Guild Wars 2

Pixels.6532:

I think people have mentioned that new rewards and new game modes, etc. might bring in new players, but long-term, players stay because the game is balanced, and let’s face it, balanced is a synonymy for fair in this context.

Focus Group Place as a Reward
In that regard, I’d like to see a “reward” where the top NA & EU players are selected as part of a PvP focus group (along with some randomly selected others) that meets on a monthly basis with 1x pvp team member and 1x balance team member to review the current meta and discuss changes and ideas around what could improve it.

That may prove too time-consuming, but at the very least, this should be 4x a year.

As far as rewards are concerned
I’d like to see the seasons limited to the 4x maps currently in team queue and an additional queue option added to the system were teams register with an NPC as a registered team and have a roster that is set for the season. Registered teams would compete in team queue (prioritize against other registered teams) and be able to compete for unique titles, accomplishments and vanity rewards.

Other maps like skyhammer and spirit watch could be accessible from their own npc and not be part of the leaderboards or seasons, just their own, slightly more rewarding than hotjoin, queue type.

Other than that, most of the rewards people have mentioned are listed on my attachment.

I call it a road map but it’s not quite, as it doesn’t really show the direction you want to take PvP, but I do think an actual road map from you folks would be nice, something that shows where you are trying to take this game mode and why.

thanks!

I like your road map. The rewards look great. I wish you wouldn’t do this at work anymore though. HR came down on me for making a Quaggan plushie during a meeting. What can I say? Crocheting calms my nerves whilst discussing TPS reports.

John Corpening.9847:

Hey guys, below are notes summarizing ideas put forth from Merkator’s awesome summary up to now.

Thanks for your continued input and amazing ideas!

• Structure
  • Guild based teams
  • Automated Tournaments
  • 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 8v8, and bigger
  • Rewards
  • Things that PvPers missed out on

I have some questions:

1) How do you want to prepare 8vs8 games? Could you write something more and to explain your ideas. I think many GW1 players miss their “true GvG”. I’m the one of them, so the most important part for me:
-Do you want to create a bigger new maps only for 8vs8 games?
-Do you want to create true healing/prot class for PvP?
-Do you want to create something like GvG from gw1? For example in form mini game, to get feedback from gw2 comunity?

-What do you think about create monthly tournaments with capes as reward(gold, silver and bronze capes)?

Back Story
I had suggested earlier in this thread to do profession based rankings per account. That way for example, your brand new Guardian you have never played wouldn’t harm your rank 500 Elementalist. If the ranking system gets fixed, then this would be a great addition.

Proposal
Profession leaderboards per class for solo queue and Team queue. If every account gets to have all their separate professions get different rankings I would love to see leaderboards to reflect that. You could also have an “all around” leaderboard that could use a metric to find the players that were best on all characters. I don’t know how the aggregate would work for this as I am no mathematician, but it would be super cool nonetheless.

Drawbacks I can’t really think of any.

Thoughts I think it would give players more reason to try out classes they have never played before in solo queue because they wouldn’t be tanking their ranking. Most players don’t care about leaderboards at the present moment because they do not work that well. If they get fixed, this would be a huge deal in promotion of playing more than one or two characters that you were really good at, because playing other toons that you didn’t have experience with wouldn’t bring down your rating with your good professions.

Iason Evan.3806:

Drawbacks I can’t really think of any.

What if a person just wants to kitten around on a class instead of play the one competitive spec it has?

There is the obvious fix to this problem that next to EVERY other game uses… have ranked and unranked queue.
SPvP is an entirely different beast.

There already are split queues in TPvP, instead of having ‘Skyhammer-Q’ and ‘everyone else’ they could make that split mean something, they could have an unranked queue based entirely on glory and a ranked queue that has a glory requirement (like every other game) and then bases matches on your MMR….

There’s a reason next to every other online game does that…
It works.

Some type of “Beginner’s League!” would be great in addition to an unranked queue.

KarlaGrey.5903:

ColinJohanson.2394:

I will add a fun fact: When rewards were updated in December, PvP saw a 40% growth in player numbers that has stayed solid ever since, the largest single jump in player participation in any game content type as a result of an update we’ve ever seen. This growth was almost entirely players who didn’t play PvP before, who suddenly became interested once it was rewarding, and I’d argue it’s not even that rewarding yet. To discount rewards as meaningless might be true to you as a player, but we consistently hear very different feedback from other players, and they make this very clear in their actions. We need to make sure players who truly care about prestige and being the best are catered to, and we need a way for players who aren’t that yet can become excited and invested and someday potentially become part of the first.

