Guild Wars 2

Another evening with a truckload of WvW cash drain, and close to sod all badges to show for it.

After 3-400hrs in WvW I still can’t afford even 1 piece of exotic badge gear, the badge drop rate is ridiculous. I have about 3% of my end-game gear-sets, (only just a few pieces/runes from broker – cash rewards in WvW are also abysmal) nowhere near even 1 gear set completed, not a single weapon and soon we have ascended grind coming to add insult.

Isn’t there room in the market for even 1 mmo that isn’t an insane grindfest? Why does the basics subsistence costs need to be so incredibly expensive, and why aren’t there top-tier cash sinks for the super rich instead of insane cost of basics?

GW2 is like an economy where it costs £150,000 a year just to use the bus, and there’s no equivalent to supercars/private jets etc for the truly rich, just hideously painful costs for the base tiers of playtime.

It’s insanely easy to acquire gold in this game, maybe take a different route to getting the gear you need. Seems crazy to me that you only have 1 piece of badge gear. ULTD plays heavy in NA EST primetime generally from 1900-0100 and I think I grab about 80-120 badges a night, on a crazy good night I can even get from 150-180.

You’re doing something wrong because I have nearly 1k badges after about 150-200 hours of wvw, and I play a healing guardian. I rarely touch siege and I only land a few hits in on something between my heal chain.

So, the full exotic armor set is gonna cost you 1889 badges.

You can make easily 50 badges per day in WvW, it’s usually more – talking about those that drop from kills, since I don’t do puzzles. Nothing wrong with the droprate, but maybe your servers/tier population ?

You could always use a few alts to cycle through the jumping puzzles in the borderlands. It’s 3-6 badges per toon per day, and they are account-bound, so you can move them from one toon to another easily.

4 Toons times 3 Borderlands times 4 Badges (on average) = 48 Badges for about 30min-1hr of daily work.

You should have your gear by now already

If you don’t perform organized WvWvW, your badge rate will definitely suffer. If you do, and you’re the wrong class/don’t man any siege, it will also suffer. I run with Daed, and if I get 20 badges in a night I feel accomplished. Most of my bags drop behind enemy lines, and I often don’t go around looking for them before we’re off to another objective.

However, as Daed also mentions, gold isn’t all that difficult to come by, necessarily. Further, you really don’t need exotics. Rare armor/weaps and green jewelry is enough to be more than useful as an 80 in WvWvW. Hell, I still sport green jewelry.

This MMO provides you the opportunity to be competitive without being at the max gear level. Grinding up to the tip top is a player choice, not a game requirement.

if you have a class like an ele or a thief that can get a passive buff you can run the eb puzzle in about 7 minutes, if the arena is being camped those halloween backpacks actaully act as a torch so you dont need to get rid of your stealth buff and it will last long enough for you to get threw the arena , thats a good 14 – 18 badges in less then 10 minutes

I really do not see a lot of badges drop either. However I probably have a spent 50% of my time in WvW since Aug 25. I have 104 badges right now. Factor in some siege I bought, I probably only have had around 150 badges so far total.

I think some kind of increase or giving badges for other activities and not just getting lucky off loot drops would maybe help.

i dont think they need to increase it, i’ve gone threw about 3 – 4k badges on WvW gear and seige you just need to kill ppl and remember to grab the bags as they drop instead of running in tagging ppl and getting killed

Obviously badge hunting differs from server to server due to variables as participation, population, and competition, but there are some tricks that help you get more gold/badges from WvW regardless of where you are. I average about 50-60 a night (not counting jumping puzzles,) but i get them doing almost anything in wvw, whether it be zerging, zerg v. zerg, small group guerilla style, or defending a keep. Here are some tricks I’ve learned.

1) Priortize badges and loot bags. Don’t get so caught up in the pvp in front of you that you ignore the bags around you. Rewards are a very important part of WvW and if you’re skipping them you’re just hurting your team by being unhappy and poor. Try to make tiny moves towards bags to loot as you kill. Its not that hard considering they drop right at your feet. If it means going back or diving into the enemy that so be it, but it really isn’t hard once you get the hang of it.

