Guild Wars 2

Something isn’t right with the Badges of Honor — the drop rate either needs to be adjusted or the gear costs need to be cut in half (at least). When you consider the cost of obtaining end-game gear through other means, it’s not balanced in terms of time investment.

I think a large part of the problem isn’t the drop rate, but leaving bags behind. I think half the time bags drop I don’t even realize a bag dropped, or I see the bag, but have to run to survive.

They need to introduce an ‘auto loot on kill’ function to WvW for sure. In the heat of battle, the last thing you should need to worry about is looting the rewards.

Honestly while i dislike missing out on bags i like the way they have it because once the fight is over i go around and collect any bags i missed.

And to the Victor goes the spoils.

Caelib.2497:

Something isn’t right with the Badges of Honor — the drop rate either needs to be adjusted or the gear costs need to be cut in half (at least). When you consider the cost of obtaining end-game gear through other means, it’s not balanced in terms of time investment.

Definitely, its ridiculously priced unless you want to spend a lot of time in the jumping puzzles.

And no its not due to badges being left behind, I pick up all of mine.

My fear is that WvW ascended gear will be similarly priced with anet not really paying attention to actual drop rates in practice.

It also depends on your class build. I have managed to get alot more badges with my Necro then when i play my Guardian.

It’s not hard if you do the jumping puzzles, but I agree that the drop rate is too low.

There’s something wrong with the fact that if I do all 4 jump puzzles and then spend the entire day playing WvW, I’ll have gotten more badges from the jump puzzles.

Also the gear is just ugly:

You could do camp runs, and get enough Karma to purchase an entire Exotic set out of the Orr Karma merchants, before you’ll get enough to purchase one piece of armor, or weapons with Badges of Honor.

Use your Badges for siege equipment.

The jump puzzles are a good way to get badges but get boring quick for a lot of people. You could run 5 characters through each puzzle in wvw. Best to do the EB really only if mesmer’s are offering portals, that puzzle on 5 characters is a little draining. The BL puzzles are quick and easy. I haven’t tested this but according to a guildie after level 7 characters receive about the same badges as level 80’s. Taking an estimate of 8 badges per chest, 5 characters, 4 chests per character. That could give you 160 badges in a day. Badges are account bound so you can put them in your bank and move them to any character.

I’ve leveled 4 toons to 80, and working on my 5th toon, who is level 30 now.

Doing Karma/XP runs on camps, the lake, rinse repeat, I’ve leveled the fastest toon in 8 days, the longest of those four in 11 days. Every toon had 11 to 12 gold, which was spent on jewelry, and weapons, all exotic of course. Then I spent 5-7 days finishing my Karma out, to buy the Exotic Karma gear in Orr, from the Karma merchants.

The drop rate of Badges of Honor is a joke, considering how ugly the gear is, which can’t be transmuted, or anything done to it, and by the time you gear and level one toon if you’re going to do it with Badges of Honor, I can level 4, and gear them up in the same amount of time.

So in my opinion they need to increase the drop rates of Badges of Honor, and add a variety of stats you can purchase with them.

What is the worst, is I’ve had a lot of solo kills, that give me absolutely no Badges of Honor. That’s a kick in the face.

Jumping puzzle or running siege seems to be the best way to get badges. It does feel kind of off when you wvw for hours, kill many people, and walk away with 5-10 badges. It’s a joke. Considering the time expendature: 1.5 hours for 3 exp runs on AC = piece of armor. Countless days wvw’ing and I’m sitting at 170 badges. Good luck getting armor if you only wvw. Almost all of the people I know who only want to wvw put together 80 exo sets from dungeon runs and karma vendors, forcing them into parts of the game they enjoy less and would rather not spend their time on.

It’s certainly completely out of whack when compared to the relative cost of obtaining Karma or crafted gear. I wouldn’t increase the drop rate, since badges can buy siege. Increasing the drop rate would make siege essentially infinite for many of us. I’d reduce the cost of the gear to be more in line with the time commitment required to obtain gear via other activities.

Caelib.2497:

Something isn’t right with the Badges of Honor — the drop rate either needs to be adjusted or the gear costs need to be cut in half (at least). When you consider the cost of obtaining end-game gear through other means, it’s not balanced in terms of time investment.

Agreed, it’s been said many times the reward parity between PvE and PvP are broken. It’s ironic Anet wants to be recognized for PvP, yet put forth far less resources towards it than it does for PvE.

ArenaNet, can we get any kind of acknowledge of the problem here? I would just like to know if it is something that is planned to be addressed in the near future.

The bags do drop at your feet. For me the bags I miss out on are the ones that appear after I’ve been downed. Cuz it’s just not that hard to press the loot key, you can do it while you run, while you’re using skills….

