Guild Wars 2

I know this has been brought up many times, but I’m curious as to how people feel about the WvW ranks. Specifically that they aren’t account wide, and instead, character based. I get that they did it for a reason, but I kinda wish there was an option to change that. I leveled alts to try out playstyles and learn how classes work, but I only play my Guardian. I have a lot of ranks on other toons, I think my Warrior has been well over 30 (ok, not ALOT, but I had stopped playing when ranks came out.) Just curious.

Honestly I love it. Gives players “rolls” in WvW. If you like to use rams on your guard…ram mastery! Now the only thing I disagree with is the stat bonuses to guard leech/fort. Kind makes everything snowball when you throw in sigil stacks and orb buffs into the mix.

This is one thing that doesn’t bother me, there is no need to be account wide. If you want to make an alt does it start at 80 ?

Players have been spoiled in the last few years, they have become lazy. Other games that gave ranks for PvP/WvW/RvR were not account bound either, each character had to earn the ranks, this is the way it should be.

Again this is one of the only things I will ever agree with when it comes to Anets mind set.

+1 for you Nuzt. Couldn’t put it better myself.

I am fine with the current rank system.

World Rank should be account bound. WxP should remain character based. The trait system needs serious reworking to encourage the multi-build concept they were going for.

When you log into sPvP with an Elementalist you just made you don’t start back at rank 1 and have to unlock everything you already unlocked with your rank 50 Guardian, because that would be stupid, tedious, and largely not fun. That is however exactly how the WxP system functions, and this is a very poor design choice.

As it stands, the system is flat out stupid as a character based system. Don’t get me wrong, I want it to be character based, but I also want it to not be &$#@ing stupid and actually create a sense of character progression.

Obscure One.4357:

World Rank should be account bound. WxP should remain character based. The trait system needs serious reworking to encourage the multi-build concept they were going for.

When you log into sPvP with an Elementalist you just made you don’t start back at rank 1 and have to unlock everything you already unlocked with your rank 50 Guardian, because that would be stupid, tedious, and largely not fun. That is however exactly how the WxP system functions, and this is a very poor design choice.

As it stands, the system is flat out stupid as a character based system. Don’t get me wrong, I want it to be character based, but I also want it to not be &$#@ing stupid and actually create a sense of character progression.

Why does it matter then ? Are you asking for a title ? or am I missunderstanding your post ? If a title is all your looking for then sure, I could care less if that was account bound.

Kaizz.7306:

I know this has been brought up many times, but I’m curious as to how people feel about the WvW ranks. Specifically that they aren’t account wide, and instead, character based. I get that they did it for a reason, but I kinda wish there was an option to change that. I leveled alts to try out playstyles and learn how classes work, but I only play my Guardian. I have a lot of ranks on other toons, I think my Warrior has been well over 30 (ok, not ALOT, but I had stopped playing when ranks came out.) Just curious.

I like the progression, i like the sub-specialty nature of it, i agree that they should be wise investments, and i like that it has forced me to really put all my effort into learning a single class well- all that said having them be character bound feels insanely constricting as i would like to try other professions but can’t convince myself to level them while i could be working on masteries on my main.

I would love a Account based total points. But character based point assignment.

Nuzt.7894:

Why does it matter then ? Are you asking for a title ? or am I missunderstanding your post ? If a title is all your looking for then sure, I could care less if that was account bound.

Here’s the reality:

Obscure One.4357:

The Official Answer: From Arena Net Themselves

“The goal for this system is to ensure that players always have something to constantly work towards. We want each character to have a unique experience in WvW, so World Ranks and WXP are all character-based values rather than account-based. We believe that in the long run, this will actually help incentivize players to experiment with various different ability builds for each character. It also creates a long term goal for players of multiple characters, as they can strive to rank up multiple characters to help show off their dedication to WvW.”

The reality is it removes any incentive to play a different character for a myriad of reasons but the two greatest are:

1: If I play my alt, I do not display the rank of my main, and it is a rank that only enemies can see. This negates the design goal of an ability to “show off” my “dedication to WvW.”

2: If I play my alt I must progress through the trait lines all over again. There is not a limitation to the number of trait lines I can have, so ultimately the goal is just to gain the best ones first and then, “in the long run” obtain them all. This negates the design goal of “experiment with various different ability builds for each character.” as every player is running on the notion that they will just have to get them all on a long enough time line.

The Actual Answer: Arena Net utterly failed to achieve even a remote fraction of their goals with the design of WxP, Traits, and Ranking, and persist to ignore the community on the subject, who have time and time again called for this system to be account bound.

And here’s what I want:

Obscure One.4357:

-snip-

Here’s your fix:

Item 1 Segregate Ranking from the leveling progression. You can still be a “General” at rank 1, because that has nothing to do with character progression and everything to do with being recognized for your dedication to the game mode.

Item 2 Rank badges relative to your rank are displayed next to your nameplate much in the same way World Completion badges are displayed.

