Old PvP rewards should be attainable through frequent season ranking/participation

[GeraldineKerla]

Hello, I feel that it can be very disappointing to participate in the feast up to a rank that isn't top 100 and not be any closer to getting what you wanted out of the season, as well as being locked out of ever obtaining the top 100 item ever again.

Its frustrating that amazing PvP mounts and rewards are gone forever as soon as the season is over. No other content in the game is exclusive like this. All raids and trials become easier over time and you're able to obtain the rewards, despite being less skilled, as they are no longer the current carrot on a stick. Even with events, if you want an item, they're available a year later if you weren't subscribed or did the event during the time they were available (I've not experienced this very much, been subbed since august 2014 aha).

I want to feel like I can actually eventually achieve the rewards I want from this game-mode from participating every season. Here is what I propose:

• Previous season top 100 rewards (mounts/armor) are purchaseable with a large amount of wolf collars.

That's it. As for how many wolf collars are required to earn this, its kind of subjective as to how much anyone feels it should take. I would find it reasonable to sit it at 30/35, you'd still have to make it to a high rank for several more seasons in front of you , but through frequent participation and increasing the popularity of the game-mode, you would eventually be able to recieve the reward you want.

As for what should be available, the first season started 2 years ago, in April of 2016, and ended in July. I think that the rewards have been exclusive for enough time, more than 2 years, which is more than any other rewards in this game have been exclusive for. If you need to name the items "Replica" just to preserve the fact that you didn't win the season, that's fine. If the last 5 seasons are too recent, that's fine too.

The top 100 rewards being exclusive for a certain amount of time isn't really that bad, it's just that right now, they're never, ever, ever, ever, ever achievable ever again, and anything that you want from there is essentially gone from the game forever, save for seeing one person ride a mount from it every few months at a hunt or something, or if four or five people on your server decided to use it as a glamour (Some people hit top 100 and don't even wear it because they don't like it, and that feels like a waste). Its a huge shame, because some of them are really great.

Please give me your thoughts on this, or any other alternatives to earning old pvp rewards through being a more active participant.

[Lihtleita]

tbh the limited use of wolf collars justifies this. anyone whos a pvp regular has probably gotten their weapons by now and is just sitting on a stack of collars at the end of each season.

[Shinklet]

I agree that people who do not place in top 100 deserve more rewards. I propose more wolf collar gear and mounts That are not reskins or reuses of top 100 rewards I would even insist that alts are removed from the board by making rating account bound. I would also insist that the top 100 players are investigated by the task force individually to make sure there is fair play and fair competition. These changes alone would change the opinion and perspective of pvp to the entire playerbase that thinks it's full of rmt and alts.

But the average limsa dweller does not deserve previous top 100 rewards.

This game has enough babied participatory prizes that are easy enough to get, that there needs to be something that is rare and difficult to obtain.

I know of healers and melees that played over 400 games for their rewards, say what you want about winrate but they worked for it and deserved it. Someone who drops on gold four times doesn't deserve a feyhound mount.

Every single game has a top reward for top players and everyone is fine with that. Overwatch. League. Wow. Why should we be any different?

It would be a massive slap in the face to the people who have stood by pvp, taken the time to learn their class, learn the mode, learn the other classes, just for a change to happen that can reduce their efforts to nothing in a quarter of an expansion.

The same way I am fine with ultimates forever being ilevel locked, I want top 100 exclusive rewards to remain that way.

What's the point in having rewards for the best of the best if other people can get them? Hey buddy, we know Usain Bolt beat your time by 10 seconds, but you really wanted this gold medal so here you go.

Keep exclusive top 100 rewards for the top 100 players.

[KarmaViii]

Agree 100% with Shinklet.

Posts like the start thread over here is expected for every mount season, because people get salty about having to spend time on mastering a gamemode to get a reward they want but doesnt want to put effort into getting. Whats even the point for people who do put in all this time needed if they can just chill and get it in 2-3 seasons without having to spend any effort? I think many veterans would quit if that happened. The rare-ity of feast rewards is often a huge carrot on the stick for many people.

