Guild Wars 2

ATM WXP are flat bonuses. Take a tower and you’ll get 150 WXP. It doesnt matter if you take it with a group of 5 or 50 players. It doesnt matter if its defended or not.

The amount of WXP should scale with players involved!

Taking a tower with 5 players should be worth more WXP than taking a tower with 50 players.

Taking a heavy defended keep should be worth more WXP than taking an undefended keep.

Killing an opponent 1vs1 should be worth more WXP than in a 50vs1.

In the current system to get the most WXP/h you have to run in the largest zerg + taking undefended objectives. Its hilarious.

I’m on a T6 EU server since headstart. WvW was awesome until the WvW patch landed. Since that time its just UBER-BIG-ZERGBALLS running around, making the game unplayable due to permanent skill lag. Before this patch I never had any skill lags at all.

DAOC did this perfectly right 10 years ago. /sigh

Technically, because of all the kills you get, taking a heavily defended tower Does give you more wxp

Genev.2450:

Technically, because of all the kills you get, taking a heavily defended tower Does give you more wxp

It depends who much time you need to kill all defenders and take the objective. Heavily defended towers can take a good amount of time. In the same time you could just take 3-4 less defended towers somewhere else.

I got your point. I just wanted to point out that a dynamic WXP system would in my opinion discourage heavy zerging and therefore reduce skill lags to a tolerable level (at least for lower tier servers).

In DAOC every player was worth a certain amount of RP (aka WXP), e.g. 1500 RP. So if kill someone solo you got 1500 RP. But if you zerg someone down you got like 50 RP.

I would love to see a similar system for WXP in GW2.

teg.1340:

Genev.2450:

Technically, because of all the kills you get, taking a heavily defended tower Does give you more wxp

It depends who much time you need to kill all defenders and take the objective. Heavily defended towers can take a good amount of time. In the same time you could just take 3-4 less defended towers somewhere else.

I got your point. I just wanted to point out that a dynamic WXP system would in my opinion discourage heavy zerging and therefore reduce skill lags to a tolerable level (at least for lower tier servers).

In DAOC every player was worth a certain amount of RP (aka WXP), e.g. 1500 RP. So if kill someone solo you got 1500 RP. But if you zerg someone down you got like 50 RP.

I would love to see a similar system for WXP in GW2.

This, a thousand time this.

The issue with making WXP scale inversely with the number of players attacking an objective is the impact on the community. If your group of 3 people come across 4 others taking a tower and you “help” them, what you’ve really ended up doing is reduced their WXP from hitting the tower. Going back to something one of the devs said about the PvE design direction in GW2, when people show up and help, they want players to be happy for the help, not to feel like those people have “stolen” their kill. The same thing can extend to WvW, the devs want that group of 4 to be happy that help came along, not upset that someone reduced their WXP reward.

Maybe an adaptation could be made to the tagging system where the first [x] number of people get more WXP and subsequent players earn less. But getting that to work without being abused seems a herculean task as well. I’m not sure there’s really a “good” solution here.

Man don’t bring up such a perfectly logical point… I am trying to write some hateful essay about how bad the current system is and you point out that the alternatives are equally bad
Just how am I supposed to hate the new system from now on?

Since the WvW server Glicko scores vary by difficulty of opponent, shouldn’t that factor in? If your server just barely qualifies for your tier (i.e. the other two servers are far ahead), maybe you get more points for successfully taking a keep.

I think everything mentioned so far is exactly right.

Working together as a team should be encouraged and more rewarding.

AND

Capturing a more difficult objective should reward more wxp then capturing an easy one.

How can we do this?

Tekyn.5376:

I think everything mentioned so far is exactly right.

Working together as a team should be encouraged and more rewarding.

AND

Capturing a more difficult objective should reward more wxp then capturing an easy one.

How can we do this?

Well, offering more WXP from upgraded keeps, and keeps where there are enemy players would be a start.

DevonCarver.5370:

I think there is something we can do to solve the problem here without discouraging people from playing together, but we haven’t figured it out just yet.

