Guild Wars 2

There is a lot to take in here, I promise you it is worth the five minutes. It is quite a bit more than just a rant, it is the product of WvW leaders across multiple servers.

Short Form:

• Guild Points Earned for WvW
• Guild Perks and Ranking for WvW
• WvW based community Portal
• Improved Q time solution.
• MORE POTENTIAL REVENUE FOR ANET

Summary:
We are passionate about WvW. That is why we complain, contest, suggest and scratch our heads while you guys sit around developing more PvE content. Check the logs and I am sure you will find that time played per WvW player is significantly higher than those PvE or structured counterparts. Perhaps part of that metric is Q time. The more time in game is more revenue potential. We are the hardcore. WvW is a game within itself, and the one which we focus all of our efforts. WvW is your biggest host to the hardcore players. WvW predecessors have had their strengths, many of us came from DaoC, Lineage 2, Darkfall, Warhammer, Tera.. Which is why you see all of the comparative analysis. The truth is what we have now in WvW is superior to all of the aforementioned, and for this we are grateful, but we need some things. Some Shinys.

This isn’t an request for super dolyaks with catapults strapped on thier backs, this is a plea for a core system addition that will make WvW more sticky, rewarding, addicting and profitable – yah profitable that got someones attention?

This document grew out of many concepts discussed on Reddit and in long night sessions of back capping in the wee hours of the morning with high level players from many guilds on many servers including DragonBrand, Jade Quarry, Henge of Denravi and Stormbluff Isle.

You (ANet) said you would listen to players and support our concepts if they “fit”. This has to fit. No serious WvW player will disagree, many of the concepts in this document need to be implemented sooner than later. Please disagree just to disagree, I love trolls. We really don’t want to hear “it is coming” we want a timeline, an answer.

Preface:
WvW is a points game. Period. Henge of Denravi has mastered eeking out additional points from every source possible. These points are the root of passionate study, debate and intrigue. Enter another point system – Guild Contribution Points.

For this concept to be viable there are two important pre-requisites changes to existing functionality:

1. Guilds must be able to cap more than one objective – which for reasons completely unknown still remains at 1 capped objective per map.

2. Objective Cap handling needs to be based on Guild player count in the Cap Circle not whoever clicks the fastest on the Lord. Change cap spamming. Whoever has the most people in a CIRCLE on the flip gets the objective. Many guilds too many times have earned hard fought objectives to have someone from Whinerville or Idiots R Us cap the objective that we spent hard earned money time and resources to siege. We shouldn’t be able to ninja objectives from our own team.

Guild Contribution:
“The Magic Bullet”

What is Guild Contribution?
Guild Contribution is a secondary WvW point system based on a guilds contribution to the TP (total points) and PPM (points per minute) Sounds unintelligable right?

It is simple and will be displayed on the WvW Scoresheet as:

(Guild) (Total Points) (Points Per Minute) or…
[GW2W] 14,271 || 120
See attached screenshot for more clarity.

Example:
[GW2W] Guild takes a Tower the value of that tower take is 10 PPM with no direct TP score. Holding this objective for 5 minutes nets [GW2W] 50 TP and 10 PPM as they continue to hold the tower there TP goes up. If they take a second Tower their PPM becomes 20.
Now they have held two towers for 40 minutes:
—- 10 PPM x 40 = 400 Total Points. So you can see that [GW2W] is currently contributing 400 TP / 20 PPM.

Scoring Methodology:
Guild contribution will only tally positive numbers. Battle wages constantly, skirmishes are lost and won all of the time. The teams that contribute the most will most definitely have the greatest impact on the battlefield. The people that consistently take objectives are the same people that… consistently take objectives. Whine all you want this system puts guilds who are active ahead of pretenders.

Exploiting Guild Contribution:
You can’t exploit this format. You can’t “trick” a system that is based on earning. If you earned the keep and the TP based on your PPM you certainly had to work for it.

