Guild Wars 2

Shademehr.1397:

If you were burning supply to fix outer SM, then you could very well have been helping the enemy, either unknowingly or on purpose.

The rest of what you’re saying just seems like you’re imposing some sort of self-rule that you have to get the GoB in a specific 8 hour period (which is what others here seem to be implying as well) instead of casually over several weeks like you would with all of the other legendary-related items. Heck, if all you wanted to do was PvE, just roll a thief/mesmer/scrapper/etc and sneak around the maps killing sentries, yaks, or taking ruins. Maybe even grab a quick camp or three when no one is looking. You’ll keep your participation up and you’ll never have to fight another player. Do these tasks when they’re a daily and get even faster rewards. A few minutes a day. A couple of hours per week.

1) If you don’t want PvE scrubs messing with your precious supply then stop being so happy about us being forced in there. ^^; (Besides, fully upgraded SM, Dolyaks incoming from every camp, and fully sieged up, with 1800 supply in depot.. Dunno what you want all the supply for but whatever, I’m a PvE scrub, don’t expect me to know better).
2) I tried doing it with my normal way of WvW:ing (a daily here and there, cap a camp, kill a dolyak etc..). Got me 1/20 of the way in 2 days. I really don’t want to delay my Legendary for 3 weeks when I’ve already done ALL the work except the last 2 Gifts.. Thus; I rage-farmed it.

TheNecrosanct.4028:

I still stand by my earlier proposal: a reward track for the Gift of Exploration (as a second, non-PvE way to get it) and a Mystic Forge recipe from Miyani for the Gift of Battle (as a second, non-WvW to get that). A Gift of Exploration reward track would’ve made much more sense in the first place. And Miyani already sells recipes for the other gifts required for legendaries, so adding one for the Gift of Battle also makes perfect sense. This solves all potential problems, I think. No one has to “suffer”. Contrary to all the claims of the so-called fairness of PvE players having to do WvW now, the recipe and reward track would be a truly fair solution for all.

I don’t think a single reward track would be a fair compromise for a gift of exploration. Before this change both WvW players and PvE players had to do the same amount of work to get a gift of battle. And right now they still have to do the same amount of work to get a gift of battle. But a single reward track is much faster to complete than world completion, which would mean that WvW players would now have to put less work into getting the gifts needed to make a legendary. It should be equal effort regardless of your preferred playstyle.

Shademehr.1397:

Najten.2418:

What you’re describing sounds like I’m helping the enemy team take SM by calling out that the enemy zerg knocking on the door is just a thief tagging the guards. Wow. I am hardly derailing events on purpose by repairing walls that are about to break (actually keeping the enemies outside the walls ). I’m just not being extremely helpful. There’s a pretty massive difference there.
I’ll gladly join the zerg every once in a while, when I’m in the mood for it, but not when I’m stuck in there for 8 hours straight cuz I don’t want to lose my participation and get a lower tick. 8 hours might not seem like much of a grind all things compared, but it is another day of my game-time spent where I couldn’t do the other things I wanted to be doing.

If you were burning supply to fix outer SM, then you could very well have been helping the enemy, either unknowingly or on purpose.

The rest of what you’re saying just seems like you’re imposing some sort of self-rule that you have to get the GoB in a specific 8 hour period (which is what others here seem to be implying as well) instead of casually over several weeks like you would with all of the other legendary-related items. Heck, if all you wanted to do was PvE, just roll a thief/mesmer/scrapper/etc and sneak around the maps killing sentries, yaks, or taking ruins. Maybe even grab a quick camp or three when no one is looking. You’ll keep your participation up and you’ll never have to fight another player. Do these tasks when they’re a daily and get even faster rewards. A few minutes a day. A couple of hours per week.

Quite frankly, with the system as it is now, if all I am interested in is the gift of battle, I wont really care about how I am using your supply even if its helping the enemy. I will probably be involved for a short 20mins to build up participation and off I go to do my stuff.

Aeristoreine.9351:

I wont really care about how I am using your supply even if its helping the enemy.

Of that, I have no doubt.

It seems a little odd that WvW map completion was removed from the acquisition of the Gift of Exploration…but now WvW participation is being forced in much higher order to acquire the Gift of Mastery.

I don’t mind WvW, so the change isn’t anathema to me or anything, but it does seem unfair to people who have already earned their badges but don’t want to participate in WvW any longer. This is especially so for people in crummy matchups (such as against TC or BG).

katubug.6378:

It seems a little odd that WvW map completion was removed from the acquisition of the Gift of Exploration…but now WvW participation is being forced in much higher order to acquire the Gift of Mastery.

I don’t mind WvW, so the change isn’t anathema to me or anything, but it does seem unfair to people who have already earned their badges but don’t want to participate in WvW any longer. This is especially so for people in crummy matchups (such as against TC or BG).

