Guild Wars 2

Just wanted to keep this topic alive…
I lost my week 1 rewards, and a guildie lost his week 4 rewards.

The system used in season 3 unduly increased the chance that rewards would be lost since it included the caveat that they must be picked up within a few days or they were forfeit.

In week 1, I was not even aware that a new system was being used… so I assumed that the email I got contained my week 1 rewards as Anet had done in previous seasons.
I had no reason to think otherwise. After all it was week 1.

Just wondering how many others lost a week of their WvW rewards as a result of this very questionable system? ..and I cant help but wonder what prompted the change?

..and the very fact that support flat out refused to help me with this matter, while not surprising… was aggravated by their encouragement to “submit my feedback and ideas to the devs”. I had to LOL that.

Why… in a billion years… would I… go and give my support… to a company… who refused… to support… me? ..or even answer my questions?

As I said in my support conversations… company who relies 100% on the goodwill of its customers (for gem purchases and positive word of mouth)) should be finding ways to retain the player base, rather than pushing it out the door. But gaming companies seem to not understand that simple premise.

So, I thanked “Blizzard” very much for all their help! lol

Pipe in if you or someone you know was whamboozled by this reward system!

People who don’t read the instructions, don’t read the emails sent by ANet to indicate that their rewards are now available to be picked up and must be picked up before the end of the following week likely aren’t “customers” who can work out the complex task of purchasing gems with real money.

Sorry boss, but mailing rewards screwed up in the past so they’re doing something different that requires a tiny bit of effort on your part. If you went into WvW during the tournament at any point, you always had the historian with your prizes right in front of you when you signed in. You losing your rewards is on you.

so, people go to wvw to do the 5 wvw event to qualify themselves for the reward but did not know that they have to collect the reward in following week ?

i call that ignorance…

Mail clearly said you have to pick up your rewards at the battle historian npc during that week if not, it will be forfeited. People do know how to get on these forums yet refuse to read that clearly written mail.

I didn’t even get the email the last week. I had to go out of town on Friday, came home Sunday evening and immediately logged in both my accounts to receive my rewards.

On one account, I didn’t receive the email but talking to the battle historian got me my reward chest.

On the other account (this one), I didn’t receive the email, the battle historian dialog contained the option to claim my reward, but clicking on that option got me nothing. The chest is missing, and with it, the tickets.

Both accounts have the week 4 achievement (both accounts have the Mist Treader title, ferpetesake).

Bug-reported it, but I’m going out of town again in a few hours and won’t be back for another week. I suspect I’m kittened, at this point.

I played through the whole season and didn’t get the first reward the first week (200 tokens) because i didn’t check my emails. This was so stupid to do it like this, why not directly send tickets in that mail -_-

And when i say i played, i didn’t just do 5 events a week, i played through the week scouting, upgrading, escorting and zerging from time to time.

Fenrir.6183:

I played through the whole season and didn’t get the first reward the first week (200 tokens) because i didn’t check my emails. This was so stupid to do it like this, why not directly send tickets in that mail -_-

And when i say i played, i didn’t just do 5 events a week, i played through the week scouting, upgrading, escorting and zerging from time to time.

While I agree in concept, the mail delivery system didn’t work season 2 – there was no way they were going to go through that fiasco again.

I find it strange that people could forget to pick up their tickets, tbh. On my server at least, I saw numerous reminders from folks in map chat about collecting their tickets. Then people in my guild reminded us constantly in guild chat. Then, to top it off, people on TeamSpeak reminded people a lot too. I would say if you were a genuine WvW participant, it would be next to impossible to forget them at least on YB. Even if you weren’t, it was clearly stated in the mail anyway that you had to pick them up. You can take a horse to water, but can’t force it to drink I guess. You had more than a few days to collect them. You had the entirety of the week’s match, from one reset period to the next. That’s a lot of time.

I’m not saying you’re one of them, but the users most likely to lose their tickets here are people who aren’t genuine WvW players who likely hopped into EoTM for 5 minutes to get their achievement meta and expecting to claim their rewards off the back of the people actually putting a hell of a lot of time into the seasons. Excuse me if I’m not entirely sympathetic in those cases if they forgot to pick up their tickets. =P

This reward system was poorly done. Myself and many others missed even doing the first week of chievs because we didnt realize it was ‘spend 5 minutes in wvw each week’ and then didnt get rewards for random weeks because we had to ‘actively go talk to this NPC in X timeframe to get your earned reward’.

