Guild Wars 2

Azure The Heartless.3261:

EnemyCrusher.7324:

Please site one source where Anet claims that mobility is supposed to the the staple of the warrior class.

When others are trying to discuss balance, “L2P” is not a useful comment.

Challenge accepted.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Raven.9603:

lol at all people saying mobility is a staple of the warrior class, or to use soft cc’s. mobility is not a staple of a heavy. its bad design, just like giving all classes nearly equal damage but vastly different starting stats is bad design.

Warriors are masters of weaponry who rely on speed, strength, toughness, and heavy armor to survive in battle. Adrenaline fuels their offensive power—the longer warriors stay in a fight, the more dangerous they become.

— GuildWars2.com Warrior

rematch?

Sure.

Warriors are masters of weaponry who rely on speed, strength, toughness, and heavy armor to survive in battle. Adrenaline fuels their offensive power—the longer warriors stay in a fight, the more dangerous they become.

— GuildWars2.com Warrior

Ayakaru.6583:

As a greatsword warrior, I feel deeply insulted reading this. I am one of the foremost players in the group to keep the enemies busy, allowing my party members safety. During WvW I am on the front row hacking away on my enemies, raring to give my life if it means safety and success for the group.

If you feel this way about them, then that’s fine. But I would be heavily insulted if my mobility would be reduced because of your envy.

You shouldn’t be offended. I’m not saying all greatsword warriors are cowards, I’m saying the ones that are shouldn’t be given the ability to suddenly escape any enemy whenever they feel like it, regardless of how that enemy is specced.

I bolded the sentence that shows you clearly don’t fit into the category of “cowardly warriors”.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

being targetable 100% while running away hardly lends itself to escape “under any circumstances.”

With thieves being able to reset Warrior adrenaline at will now, we are going to need those dashes I LOVE BEING UNDERDOG.

Greatsword warriors almost never use their adrenaline skill anyway, so that has no bearing on this topic (although it is a good point about the adrenaline change).

Being targetable doesn’t matter when you can suddenly put 3000 distance between yourself and the other player, while essentially being immune to all CC and conditions.

Stooperdale.3560:

Any player that has the capability to leave combat before death will do so if the player is smart. That’s true regardless of class. People will complain most about the class that has the best capability to leave combat, whichever class it is and how much skill is needed. So should players be able to disengage from combat at all? Yes, provided all classes have the capability to pursue with the right skills.

I agree completely.

Pandaman.4758:

So… OP is complaining that he’s winning fights, but just not getting the kill?

If warriors get mobility nerfs, then they should get DPS or damage mitigation buffs to compensate for the inability to escape from a fight. Then we can have other complain about how warriors are OP and start the cycle all over again.

Not exactly. Rather, I’m complaining that there’s a playstyle that isn’t fun for anyone that is quickly coming to dominate roaming in WvW. It probably isn’t even fun for these warriors, because they just keep losing fights and running away. No one is saying that warriors should be “unable to escape from a fight”, just that they shouldn’t have weapon skills that allow them to escape any enemy under any circumstances.

Rauderi.8706:

Because.. shortbow..on thieves?
OP doesn’t seem to have a grasp of the classes. :\

I have a level 80 character of each class. Heartseeker (thief dagger 2, for those of you who don’t know the weapon skill names) actually gives more overall movement than Infiltrator’s Arrow (thief short bow 5). Despite that, Whirlwind Attack (warrior greatsword 3) and Rush (warrior greatsword 5) provide more movement when the warrior has the Forceful Greatsword trait.

Atticus.7194:

Also you can do something about warriors running away, it’s called cripple, it’s called immobilize, it’s called chill, it’s called stun, it’s called knock down, it’s called knockback. So before you start complaining about not being able to do anything about warriors running away how about you really use the tools at your disposal.

It’s called Dolyak Signet, it’s called Balanced Stance, it’s called Dogged March, it’s called Mobile Strikes, it’s called Lemongrass Poultry Soup.

I do hit enemies who try to run away with immobilize and often a pull. Unfortunately, against these builds, immobilize lasts less than 1 second, and the pull does nothing because of stability.

XApocalypse.8739:

Are you really whining about warrior mobility? That’s the staple of the class! Thieves have stealth, mesmers have clones, ranger has a pet, and so on warriors have mobility and high damage that is the point of the class, your argument is invalid, learn to play the game and then you won’t complain about these things.

