Guild Wars 2

First things first, I love the concept of map bonuses and I really like the mix of rewards available. This system will be great for getting those annoying materials that are a pain to farm. Just looking at those icons on my world map makes me excited to go places and do things.

However, there’s a few, how to put it, oddities with the current implementation.

To start with, I was confused by the UI at first. I saw a few ways to interpret it:

• It could be that I’d get the “Next Reward” on my next event, with the “Other Rewards” cycling upwards to become the new “Next”.
• It could be a high percentage of receiving the “Next” reward on triggering, with lower percentage chances of getting the “Other” options.
• It could be a time based system, where I’d only get the “Next” option today, and the “Other” options were showing you what would come in the future.

It would be great if there was a way to tell that it’s the cycling option without having to go out to the World Map, mouse over the icon, and read the hover menu that pops up to see if it changes after getting a bonus. That’s the only place that the list updates (or exists, for that matter), and the map icon never changes.

Next, the reward system feels, well, unrewarding. It triggers on every other event which, instead of making me feel like I got an awesome bonus every so often, makes me feel disappointed by normal event rewards. And I was confused for a bit, wondering why I didn’t get anything for an event before I figured out the pattern. I thought it was bugged for a while. The items themselves just fall in your inventory, so it’s quite easy to miss it happening. It’s a serious let-down when you lose track of if you’re due a bonus, open your inventory to see your new shiny, and there’s nothing there.

The amount of loot you get feels decent, so I’m not suggesting doubling it. But either something needs to happen every time (perhaps a lower-value piece of loot?) or there needs to be something extra to say “You got a bonus!”

The system’s also weighted in favor of events rather than the other, tougher, options. I love jumping puzzles and often go on giant cross-Tyria excursions, doing half of the JPs in the game one after another. With the current system, I could spend hours on eligible maps, participating in eligible content, but not get even one bonus because there’s only a single puzzle on most maps. Events, on the other hand, are often part of chains. Follow the chain to its end and you’ve got several bonuses in the time it can take you to do just one of the longer puzzles.

I was most excited for this system as a way to make doing jump puzzles and mini-dungeons feel properly rewarding. I want to see other people in those places, and loot’s a good motivator. But right now, it’s where you feel the awkwardness of the current system the most.

Perhaps the way to go would be making it so once-a-day chests always give you the reward? That does run the risk of chest-camping, but there’s already a natural limit to how much farming you can do with once-a-day chests.

Another thing: the system seems to track if you’re due a bonus by character. I did a puzzle on one beta character, hopped on a beta alt and ran it again, and got no bonus either time. This is oddly alt-unfriendly for this game. Or maybe that puzzle was bugged. I have no way of telling the difference, after all.

I was also disappointed that doing the jumping puzzles in the starting areas won’t give you anything extra. Especially since some of the toughest puzzles in the game are in those zones. There’s 13 puzzles in Central Tyria in non-bonus maps! That’s 30% of them! Nearly a third! Surely encouraging people who know the puzzles to do them wouldn’t hurt the new player experience, and might even help by providing teachers? And why don’t the little hidden chests out in the world give you a chance at the bonus as well? Some of them are real tough to get to, you know, and it’d encourage exploration!

The real issue I have with this system, though, is that the every-other-event thing reminds me that I’m playing a game. Having to keep track of if I got a bonus the last time so I can know if I’m due one makes me focus on the mechanics of gameplay, instead of, you know, enjoying doing things in Tyria.
There’s a chance that it’s just because I was testing the system, but I’m not so sure. If you’re trying to farm a specific material, you’ll also be encouraged to keep that count in the back of your head, so you know when to expect the next bit of loot. I can easily see myself hunting for events, supremely frustrated that they’re nowhere to be seen, just one short of getting that precious silver doubloon. At that point, I’d be playing the mechanics of the system, not the game itself, and that doesn’t sound fun.

So yeah, great system, nice loot, user experience needs some tweaking.

