Guild Wars 2

I’ve recently started focusing on map completion, planning to get to 100% before too long. Then today I ran into this:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1uvnye/dolyak_express_first_answers_to_our_questions/

Achievements: Are you going to change the Map Completion to remove the requirement of WvW?
”We currently have no plans to do this. We’ve been doing a lot of work lately to try and bring our three core game types: PvP, WvW, and PvE more together in their systems of progression, rewards, and unlocking to try and give the game more of a sense of everything you do ties back into the growth of your character. We feel like WvW is a really good middle-ground between PvE and PvP and want to encourage people to think of the mists as part of our world they should explore and experience, we might consider adding the PvP lobby to world exploration for future characters for example to help give more incentive to visit there as well.

That being said, we’re always looking at the systems and features we have in place, and as you’ve seen since we launched if we find something we think is better, we’re not shy about replacing a current system if we find something better for the players, but accomplishes our same goals. Our over-all goal is to encourage all players to experience WvW, to have goals that keep them there long enough they might fall in love with it and take that on as a separate game time; should we find other ways that are as effective as we’ve seen world complete is for encouraging play there to see the different maps, that is just as easy to understand and uses existing systems like world complete, we’ll certainly consider them. It’s something fun to brainstorm on our forums and see what kind of ideas players might!” ~Colin Johanson

Wait. Map completion requires WvW maps too? WTF? Okay, starting to get ticked off.

Googling around finds more threads on people unhappy about this. E.g.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/100-map-completion-not-going-to-happen/first

And this in particular stands out:
http://dragonseason.com/Front/tabid/124/EntryId/211/Lunch-with-Colin-Johanson-Part-II.aspx

What are your thoughts on the PvE aspect of WvW, including jumping puzzles and world completion?

Colin: For the jumping puzzle, I would prefer that they not be in the WvW map and it’s a separate thing. Especially when there’s a queue like that and people are trying to get in. It disconnects players from the content that they are trying to play. How we answer that is going to be interesting. There’s a lot of different ways that we can separate that out, but in long run it’s very unlikely that that will stay in the WvW map where it’s eating up population queue. We’ll go somewhere else and we’ll have to figure out the best way to do that. “World Complete” is an interesting one. We’ve seen from our data metrics, that because [WvW] is on “World Complete”, there’s a bunch of people who play WvW because it takes them there to actually get to know it and they end up having so much fun, that they stay.

Now I understand the business desire to get players try out PvP, and I find it credible that data metrics do show some conversions happening. But…

The problem that I have is that this sort of coercion really, really kittenes me off. And getting that ticked off is the sort of thing that makes me quit playing a game and makes me resolve not to play it.

Now I appreciate the value of metrics. But will your metrics measure how many people have as negative reaction as I do to this sort of thing? And that this negatively impacted our willingness to work on the map completion achievement or resulted in our quitting playing the game at all?

I’m not asking that rhetorically. I’m saying really, How would you measure that?

Because if you can’t, then you’re only getting half the story. You’re seeing which players you’re converting to PvP players, but you’re not seeing which which players you’re converting to players-who-quit, or to players-who-play-less, or to players-who-are-less-willing-to-give-you-money.

Take my case: I was about 49% on my main a week or two ago, when I started focusing on map completion. Currently I’ve got map completion to about 70%. But now that I know about the requirement, here’s what I’ll probably do:

• I’ll probably dig my heels in and decide not to do the WvW 5% at all.
• Quite likely I’ll quit trying for even 95% completion, given that I won’t be getting 100% completion.
• Every time I log in, I’ll look at the world banner and be reminded that I won’t be getting 100%, and I’ll be irritated.
• While this alone won’t be enough to cause me to quit or switch. On the play/don’t-play/play-something-else scales, it will way heavy in the negative. Likewise when I’m deciding whether to buy something in the store it weigh strongly against buying stuff.

Now, how are your metrics going to measure that? Since (other than this post), how would you know about the causative effect (me finding out about the WvW mapping requirement)?

I’m no PvPer. I occasionally enjoy WvW if I have experienced guildies on Mumble coaching me along and running with me. I still managed my first gold star around the time of the first Karka invasion, by dint of getting the WvW parts done whenever I could. It helped that I was on a thief and very fleet of foot and stealthy. It also helped that I was on Tarnished Coast, which does reasonably well over time. If you’re exploring, you don’t want to join in the fighting, you want to tag pois and vistas and boogie out of there. Though if there’s a zerg going to unexplored spots, that’s your ticket to those, and you might pick up a bit of loot along the way (and help your server). Also go in during large new game events — most everyone will be checking that out and there will be less enemy action to avoid.

I’m on my second star now, with just Fireheart Rise and most of WvW to go. TC’s been green for weeks >< I’m still on TC, woot, but now I’m using a guardian. It’s been a bit painful just working on TC Borderlands

Still, I just sort of set my mind to it being PvE with really nasty AI, and do all my protections and evasions that I can, and cross my fingers and hope enemies don’t spot that lone guardian trotting to the next vista. It’s doable. Not fun, but doable. The game should be fun; it also should have some things that make you do it all, as this does. At least I don’t have to sPvP for my star!

From googling, I see that this topic has been discussed before, and from similar discussions in WoW I pretty much know what sort of fluff happens in these topics, so I won’t have much to say about that.

But I’ll say this. What makes me quit MMOs is when designers do something to really really kitten me off. Minor annoyances are not an issue, and I’m okay with design choices that I don’t like.

