Guild Wars 2

Currently, after reaching L80 any acquired exp ends up in one of three queues:
1. Work towards acquiring a Mastery
2. Work towards acquiring a Spirit Shard
3. Wasted (see the huge other thread on this subforum)

Though #3 is probably going to be removed at some point, it would be really nice if we could have a variety of choices for an XP reward that isn’t just Spirit Shards (specially since there are plenty of other methods to acquire them since HoT). What I’d like to see is a Reward Mastery Track in which players can pick what are they rewarded with when the bar fills. The amount of XP needed could be adjusted based on the reward, and one could even associate unlock requirements to them (even if the requirement is just buying it with gold).

Potential rewards:
Spirit Shard: would be the base reward, no unlock requirements.
Gold: Get 1g on bar fill, which is like having an average exotic drop.
Dungeon Token chest: Same token reward as the daily dungeon runner? Could be a chest with lesser amount of tokens, or the XP required could be really high to adjust for it.
Map currency: Would have a variety of choices which are appropriate for the zone (eg: geodes for central Tyria).
Mastery Point: I would really like to see this one for people who just can’t complete the MP challenges left to acquire the remaining masteries they want. Of course, the amount of XP needed to fill the bar would be huge, and would likely have to increase with each MP acquired (eg: each MP requires 30% more XP than the previous one)

Basically, it’s implementing a Mastery line as the battle reward tracks that we have in pvp/wvw, where the rewards go straight to the wallet (or should, for items that aren’t yet included). The reward from the mastery would be just a small bonus to what a player can normally acquire, while freeing them from being stuck to a specific zone (for example: I may prefer to collect ~50 dungeon tokens every few hours fooling around Tyria rather than trying the explore paths, even though running the three paths in a single day would give me ~400 tokens).

Any suggestions to improve such a system, or potential drawbacks that need be considered (for instance, rewards shouldn’t include time-gated items, or luck based drops like T6 materials)?

A well thought post. I really like the dungeon reward track idea.

Even though I like the concept of Reward Tracks being brought to PvE, its implementation is tricky at best. Even more so when you look at their efforts to make their PvE content more rewarding. Anet wants PvE’ers to go through PvE content. Imagine if they made Dungeon Token available in a PvE reward track, that would mean that if you wanted too you would never have to set foot inside a dungeon, and you may say: “But that’s already there, if I want I can do PvP and never go through a dungeon”. While that is, in essence, true, you would be playing PvP, another part of the game completely. So you wouldn’t be invested in their PvE content but would be in their PvP content. It’s a win win situation. If you don’t like PvE, just earn your rewards in a competitive scenario and for those who don’t want to PvP, they have to go through the Dungeon making them worthwile to run even if for tokens alone, so the content stays relevant. If a PvE player doesnt need to run a Dungeon and a PvP player doesn’t either, so who’s left to run it? That would leave them in an even worse place than they are right now. And that applies to most every other thing suggested.

I don’t know, even though I would love to never have to run a dungeon again, or spend months on Dry Top for a collection, I can see why they wouldn’t do this.

If you want dungeon tokens then you should have to run dungeon paths (or do PvP/WvW for it). Thematically it doesn’t make sense for you to be able to earn those tokens by never playing the content. Same goes for regional currencies like geodes.

Skotlex.7580:

Potential rewards:
Spirit Shard: would be the base reward, no unlock requirements.
Gold: Get 1g on bar fill, which is like having an average exotic drop.
Dungeon Token chest: Same token reward as the daily dungeon runner? Could be a chest with lesser amount of tokens, or the XP required could be really high to adjust for it.
Map currency: Would have a variety of choices which are appropriate for the zone (eg: geodes for central Tyria).
Mastery Point: I would really like to see this one for people who just can’t complete the MP challenges left to acquire the remaining masteries they want. Of course, the amount of XP needed to fill the bar would be huge, and would likely have to increase with each MP acquired (eg: each MP requires 30% more XP than the previous one)

