Guild Wars 2

Dear Tyler,

These ideas for changing the scoring sound fantastic. I’m particularly excited about the notion of skirmishes and the Victory Point system. These will go a long way from preventing runaway and skewed matches.

The only part I’m concerned with is the potential solution to “night capping”. I think it falls short of where it needs to be and would remain out of balance.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

• It’s not okay that the time periods with the smallest number of active players have the largest impact on the score

I don’t see this as an entirely accurate assessment of the situation at hand. There are basically two “night time” scenarios that need addressing:

1. mis-matched prime times: periods when one or more of the worlds has their majority of players on the maps, seriously outnumbering the other world(s), because of time zone or work and sleep schedules, and they sweep the maps, uncontested for many hours, thus generating tons of extra world score

2. time periods when a small number of players can sweep the maps, uncontested for many hours, thus generating tons of extra world score

As a member of GoM who plays NA prime, as well as many other time periods, I have seen both of these scenarios in play, and they’re not necessarily just at “night time”. However, I believe that #1 is the more common imbalance.

I feel that defining a data center “night” is unfair to those players and guilds who’s primary play time does not match a data center based definition. Time of play/time zone is something that we, both players and developers, cannot change. It’s a fixed variable that should not be designed around. Any plans around a set time will most definitely alienate a portion of the player base and the game will remain imbalanced.

The real issue is not time, but map population. And it is a variable that can and should be designed around, and that is where I see the multiplier having the greatest and most fair impact toward balance.

I am advocating for this because it’s quite often, even during NA prime, that a server can be seriously outnumbered. Even after the linking with SoS I am still frequently seeing our side being outnumbered. And I would prefer that a world wins by smarts and strategy rather than pure brute force. Of course, the 5min tic will help with this since zerging/blobbing will become even less score efficient than it already is.

A few possible examples:

1. red team has a 70 man zerg on green’s BL. green is defending with 20 people and continues to get wiped by the larger group, simply because of the size differential. The PPK red team gets from an imbalanced fight should be greatly reduced compared to the PPK green team defenders get. And if green happens to overcome the outnumbered scenario and wipes the red team, they should get far more PPK because that accomplishment is so much more remarkable and valuable to their team.

2. If that red team zerg takes an objective while outnumbering the defenders, red should earn less points for that keep than they would if the contest was not outnumbered — irregardless of upgrade level.

Now, the trick with this is to balance not just around single map population, but across ALL 4 maps. Because it’s quite common to have 1 BL outnumbered while the other 3 maps have balanced populations. But the severity of the situation increases if ALL 4 maps are imbalanced during a time period. That right there is the source of the runaway PPT and the source of the frustration around “night capping”.

TLDR: it’s not a “night time” issue. it’s a population balance issue. designing around a set time period that does not reflect the play time of all or some players is unfair and will only server to further the imbalance and alienate more players.

balancing point multipliers around single and all 4 map populations DURING skirmish periods, will be a much more effective, fluid and adaptable design that will serve the needs of those outnumbered much better.

not sure exactly how to do this, but I’m convinced it’s the way to go!

Liston.9708:

No way you were fighting TC and fa in the same match yesterday.

You’re completely right, it was YB – I get those two mixed up.

sirjarros.4107:

TLDR: it’s not a “night time” issue. it’s a population balance issue. designing around a set time period that does not reflect the play time of all or some players is unfair and will only server to further the imbalance and alienate more players.

You’re 100% spot on its not that players contributions are worth more its that there’s no matching opponents on the other servers, population mismatches. Its 1 reason why the server model is so poor for this type of mode.

If they are not going to make fundamental changes to the mode to add the flexibility needed then they need to adopt a scoring model that reflects the fact that there might be mismatches because the proposed solution takes no account of it at all. There have been multiple solutions posted in this thread including yours that anet seriously need to look at.

morrolan.9608:

sirjarros.4107:

TLDR: it’s not a “night time” issue. it’s a population balance issue. designing around a set time period that does not reflect the play time of all or some players is unfair and will only server to further the imbalance and alienate more players.

You’re 100% spot on its not that players contributions are worth more its that there’s no matching opponents on the other servers, population mismatches. Its 1 reason why the server model is so poor for this type of mode.

If they are not going to make fundamental changes to the mode to add the flexibility needed then they need to adopt a scoring model that reflects the fact that there might be mismatches because the proposed solution takes no account of it at all. There have been multiple solutions posted in this thread including yours that anet seriously need to look at.

Yep. The problem is that ANET encourages stacking, in every time zone. Until they fix that basic issue, everything else they do is wasted effort. Penalizing OCX / SEA while encouraging NA stacking on BG / TC etc. is the height of hypocrisy.

Did any of you whining about OCX/SEA being discriminated against even read the initial post? It says prime time will tick some modifier (3 in the example) and the other time slots will tick anywhere from 3 to 1, depending on the population.

If you guys who are saying some server’s OCX/SEA outnumber their prime time then it is likely you will still tick the same as prime time (3). However your blow out ppt from pvding won’t be as high because the scoring will be standardized.

Winning the skirmishes in off peak times will still matter it just won’t decide matches anymore.

Basket of Boxes.1976:

Did any of you whining about OCX/SEA being discriminated against even read the initial post? It says prime time will tick some modifier (3 in the example) and the other time slots will tick anywhere from 3 to 1, depending on the population.

