Guild Wars 2

This first post will be about changes I think should be made to the way rank points are rewarded. My second post will be about changes that could be made to the overall game mode/mechanics, both which I think can promote more fun and competitive matches.

Hotjoin is a nightmare with people that wait out the beginning of the match to see who builds the early lead, team swappers (not autobalancers), team droppers, and spawn AFKers that apparently bother to click to join a team and then just walk away or tab out… Anyone that doesn’t leave spawn within 20 seconds should be automatically moved to spectate.

The emphasis now is entirely on being on the winning team, whether you really contributed or not, because of the 250% rank point increase. Whereas before, the emphasis was on simply farming points by zerg rolling for the objective assaulter/defender and skirmisher bonuses, and winning or losing was entirely meaningless.

The auto balance popup is now a race to see who can click volunteer first for the automatic 525 points, and you can literally spend the rest of the match dancing. Even worse, if all you care about is rank points and you feel no sense of responsibility to the team you just balanced, it’s in your best interest to not help so the match doesn’t drag on any longer than the 7 minutes it has to, and you can quickly get into another game to farm more rank points.

Winning should only matter for rated arena matches. In hotjoin, everyone should get a baseline 300 rank points for playing at least 5 minutes of a match, and all rank points should be weighted for less playtime, including bonus points. The win bonus should be 25 rank points.

There should be a bonus of 75 rank points for any player joining a team that’s losing by 100 points or more. If you joined a team losing by 100 points or more and they end up winning, you should get an additional 100 rank points. This will encourage people entering mid match to join the losing team and attempt a comeback. A strong player may also swap teams in a 5v4 or 4v3 blowout situation to attempt a comeback for extra rank points and not have to worry about possibly sacrificing a massive win bonus.

If a match ends with at least 80% retention of the original players that were there at the start, all of those players should get a bonus 200 rank points. This encourages people to play out an entire match from start to finish even if things aren’t going well, because in this situation a loss still equates to the same 500 rank points as a win under the current system, while allowing up to 2 dropped players in a 5v5 for disconnects and people needing to leave early for personal reasons.

In this system, optimal rank points are earned by being in a match when it starts and mostly everyone remaining in the match until it ends. The maximum amount of rank points can be earned by joining or swapping to a team that’s at a significant score deficit and helping lead them to a comeback victory. This doesn’t punish the team that was once winning by taking rank points away from them, but instead rewards the players that tried to promote a competitive match.

Summary of rank point earnings for 5+ minutes of play:
300 base, 325 for winning
500 where 3/4 to 8/10 players are retained, 525 for winning
575 when swapping on a 100pt deficit while 80% original players retained
375 when joining mid game on a 100pt deficit
500 when joining mid game on a 100pt deficit and winning
700 when swapping on a 100pt deficit and winning while 80% original players retained

Possible changes to the game mode itself that I think can help promote more even and competitive matches:

Player kills should award 5 points to the overall team score only for each individual’s first kill, and 1 point for each kill after. I feel the emphasis of this game mode should be on actually capturing points, and not rewarding teams that are skirmishing in the middle of nowhere for half the match. I also feel like 5 points for every kill also only serves to facilitate the victory of a stronger team rolling over a weaker or more inexperienced one, and still helps promote mindless zerging.

When the autobalance timer is active there should be a grace period where no points are earned for either team. In 5v3 or worse situations, which typically come about during a triple cap, those 10 seconds can seem like a lifetime that amounts to a huge lead. And players drop unpredictably so you can end up in the autobalancing countdown for like 20 seconds out of 30. The timer should probably be shortened to 5 seconds too.

If the teams become uneven before either side has reached 450 points, the maximum amount of capture points that can be held by the winning team should be 2. This is to slow the pace of the game down slightly to prevent insurmountable leads from quickly being built up while one team is in a disadvantaged state.

If the winning team was holding all 3 capture points when the teams became uneven, their home capture point should automatically be awarded to the losing team, unless an ally was already standing within the ring, in which case it will instantly become neutral, and can only be recaptured 10 seconds after the teams have become even again. A bit like Tranquility only on a smaller scale and as a balance issue rather than a communal powerup.

A stronger team that’s able to take hold of all 3 capture points should be able to build a lead and spawn camp the opposing teams home point only as long as the teams are even. If a player rage quits or disconnects from the losing team, it’s not fair for them to be spawn camped while they’re also down a man, so this ensures the winning team must either send their extra man back to decap, or allow ticks to be given up if they continue to spawn camp with +1. They’ll still maintain their lead, only it will be by a 2-1 or maximum 2-0 capture point lead, instead of 3-0.

Another change I think could be made for tournament play only is the ability to decap/capture contested points based on team presence rather than solely positioning.

What I mean by that is, in 1v1 or 2v2 situations players should be able to defend a capture or prevent a capture indefinitely, but once more and more members of the same team enter a point, it should slowly tilt in their favor depending on how many more allies are on the point than enemies.

Personally, I think bunkers make the game an absolute bore, both to watch and play. I think once it’s a 2v1 or worse on any point, it should slowly cap/decap, even if it takes something like 30 seconds for a decap and 45 for a capture. And the cap/decap time should slowly ramp up in +2 and +3 situations. I just don’t understand why anyone would wanna play a build that tickles people and do nothing but run in circles and heal themselves, and it’s certainly not fun to watch in my opinion, but I guess that’s up for debate. That definitely wouldn’t fly in hotjoin though, cause those matches are so volatile with players dropping all the time.

Move players to spectate who have not chosen a team (but are connected) within 30s. Once a player is moved to spectate, they cannot join a team (but they can look for new games to find and join when they aren’t pseudo-afk).

Once a player joins a team, they are on that team for the duration of the match. They can move to spectate, but not rejoin a team. Players who are force-moved to spectate should get no rank at all.

Players who are afk for more than 1 minute of a match (its hotjoin, they can be afk a minute and probably not 100% ruin the match) should get a hotjoin version of Dishonorable where their next match awards 50% of the normal rank points. Its too harsh to give them a whole boot, but it shouldn’t be without consequence to afk mid-match.

This is too complocated, althougu I do like it. You’re in the right dorection you just need to simplify it.