Item 3 Create an archetype system in WxP traits that essentially mean you have a WvW specific class. You take groups of traits. You lump them together. You allow a character to have access to just one of these lumps and presto, you have a reason to level an alt. So now you can have a “Defender” archetype that specializes in repairing walls, cannons, burning oil, mortars, and trebs for that super slow Guardian build you have that can take a beating all day long, but couldn’t chase down a wounded one legged chicken. He’ll eventually hit a cap when he maxes out his available trait lines…trait lines that the development team can add if they’d like to give this “Defender” archetype something more to do. But ultimately his time can still be spent playing how he wants with this “Defender” archetype, continuing to rank up for prestige, or he can boot up his Elementalist and it’s “Assaulter” archetype with trait lines for arrow carts, catapults, ballistas, and Siege Golems (we all know this line is coming) , and level his way through that without neglecting his progression in his prestige rank.

I know this will work, because it’s the exact model being used by extremely successful multi-player competitive “PvP” games, that lack the advantage of the persistent environments of MMO’s, yet keep people happily playing the same content over, and over, and over, and over, and over.

Should about cover it.

Obscure One.4357:

Nuzt.7894:

Why does it matter then ? Are you asking for a title ? or am I missunderstanding your post ? If a title is all your looking for then sure, I could care less if that was account bound.

Here’s the reality:

Obscure One.4357:

The Official Answer: From Arena Net Themselves

“The goal for this system is to ensure that players always have something to constantly work towards. We want each character to have a unique experience in WvW, so World Ranks and WXP are all character-based values rather than account-based. We believe that in the long run, this will actually help incentivize players to experiment with various different ability builds for each character. It also creates a long term goal for players of multiple characters, as they can strive to rank up multiple characters to help show off their dedication to WvW.”

The reality is it removes any incentive to play a different character for a myriad of reasons but the two greatest are:

1: If I play my alt, I do not display the rank of my main, and it is a rank that only enemies can see. This negates the design goal of an ability to “show off” my “dedication to WvW.”

2: If I play my alt I must progress through the trait lines all over again. There is not a limitation to the number of trait lines I can have, so ultimately the goal is just to gain the best ones first and then, “in the long run” obtain them all. This negates the design goal of “experiment with various different ability builds for each character.” as every player is running on the notion that they will just have to get them all on a long enough time line.

The Actual Answer: Arena Net utterly failed to achieve even a remote fraction of their goals with the design of WxP, Traits, and Ranking, and persist to ignore the community on the subject, who have time and time again called for this system to be account bound.

And here’s what I want:

Obscure One.4357:

-snip-

Here’s your fix:

Item 1 Segregate Ranking from the leveling progression. You can still be a “General” at rank 1, because that has nothing to do with character progression and everything to do with being recognized for your dedication to the game mode.

Item 2 Rank badges relative to your rank are displayed next to your nameplate much in the same way World Completion badges are displayed.

Item 3 Create an archetype system in WxP traits that essentially mean you have a WvW specific class. You take groups of traits. You lump them together. You allow a character to have access to just one of these lumps and presto, you have a reason to level an alt. So now you can have a “Defender” archetype that specializes in repairing walls, cannons, burning oil, mortars, and trebs for that super slow Guardian build you have that can take a beating all day long, but couldn’t chase down a wounded one legged chicken. He’ll eventually hit a cap when he maxes out his available trait lines…trait lines that the development team can add if they’d like to give this “Defender” archetype something more to do. But ultimately his time can still be spent playing how he wants with this “Defender” archetype, continuing to rank up for prestige, or he can boot up his Elementalist and it’s “Assaulter” archetype with trait lines for arrow carts, catapults, ballistas, and Siege Golems (we all know this line is coming) , and level his way through that without neglecting his progression in his prestige rank.

I know this will work, because it’s the exact model being used by extremely successful multi-player competitive “PvP” games, that lack the advantage of the persistent environments of MMO’s, yet keep people happily playing the same content over, and over, and over, and over, and over.

Should about cover it.

This I personally would have no beefs with, having a shiny title is a player preferance and does no harm. If you want everyone to know your a General thats fine. So I agree if thats your thing then all the power to you. I do not agree with the people that think because their Guardian has 200 points, their brand new fresh 80 necro should also have 200 points. The fresh character should have to earn any and all bonuses that can and will affect play.

Nuzt, you persist on missing the main point, which is that having it character bound penalises playing alts by a very large margin.

In spvp, you keep your unlocks that you have earned as they are account wide.

In wvw, you get shafted and are told that you will have to grind it out all over again, meaning you will drop further behind and be penalised for daring to want to try out different classes and different styles of play.

It’s bad enough that you can’t even switch toons without having to rejoin the queues (join, wait an hour to get in, find that there is a requirement for mesmers- log out to change to your mesmer, then have to wait for the queue for another hour) without then being doubly penalised for wanting to have some variety.

