Guild Wars 2

This may be a highly unique circumstance, but I am having emotional issues dealing with obtaining the Gift of Battle.

To explain, I am a veteran who has combat-related PTSD involving the actual killing of other human beings (not just one, but many, in a firefight). I refer to it as “real life PvP”. I have always had issues with engaging in PvP in video games, once they came out with that. I do not do any form of PvP as a result of this.

Once upon a time, a Gift of Battle could be obtained through badges of honor, which can be obtained through achievement chests as well as PvP. But that was changed last Spring to require 40 tiers of WvW.

I know how pathetic this sounds, but when one sees the brains of someone one just shot spraying out and away every time one hits the avatar of another actual living human player, well, let’s just say it takes away a lot from the enjoyment of the game itself. I’m not having issues with NPC’s. Just issues dealing with the sight of killing other players against which I have to fight. Thus far, many decades on, I still can’t objectify avatars as inconsequential manifestations of someone else. I relive those moments.

It ain’t a good thing.

To say that this puts a crimp in being able to craft legendaries would be an understatement.

I’d love to explore this crafting aspect of the game, but without some OTHER way to craft a gift of battle that doesn’t necessarily require gleefully slaughtering other players, it’s just not something I can do. I’m thinking that alternative method could help a lot more people besides me who, perhaps, have remained silent about this kind of issue with PvP-like environments. It’s not exactly an ADA issue, and I do realize how difficult this would be to implement. And I also know it may not be relevant to anyone else but me.

To be honest, had I not found an outdated guide for the legendary I was after, I would have stopped trying for it before I started had I known any form of PvP was involved. I tried WvW several years ago, on the assurances that I could just fight NPC’s. Well, players have a pesky habit of just showing up, and when it was over, I was out for a week getting my head back together. I’ve never gone back in except to talk to the merchants.

Still, I’d like a shot at a legendary. As it stands now, I have none without having to go back on meds and therapy I’d much rather avoid due to their physical/emotional side effects.

So this is merely a suggestion and you can take it as you want: Please find another, extra way to CRAFT a gift of battle than ONLY as a reward from, or involving, a PvP-like track. There seems to be ample room in the game for such a “quest”, as an alternative for the less homicidally-minded in the game.

Is there anyone else with this issue (even to simply having problems with getting through the WvW tracks)? Never having done it in this game, I don’t know the situation there, and really don’t know if this suggestion has any support worthy of making that effort. Whatever the community decides, I’m good with. So I toss it out there to see where it goes.

Battle comes in all forms – not just killing other players in a quest for rewards. I think it would be helpful for many if another method was added to the game to obtain that gift, too.

I am sorry for what you had to go through. And thank you for your service.

Try to look at it this way, you are not killing anyone, your avatar is just beating up another. You do not ever harm another person, feelings maybe lol, but no harm is actually ever done to anyone. Games are meant to be an escape from reality, try your best to separate the two and enjoy the time you spend online.

PvP in some form has always been a part of Guild Wars. Neither Guild Wars 1 or 2 have ever been purely PvE games.

I am a lifelong gamer, and never really enjoyed the PvP/Multiplayer aspect in games until I played Guild Wars 1. And when I started Guild Wars 2 I immediately got hooked on WvW for many reasons. It allows a lot of freedom and variety, despite what some want to think, and can be very enjoyable when given a chance. Those who actually try to understand the mechanics, and do not quit as soon as they get run over by another group will learn and improve, and have more fun.

Give it a chance, find something you can enjoy, you will be glad you did. I have many friends who only did PvE, and had no interest in WvW until they actually tried it. Now all they do is WvW. I can’t tell you how many people have the wrong idea about it, and quickly changed their minds after actually giving it a chance.

Good Luck and Semper Fi.

It doesn’t sound pathetic at all. I don’t know that they would alter game design that drastically, much as people have lobbied against the WvW requirement since the change (and before the change, there was at least a WvW exploration requirement). I got my one and only Gift of Battle the old way and it will be a concern if I ever make a second Legendary, to be sure. For me, mostly because I don’t get that much kill credit on my rare forays into the maps.

