Guild Wars 2

We aren’t here to talk server transfers , i’m here to talk about how there should be incentives for staying in your server and WvW’ing in the same server essentially a loyalty program, not a loyalty to Gw2 but a loyalty to your specific server.

So the way the program would work is you earn points for everything you do sieging, killing players, defending , capturing points, building siege weapons, fortifying just about everything that’s important for WvW and your server and for these actions you will earn a certain currency called loyalty points. Now with the loyalty points you won’t be able to physically reduce how much loyalty you have by spending it the awards come as soon as you reach a certain threshold eg. you have 10,000 points and you need 9000 to earn a new title so you buy the title but the next title requires 20,000 points and you still have 10,000 points which requires you to earn 10,000 more points for the next title. The only way to remove all of your points is moving server, as soon as you move server even if you come back all of your points vanish because for obvious reasons you weren’t loyal to your server =).

SO now the exciting part, the rewards will be from what i can mainly think of titles it will begin at the default defender/invader and then going onto
-Soldier
-Specialist
-Corporal
-Sergeant
-Colonal
-Legionair
-General
-Warlord
-Commander
-Legend

The number of points required for each rank will get exponentially higher, beginning for example with 10k points then the next rank will require 20,000 and the rank following 40,000 and the rank following 70,000 that’s just an example and roughly the time it takes to increase ranks shouldn’t be that long but it definintly shouldn’t be short.

Essentially the implications of this loyalty system will firstly deincitivize hopping zervers especially for large guilds with dedicated WvW members who have high ranks within the server, create some rewards for WvW and ultimately and most importantly a very important objective which would serve as end game content.

Now i hope you enjoyed my post and please respond with constructive critism and tell me what you think of my idea, do you think it will give people a stronger sense of loyalty to there server, will it make the enemies sweat in fear when they see that dreaded titile “Sea of Sorrows Legend” on their enemies.

I think things like server wins in WvW open up access to special armor and weapons that can’t be transferred would be a good way of handing things. This way, winning in WvW actually has some benefit and incentive for staying with a server.

this is actually a very legit and valid marketing strategy, as in psychologically if me, i will not transfer to other server due to the incentive that i hard earned. Good point

Ultramatum.5162:

I think things like server wins in WvW open up access to special armor and weapons that can’t be transferred would be a good way of handing things. This way, winning in WvW actually has some benefit and incentive for staying with a server.

Or creating more of a server transfer issue then there already is…..
People already flock to the winning servers… now if you start giving the winning server special items….. ya its just going to make that much much worse.

Agreed. You can’t give something to winning servers. Servers already want to win. The problem is that after say Saturday, if your server isn’t on top everyone just stops playing.

None of this would be an issue it there were and incentive system for players and guilds. There’s always a place 5-10 people can go and take a supply camp. But it wont happen in a demoralized PUG.

Or just have paid transfers…

The thing is paid transfers won’t solve the issue it will actually exccarbate it, we need to have guilds be able to move around at minimum cost sometimes to get a little bit of balance, if it was paid transfers and nobody would move it would forever be the same worlds vsing each other, what this does is it doesn’t punish moving but it promotes staying.

+1 to loyalty titles being a pretty legitimate idea, psychologically and marketing-wise.

@Ultramatum – WvW already gives you MF bonuses and several other bonuses for winning. Your idea is similar to this in a way – and as we can see people still transfer to be on the winning side/get winning bonuses.

Le Rooster.8715:

..we need to have guilds be able to move around at minimum cost sometimes to get a little bit of balance, if it was paid transfers and nobody would move it would forever be the same worlds vsing each other…

this is nonsense. auto-balancing is in place so that servers that are properly matched are faced off against each other. the free transfer system bypasses this mechanic entirely.

Leaving balance to the players is not a good idea. It hasn’t worked in any game in history until the population atrophy has reached a point in which any “casual” player aspect is long gone. I think it’d be hard to disagree with the idea that this game needs casual gamers to stay rolling.

