Guild Wars 2

If the Gift of Battle is going to stay a WvW track, I say it’s only fair to make the Gift of Exploration a PvE track reward. I know, I know, map rewards already exist, and this would sorta be a map reward on top of a map reward. But hey, you know what else could happen if you made this change? You could move world exploration from a character bound state to an account bound state, and just how much more alt friendly would THAT be?

Mesona.5293:

If the Gift of Battle is going to stay a WvW track, I say it’s only fair to make the Gift of Exploration a PvE track reward. I know, I know, map rewards already exist, and this would sorta be a map reward on top of a map reward. But hey, you know what else could happen if you made this change? You could move world exploration from a character bound state to an account bound state, and just how much more alt friendly would THAT be?

Isnt the gift of exploration already only earned through PvE exploration?

Putting the Gift of Battle in aWvW reward track restores it to its original thematic place where one engages in WvW, “battle,” to earn it. Gift of Exploration is already tied to exploration. A change would not increase that. If anything the GoE is less tied to its original thematic place now than was the case in the past.

But Gift of Battle moving from badges to track doesn’t change the basic premise of how ANet wants players to earn it. They want players to play WvW to get the Gift of Battle and rightfully so. It’s to make a Legendary weapon. So they did it in such a way to make it so players do have to play WvW to get it. Before this change, you could with enough AP and laurels, buy your way out of playing WvW.

Moving the Gift of Exploration from actually exploring Tyria to a PvE track removes the purpose of the Gift of Exploration: to get you to explore all corners of Tyria. Putting it on a track means players can get Gifts of Exploration by just crafting in Lion’s Arch or running around in circles in Silverwastes. Not out exploring Tyria.

You obviously didn’t think things through here. Gift of Battle requires playing WvW to get. Gift of Exploration already requires playing PvE to get.

Let me guess. You instantly levelled your character to 80, right?

Seera.5916:

But Gift of Battle moving from badges to track doesn’t change the basic premise of how ANet wants players to earn it. They want players to play WvW to get the Gift of Battle and rightfully so. It’s to make a Legendary weapon. So they did it in such a way to make it so players do have to play WvW to get it. Before this change, you could with enough AP and laurels, buy your way out of playing WvW.

And you still can. 21 of the 25 available legendaries in the game are fully available on the TP. Technically it doesn’t even require you to play any part of the game. If you have the real life money, you could get them all without playing anything. This whole “it’s a legendary so you need to play every game mode” argument is getting old. Besides, no one talks about sPvP and it not being necessary to make a legendary. This argument doesn’t have the slightest foundation to stand on.

TheNecrosanct.4028:

Seera.5916:

But Gift of Battle moving from badges to track doesn’t change the basic premise of how ANet wants players to earn it. They want players to play WvW to get the Gift of Battle and rightfully so. It’s to make a Legendary weapon. So they did it in such a way to make it so players do have to play WvW to get it. Before this change, you could with enough AP and laurels, buy your way out of playing WvW.

And you still can. 21 of the 25 available legendaries in the game are fully available on the TP. Technically it doesn’t even require you to play any part of the game. If you have the real life money, you could get them all without playing anything. This whole “it’s a legendary so you need to play every game mode” argument is getting old. Besides, no one talks about sPvP and it not being necessary to make a legendary. This argument doesn’t have the slightest foundation to stand on.

Yes it does. I said MAKE a legendary. I realize you can buy them. Fully aware of that fact. But I wasn’t referring to that path to getting a legendary. I was referring to the path of you making one yourself.

The core legendaries were made before you could take the skin of a legendary weapon into PvP so the fact that it does not require PvP is logical when you look at how the game was set up when the process was developed. Now that you can take PvE skins into PvP and there is no longer a difference between PvP and PvE skins, ANet has put PvP aspects into the precursor collection, though it has yet to force players to do so as you can buy the items off of the TP (Tears of Glory, I believe is the name?).

So maybe my argument has more a foundation than you realized.

Now that the WvW requirement has been removed, world completion is simpler.

DarcShriek.5829:

Now that the WvW requirement has been removed, world completion is simpler.

