Guild Wars 2

(This is a cross-post from a reddit thread. )

tl;dr: A reminder that nightcapping is still a thing (yeah, I know, what a surprise), and some brief analysis.

I know that I am not telling anything new here. But since we obviously have the dev’s attention now, I’d like reiterate on that subject.

When I woke up this morning, happy to join my server in WvW for an early shift today, just like in the good old days, my motivation was hit pretty hard with that all-too-familiar picture of what is still so wrong with the current WvW scoring scheme:

http://imgur.com/nXkgSvv

Yes, I know, WvW shouldn’t be about the war score, and it’s the fun of the gameplay that counts, after all it’s just a game, and all that jazz. I know, and I keep saying that to myself all the time. But still, why can’t we have both: fun gameplay and a scoring scheme that has at least remotely something to do with the game we experience while playing it?

What you can see quite nicely in that linked graph is the sheer effectiveness of nightcapping. In the six hours starting from reset until about 2 a.m., Red Server was able to achieve a small lead of about 1000 war score over Blue server and of about further 2000 war score over Green Server. In the six hours of nightcapping that followed, Blue Server was not only able to negate that lead, but also ended up with a lead of about 10,000 war score over Red Server and about 14,000 war score over Green Server. That is, nightcapping is an order of magnitude more effective at gaining points than gaining points during times of actual, opposed play. In fact, it is so effective that any lead gained during the 6 hours at night usually cannot be caught up in the 18 hours during the day. And this is the main reason why nightcapping is such a f.o.o. strategy.

There have been (non-conclusive) discussions on fixing that problem for ages, and I don’t want to claim that I have the ultimate solution ready. Just allow me to state the two following observations that might indicate a way to tackle the scoring problem without the need to define some artificial “prime time” slots or to punish a server just because it brings more players at a certain time:

• The nightcapping problem does not stem from the fact a server may dominate in a certain time slot, it stems from the fact that the PPT advantage from dominating unopposed is so much higher than the PPT advantage from dominating while opposed. If there would be a cap to that advantage that is consistently reached during nighttime as well as daytime (e.g., fixed war score points for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd dominating server, in every tick), the night would no longer dominate and would again be only about one forth of a day.

• PPT is a passive way of scoring, it does not take into account player activity. It actually doesn’t even care whether any player is there altogether. PPK on the other hand is an active way of scoring. And it also scales quite naturally with times of player activity. Allowing PPK (or a similar activity based score) to have a more significant impact on the war score total would help having the war score being more representative of what is actually happening during play time. I don’t think PPT has not to go away (holding a keep should be worth it), but it could be toned down significantly.

I don’t know the priority fixing the score has at ANet, but I think the demotivating aspect of the broken scoring system should not be underestimated. Not every player is just in there for loot and reward tracks. I wish the dev’s nothing but success in coming up with a solution.

My 2 copper,

~MRA

Well, let’s see if we can have this idea posted without it being removed again. Basically, idea is to award points based on how many players from all servers are active.

We will first divide the 24 hour cycle into 4 timezones, each 6 hours:

• Prime Time – with every tick it gives 9 points for first place, 6 for second and 3 for third
• Not Completely Prime Time – this happens 6 hours before and after the PT. With every tick it gives 6 points for first place, 4 for second and 2 for third
• Mostly Off Time – with every tick it gives 3 points for first place, 2 for second and 1 for third

Now if there are more players from different servers playing for example MOT, it’s scoring level will be raised. It will also be set for each map separately so maps that are completely ruled by single server and no enemies trying to take objectives will be worth probably less then maps where all 3 servers fight constantly.

Next, we will provide a system where points awarded in the last 24 hours of every match, are tripled. This means that even when other servers have gained more points during the week, it would still be possible to win the match by trying hard on last day.

And third, changing the way points are awarded for objectives itself. You would first gain points for capturing it, and capturing higher tier objective gives more points.

Let’s say capturing keep with no tier gives your server 25 points, tier 1 keep 30, tier 2 gives 40 and taking fully upgraded keep gives 50 points. Same time, holding objectives with more tiers increases your points per tick too.

These 3 changes would be huge jump forward to make matches more interesting, more fair and reducing effects of nightcapping.

Reminder that winning in ppt doesn’t actually mean anything or reward anything.

Even if you got zero points for ppting at off hours, your server would still be outnumbered and people will still ktrain. Result: the matchup’s glicko would stagnate and servers with coverage advantages would sit in their tiers for longer and be allowed to ktrain for longer.

There’s little point in PPT, other than glicko and match ups, a bit of Server pride too, but winning fights is more worth it than ever winning a MU, which is rarely close or decided by actual strategy.

