Guild Wars 2

XenesisII.1540:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

I zerg and I solo roam and I never had any problem with decay so far.

The way I understand this, flipping a mere camp gives you 20 minutes (capture = 10 min. + 5 guards (2 min ea.)). Flipping a sentry = 7 min (capture = 5 min + guard = 2 min).

You will also likely kill a few players along the way as well as accidentally participate in plenty of ongoing events you had no intention of attending because you damaged stuff or killed tower/keep npcs without capturing but get participation when capture happens.

Going by the dev comment the system is not additive and basically a maximum of 10 mins, you only get to the highest of either your current decay timer or the event timer. So kill a camp guard would bump your timer to 2 mins, you take the time to kill another guard and say your timer is now 1:50, when you kill the guard it goes back to 2 mins, when you cap the camp after it bumps it to 10 mins.

McKenna

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.

I see.

Well, maybe they could tweak the numbers a bit, but still, it isn’t that hard to maintain decay by playing normally.

the only problem I can see is scouting. Some players are pretty passive in the eye of the game, but still valuable. Real scouts are gold. The wannabes that just want the scout excuse to leech, not so much. The problem is being able to figure out who is worthy of reward and who should get booted out with prejudice.

Sly.9518:

Every map has Objectives that can be used to maintain Participation along every main avenue of traversing the map, even repairing any damaged walls along the way helps maintain Participation, this is no t debatable it is a fact with over 10 ways of maintaining Participation easily. Zeroing is not necessary to keep up Participation.

And again another player wanting to get rewards for not playing WvW lol wanting rewards while logged out even……

Please stop assuming what players want or don’t want. Many of us had the decay timer appear even though we were participating. I had a timer right after respawning after trying to take a tower (after downing a wall, attacking lord, and fighting one player defending it).

This is affecting players who plays legit while afkers during down times werent affecting anyone. This is the real issue here. There is no need to make fun of everyone for that.

Good we don’t need more chitters clogging the ques.

Deihnyx.6318:

Sly.9518:

Every map has Objectives that can be used to maintain Participation along every main avenue of traversing the map, even repairing any damaged walls along the way helps maintain Participation, this is no t debatable it is a fact with over 10 ways of maintaining Participation easily. Zeroing is not necessary to keep up Participation.

And again another player wanting to get rewards for not playing WvW lol wanting rewards while logged out even……

Please stop assuming what players want or don’t want. Many of us had the decay timer appear even though we were participating. I had a timer right after respawning after trying to take a tower (after downing a wall, attacking lord, and fighting one player defending it).

This is affecting players who plays legit while afkers during down times werent affecting anyone. This is the real issue here. There is no need to make fun of everyone for that.

If you were actually participating in taking the tower as you say you would have gained Participation by killing guards(located outside of he walls, on the walls, surrounding the lord), damaging the wall/gate, destroying any siege etc. you would not have been close to being in fear of losing Participation when you respawned, just saying.

And even if you were starting to decay when you respond you don’t instantly lose all your participation and it takes a little while for you to even lose one tear of participation play tonight time you can do any small task to stop the participation decay

The inconsistencies are strong here.

All this thread is showing me are who the leechers are

Sly.9518:

Deihnyx.6318:

Sly.9518:

Every map has Objectives that can be used to maintain Participation along every main avenue of traversing the map, even repairing any damaged walls along the way helps maintain Participation, this is no t debatable it is a fact with over 10 ways of maintaining Participation easily. Zeroing is not necessary to keep up Participation.

And again another player wanting to get rewards for not playing WvW lol wanting rewards while logged out even……

Please stop assuming what players want or don’t want. Many of us had the decay timer appear even though we were participating. I had a timer right after respawning after trying to take a tower (after downing a wall, attacking lord, and fighting one player defending it).

This is affecting players who plays legit while afkers during down times werent affecting anyone. This is the real issue here. There is no need to make fun of everyone for that.

If you were actually participating in taking the tower as you say you would have gained Participation by killing guards(located outside of he walls, on the walls, surrounding the lord), damaging the wall/gate, destroying any siege etc. you would not have been close to being in fear of losing Participation when you respawned, just saying.

The inconsistencies are strong here.

What people are saying is that, in some cases, decay appears to be buggy now.

People keep forgetting you have to participate in order to get rewards lol.

McKenna,
I appreciate you coming on here and attempting to explain everything, but it really comes across as excuses for a horrible change. As a roamer, I contribute to my side by flipping the occasional camp (as needed), making sure we get bloodlust, keeping the mercs on our side, etcetera. So, let’s say I decide to flip the hyleks for my side. I run there and start killing. If my timer is under 1 minute, a kill resets it to a minute. If I have more than a minute, then killing a krait gives me about 10 seconds added to it. Basically, after I finish flipping the hyleks, I have a minute to go do something before going into degradation.
Pre-change, I could kill a krait and then go to the nearby tower with no worries of degradation, even if we met resistance at the tower. I would have at least 5 minutes before degradation would kick in. So, at least in some cases, you’ve reduced the time before degradation to less than 5% of what it was. That drastic of a change is ridiculous. It makes many of the WvW objectives completely pointless and reduces the expected play to either flipping camps or following the zerg.

This is a decent update for wvw imo.

