Official Feedback Thread: WvW Skirmishes

Official Feedback Thread: WvW Skirmishes

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Posted by: DeceiverX.8361

DeceiverX.8361

The real, big, obvious problem with WvW, moreso now with the skirmishes and pairings in the mix, is profession/gear imbalance. It’s abysmal, and quite frankly, the single biggest reason why I’m seeing people not stay interested in the format. I know this isn’t in the scope of the WvW team, but this is something that absolutely needs to be pushed as hard as it possibly can; the profession balance and total absurdities in gear and food that came with HoT has pretty much crippled WvW.

The new profession/elite specialization mechanics aren’t fun. We shouldn’t be seeing build diversity, even in sPvP (via the removal of stat amulets) because of problem-child classes/mechanics. Having entire zergs running around with permanent all boons and 87% damage reduction isn’t fun. These are problems specifically on the profession-end that totally break WvW and cannot be fixed unless addressed. It doesn’t matter how good the matchmaking is or how much hard work you guys put in to fix WvW in its fateful hours if there isn’t a huge push to bring back the vitality of diversity we had before HoT released.

I can confidently say now that without major profession/spec adjustments, the game mode will not see improvement. Every single player I personally know who has stopped WvW’ing in recent months has done so due to profession imbalance and gimmicky mechanics, and the lack of fun and interesting combat in GW2 as a whole. Something needs to change, and it needs to change fast.

I think with these you are trying to say profession/spec/gear imbalance is a factor because we actually have only a few of each that are viable, so everyone is running them, that’s all you see and that’s not fun, right?

The lack of diversity isn’t fun, no, but neither are the fights which these optimal builds are used fun. How much joy do you get from fighting a properly-maxed blob with stacked damage reduction? How much fun a trapper thief or condi mes? A bunker druid that never stops running away? Autotaunt burst staff S/Sh invuln revenant? A Dh sitting on an objective? Teams of Scrappers running infinite group mobile stealth and infinite stunlocking? D/D condi evasion daredevil? None of these are fun to fight.

And what of gear? Anything optimal for PvP environments requires HoT stats on some level. You’ve got wasted stats without HoT gear, which demands re-forging ascendeds and the likes.

And in doing so, how many of the above builds will run durability runes? All of them except maybe PU condi mesmer. Full berserker thief or frontline guardian, it doesn’t matter for the most part. Everything is the same, and most of what is played just abuses exploitive mechanics and makes very few sacrifices.

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Posted by: Kylden Ar.3724

Kylden Ar.3724

I think 2nd and 3rd place points must be the same to incentive attacking the team on the top and not both lower servers fighting each other for 2nd while 1st runs away with the victory.

Very much this. The whole point of a 3 way war (from game theory) is that whomever is top dog at a moment becomes the target for the other 2.

Kylden
Leader of TACO mini-roamer guild, Kaineng.

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Posted by: Hexinx.1872

Hexinx.1872

I actually like that idea of 2/1/1 … never thought of that before … it basically incentives 2 servers to dominate the winning server to steal the win from them. It’s an interesting take…

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Posted by: Cerby.1069

Cerby.1069

On September 9th we added Skirmishes to the game. Now that everyone has had a chance to play them, what are your thoughts on Skirmishes? If there is anything, what would you like to see changed/added?

camps shouldn’t count towards ppt. 90% of the time they can’t be defended without incurring losses to ur own ppt. They just flip back and forth a million times. couple their ppt with the yak ppt and its complete bulloney the numbers you can get off these compared to towers.
I guess the exception might be if you post a dumb tank ele at the majority of the reachable camps (so 3 usually) then have them stall while a sufficient dispatch can be set out to defend the camp from whatever is hitting it. That way you literally have 1 player gaining 3 ppt per 5 minutes and preventing many yaks from dying too….and discouraging roamers from getting sentries as well (another dumb source of ppt).

Camps atm though are the same as sentries….they flip back and forth like nothing and they offer no reason for it other than yaks upgrading objectives or some supply for any players that need it. Its not a good system, those who play wvsw enough know this. cant say im explaining it properly but its not a good system the vets know.

They should exist for giving supply to the faction that owns them, nothing more and nothing less. Roamers can hunt yaks all they want for ppt i don’t care….but camps themselves are just stupid busywork. They should not affect ppt.

You should consider removing RI from camps as well after you remove them from ppt.

I kill you in one gunflame, or I kill you in two.
The Tiny Yuno Sniper of Ebay [EBAY]

(edited by Cerby.1069)

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Posted by: Trajan.4953

Trajan.4953

I like the Skirmishes. Definitely helps curb night capping.

CCCP….

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Posted by: SloRules.3560

SloRules.3560

I fell like it was a good change, if for nothing else, it provides some shorter goal, or well that felling, ok why not win this, we only need 100 points,…
I have to admit even i taught about it a few times, but haven’t realy taught of PPT for a very long time.