Loyalty rewards would be fine, provided we all started on even footing, which we are not on. I just transferred off Eredon Terrace, which is heading towards its third straight week(fourth? I dunno) of nearly complete irrelevance in WvW. The server has degenerated to the point that we couldn’t keep ANYTHING on the first day(I think we had one tower when I transferred) AND didn’t even have Arah open on the PvE front—-that’s the effect that free transfers had on the server. Sticking around there isn’t fun, and it certainly isn’t going to earn anyone any kind of win rewards.

1. I like the idea of a loyalty point system. Obviously, making the points scale progressively higher at higher ranks (10k for rank 1, 30k for rank 2, 75k for rank 3, 200k for rank 4 etc, getting much larger between ranks as you go up) would make it take a good long while to get to those top tiers. You would definitely be an O.G. loyal player/contributor to your Server if you are getting to the top.

What I’d also like to see is perhaps giving effects like the bought Commander thing. Except this system would be infinitely better since it’s earned, not bought. As you get to maybe rank 5, now you show up on the map (give it a toggle to turn on/off if you like). It could say “<Rank 5 title> Cimry”.

Maybe at a higher rank, like 8, you could add the ability for the player to put waypoints on the map visible to all and put out a chat message that says “<Rank 8 title> Cimry is requesting aid at <waypoint location here>!” That way, the players would know who was putting the waypoint out there. Just in case some jerk wants to sabotage his team, the players would know and his rep would be harmed.

I mean, you could do all sorts of little things to be added to these loyalty ranks. What if you added auras to the player at certain ranks? To increase XP/karma/other objective points to surrounding players by small percentages? Maybe a small speed boost? Maybe a small damage boost or defense boost to higher ranks?

Perhaps eye candy stuff too. Maybe a banner that makes them visible on the battlefield. Or a glow. Etc etc.

I’m also talking very small on the buffs, like 5% or under. We don’t want these to be game-breaking. But it would give a buff to your team, and make players wish to remain in their server. Even GOSH…. trying to turn things around if it gets weak since they’ve got a lot of time invested in it.

You could really make it so that a player reaching a higher rank can bring beneficial effects to his team.

2. The free transfers have to go. They do much more harm than good. Sorting out the semantics of that is ANOTHER THREAD. Too much to discuss to put in here.

I agree they need to add some more depth to WvW for us to log in and play. They have put in this huge effort on this system and tried to “Make it fair” without PvP rewards. Frankly they need to come up with something. I really enjoy the game but this is an issue. I am fighting towards nothing… Gaining nothing is not the way of the gaming world now. Even FPS’s are trying to keep you engaged now a days. I am not sure what A-Net was thinking on this.

Granz.4068:

I agree they need to add some more depth to WvW for us to log in and play. They have put in this huge effort on this system and tried to “Make it fair” without PvP rewards. Frankly they need to come up with something. I really enjoy the game but this is an issue. I am fighting towards nothing… Gaining nothing is not the way of the gaming world now. Even FPS’s are trying to keep you engaged now a days. I am not sure what A-Net was thinking on this.

My guess is that WvW isn’t the main draw. E-tournaments are.

Which is why some of the WvW elements feel untidy. The framework is there, but much of the polish is not.

The carrot-on-a-stick system is the bread and butter of RPGs. And right now WvW badly needs some. Camelot had an innovative Realm Rank system, also progressively scaled, which also allowed you to buy extra abilities. It provided a reason to get involved in the large scale WvW. And it would take months for even hardcore players to hit RR10, let alone the casual Joes and Janes who could take years. But every player could reach RR5 with a bit of effort, and get the “gamechanging” abilities available to their class. Thereby making a RR5 player plenty viable against higher Ranks.

Yes i do like the idea of a commander similar type thing for higher ranks, however i would like the rewards to remain solely cosmetic, having no physical change in relation to what rank you are. So maybe as the ranks progressive the cosmetic awards become abit more extravagent as such.

If done retroactively (meaning from the game went live) – sure, I’d be all for “loyalty” based rewards :-)

Very good idea.

Thumbs up from me!

Why not have server only rewards? Example, each server has its own unique armor or buffs they can choose, and the only way is to earn it via world v world events/kills/fights.
There should be more incentives given to players that like world v world, similar to dungeons that ppl farm to get the tokens/medals whatever to get their exotics or legendary items.
Problem is world v world doesnt help anet sell more cosmetic stuff… so probably world v world isnt in their priority list.

