Guild Wars 2

Currently the rewards system offers comparatively very little. Much of the “reward” comes in the form of currency that can only be spent on a limited number of items. Many of these items are poor substitutes for what can be earned in sPvP, Fractals, Dungeons, or Open World events, especially in the newer zones.

Rewards come in many forms. While basic crating resources are plentiful in the bags players drop there is a lack of rewards in terms of (1) special WvW exclusive finishers, (2) special WvW only skins tied to WvW rank, (3) drop rates for better quality gear.

The fear is that better rewards will push people into WvW to farm each other as opposed to playing the PvE content. This is a legitimate concern. If the rewards are too good the players who want to take advantage will do so quickly and flood the market or for some rewards not participate in the market. What is clear, however, is that no matter how legitimate the concern is, WvW rewards as currently balanced are very low. Further, there is no comparable economic concern with adding in skins and finishers as rewards.

There should be at least three finishers available for purchase for bronze, silver, and gold ranks. There should be at least one new armor skin (light, medium, heavy) available to those at bronze ranks or greater also purchased using badges. There should also be a new tokens earned for winning matches that can be spent on new WvW weapon skins. (“Eternal” weapons named after EB perhaps).

This proposal on rewards also needs to take into consideration the players incentives to do “well” by holding more PPT and winning fights. Players need to feel they are working towards larger rewards while being given small rewards along that path — as with sPvP reward tracks. For this reason the solution should be a mix between rewards during the match and rewards after a match is over.

The latter is easily described: gold, silver, and bronze reward chests. These should be awarded to those who complete a decent number of daily events during the week. An option is to make a special Weekly, as opposed to Daily, that once completed flags you for the reward chest for that week. This can include a counter of X number of dailies, number of players killed, supply spent. An example of possible rewards — Gold: 100 badges, 10 laurals, chest of exotic gear, 2500 WXP. Silver: 50 badges, 5 laurals, chest of rare gear, 1000 WXP. Bronze: 10 badges of honor, three chests of standard gear, 500 WXP. These could include tokens, as suggested above, for the purpose of specially purchased weapon skins.

The former requires more detail and complexity. Players often will play early in the week and then stop playing as either their lead is firmly in place or their loss is all but guaranteed. For this reason it is important to increase the rewards earned over time and also to incentivize the process by which those increased rewards are earned.

Another consideration is the rewards side of server imbalance. Taking no specific proposal as guaranteed, as should be the base line assumption under the circumstances, this proposal addresses the issues it is capable of addressing. This does not mean using a reward mechanic to attempt to balance the server population and time coverage issue. What it does mean, however, is that the rewards system should not unduly reward a lack of play. Because the chest at the end of the match mechanic rewards more passive play, such as one small group capturing the entire map at night, the other reward system should focus more on rewarding active play.

There should be two PPT bars. The first is the normal PPT bar tied to weekly rewards and winning, or not, the match. A second bar is filled and resets on a half-hourly basis. This bar does not fill based on objectives held. This bar fills solely based on PPT earned from killing other players and the rewards scale based on the number of points earned overall. I’ve attached a spreadsheet detailing a possible set of rewards for this.

This proposal attempts balance by not being better than the rewards for doing a couple of 5-10 minute fractals and promotes the beneficial “active” gameplay. It also scales down so that the rewards aren’t as significant when activity levels are lower. Players should have to earn PPT for their server during the event period to earn the reward chest.

Again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We would just have to be careful not to warp play patterns with rewards. It’s not helpful for people to go on a camp flipping spree to fulfill conditions of some quest when said spree isn’t actually helping their server. For example, when they let enemies flip an objective so that they can get credit by flipping it back.

That said, rewards based on the outcome of the match are the least warping but are a bit unfair due to population issues. Population is, of course, very difficult to balance as Anet can’t exactly count on people playing WvW consistently since it’s not technically an e-sport. People (and guilds) become active and inactive as they please.

Thus, while I like your ideas, I don’t think that rewards can be addressed without also accounting for population. They could be implemented, though, without harm—just the stacked servers would always reap more rewards which might lead to even more stacked servers.

They do not give rewards to WvW only take them away. This is clearly evident when they removed WvW map completion rewards.

- “Ego” rewards like rank titles should be made FAR more visible, something like the PvP Icon but for WvW can be a good option

- Commanders should have X rank before being able to purchase the tag, the tag should be a “reward” that needs experience to be unlocked, not gold

- Guilds should be encouraged to take part on WvW as it IS a mode that encourages group play. A ranking of guilds that helped most the server (maybe even with rewards at the end of the month?). A “nemesis” system were your guild can tag other server guild and gain more exp by killing its players or taking its camps/towers/whatever. Or whatever reward systems should be an improvement.