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Posted by: Vavume.8065

Vavume.8065

Since server linking became a thing I no longer feel the WvW leaderboards hold any value at all, same can be said for server pride, I actually left my home server after 4 years there because you killed the server pride I once had, there is no longer a feeling of fighting to win for your server, so since winning has become even more meaningless as a result, then skirmishes are also meaningless, but I’m sure you are happy with your transfer gem sales…

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Posted by: Ancient Ranger.3276

Ancient Ranger.3276

Changing the number of Victory Points (VP) awarded for Skirmish placement is something we are considering. So far we’ve intentionally held off changing the live values (3/2/1), to avoid altering too many variables at once. First, we wanted to see how, if at all, WvW play patterns would evolve just with the addition of Skirmish scoring, before making any further iterations on specific VP values. That said, internally, we’ve been graphing-out current match results, using various sets of adjusted VP scoring to see how, if at all, existing match results would change when scored using updated values. We have also been investigating if adding something like a time-of-day or population-based scoring multiplier would have any noticeable impact on match results. For those interested, so far it hasn’t. Worlds who have been winning are still winning even if we added the time-of-day multiplier, but we will continue to evaluate if it will make a difference.

I don’t believe 1 up 1 down will work very well in this closed system. Right now in T1 if you were to implement the 1 up 1 down system both the #1 and #2 server would just target the #3 server as both top servers cant go any higher but will also not want to drop any lower. So T1 will constantly have to same two servers with only the third server constantly getting doubled teamed. While 1up 1 down working nicely in T2 and T3. T4 is a little complicated I believe the same thing would happen. Both the #1 and #2 server would pick on the #3 server to move up while the #3 server quits as it has nothing more to lose and can not go down anymore.

Éleura Elementalist’s on YB
Elementalist
#Ele

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Posted by: OriOri.8724

OriOri.8724

Changing the number of Victory Points (VP) awarded for Skirmish placement is something we are considering. So far we’ve intentionally held off changing the live values (3/2/1), to avoid altering too many variables at once. First, we wanted to see how, if at all, WvW play patterns would evolve just with the addition of Skirmish scoring, before making any further iterations on specific VP values. That said, internally, we’ve been graphing-out current match results, using various sets of adjusted VP scoring to see how, if at all, existing match results would change when scored using updated values. We have also been investigating if adding something like a time-of-day or population-based scoring multiplier would have any noticeable impact on match results. For those interested, so far it hasn’t. Worlds who have been winning are still winning even if we added the time-of-day multiplier, but we will continue to evaluate if it will make a difference.

So if the amount of VP doesn’t matter that much as to overall winner, nor does having them weighted by time of day (a crude assumption of activity level), does that indicate that matches are still decided by which server has the largest population and just that alone? And does that imply that server linking is not as effective as you guys had hoped it would be at equalizing populations during matches?

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Posted by: Menaka.5092

Menaka.5092

While it is true that skirmishes have compressed the score you can gain by “night capping”, it is also true that at the same time they compress the score you could have gained by having a strong prime time collecting many hundreds or thousands of kills.

Coverage is now even more important than before. If you have enough people to win skirmishes during all the “off-peak” time, you can get by by just doing that, you don’t even need to show up for the two skirmishes during prime time. We have seen Baruch Bay blobs avoid fights because they knew they would lose them, and by doing that they would lose the skirmish. I completely agree with rewarding “smart” playstyles, but there is something wrong when it makes the game less fun to play.

Thankfully that seems to have only lasted a few days and I didn’t see any public commander obsess and burn out over the skirmishes. It really helps that the UI has no indication whatsoever of the status of the current skirmish: unless you play with the main WvW window (or an external website) open you can live in ignorance about the current skirmish, and ignorance is bliss.

From what ANet said, they wanted to control the “runaway scores”. Yet they plan to increase the points-per-tick granted by upgraded objectives, making it easier for the server with the most coverage to win his skirmishes. If ANet is trying to get people to attack upgraded and defended objectives to “reset” the scores from the enemy, I think they’re ignoring the elephant in the room: objectives are usually upgraded because the server has a larger presence in WvW.

In the end, skirmishes fit “well” with the overall WvW system in the sense that they seem half-finished and at the same time they miss the point.

This game wants to offer a 24/7 large scale pvp game mode, yet after 4 years we don’t have a “index” to find guilds or public commanders that can cover specific timezones. And moving between servers, especially with the current flux of server links is not really ideal for guilds or public commanders.

The matchup system has been broken since the start, favoring “balanced” matches but only taking into consideration raw scores: so you end up with servers like Baruch Bay (sorry guys, have been fighting you for the last 3 weeks so you are my most current example) that seem to have a prime time that is shifted about 3-4 hours compared to most EU servers. If they lose the two “prime time” skirmishes, but they win the two skirmishes after those, the match is “balanced”. The system completely ignores the players and guilds on both sides that wanted good fights and fun and found nothing to fight except a few stragglers.

Do you want to keep the current “servers” system and do something useful with the skirmishes? Here’s my feedback: use them to create a profile of the server that takes into consideration it’s strength during the various timezones. Add to the profile also the percentage of points gained from kills, because that’s important to determine how hungry for kills each server is. Use those profiles to calculate server links (taking into account the population data of course) and matchups. Make servers that have similar profiles fight each other.

I believe this would make the game a lot more fun to play, while you think of a better system.

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Posted by: Jerry CCH.9816

Jerry CCH.9816

Can Anet Add #1,#2,#3 Server Week Victory Reward ?

(like we can collect Fotm or PvP legend Backpack at WvW by Token )

PPT reset erery 7 days ~

i dont think many people still care PPT. The WvW already 4 years

If Server Week Victory Reward is Awsome, many ppl will join.

We lose so many population for wvw now

winnie@BlackGate

(edited by Jerry CCH.9816)

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Posted by: Ben K.6238

Ben K.6238

I think 2nd and 3rd place points must be the same to incentive attacking the team on the top and not both lower servers fighting each other for 2nd while 1st runs away with the victory.

