Guild Wars 2

spent another four hours last night running wvw after reset and got 1/10th the badges of everyone else. Its kind of frustrating when you play hard, buffing, healing, keeping people alive and moving, and have nothing to show for it except some screen shots

They should also change the system so that badges are awarded as a currency, not items because having to look for bags on the ground in the heat of battle is counter productive and distracts.

So reviving allies, X amount healed, Y number of boons provided or conditions removed should have a chance to automatically award a badge just like doing damage. It is NOT hard to program such a system.

Gaudrath.6725:

So reviving allies, X amount healed, Y number of boons provided or conditions removed should have a chance to automatically award a badge just like doing damage. It is NOT hard to program such a system.

This would never work. Baddies would just hang around spawn reviving each other and spreading boons.

skinnyb.5920:

Gaudrath.6725:

So reviving allies, X amount healed, Y number of boons provided or conditions removed should have a chance to automatically award a badge just like doing damage. It is NOT hard to program such a system.

This would never work. Baddies would just hang around spawn reviving each other and spreading boons.

Easily fixed – you only get badges for support if your allies are in actual combat at the time. Just spreading boons or suicide jumping/rezzing wouldn’t work…

skinnyb.5920:

Gaudrath.6725:

So reviving allies, X amount healed, Y number of boons provided or conditions removed should have a chance to automatically award a badge just like doing damage. It is NOT hard to program such a system.

This would never work. Baddies would just hang around spawn reviving each other and spreading boons.

It’s so sad but true. Alas, in the gaming world you play support out of the goodness of your heart.

Gaudrath.6725:

skinnyb.5920:

Gaudrath.6725:

So reviving allies, X amount healed, Y number of boons provided or conditions removed should have a chance to automatically award a badge just like doing damage. It is NOT hard to program such a system.

This would never work. Baddies would just hang around spawn reviving each other and spreading boons.

Easily fixed – you only get badges for support if your allies are in actual combat at the time. Just spreading boons or suicide jumping/rezzing wouldn’t work…

Hmm alright then. But how would you get the badge if you have no bags to loot? Just throwing one into your inventory for standing around spreading boons while others had to go out and fight for them hardly seems fair.

EDIT: I spread boons and kill at the same time so that means I and certain classes like guardians would get double the badges. That also seems unfair to classes like Rangers who hardly ever spread boons.

In some other games pvp system, you get badges/currency/reward tokens for enemy deaths that you participated in by either damaging them, or healing/buffing allies who killed them.

A similar system would be fine here if they moved badges over to a system like laurels where you just auto-gain them as you fight. If you heal someone/buff someone engaged in combat, when the enemy dies (and only if they actually die) you get 1 point – the person doing the killing gets 3/4/5 points or whatever (and to be fair, it has to be much less for heal/buff than killing, because you can throw one single heal on someone faster than killing an enemy, so it has to balance out.)

skinnyb.5920:

I spread boons and kill at the same time so that means I and certain classes like guardians would get double the badges. That also seems unfair to classes like Rangers who hardly ever spread boons.

In a situation where badges were rewarded for buff/heals, ranger might top out everyone if they are smart…..dont forget that really nice water field heal they throw down that is considered by many to be the best healing field in game. Regens are everywhere when a smart ranger is around who lays it down every time they can for people to use.

If you’re sitting around in water and not doing even the minimum damage to tag someone for a loot bag you’re not supporting very well. I get tons of badges on my ele, and no he’s not a glass cannon where I just spam fire aoes on the enemy zerg.

skinnyb.5920:

Gaudrath.6725:

skinnyb.5920:

Gaudrath.6725:

So reviving allies, X amount healed, Y number of boons provided or conditions removed should have a chance to automatically award a badge just like doing damage. It is NOT hard to program such a system.

This would never work. Baddies would just hang around spawn reviving each other and spreading boons.

Easily fixed – you only get badges for support if your allies are in actual combat at the time. Just spreading boons or suicide jumping/rezzing wouldn’t work…

Hmm alright then. But how would you get the badge if you have no bags to loot? Just throwing one into your inventory for standing around spreading boons while others had to go out and fight for them hardly seems fair.

EDIT: I spread boons and kill at the same time so that means I and certain classes like guardians would get double the badges. That also seems unfair to classes like Rangers who hardly ever spread boons.

This is balanced behind the scenes by the system. For example, boon effects on targets attacking enemies could be treated the same as landing conditions directly on targets.
Or since boons might be easier to apply than actually going to the front and fighting, you get fewer badges for them or get badges more rarely.

Point is, support roles are already recognized in many games, WAR was one such example, you would get points for healing as well as for doing damage. There is no reason why such a system couldn’t be implemented in GW2.

The reason I mentioned no bags to loot is because badges of honor should be like “points” recognizing your skill in battle, whether attacking or supporting team mates.

Badges should NOT recognize your skill in battle and looting. I have no idea how many bags I failed to loot because I was busy actually fighting.

If you want loot bags, make sure you are grouped with others around you. The more in the group the greater chance you get bags and it requires less damage by you on the target to qualify for loot. Usually when you run around solo with people around you, you will need to out dmg everyone or come close to it to get a chance at loot.