In a game with no consequences for death (you don’t even pay to waypoint in wvw),…

I want my enemy to sit looking at his corpse and feel the bitter sting of knowing those sparkly bags will never be his.

Cuz I can’t de-level him, I can’t loot his corpse, or nuthin.

In terms of design — there’s a reason we get huge amounts of karma for playing wvw. Go snag the exotic karma gear, there’s some acceptably good assortment of stats, wear it til you earn your Invaders.

There’s also a reason you get coin and mats in wvw… It’s not like it’s pvp where the only tradeable thing you get is dye.

mulch.2586:

The bags do drop at your feet. For me the bags I miss out on are the ones that appear after I’ve been downed. Cuz it’s just not that hard to press the loot key, you can do it while you run, while you’re using skills….

In a game with no consequences for death (you don’t even pay to waypoint in wvw),…

I want my enemy to sit looking at his corpse and feel the bitter sting of knowing those sparkly bags will never be his.

Cuz I can’t de-level him, I can’t loot his corpse, or nuthin.

In terms of design — there’s a reason we get huge amounts of karma for playing wvw. Go snag the exotic karma gear, there’s some acceptably good assortment of stats, wear it til you earn your Invaders.

There’s also a reason you get coin and mats in wvw… It’s not like it’s pvp where the only tradeable thing you get is dye.

I’m all for risk, vs reward, but you’re being delusional if you think this provides that type of atmosphere, when you can get fully geared up under many circumstances, much, much easier.

It’s a broken mechanic, and see my post about my 4, fully geared 80s.

This nonsense about making someone you kill suffer, is laughable, and I’ve played all those games that allowed you to loot anothers corpse, and they were illusions, because gear was so easy to get, it didn’t matter, except for UO, or EQ1 where it could take years to get good gear.

The mechanic for Badges of Honor as loot is broken, and there needs to be a fix to it, or remove them from the game.

As a guardian I’m always pushing the line, supporting the retreat, and pushing it again. If I try to actively pick up badges during a fight I’ll die AND be useless. I hit ctrl or alt or whatever it is that makes them appear, and I see the bags of loot sometimes but I know if I go 10 feet to the left I’m not going to be doing my job as a guardian.

The drop mechanic is a significant problem, and after it’s fixed then I think we can look at the drop rate. I’m open to the idea that it’s working as intended, but I can’t tell because playing WvW precludes picking up a significant amount of my WvW loot.

ive heard of this thing called badges of honor, oh yeah comes from the jp chest mainly and guild claiming npcs, rarely from other source.

I am horrible at JPs. Really, really, reeeeaaaaaaly horrible. So getting the badges is a slow process. I would agree that the drop rate needs to be uped.

I’m OK at jumping puzzles, but I don’t Jumping Puzzles are supposed to be the primary way of acquiring badges, since they don’t really contribute to the WvW over supply camps, towers, and keeps.

jkctmc.8754:

Doing Karma/XP runs on camps, the lake, rinse repeat, I’ve leveled the fastest toon in 8 days, the longest of those four in 11 days. Every toon had 11 to 12 gold, which was spent on jewelry, and weapons, all exotic of course. Then I spent 5-7 days finishing my Karma out, to buy the Exotic Karma gear in Orr, from the Karma merchants.

Which Karma/XP runs during leveling, “the lake” places did you use? I only recently got my first 80, and I’m gold starved and trying to farm for exotics, so I’d like to level up my next classes that way so I can equip them correctly at 80.

Nut.4713:

It’s certainly completely out of whack when compared to the relative cost of obtaining Karma or crafted gear. I wouldn’t increase the drop rate, since badges can buy siege. Increasing the drop rate would make siege essentially infinite for many of us. I’d reduce the cost of the gear to be more in line with the time commitment required to obtain gear via other activities.

In that case each piece would cost about 10 badges. Won’t happen.

Oh and GW2 is completely broken to probably the most important aspect of wvw which is support. Support gets no rewards, even though THEY are the reason that almost anything happens. You spend hours speeding yaks along, good for you but no reward. Even though your side got the advantage because of it. Oh, you managed to heal/buff your team, and run supply to help build stuff. Tough, you didn’t stand there dpsing so you get nothing.

Reward system in this game is a bit old-fashioned for a game being rahter innovative about roles to fill etc.

Supporting gets you nothing compared to pure dps’ing and saying ‘sod all’.
Sad but true.

Also as a leveler in WvW I get not a lot of badges.
I’m lvl 37 with my engineer leveling in WvW and I think I have about 40 badges…

Why so few?
Firstly because I don’t spend much time killing worms or giant trees, or jumping puzzles. Secondly because of my level I think. Thirdly because I fight supportively.

I escort Dolyaks, I run supplies to siege up towers without using their own supplies needed for reinforcements. So I do a LOT of running. It gets me some xp building something, but mostly it gets me next to nothing for my trouble.