Very much this. The whole point of a 3 way war (from game theory) is that whomever is top dog at a moment becomes the target for the other 2.

I don’t really agree on this; to use Tier 3 as an example, if the goal is to win, it makes more sense for SBI and SoS to push each other into 3rd when they can, to DB’s benefit. If you had a situation where it doesn’t matter who comes 2nd or 3rd, may as well go for the easy points and karma train DB.

The existing system can therefore give you closer matches when you have two strong servers and one weaker, whereas 2/1/1 would not.
I don’t think it’d have the desired effect with one strong server and two weaker, either; at some point the two weaker are going to fight amongst each other because only one gets the two points. And there’s no tactical play that’s going to get the weakest server into 1st place when both other servers don’t want that to happen – so it’s back to playing for second.

To get a situation where two weaker servers are encouraged to focus on the stronger server, you need a reward available to both weaker servers, and it needs to be substantially better than the alternative.

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Posted by: Ben K.6238

Ben K.6238

On thinking about it, it might be deceptively simple.

If the server with the points lead didn’t win the skirmish, both other servers get a bonus point. That means even if you’re doomed to come last, helping #2 beat #1 is still going to get you twice the points. And it makes catching up quicker, but if you do catch up the tables are turned.

On rewards, those could be fairly simple too. If you participate in a skirmish, you get a bonus chest for every point your server got. And the reward for winning a week is multiplied by the number of skirmishes you participated in (up to a reasonable limit).

The final piece of the puzzle could be individual and guild leaderboards. Each week, for the categories of large group fights, small group fights, PPT, offensive siege and defensive siege – however you could measure the different ways people play – a server’s top rated individuals and guilds are given a substantial reward. Obviously, it’s a lot easier to get those rewards if you’re playing on a server lacking in that category.

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Posted by: mordran.4750

mordran.4750

On September 9th we added Skirmishes to the game. Now that everyone has had a chance to play them, what are your thoughts on Skirmishes? If there is anything, what would you like to see changed/added?

Victory points are pointless until you fix the broken matchup system. Why should people come and fight if the matchup winner can be seen immediately after reset. If the enemy just overwhelms you with his population you loose, no matter what.

What we also have seen is that servers like vizunah which are simply terrible at fighting (look at theit k/d) can not be beaten by servers who are very good at fighting but do not have 24/7 enough population. So maybe you could strengthen the factor of a kill in the system.

We have also been investigating if adding something like a time-of-day or population-based scoring multiplier

That sounds interesting, especially the population based scoring.

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Posted by: morrolan.9608

morrolan.9608

What we also have seen is that servers like vizunah which are simply terrible at fighting (look at theit k/d) can not be beaten by servers who are very good at fighting but do not have 24/7 enough population. So maybe you could strengthen the factor of a kill in the system.

This sounds like the same problem as with some NA servers cough YB, in that they are avoiding fights to avoid PPK, because its perfectly possible to win a skirmish due to PPK whilst having a low PPT. In that case increasing PPK is not the answer.

Jade Quarry [SoX]
Miranda Zero – Ele / Twitch Zero – Mes / Chargrin Soulboom – Engi
Aliera Zero – Guardian / Reaver Zero – Necro

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Posted by: mordran.4750

mordran.4750

I actually like that idea of 2/1/1 … never thought of that before … it basically incentives 2 servers to dominate the winning server to steal the win from them. It’s an interesting take…

Well that incentive must be pretty high then, because i have never seen that to happen. What always happens is that number two or three always attack whoever number one attacks because the matchups are simply not close enough that there is any chance for three or two to become number one so they basically only fight for the second place.

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Posted by: mordran.4750

mordran.4750

This sounds like the same problem as with some NA servers cough YB, in that they are avoiding fights to avoid PPK, because its perfectly possible to win a skirmish due to PPK whilst having a low PPT. In that case increasing PPK is not the answer.

In have never seen that to happen in eu, but of course there has to be balance, maybe through dimishing returns

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Posted by: Xenesis.6389

Xenesis.6389

2-1-1
I sayed it long long time.

Move the double team off 3rd to 1st, that is one of the major things missing in wvw and it’s points system, and actually one of the things that can lighten the load on population imbalance. As both 1st and 2nd can use 3rd as “reinforcements” instead of them both beating down on 3rd for free points.

Another derailing post. ^^
North Keep: One of the village residents will now flee if their home is destroyed.
“Game over man, Game Over!” – RIP Bill

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Posted by: Ultra Hades.4691

Ultra Hades.4691

Skirmishes are a step in the right direction. Conceptually it’s good to have competitive timezones worth as much as non-competitive ones (ie, winning during NA prime by a slim margin is worth as much as steam-rolling during SEA with 500+ppt).

The problem always exists of timezone balance — there are more ‘off-hour’ timezones than ‘prime’ timezones, but that’s an issue that should probably be solved with better balance considerations rather than score tweaks.

Others have posted good suggestions on the scoring tweaks (eg, 2-1-1). This would add meaningful strategy and cross-server teamwork.

Another suggestion is to add ‘alerts’, eg you can have random (pre-announced) timeslots that are worth bonus points. That way players on each server can rally up and fight for those bonus points if they want to catch up or keep a lead. To make it less of a ppt-grind, you can make the bonuses objective based rather than ppt-based, eg: whoever is in control of SMC at the end of the timeslot wins the bonus points.