2) Group with other like minded players. The nature of the looting/exp system in GW2 is that everytime you tag a mob, you and your group are competing with other solo players and their groups for a percentage of the damage in order to be awarded loot. You might tag every single person in front of you, but if you don’t cover that threshold, you don’t get loot. On the other hand, if you are in a group, the entire groups dmg is added to your tally just by tagging a mob and you will instantly see a larger amount of loot both in pve and pvp.

3) Assuming you are in fact grouping, and your encountering a large force, don’t waste your time trying to kill 1 guy, and instead, concentrate on just hurting as many as you can. Obviously this doesn’t apply to 1v1 or 1v2 but in zerg v zerg, if everyone on your team is wounding everyone, than people are going to die. If you run past 30 possible loot bags to chase down that 1 ranger that hit you, you are only missing out.

4) Jumping puzzles. Easy loot/ badges. Don’t even bother solo though, its a waste of time. Keep an eye out for groups, or arrange a group yourself.

Reality. MMO’s are grinds if you don’t enjoy what your doing. If you don’t truly enjoy WvW then it really doesn’t matter what the rewards are, it will always feel like work. There are a million other ways in GW2 to get the exact same gear that WvW offers.

I don’t see the drop rate in badges these others posters are seeing. In fact, after as many as 20-30 hours of plan, i have seen none. But I think this is more related to my game play related to the game mechanics mentioned in Sunspots post versus drop rates (#1 and #3). I cannot get my mind around the fact that I have to stop in the middle of a battle to loot. Especially when your class/role is to push through the opponent. So I don’t. And I don’t get badges. Why they put this feature in WvW or couldn’t figure out auto loot for WvW is beyond me. I hope ESO get’s it correct.

Besides, any time you tie gear progression to WvW or RvR play, it really becomes WvE or RvE. So I have taken to just farming supply depots and towers for karma. I figure we will be able to buy the new ascended gear with karma in a few months and need to stockpile.

Sadly, badge drops are done in a way that heavily favors zerging. People who run around with 50-100 others spamming tag abilities like they’re pveing get massive amounts of badges, while those who run solo/small group and face much greater challenges get almost none. If you zerg, well you certainly should be getting all the badges you need. If you don’t, your only choice is to grind pve to get geared.

I mostly play off peak times for my server and am often very outnumbered, but I don’t log out.
Getting groups that stay together is hard, everytime someone leaves you can’t kick them at all and have to reform.
Some unfixed bug means I can never join a commander squad, ever.
I’ve never server hopped to increase my rewards.
I have no urge to do PvE stuff, which I find utterly boring, unfortunately that includes super mario jumping.
I try and do strategically useful stuff, to help my side, not only play if there’s a winning zerg or log or server hop.

It seem demoralising that to start getting either cash or badges in anything like a useful time frame (like even 10% as fast as they announce new gear tiers) I need to start being more selfish in playstyle and/or pay for my limited playtime with much of it spent not having fun, but with a second job in PvE, earning in game gold wages to buy gear for WvW?

Thanks a lot for all the nice replies btw, but I’m still confused how low playtime, not server hopping, WvW players are supposed to end up with even 1 gear set, let alone several?

if you’re looking for Power/Toughness/Vitality exotic gear, you will get them faster by doing HotW or AC dungeon than by exchanging WvW badges…..

I kill a lot of people and maybe get 30 or so badges each night.

The big problem is that the badge items are just too expensive. The current price needs to be cut by 75%. The current price is about what the Ascended items should be worth.

However, you acquire enough Karma to buy gear from Temple merchants. A lot of the Karma gear is pvt.

I don’t mind the badge drop rate, but I am disapointed in it being pretty much a wash gold wise.

I can go into WvW for 5 hours a night and come out a few silvers up or down. If you spent that much time doing the level 80 event zerg you’d be rich.

Sunspots.9861:

if you are in a group, the entire groups dmg is added to your tally just by tagging a mob and you will instantly see a larger amount of loot both in pve and pvp.