[GeraldineKerla]

Agree 100% with Shinklet.

Posts like the start thread over here is expected for every mount season, because people get salty about having to spend time on mastering a gamemode to get a reward they want but doesnt want to put effort into getting. Whats even the point for people who do put in all this time needed if they can just chill and get it in 2-3 seasons without having to spend any effort? I think many veterans would quit if that happened. The rare-ity of feast rewards is often a huge carrot on the stick for many people.

Would it be better if only someone who has reached top 100 once can buy any of the rewards? What is it about season 6 specifically, or season 2 specifically that earning that one season top 100 makes you more worth of getting an item than season 12?
Is it because you showed up earlier? It kind of seems pedantic. Not everyone who wants something they couldn't earn in time is someone who didn't try or didn't work hard enough. Some people lucked out and got more good teams than someone else and received a higher place on the ladder, are they truly more deserving because of that?

At the end of the day, some of those faults are fine, you can't really do much about people lucking out in a system like this. But does it really need to prevent people from ever getting feast rewards? No. It doesn't. Feast players aren't going to quit en masse if this change were implemented, and many of them would finally be able to earn a mount/gear that they missed several seasons ago, as would newer feast players.

[Zwynfalk]

Please. Anything that can reduce the anxiety of getting into The Feast would be amazing. I know that I don't queue up because I know that I'd have to deal with mastering a different style of play, no chat, and occasional hostility and after all that, if I don't play the hell out of it and actually make it to the top 100, I get nothing. Sure, there are the weapons, but those don't interest me at all.

Why do PVP players get so defensive about rewards? No one complains about people getting raid mounts after Echo is added. No one complains about players getting Relic weapons after nerfs. No one complains about Primal mount drops getting buffed or the token trade-in being added. Heck, no one complains about players getting the Frontlines mounts years later. (Okay, sure. Some people complain about some of these things, but never to the degree that PVP players do whenever someone brings up the idea of making time-limited items accessible.)

What's the actual argument for keeping these items exclusive to only 100 characters per data center?

[comware]

I've thought this would be a great compromise for quite some time as well and am glad that GeraldineKerla took the time propose it here.

Shinklet made the comparison between this and how the Ultimate encounters remain ilevel locked. The difference is that the ilevel sync, by nature, allows the content to remain available to the player base. You can go back any time and, with enough skill, still earn your ultimate titles and weapons. Previous feast rewards, on the other hand, remain unavailable.

KarmaViii also raised the concern that many veterans would quit if the reward structure changed. This could be true, but I'm not sure it would be bad for Feast overall.

I once posted on Reddit an attempt to queue into ranked feast where I waited over 16 hours for a match. Many users commented that I needed to put in time earlier in the season, so for Season 8, 9, and 10 I have tried to play feast regularly and participate on some of the popular PvP discords, soliciting feedback from longtime players and trying to improve. An observation I've noted during that time is that the feast community is very small. Many of the same names populate the top 100 list from one season to the next. On Primal DC in season 9, you only needed 1,321 reputation to make top 100 because so few players were participating.

I don't doubt there could be longtime players who disagree with a change to the rewards structure, and some of those players may even stop playing because of it. More importantly though, a change to the rewards structure which makes old top 100 prizes available would attract new players. I believe an expanded player base is better for the feast community overall than protecting the exclusivity of some old rewards. I know many players who don't play feast because they know they can never get X mount anymore, or Y glamour. Speaking personally, the Hellpup and Faepup minions were season 3 rewards for top 10 players or teams but were also made available as feast achievement rewards. Those achievements, in particular, were a significant driving force for me stepping into feast the first few times to begin with, and now I have been a feast regular the last three seasons.

This community is definitely better off for having multiple ways of obtaining the season rewards. I believe it's fair for those who participated and ranked up early to be given the reward as an instant drop and to require those who missed it to participate over multiple seasons in order to purchase with wolf collars instead. It also adds value to the wolf collars which, currently, can only purchase weapons which many players are not interested in. In current state, players who don't think they have a shot at the top 100 don't play at all because there's not enough incentive for anyone placing rank 101+. The top 100 players seem to be the same group of people each season with an interest in protecting the exclusivity of their prizes at the expense of the community in general.