I stopped playing last night after flipping a camp. It took a full 20 minutes before I lost participation in T3. That’s a 10 minute timer for taking or defending any objective plus 10 minutes of decay, which was very slow until I reached T3.

Killing guards is good when your leveling up participation and for getting credit for others taking that objective sometime after you leave (sticking around might get you killed if you are alone). If there are zergs active on the map, they will get you the participation bonus when they come by.

The only problem I have faced is being greatly out numbered all night, but not actually getting the out manned bonus until well after midnight. It’s hard to take camp or even a sentry when the opposition has small roaming groups every where seemingly camping every little objective a lone roamer might be able to take.

I’ve been playing WvW for a long time, I was there when Anet removed the orbs of power, when they got rid of the quaggan lake, my tag was originally bound on my warrior and only cost 100g, I was there when WvW ranks were character bound.
I have been playing pretty much the same way on the same server. When they got rid of upgrade costs play changed a little as you no longer needed to monitor supply levels for upgrades.
When reward tracks were introduced I had no trouble maintaining maximum participation without ever having to check, even when scouting even when in a squad before they fixed squad participation. When pips were introduced it made no difference to my participation.
Last night during 4ish hours of play I noticed my participation dropping at various times.

Better to let a few pip farmers get away with a few extra pips rather than screw over regular WvW players.

I was solo roaming, had t2 participating. Both southern camps were on 5 min cooldown so I waited like normal. When the camp was ready to be capped, I got ganked and ended up losing all my participation. I gave up roaming and just joined a zerg I another map. Good job Anet.

So – had a chance to do some more testing on my lunch break. I normally play in a guild group, so I don’t see the impact on smaller groups much.

tl;dr – Decay is way too fast now once it starts, participation builds up way too slowly.

Killed all the camp guards, 2 dollys, ran to hills to kill guards while waiting for RI, went back, and flipped a camp.

Flipped another camp.

Grabbed a sentry and two dollys on the way to nw camp from se spawn. Slightly into t4 participation at this point.

Stopped to play with a teef near the camp. Had a fun fight, but lost. Respawned.

Decided to hit home tower. Started building a cata. Ran to home camp for more supply. Came back, and got run over by a havoc team.

Respawned. Decay has now kicked in – and it’s moving quickly.

I was able to stop decay by killing a guard at south camp instead of rezzing an ally, catching it just before dropping below t3.

Would I prefer to be out roaming looking for fights?

Yes.

The unintended consequences, however, for solo or small group play aren’t good.

Yes, this was active play. Yes, I know my way around the maps, and this was on Alpine. I just wanted to see how participation and decay worked now. And, frankly, I’m disappointed.

Let’s keep the outnumbered change, but revert participation back to the way it was. It’s far too punishing for small groups and solo players.

PS – I’ve never had to worry about keeping participation up. Ever. Until this update. Whether playing solo, havoc, or full guild run. It’s just never been an issue.

Sly.9518:

Deihnyx.6318:

Sly.9518:

Every map has Objectives that can be used to maintain Participation along every main avenue of traversing the map, even repairing any damaged walls along the way helps maintain Participation, this is no t debatable it is a fact with over 10 ways of maintaining Participation easily. Zeroing is not necessary to keep up Participation.

And again another player wanting to get rewards for not playing WvW lol wanting rewards while logged out even……

Please stop assuming what players want or don’t want. Many of us had the decay timer appear even though we were participating. I had a timer right after respawning after trying to take a tower (after downing a wall, attacking lord, and fighting one player defending it).

This is affecting players who plays legit while afkers during down times werent affecting anyone. This is the real issue here. There is no need to make fun of everyone for that.

If you were actually participating in taking the tower as you say you would have gained Participation by killing guards(located outside of he walls, on the walls, surrounding the lord), damaging the wall/gate, destroying any siege etc. you would not have been close to being in fear of losing Participation when you respawned, just saying.

And even if you were starting to decay when you respond you don’t instantly lose all your participation and it takes a little while for you to even lose one tear of participation play tonight time you can do any small task to stop the participation decay

The inconsistencies are strong here.

All this thread is showing me are who the leechers are

I took a wall in the tower next to camp in Desert BL, build the cata on my own, destroyed whole on my own, went to Lord and at 25% got attacked by a ranger and die to him. > No timer reset.
I also didn’t say I lost a tier, just that there was a timer.

Now you can call me liar or leecher or whatever but the fact is you are simply assuming, and making up things I haven’t said.

What I’m telling you is that if it’s no longer possible to do something like that without having to stop half way to go kill random npc just to keep the timer up, something is broken.
But certainly there’s always a minority that is more than happy to just consider everyone is cheating/cheesing a system, works better than actually facing the issues.

deaus.1659:

McKenna,
I appreciate you coming on here and attempting to explain everything, but it really comes across as excuses for a horrible change. As a roamer, I contribute to my side by flipping the occasional camp (as needed), making sure we get bloodlust, keeping the mercs on our side, etcetera. So, let’s say I decide to flip the hyleks for my side. I run there and start killing. If my timer is under 1 minute, a kill resets it to a minute. If I have more than a minute, then killing a krait gives me about 10 seconds added to it. Basically, after I finish flipping the hyleks, I have a minute to go do something before going into degradation.
Pre-change, I could kill a krait and then go to the nearby tower with no worries of degradation, even if we met resistance at the tower. I would have at least 5 minutes before degradation would kick in. So, at least in some cases, you’ve reduced the time before degradation to less than 5% of what it was. That drastic of a change is ridiculous. It makes many of the WvW objectives completely pointless and reduces the expected play to either flipping camps or following the zerg.