I pretty much second this.
Its nice overall, but i’d like to see a bonus chest pop up so we KNOW we got the bonus, and also its kinda odd that we get the reward every other event, instead of every time.
It kinda feels unrewarding, specially, when you get one from killing a veteran somewhere, then go do a world boss, or a champion and don’t get one.
Might be a good idea to weigh the rewards with their source, so that bigger events or bosses get more items.
Also hovering the mini-map should show the current reward, and some clarity about what the “Other rewards” mean would be nice.

And I third this. I came to the forum to post pretty much what was said, only that OP was able to say with much more detail than I would.

I spent a lot of the day trying to farm for Silver Doubloons in Brisban, and it didn’t feel rewarding enough. First because there was no bouncy chest or anything to tell me I got a bonus, second because it didn’t reward everytime, and third because the one loot I wanted was cycling with low tier crafting materials that I didn’t care about. So, the couple hours I spent there rewarded me very few Doubloons, and I can’t see myself doing that for God knows how long until I get 250 to craft Juggernaut. And indeed, the UI was pretty confusing. I’d suggest making it more clear if the event will give a reward and which reward will be given.

So, since its impractical for devs to come back to these maps and make the events as engaging as Dry Top, Silverwastes and the new HoT maps probably will be, to justify myself going back to these maps to farm instead of just sticking to the new maps, and to justify doing other content like JP and mini-dungeons instead of just cycling through some events, it must feel more rewarding.

But overall, the concept is really amazing, and if adjusted and tweaked right, it can be a very good reason to go back and enjoy the old content instead of just storming through it when you’re doing map completion with an alt.

I think you may be trying to keep the economy from tanking with high priced mats when map rewards comes. I invest in unidentified dyes. They tanked this weekend when people saw you could get them in map rewards. After 10 events in Gendarran Fields over an hour, I never got one. I had no clue how many events it would take to get one. It is still more time and cost effective to just run dungeons and then buy with gold what you need. Was completely surprised by that. Also, only getting 1 item just didnt feel rewarding for me. I wont likely farm maps with the current implementation unless the item I need is on Frostgorge. Then I can do the champ farm and get events pretty quickly to maybe earn a mat I need.

I pretty much agree, the UI on the map is confusing you don’t know what you’ll get and how you’ll get it.

You don’t get rewards from every single event, so be it, but as it stands now rewards, when you earn them go straight into your inventory.
The thing is at the end of an event you often end up looting things and the rewards is lost in all the other things you just grabbed, so it makes it hard to keep track of what you earned through the system.
Maybe they want to avoid the hassle of opening UI chests which I can understand, but we really need to have those rewards highlighted in a way or another.

As far as Jumping puzzles and mini dungeons go, they clearly should reward the player every time, if not give multiple items from the selection of items.

The selection of items in low level maps must also have things to appeal to max level players, as it is now, some maps have low level mats and useless (low demand) high level ones.
If that occurs too often those maps will be ignored and the purpose of the system will be halved.
(I’m saying that not knowing which low level and low demand items will be used in HoT recipes and legendary crafting, so take that into account)

As it stands for providing a semi-reliable way to farm items through event rewards it seems that it stands far far away from other possibilities to get those items or to get the gold to buy those items.

As for a few good things, having things like dyes, or junk items worth 30s on some maps was a nice touch, i’m expecting more of this kind of things.

I agree in terms of the UI, as it stands now it is a little bit confusing. Furthermore it would be nice too be able to track the next reward without going at the map to look it up everytime. Some little windows over the map (maybe with an on/off option, if people do not want to clutter there monitor with it) or something like that would be nice.

I keeped track of how many events get rewarded and ended up on every second event. Can the others agree with that? And like the others said, it is ok not to reward every event, but a little highlight that you have gotten the reward would be really nice.