That and it doesn’t even require any later added maps – dry top, silver wastes and southsun. Personally I see no problem in it being as it is. It fits and it’s not really that hard to do, time consuming yes, but not hard.

Technically, it ALREADY is a “reward track.” Each time you complete a map you get some rewards as well as progress towards the Gift.

Mesona.5293:

If the Gift of Battle is going to stay a WvW track, I say it’s only fair to make the Gift of Exploration a PvE track reward.

If ANet wanted it to be ‘fair’, then:

• The PvP component (gift of glory) would only be available via a PvP reward track with slightly lesser rewards than other PvP reward tracks (it’s currently available for next to nothing, via shards on the TP, since they drop like harpies outside the Black Citadel on Plains of Ashford event days).
• The dungeon reward component (e.g. Gift of Ascalon) would only be available via a special reward track, instead for 500 tokens as it is now.

Those are equivalent to gating the Gift of Battle behind a reward track.

Alternatively, ANet could make the Gift of Battle available for some combination of badges of honor + memories of battle (although of course, they’d have to make some transitional adjustments on account of all the stockpiles of those ‘currencies’ that people have).

Regardless of what they do, I hope that they revert the current situation and go back to the drawing board. When they return with a new plan for requiring more active participation in multiple game modes, they can explain their goals and how they plan to go about them, rather than just switching things on us without an explanation (or any sort of warning that most PvE & sPvP players would have noticed).

Seera.5916:

TheNecrosanct.4028:

Seera.5916:

But Gift of Battle moving from badges to track doesn’t change the basic premise of how ANet wants players to earn it. They want players to play WvW to get the Gift of Battle and rightfully so. It’s to make a Legendary weapon. So they did it in such a way to make it so players do have to play WvW to get it. Before this change, you could with enough AP and laurels, buy your way out of playing WvW.

And you still can. 21 of the 25 available legendaries in the game are fully available on the TP. Technically it doesn’t even require you to play any part of the game. If you have the real life money, you could get them all without playing anything. This whole “it’s a legendary so you need to play every game mode” argument is getting old. Besides, no one talks about sPvP and it not being necessary to make a legendary. This argument doesn’t have the slightest foundation to stand on.

Yes it does. I said MAKE a legendary. I realize you can buy them. Fully aware of that fact. But I wasn’t referring to that path to getting a legendary. I was referring to the path of you making one yourself.

The core legendaries were made before you could take the skin of a legendary weapon into PvP so the fact that it does not require PvP is logical when you look at how the game was set up when the process was developed. Now that you can take PvE skins into PvP and there is no longer a difference between PvP and PvE skins, ANet has put PvP aspects into the precursor collection, though it has yet to force players to do so as you can buy the items off of the TP (Tears of Glory, I believe is the name?).

So maybe my argument has more a foundation than you realized.

No, it doesn’t. If ANet wanted players to have to do WvW to get a legendary, those skins wouldn’t be available on the TP. And if they wanted players to have to do sPvP, they wouldn’t have made the Shards of Glory tradeable. Nowhere does ANet show that they want people to play other game modes. This is only the case for the 4 new legendaries, and it has always been the case for GoE and GoB. They removed WvW from world completion, they lowered the required rank to buy GoB’s, they added BoH’s to achievement chests. All of that goes to show that they do not force people into WvW but give them alternatives. I haven’t played WvW in years but I would’t be surprised if farming 500 BoH’s is a lot faster than finishing 1 reward track. Even then, farming BoH’s didn’t require a certain level of participation.

As it is, I’m still for alternative options for both GoE and GoB. Incorporate the first into WvW; reward tracks are perfect for that, unless they really want to stick to the theme of exploration. And if theme is the issue here, PvE requires battle too. That’s not just WvW’s purview.

So, with the exception of the 4 HoT legendaries, your argument still goes out the window. Nothing is forced, not even playing the game. Actually making a legendary instead of buying it is still just an option, not a necessity. If it were a necessity, then I’d see the point of your argument.

