Guild Wars 2

Elric Of Melnibone.4781:

How about most of the people in this thread actually playing with the fix before condemning ArenaNet for not testing it?

If a camp really gets you 10 minutes and a sentry gets you five, that’s plenty of time to get to another objective and actually DO something.

I am curious how much killing a guard gets you as they are plentiful and do earn you WxP, not to mention credit for the objective if it’s taken later by someone else.

Scouting keeps is DOING something, what do you get for that?

Don’t have to worry about your participation bar if you participate.

Yeah, once you get to T6 everything decay wise seems to be the same, but, it does feel like it takes longer to get to T6 now even if you’re moving and shaking to avoid the new fast start decay in those lower tiers.

Overall, it’s not horrible because it will force continued participation if people were only doing the bare minium before. I wouldn’t say just yet if it promotes more zerging until prime time though.

Klipso.8653:

Don’t have to worry about your participation bar if you participate.

More like ’Don’t have to worry about wvw if you’ve destroyed wvw’ – Anet

Why not try actually playing your own game anet?

Or at least speaking to ppl who do before trying to kill your own game with terrible choices.

HitmanHaydon.1053:

Elric Of Melnibone.4781:

How about most of the people in this thread actually playing with the fix before condemning ArenaNet for not testing it?

If a camp really gets you 10 minutes and a sentry gets you five, that’s plenty of time to get to another objective and actually DO something.

I am curious how much killing a guard gets you as they are plentiful and do earn you WxP, not to mention credit for the objective if it’s taken later by someone else.

Scouting keeps is DOING something, what do you get for that?

Scouting (just standing in a keep) didn’t give participation before the patch, so nothing changed here.

In general: Some people in this thread seem to be just complaining without knowing the details or really trying it for themselves. Capturing a camp or sentry shouldn’t be a problem for roamers.

Klipso.8653:

Don’t have to worry about your participation bar if you participate.

Or by the way, there is a bug in the game messing with the participation, even though you are active as kitten.

This is a HORRIBLE change that punishes just about everyone that plays WvW. There are MANY more situations where the fast decay hurts legit players than it punishes afkers. An issue I had BEFORE this change was accumulating participation if my world was doing well.
If I have to run 3-4 minutes across map to find something to kill, and then run another ANOTHER 2-3 minutes to the next target, and then YET ANOTHER 3-5 minutes to find something I can kill, the decay timer will take away ALL progress I make before I ever get a single reward.
If I’m running a 1+ hour raid, and take a brief break (5 min)to use the restroom and grab a snack, there goes MOST of my contribution.
If I’m losing contribution, I will most certainly no longer wait for roamers to catch up before capping an objective. Even a few seconds now could be too long.
Rally up the maps to recap a lost keep? Never again, it takes so long everyone will lose all their contribution.

All I can see this doing is encouraging bad behavior and discouraging WvW play. It certainly will drive away any casual players and discourage new players.

I haven’t even logged in yet, but I’m sick of the complaints about scouting. If you really are scouting, then you should be in a squad and get participation sharing. You literally don’t have to do anything and you get participation. If you don’t want to join a squad, and don’t want participation because you want to flip camps/sentries, then you’re not scouting. If you don’t want to join a squad, really scout, get the squad participation, then you’re just not even being a team player. There’s a big difference between actually scouting an roaming.

Hmm, been standing still for 7 minutes, and no decay yet. Just killed some guards a while back.

EDIT: 2nd chest and got outnumbered chest as well. Now I’m losing participation.

ArchonWing.9480:

Hmm, been standing still for 7 minutes, and no decay yet. Just killed some guards a while back.

The problem is that it isn’t everyone. Its effecting some people where the participation timer is draining too fast on them. Logging out for a bit and then coming back to the game is one solution, but is it really the best solution since it really doesn’t fix the problem since it’s RNGesus regarding the bug.

CaelestiaEmpyrea.2617:

All I can see this doing is encouraging bad behavior and discouraging WvW play. It certainly will drive away any casual players and discourage new players.

