Guild Wars 2

I just can’t figure this one out; why are there rules in place in WvW that seem specifically designed to penalize small group play, and nothing else?

The obvious example of this is Dolyaks; when you kill a doyak, it puts points on the board for your server, HOWEVER, the number of points is not the same for every group. You get 1 point for every person who tags the Dolyak, up to 10 points, so if you sneak into enemy territory and solo a yak you are actually LOSING points for the server; you were supposed to have brought a minimum or 10 people with you to kill that Dolyak! I understand giving everyone who tags the Yak the same rewards, but adding points for each person involved? This makes no sense at all.

Rules like this seem to be designed specifically to punish anyone who tries to run in a groups smaller than 10, or makes any attempt to win points in WvW through skill rather than numbers. It’s as if you are SUPPOSED to zerg even the simplest objectives in WvW, or you actually lose points for your server, even if you can do the same job solo.

Can anyone explain why this rule even exists, other than to promote zerging, or is this something that’s being fixed by any chance?

Yaks award points on where they are killed along their path. The closer they are to the destination, the more points you get. Number of players has nothing to do with it.

Do you have a source for this? Because I would love to see anything proving that that is how it works. It’s been posted all over the place for several months that you get 1 point for each person who tags a Yak, however, and on my server people are actually being flamed for soloing yaks instead of just crippling it and calling out in map chat for 9 more people to come tag it before it dies. So does anyone have any evidence that points are NOT based on the number of people who tag a Dolyak, or is there anyone official who can tell us just how this works?

Penalized implies you’re losing something. Making less is not the same as losing.

This is getting off topic, but making less than you should for accomplishing the same task as someone else is a penalty. If what I said in the original post is true, then a Supply Caravan (Dolyak) is worth 10 points. However, if you solo kill this Dolyak, you only get 1 of those points. If you want to call this a “Bonus for Zerging” or a “Bonus for bringing 2 whole, 5-man parties to do a 1-person job” that’s fine, it still punishes anyone running in a group smaller than 10.

However, now that Burl has brought up the idea that points simply may not work like this at all, I’d really like to see some sort of confirmation on just exactly how the points from Dolyaks do work. My entire server, and several others, seem to have been playing under the belief that Dolyaks award points based on the number of people who tag the Yak before it dies. I can’t seem to find credible evidence anywhere to dispute this, so I’m hoping someone can show something that says “this is how it works” one way or the other, or that someone from Anet can confirm whether or not this is a punishment handed down for playing in small groups in WvW (or a bonus to larger groups, or whatever).

Yeah, I always thought that the idea of a Dolyak being worth the same as a tower was a little ridiculous. I still can’t find a video, point log, or official statement anywhere showing how many points a Dolyak gives, so the people on my server could still be correct, as far as I know.

Isaac.6041:

You don’t need official statements to tell you something is obviously wrong.

Just because it seems “obviously wrong” doesn’t mean that this isn’t EXACTLY how it curently works. I mean, I thought it sounded obviously wrong the first time I heard that there was a Boss event in the lowest level Norn area that took less than 10 minutes to finish, respawned every 20 minutes, and gave essentially the same loot chest that Jormag gave… but until about a week ago, that was real! So yes, I need some kind of confirmation, considering that this information about how Dolyaks award points is the SAME information that most people believed on my last 2 servers as well.

Here’s a thread buy someone claiming that Dolyaks are worth more points per hour than all the structures put together: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/19xanl/since_were_talking_about_wvw_dolyaks_and_sentries/
And another thread where people seemed to just throw their hands up and go “Eh, I maybe they give some points, but nobody will ever know how many” : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Score-Math

So yes, I need something other than a few random people on a forum saying “I don’t believe it can possibly work like that, you’re crazy!”

Has anybody got any idea at all just how many points a Dolyak (Supply Caravan" grants when it is killed? Does it matter how many people are involved? Does anyone have video of the score changing, or has anyone actually bothered to check the score changes when killing a Dolyak? Is there ANYONE official who can weigh in on this and remove at least some of the mystery? You don’t have to tell me exactly how many points a yak is worth, just let us know whether the number of people or position along the path or anything else matters, or if it is just a static reward that is always the same every time a Dolyak is killed.

Isaac.6041:

Dolyaks only award 1 point. And if they have 2 guards, killing each guard also awards 1 point.

Whoever told you that killing dolyaks awards 10 points must be ignorant.

Or maybe it is you that is ignorant, have you ever tested it yourself before opening your mouth?

Dolyaks in my tests reward 1-7 points, I have heard of folks getting as many as ten but it’s never happened to me. I have tested the idea that the further on the path gets more points, but never found that to be true. Seems mostly random.