How about offering larger WXP based on server position. Let’s say this week Darkhaven is beating Maguuma by X score and Kaineng is trailing at the back by a pretty low score….. by the 4th day there is a good chance that will be how the week ends for that match. My suggestion is to offer a base WXP x1 score for server #1 and server #2 receives WXP x1.5/2 and the trailing server receives WXP x2/2.5 so even if you server is trailing badly you have a VERY good reason to keep fighting. Losing does not have to mean trailing behind anymore. It might not solve the problem of 5 people taking a keep over zerg numbers but hopefully it will provide a bigger presence in WvW overall.

DevonCarver.5370:

I don’t disagree with the premise, except for the very trenchant analysis of Syeria, which is that by doing that we discourage people from playing together and in fact create a high likelihood that people will be upset with other players for showing up and costing them WXP. At the core of our game is the premise that you should always be excited to see other players and while in WvW that can be positive excitement from your teammates or the rush you feel just before getting crushed by the other server, we don’t want to do anything to damage that. I think there is something we can do to solve the problem here without discouraging people from playing together, but we haven’t figured it out just yet.

Then scale the WXP on the basis of either the damage a player does to another player or the number of hits that a player gets in against another player (to preemptively counter the argument that classes with lower DPS would be discriminated against by such a system). Each calculation of WXP earned is unique to each player rather than split among the players participating.

Naturally this wouldn’t be an infinite number; there would be a cap beyond which any additional damage or hits will not earn any additional WXP. For example, if a player under attack is currently worth 60 WXP and the player attacking him needs to deal 5,000 damage or a certain number of hits to get full WXP credit, they aren’t going to get double WXP credit by dealing 10,000 points of damage or double the amount of hits.

Think of it as equivalent to the current copper, silver, and gold level of participation in Dynamic Events. If you put in a lot of participation taking down an opponent, you’ll be rewarded full WXP credit. Lesser levels of participation result in lesser WXP rewards.

This accomplishes several goals at once:

1) Players who prefer smaller groups won’t have as much of their WXP “stolen” if other players show up to the fight as compared to a system that divides WXP by the number of players present. Since WXP isn’t directly divided among those involved in the fight, the players who were first on the scene aren’t being forced to “share” their WXP with those who came late to the party.

Yes, they may feel a little annoyed at other players showing up because the opponent will now die faster, thus reducing the amount of personal damage or hits they will land on that opponent in X period of time. This, in turn, may impact the amount of WXP they will receive. However, as the impact should be relatively minor, I don’t see it becoming a major issue except among the more misanthropic and elitist among us.

Also, let’s be honest here. Not everyone subscribes to the notion of being happy to see other players show up. Even under the current system where WXP is a flat reward for all participants in a fight, I still witness aggressively anti-social groups insult and discourage other players from following them around the map.

Changing to a scaled WXP reward isn’t suddenly going to turn everyone into a selfish and disrespectful kittenhole (yes, I actually typed “kittenhole” rather than let the filter do it for me). These attitudes and approaches to gaming are inherent personality traits (or defects, in the more extreme cases) of the players themselves. If it’s not scaled WXP rewards to cry over, they’ll simply find something else to use as their virtual measuring stick for boosting their weak egos at the expense of other players. You can’t legislate – nor design games around – morality.

Those who are happy to see other players show up will be glad regardless of how the WXP is calculated. Those who aren’t were never going to be happy to see other players show up in the first place.

2) Those who prefer to run in smaller groups are now rewarded more WXP for their efforts and skill; basic risk versus reward. If 100 players DPS down a single opponent, they’ll be lucky to get in a single hit and thus earn less WXP reward; commensurate with their lesser contribution to the fight. By contrast, 10 players DPS-ing down that same opponent will get in more hits or damage; their reward will be greater. If the goal of some players in WvWvW is to earn WXP, under this proposed system they may find that splitting off from the zerg will earn that reward faster.

This is such a basic principle of any reward system, it shouldn’t even have to be mentioned. Unfortunately, in light of how the current WXP system has been implemented, it obviously bears repeating.