But big stuff — especially trying to coerce me into doing something I do not want to do, just makes me dig in my heels. And I don’t forget it. Ever.

Map completion always included WvW zones and it can take a while to get them all, usually waiting until your world gets a particular starting location. It was a lot worse before they started to rotate starting locations. The other way is to join a zerg that is taking on a tower/keep that has a POI or Vista you need. Bigger the group, less likely you will be pinned like an insect.

It can be a bit of fun running around to see how much you can get done before being squished.

Just finished world completion on another toon after 4 weeks of TC being green for 1 poi. Still playing TC for week 5, but at least the colors changed!

I’m upset I have to do PvE to get world completion for my legendary — why can’t I just do the WvW POIs.

There are many things in the game dependent on playing certain aspects. I don’t do many dungeons, so I’m not likely to get Dungeon Master. But, if I wanted the Achievement or the Title, I would have to do it. If I wanted some fancy Rank Finisher, I would have to do PvP. If I wanted to be a Master Crafter, I would need to get my Crafting up to 500.

If every Achievement or Title could be obtained by only doing what we like best, say…chatting in LA, I’m not sure what the point would be. If a person isn’t willing to play parts of the game they don’t care for, especially, then that person wouldn’t obtain the Achievements and/or Titles associated with that gameplay, or gameplay that included said disliked parts. Seems fair to me.

It’s nice that there are different kinds of content in the game that we can pick and choose to spend our time on. =)

Though the WvW completion did not make me quit the game, it did tick me off.

Wreave.2138:

Wait. Map completion requires WvW maps too? WTF?

I had a friend find this out ~5 months into the game after reaching ~70% world completion. They never logged in again.

What would be really nice is if there were different Legendary skins for the different modes, only obtainable from those modes……..nah, that actually seems like too much work to put into the game for anyone to actually do, right?

More Scarlet Briar please!!!

Healix.5819:

Wreave.2138:

Wait. Map completion requires WvW maps too? WTF?

I had a friend find this out ~5 months into the game after reaching ~70% world completion. They never logged in again.

^This^. Is Anet looking at this sort of metric? How could they? The problem is that they don’t have access to info on the causative event — the player finding out about the requirement.

MMO players have been exposed to this sort of coercion in multiple games. And we’re sensitive to any other MMO trying to pull the same stunt on us.

WoW is awful at this. First time I ran into it was on their winter holiday event. Where essentially it required the PvP newb to intentionally handicap whatever poor team they ended up on. It made me so furious, that I resolved both not to do any PvP and not to do any more holiday achievements. And thus every holiday, I was again reminded of how angry I was at Blizzard for shoving PvP in a PvE achievement I would have otherwise loved.

Rift had a similar problem with epic quest chain (sort of the story chain) on the Defiant side. A huge beautiful and very cool set of PvE quests — but 2/3 of the way through — a requirement to go play and win a PvP battleground. It ticked me off, and I never seriously tried to finish a quest line that I otherwise would have loved.

I had hoped that GW2 was beyond this sort of problem — e.g. by making PvP optional in Daily’s and Monthlys. But now I see that they’re not. It’s a shame.

I just quit exploration at 95%. Will never get my gold star. Ticks me off but it’s obviously my own fault for not being a good little metric.

Wreave, you don’t have to hit anybody. Just go out there and collect what you can. The maps aren’t big. That’s all I go there for, though sometimes I stay for a bit. I don’t understand the anger here.

BTW, I’ve seen this discussion on multiple MMO, so I’ve seen all of the standard counterarguments.

XXX is supposed to be hard.
Answer: Well mapping really isn’t hard. It’s just thorough. But it’s inherently a PvE achievement, not a PvP one. If that’s not clear enough, Colin makes it clear in his quote that its there specifically to get PvE’ers into PvP.

XXX is supposed represent the whole game:
Well, no its not. If it were thorough, then it would include all of the other PvP maps. And again, see Colin’s quote.

XXX is not that hard! I managed it with a little luck.
Good for you, but, 1) its still coercion, and 2) its harder for other folks who are on servers that are weak in PvP.

XXX we all have to do something we don’t like. PvPers have to run dungeons, etc.
No matter what similarities there are between PvP and PvE mechanics, they are very different both in play and in psychology. There are people who play both, and there are people who do not want to touch the other with a 10’ pole. MMOs should respect that and quit trying to coerce one type of player to be the other type of player.

Wreave.2138:

I’ve recently started focusing on map completion, planning to get to 100% before too long. Then today I ran into this:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1uvnye/dolyak_express_first_answers_to_our_questions/

Achievements: Are you going to change the Map Completion to remove the requirement of WvW?
”We currently have no plans to do this. We’ve been doing a lot of work lately to try and bring our three core game types: PvP, WvW, and PvE more together in their systems of progression, rewards, and unlocking to try and give the game more of a sense of everything you do ties back into the growth of your character. We feel like WvW is a really good middle-ground between PvE and PvP and want to encourage people to think of the mists as part of our world they should explore and experience, we might consider adding the PvP lobby to world exploration for future characters for example to help give more incentive to visit there as well.

That being said, we’re always looking at the systems and features we have in place, and as you’ve seen since we launched if we find something we think is better, we’re not shy about replacing a current system if we find something better for the players, but accomplishes our same goals. Our over-all goal is to encourage all players to experience WvW, to have goals that keep them there long enough they might fall in love with it and take that on as a separate game time; should we find other ways that are as effective as we’ve seen world complete is for encouraging play there to see the different maps, that is just as easy to understand and uses existing systems like world complete, we’ll certainly consider them. It’s something fun to brainstorm on our forums and see what kind of ideas players might!” ~Colin Johanson

Wait. Map completion requires WvW maps too? WTF? Okay, starting to get ticked off.

