Here's how to earn Valor Grand Cross

[Afro_Gear]

Hey everyone! I realize there is a guide listed on this site, but the steps for earning VGC are a little outdated. Having just endured through a week of trial and error and even way more stress, I've come out victorious. My goal here is to share that with this great community in hopes of helping as many as I can. Since the actual XP requirement changes so frequently, I will not be posting what you should aim for since you will just have to be monitoring the leaderboards from the prior week. A month ago 6k XP would earn the trophy. The week of 1/7/18 people were earning up wards of 57K because the servers didn't reset and everyone kept their progress. Just be mindful of the last weeks' numbers before you plan this. There are around 3300 people playing this last week so to be in the top 1% you will have to be ranked in the top 30 or so. Two weeks ago it was the top 20's .

 

Understand this before going in: The servers are extremely unstable. There is no guarantee what % of your games stats will save, nor is there any guarantee that at the end of the week the server will reset properly, therefore missing out on your trophy. Also, this is going to be time consuming. If you're up for the gamble please read on.

 

Getting Started:

• You will need at least one "alt". If you have or can borrow a second PS3 and a second copy of the game, get that set up. Create a new profile and get that character ready to go.
• You can request people from the community to let you use their alts but there is no guarantee there will be any available. Do NOT take the control out of your hands. Have your own alt ready to go and if you can get others then great, this will help speed things along.

Game type:

• Play Bodycount.
• Play on Tharsis Depot. (Beach Head if you have DLC for both consoles) (People will argue on what map to use. Choose what you like but I am posting what has worked best for me.)
• Spawn as ISA and have your alts spawn as Helghast.
• Time to 5 minutes.
• Kills to 100.

What to do:

• After spawning as ISA, run across to the Helghast spawn and run to the right most door. Standing at either entrance you will be safe from turret fire, but I find that the right entrance is best if you have 3 or more alts. There are fewer obstacles between you and the spawn points then there are on the left door.
• (If first time playing) Get head shots with the pistol. Once you get the 8 ribbons and therefore the medals for headshots and pistol kills you will earn 4 points per headshot instead of just 3. Once that is done switch to whatever weapon you prefer and get headshots over and over.
• When playing along I had my alt controller in my left hand and would press X periodically to respawn my character. Every few deaths I would run my alt over to the entrance so I could kill it and get its ammo without having to risk getting shot or wasting time by killing myself.
• I found most XP will save with the shorter matches but you will still get unlucky. Don't be surprised to check every 3-5 games and see 1000 XP just missing. It happens.
• I recommend backing out to check your progress every 3-5 matches. This is done after the match concludes and the new one loads. When you get to the screen to choose Helghast or ISA, hit circle and back out then. If you back out after your stats will post for that match so rejoining will not earn you any XP.
• After checking your stats you can rejoin your game in progress since your alt is still in the game and continue. If you see that your leaderboard stats are behind what you had in game, back out to the main menu and then rejoin the match. This will sync up your leaderboard score with what is shown in game.

Conclusion:

This is basically it in a nutshell. Expect to put in a lot of time. I spent my time with anywhere from 1-3 alts. Still, the server will be losing your points fairly often. From my gameplay experience, You can only expect to keep 1000 XP per hour of play. If you end up earning more than that then you are very lucky.

 

I wish anyone the best of luck in trying. It will take dedication, but if you want it bad enough then this is the time. GO FOR IT! Cheers~

 

Edit: Thought I would start tracking the point cut off requirements for posterity sake...  

- Sunday 1/14- 33rd place with approx 25,000.

- Sunday 1/21: Unknown place with 29,567 . 

- Sunday 2/11: 19th place with 95,575.  

- Sunday 2/18: 20th place with 18,870. (No 1 place scored 210,019) Absolutely insane disparity and both earned VGC. 

- Sunday 2/25: Unk place with 102,532. (Just looking at these numbers there absolutely no way to predict the cut off point week to week.)

- Sunday 3/4: 24th place with 101,244. Highest was 175,000.

-Sunday 3/11: 23rd place with 63,608.

