Guild Wars 2

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

What is WvW supposed to be about?

WvW is supposed to be about “worlds” competing with each other to own objectives, the ownership of which give rewards.

This is distinct from PvP, FPS games, etc which are supposed to be about individual players or small teams competing to kill each other first or most often.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Capturing a bunch of empty towers and keeps which earn points-over-time for absentee landlords or fighting opposing servers in epic battle? If it’s the former, then the system is working exactly as intended. Carry on.

As presented, this describes PvE. Replace the word “Tower” with “Tequatl” or “Keep” with the 3 headed wurm.

However, one of the hallmarks of WvW is that worlds are free to choose their strategies and tactics, and if well designed, there is not a single “best” strategy or a single “best” playstyle or set of tactics.

In this particular case, if one world has chosen to concentrate its players in a single zerg, a possible set of counter tactics is in fact to send small teams to take every objective where the zerg isn’t. I hypothesize this should force the zerg to break up into smaller teams to get broader geographical coverage.

If the “zerg” team is not smart enough to recognize the threat of the small team counter strategy, and does not respond, then yes, the small teams are doing PvD; they and their world are rewarded handsomely for doing so until the “zerg” team comes to its senses.

An “arms race” of strategies and tactics can keep a game like this vibrant for a decade even if the developers don’t change a thing.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

If WvW is supposed to be about the latter, though, then PPT as a scoring mechanic is the antithesis of the goal of bringing players into conflict with one another. PPT rewards players for avoiding their opponents. A server earns more points for capturing undefended objectives because there’s no defenders to slow down a zerg’s momentum. It also permits karma trains to farm loot from NPCs faster; in a game mode where – ostensibly – we’re supposed to be fighting one another rather than the AI.

If the worlds collude, as in a karma train, to maximize bags, world xp from captures, and other tactical rewards, at the expense of the strategic rewards owning those objectives are supposed to be about, then there is an issue and we need to look closer. Three hypotheses I can think of for this behavior:

1. the tactical rewards are far more valuable than the strategic ones. In this case the rewards need to be adjusted.

2. the players doing this are PvE players who don’t like or can’t hack PvP combat. In this case we need to stop incenting PvE players to set foot in the WvW zones.

3. the strategic rewards are not seen as relevant to “the good of the world”. Perhaps also the strategic rewards need to be a big deal for the PvE players, for example, making it a whole lot easier to do the 3 headed Wurm encounter, or save up for that Legendary, or even run Arah for the first time, if you have a large WvW advantage. Let’s get players with different playstyles on the same team, not at each other’s throats!

Separately, I think there’s a player segment which wants zerg on zerg fights, for the sake of those fights. This is an unmet need in GW2 today. GW2’s engine (both client side and server side) really isn’t up to such fights above a certain scale, and the current design of both WvW and EoTM don’t really support such play. I would further subdivide this set of players into large scale guild-on-guild and a less structured world vs world (or maybe even random teams) preference. I have in the past suggested that there be a way to buy a medallion which would open a private zone instance to which the medallion buyer could then invite their guild and an opposing guild at a planned time for a large scale guild on guild match.

Sure! Lets blob even more with bigger queues!

goldenwing.8473:

Don’t want to side-track this thread with discussions regarding PPT vs Fights.

Our guild does both.

Eliminating the concept of PPT altogether eliminates the strategic play this game offers.

I understand there are many players out here who want large scale PvP.

Forcing that style play while eliminating other play changes this game into something it currently is not.

Again, the same concept applies to PPT vs Fights as applies to consolidating population into 1 map: removing existing content for the benefit of some at the expense of others is not a good idea.

Adding additional ways to reward WvW players in conjunction with adjusting PPT, not eliminating it, allows for greater diversity in playstyle without alienating customers and potentially causing attrition.

Except that the current point reward system does not promote diversity nor conflict. The single most efficient method of earning PPT is to capture empty, undefended structures. It then becomes a self-sustaining cycle. No one defends because there’s no reward for doing so. It makes more sense (from a points perspective) to roll up into a zerg, abandon one’s holdings, and karma train the opposition; opposition who does the same exact thing. Resulting in the situation we have now.

This isn’t to say fights don’t happen. But they happen as much because karma trains just happen to bump into each other while circling the map as they do because players actively seek such fights. The fights between players occur in spite of the scoring mechanic, not because of the scoring mechanic.

Furthermore, the suggestion of eliminating PPT is not the same as removing content. There would still be value in capturing undefended, empty objectives. The reason for doing so simply shifts from capturing it for PPT to capturing it to deny enemy supply (capturing supply camps), denying them mobility (capturing a keep with a waypoint), luring them into a fight (capturing a strategically important objective that the enemy will want, as well), diverting their attention, etc.

All the reasons outside of PPT for why players capture objectives would still be viable. It does nothing to diminish the strategic value of those activities. If anything, it increases their value as the means of setting the stage for conflicts between players and servers. In short, players/servers are rewarded for their direct actions against opposing players/servers rather than their inactions as absentee landlords who abandon their holdings.

I would argue players play for PPT because they adapted – for better or worse – to the scoring mechanic we were given at launch; not because anyone sat down and said to themselves, “WOW! I get to earn 5 points every 15 minutes from that supply camp I captured!!!” It became something to fight for because there wasn’t anything else available; not because it has intrinsic value.

Yes, under the current scoring paradigm, players can set up an association in their own mind that PPT = contributing to their server’s success. It’s an arbitrary association, however, that can be easily replaced by scoring methodologies which – arguably – are a more concrete measure of one’s contribution to their server’s success. Which of the following is a more accurate reflection of just how much a player has contributed to that success?

A) I capped an empty, undefended camp during off-peak hours which sat idle for 1 hour before the opposing server managed to cap it back, earning 20 points for my server over time.