Googling around finds more threads on people unhappy about this. E.g.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/100-map-completion-not-going-to-happen/first

And this in particular stands out:
http://dragonseason.com/Front/tabid/124/EntryId/211/Lunch-with-Colin-Johanson-Part-II.aspx

What are your thoughts on the PvE aspect of WvW, including jumping puzzles and world completion?

Colin: For the jumping puzzle, I would prefer that they not be in the WvW map and it’s a separate thing. Especially when there’s a queue like that and people are trying to get in. It disconnects players from the content that they are trying to play. How we answer that is going to be interesting. There’s a lot of different ways that we can separate that out, but in long run it’s very unlikely that that will stay in the WvW map where it’s eating up population queue. We’ll go somewhere else and we’ll have to figure out the best way to do that. “World Complete” is an interesting one. We’ve seen from our data metrics, that because [WvW] is on “World Complete”, there’s a bunch of people who play WvW because it takes them there to actually get to know it and they end up having so much fun, that they stay.

anet does what anet wants. that mentality will be the games downfall because each reasonable request that does not get worked on or changed will add up over time. the financials are a testament to that, hence why the renewed effort at communicating through the cdi and info gathering with the forum restructure. it’s not to late for them to make a decent turn around, but they lost a lot of momentum with players and I get the feeling they will make some big development mistakes and continue in the wrong direction.

As someone has already said, you could take an opposing perspective and say it’s unfair to have to play PvE to get map completion. Why can’t we get completion just by playing PvP/WvW?

I think an alternative way to approach this might be to have “PvE completion” and “WvW completion” as two separate things, and then require both for full map completion. That way people who only want to play PvE can get an achievement, people who only want to play WvW get an achievement, and then there’s a bit of bonus if you do both.

Because quite frankly, anyone who chooses to try ALL the content, whether or not it’s his cup of tea, should be rewarded for it.

EDIT: (I for one am terrified of WvW. I’m still going to go for it and see if I can find some kind souls to help me get my completion.)

I personally like to PvP or WvW only when I know I’m not going to get too involved and ruin my day.

The map completion requirement pulls me in pre-involved.

However, if they must do it this way I have one really easy suggestion: Take out all of the cap point POIs and vistas and replace them with open points.

I actually had a lot of fun despite my reluctance when I ran around WvW capping the camp POIs and open vistas. Waiting around for the right server rotation or time of day for the keep and tower POIs however… not fun.

I Just don’t understand all the anger about this. Okay sure it can be really frustrating to wait a week or two or three until your team has the right color, but hey I want to throw my computer across the room after every 3rd try on a jumping puzzle. And I know others have issue with that as well and you don’t see threads whining about how all the vistas should be able to be reached without jumping. I know I’m only one case but I got my 100% map completion and yes parts of it where difficult or frustrating but that’s part of the deal if it was really easy no one would be composing about this cause no one would care. And about the legendary part if you are going to spend all that time gathering all the other materials but you are going to whine about spending a few hours in WvW? Getting a legendary is hard and you have to do all sorts of things oh and for those who missed it you need badges of honor to make a legendary too. I don’t even love or really like WvW but I just can’t believe how silly this seems.

And by the way it’s not like anyone strips you of your armor or steals all your gold when you die. I’ve died lots of times in PvE and WvW and its no different.

DarkWasp.7291:

I personally like to PvP or WvW only when I know I’m not going to get too involved and ruin my day.

The map completion requirement pulls me in pre-involved.

However, if they must do it this way I have one really easy suggestion: Take out all of the cap point POIs and vistas and replace them with open points.

I actually had a lot of fun despite my reluctance when I ran around WvW capping the camp POIs and open vistas. Waiting around for the right server rotation or time of day for the keep and tower POIs however… not fun.

Oh, they’re not all available when you go into WvW? I assumed it was just a matter of getting to the points without dying. Sounds inconvenient, but hey, it still beats trying for map completion in real life. ^u^

I agree with the OP I feel the sameway too . They really should make WvW a seperate entity than PvE.

I discovered this wonderful fact when I hit 95% completion, and I’m still mad about it. I also feel it ruined WvW for me permanently, as feeling forced to be there makes me hate it. Not annoyance or dislike, but cold, black hearted hatred for a game mode that I might have tried out and enjoyed on my own if it had been my choice.

Coltz.5617:

I agree with the OP I feel the sameway too . They really should make WvW a seperate entity than PvE.

I’m sorry to break it to you, but Anet has stated multiple times that their goal is to bring the playerbase together; more than likely, they’re going to try to encourage more overlap between PvE and PvP/WvW rather than less.

i’ve never quite understood the blind reliance on metrics. it’s like a sports fan saying that they don’t need to actually watch the games, they just need to check out the stats. it always has to begin with a wealth of first hand experience, and then numbers can be used to break down and help look further in depth at small portions of whatever is being analyzed. in many cases, simply looking at the numbers gives a false impression of the reality they quantify. there are numerous key factors that they can’t possibly cover. assuming that the numbers mean anything without the first hand experience to go with it, it’s pretty much a guarantee that you’ll misinterpret them. and when operating based off of that misinterpretation, the wrong conclusions will be drawn, and the wrong direction will be traveled. numbers are meant to compliment first hand knowledge, not replace it.