Anet encouraged bad behavior when they set up ridiculous weekly expectations. Of course people were going to “afk” for it.

Nerfing eotm, nerfing wxp merchants (can’t buy xp anymore), penalizing new players, now this. They came after the symptoms once again.

Yeah, I’m a roamer. I went into WvW and capped a camp. Killed a sentry. Then built a catapult to take a tower. Lost all participation running to and from the camp to get supplies for building the catapult… Figured out that wasn’t working for participation, so I capped a ruin then ran to another ruin and the degradation started before I could get to the ruin. That’s ridiculous. This change works fine if you’re a zerger. For a roamer, this sucks.

I do appreciate anet attempt to solve the afker issue. I do hope anet consider getting in combat with enemy players (receiving and dealing dmg) will generate participation.

Squad participation is great I’m sure, if you know, the commander didn’t always give it to one of his fellow host server scouts that he’s know for years. For everyone else scouts, there’s good old fashion non squad joining, non slim chance shared participation earning, cap a shrine and run like hell to a sentry, I mean if the zerg hasn’t already taken it.

Is it weird that I only recognize a tiny number of names in this thread?

Deihnyx.6318:

CaelestiaEmpyrea.2617:

All I can see this doing is encouraging bad behavior and discouraging WvW play. It certainly will drive away any casual players and discourage new players.

Anet encouraged bad behavior when they set up ridiculous weekly expectations. Of course people were going to “afk” for it.

Nerfing eotm, nerfing wxp merchants (can’t buy xp anymore), penalizing new players, now this. They came after the symptoms once again.

I don’t get how they encouraged people to AFK. Sorry, but those people were looking for the easy way.

Followed a commander all night, today, a single brawl put me at tier 4, after that, roaming with a zerg, with many pauses, building siege, etc, never had the decay timer starting. Inthink people are still overreacting, as long as you normally run from target to target without dinner breaks you wont see the timer at all, let alone jts decay

Amaimon.7823:

Followed a commander all night, today, a single brawl put me at tier 4, after that, roaming with a zerg, with many pauses, building siege, etc, never had the decay timer starting. Inthink people are still overreacting, as long as you normally run from target to target without dinner breaks you wont see the timer at all, let alone jts decay

So you’re saying try it before you judge it???? Heresy!

But seriously, maybe there is a bug. If you think there is one, put it in an email to A-net.

If it’s a bug, then maybe it can be fixed for you.

And if not, maybe it will help people understand the actual workings of the change.

Will be interesting to see how long sieges go now, if nothing dies on wall and you can not reach the siege so no exp gained, and your not on the treb or cata.

Thank you ArenaNet for screwing over roamers.

Got to 100% T6 again and was cruising (not afking), went from capping top fire shrine headed to south fire shrine and participation started counting down mid walk. Thars gremlins in these parts!

It took me just over 40 minutes to get to 100% T6 doing what I consider roaming, mostly solo but had a few allies here and there. Five minutes later the game announces a new build so I exit only to be told it needs to repair my game data. grrrrrr… There goes all my progress, was hoping to test the count down timers. I only saw the count down timer once while building up and it did seem to come very shortly after killing something.

Strider Pj.2193:

Deihnyx.6318:

CaelestiaEmpyrea.2617:

All I can see this doing is encouraging bad behavior and discouraging WvW play. It certainly will drive away any casual players and discourage new players.

Anet encouraged bad behavior when they set up ridiculous weekly expectations. Of course people were going to “afk” for it.

Nerfing eotm, nerfing wxp merchants (can’t buy xp anymore), penalizing new players, now this. They came after the symptoms once again.

I don’t get how they encouraged people to AFK. Sorry, but those people were looking for the easy way.

