Guild Wars 2

I wonder, if I am the first (outside ANet) who ever noticed that, but

The basic design of WvW is not PvP, but three teams that are in a race of doing PvE-event.

Capping an objective is an PvE-event, killing or escorting a dolly is an PvE-event. The difficulty of this PvE-Event only determines the reward: player-wise (loot, karma, Exp …) as well as server-wise (points of the objective). The amount of player (defender as well as attacker) have zero influence on the reward (only on the speed of getting it, sometimes in denying). That is also the explanation why EotM had better rewards: The PvE-Events where harder (doors always upgraded, lords more difficult) and therefore are more rewarding.

The only PvP-aspect of it is: instead of PvEing faster, you can decide to disturb an enemy team to slow it down in it’s race.

This also explains why ANet never had problems with Off-Time-Capping: The PvE-Event is the same, so should be the reward.

WvW-Improvements in this sight are therefore are better i.e. more demanding and variant PvE-events. Which explains very well why the new BLs (and EotM) are as they are.

No wonder that WvW and EotM have a tendency to mutate to champ-trains, that’s what they are designwise.

Maybe WvW would be better, if we would have a more PvP-centric design.

How could a more PvP-centric design look like?

Dayra.7405:

Capping an objective is an PvE-event, killing or escorting a dolly is an PvE-event.

And that’s what create PvP – mobs are little more than a buffer to encourage players to come and help them fight enemy players while dollys are strategical assets that can be attacked and thus need to be defended.

This is not the problem with WvW. Its integral to the basic functionality of WvW and player scaling, making it fun for 1 person all the way up to full zone blob.

Its when you literally have to fight the enviroment instead of players that it goes up kittens creek. IE the entire new border.

How could a more PvP oriented design look like?

• less automatism e.g no automatic dollies, dollies must be hired (cost supplies, more with escorts) and asigned to a route by a player, which they repeat till killed or stopped, no automatic repair on capture doors and walls broken during the attack remain broken, walls and doors must be repaired to 50% till they block again, no automatic uprades, they must be started by player, the WP of a tower or keep is a damageable object that can be build/repaired by people with resources they carry
• no NPCs (or only when explicitly hired)
• no events and no event rewards, capture is simply: you destroyed the enemy WP and build your own, no delay in recapture, it only interrupts interesting battles.
• short ways to battle (unblockable WPs in every tower/keep, usable by the side that currently controls it wherever it is), but you can only voluntarily port from anywhere to the spawn and after a delay of X secs from the spawn to every WP under it’s side control.
• no revive of totally dead, a dead must go back to a WP under it’s side control after a X sec delay
• only your “third” produces resources you can grab or spend on upgrades, but you can plunder enemy resources, and you can carry them yourself or hired dollies to transport them

Match-Scoring and rewards purely on WEXP

• an enemy get killed with contribution from your side, your server get the WEXP he give (once! not per player that get it) as score
• a wall/door/WP get destroyed with contribution from your side, your server get the WEXP it gives (once! not per player that get it) as score
• a wall/door/WP get build/repaired by your side, your server get the WEXP it gives (once! not per player that get it) as score
• an upgrade finishes
• a hired dolly delivers it’s resources
• an enemy dolly get killed
• …

Player rewards are improved and more frequent WEXP-chests, nothing else.

If there isn’t anything left to do you do not get score anymore.

Hopefully the result is something like a permanent battle about an objective, i.e. the hour-lasting 3-way fights over SM.

Dawdler.8521:

Dayra.7405:

Capping an objective is an PvE-event, killing or escorting a dolly is an PvE-event.

And that’s what create PvP – mobs are little more than a buffer to encourage players to come and help them fight enemy players while dollys are strategical assets that can be attacked and thus need to be defended.

Yes, I though so as well till today. But: player/server-rewards entirely scale with PvE difficulty and are completely independent of: PvP happened or not. And that’s the problem, it’s more rewarding if you avoid PvP and concentrate on the PvE-race.

Dayra.7405:

Dawdler.8521:

Dayra.7405:

Capping an objective is an PvE-event, killing or escorting a dolly is an PvE-event.

And that’s what create PvP – mobs are little more than a buffer to encourage players to come and help them fight enemy players while dollys are strategical assets that can be attacked and thus need to be defended.

Yes, I though so as well till today. But: player/server-rewards entirely scale with PvE difficulty and are completely independent of: PvP happened or not. And that’s the problem, it’s more rewarding if you avoid PvP and concentrate on the PvE-race.

Not entirely true. There is a reason we call zergs lootbags waiting to happen.

But granted, the loot from players is pretty poor compared to loot from mobs. Its always been like that and Anet obviously want to keep it that way too.