The quoted post below answers your argument of numbers perfectly.

style.6173:

I will add a fun fact: When rewards were updated in December, PvP saw a 40% growth in player numbers that has stayed solid ever since, the largest single jump in player participation in any game content type as a result of an update we’ve ever seen. This growth was almost entirely players who didn’t play PvP before, who suddenly became interested once it was rewarding, and I’d argue it’s not even that rewarding yet. To discount rewards as meaningless might be true to you as a player, but we consistently hear very different feedback from other players, and they make this very clear in their actions. We need to make sure players who truly care about prestige and being the best are catered to, and we need a way for players who aren’t that yet can become excited and invested and someday potentially become part of the first.

First, I do think rewards are important, but I wouldn’t say that was the main reason for the increase. In December, it was a perfect storm of :

1. a lackluster holiday update (the one from a year ago was much more exciting given the newness and the multi day event)
2. WvW burnout. This was as a result of the league ending and people taking a break. I’d bet that if you reported the WvW numbers between the december update and the eotm launch, those numbers would show a big drop off
3. People trying to use their glory boosters

That said, I do think that rewards need to be increased. I’m actually VERY worried about removing glory in another 2+ weeks. I don’t think that is a very good idea to remove glory prior to the new rewards being ready.

I just want to say that outside of possibly the glory booster answer, none of these point to why that PvP population boost has stayed consistent. And even then, the purpose of using glory boosters at this point is to accelerate the obtaining of PvP rewards, which ties back into rewards being a big reason for the population boost. Even if they were just trying to grab 18/20-slot bags, level up Tomes, and Living Story rewards then it points to rewards that are useful to all sections of the game, and not just PvP only, are valued by a significant portion of the playerbase that like PvP enough to continue to play it.

Basically, while the quote does point to the reasons for the uptick, it doesn’t really disprove Colin’s point (which I assume you were trying to refute).

garethh.3518:

Iason Evan.3806:

Drawbacks I can’t really think of any.

What if a person just wants to kitten around on a class instead of play the one competitive spec it has?

There is the obvious fix to this problem that next to EVERY other game uses… have ranked and unranked queue.
SPvP is an entirely different beast.

There already are split queues in TPvP, instead of having ‘Skyhammer-Q’ and ‘everyone else’ they could make that split mean something, they could have an unranked queue based entirely on glory and a ranked queue that has a glory requirement (like every other game) and then bases matches on your MMR….

There’s a reason next to every other online game does that…
It works.

If you were just going into hotjoin then it wouldn’t rank you. My “no drawbacks” comment was about having a profession specific leaderboard which would be wholly independent from the ladder. If we are going to have metrics we might as well go whole hog.

Iason Evan.3806:

If you were just going into hotjoin then it wouldn’t rank you. My “no drawbacks” comment was about having a profession specific leaderboard which would be wholly independent from the ladder. If we are going to have metrics we might as well go whole hog.

Hotjoin is a zergy clusterkitten with no matchmaking at all.
That is much different than an unranked queue, to the point where it is just it’s own game mode.

And ‘we might as well go whole hog’….
Seriously?
I’m not trying to be rude, just like, have you seen how these guys work, at all??
Piling on more work just because it relates and is nifty (not even all that practical) is a massive no no.
It’d extend the release by many months and cause a few dozen bugs.

As easy and simple as can be is the only way to go.

Master of Timespace.2548:

If the game balance doesn’t change then none of this matters a rats kitten .

Hah.
Hahahah.
You think any of this ever mattered to begin with???

Hah.
Hahahah.
You think any of this ever mattered to begin with???

If you read carefully, my post doesn’t actually imply so. ;P

John Corpening.9847:

A few of you guys have mentioned better incorporating guilds into the ladders. I’m curious what your thoughts are on how to achieve this? Would you let any member of your guild affect guild standing? If so how would you track ladder standing for the guild? Would you create one or more guild teams? If you could create teams within your guild what sort of functionality would you want or need to manage those teams? How many members would need to be present to represent? Would you allow alternates?

Do you envision any sort of guild wide reward for fielding a winning team or should only the team be rewarded? For example, if your guild has a PvP team and they come out on top of the ladder maybe they get some special reward for being the top team but the whole guild gets something for having the number one team. What could a reward like that be?