[WL] Kin Bear

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Posted by: X T D.6458

X T D.6458

Can you people please stop with the double teaming talk, it is so incredibly absurd, biased and shortsighted to even suggest that scoring be changed so as to encourage this. You do understand it can work against your server as well, and then you same people will be back on here complaining about how anet killed wvw because your server is being double teamed all week. Just seriously stop.

I say what needs to be said, get used to it.
Honesty is not insulting, stupidity is.
>Class Balance is a Joke<

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Posted by: Rink.6108

Rink.6108

I agree with that the victory point system change is irrelevant as long as the matchmaking system isn’t fixed and blowout matches happen.
The victory point system didn’t solve the issues that originally should have been fixed by them. Matches are further apart instead of closer together and decided by mid week with no way of catching up for the servers behind. Coverage is even more important than before, prime time players and kills are devaluated by making prime-time wins the same points as night-capping.

How to make it better?
—> Solve the EU linking problem by making a vote on those servers about linking servers with different languages.
—> Address the matchmaking system to something that reacts faster on population differences and creates better balanced matchups by reducing the chance of blowout matches.
—> Implement the changes you wanted to do to make the victory point system “better” in the first place: Last stand and population/“activity”-dependend raise in victory points. I don’t agree on all the means that you planned for the changes, but they will lead to at least a chance for servers in the back to catch up (although it is very unlikely) and to make prime-time players comparably important to off-time-players.
—> When a skirmish ends there is no notificiation or way to find out how the last skirmish ended and it what place your server was in/how close it was. Give us some way to find out (reward that states the rank? Notification on screen like bloodlust for example).

(edited by Rink.6108)

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Posted by: Deaeira.2651

Deaeira.2651

I haven’t looked at the numbers but it seems nightcapping has less impact now – for the good or worse (don’t forget this is also a way a bottom end server can make some points if they have a better night-crew but not the numbers during daytime).

The other effect I have noticed is that there’s a higher pressure for the lead server to get a distance to the other servers. That means there’s more need for “easy” points which you can usually get from the weakest server i.e. the border of the weakest server is regularly wiped to get the points from the extra keeps. I admit I am still burnt out from the pre-linking period (I was trying to lead at least 3 evenings a week on Vabbi i.e. rallying people into fights against hopeless numbers), but this time, I just stopped trying – and apparently a lot of other GH / Vabbians too.

So whatever you decide, please have a look at the social dynamics too – e.g. you can have look at the statistics about the WvW participation points of players against the points and result of the current skirmish. Check if people move to different borders or PvE/PvP. Consider the change in strategies a server has to run in order to win a skirmish / matchup. And please don’t forget that demotivating the enemy to play is still the easiest way to win.

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

The goals for the skirmishes feature were outlined in the Lets talk scoring thread.

Benefits

  • Winning a Skirmish by a small margin, or a large margin, awards the same number of victory points.
  • This keeps the winning and losing scores closer together, allowing the losing worlds a fighting chance
  • Teams will still want to win as many time slices as possible, off-hours coverage is still important, but less dominant

The victory points numbers were closer together. Well done. But looking past the absolute numbers, catching up after losing the first part of the matchup is just as difficult as before. “Yey! we are only 50 VPs behind the leader. We can still win… oh wait! We can’t.”

Nightcapping (off-hours coverage) was addressed by the skirmishes. Well done. There is now an upper limit how much nightcapping can distort a matchup. I have not checked whether any team actually hit this limit.

The old total war score vs new victory points differences were surprisingly small. See TorquelSoul’s charts.

Maybe the teams didn’t adjust their tactics to take full advantage of the new system yet: like bunkering in towers after reaching a lead in a skirmish.

The trend in the comparison was alarming:

Stronger servers benefit from Victory points 10 out of 11 times. And weaker servers are hurt by Victory points 10-11 times.

The skirmishes had less impact on the Glicko ratings than I expected. ANet artificially modifying some of the ratings eroded my trust in the system.

It was frustrating to have lost all skirmishes in the first part of the matchup. Playing on Wed-Thu-Fri would not change the winner of the matchup; not even if the dominant team had stopped playing after Wednesday. The Last Stand feature might address this. However the root problem is still the population imbalance – Glicko-match-making and world linking are not enough to create balanced matchups.

It felt somewhat unfair that the quiet hours skirmishes were as valuable the prime time skirmishes. I would not want to try out the Action Level – Victory Point Multiplier feature, though.

The UI still needs lot of changes.

  • I had to open WvW window often to check remaining skirmish time. Which most of the time said 1 hour left in the current skirmish. At which point I had to check the clock to see how long really.
  • The Score Tick Timer on top of the screen is useless now that objectives are guaranteed to tick at least once after capture.
  • The objectives held balance on top of the screen should be changed to skirmish war scores balance because PPT is only minor part of the war score.
  • Glicko rating is still not displayed anywhere in-game. Nor predicted rating evolution. It is impossible to tell if your team is losing or winning. Sometimes finishing third in a matchup still raises the Glicko rating.
  • Score breakdown is also not displayed. Only PPT. It should be very clear what activities count towards the war score.
Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

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Posted by: Rink.6108

Rink.6108

About nightcapping: In the old system during primetime you had the effect of kills on ppt that surpassed the structure ppt. In the victory point system primetime victory points are the same as nighttime victory points, thus making a server that is 1st in primetime and 3d during the night because of nightcapping very likely to lose more points in new system as in old one as long as the “Action level” system (or hopefully a more flexible version of it) isn’t implemented.