Awaiting the posts that can look at the picture and still say that nightcapping does not exist.

Because trust me, they will come no matter how much its boggles your mind.

Dawdler.8521:

Awaiting the posts that can look at the picture and still say that nightcapping does not exist.

Because trust me, they will come no matter how much its boggles your mind.

Theres never night every where, so there is no such thing as night capping. And yes. I am trolling you but you literally asked for it

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

There’s little point in PPT, other than glicko and match ups, a bit of Server pride too, but winning fights is more worth it than ever winning a MU, which is rarely close or decided by actual strategy.

Personally I prefer strategy (a combination of manoeuvring, objectives & fights) over just endless fights which tend to get boring after a while – especially when it gets you 2nd place in a matchup when both of the other servers outnumber and constantly blob you – but then I come from a wargaming background.

T I M E – S L I C E D A C T I O N L E V E L

I just did a quick check on the matchup to which the OP seems to refer and at the time of posting this:
Server…………………………..Current Score…Score from PPT…Score Not from PPT
Desolation/Vabbi …………….61321………………..18402.4……………………42918.6
Elona Reach [DE]……………..33109………………….9932.7…………………….23176.3
Riverside [DE]……………………40766………………….9628.9…………………….31137.1

Reducing the effect of PPT as suggested by the OP would not change the current status of this matchup.
If anyone knows of a site that provides PPTvsPPK data for the period specified by the OP we could see how removing PPT from that would affect the graph.

The reason for runaway scores is runaway yaks. Most of the score generated comes from the 3 points that yaks generate when they successfully make their final delivery. Anyone can kill a yak and most people can take a camp.

If you flip every camp on an enemy borderland you reduce the PPT generation of that map by about 66%. If you flip every camp on a borderland except north camp… you still cut their PPT by about 50%. These numbers were calculated before the maps were recently updated and do not include the extra PPT generated by Speedy Yaks.

• If you have no one on able to flip keeps or towers… your PPT will suffer.
• If you have no one on willing to flip camps or snipe yaks… the enemy PPT will soar.

EDITED to clarify that the 3 points are generated only on the yak’s final delivery of its journey.

http://mos.millenium.org/servers/view/15/
Of course ticking 500+ all night makes a difference. 2am it’s pretty close, by 4-6am, it’s suddenly almost a 20k lead.

Night capping won’t always win MUs if you tick 100-150 the rest of the day, but it does most of the time, if you tick 500-600 for 2-3 hours.

Nidome and misterdevious raise some interesting points. I wasn’t fully aware of the significance and impact of the “points per dolyak”. This aspect seems especially dire because it severely increases the effectiveness of unopposed dominance, since during times of opposition, camps do get flipped and dolyaks are getting killed quite frequently. I agree that an uncapped “PPD advantage” is a problem, too.

Still, the unhealthy effectiveness of PPT during unopposed hours is a part of the mix. It can be easily shown that a server can dominate during the 18 hours of daytime and still loose the tally in that segment just because of the 6 hours at night. Please find a simplified and idealized example of such a scenario in the attachment below. (And please excuse that I am using a 700 PPT total, but the numbers are easier to read that way.) I also included an example of a tally that does not give a higher advantage to unopposed hours in that attachment, and I’d argue that the alternate tally is a more accurate reflection of the actual servers’ performance. (The alternate tally is similar to what FogLeg suggested, but I’d argue that you do not really need a separation in “prime time” and “off hours” for it to take effect.)

But I also now agree that the problems of the scoring mechanism are more complex than just the one aspect I discussed.

~MRA

Nidome.1365:

I just did a quick check on the matchup to which the OP seems to refer and at the time of posting this:

I’d actually prefer to not call out particular server names here. I’d really like to keep this discussion focused on the scoring mechanics and not about any specific match-up, to keep the thread within the limits of the rules of this forum.

~MRA

misterdevious.6482:

The reason for runaway scores is runaway yaks. Most of the score generated comes from the 3 points that yaks generate when they successfully make a delivery. Anyone can kill a yak and most people can take a camp.

If you flip every camp on an enemy borderland you reduce the PPT generation of that map by about 66%. If you flip every camp on a borderland except north camp… you still cut their PPT by about 50%. These numbers were calculated before the maps were recently updated and do not include the extra PPT generated by Speedy Yaks.

• If you have no one on able to flip keeps or towers… your PPT will suffer.
• If you have no one on willing to flip camps or snipe yaks… the enemy PPT will soar.

I’ve been playing WvW for years and never have I seen this info. Today I learned!