I like this idea, but retroactive would be a bit difficult. Rather they could make a post saying we have say, a week, to pick a server then no more free transfers. When free transfers stop server ranks begin. If you wanna bandwagon then it is that much more difficult to be one among many in tier 1, if you wanna be the underdog go to fergie and be their leader who brings them up the ranks. The possibilities are there for everyone even though the servers obviously aren’t even. One snag would be server’s such as ET that are way above their weight currently. Maybe a reset of the ranking system as well? Start WvW fresh.

If something like this was to be implemented, i would hope that it is server based where upon should you change server you lose that title and have to start again.
Even a small reward could be implemented for achieving each rank, like one Lion key per rank the higher the rank the more keys you get or even Badges of honor like 2, 4, 6 Ect.
As for rolling it back to the very start of the game, I don’t think that would really matter nor is needed.
Points wise this could be done with a combination of Kills = 1 point, Capture = 2 points and Defense = 3 points.
Ranking could even use a similar structure to a game I used to play, I will place their Wiki page on this but is not an inducement for the game as I urge people not to play this cash hungry game but the ranking system would work very well with GW2.
http://wiki.erepublik.com/index.php/Military_rank
But remove the 5% attack bonus they have and you have a very good base for ranking

WvW is the sale of Gw2. 90% of people come here to PvP so having some sort of rank system is a must for this game. U got my support ..very good idea.
Also …The game name is Guild Wars…but have nothing for guilds at all…not even guild raid system ..heck it should be named ….Zerg Wars 2
WvW is great …but needs lots of polishing end hope Anet look in to this proposal .

Any way to discourage people moving servers and making a mockery of server ratings is a good idea and this is a particularly good idea.

Good idea.
<server> warlord/legend (sounds cool) than <server> invader/defender

Right now you have the Influence reward system. This targets guilds while you guys want individual rewards. I can understand that.

However, when introducing a reward system, you have to think there will be abusing, farming etc. Whatever behavior you reward – will tend to repeat. A lot. In ways we cannot imagine right now.

When escorting Yaks gave Exp/Karma – there was a bunch of PvErs doing nothing but that. They had to nerf it.

If your rank rewards taking towers – you will have people flipping the same tower 10 times per hour – why defend it ? (maybe if defending it was rewarded but still)

If you reward kills – see badge farmers.

If you reward building siege weapons – there will be seas of fire rams inside supply camps. And so on.

Individual rewards in WvW will most likely lead to players doing the behavior that brings them the reward. In excess, without any consideration to the team effort. Individual rewards will ultimately hurt the players that are there for the guild and the team effort and promote the ones that want individual recognition. Anet had to make a choice, and they did.

Badges are the individual reward. Then you have the guild based reward.

This would definitely renew my interests in wvwvw.

What if your loyalty points were doled out each 15 minutes with the overall score? Rather than anet trying to balance the reward between guarding yaks and taking keeps, we could just peg it directly to server performance. There would need to be a bit of smoothing for people logging in/out in the middle of a 15 minute period, but I think that would be the simplest and fairest solution.

Other than that great ideas all around. Keep rewards cosmetic/organizational! (ie commander icon equivalents)

Klawlyt.6507:

What if your loyalty points were doled out each 15 minutes with the overall score? Rather than anet trying to balance the reward between guarding yaks and taking keeps, we could just peg it directly to server performance. There would need to be a bit of smoothing for people logging in/out in the middle of a 15 minute period, but I think that would be the simplest and fairest solution.

Other than that great ideas all around. Keep rewards cosmetic/organizational! (ie commander icon equivalents)

This idea, giving individual reward points based of server score and time spend, would lead to :
– people flooding the top servers of every tier even more then they are now.
– people going AFK for hours in spawning camp, with a bot refresher to avoid getting kicked.

There is an individual WvW individual reward point system right now – it’s called prestige and rewards people who do their best to help their server win. It has no points or flashy emotes – but when I log into the BL maps and see this particular commander name – I know he has a high prestige level in my book. Even non commanders that I played with and I respect a lot.

We have this commander, highly respected, on SBI that I will not name who brings his legendary black greatsword to game. When this happens, people call him “hey … your sword looks really stupid !”. Of course this is not true – but this is to remind him and everyone else that we respect him and admire him for his actions, not his itamz or emotes/titles.

