Guild Wars 2

What exactly do we know for certain about the new system and the new item available at Pact Supply Network Agents? My main suspicions about Map Bonus:

1) 1 step of “Progress” can be earned for every event participated that completes and nets a bronze/silver/gold, completing mini dungeons, and completing jumping puzzles
2) 2 steps of “Progress” earns whatever the currently listed next item in the zone’s pool
3) After an item is awarded, a new item is randomly selected from that zone’s pool to be next
4) Every week, the zone pools themselves are shuffled (but not fully swapped; EG just because items A B C and D are in a pool for Zone 1 doesn’t mean that after the pools change that a new zone will have A B C and D altogether)

I suspected that map completion in the zone was required before map bonuses could be awarded, but players in chat have led me to believe that is not the case. I also have yet to purchase the Mapping Materials from the Pact NPCs, but I’m guessing that consuming one item gives you 1 step of “Progress” in your current zone, thus implying that every 2 Mapping Materials is a guaranteed 1 item listed as next in any zone.

I’d love to see any confirmations of these details — player experience is great but dev feedback is more definitive

Based on common consensus, it would seem that you are rewarded with a map bonus every 1.8 events/jumping puzzles/mini-dungeon, making events by far the most productive. Right now I am unsure if what level of award you get (bronze, silver, gold) affects how many events you need to get the next reward, but it doesn’t really matter with how easy it is to get gold. It is still unconfirmed whether the item selected after you receive the base reward is random or not, but I am led to believe it is. Yes, the items are shuffled after the reset occurs, and some of them don’t show up the next week but instead show up again the week after.

Based on the datamined info linked in this reddit
point 3 is incorrect. The rewards are not randomly chosen but follow a pre-set sequence, much like a pvp track.

thehipone.6812:

Based on the datamined info linked in this reddit
point 3 is incorrect. The rewards are not randomly chosen but follow a pre-set sequence, much like a pvp track.

Those don’t seem to be in a pre-set sequence to me. In kessex, it says on week one the order of rewards was:

1 – Vial of thin blood
2 – Vial of weak blood
3 – Molten sliver
2 – Vial of weak blood
4 – Leather sections
1 – Vial of thin blood
3 – Molten sliver

So based on the order of this, the first 7 rewards for the same map from week to week or across different maps should be in the order 1, 2, 3, 2, 4, 1, 3. But this is not the case. Take a look at diessa plateau in week one:

1 – Shiny Bauble
1 – Shiny Bauble
2 – Destroyer Sliver
1 – Shiny Bauble
3 – Wool Scrap
1 – Shiny Bauble
2 – Destroyer Sliver

So in week one of diessa plateau the first 7 have order of 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 2. Unless I’m missing something here, this proves an element of randomness. I took all this information straight from the reddit post.

Cool info about the datamining but… Ugh. It’s only a little step above speculation because now people have scraps of evidence of what exists in the code but it doesn’t fully provide the context or clarity on situations that I’m looking for.

I mean, how many items have been datamined and shown to “exist” in the code but don’t show up in the game? How long did we know about Crystalline Ore as an item before it became available via Heart of Thorns? Just sayin

Well, the way to test it is to determine if we are actually on a particular “week” and then pick a zone and see if the rewards follow the datamined sequence, or if they differ. I can’t get ingame now to test, will check later to see if the rewards for all of the maps correspond to a particular week.

It doesn’t matter which order the items are listed on the in-game reward list. If one map goes 1,1,2,3,2,4,1 and another is 1,2,1,2,1,3,1,4 it may look random, but as long as each map always follows it’s own pattern, then it is not random.

thehipone.6812:

Well, the way to test it is to determine if we are actually on a particular “week” and then pick a zone and see if the rewards follow the datamined sequence, or if they differ. I can’t get ingame now to test, will check later to see if the rewards for all of the maps correspond to a particular week.

It doesn’t matter which order the items are listed on the in-game reward list. If one map goes 1,1,2,3,2,4,1 and another is 1,2,1,2,1,3,1,4 it may look random, but as long as each map always follows it’s own pattern, then it is not random.

But that seems so redundant. It might as well be random, because if they’re not going to make it the same order for every zone, there’s literally no point because it would be more work to make a different order for every zone.

thehipone.6812:

Well, the way to test it is to determine if we are actually on a particular “week” and then pick a zone and see if the rewards follow the datamined sequence, or if they differ. I can’t get ingame now to test, will check later to see if the rewards for all of the maps correspond to a particular week.

It doesn’t matter which order the items are listed on the in-game reward list. If one map goes 1,1,2,3,2,4,1 and another is 1,2,1,2,1,3,1,4 it may look random, but as long as each map always follows it’s own pattern, then it is not random.

It’s on week 5 and they are not random. I got a friend to go with me to Malchor’s Leap the other day try and see how many events we needed to do to get a Giant Eye. The items we were getting stayed in sync. We stopped after getting 6 or 7 items. It would be extremely unlikely for us to stay in sync across that many items if it was random.

There is also a guild enhancement that can speed up the progress on the bonuses by up to 10%.

Khisanth.2948:

thehipone.6812:

Well, the way to test it is to determine if we are actually on a particular “week” and then pick a zone and see if the rewards follow the datamined sequence, or if they differ. I can’t get ingame now to test, will check later to see if the rewards for all of the maps correspond to a particular week.

It doesn’t matter which order the items are listed on the in-game reward list. If one map goes 1,1,2,3,2,4,1 and another is 1,2,1,2,1,3,1,4 it may look random, but as long as each map always follows it’s own pattern, then it is not random.

It’s on week 5 and they are not random. I got a friend to go with me to Malchor’s Leap the other day try and see how many events we needed to do to get a Giant Eye. The items we were getting stayed in sync. We stopped after getting 6 or 7 items. It would be extremely unlikely for us to stay in sync across that many items if it was random.

There is also a guild enhancement that can speed up the progress on the bonuses by up to 10%.

This anecdote suggests that they are the same order for each player on the same map on the same week, and I believe that’s true — on a given week on a given map, all players have the same track.

Are tracks pre-set and repeat every 8 weeks? The datamining suggests yes, but it’s possible that Anet could adjust those tracks within those 8 weeks, or it’s possible that the rotation of the tracks is random. It’s also possible (but somewhat doubtful given the datamining) that the tracks are randomly generated each week.

I suspect that they are using the same data structure as for the PvP reward tracks. That’s why they have images we can datamine but not see in the game — because the data structure has a slot for them. (I make no claims or predictions on whether or not we will ever see those images.)