Guild Wars 2

So I started my legendary journey a little while ago and recently looked at how many BoH I have. I have 68.

Now, I have done four monthlies of WvW player kills(aug-nov), aka at least 200. I don’t know what people average but I would say it takes me around 3 hours to get them.

Of the 68 BoH I have, 40 came from map completion, over 10 from the jumping puzzle in EB, and 1 from Twilight Arbor (weird). So in the 3 hours every month I play actually killing people, in the same amount of time I have gotten more than double the amount of BoH from NOT killing people. Where’s the logic? Or do the loot gods just hate me?

Even so… in the hour I would spend doing any of the jumping puzzles (assuming I only do one that isn’t camped by the enemy), it would still be more efficient to do a puzzle and it would be a guaranteed drop on top of that. No praying to the RNG gods.

This isn’t a complaint about Pve in WvW… I would just like a trophy that supposed to say “I killed someone in WvW” to actually be more efficient to gather by actually killing people in WvW than avoiding them.

That is all.

I think the issue is compounded by the fact that the bags aren’t auto-loot. As a thief, I am often in the back of a large zerg trying to take out the casters. When I get a kill, I often am exposed and need to escape quickly, and I can’t even begin to imagine how many hundreds of loot bags have been left behind.

This has been discussed a lot though, and there are many threads that cover how to maximize badge drop. It’s all for naught though, if you’re leaving bags of loot littered all over the map.

Heh, I’ve lost bags to the need to fallback too, but then there are times when outnumbered I get a kill and loot the bag before I get dropped. Or it’s a reason to push a little forward again and then run like hell.

It can be a little fun, but overall yeah, I think it’s inconvenient.

I have two full stacks of them in the bank, and all 8 of my characters have 100 each on them as well.
I have done the JP’s and opened the chests a few times, but most of my badges are from loot bags.
I guess its like the black lion keys, some people claim they do not drop, as the only one they have ever received was from quest completion, while other people have a few of them.

I have maybe acquired 450~ and my lifetime kills in WvWvW for the past 2 weeks (pretty much my whole WvW career) is almost 2700. I also do some jumping puzzles and map completions. I played for an hour-ish last night and got 11… from about 100 kills I think.

On the reset last Friday I got 99 in under 5 hours of play, since it started late. I wish I would have kept track of my kills too but I didn’t check beforehand.

I think a lot depends on your play style and the group you run with.

Edit:
[Just to compare, a guardian in my guild got 250+ in the same time on Friday.]

Badge drops from bags is the worst way to acquire any form of currency. I said during beta it should be a bounty point system and I will stick by it even now.

They could even do it now by letting badges drop still but make them an item you turn in for bounty points. 1 badge equals x points. That way there are still badges that you can get for your legendary or you can trade them in to get bp that you then spend on gear and upgrades and siege.

The badge drops are just a wee bit stingy…not a lot but a bit.

I am getting more badges more often on a level 20 Ranger, than I have ever gotten on my now level 62 Necro. Necro total is around 96, my Ranger already has 30-some. At the same level my Necro had about 6.

There has to be some behind the scenes issue with how much and what types of damage credit you with kills, and from my anecdotal experience, it screws Condition damage professions over in a big way.

If it weren’t for siege engine kills, my Necro probably would have even less.

I’ve found that bursty builds are favored with more badges. When I did an aoe based staff ele that I got very few badges or even bags at all. Using great sword on my mesmer for more 1v1 damage I get far more badges. I’ve also switched my ele to d/d and have noticed a far greater drop rate as I tend to be doing more of my damage to one target specifically instead of the group as a whole (though as an ele that still happens some naturally). A little tip, in a group, don’t be the guy to stomp, keep dpsing the target. It increases your likelihood of getting loot.

edit: Oh, and the jumping puzzles, especially the eb one when it has mesmers is by far the most efficient way to get badges. I’ve gotten around 50 in 20 minutes before with my 6 alts. Another tip, you get more badges from the puzzles with your higher level toons. I usually get around 13-15 on my 80 but only 3 on my lvl 10 alts.

Dunno I got near 3000 kills and just a bit over 1500 badges, but I dont fight out of Event zones (towers,keeps,camps,carvans,sentries, etc)

It just seems too random and therefore frustrating.
In the past, the first 48 hours after reset seemed to be the most profitable for badges, as well as loot items and silver.
This last reset I managed about 30 badges (including a jumping puzzle reward) in that same time period, loot and silver just as bad.
A few things happened from last reset – new event, new build, new balancing, new dungeon loot table, etc.
I only WvW with one toon (lvl 80 thief for a long time), and any change to rewards is noticeable. But, when in the same battle where I do my normal thief thing (usually get a couple of bags at least) and get not a bag, and others get 10 or more badges (and this seemed to be the norm for me from this reset), a question about how the rewards work has to be asked.

How does the WvW reward/loot system work, now?