-Sunday 3/18: 24th place with 61,502.

Final Sunday- 3/25: 20th place with 50,896. Highest was 158,257.

 

Edit 2: Daily and Weekly leaderboards seemed to have been fixed. This would have been nice when I was boosting...     And they broke again...

 

Edited March 26, 2018 by Afro_Gear

[xEl_Cidx]

Good info - yes definitely need to invest time into it.

 

 

 

Finally got this trophy yesterday. 

 

Special thanks to the Dream team: @Qmanator  ?? + @dragon11gggg  ?? + @Evil_Joker88 ??

 

Our group was 4 for 4 with 100% success in unlocking Valor Grand Cross

 

Edited February 26, 2018 by xEl_Cidx

[Gage]

Beach Head is the best map, no argument can be made otherwise. You spawn on Helgast with the dummy on ISA and you can run in to the actual spawn area and stand there and won't be shot as the turrets are in the area outside. ISA always spawns inside that one room so you just move your main around shooting them or meleeing them (what I preferred to do as I turboed X on the dummy the entire time). 

 

Otherwise your info is basically the way to do it. ?I'm not sure if I ever managed to get 1k saved per hour but that could just be me being unlucky. If you have more than one alt to kill then it goes faster as well. 

Edited January 15, 2018 by Gage

[TheRedMaverick]

Great post. I have a few tips that also helped my stats save more often:

• Have one of the alts be the host, not you. Stats seem to save more often when you are not the host for some reason.
• As others have said, short matches are the best. I did 5 minute rounds on beach head.
• When the match is over, all players should stay on the stats screen until the save icon on the top left stops flashing. What I did was have the host immediately press X twice to skip the XP/stats screen and start the 30 second timer that counts down to the next round. The person boosting (you) waits until the timer gets to at least 20 seconds and then you can press X once to get to the stats page. Don't press X again and simply let the timer count down to 0 which will automatically start the next round. You may also just have everyone leave once the icon on the top left stops flashing, but I personally stayed the extra 20 seconds. This is by far the best tip for getting your stats to save in my opinion.
• When you want to leave the room to check stats, make sure to start the next round. Spawn into the map, wait until it says "Body Count" at the top, then have the host leave first. After the host leaves, you (the booster) can then leave.

I did 10 rounds at 5 minutes each getting ~20 kills each round. The maximum amount of kills I could get with this was 200, and on average, I was getting around 140 kills. This means about 7/10 matches were registering for me.

Edited January 16, 2018 by TheRedMaverick

[Kal2210]

how do you do this if you do not have a 2nd ps3?

[Gage]

54 minutes ago, Kal2210 said:

how do you do this if you do not have a 2nd ps3?

 

Find someone else nice enough to idle for you. 

[Kal2210]

That has proven difficult haha  if anyone is willing please message me! Thanks

[Futuramaforlife]

11 hours ago, Afro_Gear said:

Hey everyone! I realize there is a guide listed on this site, but the steps for earning VGC are a little outdated. Having just endured through a week of trial and error and even way more stress, I've come out victorious. My goal here is to share that with this great community in hopes of helping as many as I can. Since the actual XP requirement changes so frequently, I will not be posting what you should aim for since you will just have to be monitoring the leaderboards from the prior week. A month ago 6k XP would earn the trophy. The week of 1/7/18 people were earning up wards of 57K because the servers didn't reset and everyone kept their progress. Just be mindful of the last weeks' numbers before you plan this. There are around 3300 people playing this last week so to be in the top 1% you will have to be ranked in the top 30 or so. Two weeks ago it was the top 20's .

 

Understand this before going in: The servers are extremely unstable. There is no guarantee what % of your games stats will save, nor is their any guarantee that at the end of the week the server will reset properly, therefore missing out on your trophy. Also, this is going to be time consuming. If you're up for the gamble please read on.

 

Spoiler

 

Getting Started:

• You will need at least one "alt". If you have or can borrow a second PS3 and a second copy of the game, get that set up. Create a new profile and get that character ready to go.
• You can request people from the community to let you use their alts but there is no guarantee there will be any available. Do NOT take the control out of your hands. Have your own alt ready to go and if you can get others then great, this will help speed things along.