I do not think that IWAY fueled Phoenix emotes brought much to the PvP community in GW1.

EnoLive.2367:

If something like this was to be implemented, i would hope that it is server based where upon should you change server you lose that title and have to start again.
Even a small reward could be implemented for achieving each rank, like one Lion key per rank the higher the rank the more keys you get or even Badges of honor like 2, 4, 6 Ect.
As for rolling it back to the very start of the game, I don’t think that would really matter nor is needed.
Points wise this could be done with a combination of Kills = 1 point, Capture = 2 points and Defense = 3 points.
Ranking could even use a similar structure to a game I used to play, I will place their Wiki page on this but is not an inducement for the game as I urge people not to play this cash hungry game but the ranking system would work very well with GW2.
http://wiki.erepublik.com/index.php/Military_rank
But remove the 5% attack bonus they have and you have a very good base for ranking

So many ranks would be epic

I like this idea of rewarding loyalty to a server, as mentioned its tough to deliver such a system and the only way would be participation (give it as a reward for participation on completion of events and kills). I like the idea of a rank system but I don’t believe another form of currency would be a wise choice. Something similar to the sPvP system with ranks and equivocating rewards for each rank would work best. As you could purchase all the rewards and leave the server with your currently purchased rewards if it was a currency. Atleast this way when you leave a server you leave your titles and rewards to that server behind also.

It would also be an excellent new way to integrate a leader board of the top players, top guilds and most kills among the servers. Which could in themselves have rewards and perks, not mentioning the thrill of having your name in lights for your server!

A earendil, I s’pose I hadn’t thought of that. Your stance on idividual reward is my stance on WvW overall. I play because it’s fun, and because I want to win. Seeing my server do well (while making a personal gold profit) is all the reward I personally need. If your personal rewards were only usable in WvW, and only for being active on your server consistently, do you really think it would exacerbate the bandwagoning problem? Remember, this would be tied to the above mentioned server loyalty, so server hopping would relinquish everything you’ve earned. I’m not saying no one would act as you described, but I don’t think it would add to the problem. Maybe we could add some sort of miniscule minimum participation requirement. Because really, if too many people afk farmed, they’d only be shooting themselves in the foot, as they take slots from the people who are actually trying to help the server.

Highest rank is and will always be “Asura”.

Great idea OP, I would love to see this implemented. New armor and weapon SKINS could also be added with each title earned, just to make your character look more badkitten too.
It would give good incentive to stay and work withing the server you’re currently on, without completely cutting off access to other servers if one really needs to change (to be with guildies, RL friends, etc.)

In reply to Xenotor.1350 the link was only meant as a rough guide and could very easily be cut down to serve the games needs just of the top of my head just using one of each rank but at the highest points range of that rank

Earendil Said:

Right now you have the Influence reward system. This targets guilds while you guys want individual rewards. I can understand that.

However, when introducing a reward system, you have to think there will be abusing, farming etc. Whatever behavior you reward – will tend to repeat. A lot. In ways we cannot imagine right now.

When escorting Yaks gave Exp/Karma – there was a bunch of PvErs doing nothing but that. They had to nerf it.

If your rank rewards taking towers – you will have people flipping the same tower 10 times per hour – why defend it ? (maybe if defending it was rewarded but still)

If you reward kills – see badge farmers.

If you reward building siege weapons – there will be seas of fire rams inside supply camps. And so on.

Individual rewards in WvW will most likely lead to players doing the behavior that brings them the reward. In excess, without any consideration to the team effort. Individual rewards will ultimately hurt the players that are there for the guild and the team effort and promote the ones that want individual recognition. Anet had to make a choice, and they did.

Badges are the individual reward. Then you have the guild based reward.

I agree whatever they decide people will farm whatever it is the Yak escort thing says volumes

Yes i understand the issue about, what if people just farm to get ranks higher. However PVE minions wouldn’t award any or if any very miniscule so it would be much more rewarding to just help siege.

there should be of corse restriktions like rams only gives points if they are build in range of an enemy door. Defending is a must for gaining points.

If badges where a good personal reward than support players should have endless of them.