[PhantomReaperX]

As someone in college with not a lot of free time to play competitive PVP, I would love if they would reward you wolf collars to buy ranked pvp rewards if you don't make top 100. Maybe not enough to buy everything at once but enough to buy something and work towards more or for completion.

Letting the top 100 get rewards is fine. Giving them gear sets, minions, and mounts for winning is perfectly acceptable. However, please allow other players who cannot commit the time or may not have the capacity to make top 100 to be able to receive these rewards too. It does not diminish the top 100's achievements by allowing the rest of the player base to eventually get rewards for putting in the time and effort to compete.

In short, ranked rewards should not remain exclusive to less than .01% of the player base. You could start releasing previous season's rewards as items to trade for wolf marks while the top 100 ranked get the new current rewards. You could also release older gear through the in game achievements system like with previous exclusive pvp minions.

[Magic-Mal]

Snip

Some pretty good points here, if I must say. I've never thought of it that way.

[Nova_Rox]

I've thought this would be a great compromise for quite some time as well and am glad that GeraldineKerla took the time propose it here.

Shinklet made the comparison between this and how the Ultimate encounters remain ilevel locked. The difference is that the ilevel sync, by nature, allows the content to remain available to the player base. You can go back any time and, with enough skill, still earn your ultimate titles and weapons. Previous feast rewards, on the other hand, remain unavailable.

KarmaViii also raised the concern that many veterans would quit if the reward structure changed. This could be true, but I'm not sure it would be bad for Feast overall.

I once posted on Reddit an attempt to queue into ranked feast where I waited over 16 hours for a match. Many users commented that I needed to put in time earlier in the season, so for Season 8, 9, and 10 I have tried to play feast regularly and participate on some of the popular PvP discords, soliciting feedback from longtime players and trying to improve. An observation I've noted during that time is that the feast community is very small. Many of the same names populate the top 100 list from one season to the next. On Primal DC in season 9, you only needed 1,321 reputation to make top 100 because so few players were participating.

I don't doubt there could be longtime players who disagree with a change to the rewards structure, and some of those players may even stop playing because of it. More importantly though, a change to the rewards structure which makes old top 100 prizes available would attract new players. I believe an expanded player base is better for the feast community overall than protecting the exclusivity of some old rewards. I know many players who don't play feast because they know they can never get X mount anymore, or Y glamour. Speaking personally, the Hellpup and Faepup minions were season 3 rewards for top 10 players or teams but were also made available as feast achievement rewards. Those achievements, in particular, were a significant driving force for me stepping into feast the first few times to begin with, and now I have been a feast regular the last three seasons.

This community is definitely better off for having multiple ways of obtaining the season rewards. I believe it's fair for those who participated and ranked up early to be given the reward as an instant drop and to require those who missed it to participate over multiple seasons in order to purchase with wolf collars instead. It also adds value to the wolf collars which, currently, can only purchase weapons which many players are not interested in. In current state, players who don't think they have a shot at the top 100 don't play at all because there's not enough incentive for anyone placing rank 101+. The top 100 players seem to be the same group of people each season with an interest in protecting the exclusivity of their prizes at the expense of the community in general.

I disagree. I've been doing PvP since the fold, I've only made it to top 100 in the last 2 seasons. Do I wish I had S1 coat? Yes. But I don't think it should be made available to me because I don't want to wear it once the "prestige" has been taken away from it.

SE is doing a good job as is with putting the same reward out twice, the 2nd being a recolour. This makes a lot of veteran players not queue as much which gives new players a serious chance to make it to top 100. Last season I saw brand new players make top 100 because they constantly kept trying to improve and kept asking for advice after every game.

That being said I DO wish there were more prizes to use wolf collars on.

SE has already made changes to make PvP more beginner friendly with 4.x. I think it's time to make the mode more competitive if we want to attract quality players while offering the more casual players something to work towards with wolf collars.