VERSUS

B) I capped a camp which was actively defended by an enemy who I defeated, earning 20 points for capturing the camp and a few more points for some finishing moves performed during the fight.

A player can still engage in activity (A); the reward still be the same as it ever was simply minus the PPT. The enemy’s supply line will have been disrupted and a supply camp secured for the capping player’s server; both of great value. There just won’t be any PPT associated with it any longer to break us free of the cycle wherein numbers rule all in WvW.

bewhatever.2390:

As presented, this describes PvE. Replace the word “Tower” with “Tequatl” or “Keep” with the 3 headed wurm.

However, one of the hallmarks of WvW is that worlds are free to choose their strategies and tactics, and if well designed, there is not a single “best” strategy or a single “best” playstyle or set of tactics.

In this particular case, if one world has chosen to concentrate its players in a single zerg, a possible set of counter tactics is in fact to send small teams to take every objective where the zerg isn’t. I hypothesize this should force the zerg to break up into smaller teams to get broader geographical coverage.

If the “zerg” team is not smart enough to recognize the threat of the small team counter strategy, and does not respond, then yes, the small teams are doing PvD; they and their world are rewarded handsomely for doing so until the “zerg” team comes to its senses.

An “arms race” of strategies and tactics can keep a game like this vibrant for a decade even if the developers don’t change a thing.

Except that with the way PPT is designed, it doesn’t work this way in practice. With a 15 minute delay between point tallies, everything a small team captures away from the enemy zerg can just be re-steamrolled over by that zerg before the expiration of the current 15 minute count-down timer. This completely invalidates the contribution of the small team to their server.

Furthermore, the zerg has the potential to capture more high-value targets in the same amount of time that the small teams take to capture lesser-value targets. The small commando squads can be a crack team of camp cappers. Even so, after having captured 6 supply camps before the next point tally, their earned PPT will be less than the zerg which captures the same number of camps and some towers (and maybe even a keep) to boot. If the camps that the zerg captures are the same ones the small team captured, this disparity is even more greatly magnified.

What’s more is the zerg accomplishes this with little effort on their part while the small teams are working their butts off coordinating effort and timing and working hard to secure their caps. When the next point tally comes up, the zerg wins (with regard to PPT) and the small teams lose; despite having been the players who arguably demonstrated more skill and put in more effort than the zerg.

Contrast this with a system wherein one’s actions are rewarded at the time at which they are executed. The World Score points the small team earns from capturing those multiple camps are immediately deposited into their server’s total; not X minutes from now if the server manages to keep them out of the hands of the map-circling karma train.

Of course, this assumes that what the small team caps is actively defended by the opposition. Under a scoring system where you risk losing points by not defending what you own, though, it’s much more likely the zerging team will split up at least a little to assign members to defend their holdings. If the zerging server cares about their score at all, then they will begin to change behavior to adapt to the new scoring system.

We then move into a new era of WvW in which players’ contributions to their servers are measured, validated, and rewarded in real time. Lastly, superior numbers are no longer the single most effective method for earning World Score points, leading to a greater diversity of strategies and tactics.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Except that with the way PPT is designed, it doesn’t work this way in practice. With a 15 minute delay between point tallies, everything a small team captures away from the enemy zerg can just be re-steamrolled over by that zerg before the expiration of the current 15 minute count-down timer. This completely invalidates the contribution of the small team to their server.

This is factually inconsistent with my play experience. If the small team I play on is going to PvD an undefended keep, we’ll probably start 5 minutes before the tick, not just after the tick.

We can also do this defensively. Let’s say the enemy zerg is attacking a keep our side holds. We attack their undefended keep. They can break off their own attack to defend, or let us succeed. In either event the productivity of their entire zerg is impacted by just a few of us. Until they’re willing to split up, or leave defenders (which I agree is about as fun as watching grass grow), the four of us can make 40 people unproductive.

I also do not find that a zerg could take back an entire zone of objectives in the last 5 minutes before the tick. Two objectives, yes. Three objectives, maybe. But a whole map of keeps and towers? Can’t move a zerg that fast. So if my side has 4 teams each capable of taking an undefended keep or tower in 5 minutes, and the other side is a single zerg which can take one objective every 2 to 3 minutes, I have the ability to take 12 undefended objectives per 15 minute tick and the zerg has the ability to take maybe 6. In this thought experiment we win ppt every time with 16 people to their 40 or 50.

Obviously my point is that there is a counter strategy for zerg. I assume you’re smart enough to see at least one counter strategy to what I describe here.

I’m not talking about casuals here. I’m talking about people who know where and how to place siege to take walls and doors down at the maximum rate and have the dps to down lords. Camps are things you solo while waiting for friends to log on, or take just to get supply.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

What’s more is the zerg accomplishes this with little effort on their part while the small teams are working their butts off coordinating effort and timing and working hard to secure their caps. When the next point tally comes up, the zerg wins (with regard to PPT) and the small teams lose; despite having been the players who arguably demonstrated more skill and put in more effort than the zerg.

Contrast this with a system wherein one’s actions are rewarded at the time at which they are executed. The World Score points the small team earns from capturing those multiple camps are immediately deposited into their server’s total; not X minutes from now if the server manages to keep them out of the hands of the map-circling karma train.

Increasing the score at cap, while decreasing the score at tick, incents people to flip even more often than today, and to defend even less.

I think whatever the scoring system is, needs to (1) feel like it enhances fun rather than forcing people to drudgery, (2) disincent collusion, for example karma trains, and (3) incent teams to work hard to get and hold important objectives, with combat incidental to this goal.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

bewhatever.2390:

As presented, this describes PvE. Replace the word “Tower” with “Tequatl” or “Keep” with the 3 headed wurm.

However, one of the hallmarks of WvW is that worlds are free to choose their strategies and tactics, and if well designed, there is not a single “best” strategy or a single “best” playstyle or set of tactics.