This is what people are trying to relay. Apparently, though, SOME people in this thread want to accuse you, and roamers like you (and scouts), of not knowing how to play, or tell you to “git gud” or “learn to play.”

It is not always that the next kill or cap is within reach to avoid decay. And since WvW is fluid, you can’t always predict if you have to drop what you’re doing to try to run to a T3 objective, for instance, or even be forced to switch maps to save an objective (and lose pips for that tick). Or if roaming, change direction at the drop of hat to avoid a 10 v 1 to get from point A to point B and faceplant into further decay.

All the insults in this thread aren’t necessary, and pretty much baseless. All scenarios are conditional and depend on everyone’s own server, time of day, enemy locations, what is capped, what is not capped, etc. Too many scenarios to go into, and yet several people have posted numerous various scenarios to show quite a few things wrong with this new system, only to get trolled with “just go here and do this or that, it’s easy.”

Again. Situational. Not sure why this is so freaking hard to comprehend.

I just tried to escort yaks from the camps on both sides of our keep in ebg. First yak got me some participation. Second yak from other side was timed ok because I got a little more participation. Next yak I started losing participation as I was escorting it to the keep. Second yak I lost even more since it was a longer route and totally lost all participation before ever getting to the gate. This is unreasonable and it is now pointless to even try to escort yaks for any reason as you will lose what participation you have especially if the yak has to come from a long ways off.

Sarika.3756:

So – had a chance to do some more testing on my lunch break. I normally play in a guild group, so I don’t see the impact on smaller groups much.

tl;dr – Decay is way too fast now once it starts, participation builds up way too slowly.

Killed all the camp guards, 2 dollys, ran to hills to kill guards while waiting for RI, went back, and flipped a camp.

Flipped another camp.

Grabbed a sentry and two dollys on the way to nw camp from se spawn. Slightly into t4 participation at this point.

Stopped to play with a teef near the camp. Had a fun fight, but lost. Respawned.

Decided to hit home tower. Started building a cata. Ran to home camp for more supply. Came back, and got run over by a havoc team.

Respawned. Decay has now kicked in – and it’s moving quickly.

I was able to stop decay by killing a guard at south camp instead of rezzing an ally, catching it just before dropping below t3.

Would I prefer to be out roaming looking for fights?

Yes.

The unintended consequences, however, for solo or small group play aren’t good.

Yes, this was active play. Yes, I know my way around the maps, and this was on Alpine. I just wanted to see how participation and decay worked now. And, frankly, I’m disappointed.

Let’s keep the outnumbered change, but revert participation back to the way it was. It’s far too punishing for small groups and solo players.

PS – I’ve never had to worry about keeping participation up. Ever. Until this update. Whether playing solo, havoc, or full guild run. It’s just never been an issue.

When a game become a chore.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Cashing out has a lot of issues. For example, we would somehow need to make cashing out be exactly as good as the rewards you would get if you were still playing. If it does not give as good of rewards no one would do it and still afk, and if we make it too good then everyone would just constantly cash out. It is impossible to predict all the rewards someone would be expected to earn because we cannot predict if a map will become outnumbered or if your world moves placements. We also wouldn’t want people to constantly cash out so then we would need to accurately lock them out of WvW for a set period of time. The period of time would probably need to be longer than just the amount of time it would take to decay because otherwise it could still be more ideal to play a little, cash out go back, repeat. We have considered it, we just don’t believe it is a viable option.

I believe people would still cash out even if the rewards weren’t as good. If players worked to get T6 participation but have to exit out of the game or WvW, it would be better if they cashed out and left the map rather than afk and clog the map.

Rewards should be less if they are granted instantaneously and out of convenience. Cash out rewards should assume that the player’s world is in 3rd place and that they are not outnumbered. No point in trying to be as accurate as possible since cashing out is an alternative for convenience.

Cashing out should also impose a time-out phase, where they are reset to 0 participation and cannot gain participation for a set time dependent on how much participation they cashed out. And it’s perfectly fine if time-out phase was longer than the time to decay. Personally, I play WvW for an hour or so and log out for a few hours. That’s just how much time I can afford and I’m sure it’s that way for many others.

If players were out in WvW and suddenly want to go to PvE/PvP, they could cash out and immediately go to PvE/PvP and entertain themselves during time-out phase. No cash-out system only encourages people to either afk and get rewards or quit and get no rewards. Why not give options and compromises?

I dislike the change to the participation decay timer. It adds even more distance between play that will help your server win a match-up versus what will earn you personal rewards. It makes actions that benefit the server as a whole a negative cost to the player because of the decay.
Such as:
-refreshing siege in keeps
-checking contested high value objectives for enemies
-re-building cannons, mortars or oils
-trailing enemy blobs to scout their travel
-making sure dolyaks reach their objectives for needed supply/upgrades
These things all help the server win but gain little for the individual.

