Guild Wars 2

“•PvP Glory and Rank rewards have been revised. Personal score no longer grants rank. Instead, there are now flat bonuses for playing and winning games. Games lasting less than 7 minutes will have proportionally downscaled rewards.”

Discuss?

Great change. I’ve been waiting over a year for this.

Maybe now 3/4 of a hotjoin team won’t rush home at the start. Or players sprinting to a node you’re decapping for the extra 10 pts.

Finally- this should cripple the disgusting glory farming problem.

Discouraging zerging in favour of capping point in hotjoin.
Normalizing glory income between ‘teamfighters’ and ‘point defenders’.

Seems like a good change

Good. An incentive to play the objective, even in hot-join.

Bad. For hot-join, the more reason to abuse auto-balance.
(And how are we supposed to play the objective in 8v8?)

I’m worried steam roll teams will now be like ‘okay let them get a bit of a clutch so this doesn’t end too fast"… wastes time* “Okay, lets wipe this up.”. Curious to see what the actual difference in rewards is.

I just hope that you gain rank points when you lose.

Not to discourage losing, but sometimes winning is out of your hands because of the hotjoin system. Gaining 0 rank because half your team left would be brutal.

I like this change but…

The ones who farmed glory in skyhammer for weeks..
Did their rank reset or did they get banned?
Else this update has no effect on the ones that got their rewards and finishers already.
Still waiting for the update that will make the actual pvpers gain more rewards over the ones that exploited in skyhammer..

I get the glory ranks change, but what does it mean by “rank rewards” were revised? How so?

Xista.7391:

I just hope that you gain rank points when you lose.

Not to discourage losing, but sometimes winning is out of your hands because of the hotjoin system. Gaining 0 rank because half your team left would be brutal.

You get points for losing. Its says flat bonus for playing games. You probably just get more for winning.

Good change.

Yeah, I’m gonna’ reserve judgment until I see it in action. Sounds like that 7 minute threshold could be exploited in hotjoins, but hopefully it will incentive people to work as a team.

The good part is that the WvWvW players will stop playing hotjoins and directly buy finishers from the TP :P
The bad news …. try tell the new player , that he has to play for 1 year PvP for the phiinix finisher … because the community couldnt understand that the purpose of Ranks will end , when they will <<revalue>> the rewards …
Rather than increasing rank gained more in tPvP …

Oh well :P

Bad badbadbabdfbabdadbad
Wave of AFK players incoming

ExaFlare.1390:

Bad badbadbabdfbabdadbad
Wave of AFK players incoming

Interesting catch, that may be the case. Didn’t think about that…. And what about hot-join is it the same way? It auto places you into a new game… I could potentially AFK all day in one of those and just gain glory… hmmmmmmmmmmm. Needs more investigation.

Great change. Now people will play to win.

ronpierce.2760:

ExaFlare.1390:

Bad badbadbabdfbabdadbad
Wave of AFK players incoming

Interesting catch, that may be the case. Didn’t think about that…. And what about hot-join is it the same way? It auto places you into a new game… I could potentially AFK all day in one of those and just gain glory… hmmmmmmmmmmm. Needs more investigation.

I seriously hope that ANET has thought through this. If they do not take AFK into account, then this whole system will be a horrible change. If they kick people out of the game after 2 minutes or so of AFK, I like the change.

They tried this in GW1 and in JQ you’d sometimes get 7 out of out players AFKing. Also what is the point in gaining rank if your actual skill does not factor in at all? Not happy with this, I’d much prefer bans to cheaters.

style.6173:

ronpierce.2760:

ExaFlare.1390:

Bad badbadbabdfbabdadbad
Wave of AFK players incoming

Interesting catch, that may be the case. Didn’t think about that…. And what about hot-join is it the same way? It auto places you into a new game… I could potentially AFK all day in one of those and just gain glory… hmmmmmmmmmmm. Needs more investigation.

I seriously hope that ANET has thought through this. If they do not take AFK into account, then this whole system will be a horrible change. If they kick people out of the game after 2 minutes or so of AFK, I like the change.

It seems more likely they did not think of this change.

ExaFlare.1390:

Bad badbadbabdfbabdadbad
Wave of AFK players incoming

Less reward for losing so afk is a bad strat.