Game type:

• Play Bodycount.
• Play on Tharsis Depot. (Beach Head if you have DLC for both consoles) (People will argue on what map to use. Choose what you like but I am posting what has worked best for me.)
• Spawn as ISA and have your alts spawn as Helghast.
• Time to 5 minutes.
• Kills to 100.

What to do:

• After spawning as ISA, run across to the Helghast spawn and run to the right most door. Standing at either entrance you will be safe from turret fire, but I find that the right entrance is best if you have 3 or more alts. There are fewer obstacles between you and the spawn points then there are on the left door.
• (If first time playing) Get head shots with the pistol. Once you get the 8 ribbons and therefore the medals for headshots and pistol kills you will earn 4 points per headshot instead of just 3. Once that is done switch to whatever weapon you prefer and get headshots over and over.
• When playing along I had my alt controller in my left hand and would press X periodically to respawn my character. Every few deaths I would run my alt over to the entrance so I could kill it and get its ammo without having to risk getting shot or wasting time by killing myself.
• I found most XP will save with the shorter matches but you will still get unlucky. Don't be surprised to check every 3-5 games and see 1000 XP just missing. It happens.
• I recommend backing out to check your progress every 3-5 matches. This is done after the match concludes and the new one loads. When you get to the screen to choose Helghast or ISA, hit circle and back out then. If you back out after your stats will post for that match so rejoining will not earn you any XP.
• After checking your stats you can rejoin your game in progress since your alt is still in the game and continue. If you see that your leaderboard stats are behind what you had in game, back out to the main menu and then rejoin the match. This will sync up your leaderboard score with what is shown in game.

Conclusion:

This is basically it in a nutshell. Expect to put in a lot of time. I spent my time with anywhere from 1-3 alts. Still, the server will be losing your points fairly often. From my gameplay experience, You can only expect to keep 1000 XP per hour of play. If you end up earning more than that then you are very lucky.

 

 

I wish anyone the best of luck in trying. It will take dedication, but if you want it bad enough then this is the time. GO FOR IT! Cheers~

 

8 hours ago, TheRedMaverick said:

Great post. I have a few tips that also helped my stats save more often:

• Have one of the alts be the host, not you. Stats seem to save more often when you are not the host for some reason.
• As others have said, short matches are the best. I did 5 minute rounds on beach head.
• When the match is over, the longer you stay on the post-game stats screen, the higher the chance of stats saving. Have the host immediately press X twice to skip the XP/stats screen and start the 30 second timer that counts down to the next round. The person boosting (you) waits until the timer gets to at least 20 seconds and then you can press X once to get to the stats page. Don't press X again and simply let the timer count down to 0 which will automatically start the next round. This is by far the best tip for getting your stats to save in my opinion.
• When you want to leave the room to check stats, make sure to start the next round. Spawn into the map, wait until it says "Body Count" at the top, then have the host leave first. After the host leaves, you (the booster) can then leave.

I did 10 rounds at 5 minutes each getting ~20 kills each round. The maximum amount of kills I could get with this was 200, and on average, I was getting around 140 kills. This means about 7/10 matches were registering for me.

 

Good info. Definitely gonna give these a go and hope for good results. 

Edited January 16, 2018 by Futuramaforlife

[scFlinT-us]

15 hours ago, TheRedMaverick said:

When the match is over, the longer you stay on the post-game stats screen, the higher the chance of stats saving. Have the host immediately press X twice to skip the XP/stats screen and start the 30 second timer that counts down to the next round. The person boosting (you) waits until the timer gets to at least 20 seconds and then you can press X once to get to the stats page. Don't press X again and simply let the timer count down to 0 which will automatically start the next round. This is by far the best tip for getting your stats to save in my opinion.