Please site one source where Anet claims that mobility is supposed to the the staple of the warrior class.

When others are trying to discuss balance, “L2P” is not a useful comment.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

there is nothing wrong with this.

this is working as intended.

this is a learn to play issue as some players refuse to equip themselves with movement impairing skills yet, they believe they have the right to come here to whine and bicker about their inability to get something done.

I run a guardian with 7 superior runes of the traveler (yes, even my aquabreather has one), “Save Yourselves!”, “Retreat!”, and I have trait points in Virtues (which increases swiftness duration). My typical weapon skills include a pull and an immobilize. All of this isn’t even nearly enough to keep up with a greatsword warrior with swiftness.

Again, “L2P” is not a useful comment. Before telling others to “learn to play”, you should educate yourself about what you’re talking about. I recommend starting with Dogged March, Mobile Strikes, Dolyak Signet, and Berserker Stance.

Simon.3106:

Hmmm have you ever seen a Thief? Try catching a pro Thief and tell me how it goes… Highly likely with you dead and they full life. Want to know how? Apply conditions on you, shadow step away… reset fight…. come back with full life while conditions still ticking off your life, then blast you again.

The Warrior class deserves this… unlike most, they have to step up to their target to strike them (unless LB or number 4 with GS). Other than that, their hundred blade won’t do anything a mile away from their target. They should be able to rush/dash in toward their enemy when desired.

The damage from Hundred Blades or thief condition damage is completely irrelevant to this discussion.

As for killing thieves in WvW, I’ve gotten good at predicting and killing them, even if they do stealth. It may be hard to kill a stealth thief, but it’s impossible to kill a warrior who is suddenly way out of your range.

MikaHR.1978:

You wont catch a thief is he has even a bit of skill

I kill at least 75% of thieves who try to stealth away from me in WvW. I catch maybe 10% of cowardly warriors.

a t s e.9614:

Every class can escape from fights easely except necromancers. This thread is more than pointless.

Guaranteed escape :

- ranger sword leaps + perma swiftness, invul
- thief stealth / port
- mesmer stealth/port / invul/ blocks
- engi stealth , blocks, leaps , invul ,perma swiftness
- Ele invul, port, block, leaps ( charges)
- Guard invul, block , leaps

Literally every class can be a" coward "except necro unless they use plague form.

None of those are guaranteed escapes. Your argument doesn’t make any sense, because you can’t have every class be faster than all of the others, but I’ll address each of your points anyway. I won’t bother addressing blocks or invulnerability, since neither helps you escape combat, only to survive a bit longer.

• Ranger sword leaps are terrible for escaping and they can only achieve permanent swiftness (which isn’t a problem anyway, since most classes can) with Runes of the Centaur.
• Thieves can stealth and run away very easily. This makes them the second best class at getting away, but if you’re good, you can catch most of them by disrupting their stealth or predicting their actions. (I have a high success rate for killing thieves who try to stealth to get away.)
• Mesmers are the slowest class in the game. They have some stealth, but none that lasts more than 3-5 seconds. Portals can be useful for escaping, but they’re also extremely predictable and have a long cooldown.
• Engis have very little stealth, 3 seconds of stealth on a 60 second cooldown,
• Elementalists do not have portals and have few leaps. Their biggest asset for escaping is fiery greatsword, which is an elite and has a 180 second recharge. This can make them as fast as greatsword warriors, but only sometimes, and at the cost of an elite skill.
• Guardians have some leaps and swiftness. I main guardian, and it’s not nearly enough to keep up with warriors.
• Necromancers have a few shadowsteps and can maintain permanent swiftness rather easily, but have nothing to help them move faster than that.

Based on your focus on blocking and invulnerability, and claiming that mesmers and rangers are better at escaping than necromancers, I’m not sure you understand the topic.

MithranArkanere.8957:

EnemyCrusher.7324:

This is a great idea!

What do you mean by “region” though?

Server: Use command /ip in chat. That’s a server IP. GW2 keeps connections to at least 3 IPs.
World: WvW teams. Fort Aspenwood, Gate of Madness, Henge of Denravi , Aurora Glade, Vizunah Square Abaddon’s Mouth Baruch Bay, etc.
-> Region: US, EU, China. Players can’t play with people in different regions.

Do not confuse “server” and “world”. People do that a lot often because how other games use the term.

I figured they would be able to tell NA vs EU vs China by the server.

mage.3570:

Just because you fail at chasing someone who is about to die makes you an even bigger loser.