Its like if the daily system required you to visit a laurel vendor to actually get your laurel, and the act of achieving this ‘weekly’ is easier than a single daily which only makes it more offensive to people that compete in WvW, and the stagnated way it was put out made it feel even more like a chore to less enthusiastic WvWers even though it was technically easier to do!

Overall its a step down from the previous season; a large step down.

What I don’t understand is why Anet puts a time limit on any rewards? What is the upside for them? While players who earned rewards and might have limited play time or RL issues that prevent them from trading in tokens or collecting rewards are the ones who lose out.

I honestly would like to know what the point is? Festivals, WvW, whatever – why can’t we turn in our tokens or get our rewards any time?

Dredlore.1672:

The system used in season 3 unduly increased the chance that rewards would be lost since it included the caveat that they must be picked up within a few days or they were forfeit.

In week 1, I was not even aware that a new system was being used… so I assumed that the email I got contained my week 1 rewards as Anet had done in previous seasons.
I had no reason to think otherwise. After all it was week 1.

So, let me get this straight…you completed the week 1 achievement, got the mail during week 2 and didn’t even open it. You just assumed your rewards were in there but didn’t want to even look?

That’s the only way your post makes sense, because if you had looked at the mail even for a few seconds you would have seen there were no items included and/or would have read it and seen the line “Visit the battle historian during the next match to retrieve your reward”.

I agree that the reward system this time wasn’t great. But neither was the system last time which left a lot of people with nothing at all for the entire tournament. But I really can’t understand what the problem is in this case. If you didn’t even open the mail you have only yourself to blame for not knowing what the instructions inside said.

I started at the end of week 2. I didn’t dive into the original season email because it was already in progress. I don’t recall getting a week 1 mail (because I didn’t participate in week 1).

It was a poorly design reward delivery system. Especially in a game which delivers everything else automatically (and by good design). Let see… hearts, individual achievement rewards, dungeon tokens, achievement milestones, etc. Everything provided automatically. Why would anyone suspect you’d have to talk to a time limited NPC in a game so well designed otherwise.

Not sure what I lost ticket-wise, so I’m not going to lose any sleep. However it wasn’t a pleasant ending to an otherwise good event.

Rimmy.9217:

People who don’t read the instructions, don’t read the emails sent by ANet to indicate that their rewards are now available to be picked up and must be picked up before the end of the following week likely aren’t “customers” who can work out the complex task of purchasing gems with real money.

I’ve purchased lots of gems and I missed out on a one of the weeks because, quite frankly, the apex of my guild wars experience is not visiting the Battle Historian to get a reward. Assuming that they have a great reason to use that delivery mechanism, is there any reason why the battle historian couldn’t hold a player’s cumulative reward until they go an pick it up?

Considering the delivery problems during seasons 1 and 2, my guess is that anet wanted to play safe and haven’t identified yet the cause of lost data during past tournaments.

You can see in this post Season 1 Rewards that until 2 months ago, some players haven’t yet received their rewards from the 1st tournament, which started October 2013…

Weekly rewards should reduce the chances of having problems delivering them. Although in order to do that, the players must take action and do their part: complete the achievements and in the following week talk to the Battle Historian. Anet had stated what would require of players with the announce of the seasons plus the weekly emails.

Except I didn’t get the emails. I keep all my system emails. You can see them in the pciture below. If I could expand the window you’d see my first birthday mail… I have them all.

I didn’t log in until the end of week two. I knew the season was taking place because I researched why LS2 stopped abruptly and found WvW Season 2 as the answer.

So while Season 1 delivery system had problems, Season 2’s delivery didn’t work for me. I don’t even know where this NPC is.

and there’s the second page of my mails… all the way back to my first bday present.

No Season 2 email, nor a description of how to get my rewards. There was no mail for the weeks I completed (week 2 and week 4).

And yet it was made quite clear outside of the game as well. So even if you didn’t get your mails (the screenies doesn’t really prove anything) the information was fully available.