No matter if you enjoyed your first 20 hours playing wvw actively, if you really want to cap the week, the easy way is to wait for camps to flip and flip them back. You can definitely be truly active for 60, 70% of your time and half afk like that the remaining 30%, for a lot of reasons.
My view on this is that it’s mainly due to Anet weekly expectations, that realistically not everyone can do, and so it encourages afking.
Not talking about morality here, but “looking for the easy way” is something everyone does at some point.

As long as this whole system will be based on ticks and not actual activity, this problem will remain. People will or will not be looking for ways to cheese everything. It’s the same in every game, in any game mode. Who didn’t use an exploit in any game at some point?

This patch hurts more legit people than afkers (who were not even hurting the mode outside of prime time) and unless fixed is likely to bring back karma trains… the very reason why pips aren’t based on activity I believe.

If you really want a better mode, stop with this pip nonsense, gate rewards behind high ranks, bring back double xp weekend from gw1, and start actually improving the game. Add dynamic events involving players, weather condition having effects on your stats, experiment on new content, anything than just adding time for the sake of it.

Running Yaks in EB from Pang to Red Keep, perma swiftness and intermittent superspeed, would get the Yak to the keep, gain the participation and about 5 seconds later decay starts. Barely have time to get the next Yak in before i started to lose participation.

Plz fix, this is too much.

Strider Pj.2193:

Amaimon.7823:

Followed a commander all night, today, a single brawl put me at tier 4, after that, roaming with a zerg, with many pauses, building siege, etc, never had the decay timer starting. Inthink people are still overreacting, as long as you normally run from target to target without dinner breaks you wont see the timer at all, let alone jts decay

So you’re saying try it before you judge it???? Heresy!

But seriously, maybe there is a bug. If you think there is one, put it in an email to A-net.

If it’s a bug, then maybe it can be fixed for you.

And if not, maybe it will help people understand the actual workings of the change.

Fixed for me? Im not the one with a problem. I followed a very slow and lazy commander and never saw the timer pop up, thats the exact opposite of a problem

It’s sounding like people are experiencing different rates of decay based on their last activities performed, where possibly taking out a guard or escorting a dolyak are now pretty much worthless, probably because that was the one thing people pointed out that afk pip-farmers were doing to maintain participation, and bigger objectives allow a much longer period before participation decays. This does tend to point to zerging as the best option to maintain participation.

Good bye WvW. I’m not touching this till it’s fixed.

This surely can’t be as bad as the golem wars debacle.

Don’t be vicious.

This is bad Anet, probably looked good in theory, but its bad in practical setting. Pls fix Rip roaming til fixed.

Elric Of Melnibone.4781:

How about most of the people in this thread actually playing with the fix before condemning ArenaNet for not testing it?

If a camp really gets you 10 minutes and a sentry gets you five, that’s plenty of time to get to another objective and actually DO something.

I am curious how much killing a guard gets you as they are plentiful and do earn you WxP, not to mention credit for the objective if it’s taken later by someone else.

No it’s not working that way unfortunately. Some people are saying they are getting larger amounts of time for doing things but doesn’t seem to be doing that for everyone. Half an houra ago in EBG, I was with zerg, took tower.. ported back to garri and ran straight to SMC… by the time I got there was already in full decay.. so even tho I got credit for the tower, I didn’t get the extra time to the decay meter.

Thanks for reply Mckenna, what about killing another player?

The issue I had was mainly during slow time for my server that there were enough roamers that you could not get to a camp to take it, a sentry or a ruin etc. before it was taken so you could not keep up your participation unless you found a group to take larger things like towers.

Also repairing doesn’t always work well especially if something is being continually trebbed but the supply may be needed to siege up inner keep or a tower for the eventual invasion. It just leads to bad feelings as folk who are using up supply to repair to keep up participation take supply from those who are trying to defend. It does not lead to folk working together.