No other class can keep up with them, only another greatsword warrior can (or an ele with FGS, but only until that runs out). I mainly play guardian, and even with “Save Yourselves!”, “Retreat!”, a full set of Traveler’s runes, and a scepter to immobilize, I can’t keep up.

mage.3570:

Tommyknocker.6089:

It still amazes me how a class that is decked out in heavy armor wielding a 2 handed great sword is more mobile than most of the light armor wearing classes (eles excluded here).

What has armor class got anything to do with mobility???

I believe mage is referring to the (lack of) realism of the players carrying around the most extra weight being the fastest.

Roybe.5896:

LOL! I guess CC IS dead in PvP/WvW!

I suppose I should also mention that they all seem to bring Dolyak Signet and Dogged March.

This is a great idea!

What do you mean by “region” though?

I’ve noticed a lot of warriors using greatswords purely for the movement abilities. This happens mostly in WvW, but I’ve also seen it in sPvP.

Okay, so what’s the problem? The players who (ab)use these abilities have the option of ejecting themselves from a fight, with almost certainty that their enemies will not be able to catch them.

This seems to go completely against the philosophy of the warrior being the brave frontline damage dealers that they were designed to be.

Unfortunately these cowardly tactics are now very widespread in WvW. At least 50% of the roaming players that I’ve encountered in the past few weeks (bronze tier NA) are greatsword warriors who pick fights and then run away when they get below ~30% health. Even thieves who try to stealth away from a fight are less frustrating and easier to catch.

I recently heard a rumor that the movement abilities of warrior greatsword and elementalist fiery greatsword were being nerfed, but those changes do not appear to have been kept for the feature patch.

Can we please do something about this cowardly play style? It’s very frustrating when more than half of the people who pick a fight with you run away as soon as they start losing, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Edit: Since I only mentioned the greatsword part of these builds, the situation wasn’t fully clear. In addition to the greatsword, these builds use some combination of these:
Dolyak Signet (stability and stun break)
Balanced Stance (swiftness, stability, and stun break)
Berserker Stance (condition immunity)
Signet of Rage (swiftness)
Mobile Strikes (movement skills remove immobilize)
Dogged March (-33% duration of movement impeding conditions)
Superior Rune of Melandru (-25% condition duration and -25% stun duration)
Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup (-40% condition duration)

Johje Holan.4607:

At this point I would not even buy a GW2 expansion.

I bought all the GW1 expansions. I preordered the deluxe version of GW2. But I’m not going to buy an expansion for a game when the company doesn’t support the game. Fool me once…

You don’t consider new content every two weeks with occasional breaks for quality-of-life improvements to be Anet supporting the game? How about the bug fixes that occur between those patches? What about these forums, which they use to respond to players constantly on week days. GW1 didn’t even have forums to receive player feedback, updates were less substantial, and occurred less frequently. I love both GW1 and GW2, but more effort is clearly going into GW2.

Shadowresli.3782:

And the added bonus that there are lag issues in WVW since over a week ago, and people disconnect for no apparent reason

Why play when you are kicked twice an evening

You should talk to your ISP about that. I haven’t had any lag or connection problems in the past week, and neither have the people I’ve been playing with.

SilverWF.4789:

This happens because of hidden real nicknames in the WWW
Noone wants to be as faceless zerger

I don’t think anyone has claimed that that is a problem before.

Faizy.9370:

I played Guild Wars 2 since release for about > 1.500 hours and sold my account a few months ago. However I´m thinking about getting back into it and bought a new copy a few days ago.

Sounds like someone didn’t read the EULA…

Faizy.9370:

I know the playerbase is decreasing

I’ve seen the exact opposite recently. Has Anet released numbers to you that they haven’t released to the public?

Faizy.9370:

and the megaserver change is more of an “Let´s rescue Guild Wars 2”-thing.

If by that you mean “quality-of-life improvement”, then sure.

Faizy.9370:

Is it even worth to play this game again? Afaik ANet still ignores every thread on the forums

They read certain parts of the forums very thoroughly. There are a lot of senseless and unproductive posts that they have no reason to acknowledge (like this one).

Faizy.9370:

(just saw a survey on reddit about the upcoming “feature pack”and pretty much everyone was kinda upset about it ). I just don´t want to put a lot of time into a game which is dying.

