Guild Wars 2

We all know that since the birth of Ascended items and laurels, Alts have been hit every patch release. More and more content is locked to ‘once per account’ Rewards that are not, are tied to laurels that can only be earned once per day per account, with a bonus 10 per month per account. Laurels themselves are essentially soul-bound on use in terms of usability, as any rewards you purchase with them can only be used on one character.

Unfortunately with the way the achievement system is, there is not much hope for us alt lovers. Any change that would increase the number of laurels gained would likely be unable to distinguish between a player with many characters to gear, and a player with only one increasing the progression difference even further.

Many devs have said its something they are looking into, but nothing has really been done or even hinted of yet and my best guess is that they don’t want to devalue laurels by making them more available for everyone just to please people with alts.

Introducing the Bonus WvW Laurel.

Every 24 hours of game time in WvW will reward the player with a bonus laurel. Obviously this isn’t a HUGE bonus because it is based off playtime not real-time and on its own this wont help our alt issue.

However, if a player plays with two different characters on the same account, each character would contribute 4/3rds of an hour per actual hour played in wvw. What this translates to is 18 hours of in-game time earning the bonus laurel instead of 24 hours.

This contribution amount could continue to increase if you play with more characters allowing people with many characters to earn the bonus laurel more frequently. This intern allows them to pay for the extra items they need to gear their alts more easily.

Obviously a threshold would need to be implemented so that people don’t just log in for 5 mins on WvW per alt to get laurals for their main quicker. Attached is a quick excel example with 3 alts being played. Obviously the numbers are just pulled out of my head, its just the concept I am trying to provide.

As you can see the time taken to earn laurels decreases when more characters take part in wvw. The thresholds applied are an even split of playtime between all characters so that if you have 3 characters you like to play it will take you only 15 hours to earn your extra laurel providing playtime is even so the system can not be abused. In my example with 3 characters, you can see that as a player tends to focus purely on one character the Effective hours earned towards the bonus laurel decreases.

Obviously this system requires you to play 100% even across all characters to gain the most benefit which sounds restrictive but is not the point. The idea is that a reward which is very restrictive can now be obtained quicker by players who use more characters, which is something not currently available in any way shape or form. A byproduct is that as it is implemented through WvW it bolsters the rather poor rewards WvW offers per time spent when compared with PvE.

Thanks for your time.

There are bots in this game who might like this idea XD.

Is that your only issue?

Its just I spent a fair bit of time thinking of how to flesh this out and a simple ‘bots could abuse’ is not really a valid excuse to punish players who have multiple characters imo.

For instance, lets roll with my figures. AT MOST a bot could earn 2 extra laurels per day with this system (1 per 12 hours) making it 3 if the person running said bot does his/her daily. 3 Laurels per day is worth 6 unidentified dyes which is aprox 1.26 gold in today’s market. I am sure someone who was botting could earn much much more than that per day having their character run around orr endlessly farming mobs and/or cutting down trees or whatever bots do these days.

All this idea is a tool to enable people who already invest a lot of time in the gametype they love to get more reward from it, especially if they love playing with multiple characters.

or since you like to play your alts a lot ,make dailies not account wide but per character. and keep the monthly one account wide.

if you want some alt friendliness just get rid of the Soulbound on use and leave it to account bound. There are many pieces that could be shared with your alts instead of wasting time grinding out copies of the sames thing.

True, I was just trying to be realistic. I highly doubt they will remove soulbound on use, this was just a workable alternative.

bradderzh.2378:

We all know that since the birth of Ascended items and laurels, Alts have been hit every patch release. More and more content is locked to ‘once per account’ Rewards that are not, are tied to laurels that can only be earned once per day per account, with a bonus 10 per month per account. Laurels themselves are essentially soul-bound on use in terms of usability, as any rewards you purchase with them can only be used on one character.

Unfortunately with the way the achievement system is, there is not much hope for us alt lovers. Any change that would increase the number of laurels gained would likely be unable to distinguish between a player with many characters to gear, and a player with only one increasing the progression difference even further.