(continued)

3) It will not single-handedly break up zergs, but it will be a step in the right direction of giving players less incentive to form a single monolithic blob.

Why is this so important? Why so much hate for zergs? Simple. It’s a tactic that has no strategic depth, is one-dimensional, and repetitive. I’ll give credit to ArenaNet for creating this situation because it served a very important function; it got a lot of PvE players to try out WvWvW. Congratulations, it worked! However, it will also lead to boredom if nothing is done to change it.

Unscaled WXP rewards served the purpose of being the bait on the hook to draw the PvE players in. Now that they’re here and the honeymoon period is beginning to wear off, some are starting to scratch their heads and wonder if circle capping the map as part of a single zerg ball is all there is to this facet of the game.

Unless you want to lose veteran players who are witnessing zergs destroy any semblance of strategic depth in WvWvW or lose new players who are not being given incentives to experience that potential depth in the first place and thus retain them long-term, then changes will need to be made to a reward system that favors zerging above all other tactics (assuming, of course, we want to see WvWvW have any kind of longevity).

I’m not anti-zerg, I’m pro-WvWvW. I’m not against blobs, I’m against anything that trivializes the built-in objectives of WvWvW. The current implementation of WXP and its contribution to making zergs the single most effective method for earning WXP is trivializing those built-in objectives. In doing so, this facet of the game is quickly losing its strategic depth. It’s that strategic depth which is critical to its long-term success; not endlessly circling the map in a herd.

It’s all about WvWvW. If ArenaNet hasn’t picked up on this already, here’s a tip; WvWvW is a key to this game’s long-term success. When everyone has farmed as much as they care to for whatever shinies they’re after, gotten 100% world completion, and run every dungeon, what do you think is going to keep them coming back for more while waiting for the next expansion? WvWvW. But only so long as WvWvW remains engaging; running in circles isn’t engaging (or at least not for very long).

There are no perfect solutions; just solutions that are less perfect than others. The way in which the current WXP reward system has been implemented qualifies as the latter.

I dont think, that the problem is the WXP distribution.Most importantly because people do not generally play WvW to farm Wlevels, they play, because WvW is interesting.
However the problem is that a lot of WvW design decisions directly or indirectly support zerging. Couple of examples:
When you run in a zerg, you dont die all that often.And even if you die, you will probably be resurrected. Running in a small group results in increased number of deaths, that costs money(tolerable) and makes you to run to the fight all the way from the starting waypoint.(intolerable)
Decision: make death less punishable in a way of decreasing time to get to the fight after death (examples: Planetside 2)
Then, if you run in a small group of average players (4-5 people) you have low chances to capture tower or keep.(even if they don’t have defenders, if they have – it is impossible), all that is left for small groups to do is to capture supply camps, that have 5min cooldown on them, and that discourages players to fight for supply camps.You either conquer the point in a couple of minutes and chill for 5min+, or you die/run away.(i am exaggerating, but i hope you understand my thoughts) .
Compare that to Planetside 2 point capture system.(Check out the web if you are not familiar with it).It has its own advantages, such as:
a) There is no cooldown on capturing point, so it is essential to keep pressure at the point all the time, thus forcing world to spread forces globally.
b)Capture point is divided into 3-5 capture circles to divide forces locally.
-without obvious drawbacks.

Tekyn.5376:

I think everything mentioned so far is exactly right.

Working together as a team should be encouraged and more rewarding.

AND

Capturing a more difficult objective should reward more wxp then capturing an easy one.

How can we do this?

I’d hardly call a 100 man super zerg a team effort. There’s no teamwork just sheer numbers spamming auto attack.

I agree that this is a serious issue, while at the same time being a very delicate one.

One way to manage it could be keeping the WXP static like it is now, max per kill is 60 WXP, 38 WXP for capping a guard point, etc… while at the same time calculating a personal WXP multiplier.

The multiplier would have to be capped at a relatively low value as to maintain that people do not feel as if their WXP was being stolen, lets say 25%.

Lets say you 1v1 a person who is max WXP (60) and you do 100% contribution (either enough hits or enough damage) you get 60*1.25 WXP, or you 2v1 at 50% contribution you get 60*1.125.