TC is basically getting tag teamed by Blobgate and their proxy server Yak’s Bend.

It is virtually unenjoyable as every blobgate group we face is basically 40-50+ people 24/7.

katubug.6378:

It seems a little odd that WvW map completion was removed from the acquisition of the Gift of Exploration…but now WvW participation is being forced in much higher order to acquire the Gift of Mastery.

I don’t mind WvW, so the change isn’t anathema to me or anything, but it does seem unfair to people who have already earned their badges but don’t want to participate in WvW any longer. This is especially so for people in crummy matchups (such as against TC or BG).

WvW map completion, at least at that time, was incredibly unfair to those on weaker servers. It was highly unlikely you could break into the enemy keep on a whim or at least not in a timely fashion unless you prayed to the RNG gods that colors would change. And honestly, having that being a deciding factor of your legendary journey is dumb. “I waited 3 months, and then I got blue!” <<< Yea, that’s the stuff of legends. I’ve always been opposed to that simply because the concept of exploration is heavily devalued in WvW anyways.

So I thought it was a failure in both a thematic and practical sense, and all it did was annoy people. It really didn’t help that I got stories from PvD Kings about their epic PvDooring of some location late at night and how they were projecting onto other PvErs (the oh-so-annoying, if I could do it, why can’t you crap) and even more stories of people transferring to a winning server like it was something courageous.

The Gift of Battle on the other hand, does somewhat imply involvement in the game mode. Though badges were being handed out like candy and also AP chests gave them, so it was possible to acquire badges at the least without playing wvw at all. It just means that 500 badges now is not what it once was, much like how cultural armor isn’t all that special anymore.

Reward tracks are a bit more fair though still admittingly problematic, than map completion. They’re not dependent on you reaching somewhere, and no matter how bad your server is losing, you can generally capture enough stuff alone or with friends. Sometimes it’s actually advantageous to be on a losing server because you have stuff to recap and karma trains want you to take it back anyways. The other big thing is you can also earn reward track in EOTM which is even easier. They’re also introducing daily chests for wvw achievements to speed up the process.

Though I wonder if it’s fair to also add the gift of battle to a PvP reward track as well; maybe that’d make things easier? Or maybe a way to make a synthetic pve replacement much like what heroics are doing for HoT currency. I think making it sellable would make a lot of people happy, though I understand why people would be opposed to being able to just buy these things.

This has been mentioned off and on for the last couple months. Yes they didnt put up a big flashing alert on the launcher telling us “Were removing gifts of battle from the vendor tomorrow” but we had warning that it would be coming some point soon. I bought 6 of the things when I first heard about it, I doubt I’ll craft that many legendaries but I figured I’d have them just in case.

Honestly 500 badges was prety cheep anyway. A good zerg could get that in an evening or two or even daily’s for a couple weeks as 2 of them on average are soloable every day. Even on the reward tracks it wont be all that hard as you can get almost 1 tier of them every 15 minutes just roaming around hiting camps and sentries.

Merendel.7128:

This has been mentioned off and on for the last couple months. Yes they didnt put up a big flashing alert on the launcher telling us “Were removing gifts of battle from the vendor tomorrow” but we had warning that it would be coming some point soon. I bought 6 of the things when I first heard about it, I doubt I’ll craft that many legendaries but I figured I’d have them just in case.

Honestly 500 badges was prety cheep anyway. A good zerg could get that in an evening or two or even daily’s for a couple weeks as 2 of them on average are soloable every day. Even on the reward tracks it wont be all that hard as you can get almost 1 tier of them every 15 minutes just roaming around hiting camps and sentries.

So assume you’re going for a WvW title; kill x ammount of Dolyaks. Would you be happy if it’s removed next patch, and ok with the info if it was mentioned as a sidenote under “New Titles for Heart of Thorns Areas”? ‘Also, as a result of this change we will be removing all WvW titles in an upcoming patch.’

Got precursor on 13th (The Legend). Awesome event, but also… “#$%&, now I have to do dungeons”.
Read patch notes on 14th… “#$%&, my 3k badges are worthless now. So far I hated every minute of wvw – and now I have to do it all over again.”
Finally quit GW on 15th. Thought about doing it on the 16th, because that would have been 900 days of playtime, but what’s the point?

At first I was really annoyed at this change, but there is really no reason to complain about any of this if you think about it. Removing the trader is a simple change and the effects on people in the process of building their legendaries would have been instantly obvious. So if ANet cared about people who invested time/effort they wouldn’t have implemented this change in the first place. They did it in the past and will keep doing it in the future. And they can. In the end it is their game, not ours. Either bend over or move on.