Ugh… can’t these MMOs just let people group if they want to, and stop trying to make us do it?

Raincrow.1840:

I don’t mind the badge drop rate, but I am disapointed in it being pretty much a wash gold wise.

I can go into WvW for 5 hours a night and come out a few silvers up or down. If you spent that much time doing the level 80 event zerg you’d be rich.

That’s a big part of the problem, mostly you can get gear by playing the game type you like, economy, DE’s, dungeons, crafting, puzzles and completions, SPvP is automatic which is brilliant. However if you like WvW, you have little chance of getting gear by doing something you enjoy.

Also rewards being terribad in WvW is paired with MASSIVELY higher costs than other game modes, compounding the problem.

I find that gaining cash/badges depends on the character I play. Different professions seem to do better than others.

azizul.8469:

if you’re looking for Power/Toughness/Vitality exotic gear, you will get them faster by doing HotW or AC dungeon than by exchanging WvW badges…..

But if you’re looking for PVT exotic jewelry, acquiring badges is the only way. As some have mentioned, these things cost wayy more than acquiring exotics from another method. 360+ badges/ring or earring, 525ish badges for the necklace. These costs should definitly be reduced.

been playing about 350 hours of wvw. quite sure i got more than 1k badges so far. And i usually dont run with zergs. That said my 1 on x regularly net me badges. But i agree the costs for WvW equipment are clearly too high. Needs an urgent fix. Anet is neglecting WvW quite a bit.

I don’t understand some people..

You play a MMO – a massive multiplayer online game, yet complain when you should group up with others. Clearly, some have missed the picture here. You knew what game you were buying from the very start.

That aside, even in 2hrs of running in a 4 man team last night I got about 30 badges from kills only. Don’t see anything wrong with the drop rate. Also, i got 2 20-slot boxes full of green/blue drops that vendor for quite a bit, including one rare L77 drop.

Lastly, ANet is not ignoring WvW, you’re just being too impatient. The game isn’t even out 6 months, there have been numerous fixes and changes in relation to requests and complaints from the community already, and they’re working on the rendering and culling issues, which alot of people have complained.

But I guess you can’t make everyone happy.

Bottom line, if you need badges fast, farm the puzzles with all toons, That’ll yield at least 50 badges per day for about 1hr worth of work, and some siege blueprints and drops on top of that.

Kalan.9705:

I mostly play off peak times for my server and am often very outnumbered, but I don’t log out.
Getting groups that stay together is hard, everytime someone leaves you can’t kick them at all and have to reform.
Some unfixed bug means I can never join a commander squad, ever.
I’ve never server hopped to increase my rewards.
I have no urge to do PvE stuff, which I find utterly boring, unfortunately that includes super mario jumping.
I try and do strategically useful stuff, to help my side, not only play if there’s a winning zerg or log or server hop.

It seem demoralising that to start getting either cash or badges in anything like a useful time frame (like even 10% as fast as they announce new gear tiers) I need to start being more selfish in playstyle and/or pay for my limited playtime with much of it spent not having fun, but with a second job in PvE, earning in game gold wages to buy gear for WvW?

Thanks a lot for all the nice replies btw, but I’m still confused how low playtime, not server hopping, WvW players are supposed to end up with even 1 gear set, let alone several?

So instead of swapping to a server with people that play in the same timezone as you do, you choose to remain on a server where you barely find people to play with? Seems to me like the problem here is some kind of weird moral standards on your part rather than Anets fault.

I make about 100 badges per evening playing about 5 hours and around 1 gold from vendoring blues and junk, even if I die a lot. Obviously I play in a decent guild to achieve this, but I think that at least grouping up can be expected for WvW just as you are unable to solo a dungeon. That said, it is indeed probably faster to grind AC if you want quick PVT gear and cash.
I have to agree with the posters saying that acquiring gear from WvW is much more time consuming than from PvE though.

While I switch maps, I haven’t seen DR affecting badge drops to be honest.