The difficulty comes from calculating contribution, player kills would have to scale differently than objectives would. For example, in order to get a contribution bonus on a player damage would probably be more effective than number of hits/time in combat would be, whereas on an objective it would probably be more accurate to use the number of hits/time on point.

This way fighting against a defended keep would allow you more time to get full contribution for a 25% increase in WXP and one that goes down too fast would have less time to accumulate the hits get a high contribution bonus.

What you guys think? Any Ideas?

Personally, capturing points should not give WXP. Killing guards or dolyaks should not earn WXP. Killing players and siege weapons should earn WXP.
Over 35 people on one side in that area…they should recieve very very minimal WXP.

If people don’t want to take a heavily fortified keep because they lose WXP…they were never interested in taking the keep anyway and likely don’t belong in WvW. WXP/hour people will kill that side of the game.

Edit: here’s a thought, cap the WXP you can earn in any given day.

Runiir.6425:

Edit: here’s a thought, cap the WXP you can earn in any given day.

Not a viable option as this will discourage people from playing, imagine a daily cap on xp or karma.

WXP area bonus could be cool too, like outnumbered but more local.

Any other ideas?

All rewards, WXP, coin and karma should have both a hard cap and scale to number of players involved.

For sake of making this easy lets assume the following numbers:
Capping a tower yields 5s + 500 karma + 150 WXP

current system
If 5 people cap that tower GW2 ‘pays out’ a total of 25s + 2,500 karma + 750WXP
If 50 people cap that tower GW2 ‘pays out’ a total of 250s + 25,000 karma + 7,500WXP
if 100 people cap that tower GW2 ‘pays out’ 500s + 50,000karma + 15,000WXP

every player gets 5s + 300 karma + 150 WXP regardless of how many people show up

proposed system
Assuming same rewards as above but with a hard cap of 50 and scalable loot you’d get the following:

GW2 ‘pays out’ a total of 250s + 25,000 karma + 7,500WXP regardless of how many players cap the tower, thats the hard cap

So if 5 people cap a tower they’d each get 50s + 5,000 karma + 1,500 wxp
if 50 people capped that tower they’d get 5s + 300 karma + 150 wxp
if 100 people capped that tower they’d get 2.5s + 150 karma +75 wxp

that shows the scaling

Now what Anet would have to do it figure out where the sweet spot is for the hard cap and what kind of curve the scaling should follow (IMO in the above example 5 people are rewarded too much as well as too much reward for a super zerg so there needs to be a non linear curve to rewards)

Syeria already made a valid case against that system which was seconded by DevonCarver. There needs to be a new solution that entices people to play in smaller groups without having competition between their own servers for WXP.

Its either that or stay with the zerg bias that there is now.

or just keep watching people quit playing wvw until anet decides to change something.

Goorman.7916:

I dont think, that the problem is the WXP distribution.Most importantly because people do not generally play WvW to farm Wlevels, they play, because WvW is interesting.
However the problem is that a lot of WvW design decisions directly or indirectly support zerging.

I’m playing on the same T5 EU server since headstart. The introduction of WXP has indeed changed the way people WvW nowadays at least in my tier. Before the patch most of the time we had multiple “small” 20-40 man zergs roaming around. Now everyone runs around in one huge 60-100 man zerg.
So to me its obvious that the reason for this is WXP.

Let me get this right: This post isnt against zergs. Im totally fine with zergs in WvW. The problem is people running around in one huge 100 man zergball.

How about scaling it slightly more flat?
Not distributing it equally but more like every player gets X+a split of the pot.
X is a fixed number which never changes, the pot is a fixed number, says, Y+some factors like upgrades on the objective, number of defenders etc.

-You are always guaranteed to get X.
-People barging in will not take away from your WXP gain unless the objective is upgraded and defended, in which case you should be GLAD they are helping.