Also I went into decay just running around with a zerg finding things to do. The decay before was working just fine. It might be better if when you are done to be able to ‘cash out’ your remaining time into pips depending on what level you have gotten. It would keep folk from hanging around waiting for decay of participation and clotting up maps. Plus it would give you something for the work you put into getting to that level.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

I think some people are confused and think that whenever you do something that gives participation it adds to the decay, which has not been and is not the case. For example when you take an objective, it gives you 10 minutes before your participation will start to decay; then if you kill a guard it will only reset to 2 minutes if you have less than 2 minutes left otherwise it won’t affect the timer. This is how it has always worked; the only thing we have changed is the reset time for each action.

The reset times are as follows:
• Killing a Player – 10 minutes
• Killing a Caravan – 2 minutes
• Destroying a fortification – 5 minutes
• Killing a Guard – 2 minutes
• Killing a Lord – 5 minutes
• Killing or reviving a merc npc – 1 minute
• Repairing – 5 minutes
• Siege Damage Wall/Gate/Player – 1 minute
• Destroying Siege – 5 minute
• Killing a Veteran Creature – 5 minutes

These happen on event completion:
• Defending a Caravan – 2 minutes
• Completing a Merc Event – 5 minutes
• Completing a Defend Event – 10 minutes
• Capturing an objective – 10 minutes
• Capturing a Ruin or Shrine – 2 minutes
• Capturing a Sentry – 5 minutes

It is still possible that we will tweak these numbers going forward.

Conclusion: run with the zerg, and make sure you tag everything. Don’t bother playing support, your decay will kick in. Make sure you are on the ram or catapult- if not, throw another one down and hope people build it so you can take it.

Whatever you do, don’t have long sieges or try anything tactical that takes more than a couple of minutes or half your players will start to lose participation.

Always start your evening by map jumping until you find the biggest blob to run with that you can, to make sure you get to tier 6 – as we all know trying to solo up past tier 3 can take half of your available game time, even more so if you’re roaming and scouting. Don’t worry if it’s a guild group, just run along with them anyway- they won’t appreciate it, but just tell them you need the tiers and it’s the only way to get them as there are no other organised groups on the maps atm.

Shout at the com to hurry up and cap something, and cap faster so you can reach tier 3 and maintain before decay kicks in. Or find a big fight and win.

Don’t play outside of prime time- it will take you too long to get past tier 3. You are likely to get decayed before you even start earning those pips that will reset at the end of the week anyway.

If your server has low population, bandwaggon to a bigger one- oh wait, most servers are showing as ‘full’…

If your server is dead outside of prime time (and sometimes in it), you now have even less chance of finding other people to play with and getting to tier 3, maintaining it (oh wait, swap turns with your 4 man team every 15 seconds on the catapult whilst you wait for the wall, that’s practical…).

Please Anet, seriously, TEST these changes and ask REAL wvw players (not T1 bandwagon spam 1 guilds) to test them and give feedback before imposing them upon us. I’d have thought you’d have learned that lesson by now……

The timer needed to be extended, not reduced! Utterly wrong choice and a big reduction in QoL for WvW.

Aerinndis.2730:

Plus it would give you something for the work you put into getting to that level.

I scouted for 6 hours last night while we T3’d Air keep. Scouting prevented 4 attacks easily. Why did I get for my work, crud!

Bad system and rewards high populations that zerg.

Just tested it out, and holy crap that bar drops fast, unreasonably so.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

I think some people are confused and think that whenever you do something that gives participation it adds to the decay, which has not been and is not the case.

Is this supposed to have never been the case?

Because I remember a time (not in this build, a few months ago) when capping a ruin would lead to a sharply reduced delay before decay kicked in – short enough, in fact, that if you held the ruin for the time it took to get Bloodlust, decay WOULD have kicked in by the time you got it. This could happen even if you’d capped a regular objective such as a camp or tower shortly beforehand.

So it seems there might be a bug in the code such that something that grants you participation, albeit with a shorter decay timer than your current timer, will sometimes overwrite your current timer. While this wasn’t that big a deal beforehand when most things had longer timers, when you have a lot of things with short timers, there’s probably a much greater chance for that bug to come into effect.

Well if this teaches anything, it’s that carrots and sticks still work well for player prodding.