If you guys who are saying some server’s OCX/SEA outnumber their prime time then it is likely you will still tick the same as prime time (3). However your blow out ppt from pvding won’t be as high because the scoring will be standardized.

Winning the skirmishes in off peak times will still matter it just won’t decide matches anymore.

The intention is to set more conditions again on the time you are allowed to play. Like the 2 hour intervals in dragon stand, the interval in tangled depths and blah blah.

When is this patch dropping

Basket of Boxes.1976:

Did any of you whining about OCX/SEA being discriminated against even read the initial post? It says prime time will tick some modifier (3 in the example) and the other time slots will tick anywhere from 3 to 1, depending on the population.

If you guys who are saying some server’s OCX/SEA outnumber their prime time then it is likely you will still tick the same as prime time (3). However your blow out ppt from pvding won’t be as high because the scoring will be standardized.

Winning the skirmishes in off peak times will still matter it just won’t decide matches anymore.

Penalizing people because they don’t play during NA is garbage and a huge sign that says “FAILED GAME!”.

Are you going to penalize BG when they have overwhelming numbers during NA? hmm? I thought not.

sirjarros.4107:

TLDR: it’s not a “night time” issue. it’s a population balance issue. designing around a set time period that does not reflect the play time of all or some players is unfair and will only server to further the imbalance and alienate more players.

Tyler – Totally agree with the above and am glad other players understand this. “Night capping” isn’t a thing. The issue here is population balancing 24 hours of the day. The changes you have proposed address a problem that you have incorrectly identified and will alienate players – as why bother playing in off hours, when their contribution isn’t counted equally. You will lose players.

Solve the population balancing issue and one side won’t have the biggest influence on the score, no matter the time of day.

I also don’t like the idea of the Last Stand, it also creates inequality.

+1 to Skirmishes and +1 to the 5 min tick ideas! I think these two might help solve a lot of issues start with these first!

Love the attention WvW is finally getting!
-Much appreciated!

Basket of Boxes.1976:

Did any of you whining about OCX/SEA being discriminated against even read the initial post? It says prime time will tick some modifier (3 in the example) and the other time slots will tick anywhere from 3 to 1, depending on the population.

Yes so the overall NA score contribution could be 3 times as high.

Basket of Boxes.1976:

Winning the skirmishes in off peak times will still matter it just won’t decide matches anymore.

So you won’t be opposed to the idea of us implementing EU, SEA and OCX “peak time hours” then?

Jong.5937:

TingleTangle, I think making ppk ~50% of the points is exactly what we want.

- It will ally the prime time guilds with scouts and defenders. No longer will fights barely contribute to the matchup. Even if the guilds don’t care about the points they will still be signifiucantly helping those that do.

- Having run the numbers using, historic data for, EU, NA, top and bottom of the league, at 5ppk the prime time 4 hours will score about 75%-100% more than 4 hours with just a handful, as opposed to only about 15%-30% now. It will be worth trying to earn points because it won’t all be outdone by a tiny number a few hours later. It should make the scoring more relevant to all.

- If another time zone has its own prime-time it can contribute every bit as much to the matchup.

- In so much as anyone cares about the score, it will actually reduce blobbing IMO. Right now blobs make a massive contribution to the score through ppt. With more ppk, rolling over objectives unopposed will contribute less. Instead, winning proper fights will be the way to amass points. Servers that want to win matchups will need to improve their fighting skills, not just blob numbers, especially off-peak.

But the great thing about ppk is the systems are already in place for it. It should be very easy to change the multiplier. If 5ppk did turn out to have undesired consequences it could be easily reduced to 3 or 4. On the other hand, we might even decide we want it to be 6 or 7 points per kill and guarantee that the points per hour in a busy time period (whenever that might be and whatever players bring it about) will be more than double a dead period, which seems very reasonable.

When PPK become a major factor to the score, players will start to blaim their own side directly for loosing the game, creating a toxic instead of a fun enviroment. Not a generic “why dont we PPT more?!”. It will be “why did you die you tool, gtfo of WvW” and they point finger at specific players. I already hear commanders say that but at the end of the fight its always just a matter of picking yourself up and trying again. With PPT being a major factor, commanders will simply go “nope we cant afford another loss with these noobs” and that’s the end of fights on that border for all 3 sides. GG. The game now isnt fun anymore.

…Not a generic “why dont we PPT more?!”. It will be “why did you die you tool, gtfo of WvW” and they point finger at specific players.

This is common on Maguuma

Basket of Boxes.1976:

Did any of you whining about OCX/SEA being discriminated against even read the initial post? It says prime time will tick some modifier (3 in the example) and the other time slots will tick anywhere from 3 to 1, depending on the population.

If you guys who are saying some server’s OCX/SEA outnumber their prime time then it is likely you will still tick the same as prime time (3). However your blow out ppt from pvding won’t be as high because the scoring will be standardized.

Winning the skirmishes in off peak times will still matter it just won’t decide matches anymore.

Consider this scenario:

Server A: Stacked with NA players, poor SEA
Server B: Stacked with SEA players, poor NA

A gets rolled during SEA time, plenty of PVD from server B.
B gets rolled during NA time, plenty of PVD from server A.

There are mismatched prime times from both sides, both sides are blowing out ppt and both are doing PVD – only at different times during the 24 hour period.