that aside, complaints about map completion in WvW have been around since day 1. the positive of map completion is that it brings players into different portions of the game. many WvW players originally came in solely for map completion and fell in love with something they never would have experienced otherwise. however, it also comes with some drawbacks. there are players who feel coerced into playing something they have no interest, and that results in resentment from those players. resentment does not lead to the supporting a product. then there are also players who come in solely for map completion and have zero concern for anyone else there, or the situation at the time. these are the players that come in during reset night, or any other time when the map is queued, and quite frankly are just dead weight. they’re very very much on par with people who were doing the same things with the jumping puzzles, to get the badges needed for their legendary. it also contributes to the fair weather syndrome, as well as karma training. if a commander is running a karma train, they’re far more likely to have people join who wish to have a much better chance of getting POIs and vistas that they would have a much more difficult time getting otherwise. while a commander who wishes the play the game as intended (as stated many times by Anet employees) find that they quickly lose support and end up with a massive 3 man zerg to try to lock a borderland down with, while getting pounded by 25 man guild groups. which in turn leads to frustration and resentment on that commander’s part, which quickly leads to burn out.

i believer, however, that darkwasp came up with an excellent solution to at least mitigate some of these problems. if the cap points are left out in the open, people can just run up to the places and get them quickly, then decide where to go from there. less pressure for commanders to run karma trains (though it certainly doesn’t relieve the majoity of that pressure). less resentment from the playerbase. less queues being clogged by people who have zero desire to help in their server’s efforts (yet have no problem reaping the benefits of the bonuses provided by WvW). less incentive to not play the game as intended. fewer complain threads on the forums. far fewer people being turned off by the game, and leaving for alternatives. all of which would result in a much more positive and enjoyable experience overall. players would still need to come in, so there would still be people becoming new regulars in WvW, though perhaps not quite as many as before.

This wasn’t so bad before the WvW season when colors were much more randomized and servers changed colors more frequently. The problem for T1 now is that the rankings won’t be changing for a long time now and we have almost no chance for randomized matchups, which were adjusted so non-T1 servers wouldn’t get stomped and T1 would have competition.

I don’t mind doing WvW, but when I zone in the odds of me getting Blackgate’s EB keep during a couple hours of playtime might as well be 0. Anet needs to simply rotate colors consistently, keep track of each servers past couple matchs and the server that has gone the longest not being a certain color gets that color. Players win, Anet wins (unless it is their plan for players to buy gems for server transfers), and we can all be more or less happy about map completion because at the very worst it should be doable over the course of a month.

This still doesn’t help servers with little or no WvW population and I’m not sure how to fix that issue, but it is a start.

Suck it up dude. I finished my 100% map completion recently. Getting a legendary is matter of going through all game modes, I actually wish making one needed a pvp goal as well, but you can’t bring legendaries to pvp.

Wvw isn’t hard man I was there during peak of the season on Eredon Terrace, we are the absolute bottom server in wvw, but I still got my map completion easy.

Besides, I started enjoying wvw. It’s an awesome game mode. Try it out.

Wreave.2138:

BTW, I’ve seen this discussion on multiple MMO, so I’ve seen all of the standard counterarguments.

XXX is supposed to be hard.
Answer: Well mapping really isn’t hard. It’s just thorough. But it’s inherently a PvE achievement, not a PvP one. If that’s not clear enough, Colin makes it clear in his quote that its there specifically to get PvE’ers into PvP.

XXX is supposed represent the whole game:
Well, no its not. If it were thorough, then it would include all of the other PvP maps. And again, see Colin’s quote.

XXX is not that hard! I managed it with a little luck.
Good for you, but, 1) its still coercion, and 2) its harder for other folks who are on servers that are weak in PvP.

XXX we all have to do something we don’t like. PvPers have to run dungeons, etc.
No matter what similarities there are between PvP and PvE mechanics, they are very different both in play and in psychology. There are people who play both, and there are people who do not want to touch the other with a 10’ pole. MMOs should respect that and quit trying to coerce one type of player to be the other type of player.

Sheesh, you talk coercion and all.

Guess what? Nobody’s coercing you to do map completion.

Raeysa Penrose.8450:

Coltz.5617:

I agree with the OP I feel the sameway too . They really should make WvW a seperate entity than PvE.

I’m sorry to break it to you, but Anet has stated multiple times that their goal is to bring the playerbase together; more than likely, they’re going to try to encourage more overlap between PvE and PvP/WvW rather than less.

Yes i know , I am most devastated lol … At the very least they shouldn’t coerce us into doing things we don’t like. or subtly manipulate people to go WvW if they want 100% map completion.

Mochann; If I take what is dearest to you so you will come and find me, isn’t it true that I coerce you to find me? nobody told you to come get it

Raeysa Penrose.8450:

Coltz.5617:

I agree with the OP I feel the sameway too . They really should make WvW a seperate entity than PvE.

I’m sorry to break it to you, but Anet has stated multiple times that their goal is to bring the playerbase together; more than likely, they’re going to try to encourage more overlap between PvE and PvP/WvW rather than less.

ArenaNet is naive if they think it’s good for the game to force players into PvP. Even sillier, it’s a mode (WvW) where you can either easily get in (odd hours, your server is losing) and get stuck in a queue (prime time or your server is winning). What fun — NOT.

Making PvP mandatory drives many people I know away from the game.

Metrics is used because you can’t get a proper polling of players on their likes and dislikes.

I’m willing to bet the “all the things you liked about Guild Wars” came from metrics.