My problem with this change isn’t that I suddenly have to work “harder” to get a Legendary…

1. It’s not harder, it’s just longer, and much longer than it was before. Assuming you’re consistently maxed on participation for the full duration of the time, it’ll take 8.5 hours to max a track.

2. It existed for 3+ years in it’s previous state, and many of the badges that people had earned were intended for the Gift of Battle. They already put in the work to earn those badges, I don’t see why they shouldn’t be allowed to use something they already earned with the intention to use them for Legendaries.

3. This forces people who exclusively PVE into WvW for quite a bit of hours. Neither WvW players nor PvE players want this. WvWers don’t want people who have no idea wtf they’re doing and don’t want to be there anyways trampling all over, and PvErs don’t want to deal with the uppityness of dealing with WvWers when they have no idea what they’re doing and don’t want to be there anyways.

4. This change shows clear favor for servers who have more active WvW presence. When I go into my server during the only available WvW hours I have, I may see a couple of people from my team or theirs (unless I get randomly zerged by 30 people). However, most of the stuff on my side is already taken, so I can’t take it back for credit, or it’s been taken by a much larger enemy group.

5. When I do manage to find people to actively take stuff with, it’s always in EOTM. I can’t stress enough how much I hate EOTM, but that’s beside the point. Even if I liked it, it gives diminished rewards. Don’t mind you that people there seem to care more about their completely meaningless score than the people on my server in actual borderlands where the score at least somewhat counts.

6. Warning PVErs about this change in the WvW section was like hiding the Cracker Jack prize in the bottom of a jar of Razors and Salt.

And to all of you who support this change, I accept the fact that our opinions may vary. But many of you are extremely biased. You either already WvW on a regular basis, and therefor it’s not an issue to you, or you bought your Gifts of Battle early and don’t really care how others are affected. Personally I have well over 3,000 hours in WvW, many of those commanding and in a WvW guild. I’ve played on multiple server and I have always had a love and passion for WvW and the strategies and gameplay and the uniqueness of the game mode. I think, personally, this is a terrible idea, and you’re only going to drive players away with this nonsense. I personally know people who just sold their precursors when the change was implemented. When your parents forced you to eat your vegetables as a kid, it didn’t make you like them. For most people, it only solidified their dislike for the game mode.

Well many agree Gift of Battle (GoB) changes were not good for players. Especially bad for us people who never read about the changes but those already have their own complaint topics.

The real problem is anyone who wants legendary items will never complete any reward track other than Gift of Battle. For example, if rumors of requiring 1 (GoB) per legendary armor piece is true obtaining a set will require 6 (GoB) 3 sets of legendary armor that means 18 GoB. Want to have also set of legendary weapons get 2-6 more (GoB). Therefore if you want to craft some legendary items forget that any reward track exists except (GoB), for you other reward tracks may as well not exist as they would never have time to complete them. At 8.5h under ideal settings the farm for GoB is in poor taste for non primary WvW player. Even for WvW player they are having to forgo other reward tracks such as Triumphant which could require completion 6-18 times and with the addition of new Hero Weapons thus more reward track completions to get their WvW exclusive items. This problem does not exist for PvP players as Gifts are not locked behind 1 PvP track (Classic Anet add content then then do something that functionally makes said content not exist eg. Post nerf dungeons pre buff tokens)

We are going to assume that the type of player that crafts legendary items is typically not a WvW heavy player or has WvW in the past but no longer does. Reason’s for this assumption WvW players do not make enough wealth to craft multiple legendary items without profiteering of the Trading Post.

Who does this change benefit? It certainly does not help the WvW community by forcing angry PvE players into WvW grind. It Does not help new players as it does not matter if they had badges or not. What it does is hurt vet players who were not ready for the changes. Oh it helps rich players flip legendary because they are more time expensive to craft on the Trading Post thus new legendary prices will reflect the increased time cost to craft.

TLDR
Conclusion: This change helps nobody except anger many players. This does not help WvW community as PvE players will maximize their personal utility at the cost of the server or semi afk, they certainly wont play WvW as intended. Does not help new players. Does not add to legendary item prestige that has been gone ages ago. Potentially helps very rich players flip legendary items due to increased value due to time investment to craft.

Someone tell me a useful logical reason for this change. What am I missing
Solutions:
1) Revert changes-Anet admits this change was stupid
2) Add GoB to any WvW specific reward track. Besides WvW players do not get enough rewards anyway. Anet saves some face and makes pvp reward tracks somewhat relevant.
3) Get (GoB) on gaining wxp ranks as a special chest. This helps keep reward tracks relevant and easier to balance when the (GoB) is awarded. Anet admits it was wrong but still for some illogical reason doesn’t want (GoB) with badges.

