Is the "One Steppe at a Time V" achievement reward a bit cruel to put up?

[Rydia_Misuto]

I dislike rewards that can only be earned by getting 1st in a game mode where there's no way to control what team you end up on, no way to have any control over your party composition aside from going in with a premade, and where it's not even a coin flip because coins only have 2 sides.

A game mode where you're 1/24 of the team and thus a solo player's win rate will default to 33% (and anything significantly outside this makes you an outlier) sucks. Yes, yes, you can make a premade and have impact, but even trying to communicate with people or coordinate things has extremely mixed results. I feel lucky I can maintain something like a 40% winrate, and I don't care that that's 'above average' it feels bad that substantially less than half of matches are going to be victories. (The game treats second place as functionally equivalent to third.)

I would rather the requirement be even higher, but second place counting for half-progress. Like, 500 wins could be 1300 'points', and you get 2 for a win, 1 for second, and 0 for third. Sure, people who win 100% of matches will take longer, but those people don't exist and everyone else will at least feel like there's a point to fighting for second. If it's 7 minutes into seal rock and your team aren't at triple digits, there's barely an incentive to try anymore beyond being punished for leaving/AFKing. I've had more matches end with my team below a score of 90 (on the azim steppe, even) than I've had matches where any team was substantially behind at the 8 minute mark and ended up coming back.

[Silaryn]

I would rather the requirement be even higher, but second place counting for half-progress. Like, 500 wins could be 1300 'points', and you get 2 for a win, 1 for second, and 0 for third. Sure, people who win 100% of matches will take longer, but those people don't exist and everyone else will at least feel like there's a point to fighting for second. If it's 7 minutes into seal rock and your team aren't at triple digits, there's barely an incentive to try anymore beyond being punished for leaving/AFKing. I've had more matches end with my team below a score of 90 (on the azim steppe, even) than I've had matches where any team was substantially behind at the 8 minute mark and ended up coming back.

I understand the frustration but I don't like this idea. There's nothing wrong with the achievement rewards requiring wins. Winning is the goal in PvP and it should be incentivized and rewarded. People should not be rewarded for phoning it in and going for second place.

[IDontPetLalas]

I understand the frustration but I don't like this idea. There's nothing wrong with the achievement rewards requiring wins. Winning is the goal in PvP and it should be incentivized and rewarded. People should not be rewarded for phoning it in and going for second place.

Agreed, there's nothing wrong with an incentive to win, as you say winning is the goal. If the sole reason for queuing is this specific reward, a person may well get frustrated- although it's not really difficult to get even if you (general *you*) solo queue. If however you really hate FL, it's probably not worth it. Why not do something you enjoy.

[Mawlzy]

Agreed, there's nothing wrong with an incentive to win, as you say winning is the goal. If the sole reason for queuing is this specific reward, a person may well get frustrated- although it's not really difficult to get even if you (general *you*) solo queue. If however you really hate FL, it's probably not worth it. Why not do something you enjoy.

That whole "playing a game to enjoy it" concept seems to get overlooked quite a lot around here.

[Chasingstars]

Winning is the goal in PvP

For frontlines its really not. The reward is you queued to get your daily allotment of experience from frontlines, and as a bonus you pulled slot machine lever where you get a 1:3 chance to be in 1st place. Once you get the actual rewards you desire from "wins" in pvp, getting a win is fairly meaningless afterward. And since frontlines relies on RNG placement for nodes in Onsal and Seal Rock, it makes winning or losing into a much more slot machine affair. Sure there is premades, but then premades can lose as well because the nodes gave them the middle finger at a crucial moment as they spawn all the way across the map, sometimes offering one team gold nodes in the same general area.

A person could semi-afk in a match and get the same reward as someone who put in more effort, aside from the slaughterhouse achievement.

[IDontPetLalas]

For frontlines its really not. The reward is you queued to get your daily allotment of experience from frontlines, and as a bonus you pulled slot machine lever where you get a 1:3 chance to be in 1st place. Once you get the actual rewards you desire from "wins" in pvp, getting a win is fairly meaningless afterward. And since frontlines relies on RNG placement for nodes in Onsal and Seal Rock, it makes winning or losing into a much more slot machine affair. Sure there is premades, but then premades can lose as well because the nodes gave them the middle finger at a crucial moment as they spawn all the way across the map, sometimes offering one team gold nodes in the same general area.

A person could semi-afk in a match and get the same reward as someone who put in more effort, aside from the slaughterhouse achievement.