TheNecrosanct.4028:

Seera.5916:

TheNecrosanct.4028:

Seera.5916:

But Gift of Battle moving from badges to track doesn’t change the basic premise of how ANet wants players to earn it. They want players to play WvW to get the Gift of Battle and rightfully so. It’s to make a Legendary weapon. So they did it in such a way to make it so players do have to play WvW to get it. Before this change, you could with enough AP and laurels, buy your way out of playing WvW.

And you still can. 21 of the 25 available legendaries in the game are fully available on the TP. Technically it doesn’t even require you to play any part of the game. If you have the real life money, you could get them all without playing anything. This whole “it’s a legendary so you need to play every game mode” argument is getting old. Besides, no one talks about sPvP and it not being necessary to make a legendary. This argument doesn’t have the slightest foundation to stand on.

Yes it does. I said MAKE a legendary. I realize you can buy them. Fully aware of that fact. But I wasn’t referring to that path to getting a legendary. I was referring to the path of you making one yourself.

The core legendaries were made before you could take the skin of a legendary weapon into PvP so the fact that it does not require PvP is logical when you look at how the game was set up when the process was developed. Now that you can take PvE skins into PvP and there is no longer a difference between PvP and PvE skins, ANet has put PvP aspects into the precursor collection, though it has yet to force players to do so as you can buy the items off of the TP (Tears of Glory, I believe is the name?).

So maybe my argument has more a foundation than you realized.

No, it doesn’t. If ANet wanted players to have to do WvW to get a legendary, those skins wouldn’t be available on the TP. And if they wanted players to have to do sPvP, they wouldn’t have made the Shards of Glory tradeable. Nowhere does ANet show that they want people to play other game modes. This is only the case for the 4 new legendaries, and it has always been the case for GoE and GoB. They removed WvW from world completion, they lowered the required rank to buy GoB’s, they added BoH’s to achievement chests. All of that goes to show that they do not force people into WvW but give them alternatives. I haven’t played WvW in years but I would’t be surprised if farming 500 BoH’s is a lot faster than finishing 1 reward track. Even then, farming BoH’s didn’t require a certain level of participation.

As it is, I’m still for alternative options for both GoE and GoB. Incorporate the first into WvW; reward tracks are perfect for that, unless they really want to stick to the theme of exploration. And if theme is the issue here, PvE requires battle too. That’s not just WvW’s purview.

So, with the exception of the 4 HoT legendaries, your argument still goes out the window. Nothing is forced, not even playing the game. Actually making a legendary instead of buying it is still just an option, not a necessity. If it were a necessity, then I’d see the point of your argument.

Again, you’ve missed the word MAKE in “make a lengendary”. If you didn’t, then I don’t know what to say, because to me that makes me wonder if you know the definition, or don’t know which definition of the word I’m using. The number 5 definition on Merriam Webster’s site is: to put together from components. Sounds a lot like what you have to do generate a legendary.

There’s buying a legendary and there’s making a legendary. I’m talking about the making a legendary. The fact that people can buy and sell them on the TP has absolutely NOTHING TO DO with what I’ve said in my previous posts or what I’m about to say in this post. If I mean to include buying of legendaries, I will make it perfectly clear that I’m including them. I’ll say things like getting a legendary or obtaining a legendary.

Now that it should be crystal clear what I’m referring to when I say “make a legendary”…

You used to have to play WvW at least to a small degree to get map completion. You had to open the map to see what your side controlled and keep an eye on the ground to spot for enemies. Sounds like what scouts do in WvW, though I’ve done that. Very loose playing of WvW and sometimes you would have to join in or get a group started to get parts of WvW map completion done.

IMO, they removed WvW from map completion due to the switching of the maps and not to remove mandatory WvW from legendary creation. They realized it would be too unfair to make both the borderland map and what color you were on vary as you could be the right color but the wrong type or the right type but wrong color a lot more frequently than you would likely be just the wrong color. With the wrong color, except for the corners of the maps, you could get every other point if you worked at it and had some luck unless your WvW was completely dead when you played. With wrong borderland type, you can’t get the other borderland type POI’s and what not. Removing the need for PvE players to run around WvW barely playing WvW was only a bonus for players who truly hated it (both on the WvW and PvE players’ side).

