Guild Wars 2

Fror.2163:

A simple and elegant reward would be giving +10-20% MF and/or gold for a whole week to each person having the winning server as home, no matter where they are (on the server, in wvw, guesting, etc.)

Wouldn’t really make much sense though. Especially since people in WvW don’t really benefit that much from it, while people that run and farm dungeons would benefit the most, even if they have never even entered WvW.

thiagoperne.7340:

Chris.3290:

They are going to hide the “outmanned buff” finally some good news from Mr. Carver.

How can you possible say that. Devon has been giving us good news since his arrival. And this is one more for the list, you could give him some more credit.

+1

Devon has shown enthusiasm and innovation and a keenness to engage with us. And when innovation causes problems he has been swift to acknowledge and fix (arrow cart buff).

The only thing you could acuse him of is being too quick to test out new ideas on the live population. But I’d take the current constant flux any day over a more conservative stagnant approach. The fact that others wouldn’t – that they would prefer a beta test for every small change to the game – and the fact for every change there are people arguing from all sides (except AC range!) just goes to show how hard the job is and why it is a cheap shot to slag of the devs because they don’t do what is so “obvious” to you.

lordkrall.7241:

Fror.2163:

A simple and elegant reward would be giving +10-20% MF and/or gold for a whole week to each person having the winning server as home, no matter where they are (on the server, in wvw, guesting, etc.)

Wouldn’t really make much sense though. Especially since people in WvW don’t really benefit that much from it, while people that run and farm dungeons would benefit the most, even if they have never even entered WvW.

Make that on kills only and wvw players will get as much as pve players.

Fror.2163:

Make that on kills only and wvw players will get as much as pve players.

MF already is on kill only.
And no WvW players won’t get close to as much as a PvE player.

DevonCarver.5370:

Deniara Devious.3948:

Having the outmanned “buff” visible to the enemy teams causes the other 2 servers gang together against the weakest one.

This will no longer be the case in the next build. We’ve changed outmanned so that only friendlies can see it.

That’s funny. Removing the Outmanned Buff from the enemy will not stop 2vs1. It’s easy to see which server is weakest/strongest simply by looking at the map, and by the weekly point accumulation. As well, rival guilds on different competing servers will continue to push 2vs1 situations as it benefits them.
PLUS, when a BIG FISH server can’t be beaten easily by 1 server alone, it will promote the tendency to 2vs1 as well.

Having the Outmanned Buff removed from enemy visibility won’t really result in what you’re saying it will result in.

Please, Please, Devon don’t incentivise stacking servers more until there are reasons not to “stack to win” available.

DevonCarver.5370:

We would like to have a system that rewards servers at the end of a matchup based on their performance and are working out all we’ll need to do to make that happen.

This sounds good, with emphasis on performance.

Ideally it will give extra rewards for winning while still rewarding everyone for participating.

This is absolutely horrible! Should we all just transfer to whatever server is #1. Do you not realize that this is what got WvW in such a kittenty spot? One server will always win their match up. Always.

All that being said, it’s hard to know what form the final version will take. Hopefully we’ll have something to get everyone excited to fight for victory.

Again. You can’t have a random system and then expect people to fight for victory. I don’t know how I could stress this enough, so I really hope you realize this yourself.

You need a system where servers who traditionally perform poorly are incentivized to perform better, and then have them be rewarded for it. What you are proposing right now would suck the last little bit of life left in servers such as ET / FC / Vabbi / FoW.

More rewards for winning?

I’d better take takng french lessons and planning my move to Viz

Yamato Shinobi.4378:

That’s funny. Removing the Outmanned Buff from the enemy will not stop 2vs1. It’s easy to see which server is weakest/strongest simply by looking at the map, and by the weekly point accumulation. As well, rival guilds on different competing servers will continue to push 2vs1 situations as it benefits them.
PLUS, when a BIG FISH server can’t be beaten easily by 1 server alone, it will promote the tendency to 2vs1 as well.

Having the Outmanned Buff removed from enemy visibility won’t really result in what you’re saying it will result in.

I really don’t see 2 weaker servers ganging up together to take down the strongest one. In fact it has always been the case that 2 stronger servers are like bullies on school yard, going together against the weakest one. This bully mentality also exists in games. Very few people are truly brave. Very few people are willing to defend or ally the weaker one.

