Guild Wars 2

Coverage seems to be one of the biggest issues for people. Second to that is the advantage of the larger side. Now granted I enjoy the current system, but it made me ponder other options. Below are some quick thoughts on still granting an advantage to the larger and better covered side but a boost to encourage a smaller side to fight on.

Objectives:
• All Time Zones = Equal Weight
• Award servers for holding objectives
• Award fights
• Encourage combat across the map
• Discourage swapping of objectives
• Encourage defending
• Award servers that fight and lose over those that don’t fight

Process:
• Keep PPT
• Add value over time points
• Add capture and defense points
• Change points for fights
• Reduce the value of swapping objectives

Any solution needs to work in the scenario where there is and is not coverage. If a server has better coverage it shouldn’t be penalized for that but it should be of more interest to be attacked.

Details

PPT Remains
PPT encourages a side to hold objectives. You want that because it creates value in that object and you need a reason to want it. If someone can hold it over time they should be rewarded for that. Just because no one is home doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value. What is needed is to change the points that are awarded for that objective.

Objectives Points
Why would someone want a tower in the middle of nowhere? It needs to have value. If our objectives actually were at bottlenecks they would have their own value, but they can all be bypassed. That’s good and bad. For now let’s leave that the same for this discussion. Objectives should continue to add points over time paid out in 15 minute blocks as they are. The longer that an objective is held though the more valuable it should become for an attacker to want to take it. Now based on other changes below the base value of objectives should be doubled per tick if not more. See awarding fights below.

Over Time Points
How to do this? At each tick a percentage of the same value that the objective was worth is added to a reserve of points. The reserve starts 30 minutes from the point the map resets or the control of an objective changes over a 24 hour period. If the objective is captured before the 24 hour mark the server capturing the objective is rewarded a portion of the reserve points in a capture bonus and the pool is emptied. Now the pool is emptied because, let’s face it how much value does something have after it’s been sacked? We don’t want to encourage flipping. More on why only a portion of the points in a bit. Now remember this is only a portion of the value awarded during each of the individual ticks. The total points that the original owner was paid over the entire time should always be higher because they rightly controlled the objective during that time. You want to reward a side for holding but there should be a bigger reward for taking items held longer. This concept helps mitigate a server controlling a time zone by allowing an offline side to regain some lost ground.

If the objective is not captured before 24 hours is passed then a portion of the pool of points is awarded to the controller of the objective and that value is deducted from the total pool. Once again there should be a reason to defend and upgrade an objective. The owners are therefore encouraged to keep what they own since they can also benefit the longer they hold. The pool is not emptied in this case because the longer it is held the more it should be worth. The number of hours before defenders are paid can be changed but should represent as much as full game day cycle as possible to not favor a time zone over another.

Now why did we talk about a percentage of the pool of points versus the full pool. By using a percentage we can encourage other activities and reward for those that are measured as favorable. Example: for each successful defense (measured by number of attackers to defenders with minimums for each size of objective to avoid people playing the system) the percentage of defense points rewarded on successfully holding the objective is increased. Capture point percentages are increased based on objective upgrades made by the defender, and if the keep was defended at the time of capture (once again hidden metric to prevent people playing the system). Paying the attacker more for a capture of a defended keep is offset by paying the defender more for defending a keep. Once again we want to encourage fights. Other measurable actions could likewise influence the percentage of points, but should never reach 100%. First thoughts are max at 60-70%. Why? Simple, owning the keep the entire time should pay more and encourage people to defend. The capture points likewise encourage a side that is disadvantaged to keep trying since they can reclaim some of what was lost.

more…

Upgrades
Ok so why then would we want to upgrade objectives. Upgraded objectives benefit an attacker by allowing them a larger capture percentage. The defenders incentive is to help them to try and hold the objective longer. Considering the need to hold the objective the whole day though, that’s not enough encouragement. Upgraded objectives should also pay more per time tick. That would increase the immediate payout for owning and at the same time scale up the value of the objective. A T1 tower and a T3 tower over the same time should not be the same value after all. The more you put into something the more it should be worth. Now there is an advantage to a server that is stronger in one time zone over the other but the capture reward is also going to be higher to take that objective from them. The upgrades should apply to all objectives, and sentry points in the future.

Awarding Fights
Objectives should concentrate fights, but fights themselves should have value. Killing enemy players should always award war score. Not coming to a fight should not be valued as much as winning or at least trying to fight. Bloodlust can add to the value but there should be a base value for the fight. Now you don’t want to discourage fights either so there should be value to both sides, but the winner is paid more. Now this is actually a three way fight, which is why I am paying the loser. I would want to reward someone for trying to fight versus giving them the same reward for not even showing up. Now a simple payment scheme might be 2 to the winner and 1 to the loser’s side. Another might be 4 to the winner and 2 to the loser. The reason I throw this out there as the 4 to 2 mechanism is that you would then have room to adjust the payment of the loser if they are outnumbered. The odds are good that the side with the numbers will win, but you still want people to try. Not to mention a side with more numbers is more likely to have a bloodlust bonus and be rewarded more for their kills already. Now the adjustments should never allow more points on losing then winning though but they could pay the same if outnumbered enough. Note based on the points awarded for fights the points for holding objectives would need to be increased as stated above to ensure they help focus the fights. In addition I would up the loot drops and rewards from killing players since people should always be more encouraged to fight people over NPCs.

