Guild Wars 2

This is a question for those competing on the achievement leaderboards, or those who have been trying to get on them as well. The point of this post is to start a discussion around dailies achievements. This is not an attempt to complain about the current game, but rather to discuss if we like where it is heading, or would like to see some changes.

If you are not someone on the achievement boards, please do not make posts about people having nolife, or being OCD and needing to complete “optional” content. Part of this discussion will be about whether or not this content feels optional for those that compete on the leaderboards.

The Question
What are your thoughts around the amount of daily achievement points available, and the time it takes to get them all?

Additional Questions to help the conversation
For reference, where do you place on the leaderboards? I image the desire to get all daily achievements increases the higher you are on the leaderboards.

How many hours do you have available to play each day?

Do you go for all achievement points from the dailies, or do you just get most and hope that is enough to position yourself of the leaderboards?

If more dailies keep being added, will you continue to compete on the leaderboards?

What do you think are the intentions of having so many daily achievements and the time it would take to get them all?

Are there better options you would like to see?

My Thoughts/Information
I will start off by saying that I am currently placed at #2 NA. I am the sort of gamer that likes to play all aspects of the game, and enjoy going for achievements. When the leaderboards were introduced, I found myself at #32 and my interest in climbing the boards was formed.

I will say that I do strive to get all daily achievements done as I am trying to acquire all achievement points that I can. I remember a time when dailies would take 20 minutes tops to complete and then I would move on to the other achievements i was working on. I don’t mind that more dailies have been added, and more options have been added, but I would rather not see this number keep increasing. It is already getting to the point where if I want to do dailies, that is all I’m focusing on for my playtime. This does not leave room for getting other achievements, or just enjoying other parts of the game. I understand that many will say we don;t “need” to do all the dailies, but honestly, the number of dailies that are completed is the reason why people are at the top of the achievement boards.

I’m curios of what the reasoning for the increasing number of achievements/time of dailies is. Do they want to have so many dailies that people stop trying to go for all of them? I believe its safe to say that if you are on the leaderboards, you are going to want to get all daily achievement points that you can.

For me, I think an hour for PvE dailies and the current 20-30min for PvP dailies would be a good spot to stop. I think this is manageable for the types of players that would want to compete on the achievement boards, and it would allow room for players to do other things with there time.

Other options to make dailies truely feel like we have “options” might be to give out achievement points when you ahve completed the 5/5 dailies and not for each individual daily. If this option was to be implemented, I would suggest the 5/5 be increase to 8/8 or 10/10.

Another option, which could allow those with “a life” more freedom could be to change some of this daily content to weekly. Let people play on the days they want to play, without making it feel like you are missing out daily.

In closing
This should be a discussion for those on the leaderboards about how they want to see the game develop. This should be similar to a PvP player discussing this they do, or do not, want to see in PvP. Please do not just post that dailies are “optional” without providing any opinion about it. If making changes would not affect you in anyway due to your lack of interest in the achievement boards, please do not come in here and post that the current daily trend is fine.

Lets be polite and discuss how we would like to see the game.

I used to try…I’ve stopped. For example, I used to do the SPvP daily every day, in addition to the other dailies. But I’ve enjoyed the game more since I’ve stopped trying..and I’m still in the top 500 somehow.

I must play too much.

Vayne.8563:

I used to try…I’ve stopped. For example, I used to do the SPvP daily every day, in addition to the other dailies. But I’ve enjoyed the game more since I’ve stopped trying..and I’m still in the top 500 somehow.

I must play too much.

A few questions to see where you are coming from:

Are you still trying to place higher on the achievement boards, or have you stopped caring about your positioning?

Why did you stop doing dailies?

Are there any changes they could make that you would try to place on the AP boards again?

i tryed to be at least the first in my guild, but i had such hard core competitors that it was driving me crazy. i went for all dailies for at least a week, sure my number increased but i was starting to hating certain aspects of the game that i really don’t enjoy that much.
same goes for all event achievement, even the long grindable one to the point i started complaining on this very forum about it.
now i do only the one i like and only the one that i’m actually able to do.
i’m struggling with the queen’s gauntlet due to visual and general noobness, but i’m not losing my sleep on it as i would have done some weeks ago.
i feel better now and i enjoy the game for what it is.
achievement collecting for me was really ruining my experience and destroying my temper

Ewon.5903:

Vayne.8563:

I used to try…I’ve stopped. For example, I used to do the SPvP daily every day, in addition to the other dailies. But I’ve enjoyed the game more since I’ve stopped trying..and I’m still in the top 500 somehow.

