Guild Wars 2

Problem:

It’s oftentimes said that players are reluctant to upgrade objectives in WvWvW. This is either due to the costs being too prohibitive for a lone player to bear, the cost being greater than the reward (towers and keeps flip too easily to justify spending the coin to upgrade them), or difficulty in coordinating the efforts of several players to pool their resources to purchase the upgrades.

Solution:

1) Reduce the coin costs of upgrades by half (at a minimum). I understand the rationale for needing gold sinks in the game; I get it. What the developers seem not to get is that a gold sink stops being a gold sink when players stop sinking their gold into it. If players stop purchasing upgrades (as many have on the server I’m on; anecdotal as that may be), the “upgrade-as-gold-sink” mechanic is rendered obsolete.

I’m sure ArenaNet has plenty of metrics on how many upgrades are bought. It’s quite possible they’re still purchased in significant quantity to justify their current cost. If that’s the case, then I retract this portion of my suggestion. It just doesn’t appear that way from my observations.

2) Create a donation mechanic for purchasing upgrades. I envision the following:

a) A player approaches the Quartermaster at an objective and orders an upgrade.

b) The player is given the option to immediately pay for the upgrade in full. If they do so, the upgrade is purchased and queued for construction as per the current iteration, and we skip all subsequent steps.

c) If the player ordering the upgrade chooses not to pay for the upgrade in full, a second option is offered in which a donation fund is established for the upgrade.

d) Any player can donate to this fund. They can do so by speaking directly to the Quartermaster and deposit coins towards the upgrade. Additionally, objectives for which a donation fund has been established will be indicated as such on the world map through the use of a unique icon, highlight, or other eye-catching effect.

Hovering the mouse cursor over the objective’s icon will display a small pop-up listing out the upgrade(s) for which donation funds have been established and how many coins have been collected to date towards the purchase of the upgrade. The player can then right-click the objective’s icon and be presented with a small pop-up in which they can donate coins towards the upgrade(s). There may even be value in displaying upgrades completed and upgrades under construction in this pop-up in addition to the upgrades awaiting donations.

Players need not be standing at the objective nor speaking with the Quartermaster in-person to be make a donation; it can be made from anywhere on the map.

e) Once the full purchase price of the upgrade has been reached through the donation fund, it will be queued for construction just as if it had been purchased outright.

With this new mechanic, donation funds can be established simultaneously for multiple upgrades at a single objective. The limit is a donation fund can only be established for an upgrade which is currently available for purchase. For example, if mortars haven’t yet been constructed at a keep, a donation fund can not be established for a waypoint. However, mortars and double workers could have donation funds established for them simultaneously.

In the case of multiple donation funds being established for upgrades at a single tower or keep, it is the upgrade which receives its needed funds first which will next be placed into the construction queue. An example will better demonstrate what I mean:

1) Player A arrives at Lake tower.

2) Player A pays the full purchase price for the Reinforced Walls upgrade and it begins construction immediately; as per the current process.

3) Player A also chooses to establish donation funds for Double Workers and Burning Oil, putting a few coins into the fund for each (but not the full purchase amount for either).

4) Player B, looking at the world map, sees that Lake tower has a donation fund established. He right clicks the Lake tower icon, sees that Double Workers and Burning Oil are available. He chooses to donate some coins towards the Burning Oil; but still not enough to reach the purchase price.

5) Player C also notices on their world map Lake tower’s donation status. They open the same panel as Player B and choose to donate towards the Double Workers. Like Player B, they don’t donate enough to actually complete the purchase. Double Workers and Burning Oil remain open to receiving donations and neither is queued to build yet.

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6) Player D comes along and notices Lake tower’s donation status, too. Opening the donation interface, they decide to send enough coins to purchase the Burning Oil. It will now be queued to begin construction as soon as the Reinforced Wall upgrade is complete. The Double Workers upgrade remains open to receiving donations and will not be placed in the construction queue until its full purchase price has been paid.

