Guild Wars 2

After a year of following RvR I think we all have an opinion on the WvW scoring system.

While I don’t think it’s fundamentally flawed it really doesn’t do much to encourage close and intense matchups. Instead in 9/10 cases the matchup is decided by the end of the first night.

It is an objective system, I’ll give it that, but I don’t think it’s really all that great for the game.

Problems I see:

• Very little incentive to defend. Every identical structure is worth the same. Lost a T4 Tower? Nevermind, that paper tower we just capped is worth the same amount of points.

• System encourages to attack poorly defended structures rather than heavily defended ones. Why bother going after that T3 tower when that T1 tower is worth the same.

• No comeback mechanic. WvW is really all about coverage and there’s little a scoring system can do to mitigate that. Still, it would be nice if the stakes were increased throughout the duration of the matchup so there is something worth fighting for.

• Not enough emphasis on kills. Killing is an integral part of WvW and I believe it needs to be better reflected in the score. The Bloodlust buff attempted this but it’s an extremely “gamy” mechanic and not really fun.

• Night-time too important for the score, relative to player participation. Your night-coverage has a disproportionate effect on the overall score. Even having 30 more players online at night can shift the score massively in your favor.

• Playing the “tick”. When going for a cap the tick is often considered. Holding Stormmist until the tick is a common goal, because you know you can get it back before the next tick and thus won’t lose points. Again, an extremely “gamy” mechanic.

Anyway, you may have your own thoughts on what problems the PPT system has.

But I think it’s important during this debate to not get distracted by associated, but not directly related WvW issues like the small maps, relative ease of capturing towers, zerging etc.

So what do I think should change?

• One point per kill. This should happen as it gives weight to what WvW is ultimately about. Find something else for the Bloodlust buff or make it add points for finishers. Regardless, kills should matter and matter a lot. This would also help mitigate the disproportionate importance of night activity.

• Objectives should scale with their level. So a T3 Tower should tick for more than a T1 tower. This should make holding objectives more important, rather than simply running a Karma-Train. It also means that if a server can keep hold of 1-2 T3 towers they may still have a chance to comeback.

As to what extent..that’s hard to say. But if a regular Tower is worth 10 points, then a T2 tower should tick for 15 and a T3 tower for 20.

• I also think that supply-camps are overvalued, considering how easily they can be capped. Being worth 5 points per tick is too much, especially since they are already valuable for their supplies. I think they shouldn’t be factored in to the score at all, or if they must, then only be worth 2/3/5 points.

• Individual scoring per objective. I don’t think the whole “tick” mechanic is particularly good for the aforementioned reasons. I think it would be better if every objective “ticked” individually. So a T2 tower might tick for 1 point/minute while T2 Stonemist would tick for 1 point/20 seconds.

• Bloodlust could actually be turned into a “comeback mechanic” by working only for the server that currently has the lowest score. They’d still need to cap the ruins but then they’d get additional points for finishing, helping them to close the gap.

All combined I think these changes would benefit the game and make matchupps more exciting. It won’t stop the importance of coverage but it may be slightly less snowballing.

Kills need to be more important yes. If kills were a higher percentage of total score then by default PPT is a lower percent, meaning night-capping would have less of an impact on the overall score without penalizing the night crew in any way.

I would suggest 1 point per kill, and +1 for a stomp with bloodlust, so every kill is worth at least a point even if its not a stomp, however this creates 2 issues:

1. door wide open for griefing (repeatedly dying to give enemy points)
2. it should not be possible to win purely on kills – owning structures and macro strategy should still be a largely important factor in the winner.

To solve those I would suggest:

1. diminishing returns on loot and wxp also applied to points from kills. In other words, players recently killed do not give another point. I would go a step further and add that you do not give the enemy points if you have outnumbered buff on.

2. if the kills become too large of a portion of total points, the PPT value of structures could be increased accordingly to create the appropriate balance between the two. Or I suppose more likely, reduce the kill points to 0.75 or something.

Making objectives worth more if they are upgraded is a bad idea. The bigger server will have the more upgrades creating an even larger gap in PPT.

Instead, you should earn bonus one-time points when capping an upgraded structure, depending on how upgraded it is. This makes the stronger server a more attractive target and works towards encouraging the double-team against first place that needs to happen for competitive WvW.

Solstice.1097:

Making objectives worth more if they are upgraded is a bad idea. The bigger server will have the more upgrades creating an even larger gap in PPT.

Instead, you should earn bonus one-time points when capping an upgraded structure, depending on how upgraded it is. This makes the stronger server a more attractive target and works towards encouraging the double-team against first place that needs to happen for competitive WvW.

Hmm, maybe you’re right.

I would have argued that a weaker server could then focus on holding a few upgraded keeps rather than rolling through the map. But then I remembered that it’s all about the size of your zerg and holding 4 Towers or 1 Tower isn’t harder or more challenging. A T3 Tower will fall no matter what if the enemy zerg is 2-3 times your size.

Your idea is better because it makes stronger Towers and Keeps more attractive targets.

I think objectives should actually accrue in value the longer they are held, and then give a big initial burst of points when they are first taken.

As said by the OP the paper towers that flip constantly, like the ones you can run breakout on, should not be worth as much as a northern BL tower that is sieged up to the teeth and max fortified.

This would create something of a comeback mechanic if you can take higher priority value targets from the bigger over populated side, while it becomes more important for them to defend what they already have and not just repeatedly karma train over paper targets. While in a system like being described, they could still do this, endless reflipping, but it would be worth far less on the scoreboard.

While they are busy karma training your ‘redbriar’ for the millionth time and it is only worth 10 points, if you can at the same time ninja one of their fortified towers that has been held for 2 days, it might be worth say up to 100 points for initially capping.