Guild Wars 2

If suggested before then please disregard.

I don’t think coverage is the problem. Well it is, but I don’t think it can be solved (nighttime defense mobs etc are just not the answer) What we need to do is take a look at this problem from a different angle.

The point per tick mechanic.

This mechanic is ok for regular match ups but for Seasons (which evoke more of a “championship” feel) it needs to be changed.

I propose that we go to a system of points per capture. So if a server with lots of coverage flips everything in map their points “spread” stops there. They would have to wait for something to be flipped before they can get more points.

Some quick ideas:

1. Structures deep in enemy territory are worth more points than structures close to WP/ your own borderland.
2. Flipping back structures in your own territory are worth less points (to discourage flipping back and forth in “safe” areas)
3. Successful defend events awards points. This encourages people to defend attacks since even if they lose the structure in the end the server still gets points for at least holding it for a while . Also would add some strategy as commanders have to make the decision to continue pushing for an structure that may end up giving more points to defending servers that they would make by capping it. (there may be a problem with some defend events popping up when 2 or 3 players graze doors as a distractions so this needs polish… maybe the defend events pops up when a door/wall is 70% down)
4. Similar to players “WxP gain” structures that are flipped back and forth (between the same 2 servers) in a short timeframe stop awarding points for capping to discourage servers from “playing the system” to get away/catch up from the 3rd server.
5. Supply camps/sentry/yaks and structures not owned by anyone (AKA reset day structures)awards no points. This are too easy and most successful attack always starts with a camp flip anyway.
6. Finally in order to make things more exciting random events should popup were for instance the server is awarded bonus points for taking a specific structure (like a bounty) within an specified time or holding all 3 mercenary camps in EB, etc. This is known to all 3 servers which will result in massive fights as server 1 tries to defend, server 2 tries to cap and server 3 either decides to help deter server 2 from capping (thus negating server 2 bonus points) or goes for other structures while “everyone else is busy”. This would add some strategy layers as servers have to decide what is in their best interest (yes some math will come into play!, Can I take enough structures to negate server 2 bonus points?). This could also act as a balancing tool giving the last place server easier targets like a tower while the winning servers gets a bounty for a keep or Stonemist. Yeah we all hate the blue shell but you have to admit it makes Mario kart more exciting. Last this special events would be tie breakers it would let servers to pull away from the others (remember there is a soft upper limit as capping can only give you a set amount of points until structures are flipped"

What I think we would gain:

• Underdogs will have a fighting chance as points have a soft upper limit for stacked servers and capturing structures / defending / bonus missions will help them get back into the fight faster (no more time gating points!)
• Matchups would be more close instead of “its over 9000” leads that were common in season 1.
• No more coverage issues. Nigh crew can still cap everything but when the day crew comes back the points can be taken back and even small night crews can help the server as they need only to cap stuff not hold it or defend structures to get points.
• The zerg will need to at least break into 2 an offensive and a defensive zerg. Right now the most common sentence from commanders is “don’t worry we will cap it back before the tick”. In case of special events for instance a “take 3 structures in x time” will force zergs to break into at least 3 to try and complete the bounty before the time is up.

So what do you think? I know as this is discussed many issues will come up, but the the main idea is to move away from the “point per tick” (at least for seasons). I do not think these are the only solutions and I will probably won’t defend the topic much as I do not want to be a forum warrior, if you want to add something make it constructive, for every “this won’t work” tell us at least 2 solutions!.

I think your ideas are pretty good actually. Not so sure I like point f though but everyone needs some spice in their lives.

People should read this. Very nice ideas, I gotta admit i was discouraged by the wall of text

Natronix.9827:

People should read this. Very nice ideas, I gotta admit i was discouraged by the wall of text

Yeah , I know I really wanted to make it shorter but I’m just not that good at writing.

I think that the problem isn’t that people want to “win” so much as most of us don’t want to lose so “bad” that it becomes a joke.

Afraid this would polarize matchups even further. If you’re losing a matchup people would be even less encouraged to cap stuff since in the old system if you held it for the tick you would have at least done something, whereas in your system as the enemy zerg barges in and captures it right behind you, you would have effectively had 0 impact. Also capturing something that’s upgraded would be more risky since the opponent’s tick up points as time progresses in the siege, aside from the already existing risk that the third server takes all your stuff. So people stick to pingponging paper structures and bunkering in fully upgraded keeps, since that’s the most effective way of gaining points. Large clashes would become more rare which isn’t exactly a good thing imo.

I honestly cannot see how the system of points on capture would be better in any way, no offense. Coverage advantage still exists since they can upgrade everything at night. Agreed the difference in points might be smaller, but making a comeback would be harder since every point you earn basically means someone else can/ will earn one as well.