In this particular case, if one world has chosen to concentrate its players in a single zerg, a possible set of counter tactics is in fact to send small teams to take every objective where the zerg isn’t. I hypothesize this should force the zerg to break up into smaller teams to get broader geographical coverage.

If the “zerg” team is not smart enough to recognize the threat of the small team counter strategy, and does not respond, then yes, the small teams are doing PvD; they and their world are rewarded handsomely for doing so until the “zerg” team comes to its senses.

An “arms race” of strategies and tactics can keep a game like this vibrant for a decade even if the developers don’t change a thing.

(1) Except that with the way PPT is designed, it doesn’t work this way in practice. With a 15 minute delay between point tallies, everything a small team captures away from the enemy zerg can just be re-steamrolled over by that zerg before the expiration of the current 15 minute count-down timer. This completely invalidates the contribution of the small team to their server.

(2) Furthermore, the zerg has the potential to capture more high-value targets in the same amount of time that the small teams take to capture lesser-value targets. The small commando squads can be a crack team of camp cappers. Even so, after having captured 6 supply camps before the next point tally, their earned PPT will be less than the zerg which captures the same number of camps and some towers (and maybe even a keep) to boot. If the camps that the zerg captures are the same ones the small team captured, this disparity is even more greatly magnified.

(3) What’s more is the zerg accomplishes this with little effort on their part while the small teams are working their butts off coordinating effort and timing and working hard to secure their caps. When the next point tally comes up, the zerg wins (with regard to PPT) and the small teams lose; despite having been the players who arguably demonstrated more skill and put in more effort than the zerg.

(4) Contrast this with a system wherein one’s actions are rewarded at the time at which they are executed. The World Score points the small team earns from capturing those multiple camps are immediately deposited into their server’s total; not X minutes from now if the server manages to keep them out of the hands of the map-circling karma train.

(5) Of course, this assumes that what the small team caps is actively defended by the opposition. Under a scoring system where you risk losing points by not defending what you own, though, it’s much more likely the zerging team will split up at least a little to assign members to defend their holdings. If the zerging server cares about their score at all, then they will begin to change behavior to adapt to the new scoring system.

(6) We then move into a new era of WvW in which players’ contributions to their servers are measured, validated, and rewarded in real time. Lastly, superior numbers are no longer the single most effective method for earning World Score points, leading to a greater diversity of strategies and tactics.

(Edited quote to put points on numbers.)

continued next post

I’d like to turn first to the discussion of PPT or not, because I think there are some incredibly important points that have already been made (see bewhatever’s post) that need to be either restated or reemphasized. I believe there are key, core facets to the entire play style of WvW that have not been acknowledged here that need to be. Yes, there are many problems with WvW right now. However, killing WvW entirely by turning it into glorified sPvP and stripping it of all the strategic elements that make WvW what it is utterly defeats the purpose.

(1) ”Nothing small teams contribute to PPT counts because of the 15-minute timer.” By this logic, nothing that a zerg does either. What ultimately matters is what the state of the board is at the 15 minute tick mark, agreed. Is this the optimal way to count strategic contribution? Probably not. But please do not mistake the method by which strategic contribution is counted for the ability of a small team to contribute. This point misses several key concepts including: one, righteous indignation (please read http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Righteous_Indignation for a description of the mechanic, which enables small groups like mine to hold towers, keeps, and camps through the PPT tick with skillful execution even against outnumbering zergs) and two, the fact that this mechanic equally impacts zergs as well as small groups. Arguably, if two sides have, say, 30 players in a map, a 20-man zerg and a pair of 5-man groups will hugely outperform a single 30-man zerg in terms of PPT. See bewhatever’s post above. The zerg cannot be in three places at once; the increased takedown speed on doors and killing lords is an advantage, but not so much of an advantage as to invalidate what small groups contribute. If we’re talking about incompetent small groups that is a separate matter not suited for comparison here: we’re discussing the structural capabilities of the system, not individual skill differentials. That in any event would also apply to zergs and small groups equally.

My small guild (four players total) have, with just us, put both towers and keeps on the map in T1 (Blackgate), including some that have been lightly defended. Have we ever taken down a 20-man zerg? No. Have we taken down small groups and captured keeps before the tick? Hell yes. We often time our assaults on both towers and keeps (camps are what we pick up on our way to towers and keeps, not our ultimate goal, although we cap them at about the same speed that a full zerg does) so that the tick occurs right after we’ve captured them, with some room to fight off defenders as necessary. This playstyle requires an extremely high degree of tactical and strategic skill and finesse. Often times we are coordinating with major zerg leaders who are busy keeping primary forces/zergs/blobs of other servers engaged so that we can go in and act as a major multiplier for our PPT. Often times our small team of four has put an equal number if not a larger number of PPT points on the map as a large T1 zerg because of this strategic and tactical quick thinking, planning, and skilled execution.

We have also, out in the field, observed an increase in small forces like ours doing similar things, mostly guild groups.

Furthermore, how is this different from the constraints that a zerg faces? If a zerg takes a keep, they can lose that keep if they don’t defend it.