I agree that making outmanned no longer visible to enemy won’t stop double teaming the weaker side. But I hope it would make it at least a little less frequent as having the same situation over and over again is tiring. As a Desolation player I have been experiencing double teaming from both competing enemy servers this year, every single week. Anything which can make it less common is a good thing. Even small things count.

More server stacking yay

How about reducing the reward based on the server population?
Large pop server grants less of a reward on a win
Low pop server grants more of a reward on a win

This would counteract migrating to a large pop server for a higher win chance.

“more” and “less” doesn’t necessarily mean monetary value. Could mean how long the buff lasts, for example. Say a low pop server gets a 1 week buff, a med pop gets a 4 day buff, and high pop server gets a 2 day buff.

Wow people seriously just chill, it’s still just an idea and I’m sure that they’re figuring out a way to provide this reward without making everyone feel that they must go to the #1 server (I don’t think they would like that)…

moronwmachinegun.3815:

How about reducing the reward based on the server population?
Large pop server grants less of a reward on a win
Low pop server grants more of a reward on a win

This would counteract migrating to a large pop server for a higher win chance.

Server population != WvWvW population

Arenanet needs to measure true WvWvW activity and tally the players from each server from there. Using server population numbers would be really bad idea.

I still disagree with your logic though. Winning in WvWvW is based on coverage. The server with superior coverage wins. If you have little players you are not gonna win that week against superior numbers. Thus people would flock to the already populous and strong WvWvW servers.

If you want to balance things give free transfers to those servers who haven’t won any match up in WvWvW for a long period of time, let’s say 5 months. And the more often that server has won, the higher the transfer fee.

I think every server should at least sometimes get reasonable chances for a win. Even if it occurs very rarely, it is needed for a healthy player base and confidence. Now several EU servers have always been on the losing side for more than 5 months in a row. Anybody should understand how bad that is for player morale and how many players will leave that server because of it. I don’t remember the weekly results for everybody, but I think Vabbi, Fissure of Woe and Desolation are on that list. Not a single win in 2013.

The rewards should be based on points scored and place finished for a serve. The reward would be give to people active in wvw with a + bonus based on the servers wvw activity. If a server has very low wvw activity the bonus would be very high. If a server had high wvw activity they might not get any bonus. This would reward server reward server with more skill.

If the reward was good enough and people were givin one or maybe 2 free transfers it would also balance the servers out a lot better

DevonCarver.5370:

We would like to have a system that rewards servers at the end of a matchup based on their performance and are working out all we’ll need to do to make that happen. Ideally it will give extra rewards for winning while still rewarding everyone for participating. All that being said, it’s hard to know what form the final version will take. Hopefully we’ll have something to get everyone excited to fight for victory.

Have you or are you considering laurels as a reward for the winning server?

I think +1 laurel for everyone on a winning server would be a incentive, without damaging the economy at all. Those are time gated rewards so a lot of players would like additional laurels just to kit there alts out…

Meglobob.8620:

Have you or are you considering laurels as a reward for the winning server?

I think +1 laurel for everyone on a winning server would be a incentive, without damaging the economy at all. Those are time gated rewards so a lot of players would like additional laurels just to kit there alts out…

The issue with that is that Laurels are primarily a PvE currency, which would mean people that wouldn’t even bother with doing WvW would get more useful rewards and those that actually won the match.

DevonCarver.5370:

We would like to have a system that rewards servers at the end of a matchup based on their performance and are working out all we’ll need to do to make that happen. Ideally it will give extra rewards for winning while still rewarding everyone for participating. All that being said, it’s hard to know what form the final version will take. Hopefully we’ll have something to get everyone excited to fight for victory.

Translation: The zergier your server..the more we will reward you.

The current system overwhelmingly favors numbers. Downed state..AOE limit..Terrible match ups..

The only reason I see zerging being rewarded is to force players to pay for transfers before inevitably having to merge servers down the line anyway and handing out ‘free’ transfers then in a way.

What makes you think you can produce a fair reward system that favors skill over numbers if a simple orb hack can’t be fixed for months..