Tech Stuff: How do we…
Well that is what you guys get paid the big bucks for right? Currently you allow structures to be guild “owned” I am quite sure that you can build in – or have built in – the ability for actions and points to be associated with a guild tag or “group”. This surely cannot have been missed in long discussions regarding extensibility.

Again check out our fancy Mockup of the new WvW Scoring Interface:

Why Guild Contribution?
Another guild wide reward. Help us create a sense of guild pride, to further the interest in guilds that WvW as their primary play type and to create competition amongst servers and guilds. Lots of people talk about how they did this and that, surprise – surprise it was all talk and “insert guild name here” really did all the work. Check the scoresheet.

COMPETITION: Who said WvW can’t be an E-Sport? This correlates with my WvW Community section below.

PRIDE: People will play if there is a greater goal. It makes WvW more “sticky” (I know some software product manager is nodding his head.)

EFFORT: People are going to try a helluva a lot hard when their name is on the line. People know rewards are at stake, their guild name is on the line.

REWARDS
“Theres really no reason to WvW right now” – said 50% of people on GW2 official forums… Give us a reason to continue this eternal struggle.

Guild Influence: A flat guild influence bonus to the top 3 guilds of each server.
1st place server 5% of TP
2nd place server 3% of TP
3rd place server 1% of TP

Example:
1st Place – Henge of Denravi
[PRX] 160,482 TP || 120 PPM – 8,024 Guild Influence Earned!
(160,482*.05 = 8,024 Guild Influence.)

QMonster Priority:
Yes guilds that are contributing heavily should have priority over players in small guilds that are not having an impact on the battlefield. This promotes guild play. It also promotes joining a guild that is organized enought to earn points and the right to be in Q priority.

Yes organized guilds should come before a level 3 named “Gone O Rea” who is farming herbs, ore and vistas. That is one less effective person in battle. That is one more guild member who can be in having an impact on the battlefield.

WvW Community:
We WANT guilds like PRX who did the first ever 20+ Alpha Golem rush to get credit where credit is due. JQ was pushing very hard and that was a decisive moment in what has been one of the better fights I have seen in WvW. We need someone to chronicle this, or have ANet support someone who covers the great moments in our ESport – Capture the buzz.

We need access to scores real time, seriously are you making us post scores in screenshot format? This is crazy. Either build us a community portal or give us access to build our own. Its great that you posted your glick2 approach to scoring but its irrelevant if we can’t keep track of what is going on without being in the game.

We need a ranking system and ownership map that is real time that shows who owns what, that means in game and online on our WvW specific portal website: WvW.guildwars2.com…

New Revenue Streams – Justify the Changes…
You vowed not to “pay to win” well that hasn’t really happened because one can simply convert gems to gold and gold to siege golems and siege golems to alpha siege. Therefore you CAN pay to win. So why not sell upgraded siege for Gems. You are doing this indirectly anywho. That pays for this project and makes Gems a viable option for WvW’rs.

If you support this please leave a quick message. GW doesn’t like bumps, say something constructive. It is time to get some love going for WvW.

My thoughts:
Guild Contribution Points are essentially already in. The larger guilds gain influence a lot… A LOT faster than smaller guilds. I commend Anet on allowing smaller guilds to be able to afford upgrades though.

Guild claiming: AFAIK this is already in place. The guild that has the most participants are allowed to claim. The rest have to wait 3 minutes or something. Am I wrong about this? Also, imo no one wants 1 guild to be able to cap every single thing which is why there is a cap. Also, I thought you could have 1 Keep, 1 tower and 1 camp per guild. (?)

Awarding points to guilds for how long they hold “their” tower etc. sounds more like a dividing point than anything else. The last thing I want to see is 1 guild refusing to help other guilds protect their keeps/towers etc. because they want to lose it and be able to claim it themselves.

Also: No one can honestly ever support an idea where larger guilds get put ahead of smaller guilds in the queue. That is ludicrous