There are many valid play styles in wvw. I would prefer if wvw maintains this variety and does not turn into another EOTM where 3 blob groups all continuously circle the map counter-clock wise in an eternal k-train.

There should be no “cashing out” when leaving WvW. It is bad enough that your character dies if you DC or there is a server crash while in combat in WvW because the system can’t tell the difference between a crash, DC and an Alt-f4 but such events shouldn’t force an involuntary “cash out” as well.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Aerinndis.2730:

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.

Cashing out has a lot of issues. For example, we would somehow need to make cashing out be exactly as good as the rewards you would get if you were still playing. If it does not give as good of rewards no one would do it and still afk, and if we make it too good then everyone would just constantly cash out. It is impossible to predict all the rewards someone would be expected to earn because we cannot predict if a map will become outnumbered or if your world moves placements. We also wouldn’t want people to constantly cash out so then we would need to accurately lock them out of WvW for a set period of time. The period of time would probably need to be longer than just the amount of time it would take to decay because otherwise it could still be more ideal to play a little, cash out go back, repeat. We have considered it, we just don’t believe it is a viable option.

Have it cash out at the current rate of the map you’re currently on. So if you’re on an outnumbered map, jackpot. But you’d only need to be there for a couple seconds, rather than standing there for 15 minutes. To prevent abuse, put a cooldown on participation (not on WvW itself). If you had 10 minutes left of participation when you cashed out, then you go for 10 minutes without gaining any participation the next time you hop into WvW. Most people tend to take some time when they first log into a map to get themselves situated, so that wouldn’t really punish legit players. It would just prevent cashing out then hopping right back in to abuse the system.

Megastorm.6219:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

I see.

Well, maybe they could tweak the numbers a bit, but still, it isn’t that hard to maintain decay by playing normally.

the only problem I can see is scouting. Some players are pretty passive in the eye of the game, but still valuable. Real scouts are gold. The wannabes that just want the scout excuse to leech, not so much. The problem is being able to figure out who is worthy of reward and who should get booted out with prejudice.

What is wrong with you? Do you think that people who feel like you are in charge of keeping noobs out of your game format or something? Get over yourself before you have nobody to play WvW with but a few ignorant, arrogant tools who feel their rule is threatened or whatever the root of your issues are. kitten …I bet you feel great in the zerg, all safe and protected to lash out at whoever, whenever you feel.

What is wrong with me indeed?

Just by your answer, I can tell you didn’t read much of what I wrote. Otherwise, how can you fancy me feeling safe in the middle of the zerg, when I explicitly said I also solo roam…

I already agreed there might be a problem with legitimate scouts and that some numbers could be tweaked to better reflect play styles, but unless you think staying at spawn doing nothing is acceptable, I don’t see a problem with what I said.

If you expect to be rewarded, or tolerated for that matter, for doing nothing, the problem isn’t me, but you.

I run along new players all the time and as long as they are willing to play/contribute I’m more than willing to help them in any way I can. I’m a pretty nice and patient guy.

You can fail at what you do as much as you need to, but what I can’t tolerate are people who won’t even try or care while expecting all the results.

If that makes me a snob/elitist, than so be it.

So much drama here over nothing. So after playing for a few days I see things actually vastly overall better then they were before.

Gap between playing full offensive reaper and ventari rev in groups is actually really small, I think if I put a bit of effort into it I could have actually surpassed the necro because DD tags >>> Condi tags, I just haven’t bothered.

Gap between large scale and small (5-10 ish) group running on BLs (including desert) is actually also a lot smaller. It is still there but it is a fraction of hat it used to be before all these changes.

The only issue I see is scouts. But I think that can be at least somewhat mitigated via squad participation mechanics, though not entirely. It is unfortunate, but the AFK farmers have forced the situation with their consistently growing numbers.

And AFKers will of course come here and troll and spew BS cause they can’t AFK farm as good anymore. Reminds me a lot of those “broken up friends and family” complaining about not being able to get on BG. Same principle applies.

Out of all these complaint posts in this thread, I’m willing to bet there are maybe 1 or 2 legit scouts, rest of you just troll cause no more AFK farming, which is a good thing.

Sly.9518:

And again another player wanting to get rewards for not playing WvW lol wanting rewards while logged out even……

If it is unintended that rewards can still be earned from participation “ticking down”, then the change was still the wrong fix as it again changes something rather unrelated to that (the mechanic is still the exact same, you let participation tick down for 2 more ticks while you AFK at spawn).

If that was supposed to be fixed, then participation need merely be changed so that it resets to 0 each “tick”, and has to be re-earned for it. Done.

My suggestion was based on keeping the current system and removing the utterly aggressive participation decay by removing the clunky way the decaying participation rewards in the first place. If the rewards were given without encouraging players to idle at the spawn, they’d clear the map (because frankly, why wouldn’t they, we’re all lazy animals by design). Problem solved. Yet they still get the rewards already earned, without having to waste map spots.

So basically, and to summarize:

• Either reward the remaining rewards due to participation independent of whether one is in WvW or even logged in, removing the incentive to idle at spawn.
• Or remove the ability to have “ticking down participation” to begin with by making people earn each tick, comparable to the new outnumbered pip bonus.