I must play too much.

A few questions to see where you are coming from:

Are you still trying to place higher on the achievement boards, or have you stopped caring about your positioning?

Why did you stop doing dailies?

Are there any changes they could make that you would try to place on the AP boards again?

I stopped caring about where I place, I still do dailies when I can…if they’re not out of my way or if I like them…or to encourage me to do new things.

Well, as someone who has been trying to get on the leaderboards (90% 8500AP) and only has 1 – 2 hours to play on the weekdays, I can say that my playtime largely revolves around completing all the dailies. I wish it wasn’t that way though, I’d like to run dungeons that take more time or do other things in game that don’t revolve around the checklist. I think that if the APs tied to the dailies/monthlies were rewarded upon completing the 5/5 (or 4/4) it would greatly reduce the problem I’m facing.

Okay, I start with an assumption, but I think it is a rather probable one: Before account rewards, only a very small part of the player community was interested in AP totals. It is a good thing that you can chase after AP in various ways every day. If people invested in the leaderboards see those as a problem, remove time related AP from the boards completely, just do not touch them for the rest of us in game.

But that will cause an additional problem for competitive “leaderboarders”. I guess if you chase after them, dedicated people will quickly have completed all or most of the “normal” achievements – and everyone will end up with equal scores. Which is cool by me, as I do not care about leaderboards at all – but for competitive people there… I doubt that would be a satisfying situation for them.

Algreg.3629:

If people invested in the leaderboards see those as a problem, remove time related AP from the boards completely, just do not touch them for the rest of us in game.

Yes, I’m strictly talking about the AP given for these dailies. i don;t think the options for more casual players, or just those not seeking AP, should be removed.

I think its fine to have some dailies, or even the weekly idea, for AP, but I don’t think they should keep adding more time required.

So far it seems several people did enjoy getting achievements, but the fun has been taken away. In some cases people might have changed their own interest, but some seems to be directly due to the time it takes for dailies. Maybe it is just me, but i see this as a bit of a problem in the current system.

Ewon.5903:

Algreg.3629:

If people invested in the leaderboards see those as a problem, remove time related AP from the boards completely, just do not touch them for the rest of us in game.

Yes, I’m strictly talking about the AP given for these dailies. i don;t think the options for more casual players, or just those not seeking AP, should be removed.

I think its fine to have some dailies, or even the weekly idea, for AP, but I don’t think they should keep adding more time required.

So far it seems several people did enjoy getting achievements, but the fun has been taken away. In some cases people might have changed their own interest, but some seems to be directly due to the time it takes for dailies. Maybe it is just me, but i see this as a bit of a problem in the current system.

as I am not completly sure what your pov is, I clarify mine – I like to have all those AP available in game (additional dailies etc) but suggested remove them from the scores on the leaderboard if they cause problems there. In that regard, I cannot follow the casual/time argument. Those rewards are permanent and attainable by everyone, just at a different pace. I see them as a matter of choice (yes, the good ol´optional argument). You can develop a compulsion concerning many things in a MMO, that is no argument for removing additional daily/monthly AP. Just ignore them if you feel under pressure. The achievement chests will not disappear because of this.

Hello Ewon,

currently I am in top 150 EU, but I stopped doing dailies 4-5 months ago… I was top 20 EU back than.