Defending
One thing to encourage is defending. The reason for this is that it increases the odds of a fight and discourages objective swapping. Now some people are for objective swapping since it is encouraged by people that want to karma farm in WvW, but I hope that’s a minority. I would prefer an enemy to crush me then be more encouraged to let me have something so that they can take it back. Individual Rewards for fighting at an objective should be increased, be that WvW points, coin, loot, karma, XP. Further increased based on the upgrade/rank of the objective. At the same time rewards for the final capture of an objective should be scaled down based on how long before the objective was recently flipped. Example: the objective should value up the longer it is owned until it returns to its full value once control of it has flipped. That way people are still rewarded for taking objectives but less if they are giving them up so that they can just retake them.

Weekly Resets
So how do you make the weak stronger and further encourage people to WvW? Grant chests based on the servers placement among the three servers. This would help fund WvW activity, replace gear, add more value to the weekly rankings and tempt more people into WvW.

First Place: 5 Tokens, 2 Coin Bags, 6 Loot Bags, WvW XP (Small)
Second Place: 3 Tokens, 4 Coin Bags, Arrow Cart, Ram, Catapult, 3 Loot Bags
Third Place: 1 Token, 6 Coin Bags, 2 Arrow Carts, Ram, Catapult, Trebuchet, 1 Loot Bag

Tokens could be used to convert into siege, coin, karma, xp, wvw xp, other currency.
Coin Bags would be random coin drop, loot bags random gear drops.
In this model the losers are paid higher in coin and siege so that they might then use in it WvW during the next matchup.

Ok thats enough rambling, appreciate it if you made this far. Thoughts? Good hunting!

Hello TheGrimm and sorry for the late reply…

Your ideas are very interesting but I’m not sure they would all work. I only have the time to respond to your first one in this post : The pool of point that accumulate in a structure the longer it is not flipped.

While I was looking for the best solution to solve our “crappy” scoring system, it’s one of the solution I came up with many months ago. The goal behind that idea was to solve 3 problems at the same time :

1. The server with the biggest population will win no matter what
I thought this system would Advantage a little bit the weaker servers by giving them extra points when they flip a long held structure (example retaking their garrison that was fortified by the big bad server during the night)

2. The outcome of the matches are set in stone after 2-3 days
I thought this system would make it possible to do a come back at the last minute and make matches more thrilling

3. Stop the karma train and encourage attacking upgraded structure
It’s certain that it will stop the karma train because upgraded structure are now worth more point since they are held longer.

Now let’s see why it fails…

1. At first, when we think about this system we think that it will make it possible for the weaker servers to gain more points because when they flip structures they will gain additional points.

But the thing is : all servers are gaining additional points when they flip a structure. So, which server will gain the most additional points? This last question is hard to answer, so let’s look at it on a different angle.

a) Which server flip the most objectives?

This one is easy to answer : it’s the server that is currently winning the matchup, the one with the biggest population. This is the server that usually do the big karma train all week long because they don’t have any real opposition. Since they flip the most objectives, they will win the most additional points.

For example, let’s take server A, B and C. A is currently winning. Usually what happens is that A will go karma train B then when it runs out of target to flip it go karma train C and repeat forever. After A flip all their objectives B and C retook them. But, B and C never have the chance to really attack each other since they are both busy with A. This means that A will be flipping 2 times more objectives than B and C. More objectives flipped = more additional points

b) Which server is able to flip well defended, long held objectives?

This one is also easy to answer : it’s the server that is currently winning the matchup too. So, if they are the only server that is able to flip long held objectives, they will be the only one to get a huge boost in points. This will aggraviate the problem even more.

c) Which server more likely to be able to hold a structure for 24h?

Again, this is easy to answer : it’s the server that is currently winning the matchup. They win for reason; they are able to defend their objectives and take the objectives of the other teams, while their opponents is not able to do the same.

So, we explored this idea thinking that it would help the weaker servers but when we look at it, everything is helping the stronger server to be even more dominating. This solution might even be worse than the current PPT system. In the current PPT system, even if A tick higher than B and C most of the time, B and C are usually able to retake their territory back relatively fast and get back to a good PPT.

If you give bonus on cap, the server doing the more flips will dominate 100% of the time and that is the server with the biggest population. The server that is already winning 100% of the time.

2. I thought it would be possible, if some objectives had a huge point associated to them because they were held for hours, for weaker servers to make an heroic come back at the last minute doing an epic push on the fortified garrison for example.

But looking at #1, we see that it will probably not matter since the gap in points will be far too big. Also, which server is more likely to get a huge boost in points at the last minute? The already winning server of course because they are the only one able to flip a fortified keep easily

3. Stopping the karma train… For this point it seems that this systems can’t fail since server will automatically go for structure that are worth more points. But…

a) What are people usually interested in? Is it reward or server score?

