Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone. I’ve seen a few mentions of this debate pop up in various threads, but it seems to me to be too often lost among all the bickering over matchmaking, team blaming, calls to “git gud,” and so on. Now, I feel it’s a fairly important matter worthy of discussion regarding the future of pvp and the league system. The question being, namely, should the game offer rewards exclusive to the elite and highest tier of pvpers or should it allow players of any skill to work their way to things like the legendary backpack? This post will not address the frequent question of whether those at the top really are deserving of their position and rewards, as that requires far too much speculation and is more related to problems with matchmaking and game balance rather than design philosophy.

The first school of thought argues that it’s better to have rewards exclusive to high tier pvp. These rewards, because they are more exclusive, in turn become more valuable and more prestigious. They make up a sort of badge of honor and possessing them marks you as among the best. Under this idea, making the wings or future rewards more accessible decreases their value to those who worked hardest in the system.

The second school of thought argues that everybody should be able to work towards any particular reward. Wings or future items should not be locked behind a certain tier, and anyone who plays pvp long enough can eventually earn them. The advantage here is that people who do not enjoy the league feel less pressure to try and progress. They can take their time, break when they want, and not have to worry about clearing either divisions or achievements at a particular rate. This also means that more competitive players do not have to worry as much about being paired with less competitive players.

Personally, while I understand where those who support the first argument are coming from, I have to throw my support behind the second. I would, if I earned the wings, probably never use the skin- they seem gaudy and overly flashy for my tastes. I don’t care much about them, I play ranked simply to see how far I can get playing builds of my own design on warrior- currently early Ruby. If I did earn the wings, however, my pride at having them would be no more diminished by others reaching them.

I propose pvp legendary items should be comparable to PvE legendary weapons. No, they are not cheap. No, they aren’t easy to get. No, not everyone will get them. But everyone, regardless of how good they are, has the option of working their way slowly towards them. I’d also argue this is the best way to handle raids and legendary armor, but that’s a discussion for another day.

I’d also like to note that this problem is not in a vacuum. Currently the game is suffering from a pretty bad shortage of new skins- outfits, uncustomizable as they are, do not count- and Anet has demonstrated an increasing trend of putting new skins exclusively behind high end content. If new skins were added more often that were accessible to the bulk of the playerbase, you might find fewer complaints over those gated few. Time-gating it, however, may still be problematic.

To wrap this rant up, I’d like to extend an olive branch to those who appose this view. If you want a shiny new badge, if you want a title, I would not argue. There should be ways to demonstrate your success in any given game mode at the highest level. I just don’t believe it should come at the expense of locking out gear or skins.

Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this far. Maybe you agree, maybe you don’t. Please, voice that opinion so that A-net might see it. Just try to do it civilly, eh? See you in game, and may you always fight FOR GREAT JUSTICE!

Oh, no i think you are missing the point: prestige is ok, as soon as it’s possible for a good player to get it. But right now, some – i would say a lot – of the most dedicated and good pvp players are facing a really dumb matchmaking, that pairs them with inexperienced players.

The problem here is that the system is treating you mmr as an indicator of individual skill, while it is in fact the result of a 5 men team effort.

And that’s a real bummer.
How to change that? Pair ppl with the same mmr against ppl on the same mmr range – not same pips range but random mmr.
This way, if on a team there’s a guy with low mmr but good skill, he can make the difference and raise his own mmr.

As I said above, the point of this thread is not to discuss the matchmaking. That discussion is being held in plenty of other threads- though I admit there is certainly something wrong with the way its working currently. The point of this thread is to talk about game design philosophy, namely the question of whether bad players should be allowed to grind their way to getting any given item, or whether it ought to be locked behind a certain division requiring skill to reach. They may eventually fix their matchmaking problem, but what philosophy A-net continues with will have a notable impact on a very large portion of the playerbase- all of those save for those few at the top.

League divisions should be based on prestige, only good players should make it to legend and this should entirely be based on MMR like SC2 or some other games.

However you also want it so there’s more people playing PvP so the legendary backpiece should be accessible to everyone who wants to farm for it. Simply taking out the division crossing in the league achievements would make it accessible to everyone. Also, the prevention of division/tier drops needs to be removed so that it is a truly competitive system.

This way, we have both a competitive and rewarding system for everyone. The elite players who want prestige can play to legendary and climb that ladder whereas the pve carebears who are only there for backpiece can grind it out in the lower tiers.

The matchmaking should of course also match your allies/enemies based on your MMR (which would be pip range in this new system).

The system right now is not prestigious nor accessible. People are frustrated with unwinnable or total stomp matches and there is no prestige since it doesn’t matter if you beat pleb team A or Abjured, you get 1-2 pips either way and MMR has nothing to do with pips/division/tier.

I find that this is a very odd question. It’s like asking, “Should only the winners of Wimbledon receive a trophy, or should we give every participant a trophy?”

If you create a reward to recognize some kind of success in a game, then it can only work as recognition if people who don’t meet the requirements, don’t get the reward.