Its RvR which is not strictly PvP. RvR is about fighting over objectives. PvP would purely be like GvG gameplay.

Well, adding of ppk could help.
Since number of kills is recorded and accumulates points for the weekly score you could simply add achievements for number of kills per week, month, etc…Titles, bags, rewards just as in AP’s for collections, slayer, etc.
Only difference is make it repeatable, similar to 200 items salvaged. Thus, if you roam and kill = point, kill 5 with an ac = 5 points toward the achievement and reward for defending, etc…This may bring more pve’rs (AP hunters) to wvw which is dying fast.
Just make tiers of achievements doable, not like pre-HoT yakslapper or something crazy like kill 6 billion yaks.
I know there is already a category for this but it is a long term goal and once reached, then what? Make weekly, monthly, etc repeatable achievements with chests for rewards is my idea.

Dayra.7405:

I wonder, if I am the first (outside ANet) who ever noticed that, but

The basic design of WvW is not PvP, but three teams that are in a race of doing PvE-event.

Capping an objective is an PvE-event, killing or escorting a dolly is an PvE-event. The difficulty of this PvE-Event only determines the reward: player-wise (loot, karma, Exp …) as well as server-wise (points of the objective). The amount of player (defender as well as attacker) have zero influence on the reward (only on the speed of getting it, sometimes in denying). That is also the explanation why EotM had better rewards: The PvE-Events where harder (doors always upgraded, lords more difficult) and therefore are more rewarding.

The only PvP-aspect of it is: instead of PvEing faster, you can decide to disturb an enemy team to slow it down in it’s race.

This also explains why ANet never had problems with Off-Time-Capping: The PvE-Event is the same, so should be the reward.

WvW-Improvements in this sight are therefore are better i.e. more demanding and variant PvE-events. Which explains very well why the new BLs (and EotM) are as they are.

No wonder that WvW and EotM have a tendency to mutate to champ-trains, that’s what they are designwise.

Maybe WvW would be better, if we would have a more PvP-centric design.

How could a more PvP-centric design look like?

Now that you mention it, that does make a lot of sense and seem to fit the state of things perfectly. The overall incentives are designed from a PvE standpoint, so champ trains are the natural result. In fact, it could even be said that PvP has persisted in spite of the overall design, rather than because of it. It’s a testament to the WvW community, really.

Now, as to how to change it, a few quick fixes aren’t going to cut it. Things need to be designed from the foundation on up with incentivizing PvP in mind. The maps have to have a strategic layout, first and foremost. So that strategy is actual strategy, rather than exploitation of loopholes. The point worth of areas needs to be related to its upgrade level, and how many were killed during its capture/defense. The rewards needs to be handled in a similar fashion. The auto-upgrades need to go. The gimmicks need to go. The center event needs to go. The orbs should come back, but with a different benefit to having them than stat buffs. I’d like to see player collision added, so that positioning and formations would become important, but I know that’s a pipe dream. Classes need to be balanced, and all made at least viable in main rolls (zerging, roaming, etc). Bugs and exploits need to be fixed. Pretty much all of the guild upgrades need to be reworked. Actual GMs need to be added, so that people using hacks or abusing exploits can be banned in a timely manner.

Essentially, they need to hit the reset button on WvW, re-fix culling, and then go in the complete opposite direction as they have been. Something I’m sure they’re not going to do.

This has been true of WvW since the beginning. Way back close to launch I realized this and it was a real downer.

I realized it when I heard one of the most disheartening things from server mates. Back shortly after launch we’d have hours long battles over keeps and towers. And then the thinking on the server started to be that we shouldn’t engage in these hours long battles because its actually not good for the server. It would be better to go and take undefended towers and keeps.

So people started saying to stop the battles and go take undefended assets because we’re not helping the server by staying. Because we’re not getting any points by fighting over a keep for 2 hours. So sad.

Well good old mmo games people did PvP so they they could do PvE after that. Often you couldn’t even get inside raid dungeon without fighting. That is only real way to play PvP.

You do understand pvp is any thing that is player contorted and pve is any thing that is not player contorted. So siege is pvp so are buffs and tools that you put on keeps/tower/camps. Pve in wvw is auto upgrades on timed now that yacks are needed that a bit more of a pvp then it was before.

Dayra.7405:

• less automatism e.g no automatic dollies, dollies must be hired (cost supplies, more with escorts) and asigned to a route by a player, which they repeat till killed or stopped, no automatic repair on capture doors and walls broken during the attack remain broken, walls and doors must be repaired to 50% till they block again, no automatic uprades, they must be started by player, the WP of a tower or keep is a damageable object that can be build/repaired by people with resources they carry
• no NPCs (or only when explicitly hired)

http://www.oocities.org/ultimatewarcraft2/peonvict.gif

Peon Wars 2 !