Can you imagine if they had decided in GW1 to make the ranks character bound?

And you seem to fail to grasp that the player with the alts has actually spent more time playing than the guy with the one toon if they are both rank 300- as they spent the time levelling up all those alts, sorting out gears etc etc..but you seem to think it’s OK to penalise them with a stupid char bound system that is the complete opposite of the original statements about gameplay in GW2.

Maybe one day the devs will take a step back from their spvp account bound focus and realise the char bound wvw system is helping kill off wvw (as well as their many bad decisions in this area on balancing for groups) as it forces people to pigeonhole or be left behind.

There is a difference from missing the point and dissagreeing, you only want to do the grind once. I don’t agree with this, your entitled to want this, it does not mean I have to agree with what you want.

Nuzt.7894:

There is a difference from missing the point and dissagreeing, you only want to do the grind once. I don’t agree with this, your entitled to want this, it does not mean I have to agree with what you want.

That’s kind of what he’s getting at Nuzt. It’d be one thing if it was a grind you even could do once, but as it stands it requires 1,315 points to max all trait lines. Which mean’s you need to hit rank 1,315 (roughly Silver Legend) before playing an alt is no longer time better spent on your main. And, that’s just with the current mastery lines. Note the ranking system goes all the way out to nearly 10,000, ultimately making it virtually impossible for many to actually “do the grind once”. This is just flat out not acceptable and a flagrant breach of Arena Net’s core vaules:

“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun” – Colin Johanson, GW2: Manifesto

Which means even the development leadership know it’s not fun to do. If someone doesn’t know any better and does something wrong, that’s just ignorance, but if that someone does know better and does something wrong, that’s just stupid…ignorance is curable with knowledge, but stupidity is a terminal illness.

I will agree with the fact that the grind is to long when it comes to Wxp, but making it account bound is not the solution. Longevity is what MMO’s should shoot for, so if you could complete this within a year playing casually and it was account bound then you have nothing to do after 1 year of play, thats it, your done, congratz you beat GW2.

Again I’m not disputing that the grind is to much, but it would be terrible business practice for any MMO to aim for their game to be done in a year. This is where and why several other MMO’s go the route of character progression vs. Account progression. I’ll repeat before you reply with “but the grind is to long and will literally take 15 years for 8 80’s to cap” the problem (in my opinion) is not with it being character progression, the problem is they have made it near impossible to achieve.

Aside from that, we are not going to agree and your opinion is just as valid as mine so there really is no point to keep debating.

Nuzt.7894:

I will agree with the fact that the grind is to long when it comes to Wxp, but making it account bound is not the solution. Longevity is what MMO’s should shoot for, so if you could complete this within a year playing casually and it was account bound then you have nothing to do after 1 year of play, thats it, your done, congratz you beat GW2.

Again I’m not disputing that the grind is to much, but it would be terrible business practice for any MMO to aim for their game to be done in a year. This is where and why several other MMO’s go the route of character progression vs. Account progression. I’ll repeat before you reply with “but the grind is to long and will literally take 15 years for 8 80’s to cap” the problem (in my opinion) is not with it being character progression, the problem is they have made it near impossible to achieve.

Aside from that, we are not going to agree and your opinion is just as valid as mine so there really is no point to keep debating.

9,999 (or w/e it is) ranks isn’t longevity?

Nuzt.7894:

Aside from that, we are not going to agree and your opinion is just as valid as mine so there really is no point to keep debating.

The validity of either of our opinions is irrelevant to the premise of the discussion. The fact is there’s obviously shoddy game design going on, neither of us is on opposite sides debating that. The reason folks want the system to be account bound is because that’s how the system was designed save for it actually being character bound. I’m all for character progression, I think it really boosts the longevity of a game, and is exactly as healthy for the game as you yourself have indicated you understand. However this thing they call a progression system mirrors the sPvP Glory system in nearly every way except for two things: it’s character bound, and liquid WxP mirrors Karma which is a currency system.

The Glory system is not a good model for a character bound system, and when it comes to Karma (which I have no idea why they went and made that account bound) when using in that same string of logic they used in making it account bound why oh why can my level 35 Elementalist reap all the Karma rewards of my four level 80’s, yet WxP gained is restricted? These are conflicting design strategies and I can’t make heads or tails of the development direction Arena Net is trying to take.

Suffice it to say, I don’t think we’re debating. We’re sharing non-conflicting thoughts on how stupid Arena Net’s WxP design is.

I think WXP needs to be upped a little bit more.

It is almost to the point that I won’t mind bringing in an alt and won’t feel like I’m hampering the team since I’m lacking some ranks on my alts.

Still wouldn’t mind account wide since I’m still going for pretty much the same stuff in the same order, would wait to do ram mastery on a light armor longer than I would on a heavy but still the order that I find most use would still be done first and any character can do supply(harder to do rams with stuff getting dumped on you when in light armor.) Either way, they don’t really offer any personal customization to characters.