- And yes, special rewards for the mode (finishers, weapons, armors, whatever). PvE has tons, PvP has some, but WvW has none.

Sviel.7493:

We would just have to be careful not to warp play patterns with rewards. It’s not helpful for people to go on a camp flipping spree to fulfill conditions of some quest when said spree isn’t actually helping their server. For example, when they let enemies flip an objective so that they can get credit by flipping it back.

That said, rewards based on the outcome of the match are the least warping but are a bit unfair due to population issues. Population is, of course, very difficult to balance as Anet can’t exactly count on people playing WvW consistently since it’s not technically an e-sport. People (and guilds) become active and inactive as they please.

Thus, while I like your ideas, I don’t think that rewards can be addressed without also accounting for population. They could be implemented, though, without harm—just the stacked servers would always reap more rewards which might lead to even more stacked servers.

The answer to this would be to give rewards for holding an objective that are equal to taking one. An easy way would be to add the HoT system of participation. Make PTT a large part of that so the more you get the more participation stacks. This way every event you complete or fail for defending an objective would give you participation. Of course there would have to be something to track actual participation so that people aren’t AFKing but from what I have seen the system works pretty good in HoT maps and Silverwaste. IMO this should be done in addition to all the current rewards and not in replace of them.

Naurgalen.2374:

- “Ego” rewards like rank titles should be made FAR more visible, something like the PvP Icon but for WvW can be a good option

- Commanders should have X rank before being able to purchase the tag, the tag should be a “reward” that needs experience to be unlocked, not gold

- Guilds should be encouraged to take part on WvW as it IS a mode that encourages group play. A ranking of guilds that helped most the server (maybe even with rewards at the end of the month?). A “nemesis” system were your guild can tag other server guild and gain more exp by killing its players or taking its camps/towers/whatever. Or whatever reward systems should be an improvement.

- And yes, special rewards for the mode (finishers, weapons, armors, whatever). PvE has tons, PvP has some, but WvW has none.

Those are all good ideas.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

The answer to this would be to give rewards for holding an objective that are equal to taking one. An easy way would be to add the HoT system of participation. Make PTT a large part of that so the more you get the more participation stacks. This way every event you complete or fail for defending an objective would give you participation. Of course there would have to be something to track actual participation so that people aren’t AFKing but from what I have seen the system works pretty good in HoT maps and Silverwaste. IMO this should be done in addition to all the current rewards and not in replace of them.

While I love the idea of increased defense rewards, we must consider that many sieges end up with several defense events. For example, last night SBI sieged our Rampart for over an hour, resulting in 25+ defense events.

Rather than buffing the rewards, I’d rather rework how participation is counted. I didn’t get credit for most of those defenses because I was working the mortar/shield generator. Only the people repairing were actually rewarded.

I like the participation idea. Sounds interesting.

Commanders having X rank before being able to tag up won’t work properly though. I’d rather follow a good Commander on his alt account than follow someone who has gained their rank through EotM and now feels qualified to command because of reaching the required rank.

I think one of the nicer ideas I’ve seen for WvW rewards involved reward tracks like in PvP. If you added mastery point tokens to these and made progress determined by participation perhaps the two ideas would work together?

Baratta.1083:

They do not give rewards to WvW only take them away. This is clearly evident when they removed WvW map completion rewards.

You can add the capture and hold guild missions to that. PvE and PvP have a much easier time and far bigger rewards for the same effort.

As to the original idea, yes, but there is far more than just killing NPCs/characters in WvW. All of that would have to be included. I noted that you now have up to an hour to do a capture and hold on a camp. For an hour play in PvE the reward, according to some players, is up to 8 gold. Therefore WvW guild players should be rewarded on a similar scale.

I would support any changes that encourage people to WvW more. Ironically, the game mode GW2 was truly promoting as a key feature is the one that is getting the least love. WvW…not PvE or PvP.

The rewards for WvW are pathetic and not creative. Tower lords drop chests that excitingly jiggle, only to reward you with 3 empyreal fragments and a 1.5 silver green item. Yay! Empyreal fragments…FFS!

They need to rework the whole kitten WvW loot table.

All I want is a WvW reward track. I too would like to get dungeons skins without having to go to (dying) dungeons just like the PvP players.

Naurgalen.2374:

- “Ego” rewards like rank titles should be made FAR more visible, something like the PvP Icon but for WvW can be a good option

This ^

CaboSoul.1204:

All I want is a WvW reward track. I too would like to get dungeons skins without having to go to (dying) dungeons just like the PvP players.

You already have 2 options to get those skins, either go do the dungeons or do the pvp reward tracks, we do not need this as a reward from a wvw reward track, I would rather something new and unique to wvw.