Answer me, why does A get to contribute more just because they are in the North American time zone?

I asked some questions about the new system before. Since I did not get an answer (which I understand given the thousands of posts), I will continue on the basis of what I think the answer would have been.

Skrimish:
The idea is nice. Now it makes sense to fight even though the matchup seems to be lost. You can still win the skrimish and get a reward for it. Now the impact of one very strong time-period is mitigated.
I just have doubts about the practice. What happens if I realize after 15-30 min. that my server will not win the skrimish? Will I now try to defend the last t3 keep with all possibilities or will I logout. From my experience I would say, more people will logout than in the current system.
What is the consequence? All those who normally play during these periods, will face a much emptier map. They will complain and in the end either quit WvW or move to another world. Both will lead to less players in WvW.

Primetime:
Currently you say “a primetime is what we define as such”. I understand the problem of one server logging out in order to limit the loss in points. Hence, I would suggest that a primetime is defined by the number of players in total in all matchups in one datacentre. Then one server leaving has less impact than in one matchup. The drawback is especially in Europe that you have country-server. They have a certain coverage and cannot adjust by gaining new players from other regions (language barrier).

matchup:
If a new glicko-system is introduced based on the wins/losses in the matchup based on the skrimish-system, it will have the effect that the off-time will have less influence on the matchups. This will lead to more blow-out skrimishes in the off-time (and the consequences described above).
If the matchups are assigned as before, then you will introduce a system through which you can determine a “winner” according to your defnition, but you will not tackle the problem of off-time capping.

Conclusion:
My conclusion doesnt change. I see the new system very critical. You will cause more trouble than you solve. I dont see any other better system except of course the existing.

Chaba.5410:

Luvpie.8350:

Example where higher off hours and low prime time NA will lead to worse score -

What I get from reading you is that you want your NA to remain outmanned and not have a fighting chance. If the real issue is population balance, have you ever asked why your NA population is dwindling? Put aside scoring changes for a moment. Do you want your server’s NA population continue to dwindle by playing outmanned constantly against two other servers with larger NA? Isn’t it weird how servers with higher off hours and low NA always seem to have this problem? Also strange how off-hours players who are outmanned constantly will move too, huh? It’s as if there’s some lesson to be learned that us players are turning a blind eye to.

if you read that from my post you are lost. I would rather anet fixed population balance instead but no matter how much they try people will stack servers so truly things will never be balanced in terms of population on all servers. So one server will always be outmanned in primetime vs stacking servers.

Best solution is get rid of passive PPT from passively owning structures and instead focus on giving ppt from active items that challenege players –
doliak/sentries
capping structures (dependent on ratio of defender/attackers) undefended = 0
defending structures (dependent on ratio of defender/attackers) outmanned defense = lots of points
most importantly non siege PPK should give lots of points so that it is worth small team trying to defend against map blob.
This will solve problem of ‘off hours’ capping undefended structures regardless if it happens in prime-time or during ‘night time’.

gloflop.3510:

Skrimish:
I just have doubts about the practice. What happens if I realize after 15-30 min. that my server will not win the skrimish? Will I now try to defend the last t3 keep with all possibilities or will I logout. From my experience I would say, more people will logout than in the current system.

That’s kinda ridiculous.
With the current system when you see your server is losing from saturday on, do you log out and not bother to log back in till next friday? or do you play for the fun of playing wvw even if you have no chance of making a come back?

Even if you’re losing a time slice, your actions will make a difference in the next time slice, so go out and keep taking and papering enemy structures, or prepare and defend your own. Or log out and let the enemy keep their T3 structures which may award more points and make it harder for your side to catch up in points, that’s up to you.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Potential (controversial) additional change:

• While the above change takes steps to bring the value of off-hours coverage in-line, there’s a good chance it’ll still be overvalued. If that’s the case (and we’ll eventually poll on this), then we have plans for an additional system.
• This is the Action Level – Victory Point Multiplier system
  • This system would multiply the Victory Points awarded by Skirmishes based on map populations and time of day.
  • During prime time hours, the multiplier would always be at it’s maximum of 3.
  • During off hours, the multiplier might stay at 3 or drop to 2 or 1, depending on on activity level.
  • It’s important to include map populations as a factor, to make the system more fair for off hours players and its important to include time-of-day as a factor to prevent a winning team from trying to keep the score muliplier low by exiting WvW

This action point system isn’t something that is coming yet or anything. It is just a possibility and comes if the new system isn’t good and they will make a poll before it would be implemented.

The proposed changes to the scoring system are spot on!! I’m very excited about this, I think it would be a great addition to this game mode just like the Rewards Track were.

Really hyped about the Skirmishes system, about upgraded objectives increasing score per tick and about the Last Stand, keeping alive the hope of a comeback to the very last tick sounds thrilling!

Regarding the ‘controversial’ change of applying Action Level Multiplier, I’m totally in favor of it.
The way I see it, it’s a step in the direction of all players counting equally. Imagine a scenario of an OCX skirmish being worth 10 points and an NA one worth 30. If there were 10 players during the OCX skirmish one could say they are ‘responsible’ for 1 point each, and if there were 100 players during the NA skirmish, one could say they are responsible for ‘0.3’ points each, hence OCX player is still more valuable for a server (even if his Skirmish was worth a bit less). This Action Level Multiplier is a great measure for mitigating the feeling of ‘would anyone miss me if I were not here?’, as it aims to bring all players to roughly equal terms.