The variety of rewarditems seems fine to me. I think it will give a way to farm spezific items if you want so.
Will it be more efficiently in contrast to “goldfarm and then item buying”: atm i don´t think.
Should it be more efficiently in contrast to “goldfarm and then item buying”: Maybe, maybe not, but I think it would be really nice if the two systems would be more or less equal from a time-investment point of view. But I have absolutly no knowledge of the games economie, so I don´t know if this would be possible.

I am someone who likes to work/farm for spezific items/mats etc. but atm it is frustrating, because there are no reliable ways to farm things or it is way! more efficient to simply farm gold in (imo) unfun ways. These new maprewards looks promising. Keep going and make it great anet

I’ve been thinking about notification when receiving a ‘bonus Map Reward’, and I thought maybe an audio clue would suffice. A pleasant ‘ding’ or something.

I don’t know if it’s easier or more difficult than a visual clue, and whether there would be much resistance to the idea, as not everyone plays with audio on, but I would appreciate it.

Just an idea, Devs…make of it what you will! =)

Sharayah.2197:

Next, the reward system feels, well, unrewarding. It triggers on every other event which, instead of making me feel like I got an awesome bonus every so often, makes me feel disappointed by normal event rewards. And I was confused for a bit, wondering why I didn’t get anything for an event before I figured out the pattern. I thought it was bugged for a while.

I thought too, that it was bugged or the rewards are not for events but for map completion (which felt a little underwhelming) . But I did not want to complete a map to check it out and so I ignored it after that.

I can only agree. Tried to farm some wool scraps in snowden drifts with my dragonhunter, but it bored me to the bones after just an hour or so. The only extra reward during this time was 2 boubble thingy wich gives some extra money, but it didn’t feel a bit rewarding. I guess getting a giant eye/silver dubloon/dye/charged lodestone or so which you can get in some maps are more worth it. But the higher tier maps are rather farmable already.
I think the UI needs to be cleaned up/explained a bit and feeling more rewarding, highlighting what you get and I also think the drop-rate need to increase otherwise there will be simpler ways to get most of the stuff (chestfarm in silverwaste for example).

I had forgotten the Map Rewards system was in this test. I think that’s because once I saw that we couldn’t advance Pact Tyria Masteries outside of the Silverwastes beta instance I got it in my head that there wasn’t much new to do in the core areas.

I’d like to give it some testing today. I’m pretty sure one must be on a beta alt to experience the changed system, is that right? And where do you look for the UI people are mentioning? On the map?

Yes, and yes.

Thanks. I hopped around some world bosses on my Reaper to test the map bonuses. It’s a little annoying to have to open the map to see what the next reward is. Perhaps it could be attached to the minimap, just a mouseover button that gives the same popup as in the map? I ask because using the map necessarily blinds you to your surroundings and renders you vulnerable to attack, and I don’t always have the memory retention needed to remember what the next thing is

As to the rewards themselves, they feel like small bonuses for when I’m in the map anyway but not worth the time investment if I specifically wanted that item. That might change with pricier things like Crystalline Dust, of which I still need 200 to complete making all Ascended armors. I’ll have to check the map to see if the Dust is a reward anywhere.

For now though it’s a pleasant extra but not a draw to make me want to play specific maps just for the bonuses, since I’m just not a farmer at heart.

I’m not sure how to handle this, but maps like Silverwastes already reward tagging as opposed to complete the event yourself. The map reward system seems to be set up to do the same.
That aside, I think that a good way of showing rewards, what’s next and what is to come is to have a UI that is set up like the PvP reward track UI that shows every map. The map the player is currently on can have that map reward track show up where the personal story/living story/events pops up and have more options under “content guide” in the options menu.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I’ve been thinking about notification when receiving a ‘bonus Map Reward’, and I thought maybe an audio clue would suffice. A pleasant ‘ding’ or something.