Rufy.6093:

ExaFlare.1390:

Bad badbadbabdfbabdadbad
Wave of AFK players incoming

Less reward for losing so afk is a bad strat.

But it is a strat, we’ve seen this a LOT in GW1. It was an epidemic.

Rufy.6093:

ExaFlare.1390:

Bad badbadbabdfbabdadbad
Wave of AFK players incoming

Less reward for losing so afk is a bad strat.

But it is still better than staying playing. You could hot join and go watch tv and get easy points.

Personally, I think that they should be a minimal threshold to get glory. So you can’t ago afk and use an auto clicker.

Just hearing this, it sounds like a horrible change. No personal rank/glory? Excuse me? It’s obvious this change was put in to punish players who were farming rank and glory, but that was an irrelevant minority of the player base. Congratulations, now you’re punishing everyone else who had nothing to do with that stupidity!

One of the few indicators of my own improvement in pvp has come from increasing personal rank and glory in individual matches. It’s what provided me with a sense of how each player did relative to each other. I honestly do not understand the logic of this change. Why is everything kitten team oriented in this game? Arenanet, you’re erasing the individual out of your game. I won’t stand for that as a player. I am not a mindless cog in some zerg. Recognize and represent our individual accomplishments!

A good change, but hope they have thought about some things. What about bots observing all game and joining a team at the end. What about server hopping to games that are nearly finished. What about AFKing, or even bots who autorun, push random skills and collect rewards? What about going to spectate, wait for autobalance and join winning team?

If they’re trying to fix hot-join by discouraging everyone from standing on a capture point, I don’t believe this is an effective way to accomplish that goal for the reasons given above. Glory is useless, but why not continue to allow for self score to influence rank except give a larger bonus for wins, and maybe no self points for a capture?

So whats the part about “rank rewards” have changed?

John Corpening.9847:

Today there were some changes to how glory and rank points are handed out at the end of a match. First off, instead of being based on personal score they are now based on win or loss. Secondly, rewards are now interpolated based on the duration of the match up to a time we have determined to be a little shorter than the typical match.

Laying the Groundwork for New Game Types
There are several reasons for these changes. The biggest reason is to lay the groundwork for new game types and map mechanics. By normalizing rewards we can be much more flexible with map layouts, game types and mechanics. Game modes will need to reward players equally without directing players to one mode or another based on perceived differences in rewards or encouraging players to play a specific way in order to maximize rewards. As an added benefit, we can also begin to be more flexible with Custom Arena settings.

Time interpolation falls into this category as well. If we introduce a mechanic that leaves the potential for the match to be over very quickly, such as regicide, we need to ensure that doesn’t lead to collaboration to farm rewards or encourage players to play this mode simply to maximize their rewards.

Team Based Rewards
The second big reason for this change is that we have seen that certain builds are much more effective at scoring points than other builds. For example, we see that typical bunker builds score lower than all other types of builds because they serve a vital role of point defense. All members of a team should share in the rewards equally. Again, this lays the foundation for new game modes. We don’t want to limit ideas for new modes because it creates one role that is potentially more or less lucrative than another role.

The numbers chosen for the rewards are based on the data we have collected. On average players who earn the most glory earn about 120 glory per match. We therefore set the minimum numbers to be on par with this number and scaled up from there. Along with this change you will see that Solo Arena and Team Arena both reward significantly more glory and rank points for winning. This is both to compensate for the queue times as well as to reward the higher risk that is taken in these areas.

As an added anti-AFK and botting measure players will need to score at least some points to get rewards. The standard AFK detection continues to be in place and players detected as AFK will receive no rewards.

Also, as before, players will continue to earn a small bonus for having the highest score personal score in each of the game stats.

I think this change is a great start. I wish this would have been in since launch to teach new players that winning is more important than anything else. Nevertheless, thank you for this change.

I hope that to go along with this now, there will be a much deeper breakdown at the end of matches. Showing a wealth of statistical summaries to help players find out why they lost and to get better from it.

Either way, thank you.

silvermember.8941:

style.6173:

ronpierce.2760:

ExaFlare.1390:

Bad badbadbabdfbabdadbad
Wave of AFK players incoming

Interesting catch, that may be the case. Didn’t think about that…. And what about hot-join is it the same way? It auto places you into a new game… I could potentially AFK all day in one of those and just gain glory… hmmmmmmmmmmm. Needs more investigation.