Many devs have said its something they are looking into, but nothing has really been done or even hinted of yet and my best guess is that they don’t want to devalue laurels by making them more available for everyone just to please people with alts.

Introducing the Bonus WvW Laurel.

Every 24 hours of game time in WvW will reward the player with a bonus laurel. Obviously this isn’t a HUGE bonus because it is based off playtime not real-time and on its own this wont help our alt issue.

However, if a player plays with two different characters on the same account, each character would contribute 4/3rds of an hour per actual hour played in wvw. What this translates to is 18 hours of in-game time earning the bonus laurel instead of 24 hours.

This contribution amount could continue to increase if you play with more characters allowing people with many characters to earn the bonus laurel more frequently. This intern allows them to pay for the extra items they need to gear their alts more easily.

Obviously a threshold would need to be implemented so that people don’t just log in for 5 mins on WvW per alt to get laurals for their main quicker. Attached is a quick excel example with 3 alts being played. Obviously the numbers are just pulled out of my head, its just the concept I am trying to provide.

As you can see the time taken to earn laurels decreases when more characters take part in wvw. The thresholds applied are an even split of playtime between all characters so that if you have 3 characters you like to play it will take you only 15 hours to earn your extra laurel providing playtime is even so the system can not be abused. In my example with 3 characters, you can see that as a player tends to focus purely on one character the Effective hours earned towards the bonus laurel decreases.

Obviously this system requires you to play 100% even across all characters to gain the most benefit which sounds restrictive but is not the point. The idea is that a reward which is very restrictive can now be obtained quicker by players who use more characters, which is something not currently available in any way shape or form. A byproduct is that as it is implemented through WvW it bolsters the rather poor rewards WvW offers per time spent when compared with PvE.

Thanks for your time.

Excellent idea. I don’t know if it works, but that’s why it’s an idea, so it can be tested out. Please test it out, ArenaNet. We welcome anything that helps alts.

Julie Yann.5379:

if you want some alt friendliness just get rid of the Soulbound on use and leave it to account bound. There are many pieces that could be shared with your alts instead of wasting time grinding out copies of the sames thing.

This will probably never happen as that would then decrease the amount of time one would spend playing the game and perhaps trading gold for Gems or vice versa. Anet wants to make a profit, not a bad thing really.

Its also why if you buy a set of armor from the Gem store all your characters cannot wear that outfit

Ricky.4706:

and while we are at it, how about making exotic / ascended weapons alt friendly also – account bound – not soulbound – it’s unaffordable to test out different combinations of weapons – or for that matter have a collection of weapons I can change my builds with both with mats and vault space, I feel locked into one build for a main because, getting ascended, maxing and gearing up different characters is not easily affordable for people who mostly wvw – wvw doesn’t pay as well as pve – so while I can appreciate the balancing for pve players who can afford it – it’s denying pure wvwr’s of diversity.

THIS

It was fine before all the grindy vertical progression was introduced. What about we go back to that?

Lord Kuru.3685:

It was fine before all the grindy vertical progression was introduced. What about we go back to that?

best Idea ever

GW2 strength as a game imo is its large scale battles, gvg, pvp, based on combat stretagy combined by different professions using different builds and combos. Yes, playing different builds in a team fight is the core.

Vertical gear grinding is not supposed to be in the picture since the choices of gear mods are made limited sets (berserker, soldier, etc). Unlike some other ARPG whose gears have huge random mods that some true grinder/crafter players can actually get lucky and get some godly items better than legendaries, which make those kinds of games worth grinding. Yes, push your luck for gg items is the core of those games.

It takes me 8+ months to grinds dungeons (for gold, not really fun) to gear up all my 8 alts with exotics for many possible good builds I can think of, just to try them in wvw. Do I want to do the grinding in fotm for all my alts to get ascended? Not really, considering the time I may end up spending and gain so little stat improvement in return. Plus I never got any impressive items from dungeons anyway. For general players, you get what you want in this game with gold. I think gold grinding in any game is no fun.