I can keep an eye on that, since I honestly never bothered to check that out before, spending my badges on siege made me kinda neglect that I only started looking at the drops because of this thread.

You just have to learn to hit “F” in the middle of the battle so you pick them up while you fight, so you don’t lose them in case you die to a zerg.

As a starter, run in a small group and flip supply camps, those NPC’s drop badges, too, and it’s quick and easy to do…

At this point WvW needs a lot more development to really shine. I know they say they are ‘working on it’, I just hope it is not dead by the time they finish.

As far as badges, if you really need them for whatever do the jumping puzzles. If you suck at jumping, do them when ports are offered. Can get what 30 a day? adds up pretty quick.

I hope people realize that Jumping Puzzles being a nice consistent form of Badge income in WvWvW is a sign that something is probably amiss.

On a T8 server I’m able to farm 50-90 badges a day including the jumping puzzle as a S/P thief and that weapon set takes all the good stuff about the thief and goes “NO IM NOT USING THAT”.

If I can farm badges at a decent rate so can you.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I hope people realize that Jumping Puzzles being a nice consistent form of Badge income in WvWvW is a sign that something is probably amiss.

As it has from the beginning. Additionally when you get badges lots of the items have very little variety/look ugly it really shows how ‘into’ WvW Anet is.

hoschi.8693:

I don’t understand some people..

You play a MMO – a massive multiplayer online game, yet complain when you should group up with others. Clearly, some have missed the picture here. You knew what game you were buying from the very start.

That aside, even in 2hrs of running in a 4 man team last night I got about 30 badges from kills only. Don’t see anything wrong with the drop rate. Also, i got 2 20-slot boxes full of green/blue drops that vendor for quite a bit, including one rare L77 drop.

Lastly, ANet is not ignoring WvW, you’re just being too impatient. The game isn’t even out 6 months, there have been numerous fixes and changes in relation to requests and complaints from the community already, and they’re working on the rendering and culling issues, which alot of people have complained.

But I guess you can’t make everyone happy.

Bottom line, if you need badges fast, farm the puzzles with all toons, That’ll yield at least 50 badges per day for about 1hr worth of work, and some siege blueprints and drops on top of that.

This is same tired, old argument about grouping comes up in every MMO. The fact that it is an MMO only says that there will be a lot of people in the game at the same time. It does not say anything about what they are doing, let alone that they have to be grouped with each other to do it. For instance, assuming equal populations, 2/3 of the people in WvW are there trying to kill me. I don’t group with them, now, do I?

The problem with this argument is that it presumes that grouping is necessary. It is not. Grouping gives you a private /Party channel. I don’t need that to talk to anyone in WvW. I have /M, /T, and /S as well as /W. It highlights where your group members are with white dots on the map. I don’t need that either as I can find a commander anywhere on the map and any fellow defender/invaders near me show up as dots on the map as well.

The only thing grouping does is tie me to (up to) four other people. It creates a psudeo obligation to organize my activities around what they are doing. Why, pray tell, should I turn over decisions about my play time to four random strangers just because of some unneeded game mechanic? I spend most of my time cooperating with lots of people in WvW. I almost never group with them because it is not necessary.

Don’t get me wrong. I group when friends and guildies come into WvW with me. I join squads when there is a commander on the map I feel is worth following. However, this idea that, just because it is an MMO, you are somehow not playing the game right if you are not grouping is an obsolete notion that has to go.

People shouldn’t be using badges for power/tough/vitality ARMOR, you can buy all the pieces from Cursed Shore(mix and match all the vendors, then re-rune everything), the stats are the same. This uses karma.

You use your badge gear for the JEWELRY only, as that has the power/tough/vit that you can’t get else.

Heru.5427:

So instead of swapping to a server with people that play in the same timezone as you do, you choose to remain on a server where you barely find people to play with? Seems to me like the problem here is some kind of weird moral standards on your part rather than Anets fault.