The answer is simple : reward. People don’t karma train for PPT they do it for loots. It’s also a pretty efficient way to gather people and increase your PPT but people don’t care about that, they are there for the loots. So, if you tell them that we will siege this keep for the next 2 hours in order to gain a huge boost of point, many won’t be interested… even if taking a defended keep is probably the most entertaining thing is wvw

b) The next one is not obvious at first but ; Why should we try to defend structure that we are nearly 100% sure we won’t be able to hold 24h?

If people start to realize that by defending for 2-3 hours the structure they just took they will simply increase the score of the other server when they flip it, they will want you to retake it as fast as possible to negate the bonus point. Then when you retake it, they can just retake it to negate you the PPT and get a bonus for flipping it. More rewards and more points. Everybody wins! Viva the karma train!

Conclusion

Awarding point on flip has been mentionned so many time already and it’s bad. I’m sure Arena Net has already run multiple tests on it and it doesn’t help the current situation at all. You can come up with any types of strange or everly complicated modifications to point on flip, the thing is : if it’s points on flip it won’t work.

I would really appreciate if you could try to destroy PPT cap. I would like to pass to the next super idea but I can’t while I see all the qualities and simplicity needed in PPT cap.

PPT cap is limit the maximum PPT a server can tick at to 255. You fight to lower your opponents’ PPT rather than fighting to increase yours.

My thought process about a new scoring system or just giving a chance to the losing servers has been roughly :

1. PPT sucks (no need to explain the reasons here…)
2. We should do point on cap
3. We should adjust PPT based on population
a) Based on population per map
b) Based on population currently online
c) Based on average population online
d) Based on population in cap circle
4. The system you mentionned
5. We should buff the losing side
a) based on current population online
b) based on population per map
c) based on average population
d) based on current PPT
e) based on current wvw score
6. Bigger reward for attacking the strongest
7. PPT cap (no downside so far and super easy to implement)
8. Bloodlust madness (could be quite interesting but we would see wall of QQs)

Some idea in that list are very bad, others are good, some are just ok…

1. cap point based on upgrades level. structures with higher upgrade grant more cap point.
2. PPT based on upgrade level. structures with higher upgrades grant more PPT. encourage servers to upgrade.
3. every kill grant 5 point ( no need stomping). promote skill over numbers.

azizul.8469:

1. cap point based on upgrades level. structures with higher upgrade grant more cap point.
2. PPT based on upgrade level. structures with higher upgrades grant more PPT. encourage servers to upgrade.
3. every kill grant 5 point ( no need stomping). promote skill over numbers.

1. Which server is able to flip defended upgraded structure? It’s usually the winning server so they will get even more point. For them it does not matter if the structure is upgraded or not, they can take it and they will
2. Which server is able to upgrade their structure and keep them upgraded? It’s the already winning server. The 2 other servers are not able to upgraded their structure and keep them upgraded. So the winning server will get even more point
3. Which server is able to kill the most players? Again it’s the already winning server.

All your points are only helping the currently winning server, but they already win so why help them even more? I can see all the good intentions behind your logic but it won’t work.

Gudradain.3892:

azizul.8469:

1. cap point based on upgrades level. structures with higher upgrade grant more cap point.
2. PPT based on upgrade level. structures with higher upgrades grant more PPT. encourage servers to upgrade.
3. every kill grant 5 point ( no need stomping). promote skill over numbers.

1. Which server is able to flip defended upgraded structure? It’s usually the winning server so they will get even more point. For them it does not matter if the structure is upgraded or not, they can take it and they will
2. Which server is able to upgrade their structure and keep them upgraded? It’s the already winning server. The 2 other servers are not able to upgraded their structure and keep them upgraded. So the winning server will get even more point
3. Which server is able to kill the most players? Again it’s the already winning server.

All your points are only helping the currently winning server, but they already win so why help them even more? I can see all the good intentions behind your logic but it won’t work.

haven’t tried and write it off immediately….

if Edison were like you we wouldn’t have light bulb by now….

I think a lot of the “coverage” issues would be solved if they just added points per kill.

- Give 5 points per kill
- Give 10 points per spike

Outnumbered:

- 10 Points per kill
- 20 points per spike
- The force that outnumbers gets no points per kill

We can argue that the larger force may still win but often this is not the case. More often than not from what I’ve seen when numbers are even out on the battlefield, the server with the highest points doesn’t usually win the battles. We all know coverage wins. We also know there have been small guild groups in the past of 15-20 taking out forces triple their size. Now think in an hours time in heated battles (especially in SMC), just how many kills occur. If a map blob of 60 engages 30 people; 30 people kill say 50 of them while losing 0.. well that 250 points right off the bat (1 average tick).

Now if they engage in battle say 5-10 more times that hour, well you quickly see how the score can rack up. Now when you equate this too say strong prime time where numbers are even vs say SEA time where numbers are completely lopsided. We will probably have a case where a prime time server may make 4000-6000 points in kills alone where the enemy with better coverage will probably make that up during off hours.

Pretty even if you ask me, and it definitely would change the face of how it works.