My point in this long paragraph? You devide your play time among alts, which result more time in dungeon grinding and less time in wvw. If wxp ranks skills were introduced at launch, I might have tried to max 1 char before I make another. It’s all about efficiency and smart play. Everyone eventually will take a break from any game. The point is how soon they feel like to come back for its replayability. If I have an army of upscale wxp ranked alts, I will always feel it’s a long way to go and don’t want to bother XD. I really think GW2 should focus on add new trait lines and new combo finisher/fields, which results in more builds. This adds more combat stretagy on the field. Instead of going for gear grinding, which is what it is …

Regarding the general topic: Selling a WXP transfer from one character to another in the Gemshop would be an idea.

More WvW monetization and you can retain your current WXP mechanics while reducing issues with it.

DevonCarver.5370:

We have some thing that will be in the tests for the new map that will help WvW be more alt-friendly. We will talk more about it as we get closer to the test actually beginning.

Nothing is going to be alt friendly unless you drop the char bound ranks and make it account bound.

ANYTHING other than that is just tinkering around the edges of the real issue.

I’d like to be able to feel that it’s worth playing my other toons for a bit in wvw, but losing 250 vit just so i can play on a rank 20 or 30 alt, and feeling like I’m going backwards and it’s a waste of time that I could be spending on my ‘main’, means the game has become very restrictive.

DevonCarver.5370:

We have some thing that will be in the tests for the new map that will help WvW be more alt-friendly. We will talk more about it as we get closer to the test actually beginning.

this mean more farm in wvw, more farmers, more karmatrain and more queue?

DevonCarver.5370:

We have some thing that will be in the tests for the new map that will help WvW be more alt-friendly. We will talk more about it as we get closer to the test actually beginning.

Anything that isn’t account bound wvw ranks is the wrong solution, end of story.

Julie Yann.5379:

if you want some alt friendliness just get rid of the Soulbound on use and leave it to account bound. There are many pieces that could be shared with your alts instead of wasting time grinding out copies of the sames thing.

^
this is a great idea. It would really free up a lot of space having multiple sets of gear for each of your alts plus whatever else is in your bank ends up being a huge pain. Not having to pick and choose what I need to throw away would be great.

risenlord.2035:

Julie Yann.5379:

if you want some alt friendliness just get rid of the Soulbound on use and leave it to account bound. There are many pieces that could be shared with your alts instead of wasting time grinding out copies of the sames thing.

^
this is a great idea. It would really free up a lot of space having multiple sets of gear for each of your alts plus whatever else is in your bank ends up being a huge pain. Not having to pick and choose what I need to throw away would be great.

Might not technically be possible since skins with heavy, mid, and light armors do not mix. If it’s indeed possible, it means a lot of previous art works for the skins will be laid to waste. Cross your finger

BBMouse.6510:

risenlord.2035:

Julie Yann.5379:

if you want some alt friendliness just get rid of the Soulbound on use and leave it to account bound. There are many pieces that could be shared with your alts instead of wasting time grinding out copies of the sames thing.

^
this is a great idea. It would really free up a lot of space having multiple sets of gear for each of your alts plus whatever else is in your bank ends up being a huge pain. Not having to pick and choose what I need to throw away would be great.

Might not technically be possible since skins with heavy, mid, and light armors do not mix. If it’s indeed possible, it means a lot of previous art works for the skins will be laid to waste. Cross your finger

I don’t think you could mix between heavy, ,medium, light but you could at least share the same weapons and trinkets.

Tyops.5894:

DevonCarver.5370:

We have some thing that will be in the tests for the new map that will help WvW be more alt-friendly. We will talk more about it as we get closer to the test actually beginning.

It’s not rocket surgery. There is pretty much only one acceptable solution, and that is account wide rank. Pretty much everything else falls short.

Tyops.5894:

DevonCarver.5370:

We have some thing that will be in the tests for the new map that will help WvW be more alt-friendly. We will talk more about it as we get closer to the test actually beginning.

It’s not rocket surgery. There is pretty much only one acceptable solution, and that is account wide rank. Pretty much everything else falls short.