 

It's a pure gambling, my friend - stats are either saved or not, and the probability that they are saved, well, I think it's above than 50% - maybe 60%-70%. When I was boosting I tried a lot of tips, including waiting after a match, quitting the Warzone by the host right after a match ends, and many many more - nothing really worked and I was wasting my time. So the last 3 days or so I did this:

- alt was a host

- bodycount for 10 frags (takes about 2.5 mins)

- once round ended I was waiting for a several seconds until "saving" icon disappears, then started the next round. No extra waiting, no Warzone log out, nothing like that - just round after round non-stop for 1-2 hours (I was watching movies in the process so paused and checked stats only after movie ended ). Don't remember the exact output in points, but I think yes - I was not less than 1k per hour.

 

Here is what made me think that waiting after a match is pointless: I did a small experiment - after a round ended, I waited until the game was saved (blinking white icon disappeared), then immediately left the game and Warzone. Then I checked the stats couple of times (with an interval of 15-20 secs) for friends on my alt - there were no changes there. Did it again after 1-2 minutes - the stats got updated. So it seems that what really takes time - is processing and updating the stats on the sever-side. I don't know, maybe the problem arises in this internal process somewhere (too many stats-update tasks and the queue gets truncated or something like that) or maybe it works as designed. But I tend to think that the game sends "stats-update" request to server only once - and no matter was it rejected by the server due to some limits (I think the servers were trimmed in resources) or it was failed to get processed internally - the client will not attempt to send a new request if the previous has failed, so waiting is pointless - it was either saved or not.

 

Anyway, waiting or not after a round is up to you - I'm not going persuade anybody. I personally did not wait and did fine with the 2nd place in the end

Edited January 16, 2018 by scFlinT-us

[TheRedMaverick]

1 hour ago, scFlinT-us said:

 

It's a pure gambling, my friend...

 

I can't be 100% certain as, like you said, it seems that stat saves are completely random due to server-side issues. I can only attest to my own results. I would play 10 rounds and then exit to check my stats, and I found that when I quickly pressed X on the post-game screen, my stats saved less often (I once counted 60 kills meaning 3/10 games saved when I quickly pressed X).

 

I think you may be right that it only matters whether you stay until after the icon on the top left flashes, but I didn't mind waiting the extra 20 seconds or so just to be sure. I tested all the other tips out (logging out of warzone, signing out of PSN etc.) and yeah those are definitely a waste of time.

[scFlinT-us]

1 hour ago, TheRedMaverick said:

I can only attest to my own results

 

Same here. When I started boosting I was following the recommendations from this thread, basically these:

 

Quote

 

3. The host should leave the xp screen asap. This might give the other players a better chance at saving their stats. (unconfirmed)

4. the player that is host and exits then goes to the friend statistic page and keeps refreshing the page until they see a change in server stats, at that point its safe for the player with updated stats to leave the match. anything longer then five minutes means the stats are not going to get saved.

5. Between EVERY match exit the multiplayer screen disconnecting you from the server. then re-enter the warzone to re-log into the multiplayer server. I think this is the most effective tip

 

 

That was a huge waste of time, but the results were not encouraging - sometimes it was OK and sometimes stats did not get saved several times in a row. So eventually I gave up spending any extra time on waiting on the stats screen, as it did not seem to make any difference to me (and the experiment that I described in my previous post convinced me in that even more).

[TheRedMaverick]

1 hour ago, scFlinT-us said:

 

Same here. When I started boosting I was following the recommendations from this thread, basically these...

 

Yeah I also tried the tips outlined in that thread and met with the same results. This is actually what prompted me to test doing the opposite of what that user suggested and I was met with better results (70% of the time my stats saved versus 35% with that method).

 

I think it's safe to say that the host and players should stay at least until after the icon on the top left stops flashing. I'll change the wording in my original post to reflect that.

[Mdshaf1]

Thanks for the guide. It's all very detailed and is quite useful right now seeing as more people are playing before servers shut down

later this year.

[Afro_Gear]

@Mdshaf1 thanks! I hope it helps. Now get back to the grind!

[scFlinT-us]

28 minutes ago, TheRedMaverick said:

I think it's safe to say that the host and players should stay at least until after the icon on the top left stops flashing

 

Agreed. That's what I did eventually.

