Guild Wars 2

When the game shipped, the timer for awarding points for held objectives in WvW was originally 5 minutes. This was sometime later changed to 15 minutes (i.e., every 15 minutes, whoever owns an objective at that time gets points for holding that objective). My understanding was that this change was meant to deter frequent objective-ownership trading and encourage defense.

However, I’m not sure if this has actually had the effect of encouraging defense, and the change has some perverse side effects. For instance, a server can take a keep near the beginning of a 15 minute period, and they are only guaranteed to hold that keep for 5 minutes due to RI. If they try to defend it but are ultimately unsuccessful near the end of that 15 minute period, the attacking server will get points as if they instead had held the keep for that whole 15 minutes, even though they only just happened to hold it during the end of the period. In fact, 5 minutes later they could lose the keep back to the first server, and they would see no consequence point-wise. In other words, this system creates an odd situation where total time holding an objective is somewhat meaningless, and only the amount of objectives held during a tick really matters. I think this kind of perverse scenario can happen quite often, and that this can be a deterrent to defense.

My question is, do you think if points for objectives were counted continuously (or at least close to continuously, such as once per 30s or 1min) while owned, similar to sPvP, this would encourage more defense?

Obviously this is only relevant to those who like to play for PPT. I’m inclined to think that, since a defending server would know that every minute they hold an objective counts, they would be more incentivized to stick around and defend. In my earlier example, even a server that felt they wouldn’t be able to hold an objective for 15 minutes after taking it, would still try and hold it as long as they could beyond the 5 minute RI, because each minute still helps the score. Instead, most servers today would just abandon the objective and not bother defending, knowing they likely won’t get any points for trying to hold it.

Given ANet’s stated goal to increase defense in WvW with the expansion, I hope changes like this are being considered.

Constant ppt scoring could lead to more karma training and everything being paper due to the focus on ppt grinding, or it could lead to each server essentially bunkering up in their bl and corner of eb to stop the ktrains, which means tons of siege and ppt becomes harder so its a nondesirable outcome either way. When there is a score timer it gives servers time to prepare defenses, scout, etc and lets servers actually spread out and fight each other w/o having to constantly bunker up everywhere with a bunch of ac’s

X T D.6458:

Constant ppt scoring would lead to nothing more then karma training and everything being paper due to the focus on ppt grinding, and would lead to each server essentially bunkering up in their bl and corner of eb to stop the ktrains, which means tons of siege and ppt becomes harder so its a nondesirable outcome either way. When there is a score timer it gives servers time to prepare defenses, scout, etc and lets servers actually fight each other w/o having to constantly bunker up everywhere with a bunch of ac’s

I’m a bit confused by this. You say constant scoring would cause karma trains and nothing but paper objectives (too much offense), while also encouraging servers to bunker up with ACs (too much defense). How could it do both of those?

I should clarify too, I’m not talking about removing RI, I think that should stay.

It’s 2015, can we just delete PPT entirely and get back to killing people instead of structures ?

BrickFurious.7169:

X T D.6458:

Constant ppt scoring would lead to nothing more then karma training and everything being paper due to the focus on ppt grinding, and would lead to each server essentially bunkering up in their bl and corner of eb to stop the ktrains, which means tons of siege and ppt becomes harder so its a nondesirable outcome either way. When there is a score timer it gives servers time to prepare defenses, scout, etc and lets servers actually fight each other w/o having to constantly bunker up everywhere with a bunch of ac’s

I’m a bit confused by this. You say constant scoring would cause karma trains and nothing but paper objectives (too much offense), while also encouraging servers to bunker up with ACs (too much defense). How could it do both of those?

I should clarify too, I’m not talking about removing RI, I think that should stay.

Sorry I should have worded it better, I meant to say ktrain OR bunkering up to keep objectives which might just be the reality with anets idea to make ppt and holding objectives more important with HoT

Sure tex because the only people who play in WvW only play to kill others. None play for the sieging aspect right?
/sarcasm

Back on topic though. I think a better way to have ti is each objective gains points per tick on separate ticks. Have the timers count down from the time an objective was captured, as the tick for that objective. Not having the tick be for all things every 15minutes, due to many just quickly Ktraining the last 4-5minutes prior to tick for the PPT.

If you got points every 15 minutes your server held a keep, tower, camp, from when it was capped, you might get more defensive play? (Not sure it could swing both ways still.)

If ANet added things scouts could do while scouting an objective you would even get more who would willingly scout. (Maybe they could speak to certain NPC’s within the tower or keep, and have to click different options and gain exp/wvw exp/a lootbag?) Or a crazy idea add new NPC’s, maybe one which once upgraded would allow the scout to communicate via a new chat channel in game? Or set an Alert for all on the server to view? The possibilities are endless on things that could be added, heck even quests….(eww) or maybe things to get specific loot like a crafting mat of choice every so many minutes of scouting within xx range?

I think siege despawn timers needs to be gone. I didn’t like them in the 1st place being put into wvw, because honestly it’s nothing more then a gold/badge/supply sink now.

Yeah people had long sieges and in reality a long defense or attack means more to most in it for the aspect of the game then taking a place within 5minutes. (Heck it’d even help smaller wvw focused communities in getting places sieged up without diverting forces every hour to go retap siege.)

If people want Ktrain they can go to EOTM, that’s all that is anymore anyways.
WvW is Ktrain on some servers, roaming others, ppt some, and even some servers have a mix.

Fight guilds could still do their open field fighting, as the siege despawn in a tower/keep wouldn’t really interfere.

Mishi.7058:

Sure tex because the only people who play in WvW only play to kill others. None play for the sieging aspect right?
/sarcasm

I’d hope they play to kill others as that is part of sieging. There’s 0 siege needed when no one defends.

What i’m absolutely not keen on is the over reliance of a poor scoring and performance mechanic that is easily abused and only dissuades actual fun gameplay for zerg balling and AC spam.

But to each their own.

Maybe one day any of the numerous scoring critiques will actually be taken seriously and revised and put into the game as a trial similar to what they did with PPK.

Nothing should score, before you haven’t upgraded it at least once.

Mishi.7058:

Back on topic though. I think a better way to have ti is each objective gains points per tick on separate ticks. Have the timers count down from the time an objective was captured, as the tick for that objective. Not having the tick be for all things every 15minutes, due to many just quickly Ktraining the last 4-5minutes prior to tick for the PPT.

If you got points every 15 minutes your server held a keep, tower, camp, from when it was capped, you might get more defensive play? (Not sure it could swing both ways still.)

I think this is definitely a step in the right direction too. It at least changes the scoring to be more based on “total time the objective is held” rather than who can ktrain the most in the last 5 mins of a period. Of course it slices total time held into 15 minute segments, so I guess then the question is, how long should we expect a team to hold an objective before we’re ok giving them points for it? Is 15 minutes too long or is that an acceptable expectation?

The fear with that (which is probably one reason they went to an overall tick period rather than a per-objective tick period) is that if an objective is flipping a lot, it may not be held by a team for at least 15 mins for a long time, and thus would generate no points for any team during this period. A shorter scoring period might alleviate this, perhaps 5 mins (to match the RI time period)?