Best Solution=1
2nd=3
3rd=2
Worst Solution=Ignore the problem

The only reason this was changed was to get people back into WvW after the HoT changed decimated the WvW population.

BrotherBelial.3094:

The only reason this was changed was to get people back into WvW after the HoT changed decimated the WvW population.

I doubt very much this was the motivation — they already got more people into WvW via other means. And, at best, I can’t imagine anyone at ANet thinking people forced into WvW would be likely to stay because they enjoyed the experience.

It seems more likely to me that this is part of a general philosophy change that they’ve been slowly implementing, giving preference to active gaming over passive rewards. That’s consistent with the changes to guild halls, to some of the PvP maps, and with WvW reward tracks.

Now, I still think ANet goofed by not posting an announcement about this change on the main site (both when first mentioned in the patch notes and again just before it went live). And I think ANet made a bigger mistake by not blogging about their goals in making such changes. I think they should also reconsider whether the Gift of Battle has to be a WvW thing — why not offer a PvP reward track?

And I still think ANet should revert this change and do it ‘right’, even if I agree it’s reasonable to move towards active participation.

I am not sure I like the term active participation for the new wvw reward track. That makes it sound like those players who earned badges of honor in the past weren’t actively participating. I know I had to actively participate to earn my badges of honor. This is just one of many nonsensical moves by Anet.

The biggest problem I see with this change is two fold:
1) Poor communication resulting in 2) people feeling that their earned badges of honor are useless now, even though they went through the effort to get them.

I don’t mind it being on a reward track, what I do mind is that Anet “fixed something that wasn’t broken” and in the process invalidated a bunch of effort put in by people who would rather be doing things other than PvP (which is what WvW is, it just has some PvE thrown in to annoy people).
Someone at Arenanet is convinced that if you just force people to do something, they will like it.

Vlad.1739:

[…]
This does not help WvW community as PvE players will maximize their personal utility at the cost of the server or semi afk, they certainly wont play WvW as intended. […]

This is hardly an argument.
There have always been, still are, and always will be people playing WvW not as intended. There are still whole guild squads rather playing GvG on borderlands instead of capping/defending objectives, there are still ppl rather duelling instead of using arenas in guild halls. I’m pretty sure the GoB change won’t add much to this.

[There was some bullkitten here based on outdated information. Apologies]
I guess Illconceived covered most aspects anyway, so nvm, move along…

€: [There was some bullkitten here based on outdated information. Apologies]
€€: just found the other topic about GoB and reward tracks

Anyway, I don’t see that much of an issue here since you can still get a GoB for 500 badges

not since the update you can’t. you can only get it via the reward track now.

You need six Gifts of Craftsmanship, not Gifts of Battle. They have the same icon.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gift_of_Battle
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gift_of_Craftsmanship

What’s with option 4?
Adjusting the amount of points needed for the reward tracks, to make them similiar to the ones on PvP?

Or option 5?
Add items and booster, that raise the amount of points gained for the WvW reward tracks, so it doesn’t become a hassle.

Nash.2681:

Vlad.1739:

[…]
This does not help WvW community as PvE players will maximize their personal utility at the cost of the server or semi afk, they certainly wont play WvW as intended. […]

This is hardly an argument.
There have always been, still are, and always will be people playing WvW not as intended. There are still whole guild squads rather playing GvG on borderlands instead of capping/defending objectives, there are still ppl rather duelling instead of using arenas in guild halls. I’m pretty sure the GoB change won’t add much to this.

Anyway, I don’t see that much of an issue here since you can still get a GoB for 500 badges.
For example, I started playing in september 2012. During my first year I only set foot in WvW for world completion (ah, the nostalgia…). After they revamped the daily system I started to play WvW every now and then, barely more than 2-3 hours a week on average. With the invention of the desert borderlands, I dropped WvW entirely. Now with alpine BLs being back, I play some WvW again, but not more than before. And guess what? I’m sitting on a couple of thousands of badges, so getting 18 GoB (that’s 18×500 = 900 badges) right away would be no problem.
So, assuming the main audiance for the legenday armor (raiders) usually are dedicated players, I think it’s save to assume they either have enough badges in their wallet from some casual WvW excursions aswell or will have them in a reasonable time. To me, the reward track feels just like an additional option decreasing the number of needed badges and thus speeding up the process if you start from scratch.

€: my post is based on the information given on the wiki, but I’m under the impression that people in here assume that the reward track is the only way to obtain a GoB; however, according to the wiki it’s not:

Gift of Battle Item Reward Track is a repeatable World versus World Reward Track, and the only method of obtaining Gift of Battle other than speaking with the Battle Master in Eternal Battlegrounds.

So is the wiki wrong here? If so, my post needs some correction ofc.

