Guild Wars 2

Josh Davis.6015:

To clear things up, below you’ll find a list of the glory/rank points you earn in each queue. These numbers include the bouncy-chest bonus you get after you load out of the match.

Custom Arena / Hotjoin

• Win: 200
• Loss: 125

Solo Queue

• Win: 400
• Loss: 150

Team Queue:

• Win: 500
• Loss: 175

Being auto-balanced provides you with an additional 25 glory, and each top-stat you earn gives you another 5.

You can also use a Glory Booster to get even more glory (650 in a tournament win, for example), but those do not apply to rank points, which is why I excluded those numbers.

Being auto-balanced should give you a “win” glory if you were winning team and moved to losing team. That is the most annoying thing for me in the spvp.

I like the idea of tournament matches offering more reward. That being said, the system seems very counter productive to “the vision of hot joins.”

Prior to Allie going “afk” and Grouch coming in to take over, their were a few comments she made about wanting hot joins to be a place for players to grow as pvp’ers and learn, but you have to remember people need to feel like the effort they put into a game is worth it. This change literally removes any incentive to play harder in hot joins. Now don’t come at this statement with the response “If you win, you get more points” because that statement should hold true with any game, whether it is online gaming or a scrabble tournament. What this change has done is forced the players who are already playing hard to possibly have to play harder because the system can be easily exploited by people who just aren’t trying because they get a flat rate. At least people who farmed in game mechanics had to offer some sort of support, if it was minor. A farmer can’t get points if your not hitting people with the cannon. Ultimately, it seems like a blanket fix to glory farming, but hurts those grinding the sPVP levels legitimately. Don’t say, “Play more tournies” as it is no secret the queue system is flawed and I still may get ranked with sub level 10’s, even though I am 30+.

Grouch, you are a bit of an sPVP celebrity since you are the “player who become a dev.” I know you have a desire for the community growth that did not start because you were getting paid to. Now that is just a bonus for you. After seeing you on a live stream, I have seen where you have learned that sometimes you can’t say things because their is probably a policy in place on how you can deliver your opinions on the product that is GW2, aka “We can’t talk about that right now, but soon.” But I am going to ask this anyway. Do you think this is the best approach to earning the grindy ranks or will this not be the final change to how people earn rank? Does this change emphasize the desire Allie mentioned to grow hot joins as a thriving resource for new players to grow or is it taking a step away from that approach to direct the issue of farmers?

Sorry if it sounds troll, not trying to be. Maybe discussion for a different thread, but perhaps hot join servers that have rank requirements to enter would be a better way to grow the hot join community. Example servers that require being 1-15, 16-29, 30-40, 40+ . Each server offering an enhanced glory/rank reward as you tier up and grow as a player. This would probably keep less afker’s and sand baggers out of upper tier, more competitive hot joins and actually make earning rank feel a little more rewarding because you know that their is a better chance that as you rank the games will get better.

Josh Davis.6015:

On the topic of hotjoin, we hope that once the dust settles, players will drop the farm mentality and start playing to win. The existing system has been in for quite a while, so it may take some time for the entire player base to adapt. We’ll be rolling out additional changes in the future that should incentivize playing to win even more.

Thanks for the response. I would feel that any change that encourages reward for “play to win” versus farming will always be the better choice. That said, good luck. Your team fixed the problem of farming and I will look forward to seeing the future changes.

Hey guys – I know you’re considering a lot of cool stuff for PvP incentives.

I’ve been playing a lot recently (and joining in solo queue a bit as well), and would like to give the following feedback:

Hot Join has become noticeably better in terms of gameplay. It’s gone from each team forming 1 mindless zerg to each team forming 2, sometimes 3, mindless zergs. It’s a step in the right direction.

Not awarding points until the end of a hot join match hurts players who HJ while waiting for sPvP queues to pop. I believe this was done to discourage people from leaving when the match is imbalanced. This has not worked, based upon my experience. Instead players just leave earlier in the match.

I feel like it just kind of hurts players who want to PvP while they are waiting to. sPvP.

How about this idea: hot join matches award players points every 30 seconds based upon how many points their team has scored so far in the match. If the losing teams in HJ get 150 points for a full game, then award the players 1 point for every 4 points their team scores. When the match is over, the players are awarded the remainder.

Josh Davis.6015:

@Sudden – There’s a lot of great points in your response, and I appreciate you taking the time to put it on paper.

Like you mentioned, I come from the community – I’m a player. I don’t get to play quite as much as I’d like to anymore, but I do try to play as much as I can (much to my girlfriend’s chagrin). That said, the recent changes to glory and rank gain are the foundation on which we can begin to build a better version of PvP. Now that I’m privy to all of the ‘insider info’, I can say (as a player) I’m genuinely excited for our team’s vision for sPvP in the coming months.

The team’s top priority right now is to work on providing better incentives for playing in PvP. We want players to not only enjoy playing in matches, but also feel adequately rewarded afterwards for doing so. Meta obviously has a role in the ‘fun’ factor of PvP, and that’s something the Skills and Balance Team has been focused on as well. (Stay tuned.)

While we’ve been working on the above, we’ve also been working on prototypes of new maps and gametypes. Having these rank/glory changes in place is going to ensure that one game mode/map isn’t more rewarding than another, and you won’t feel compelled or required to participate in a certain gametype simply because it’s more profitable/rewarding than another.

On the topic of hotjoin, we hope that once the dust settles, players will drop the farm mentality and start playing to win. The existing system has been in for quite a while, so it may take some time for the entire player base to adapt. We’ll be rolling out additional changes in the future that should incentivize playing to win even more.