I find a hard time believing zerging is going to improve based on what we are seeing.

lordkrall.7241:

Meglobob.8620:

Have you or are you considering laurels as a reward for the winning server?

I think +1 laurel for everyone on a winning server would be a incentive, without damaging the economy at all. Those are time gated rewards so a lot of players would like additional laurels just to kit there alts out…

The issue with that is that Laurels are primarily a PvE currency, which would mean people that wouldn’t even bother with doing WvW would get more useful rewards and those that actually won the match.

Laurels have the same value regardless now. As I said in my original post, chances are they’ll introduce ascended armor and weapons soon so why not attach those to the vendors too? This way PvE players can get them through dungeons or laurels. PvP players can get them through Laurels only, but they’ll get Laurels at a higher rate (I proposed a weekly reward so anyone who gains a PvP rank and is above the rank of 10 during the week would count toward the reward. Winning server would get 10 laurels each player who got the rank and is above 10. 2nd would get 6, 3rd would get 4.)

lordkrall.7241:

Meglobob.8620:

Have you or are you considering laurels as a reward for the winning server?

I think +1 laurel for everyone on a winning server would be a incentive, without damaging the economy at all. Those are time gated rewards so a lot of players would like additional laurels just to kit there alts out…

The issue with that is that Laurels are primarily a PvE currency, which would mean people that wouldn’t even bother with doing WvW would get more useful rewards and those that actually won the match.

Nah…laurels are not a PvE currency…you can do ALL PvE content in GW2 in just green/masterwork gear…while having a bit of a snooze and not really concentrating…

Laurels are used to get ascended gear which gives you another slight edge over the opposition in WvW…really its only WvW ie…other players that challenge you at all after a certain point in GW2…

DevonCarver.5370:

We would like to have a system that rewards servers at the end of a matchup based on their performance and are working out all we’ll need to do to make that happen. Ideally it will give extra rewards for winning while still rewarding everyone for participating. All that being said, it’s hard to know what form the final version will take. Hopefully we’ll have something to get everyone excited to fight for victory.

Please do.

Right now, WvW is largely pointless. Sure, there are some buffs that servers get from WvW, but they don’t really matter. WvW has tons of potential, but as it stands now, I don’t see any reason to care about it.

I’m really not sure about this. WvW is neither balanced nor competitive enough for a reward for the server with the greatest score to be evenly remotely fair. It would basically just reward anyone who happened to be on a server with a very large WvW presence. It would also encourage more animosity from servers that are regularly stomped by others.

I’d also rather have less people care about their server’s score than more, simply because it encourages more interesting battles when people aren’t spending all their time pending ticks and trading T0 towers.

Simonoly.4352:

I’m really not sure about this. WvW is neither balanced nor competitive enough for a reward for the server with the greatest score to be evenly remotely fair. It would basically just reward anyone who happened to be on a server with a very large WvW presence. It would also encourage more animosity from servers that are regularly stomped by others.

I’d also rather have less people care about their server’s score than more, simply because it encourages more interesting battles when people aren’t spending all their time pending ticks and trading T0 towers.

If servers were pitted against random servers, that would be a valid point, but putting a server against another server of similar ranking evens this out. I’m not saying this is done perfectly now, but it’s definitely possible and shouldn’t be an excuse for keeping WvW in it’s current state of pointlessness.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Server population != WvWvW population
……….
I don’t remember the weekly results for everybody, but I think Vabbi, Fissure of Woe and Desolation are on that list. Not a single win in 2013.

Well to be exact for Fissure of Woe, Not a Single win since the start of the weekly WvW matches….. even color changes are rare… Red at first, than when Vabbi WvW players left, we became blue. We might have had a swap for a week since this but that is about it.

They way they’ve designed this game, it promotes grouping (especially in WvW). So they(Anet) in fact promote the ball of death zerg type tactics we’ve seen for such a long time in WvW. I.E. combo fields/blast finishers buff stacking etc etc…

This relates to WvW Server population shifts, as like-minded people who enjoy this type of coordination with their comrades(re GUILDS) will move to servers with higher WvW focused populations in order to help achieve those tactics.

Speaking from experience, I and others I know found it extremely boring in WvW being on a low WvW pop server. The competition wasn’t there, the tactics weren’t there, the coverage wasn’t there. There were too many times where crickets dominated our home BL.. Why, because a lot of players who enjoyed WvW more than anything else in this game migrated to servers with like-minded WvW player population.