I believe 18×500 would equal 9000, rather than 900. =)

BrotherBelial.3094:

The only reason this was changed was to get people back into WvW after the HoT changed decimated the WvW population.

Making people do content they don’t want to do always makes the content massively worse for the people who actually want to be there.

Lol, You know nothing.

WvW has had the struggles since the launch. Kill 250,00 dolyaks anyone? Or anything crazy like that. Luckily it did get changed to something more reasonable.

Like I said before. The GoB barely required any effort to get it as you could just do the jumping puzzles daily and get your badges that way. This way it feels more like Gift of Battle as what ever you do, you are technically supporting your realms “war” effort.

Najten.2418:

Merendel.7128:

This has been mentioned off and on for the last couple months. Yes they didnt put up a big flashing alert on the launcher telling us “Were removing gifts of battle from the vendor tomorrow” but we had warning that it would be coming some point soon. I bought 6 of the things when I first heard about it, I doubt I’ll craft that many legendaries but I figured I’d have them just in case.

Honestly 500 badges was prety cheep anyway. A good zerg could get that in an evening or two or even daily’s for a couple weeks as 2 of them on average are soloable every day. Even on the reward tracks it wont be all that hard as you can get almost 1 tier of them every 15 minutes just roaming around hiting camps and sentries.

So assume you’re going for a WvW title; kill x ammount of Dolyaks. Would you be happy if it’s removed next patch, and ok with the info if it was mentioned as a sidenote under “New Titles for Heart of Thorns Areas”? ‘Also, as a result of this change we will be removing all WvW titles in an upcoming patch.’

Not a good analogy. That would be like if they retroactively took away any Gifts of Battle you had.

Aeristoreine.9351:

Please revert the change and allow us to purchase the gift of battle from vendor with badges again. This change was totally unnecessary. Why force people to play wvw through this way? If you want ppl to play wvw, then make a change so desirable that people wants to play it. Not everyone is interested in wvw and not everyone will therefore read the patch notes under wvw.

First you stopped legendary development and now you make things harder for us. Good job ANET, you are losing players very quickly.

The components needed to make a legendary aren’t supposed to be easy to get, so attaining the Gift of Battle via the reward track seems perfectly reasonable to me.

We asked for the reward track and we’ve been complaining about Badges being redundant for ages now. But just because now its a little harder to get something and you have to actually put a little effort in, you suddenly want it the easy way. You people baffle me.

Besides, the time you spend here moaning could be time spent grinding that reward track.

Why didn’t we get notified about such a big change?? An in-game mail would be more than welcome. I’m pretty mad about the lack of communication.

I have about 3k of those badges. What should I do now with them?

Meehael.8240:

Why didn’t we get notified about such a big change?? An in-game mail would be more than welcome. I’m pretty mad about the lack of communication.

I have about 3k of those badges. What should I do now with them?

Buy buff food XD

Meehael.8240:

Why didn’t we get notified about such a big change?? An in-game mail would be more than welcome. I’m pretty mad about the lack of communication.

I have about 3k of those badges. What should I do now with them?

Convert them into Badges of Tribute at your Guild Hall and make quite a bit of money.

They did notify us, but they haven’t got a handle on how to communicate what changes to us properly at the moment. Things like the polls and subsequent in game mails have been a really good example of how they are getting it right, however this GoB change was communicated via a footnote in a patch notes a while ago and also discussed on the forums.

This doesn’t help anyone who misses the finer details on patch notes or who doesn’t read the wvw forums. In this case, the WvW forums are probably visited by a decent proportion of the WvW community, however the GoB affects non WvWers as well, so keeping the info there doesn’t ensure this change reaches the right catchment.

Given they don’t want to invalidate the GoB reward track (and I am in favour of the track), there are workarounds;

- reinstate the vendor for a very short time so people can get their gifts. And tell people properly
- reinstate the vendor permanently and increase the gift to maybe 1000 badges or more. That would keep it more on par with the time investment of the track without invalidating it fully, especially if they juiced up the reward track with a couple of extra things.

RoseofGilead.8907:

There was a warning some weeks ago (the April patch) when they introduced the wvw reward tracks.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-April-19-2016/first#post6102518

“WvW—REWARD TRACKS (Beta)
Reward tracks have been added to World vs. World. These are nearly identical to the reward tracks you find in PvP, except that some rewards have been adjusted to be geared toward WvW players. One of the tracks offers players a chance to earn the new WvW-exclusive Triumphant armor set! Also, once the reward tracks feature exits beta testing, the Gift of Battle legendary crafting component will no longer be available as a vendor purchase and will be earned via its own reward track.”