Honestly I don’t think there is any other workable solution than either dividing points gained at low coverage hours by 2-5, or just not granting any points whatsoever (except for stomps). But what about Oceanic people then? Maybe the edge of the mists is an answer for them.

Second solution (because i owe you 2 -_-) work with one massive daily tick at primetime. One tick that would be worth as much as all other ticks in the day combined, might give for some interesting strategy and intense action, and is very simple at heart. Might give some queue and skill lag problems as everyone wants a piece of the action at this one given timeframe.

I think your ideas definitely merit consideration.

I think it has a problem with the 3-sided matches:
2 small groups from 2 of the servers can agree to their common advantage of both of their servers and the third servers disadvantage to flip some towers on both sides of their border (e.g. ogre watch and durios) or even SN between them. If even a majority from both servers agree both can defend SN together against the third while 5 from each side flip the lord in 5min beat.

too much potential for collusion.

example:
team A, B, and C are fighting WvWvW
team C does nothing.
team A and B fight to a dead end tie.
Team C takes one thing from one team, and then it is taken back.
If team A and B fight to a dead-heat tie for the rest of the week, the team that took something back from team C has one more point and wins.
If one of the big teams colludes with the third team, they can trade points back and forth to make it impossible for the other big team to win.
In fact, two teams going back and forth for a while can decide the week in the first two days, earning so many points that when team C comes in and captures everything, they still lose, because they can’t gain any more points.

If you want to spice up the game, here’s an idea: give randomized, incentive-driven point boosts to players that can dynamically and quickly respond to changes in priority.

Right now, we all know how much each thing will be worth when the tick comes. Change it to where a message pops up that says “The gods gaze upon the mists, and will grant a boon to the owner of Dreaming Bay Keep in one hour.”

Suddenly players turn all their sights on whether they can capture or hold that one location.
Maybe the current owner will abandon it and think of trying to capture as many other locations as possible in order to make up for the assured loss.
Maybe it becomes a super-valuable location whose points are increased per tick until captured. (Meaning its value is based on how long you can hold it)
Maybe the gods grant a boon of super-powered siege and a divine legendary commander to help capture the rest of the map.
Maybe the gods see that the battle is still raging, and they vaporize the attackers, granting the keep’s owner bonus points for holding out against overwhelming force.

Then it’s just a matter of getting the randomization down right so that the targets of opportunity aren’t too far into difficult territory, making victory all but assured. (although even then, it’d be awesome to see two servers closing in on the target as its well-stocked owner shores up its defense – it may be that no one is capable of resisting completely against that push)

I like the ideas, they have been suggested before.

- Points per capture
- Points per defense
- Points for downing players
- Points for killing players

Doing any of the above outnumbered awards more points (maybe 50% more).

The collusion idea was brought up before but it wouldn’t really work. If 2 teams are going back and for (Aka karma train), they are both leaving their stuff wide open for the 3rd server to take; and the 3rd server wins it quite easily. It’s happened before during the karma train. The other server swoops in and just screws everything up.

DeadlySynz.3471:

…
The collusion idea was brought up before but it wouldn’t really work. If 2 teams are going back and for (Aka karma train), they are both leaving their stuff wide open for the 3rd server to take; and the 3rd server wins it quite easily. It’s happened before during the karma train. The other server swoops in and just screws everything up.

It’s called being the Kingmaker. You can’t win, but you can decide who wins. And when it becomes apparent that that’s the deciding factor in the season, it’ll generate a lot of backlash.

I like these ideas but you’d have to be very careful.

—It would be pretty easy for second accounts on an opposing server to trigger defense events for their main server no matter how you set it up. That would be a lot worse than wasting supply.
—Attacking anything might be a bad strategy unless your side has the enemy badly outmanned. Sure, it’s possible to push into a defended keep, but how many points is the enemy going to get from defense events before you succeed?
—Re-taking your own borderland or objectives close to your waypoint could do more harm than good.

IMO the most important thing Anet can do for WvW players is to protect them from themselves. The current system favors coverage, but at least it does a decent job of restraining direct cheating and encouraging fighting, and it can become even better at those things. Changing the system even to something arguably better—but more easily exploitable—would be a fatal error.

NevirSayDie.6235:

I like these ideas but you’d have to be very careful.

—It would be pretty easy for second accounts on an opposing server to trigger defense events for their main server no matter how you set it up. That would be a lot worse than wasting supply.
—Attacking anything might be a bad strategy unless your side has the enemy badly outmanned. Sure, it’s possible to push into a defended keep, but how many points is the enemy going to get from defense events before you succeed?
—Re-taking your own borderland or objectives close to your waypoint could do more harm than good.