Sytherek.7689:

Raeysa Penrose.8450:

Coltz.5617:

I agree with the OP I feel the sameway too . They really should make WvW a seperate entity than PvE.

I’m sorry to break it to you, but Anet has stated multiple times that their goal is to bring the playerbase together; more than likely, they’re going to try to encourage more overlap between PvE and PvP/WvW rather than less.

ArenaNet is naive if they think it’s good for the game to force players into PvP. Even sillier, it’s a mode (WvW) where you can either easily get in (odd hours, your server is losing) and get stuck in a queue (prime time or your server is winning). What fun — NOT.

Making PvP mandatory drives many people I know away from the game.

Actually it is sillier still since all they are doing is have WvW unfriendly vulnerable players running around feeding people that likes WvW and tear a rank gap between those that like WvW and people who don’t. Hence discouraging the people that doesn’t like WvW to dislike it further as they feel more distant and hard to catch up.

Kitrine, like I said I’ve seen this discussion many times since it shows up for every MMO where the game maker pulls this sort of thing. So I’m a little jaundiced about having to explain something that seems perfectly obvious to me.

Let me give some theory: Good achievements encourage you to do things that you already want to do. They’re sort of desire-enhancers. They give you a little psychological extra push, and they help you recognize when you’ve hit the goal. If an achievement is for something that you don’t really want to do, then you most likely won’t do it. (Unless, 1) there’s a substantial reward for completing it, or 2) you’re extremely obsessive about completing stuff.)

Second point. There are fundamentally different types of players playing the game. Consequently, different types of achievements appeal to them. Categories reflect these different tastes, e.g. Slayer vs Crafting vs Exploration vs. PvP.

Third Point: Meta achievements should be fully consistent with their subachievements. E.g. a Rare Mob meta would have you kill all rare mobs. Such an achievement basically says, “You did your thing, in a really big way. Gratz!”

In short, Achievements should not be commanders demanding that we do things, rather they’re more like watchers/heralds that note and celebrate that we’ve completed something that we want to do already.

The division between PvE and PvP players is the strongest division between player types in the game. Granted, there are other divisions (e.g. between solo and group players), but PvP vs PvE is the strongest. That division is there because the two things appeal to primarily different impulses — to compete or to cooperate. This fundamental division indicates that PvP achievements should very separate from PvE achievements.

But.. Game companies frequently jam PvP into PvE metas. Why? Because PvP players are stickier. PvE players dislike this, sometimes intensely, but companies keep doing it anyway. And the only reasonable explanation for that is that companies expect to make more money off pvp players, and they’re willing to alienate some PvE players in hopes that they’ll get some PvE players to start PvPing.

In short, achievements, especially meta achievements, should be celebrating what the player likes to do. They should not be about coercing the player to do something that they don’t want to do.

(And side note, when achievements start mixing in stuff that doesn’t belong, they actually become disincentives rather than incentives. Because the exploration achievement mixes in pvp stuff that doesn’t belong, it actually discourages me from doing things that I would otherwise do, because the crowning achievement for that is denied to me unless I do something that I don’t want to do — and which doesn’t belong in the achievement — namely PvP.)

Kitrine to speak to your specific example.
1) Vistas and jumping puzzles fit the fundamental mindset of PvE. So they generally fit well with the category.
2) They are present in all of minor achievement, i.e. in all of the zones where you do exploration, and all of the zones have vistas which have a fair degree of jumping involved. I.e. its not the case that you can do 95% of the achievement and then suddenly find that you can’t do the last 5% without doing something completely different.
3) Attitude. You complain about “whining” twice in your post, complain about silliness of PvEers and then strawman a PvE position. That’s reflective to me of the issues many of us PvE’ers have with PvPers. The endless put downs. That’s why a lot of PvE’ers avoid PvP — cause we just don’t like the attitude that comes so consistently with it.

Wreave I appreciate your long thought out post, however I do have a few issues.

1) I am not a PvP player, I am PvE with a taste of WvW basically I am one of the people who these metrics talk about I guess. Don’t PvE players also perpetuate this us vs them mind set by thinking all PvP players are mean or don’t don’t also do PvE content?

2) I don’t believe it could really be a complete surprise to anyone who made it all the way to 95% that WvW us involved this information is in many sources as stated by debs and quoted in this thread, as well as on the wiki or the forms.

3) you do get a reward for the percentage you complete as you already get a reward from each zone you complete. It’s not like you can get to 95% without getting any rewards.

4)I guess I can’t help but see people making threads about the same thing over and over again complaining, but I voiced my opinion and you have a right to yours good luck with your crusade. Even though the devs said they are never going to change it.

It’s funny cause my whole issue with this thread it’s I’m on the devs side, I don’t see why encouraging players to try new things and experience e this open middle ground as a bad thing. It makes the community more of a connected community with different ways to play and less of different games under the same title.

Raeysa Penrose.8450:

Coltz.5617:

I agree with the OP I feel the sameway too . They really should make WvW a seperate entity than PvE.

I’m sorry to break it to you, but Anet has stated multiple times that their goal is to bring the playerbase together; more than likely, they’re going to try to encourage more overlap between PvE and PvP/WvW rather than less.

They said this in the Q&A that the OP quotes. I don’t understand it myself but that is their goal and they are quite open about it. They also think that if people need to go into an area they will eventually like it, I don’t understand that philosophy either but I just play the game I don’t make the rules.

Kitrine.5913:

Wreave I appreciate your long thought out post, however I do have a few issues.