Either fixes the underlying issue, without having to resolve to overly aggressive decay timers for multiple WvW tasks.

I’m sorry if the misunderstanding was based on poor wording though – English isn’t my mother tongue.

Tongku.5326:

Out of all these complaint posts in this thread, I’m willing to bet there are maybe 1 or 2 legit scouts, rest of you just troll cause no more AFK farming, which is a good thing.

I’m willing to bet exactly the opposite, there might be one of two leechers, and rest are legit players.
There’s even some people here who were in favor of the current pip system and aren’t ok with this new decay.

However there’s indeed quite a few trolls who come with no argumentation and pretend everyone is trying to leech (not pointing at you).

Meanwhile this pointless arguing serves as a perfect smokescreen to hide the fact that there hasn’t been anything new with the mode itself. Outnumbered was the real problem and it was fixed, now let’s move on to actually adding features, wvw world events, weekend specials, that kind of things that actually matters.

Deihnyx.6318:

Tongku.5326:

Out of all these complaint posts in this thread, I’m willing to bet there are maybe 1 or 2 legit scouts, rest of you just troll cause no more AFK farming, which is a good thing.

I’m willing to bet exactly the opposite, there might be one of two leechers, and rest are legit players.
There’s even some people here who were in favor of the current pip system and aren’t ok with this new decay.

It’s weird to be ok with the pip system?
Im a real roamer/scout, although I might run with the zerg here and there.
And there was no difference for me the past 2 days to before.
Just that when the only thing I did so far was repairing walls the decay timer was really short – haven’t had a look, but that might be what gives the least time, and probably rightfully so.

Jana.6831:

It’s weird to be ok with the pip system?

No it’s not weird. My comment was in reference of another post about whether the current pip system is fair or not. Same wildcard is used here and there: People are lazy and want to do nothing…. while that’s simply not true and not the issue at all.

The difference is simply that if you go after something and don’t get the kill, you have much higher chances to lose participation now, even though you were actively participating. Try to go flip a camp (including killing its vets/yaks) only to lose it last minute to a zerg passing by. Getting decay happens MUCH faster now, even though you were STILL doing something.
Participating != Succeeding

Deihnyx.6318:

Jana.6831:

It’s weird to be ok with the pip system?

No it’s not weird. My comment was in reference of another post about whether the current pip system is fair or not. Same wildcard is used here and there: People are lazy and want to do nothing…. while that’s simply not true and not the issue at all.

The difference is simply that if you go after something and don’t get the kill, you have much higher chances to lose participation now, even though you were actively participating. Try to go flip a camp (including killing its vets/yaks) only to lose it last minute to a zerg passing by. Getting decay happens MUCH faster now, even though you were STILL doing something.
Participating != Succeeding

I agree with you that, ideally, the decay should be about you trying something regardless of success.

I guess it is hard for the developers to identify legitimate attempts, hence why they went for successful actions.

Deihnyx.6318:

The difference is simply that if you go after something and don’t get the kill, you have much higher chances to lose participation now, even though you were actively participating. Try to go flip a camp (including killing its vets/yaks) only to lose it last minute to a zerg passing by. Getting decay happens MUCH faster now, even though you were STILL doing something.
Participating != Succeeding

Not convinced actually, because it didn’t hit me – if it really were set way too low it would hit me first.
Maybe tell them what you want to have adjusted.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

I agree with you that, ideally, the decay should be about you trying something regardless of success.

I guess it is hard for the developers to identify legitimate attempts, hence why they went for successful actions.

You get the kills for the npcs – so the system acknowledges that you tried.

Jana.6831:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

I agree with you that, ideally, the decay should be about you trying something regardless of success.

I guess it is hard for the developers to identify legitimate attempts, hence why they went for successful actions.

You get the kills for the npcs – so the system acknowledges that you tried.

If the npc is dead, it is more than an attempt. You have successfully killed the NPC.

That being said, it is rarely a problem to kill a NPC. However, the same can’t be said of players who will come to defend an objective. They will get rewarded for defending (and it is great), but you might not if you don’t kill anyone defending or flip anything despite legitimately trying.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

If the npc is dead, it is more than an attempt. You have successfully killed the NPC.

That being said, it is rarely a problem to kill a NPC. However, the same can’t be said of players who will come to defend an objective. They will get rewarded for defending (and it is great), but you might not if you don’t kill anyone defending or flip anything despite legitimately trying.

Didn’t you only get participation for a successful event before? Then this system is even fairer.
ETA: And actually: If you can’t even kill an npc you’re doing something really wrong and if it were for only attempting to kill something those who afk would have it even easier and this change was to make it harder for them.

Jana.6831:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

If the npc is dead, it is more than an attempt. You have successfully killed the NPC.

That being said, it is rarely a problem to kill a NPC. However, the same can’t be said of players who will come to defend an objective. They will get rewarded for defending (and it is great), but you might not if you don’t kill anyone defending or flip anything despite legitimately trying.

Didn’t you only get participation for a successful event before? Then this system is even fairer.
ETA: And actually: If you can’t even kill an npc you’re doing something really wrong and if it were for only attempting to kill something those who afk would have it even easier and this change was to make it harder for them.