There’s only so many people who like to play WvW more than half of their time in this game, and chances are likely that those people will migrate to like-minded player bases on other servers (regardless the cost) in order to enjoy that play experience. Which leaves a lot of other servers barren with high PvE populations and low WvW tier results simply because there isn’t a lot of WvW players on those servers. It’s a domino effect really.

So how do you split it all up and provide competitive WvW population/coverage to all servers? The only way they can do this from my view is reduce WvW world population cap (amount of players all maps can hold) create ridiculously long queue times. But in truth, that will likely just kill the game altogether for many players and they’ll say F’IT and move on to another game with their guild. ESO and other games coming out soon that will help motivate.

EDIT: My reasoning is that players want the ‘epic’ battles and not small 5-10 man skirmishes.

DevonCarver.5370:

We would like to have a system that rewards servers at the end of a matchup based on their performance and are working out all we’ll need to do to make that happen. Ideally it will give extra rewards for winning while still rewarding everyone for participating. All that being said, it’s hard to know what form the final version will take. Hopefully we’ll have something to get everyone excited to fight for victory.

Are you people completely clueless? Do you actually play wvw on a server that is so ridiculously outmanned almost 24/7? My guess you don’t.

Might as well start shutting some servers down starting from the bottom. FC and ET seem like no matter what opponent they get they get blown out due to server imbalances. So now you want to award the winning server? As soon as winning servers get rewarded for having a bigger wvw population and less about skill you will see more and more transfers to winning servers. Maybe one day you will just have one server and the rest will all be ghost town for wvw or just be pve only servers. Is that ANET’s goal with wvw?

Awards are given when matchups are actually fair. Until you actually balance wvw population given awards to a winning server is a bad idea.

But then again ANET is good at bad ideas. How is the traps idea going? That idea came out of the blue as well.

There IS a solution for the Winning Server weekly.
In a form of Reward. But its not Gems or anything that benefit the Winning Server.
Unbenificial Reward? Wth is that?

This —--> Medal of Champions
2 Uses.
On 1st use – Free Server Transfer to Any Servers.
On 2nd use – Re-transfer back within 6 days period.
Ofc you could just use it once if you wish to call the new server your new home.

In fact, this would help in WvW population balance tbh.
It would help the low WvW pop servers back up or put em back in the mood, while high pop servers get evenly matched while some are on the other servers within that 6 days period.

Think about it.

edit: No Transfers should be possible to the Winning Server form other servers within that 6 days period as to avoid those who transfer get blocked if they wish to return due to the winning server getting full.
Remember all these is only for the Winning Server.

Rin of Rivvinda.4971:

2 Reward players for playing in weaker servers. With this, players in that server will at least stay in their server, and some might even hop over. Be aware that this has to be done carefully. If the reward is too good, lots of players will want it and hop over, totally flooding the weak server, destroying their WvW community and also giving more unbalance in WvW again. It should be enough to keep players to keep the players in that server and new players to join in, but to little to make it worth the effort of transferring there.

I agree with this: incentive/rewards for any player which in lowest rating of the other 2 (if they perform better (use prediction rating and compare it)).

In addition: the server which has highest rating, if it loss rating, gain punishment: 100% upgrade cost, 100% siege cost.

Implement this until WvW population of all servers evenly distributed.

Adding a reward merely for winning is a VERY BAD IDEA. It will lead to server stacking just for the win.

However, rewarding based on how much rating your world gains. Now there is an idea.
Servers that are already roflstomping and over-populated dont have much to gain in terms of points. However, underdog servers do have a lot of potential points earn. This could very lead to (dedicated) WvW players hopping to places where there is glory to be had.

I find it weird giving some real rewards for the winning servers. Is the eternal rank 3 server not worthy of some reward better than the server that stomps each week the two EU T20 servers? Rewarding the “winning” server in a matchup would be hugely unfair and cause even more population issues in the top tiers.

also adding the fact people can still abuse the waiting queue bug these days will make this even less attractive, if you join waiting queue with large guild at once, you get in with a lot at same time in exchange for 1 leaving, been tested and noticed how some worlds have like double the army while we got a 40 min waiting queue

They need more Maps for WvW definitely. However that won’t fix the situation of stacked servers.

