This morning, the Guild Wars 2 PvP Team revealed their plans of what Guild Wars 2 players can come to expect in the coming months. The goals of the PvP team in Guild Wars 2 is to integrate PvP into the game’s experience in general, to allow players to set and accomplish their own set goals in PvP, and to implement game-wide rewards that can be accessed in both PvP and PvE platforms. The PvP changes will slowly be put in place in the game since the changes are apparently quite numerous. If you’re unfamiliar with Guild Wars 2, check out our site’s review on the game here.

Match Rewards

The first point of interest is that the match rewards will be changed. So far, PvP glory rewards are based on the personal score you accumulate as the match progresses. This creates a lot of “solo” and “lone-wolf” playstyles that focus on achieving a better individual score than assisting the team. The changes will bring about rewards based on whether a team wins or loses and small additional factors like getting the top stat in certain categories. The amount of rewards are also based on the duration of the match, meaning if you steamroll an opponent team, you might not get as much as if you had a long, daunting battle.

Also, this change was to allow certain builds the ability to be effective and still gain the same rewards as other cookie-cutter builds. Right now, bunker builds were not scoring and gaining as much rewards as ‘glass-cannon’ damage-dealing builds. PvP is a team-centric game mode and as such, should reflect upon that. Bringing this rewards change will allow viable builds that might not have a “quantitative” effect on the team reap the same rewards.

Gold and Experience Gains

Another change that will be introduced in the December 10th update is the ability to earn gold as a match reward through PvP. This allows Player-vs-Player enthusiasts to still earn gold without having to branch out into the PvE side of the game. You can also purchase Tomes of Knowledge, account-bound items that grant a skill level, using gold and glory. With this change, new healing skills will also be added to further diversify the skill choices a player can use to become more versatile.

Achievements

New daily achievements will also be introduced for Solo and Team Arenas. Players can now earn up to four extra achievement points every day, furthering the incentive to participate in PvP on a daily basis. Two existing achievements called Slayer and Conqueror have been rebalanced across several tiers to create more achievement opportunities.

Gear

Gear changes will be one of the biggest development in this new plan to alter the game’s experience. PvP and PvE gear will have no differences in the upcoming patches, allowing a player to carry over his PvE gear appearances to PvP, and from PvP to PvE as well. This allows players who have a huge focus on PvE and have spent time creating a specific look in PvE to transition into PvP and still have that look they worked so hard in creating. Although they are getting rid of the gear distinction between the two game modes, PvP gear will still have no stats. PvP gameplay will still  rely on traits, runes, skills, and sigils to create specific builds and tactics.

Revamped Rewards System

John Corpening didn’t reveal much about this system, but it allows a player to set his or her own goal to achieve rewards and goals. Also, when this system is implemented, glory will be removed from the game, making gold the universal currency across all characters and the game. Glory will not be converted, so the team will be warning players beforehand so that players can spend their glory.

Ladder System

Another exciting aspect of these changes is the introduction of a ladder system, breaking players down into divisions to fight with players of their own skill level. Being victorious in PvP will allow you to gain a higher position in the ladder system, and at the end of the season, you gain rewards based on your position on the ladder.  Ranks will be removed from the game once this system comes into place. Players that have gained ranks will keep their finishers and earn a specific title based on your rank. Original finishers will be unobtainable after this is implemented.

As the game progresses, more changes will be put in place to increase the experience of Guild War 2 players. These changes will be rolled out slowly, since they are actually quite large changes to the MMO‘s current game mode.

What do you think of these changes? Are you excited about this or dreading the changes? Let us know in the comments below!