I don’t know why Devon bothers to even post the generic “we have plans in the werks” response.

He knows what we want account bound wvw ranks. If it isn’t that, it’s still going to fall short. What’s that? Everytime you rank up you’ll now get wvw rank up book to help with alts! That still wouldn’t cut it.

The reason why I thought GW2 would be great was that it wouldn’t be like your generic MMO with tedious grind, but as the days go by, GW2 doesn’t differentiate itself that much anymore.

If new players were to ask me for advice on how to play the game I would tell them to pick one character and stick with it forever. Although they may ask “But what if I want to play-” “STICK TO ONE CHARACTER, it will save you the hassle in the long run.”

I find it terribly discouraging when I play some WvW, then after some time period I feel like “I haven’t play X in a long time, I’ll try it out.” enjoy the change, then be hit with the thought “What am I doing? I am rank 12 and I have no wvw bonus abilities and am contributing less to the team, I should stick to my other character that has rank 110+ who will benefit the team.”

It’s the same when you think of your team and they need certain profession to fill out some roles. You think, “I could use my mesme…what the hell am I thinking, I’m rank 2 by the time I finish, I could be rank 10, I could use those 8 ranks on my other character that is already working towards Guard Defense/Killer, screw the team!”

See thats one thing that really bothers me.

ANet: “Hey guys, we recognize <problem> and we’re going to do something about it!”
Players: “Yes!”
Anet: “But instead of just simply fixing it, we’re going to tip-toe around the problem and try and fix it without adressing the core issue”
Players: “No!”

And this refusing accountwide WvW ranks is just another one of those. They’ll put in WXP-booster, Acountbound WXP containers, lower WXP to level, hand out boosters at early ranks, boost overall wxp gain.
Everything to make it more alt friendly, without actually fixing the reason we have this problem to begin with.

I have 8 level 80 toons, one for each profession. If WXP were account bound I’d finally feel like I got the benefit I should from 1000’s of hours of play. I’ll gladly pay gems to make this happen.

Funny to see “We’re working on things that will ease this issue” on new map, they’ve added purshaseable and droppable WXP, plus some Ranking up Chest adjustement and so on when they could’ve made WXP acc bound, which would have been at same time more effective than all these thing toghether AND much less time consuming.

It’s just…. /aliens

DevonCarver.5370:

We have some thing that will be in the tests for the new map that will help WvW be more alt-friendly. We will talk more about it as we get closer to the test actually beginning.

Arenanet, why not tell us the design now before you are over committed?

What happened to Arenanet’s new policy of Collaborative Development with the player community?

Is the WvW team not a part of the new Collaborative Development initiative?

What are you doing for EB and Borderlands alt-friendliness?

We’re going to just keep creating these threads every week for the next few years until you make wXP account bound – so why not just do what we all know is right.

the commander title is alt unfriendly too – my server suggested that I should be a commander – but i’m stuck in a deep gold sink trying to make more level 80’s – gear them up …and get an ascended weapon for my mesmer. 100 gold is something a wvw doesn’t see for 1 character – let alone alt characters. Further mesmers are not a good commander class, so now I have to gear up a warrior or guardian and see which one I feel most comfortable with after I max them – the irony that someone devoted to wvw can’t afford to be a commander – I’m a merc – I belong to all guilds that need my assistance but no 1 guild in particular – in fact – I have a guild with just me as a member that I’ve been building to make a future wvw special ops guild – I joined many guilds but none that were pure wvw, and many just died – with people not even logging on anymore – when I saw how much glory I was giving to empty non wvw guilds – I decided it would be better spent on my own guild. – point is, being 90 percent wvw actually works against your wvw progression. the other 10 percent is when I either need a change, or need to focus on making gold so I can gear up for wvw.

sometimes the easyest sollution is the best. we dont need fancy tricks. just make wxp account bound as fast as possible pls.

Maybe their solution is that the new map wont have any siege weapons, making WvW ranks useless!
Edit: Or guards, etc

You keep diverging more and more from your original promises. “Max armor will be easy to get!” ring a bell?