Reddit is not a part of the official GW2 forums, and most of the changes in the feature pack are due to player feedback on the forums. Most players’ opinions of the feature pack seem to be to the tune of “good, but not enough”, which I would hardly describe as “upset”.

Apokriphos.7042:

What do you guys think?

Absolutely not. This would destroy WvW.

Your guild wants to play together? Too bad, half of them just got kicked to EotM.

You just ran across the entire map to try to save a tower? Someone just popped in to take the shortcut back to LA, so you’ve been kicked out.

Calling in backup from another map to help against a bunch of omega golems? You already have 20 players to defend against those 15 omega golems, so all of your reinforcements have been redirected to EotM, leaving both maps vulnerable.

A group is costume brawling in the safe zone? No one else is allowed to play on this map, because one of the opponents doesn’t have anyone here. The other one does though, so your server is out of luck.

Vayne.8563:

Actually a lot of people believe (and I agree) that it’s easier to get credit for tagging mobs.

There’s a damage threshold when you’re attacking something to qualify you for loot. If you’re in a party it’s the party’s damage threshold, not yours.

I’ve run up to an event with other people from my guild in my party, got a couple of hits and qualified for a reward. That doesn’t usually happen if I’m not partied.

This is not true. The required damage threshold is always per-individual, regardless of whether you’re in a party or not.

Boons, condition removal, and healing effects that you apply to allies will prioritize party members first, and party members can mark the low health or high priority targets to help each other maximize loot, but those aren’t likely to make a noticeable change to how much loot you get.

The should just make the repeat timer for success and failure the same.

They should just let us salvage them.

If players want to convert badges into coins, they do it it much more efficiently by buying and selling siege blueprints than by salvaging expensive armor that doesn’t even come with any runes.

Uncheck the “Mute when GW2 is in the background” option. The announcer says “Last chance to nail down your strategy” after you get pulled into the match, so you should have 5-10 seconds to tab back into the game before the match starts.

Morsus.5106:

Mental Paradox.3845:

Plot twist: he used a glitch/exploit to get that, now you’re the one getting banned.

I can so see that happening. Some troll making 30 million eternities and sending them out to everyone in LA and the entire playerbase being banned.

That’s not at all how bans work.

If it were, everyone who bought an Omega Golem Blueprint when they were being duplicated would have been banned, which is like 1/3 of the WvW player base.

Biohazard.7523:

lol why would they put a green dot on map for miniature… That is so confusing.
Those trolls…

Yeah… I’ve actually entered a few 1v2 fights thinking another player had my back, just to realize it was a kitten.

PS That’s not the censor acting up, it was actually a kitten.

Ruining the economy by trying to force PvE farmers to PvP would not benefit anyone. EotM has already devalued WXP, gold, and karma; this idea would make the problem catastrophically worse.

It would be nice if we could throw them into the mystic forge.

Byron.1902:

(snip)

To be honest, the only part of this I agree about is providing better ways for sPvP and WvW players to unlock traits.

Pjwned.3601:

I tend to only form addictions with products that are actually satisfying in some way.

So you’re addicted to trolling the forums? Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

Danikat.8537:

It happens on all games forums. People who are happy spend most of their time playing, people who aren’t happy come to the forum to complain.

There were similar complaints before the last feature pack, and in between when we only got Living Story releases there were complaints that Anet had abandoned or forgotten about PvP and WvW and there were never any updates for either.

As for me personally I’m very happy with the game. I still play pretty much every day. If that wasn’t the case I wouldn’t be here because I would have moved on to something new.

This exactly.

Right now, miniatures have a green dot on the minimap as if they are players, which can easily lead to confusion. With the upcoming changes to the way miniatures function, they are likely to become much more commonly used.

Please change miniatures to not appear on the minimap in WvW.

If profession loot affects level 80 characters, playing certain classes will become more profitable than playing other classes.

For example, mesmers will be getting cloth armor and staves where rangers get leather armor and bows. In that case, the mesmer is getting significantly more valuable loot than the ranger.

Forgara.9172:

It would be very convenient to have the option of converting fractal relics back and forth between pristine/regular, however it would go against the purpose of having a second currency completely. There is no reason to have items exclusive to Pristine relics that can only be obtained through daily fractal rewards if you could simply be buying multiples per day with the relics you receive during any run, daily or not. In lieu of that, perhaps adding the Pristine Fractal Relics to the collections page of our bank would be more suitable. We could still collect them for any ring purchases or new recipes that require them, or consume them if you were in need of more regular fractal relics.