The game is ‘GUILD’ wars, and WvW is designed for grouping and with GUILDS in mind. Guilds who are core WvW definitely utilize the provide game mechanics of stacking and coordination. Heck, even some PUGs realize this and there’s a level of informal coordination among them as well. Strengh in Numbers (especially coordinated) yields the most bags/wins. Moving to a server that has little population interested in WvW won’t happen. Servers with a higher population/activity for WvW will always be preferred.

Why should I or my Guild move to a server with a barren WvW population, with a population that has a lower interest in WvW? It simply equates to no fun.

The only way you’re gonna get the main tier WvW servers to split up is to give enough incentive for people to spread out. Gee, I wonder how they can do this. :P

azizul.8469:

how about granting gems to losing servers, for participating… see how that goes….

As has been stated before, it is difficult for people on low pop servers to get world completion so unless this is changed, those gems are going to get stashed until there’s enough for a transfer meaning it could actually make the situation worse in the long term.

A lot of people jumping over from other servers just for gems would jump again to the new lowest server next week. I think the devs would prefer the entire population evenly balanced out among all the servers rather than constantly jumping to whichever gives out gems each week.

The best idea imo may be to have a pool of gold shared out between all wvw players. If every pool had the same value, low pop wvw servers would get a bigger share per active player than high pop. A soldiers wage might encourage some of the PvE’ers into wvw if you had some requirements to get it (similar to the daily’s – play wvw for 1hr, help capture a tower, repair a wall, man siege etc.). If the PvE’ers decide not to stick around then at least the remaining wvw players end up with more gold for upgrades & siege.

Long term, wvw players might still decide to switch server but if they go to one with more wvw players, the pool provides them with a lower soldiers wage. The trick would be making it appeal just enough to encourage a few groups to transfer to lower servers without triggering a mass exodus. A system which pays people slightly more to back the underdog would help to provide more balance imo.

If you give benefits to individual players for WvW matchup, everyone will stack on the best servers. If you give benefits to the losing team, people will lose on purpose. You just don’t give rewards to people like this and call it a day.

Thinking outside the box, here’s my suggestion. Make the reward a reward to the server. The server gets a progression bar; as the server ‘levels up’, their tower’s looks improve, their mercs get updated looks, areas in the borderland maps get updated with unique looks (e.g. forests, deserts), etc. Just a few things I can think of at the top of my head. People have been asking for this kind of stuff since way back when people got bored of borderlands being the same for all 3 servers.

As for the reward, possible setup:

1st place = 2 progression points
2nd place = 1 progression point
3rd place = 0 points

Since there’s no tangible benefit for winning at the individual player level so we maintain the status quo. But there’ll now be fights between 3rd and 2nd place to get that progression point, it’s no longer “hurdurr 1st place is 2x our points combined we can’t win” that plagues WvW right now for us sitting in the mid-lower tiers. There’ll be a reason to keep playing to win because you can tangibly see your server improve.

Pewintodo.4138:

azizul.8469:

how about granting gems to losing servers, for participating… see how that goes….

As has been stated before, it is difficult for people on low pop servers to get world completion so unless this is changed, those gems are going to get stashed until there’s enough for a transfer meaning it could actually make the situation worse in the long term.

A lot of people jumping over from other servers just for gems would jump again to the new lowest server next week. I think the devs would prefer the entire population evenly balanced out among all the servers rather than constantly jumping to whichever gives out gems each week.

The best idea imo may be to have a pool of gold shared out between all wvw players. If every pool had the same value, low pop wvw servers would get a bigger share per active player than high pop. A soldiers wage might encourage some of the PvE’ers into wvw if you had some requirements to get it (similar to the daily’s – play wvw for 1hr, help capture a tower, repair a wall, man siege etc.). If the PvE’ers decide not to stick around then at least the remaining wvw players end up with more gold for upgrades & siege.

Long term, wvw players might still decide to switch server but if they go to one with more wvw players, the pool provides them with a lower soldiers wage. The trick would be making it appeal just enough to encourage a few groups to transfer to lower servers without triggering a mass exodus. A system which pays people slightly more to back the underdog would help to provide more balance imo.

