Guild Wars 2

I haven’t really fleshed this out yet, so for now I just want to get the idea out there, and hopefully get some input from you all as to what some potential effects would be. My goal is to address a number of major concerns that come up fairly often:

1. Overwhelmingly large blobs of combatants is too dominant and effective a strategy.
2. Time zone differences create imbalances in matchups.
3. Some servers just have an overwhelming numbers advantage over their opponents.

My suggestion:

Taking objectives should reward immediate bonus points on a sliding scale. The bonus points would be based on the ratio of combatants for the attacking and defending forces currently on any of the four maps. When a server successfully secures an objective while massively outnumbered, the bonus value could be equal to 200% of the usual PPT. Likewise, when a server secures an objective while massively outnumbering the enemy, the bonus could be close to 0.

I believe this would have the following effects:

1. Attacking many objectives at once, and consequently, defending many objectives at once, becomes more rewarding, since some points are awarded immediately, and won’t just be cancelled by the enemy blob before the timer ticks down.

2. While securing objectives during the enemy’s off hours will remain a viable strategy due to the PPT, its effects won’t be as overwhelming since the bonus will be far lower.

3. When a server is simply outmanned all the time, they’ll still be able to put pressure on their opponents to defend objectives, since objectives they claim will be worth more than objectives their opponents claim.

Like I said, I doubt I’ve thought of every possible effect of something like this, but I’d really appreciate everyone’s input.

I really would like some feedback on this. Do you think it could work? Why or why not?
Do my conclusions about what the effect would be make sense? What have I missed?

I think it’s feasible. Although it would take a lot of debate to finally agree on the ratios.

Hey you can take it even further…
Each objective triggers an event when it is attacked that is refreshed every 3 min.
Each time the event refreshes attacking server should get points as a reward for attacking and defending server for defending depending on the tier of the objective.
You can only attack from within an orange circle around the objective so you can’t get points trebing Cliffside from Garrison but you can still get the wall down.
Killing guards can’t trigger the event either although it can still contest the WP.
Defending a paper structure should give more points than attacking it and defending against 2 servers should yield double points.
Attacking a fortified structure should give more points than defending it and if 2 servers attack it both get points for it although the one that actually caps gets one more event reward .
Camps don’t yield points and overtime transfer automatically the supplies to their target structure which will also automatically upgrade .

I think this should make a 3 hour siege of a fully upgraded keep point worthy and maybe we can see more open field battles .

maybe just maybe with a lot of patience and with more tweaks Anet can
REMOVE THE TICK (OMG such sacrilege… kill the blasphemer kill him with fire…)and we can stop playing like it’s a job…

@Leeco

I like the idea but I’d be hesitant to reward people for actions that can be faked. For example, if a server just sends a couple of people to give the gates of Bay a love tap every few minutes, there’s little risk involved, but would still trigger points. I think that would be a problem.

Also, I wouldn’t want to remove the tick. The tick is a huge incentive to focus on holding and defense, which should be a significant part of the game.

well yeah thats the idea .
btw to trigger the event you need to damage a structure like 5% dmg on a wall or gate.
so you have a little grp of 10 ppl doing that in not just one keep but every structure you own you need to def against that .
if even the rain of AC can still give them points you need to confront them in the open field and kill them.
you can send a huge zerg to kill all of these groups but some will still gain points so you need to split your forces which is good right?
If you want to deny them any points eventually you’ll have to engage them before they even reach the structure which again is good imho.

The problem with the tick is that it forces you to focus on defence because defence is not a significant part of the game it’s the ONLY way to win .
so after the reset night when most important structures have become t3 you have people just siting inside hitting 123 on the ac and trebing supply camps .They may very well be botting and because they are inside you can’t even report them.Some of them if not most of them especially in top servers are getting paid to do it which is why i said we play like it’s a job.
Of course this is not self-rewarding at all because you only get wxp for defending and you almost never kill people unless a blob of nabs comes knocking .
Can you see the oxymoron here ?:In order to win you have to defend in order to rank up you need to attack.
You can’t attack if you have in mind the tick every 15min because a t3 keep siege lasts for hours .
Right now attacking has little to no impact on the score since most of the time its done during the night or the morning or whatever time you know your enemy has little or no coverage…during the peak times most matches look somewhat even which either means that they are defending inside their t3 structures(for hours and hours)or attacking something paper generally avoiding the open field as much as possible because its counterproductive (the jobs argument again).

Obviously if there is no tick nobody can complain about night capping again and the points wouldn’t represent coverage but fights.
The only problem i see is that instead of 300k points we will be looking @ 3m points at the end of the week but i don’t really think it matters.

I’d be very hesitant to get rid of the ticks altogether. WvW is supposed to be about war, and war is about claiming and controlling territory. If you remove the incentive to control territory, you just end up with WvW being played like it’s Frostgorge.

I’m really surprised that no one else has commented. Have I stumbled upon something that has already been covered extensively in another thread?

I really think this idea has merit, and it would be great if I could get some more feedback on it.

When I first read this I thought that Anet would never do it because they have repeatedly said that they would not do anything that punishes people for playing at an “off” time. But this being a “bonus” and being for immediate points and not at a tick may give them an out which would allow them to consider it.

It does not punish anyone because if I understand correctly PPT will stay the same and everyone will contribute to that equally. But this is in addition to PPT. So that the bonus would alleviate the effect of coverage disparities.