What I don’t agree with is manually setting NA prime to be worth more, Action Level Multiplier should always be determined dynamically (based on some kind of population calculation that makes sense). NA skirmishes would more likely have a higher multiplier but let it happen naturally, never forcing it. And who knows, some OCX/SEA Skirmishes could turn out to have a higher multiplier than some of NA prime time.

One last thing, all these changes sounds amazing but I’d still like to see some other fine-tuning taking place before (like some work to restore a bit of destroyed server identity, leaving the first 2 tiers out of World Linking and making a correct rotation of DBL and ABL).

Some people suggest that people will stop to play a skirmish if they feel that it’s lost.

Perhaps… But the maps are not reset between skirmishes. If they do that, they abandon the maps to the 2 other teams and compromise possibilities of victory for the next round, and possibly for the all match.

That’s why I think that good players who feel that they are going to loose a skirmish, will adapt their objective to prepare better as possible the map for the next round.

Anvil.9230:

Some people suggest that people will stop to play a skirmish if they feel that it’s lost.

And some players stop playing even now when they feel match is already lost. But with skirmish system they stop playing for 2 hours, while atm they stop playing for 6 days. It is huge improvement.

Xenesis.6389:

That’s kinda ridiculous.
With the current system when you see your server is losing from saturday on, do you log out and not bother to log back in till next friday? or do you play for the fun of playing wvw even if you have no chance of making a come back?

Many do the first. I call them good-wheather-player. It will increase because the feeling of losing will increase due to the number losses. It is behavioural theory.
Furthermore, with the current system small victories are possible like avoiding to slide in the ranking.
Moreover, the winning team normally lowers its pressure when it feels it is winning. The night-shifts become shorter and they dont run for every white cross. It makes WvW for the weaker server easier.

Even if you’re losing a time slice, your actions will make a difference in the next time slice, so go out and keep taking and papering enemy structures, or prepare and defend your own. Or log out and let the enemy keep their T3 structures which may award more points and make it harder for your side to catch up in points, that’s up to you.

Short-termism vs. long-termism (also behavioural theory). The majority of the players thinks short. Otherwise you would see a lot better defence and people upgrading objects. In reality the opposite is true. You even see players complaining that there is the “caputre and hold” guild mission.

I think people will stop playing skirmishes once they know they’ll lose because they know they can influence the activity level to stem any PPT losses.

Right now sure people might stop playing when they start losing but that’s not what this is about. This is about people who right now still try and defend stuff because it matters and you can’t game the system by logging out. With skirmishes it appears that you could arbitrarily tank the activity level (eg. #hibergate) without being punished for it which sucks.

For example maybe this scenario is possible, you could get more PPT by logging out completely and ticking 0 rather than defending those last 2 keeps and ticking at 80.

Unfortunately none of us know what their implementation would be but hypothetical discussions like this are hopefully helpful to the devs in weeding out early obvious mistakes.

fishball.7204:

I think people will stop playing skirmishes once they know they’ll lose because they know they can influence the activity level to stem any PPT losses.

It was covered in the leaked doc. Activity level does not change that fast, it already had several systems to make sure doing anything is worth more then doing nothing.

Luvpie.8350:

Chaba.5410:

Luvpie.8350:

Example where higher off hours and low prime time NA will lead to worse score -

What I get from reading you is that you want your NA to remain outmanned and not have a fighting chance. If the real issue is population balance, have you ever asked why your NA population is dwindling? Put aside scoring changes for a moment. Do you want your server’s NA population continue to dwindle by playing outmanned constantly against two other servers with larger NA? Isn’t it weird how servers with higher off hours and low NA always seem to have this problem? Also strange how off-hours players who are outmanned constantly will move too, huh? It’s as if there’s some lesson to be learned that us players are turning a blind eye to.

if you read that from my post you are lost. I would rather anet fixed population balance instead but no matter how much they try people will stack servers so truly things will never be balanced in terms of population on all servers. So one server will always be outmanned in primetime vs stacking servers.

And yet here you are, posting in defense of off-hours that are stacked more than your NA while ignoring that your NA would benefit from having their playtime hours valued more or at least not being pushed up into a tier they cannot compete in. I’m not saying that preferencing NA prime is the best solution, rather that WvW interests as a whole should be placed above server interests. Population balance really comes down to players, not Anet. The changes that were implemented is Anet trying to circumvent something that was player-created. Servers with more non-NA players than NA players is cause of player choices. Servers can be in score/glicko balance with each other due to population asymmetry. It creates a boring WvW playstyle though. Is that the right thing to advocate for?

Dawdler.8521:

When PPK become a major factor to the score, players will start to blaim their own side directly for loosing the game, creating a toxic instead of a fun enviroment. Not a generic “why dont we PPT more?!”. It will be “why did you die you tool, gtfo of WvW” and they point finger at specific players. I already hear commanders say that but at the end of the fight its always just a matter of picking yourself up and trying again. With PPT being a major factor, commanders will simply go “nope we cant afford another loss with these noobs” and that’s the end of fights on that border for all 3 sides. GG. The game now isnt fun anymore.

I understand the concern but follow that to its logical conclusion and scoring can’t measure any skill, because if people are bad their team mates will get upset. In team-based PvP you ARE dependent on your team mates, that’s the point. When skill is irrelevant those with it will leave and those that remain will just PvD for rewards. To some extent that is where we are now.