I was a little shocked when the latest episode was released and I discovered I needed 5 Pristine Fractal Relics. I collected most of mine and kept them in the bank for a long time, I had nearly 150 of them up until a few days prior to the episode’s release; I had finally decided to just consume them all and turn them into regular fractal relics, coincidentally just before I needed them.

It wasn’t a huge issue, it only took me 2 days to get the 5 I needed, I just did a few extra daily fractals in lower reward brackets.

+1 to the voice of reason.

There’s a similar trap about 30 seconds east of there, which I got stuck in and reported it as a bug to Anet.

Anise isn’t a traitor, she’s the queen.

Here’s my theory:

Queen Jennah is just an illusion that Anise uses to protect her true identity.

When Scarlet tried to kidnap Queen Jennah, Jennah turned out to be an illusion. It was said that she had anticipated the attack, so she replaced herself with an illusion, but if she had anticipated it, why were there no other preparations?

It’s noted many times how Countess Anise is never far from Queen Jennah’s side. This is likely so that she can maintain the illusion.

When Kasmeer requests that Anise ask the queen, she gets a response so quickly that she mentions to the player character that the reply came surprisingly fast. This is because Anise doesn’t actually have to consult anyone else to make the decision.

At the end of Party Politics, Anise says “The queen sends her gratitude as well. She can now attend your summit.” before even leaving to consult Jennah. This implies that not only that Anise was the one making the decision of attendance, but that the queen’s gratitude is really Anise’s gratitude.

During the Entanglement chapter, the Royal Krytan Locket was introduced as a powerful magic item that shows the image of the rightful heir to the Krytan throne. It was not only kept under very high security, but its very existence was kept secret. Some players have wondered what role the Royal Krytan Locket will play in the story, but I haven’t seen anyone ask why its existence was kept a secret. Keeping it safe makes sense for a powerful artifact, but keeping it secret implies that there’s something to hide, which means that Jennah’s image isn’t the one shown.

FoXX.4159:

Am i the only one that thinks the Pale tree got corrupted and is acting on behalf of mordy? And does anyone wonder who the hell are dragons, yet?

Did you even play the story? The pale tree is the one being attacked. And we know exactly what the dragons are, it’s in the lore.

Zylonite.5913:

The final fight of the living is nothing more than a cheap way by the devs to create an illusion of a challenging boss fight.

Having to fight a boss with other mobs spawning at the same time and dodging red markers on the ground is not challenge, it is called unfair fight….

None of the bosses in the living story have any mechanics. They just have big AoEs with CC with other smaller vets mobs spawning at the same time. In other words, they are just copy/paste from other boss or mobs.

You want us to solo a fight boss in the living story then give us a real boss with new mechanics to solo…/sigh who I am I kidding.

Who are you kidding? Yourself, because none of that is true.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, they do. You probably just stopped noticing when the account wallet was added, since they don’t show up in your inventory anymore.

Yeah. I have 2600 badges sitting around, and that’s after spending at least 1000 of them, probably more, and I doubt I earned more than 50 or so via actual WvW gameplay.

Why do people have such a big problem with 5 easily obtained Pristine Fractal Relics? Having to farm Dry Top events for Geodes is less fun and takes more time, but no one is complaining about that.

Fun is subjective, I VASTLY prefer drytop to even the best Fractal experience, and if you’re on a good map, getting the geodes you need takes very little time, maybe an hour or two for the entire chain. On top of that, if I’m remembering correctly there is nothing that you actually have to buy with geodes, because the recipes and ingredients that you can get with geodes, you can also buy off the TP (it’s just more expensive that way).

You need 300-600 geodes just for clay pots. I’ve spent plenty of hours in Dry Top and gotten about 300 total (including the ones form the living story), which I already spent on recipes.

I didn’t realize clay pots were tradable though, so that does take a lot of the frustration out of it. I’ll probably craft one and buy the other to save myself the frustration.

Since they made the clay pots tradable, they should just make the mists stones tradable, that way they’re accessible to everyone.

Why was the decision made to allow legendary weapons to be tradable, but make ascended items account-bound?

Why do people have such a big problem with 5 easily obtained Pristine Fractal Relics? Having to farm Dry Top events for Geodes is less fun and takes more time, but no one is complaining about that.

Draknar.5748:

Do the achievement chests still give out badges? For some reason I thought they did not anymore.