I’m not sure it would do anything about zerging because people zerg for many reasons. But I do think it would help with score disparity due to coverage imbalance.

Combine this with the idea of more points for attacking the leading server and I think this would improve WvW greatly.

Trick is getting Anet to recognize it.

Johje Holan.4607:

When I first read this I thought that Anet would never do it because they have repeatedly said that they would not do anything that punishes people for playing at an “off” time. But this being a “bonus” and being for immediate points and not at a tick may give them an out which would allow them to consider it.

It does not punish anyone because if I understand correctly PPT will stay the same and everyone will contribute to that equally. But this is in addition to PPT. So that the bonus would alleviate the effect of coverage disparities.

I’m not sure it would do anything about zerging because people zerg for many reasons. But I do think it would help with score disparity due to coverage imbalance.

Combine this with the idea of more points for attacking the leading server and I think this would improve WvW greatly.

Trick is getting Anet to recognize it.

Yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking.

I’d like more feedback on this please. Is there a reason not to implement something like this?

This reply turned out to be a lot longer than I intended.

WvW is affected by some medium-sized problems, some of which you brought up in your original post, that culminate into a few massive problems; none of which can be solved by a single solution. To rephrase your concerns:

1. Zergs are too dominant and effective a strategy. Why are they successful? Because the map design allows a zerg to break off an assault and make it back in time to defend their stuff; which is fine. The zerg had to choose between 2 objectives, which highlights zerging’s weakness in that zergs can’t complete multiple tasks at once. If the red zerg is attacking Stonemist castle, but then their Anzalias tower, Ogrewatch tower, and Pangloss camp all come under attack by decent-sized groups, a single zerg would not be able to assault/defend all 4 objectives. The zerg would either have to split up to have a good/decent chance of completing all 4 objectives, or sacrifice 2 objectives to ensure completion of the other 2. Forcing these types of decisions should be more common and (in my opinion) is the way to go to counteract zergs; changes that allow zergs to succeed, but also allow medium-sized assaults to be more common and potentially successful. However, zerging itself is a legitimate strategy. If I send all my troops to complete an easy objective (I outnumber the enemy 5-to-1), I better at least make some progress; even if I lose something else in the process.

2. Comeback Mechanics – Once the spread in scores hit around 15,000, the chances of the 2 losing servers catching up is extremely small. I think this is where your proposal has the most impact, and is the area where WvW needs help the most. Compared to sPvP (and other games in general), there are very few ways in WvW to come back from losing or to slow down an enemies’ momentum.

3. Some servers are just much bigger than others. This is very difficult to address directly (as indicated in the CDI topic on Server Balance), but can be remedied indirectly by addressing some of the other WvW problems (Zerging effectiveness (1), Comeback Mechanics(2), etc).

I think this suggestion, in combination with granting immediate points for targeting the leading server, could help the “Comeback Mechanics” issue; not so much the zerging issue and population issues. As for defining the leading server, there are at least 4 options:
A. The server leading in overall score. However, even leading servers can have poor coverage in certain timezones. Encouraging 2 servers to gang up on the leading server during it’s weakest timezone (50 vs 300 vs 300) would be an effective strategy in reducing the score difference, but would be similar to karma-training (and thus not fun for some) and could punish the leading server’s offhour players to the point of not playing just because their server’s other timezones have more people.
B. The server leading in PPT on that map. This could encourage players to attack an enemy’s borderland or less-active maps, forcing the leading server to spread out more to maintain an advantage.
C. The server leading in overall PPT at that time (my preference).
D. Some combination of A, B, and C; where even the overall leader can be encouraged to target another server who has the higher PPT in that timezone.
However, B and C may encourage map-hopping by the weaker, organized server to a different map, capturing most (or all) objectives for bonus points, then map-hopping again and repeating the process elsewhere. Eventually, the weaker server could lessen a large gap in the score; even though they never faced their opponent in a battle, because the weak server gets bonus points and the leading server doesn’t. This can be seen as good strategy or as undesirable; but it is something to consider. B is more likely to promote server hopping, C less-so because fewer bonus points would be accumulated. D, including the overall leader, could make it more fun for everyone, but opens up the potential for the overall leader to maintain their point spread in offhours, which would reduce the effectiveness of these “Comeback Mechanics”. Also, to encourage servers to target the stronger enemy, other changes and incentives would need to be added as well to that don’t encourage farming, unfair/unfun play, etc; which is where it gets complicated and why multiple changes would need to be made to produce a satisfactory result.

From a game philosphy standpoint, the bonus numbers would be debated (double value is too high) since Anet doesn’t want people to discourage others from showing up and helping out. In other words, the advantage of having extra teammate(s) needs to outweigh the advantage provided by the outmanned buff.

Finally, from a technical standpoint, I think it’s possible (would take a little extra development time) since killing enemy yaks already provides 1-3 extra points, based on the number of people who tagged the yak. Making that function with structures would probably require additional work, but should be possible.

Reward equal points for defense and offense. If enemy numbers are too great, stay inside.
Also making defense easier would be nice. Such as actually being able to stand on the walls instead of being insta-killed from AOE’s.
Otherwise, I prefer to just enjoy WvW as I know little to nothing will be done to change it’s state. And if I no longer find myself having fun with it I can stop playing and spend my time elsewhere.
But for now, following the blob, amassing karma and every so often having large scale open-field battles will sustain me.