Guild Wars 2

Currently you get experience and karma rewards for “flipping” nodes (sentries, camps, towers, keeps, etc.) even if that has no effect on your world’s score. This encourages a large number of players to simply run around flipping stuff without taking any interest in whether they’re contributing to a win. And so we get large blobs wandering around with a majority of players who aren’t interested in fighting, just farming.

I suggest that the node flipping “event” does not complete until the tick. In other words, you get nothing unless the node stays flipped and actually affects your world’s score.

I also suggest that you get a bonus reward at the end of the week in proportion to your contribution to your world’s score if and only if your world wins. (In other words, the whole matchup is a week-long world event that tracks your contributon.)

I believe these could have a significant improving effect on gameplay. If you take a node, you’d better time it well, or be prepared to actually defend it rather than choo choo off to another node. Worlds who want to time takeovers without defending them will have to dispatch coordinated groups, but with the somewhat predictable timing it’ll be possible to defend against the tactic, even with a relatively low population.

If this has been discussed before and I missed it, please point me at the discussion, and I’ll go and read that. Thanks!

I see some merit to the first idea, though I would add an extra reward on tick rather than completely replacing the event reward itself.

as for rewards being conditional on the server winning: this basically locks out 2/3 of the player base, most of which have zero power to affect the outcome. It would lead to big drops in activity once the match is decided.

ie: in most cases it wouldn’t make players try harder to win , it would make them give up faster.

uuuuum… yes because that way the zerg can come easily take away the camp from the casual roamer while he/she waits for the tick. Go back to your zerg boy!

GrandmaFunk.3052:

as for rewards being conditional on the server winning: this basically locks out 2/3 of the player base, most of which have zero power to affect the outcome. It would lead to big drops in activity once the match is decided

Not the entire reward. I’m saying there should be a significant end-of-week bonus for the winning server.

Arlette.9684:

uuuuum… yes because that way the zerg can come easily take away the camp from the casual roamer while he/she waits for the tick. Go back to your zerg boy!

The thing about the zerg is that it can only be in one place at once. Co-ordinated smaller groups with good timing would be able to flip camps just before the tick, denying the zerg of most of its rewards.

to a solo roamer, those “small coordinated groups” are zergs.

Mabuse.2879:

GrandmaFunk.3052:

as for rewards being conditional on the server winning: this basically locks out 2/3 of the player base, most of which have zero power to affect the outcome. It would lead to big drops in activity once the match is decided

Not the entire reward. I’m saying there should be a significant end-of-week bonus for the winning server.

Why?

EFWinters.5421:

Mabuse.2879:

GrandmaFunk.3052:

as for rewards being conditional on the server winning: this basically locks out 2/3 of the player base, most of which have zero power to affect the outcome. It would lead to big drops in activity once the match is decided

Not the entire reward. I’m saying there should be a significant end-of-week bonus for the winning server.

Why?

To motivate people to win (and not lose).

90% of the MMO population are primarily motivated to play in order to “get” stuff, and not just for the satisfaction of winning, unfortunately.

The current system of motivation is a bunch of diffuse bonuses to various PvE random numbers. I very much doubt many people go to play WvW with the idea that they’ll boost their world’s magic find by 0.1%.

the problem with that is that regardless of how motivated someone is, the vast majority of players have no impact on whether their server wins or not.

If you want to reward players based on their performance, you have to evaluate their performance, not the global performance of their server.

otherwise, player A could spend an hour following a zerg from keep to keep and get end of week rewards because their server won, but player B who spent 20 hours defending towers, running supplies, etc.. they get nothing because their server just doesn’t have the coverage. neither of those situations would encourage a player to try harder for a win.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

the problem with that is that regardless of how motivated someone is, the vast majority of players have no impact on whether their server wins or not.

And yet high population in WvW has a significant effect on the outcome (a point you make yourself).

The situation is not helped by encouraging people to take actions that have little effect on winning, and not offering much motivation to try.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

otherwise, player A could spend an hour following a zerg from keep to keep and get end of week rewards because their server won, but player B who spent 20 hours defending towers, running supplies, etc.. they get nothing because their server just doesn’t have the coverage. neither of those situations would encourage a player to try harder for a win.

I’m sorry that I have not explained myself clearly enough.

Player B gets exactly what they get today, not “nothing”.

Player A gets what they get today plus bonus if their server wins.

The bonus will encourage both players to take actions that will increase the chances of their server winning.

Note that I believe this change should be made together with my other suggestion, that “flip” event rewards are only given out if the node is held at the tick. In order to get anything from WvW, people would have to contribute to their world’s score. This will discourage the mindless “follow the zerg” because it will be considerably less effective.

I agree that coverage is a serious (other) problem.

I’m always rather disappointed by the attitude that people should get prizes for losing. It’s a game. You have to be able to win or lose it. Otherwise it’s as much a game a knitting.

So… give more rewards to the server with better coverage/population?

I would be down with this if winning a WvW week was based on skill… but sadly it’s not.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

to a solo roamer, those “small coordinated groups” are zergs.

this!

So, the counter-argument is that WvW is so badly designed and winning is so arbitrary that it would be “unfair” to treat it as a game at all.

I can’t blame the players for that, but it does more to sap any reason to play than any (lack of) prizes.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

the problem with that is that regardless of how motivated someone is, the vast majority of players have no impact on whether their server wins or not.

If you want to reward players based on their performance, you have to evaluate their performance, not the global performance of their server.

otherwise, player A could spend an hour following a zerg from keep to keep and get end of week rewards because their server won, but player B who spent 20 hours defending towers, running supplies, etc.. they get nothing because their server just doesn’t have the coverage. neither of those situations would encourage a player to try harder for a win.