In fights I heal others, I use cc like pushback etc.
I hardly dps targets down myself.
Again: I get next to nothing for it.

In sieges I’m usually using my flamethrower on doors.
I burn down a LOT of rams and get some xp for it. But not much more than that.

Basically I play as supportive as a player can in WvW, and my rewards are a little bit of xp here or there, and the occasional rare lootbag.

If I were to throw grenades at the walls of SM all day, being almost useless for the larger battle, I would get WAY MORE badges than now.
How sad is that…

Moustachio.5910:

jkctmc.8754:

Doing Karma/XP runs on camps, the lake, rinse repeat, I’ve leveled the fastest toon in 8 days, the longest of those four in 11 days. Every toon had 11 to 12 gold, which was spent on jewelry, and weapons, all exotic of course. Then I spent 5-7 days finishing my Karma out, to buy the Exotic Karma gear in Orr, from the Karma merchants.

Which Karma/XP runs during leveling, “the lake” places did you use? I only recently got my first 80, and I’m gold starved and trying to farm for exotics, so I’d like to level up my next classes that way so I can equip them correctly at 80.

Go to an enemies borderlands, peferrably with the outmanned buff for the 33% bonus. Make sure you have a group, if you’re all low levels, or 3-4 if you have an 80 with you. You can even do it as a Zerg. Take camps, but don’t make it too obvious which one you’re going to next, and the enemy goes back to reflip them allowing for a constant run.

Badge grind. That’s what I’m calling it. Because it’s fun to WvW, but even if you have fun doing it getting enough badges for exotic armor takes an inordinate amount of time compared to anything else in the game.

There’s only one possible exception, that WvW gear will upgrade to ascended at some point. So I’m saving all my badges.

jkctmc.8754:

Moustachio.5910:

jkctmc.8754:

Doing Karma/XP runs on camps, the lake, rinse repeat, I’ve leveled the fastest toon in 8 days, the longest of those four in 11 days. Every toon had 11 to 12 gold, which was spent on jewelry, and weapons, all exotic of course. Then I spent 5-7 days finishing my Karma out, to buy the Exotic Karma gear in Orr, from the Karma merchants.

Which Karma/XP runs during leveling, “the lake” places did you use? I only recently got my first 80, and I’m gold starved and trying to farm for exotics, so I’d like to level up my next classes that way so I can equip them correctly at 80.

Go to an enemies borderlands, peferrably with the outmanned buff for the 33% bonus. Make sure you have a group, if you’re all low levels, or 3-4 if you have an 80 with you. You can even do it as a Zerg. Take camps, but don’t make it too obvious which one you’re going to next, and the enemy goes back to reflip them allowing for a constant run.

Intercepting Dolyaks is more useful for your team and it’s more likely you get to snatch some lone opponents on the way for badges.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

It’s not hard if you do the jumping puzzles, but I agree that the drop rate is too low.

There’s something wrong with the fact that if I do all 4 jump puzzles and then spend the entire day playing WvW, I’ll have gotten more badges from the jump puzzles.

Also the gear is just ugly:

Doing all 4 jumping puzzles gets you about 18~ badges a day, how is this even a remotely decent income of badges? You need about 20 days of doing jumping puzzles (80 jump puzzles) to get 1 piece of gear out of 13.

sachiel.8051:

Jumping puzzle or running siege seems to be the best way to get badges.

This is true.
It’s also a load of crap that in a PvP area, you can get more for doing less via PvE.

Worst grind in the game.

naphack.9346:

jkctmc.8754:

Moustachio.5910:

jkctmc.8754:

Doing Karma/XP runs on camps, the lake, rinse repeat, I’ve leveled the fastest toon in 8 days, the longest of those four in 11 days. Every toon had 11 to 12 gold, which was spent on jewelry, and weapons, all exotic of course. Then I spent 5-7 days finishing my Karma out, to buy the Exotic Karma gear in Orr, from the Karma merchants.

Which Karma/XP runs during leveling, “the lake” places did you use? I only recently got my first 80, and I’m gold starved and trying to farm for exotics, so I’d like to level up my next classes that way so I can equip them correctly at 80.

Go to an enemies borderlands, peferrably with the outmanned buff for the 33% bonus. Make sure you have a group, if you’re all low levels, or 3-4 if you have an 80 with you. You can even do it as a Zerg. Take camps, but don’t make it too obvious which one you’re going to next, and the enemy goes back to reflip them allowing for a constant run.

Intercepting Dolyaks is more useful for your team and it’s more likely you get to snatch some lone opponents on the way for badges.

Interesting. You can kill those as you’re moving around the map, taking all the camps, all the Sentries, which also gives you points, that goes towards the total your server needs to win the match.