Everyone needs to keep a sense of perspective when things go wrong. If people are abusive they should be reported. Commanders already rage quit when they get a hopeless blob. It’s no fun wiping again and again. I don’t expect a change to the scoring will make much difference to that either way. But greater ppk might encourage more pug training instead of mindless swarming around the map as happens quite frequently on many servers atm.

Rednar.4690:

Regarding the ‘controversial’ change of applying Action Level Multiplier, I’m totally in favor of it.
The way I see it, it’s a step in the direction of all players counting equally. Imagine a scenario of an OCX skirmish being worth 10 points and an NA one worth 30. If there were 10 players during the OCX skirmish one could say they are ‘responsible’ for 1 point each, and if there were 100 players during the NA skirmish, one could say they are responsible for ‘0.3’ points each, hence OCX player is still more valuable for a server (even if his Skirmish was worth a bit less). This Action Level Multiplier is a great measure for mitigating the feeling of ‘would anyone miss me if I were not here?’, as it aims to bring all players to roughly equal terms.

We’re fighting for a share of the total, always. Those 10 OCX players are fighting for a portion of the whole 100%, just as those 100 NA players are. If anything, I could argue that it’s not fair those 10 OCX players are doing 10x’s the labor of the NA players!!! They should get 10x’s the rewards!!!

Over empowering PPK will only add to the blob factor as numbers > skills. Nobody will engage if they feel their casual play style will ruin it for others, especially against a bigger blob.

Other than that there are a lot of good ideas for improvements seen here. I might actually log back in after having not logged into GW2 for a few weeks.

mcarswell.3768:

[Idea] : Track PPK separately from PPT

I think it would be cool to have multiple scoring mechanics tracked separately, so that players with different goals can feel like they are contributing to whatever system they want.

PPT (or points per capture/defense/dolyak/whatever it ends up being) would be the world score.

PPK would be tracked separately per player and per guild, and not added to the world score.

At the end of the match, there would be a winning world, but there might be guilds and players in the 2nd and 3rd place worlds that did better in PPK.

I, too, want to see a proper breakdown of the Warscore and leaderboards for players and guilds. The current WvW is panel is pretty much waste of screen estate.

But this is display only thing with no direct effect on the winner of the matchup. There might be indirect effects when players/guilds focus on the leaderboards.

UI

• Many of these new systems and changes will also necessitate updates to the UI, to display all this new information.

This point probably includes some of those. Somehow UI seems to be the most neglected part of development and only comes as an afterthought.

Maybe Tyler you should try some changes before doing the next step. Since primetime PPT will be counting something around twice as much as it did before conpared to nightcapping and PPT is much closer together then it is in off hours, we will see matchups that are closer together then before. The additional changes in PPK will increase that focus on primetime, as most of the kills are certainly done in that time frame.
Also instead of dividing into 2 hour blocks the less invasive approach would be to do 24 hour blocks starting from restart on and giving each day a point multiplier something like this: (1;1;1;1,2;1,3:1,4;2).
This would make up for the same idea of having later days beeing more important, not give people the feeling of not playing for the next two hours, because the timeframe is lost and in addition make keeps that have been held for days even more inportant to be held.
If this stil seems to be not enough you could easily adjust multipliers for the day or the nightcapping or even make it dynamic depending on the point gap. It would give you a great amount of screws to be turned without basically replacing the entire modle of previous concepts and without making changes so invasive that people complaining here will have a reason to do so.
Note: This does not change server imbalance, but full primetime maps are full on much more servers then the nights. Even low tier servers get a cue on EBG and even though they might loose that because they are less, a certain amount of imbalance makes this gamemode interesting. Also, make transfers to low tier servers for free and as someone stated before really do give those that play outnunbered on overall map average a higher amount of reward track progress.

Again thank you for your work Tyler and Crew. Even of you dont take into consideration any of our points, you stil will upgrade WvW to a better game!

DeWolfe.2174:

Rednar.4690:

Regarding the ‘controversial’ change of applying Action Level Multiplier, I’m totally in favor of it.
The way I see it, it’s a step in the direction of all players counting equally. Imagine a scenario of an OCX skirmish being worth 10 points and an NA one worth 30. If there were 10 players during the OCX skirmish one could say they are ‘responsible’ for 1 point each, and if there were 100 players during the NA skirmish, one could say they are responsible for ‘0.3’ points each, hence OCX player is still more valuable for a server (even if his Skirmish was worth a bit less). This Action Level Multiplier is a great measure for mitigating the feeling of ‘would anyone miss me if I were not here?’, as it aims to bring all players to roughly equal terms.

We’re fighting for a share of the total, always. Those 10 OCX players are fighting for a portion of the whole 100%, just as those 100 NA players are. If anything, I could argue that it’s not fair those 10 OCX players are doing 10x’s the labor of the NA players!!! They should get 10x’s the rewards!!!

10x the labor? What labor? Offtime cappers, with the extreme being EU nightcapping generally having it easy to tick 500+ PPT. Some even reach 695 PPT, that’s how easy it is. Meanwhile, the same server has to fight tooth and nail to get over 250 PPT during primetime. It is very hard to tick 500+ PPT during prime when all 3 sides are populated, if not impossible. I have seen it sure, but in those cases 1 side is often completely absent from the battlefield (more than likely the same server that will tick 500+ during the night).