I seriously hope that ANET has thought through this. If they do not take AFK into account, then this whole system will be a horrible change. If they kick people out of the game after 2 minutes or so of AFK, I like the change.

It seems more likely they did not think of this change.

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, glad I was wrong.

Looks like I have a reason to do Solo Q again.

Is this going to kill hot join when every match sees players stampede out the moment they start losing?

Do you have any information about what changes will happen to the skyhammer exploiters?

This change will be exploited, it’s obvious. Because you can select you team before the match even begins, or switch teams as the match is in progress, winning players will all coordinate to be on the same team, i.e., they will look at who played best and choose their team based on that; this happens frequently already in hotjoin. They’ll also be able to switch in the middle of a game to go over to the winning team, and so on. This will encourage massive exploitation and unfairness as the system is set-up atm.

John Corpening.9847:

Today there were some changes to how glory and rank points are handed out at the end of a match. First off, instead of being based on personal score they are now based on win or loss. Secondly, rewards are now interpolated based on the duration of the match up to a time we have determined to be a little shorter than the typical match.

Laying the Groundwork for New Game Types
There are several reasons for these changes. The biggest reason is to lay the groundwork for new game types and map mechanics. By normalizing rewards we can be much more flexible with map layouts, game types and mechanics. Game modes will need to reward players equally without directing players to one mode or another based on perceived differences in rewards or encouraging players to play a specific way in order to maximize rewards. As an added benefit, we can also begin to be more flexible with Custom Arena settings.

Time interpolation falls into this category as well. If we introduce a mechanic that leaves the potential for the match to be over very quickly, such as regicide, we need to ensure that doesn’t lead to collaboration to farm rewards or encourage players to play this mode simply to maximize their rewards.

Team Based Rewards
The second big reason for this change is that we have seen that certain builds are much more effective at scoring points than other builds. For example, we see that typical bunker builds score lower than all other types of builds because they serve a vital role of point defense. All members of a team should share in the rewards equally. Again, this lays the foundation for new game modes. We don’t want to limit ideas for new modes because it creates one role that is potentially more or less lucrative than another role.

The numbers chosen for the rewards are based on the data we have collected. On average players who earn the most glory earn about 120 glory per match. We therefore set the minimum numbers to be on par with this number and scaled up from there. Along with this change you will see that Solo Arena and Team Arena both reward significantly more glory and rank points for winning. This is both to compensate for the queue times as well as to reward the higher risk that is taken in these areas.

As an added anti-AFK and botting measure players will need to score at least some points to get rewards. The standard AFK detection continues to be in place and players detected as AFK will receive no rewards.

Also, as before, players will continue to earn a small bonus for having the highest score personal score in each of the game stats.

Thank you for the clarification, sounds like a great first step, lets hope the anti-afk measures are enough, and the increased rewards for tPvP vs hot-join will encourage more people to queue up

I’m wondering if a multiplier system would have been the best option. This would still separate the best players and deter AFK. What I mean by that is this:

Each thing you do in game that benefits the team will give you 1 point. A kill is 1 point, decap 1 point, standing near a node every 30 seconds while it’s capped 1 point, etc.

Then at the end of the match, you get a 10x multiplier for winning, and a 3 or 5 times multiplier for losing.

This could still have carried over into other game modes, like deathmatch for instance, where each kill gives 1 point. Then the winning team still gets the 10x multiplier.

If you AFK in a game, you get no benefit because 0x 10 is still 0.

Gesamtkunstwerk.6590:

This change will be exploited, it’s obvious. Because you can select you team before the match even begins, or switch teams as the match is in progress, winning players will all coordinate to be on the same team, i.e., they will look at who played best and choose their team based on that; this happens frequently already in hotjoin. They’ll also be able to switch in the middle of a game to go over to the winning team, and so on. This will encourage massive exploitation and unfairness as the system is set-up atm.

That’s not too bad. There are tenths of hot join servers to go to, if you realize you’re getting steam rolled by the same team comps every game. In fact, it’s good. Even the tiniest bit of effort to actually play the game mode and win is good in my book.

Thanks for this change, Anet! There are many after-effects, but overall positive.