I killed the couple npcs there, got the camp almost cap and then a player showed up near the end of capping, the fight lasted a while and I eventually lost. By the time I respawned + came back to anything, timer was there. Oh sure I could simply let myself get killed fast and get done with it. How great?

The other case was me building a catapult, running off to camp to get supplies because I was literally alone in this map for a while, finishing building it, attacking/destroying wall, and then going to lord, this caused timer too. So what was I supposed to run to another map quickly to make sure i flip something before coming back?

It’s just putting unnecessary pressure. With how massive the time requirement is for this mode, there is no cheesing your time anyway.
If the problem is people waiting to get in, they could simply put a more aggressive decay ONLY when the map is busy (= queueing) and leave it be during off hours. In the grand scheme of things someone afking at camp during off hours isn’t really hurting anything.

Again, at some point stop nerfing everything (eotm, wxp rank potions, now this) and start improving the game itself…

Jana.6831:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

If the npc is dead, it is more than an attempt. You have successfully killed the NPC.

That being said, it is rarely a problem to kill a NPC. However, the same can’t be said of players who will come to defend an objective. They will get rewarded for defending (and it is great), but you might not if you don’t kill anyone defending or flip anything despite legitimately trying.

Didn’t you only get participation for a successful event before? Then this system is even fairer.
ETA: And actually: If you can’t even kill an npc you’re doing something really wrong and if it were for only attempting to kill something those who afk would have it even easier and this change was to make it harder for them.

I’m not talking about myself. I have no problem flipping camps and towers all by myself thank you.

I’m simply pointing possible flaws into the current system that focus on success rather than participation.

I personally never had any problem with the decay myself as I said earlier in this same thread. I’m merely trying to look on all sides of the topic.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

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

I think this is pretty fair actually, minus the veteran creatures as they were useless anyway and no one ever got what purpose they have. 5 mins is a bit much in comparison what other stuff gives.
But yes, I can understand that the scenario Deihnyx was talking about can cause problems. But I’m not so sure it didn’t before.

Offair.2563:

msalakka.4653:

All these pve tears are hilarious.

Throw in some rewards with pips and participation and suddenly whole wvw revolves around those 2! Now i feel stupid playing this game mode for years for the messy battles….

It’s kind of like living in Winnipeg. If the black flies don’t eat you alive, or the mosquitos, you have to deal with the 40C weather. Likewise in winter if you manage to turn your car over in -40C weather it’s a victory. Winnipeg natives are fiercely proud of their city, mostly for the commonalities of hardships they endure to live there, lol.

I’d rather go back to zero rewards. Was historically afraid of what rewards would do to WvW. But here we are. And I can see how some carrots can at least open eyes to possibilities. But not if over the longterm the reward is why you keep playing.

hahahahahahaha. lovely. all the people who only care about rewards getting the stinkeye, i love it.

koffein.9374:

ok, explain me this then: " Siege Damage Wall/Gate/Player – 1 minute"

If you are the only one defending a tower vs a blob and you built a arrow cart. The chances of you killing a enemy is slim to none. If you dont kill any one then you dont get object defense completed. So Anet made it so when you are on a arrow cart just doing dmg to a player, you wont lose participation as fast but you are slowing down the enemy’s so ally’s can come defend and help you kill a enemy there for giving you participation.

Garbage update for new players or players trying to love WvW

those new timers are a bad idea over big time

I played this system last night for several hours on a mostly dead map because of the login issues, and this is what I found.

• It is not that hard to get and maintain participation on a dead map, but if you encounter even small groups of enemies that kill you before you can do much, especially when you have to run a long way to find an objective you don’t own, you’ll decay in spite of being actively playing. If this system is designed to encourage participation rather than winning, it is missing the mark.

• The system encourages people to make dumb decisions, like killing an enemy NPC rather than focusing on objectives.

• Any prolonged siege is going to be hard on the members of the zerg. There will be pressure to disobey commanders in order to keep participation up.

• The timer for escorting yaks should at least equal the time it takes to escort the slowest yak on the longest path.

• Most importantly, if this was designed to reduce people afk-ing at spawn to run down their decay timer, it doesn’t work. When I got done playing at T6, I still had a long time to sit around and wait before that participation meter decayed enough for me to stop getting rewards. Maybe it was less time than before by one tick, I don’t know, but it hardly makes the issue go away.

WRT the whole issue of the #GAMEPLAYPURITY being threatened by people wanting rewards…first, get over yourselves. Second, what I honestly don’t get is why the devs were (and in some ways, continue to be) so reluctant to reward this game mode in the first place. I mean, before reward tracks and pips and all of it—if they’d just given good rewards from events and killing lords and give more rare gear and stuff from just, yanno, doing the gameplay like normal, at least to match boss trains in PvE when those rewards were first added, then we wouldn’t be in this situation.

That they conceived of a gameplay mode that was supposed to be “endgame” in nature, more or less, but then continuously drag their feet about rewarding it on even a casual level…well, it just boggles my mind.

Vavume.8065:

So many bads in this thread, the changes are barely noticeable to me solo roaming, I have no issue at all keeping my participation, if you are having trouble its a l2p issue, fact.

I Concur, I’ve seen so much salt and my entire time roaming I’ve been at t6 without issue.