Maybe you could give everyone some lesser version of the rewards, like a “tin medal for effort”. But I’ll bet there’s still people who will complain that they should get the gold medal even if they don’t win.

Onlysaneman.9612:

I propose pvp legendary items should be comparable to PvE legendary weapons. No, they are not cheap. No, they aren’t easy to get. No, not everyone will get them. But everyone, regardless of how good they are, has the option of working their way slowly towards them. I’d also argue this is the best way to handle raids and legendary armor, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Which they can already do. Getting the PvP legendary backpack is very easy to get across the four seasons. You don’t need to go beyond ruby although it does speed it up when it comes to tickets and division progression.

Ayrilana.1396:

Onlysaneman.9612:

I propose pvp legendary items should be comparable to PvE legendary weapons. No, they are not cheap. No, they aren’t easy to get. No, not everyone will get them. But everyone, regardless of how good they are, has the option of working their way slowly towards them. I’d also argue this is the best way to handle raids and legendary armor, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Which they can already do. Getting the PvP legendary backpack is very easy to get across the four seasons. You don’t need to go beyond ruby although it does speed it up when it comes to tickets and division progression.

I think the OP’s point is that not everyone has the skill to cross 4 divisions. The biggest bar that is stopping people from getting it is the division crossing achievements. The rest can be grinded out with enough games played. So it’s not like taking out that one achievement will make things too easy. You would still.be slowed by the number of tickets you need.

I think with out the division crossing achievements player frustration levels might drop a little. As most players who are not that good keep chasing wins for this achievement. Some have probably stopped because they feel this achievement is beyond there skill. I understand why it’s there. It’s to keep people playing. But at the same time if all the achievements counted it would also be alot better. As it currently stands, you need to get 16 achievements to tick off the 11 for the meta achievement. One of them is also a time gate. So it’s not like removing division crossing as a mandatory achievement would speed things up. People are still.time gated to an achievement set every 16 days,(when you earn the last one for the 15 days, you don’t start earning them till the next, so 16days) I feel that is enough of a bar.

Rieselle.5079:

I find that this is a very odd question. It’s like asking, “Should only the winners of Wimbledon receive a trophy, or should we give every participant a trophy?”

If you create a reward to recognize some kind of success in a game, then it can only work as recognition if people who don’t meet the requirements, don’t get the reward.

Maybe you could give everyone some lesser version of the rewards, like a “tin medal for effort”. But I’ll bet there’s still people who will complain that they should get the gold medal even if they don’t win.

I’m not sure this is a fair comparison. A badge or title is a trophy, and one I fully support making it difficult to get- locking the wings away is more like giving the winners a shirt with a design nobody else is ever allowed to use or wear. Sure, there will be people complaining they deserve to be in legendary, but I’d wager a good portion of people don’t care about the prestige as much as just getting the wings.

The thing that a lot of the populace that is complaining about this system is forgetting is that the backpiece can be ground out. Given a large enough amount of time, any player that wants the backpiece can have it; The tickets that are earned from crossing divisions are a currency, the crossing divisions achievement doesn’t reset between seasons, the daily time-gating never resets. Anyone who is truly interested in the item knows this.

The real issue here is that the populace in question wants instant gratification. They don’t want to wait 8 months and 4 PvP seasons to have earned enough tickets and division crosses to be able to finally craft the backpiece, they want it as soon as a number of these other players are getting it.

I think Anet implementing rewards that are gated behind different in-game skills is a good idea — it grants a sense of prestige to players that excel in the skills/areas in question by enabling them quicker access to the rewards and puts an emphasis on the value of each individual game space — however, the previous acquisition of rewards in the game contradicts this new concept, and thus players are upset and feel “cheated” by the fact that they can’t have them as fast as others.

Ranked play is “ranked” for a reason: you can’t be upset by the fact that others may be better than you or have a better time in the system than you, it’s meant to reward high level play and it will be volatile at times by nature. Arguing that the backpiece is unjustly locked behind the Leagues is both an unfair assessment of the purpose of Leagues, as well as simply a false statement; if you want the backpiece, you can eventually have it, given you understand how much longer it will take if you can’t cross Divisions as effectively as other players. If this bothers you or you still feel entitled to equal acquisition of rewards as other players, then it’s advisable that you either reevaluate what Ranked entails, or simply settle for Ad Infinitum instead.

There was a finisher and an armor u could just receive from winning tourneys, so quite the same concept. I like it.

Zero Solstice.9754:

The thing that a lot of the populace that is complaining about this system is forgetting is that the backpiece can be ground out. Given a large enough amount of time, any player that wants the backpiece can have it; The tickets that are earned from crossing divisions are a currency, the crossing divisions achievement doesn’t reset between seasons, the daily time-gating never resets. Anyone who is truly interested in the item knows this.

The real issue here is that the populace in question wants instant gratification. They don’t want to wait 8 months and 4 PvP seasons to have earned enough tickets and division crosses to be able to finally craft the backpiece, they want it as soon as a number of these other players are getting it.

