XTH has become an epic fail

And what of the people who didn't sell their Z-keys?


I do hope that we see the XTH back. I see no reason to completely isolate one "world" from another, with PvP only being allowed to use the XTH rewards, so on and so forth. That just furthers the gap that so many people want to close.


I enjoyed the XTH. Sure, I get crap 99% of the time from the Z-chest, but there's always the little gamble that you'll get something decent to keep.

It did encourage me to watch more of the PvP than I have in the past, and I don't see any problem with people -not- watching the matches and just simply guessing.

Admitting that the information on the XTH has been lacking... I sincerely hope it came back. It was something I definitely enjoyed.

Considering the RP gain rates when they were first implemented, going to Cavalon and shelling out 1k would take much less effort than placing at least 8th in several ATs: if I was PvPing with a PvE character, it would definitely be more convenient go buy the PvE armor.

But by your reasoning, one could also say: why should a PvP warrior be able to craft Templar Armor (a standard set since Prophecies' release, once known as Knight's Armor) when a PvE one has to run all the way to Droknar to get it? You should've complained that PvP characters needed to fight in hot pants from the get-go, then.

Aren't we being a little incoherent here? Remember the key point: before zkeys, a PvP-only character has never been able to step into any PvE areas or affect the PvE environment in any way save for selling Sigils from HA, whereas PvE characters have always been allowed to use their stuff in PvP.


Sidenote: nobody gives a sh*t about emotes anymore. And if emotes were available in PvE, the PvP community would probably shrug it off and show off their titles instead.

Actually people who do not grind can via XTH get all the money they need. Some of the people so obsessed with farming would stop with XTH being put back. I am not sure if it is true but that would be my guess.

Myself I prefer that people get their money from XTH than from farming. At least then there is a less impact on skill balance and less whining when such happens.

A dead XTH is a good XTH

Ok more seriously. I thought it would suck if XTH went down and so would my monthly income. But then again I've played this game for so long before XTH was invented and I still play long after it's down... and I can't say I feel affected by it being down in any way.

And the income from it was totally random anyway, sometimes nothing sometimes good. I prefer a more constant source of income Nowadays I like doing zquests for instance.

they have to go run dungeons and struggle in random arenas for their emote.

you make it sound like it's a full-time thing. you spent maybe 5 minutes max to predict, no more than 60 seconds if you hit the random button. unless you made a science out of it, there's no reason in the world you can't be able to do both?

I liked the points for armor and weps, the chest and keys was foolish idea.
Would you find it fairer if you had to unlock the item in pve before using reward points to buy for a pvp char?
still stuck with it, as you cannot reroll and keep your items...
that part is fail

No I'm just saying I don't miss it.

Consider the last several months as if XTH was up but you made really bad predictions in those 5 mins and got nothing. You'd have to survive if you make bad predictions right? So I'm pretty sure anyone can survive with little to no distress if XTH never came back.

Not really, I would surmise that most PvErs, like me, used it for free cash every month and the closest to PvP they got was checking the Guru PvP forum for the predictions thread

I liked the idea of the XTH but the rewards were maybe a factor too high for the non competing players. I have 2 accounts (2nd was not bought for XTH) and made around 150-200k a month which is a bit excessive for doing nothing more than reading a thread and picking 8 teams out of a list

If they have it in GW2 maybe /10 the cash you can get from it when not actually competing so that its still a little cash boost and a chance at a Key/Chest item each month but not stupid silly amounts of money for nothing.

Is the removal of the need to do PvE if you want to do just PvP good?
Absolutely!
I don't see the why people should be forced to do content that isn't fun and has no meaning to what they are doing. I mean, if you want to do GvG in a pretty outfit, do you REALLY need know what Shiro had for breakfast?

The problem is that the rewards that were once exclusive to PvE are now losing this exclusivity, yet the rewards that were exclusive to PvP aren't.
You can not get the Willcrusher skin for an Inspiration staff in PvE. Nor can you, as I have said, get the Luxon outfit UNLESS you reach Cavalon.
And skins ARE a PvE reward!
Which means that a PvP guy has better access to PvE rewards WITHOUT doing PvE than a PvE guy doing PvE!
And if a PvE character wants PvP rewards, he needs to do PvP!

While this would be understandable if this could be used as a carrot to lure PvE players into PvP, the current implementation does not achieve that nor do the players actually WANT to move. And by making this game more and more PvE focused, it seems that not only is A.Net aware of that - they are actually taking this into consideration when throwing out new products!

The problem is that PvE lost it's reward system. There is nothing that makes you feel like a unique snowflake.
And not only does PvP have a system of unique snowflakes, the PvE unique snowflake system disappeared because it was shared with PvP.

And that's the core issue.
The issue of the system being implemented poorly is something we get to along the road.





So the simple fact that XTH allows PvE-ers to have access to PvP rewards without doing PvP can NOT be an issue! Because then the fact that PvPers have access to PvE rewards without doing PvE ALSO needs to be an issue!

Looks like I'm trying to breach through some thick ice here.

You, PvEer, do not PvP. How does the fact that PvP players -- who cannot step into PvE -- are wearing the same armor as you affect you? Whether you're buying expensive items because you like to play dress-up with your character, or to show off in Kamadan to the other PvE players, the fact that some PvP guy is playing GvG with a Luxon armor shouldn't influence you the slightest. It is not your world and, on the contrary, you can step anytime into their world and say "Hey, I got my stuff with half as much effort as you!".

I simply cannot understand. You have several other ways and rewards to show off if you really want to puff your chest in front of PvPers and exclaim proudly, "I PvE!".


P.S. Ironically, in my eyes, PvE lost its reward system because of farming: the sense of expectance and wonder for the drops gradually subsided in response to ANet's changes to combat it.