Kron.6938:

Here is the thing, the new decay timer waits about a minute till aggressive decay. Each kill tacks on 30 seconds to the timer for a total of 1 minute. Are you kitten kidding me, you basically took the module for the kill streak booster and added it to the timer?!?

You just basically hurt WvW right there for the reward track system and pip system. There are commanders who wait for those to gather up at a gate before moving out and sometimes it takes them several minutes to gather. Then you will have roamers who are trying to kill stuff on large maps.

Adjust the timers to something more reasonable, the current decay rate is way too fast.

Without real testing, without input from players, without those who create playing the game, is there any doubt left that WvW is being given such little care that single players can’t play any longer – at all?

“Play your way”

I can’t.

WvW was supposed to be the big end game for GW2 but now WvW has become a ‘hey is it outnumbered there’ and ‘wait here for the decay timer’ and ’it’s all about the pips, community be darned’.

Give us our game back, please!

Bridget Morrigan.1752:

I played this system last night for several hours on a mostly dead map because of the login issues, and this is what I found.

• It is not that hard to get and maintain participation on a dead map, but if you encounter even small groups of enemies that kill you before you can do much, especially when you have to run a long way to find an objective you don’t own, you’ll decay in spite of being actively playing. If this system is designed to encourage participation rather than winning, it is missing the mark.

• The system encourages people to make dumb decisions, like killing an enemy NPC rather than focusing on objectives.

• Any prolonged siege is going to be hard on the members of the zerg. There will be pressure to disobey commanders in order to keep participation up.

• The timer for escorting yaks should at least equal the time it takes to escort the slowest yak on the longest path.

• Most importantly, if this was designed to reduce people afk-ing at spawn to run down their decay timer, it doesn’t work. When I got done playing at T6, I still had a long time to sit around and wait before that participation meter decayed enough for me to stop getting rewards. Maybe it was less time than before by one tick, I don’t know, but it hardly makes the issue go away.

WRT the whole issue of the #GAMEPLAYPURITY being threatened by people wanting rewards…first, get over yourselves. Second, what I honestly don’t get is why the devs were (and in some ways, continue to be) so reluctant to reward this game mode in the first place. I mean, before reward tracks and pips and all of it—if they’d just given good rewards from events and killing lords and give more rare gear and stuff from just, yanno, doing the gameplay like normal, at least to match boss trains in PvE when those rewards were first added, then we wouldn’t be in this situation.

That they conceived of a gameplay mode that was supposed to be “endgame” in nature, more or less, but then continuously drag their feet about rewarding it on even a casual level…well, it just boggles my mind.

The big question for Anet is, why is anyone losing participation for defending or healing or any other mechanic that ’doesn’t get participation’ presently?

They didn’t think this through very well.

Bridget Morrigan.1752:

I played this system last night for several hours on a mostly dead map because of the login issues, and this is what I found.

• It is not that hard to get and maintain participation on a dead map, but if you encounter even small groups of enemies that kill you before you can do much, especially when you have to run a long way to find an objective you don’t own, you’ll decay in spite of being actively playing. If this system is designed to encourage participation rather than winning, it is missing the mark.

• The system encourages people to make dumb decisions, like killing an enemy NPC rather than focusing on objectives.

• Any prolonged siege is going to be hard on the members of the zerg. There will be pressure to disobey commanders in order to keep participation up.

• The timer for escorting yaks should at least equal the time it takes to escort the slowest yak on the longest path.

• Most importantly, if this was designed to reduce people afk-ing at spawn to run down their decay timer, it doesn’t work. When I got done playing at T6, I still had a long time to sit around and wait before that participation meter decayed enough for me to stop getting rewards. Maybe it was less time than before by one tick, I don’t know, but it hardly makes the issue go away.

WRT the whole issue of the #GAMEPLAYPURITY being threatened by people wanting rewards…first, get over yourselves. Second, what I honestly don’t get is why the devs were (and in some ways, continue to be) so reluctant to reward this game mode in the first place. I mean, before reward tracks and pips and all of it—if they’d just given good rewards from events and killing lords and give more rare gear and stuff from just, yanno, doing the gameplay like normal, at least to match boss trains in PvE when those rewards were first added, then we wouldn’t be in this situation.

That they conceived of a gameplay mode that was supposed to be “endgame” in nature, more or less, but then continuously drag their feet about rewarding it on even a casual level…well, it just boggles my mind.

I second this completely. Its not impossible to keep participation up, but it side tracks you from having fun and/or from doing what you actually want/need to do on the map.

And absolutely true on the fact that once a player gets T6 and wants to head out, he will still most likely AFK until his participation drops to “unpipable” levels.

What Anet has created is a participation problem instead of an AFK solution.

Well I tried the new system out. Took over 30 minutes of my time to reach tier 5. Didn’t notice any decay as I didn’t do any of my usual scouting, I just followed the tag.

System works just fine if you already have your tier up, you can afford to stand around whilst the catas do their work (someone has killed all the guards, etc before you get to touch them), and mindlessly follow the com and at least manage to bag a kill- even if it means half your team died as you were trying to get kills rather than doing your healing job.

If you are t1 or t2, then attacking a defended tower or keep might result in decay, and will almost certainly result in decay if your squad gets wiped.

