have players who play for dungeons and nothing else, players who play for sPvP and nothing else, players who play for WvW and nothing else, and players who play everywhere and lots of other categories. Do they add anything to the game ? Should Anet stop doing anything and have everyone quit because each player doesn’t add anything to the game ?

kicking others for low AP

OK I see. You focus on the lfg issue with AP requirements.

Achievements are much more than just a way of raising the total of AP (=> fun things to do, possible AP hunt for people who like it – for example ex-gw1 title hunters, progress shown for players who are happy to unlock achievements when thy randomly complete something, short/mid/long term goals for people, activities, …). Achievement reward system is much more than just something thereto go along with a number to show in LFG (=> long term goals, dedication rewards, results for people who like to focus their gameplay on achievements, …).

And lastly, the total of AP, even if it can be displayed for pride and compared between AP hunters, exists as the consequence of the previous 2 (= achievements + reward system) and not as a tool for making lfg teams.

lfg AP requirements may be an issue, but it’s really not what I’m talking about in my 1st post. It’s completely separate. And AP requirements have nothing to do with what you call “the AP cap” and top achievers … top achievers are currently at 28-29k, and most AP hunters are beyond 20k. LFG requirements are most often much lower than that. Letting top achievers get more AP to advance in the reward system and letting AP hunters get more achievements to work because that’s what they like, will effectively raise what you call “the AP cap” but should not seriously impact the lfg ap requirement issue. People are asking for 5k not because it’s a given fraction of the max but because it’s what they deem the result of being experienced enough for their party without being an AP hunter. Now if you have a problem with the AP requirements in LFGs, please make a thread about this specific issue (which, again, is completely separate from what I’m talking about here), and create your own lfgs or join the ones without that requirement. And guess what, there are plenty of them.

nacario.9417:

My little feedback is that AP is the one thing that makes a difference between a new player and a vet. Its a nifty little thing GW2 has which I think its cool, a nice way to see n reward whos been with the game for long.

3 years of WvW and PvP and my AP is lower than someone who bought the game 6 months ago and does PvE only.

Does that mean I’m the new player?

LUST.7241:

Malediktus.9250:

No. That would make the historical achievements pointless if they were included in the daily cap. I dont want to see the whole top 1000 with exactly the same AP. Since most achievements are trivial in this game and just require a time investment, the historical achievements are one of the limited ways to stand out on the leaderboard.

How? They still won’t catch-up…and when they do they’d still behind years worth of AP. AP is just as trivial, right now the only value to AP are titles associated to them and for elitist smugs to deny other players from parties.

There should be no reason to deny new players or players who unfortunately missed out on such a significant amount of AP that took seconds to hours to complete prior…when they can take years to get those missed points back.

Those who actually got the historical achievements will still have the items, titles, and whatever rewards granted by them. Those are the only things really showing the historical value.

Again, those AP leaders will still be leaders for plenty of time…literally years of AP ahead already and will continue to do so IF they wish to continue AP hunting, if they don’t: people have a chance to overtake them (albeit, years later)…which is why leaderboards even exist. There should be something that threatens their current spot; it won’t be immediate, it will take years to take a spot from the top achievers.

By the time you see 1000 players with the same AP: GW4 will be out and we’ll all likely be dead. Assuming AP isn’t capped at 60k, top achievers won’t lose their spot even then. However, if it is capped, top achievers still will retain their position and still lead in the amount of time it took to get there and have leads ranging in years.

There is no downside enabling players to get the AP they missed.

Ok let me reword it. The front page of equal AP would be bad enough already.

I am quite happy with my 12,500 AP’s right now… Im a day 1 player, but took about a years break at the beginning. That being said, I would love the opportunity to go even higher in AP’s but I am not demanding it be done with past achievs gone and past. Im fine with new achievs being added. I would love both sets of armor that are tied to it, but I feel time gated cuz I missed out on a lot of dailys back in the day. Im not asking for those ap’s to be given or brought back, but I would like to be able to advance in a quicker fashion to the next levels at a faster pace then 280 per month, as I have just about capped out all other AP possible for me in the PVE realm at least. You can screw off on the WVW 1,000,000 kills/supply spent and kitten like that. I aint doin that, it would take years…

Zetsuei.8942:

Also what is the point of AP? To kick out newer players who don’t have thousands upon thousands of AP? Right now we already have people kicking others for low AP because they haven’t played for 3 years.

The daily cap is at 15k AP.
I haven’t seen many groups looking for more than 10k AP. I’ve never seen a group looking for 25k AP.
Most groups are looking for 3-10k AP. A higher cap won’t change this.

I think personally the 15k daily ap limit needs to be raised/removed. Losing those players who wont bother signing on to do their dailies (and likely other things) would have a noticeable impact on the player base.
I also don’t see the reasoning behind it apart from anet not wanting to give away free gems every 5k. It is something that some players play for just the same way as some play for complete map completion on every char or obtain every greatsword skin in the game.

I haven’t noticed the lfg AP group reqs but then again, I haven’t been looking for it and don’t use the lfg often.

I just reach the 15k limit and I was quite surprised by it, which would also explain why some of my friends at the top of the ladder are not even bothering to come online, it feels a bit sad that coming online wont help me get those shinny skins, I got really lucky on getting hellfire pants with doing the missing living story achievements but now every measly 1Ap from the overpriced collections seems to be worth a lot more >_>

The loss of monthly ap and 12 daily ap down to just 10 daily ap made a huge impact in slowing down reward chest!