7) Lake tower comes under attack and is captured by the enemy before enough donations are received to queue construction of Double Workers. As this upgrade was never actually started, the donations that were received towards its purchase price are refunded to their respective players.

Likewise, despite having reached its purchase price, the funds collected for the Burning Oil upgrade will be refunded, as well, if it was not yet under construction at the time when the tower changed hands (i.e. Reinforced Walls didn’t complete construction before the tower was captured).

Some may argue this is too convoluted a process. However, this is already the de facto process that is followed in some instances. A player wishes to order an upgrade but does not wish to bear the full cost themselves. They put out a call for donations in team chat. Other players mail their coins to the first player. The first player (assuming they’re honorable) takes the donations and purchases the upgrade.

My suggestion simply automates or reduces the intermediary step of mailing donations to a single player and has them sent directly to the objective’s donation fund. It also eliminates the risk of an unscrupulous player using a call for donations as a way of scamming other players. It actually steamlines the process, reduces extraneous steps, and eliminates the risks inherent in an honor system.

It offers the benefit of making upgrade purchases a more communal investment. By lowering the purchase price, it may lead to a greater willingness to purchase the upgrades. By making it easier for players to donate towards these improvements, it may give them a greater incentive to purchase and defend them.

I like the idea of the donation fund, and fully agree that I (plus others) have skipped purchasing upgrades due to the price being high (sometimes, I don’t have the full amount to fund the upgrade). Allowing multiple people to foot the cost is a great idea!

+1 for a great suggestion!

Thank you, Retrospek; much appreciated.

Tbh it wouldn’t be an issue at all… if we made as much gold in WvW as we do in PvE. It’s stupid how little you need to do in pve (cof p1 spam or push 1 and afk and get a rare) to get rewarded.

In WvW you gotta break down a door, kill people defending the place while being hit by AC fire, cap it, defend it… and you get paid a slave’s wage for doing harder tasks. WvWers don’t even get a frekkin’ rare per level up chest.

I seriously want a dev to go do shadow behemoth, then go try to take enough towers from a decent server to level up one WvW rank… and then look again the rewards we’re given and see if they feel it’s equal.

I don’t understand why our trading post taxes aren’t paying for our war efforts… instead they’re just giving our taxed gold away to lazy quaggans who refuse to get a job! >:O

Really good idea.

I fully support a donation style upgrade system, even if the price of each upgrades remained the same (half is too low) it would take very little from each member of a guild group to order upgrades through.

The one good thing about the current system is it gives massive recognition for groups that have fully upgraded the tower/keep. Seeing bay or hills with waypoints makes me proud of my server everytime, as I know the tedious lengths they must have gone to in order to upgrade and defend it.
On the other hand, with lower upgrade costs per person (a donation fund) it would give alot more incentive for doing so, keeping scouts and builders at upgraded keeps and generally make controlling them for lengthy periods of time justifiable – rather than a current approach of ‘let them have hills, once we get this camp we can flip it’ style attitude.

Parlourbeatflex.5970:

Really good idea.

I fully support a donation style upgrade system, even if the price of each upgrades remained the same (half is too low) it would take very little from each member of a guild group to order upgrades through.

The one good thing about the current system is it gives massive recognition for groups that have fully upgraded the tower/keep. Seeing bay or hills with waypoints makes me proud of my server everytime, as I know the tedious lengths they must have gone to in order to upgrade and defend it.
On the other hand, with lower upgrade costs per person (a donation fund) it would give alot more incentive for doing so, keeping scouts and builders at upgraded keeps and generally make controlling them for lengthy periods of time justifiable – rather than a current approach of ‘let them have hills, once we get this camp we can flip it’ style attitude.

Thanks for the feedback.

As to your third paragraph, that’s exactly what I hope would happen; “pride of ownership” so-to-speak. If more players had a hand in helping upgrade something, they may feel more invested in helping to defend it as compared to the prevailing attitude you identified..

Love this idea, its too high for one person to have to shoulder. I hope they implement something like this!