This thread is really long so I might just answer the red posts directly, sorry if some of the stuff has been raised already.

People want a leaderboard that reflects the standing of teams, not individuals. This is the target IMO. Incorporating this into the guild system would be cool, all you would need is a rank permission to allow guild leaderboard representation in tpvp (needs to be 5 man).

This is the simplest solution. The biggest problem of course will be players in multiple guilds being over represented on the leaderboards, as well as ‘smurf’ guilds.

This could be avoided by having a ‘Tpvp Represent’ button available to permitted members, with more stringent restrictions in guild swapping.

The matchmaking could be done still on individual MMR (are there ways this could be abused?) but winning teams will be rewarded with standing on team leaderboards.

People will still want to duo and trio q casually however. It’s a really underrated way of playing although it’s had a reemergence recently.

Your last point was really good, I’m glad pvp devs have picked up on the potential for guild support from the wider game. Every team needs fans. and what better way to get them when winning affects their game too.

These tertiary rewards could be aesthetic, affecting WvW and spvp players in the wider guild.

This would require the ‘tpvp representing’ guild to be able to play under a different name however. The leaderboards could show ‘team name’ and ‘guild name’.

More rank permission would be required to make this work however. The ability to create (name) teams as well as assigning eligible players. Multiple teams per guild would probably be required, but maybe limited to three. No player can be in two teams from the same guild. The karma rewards could be ramped up substantially for guild wins.

Hope this helps, more to come!

John Corpening.9847:

A few of you guys have mentioned better incorporating guilds into the ladders. I’m curious what your thoughts are on how to achieve this?

Did you really play gw1? That’s what we want.

John Corpening.9847:

Would you let any member of your guild affect guild standing? If so how would you track ladder standing for the guild?

Yes, but you had to add a new permission to guild ranks: “Start a ranked PvP match”, you need one of these guys to start a match (like gw1 with officers and guild ladder).

John Corpening.9847:

Would you create one or more guild teams? If you could create teams within your guild what sort of functionality would you want or need to manage those teams?

Guild = one team, if you want more teams do it like gw1, create a pug.

John Corpening.9847:

How many members would need to be present to represent? Would you allow alternates?

4/5, 4/6, 2/2, 3/3, 6/8. It depends, we didn’t know if there will be a new gamemode.

John Corpening.9847:

Do you envision any sort of guild wide reward for fielding a winning team or should only the team be rewarded? For example, if your guild has a PvP team and they come out on top of the ladder maybe they get some special reward for being the top team but the whole guild gets something for having the number one team. What could a reward like that be?

For guild: In gw1 we got trims for capes, what about backpacks? or something like 100% map star.

For players: Maybe new skins (armors/weapons) but not for all players, only for players that had play a minium of X games for his guild.

I want to add, at end of season you have a regular season winner and maybe top32 can play a tournament (Semi-finals and final can be presential if possible) with a cash prize.

If cash is a problem, you can add pvp items to gem store, all that cash goes to prize pool.

How many members would need to be present to represent? Would you allow alternates?

In tournaments no alternates and no multiple representations should be allowed ! Before the tournament/ladder etc guilds should register their players . Multiple representation should be allowed only on training matches or friendly (non-credited) matches ! Player ’s requesting a transfer between guilds in an active competitive ladder should be allowed eg 1 transfer per tournament session at most !

Ending , I wanted to say again that GvG is very important for Guild Wars players , especially the ones who played GW1 in the first few years like me ! In addition , thinking too much about how many players a team should have I resulted to the conclusion that a range between a 8 Vs 8 and 12 vs 12 is the best !!!

About rewards and the things that come with it:
I believe the biggest reward is enjoyment and fun, if people enjoy the game, rewards come second.
When people enjoy the game less, rewards become more important.

I honestly believe a ladder and guildbased roster are nice to have, but the most important thing will remain enjoyment of the game, maps, gamemode and the fights.

The reward system that guildwars had for perticipating in AB,JQ,FA,HoH etc was perfect. Gathering rewards that can be exchanged for a solid currency to be sold, traded or simply wasted on the Zchest.

But people didn’t just play for the rewards.. people played these gamemodes because they enjoyed them..They were exciting and well put together, even if you lost and ony got half the rewards you were usually hyped about what team composition change to make or what tactic/strategy to use.
This was also promoted by the fact that you had to group up before the ‘battle’ in an instanced area where you would always run into the people who enjoyed the particular gamemode.