I have a long term fix for you Tyler B!

You all can thank me later.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Suggestion-Megaserver-WvW/first#post6142343

I’m one off the so-called whiner here, just because I didn’t cheering about these news, I will probable stop playing this game. I’m still against that one timezone is going to be more worth than others. I know how it feels when having no chance against a karmatrain, map blob or however you name it. When having a match against DB (yb, tc, fa, sbi), I stood many times alone against DB-Sea until I gave up and did pve those weeks. But often I wish a Meteor would crashed into their zerg and would killed them instantly.

Maybe anet should introduce a Debuff named ‘Curse of the lonesome defender’ or ‘jinx’ in the Borderlands, when for your server is outnumbered and got raided by overwhelming forces. This curse should give the invaders a harder time for pvd’ing and for scoring. The debuff should increase when there are low or no defender, and decrease when there are more defender arriving with some action outside of the citadel. It should stacks how long the invaders stays in your borderland and how much he hold on your rightful territories, and how many invaders exist. Let me playing a mind game, it’s just a raw idea, I don’t even expects that this will go ever ingame^^ :

1 stack – you are not feeling well (nothing happens here)
10 stacks – something is not right (occasionally pve champs spawn and attack you, no loot)
25 stack- you are running slowlier

50 stacks – more champs are attacking your camps/objects on the same time (when not defended by the invaders, these champs will conquer it back for their rightful owner

75 stacks – fire – all the supplies in the coquered objects are burnt down

100 stacks – earthquake – all walls of the invaders coquered objects are destroyed (if there is a ‘lonesome defender’ he can buy for some gold a supportive attack team with atleast champion to defeat the keeplord.

125 stacks – watch in the air- a meteor will kill all invader of your realm instantly. Guards don’t allow you to enter the borderland for a few minutes after respawn. Curse decrease during this time.

This curse doesn’t effect you when you are the defender of the homeborderland or in ebg. It should only exist in the borderlands.

At the risk of repeating myself, I’ll repeat myself.

The simple solution to night capping is simple: reduce the points per tick of holding an objective, increase points for actual actions (defending/attacking/gaining an objective/killing players/killing dollies etc).

Result= much less points scored for holding everything for hours while no one is around, no more +20-30k points gained overnight.

People who play off hours are still rewarded equally, so no need to program some awful multiplier (quick, log in 30 accounts to Deso and afk in spawn so we get a higher multiplier – see how easy that was to game?).

Bring this in sooner rather than later and then you can fiddle with the actual points per action and see how it affects the overall results.

Oh, and pure siege kills shouldn’t score points at all (giving loot is fine).

And one more suggestion- Trebs should not be allowed to be placed inside structures.

Chaba.5410:

And yet here you are, posting in defense of off-hours that are stacked more than your NA while ignoring that your NA would benefit from having their playtime hours valued more or at least not being pushed up into a tier they cannot compete in. I’m not saying that preferencing NA prime is the best solution, rather that WvW interests as a whole should be placed above server interests. Population balance really comes down to players, not Anet. The changes that were implemented is Anet trying to circumvent something that was player-created. Servers with more non-NA players than NA players is cause of player choices. Servers can be in score/glicko balance with each other due to population asymmetry. It creates a boring WvW playstyle though. Is that the right thing to advocate for?

Do you really think its not in the interests of the game as a whole to promote equality for all players regardless of timezone? For JQ its situation brings the issue into sharper focus than other servers but that doesn’t make the point invalid. Also you have no idea whats being discussed by JQ internally.

As for being player created humans will always make bad choices, just look at the kitten alliance, its up to anet to mitigate against that. Designs have been propose din this thread that are perfectly reasonable alternatives but don’t run the risk of alienating non NA prime players.

RIP JQ and DB hahahahahaha

Dawdler.8521:

10x the labor? What labor?

Have you ever solo’d a keep lord? That’s a whole lot more effort and skill than doing it with 30+. The point was, you still have the same amount of territory to manage with less man power.

And hopefully this makes DB perish from tier 1 and we can get the dream matchup FA/BG/TC and have a real fight tier . DB can have fun playing back capping with YB and JQ since it’s what all 3 servers love to do

I gave up reading about 3/4s of the way through page 2 but just wanted to say these changes sound great and to add my voice to those asking for further incentivising 2nd and 3rd place to gang up against 1st rather than the current too often seen 1st and 2nd places cannibalising 3rd, and to introduce some sort of catch up mechanic that should hopefully make 1st place feel like a constantly precarious position that everyone else is trying to push you off (with a decent chance of their success) rather than feeling like a foregone conclusion by the end of day 2. I would also voice caution with regards making PPK that much more valuable on the grounds that killing a player already feels rewarding as hell while dying repeatedly shouldn’t be made to feel like you’re doing more harm than good, and that groups/players deciding not to engage is already quite prevalent without further incentivising a passive play style. I still think a change to PPK is a good thing, but yeah, caution, linear probably isn’t good, and it should probably interact with Outnumbered somehow. Maybe increases to PPK don’t work for the current 1st place holder or something. I don’t know. Best of luck with it and I’m very happy with what’s been suggested so far , looking forward to seeing how it gets implemented.

Aphs.9528:

And hopefully this makes DB perish from tier 1 and we can get the dream matchup FA/BG/TC and have a real fight tier .