Basically, my proposal with totally fictional numbers:
WxP for the tower: 100(Base). The split pot gets another 2000 points because the tower is fully upgraded(else, it’d be only 500) and another 500 points because more than 5 but less than 10 players are defending.
Number of participants: 25. 15 of them get gold, 5 get silver, 5 get bronze cause they came in in the last minute and managed to tag an NPC.

Bronze gets 25% of base, no split from the pot. All bronzes get 25 WXP.
Silver gets 75% of the base, count as 1 in the split pot,
Gold gets 100% of the base, count as 2 in the split pot.

Split rewards: 5 silvers + 2×15 gold = 35. 2500/35 = 71. Every player with silver participation gets 71 + 75 = 146 WXP, every player with Gold participation gets 100 + 2×71=242 WXP.

Numbers are probably too high but I think, the system came across.

Also, yet another problem: FIX THE PARTICIPATION SYSTEM!
You can really to almost everything for the group and just fight some opponent on the wall while your zerg rushes by and stands in the circle and you will only get silver reward. People should not be rewarded so heavily for standing idle in circles.

DevonCarver.5370:

I think there is something we can do to solve the problem here without discouraging people from playing together, but we haven’t figured it out just yet.

Glad to hear you’re aware of the problem. Hopefully this is prioritized high enough.

I’ve resigned to login during primetime because those huge zergballs + skill lags took the fun out of WvW for me.

Any ETA on when to expect any changes addressing those issues?

Let’s not stop at how WxP scales with playstyle but also include ranks this way too. If I choose to run in the zerg then I should earn credit toward a zerg rank (foot soldier) or if I choose to run in a small hit squad then I should earn credit toward a skirmisher rank or ninja rank (special forces). I want to be able to recognize the types of players I run into on the map. This way I can know what to expect from their skills….i.e. large scale fighting tactics or small skirmish ones.

As for WxP I choose to work with the same group each night to hone our skills as a unit. We incorporate one to two new guys each night to try and find more people to play with. Our playstyle is of the small unit that moves under the radar and isn’t noticed much. This results in much less WxP than running in the zerg but WxP does not determine how we play or include people in our group. Does my group contribute to the overall benefit to our server? Yes, in my opinion we do….we take care of behind the scenes work that yields absolutely minimal if any WxP….Yak escorts, wall and gate repairs, prep structures for the zerg group (remove guards, defensive siege, and distractions), and guard the supply camps so the zerg can resupply. This is a huge support role that benefits our server but we see next to no WxP except for player kills. Can we cap structures, yes, but why is that the most effective way to achieve WxP? We need more defensive and support WxP rewards before WvW gets too much zerg burnout or becomes stale, of which i’m starting to experience in my current tier. When people stop caring about defending their structures and winning the week objective then WvW will turn into a place that contains hardcore skirmishers fighting each other and not participating in their server’s best interest of how WvW was intended. The result will not yield a favorable growth in WvW population. Incentivize us to play WvW with strategy and support and not for grouping up in a ball and capping structures because this will end in WvW missing its purpose IMO.

naphack.9346:

How about scaling it slightly more flat?
Not distributing it equally but more like every player gets X+a split of the pot.
X is a fixed number which never changes, the pot is a fixed number, says, Y+some factors like upgrades on the objective, number of defenders etc.

That’s the direction where I was going also, something that lets the zerg players grind WXP casually but still gives incentive for groups to break off and help somewhere else.

Honestly, while I don’t despise the idea of scaling WXP, I’d have to say we have one issue that still needs to be handled with the basis of WXP in general. Namely, support actions (healing, repairing, and the like) should logically award a certain amount as well. At this point, heavy-support players are getting a good bit shafted.
That might also help with some of the ultra-zerging, if worked out in the right way.

Many great ideas so far.

Here is another idea I’ve come around:

Why not just give ANYBODY in the whole map the WXP when an objective has been taken. So if team A takes a tower and team B takes a supply camp, all players get the WXP for both objectives. The only requirement is that you are actually participating in WvW warfare (to prevent AFK farming). This wont affect WXP from player kills, which is still calculated individually.

In this system you dont have to be terrified to miss something. You can split your army into many teams to get the most out of it.

What do you think?