Additional:

Dunno I got near 3000 kills and just a bit over 1500 badges, but I dont fight out of Event zones (towers,keeps,camps,carvans,sentries, etc)

I am only about a hundred off getting my 4000th kill and have received about 600 badges to date.

Omg same I have 98 badges to go to get gift of battle last two day no one badge been driving me
Nuts that and map completion Ohh how I hate map completion

They need to be renamed from “Badge of Honor” to “Badge of Jumping”.

They should make badges from killing other players(not npc mobs or chests) be autolooted. Not the other stuff you can get. Only badges.

And best would be to not let them use inventory space. Add them like gold, silver, karma. And automatically randomly award some on getting the kill.

Also maybe add them to WvW events INSTEAD of karma. I don’t think karma is that much important to WvW or what stuff do you buy for karma that you only use in WvW?

I have 1800 kills and nearly 600 badges

Spartyr.6795:

I think the issue is compounded by the fact that the bags aren’t auto-loot.

^this. bags in WvW need to be made auto-loot for other players (note, I’m fine with having to pick up the bag for PvE mobs).

When killing a player, any loot including badges should simply be immediately placed in your inventory, period. If you have no space, default to mail. If mailbox is full, bag drops (it’s your fault if you can’t keep your mailbox and inventory empty enough to accept loot). Nothing is worse than killing a bunch of folks, seeing 5+ bags around you, and then getting downed/defeated and getting NO LOOT. Stupid stupid stupid!!

I mostly WvW on my power necro and badge drops are awful. I hardly get any, especially in group combat where I play a lot of support.

For example, guild group portals into the middle of invaders group, I go plague and spam blind. We drop 30+ people. I get 2-3 badges while spin-the-win thieves get 20+.

I got 7500 kills, and I guess I got over 1500 boh.
It’s hard to drop one, a they count on mf stats ( which it’ a pve stat that pvpers don’t build usually ) but it’s not a rare drop also, I guess it’ok.

Ps I did the jp only 5 times. 4 jp to got the accomplish medals and once I did the jp twice to show a freind how o do it.

Big battles with as much AoE you can put down on the enemy is probably the best. Especially when you win the battle. If you can’t, then at least stay alive enough to make a few pushes back and forth while picking up your bags. I spam F sometimes while fighting and grab bags a lot on the fly. But especially when I think we are about to either win, move forward, finish a lot of people or have to retreat. Just in case people die and I don’t think we are gonna make it back into that position or stay much longer.

It seems like between my brother and I and others in this thread, sans Wicked Lilith, the trend seems to be .25-.33%~ of your kills should end up with badges.

Last night I got 300 kills and 72 badges. My only AoE was feedback, berserker, GS 2 then shattering the clone and phantasm if either or both were still alive. This was about 4 hours of WvW.

I get more when operating in a smaller unit than running around in big zerg.

I have 2962 kills and have/used ~850 badges so far. I’d think about 200 of those were from JPs. Other than that, I honestly think the drop rate is fine, and I definitely happen to get more badges when I focus on killing one enemy/tagging.

The loss of loot because you’re dead is a problem I’ve faced many times, though.

Foddzy.6291:

They need to be renamed from “Badge of Honor” to “Badge of Jumping”.

Wasn’t that what was said in this weeks Tales Of Tyria?

Badge of Magic Find, Badge of Zerging – zerging because if a person is using MF they really want to be in a zerg so they don’t get squashed.

Is there any reward based on combat skill? MF is a terrible mechanic to base WvW rewards on.

WvW as it stands now is good, with a few positive changes it could be GREAT.
Rewarding the PvE side of the server for WvWers hard work is little reward.

WvW has evolved into a bigger beast [through player participation] than Anet originally envisioned. It is time for Anet to evolve with it.
Don’t get me wrong here, I love what Anet have done – a new map in sPvP, new armor/dungeons/zones/jumping puzzles/events in PvE – but WvW got mining nodes and weenie bags for a short time. Lets have some WvW events too, without the MF mechanic, some rewards for the WvW players.

After 4 hours from this new reset…
over 60 kills (daily kills completed fairly early, so over100 easy)
lots of karma
a few loot items
little cash
5 badges
2 x lost loot bags due to death
hhhmmmm

At this point cash and badges are useful, everything else not very.

Any progression (through badges) that could be considered at this point is more of a grind = getting to be not worth my time and effort.

I usually play 2-4 hours a night and range from 25-90 badges. I have I think 7 stacks of badges vaulted. most of the time it’s because you don’t realize that one dropped and never pick up the loot bag. I know many of times because of a quick retreat or death they get lost. it happens. When I play I hover the F key and i know it has become second nature when I see “EXP” numbers I hit F.

Jump puzzles…learn em and love em.

I gave up on SWTOR because of the same old daily routine.
Jumping puzzles may drive me there again.