I stopped doing every single daily achievement because it took 3 hour every day. I didn’t have time to do anything else at all. I think that it’s too high price… I am pvp player and I don’t really want to spend all my free time on doing dailies. These days I am only doing fast 5 pve dailies and pvp dailies – but it still takes too much time…

There is, in my opinion, one good solution, that would help. If the daily cap points was like 5 points per day, you wouldn’t have to farm it and spend too much time on doing it. But this doesn’t change anything about new players, who can’t obviously catch up the top players. The solution would be making a daily cap, which would start at 5 000 points for example. I would grow for 5 points every day so first day it would be 5 000, second day 5 005, third day 5 010 and so… You would have a choice to for example “Kill 40 ascalonians.” but repeatable. So player who would kill 400 ascalonians would have 10 daily points. This would continue until they reach up the daily cap 5 000 + x*5 points (x being days).
What do you think about this?

Algreg.3629:

as I am not completly sure what your pov is, I clarify mine – I like to have all those AP available in game (additional dailies etc) but suggested remove them from the scores on the leaderboard if they cause problems there. In that regard, I cannot follow the casual/time argument. Those rewards are permanent and attainable by everyone, just at a different pace. I see them as a matter of choice (yes, the good ol´optional argument). You can develop a compulsion concerning many things in a MMO, that is no argument for removing additional daily/monthly AP. Just ignore them if you feel under pressure. The achievement chests will not disappear because of this.

If PvE dailies worked in a way that you can do 10/20 and then get the daily chest with 20AP in it, would you find that is still fine for you? The difference being that you currently get 1AP from each of teh 20, now you have the option of which 10 in the 20 to still get the 20AP.

I will also admit, I failed to think of the fact people are getting AP for the achievement chests. For me I’m not worried about getting a chest today, or a week from now. My focus is on the leaderboards strictly, so i will have a little bit of a different view on this.

Ewon.5903:

Algreg.3629:

as I am not completly sure what your pov is, I clarify mine – I like to have all those AP available in game (additional dailies etc) but suggested remove them from the scores on the leaderboard if they cause problems there. In that regard, I cannot follow the casual/time argument. Those rewards are permanent and attainable by everyone, just at a different pace. I see them as a matter of choice (yes, the good ol´optional argument). You can develop a compulsion concerning many things in a MMO, that is no argument for removing additional daily/monthly AP. Just ignore them if you feel under pressure. The achievement chests will not disappear because of this.

If PvE dailies worked in a way that you can do 10/20 and then get the daily chest with 20AP in it, would you find that is still fine for you? The difference being that you currently get 1AP from each of teh 20, now you have the option of which 10 in the 20 to still get the 20AP.

I will also admit, I failed to think of the fact people are getting AP for the achievement chests. For me I’m not worried about getting a chest today, or a week from now. My focus is on the leaderboards strictly, so i will have a little bit of a different view on this.

I meant the “big chests”, not the ones for daily and monthly completion.

Algreg.3629:

Ewon.5903:

Algreg.3629:

as I am not completly sure what your pov is, I clarify mine – I like to have all those AP available in game (additional dailies etc) but suggested remove them from the scores on the leaderboard if they cause problems there. In that regard, I cannot follow the casual/time argument. Those rewards are permanent and attainable by everyone, just at a different pace. I see them as a matter of choice (yes, the good ol´optional argument). You can develop a compulsion concerning many things in a MMO, that is no argument for removing additional daily/monthly AP. Just ignore them if you feel under pressure. The achievement chests will not disappear because of this.

If PvE dailies worked in a way that you can do 10/20 and then get the daily chest with 20AP in it, would you find that is still fine for you? The difference being that you currently get 1AP from each of teh 20, now you have the option of which 10 in the 20 to still get the 20AP.

I will also admit, I failed to think of the fact people are getting AP for the achievement chests. For me I’m not worried about getting a chest today, or a week from now. My focus is on the leaderboards strictly, so i will have a little bit of a different view on this.

I meant the “big chests”, not the ones for daily and monthly completion.

Yes I was referring to those as well, but proposing a method of getting points through the daily ones.

#120

Dailies awarding APs totally devalues rankings. Instead of rewarding doing interesting things it turns it in to rewarding consistent grinding.

If they cared at all about APs they’d remove the dailies altogether and instead introduce new permanent achievements every day, encouraging people to log on but not punishing them if they don’t. They could still award jugs if the newly introduced achievements were done within the day, but otherwise they’d simply award APs.