1) I am not a PvP player, I am PvE with a taste of WvW basically I am one of the people who these metrics talk about I guess. Don’t PvE players also perpetuate this us vs them mind set by thinking all PvP players are mean or don’t don’t also do PvE content?

2) I don’t believe it could really be a complete surprise to anyone who made it all the way to 95% that WvW us involved this information is in many sources as stated by debs and quoted in this thread, as well as on the wiki or the forms.

3) you do get a reward for the percentage you complete as you already get a reward from each zone you complete. It’s not like you can get to 95% without getting any rewards.

4)I guess I can’t help but see people making threads about the same thing over and over again complaining, but I voiced my opinion and you have a right to yours good luck with your crusade. Even though the devs said they are never going to change it.

It’s funny cause my whole issue with this thread it’s I’m on the devs side, I don’t see why encouraging players to try new things and experience e this open middle ground as a bad thing. It makes the community more of a connected community with different ways to play and less of different games under the same title.

well, if you put it like that i agree players should be encouraged.. but they are forcing us.

Behellagh.1468:

Metrics is used because you can’t get a proper polling of players on their likes and dislikes.

I’m willing to bet the “all the things you liked about Guild Wars” came from metrics.

The problem is not with metrics in general. If I were there, I would running as many metrics as I could. The problem in this case is that measuring “how many times did this result in PvE players starting to PvP” is much easier to measure than “how many times did this result in PvE players playing the game less or outright quitting”.

Example: In July, Rift was having server or internet problems that resulted in very bad downtime for a day. I threatened to cancel my sub if they didn’t fix it soon enough. They didn’t and I canceled. The did fix it a little later, but I just didn’t have enough motivation to restart it and then I quit playing the game altogether. But server issue wasn’t really the problem, that was just the last straw. The real reason that I quit was something that they did with the lore a year and half before that, that so ticked me off that my threshold for quitting the game was much lower.

Now, aside from actually asking me, what metric would they have as for why I quit paying a sub? The only obvious correlation is with the network issue, but in fact, that wasn’t the real reason.

Regarding metrics for design: Some, but far from the majority. GW2 design was based on philosophy, which in turn was based on experience with GW1 plus the designers previous experience from other games.

Now, post release… Yeah, I think that metrics have played a larger role in design (as it should).

It’s just that when using metrics you also have to keep a firm eye on your blind spots — the things that metrics can’t easily measure.

I’ll point out GW2’s design is strongly focused on supporting the PvE mindset in the regular world, in making players “glad to see other players”. E.g. individual mining nodes, rezzing, separate loot, etc. But jamming PvP (WvW) play into PvE meta doesn’t fit that philosophy. I’m surprised and very disappointed that its in there.

You aren’t being coerced to PvP, you’re overreacting. It’s like the monster under the bed. Once you get down and look under the bed you’ll see there’s no monster at all. Anet’s not trying to coerce you, there’s just too much hype and inaccurate hyperbole about it being some epic battleground when it’s really pretty much just another open world.

WvW maps are huge. Even on packed, competitive, large servers where the maximum amount of players are playing WvW you can completely avoid contact with other players for long stretches of time. Starting corners of the map are on a rotation so you’ll never have to get your realm to conquer an area to make it safe to explore*. If you want to completely avoid pvp combat you can just treat it as any other time gated activity in the game.

Side note: There’s no indication or reward for 100% map completion that’s strictly pve.

*bold part: This I’ve noticed is what a lot of people don’t realize when their heart stops upon hearing they have to explore in wvw to get their 100%.

Kitrine.5913:

Wreave I appreciate your long thought out post, however I do have a few issues.

1) I am not a PvP player, I am PvE with a taste of WvW basically I am one of the people who these metrics talk about I guess. Don’t PvE players also perpetuate this us vs them mind set by thinking all PvP players are mean or don’t don’t also do PvE content?

You’re strawmaning. And no, recognizing the attitude does not create the attitude.

Regarding put downs and derision, they’re absolutely common in the PvP posters that I’ve seen in forums across various MMOs. But no, “common” is not the same as “everyone”.

The fact that PvP vs PvE is the strongest division in gameplay does not mean that everyone belongs in one camp or the other. I’d say at least a 1/3 of the players do both regularly. At least. But it still provides the strongest and most striking division between player mindsets.

2) I don’t believe it could really be a complete surprise to anyone who made it all the way to 95% that WvW us involved this information is in many sources as stated by debs and quoted in this thread, as well as on the wiki or the forms.

Well, I made it to 70% without realizing it, and I’m not a complete nitwit. If I hadn’t happened to read that article recently, I could easily have made it close to 95% before it struck me as odd that I wasn’t as close to 100% as I should be. Keep in mind that:

• GW2 generally does a very good job of separating PvE from PvP.
• The world map shows map completion. Why would completing all zones in the displayed world map NOT grant 100%?? That just doesn’t make sense. If other (non-map zones) were required, then that fact should be indicated on the main map.

3) you do get a reward for the percentage you complete as you already get a reward from each zone you complete. It’s not like you can get to 95% without getting any rewards.

100% is the meta for completing all of the individual zones. The meta should not include stuff that is not representative of the smaller achievements. It would be like Rare Mob meta that required 95% rare mob kills, and 5% crafting doohickeys and selling them on the TP. That last 5% just doesn’t fit and would feel forced, especially to someone who loves killing rares and hates crafting and trading.

4)I guess I can’t help but see people making threads about the same thing over and over again complaining, but I voiced my opinion and you have a right to yours good luck with your crusade. Even though the devs said they are never going to change it.

