The change to the WvW reset time has come has a surprise to most of us, and some welcome it while others don’t. In situations like these, I try to list the pros and the cons so that I can objectively see both sides of the issue. This change definitely has some wide reaching impact, so I’m going to separate the impact as best as I can for objectivity. As such, some of the pros and cons may conflict, since I will be attempting to look at the change from the perspectives of different communities. First, the unknowns:
Unknowns
- The reset time changing to Saturday could drastically affect the way matches are determined, leading to more variety in match-ups.
- The new maps may have a drastic effect on how PPT is accumulated, changing the WvW scene even more.
- Friday could become worthless for PPT and fights since the scores of some Tiers are already decided by the last day in the week. Even having +690 PPT may not mean you can come back from a loss.
Pros
Fight based Guilds
- PPT matters less, since most matches are already decided this late in the week. This could lead to more fights for fights sake.
- It’s possible most pugs will have left WvW at this point, further solidifying a fights oriented nature of Friday.
- GvG’s and other events have more time to be setup, and this could be a great day to do them on.
- Queue times are reduced on Friday.
- Saturday will reset all structures, meaning you don’t need to attempt to take a tier 3 keep because the other server had good coverage overnight.
Objective based Guilds
- Friday gives you a last minute chance to push to victory if you are in a close match-up.
- Saturday gives you a fresh start on all structures and PPT.
- If you have a lot of coverage in your guild, you are better able to determine your PPT throughout the week, since the weekend won’t have as much impact.
Cons
General
- Scheduling changes lead to scheduling issues at times.
- Friday may lose it’s impact for players if the week has been a blowout in score, leading to less population in WvW overall.
Fight based Guilds
- The work you do, towards kills or towards PPT, gets reset on Saturday, effectively making one of your days of progress lose it’s importance.
- It’s possible Friday may be given up to karma trains, reducing the amount of fights given overall.
- If Friday loses it’s importance, that only gives one strong night on the weekend, as Sunday generally means people work the next day, thus reducing play time.
Objective based Guilds
- Friday becomes a waste of time, since most matches are decided earlier in the week.
- Saturday reset means you have less time to make an impact on the score before the week starts.
- Coverage will become more important for PPT, meaning small guilds will have less of an impact overall.
My proposal:
From what I can see of how this change will impact WvW, it is accomplishing some good things, and some bad. It does appear that WvW needs a change to give the players more power to impact matches, either through fights or through capturing objectives, and although this change would accomplish that, I believe it might negatively impact players more than expected.
To counter this, I would propose the reset date is instead changed to Wednesday or Thursday night (backing up the time 24 or 48 hours from where it currently is). This change would have some positive benefits compared to Friday and Saturday:
- Reset Night itself will not be overpopulated with players, causing high queue times, due to the middle of the work week.
- The weekend would be centered throughout the week, giving that majority of players plenty of time to have an impact on that week’s score.
- Friday would no longer force all players to join at the same time, reducing queues overall and spreading players out between the different maps. This will decrease load on the servers, as well as increase the amount of playable time on the weekend.
- Friday would no longer be a hard reset on all objectives. Players that can participate in WvW on the weekend would come in to see towers and keeps upgraded, people defending structures, experience fights around upgraded structures.
- For Fight based Guilds or solo WvW players (roamers), you would know your match-up ahead of time, and if you needed to schedule fights, or setup a “Fight Club” you could do so well in advance and possibly on a weekend, thus increasing the accessibility and the community overall.
However, there may still be some negatives here:
- Tuesday is the day most patches drop. This only leaves one day (about 30 hours) for bug fixes to be implemented before a Wednesday reset
- It only allows one day of testing (about 30 hours) for players when balance changes are released.
- It shifts the end of the week a bit closer to Sunday, meaning players that may not have the weekend off may play during less desirable times in order to have an impact on the scoring.
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