One thing to keep in mind is that if they had used the mail delivery for rewards as earlier, you wouldn’t even have gotten a chance to get them if you for some reason don’t receive the mails.

lordkrall.7241:

And yet it was made quite clear outside of the game as well. So even if you didn’t get your mails (the screenies doesn’t really prove anything) the information was fully available.

One thing to keep in mind is that if they had used the mail delivery for rewards as earlier, you wouldn’t even have gotten a chance to get them if you for some reason don’t receive the mails.

If by “quite clear” you mean that one paragraph in the news article, then maybe. Although good games don’t require you to read outside material to understand fundamental mechanics like rewards.

For a game that sets the benchmark in user experience (see every other reward system in the entire game), this was poorly executed.

Don’t get me wrong, GW2 does a lot of things really well. This is one of the few things that make me say “huh?”.

Of all the seasons, I actually think this one’s reward mechanism worked the best. After reset, you have one week to walk up to an NPC and push ‘F’. This is the same NPC you’ve used for all your other season/tournament rewards and you can’t leave any spawn without almost literally tripping over him.

I don’t remember if I got a mail or not, but it’s a moot point since both servers I play on had many people posting reminders in map/team chat to go collect your rewards. I even made a point of stopping at him while letting my team repair/sell/etc.

Berk.8561:

Rimmy.9217:

People who don’t read the instructions, don’t read the emails sent by ANet to indicate that their rewards are now available to be picked up and must be picked up before the end of the following week likely aren’t “customers” who can work out the complex task of purchasing gems with real money.

I’ve purchased lots of gems and I missed out on a one of the weeks because, quite frankly, the apex of my guild wars experience is not visiting the Battle Historian to get a reward. Assuming that they have a great reason to use that delivery mechanism, is there any reason why the battle historian couldn’t hold a player’s cumulative reward until they go an pick it up?

Certainly there is – because there’s no need for it to. It was clearly laid out for all to see in a variety of media both in game and out exactly how it worked. People spent ten minutes per week getting their achievements done, and then the following week received an email telling them they had received awards and where to get them again. It would take no more time than loading the screen and walking forward to receive their rewards, so the onus was on them. This wasn’t a change from a battle historian that kept their rewards from week to week, this is an attempt to address that not everybody who completed the achievements in seasons one and two got credit for them at the end, so this weekly system that required a miniscule effort from the players was tried to make sure as many people as possible got their rewards.

And so far, I haven’t seen anybody complaining about it not working except for user error.

Rimmy.9217:

Berk.8561:

Rimmy.9217:

People who don’t read the instructions, don’t read the emails sent by ANet to indicate that their rewards are now available to be picked up and must be picked up before the end of the following week likely aren’t “customers” who can work out the complex task of purchasing gems with real money.

I’ve purchased lots of gems and I missed out on a one of the weeks because, quite frankly, the apex of my guild wars experience is not visiting the Battle Historian to get a reward. Assuming that they have a great reason to use that delivery mechanism, is there any reason why the battle historian couldn’t hold a player’s cumulative reward until they go an pick it up?

Certainly there is – because there’s no need for it to. It was clearly laid out for all to see in a variety of media both in game and out exactly how it worked. People spent ten minutes per week getting their achievements done, and then the following week received an email telling them they had received awards and where to get them again. It would take no more time than loading the screen and walking forward to receive their rewards, so the onus was on them. This wasn’t a change from a battle historian that kept their rewards from week to week, this is an attempt to address that not everybody who completed the achievements in seasons one and two got credit for them at the end, so this weekly system that required a miniscule effort from the players was tried to make sure as many people as possible got their rewards.

And so far, I haven’t seen anybody complaining about it not working except for user error.

Refer to my post above where I didn’t get the notification emails.

I’ll say it again to avoid confusion. I did not log in until the last half of week 2. So I do not have any mails in my log from week 1 nor the season start. I don’t recall getting said mails and I definitely didn’t fudge the email log in some vain attempt to make a point.

I’m not horribly upset by any stretch of the imagination. However I think you are overplaying how well it was laid out to the User. Otherwise this topic wouldn’t exist. It’s definitely User error, but in a game so well designed from a User Experience perspective, this reward system could have been done better.

Not having the rewards persist for more than a week is low-effort coding (compared to the alternative). Hopefully it’s better for the next season.