I’m not sure if an audio clue alone would be enough, since there are people playing with low or no sound due to outside circumstances (e.g. keeping an ear open for kids playing in the house, or just wanting to listen to your own music for a while). I’ve been thinking about giving a visual clue similar to the ones you get for completing an achievement or unlocking a new skin, something that flashes on the side of your screen for a few seconds but that you don’t have to click to make it disappear. And while we’re at it, a text line for those no-confirm pop-ups in the game messages channel would be a great addition, too, because I sometimes miss those announcements and wonder if I’ve now unlocked/achieved/whatever something.

So far that i notice is that u will get the reward only the second event complete every time …. so u need to complete 2 events on the map( me in orr for one ancient bone) and then repeat process again 2 events then reward… + the rotations on the rest of the mats are random again is like zero to absolute zero.
In order to be a little viable( now is not) i suggest to reward on every event that u make… and le me chose what i want to drop(example to select ancient bone for example)Orr ad to select random from the 5 mats.. and receive 2 of them if u select random for every event that u make.
In this current state is poorly rewarding as i said .
2 events/ one mats/rotate = zero
I hope some one look at the map bonuses and change them in a good matter.

rng on which item you receive seems fine to me..

However it really does need to be every event, not every second event.

It make it seem disappointing, and almost chore-like to go find another event on a map that has been swarmed by players.

JP’s were included in the new loot? Those should definitely not require two completed for loot either if so.
& I might actually go do JP’s more often in the future too.

Were mini dungeons included in the new loot? Those could use some love too.

Repeated from elsewhere, but just add a line showing the reward to the completion notification (medal and such in the top-right corner). And they should add a TTL to those notifications as well, so I don’t have to constantly click them away while they’re at it. >_>

Maybe a UI flyout on the inventory screen as well detailing your last X# of rewards.

There does need to be a UI notification. Maybe have it appear in the loot notice section on the bottom right hand side of the UI inside a square with a colored border or inside a brightly colored square.

Doing events in lower areas still don’t feel rewarding. I think that it’s good that you can’t get lodestones from events in low level areas. But atleast giving more of the low tier loot would do good. The system was created to encourage players to cooperate in doing events. But in my opnion it just encourages champ farming in cursed shore and frostgorge sound. Giant eyes, charged lodestones, charged cores and ancient bones as rewards in curshed shore, really?? This would mean that the prices will drop (which is good), but also thousands of brainless zergers farming it. Farming in higher areas is really already rewarding enough.

Furthermore I agree about the interface. I would like to see a progress bar and maybe some fancy chest showing up in my screen. And rewards for jumping puzzles and mini-dungeons sound good too. Because they don’t feel rewarding at all. Some decent loot for the effort would be great.

But, anet, please don’t make it so that everyone is going to farm this 24/7, but more like a daily reward. Which isn’t repeatable, just like gathering.

I would like it made more clear how and when you will get the rewards.

I would not like a new chest to open.

I agree, the UI is not as clear as it could be. At first I interpreted “next reward” to mean like… next week’s reward, since I know they change every week. I was expecting something along the lines of “current reward” for the ones I could get that day. It only took a few events to figure it out, but still, I’d like it clarified in the UI.

Yeah, no more things to click on, we have too many as it is.

And even if it rotates the 4 items one every 2 events, so it’s a charged lodestone every 8th event that’s still a huge influx.
I figured (but didn’t really have time to experiment) that the rewards would be a tiered setup with smaller and smaller chances to drop, so that getting a charged lodestone was still super rare.
Essentially I’m expecting it to be useless except for picking up a few more of a specific T6 at a time.

If they make the T6 mats farmable like this, then I wonder what going to happen to the prices. Their prices are partially dependent on scarcity. If someone has stacks of these, might be better to sell before the expansion hits.

If the map bonuses are supposed to encourage me to go play a variety of maps and give me a reliable way of earning certain materials, this current iteration of the system doesn’t do that.

The way I would expect it to work is that each map has multiple tiers of rewards and each event completed rewards you with a map bonus item at random. Better event ratings should equal a higher chance of better loot, and jumping puzzles and minidungeons should be practically guaranteed to give the highest tier reward.