Winning is the goal since it grants various rewards - it can be the win itself, experience, tomes, whatever. What you described is your own justification for not achieving the goal, as well as how rewards are allocated.

These are not the same.

The only way that "winning is not the goal" is if someone is completely apathetic to the outcome of the match - for example, some could care less as to the amount of series EXP rewarded that they get from the match. In which case that person is likely to make little or no effort. i doubt that they're even having fun at that case, in which I go back to wondering why they're even there.

[Mawlzy]

Winning is the goal since it grants various rewards - it can be the win itself, experience, tomes, whatever. What you described is your own justification for not achieving the goal, as well as how rewards are allocated.

These are not the same.

The only way that "winning is not the goal" is if someone is completely apathetic to the outcome of the match - for example, some could care less as to the amount of series EXP rewarded that they get from the match. In which case that person is likely to make little or no effort. i doubt that they're even having fun at that case, in which I go back to wondering why they're even there.

I guess another way of putting this is that for a small subset of people just there for the XP, there really isn't a goal beyond queueing in. They might want to get the match done as quickly as possible, which is a problematic goal, since the easiest way to achieve it is to throw. Either way, this is completely antithetical to the goals of the majority of players and the stated purpose of a match.

This rarely happens in other roulettes, because even if you're just there for the XP, doing any damage and not dying gets the raid/dungeon/trial completed faster. PvP is unique, thus roulette rewards should work differently IMO.

[Chasingstars]

Winning is the goal since it grants various rewards - it can be the win itself, experience, tomes, whatever.

Which is just varying amounts. It doesn't change the luck-based nature of frontlines. As it still is a participation reward, just like the malmstone series rewards are participation rewards. The only difference between a person who wins every frontlines match and a person who gets 2nd/3rd place with most of their matches is the amount earned and how long it takes to complete a given achievement.

What you described is your own justification for not achieving the goal,

I assume your not saying that is my own justifcation for how I play. I said that a person could semi-afk and get same rewards as a person who did. After all, I seen this behavior from teammates who will end matches with 0/0/0 as their KDA but were in the full match of frontlines.

as well as how rewards are allocated.

Yeah because it a timewaster most of the time from a "win or nothing" point of view. You have a baseline 33% chance of victory. if you play 3 matches in a day, get 1st place, 2nd place, and 3rd place once for each, then that means 20 to 40 minutes of your day was eaten by an activity that gave you no reward if you only care about getting 1st place and therefore progressing an achievement.

As I take issue with the matter of "Winning is the goal of pvp [frontlines]". As you will be far more disappointed and frustrated at losing which has a baseline 66% chance to happen.

The only way that "winning is not the goal" is if someone is completely apathetic to the outcome of the match - for example, some could care less as to the amount of series EXP rewarded that they get from the match. In which case that person is likely to make little or no effort.

News flash, I don't give two shits if I win or lose. But I will fully participate with my team anyway. A healthy dose of apathy is required for frontlines to roll with what the RNG gives you, its what lets me have fun even if my team comes in third, where I don't get frustrated.

i doubt that they're even having fun at that case, in which I go back to wondering why they're even there.

It's certainly a healthier mentality to have with frontlines and treat it as what is than having a "win or nothing" mentality with it and becoming miserable from getting loss after loss especially if you are actively grinding it in a day for the series malmstone of that season. I already got the rewards I wanted from that season and just the general frontlines achievements rewards of the mounts and the coat.

After all, here is a screenshot from my previous series malmstone where I just kept playing for fun after I got the reards. Which yes that alone translated into 160,000 wolfmarks.

[Silaryn]

As I take issue with the matter of "Winning is the goal of pvp [frontlines]".

What are you talking about? It isn't subjective; winning is the goal. In pvp 2 or more individuals or teams compete against each other TO WIN.

Maybe I should've used the word "objective" instead of "goal"? The objective of pvp is to win.

[Chasingstars]

What are you talking about? It isn't subjective; winning is the goal. In pvp 2 or more individuals or teams compete against each other TO WIN.

For you, your cart (fun) is drawn by your horse (winning). If your horse fails, the cart doesn't reach its destination.

Meanwhile my horse (fun) pulls my cart (winning). It may seem innocuous at first, but I value my journey over my destination.

And since its frontlines, there is going to be a longer journey than compared to rival wings or crystalline conflict. Which means there will be lots of detours in 3rd and 2nd place by comparison.

Does that register for you?