[Fubuki]

I kept getting disconnected and losing my xp. So I was lucky that enough xp was saved for me to get vgc. If you're boosting make sure the alt accounts don't lag out. If they do, you are screwed. It would be much easier if bots counted. Like in Shadow Fall.

[lhardwood]

I also made a lot of experiments during the week i was boosting for the valor trophy and i couldnt find a pattern or sequence of events to make more rounds count. Whenever i thought i found it, next try it didnt work anymore. I even checked the network traffic with wireshark and i was suprised to see that the score sync is done by simple http plain text requests. Wouldnt be suprised if you can trick the game to give you the trophies by sending some fake prepared responses.

 

In the requests you could see that the game sends your amount of wins and points to the server and whenever the round didnt count the points and wins from the previous round were transmitted. The sending is done while it says "Synching clients" before a match. I also noticed that each region has its own ip address for the scores. So if the score synch is a resource matter on the server side, it might help to play in a less crowded region ( less players means less request to the score server ).

 

My advice is to play short rounds ( i played 10 minutes with 20 kills max ) in 6 to 10 games series and check the scores once in a while. Logging out of Warzone and PSN could help ( when several games in a row didnt count ). Beachhead is the best map because you can just stand still there as Helgast and kill the other ISA player ( 4 different spawn positions ).

 

Anyway, my hats off to the guy get 57k points and over 10k kills last 2 weeks. That guy either found a way to get more rounds count or he played the game for 14 days straight. Good luck to anyone attempting the trophies. Should be easier the coming weeks.

 

 

[DARKB1KE]

On 1/15/2018 at 10:18 AM, Gage said:

Beach Head is the best map, no argument can be made otherwise. You spawn on Helgast with the dummy on ISA and you can run in to the actual spawn area and stand there and won't be shot as the turrets are in the area outside. ISA always spawns inside that one room so you just move your main around shooting them or meleeing them (what I preferred to do as I turboed X on the dummy the entire time). 

 

Otherwise your info is basically the way to do it. I'm not sure if I ever managed to get 1k saved per hour but that could just be me being unlucky. If you have more than one alt to kill then it goes faster as well. 

I also preferred Beach head because you can pick up ammo from bodies.  OP doesn't have the DLC though, which is why Tharsis is chosen from the base game maps. 

No DLC?  Choose Tharsis

DLC?  Choose Beach head

Great thread, this will help others. 

Edited January 17, 2018 by DARKB1KE

[germaniak47]

Does anyone know why the leaderboard shows my position as "NA"? Am I still able to get the trophy at the end of the week?

[FilmFanatic]

6 minutes ago, germaniak47 said:

Does anyone know why the leaderboard shows my position as "NA"? Am I still able to get the trophy at the end of the week?

The current weeks leaderboards are broken. The only leaderboards that work are the ones comparing you to your friends and the previous weeks leaderboard. This won’t stop you from getting trophies as long as you are in the top 1%.

[germaniak47]

2 minutes ago, FilmFanatic said:

The current weeks leaderboards are broken. The only leaderboards that work are the ones comparing you to your friends and the previous weeks leaderboard. This won’t stop you from getting trophies as long as you are in the top 1%.

Cool, thanks for letting me know. I felt like I just wasted a bunch of time boosting, lol

[AdruA]

19 hours ago, scFlinT-us said:

 

- once round ended I was waiting for a several seconds until "saving" icon disappears, then started the next round. No extra waiting, no Warzone log out, nothing like that - just round after round non-stop for 1-2 hours

Yup, definitely true, a 5 min round takes about 7 minutes counting in loading screens and all, i basically went into the game, and stayed there until i had to leave, even when i took a break or whatever, be it playing 1 hour or 5, i stayed in

Backing out & logging off & checking stats is actually all time lost, matches save per match, even if ur curious, just ask a friend if he can look up ur score

[Evil_Joker88]

thx @Afro_Gear and @scFlinT-us for your tips, i'll kep that in mind the next days when i go for Grand Valor Cross

[Sergen]

The leaderboards have now updated for this week. I'm glad the grind is over now... This week I was first place with 74,392 as a score. I got that score by self-boosting with 4 PS3s on Beach Head. This week's top 1% threshold was 29,567 points to get in and this was one week only, last week around 25,000 made it and they had 2 full weeks to grind their score. I believe I spent around 65-70 hours grinding XP. 