Best solution is to blindly follow the com (if there is one) and play only during prime time, or hope that the usual gank squads aren’t playing outside of those times and you don’t have too many deaths, and enemy hasn’t just flipped all the camps so they are on timers 4 minutes + when you enter the map or respawn, or you don’t have too far to run to flip something (which is a real problem if you’re playing against a dead outside of prime server, less things to flip).

Play like it’s EOTM and you’ll be fine with the new system. Playing outside prime and you’ll struggle to even find something to flip within the time limits, especially if the gank thief squads are around, at which point log off and play something else.

I think that’s what they wanted to achieve with the changes: zerg, play only in prime, or play something else.

Can’t wait for when they change wvw to be 4 hours in prime only, or some other equally stupid change without consultation.

It heavily taxes the game mode. I thought you finally gave WvW some love and then you pull this crap.
Sorry I cant follow your Zerg, I have to go tag something, don’t care what it is or where it is, I’m losing my participation.
Change the AFK timer so if your not constantly playing you get logged out. Don’t punish 98% of the playerbase to combat 2% that isn’t playing as intended.

Did more roaming/scouting tonight—mostly scouting. I did not end up flipping a single camp, which sort of sucks when it comes to my dailies. I still didn’t have any participation problems.

My activity was mainly defense events, flipping sentries and killing enemy roamers/zerglings. Of course, there could still be an issue with participation, but I have yet to find it.

One other thing—the rate of decay wasn’t changed. People saying that the bar drops really fast must not know what the speed was like before?

Monk Tank.5897:

It heavily taxes the game mode. I thought you finally gave WvW some love and then you pull this crap.
Sorry I cant follow your Zerg, I have to go tag something, don’t care what it is or where it is, I’m losing my participation.
Change the AFK timer so if your not constantly playing you get logged out. Don’t punish 98% of the playerbase to combat 2% that isn’t playing as intended.

what is amusing is it was the dedicated wvwers that were asking for this change. They complained about not being able to get into full maps due to afk pip farmers. When I saw the problem a few weeks ago due to the new skirmish system, I said to a few other friends that “They won’t be able to fix this problem, unless they change how pips are awarded.” Well here is there solution, and it looks like I was right.

Jumpin Lumpix.6108:

Monk Tank.5897:

It heavily taxes the game mode. I thought you finally gave WvW some love and then you pull this crap.
Sorry I cant follow your Zerg, I have to go tag something, don’t care what it is or where it is, I’m losing my participation.
Change the AFK timer so if your not constantly playing you get logged out. Don’t punish 98% of the playerbase to combat 2% that isn’t playing as intended.

what is amusing is it was the dedicated wvwers that were asking for this change. They complained about not being able to get into full maps due to afk pip farmers. When I saw the problem a few weeks ago due to the new skirmish system, I said to a few other friends that “They won’t be able to fix this problem, unless they change how pips are awarded.” Well here is there solution, and it looks like I was right.

Guess what it’s a great change, all the afkers are punished active players easily maintain the max participation which only takes 10 to 20 minutes of activity to do.

All I am seeing is leechers complaining, since it’s not hard to maintain Participation in between objectives.

I tried out the new system tonight. I have to say I didn’t do a very good job at flipping camps, got killed several times, most of my encounters with other players was 1v2 or more. I had to wait 2-4 minutes for most camps before RI was up. I think I only killed two yaks the entire time I played and capped maybe 5 sentries, no towers or keep captures and no ruins.

There was even a time when I went with a group and waited around as they opened up a T3 keep with four catas. We all got wiped at inner.

There was only one time where in the few hours I was playing that I noticed I had any decay. I got to t3 participation in 10-20 minutes and it continually went up the whole time. I left with t6 participation.

I can only conclude that from my experience tonight that if you are having problems with decay then you are either:

1. Playing on the wrong map (not many objectives to flip)
2. Choosing to play in a manner that doesn’t give participation.

Swamurabi.7890:

I tried out the new system tonight. I have to say I didn’t do a very good job at flipping camps, got killed several times, most of my encounters with other players was 1v2 or more. I had to wait 2-4 minutes for most camps before RI was up. I think I only killed two yaks the entire time I played and capped maybe 5 sentries, no towers or keep captures and no ruins.

There was even a time when I went with a group and waited around as they opened up a T3 keep with four catas. We all got wiped at inner.

There was only one time where in the few hours I was playing that I noticed I had any decay. I got to t3 participation in 10-20 minutes and it continually went up the whole time. I left with t6 participation.

I can only conclude that from my experience tonight that if you are having problems with decay then you are either:

1. Playing on the wrong map (not many objectives to flip)
2. Choosing to play in a manner that doesn’t give participation.

1. Yeah that happens at off hours, with camps and other objectives sometimes being far from respawn, you can definitely see timer if you get killed once on your way there and have to go back. Great if it didn’t happen to you, but given previous answers, it definitely happens to legit players, no matter how many times the anti-leecher bots will say.

2. Biggest issue. A patch made to prevent cheating/cheesing should not impact legit players, no matter their play style.

The most important question is: Does it actually fix anything or is just yet one other annoyance? If a patch is hurting more legit players than it hurts bad players, it’s a bad patch, plain and simple. Nobody likes having to watch the anti-pirate video before watching a movie