I still have a ways to go before I hit the limit, but I hope ANet removes it before I do. For me, no longer having AP from doing the dailies would remove a big incentive to do them.

I think we saw a glimpse of AP acquisition associated with Masteries in the Collection? panel faux pas.

Maybe they will add a host of ways to earn more AP outside of Dailies. Though, I wish they would add back something like Monthlies, as well, that were outside the cap.

AP is a useless thing, used by elitists to artificially measure other players. There should be no other incentive associated with AP farming than those already awarded. I mostly WvW (but have done alot of pve), so my AP is under 10k (as WvW is subpar in the AP department). But I would challenge the notion any of these AP farmers are better at anything in the game simply because they farm AP, thus are entitled to even more things.

[quote=5552110;Just a flesh wound.3589: For me, no longer having AP from doing the dailies would remove a big incentive to do them. [/quote]

This is something I just don’t get. The dailies are tied to activities in the game, you get the daily just by playing. So are you trying to say that once you won’t get the AP for this, you just won’t enjoy the content?

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

For me, no longer having AP from doing the dailies would remove a big incentive to do them.

This is something I just don’t get. The dailies are tied to activities in the game, you get the daily just by playing. So are you trying to say that once you won’t get the AP for this, you just won’t enjoy the content?

I’ll do content. I won’t do dailies.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

For me, no longer having AP from doing the dailies would remove a big incentive to do them.

This is something I just don’t get. The dailies are tied to activities in the game, you get the daily just by playing. So are you trying to say that once you won’t get the AP for this, you just won’t enjoy the content?

I’ll do content. I won’t do dailies.

Honestly, kind of how I feel since the last daily change already. I don’t do them nearly as often as I used too, and when I am motivated it’s really just for the AP, and usually if I have already done one or two thirds by “accident”. It went from something fun that barely changed how I want to play to an inconvenience. If they took away the AP I seriously would ignore them completely.

imsoenthused.1634:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

For me, no longer having AP from doing the dailies would remove a big incentive to do them.

This is something I just don’t get. The dailies are tied to activities in the game, you get the daily just by playing. So are you trying to say that once you won’t get the AP for this, you just won’t enjoy the content?

I’ll do content. I won’t do dailies.

Honestly, kind of how I feel since the last daily change already. I don’t do them nearly as often as I used too, and when I am motivated it’s really just for the AP, and usually if I have already done one or two thirds by “accident”. It went from something fun that barely changed how I want to play to an inconvenience. If they took away the AP I seriously would ignore them completely.

Yah. The last set of changes turned them from a fun thing to do while I played to a chore to do before I play. I do them for the 10 AP but I can’t say I enjoy them. Remove the AP and a huge part of the incentive to do them vanishes.

A chore. That’s just ridiculous, I barely even check what dailies are available for the day and still get them. Unless someone enjoys/farms particular content the whole day, the dailies can be ignored and still done.

Before I had to put attention into doing them for the laurel, now I don’t give kitten and they get done.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

A chore. That’s just ridiculous, I barely even check what dailies are available for the day and still get them. Unless someone enjoys/farms particular content the whole day, the dailies can be ignored and still done.

Before I had to put attention into doing them for the laurel, now I don’t give kitten and they get done.

Well, then we play differently. Unless I go out of my way to do them they don’t get done. My chars have 100% map, so I’m not going to do a vista. I rarely go into WvW. If the daily is to harvest in kryta, maybe I’ll be in kryta that day, but more likely not. It means if I want to be sure to get the 10 AP, I need to be sure to do those specific things before or after I play.

So, what you’re saying is you want things purposely designed as extremely long term goals to be made shorter term goals because you feel like you deserve them.

Everybody likes AP and would like to have all the AP skins, which is why Anet ensures that there will always be more AP.

If you’re not up there with the top earners you simply haven’t earned the rewards they are so close to obtaining. It’s really that simple.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

This is something I just don’t get. The dailies are tied to activities in the game, you get the daily just by playing. So are you trying to say that once you won’t get the AP for this, you just won’t enjoy the content?
[/quote]

I used to get the daily by just playing. Now I have to go out of my way. If I don’t happen to be an the map (leveling, PS, mapping) where the daily events is, I won’t get that. If I don’t happen to be at the right time and right spot for a world boss, I won’t get it. I don’t like those Activities, so I don’t do those. So why would I do that if I won’t even get that AP anymore? It’s the only reason I do the dailies….

Scandi.5693:

AP is a useless thing, used by elitists to artificially measure other players. There should be no other incentive associated with AP farming than those already awarded. I mostly WvW (but have done alot of pve), so my AP is under 10k (as WvW is subpar in the AP department). But I would challenge the notion any of these AP farmers are better at anything in the game simply because they farm AP, thus are entitled to even more things.

Totally agree.
If anet want ppl to continue play the game, fix the rng kitten system instead of add useless form of ap farm (like blc or collection revamp). Ppl are kittened out cause even if they play a lot, they could drop nothing and the only ‘goal’ avail atm on game is that pointless sort of ap farm

I found it really odd that they didn’t bother to put any achievements in the recent mordrem invasion. It was a perfect opportunity.

But we have so many WvW achievement points we can still earn, I have to successfully escort 499,952 more supply caravans for another 55 achievement points.

If I’m on x,999 AP’s that 1 AP will come in handy.