Need something changed? Carrot!

Hrm, population balance?

I remember the days when roamers were the scouts. When I hear people yelling about not being credited for scouting it just yells out we got a lazy player who refuses to improve their personal skill level. As an almost entirely wvw based player since prelaunch, I’ve spent much of my time roaming around our objectives as a scout and I can count on one hand how many times an objective was lost because I wasn’t twiddling my thumbs inside a keep waiting for the contest timer. That is since prelaunch. So if you are having decay problems, quit whining and learn to play wvw. If you are horrible at it, try gearing and going for a roamer build before quitting and going back to being a map freeloader. If you are truly horrible play one of the coward builds meant for running away and be happy you can now give your zergs a chance to waypoint in before it contests.

Also if your decay is because there is nothing to do, then that is what you get for being on a dead map. If you Dont want to play where you might die then you shouldn’t get rewards.

WvW has always been lowest reward per hour spent. Nothing new here.

Balthazzarr.1349:

Flitters.4095:

Elric Of Melnibone.4781:

How about most of the people in this thread actually playing with the fix before condemning ArenaNet for not testing it?

If a camp really gets you 10 minutes and a sentry gets you five, that’s plenty of time to get to another objective and actually DO something.

I am curious how much killing a guard gets you as they are plentiful and do earn you WxP, not to mention credit for the objective if it’s taken later by someone else.

No it’s not working that way unfortunately. Some people are saying they are getting larger amounts of time for doing things but doesn’t seem to be doing that for everyone. Half an houra ago in EBG, I was with zerg, took tower.. ported back to garri and ran straight to SMC… by the time I got there was already in full decay.. so even tho I got credit for the tower, I didn’t get the extra time to the decay meter.

Well here’s a good one… I had almost 5 minutes left, then we took a tower… suddenly it was counting down from 4 minutes. So, if you take something that gives a lower reset time then something you just took before that you lose the benefit of the longer reset time… you get reset to the last taken/killed object. The benefit of killing someone and getting a 10 minute reset is wiped out by taking anything else with a lower reset time.

This is from personal experience a half hour ago.

oh joy…

one day you will find something that makes you happy… nm, i doubt it.

Rather than complain about how much you hate it, submit a bug report properly since it is obviously a bug.

killing a player is 10 mins. WOW! Really should consider spawn camping now. As for the the players who dies and respawn, good luck getting through to an objective to hold your participation without being jumped by few thieves.

I have never seen such an empty WvW & EoTM in all the years of playing.
This participation decay teaches us a valuable lesson though, its shows us how to kill your own game if you ever need to do that.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Balthazzarr.1349:

Flitters.4095:

Elric Of Melnibone.4781:

How about most of the people in this thread actually playing with the fix before condemning ArenaNet for not testing it?

If a camp really gets you 10 minutes and a sentry gets you five, that’s plenty of time to get to another objective and actually DO something.

I am curious how much killing a guard gets you as they are plentiful and do earn you WxP, not to mention credit for the objective if it’s taken later by someone else.

No it’s not working that way unfortunately. Some people are saying they are getting larger amounts of time for doing things but doesn’t seem to be doing that for everyone. Half an houra ago in EBG, I was with zerg, took tower.. ported back to garri and ran straight to SMC… by the time I got there was already in full decay.. so even tho I got credit for the tower, I didn’t get the extra time to the decay meter.

Well here’s a good one… I had almost 5 minutes left, then we took a tower… suddenly it was counting down from 4 minutes. So, if you take something that gives a lower reset time then something you just took before that you lose the benefit of the longer reset time… you get reset to the last taken/killed object. The benefit of killing someone and getting a 10 minute reset is wiped out by taking anything else with a lower reset time.

This is from personal experience a half hour ago.

oh joy…

The decay timer doesn’t show 4 minutes. It will only show the last 90 seconds before it starts decaying. I believe you were probably looking at the tick timer.

any chance we could see the full timer on the bar?