Scores aren’t closer together at all if you look at them in percentages or how fast those points could be earned. Victory points are just a lower number but effective scores are further apart.

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

5-4-3, 4-3-2 and even 10-9-8 only change how teams are rewarded Glicko rating at the end of the matchup. It is just as difficult to catch up as with 3-2-1 system.

2-1-1 means the matchup can be decided by only 1/2 into the matchup. 3-2-1 can be decided by 2/3 into the matchup. I agree 2nd and 3rd teams fighting for winning a skirmish is a valuable property.

I’d suggest 1-(-1)-(-1) where a team loses a VP when it does not win a skirmish. Of course a team cannot lose a VP it doesn’t have yet. That keeps the scores close and forces teams to win skirmishes.

OTOH the Glicko ratings adjustments need some rethinking. The early skirmishes of the matchup become less valuable. And players in general do not want to lose anything – be it VPs, nerfing skills, gear, titles or whatnot.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

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Posted by: Rink.6108

Rink.6108

1 /-1 /-1 would currently lead to rankings like Maguuma 8 / YB 1 / Blackgate 0, every server that doesn’t win more than 50% of all skirmishes will have 0 points, so most balanced matchups will be 1/0/0 in total points at the end and the winner being the one that won the last matchup before reset. Would be funny but would it be better?

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Posted by: Adzekul.3104

Adzekul.3104

Colour me indifferent to Skirmishes. I am on Seafarer’s Rest [EU] and this is neither an improvement nor the opposite. I note that enemies often play the system by increasing their PPK activity level in the last 30 minutes of the match. This seems artificial IMHO, primarily because a low population server like SFR cannot do this. So I guess skirmishes seem to be hurting the “low population but somehow rated as high population” servers like SFR and Gunnar’s Hold.

If anything the skirmish system is awkward because the matchups are so screwed. If you fix the matchups, maybe I would be less indifferent towards skirmishes.

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Posted by: UmbraNoctis.1907

UmbraNoctis.1907

If Server Week Victory Reward is Awsome, many ppl will join.

(Good) rewards for winning would just encourage bandwaggoning even more, because stacking on strong servers is the only way to ensure the win, since macthes are not fair and a single player has very little influence on the outcome of a match.
If matches were fun, then playing itself is rewarding enough. If playing is unfun and just done to farm rewards, ppl could just go to PvE and farm there. Players didn’t leave because of the lack of rewards – WvW is more rewarding in terms of wealth than ever before -they left because of the lack of fun. Rewards for winning, be it skirmishes or matches, are not a solution to any WvW issues and would probably make it even worse. Do NOT reward players simply for playing on a server with higher population/coverage than their opponents.

(edited by UmbraNoctis.1907)

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Posted by: Ansau.7326

Ansau.7326

Those who say Skirmishes are a good thing are only speaking subjectively. But the truth is Skirmishes are technically a worse system than the previous total war score. This can be seen by analyzing some of the highlights of Skirmishes and look how badly they have transformed by lanalyzing how servers and matchups are performing:

  • “Reduce the need of 24h coverage by reducing the effects of off-hours capping ".
    But the reality is stacked servers are more powerful with this new system, making global coverage more important and enhancing the population imbalance.
    Moreover, nightcapping/off hours based servers are doing as good as before. In EU, servers like Baruch, Jade Sea or Desolation are doing very well compared to the previous system. I cannot see the supposed punishments on their strong off-hours capping, aside from the imbalance of strong-weak servers in matchups skirmishes introduce.
  • “Give players a real opportunity to make a comeback”.
    Yet distances are similar or greater than before, but now caching up is much more difficult, because the comeback rate is now locked. How can you say Skirmishes are a real opportunity to make comebacks if they limit them and secure the win of stacked servers?
  • “Matches are often decided in the first few days, making playing in the final days feel pointless”.
    There’s only 3 close matchups in both Eu and NA, with the particularity that with the older system they would still be close. But it got worse, because if before Thursday was the day on giving up, now it’s Wednesday or even Tuesday, half the week. Also, with the previous system there would be 2-3 more matches with potential catch ups of 6-8h ticking 450-500, now they need 25-30 hours winning all skirmishes and forcing the superior server to be 3rd in all of them, aka impossible mission.
  • “Updating Scoring allows us to decide a winner of a match more fairly”.
    If by fairly you mean now numbers are even more important, ok… A system where strong competitors excel for being strong and encouraged to become even stronger, while weaker competitors are punished for being weaker and crippled from becoming stronger, cannot be, by definition, a fair system.
Ansau – Sylvari Mesmer – Exiled Warriors [wE] – Gandara

i7 5775c @ 4.1GHz – 12GB RAM @ 2400MHz – RX 480 @ 1390/2140MHz

(edited by Ansau.7326)

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

1 /-1 /-1 would currently lead to rankings like Maguuma 8 / YB 1 / Blackgate 0, every server that doesn’t win more than 50% of all skirmishes will have 0 points, so most balanced matchups will be 1/0/0 in total points at the end and the winner being the one that won the last matchup before reset. Would be funny but would it be better?