I have a question, why is this in the Elementalist forum?

THE DOCTOR.3510:

I have a question, why is this in the Elementalist forum?

Because we elemenalists are nice people who like to aid our friends while also burning people alive.

We would like to be recognized for the support part.

Ok, just wondering. I too like burining people alive….. and aiding friends. On the Badges topic, I think its a good idea, slightly unbalanced but better than the current way.

Sorry but “just playing support” in a game where most ppl can support themselves is just a little bit lazy imo. I love playing elementalist, but while my water heals are on cooldown i can easily switch to earth or fire for some nice dmg. back to water and sometimes air for boons.

This game isnt a holy trinity game, all players can pretty much heal themselves and others, dont just stand there while your 2 water heals (that really on their own would never keep a player alive like ‘proper’ heals from a dedicated healer) reach their cooldown but throw a few dmg spells around.

The currents system promotes all players to do their part: dmg, dodge, heal (mostly themselves, others can get minor heals/regen, but there isnt a proper heal for others in this game)

Ok Galum, so I guess there is no real reason for me to drop Static Field then, since it does no damage, on my own I will inflict minimal vulnerability and it costs me time I could be spending doing actual damage.

Or cripple, chill, stuns and such. Useless. MOAR damage! Right?

Ofcourse not. Every class in this game “wastes” time with spells that dont do dmg, but provide a benefit for a group or a single player. The OP suggests that the reward system should be altered to provide “support” players with more benefits. My argument to that is that this game really wasn’t designed with “pure suppport” players in mind.

Everyone has the time to do dmg, in fact we have so few “support spells” (large fight: big heal, small heal, static field, earth leg-breaker bar) we would be standing idle part of the time if we limited ourselves to 1 role. If im afraid i wont get enough dmg as to get rewared i just let my electricity bounce between all nearby targets in between heals/cc. It takes very little effort, and is actually playing the game the way it is designed.

Look at the green numbers when you throw down a healing field: your heals might save someone from downed state for a second, but they dont really “heal” anyone up like a healer in a traditional mmo. It was never meant to: everyone in a group has to do all things themselves: dmg, dodge, heal, cc.

Im not saying only dmg counts, im saying you need to do all 4, as should every other player. Mesmers, guardians, thieves, warriors, necromancers, engineers all have non-dmg spells they (should) use. I think many in this thread overestimate the ‘support’ elementalists give and underestimate their capacity to deal dmg between non-dmg spells

Yes, and the problem OP points out is that right now the game ONLY rewards damage. Playing for the team, laying down combo fields, Might stacks, Auras etc doesn’t do anything for you badge-wise.

If you wanted to max out your badge drops, you want to max out your damage. That runs contrary to what elementalists and as you said, all classes should do, which is do everything they are capable of. Including support (which doesn’t mean healing, it means acting like a force multiplier with well placed combo fields, Might stacking, condition removals etc.).

Support needs to be recognized by the game and rewarded as such. Right now only aggression is.

Ah sorry, I thought OP wanted to reward “pure support” instead of support while doing dmg. Given the fact that you also do dmg in between support spells and therefor get rewarded for the dmg done, I didn’t see a problem

My experience with fellow players has been that they are very aware of their non-dmg spells and while guardians and mesmers catch my attention more than other profs, i often see banners, invisibility fields, etc.

But if your experience has been different and you think a better reward system could get ppl to pay more attention to non-dmg parts of a fight, i have no opposition to that. I wouldnt like to see rewards for ‘pure support’ implemented though, it basically means that you’re not playing the game very well, neglecting the essential dmg part.

They didn’t want pure support characters in this game by design. I highly doubt they will reward the game play even if people have figured out ways to create pure support builds and play styles.

Kodiak.3281:

They didn’t want pure support characters in this game by design. I highly doubt they will reward the game play even if people have figured out ways to create pure support builds and play styles.

Support is something certain classes like the elementalist can do very well, and can and do influence the course of a fight.

Right now the game rewards only pure damage dealers. It doesn’t reward anything but frenetic AoE spammage in huge zergfests. It doesn’t differentiate between players who just spam whatever they can whenever they can and players who take the effort to setup tactical combo fields, clear conditions and apply boons on top of the damage they deal anyway.

If that’s by design, then it’s a poor design and should be changed.

Sad to say but this is an issue to almost all aspects of the game and not just WvW. If you play pure support, you will definitely have less loots since loot require you to tag mobs whether in dungeons or in open PVE. The game does not force everyone to play DPS per se, but rather a balance of DPS and support IMO. It does however discourages pure support roles.

Some changes to the way loots are distributed is definitely welcome. But i think it is hard to achieve.

Gaudrath.6725:

Support is something certain classes like the elementalist can do very well, and can and do influence the course of a fight.

Right now the game rewards only pure damage dealers. It doesn’t reward anything but frenetic AoE spammage in huge zergfests. It doesn’t differentiate between players who just spam whatever they can whenever they can and players who take the effort to setup tactical combo fields, clear conditions and apply boons on top of the damage they deal anyway.