Spirit Shard: As that’s what it was before masteries (with skill points) and after the revision, no problem here.
Gold: Leads to the increased inflation of the game, but I don’t think 1 gold per “level” is any worse than any of the other gold-farming methods.
Dungeon Tokens: I don’t like this idea, unless it’s tied directly to running dungeons. I mean, maybe it could work if you’re exploring in the same map as the dungeon’s entrance. This would definitely need to be sealed away behind completing at least the story mode of the dungeon, which I think far too few players do these days.
Map Currency: Again, only if it’s tied to that map in particular. I could see a nightmare of having to track 7 different map currencies simultaneously, and I don’t think it’s worth the computing powers. And I don’t want to, say, be able to earn geodes while I’m running around Bloodstone Fen. Some players may, but I don’t think that follows the spirit of masteries very well.
Mastery Points: Tempting, but I kind of feel like extra mastery points would just sit there, unspendable anywhere, unless Miyani decides to offer us something for excess mastery points or something like that. No, I feel the number of mastery points should be closer to the maximum number of points that can be spent.

One alternative that could be offered is bonus bags of loot, perhaps ones that promise at least rares or exotics. Crafting materials are always welcomed drops, and as they get consumed through crafting, will never totally bloat the system; rare component like onyx shards would be especially welcome.

Daegony.3604:

Imagine if they made Dungeon Token available in a PvE reward track, that would mean that if you wanted too you would never have to set foot inside a dungeon.

If the token reward is low enough (compared to what can be gotten by running the dungeon directly), then the incentive to run the dungeon would still be there, it’s just faster and more efficient.

One way to make sure people have played the content before being rewarded for it is by making it unlockable in an appropriate matter. For example, a dungeon token reward track would cost 100 tokens for each dungeon, so a person would have to had run every dungeon in explore mode at least once before they can.

Anyway, it’s not like every reward will be implemented, I am just tossing ideas for what might be interesting. Other potentials rewards that could help fresh L80 people are: exotic essence of luck, Karma rewards.

On the topic of map currencies, Guild Wars 2 has been an excellent game in the sense that you can really outfit yourself while playing casually, it hardly has any grind. However, this is something that might have changed since the inclusion of new maps (starting with Dry Top). Now you can’t just get some gold and buy what you need off the TP, if there’s something you want from a merchant in Dry Top, you gotta stay and play in that map. I would personally give people a choice: if they really would prefer to spend one week fooling around Tyria to gather enough currency to buy something that they could have gotten in under a day from just playing the appropriate map, I would let’em. If, again using the geode example, the unlock cost for being awarded geodes was 100 of them, then that’s ensuring that the person has at least participated decently on the related content.

Think of it as a suggestion for really casual people (and as a casual player, I can tell you it isn’t fun trying to run explore dungeons when I want one of their skins, which pretty much none of the hardcore players use because they are so old x_x).

Rognik.2579:

Mastery Points: Tempting, but I kind of feel like extra mastery points would just sit there, unspendable anywhere, unless Miyani decides to offer us something for excess mastery points or something like that. No, I feel the number of mastery points should be closer to the maximum number of points that can be spent.

It really depends on how ANet wants it to be. They could have made the number of available Masteries to match the total required number, but they made it higher so that people don’t have to get all of them (specially since some can be really difficult for casuals to acquire). If Masteries should really be hard to get, then there’s no need for this reward. On the other hand, it would make sense if you want players to eventually get all their masteries, even if they aren’t that skilled.

One alternative that could be offered is bonus bags of loot, perhaps ones that promise at least rares or exotics. Crafting materials are always welcomed drops, and as they get consumed through crafting, will never totally bloat the system; rare component like onyx shards would be especially welcome.

I was thinking about having T1~T5 material rewards, too, which would help for people who are levelling their crafting. But I think this would impact too much the market to be likely added.