I think Anet implementing rewards that are gated behind different in-game skills is a good idea — it grants a sense of prestige to players that excel in the skills/areas in question by enabling them quicker access to the rewards and puts an emphasis on the value of each individual game space — however, the previous acquisition of rewards in the game contradicts this new concept, and thus players are upset and feel “cheated” by the fact that they can’t have them as fast as others.

Ranked play is “ranked” for a reason: you can’t be upset by the fact that others may be better than you or have a better time in the system than you, it’s meant to reward high level play and it will be volatile at times by nature. Arguing that the backpiece is unjustly locked behind the Leagues is both an unfair assessment of the purpose of Leagues, as well as simply a false statement; if you want the backpiece, you can eventually have it, given you understand how much longer it will take if you can’t cross Divisions as effectively as other players. If this bothers you or you still feel entitled to equal acquisition of rewards as other players, then it’s advisable that you either reevaluate what Ranked entails, or simply settle for Ad Infinitum instead.

^ this

Onlysaneman.9612:

The question being, namely, should the game offer rewards exclusive to the elite and highest tier of pvpers or should it allow players of any skill to work their way to things like the legendary backpack?

That’s a wrong question. The real one is “what the game developers want to achieve by a given reward system”. Without knowing the latter, answering the former is meaningless.
And, at the moment, it’s rather clear that the devs do not really want what they want to achieve – their actions and declarations do not show an unified vision. Quite the opposite.

Personally, i’m leaning towards the view that due to how low the sPvP population is, enticing new players should take preference. On the other side i do know that my opinion is heavily biased – i’m not a really good player, and i know that i will likely never become one. Players actually able to earn the discussed “rewards for the few” will possibly have the opposite view on the matter.

Zero Solstice.9754:

The real issue here is that the populace in question wants instant gratification. They don’t want to wait 8 months and 4 PvP seasons to have earned enough tickets and division crosses to be able to finally craft the backpiece, they want it as soon as a number of these other players are getting it.

I’m actually perfectly willing to do it the long way – though considering that i’d rather not see the cost and requirements increase before i’m able to, which at the moment Anet is saying will happen at some time.

We already have a good layout for Team prestige. All we have now would work perfectly if everyone player just in teams.

But we don’t even have something like “stick with this team”feature for full solo teams to click instead leaving the match right away, that would put the players to queue right away for a next match in a team but without all the full impact of a queued team for at least a couple of matches. And the LFG does not have the mandatory ‘recent contacts’ sections so you can contact better people you played nicely with:

• PvP Teammates.
• Party members.
• Whispers
• Mail senders.

And even if we did have better ways to keep players in contact if they liked their team. Way too many people to ignore would still prefer going on with solo queues.

The majority of the playerbase won’t play the way that fits better the system. In fact, if there was some sort of vsAI mode, you can bet your hairy ape sitting cushions there would be TON of people playing that instead hotjoin matches, unranked and ranked.

As the system it’s right now, it’s like trying to use a fork to eat soup. It will kind of work… but not really.

BrotherBelial.3094:

I think the OP’s point is that not everyone has the skill to cross 4 divisions.

…

Some have probably stopped because they feel this achievement is beyond there skill.

While skill may speed up how quickly you advance, getting to Ruby does not require skill.

Ayrilana.1396:

BrotherBelial.3094:

I think the OP’s point is that not everyone has the skill to cross 4 divisions.

…

Some have probably stopped because they feel this achievement is beyond there skill.

While skill may speed up how quickly you advance, getting to Ruby does not require skill.

I beg to differ. I’ve been trying for over a week to get out of T5 sapphire into ruby, and the most pips I can get is 4 before I’m knocked back down to 0 pips. I’m not saying I’m the best, but I has some skill, and know what I’m doing. Sadly it would seem I get paired with the afkers, ragers, the clueless and the people who are just doing the 3 games a day daily. Ruby might not need skill, but it needs luck.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Ayrilana.1396:

BrotherBelial.3094:

I think the OP’s point is that not everyone has the skill to cross 4 divisions.

…

Some have probably stopped because they feel this achievement is beyond there skill.

While skill may speed up how quickly you advance, getting to Ruby does not require skill.

I beg to differ. I’ve been trying for over a week to get out of T5 sapphire into ruby, and the most pips I can get is 4 before I’m knocked back down to 0 pips. I’m not saying I’m the best, but I has some skill, and know what I’m doing. Sadly it would seem I get paired with the afkers, ragers, the clueless and the people who are just doing the 3 games a day daily. Ruby might not need skill, but it needs luck.

I encountered the same but I did advance to ruby… eventually.

The benefit of the divisions prior to ruby is that you cannot lose tiers. Regaining those 4 pip’s you lost from a losing streak is fairly easy to do. It’s not as bad is you were 1 pip from diamond and then had a losing streak that wiped out all of your pip’s for the division.

This is why I stated that it’s less about skill as a player can keep playing and eventually they will reach ruby due to the safety net.