Except with the new matchmaking system in any given week no matter how successful your server is you could be green, blue or red in your tier or a tier well above the one you belong in.

Any reward to a “winning” server beyond what they’re already receiving (Passive WvW bonuses, map access, badge farming, etc.) is a terrible idea. It would create an even more unbalanced playing field than we already have and further encourages band-wagon server hopping.

I like the idea of rewarding performance rather than who has the most points at the end of a match. I’m not sure how exactly that would be quantified (Events completed? Overall kills or something?) but rewarding more highly populated servers for “winning” a match would exacerbate the problems underpopulated servers already deal with, namely lack of coverage.

Azaruil.3406:

So everyone jumps onto servers that are more likely to win and A-net gets less money from people buying gems. Doesn’t sound like it would work too well.

Well that already happend (happens) with free transfers, plus you shouldn’t play the same servers every week either. There are multiple matches of 3 servers going on with multiple winners, if one server keeps on winning, well guess what, they get bumped up into a harder bracket. The only problem I can see would be top 3 stagnating in the the same winners and losers.
Gems or whatever reward I was just tossing an idea, not sure what is a good reward, maybe chests or luarels, whatever, but a reward system I think is a good idea overall.

I say… Give money for losing! Would turn this game upside down and make things interesting.

Give stuff you can us in WvW as rewards to the weaker servers – like upgraded blueprints. To the winning servers – since they don’t need blueprints they are already winning enough with the stuff the players farm by themselves – give money instead… but don’t give them too much or all players will transfer to winning servers. No trolling but I’d say 1 copper is enough!

see.. few people agree with..

Everyone want to win, so there is no need to reward the winner

Reward the Looser for playing neverthenless

Such that they stop crying, e.g.

(Winner-score – Looser-Score)*WEXP-Ranks-made-in-this-match / 100 copper

If you were on ET last week loosing vs HoD with
351 068: 118 923 and made 20 WXP-ranks in this match you get
you get 232145*20/100 = 4g 64s 29c

Gems would be glorious, but what I’d really like to see is a trophy for my characters personal instance house to commemorate my server’s victory! Oh wait…. we don’t have those. Gems it is!

DevonCarver.5370:

We would like to have a system that rewards servers at the end of a matchup based on their performance and are working out all we’ll need to do to make that happen. Ideally it will give extra rewards for winning while still rewarding everyone for participating. All that being said, it’s hard to know what form the final version will take. Hopefully we’ll have something to get everyone excited to fight for victory.

Why do I fear this will only lead to more blobbing and PVE’ers in WvW =\

More points should go to defending than mere killing.
You could base it off player achievements in WvW.

Things like holding a point without anyone ever attacking it isn’t going to be a good thing. You know, like uber server holds green keep and stonemist forever.

It would have to be more like: [Location] attacked at [time] and was [defended/conqured]. The event log system on mos.millenium could track these things, and the main scoreboard for the matchup could predict the possible reward based on a % before the timer ends.

But I’m not sure what kind of extra rewards can/should be given. The wxp from capturing is already nice. Especially when out-manned. Getting world bonuses are nice, but nobody really seems to pay attention to those. And those who care about farming, are probably the ones on the top WvW servers just to use those without ever even playing WvW. It’s really the extra hp and endurance that make the most different as a world bonus. As a potential idea, you could add a reward system for every home map, that the server’s home map be given special combat-related rewards for defending. And the best reward if you control all three keeps with full upgrades in all of them. Perhaps you could even reward guild xp for defending a keep that is claimed. I think guild claiming is another issue that needs to be addressed first, though. Guilds with no active buffs do not need to hold a keep all week long. That’s just trolling.

With a reward system Desolation will never get any rewards, we are being matched up with Viz, SFR, Elona every week.

While we only have people to fill up EB and max queue for 20 minutes lol

But hey, I already stopped caring about winning months ago.. So does everyone on Deso, we are now just farming lootbags in EB.

Lose a tower? Oww we don’t care, we take it back later..

Fix match up first, then think of rewards. Or even better! hear me out.

1. Fix skill lag
2. Fix match up
3. Bring back orb mechanics
4. Beta test your fixes
5. Think of rewards