I wish they have at least bolded the text like you did. But not even that.
Not to mention an in-game mail about such a big change would be more than welcome…
Or a news headline in the game launcher…
No heads-up on Dulfy about the change, too. Nothing.
And now, I’m stuck with loads of useless tokens -.-
That really kittenes me off!

OriOri.8724:

TheNecrosanct.4028:

I still stand by my earlier proposal: a reward track for the Gift of Exploration (as a second, non-PvE way to get it) and a Mystic Forge recipe from Miyani for the Gift of Battle (as a second, non-WvW to get that). A Gift of Exploration reward track would’ve made much more sense in the first place. And Miyani already sells recipes for the other gifts required for legendaries, so adding one for the Gift of Battle also makes perfect sense. This solves all potential problems, I think. No one has to “suffer”. Contrary to all the claims of the so-called fairness of PvE players having to do WvW now, the recipe and reward track would be a truly fair solution for all.

I don’t think a single reward track would be a fair compromise for a gift of exploration. Before this change both WvW players and PvE players had to do the same amount of work to get a gift of battle. And right now they still have to do the same amount of work to get a gift of battle. But a single reward track is much faster to complete than world completion, which would mean that WvW players would now have to put less work into getting the gifts needed to make a legendary. It should be equal effort regardless of your preferred playstyle.

According to most people’s calculations here it takes around 8 hours to finish a reward track. Keep in mind that world completion grants 2 Gifts of Exploration. The reward track would only give 1. So doing the track twice would take around 16 hours. World completion takes about the same time. So yes, I do think it’s a fair compromise.

Meehael.8240:

RoseofGilead.8907:

There was a warning some weeks ago (the April patch) when they introduced the wvw reward tracks.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-April-19-2016/first#post6102518

“WvW—REWARD TRACKS (Beta)
Reward tracks have been added to World vs. World. These are nearly identical to the reward tracks you find in PvP, except that some rewards have been adjusted to be geared toward WvW players. One of the tracks offers players a chance to earn the new WvW-exclusive Triumphant armor set! Also, once the reward tracks feature exits beta testing, the Gift of Battle legendary crafting component will no longer be available as a vendor purchase and will be earned via its own reward track.”

I wish they have at least bolded the text like you did. But not even that.
Not to mention an in-game mail about such a big change would be more than welcome…
Or a news headline in the game launcher…
No heads-up on Dulfy about the change, too. Nothing.
And now, I’m stuck with loads of useless tokens -.-
That really kittenes me off!

To be fair…

Light mention in 20k word patch notes that are easy to miss and don’t stand out.

“Once the reward track feature exits beta” is ambiguous.

The devs could have made it known a couple weeks prior that the reward track beta would exit and to buy what you need, if you need. It’s a communication thing, but I understand it’s easy to miss something like this among the flood of work.

At this point it would be reasonable to make a post saying “hey, we are making the vendor available for 1 month, until this date, so pick up your GoB if you need them. After this date the vendor will no longer be available and GoB will only be obtainable through reward tracks going forward.”. That would be clear, concise and appropriate at this point.

BrotherBelial.3094:

The only reason this was changed was to get people back into WvW after the HoT changed decimated the WvW population.

This maybe true, but its going to bring the wrong players into WvW.

Does anyone remember all them complaints about season 1 where WvW players complained about PvE players filling up queue’s etc and K-Training the maps etc,

Do you want the BL’s to become massive K-Train maps by PvE players, because this is how you get massive K-Trains on the BL’s by PvE only players,

This update makes no sense, I could understand it it was 1 tier long, where you have to say get 10 ticks at max reward, but to make it the same as a normal title track, was stupid,

That old saying, if its not broken don’t try and fix it.

Bring back the vendor for a month, pls

Dashingsteel.3410:

I am not sure I like the term active participation for the new wvw reward track. That makes it sound like those players who earned badges of honor in the past weren’t actively participating. I know I had to actively participate to earn my badges of honor. This is just one of many nonsensical moves by Anet.

Strange. I’ve gotten hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of badges of honor from achievement point chests, far more than I ever got from WvW.

Ok I Did It.2854:

That old saying, if its not broken don’t try and fix it.

Ah, but Anet’s policy seems to be “If it’s not broken, fix it until it is.”

Vlad.1739:

Conclusion: This change helps nobody except anger many players. This does not help WvW community as PvE players will maximize their personal utility at the cost of the server or semi afk, they certainly wont play WvW as intended.

So you’re telling us that pve’ers are selfish?
Hmmm, I’ve seen many many pve’ers casualy doing wvw. Never seen them crying. Same with pvp. And wvw’ers/pvp’ers doing pve.
Maybe the “one mode only” players aren’t a majority.

You can keep complaining while all these players get their legendaries. It’s your choice.

Aeristoreine.9351:

Copying pasting from my other post which I think is very useful for consideration with regards to this change.