(2) ”The only thing small teams are good for is capping a bunch of camps.” What server do you play on? It’s common for T1 small guild groups, in my experience, to take towers and even keeps, including defended ones. As I said above, if we are talking about unskilled or incompetent small groups, that is a separate issue dealing with poor strategic planning and execution. Proper use of timing and righteous indignation allows small groups to have a profound impact on PPT. The last several times my small group (four man swat team) went out, we were able to put an equal amount of PPT on the board compared to our server’s main zerg in the borderlands we went to. On several occasions we were able to distract or engage a larger force (20-25 players) to allow another force on our server to finish a keep kill. I agree that a poorly planned camp train will make a minimal contribution to PPT; however, so will a poorly planned karma training blob. I’m not sure what this has to do with small groups being ineffective. It deals with poor leaders and bad strategies being ineffective regardless of size. If you take a tower at the 13-minute mark and then abandon it, of course you’re probably going to lose it before the PPT mark. Same with a keep, and naturally, yes, also supply camps.

continued next post

(3) ”Large numbers of players put more PPT on the board than small players.” Couple of things here. First, yes, in theory a group of 50 players should be able to have a greater impact on PPT than a group of 5 players. That’s part of how WvW works. Second, however, that often is NOT in fact how WvW works. Most of the times we log in, my small guild group of four players is able to put just as many PPT on the board as a large zerg. I’ve also noticed many small guild groups accomplishing similar things (though usually they do so with 5, or 8, or 10, or 12). I’m also not talking about camps here. I’m talking about towers and keeps. As I’ve said before: camps are what we stop by to supply up for before we go take towers or keeps, the same way zergs do. If you look at PPT contribution per capita (per number of people in the relevant group) by that metric, if we’re able to take a camp, a tower, and a keep (where “take” refers to “holding through PPT via intelligent timing and use of righteous indignation, see wiki above for mechanic details, resulting in actual PPT score contribution) that means that we are able to, with four, produce many times more points per player as a zerg would. I’d say that’s rewarding skill. Furthermore, if you use the PPT per capita metric, a zerg taking a camp is actually incredibly inefficient. The opportunity cost to the zerg for doing so is the ability to take multiple camps. In this sense, small group play grossly outclasses the PPT generating ability, and therefore efficiency, of the zerg. Why should we shut down this style of play that requires more skill, more finesse, more coordination, encourages small group and guild play in a game called Guild Wars, when that playstyle is able to contribute much more to WvW’s success metric (PPT)? I’m not sure I follow your post here.

(4) ”We should move to a system where points are immediately awarded to the capturing realm.” It would be interesting to see where this goes. It might reduce the intelligence of play, however, by cutting down severely on the amount of strategic planning that goes into Righteous Indignation capture mechanics. By doing this, it would effectively encourage more and faster karma training, because you’d want to simply go out to every objective every time you can find one and capture it. Again, my real concern is that this would dumb down a lot of strategic play that small groups like mine (and again, I’m not talking about camps here, I’m talking about towers and keeps) rely on while fighting grossly superior numbers of lumbering zergs. Maybe you could clarify how this would work? Curious to hear more about it.

(5) ”Such a scoring system would immediately cause behavioral changes in players that emphasize defensive play much more than they do now.” I’m not sure how this change would modify player incentives at all. Right now, if you do not hold a point at the PPT tick, the other realm gets the points, not you. Under this proposed system, individual captures are measured. This would be much more likely to induce capping-frenzy, rather than defensive play. There are no personal rewards for defensive play. There are personal rewards for capturing objectives. The only way to increase the amount of defensive play is to increase the rewards while decreasing the incentives to not defend (i.e. boredom waiting for attackers to show up, when you can be out capturing things instead). Not sure if this would actually accomplish what you’re looking for.

continued next post

(6) ”Such a real-time scoring system would dramatically improve WvW, and make sure that larger numbers of players don’t automatically lead to wins.” Again, I’m not entirely sure I see how this is going to be any better than what we have now. It might not necessarily be worse, but even if we have relatively ineffective small groups (only capable of capturing camps, not towers or keeps like ours or ones we’ve seen) then how is this going to change the overall point distribution? Zerging or not is a strategic choice that players make. Players have the ability to choose, as bewhatever said above, to break out into small groups. This is what we do on our server. We’ve found we’re able to make a huge impact on our server’s PPT in the BL’s we play in from doing that.

With that said, I’d like to turn this thread back to the original thread’s topic of limiting WvW to EBG during some metric of “overnight” hours.

While I agree that coverage issues right now can cause some players’ PPT contributions to matter more or differently than others, I have a few really, really basic questions about this.

Firstoff, as mentioned above, whose “overnight?” I’m not sure how to get around this. How would we choose which players to award more weight to, and which players to award less weight to?

Second, if we shut down the BLs during some players play time, how are they going to be able to get their World Complete? Does this mean these players no longer deserve the ability to finish their world complete achievements, finish their zone completions, do the jump puzzles in those borderlands (many players rely on these for their badges of honor) or to ever obtain legendary weapons just because of the time zone they happen to regularly play in? I don’t think so.

Third, wouldn’t it make more sense to look at the underlying incentive structures for why some servers have better coverage than others? (When to log in, and when to play, are totally player-determined and controlled behavior.)

Fourth, there have already been discussions about possibly breaking up week-long matches into “weekend and weekday” or smaller units as a way of addressing this problem.

end post

I have an incredibly stupid question.

If one of the core problems we’re looking at is trying to halt karma trains and instead promote defensive objective gameplay (i.e. defend keep, defend tower) which in turn would promote more zerg on zerg fights, wouldn’t a sensible solution just be to increase the amount of PPT that objectives give over time?

This would provide a real, tangible defense reward, and would encourage greater levels of (1) fights, and (2) upgrading (meaningfully claiming, and getting excited about “this is OURS!”).