TC in a fight tier?

Aphs.9528:

RIP JQ and DB hahahahahaha

umm they both have numbers during primetime. pretty sure every tier now has numbers during primetime. i could be wrong but i take word from all those that now claim the old map has brought back players and there are massive queues all over the place.

briggah.7910:

Aphs.9528:

RIP JQ and DB hahahahahaha

umm they both have numbers during primetime. pretty sure every tier now has numbers during primetime. i could be wrong but i take word from all those that now claim the old map has brought back players and there are massive queues all over the place.

Ironically, DB and BG are both queued for EB right now…smack in the middle of non-primetime. I guess all the people playing now are not as valuable as those that queue in primetime.

Servers should no longer be represented by saying YB or JQ or BG. There were other servers tossed under the bus that you’re all so willing to forget about and only acknowledge the servers that were fat prior to the merge.

Just make new names because server pride is basically gone. Yeah your server might “win” but the victory is shared/split. The days of solo servers has already passed.

Jiminy.8340:

briggah.7910:

Aphs.9528:

RIP JQ and DB hahahahahaha

umm they both have numbers during primetime. pretty sure every tier now has numbers during primetime. i could be wrong but i take word from all those that now claim the old map has brought back players and there are massive queues all over the place.

Ironically, DB and BG are both queued for EB right now…smack in the middle of non-primetime. I guess all the people playing now are not as valuable as those that queue in primetime.

you’ll prob still have queues during primetime. again reread what changes are coming.. you will still want to win as many 2 hour time slices as you can. chances are you will still win if you have better off coverage than just a na heavy server.. it justs won’t be a complete blowout after the first few days

Baldrick.8967:

At the risk of repeating myself, I’ll repeat myself.

The simple solution to night capping is simple: reduce the points per tick of holding an objective, increase points for actual actions (defending/attacking/gaining an objective/killing players/killing dollies etc).

Result= much less points scored for holding everything for hours while no one is around, no more +20-30k points gained overnight.

People who play off hours are still rewarded equally, so no need to program some awful multiplier (quick, log in 30 accounts to Deso and afk in spawn so we get a higher multiplier – see how easy that was to game?).

Bring this in sooner rather than later and then you can fiddle with the actual points per action and see how it affects the overall results.

Oh, and pure siege kills shouldn’t score points at all (giving loot is fine).

And one more suggestion- Trebs should not be allowed to be placed inside structures.

Quoting this for clarity. I like this idea.

Would be a pain to balance tho. If too much, there is the risk that off-peak players will simply quit since they barely influence the score. If too less, things remain the same.

However, the proposed system is also a pain to balance and still has the risk to alienate some players.

But one thing is clear: balance is needed. It makes no sense that the actions of few against no resistance (or the inaction of few, since they mostly “defend” at off-peak hours) outweigh the action of many against suitable resistance.

morrolan.9608:

Chaba.5410:

And yet here you are, posting in defense of off-hours that are stacked more than your NA while ignoring that your NA would benefit from having their playtime hours valued more or at least not being pushed up into a tier they cannot compete in. I’m not saying that preferencing NA prime is the best solution, rather that WvW interests as a whole should be placed above server interests. Population balance really comes down to players, not Anet. The changes that were implemented is Anet trying to circumvent something that was player-created. Servers with more non-NA players than NA players is cause of player choices. Servers can be in score/glicko balance with each other due to population asymmetry. It creates a boring WvW playstyle though. Is that the right thing to advocate for?

Do you really think its not in the interests of the game as a whole to promote equality for all players regardless of timezone? For JQ its situation brings the issue into sharper focus than other servers but that doesn’t make the point invalid. Also you have no idea whats being discussed by JQ internally.

As for being player created humans will always make bad choices, just look at the kitten alliance, its up to anet to mitigate against that. Designs have been propose din this thread that are perfectly reasonable alternatives but don’t run the risk of alienating non NA prime players.

You’re not really arguing for equality though. The current scoring system is designed for teams of equal size. That doesn’t happen in WvW, which alienates players right now. We can assume there will always be some form of population disparity, which creates the whole point of the scoring discussion, create a system that is designed for teams of unequal size. Any asymmetrical scoring system is going to be unequal precisely because the team sizes are unequal. It doesn’t matter if the system adds a multiplier for NA prime, or uses time-sliced skirmishes with set Victory points which devalue score differentials, or if it adjusts point values based on real-time map population through outnumbered buff or other similar means. Every proposal here devalues players on one side in some way. There will be pockets of players that always will be “alienated” by an asymmetrical scoring system until population shifts. What JQ is discussing internally is irrelevant.

Let’s talk more about how the current scoring system actually leads to population disparities. Stacking any one timezone, even NA Prime, with more people than the other two teams is rewarded. That incentive to stack can leave the other teams to lose players, making the population disparity worse. But perhaps the server losing players in that one timezone isn’t reflected in their server performance because they have another timezone that is stacked. That’s where the coverage game begins. It leaves servers with non-competitive timezones that players don’t want to play in and stacked timezones that attract more players.

Would an asymmetrical scoring system remove the incentive to stack? That seems to be the idea by devaluing the larger sized team in some way. The system though still risks perpetuating tie conditions, for example where server 1 has coverage in x timezone that gets cancelled out by server 2’s coverage in y timezone. After all these years we are too used to thinking in terms of how the score doesn’t matter because of these kinds of tie conditions, which are actually boring in practice. The scoring system has to provide some way to break those kinds of situations to encourage more variation in match-ups and make the score matter again, to make winning mean something.