I just hope the revision removes ranks/glory from the equation or finds a way to take away every glory point or rank that was earned through the farms.

If you institute a system where rank has MORE weight, but there are many many individuals that earned theirs illegitimately, then you basterdize (thanks filter) the entire system.

It would completely demotivate players to earn ranks, that have already been tarnished via months of abuse.

That would be like having a bunch of people getting paid at work with money from the confederacy, sure you’re still getting paid, but it has no value.

Sudden.8729:

Sorry if it sounds troll, not trying to be. Maybe discussion for a different thread, but perhaps hot join servers that have rank requirements to enter would be a better way to grow the hot join community. Example servers that require being 1-15, 16-29, 30-40, 40+ . Each server offering an enhanced glory/rank reward as you tier up and grow as a player. This would probably keep less afker’s and sand baggers out of upper tier, more competitive hot joins and actually make earning rank feel a little more rewarding because you know that their is a better chance that as you rank the games will get better.

I like this idea but think it would be better with a larger pool per tier. For one thing only playing those that are in the same 10 or so levels as you are won’t necessarily make you a better player since you’ll only be playing those of your same level. You need a measuring tool of sorts (higher leveled players) to see where exactly you are at and be able to improve. Another reason is the higher level you get the fewer people there are to pvp with/against, which, would make it longer to get into a match.

1-19, 20-39, 40-59, 45/50-80 (The overlap here would depend on your rank the higher rank you are the more likely you will be playing against the higher ups. This also allows those of higher ranking a larger pool to work with.)

maybe someone said it but im too lazy to read everything…

i think rewards for losing team should be based on their score… there should be difference between losing 500:50 and 500:480, at least it could remove afk hot join glory farmers for a loss if there isnt another system for it

I dont’ think remove ranks point is a good idea becouse is not simple to found who have farmed rank and glory using cheats and bugs and who not.
But why not change the “ranking system” and base it on the “champion titles” like it was on gw1 instead of the actual system that rappresent the numer of hour you have played but not your true ability.
Ps i m sorry for my bad english :-(

Um, could You plz add some more variables on the way rank points are calculated?
For example, the amount of rank you gain should be influenced by the time you spent in the game:

Sth like this:

(“Player time in match” / "total match-time)*(rankpoints-reward)

Additionaly, you should maybe increase for every game mode the rank points you gain.
In the past there were a lot matches where i gained more than 200 rank/glory in hot join, by roaming etc.

@ the “go observer mode → wait for auto balance → join winning team” playstyle, there should be mentioned, that this only works the team size isn not even.

Couldn’t you fix this problem by making players who switch from a team into observermode allow only to switch into this team back?

I found the changes great. Finally team play is rewarded.

I have always seen players who were farming rank points it didnt matter if the team were loosing as long as they hit 300 rank points. And i was frustrated to see thouse ppl. especially when i was playing point guard.

Now i see more warriation of builds and warriation of team plays.

Now i dont need to wait ages for solo or team.

Now its more like in gw1 where the team was rewarded and not the player.

The only complainment i have is that it took more then 1 year for this easy system. lol

i want to see more of that. More teamplay more rewards for the team instead rewards for the solo player.

Now its much easier to carry on noobs in pvp cause ppl have to keep an eye on the noobs and teach them so how to play instead saying them. Oh take this char and we will do the job.

Well i still dont see the point of the flamers. If u win u still get more rank and glory then u could with persanal score.

My point is team reward is the most important point. Not the player based reward. PvP should be a team based game.

Grouch, when new game modes come, assuming they put them all together, will there be a filter option to opt out of being selected if the random map is say conquest, when we’d rather do X new modes only?

The main aim for rewards should be to encourage good play, and I can see how Anet are thinking with the reward changes.

In my mind, there are 3 possibly approaches to this, in the following order of preference:

1) The best method would be to give rewards for individual effort, but ensure that the rewards are linked only to actions of real value and cannot be exploited for farming. This would mean:

- killing should only be rewards when it is near a node or other area of significance.

- defending nodes should give rewards in a more intelligent way. Fighting 2 ppl to a standstill 1v2 for 5 mins currently ensures you score nothing!

- All rewards (killing, node capping, etc) should have diminishing returns to prevent farming

2) Give a reward simply for the win, as per Anet’s new approach. The downside to this is that the gap between elitist and beginner grows, which is bad for the long term of the sport. It also means that the impact of people being AFK or just plain bad at the game is much more severe in hot joins.

3) Give simplistic rewards for killing/capping and a small reward for winning as per the current system. Unfortunately this both encourages farming while not really rewarding good play. However, it does ensure that people contributing nothing get nothing without necessarily dragging the whole team down with them.

Aynthing that makes playing for objective more rewarding and prevent people just afking.

However pvp does not actually have any rewards except bags. I’d like to unlimited reward skins you could also apply on your pve gear so if you go do something else than sit in mists your toon will still look same. It wouldn’t hurt if you could turn your whatever salvage stuff it is into gold or just change it to something you could use in pve to make up a little for your time spent in pvp.

I really don’t like this “lock anything related to pvp in mists” thing. If you are sort of a guy who likes to do a bit this and that in this game for fun you end up achieving nothing since you’d need to max out effort in one thing to get anything out of it.

Now it’s like.. ok you’ve only done pvp this far in this game, here’s level 1 white gear for your level 1 dude so you can start doing pve. Kind of funny.

Im playing since 4 days pvp now arround 6 hours per day. havent seen a singel afker. Now ppl dont argue with afkers. Dont argue with lazy players. They are not lazy they dont know how to play. Teach them. ANd i still get low persanal score but my effords for the win are still high. Go and farm ur points elsewhere.