I make about 100 badges per evening playing about 5 hours and around 1 gold from vendoring blues and junk, even if I die a lot. Obviously I play in a decent guild to achieve this, but I think that at least grouping up can be expected for WvW just as you are unable to solo a dungeon. That said, it is indeed probably faster to grind AC if you want quick PVT gear and cash.
I have to agree with the posters saying that acquiring gear from WvW is much more time consuming than from PvE though.

I don’t disagree that he should consider changing servers if he is having problems grouping with people on his current server, but since when is running around with a group of 20 to 30 people “soloing” WvW just because you haven’t bothered grouping with four of them?

When are people going to get over this idea that not grouping = soloing?

Kalan, I would suggest asking the following questions any time someone claims to get hundreds of badges per day in WvWvW: What class do you play? AND How long do you play for?

There are other factors involved in badge drops as well such as what activities did you participate in?

A good way that I found for getting badges to drop is to man siege equipment and kill the enemy.

Good luck with it!

dreztina.4820:

Sadly, badge drops are done in a way that heavily favors zerging. People who run around with 50-100 others spamming tag abilities like they’re pveing get massive amounts of badges, while those who run solo/small group and face much greater challenges get almost none. If you zerg, well you certainly should be getting all the badges you need. If you don’t, your only choice is to grind pve to get geared.

Not at all true in my experience, I’ve gotten faaarrrr more badges in 10-20 man groups than running with a 50 man zergfest.

Also protip for eles: if you die with loot bags around your feet, pick them up in vapor form

Ender.3508:

dreztina.4820:

Sadly, badge drops are done in a way that heavily favors zerging. People who run around with 50-100 others spamming tag abilities like they’re pveing get massive amounts of badges, while those who run solo/small group and face much greater challenges get almost none. If you zerg, well you certainly should be getting all the badges you need. If you don’t, your only choice is to grind pve to get geared.

Not at all true in my experience, I’ve gotten faaarrrr more badges in 10-20 man groups than running with a 50 man zergfest.

Also protip for eles: if you die with loot bags around your feet, pick them up in vapor form

Proof right here that Eles are OP, I want a nerf immediately! How dare you use a class mechanic to profit while others suffer. Everyone knows Eles are only supposed to use their vapor form to make me run a few extra yards to get my spike in.

Khanswrath.1032:

Ender.3508:

dreztina.4820:

Sadly, badge drops are done in a way that heavily favors zerging. People who run around with 50-100 others spamming tag abilities like they’re pveing get massive amounts of badges, while those who run solo/small group and face much greater challenges get almost none. If you zerg, well you certainly should be getting all the badges you need. If you don’t, your only choice is to grind pve to get geared.

Not at all true in my experience, I’ve gotten faaarrrr more badges in 10-20 man groups than running with a 50 man zergfest.

Also protip for eles: if you die with loot bags around your feet, pick them up in vapor form

Proof right here that Eles are OP, I want a nerf immediately! How dare you use a class mechanic to profit while others suffer. Everyone knows Eles are only supposed to use their vapor form to make me run a few extra yards to get my spike in.

Start your stomp just before the ele vapor forms and steal before it finishes, not that it stops me from picking up those bags :P

WvW needs a daily just like sPvP and PvE does that rewards badges + a karma jug. Kill players (10), capture an offensive target (1), complete events/objectives either offensive or defensive (5), build/use supply (20), etc.

That being said, badge drop rate is still borked towards the player that does the most damage tends to get the tag/loot/badge drop.

hoschi.8693:

You play a MMO – a massive multiplayer online game, yet complain when you should group up with others.

The name of the genre has no impact on the way some people might enjoy playing the game.

I ENJOY playing MMOs solo. What’s so hard to understand?

Kalan,

This may be hard to hear…

WvW is made to be a 24h/day game – see the “Night capping and you” sticky.

In reality most servers do not field a viable army 24h/day – and it sounds like you are paying a personal price for this. (always out manned at the times you play)

So the answer is simple, find a server with a viable wvw population at the times you play – and change to that server. (easier said than done – ask around on forums)

This should solve most of your problems, because wvw should make a profit (not a gold sink) – and you can focus on playing what you enjoy – and avoid pve.