Good point. Having a win streak at the end of the matchup would be almost a guaranteed win. Like Last Stand on steroids. A confident team could safely ignore the first part of the matchup upto 2/3. Even longer depending on other teams’ total VPs.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

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Posted by: Artemis Thuras.8795

Artemis Thuras.8795

VP subtraction would be very interesting. The last skirmish potentially holding heavy weight in theory means they (Skirmishes) should still matter late in the week ( one could gain a lead of say 5-6 points) giving them a buffer to secure their win.. But they have to keep holding it.

I would be interesting to see how +x/0/-y (x,y being arbitrary numbers, maybe the same), or +2/ -1/-1 would work out too.

edit: nothing to stop a server starting on say 10 VP at the beginning of the week, so initially losing has some impact also.

While it may not alter the outcome, it may make later in the week not feel like “the match is won/lost, no point playing/trying”. That should be a good thing.
It also may be worth thinking about Saturday resets again too if the last few hours can sway a match.

This coupled with per skirmish rewards, and the 1up/1down could be interesting.

I know I’ve already posted this elsewhere but its nice to have thoughts in one place..
monthly re-linking, with a placement reward for the month would also be quite interesting. ( participation used to calculate number of shares /player, world placement determines the treasure chest being shared).

Co-Leader of The Mythical Dragons [MYTH],
Advocate of learning and being a useful party member.
http://mythdragons.enjin.com/recruitment

(edited by Artemis Thuras.8795)

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Posted by: bigFM.8642

bigFM.8642

I don’t feel like anything has really changed. It is still the PPT server that wins the matches.

Fort Ranik [FR] & Fels der Weissagung [FR] & Vizunah-Platz [FR]
Kills: 21,931
Deaths: 36,231
Ratio: 0.61

And yet they are leading by 41 victory points, cause all they do is cap empty objectives and siege them to high heaven.

We have already witnessed servers hiding and running away from fights in the last phase of a skirmish because they were afraid to be overtaken. ^^

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Posted by: Pompeia.5483

Pompeia.5483

Skirmishing is not doing anything to change how people play or servers win/lose. When we get so few points as an off server, we are not going to catch up to first ever if we do not get the weekend.
Maybe changing point values would do a little but it does not solve the issue. I would prefer you focus on the matching system to fix scoring being out of control.

Amanda Corsiva – Revenant && Katereyna – Chillomancer
Jenna Gracen – Scrapper && Merit Sullivan – Guardian
Daenerys Ceridwen – Druid && Vexia Gracen – Chronomancer

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Posted by: Mylerian.9176

Mylerian.9176

Not a fan. Seems like it is just not working all that well. I hope you figure it out soon. Sure is becoming no fun to WvW anymore, and that is all I really like in Gw2.

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Posted by: Glass Hand.7306

Glass Hand.7306

I like the idea of skirmishes quite a bit. However like others note the 3-2-1 distribution needs some tweaking. perhaps 3-2-2 is the best idea I’ve seen proposed.

The other thing I’d really like to see is the API updated so the various statistics sites can update their displays with the new skirmish scoring data. I really miss being able to check on what the status of a match is quickly or see how matches I’m not actually involved in are going.

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

I would be interesting to see how +x/0/-y (x,y being arbitrary numbers, maybe the same), or +2/ -1/-1 would work out too.

2-(-1)-(-1) sounds like the best distribution so far.

  • allows victory score buildup (51 skirmish wins guarantees a matchup win)
  • prevents the weakest team falling too far behind
  • emphasizes the later part of the matchup
  • forces teams to fight for the win, not for the second place
  • the weakest team can choose to play a king-maker for catching up later

NA T1 matchup would be at Mag 32, YB 2, BG 12 victory points now. YB would need a win streak of 11 to catch up with Mag.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

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Posted by: Mylerian.9176

Mylerian.9176

Easy fix here. Do not allow transfers for 2 months after a person decides to transfer. That way they have to make it work with the server they are on. I know Anet will not do that because that is a big money maker for them. But it would fix a lot of issues. Not all of them mind you, but it would be a great step in the right direction. I feel if you win you go up a tier, and if you loose you go down. That simple……

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Posted by: Reslinal.2359

Reslinal.2359

I like the skirmish system, I think it reduces the score runaway problem a bit and makes caring for scores a little bit stronger compared to before. There are three areas I think the skirmish system can improve on:

1. Make players more aware of a skirmish starting and ending, and give players more incentive to win a skirmish. Some others have mentioned some announcement lines and I think it is a good idea, also making adding a time countdown and a big win announcement may help too.

2. Current skirmish system making catching up rather difficult if you are behind (e.g. if you are 15 points behind by the middle of the week, it will take more than 30 hours to catch up). One solution is too add a winning streak bonus for any side that is not currently leading in total victory points (so if a team that’s not first and wins 3 skirmish in a role will get 1 or 2 additional victory points until it becomes first). This will make come back more likely and more exciting matches.

3. Using skirmish system to encourage more uniting between 2 weaker servers against strong server. This was hard to do with the old points system, but now you can simply awarding the same points to 2nd and 3rd server and makes only winning first matter.

In the end, I think the skirmish system is pretty neat, if you want to further reduce the problem of night capping, you can always give more weights to prime time hours in awarding victory points.

Blackgate Engineer

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Posted by: Hesacon.8735

Hesacon.8735

I like the idea of skirmishes quite a bit. However like others note the 3-2-1 distribution needs some tweaking. perhaps 3-2-2 is the best idea I’ve seen proposed.