Here’s an example of what I mean:

Tower: held for 0 minutes to 60 minutes: 15 PPT per tick (current)
Tower: held for 60 minutes to 2 hours: 20 PPT per tick
Tower: held for 2 hours to 3 hours: 25 PPT per tick
Tower: held for over 3 hours: 30 PPT per tick

Keep: held for 0 minutes to 1 hour: 25 PPT per tick (current)
Keep: held for 1 hour to 2 hours: 30 PPT per tick
Keep: held for 2 hours to 3 hours: 35 PPT per tick
Keep: held for over 3 hours: 40 PPT per tick

Stonemist: held for 0 minutes to 1 hour: 35 PPT per tick (assuming we keep current SM)
Stonemist: held for1 hour to 2 hours: 40 PPT per tick
Stonemist: held for 2 hours to 3 hours: 45 PPT per tick
Stonemist: held for over 3 hours: 50 PPT per tick

Supply camps (these would be meant to flip, so maybe a little different):
Supply camp: 0 min to 30 minutes: 10 PPT per tick
Supply camp: 30 min to 1 hour: 15 PPT per tick
Supply camp: over 1 hour: 20 PPT per tick

The particular amounts that I’ve assigned don’t necessarily matter. This was a first-pass suggestion that I came up with that would slowly accelerate the value of the targets. This would create increasing incentives to both defend and attack key objectives, and would reorient the game towards objective-based gameplay, AND encouraging fights without completely revamping the existing system.

However, something like this would need to be carefully thought out. One of the major risks is that in a server set where we have gross imbalances already, this would perpetuate them. (For example, servers A, B, C are going after each other. A is consistently dominating and has a clear point lead every week.) I believe the correct counter to this is that when a server hits a certain ratio of low points for that week, that server should acquire an “underdog” buff, which enhances the amount of PPT gained under this system (10 instead of +5 for every increment held, for example) or decreases the amount of time (for example, an “underdog” server gets the full 3 hours bonus as soon as they capture an objective).

Bertrand.3057:

I only proposed a 6-8 hour closure, not an 18 hour one. The fact is that coverage wars have destroyed servers and royally kittened the ranking table for 18 months and counting. This proposal is a compromise because the above is the main problem, I balk when regional players say WvW should be shut down or certain regions locked out, you can’t control where your friends are. Anyways, the “overnight” experience on most servers pales far in comparison to the typical daytime/evening experience of a regional player and this should be a step towards improving it, while also addressing many other serious issues.

erm so tier1 -tier3 in na will turn into one giant zerglag skillag fest with 80man blobs hitting eachother on a tiny little map and all because u dont want people to play during the time u sleep? oi!
thanks for the detailed explanation and all but this would destroy wvw for many many players out there. including me as i do play off hours.

I play in SEA time and I really like this suggestion. I previously played RF online wherein the RvR in that game happens three times in 24 hours and if i remember correctly thats 5 am, 1 pm and 8 pm each war having a duration of three hours. Maybe for Gw2 we can do a Three 6 hour long WvW in a day to cover all timezones. During off-war time WvW map is still open but the castles and towers will be reset to their respected owners once the wvw resumes. This way players will need to prepare and gather in numbers. Will lessen the coverage wars. There is also time for WvW players to do their PVE stuff and PVE to do their WvW stuff.

bad idea.

not everyone play in OPs timezone.

ok i play in SEA, how about we shut down EBG when i go to sleep ?

Quite honestly, I enjoy the map-hopping wide-roaming playstyle our server adopts during off-peak hours. It feels much more strategic than zergballing all over the place.

The scoring system is what’s broken. Fix that. Don’t try to “fix” something a large subset of players like.

I am not entire sure why so many people see this as a bad idea. On lower tier servers, this concept would be great.

Yes, there are some players that wvw during off-peak hours too, having EB running 24/7 would still allow them to play.

I have two accounts, EU and NA, 1. cos I have friends in US and 2. cos I don’t wanna do pve ONLY during night in wvw. I play wvw for the pvp side, not just flip camps and get points. Ever tried wvw in T9 during late night hours? It’s BORING.

Due to this kittened ppt system, Vabbi is considered dead, eventhough we often dominate other servers during prime time. Come back in the morning, and other servers are 20k ahead. You can say “play for fun, not ppt” but most people are discouraged by losing to overnight coverage, they simply transfer or don’t play as much.

The problems I see with this suggestion are:

1. Anet would have to determine which servers are suitable for this and keep eye on servers’ population. Too much work for Anet.

2. Determine what hours are “hardcore off-line”. On Vabbi we have enough people during the day, it’s the 1am-7am lack of people that kills the ppt.

3. Some people just don’t like EB.

style.6173:

@OP: Bad idea.

Plus only a few people really care about PPT anyway. Most just want to have good fights whenever they play.

That’s why I like his idea, it would actually make fights possible during late night hours Currently all I can do is flip a camp and hope that maybe someone comes there to flip it back.

I know this won’t be implemented, since it’s too much to do for Anet and since players from higher tiers think that what applies to wvw on their servers, works same for the low ones too.

Sorry, but if anet puts WvW time restrictions, tons of players will leave the game.

Put this in your heads. Your nighttime is others daytime. Your primetime is others abandoned maps, and vice versa.

I find much better to merge low populated servers that trying to fix the population issues with restrictions that affect all servers.

PD: I could say the same with Baruch. We have tons of players during most of the day (even in our primetime all maps are queued), but from 5am to am everybody is sleeping.
So why don’t we shut down WvW during that time? That would also mean people wouldn’t need to put their alarm clocks to play a game like it was a job.
Note the irony…

Thanks for the continued responses, especially from those who can speak to their server’s so-called “night shift”.

Even if this proposal is too controversial and too much opposition, I think I’ll have succeeded if I’ve successfully communicated this fact (which is recognized both by many who support and many who oppose the idea): The dynamics of WvW change radically when the population is low.

The point is not that it’s someone’s night time, or that primetime is over (Side note, for those who claimed to have read my post and then suggested I’m ignoring the fact that the night shift might be someone else’s primetime, a geography lesson is in order. I indicated already that I play on an EU server, but live in Canada. Canada is not in Europe.), the point is that population drops off across the WvW population pool.

The WvW population in a matchup might be 10-20 times smaller than its peak population, yet it is still distributed across 4 maps. The game simply doesn’t function in the same way, either from an experience standpoint or a scoring standpoint, when populations are so thinly spread.