You are too focused on the individual
yes player B spent 20 hours and got less, but player B’s server didnt win the game. Just like having 1 all star wont win you championships. One of the problems with WvW is in fact that there is virtually no incentive to win. Also i dont think it should just be winner, they need to incentize coming second as well. It needs to be valuable to compete even for second place. Because while you cant always win, you can usually compete for second.

That said they probably need to solve server hopping. I think maybe… you should have to sign a contract with your server. The truth I really dont see why people need as much access to WvW server changes as we currently have.
lets say signing a contract increases, or adds new rewards, as well only long term contracted players can get special items for server placement. You can get out of your contract at greater cost, but you cant gain whatever contract/server placement bonuses until the contract you signed expires.

Mabuse.2879:

GrandmaFunk.3052:

the problem with that is that regardless of how motivated someone is, the vast majority of players have no impact on whether their server wins or not.

And yet high population in WvW has a significant effect on the outcome (a point you make yourself).

The situation is not helped by encouraging people to take actions that have little effect on winning, and not offering much motivation to try.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

otherwise, player A could spend an hour following a zerg from keep to keep and get end of week rewards because their server won, but player B who spent 20 hours defending towers, running supplies, etc.. they get nothing because their server just doesn’t have the coverage. neither of those situations would encourage a player to try harder for a win.

I’m sorry that I have not explained myself clearly enough.

Player B gets exactly what they get today, not “nothing”.

Player A gets what they get today plus bonus if their server wins.

The bonus will encourage both players to take actions that will increase the chances of their server winning.

Note that I believe this change should be made together with my other suggestion, that “flip” event rewards are only given out if the node is held at the tick. In order to get anything from WvW, people would have to contribute to their world’s score. This will discourage the mindless “follow the zerg” because it will be considerably less effective.

I agree that coverage is a serious (other) problem.

I’m always rather disappointed by the attitude that people should get prizes for losing. It’s a game. You have to be able to win or lose it. Otherwise it’s as much a game a knitting.

Then how is your system better than the one currently in place? Right now people are rewarded for what they actually contribute to. Killing players, taking supply camps, guarding keeps etc. Why would you give another reward based on factors which individual players have little to no effect on?

EFWinters.5421:

Mabuse.2879:

GrandmaFunk.3052:

the problem with that is that regardless of how motivated someone is, the vast majority of players have no impact on whether their server wins or not.

And yet high population in WvW has a significant effect on the outcome (a point you make yourself).

The situation is not helped by encouraging people to take actions that have little effect on winning, and not offering much motivation to try.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

otherwise, player A could spend an hour following a zerg from keep to keep and get end of week rewards because their server won, but player B who spent 20 hours defending towers, running supplies, etc.. they get nothing because their server just doesn’t have the coverage. neither of those situations would encourage a player to try harder for a win.

I’m sorry that I have not explained myself clearly enough.

Player B gets exactly what they get today, not “nothing”.

Player A gets what they get today plus bonus if their server wins.

The bonus will encourage both players to take actions that will increase the chances of their server winning.

Note that I believe this change should be made together with my other suggestion, that “flip” event rewards are only given out if the node is held at the tick. In order to get anything from WvW, people would have to contribute to their world’s score. This will discourage the mindless “follow the zerg” because it will be considerably less effective.

I agree that coverage is a serious (other) problem.

I’m always rather disappointed by the attitude that people should get prizes for losing. It’s a game. You have to be able to win or lose it. Otherwise it’s as much a game a knitting.

Then how is your system better than the one currently in place? Right now people are rewarded for what they actually contribute to. Killing players, taking supply camps, guarding keeps etc. Why would you give another reward based on factors which individual players have little to no effect on?

because the mode design is based around a server vs server vs server. Every player who plays WvW contributes to whatever placement they get. Many of the servers who win have more participation, that means all those individuals are actually adding up to wins.
the servers that win, want it more as a whole.
the mode that best works with the reward types you are talking about wouldnt suck, but they would need to change the paradigm from that of a war, to something more with objectives more based around individuals and their specific contributions. It wouldnt be WvW essentially.

The OPs whole point is the reward systems dont really encourage actually trying to win. you essentially agree, but think thats a good idea. in a competive game winning or losing generally matters. Even in pick up basketball in a park, the winner gets to stay on the court, and the loser has to sit down.

phys.7689:

The OPs whole point is the reward systems dont really encourage actually trying to win. you essentially agree, but think thats a good idea. in a competive game winning or losing generally matters. Even in pick up basketball in a park, the winner gets to stay on the court, and the loser has to sit down.

Is pick-up basketball typically played with one team being twice the size of the other?

(Sorry I am not familiar with the sport)

How does this improve gameplay? All this improves is the number of transferees to servers that are already better than their immediate competition.

EFWinters.5421:

phys.7689:

The OPs whole point is the reward systems dont really encourage actually trying to win. you essentially agree, but think thats a good idea. in a competive game winning or losing generally matters. Even in pick up basketball in a park, the winner gets to stay on the court, and the loser has to sit down.

Is pick-up basketball typically played with one team being twice the size of the other?

(Sorry I am not familiar with the sport)

nope, however a skilled pick up team can more than crush an unskilled team. Blowouts just as bad as top teir server versus low teir server. Im not saying that WvW doesnt need tweaks to deal with imbalances, but people are only working counter to improving the game mode by making winning less desired