IMO the most important thing Anet can do for WvW players is to protect them from themselves. The current system favors coverage, but at least it does a decent job of restraining direct cheating and encouraging fighting, and it can become even better at those things. Changing the system even to something arguably better—but more easily exploitable—would be a fatal error.

Yeah, finding ways to stop abusing any system is probably the hardest thing to come by.

All great ideas and all of you have given me much to consider.

I think ranking system that encourages double teams could help alleviate the coverage problem. A winner-takes-all ranking system encourages this.

I’ve thought about this sort of thing in the past, but it would need a lot of restrictions to stop it from being abused. More complex = more work = not going to happen in this game.

What bothers me about PPT is the timer. You can hold a keep for 14 minutes and lose it in the last minute and those 14 minutes meant nothing. I wouldn’t mind seeing the time holding an objective influence the points gained, so if you held it for 90% of the time, you gain 90% of the points at tick.

Ofcourse, this all depends on whether or not the ticks actually are weighed down by their server. If it didn’t bog down the server/database, you could simply have x points per y seconds which would reduce the issue above. No more capping objectives at the last minute.

The other thing that I think is bothersome is that all objectives of the same type have the same ppt. What would revolutionize this game is if, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, if you gained more ppt for holding objectives further from your spawn.

Consider your home BL. Your NW/NE towers in this design would be worth nothing to you, but worth a ton of ptt to your enemy. Vice versa, the enemies towers (SW/SE) are worth more to you then to them. Holding onto a waypoint garri/bay/hills wouldn’t influence this ppt, but be a perk of being able to waypoint these objectives.

Thus, holding garrison on your BL might give you 5 point every 15 seconds, but for the enemy it gives 15 points every 15 seconds. Hills/Bay could be equal grounds, 5 points every 15 seconds regardless of owner. NW/NE tower 2 points every 15 seconds, enemy gets 10 points every 15 seconds. Etc.

This makes defending local objectives more important because losing them gives a huge ppt to your enemy. And taking enemy objectives if more rewarding – higher risk = more ppt.

This however doesn’t stop coverage issues. IMO, the only way to stop coverage issues is to close the BLs during non-prime time, perhaps even close EB, and force everyone onto the new pve wvw map (edges of the mists). This still allows you to do open world pvp, gives you objectives, perhaps even earns you points (smaller, no ppt) so if you play during non-prime time, you can still achieve points.

Devon/WvW team says, “But we want everyone to be able to play whenever they want.” Why punish 90%+ of the user base who plays during primetime and work/school/whatever during non-prime time. Nighttime protection, alternative maps with no ptt or gtfo.

Even if a general event based scoring is to susceptible to griefplay, a
bonus system may bring some nice effects:

The atacker get 5pts score-bonus for each wall/door/fortification/wp improvement it destroys by taking a fortification, i.e. up to 20 for a keep and SN, up to 15 for a tower,
BUT this is capped by the number of defenders qualifying for the defense event (I think you do if you repair a wall/door and if you kill an attacker), i.e. versus no defender you get nothing.

The defender get 1 bonus score point for a successful defense event per attacker qualifying for the attack-event (that are only a few, prior to the capture circle, I think only ramm/cata/treb/golem users that do enough damage to a door/wall qualify for that.).
Trebbing a fortification without taking it would generate a nice stream of points for the defender

DeadlySynz.3471:

I like the ideas, they have been suggested before.

- Points per capture
- Points per defense
- Points for downing players
- Points for killing players

Doing any of the above outnumbered awards more points (maybe 50% more).

The collusion idea was brought up before but it wouldn’t really work. If 2 teams are going back and for (Aka karma train), they are both leaving their stuff wide open for the 3rd server to take; and the 3rd server wins it quite easily. It’s happened before during the karma train. The other server swoops in and just screws everything up.

+1

Although i’m still proposing the reduction of map cap by 50%…..

CEDWYN.5392:

Devon/WvW team says, “But we want everyone to be able to play whenever they want.” Why punish 90%+ of the user base who plays during primetime and work/school/whatever during non-prime time. Nighttime protection, alternative maps with no ptt or gtfo.

This is a selfish thought. just because the majority of the population base lives in the United States does not define their prime time as being better than someones else’s prime time that lives half way across the world.
I just happen to live in the United States. On the eastern Coast, but I can not make it to prime time due to my job being at night (7pm-3am eastern time) does that mean I should not be able to play on EB or any of the borderlands? I payed for the game just as you have I should be able to experience it the same way you do.

Also you proposed that non-primetime maps only be EoTM but it just so happens the EoTM is not released yet so what do they do in the mean time? sPvP or PvE?

I applaud your thoughts and ideas. However… I hate to break it to you, but Anet wont come close to your suggestions for a long time…. I mean, I highly doubt they will fade from the PPT mechanic.