There are a few people who have indicated they enjoy the unique experience of these low activity hours, and I will say that it does have its charms. But if you were pitching this as a game mode in isolation (i.e. forget the server’s other populations exist), I think it’d be absurd to suggest having 4 maps would be decently balanced or that it would offer a consistent experience given the total number and the variance of players who play in this time slot.

T1/T2 are of course the exception, certainly it’s an obstacle to this proposal that stacking of coverage during this time slot has already happened.

No. Restricting someone’s playing time or what they can do is wrong, no matter how small the amount of people you think it would affect. It is still wrong. Your time is not more valuable than anyone elses time.

Gizmo.9178:

No. Restricting someone’s playing time or what they can do is wrong, no matter how small the amount of people you think it would affect. It is still wrong. Your time is not more valuable than anyone elses time.

This is precisely the kind of post that shows a lack of understanding of what this thread is about. This is not an attempt by “primetime” players to restore PPT balance by imposing restrictions on “off-peak” players. It’s an open discussion about the viability of the 4 map game when there are not enough players to populate 4 maps.

The people who would be affected are the people whose opinions are being specifically solicited, I conceived this idea with my own experience as a “night watch” player in mind.

The responses from Luranni, goldenwing, selan, Alcyone, and Jayden Ennok have been, I feel, the most useful for this discussion because they speak specifically to what the current night watch experience is or what it might become. Apologies if I missed anyone.

Matipzieu KyA.9613:

I have an incredibly stupid question.

If one of the core problems we’re looking at is trying to halt karma trains and instead promote defensive objective gameplay (i.e. defend keep, defend tower) which in turn would promote more zerg on zerg fights, wouldn’t a sensible solution just be to increase the amount of PPT that objectives give over time?

This would provide a real, tangible defense reward, and would encourage greater levels of (1) fights, and (2) upgrading (meaningfully claiming, and getting excited about “this is OURS!”).

Here’s an example of what I mean:

Tower: held for 0 minutes to 60 minutes: 15 PPT per tick (current)
Tower: held for 60 minutes to 2 hours: 20 PPT per tick
Tower: held for 2 hours to 3 hours: 25 PPT per tick
Tower: held for over 3 hours: 30 PPT per tick

Keep: held for 0 minutes to 1 hour: 25 PPT per tick (current)
Keep: held for 1 hour to 2 hours: 30 PPT per tick
Keep: held for 2 hours to 3 hours: 35 PPT per tick
Keep: held for over 3 hours: 40 PPT per tick

Stonemist: held for 0 minutes to 1 hour: 35 PPT per tick (assuming we keep current SM)
Stonemist: held for1 hour to 2 hours: 40 PPT per tick
Stonemist: held for 2 hours to 3 hours: 45 PPT per tick
Stonemist: held for over 3 hours: 50 PPT per tick

Supply camps (these would be meant to flip, so maybe a little different):
Supply camp: 0 min to 30 minutes: 10 PPT per tick
Supply camp: 30 min to 1 hour: 15 PPT per tick
Supply camp: over 1 hour: 20 PPT per tick

The particular amounts that I’ve assigned don’t necessarily matter. This was a first-pass suggestion that I came up with that would slowly accelerate the value of the targets. This would create increasing incentives to both defend and attack key objectives, and would reorient the game towards objective-based gameplay, AND encouraging fights without completely revamping the existing system.

However, something like this would need to be carefully thought out. One of the major risks is that in a server set where we have gross imbalances already, this would perpetuate them. (For example, servers A, B, C are going after each other. A is consistently dominating and has a clear point lead every week.) I believe the correct counter to this is that when a server hits a certain ratio of low points for that week, that server should acquire an “underdog” buff, which enhances the amount of PPT gained under this system (10 instead of +5 for every increment held, for example) or decreases the amount of time (for example, an “underdog” server gets the full 3 hours bonus as soon as they capture an objective).

That is probably one of the best ideas to deal with karma trains I have seen so far. The problem is the majority of people like karma trains unfortunately.

This proposal is great, I’ll never be able to enter the borderlands. What a well thought out and logical idea. This deserves some kind if award.

I really hate reading these " ’MURICA ONLY " threads. It really makes me wonder about the education system over there and how it breeds this kind of ignorance.

Your problem is with 168 hour long matches, take it up with that.

Bertrand.3057:

I can tell that you hate reading these threads because you clearly didn’t bother reading any of it. Instead of just glancing at the thread title, which is restricted to 45 characters, give a read through then try again.

Oh I read your first 2 posts, they are utterly hilarious. Well, they were until I realised you were being serious, and not joking.

Bertrand.3057:

tl;dr Close BLs at night and limit PPT to EBG. This will make overnight play more fun and help make all servers competitive. If you have criticism to offer, please read through the post first.

Also, riddle me this, how is giving me only one map to play on (the map I play least on) MORE FUN???? That statement is devoid of all logic.

Riddle me again, you don’t play during this time that you want to hilariously destroy, so tell me how you can even speak of its merits?

And I’m done here, this thread is a joke, and nor will anything like this be implemented because it’s dumb.

Realist.5812:

This proposal is great, I’ll never be able to enter the borderlands. What a well thought out and logical idea. This deserves some kind if award.

I really hate reading these " ’MURICA ONLY " threads. It really makes me wonder about the education system over there and how it breeds this kind of ignorance.

Your problem is with 168 hour long matches, take it up with that.

I can tell that you hate reading these threads because you clearly didn’t bother reading any of it. Instead of just glancing at the thread title, which is restricted to 45 characters, give a read through then try again.

Realist.5812:

Also, riddle me this, how is giving me only one map to play on (the map I play least on) MORE FUN???? That statement is devoid of all logic.