I think he is right. And it has nothing to do with pvers showing off. It has to do with the accessibility to skins with different game styles (pvp or pve).

When I read your post I think you have some showing off possibilities limited...

Also: please do not put things others did not say into their mouths

Agreed. My favorite thread (which I have saved on my other computer) was in the Q&A section where some guy was ranting about "WTF is RAWR doing, why aren't they winning, they totally screwed me out of money last month" after RAWR lost. Yeah... because RAWR intentionally lost to tick you off. It was great evidence that people participating in XTH were spoiled with their free money every month and also had no idea what the heck was going on.

XTH is replete with people picking guilds out of a hat or just following trends. Most people I talk to have no idea and don't follow PvP at all, and just pick popular choices. Heck, most people don't even understand the qualification process for the tournament.

I haven't played serious PvP in more than 2 years and I have about 2.500 reward points stored aside, with all the skins unlocked; considering those I've spent to pimp my PvP warrior, I must've had almost 5.000. That was before the number of reward points per AT were drastically increased.

The fact that I still haven't converted a single point into zkeys should tell you how much I really care about showing off.

I have followed the implementation of reward points quite closely and, from what I remember, they were meant to be an additional perk for all those players that did like to look good in PvP, but were forced to grind through PvE to do so. Granted, unless you belonged to the top tier GvG it was a long road but it made people happy, even though what they were dressing their characters as had an effective value of zero.

It was simply a different and separated, albeit difficult, way of personalising your PvP character's plain looks. Compared to the easy (you don't "lose" in PvE) but lenghty and boring (to some) PvE road, the items generated could neither not be traded nor used against the mighty Charr.

They weren't "PvE rewards", but rather PvP rewards that looked like PvE items, which could not be obtained by PvE characters for the simple reason that they were not the same type of reward. I'd understand your angst if PvPers could get actual PvE items to use in PvE, but red gear is nothing more than smoke.

No, she didn't.

Farming absolutely influenced how much "worth" these rewards have.
The same way that a Bambi doesn't have the same wow-factor that it did years ago.
That's just a game getting older so it's irrelevant.

But I am curious, what other rewards are exclusive to PvE players the same way that is the shiny zoo is to PvPers?

What's the difference between a collectors max sword and a Tormy sword?
The skin. It's the skin that makes a sword worth more then just a few gold.

And what do PvP rewards share with PvE rewards?
The skin.

People are paying for a skin. And what this system does is introduce more of these skins into the game.
If the value of an item is also defined by the rarity of the skin - what will introducing more items of that particular skin lead to?
1. the value staying the same
2. the value rising
3. the value dropping



If the problem of the XTH is that it provides an additional way of reaching PvP rewards then the problem can pretty much be because:
1. The problem is providing an additional way of reaching the rewards.
But since an additional way is something that PvP players do not seem to have an issue with when it comes to obtaining PvE rewards, I guess this can't really be the issue.
2. The problem is that the rewards obtained in this way are PvP rewards.
In which case, I guess somebody will just have to learn how to share.
PvE-ers did.

for me, its not that im mad they're taking away my free stuff, i already have enough shit as it is tbh. its the matter of which was addressed in the OP in that, what happens with gw2 when there is a problem like this? it just makes me wonder how much effort they'll put into that game as well...

The whole point of Tournament Reward Points was being a reward for victory in PvP tournaments. The XTH in fact contaminated this very concept, by giving away Tournament Reward Points to people that did absolutely nothing. What the RPs were used for could've been candy, or PvP skins that were immensely better than PvE skins: it doesn't make any difference in this argument, it's a matter of mere principle.

Now, if those RPs were only being spent on red items it wouldn't be a big deal, but let's step away from the PvP world for a moment. Zaishen Keys caused a massive influx of gold out of nothing for each player, the amount of which depended on much real cash the player invested on buying accounts = gold generators. I don't have an MD in Economy but I don't think it takes that much to realise that something like this would break shit up.

I'm not going to respond to "waaah PvPers always have it better" whimpering as, by experience, it has never led anywhere.

Or maybe actually playing PvP is a way to keep up with the meta?

From doing nothing? Makes sense.

If you think PvE players are sat on observe paying attention to what is going on, learning anything, and in general caring about watching good, tight GvG matches, you're wrong.

And that is an exclusive PvE issue, not a PvP issue. The right thing to do is to only provide PvP rewards from PvP and only PvE rewards from PvE.

This PvP vs PvE flaming stems from ANet trying to encourage PvEers to PvP through zkeys PvE rewards. Other than generating more flames, ANet fails with their idea of zkeys, to encourage more PvEers to PvP. People who are not interested to PvP are simply not going to PvP whether XTH is up or not, or whether they have zkeys or not.

Gold and rare items are too easy to earn nowadays that they dont need to PvP to obtain them. I wish they would delete zkeys altogether. They do more harm to the PvE economy than good.

As for XTH, after such a long wait, I doubt ANet is serious about fixing it. Too bad a feature was removed from this game. If they are not going to fix XTH, then they should remove all zkeys as well. Otherwise this flaming thread is the result of zkey rewards which ANet causes! Please stop introducing PvE rewards for PvP-only activities, and messing up PvE!

What I hate most is to see PvEers farming RA/ZaiShen Challenge and flaming the XTH, just so that they can have their exclusive access to the stupid zkeys. If you want to farm, please farm PvE, not PvP. If people are really interested in PvP, then there is no need for a PvE reward system, so we should get rid of "the zkeys from balthazar's faction/tournament reward points" concept altogether! If ANet wants to keep the zkeys in the game, make it so that people can only earn them from completing tough PvE elite quests/missions, since it is basically a PvE reward in the first place.

You know if you guys really wanted XTH fixed that badly, you could throw a couple thousand $$$ their way and put some people on it.