A camp that is yours, isn’t sending your enemy supplies.

TheBob.9863:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

It’s not hard if you do the jumping puzzles, but I agree that the drop rate is too low.

There’s something wrong with the fact that if I do all 4 jump puzzles and then spend the entire day playing WvW, I’ll have gotten more badges from the jump puzzles.

Also the gear is just ugly:

Doing all 4 jumping puzzles gets you about 18~ badges a day, how is this even a remotely decent income of badges? You need about 20 days of doing jumping puzzles (80 jump puzzles) to get 1 piece of gear out of 13.

badges scale based on level. I get ~18 badges from the EBG one alone.

It is however pretty ridiculous. Keep in mind though that the invader amulets and earrings and necklaces have power/tough/vit. To my knowledge there are 2 amulets with those stats. One is the emerald pendant that costs about 45g, the other is the bloodstone amulet that most people dont know exists, and can only be made if you get an exotic drop from the last boss of the hardest path in arah, to date I know of no one with it yet. The rings have a same-stat-sister in some exotic ring that you only get by crafting after getting an exotic drop from TA I believe. Again im not sure if anyone has this one yet either. I dont think there are power/tough/vit necklaces.

the necklaces/earrings/amulet are priced about right imo.

I’ve been seriusly doing WvW for about 3 weeks now and I offiically have 3 pieces. I think thats a fair rate for me at least. Of course I’m not walking around in greens because there are like 50 other places to get exotics in the game…ie my original set was via karma from God Temples.
Even when I get the full set, my stats will change very little, but I enjoy how it looks and plan to collect the set as a personal goal. Is it too much to ask these days for people to just enjoy the process of obtaining something rather than the end result? Maybe I’m just too old.

Kimbald.2697:

Reward system in this game is a bit old-fashioned for a game being rahter innovative about roles to fill etc.

Supporting gets you nothing compared to pure dps’ing and saying ‘sod all’.
Sad but true.

Also as a leveler in WvW I get not a lot of badges.
I’m lvl 37 with my engineer leveling in WvW and I think I have about 40 badges…

Why so few?
Firstly because I don’t spend much time killing worms or giant trees, or jumping puzzles. Secondly because of my level I think. Thirdly because I fight supportively.

I escort Dolyaks, I run supplies to siege up towers without using their own supplies needed for reinforcements. So I do a LOT of running. It gets me some xp building something, but mostly it gets me next to nothing for my trouble.

In fights I heal others, I use cc like pushback etc.
I hardly dps targets down myself.
Again: I get next to nothing for it.

In sieges I’m usually using my flamethrower on doors.
I burn down a LOT of rams and get some xp for it. But not much more than that.

Basically I play as supportive as a player can in WvW, and my rewards are a little bit of xp here or there, and the occasional rare lootbag.

If I were to throw grenades at the walls of SM all day, being almost useless for the larger battle, I would get WAY MORE badges than now.
How sad is that…

I spent over 40+ hours last week in wvw, and over 50 levels across 7 characters ranging from level 50 to 80. I got more badges in the 3 trips through jumping puzzles I took brief time outs for than the rest of the time.

Now, I spent plenty of time in combat, taking towers, camps, keeps, running with an army or a small group — but some things to comment on.

1) Bags do NOT always drop at your feet. In particular, on my thief, there were a number of times that loot bags were many yards away. I only saw them because the mouse cursor trailed over and the yellow text highlighted. I had to dive into an enemy zerg, grab it and dodge back out to get it, other times I had to pass.

2) While on siege, the priority is defending. Someone commented ‘to the victor go the spoils.’ We might win, but my winning might be interrupted by a run back or a prolonged wait to be rez’d after being melted on a cannon depending on the situation. Loot does despawn. I am not going to stop defending to loot. My choice yes, but … more lost loot.

3) I’m constantly moving in combat. The priority is combat. I only notice the loot sometimes the -second- or third time when I’m running past it. If we’re on a hit and run detail, there isn’t always time to loiter to look for loot. Again, winning is more important, my choice, but…

4) To the points in the post I quoted, I emphatically agree. In the 40+ hours that I spent in wvw, I spent a -ton- of time in support mode. Guarding SM, rebuilding, building siege, running supplies manually all over the map. I will prioritize rez’ing an ally in most situations.

It would be a great improvement to autopick-up badges.

In fact, it would be excessively great if these things (for WvW, Dungeons, anything) were -currency- and not physical items. They are account bound. They can’t be ‘sold’ or traded. Why would I want to delete them? Why am I penalized storing them in the bank when I need literally hundreds of them across multiple characters to build or purchase significant investments.

Let’s be innovative, disassociate them from ‘loot’ and make them an intangible currency. It can still be randomly awarded (though the frequency could still stand to be adjusted, bearing in mind the other remarks about siege costs).