WvW is their main attraction, and things are going great for them…. they are making sooooooo much money from MMO players who enjoy the somewhat mindless run from capture to capture and big flashy fights.

Save your ideas, though! If you plan on being loyal to this game for years to come (and, Im talkin 4-5 years), maybe they could take a few of your bullets when they inevitably start reworking the game when population starts to diminish.

Right now though, they are playing conservative. Think of every patch as a filibuster, and Anet are the Republicans.

Cancer.9065:

Natronix.9827:

People should read this. Very nice ideas, I gotta admit i was discouraged by the wall of text

Yeah , I know I really wanted to make it shorter but I’m just not that good at writing.

I think that the problem isn’t that people want to “win” so much as most of us don’t want to lose so “bad” that it becomes a joke.

I really like your ideas man, they could work great for seasons.

May I suggest you to edit your post to make it more easy to read ?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/faq/

use * and # for the main points, and maybe a little bit more of tabulation/line breaks

Borderlands are a bit of a nightmare to defend. I like you ideas because either tower in lower BL is easy to cap. Because of the citadel location even the 2 keeps are easy to get to.
I would even go as far as switching locations of the citadel and the bloodlust ruins, makes the ruins less easy to do and give the defenders a fast location to move on either Bay or Hills. Its not very uncommon that both are attacked at the same time..

Lord Kuru.3685:

I think ranking system that encourages double teams could help alleviate the coverage problem. A winner-takes-all ranking system encourages this.

the other side of that coin is it also encourages fairweathers to stack the winning server.

You cannot do a different point system for just the season itself because the week to week play is what determines your seeding in the season.

Ancient Ranger.3276:

This is a selfish thought. just because the majority of the population base lives in the United States does not define their prime time as being better than someones else’s prime time that lives half way across the world.

How does the current system not do exactly this, but in reverse?

We have enough NA players for many servers. We have only enough of other coverage periods for a few servers. Your servers ability to compete is not based on what your NA population is, it is based on what your off hour population is. Making those players more important and more valuable and thus those play periods more valuable to your servers success.

NA prime is really the least important period of the day in the current system.

Jaxs.5830:

NA prime is really the least important period of the day in the current system.

Unfortunately this is the case, and in my view currently the major flaw of WvW.

Why is match-scoring designed in a way that
- makes it totally unimportant, how you play in prime-time (probably around 90% of all players)
- success only depend on “does my server have more off-time player than the opponents” (probably not even 10% of all the players)

sminkiottone.6972:

Cancer.9065:

Natronix.9827:

People should read this. Very nice ideas, I gotta admit i was discouraged by the wall of text

Yeah , I know I really wanted to make it shorter but I’m just not that good at writing.

I think that the problem isn’t that people want to “win” so much as most of us don’t want to lose so “bad” that it becomes a joke.

I really like your ideas man, they could work great for seasons.

May I suggest you to edit your post to make it more easy to read ?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/faq/

use * and # for the main points, and maybe a little bit more of tabulation/line breaks

Thanks for the advice and link! Ill try to clear some of it up

Thanks for all the replies, I know that “fixing” wvw is something very complicated as there are too many variables including the hardest of all " human behavior". So I don’t delude myself thinking that “this” topic is the answer.

I guess my real objective here is to move away from the discussion of how to “stop the night crew” since I feel that Anet will never do anything about it (and with good reason, I might add) and try to find solutions that can help make WvW more competitive without impacting the players that can game on “off hours”.

Jaxs.5830:
NA prime is really the least important period of the day in the current system.

Yes, this is why I feel the “point per tick” is flawed it time gates points. There can’t be a comeback if the point distance is too great, which demoralizes and kills competition. WvW becomes an excersise in flipping paper towers to get loot and wxp “because the match is lost”.. on a monday.

My idea (in what ever form it comes to be) is to make it so that a coordinated effort and strategy during peak hours lets a server catch up/surpass a leader. Even the best strategist can not make a comeback if it needs 18 hours of “ticks” to catch up. By making it a system where points are awarded for feats (captures, bounties, etc) a small wvw population can still pose a threat (in points) to a large, stacked server.

Even if the stacked server still has the advantage and wins, it would at least have been a somewhat close race, making it more enjoyable for everyone (even the stacked server).

These are some good ideas, and with a little tweaking would solve the problems involved with off hours point disparity.

Just have a look at how Warhammer did it. Translated into GW2 mechanics: If there are no human opponents, you can’t earn points. Simple but elegant solution.

blurps.2340:

Just have a look at how Warhammer did it. Translated into GW2 mechanics: If there are no human opponents, you can’t earn points. Simple but elegant solution.

that might sound ok, but in league that will be very easily solved by transfers.