 

Now that I'm done and have no more competition, I can finally reveal how I got the stats to save. 

 

Firstly, the settings I used were: 

• Map: Beach Head (Flash & Thunder Pack DLC)
• Game Mode: Bodycount
• Region: EU (Probably not important)
• Time: 6 Minutes
• Kill Limit: 25
• The host was an alt account
• I did password protect the lobby
• Ranked Match is required to gain points
• Main account team: ISA
• Alt accounts: Helghast

 

I did try to play as Helghast for a few matches with my main account and for me, using the ISA team was a lot faster, playing as Helghast is only better if you have somebody idling the game for you because the ISA team only has one spawn point, as opposed to Helghast which has two different spawn points. My killing method was getting as many headshots as I could in a match with the sidearm, it gets you some important medals that allow you to increase points for every headshot you earn, increasing your score from 2 points per kill to 4 points. Another thing I recommend is to use the Assault Class with the Boost (Secondary Ability), if you press , you can boost and gain speed, allowing you to reach the location of your enemy faster. 

 

I went to the bunker that is in the right corner of the map with my main account and kept killing my alt accounts until I hit 96 points. Now, the important part, when you use 4 PS3s, you can spawn all 3 accounts back in before getting the last kill and get the win while also getting an extra kill or two after the game says you have won. What I did, which worked and allowed me to consistently save 2/3 matches was, for the first two matches I got 96 points and then got two kills to finish the match, one kill to get the win and one extra kill after the game told me I won. In the third match, I killed all three alt accounts at the end. After a match, I quit after letting the game calculate my score without proceeding to the next match, then refreshed the leaderboards until my score updated, or until the next match had loaded for my alts. I think the third match being my highest score actually helped with saving the previous two matches, but it's hard to say for sure, people just have to try it. I also always logged out of Warzone after every 3rd match and returned, other people also suggest doing this and if I didn't do this, I only got 1/3 or 0/3 matches to save, so it's an important thing to do every time. 

 

With two PS3s, I would recommend timing how long it takes you to get 25 kills and get 24 kills, then don't get the last kill for the first two matches and instead wait for the timer to end, then in the third match, get all 25 kills. 

 

Now that I saw which scores we had to get this week, I have to say that this trophy is hardly doable for people who have to take turns with people. I didn't grind XP everyday this week, I sacrificed a day of XP to get the other online trophies since I thought it was safe and it was, I played like hell for my first 3 days and established a high enough score to not have to worry about going and doing miscellaneous trophies. 

 

I may offer turboing a PS3 for someone, just as long as they can put in the time required to get at least 35,000 points, I will only turbo one PS3 though because my room becomes a sauna with more PS3s and since I have the trophy already, I wouldn't want to overheat my room any further. Good luck to anyone getting it, I thought something like 20,000 would surely get into the top 1% this week, but nope, it's just going to get harder and harder every week. To get my help, you must contact me yourself and you must have the Flash & Thunder Pack to use Beach Head in-game. I will give my other PS3s a week break but after this week, I shall turbo a PS3 for someone. 

Edited January 22, 2018 by Sergen

[IDiivil]

@Sergen Good job with the points. I actually thought I was the only one crazy enough to go above 50k this week. Glad to be proven wrong.

 

Although I also have to say I didn't do any special stuff and still managed to get 2/3 of my games to save. I just played bodycount on beach head, on helghast team and repeatedly shot my two alts in the head. Never quit out, just grinded games nonstop. I honestly don't think it matters at all what you do in the game, and whether it saves or not is just down to luck.

 

I do however agree that having some extra PS3s and extra copies of KZ2 is the best thing to help you with this trophy.