Lets all look at it from the wvw perspective whether the change is helpful to the community or could it revive wvw back to its glory days

By implementing reward tracks:
Players just need to cap participation and can just afk. We are not motivated to join on a commander/wvw raids to capture objectives. Is this a meaningful change? No. It adds more time to legendary crafting and there is no practical benefit to wvw in any sense. We just invited more afkers and trollers into wvw, thinking its gonna help them in their raids.

so can you explain how I do that? I have a nice set of Dvds I wanted to watch anyways (angels in america. Really great thing, cant recommend enough unless you think gays are icky)
So I planned to just do the stuff i need to get the participation High enough to get a growth and then to maybe do something every 15 minutes to not get kicked and to not let the participation fall down..

So, how do I do that? Do I run with a blob, attack something and then when participation is high enough just run back into my safe area and stand there around while doing something that interests me and is fun (like watching that excellent play I mentioned)

bad enough that I am on a really full server that usually even has a queue of like.. 10 peopl up to 30 ..
But hey, not my problem? I am forced to do this stuff that i never wanted to do to grind for a thing in a game that so loves to congratulate itself for being ungrindy. yeah..lol)
and well.. lets see how well my server ( we are in the top 5 in europe)..)will work with enough people standing around building walls or something

Gigiobalt.7625:

Swagger.1459:

kschmidt.5901:

Agreed at least put the vendors back for a limited time. I’m sitting on tons of badges and have been working on other things like world completion for my legendary. Now I suddenly have to go back to grinding a WvW reward track for a part that I had already completed.

I love WvW and spend most of my time there, so it won’t take long but having this as an unannounced change sucks. Let those of us with the badges buy the gift for another week or 2 then remove the vendors.

Not a limited time, back to the way it was. There is more than enough grind in the game and the 500 badges was enough really.

Edit- or just have both… Such a silly change really.

Not silly at all. In fact its just fair. If WvW players want legendary armor, or even a legendary weapon, they HAVE to do PvE content for it. So if you PvErs want a legendary, why can’t you do some hours of WvW for ONE component of the legendaries?

There we go again, a typical WvW guy who has this in his/her mind ‘’If I want to make a PVE LEGENDARY I have to do pve so you pve people also have to suffer and do WvW to be fair’‘.
In the first place we’re talking about pve legendary, if you only care about WvW why would you even consider going for it at the first place? So far I have not yet seen any only focused on wvw guy being able to afford a legendary by just doing wvw (gold wise). Since you barely get any gold from doing that stuff. I’m pretty sure you’ll find a lot of wvw people who has a legendary that actually either spent real life money for gems/gold exchange or went into pve to get the amount of gold they need for the gift of fortune/precursor. So at some point you’ll have to do pve anyways unless you are ready to spend some RL money.

if you dont like the idea of going into EB or the borders, just go EOTM where you can leech to your hearts content.

LONGA.1652:

Oh boy another page from manifesto goes to the bin. Also WvW tournament AP Season 1 falshback.

Yep.. There werent happy with my implication that the great idea of “you dont have to grind to have fun” and “you dont have to suffer through something you dont like to have fun” would be a bit..hmn.. untrue now? (k. wasnt written nicely, all in BIG letters.. it still. A lie is a lie. Even if it was truth once, the thruth of that big ideal is now gone, however not nice it feels to hear that.

If you’re lucky and have a nice commander, he will give you a scout tag and your participation will be awarded as if you were running with the zerg. Just watch a movie and keep an eye out in SM every once in a while

hmn, sounds nice unless we get too much and you have 2/3 of a blob standing just around while the others work their kitten off..

This change is like.. bad for all

Kinda annoyed they threw this in with very little communication. I’m rank 1777 and sitting on stacks of mist chests and 34.5k badges from WvW, (NOT EOTM) and now I have to grind this? Sorry the reward track is beyond slow. Why are A-Net always rewarding those that jump in when its flavor of the month instead of rewarding those that been playing WvW for fun and getting laughable loot.

A-Net please wake up and award those with high WvW ranks. My rank isn’t even high, others are sitting at 5000+ rank with nothing to show it but a cheap title.

Also you’re only penalizing the current WvWers vets as we get stuck in queues and have to deal with afkers. Seriously before you do anything in WvW, just ask ANY WvWers with 2k+ rank or something. Not mr casual weekend warrior that logs on once in a blue moon.

Firmicute.3876:

Aeristoreine.9351:

Copying pasting from my other post which I think is very useful for consideration with regards to this change.