So it only left the Gift of Battle as something that had WvW parts to it and due to how you obtain it, meant that players could bypass actually playing WvW. They made it more difficult to bypass by requiring players to be WvW rank 14 to buy the Gift of Battle, which indicates that they do want players to play WvW. Given the sorry state of WvW at the time, I’m not surprised that they held off in trying to get players interested in WvW by trying to force them to play it.

Removing the Gift of Battle from the BoH merchant and adding it to the WvW reward tracks, means that players who wish to make their own legendary have to WvW. And players who choose to buy legendary weapons will eventually be paying prices to compensate the time of other players who ventured into WvW. Now that they’re working actively on WvW, they want players actually playing WvW so they’re doing things to promote players doing so. Such as forcing the issue for making legendary weapons. I’m sure the next WvW tournament they run will have a nice skin or reward as well to get more players playing.

And like I said, they’ve made playing PvP an optional part of making a legendary. Because you could buy the PvP reward item used to make the precursor off of the Trading Post: the Shard of Glory. Even though I hate PvP, I would have been just fine if they had made it required by making the Shards of Glory account bound on acquire, and given how much they love to push PvP, I was shocked to find them saleable.

So again, my point is valid. Just because you don’t agree with it doesn’t mean you can toss it out because you’re trying to make the word make include buy. Last time I checked, buy and make weren’t synonyms.

Mesona.5293:

If the Gift of Battle is going to stay a WvW track, I say it’s only fair to make the Gift of Exploration a PvE track reward. I know, I know, map rewards already exist, and this would sorta be a map reward on top of a map reward. But hey, you know what else could happen if you made this change? You could move world exploration from a character bound state to an account bound state, and just how much more alt friendly would THAT be?

It kinda already is, but without the track. The map rewards, event rewards to unlock certain POIs, get to certain vistas, etc. JP chests, all kinds of stuff along the way. Don’t see the point in it.

However, there is a point I would like to bring up to you. These are supposed to be Legendary items, and players wielding them are supposed to display at least some minimum level of competence of the game as a whole. IMHO this part of obtaining a legendary fails miserably, and the grind is boring to right down idiotic proportions.

In fact, it is so boring that after my 1st set I gave up about half way through getting the 2nd set, right after getting my next GOEs.

While not everyone is like me, there are a lot of people who share my opinion and feel the same way I do.

So as a PVX player who enjoys all game modes, at times some more then others, I can tell you that you are flat out wrong about what is fair for those who are focused on the other game modes. For a fair comparison, the following would have to be true:

90% of all materials, badges, all progress towards crafting any and all legendary weapons has to be earned in WVW. THEN you get the 1 track that forces all WVW players to go PVE for it.

But since that is not currently true, then it is not a fair comparison.

If your plan is to spite WvWers, this is not very well thought through.

WvW players can get very good karma rates. Karma can be turned into mapping supplies. A WvW player could therefore get Gift of Exploration without doing much PvE at all; all they’d need to do is unlock the appropriate Mastery (trivially easy) and then go to the daily vendors each day and collect maps (even easier). You would make PvE content completion unnecessary; much the same as the Gift of Battle’s requirements were before they were changed.

There should be no exploration track. Ever.

You either do it or you don’t.

Pretending you did it through a track, would always take away from the hard work of people that actually do it.

As it stands with me though I’ll never do it again as I currently hate legendaries lackluster stats.

What kind of kitten is this….
I guess you would like to have precursor reward track too?
Or maybe legendary reward track to make it easy?
And on the top of that “I finished the game” title reward track to make all care bears happy.

It is a PvE track, you complete zones to love along the track. There’s even a percentage to show you how far along you are.

@ TheNecrosanct

Your whole argument is flawed being that the skins on the TP were MADE by SOMEONE who had to go and play the WVW mode. The skins are not just magically there. People that buy them instead of making them are simply paying someone else to do the part they do not wish to. If people stop making legendries and selling them on the TP then people will be forced to do the WvW part themselves. So the buying method is not a guaranteed way that people can avoid the WvW aspect. We can never know when things that are currently on the TP will dry up or not.