Imagine if every day a new tier of of 11 different achievement categories were added? Think about what that would do for the mindset of people playing the game.

You don’t feel like doing pvp today? Do it tomorrow, you wont be punished on the leaderboards for it.

You log on and want to get some APs? Well I have a week of PvE kills saved up until cap, I’ll get those done along with some Krytan Events, and Aquatic Kills.

Want to level an alt? Well now the grind will be reduced by stored up achievements that can be gotten just by playing normally.

They’d also be able to expand upon more than the 25 or so generic catagories they’re stuck with now due to the required global nature of the achievements. You can’t limit Kill Achievements to Frostgorge Sound because you can’t assume everyone has an 80. But if every 12 days you add a new tier to Frostgorge Sound slayer and that achievement is available forever then you know eventually players are going to reach 80 and are going to be able to get those points.

Hell you could even add an achievement for doing one specific Dynamic Event chain. Or for looting a specific item, use achievements to promote scavenging and thinking about what mobs in which location are likely to drop the item (or just cheat with Dulfy).

All around a more sane system, with healthier outcomes than time-locked content.

I was never on the leaderboard but was always just hovering below it. I never did enough PvP to get over the mark. I had about 7000 AP 2 months ago. I took those 2 months off from the game for various reasons and now have about 7500 AP.

I had interest at one point to get on there because I’m a title and achievement junky, or at least I thought I was. The issue I have is that it no longer feels important to me to do them. It became a chore rather than fun. It was part of the reason I needed to take a break. I was playing for 3 hours a day prior and now I play for an hour or two 3-4 times a week. It has become a much more enjoyable experience when it doesn’t feel like work. The way they are so heavily skewed towards daily tasks gives me little desire to accumulate more.

@Ewon, I am pretty much like Vayne and Amandan. When the LB first came out I was around 800, I worked my way up to I think it was 126th.
I realized at that point. To maintain or continue to climb how much time it was going to take. Understand. I do not begrudge those who wish to invest a huge amount of time for this. There are many people that play that way. To each their own. So I am not one to say people have no life.
I am going to answer the questions you put for Vayne.
Yes I have stopped caring about my position. It wasnt easy for me to make that choice. As I am the type of gamer that can really get caught up in that. I think I’m around 500 now. Since I force myself to not play for 2 weeks and now only do enough dailies to get reward. This choice, was again not easy for me to make since I love GW2 but because of the increase in dailies it really made it feel more like a job. Something I had to do. Which I did not like that feeling coming from a game.

I stopped doing dailies because of the amount of time I guess would be the answer to next question.

As far as changes to the LB, no I can’t say I have any. Because my new outlook, (which has made me really start enjoying the game again) is I really don’t care what happens on the LB. Honestly I wasn’t sure if I would be able to continue to play without having the LB driving me. But I am and thankful that I am no longer concerned about it.

Lets be honest there are lots of us players that are really driven and will actually lose sleep on getting that next achievement. Now even with the new living story. I only do enough to get the mini. 3 of the last living stories I didn’t even bother to finish. In the past I would have been up all night and hateful to everyone around me till I got it done.
At one point, I thought, maybe they should put a cap on maximum dailies one can earn like they did with dungeon/entropy. But I don’t see how that would be fair to those who spent all the time doing everything everday. Because eventually others would catch up to them.

@Ewon, At some point I had to ask myself when is enough, enough. And how long was I willing to continue to position myself on the leader board. A year? 2, 3 7?

Ultimatly thats what it came down to. I had to decide. Is my position on the leaderboard really worth that much time. Competing against people I never knew existed. For something that has no real value except self gratification in a game.
These points I really struggled with.

BTW you position is very impressive to say the least. Much dedication on your part. But you may wish to ask yourself. How much more dedication you are willing to have to maintain. And for how long.

Lonely Hermit.1967:

There is, in my opinion, one good solution, that would help. If the daily cap points was like 5 points per day, you wouldn’t have to farm it and spend too much time on doing it. But this doesn’t change anything about new players, who can’t obviously catch up the top players. The solution would be making a daily cap, which would start at 5 000 points for example. I would grow for 5 points every day so first day it would be 5 000, second day 5 005, third day 5 010 and so… You would have a choice to for example “Kill 40 ascalonians.” but repeatable. So player who would kill 400 ascalonians would have 10 daily points. This would continue until they reach up the daily cap 5 000 + x*5 points (x being days).
What do you think about this?