The grouping up before battle had many benifits since if a group needed an extra player they wouldn’t mind taking a newbie and helping him along with a build.
newbies could play the game without flames because everyone knew the newbie was around and if the newbie wasn’t there, they coulndn’t play the gamemode..or had to wait longer for the game to start.

Rantmode off

As for guildrewards: A finisher that shows the guilds position on the leaderboard

1. guild gets a “Simply the best” finisher with fireworks and gold shiney letters while the cords to the songs “Simply the best”is playing in the background..

I doubt skins or gold would be a good reward for players since it will be most likely that 1 or 2 guilds will dominate the leaderboards permanently.
Just more of a certain currency would be good. (zkeys come to mind) maybe create a victory chest for winning a guildbattle and increase the droprates for ranked players?

Phaeton.9582:

John Corpening.9847:

A few of you guys have mentioned better incorporating guilds into the ladders. I’m curious what your thoughts are on how to achieve this? Would you let any member of your guild affect guild standing? If so how would you track ladder standing for the guild? Would you create one or more guild teams? If you could create teams within your guild what sort of functionality would you want or need to manage those teams? How many members would need to be present to represent? Would you allow alternates?

Do you envision any sort of guild wide reward for fielding a winning team or should only the team be rewarded? For example, if your guild has a PvP team and they come out on top of the ladder maybe they get some special reward for being the top team but the whole guild gets something for having the number one team. What could a reward like that be?

This thread is really long so I might just answer the red posts directly, sorry if some of the stuff has been raised already.

People want a leaderboard that reflects the standing of teams, not individuals. This is the target IMO. Incorporating this into the guild system would be cool, all you would need is a rank permission to allow guild leaderboard representation in tpvp (needs to be 5 man).

This is the simplest solution. The biggest problem of course will be players in multiple guilds being over represented on the leaderboards, as well as ‘smurf’ guilds.

This could be avoided by having a ‘Tpvp Represent’ button available to permitted members, with more stringent restrictions in guild swapping.

The matchmaking could be done still on individual MMR (are there ways this could be abused?) but winning teams will be rewarded with standing on team leaderboards.

People will still want to duo and trio q casually however. It’s a really underrated way of playing although it’s had a reemergence recently.

Your last point was really good, I’m glad pvp devs have picked up on the potential for guild support from the wider game. Every team needs fans. and what better way to get them when winning affects their game too.

These tertiary rewards could be aesthetic, affecting WvW and spvp players in the wider guild.

This would require the ‘tpvp representing’ guild to be able to play under a different name however. The leaderboards could show ‘team name’ and ‘guild name’.

More rank permission would be required to make this work however. The ability to create (name) teams as well as assigning eligible players. Multiple teams per guild would probably be required, but maybe limited to three. No player can be in two teams from the same guild. The karma rewards could be ramped up substantially for guild wins.

Hope this helps, more to come!

Edit : As someone said above, an ‘enter guild team’ permission allowing players to queue guilds in the pvp tab would also be a way of addressing guild teams, similar to gw1.

I still think team name should be separate from guild name though, for reasons given in the post above.

John Corpening.9847:

Excellent feedback on guild participation. I especially like the “map star” icon that Vamp Rock suggested and I really think that Phaeton hit it on the head when he talked about getting players outside of PvP involved through guild wide rewards.

The idea of an end of season tournament has popped up a couple of times. I wanted to get you guys to touch on that a bit. What would the structure for this be? How many teams? Is this where the top end rewards for the season come from or should these have a completely different rewards structure. For example, it could be that the top of ladder simply qualifies you for the end of season tournament and the true champions of the season are the tournament winners. Or, the ladder just ensures that we have the very best teams for a tournament that is apart from the season.

I’m also curious about how much time do you think you will need between the end of the season and the tournament start. For example, Let’s say the season goes for 8 weeks. Would you need a week from the end of the season to get ready for the tournament? Two weeks? A couple of days?

THIS is the exact type of Collaborative Development this community needs sir, thank you!