Nice change. Thanks.

Glad I hit rank 50 this week…sux for all those that didn’t hit their ranks.

Well I get why they need to change for new game types or more team based rewards. But is this going to follow suit with your revamped reward system?

Sampo.9678:

Do you have any information about what changes will happen to the skyhammer exploiters?

Wasn’t it apparent by now, they are not going to ban them. Crying about a useless thing like rank is a waste of energy.

Rank doesn’t get you anything atm and i suspect they are going to do an overhaul of the way rewards are given after the eventual pvp reward system is fixed.

This seems like a pretty all-around good change for tPvP.

Hot joins on the other hand…it seems like now people will have even more motivation to just re-queue into another hot join when they’re losing until they either get offered an auto-balance (volunteer for glory) or end up on a winning team.

However, we may be getting more people queuing for soloQ instead of hot joins, which means less time waiting for tPvP games.

Nobody will ever reach 80… Get ready for some out manned situations in hotjoins: guilds vs randoms and more zerg fights.

Solo and Team Que FTW, about time now. Shorter solo arena ques.

I am rank 39 and thought you guys just kittened me for getting Ransacker.

...But the games do seem to be better once you explain in map chat capping doesn’t give rank. I am getting around ~150 for a loss and ~250 for a win.

You have opened up so many more builds for grinding rank in hot join and that can’t be a bad thing.

So, i like the change.

Just an FYI: People in game are complaining of not getting their "Top Stat" daily...a lot (3-games for daily) players are going to start complaining....

I am super excited about new game modes.

Such a little change needs 1 year??? if you keep up the pace we will get 2016 a new game-mode. Hurray!

I just thought about this some more. This should lead to less zerging and encourage winning more. Winning should let me grind out my last bit of glory for whatever is past ransacker. Sweet…

I did not get whether ranks and finishers (which was the only reward for PvP i can think of, really) will be reset or not?

John Corpening.9847:

Team Based Rewards
The second big reason for this change is that we have seen that certain builds are much more effective at scoring points than other builds. For example, we see that typical bunker builds score lower than all other types of builds because they serve a vital role of point defense. All members of a team should share in the rewards equally. Again, this lays the foundation for new game modes. We don’t want to limit ideas for new modes because it creates one role that is potentially more or less lucrative than another role.

Hopefully you can apply this to the daily. Currently the daily is all about capping points and getting kills. Generally it’s easiest to do that by zergin from point to point and actual defending is pointless. You will usually take longer to bunker your way to a daily than if you just zerg points and kills.

The daily is particularly important because it’s one of the first PvP objectives most players experience other than winning. If you are teaching players the wrong things via daily design, they are starting in the wrong place.

I’m not a big fan of the changes to solo and team arena getting more rewards. They already have the tournament chests, this feels like another case of game design focusing on the carrot and not the experience. If players don’t want to do either of those arenas for whatever reason, why use carrots to herd them there?

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Such a little change needs 1 year??? if you keep up the pace we will get 2016 a new game-mode. Hurray!

People complain about nothing changes then complain when things changes. kitten if they do and kitten if they don’t, right?

Awesome.

I see a few flaws to this change but nothing serious – I don’t think anyone will really take advantage of them.

Shiren.9532:

John Corpening.9847:

Team Based Rewards
The second big reason for this change is that we have seen that certain builds are much more effective at scoring points than other builds. For example, we see that typical bunker builds score lower than all other types of builds because they serve a vital role of point defense. All members of a team should share in the rewards equally. Again, this lays the foundation for new game modes. We don’t want to limit ideas for new modes because it creates one role that is potentially more or less lucrative than another role.

Hopefully you can apply this to the daily. Currently the daily is all about capping points and getting kills. Generally it’s easiest to do that by zergin from point to point and actual defending is pointless. You will usually take longer to bunker your way to a daily than if you just zerg points and kills.

I’m not a big fan of the changes to solo and team arena getting more rewards. They already have the tournament chests, this feels like another case of game design focusing on the carrot and not the experience. If players don’t want to do either of those arenas for whatever reason, why use carrots to herd them there?

Except that a lot of players want the carrot and that is one of the quickest fixes there is without having to dedicate too much time. In any case solo and tournament should have been giving significantly higher rewards. Hot join was meant to be casual.