The other thing I’d really like to see is the API updated so the various statistics sites can update their displays with the new skirmish scoring data. I really miss being able to check on what the status of a match is quickly or see how matches I’m not actually involved in are going.

http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups

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Posted by: Xenesis.6389

Xenesis.6389

Can you people please stop with the double teaming talk, it is so incredibly absurd, biased and shortsighted to even suggest that scoring be changed so as to encourage this. You do understand it can work against your server as well, and then you same people will be back on here complaining about how anet killed wvw because your server is being double teamed all week. Just seriously stop.

Hi, Hello, It’s a 3 sided game, there’s always a double team. You just don’t hear about it every minute of the match because the front lines change so often. When you do hear about it’s usually the losing team giving up all their space to the other two heavily fighting for their points, as in k-training their entire borderland, and nothing can be done until a commander shows up to gather up numbers, or wait it out until the trainers leave.

Really the only time the double team happened big time was when BG managed to get double teamed by JQ/TC that actually lasted for more than 5 mins during a season. Which by the way is a good example of what can happen if you pit the 2nd and 3rd teams against the 1st team.


I had a really long post typed up, but let me put this as short as possible.
Team games award a win/loss record, sometimes they do points so 2-3 points for a win, 1-2 points for tie, 0 for a loss. So we really should be scoring this 2-0-0.

Team games are based on even sides, with skill, strategy, and team play getting you the wins, in wvw we’re just awarding points for coverage. Hi thanks for showing up you get 3 gold points for buying poeple, you there get 2 silver points for managing to hold on to your people, and you over there get 1 bronze out of pity.

As mentioned the double team is always in effect, so essentially it’s still a 2 sided fight with 1 random side swaying back and forth. So award it, 2 points for the win, 1 point for the try, 1 point for the king maker.

Another derailing post. ^^
North Keep: One of the village residents will now flee if their home is destroyed.
“Game over man, Game Over!” – RIP Bill

(edited by Xenesis.6389)

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Posted by: X T D.6458

X T D.6458

Can you people please stop with the double teaming talk, it is so incredibly absurd, biased and shortsighted to even suggest that scoring be changed so as to encourage this. You do understand it can work against your server as well, and then you same people will be back on here complaining about how anet killed wvw because your server is being double teamed all week. Just seriously stop.

Hi, Hello, It’s a 3 sided game, there’s always a double team. You just don’t hear about it every minute of the match because the front lines change so often. When you do hear about it’s usually the losing team giving up all their space to the other two heavily fighting for their points, as in k-training their entire borderland, and nothing can be done until a commander shows up to gather up numbers, or wait it out until the trainers leave.

Really the only time the double team happened big time was when BG managed to get double teamed by JQ/TC that actually lasted for more than 5 mins during a season. Which by the way is a good example of what can happen if you pit the 2nd and 3rd teams against the 1st team.


I had a really long post typed up, but let me put this as short as possible.
Team games award a win/loss record, sometimes they do points so 2-3 points for a win, 1-2 points for tie, 0 for a loss. So we really should be scoring this 2-0-0.

Team games are based on even sides, with skill, strategy, and team play getting you the wins, in wvw we’re just awarding points for coverage. Hi thanks for showing up you get 3 gold points for buying poeple, you there get 2 silver points for managing to hold on to your people, and you over there get 1 bronze out of pity.

As mentioned the double team is always in effect, so essentially it’s still a 2 sided fight with 1 random side swaying back and forth. So award it, 2 points for the win, 1 point for the try, 1 point for the king maker.

There is a difference between Map politics, and organized weeklong double teaming. Nobody likes it, everyone complains about it, and yet some people think the scoring system should be changed to reward this playstyle so we always have 2 servers focusing 1 server. Like I said, some people dont seem to understand IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOUR SERVER to, and then you are going to be the same people back on here complaining to anet to do something because wvw is dead. Just stop with this ridiculousness.

I say what needs to be said, get used to it.
Honesty is not insulting, stupidity is.
>Class Balance is a Joke<

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Posted by: Sarika.3756

Sarika.3756

Map politics and opportunistic double teams are fine. They happen (or should happen) on home bl’s every reset.

Organized week long double teams are an entirely different thing, and shouldn’t be encouraged.

XTD has an incredibly valid point in the above comment as well. WvW does not exist in any form without enemies. If you break your toys, don’t come complain because you have nobody to play with any more.

Play styles and skill levels differ. One player’s idea of fun I’d someone else’s idea of boredom. But in the end, we only have a game mode if there are players on both sides

Create an environment that encourages people to play with you, not in a style you don’t enjoy.

Hint: being toxic doesn’t do that.

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Posted by: Ultra Hades.4691

Ultra Hades.4691

Organised 2v1’s are very fun and should be encouraged, the fights happen at your doorstep instead of having to chase them down.

[WL] Kin Bear

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Posted by: Xenesis.6389

Xenesis.6389

There is a difference between Map politics, and organized weeklong double teaming. Nobody likes it, everyone complains about it, and yet some people think the scoring system should be changed to reward this playstyle so we always have 2 servers focusing 1 server. Like I said, some people dont seem to understand IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOUR SERVER to, and then you are going to be the same people back on here complaining to anet to do something because wvw is dead. Just stop with this ridiculousness.

Oh no it can happen to my server!?!?!