Personally, I think the ladder should determine who qualifies for the end of the season tournament. 1 week following the conclusion of the “qualifying” season would be sufficient but you could go 2 if need be (NO MORE). Do not balance the game mid season. You would seed the tournament based on the leaderboard standings. Have it be best of 3, double elimination spanning over two days (preliminaries on saturday, finals on sunday). The winner of the tournament wins the end of the year CASH prize and their name on the wall of champions that is currently borderline obsolete. (cash prize is the only way you get the players to turn out in large enough numbers). 2nd and 3rd place can just receive large amounts of gems if money is a true concern. Exclusive finishers should also be awarded to the team members for 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

I think shorter seasons is best. 8 weeks: 1 week to tune up and place, 6 weeks for the tourney proper and a week off. That week is when the balance changes should happen. Changing the meta up a bit more often is nice.

John Corpening.9847:

Ah ha, you brought me to my next question xantosnightwish, when should balance patches come in relation to the season? If we had our perfect world, how often would balance patches happen and how would that affect the duration of a season? Some people have suggested fairly lengthy seasons which is at odds with more frequent balance patches. If a balance patch comes out should there be a waiting period before the season begins? If so, how long?

I’d like to see balance every 4 weeks personally. Balance is a whole other issue, which to many far outstrips other potential features. It doesn’t fit well with seasons, but yeah, it’s too big an issue to be sidelined to prevent ‘double X’ teams getting upset mid season.

People REALLY didn’t like waiting for a patch through the weeks leading up to PAX in the summer… And when a meta build emerges that shuts other builds/classes out completely, 8 weeks is too long to wait IMO.

Imbalance is far more restrictive on players than an unapologetic and frequent (spvp) balance patch would be

Phaeton.9582:

John Corpening.9847:

Ah ha, you brought me to my next question xantosnightwish, when should balance patches come in relation to the season? If we had our perfect world, how often would balance patches happen and how would that affect the duration of a season? Some people have suggested fairly lengthy seasons which is at odds with more frequent balance patches. If a balance patch comes out should there be a waiting period before the season begins? If so, how long?

I’d like to see balance every 4 weeks personally. Balance is a whole other issue, which to many far outstrips other potential features. It doesn’t fit well with seasons, but yeah, it’s too big an issue to be sidelined to prevent ‘double X’ teams getting upset mid season.

People REALLY didn’t like waiting for a patch through the weeks leading up to PAX in the summer… And when a meta build emerges that shuts other builds/classes out completely, 8 weeks is too long to wait IMO.

Imbalance is far more restrictive on players than an unapologetic and frequent (spvp) balance patch would be

I would like to see balance patches more often, but 4 weeks seem really fast, I think if the game is closer to be balanced as right now, 6 or 8 weeks should be fine.
But not towards the end of a season, more between seasons and at the start of seasons, I would prefer between seasons, so that the meta can be figured out until the start of a season and last until the season ends (only minor fixes here and there while a season is running).

John Corpening.9847:

The idea of an end of season tournament has popped up a couple of times. I wanted to get you guys to touch on that a bit. What would the structure for this be? How many teams?

You can do a swiss style, 3 weeks (weekends):

Week 1
——————————
Saturday: Best 64 teams from EU, swiss style, 32 are qualified to next round.
Sunday: Best 64 teams from NA, swiss style, 32 are qualified to next round.

Week 2
——————————
Saturday: 64 teams (32 EU + 32 NA), swiss style, 32 are qualified to next round.
Sunday: 32 teams, playoff till semi-final.

Week 3 (presential)
——————————
Saturday: semi-final
Sunday: 3th vs 4th, final

John Corpening.9847:

Is this where the top end rewards for the season come from or should these have a completely different rewards structure. For example, it could be that the top of ladder simply qualifies you for the end of season tournament and the true champions of the season are the tournament winners. Or, the ladder just ensures that we have the very best teams for a tournament that is apart from the season.

Regular season rewards: “map star” , exclusive skins, gold, etc…
Tournament: Cash, merchandising ,etc… like PAX invitational or Gw Factions world championship.

John Corpening.9847:

I’m also curious about how much time do you think you will need between the end of the season and the tournament start. For example, Let’s say the season goes for 8 weeks. Would you need a week from the end of the season to get ready for the tournament? Two weeks? A couple of days?

One week.

Vamp Rook.7835:

One week.

And the balance patch right at the beginning of this one week, that would be perfect in my opintion

Guilds in pvp:

-Like said before: 1 guild = only 1 team (alternative: give guild leaders the option to open guild teams within a guild and add permissions to guild ranks like “start a pvp match for guild team x”; every team has its own rating on the guild ladder)

-To avoid guild hopping and smurfing add a registration feature: every player has to register his account to a guild to play a guild ladder match with the guild tag on.
Every account can only be registered to 2 or 3 guilds during a season/month. etc

-Guesting: To play a guild ladder match you need e.g. a 5 man team. 3 of 5 players have to represent a guild to play for the guild’s team rating. Guests’ guild ratings are not affected. One player has to be in a guild rank that has the permission to start a guild match for the guild/guild team (see above)..

