Guild Wars 2

I was thinking quite a lot about the rewards system in WVW and the issues it has and came up with something that might help a lot.

Note that this is not a complete solution, but rather an improvement based on currently existing game mechanics, which would make rewards better, especially for those focused on fighting rather then PPT train style gameplay. In addition, it would give people a positive incentive to get better and more coordinated as a team and another positive incentive to split up a bit and scale down blob sizes all at the same time.

All this, while expanding on / using existing game mechanics thus minimizing manhours necessary to impliment, no major server restructuring, complete overhauls etc. necessary.

I realize that this of course will 99.9999999999999% not come to pass, but perhaps some devs will skim this and use some of its parts, also was curious how people in general would feel about it. So here goes:

1. When a large group takes damage or causes damage, yellow swords are created. What if you start an event, centered on the yellow swords, and scaled in size to the size of that group for example:

25-35 players – event size 1, 36-45 players – event size 2, 46+ players – event size 3

2. Within that event, you could use the current event / reward scaling mechanics which exist for taking out PVE targets, except instead of taking a single boss into consideration, the number of opposing team players would be counted as the target for the reward tier.

3. Adjust reward tiers on both per kill (individual) basis and event completion. For example:

You are in group size 1, going up against group size 2, each kill gives you 1 extra PPK and a little bit better loot and a slight MF buff. If you wipe the group or they leave, you get an event completion reward (insert reward bag / chest here), lets say golden.

You are in a group size 1 or lower, vs group size 3, each kill gives you 2 extra PPK, the loot and MF buff are slightly increased and if the size 3 group gets defeated, you get an equivalent of defeating a legendary mob in PVE reward.

You are in a group size 3 and you defeat a group size 1 or lower, you get regular PPK and regular loot and regular Bronze event completion reward.

If both groups are in the same category, they both get regular PPK and regular loot, but the event reward stays golden (champ equivalent) as default.

A system of this sort, would provide a positive incentive to actually fight other players. There are no nerfs, there are no debuffs, it relies on currently existing game mechanics and code at least in a fairly large part thus minimizing time needed for its creation, and provides those players who seek challenge and taking on much larger forces then their own groups with appropriate rewards as well as appropriate level of contribution towards the overall score. It also provides a reason for players to improve themselves and do better. It would be applicable for both open field as well as defense / offense events, you could even use it in roaming groups by picking off stragglers / tail of off blobs. So its very flexible in its nature.

I may edit, rewrite or rephrase some of this, but curious what you guys think so far ?

Sounds interesting.

E: Just a few questions that flew through my mind.

-How would you actually determine the winner of a fight? Would you simply say the group with the most people alive going out fight wins? Then what if a 20 man guild kills 10 guys out of a 50 mam blob and the last 40 decide to run away. How do you technically know that the guild “won”? Or of the guild runs away how do you know that the blob won?

How long would the event last? As long as you have orange swords or with a restarting event timer? And would it seem possible to have an imaginary endless reward stacking? E.g. If you attack your enemies garrison and they keep defending it so you fight in their Lords room for maybe 1-2 hours straight and kill hundreds of red players it would seem fair that you get a lot of gold out if this. (I could easily imagine a 10-20g reward after such a long fight and it would still not be as profitable as pve farming)

-How would you determine your group size if it changes infight? Say you have a 50v50, kill 10 guys and in the mean time 20 are joining again. Is it 50v70 or 50v80? Would this mean that your ppk value changes dynamically within the fight? Or maybe set it fix for this event if you do it with a timer?

-What about siege? I think if a small group manages to kill a larger, attacking one with some clever ac’s they deserve the points. But do others think like that as well?

I think the biggest problem is to know who won the fight. Everything else is just a design question.
It would certainly encourage smaller groups engaging blobs (maybe you could even take away the blobs ppk if the difference is big enough?)

They are needing to incentivize the parts that aren’t being done, like defense. I don’t think they are really looking to incentivize blobbing even more,

@Entenkommando

- How the winner would be determined by the system ?

Upon event start it will have an initial value of players in it (number of players per each side) if that number becomes zero, either because they die or runaway or whatever other reason, the other side automatically gets a win. This will not affect solo squirrels much as they will not trigger yellow swords, thus start the event. But a havoc group eating up a zerg tail might.

In addition, the event itself may be “mobile” and travel with the yellow swords a bit for X amount of time, the X is to be determined and adjusted later as per collected data and feedback. We have plenty such events in the game already. So its mostly existing mechanics.

- How would group size be determined and how would the event size to it on dynamic “in combat” basis ?

I would like to keep it simple, thus tiered ranges with slight overlap for room for server lag stragglers, etc. instead of exact count, for the sake of simplicity, I would not scale the targets of the event down, for example, if 20 man engages a 40 man, kills 18 of them, the remaining 22 would still count as 40 for the purpose of receiving rewards.

However, it would scale up when doing opposite, so if a 20 man engages a 40 man, can’t do it and another group shows up that is a 45 man, the event would scale up to have a group of 65 vs 40 now and determine rewards based on that, PPK values included.

A timer of X seconds, where X is to be determined and can easily be adjusted, will kick in once everyone is out of combat, the event rewards would be received by players at the end of that timer.

I would not want to entirely take away blobs PPK as that would be a negative, an equivalent of a debuff, and thus discourage players to “stick around” and “get better” just leave it as default without any bonuses.

- What about siege ?

In case of siege other then trebuchets, this could be tied to the current “defense” events. Weather or not to count a “siege kill” as a PPK worthy kill can be determined later based on data + feedback and added or substructed. Siege such as trebuchet, or in some cases long range balistas and catapults, would be subject to the same range / event limitations which they are now. If the defense event is large enough (such as keep, SMC etc.) they will be encompassed, if it isn’t then they will not be.

Marxx.5748:

They are needing to incentivize the parts that aren’t being done, like defense. I don’t think they are really looking to incentivize blobbing even more,

I apologize. I have not made it very clear. This would absolutely not incentivise blobbing, quite the opposite, it would incentivise going smaller for larger. In a blob, under this system, you would never receive maximum possible rewards, you may receive a “golden” even reward, lets say tower champ equivalent for the sake of discussion, if you have 2 blobs of same size meet in battle and one wipes the other, but you will never receive the equivalent of legendary champ, to do that you would need to take out the blob with a considerably smaller force, thus be on average better coordinated / skilled.

It applies to defense events as well as the others. Regardless of you are on defense, offense, or open field, this would apply equally since it is pretty rough nowadays to take out map que size blobs with smaller groups and when successfull, it should be rewarded. Difficulty wise it requires far more practice, patience and coordination (simply because of number of people, targets, otehr variables) then the current PVE raid content.

Yet, look at the rewards received for completing that content vs scripted opponents that are on farm once you learn the fight mechanics, vs unscripted opponents that constantly change and adapt.

The defense events themselves can in addition yield some extra rewards upon successful defense and can be nicely tied together. There is no reason not to.