Just make WvW XP account bound. The drops/kegs whatever don’t cut it because it’s STILL most advantageous to rank up the character I play the most with them rather than an alt. And I’m still contributing less to the WvW effort if I don’t bring my main because of the siege, supply, repair etc. goodies I don’t have on my alts.

ACCOUNT. BOUND. WVW RANKS.

You promised to treat us like a player, not a character. So do it. I don’t see the difference between making karma account bound (thank you, by the way) to making WvW ranks account bound. People didn’t like karma character progression; why do WvWers still get stuck with WvW rank character progression?

Rainshine.5493:

[snip]
ACCOUNT. BOUND. WVW RANKS.
[snip]

fixed

Rainshine.5493:

You keep diverging more and more from your original promises. “Max armor will be easy to get!” ring a bell?

SNIP

ACCOUNT. BOUND. WVW RANKS.

You promised to treat us like a player, not a character. So do it. I don’t see the difference between making karma account bound (thank you, by the way) to making WvW ranks account bound. People didn’t like karma character progression; why do WvWers still get stuck with WvW rank character progression?

LOL Rainshine, perhaps you should confer with “S_ _ _ _ _ _” again remember he said there is no gear treadmill in this game and you where trying to wee wee on his division

In an ideal world, my ranks are account bound and I can switch between characters in WvW without logging out and re-queuing. Some of us love playing alts, and have put a lot of time and effort into gearing multiple classes adequately and establishing the ability to play competently. For us, variety is what keeps the game fresh and is a (the?) pull to keep playing.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

DevonCarver.5370:

We have some thing that will be in the tests for the new map that will help WvW be more alt-friendly. We will talk more about it as we get closer to the test actually beginning.

Arenanet, why not tell us the design now before you are over committed?

What happened to Arenanet’s new policy of Collaborative Development with the player community?

Is the WvW team not a part of the new Collaborative Development initiative?

What are you doing for EB and Borderlands alt-friendliness?

We’re going to just keep creating these threads every week for the next few years until you make wXP account bound – so why not just do what we all know is right.

Because if they told you right now without actually having the maps to test it out, how would you know if it works or not?

the grind in this game is so harsh, that i refuse to spend any more money in it. I’m just going to finish building up my one character with whatever i found / earned in game so far and leave it at that so I can feel my money bought at least 1 decent character. even the purchased mining equipment is soulbound. Even gearing up this one mesmer as I’d like to is going to take another year – especially if they plan to grind the life out of me for ascended armor….this nosebleeder memser will need it for wvw… And this is my first character since the game started heh!! I have another level 80 thief, but im not going to bother with it. I started leveling a guardian and a warrior – but i’m going to abandon those too, i just can’t gear everyone up…at least not without living in the game and speed running dungeons like some deranged lunatic, which wont happen any time soon

How about a Collaborative Development thread about this issue with WvW Rank?
Let us all sit down and discuss the pros and cons of making WvW Rank be account bound and work just as PvP one is.

the game is just too grindy to even consider alts. there’s really nothing to talk about – even if you gave my guardian/warrior/thief my 110 rank on my mesmer – i wouldn’t play it because as a PVP’r …i want the best stats…period. no negotiating on that point. I bought a mesmer – that’s all the time i can afford.

Please make the WxP levels account bound like in PvP. I really would get to experience WvW more if I could play all my characters and know I was advancing just as much.

Xae Isareth.1364:

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

DevonCarver.5370:

We have some thing that will be in the tests for the new map that will help WvW be more alt-friendly. We will talk more about it as we get closer to the test actually beginning.

Arenanet, why not tell us the design now before you are over committed?

What happened to Arenanet’s new policy of Collaborative Development with the player community?

Is the WvW team not a part of the new Collaborative Development initiative?

What are you doing for EB and Borderlands alt-friendliness?

We’re going to just keep creating these threads every week for the next few years until you make wXP account bound – so why not just do what we all know is right.

Because if they told you right now without actually having the maps to test it out, how would you know if it works or not?

Not everything needs a full build to evaluate its efficacy.