Mechanisms like Last Stand, the activity level multiplier for a single primetime, and even PPK increases are really supposed to serve the purpose of breaking coverage wars. They should be evaluated with this in mind. We should be proposing similarly purposed mechanisms if the current proposals don’t make sense.

Baldrick.8967:

At the risk of repeating myself, I’ll repeat myself.

The simple solution to night capping is simple: reduce the points per tick of holding an objective, increase points for actual actions (defending/attacking/gaining an objective/killing players/killing dollies etc).

Result= much less points scored for holding everything for hours while no one is around, no more +20-30k points gained overnight.

People who play off hours are still rewarded equally, so no need to program some awful multiplier (quick, log in 30 accounts to Deso and afk in spawn so we get a higher multiplier – see how easy that was to game?).

I think this could lead to a good solution. More players on the map mean more action e.g. through flipping objects. If points for flipping, defending,… are introduced and for holding reduced, the primetime gets more attention than the off-time. The night-capping problem would be mitigated.
What I read right now, sounds like the team sat at one table and collected their ideas. Everyone had his/her approach for mitigating the night-capping. It is a nice way to tackle such a task. However, in the end we need 1 system and not 50 (although all of them may work). Hence, I would voice for implementing one thought through system like granting more points for action.
I personally oppose ppk because I fear it may discourage taking risks. When I attack a heavily defended structure, the risk of whipping is higher than when I attack some wooden structures. Hence, either the attacking team goes for wood or the defending team gains many points despite the fact that they have equal or less amount of players.

The skrimish-idea is from my perspective really nice as an event. You can grant rewards after a 2h-matchup or after a series of skrimishes (e.g. 1 week). However, what matters for me is the position in the ranking (I like between 5-8) in order to ensure diversity in the opponents.

And one more suggestion- Trebs should not be allowed to be placed inside structures.

I just want a shorter range (not much, just that you cannot hit the red keep from sm and vice versa).

fishball.7204:

You must be in some wood tier if you can make 20k-40k points in 1 night.

In EU the “night hours” are longer in the sense there is more downtime hours when you don’t have “SEA/OCX” players So if you get multiple T3 objectives and the players waking up from your server defend those T3 structures even if they are in enemy Bl’s… it snowballs into that 20-40k points in a day. With a good night cap team that basically tick 600+ dumps off to a decent 8-9 am morning crew.. Game Over.

I know it is a big problem on EU servers.

I like most of the changes proposed, but there are a few problematic points:

1. Increasing rewards from player kills is risky. This will encourage forming big blobs of players and give huge advantage to servers who are able to do so, due to population difference. Personally I’d like to see fights centered around objectives, but if capturing a tower is worth the same as 2-3 player kills it’s not worth bothering.

2. “Last stand” – please no. This will create resentment in players who have worked score lead during week to have it washed away by friday players. If last day fights don’t matter in current system, then middle week fights don’t matter with Last Stand. You will reach the goal of comebacks naturally with other changes proposed. There’s no need to create arbitrary rules like this.

Zenith.6403:

I like most of the changes proposed, but there are a few problematic points:

1. Increasing rewards from player kills is risky. This will encourage forming big blobs of players and give huge advantage to servers who are able to do so, due to population difference. Personally I’d like to see fights centered around objectives, but if capturing a tower is worth the same as 2-3 player kills it’s not worth bothering.

2. “Last stand” – please no. This will create resentment in players who have worked score lead during week to have it washed away by friday players. If last day fights don’t matter in current system, then middle week fights don’t matter with Last Stand. You will reach the goal of comebacks naturally with other changes proposed. There’s no need to create arbitrary rules like this.

The objective is to have to actually fight players to take the objectives, PPK should be rewarded for fighting over objectives rather than just the objective itself. It is the passive scoring of the objectives that is the cause of the imbalance and allowing for runaway scores, however instead of actually addressing the cause they are still trying to prop up the current system that rewards players with dying as fast as possible go back PvD an undefended structure then siege it to the teeth with ACS and shield generators that are protected with more AC’s and balis and cats and trebs and have their entire zerg only run from objective to objective and jump on siege rather than actually fight other players. The current system and this proposed system both reward this as the way to win still and even that small amount of PPK added will not compensate for this still being the way to win. It is an embarrassment to win rather than an accomplishment due to this current system that is not resolved by the proposed actions here.

The mindset that should ever be a way to win is what is ruining the game mode and making the players not care about score because with their current scoring system and the one proposed here , to win still means you PvD and siege hump REAL good. That is no way to reward a large scale PvP game mode. PvP should not be an after thought in a PvP game mode, it should be the focus and the reward. We have already seen where this current PvD reward system leads and continuing to try and prop it up will only ensure the further decline of the game mode as players can accept the better player winning, however they do not and will not accept rewarding lazy game play via PvD and siege humping because it fails to reward skill and encourages bad game play instead.

The game mode will not grow as long as PvD is rewarded over PvP in a large scale PvP game mode. Propping it up further by devaluing players time and effort outside of a 6 hour period only ensures it fizzles out faster without ever actually solving the core problem of passive scoring.