I know quite well it can happen to my server thanks, I’ve experienced it multiple times being the last place server in the matchup, when our enemies would take turns running through our borderlands flipping everything with their blobs and we were down to 5 people still trying to pitifully defend something. I kitten well know it can happen and have had it happen playing this game for 4 years.

Don’t act like it doesn’t already exist, last place team players that give up on the week cause they can’t even muster up enough to hold anything from the two other sides. Hey guys we both are taking your stuff, but we didn’t formally announce it in the forums so technically it really isn’t a double team, btw thanks for your hills garri and bay, we’ll hold on to it for a couple hours. Don’t worry we won’t waypoint it, troll siege, /laugh at you while you try to take it back with an omega and 5 people, oh wait you brought 10 lemme call in my blob from ebg. /extralaugh haha blue team taking their ebg shtuff.

The tables need to be turned, stacked/more populated/better coverage servers deserve to be more pressured in a matchup than the last place team.

Whatever, keep beating on the 3rd, enjoy your boonsharing blobs.

Another derailing post. ^^
North Keep: One of the village residents will now flee if their home is destroyed.
“Game over man, Game Over!” – RIP Bill

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Posted by: Hexinx.1872

Hexinx.1872

Being toxic is an attitude, regardless of scoring, tocix players will play like that… in this form, in a double team, in real life even. Anet’s not here to fix people. They are here to promote more play. You will never be able to curb coverage issues or population imbalances, also not related to scoring. The reason I support the idea of taking down the king of the hill, is because the game in it’s current state promotes the double team on the weakest of the pairing. More often than not, 2nd place will go score easier points from 3rd place in a futile attempt to catch up or retain 2nd. That focus needs to be shifted onto the top dog in order to have any real competition in WvW. The double team is not a week long battle, the double team lasts until the mighty falls, then shifts to the new top dog, so stop pretending like it’s going to create a vortex of A vs B + C the entire week. The only way that occurs is when a server is able to handle a double team and still maintain the lead. But battles of attrition facing multiple forces rarely favour the defenders. It sounds like it would be more engaging, instead of letting things hit t3 and remain that way all week (boring).

Why do you think 3 way SMC fights are so enjoyable, and EBG is easily the most popular map? That may be my personal opinion, but I know I’m not alone … it’s a lot more enjoyable to engage in that play. When you no longer have to pay attention, skill takes a huge nose dive and the engagement of the game is … well … not even present.

I’m not saying this is the be all end all, but just an idea I prefer support and am happy to let bygones be bygones with those who oppose it for their own reasons.

(edited by Hexinx.1872)

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Posted by: Svarty.8019

Svarty.8019

Good points about skirmishes;

  • Gives short-term objectives to players,
  • Allows losing world to feel as though they achieved something,
  • Reduces the impact of nightcaps,
  • Allows a much clearer perspective of how each side is doing overall relatively speaking,

Bad points about skirmishes;

  • Overall, doesn’t seem to help with imbalance,
  • Slightly more complicated, especially for newcomers,

Other points

  • Skirmishes illustrate how most matches are finished way before Friday’s reset.
  • I would advise against developing a system to award more Warscore for holding higher tier objectives as this will reward an already dominant world.
Nobody at Anet loves WvW like Grouch loved PvP. That’s what we need, a WvW Grouch, but taller.

(edited by Svarty.8019)

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Posted by: Woop S.7851

Woop S.7851

On September 9th we added Skirmishes to the game. Now that everyone has had a chance to play them, what are your thoughts on Skirmishes? If there is anything, what would you like to see changed/added?

The Skirmish point system is a great start, however gameplay still falls back to the same zerging behavior, some improvements could be:

- score points/counter on top of screen when players enter WvW in order to encourage “capture” of objectives as an alternative to zerging
- bigger reward for captures and holding of objectives would encourage tactics & dynamic combat aside from zergs
- encourage individual builds that sychronize with eachother when capturing camps
- currently if it’s zerg vs zerg, the higher skirmish score is always the side with roamers capturing camps while the big armies are duking it out

Please take a look at the following GW1 commentary on how Alliance Battles works, it had some great designs back then that can be “adopted” to enhance GW2 WvW scoring and player behavior:

https://youtu.be/qI54ui_wj9I?t=5m5s

favorite quote the commentator mentioned in the video was: “…some of the fights you can’t win…the control points are more important…”

https://youtu.be/1sFMS2vwMj0?t=4m5s

(edited by Woop S.7851)

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Posted by: Zenith.6403

Zenith.6403

It would be interesting to see the outcome with a 5,4,3 point system versus a 3,2,1

The outcome is the same…duh! Winner wins by 2 points, loser loses by 2 points.

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Posted by: Rink.6108

Rink.6108

  • I would advise against developing a system to award more Warscore for holding higher tier objectives as this will reward an already dominant world.

Totally agree. The server that holds the objective already has the advantage that tier 3 structures are a lot harder to take than paper ones and have better or strategical upgrades (watchtower, waypoint). This is more than enough reason to try not to lose it.

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Posted by: Hexinx.1872

Hexinx.1872

It would be interesting to see the outcome with a 5,4,3 point system versus a 3,2,1

The outcome is the same…duh! Winner wins by 2 points, loser loses by 2 points.

Yeah, a few posts later I thought the 2,1,1 would be interesting because the point allocation would be different and it could lead to teaming up on the top dog of the match.. Guess ya missed that!