It is perfectly logical for Anet to change the method of acquiring this item from badges to a reward track. After all either way still has you having to actually play the game mode for a length of time to earn the item. Also you now gain the bonus of using your badges for what anet intended them to be used more for – siege equipment and gear while you are earning your reward track. Badges are also need for other things too now such as guild upgrades etc. So really I look at this change as a well needed thing as it takes pressure off the badge farming and gives you a new way to earn it while you are also gathering the badges that you need for other things.

However changing the Gift of Exploration from actually exploring (completing every original map) to simply gaining exp in any way you see fit (events, crafting, gathering materials, using tomes, etc etc) and then just clicking the button to level up the mastery totally changes that whole aspect of the process.

Then on top of that you need more Mastery Points which lets face it can be a pain to get enough even right now for the reward tracks that are already in game. So all this will do is create another headache and problem for people who may already be finding it hard to unlock the Tyria Masteries.

I am one of these people. I have been here since the 3 day head start. In that time I have completed world complete 11 times, done all JPs, all dungeons, a fair share of Fractals, all classes/races through personal stories, LS2 and HOT as well as a great % of achievements. A lot more and I am still struggling right now to get the last few Mastery Points that I need. Mainly because they are tied behind silly things like unlocking skin collections but that is another rant for another day.

PS, there is another fact that I overlooked which is a pretty big one. That being that there are currently NO reward tracks for PVE. There are masteries yes, but they are a totally different thing as you can’t repeat them and they are account bound. How the heck would people be able to get more than one Gift of Exploration?

They would have to bring in a new system for PVE, that being Reward Tracks. This would only create more work for them. Also how would we earn exp towards these tacks? Our exp bar works for both Reward Tracks and Masteries? Talk about confusing. Granted I am all for new rewards for players once they have maxed out all their masteries but I’m just not sure this would be the way to go or how it could actually work without confusing people even further.

Ryouzanpaku.1273:

What kind of kitten is this….
I guess you would like to have precursor reward track too?
Or maybe legendary reward track to make it easy?
And on the top of that “I finished the game” title reward track to make all care bears happy.

Those would be the collections …

You might think my argument is flawed, but you are only focusing on the actual making aspect of legendaries. I take the bigger picture into account. Sure, there are players who do the actual WvW and put their legendary on the TP to earn gold. But in this day and age most people don’t care how they get something, just that they get it. Having to play WvW for the GoB does not indicate mastery at the game mode, nor does obtaining 2 GoE’s indicate mastery at PvE (because map completion is straightforward and easy as baby cats). All it says is that you spent time in said game mode. And it’s naive of ANet to think that they can get people to like all 3 game modes, and force participation by putting it on the path to obtaining something that isn’t specifically tied to the game mode at all.

Having to use the badges for what they’re actually meant for? Buying stuff, among which was the GoB. The fact that you don’t agree they should be obtainable from a vendor with BoH’s doesn’t mean it wasn’t intended. There are a lot of people who saved up BoH’s. That’s all rendered useless now. And PvE players that don’t like WvW don’t give a rat’s kitten about what you can buy with BoH’s for the use of WvW. They are only there for one reason: to farm for the Gift. Maybe I’ll do the WvW part, maybe I won’t. I know my current BoH’s are completely useless to me now, because I don’t need or desire anything else WvW vendors have to offer. And there are a lot of WvW players as well whose BoH’s are useless now. Not my judgement, but their own. And it’s not up to anyone to say they are “wrong”, or that they are supposed to use them for other stuff. Options do not equal necessity.

It’s all rather simple, really. Everything here is based on the choices people make. ANet wants us to do WvW for legendaries? To be honest, their attempts at that are poor. You only have to get 1 tiny item from WvW, compared to all the other stuff that is not tied to one particular game mode. With the exception of GoE’s and GoB’s everything has alternatives; even the dungeon gifts don’t require you to do any PvE at all. In my opinion there should be alternatives for GoE’s and GoB’s as well. Or remove the dungeon reward tracks from sPvP and force people to actually do the PvE content. There is no single strategy from ANet when it comes to legendaries. They’re all over the map, changing it every once in a while, but still remain all over the map. There is no strategy here, and it certainly has nothing to do with legendaries, but everything with the poor state WvW is still in to this day. It’s a poorly thought out change communicated in the worst possible way. And it’s going to bring back a lot of the problems PvE and WvW players had when those 4 maps were still part of world completion. If ANet wants people to do WvW, this is not the way to go about it.