But that leads me to ask — does track advancement come only from killing players, or does it come from overall participation in WvW? If you don’t have issues with attacking NPC’s, perhaps you can go capture ruins points, or attack unattended guards and supply depots, and if other players show up you run away. Or just stand there, let them kill you while you keep your eyes shut, then waypoint out. It’d likely be slower progress than dropping aoe on zergs, but you’d avoid the trigger of dealing the blows.

If all else fails, it may not satisfy as much as fully crafting it for yourself, but you can farm up gold doing the parts of the game that don’t fire up the PTSD and buy a legendary (not a HoT one) off the TP.

Thank you for your service, whichever country it was for. I hope something gets you your legendary of choice.

Donari.5237:

It doesn’t sound pathetic at all. I don’t know that they would alter game design that drastically, much as people have lobbied against the WvW requirement since the change (and before the change, there was at least a WvW exploration requirement). I got my one and only Gift of Battle the old way and it will be a concern if I ever make a second Legendary, to be sure. For me, mostly because I don’t get that much kill credit on my rare forays into the maps.

But that leads me to ask — does track advancement come only from killing players, or does it come from overall participation in WvW? If you don’t have issues with attacking NPC’s, perhaps you can go capture ruins points, or attack unattended guards and supply depots, and if other players show up you run away. Or just stand there, let them kill you while you keep your eyes shut, then waypoint out. It’d likely be slower progress than dropping aoe on zergs, but you’d avoid the trigger of dealing the blows.

If all else fails, it may not satisfy as much as fully crafting it for yourself, but you can farm up gold doing the parts of the game that don’t fire up the PTSD and buy a legendary (not a HoT one) off the TP.

Thank you for your service, whichever country it was for. I hope something gets you your legendary of choice.

You do not actually have to “kill” other players to advance the track. There are many ways to earn participation points, and build up the percentage until it hits the max amount possible. After several minutes it will start to decay from inactivity and will need to be refreshed. Simply capturing objectives is enough to finish the tracks, you can also use a booster and guild buff to speed up the process.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/WvW_Reward_Track

First of all: Man PTSD sucks, I feel for you!
Second: Actual help with your question:

There are ways of getting WvW rewards without actually fighting other players.
At the farthest end of the spectrum, Daily Big Spender only requires you to spend 25 BoH and rewards a Potion of WvW Rewards. This give 250p progress iirc, requiring 80 potions to max a track. It would be very tedious and expensive (in BoH) to do it that way, but possible.
From what I’ve seen, people waiting for the Veteran Creature Slayer daily are left alone unless initiating hostilities.

Can you handle being attacked by other players? If so, there is no problem what so ever. You can work up your Participation (determining your Reward Track progress) with capturing ruins, killing Supply Dolyaks etc.
If being attacked is a problem, you could still do the above during off-peak hours, just more carefully – WPing if you see an enemy player, remember that you keep your participation.

Edge of the Mists might be workable as it’s more PvE-ish, but I know barely anything about it.

Hope that helps, and that it feels a bit more possible.

Cap Ruins and supply camps, cap Sentries, escort supply dolyaks and so on you don’t have to interact with a single enemy player if you choose not too in most cases.

Also of Note in the games lore Player characters are never killled they are only knocked unconscious.

“Death and resurrection were renamed to “defeat” and “revival” to match lore, as resurrections are no longer possible as easily as 250 years ago before the Human Gods ceased their direct interaction with Tyria. Because of this, defeated players are never considered to be dead in lore."

You get more progress capping points than killing players. As others are saying you can do the dailies. Most of them don’t involve killing players. Camp flipping can get your participation bar up quickly.
Unfortunately there will be enemy players. If you see one approaching and the haven’t attacked you can press b and choose a different borderland. Can always log out and back in if they have engaged in combat but that would cause you to die in PvE. Will be a nuisance if you have just finished clearing out a camp and an enemy comes to take it just letting them have it.
How are you with not killing but attacking a player? I’ll give an example, one time I’d just finished clearing out a camp. I mainly use my scrapper in WvW, I the distane I saw an enemy player killing the dolyak from that cap then started he darting towards me wanting to take it. He was getting near just as it was about to tick over, I used 5 with the hammer on him, a quick stun. Just long enough for it to tick over completely.
Another possibility. How would you be with standing by while others attack? Say if you join a party, do some roaming camp/tower flip. You playing as support if enemy players show up. Attack guards/supervisors/lords but if enemy players appear you just heal your own team and revive those in downed state. Not sure how that would be. You wouldn’t be attacking the enemy players but the people you are healing would be.