Yes, they do. You probably just stopped noticing when the account wallet was added, since they don’t show up in your inventory anymore.

I didn’t even get below 1/3 health on this boss. Just don’t stand in the orange areas and it’s easy.

This happened to me a week or two ago. The hammer was stuck floating where his body had fallen below the map.

From the description, it looks like a single defender could permanently disable rams by grabbing supply every 45 seconds and throwing the trap from the safety of behind the gate.

This is going to be so broken.

ArrDee.2573:

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Please have an option to disable graphic finishers as well and replace them with the basic finisher! Asura visuals were hard to see so you normalized the models! The same thing needs to happen with giant flashy finishers that blind me! How am I supposed to see anything when a giant worm comes out of the ground and covers everything! Oh here comes a hambow right out of the worm’s gullet to Earthshaker me!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Shhh, that announcement comes on the 19th.

Branden Gee.2150:

While there are some arguments to have this available in all PvP formats we want to see how this new feature is used by the high-end, skilled players at the top tier of PvP before considering rolling this out to the more broad PvP user base.

Please include this for solo queue too!

I can sort of understand not including it for hotjoin, but solo queue players are tired of being treated like second class citizens. Solo queue is competitive, so why restrict it from having an option that’s designed for competitive play?

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Ondriam.9862:

Agreed. I would even pay a one-time (or yearly, or whatever) fee in gems to have a pass to a restricted area with a bank and a TP. Just stop making me load 2-3 maps every time i have to do something.

Do you think this would cause any uproar in the community if we did a change like this, and if it did can you think of a better way to implement it?

Just put the banker there. There’s no reason to hide it behind a pay-gate or anything of the sort.

If you’re worried about players going into Heart of the Mists just for the bank, put it farther away from the waypoints so players portaling in have to spend some time running there, but players who actually left their characters in Heart of the Mists don’t lose any convenience.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Wild Throw.9437:

Why complain about having a bank in the mists? I would say MOST people can just press “B” click their home BL then run right around the corner to the armorsmithing station and bam…a bank. And it is free, so just give the PvP pop a bank as well. I know I would sure love one.

Someone already put up a good argument point for this statement, that WvW isn’t always accessible. Sometimes there is a queue which for players in a hurry will cause them to spend some silver to get to a place with a bank instead of going to WvW for free.

So, off-hours players and players on lower population servers should have more convenient bank options? And why should players who actually want to play WvW have to wait in queue while PvE/PvP players use the bank?

While we’re on the topic, I think it would be a great idea to move the crafting stations from the borderlands to Edge of the Mists to avoid the bank queue problem altogether.

Shpongle.6025:

…is literally the worst thing you have ever put in the Living Story

Shpongle.6025:

And I never said It’s bad content, I think it’s great content.

Really?

Also, I thought this was a fun boss, and killed it on my first try in well under 10 minutes (using Soldier’s gear).

Romek.4201:

Evan, the patch spectator mode was released you guys added the 2 arrows so people can choose the side they want (blue, red)

just remove this 2 arrows and add only 1 button JOIN and its “random join” only and when someone go from game to spectator mode than disable for him the “join” button for this match

simple – problem fixed^^

The join button could even be configured to only accept players in pairs (the first one queues, and both join when a second player clicks Join), so the teams are always even.

Evan Lesh.3295:

At what point are you seeing players join teams from spectator mode? Rewards are based on time played on a team, so are people forgoing partial rewards to be on the winning team?

Yes.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Apologies if I’ve missed it, but I have yet to see someone suggest team-switching to spectator working the same as switching between Red and Blue. Disallow it if it would unbalance the teams. The general case is still possible, but harder. One person could move to spectator in a 5v5, but autobalance wouldn’t happen unless another player from the same team left the arena completely. Even if this doesn’t fix the problem entirely, it still makes team switching more consistent and less able to be abused. This should probably be done regardless of any other steps we could take.

Here’s a very common scenario:

5v4, the the four are losing. Someone from the losing team clicks spectator mode, and it becomes 5v3. Autobalance kicks in, and changes it to 4v4. The player who just left the losing team immediately joins the winning team, and there’s nothing the other players can do about it, unless the remaining players on the losing team now do the same thing, which ultimately screws over everyone who is actually trying to play.

The achievements are completely optional. They wouldn’t be achievements if you got them for free.

Embrace the challenge, and if you can’t get some of them, don’t worry about it. You can always come back and try again later.