Lets all look at it from the wvw perspective whether the change is helpful to the community or could it revive wvw back to its glory days

By implementing reward tracks:
Players just need to cap participation and can just afk. We are not motivated to join on a commander/wvw raids to capture objectives. Is this a meaningful change? No. It adds more time to legendary crafting and there is no practical benefit to wvw in any sense. We just invited more afkers and trollers into wvw, thinking its gonna help them in their raids.

so can you explain how I do that? I have a nice set of Dvds I wanted to watch anyways (angels in america. Really great thing, cant recommend enough unless you think gays are icky)
So I planned to just do the stuff i need to get the participation High enough to get a growth and then to maybe do something every 15 minutes to not get kicked and to not let the participation fall down..

So, how do I do that? Do I run with a blob, attack something and then when participation is high enough just run back into my safe area and stand there around while doing something that interests me and is fun (like watching that excellent play I mentioned)

bad enough that I am on a really full server that usually even has a queue of like.. 10 peopl up to 30 ..
But hey, not my problem? I am forced to do this stuff that i never wanted to do to grind for a thing in a game that so loves to congratulate itself for being ungrindy. yeah..lol)
and well.. lets see how well my server ( we are in the top 5 in europe)..)will work with enough people standing around building walls or something

Get your participation to max (195/5mins) and then do anything that awards your participation every 5-8mins. Dont thank me please, thank ANET for such nice AFK opportunity! And if anyone flames you for lurking around meaninglessly, please direct them to ANET as well!

Oh yes.. to add more spice to the soup, please do this during world’s peak hour to troll your fellow mates and enjoy seeing your world getting outnumbered when its actually not the case (if you are heartless enough).

Technically speaking, we are not AFKing, after all the reward track is termed behind “participation” right? So we “participated” somehow..

alicatrawz.9567:

if you dont like the idea of going into EB or the borders, just go EOTM where you can leech to your hearts content.

Why go EOTM to leech when I can do it in EB/BL and getting much higher participation per tick.

The real problem is people doing wvw just for the sake of completing the GOB reward track, and you do know that in the process of doing this, one need not actively engage in true WvW objectives. I can simply go into EB/BL on prime time and just clog the queue while I semi-afk to complete my reward track.. Let the rest rage, it does not bother those who are there simply for the sake of getting a gift.

I need not listen to commander’s instructions and can just deplete supply in any ways I want. The people who are truly affected by this change are the true WvW’ers who are constantly trying to win their war.

Aeristoreine.9351:

The real problem is people doing wvw just for the sake of completing the GOB reward track, and you do know that in the process of doing this, one need not actively engage in true WvW objectives. I can simply go into EB/BL on prime time and just clog the queue while I semi-afk to complete my reward track.. Let the rest rage, it does not bother those who are there simply for the sake of getting a gift.

I need not listen to commander’s instructions and can just deplete supply in any ways I want. The people who are truly affected by this change are the true WvW’ers who are constantly trying to win their war.

Or you know, you could try to have some fun with all your server mates.
Don’t blame Anet if you chose to act like a kitten.

Nausicca.6038:

Aeristoreine.9351:

The real problem is people doing wvw just for the sake of completing the GOB reward track, and you do know that in the process of doing this, one need not actively engage in true WvW objectives. I can simply go into EB/BL on prime time and just clog the queue while I semi-afk to complete my reward track.. Let the rest rage, it does not bother those who are there simply for the sake of getting a gift.

I need not listen to commander’s instructions and can just deplete supply in any ways I want. The people who are truly affected by this change are the true WvW’ers who are constantly trying to win their war.

Or you know, you could try to have some fun with all your server mates.
Don’t blame Anet if you chose to act like a kitten.

Thank you.

I don’t see a need for the change. But people have asked in the past for something that required more effort in regard to getting the Gift of Battle. Which is the problem with people needing to play things they don’t normally play – the people that do those things all the time think higher requirements are reasonable. It is particularly bad for WvW because there is a subset of that community which believes everyone, regular WvW players or new/occasional players, should play the game their preferred way. So going to WvW on your preferred class with your preferred gear and working toward objectives you believe are important rather than the “map tag” objectives can be an ugly experience. This is especially true for people who aren’t planning to spend enough time in WvW for it to be worth changing gear and learning specific expected builds.

The real problem is Anet moved the goalposts on the acquisition of existing weapons. They should be focusing on pumping out content and new rewards for the game modes that they want to support, instead of increasing the requirements for weapons that many people got previously with easier methods.

Instead of using cheap ways to extend the process of acquiring old legendaries, maybe they should have made WvW legendaries. Or if that was too much work, they could have just added new reward tracks with finishers or even a second WvW armor set. That is the sort of stuff that would encourage me to play WvW. In fact, I started playing after the latest patch because the changes for earning reward track progress + the new WvW potions enable me to get the Triumphant armor at a reasonable pace.

I just don’t see how anyone can support such a blatant attempt to extend the lifespan of very old content.