GREAT idea. Pity that anet never take into account proposals like this…
(^google traslate, too much words i dont even know)

My opinion is that the new repeatable achiement rewards from activities are ridiculous and will overwhelm most of the other AP sources fast. Akitteng in crab toss seems to grant more reward for time than farming tickets to do the queens gauntlet and the dying to Liadra 40 times because my necromancer can’t easily dodge and it is hard to see the red circles.

I alone wish that the daily pve achievement points could be faster. The WvW points are so random, sometimes they take 20 minutes, sometimes 2 hours.

I don’t care.
I do look to gain AP’s where I can to move toward the reward chests, but otherwise its just a number. I’ve never even checked the boards tbh, because I don’t need to compare my number to anyone elses to see if I’m “winning”.
IMO, once you start farming them whether you like the activity or not just to maintain some kind of status on the boards, it becomes less a game for fun and more a job to keep up with AP’s that don’t mean much beyond showing the time you have.

MrRuin.9740:

I don’t care.
I do look to gain AP’s where I can to move toward the reward chests, but otherwise its just a number. I’ve never even checked the boards tbh, because I don’t need to compare my number to anyone elses to see if I’m “winning”.
IMO, once you start farming them whether you like the activity or not just to maintain some kind of status on the boards, it becomes less a game for fun and more a job to keep up with AP’s that don’t mean much beyond showing the time you have.

Couldn’t we say everything in this game is just a show of how much time you have?

Would it be fair to say that a change to how long it takes to complete dailies would in no way affect your gaming? That if there was a change to make those who do care a little happier, this would not be a problem for you?

Basically, if this is not an area of the game you care about, why would you care if those who do care were to request a change?

I understand that it takes a specific type of person to grind out achievements each day. I am one of those people. I may continue to be one of those people. My thought is that I would like the amount of daily time to be reduced, or to at least stop it from continually increasing. I enjoy the AP hunt, and I have met several of the people in the top 25. There comes a point when that fun is taken away, and I am just hoping to keep things a little more interesting.

Ewon.5903:

Couldn’t we say everything in this game is just a show of how much time you have?

Would it be fair to say that a change to how long it takes to complete dailies would in no way affect your gaming? That if there was a change to make those who do care a little happier, this would not be a problem for you?

Basically, if this is not an area of the game you care about, why would you care if those who do care were to request a change?

Yes, you could say that easily. I’m just saying I’m not one who follows the AP numbers for that. /age does that better :P Anything in the game could be a testament to this, like legendaries.

Change to dailys would not affect me. I only do the ones I want to do or the ones that get done through normal gameplay means anyway.

And finally, I don’t care if you request a change or if people want one in regards to this. As I said, I dont care about the leaderboards or who’s ‘winning’ there and don’t even check them ankitten ot opposed to change in the dailys. I posted because you asked opinion, if people care, are for or against or unaffected. Mine falls under the ones who wouldn’t be affected. I apologize if you took it as in opposition of what you were saying, as that wasn’t the intention.

You have some good point Ewon, but I feel, from reading other threads, there are many people on the leaderboard that are pretty high. Now that anet has made more and more available. Those people don’t like it because its more work for them. Instead they would like changes made to accomadate them so they would not be required to put in so much time maintain that position. I feel this is unfair to new people. And also those that wish to climb a bit farther, hoping someone above them has a power outage or misses a few days. If any change like that comes about, just my opinion, but then caps for max amount of daily points overall should be in place.