If that’s by design, then it’s a poor design and should be changed.

The design is to encourage players to bring offense, defense and support all at once rather than simply go overboard on one or the other. Unfortunately players, being the way that they are, rarely go with design intentions. Players, again being the way that they are, rarely innovate design wise and generally copy what others regurgitate as the “mandatory” or “successful” builds that they see others doing.

This leads to the current scenario where player X joins a group and is asked/volunteers to play support based on another group who brings support eles (who originally probably didn’t care about bags) who is now shocked to find out that riding the !@#$ seat isn’t all it’s cracked up to be (or rewarded).

Instead of adapting to the clearly designed game mechanics (which doesn’t require balls to the walls DPS to get credit for kills but at least some measure of DPS in your build be it gear or traits) instead we come to make a post to overhaul the game design to support people playing the game the way they didn’t design it to be played in the first place.

I’m sure they’ll get right on that.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Sad to say but this is an issue to almost all aspects of the game and not just WvW. If you play pure support, you will definitely have less loots since loot require you to tag mobs whether in dungeons or in open PVE. The game does not force everyone to play DPS per se, but rather a balance of DPS and support IMO. It does however discourages pure support roles.

Some changes to the way loots are distributed is definitely welcome. But i think it is hard to achieve.

Thankfully just about every class has some way to provide support to the team while also being able to kick out enough DPS to contribute.

Guild Wars 2 was designed not to have ‘pure support’, so why would you even play like that. Not a whole lot a of damage is required to tag a mob/enemy player: a few bounces with your ‘Chain Lightning’ are enough.
Only standing behind the players doing actual fighting, throwing down the occasional Geyser, Healing Rain, Static Field and Unsteady Ground, without a single damage contribution should not be rewarded in my opinion.
The reward for every player to do damage, dodge incoming damage, heal themselves and others and cripple/stun foes is both loot and increased chances of survival. Not only elementalists, but every class in game can, should and, in my experience, do all four of these. There should be no need to alter the reward system.

So basically you say that:

1. Every class in the game can and should do everything at their disposal, which includes both damage and support
2. Only damage should be recognized by the system.

Yes, I can see the logic there.

By the way, current system is poorly made.
I just hope they will add some kind of a fair and accurate tally of your exploits in WvW, perhaps with that new ranking system I heard mention of. Badges are terrible, not only because you have to actually loot them, which distracts from the task at hand which is fighting for your team, but they drop too rarely as well.

No, that is a misrepresentation of what I said, this would be more accurate:
1. This game is not meant for ‘pure support’ if you don’t do damage you’re being lazy
2. If you do damage you get rewards

There are several problems with rewarding ‘support’ as mentioned earlier in this thread that would make a system very vulnerable to cheating.
Also: the aim of this game is basically to kill things, so in the end only doing x amount of damage is what this game is all about. Now I’ve stated above after a post where you acused me of underestimating the role of support that support can be helpful in staying alive and doing more damage: but don’t lose sight of the objective here: ‘baddies’ don’t drop dead because of you awesome water spells, they drop because they recieve damage.
Now you also keep mentioning other ways of looting/recieving badges. Just to be clear I could not care less one way or the other, let me loot them, recieve them automatically or mail them. My only point in this thread was in response to OP who claimed he deserverd to get more badges for spending four hours doing nothing but ‘pure support’: a phenomenon that wasn’t aimed for in this games’ design and that in my opinion, should not be encouraged.
So to round of my argument: If someone plays the game the way it is meant to be, he or she will get rewarded. That this is based on the amount of damage that person does is only practical (prevents cheating) and is in line with the aim of the game: kill npc/enemy players by doing damage. All your other spells are just there to aid you in the objective of doing damage. Don’t turn means into ends of themselves.

Galum.6128:

So to round of my argument: If someone plays the game the way it is meant to be, he or she will get rewarded. That this is based on the amount of damage that person does is only practical (prevents cheating) and is in line with the aim of the game: kill npc/enemy players by doing damage. All your other spells are just there to aid you in the objective of doing damage. Don’t turn means into ends of themselves.

Someone who gets it, I’m amazed!

First of all, as “SpreadCheeks” says, get into a group, preferably a 5 person group. Why? Because that 5-15% required to qualify for loot is determined by the total damage done by your party. Note that you must also do damage/participate in the fight to qualify for loot.

Fortunately, most of our support skills also do damage. They were designed this way for a reason. Those few fields we have that deal no damage are also made more effective when you use a combo finisher with it (which practically all do their own damage).

Right. I am not standing around spamming heals. I am, however, focusing primarily on heals, debuffs, roots, whatever i can to give my team the advantage. Constantly changing elements and keeping a ridiculous amount of cooldown numbers in my head. There are hundreds of times a night that i have the choice to fire off dps or cast a spell that saves someone from dropping. I keep people moving.

The person who said a “warhammer” coding would be good was what i meant. Even in warhammer, if your gear sucked or you were a terribad player you wouldnt get many rewards/points