As a person who suffers from unpredictable anxiety attacks before doing PvP-style play, I can assure you that there’s nothing “pathetic” about your feelings.

I’m currently doing a personal test where I’m getting the Gift of Battle through the more pacifist style of play (i.e. the Monument, Big Spender, or camp flipping dailies as suggested above). If another player comes along and I don’t have the proper mindset, I just pretend like someone gifted me the chance to use a waypoint. So far it’s slower going than I expected, but there’s definite progress. (I’ve also been cheating by following zergs on “easy” caps of towers ).

Wishing you the best in the future.

I understand, and am sorry for your distress.

The daily reward chests offer sips of 250 reward track XP. It takes 80 sips to get the 20K points to max the Gift of Battle Reward Track. There are 1500 points available each day, but some tasks require PvP. You can do Master of Monuments, Guard Killer, Land Claimer and Caravans all without necessarily seeing another player. There’s also Big Spender, where you can use those badges.

If a player does attack you, /bow. He’ll probably stomp you, but some will let you go. Anyway, it’s hopefully attacking and not being attacked that triggers your disorder. After all, mobs attack you. Desert Borderland can be good for this as fewer players go there. I often also cap camps solo there and don’t see players that often.

Good luck.

Greener.6204:

As a person who suffers from unpredictable anxiety attacks before doing PvP-style play, I can assure you that there’s nothing “pathetic” about your feelings.

I’m currently doing a personal test where I’m getting the Gift of Battle through the more pacifist style of play (i.e. the Monument, Big Spender, or camp flipping dailies as suggested above). If another player comes along and I don’t have the proper mindset, I just pretend like someone gifted me the chance to use a waypoint. So far it’s slower going than I expected, but there’s definite progress. (I’ve also been cheating by following zergs on “easy” caps of towers ).

Wishing you the best in the future.

May be slow but there isn’t really a faster way, dailies and getting your participation up. Could consume a yellow XP booster if you plan to be in WvW for a long tie. Boosts your maximum reward track progress from 195 to 292 every 5 mins.
If I remember correctly I think I’m in the tier that rewards the second mystic clover of the track, I do sometimes spend a while in WvW, sometimes I don’t. Most days I check what the dailys are and do the easy ones, no matter what reward track I’m doing. Maybe I’ll be on the reward track for a week, maybe Ionger, or maybe one night I’ll spend a few ours in WvW and get to the end of the track and start a new one just because I’m having fun in WvW. Slow progress doesn’t really matter. Unless you have everything else. For example, I’m planning The Moot as my next legendary. I have The Energizer and Gift of the Moot. Don’ have a lot of ecto right now or the other mats for gift of fortune, 60/77 clovers. The character I’m doing map completion with for this has about 69-70% complete. Thats why I’m not worried about the slow progress. Even if I had a gift of battle now, I’ve still got some material gathering and 30% of the map to complete before I can use it.

Sinmir.6504:

May be slow but there isn’t really a faster way, dailies and getting your participation up. Could consume a yellow XP booster if you plan to be in WvW for a long tie. Boosts your maximum reward track progress from 195 to 292 every 5 mins.

Quite right, there are specific boosters for WvW reward tracks. To best take advantage of those boosts, cap a camp or land, slay a dolyak, then head back to base and let the timer count down to zero.

If anyone is looking for a 10% version of the Guild WvW Reward Track Boost, contact me and I’ll send an invite to a very small guild. Rep between 0-100% required, null-inclusive .

Wow, great suggestions, guys! Thank you!