In some ways it almost sounds like. Now I have the ap. that no one will ever be able to get. I want changes. I am not saying you are like this. Just it appears that way from some other threads.
In some ways its like a very long marathon race. Those in the lead want the finish lined moved a little closer so there is no way they can lose. Just my opinions. I know with ap there is no finish line. But if they change the way the race is done now as far as acquiring them. Then there will be no way they can lose, short of dropping out of the race.

danielrjones.8759:

You have some good point Ewon, but I feel, from reading other threads, there are many people on the leaderboard that are pretty high. Now that anet has made more and more available. Those people don’t like it because its more work for them. Instead they would like changes made to accomadate them so they would not be required to put in so much time maintain that position. I feel this is unfair to new people. And also those that wish to climb a bit farther, hoping someone above them has a power outage or misses a few days. If any change like that comes about, just my opinion, but then caps for max amount of daily points overall should be in place.

In some ways it almost sounds like. Now I have the ap. that no one will ever be able to get. I want changes. I am not saying you are like this. Just it appears that way from some other threads.

I’m not sure I can agree with this. I already have most of the achievements that are not dailies/WvW in the game. If I don’t have the time to do other achievements with the dailies requirement, I can only imagine those with more achievements to get are having an even harder time catching up.

When it took me 20min to do dailies, i could do lots of other achievements too. If it now takes people 2-3hours, that is going to make it much harder for them to catch up.

True, harder but not impossible. If they are changed now it would be impossible I would think, short of the those leading quitting the game. There will always be new people coming in the game over the next few years. Should they be denied the ability to acquire ap the same as their predecessors? If a reduction in available ap is made now. Then they certainly will be denied that. And how could the learderboards be considered a level playing field for all players? I’m not trying to start an arguement here you have my respect as for your position on the lb. Just our opinions differ here.

danielrjones.8759:

I’m not trying to start an arguement here you have my respect as for your position on the lb. Just our opinions differ here.

It’s cool. Hopefully I’m not coming across to much like a jerk with my replies. I am perfectly fine with anyone having a different opinion than myself, and my opinion is in no way set in stone. If someone can shed new light, or offer a different view than i may have thought of, perfect. I just might ask questions, or share my opinion on it as a result.

By adding all the other daily achievements they have made it easier for most casuals to get their daily reward by being able to choose from more categories that they may enjoy. For all but those that feel it is necessary to complete them all, it is a good thing. They are able to choose the ones they feel are easiest or most enjoyable.

And I think that is what I and a few other posters in this thread have decided. Is the lack of enjoyment from feeling the need to do dailies in order to maintain position on the leaderboard worth it? Is it that important to endure through in order to get the outcome I want? Anet will not stop adding achievements and if the goal for someone is to get them all or as many as possible then we know what it will take in order to achieve that goal.

My solution:

Do not give APs for individual dailies. Instead, award 5 when you complete the 5th and get your chest. Do the ones you want with our feeling like you need all. Do the same for monthly.

I didn’t know there was such a thing until a little over a month ago or so. I’m ranked in the 80%. Given that I obviously dominate the game feel free to PM me if you are seeking some advice. I don’t mind a little healthy competition.

JustTrogdor.7892:

I didn’t know there was such a thing until a little over a month ago or so. I’m ranked in the 80%. Given that I obviously dominate the game feel free to PM me if you are seeking some advice. I don’t mind a little healthy competition.

You my friend, have made me smile. GG

Ewon.5903:

JustTrogdor.7892:

I didn’t know there was such a thing until a little over a month ago or so. I’m ranked in the 80%. Given that I obviously dominate the game feel free to PM me if you are seeking some advice. I don’t mind a little healthy competition.

You my friend, have made me smile. GG

Hey, I’m so casual they named a Friday at my office after me.

I don’t always do the full list of dailies, but I do happen to complete the whole list often but that is because I was just playing like I normally do.

If the achievement is simple, eat 25 or craft 10 or mystic forge, I’ll probably knock that out if I didn’t do them for my daily because I like that bit of xp that comes with it and it doen’t take long to do those three.

I don’t often do dungeon or fractal. Those often go incompleted.

Monthly I’ll typically finish but that is because I’m playing and it just gets done. Last month though I didn’t get the fractal one.

I don’t mind the ap from them, I like the rewards.

I think stuff like the leaderboards can destroy this game for some people. All of a sudden, everything is about getting that next achievement point, and for some people that might be fine, but for many, it’s just pressure.

I play games to relax. If I wanted to work, I’d still be writing.