(you can do this without “bandwagoning” to the current #1 server btw… if you feel that is a problem)

Why stick on a server that you RANDOMLY chose when you first bought the game? You don’t owe it anything. You have just as much right to play on any server as anyone else. Unfortunately, this is a reality with these wvw style games.

WvW is a massive and highly effective gold sink, nothing else. Anyone constantly throwing down siege will watch their gold plummet. Anyone that barely drops siege will still only see a small silver gain, maybe. Their is a major problem with that, considering siege is important. Not to mention you don’t always have time to notice bags on the ground, in a game that requires constant movement. So getting badges isn’t always easy and they still are not 100% drop.

Fight the ghost zerg or look for bags? I would prefer my team do the former.

There is nothing that will get you 1 gold increase in WvW except by being selfish and always ready to run away(prevent gear damage). Both of which will only hurt the war effort. You can’t claim to be a dedicated player if WvW has you swimming in gold. It’s not going to happen, period.

PvE gives you 10x more gold and more opportunities for it. Anet needs to boost the rewards amount for defending land and a increase for taking keeps/sm.

I have hundreds of players in my guild. The poor ones do WvW, the rich ones don’t(or not as dedicated).

Akumu.7238:

I have hundreds of players in my guild. The poor ones do WvW, the rich ones don’t(or not as dedicated).

How many times have you heard some one say, “If I had his money I could do things my way?” But little they know that it’s so hard to find one rich man in ten with a satisfied mind.

Cogbyrn.7283:

How many times have you heard some one say, “If I had his money I could do things my way?” But little they know that it’s so hard to find one rich man in ten with a satisfied mind.

Everyone has their own opinion about being “comfortable” when it comes to money. However, there is a significant difference in PvE dedicated players wallet size and someone that does WvW. You can’t stay in WvW from lv2-80 non stop and gain 1/4 of the gold you can get in PvE.

You have to break away from WvW in order to get gold. Which isn’t easy to do(if you’re dedicated), because WvW NEVER stops. Even after the week is over it just resets. Unless your world dominates both opposing worlds and can do whatever they want.

Another 50 hrs in WvW and progress towards another piece of gear is slow it’s very frustrating. It really does feel like time spent in WvW is massively less rewarding and massively more costly than any other game type. Unfortunately I just don’t like or enjoy the other game types.

It leaves me with really unattractive options, get a second in-game job to farm PvE to pay for my WvW, be permanently and increasingly disadvantaged as my gear falls behind the curve and I can play no variety of specs without variety of gears let alone characters or give up and stop playing?

GW2 economy is vastly too shallow, the basic necessities are hugely too expensive for some players, and there’s a big void of high ticket status items, for the super rich to show their wealth witho0ut having gameplay advantages.

I thought this was touted as the game where one wouldn’t feel as trapped in GoldGrind2.

Kalan, are you having fun in WvW?

If you are, you are not grinding.

And you can easily keep your self level appropriate via the Trading Post, sell the materials you get if you arnt into crafting. When it comes to getting exos, just save your gold. While you attain gold on average at a slower rate in WvW, I purchased my entire exo set from gold earned in WvW in about 2 weeks time. (its probably now 4 weeks, due to ecto prices). IF you are supplementing part of your exo purchases with a badge purchase than the overall cost of your armor in gold will be lower.

Anyway its about having fun. And yes while you arnt 100% exo you will be at a disadvantage in 1v1 situations, which honestly are a bit rare unless you are looking for 1v1’s. Green armor is sufficient for anyone, although not ideal. The most important tasks in wvw, ferrying supply, operating seige are not gear dependant at all.

So stop paying attention to it, focus on doing things you have fun doing, and when you get the money/badges for the next piece of armor buy it then.

I enjoy WvW , and really don’t see the point in playing pve, when that is a chore for me, this iso supposed to be fun afterall.
I loot all my bags .
5 months in and I have under 500 badges lifetime earnings.
I mix my play between support/bombs and grenades , more nades.

It feels like my character has a broken drop rate, but that just sounds ridiculous.