Problem
Currently damage is the only thing that gets you event participation. This leaves many supportive builds (especially those with the new elite specialisations) without rewards. Also the current system does not sufficiently reward active participation.
The current system that only rewards you for dealing damage leads to 2 major problems.
- It encourages a very selfish playstile. Many people would rather get another shot on the champion/legend just to be sure instead of reviving a downed player or helping someone with a heal or condi cleanse.
- Supportive playstiles are not properly rewarded.
- This leads to another problem that supportive players sometimes overestimate their participation and think they’re useful even though they are not.
Another issue with the current event system is that participation is not properly rewarded. Even if you join an event in the last minute you can still get gold. Event hopping got stopped by the new inactivity timer, but that’s not a good solution imo. Currently it’s way more profitable (in loot / time) to join an event that’s close to completion instead of sticking to an event chain to do each event from beginning to end.
Solution
Reward a score for actively participating in the event and give rewards based on this score. The score should represent the sum of that player’s participation (dealing dmg, support, using eventspecific mechanics, etc) during the whole event.
Building a score
The score should build up during the whole length of the event. Every player starts at a score of 0 and, by participating in the event, adds something to his score. For personal preference I’d add a mechanic where misusing certain event mechanics can substract from that score, but if you think this could harm inexperienced players, then it can and should be left out.
- Damage (direct and condition) is added with factor 1 to the score.
- Healing (only to other players) (direct and regeneration) is added with factor 1 to the score.
- Reviving a downed player is added with 2 times the restored health
- Soaking damage (either oneself or via pets) is added with 0.5 times the soaked base-damage (before applying armor and toughness)
- Evading an attack is added with 1 time the attack’s base damage
- Blocking an attack is added with 1 time the attack’s base damage
- Disabling a foe is added with 1 time the foe’s dps times the duration of the disability
- Knockback is added with 1 time the difference in dps that this mob receives during the next 2 seconds. This value can either be positive or negative depending on the situation. The effect is canceled if the mob receives another knockback or dies.
- Buffs on other players are added with a fixed value times the duration of the buff times the number of applied stacks.
- Event specific mechanics are added with a fixed number depending on the event and mechanic used. Points can be substracted for wasting event specific mechanics at the wrong time (for example bursting the bubbles at silverwastes Silver and Gold).
It’s important to note that any support (healing, buffs, etc) is only added to the score if it’s on another player. Any buffs and healing you apply to yourself help you in dealing damage, surviving and mitigating damage. There is no reason to count those two times.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t cover everything in this list, but I hope I’ve covered the most essential stuff that should count towards the personal event score. All numbers in this list are subject to balancing.
Possible Reward-Mechanics
To reward event participation instead of big aoes and failing events for champs, the drops that mobs could drop should be added to the event reward and removed from the mobs. The total amount of loot would still be the same, just distributed depending on participation instead of choosing the biggest aoe.
Gold, Silver and Bronze chests
One possible rewards mechanic based on this score could be the 3 tier reward chest system that we’re used to. In this case ANet should set a score (Goal) that is achievable by anyone who actively participates in an event from beginning to end.
- Bronze is awarded to anyone who participated even a little bit (Score > 0)
- Silver is awarded with a chance of (Score/Goal)*100%
- Gold is awarded with a chance of (Score/Goal-1)*100%
Downside:
- Dependance on RNG
- Rewards capped at 200% of the score set by ANet as the goal
Upside:
- Easy balancing of the reward tiers
- Can’t be abused to farm an excessive score by stalling an event
Loot List
The idea behind a lootlist is to have a list of possible items you can get via a rotation. ANet would still need to give a default score (Goal) as a reference as to how many points a player should get during the event. Here you will receive the next roundUp(Score/Goal*Factor) items of the list.
Downside:
- Can be abused to get an excessive score for more loot if no upper limit is specified
Upside:
- Easy balancing of rewards
- Modularity: rewards can be added or removed any time
- No RNG
Of course the inactivity timer is no longer needed and should be removed again.
Expected Effect on the Community
I expect these changes to change the way the community views support builds. One reason is that support builds could actually become viable in open world events. Another reason is that you have some kind of measurement of how effective a support build is and thus can strive to improve from there.
Also I intend to change the way people see event participation. I want hopping into an event as you see it (even if it’s close to completion) still be worth it, while rewarding sticking to an event from start to finish and especially rewarding putting super human efford into the event’s completion. I want the rewards to be fair depending on how much a player did to make the event succeed.
(edited by BunjiKugashira.9754)