It’s pretty easy to spot obvious design flaws ahead of time.

We knew leagues would suck before we could test it.
We knew league achievements would block up the queues before we could test it.
We knew soulbound wXP would suck before we could test it.
We knew stat based orb buffs would suck before we could test it.

Account bound ranks would be fantastic.

Players want Account bound ranks. Anet has some reasons not to do so. Why not come with alternate solutions then? OP at least tried to give an alternate solution. I did not like it too much, so I’ll post another one.

Half of the wxp earned by any character is also given to alts.

So if I gain 100wxp, the character I’m playing gains those 100wxp and all my alts gain 50wxp. This way, when you level an alt, you will also be helping your main and other alts. Also, when leveling your main, your alts will not be so far behind. Players can feel like they are progressing their account while making all characters progress a bit. For Anet, characters will still be differentiated by the ones who are played the most.

Hammerguard.9834:

DevonCarver.5370:

We have some thing that will be in the tests for the new map that will help WvW be more alt-friendly. We will talk more about it as we get closer to the test actually beginning.

[Snip Pve fractal garbage] Account bound Wxp is the central issue when it comes to making WvW alt friendly.

fixed that for you.

Forget about soulbound gear, forget about anything other than account bound Wxp. The ONLY thing that can POSSIBLY make GW2 WvW alt friendly is account bound Wxp ranks. 2 of my characters have passed the guard stack threshhold. These rank abilities make our characters so powerful that it is another example of a grind.
You know Grind. The thing GW2 promised not to have.

GW2 was sold to us on the premise that there would be no upward end game progression grind, yet at end game all I see is this…

Victoitor.2917:

Players want Account bound ranks. Anet has some reasons not to do so. Why not come with alternate solutions then? OP at least tried to give an alternate solution. I did not like it too much, so I’ll post another one.

Half of the wxp earned by any character is also given to alts.

So if I gain 100wxp, the character I’m playing gains those 100wxp and all my alts gain 50wxp. This way, when you level an alt, you will also be helping your main and other alts. Also, when leveling your main, your alts will not be so far behind. Players can feel like they are progressing their account while making all characters progress a bit. For Anet, characters will still be differentiated by the ones who are played the most.

interesting, What about all those free chests that alts would get?

YES, please – account bound WvW ranks would be fantastic, and just reset rank points before each season.
I don’t understand how ArenaNet thought making WXP character based would be “alt-friendly”. No one wants to play 1000 hours in WvW, only to lose ALL benefits from his time spent playing and look like a complete newbie when switching to an alt…

eithinan.9841:

Victoitor.2917:

Players want Account bound ranks. Anet has some reasons not to do so. Why not come with alternate solutions then? OP at least tried to give an alternate solution. I did not like it too much, so I’ll post another one.

Half of the wxp earned by any character is also given to alts.

So if I gain 100wxp, the character I’m playing gains those 100wxp and all my alts gain 50wxp. This way, when you level an alt, you will also be helping your main and other alts. Also, when leveling your main, your alts will not be so far behind. Players can feel like they are progressing their account while making all characters progress a bit. For Anet, characters will still be differentiated by the ones who are played the most.

interesting, What about all those free chests that alts would get?

1) Everyone can create 5 toons. So just create a dummy character and get the chests on them.

2) Almost every chest I have received had 2 greens, 1 blueprint, and 10 badges of honor. To me, the greens and blueprint is no big deal. The badges would further help alt-unfriendliness because it would make sure that people with alts could spend the 10 less laurel price for amulets and rings. (assuming you don’t run fractals).

The solution to this problem is easy, as others have pointed out above. Please just make WXP account bound. We’d all love to see more neat, wonderful things out of WvW, but there is no need to complicate this issue. New maps, awesome, new rewards awesome, none of this has anything to do with a very clear problem created by a design that made WvW such a sharp contrast with the rest of the game. In a game that started out super-friendly toward casual players (still ok) and those who play alts, there was no reason to make WXP character bound.

Fix this issue, don’t complicate it, make WXP account bound.