Bertrand.3057:

In most matches, night populations are not large enough to sustain action on all four maps. The proposal is an attempt to redress that by consolidating the population onto a single map. EBG is very well suited to host imbalanced night populations because each server’s position is easily defensible.

You can disagree but there is a logic to it.

Realist.5812:

Riddle me again, you don’t play during this time that you want to hilariously destroy, so tell me how you can even speak of its merits?

Really?

Bertrand.3057:

I myself am a Canadian (guild leader, commander, scout, roamer) playing on an EU server.

Bertrand.3057:

I’d be playing during my own server’s borderland blackout much of the time but feel this could improve that experience.

Bertrand.3057:

goldenwing, I understand since my primetime is night watch for my server.

Bertrand.3057:

Side note, for those who claimed to have read my post and then suggested I’m ignoring the fact that the night shift might be someone else’s primetime, a geography lesson is in order. I indicated already that I play on an EU server, but live in Canada. Canada is not in Europe.

I play in Australia, probably one of the least coverage across all server (not sos), I don’t want to be locked out of the full features of wvw just because I happen to play in this timezone….. I can’t play during NA prime, because it’s noon for me… If this ever happens, it’ll probably be the last I’ll ever buy and play such discriminating game and the company that produces it.

No matter what is proposed in these threads it all falls upon ArenaNet and NCSoft. Until they want to do something about the issues with WvW then we just have to deal with the 10:1 server pop imbalances.

Heck no more than an hour ago all 4 maps were controlled by DB on our current server match up. There comes a point in time when they cant even Karma train if no one wants to fight.

Give us our own servers!

I play from New Zealand.

We are quite disadvantaged in terms of latency in any pvp situation.

Give us our own servers (located in Sydney Aus) pls.

Bertrand.3057:

When this idea occurred to me, it seemed like a very obvious one, yet I don’t recall having seen it before. As such, I’ll explain the idea, the existing problems it attempts to resolve, and address any concerns that will arise.

Bear in mind I use the term overnight to refer to the time in a specific region, recognizing that players come from different time zones and therefore are not necessarily playing overnight. I myself am a Canadian (guild leader, commander, scout, roamer) playing on an EU server.

The Idea

It’s simple: At a certain point in the night WvW participation on most servers drops off substantially. My guess is that this is around 12am-2am for the latest time zone in the given region (NA or EU), although I’m sure Anet has the hard numbers.

The proposal is to shut down WvW on all borderlands at this time, suspend upgrades and siege despawn timers, and consolidate all WvW players onto EBG. Limit the PPT to EBG objectives. Once numbers begin to pick up again, likely 6-8 hours later, re-open the borderlands. Opening and closing of borderlands should be set times, this could be done differently for weekends.

I’ll just add that this idea seems to me like something that should have been present since release (EBG is, after all, Eternal Battlegrounds), and that the issue of coverage is not one that is likely to be solved by the main ideas proposed (scaling PPT off-hours, merging servers or creating alliances). Despite efforts to make lower tiers more attractive, this is an issue that will persist if no targeted solution is provided.

The Purpose

At the moment, off-peak coverage in WvW is a huge issue. This is particularly acute during the overnight hours, when some matchups will see a single server ticking 600 or above. It’s detrimental to the quality of play, the accurate assignment of ranking, and to the competitiveness of many servers.

Quality of Play: Night watch and commanding is very different from regular play. During hours where WvW participation is low, much of the effort has to be directed towards scouting, quickly responding to any threats, and often predicting enemy attacks. This has to be done across 2-4 maps, spreading thin the population of all servers and reducing the amount of action that the players actually find. It can be very frustrating to spend a lot of time upgrading during this period only to lose an objective because of the difficulty of tracking enemy movements. When it is possible to go on the offensive, taking of objectives will often involve little more than PvD.

This change will remove the necessity of border-hopping, ensure that all players who are in WvW during these hours will be able to find one another easily to work together, and minimize the number of upgraded objectives that might be lost by an outmanned night crew. Even if all EBG objectives are lost, they are usually the easiest to upgrade.

Ranking: Because a night crew can have a much bigger impact on PPT than an equally-sized daytime crew, the PPT may not accurately reflect a server’s competitiveness during peak hours. Consequently, servers may find themselves in lopsided matchups, which reduces the quality of play because there is little to be had in the way of either even battles or difficult sieges.

This change will ensure that differences in night coverage do not severely impact the final scoring of a matchup and a server’s position in the rankings.

Competitiveness: The two issues described above have contributed to the most chronic issue in WvW: the steady migration of population from low tier servers onto high tier servers. Due to quality of play issues associated with overnight hours, the population of players who normally play during their server’s overnight hours find the higher tiers more attractive.

Due to the consolidation of “overnight” players into the top tiers, servers that lack this coverage will simply not be able to find themselves matched up against servers that have this coverage, even if they are very competitive at primetime. This can make them less attractive to play on, resulting in a downward spiral.

This change will give two incentives for overnight players to spread among all servers rather than consolidating on higher tiers: Firstly, they can expect to find more competitive play on other servers if there is a lower player cap at these hours; and secondly they will wish to avoid queues that may appear at the highest tiers due to the restriction of WvW to one map.

Continued…

I not only second the motion, I hope it is expanded to allow those who might be left in an unmanageable queue.

This is an idea that would fix a LOT of issues that competitive otherwise servers are waiting for.

Make sure the servers are in the same wake cycles (people need sleep, we have dead times, we don’t NEED them) and then many of the hacking and other issues will be easier to pin down.

ThunderPanda.1872:

I play in Australia, probably one of the least coverage across all server (not sos), I don’t want to be locked out of the full features of wvw just because I happen to play in this timezone….. I can’t play during NA prime, because it’s noon for me… If this ever happens, it’ll probably be the last I’ll ever buy and play such discriminating game and the company that produces it.