-Guild-wide rewards: capes, backpacks, guild armors etc, i would like a coloured guild tag :P, special titles … The rewards could be achieved by ladder postion at the end of a season, performance in monthly tournaments, wins with the guild above a special rating etc.. I also like the idea of guild missions in pvp, like win x matches or participate in a monthly tournament etc.. Option to give guild ranks access to the rewards, so guilds can decide on their own how to deal with multiple teams, pve members and so on..

Tournaments:

Daily, maybe weekly tournaments for every guild team no matter where you are ranked. Depending on number of teams participating, the best guilds get QP to participate in the monthly torunament. At the end of a season there could be a major tournament with the best 16 (only a number) of every monthly within the season.
Special capes/backpacks etc to the winners, semifinalists and so on..
Please swiss style tournaments, first match is rating based, the following matches depend on win/loss

TL;DR: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gvg ; http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Automated_tournament

Thanks for responding with great questions for the community to toss back and forth, John.

• I have to ask, what type of rating will be used to place players in the ladder as a season progresses? Would this be a new team-based MMR ladder and/or a new guild-based MMR ladder? If so, I believe the MMR for an individual’s team/guild team should be visible to the player (as well as any glicko rating value assigned), similar to the way Guild Wars did.

• The Win/Loss record as well as the Glicko rating value should be visible for the members of each team. The guild as a whole could even display the Win/Loss record + Glicko value of the guild’s best team (could do all 3 teams, but only showing best team might incentivize the other guild teams to improve).

• Swiss style tournaments at the end of the season would only work with a small selection of teams, otherwise, Swiss just takes too long to incorporate all the matchups. The design of an 8-week season, where players can play any number of matches, already constitutes a style of large-group swiss format..

• In my mind (if time allows), the end of season tournament should function as a 16-32 team double elimination tournament, with a losers bracket. Teams are seeded in the bracket based on their season rank/rating. Top 4-8 are granted a first round BYE. A team must lose two matches to be eliminated from the tournament. Placing a bye on the top contenders and running a double elimination tournament ensures the mid to lower-ranked players can get at least one fair matchup before possibly being pitted up against the big dogs. Even then, they can climb up the loser’s bracket! A team that loses one match can still ascend all the way up through the Losers Bracket to reach the Grand Finals!

• The winner of the top bracket (winners bracket) and the bottom bracket (losers bracket) meet up in a best of 5 Grand Finals matchup. The Winners Bracket team just has to win one best of 5 set to claim the match and be declared the champion. The Losers Bracket team has to win to the first best of 5 to drop the Winners into the Losers Bracket and “reset the bracket.” Essentially, the losers bracket team has to prove they can beat the winners bracket team twice, to meet the double elimination requirement.

• Just ask Hugh how much hype the Fighting Game Community (FGC) can generate when an unknown climbs through the losers bracket to face a pro, or when the winner of the Losers bracket faces the Champion of the Winners bracket (Grand Finals) and resets the bracket.

• Also, whatever server tech has to be designed, EU/NA, and soon China, should all exist in the same season ladder, with seasonal winners flown out to PAX for the Yearly Championship. If that isn’t possible in the near future, the winners of each End of Season Tournament per region (2-4 seasons per year), should be offered an invitation for a yearly World Championship to be held at PAX (maybe GamesCom as well, but I know resources for Anet are just easier at PAX) for large cash prize to be partly funded by player gem purchases throughout the month or similar set period of time.

• If expenses are too high to offer invite for each seasonal winner, have the winners of each season per region (where a duplicate winner would qualify the next in place team) compete in a regional playoff (best of 5, single elimination). The winners of the regional playoffs are then invited to the World Championship, with all the bells and whistles and prizes planned above.

Seriously, just ask Hugh how hype EVO was last year, and the jaw-dropping upsets double elimination tournaments can create.

Thanks for your time John, PvP team, and fellow contributing players.

Malchior Devenholm

John Corpening.9847:

Ah ha, you brought me to my next question xantosnightwish, when should balance patches come in relation to the season? If we had our perfect world, how often would balance patches happen and how would that affect the duration of a season? