The reward for Structured PvP is Glory which is used to buy cosmetic PvP armor.

The main reward for WvW is Influence which is used to buy buffs for your guild. Another big reward you get from WvW is the Power of the Mists which gives your entire server buffs. You can also gain Orbs of Power which give your entire WvW team a buff.

Does every game need to have the same type of reward system or can a game have a unique reward system for their game?

You as a player may not get known by the other team but your guild can capture keeps in WvW that will fly your banners. That may not be as personal but the game is called Guild Wars 2 not Single Dude Who is a Badass 2.  

Does every game need the same reward system or endgame system to keep players? Isn't it possible that players who genuinly love the game and are having fun playing it can play without the grind carrot at the end of the stick? If you are open to new ways of playing MMO's and games in general than what they offer will probably be enough for you as long as you are having fun. If you have your blinders on and are only interested in what every other game has given you then maybe this isn't the game for you. 

Of course beta is beta and Anet is looking for feedback.  

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

I do agree with that.

However, many people wil get upset, as they still want to play the game with the best game mechanics after those 150 hours. but they are missing the rewards system. It will give a very unruly community of MMO ers with no place to go. Playing the best game, and still feeling empty after playing it.  Just fun is not enough for the majorrity of the MMO players. and there will be an uprise as they dont want to leave the world of Tyria, but still feel unhappy and uncomplete in it.

GW1 actually still have plenty of players even though a lot quit after clearing one of the campaigns.

But what keep most going there is fun, titles and PvP honor. If you want to grind gear there is almost every other MMO out there.

I don´t play for any of the above reasons, I play for the challenge. As long as the game keep challenging me I will play it, but if you get bored after 150 hours and quit until the next expansion that is fine too.

It is not really about being greedy as some people here say, it is about making a game for people who want something different, and for the ANET fans.

Some comments on the vid:

First... I'm surprised she didn't talk about more. I actually watched a recording of her GW2 stream, and part of it was... painful is a bit of an understatement. She definitely was playing like a WoW player (and I don't mean that in a derogatory manner, just that the game is setup quite a bit differently, and has a completely different mindset to go with it.) I found myself at times thinking 'omg...please loot the mobs you just killed, you're complaining about not having enough money / loot and there's like 15 dead things around you waiting to be looted, lol'. It was hard to watch at times, and reminded me a lot of some of the other livestreamers that didn't seem to understand the game in the slightest.

That said, I'm very surprised she had such a positive video for GW2. I was expecting the usual 'it's not dynamic, quests are all the same, I couldn't log in, bla bla bla'. This video actually had some good points:

1) Rewards. I'm going to assume that she's mostly talking about money. She makes a point to gribe about the 50 copper, and I have to say that I agree. In WvW it's very easy to go broke, even if you are the one doing the roflstomping. What I feel needs to be done is both A) increase the gold rewards for capturing a keep (even just a few silver would be fine. You should have at least enough for a few repairs, after taking a major keep). And it would be good to have an auto-loot feature in WvW. It's really easy to miss looting the enemy players you kill, and in big battles, you don't want to stop just to loot everyone you've killed. You want to stay focused on the objective at hand. Making this a togglable feature would be best.

2) Melee vs. Ranged. I'm really getting tired of this, but I suppose I have to bring this up again. While yes, it is easier to stand back and spam AoE (you can basically do that w/ out thinking), it doesn't mean melee are weaker, or less useful. While I don't think it'll happen, I think these same people that are whining about melee, will be the same people that whine about melee being overpowered when they get buffed.

Melee, as of right now, DESTROY anything they get in range. Unless you make your melee 100% defensive specced, you can kill a character, as it stands right now, in a couple seconds as a melee. Hell a properly specced warrior can 1-shot you if you aren't careful. Furthermore, melee have skills to ignore damage, conditions, and reflect projectiles. What a lot of people are complaining about (when it comes to the PvP) are zerg mentallity. It's easy to get rocked as a melee in a zerg, if you or your teamm8s are clueless (which is most of the time, in a zerg). An organized group is another story entirely.

Furthermore, I can speak from experience, that melee are very useful in WvW, you just need to be more clever about it. There's the obvious (get on the ram w/ a guardian or some friends), and your teamm8s should be taking the oil out ASAP, making that not a problem. If you want to be smarter, though, what I was doing during part of the beta weekend, was rolling with thief's, necros, and mesmers. A good thief / necro can pull people off the walls using either a fear or a grapple. This not only puts them in melee range, but makes them extremely vulnerable, and puts them in a spot that's nearly impossible to be ressed from. Furthermore (depending on the keep) there are some tricks you can do to teleport your allies either inside the walls, or on top of them. How long do you think those defenders are going to last when they have a melee train charging their flanks?

- My point is basically there are strategies that exist in WvW, that favor melee over ranged. Currently, most players weren't using these, and I only saw 1 or 2 organized guilds using these (team legacy was one of them). Most people were still figuring things out, and I think these players should not be commenting on balance, when it comes to things like this. Pokket shows me a video of her mind-numblingly banging on a reinforced keep door, I show her a video of a team that knows how to do that quickly. Trying to balance around short-sighted assumptions, will not make the game more even, it will do the exact opposite. Which brings me to:

3) Keep Doors. I'm sure she's not alone in this complaint, however. Keeps are supposed to be difficult to take. It's not something you should easily be able to do w/ a small PUG. Balancing for that would result in keeps being almost worthless to defend, and would quickly turn into a base trading game.

Furthermore, you may have noticed that as she's talking about it, the footage shows them attacking a REINFORCED GATE. I know she just pulled that off the web, but i'm not sure she knows what that means. You can upgrade your keeps defenses (for a price) to make it harder to take. Upgraded keeps are not supposed to be easy. There's a number of things you can do against an upgraded keep, but a lot of the time it means you're going to need siege weapons (yet another thing melee is good for). You can try and brute force the door. You can bombard the defenders on the walls. You can say 'screw the gate' and bombard one of the actual walls (and quite a few people have taken keeps this way. It's harder to defend against).

If someone is repair spamming a keep, 1 or 2 things needs to happen. You need to cut off their supply (they can't repair w/ out supply). Or you need to attack multiple points (spread out the supply they are using). Again, it all comes down to strategy. Here's an example of some intelligent WvW play, with a smaller guild going up against a much larger force. Just to give you guys some perspective on what is possible. (heads up, it's long)

http://www.twitch.tv/okuraku/b/316654818

http://www.twitch.tv/okuraku/b/316654335

Originally posted by Daggerjaydo

By this logic GW1 would have been a failure... But it wasn't. So, your theory doesn't really hold up to reality so far.

This. For a lot of people the WvWvW and competitive PvP will be enough to play for a long time. There is a lot to do. The OP talks about people getting bored after 150-200 hours. Bloody hell, if I get that much hours out of a game I only pay for the box, then I'm already glad. It's money well spent! To be honest, I'm done with most MMORPG after 200 hours. That is, if they don't release new content. I can't imagine ArenaNet NOT releasing new content. So no, I don't believe that the reasoning of the OP will hold.

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

Not having any real rewards will make many people leave the game.

You are syaing that people do not play games purely for cosmetic rewards? Do you actually game much outside of gear based MMOs? People will play for HOURS for cosmetic reasons. Hell, even for achievements. Not everyone is motivated by the gear treadmill.

As for the review... it's Pokket... the girl who found it so difficult to be crtiical of SWtOR for whatever reason... /shrug

Originally posted by Aeon
Snip

You are absolutely right in what you say. Some of us just feel that this approach is not enough to keep the people interested for long. This, combined with the fact that the game mechanics favor group play. Running in empty zones handling events on your own is not my idea of fun (and i guess most of us agree here).

As for previous posters: the comparison with Doom and FF and whatever single player game with no loot is just plain wrong. Yes you had progression in those games. Your character progressed thru the game, thru the story. Until you killed the final boss or whatever. Then it was over. After you "finished" Doom, did you just reload the last floor 100 times to play it again and again and again, because "it was fun"? It was fun, no doubt, but now you did it, it's done.

It's not about loot or level-ups. With uniformized gear and only buffs as rewards at the endgame, you have no progression for your character. Once you experienced every aspect of winning, you're done, you have no progression, just repeating what you already did. That usually turns off RPG players. Not trying to bash anyone's ideas here, actually i'd like to be proven wrong, i guess we'll have to wait and see.

Yes, gears and levels bring a false sense of progression, but that's at least something to keep people interested and not jump to other games. Even in the over-criticized WoW, they have to bring content updates (new dungeons, new raids) for the people to log. I agree, GW2 being B2P has an advantage here, as you can go back to it along with content updates. My bet is we're not gonna see many free content updates, but expansions, either classical style or a la GW1 style.

There is one thing you dont consider: You dont pay any subscription. It will not only be a different game for the dev cause he doesnt look at the subnumbers. It will be a different expirience for most mmo-gamers too.

- If you dont have fun you stop playing and come back at a later date. You arent "forced" to play cause you just paid that month. You can switch this game on and off. If your are not motivated just play another game for a week and then... oh my god.... just come back to gw2 and play again cause it will still be available to you.

Sure at first it will be a strange feeling but a lot of people will switch on and off with GW2 after the first 2-3 months. Get in check the new things out play a bit of PVP make that cool new DE thats just running and log off again. No subscription is needed. You can come back and leave as often as you wish... just like all those other great games without subscription. Lots of them dont have carrots at all.... and tbh i still play them. Strange isnt it?

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

Not having any real rewards will make many people leave the game.

 

You are syaing that people do not play games purely for cosmetic rewards? Do you actually game much outside of gear based MMOs? People will play for HOURS for cosmetic reasons. Hell, even for achievements. Not everyone is motivated by the gear treadmill.

As for the review... it's Pokket... the girl who found it so difficult to be crtiical of SWtOR for whatever reason... /shrug

People play for all sorts of reasons, GW1 endgame was entirely cosmetic gear for a lot of people and still millions play that! :)

My god, I'm agreeing with Vesavius! O_O

There are rewards in RvR, I got 3 pieces of Mastercrafted armour drop of the mobs that were all part of a matching set, 2 pieces from the Frogs and 1 piece from the Ascalon Archers, You also get an event to protect the Frog/Toad race, but I shall let you guys work out what the reward is.  RvR is not all about protecting and attacking players or keeps, thats what a lot of players don't really understand.

Player kills can also reward you with tokens which can be traded for gear, which someone has already pointed out.

There are also token traders in LA where you can get some really nice gear, Pirate weapons from the pirates with Karma, In Divinity's Reach there is Karma traders for high level gear from around level 40 up.  There is rewards, just because they dont become available in the same way as you have obtained them in other games, you need to look around a bit more, they are there.

[quote]
Originally posted by Lord.Bachus
 
Finally someone that looks past the first experience.
 
Not having any real rewards will make many people leave the game. /quote]
There will be more than enough to do. There still is a gear grind. It is completely optional though. Killing endgame bosses will take time. The thing that really will keep people playing is the fact that no one will be hoarding on your turf and grieving in my opinion.
 

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On top of that another point of proof is that when reaching max level in GW and finishing the story

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Another point of outright criticisme is not having player names shown in WvW.

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Good to finally hear someone that looks beyound the greatness of the first hours of this tremendous game.

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So if Arenanet is truelly listening, they should also listen to this criticisme and not say its not going to happen.

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Originally posted by simmihi

As for previous posters: the comparison with Doom and FF and whatever single player game with no loot is just plain wrong. Yes you had progression in those games. Your character progressed thru the game, thru the story. Until you killed the final boss or whatever. Then it was over. After you "finished" Doom, did you just reload the last floor 100 times to play it again and again and again, because "it was fun"? It was fun, no doubt, but now you did it, it's done.

That logic is pretty flawed. For one you're assuming Doom was only a single player game. I dunno about you, but my friends & I had a ton of fun doing multiplayer doom. That had huge replay value. It's not unlike counterstrike, you don't play just to get the AWP, and then go 'okay I have the best weapon, i'm gunna leave now'. Hell no. You play for a lot of different reasons. Customizing your character, trying to win, seeing how good you can get w/ any specific build. It's not as 1-dimensional as a gear treadmill. I don't understand why some people still have trouble seeing this. There are soo many examples of games that do not need a gear treadmill to be fun, and have replayability.

Originally posted by jpnz

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

Not having any real rewards will make many people leave the game.

 

You are syaing that people do not play games purely for cosmetic rewards? Do you actually game much outside of gear based MMOs? People will play for HOURS for cosmetic reasons. Hell, even for achievements. Not everyone is motivated by the gear treadmill.

As for the review... it's Pokket... the girl who found it so difficult to be crtiical of SWtOR for whatever reason... /shrug

People play for all sorts of reasons, GW1 endgame was entirely cosmetic gear for a lot of people and still millions play that! :)

 

My god, I'm agreeing with Vesavius! O_O

*faints*

Originally posted by aesperus

Originally posted by simmihi

As for previous posters: the comparison with Doom and FF and whatever single player game with no loot is just plain wrong. Yes you had progression in those games. Your character progressed thru the game, thru the story. Until you killed the final boss or whatever. Then it was over. After you "finished" Doom, did you just reload the last floor 100 times to play it again and again and again, because "it was fun"? It was fun, no doubt, but now you did it, it's done.

That logic is pretty flawed. For one you're assuming Doom was only a single player game. I dunno about you, but my friends & I had a ton of fun doing multiplayer doom. That had huge replay value. It's not unlike counterstrike, you don't play just to get the AWP, and then go 'okay I have the best weapon, i'm gunna leave now'. Hell no. You play for a lot of different reasons. Customizing your character, trying to win, seeing how good you can get w/ any specific build. It's not as 1-dimensional as a gear treadmill. I don't understand why some people still have trouble seeing this. There are soo many examples of games that do not need a gear treadmill to be fun, and have replayability.

I played counter strike for 7years, when the steam let you know how many hours you had on a game thing came out (this was in 2006-07) I was still clocking 100+hours a week in the summer

Originally posted by aesperus

Originally posted by simmihi

As for previous posters: the comparison with Doom and FF and whatever single player game with no loot is just plain wrong. Yes you had progression in those games. Your character progressed thru the game, thru the story. Until you killed the final boss or whatever. Then it was over. After you "finished" Doom, did you just reload the last floor 100 times to play it again and again and again, because "it was fun"? It was fun, no doubt, but now you did it, it's done.

That logic is pretty flawed. For one you're assuming Doom was only a single player game. I dunno about you, but my friends & I had a ton of fun doing multiplayer doom. That had huge replay value. It's not unlike counterstrike, you don't play just to get the AWP, and then go 'okay I have the best weapon, i'm gunna leave now'. Hell no. You play for a lot of different reasons. Customizing your character, trying to win, seeing how good you can get w/ any specific build. It's not as 1-dimensional as a gear treadmill. I don't understand why some people still have trouble seeing this. There are soo many examples of games that do not need a gear treadmill to be fun, and have replayability.

I didnt say Doom in multiplayer wasnt fun, i've just said that, for most RPG players, the game ends when your character progression ends. And i'm not talking only about gear here. Not everyone is exclusively interested in PvP, and from those interested, a lot are not in "just for the fun", that's just my assumption. As i've said, i'd love to be proven wrong. GW2 ending up compared with Counter Strike in two of the last 3 posts makes me giggle tho :)

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

I do agree with that.

However, many people wil get upset, as they still want to play the game with the best game mechanics after those 150 hours. but they are missing the rewards system. It will give a very unruly community of MMO ers with no place to go. Playing the best game, and still feeling empty after playing it.  Just fun is not enough for the majorrity of the MMO players. and there will be an uprise as they dont want to leave the world of Tyria, but still feel unhappy and uncomplete in it.

GW1 actually still have plenty of players even though a lot quit after clearing one of the campaigns.

But what keep most going there is fun, titles and PvP honor. If you want to grind gear there is almost every other MMO out there.

I don´t play for any of the above reasons, I play for the challenge. As long as the game keep challenging me I will play it, but if you get bored after 150 hours and quit until the next expansion that is fine too.

It is not really about being greedy as some people here say, it is about making a game for people who want something different, and for the ANET fans.

I completely agree, personally i could never find the taste i got from gw1, gw2 gave that awesome feeling to me once again after all these years (even though it was for 2.5 days :( ).

also I do not think we lack a reward system in gw2, i love getting rewarded by getting better and better and being exceptionally successful without a single gear progression gives a lot more satisfaction to me.

And having expensive skin armors while didnt have any effect had a good prestige imo.

By the way have you guys seen the pvp banker in the heart of the mists?? It has like ~1700 different weapons and runes to choose. I can't wait to fully unlock that awesome chest. (i dont know how that chest works yet but my guess is that once you unlock a skin from the game you can reskin your pvp weapon with that particular skin from the pvplocker anytime you want which is awesome :) )

Originally posted by simmihi

I didnt say Doom in multiplayer wasnt fun, i've just said that, for most RPG players, the game ends when your character progression ends. And i'm not talking only about gear here. Not everyone is exclusively interested in PvP, and from those interested, a lot are not in "just for the fun", that's just my assumption. As i've said, i'd love to be proven wrong. GW2 ending up compared with Counter Strike in two of the last 3 posts makes me giggle tho :)

Yeah, but the reason for that is really how MMOs are made.

The focus of most MMOs is gaining loot and XP, not beating something difficult as it is in many other genres. Changing that will also change what ends the game.

Originally posted by simmihi

 

I didnt say Doom in multiplayer wasnt fun, i've just said that, for most RPG players, the game ends when your character progression ends. And i'm not talking only about gear here. Not everyone is exclusively interested in PvP, and from those interested, a lot are not in "just for the fun", that's just my assumption. As i've said, i'd love to be proven wrong. GW2 ending up compared with Counter Strike in two of the last 3 posts makes me giggle tho :)

Char progression can be many things for people.