Hmm… Well this is my first thread on the topic. So what you’re seeing is a lot of different people unhappy with the same thing. And one thread does not qualify as a crusade probably. And devs did not say “never”.

It’s funny cause my whole issue with this thread it’s I’m on the devs side, I don’t see why encouraging players to try new things and experience e this open middle ground as a bad thing. It makes the community more of a connected community with different ways to play and less of different games under the same title.

Because they’re not encouraging. They’re coercing.

Now where you draw that encourage/coercing line is debatable. But we do have clear example of encouraging already (Mist warriors hawking the Mist war, achievements under dailies and monthlies, etc.) But I laid out the basics of achievement design, and by those design rules, PvP simply should not be mixed into what is clearly a PvE meta. Putting it in there is done only to get people who really want that Meta to do something other than that meta. And “coercion” I think is apt description of that level of force.

Oniyui.8279:

You aren’t being coerced to PvP, you’re overreacting. It’s like the monster under the bed. Once you get down and look under the bed you’ll see there’s no monster at all. Anet’s not trying to coerce you, there’s just too much hype and inaccurate hyperbole about it being some epic battleground when it’s really pretty much just another open world.

WvW maps are huge. Even on packed, competitive, large servers where the maximum amount of players are playing WvW you can completely avoid contact with other players for long stretches of time. Starting corners of the map are on a rotation so you’ll never have to get your realm to conquer an area to make it safe to explore*. If you want to completely avoid pvp combat you can just treat it as any other time gated activity in the game.

Side note: There’s no indication or reward for 100% map completion that’s strictly pve.

*bold part: This I’ve noticed is what a lot of people don’t realize when their heart stops upon hearing they have to explore in wvw to get their 100%.

We’re being coerced to WvW not PvP, and all you suggested shows we still must be in WvW not able to avoid it.

Wreave.2138:

Because they’re not encouraging. They’re coercing.

Now where you draw that encourage/coercing line is debatable. But we do have clear example of encouraging already (Mist warriors hawking the Mist war, achievements under dailies and monthlies, etc.) But I laid out the basics of achievement design, and by those design rules, PvP simply should not be mixed into what is clearly a PvE meta. Putting it in there is done only to get people who really want that Meta to do something other than that meta. And “coercion” I think is apt description of that level of force.

co·er·cion
k???rZH?n,-SH?n/
noun
1.
the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats.

Map completion gives you an optional reward to get a legendary. They’re encouraging you to try WvW by making it a requirement for an optional reward.

Coltz.5617:

Oniyui.8279:

You aren’t being coerced to PvP, you’re overreacting. It’s like the monster under the bed. Once you get down and look under the bed you’ll see there’s no monster at all. Anet’s not trying to coerce you, there’s just too much hype and inaccurate hyperbole about it being some epic battleground when it’s really pretty much just another open world.

WvW maps are huge. Even on packed, competitive, large servers where the maximum amount of players are playing WvW you can completely avoid contact with other players for long stretches of time. Starting corners of the map are on a rotation so you’ll never have to get your realm to conquer an area to make it safe to explore*. If you want to completely avoid pvp combat you can just treat it as any other time gated activity in the game.

Side note: There’s no indication or reward for 100% map completion that’s strictly pve.

*bold part: This I’ve noticed is what a lot of people don’t realize when their heart stops upon hearing they have to explore in wvw to get their 100%.

We’re being coerced to WvW not PvP, and all you suggested shows we still must be in WvW not able to avoid it.

All I’m suggesting is to look at WvW another way. They’re just maps. Just because it’s called WvW instead of PvE doesn’t mean the gameplay is drastically altered. The only factor that is different is player vs player combat can happen there. If it’s not player vs player combat you’re trying to avoid in WvW then for all other purposes WvW maps are like any other maps in the game. You may as well be arguing that you don’t want to explore cities and you’re upset that cities are unavoidable to get 100%. It’s overreacting.

Regarding player anger about it I agree something could be done to summarize how WvW works and exactly what to expect in WvW in comparison to PvE maps.

Coltz.5617:

Oniyui.8279:

You aren’t being coerced to PvP, you’re overreacting. It’s like the monster under the bed. Once you get down and look under the bed you’ll see there’s no monster at all. Anet’s not trying to coerce you, there’s just too much hype and inaccurate hyperbole about it being some epic battleground when it’s really pretty much just another open world.

WvW maps are huge. Even on packed, competitive, large servers where the maximum amount of players are playing WvW you can completely avoid contact with other players for long stretches of time. Starting corners of the map are on a rotation so you’ll never have to get your realm to conquer an area to make it safe to explore*. If you want to completely avoid pvp combat you can just treat it as any other time gated activity in the game.

Side note: There’s no indication or reward for 100% map completion that’s strictly pve.

*bold part: This I’ve noticed is what a lot of people don’t realize when their heart stops upon hearing they have to explore in wvw to get their 100%.

We’re being coerced to WvW not PvP, and all you suggested shows we still must be in WvW not able to avoid it.

You aren’t being “coerced” to WvW. All you need to do is to run around and collect what you need. With any sort of luck you needn’t have any contact with other players at all. Its just a map! Avoid the action!

I’ve been saying this since the first two weeks of the game when I realized it myself.

Having mixed PVP and PVE activities is fine in and of itself. But forcing PVP into a PVE achievement, or vise versa, is always, I repeat, always bad. There is no arguing that.

That being said, I don’t believe they will change it simply because I’ve been here since the BWE and the head start watching it remain the same.