I know that server balance, true balance will come from following people’s sleep cycle.

FA is alive at your daytime and could use more of you – I am leaving for exactly this reason, – I am so tired of being one of maybe six on the map while the enemy has 20+ and still no “outnumbered” pops up for hours.

SOS will win out until this issue is fixed. Any opposite human sleep cycle server will.

Gizmo.9178:

No. Restricting someone’s playing time or what they can do is wrong, no matter how small the amount of people you think it would affect. It is still wrong. Your time is not more valuable than anyone elses time.

How is it restricting play time if no one is ever in a queue and ONE battlefield gets all the attention for once?

bewhatever.2390:

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

What is WvW supposed to be about?

WvW is supposed to be about “worlds” competing with each other to own objectives, the ownership of which give rewards.

This is distinct from PvP, FPS games, etc which are supposed to be about individual players or small teams competing to kill each other first or most often.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Capturing a bunch of empty towers and keeps which earn points-over-time for absentee landlords or fighting opposing servers in epic battle? If it’s the former, then the system is working exactly as intended. Carry on.

As presented, this describes PvE. Replace the word “Tower” with “Tequatl” or “Keep” with the 3 headed wurm.

However, one of the hallmarks of WvW is that worlds are free to choose their strategies and tactics, and if well designed, there is not a single “best” strategy or a single “best” playstyle or set of tactics.

In this particular case, if one world has chosen to concentrate its players in a single zerg, a possible set of counter tactics is in fact to send small teams to take every objective where the zerg isn’t. I hypothesize this should force the zerg to break up into smaller teams to get broader geographical coverage.

If the “zerg” team is not smart enough to recognize the threat of the small team counter strategy, and does not respond, then yes, the small teams are doing PvD; they and their world are rewarded handsomely for doing so until the “zerg” team comes to its senses.

An “arms race” of strategies and tactics can keep a game like this vibrant for a decade even if the developers don’t change a thing.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

If WvW is supposed to be about the latter, though, then PPT as a scoring mechanic is the antithesis of the goal of bringing players into conflict with one another. PPT rewards players for avoiding their opponents. A server earns more points for capturing undefended objectives because there’s no defenders to slow down a zerg’s momentum. It also permits karma trains to farm loot from NPCs faster; in a game mode where – ostensibly – we’re supposed to be fighting one another rather than the AI.

If the worlds collude, as in a karma train, to maximize bags, world xp from captures, and other tactical rewards, at the expense of the strategic rewards owning those objectives are supposed to be about, then there is an issue and we need to look closer. Three hypotheses I can think of for this behavior:

1. the tactical rewards are far more valuable than the strategic ones. In this case the rewards need to be adjusted.

2. the players doing this are PvE players who don’t like or can’t hack PvP combat. In this case we need to stop incenting PvE players to set foot in the WvW zones.

3. the strategic rewards are not seen as relevant to “the good of the world”. Perhaps also the strategic rewards need to be a big deal for the PvE players, for example, making it a whole lot easier to do the 3 headed Wurm encounter, or save up for that Legendary, or even run Arah for the first time, if you have a large WvW advantage. Let’s get players with different playstyles on the same team, not at each other’s throats!

Separately, I think there’s a player segment which wants zerg on zerg fights, for the sake of those fights. This is an unmet need in GW2 today. GW2’s engine (both client side and server side) really isn’t up to such fights above a certain scale, and the current design of both WvW and EoTM don’t really support such play. I would further subdivide this set of players into large scale guild-on-guild and a less structured world vs world (or maybe even random teams) preference. I have in the past suggested that there be a way to buy a medallion which would open a private zone instance to which the medallion buyer could then invite their guild and an opposing guild at a planned time for a large scale guild on guild match.

If we were given a more robust vitality and all were boosted to die far slower, even roaming players would have a chance to break even or win against another more powerful character or more resourceful smaller force.

It can happen now but not without a huge amount of training that isn’t happening on most servers.

Shonie.5297:

Sounds weird coming from a Canadian playing on a EU server.
You’re actually part of the problem.
Anyways, this ‘issue’ has existed since HoD dominated the first month GW2 released with their 24/7 alliance with [Syn] capping everything versus SBI and ET overnight.
Nothing has changed, 500 gazillion ideas and complaints have arisen since. Nothing has changed. Nothing will change anytime soon.
It’s coverage wars.
If it bothers you being on a certain server, transfer to one that compliments your wants and desires for WvW.
Nothing much else to say.
NA primetime or EU primetime is essentially 6 hours a day.
Closing the BL’s for 18 hours a day seems silly for off peak hours depending on region.

not to mention SEA/OC. which is like another 6-8 hours…
The remaining 4 hours is pretty much “roamer’s territory”. The only time of day when 3-5 man teams CAN make a difference, and that is usually around 7-11 am GMT+1 for NA and 3-7 am GMT +1 EU….

atheria.2837:

Gizmo.9178:

No. Restricting someone’s playing time or what they can do is wrong, no matter how small the amount of people you think it would affect. It is still wrong. Your time is not more valuable than anyone elses time.

How is it restricting play time if no one is ever in a queue and ONE battlefield gets all the attention for once?

Because the PPT with only EB would be lower, and that wouldn’t be fine for those who play at night and contribute to their server PPT at that hours. That would require to scale the points that things give during that time, which, in the end, it would be the same as now.
Also, it would require to scale the population cap, since some servers (like mine) have more a lot of people connected during nights. And that is a thing you’ll never see, cause that means bigger server, better server network connections…

No matter what you think or what you want to do, restrictions is the worst way to go to fix things, and also the most complex and complicated to do.

My way to fix this kind of problems? Merge lowest populated servers in WvW, while being separated in PvE, cause pve is not enough empty to fully merge servers.
But that’s a think we will never see, since anet doesn’t look WvW as a separated area of the game.