For some, in-game wealth can be char progression.

For others, it might be that awesome looking helmet / chest piece / sword / underwear.

And then you have the 'collectors', pets, mounts, misc (heck I knew one who collected CLOTH! in WoW!) items etc

I don't get this need to be rewarded for being entertained. Video games are not jobs, your reward is the entertainment you get for playing the game. If that's not enough for you, there are plenty of games that do give you phat lewtz for having fun.

There are various types of people with different taste on games on this planet so that's nothing new there.

However, what I can surely say is that she:

- didn't quite understood a few or many things

- is not quite well informed what kind of rewards already exists and what rewards are still to come

- had no clue what a reinforced keep means and handled it as if it were that hard by default (which is not the case)

- didn't care to loot the enemies to make enough gold and complained after for being like broke, even it was her own fault since she let her loot/rewards lie on the ground and vanish when she left the area

I'm sure that if she inform herself more and learn the game better, she will see that it's nothing like that and that things indeed make sense in the way they are.

To OP:

End game armors

These are the level 80 ones and you can have tons of different ones that you can buy with glory or create by crafting them or buying with karma among other things.

Of course its as balanced as it was in GW1 with the only upgrades being made by choice without overpowering anyone.

You can modify every piece and create your own set of armor with the buffs/debuffs you want added to it while also dye it the way you want.

Rewards

There are rewards in the game like in GW1 in forms of:

- Titles

-  Mini pets

-  secret areas that will reward you for finding them

-  achievements/accomplishments in your own hall of monuments

- guild hall upgrades if you are in a guild that reward everyone in said guild with storage, crafting area, npc merchants, your own banner to showcase among many other things

-  housing that will come later with a expansion

- crafting

- many dynamic and meta events that can give you extra rewards you will get only through them

- dungeons

- armor pieces and other dropping in the WvsWvsW from other players(copy of them since no one is losing what they are wearing) for you to loot and have

So I don't think this game is short on entertainment and neither on rewards.

Some people tend to "touch a game" and no matter how much they like it, run to other games after a few hours because they like to play that one too before they switch back to the game again.

Some people like to have a walkthrough (or rather rushing through content) and whine afterwards that there wasn't "enough" for them to do while playing 24/7 so they can rush through everything (which will be hard in GW2 since you can revisit and find more to do if you care enough to do so).

Some people taking their time and explore every single bit of a area and a game in overall as long as the game keeps them interested.

Some people love collecting, others love crafting, others are pet nerds(raising my hand :p), some want to play only pve, others only pvp, others both.

The bottom line is that this game offers something for every type of person and that's a good thing.

Most of all it doesn't force anyone a single linear approach like "now go speak to the next npc with a question mark over its head", but rather gives you a choice and let you decide how you wanna play and were in the world you wanna be.

As about the GW1 and people quitting:

I must say that I stayed there through all 3 chapters and the 1 expansion + the 3-4 updates and I'm still not really done because even I loved the game, after 5+ years I stopped playing actively and only jumped in occassionaly whenever I wanted.

We had a great guild, a great alliance and tons of people of all ages to play with in a balanced and fun game in which skill mattered.

I'm still checking in from time to time and our guild is still there. The game is still full with people that enjoying it 7 years later.

For me GW2 is the same when it comes to that and I'm more than sure that I will be in it for years to come.

All that for the price of 49€ and maybe if I decide to buy a costume or two in the future for like 80€ in overall.

It's a great deal if you compare it to games that costs you like 69€  for 10-15 hours of gameplay that you put on the self to gain dust and barely ever touch again or games that sub you monthly by having you going their own linear way without having a real choice to progress otherwise.

Originally posted by Draftbeer

What reward system do you want to see OP?

I hope it's not the traditional one...

I am not a big fan of gear progression... actually i can live with the current system.

I am more a fan of character progression, and AA systems that are very subtle and accessible. And can be added after release. an AA system should function much like the RvR point system of DAoC, in which it adds only minor bonnuses, but a whole frackload of them, on a very non linear scale. In such a way that noboddy gets even close to the top levels of this system. And that there would allways be a carrot for those in need, but enough easy attainable points to keep the casual lot very happy.

But there never should be differences between players that would allow lesser skilled players to gain an advantage on more skilled players based on their AA points.

In the end there will be progression for everyone, even if it is just minor progression over long times. Most important for a system like this is that it does not force people to repeat the same content time after time after time.