For all the good things about ArenaNet, they are so bad at polish and bug fixing that it’s nothing short of astounding. I’m sure they could do it, of course, but it’s like they just don’t feel it’s worth devoting resources to.

This isn’t a bug, it’s a design flaw and a glaringly obvious one. To compound the issue is the fact that Colin said he didn’t feel it needed to be changed. There’s no chance of changing it once one of the head guys says nada.

Still, I won’t quit over it. But I do block it out of my mind when I look at that medal, forever stuck at 95%. Could I do it? Probably. Will I? Never. I made a pact. I will never enter WvW at all until it’s changed. And I’ll be happy to continue that till the servers shut down. But that part of the achievement is not happening.

/rant over

Zale.9645:

I’ve been saying this since the first two weeks of the game when I realized it myself.

Having mixed PVP and PVE activities is fine in and of itself. But forcing PVP into a PVE achievement, or vise versa, is always, I repeat, always bad. There is no arguing that.

That being said, I don’t believe they will change it simply because I’ve been here since the BWE and the head start watching it remain the same.

For all the good things about ArenaNet, they are so bad at polish and bug fixing that it’s nothing short of astounding. I’m sure they could do it, of course, but it’s like they just don’t feel it’s worth devoting resources to.

This isn’t a bug, it’s a design flaw and a glaringly obvious one. To compound the issue is the fact that Colin said he didn’t feel it needed to be changed. There’s no chance of changing it once one of the head guys says nada.

Still, I won’t quit over it. But I do block it out of my mind when I look at that medal, forever stuck at 95%. Could I do it? Probably. Will I? Never. I made a pact. I will never enter WvW at all until it’s changed. And I’ll be happy to continue that till the servers shut down. But that part of the achievement is not happening.

/rant over

Honestly, that sounds like more of a personal problem than anything. If you’re perfectly capable of doing it but don’t want to, no one can make you, and that’s just fine.

Raeysa Penrose.8450:

Zale.9645:

I’ve been saying this since the first two weeks of the game when I realized it myself.

Having mixed PVP and PVE activities is fine in and of itself. But forcing PVP into a PVE achievement, or vise versa, is always, I repeat, always bad. There is no arguing that.

That being said, I don’t believe they will change it simply because I’ve been here since the BWE and the head start watching it remain the same.

For all the good things about ArenaNet, they are so bad at polish and bug fixing that it’s nothing short of astounding. I’m sure they could do it, of course, but it’s like they just don’t feel it’s worth devoting resources to.

This isn’t a bug, it’s a design flaw and a glaringly obvious one. To compound the issue is the fact that Colin said he didn’t feel it needed to be changed. There’s no chance of changing it once one of the head guys says nada.

Still, I won’t quit over it. But I do block it out of my mind when I look at that medal, forever stuck at 95%. Could I do it? Probably. Will I? Never. I made a pact. I will never enter WvW at all until it’s changed. And I’ll be happy to continue that till the servers shut down. But that part of the achievement is not happening.

/rant over

Honestly, that sounds like more of a personal problem than anything. If you’re perfectly capable of doing it but don’t want to, no one can make you, and that’s just fine.

The point is that it shouldn’t be that way and even though I know it probably won’t change, I refuse to do it on principle.

Zale.9645:

Raeysa Penrose.8450:

Zale.9645:

I’ve been saying this since the first two weeks of the game when I realized it myself.

Having mixed PVP and PVE activities is fine in and of itself. But forcing PVP into a PVE achievement, or vise versa, is always, I repeat, always bad. There is no arguing that.

That being said, I don’t believe they will change it simply because I’ve been here since the BWE and the head start watching it remain the same.

For all the good things about ArenaNet, they are so bad at polish and bug fixing that it’s nothing short of astounding. I’m sure they could do it, of course, but it’s like they just don’t feel it’s worth devoting resources to.

This isn’t a bug, it’s a design flaw and a glaringly obvious one. To compound the issue is the fact that Colin said he didn’t feel it needed to be changed. There’s no chance of changing it once one of the head guys says nada.

Still, I won’t quit over it. But I do block it out of my mind when I look at that medal, forever stuck at 95%. Could I do it? Probably. Will I? Never. I made a pact. I will never enter WvW at all until it’s changed. And I’ll be happy to continue that till the servers shut down. But that part of the achievement is not happening.

/rant over

Honestly, that sounds like more of a personal problem than anything. If you’re perfectly capable of doing it but don’t want to, no one can make you, and that’s just fine.

The point is that it shouldn’t be that way and even though I know it probably won’t change, I refuse to do it on principle.

Okay. Have fun with that. If you ever change your mind, I could certainly use a hand navigating the map because PvP/WvW sounds scary.

From a purely personal perspective, Sure, I was not a happy bunny when I realized I had to do WvW map completion before getting 100% world map completion (over a year ago? something like that). However on the upside, I am kind of grateful it was there, as I would not have even thought of going into WvW beforehand, thinking it was for elite players only. No idea where I got that notion from, but there we go lol.

Shadey Dancer.2907:

From a purely personal perspective, Sure, I was not a happy bunny when I realized I had to do WvW map completion before getting 100% world map completion (over a year ago? something like that). However on the upside, I am kind of grateful it was there, as I would not have even thought of going into WvW beforehand, thinking it was for elite players only. No idea where I got that notion from, but there we go lol.

It’s not for elite players only?

Zale.9645:

But forcing PVP into a PVE achievement, or vise versa, is always, I repeat, always bad. There is no arguing that.

It’s not a PvE achievement.

You’ll find it in the General tab, under the Hero section.