I didn’t know about BoH spending (I have about 2800 from achievement chests), which would allow me to get there, even if slowly. I also have nearly a stack of old 15 minute WvW XP boosters and a lot of standard XP boosters. I’ll also keep an eye out for the Monument and/or Big Spender daily. If all I need is 20,000, I figure I can get that within a couple of months.

It’s not like crafting a legendary is done overnight, after all.

Avoiding combat would be a good way to go, and it doesn’t sound insurmountable in that respect. I’ve had a lot of anxiety and anger about not being able to get in there to do it without a mental meltdown (even though I know it’s “just a game”), but I’ve been playing GW since 4 months after GW1 came out, did the full Beta with GW2 and been at it all this time – without ever doing a legendary.

I figured it was high time I did.

You’ve all shown me a viable way (or three) around my issues, and I thank you all deeply both for that, and for your understanding.

And X T D.6458, right back atcha. If I told you I was an HM3, well, you might understand better than most why I’d have issues with killing people, even in combat, and who I was with when it happened. For the record, we didn’t lose anyone on our side.

mathion.8549:

It’s not like crafting a legendary is done overnight, after all.

No it is not.

It take ~10h of casual WvW to get gift. It take hundreds upon hundreds of hours of PvE. In the end I bet that WvW time will be less than 1% of your time spent on making that legendary.

There is no “gift of battle issue”, there never has been.

Now imagine how fun it is for someone that play 90% WvW only…

mathion.8549:

Wow, great suggestions, guys! Thank you!

I didn’t know about BoH spending (I have about 2800 from achievement chests), which would allow me to get there, even if slowly. I also have nearly a stack of old 15 minute WvW XP boosters and a lot of standard XP boosters. I’ll also keep an eye out for the Monument and/or Big Spender daily. If all I need is 20,000, I figure I can get that within a couple of months.

It’s not like crafting a legendary is done overnight, after all.

Avoiding combat would be a good way to go, and it doesn’t sound insurmountable in that respect. I’ve had a lot of anxiety and anger about not being able to get in there to do it without a mental meltdown (even though I know it’s “just a game”), but I’ve been playing GW since 4 months after GW1 came out, did the full Beta with GW2 and been at it all this time – without ever doing a legendary.

I figured it was high time I did.

You’ve all shown me a viable way (or three) around my issues, and I thank you all deeply both for that, and for your understanding.

And X T D.6458, right back atcha. If I told you I was an HM3, well, you might understand better than most why I’d have issues with killing people, even in combat, and who I was with when it happened. For the record, we didn’t lose anyone on our side.

I do, former 11B, corpsmen are the unsung heroes of the military.

Hey another thing you can do is join a squad and ask for participation credit and round around in the ebg keep refreshing siege and keep eyes out for things coming at the keep. If you see something tell squad chat and if uncomfortable leave wvw maybe?

The Wvw spender and the monument daily would be okay for you.

But maybe make a ticket with anet and explain the situation and maybe they can deduct badges of honor from you from when they got the gift of battle previously.

There is nothing pathetic about having empathy towards how others feel especially when we need more of that going. And rest easy that players never actually die but are defeated though I understand the distinction doesn’t help in this case.

Here’s what I think is the perfect solution: Nomad/cleric druid (If you can get full nomads, that’d be ideal):

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWRjUqQLL2wCmsAXLWyEM4ZaONo+UDWATsmkVA4AUy0OD-TVSDAB+q+jEHCge1Fklyvc2fg7HAwxXAAAOCAGqEUMALB-w

Staff/GS. You can kill NPCs with your pet (set to passive and select targets directly), and can disengage against other players easily. And you can always tell your pet to stop attacking people too. Also turn off autoattack.

You will be relying on daily rewards mostly— log off if you have no more dailies to do. Aim for: Daily Sentry, Monuments, Veteran Creature Slayer, Defender. Guard Killer, Dolyak. Camp if you want, though note it’ll take longer.

Kill guards and take camps to boost your participation. If you manage to get the participation up a bit, you can afford to hang around.

This will minimize the time you spend in WvW and also avoid combat at all costs. With 3 movement skills, swiftness by spamming the heal skill, and stealth you can run away from mostly anything. You won’t be able to kill people, and people won’t be able to kill you.