TheNecrosanct.4028:

It’s all rather simple, really. Everything here is based on the choices people make.

Like ignoring a valid argument against your own position in order to further your own argument? kek

@TheNecrosanct

As long as you can turn your badges into Siege and then turn those in to Superior Siege and can sell them on the TP they are certainly not useless to anyone. It’s nothing but pure profit. Sure you will need spirit shards but if you have been playing this game long enough to have a ton of badges saved up you should be swimming in those already by now.

I can and do agree to a degree that more options is always a good thing. So I certainly would not be against it if Anet decided we could get the GOB again through BoH or as the easier alternative being the reward track. However I doubt they will as it seems pretty obvious they do want people to venture into WvW as part of the process.

As for GoE my opinion stands, no need to change that and as even you said – “it’s so easy to do” so why even bother changing it?

However I do have one last thing to say. And that is Anet are not “forcing” anybody into doing anything here. Legendries are not required for anything. They have never said they were. In fact they have always said they are for those players who like to prove mastery over ALL aspects of the game. Okay so maybe they used the word “mastery” a bit loosely but I think you know what I mean. That is at least venturing into each game mode enough to be able to get what is required to make the item. They may have over looked this when they added BoH to the achievement chests. Thus maybe why this change now. So having said that, who knows, who’s to say that they wont be addressing the PvP reward tracks for the dungeon part as well? Maybe that was another thing they over looked? Time will tell I guess. Also I think it was a VERY big mistake of them allowing completed legendries to be sold on the TP in the first place. Sure the precursors, go ahead have at it. So if you are saying that was a mistake as well then yes I would agree with you. Because it does just throw all “achievement” out of it for those that do and can just simply buy them as well as somewhat demeaning the whole “Legendary” title/thing. Too late to fix this now tho I guess.

I don’t think PvE needs reward tracks. They have: Map Completion rewards (and final reward for world completion), World bosses, Raids, Dungeons, Fractals to name a few.

WvW only has reward tracks to acquire a smidgen of that by completing a track. You get a few loot bags, maybe a tome here and there … and usually 1 dungeon weapon and 1 piece of dungeon armor.

I don’t get why you would add pve reward tracks … basically it would be added and the following would occur…. you would remove or mitigate dungeon currency, and not reward it for dungeon completion, rather just earned through track … as the track gains xp for completing pve things, including dungeons.

I’m sorry for not understanding it fully but I think making reward tracks for pve, would just bring a huge crowd of pve players that will complain when there currencies and other rewards are taken away.

or are you thinking adding the track, and still getting rewards on top of the track, so basically you are getting rewarded extra versus every other game mode?

TheNecrosanct.4028:

You might think my argument is flawed, but you are only focusing on the actual making aspect of legendaries. I take the bigger picture into account.

Imho, this particular side-debate is pointless. As you admit above, the poster you’re debating with is only focusing on a particular scope. You’re taking a superset of that scope and claiming a win because they don’t address everything in your scope. It’s apples and oranges. Without a common scope, the debate is like arguing whether poodles or porches make the best candied apples for use as lawn-bowls.

No, making a legendary requires either playing every part of the game, or paying someone else to do it for you. This has been the way of legendaries since launch. If you can’t be bothered to do it yourself, pay someone else for their effort. It’s a skin. You don’t need it. It isn’t preventing you from playing the content you do enjoy.

As long as the track is locked until you’ve done it the hard way at least once. I have no problem with additional ways to get repeated GOE though.

Ryouzanpaku.1273:

What kind of kitten is this….
I guess you would like to have precursor reward track too?
Or maybe legendary reward track to make it easy?
And on the top of that “I finished the game” title reward track to make all care bears happy.

• Precursor reward track is called “Collection”
• Legendary reward track’s are in finishing your 3 gifts with added:
  - Legendary weapon,
  - Legendary armor and
  - Legendary Backpack collections/tracks
  - (Twice Told Legend)
• I finished the Game track: “Been There Done That” and Mastery level 169