BTW, I dont have too much of an issue picking the bags up when they drop, press “F” like everyone else. Badge drops are a pain when it looks like they nerfed them.

Level 80 staff Elementalist 845 kills in WvWvW, I have got 167 badgets, including the rewards for the 4 maps completion, no JP. I have played my character an average of 1 hour and half a day for two months. It has just got full karma exotic armor from the Cursed Shore karma vendors.

Suun.2856:

I gave up on SWTOR because of the same old daily routine.
Jumping puzzles may drive me there again.

BTW, I dont have too much of an issue picking the bags up when they drop, press “F” like everyone else. Badge drops are a pain when it looks like they nerfed them.

Takes 20m to do all 4 jump puzzles.

From what I have researched and noticed in the badge drop rate, each player has a base 5 badges that can drop. A high DPS warrior who takes them down alone can yield 5 badges for the kill.

And I do believe the drop rate is quite DPS proportionate. The person with the highest DPS amount on the dead target gets the highest number of badges, and the 2nd person gets 2nd highest number.

I mostly do small group fights, 5v5 and the works. And so I notice the drop rates my guildies get compared to others. The people who are largely pure DPS (even glassy) tend to get most of the badges, while others who may be more support or DoT tend to get a lot less, as they are competing with people who can take 19k health in 3 seconds.

And that is compounded even further when you are in a large group of players. You are now competing with 30 other players to DPS the most and get badges. So once again single target DPS’ers get most of the badges, because they do the majority of the damage, and people who don’t do a ton of damage within seconds are even less likely to get badges because they simply cannot compete with all the other DPS hitting the target.

I believe this to be how it works, but I could be wrong. It is just what I have noticed and observed.

Badge drops need to be higher, and they need to be auto looted like karma. I the time I’ve been playing WvW I’ve earned enough karma and gold to buy full sets of exotic karma or crafted armor, and could easily have a dungeon set with less time invested (if I liked the dungeons) BUT I HAVEN’T GOT ENOUGH BADGES YET FOR ONE PAIR OF PANTS!

Whoever came up with the badge economy wasn’t talking to the rest of the design team or was perhaps not taking their medication that day.

Single target DPS does seem to matter. I’ve got about 250 badges from about 1300 kills on my D/D ele. That doesn’t count zone completion or jumping puzzles. I hate jumping puzzles with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns and refuse to do them, even with a mesmer. I might try a scepter build to see if more 1v1 damage helps up the rate.

It also seems like a bad design decision to tie badge counts to single target DPS because it does not give players an incentive to play support roles. Healing, conditions, boons, AOE damage all contribute to a battle.

with 1012 kills and 312 badges, of which ~100 were from jumping puzzles/map completion essentially means I have a 20% chance of getting loot from killing a player (or NPC) which is kind of low but fair enough I suppose, however as people have pointed out it would be higher if we auto-looted the bags rather than having them sit on the ground in an environment where we can’t necessarily get to them.

In WvW (to me) nothing is worse than having a bunch of bags on the ground near me while I’m in a downed state/dead.

Badges are totally RNG

Today in my first bit of WvW my 1st 6 WvW kills got me 2 badges each. I logged off, came back in got 1-2 badges for my next 6 kills, logged off, came back in killed another 20…got 5 badges.

I honestly think the badge drop rate is fine, if you use the standard of the gift of battle being the benchmark. At the current drop rate, 500 badges is a quite good amount to be required for a legendary, while not feeling completely over the top.

On the other hand, when using the gift of battle as your standard, you immediately realize that the costs of the armor, weapons, and jewelry are so unbelievably overpriced, it’s inconceivable. The prices on all of these need to be dropped by a factor of 4, at the least, end of story.

As far as actually LOOTING bags go, anyone who doesn’t get 99% of their bags of loot is simply lazy. I can’t say how much it bothers me when I watch wvw videos and I see people walking around without picking up their bags of loot. I have over 1500 kills in wvw, and I have missed maybe 3-4 bags in that time, usually because I got killed suddenly. If you simply press a single button (f), you loot. It’s just that easy. The bags spawn AT YOUR LOCATION, so you should never have an excuse as to why you missed a bag.

Pyroatheist.9031:

On the other hand, when using the gift of battle as your standard, you immediately realize that the costs of the armor, weapons, and jewelry are so unbelievably overpriced, it’s inconceivable. The prices on all of these need to be dropped by a factor of 4, at the least, end of story.

Yup

little over 5k kills, little over 2k badges. absolutely nothing to use them on.

Guild NPCs in supply camps always drop 2 badges, but it may be damage-based, so make sure if you’re taking out a supply camp go for that NPC first and you might be the lucky one who’ll get the 2 badges.

Well, during a normal evening of WvW killing peeps, I get an average of 50-70 badges…

It’s almost all spent on siege weapons, but meh, getting badges without jumping puzzles isn’t too difficult – given that you have lots of epic battles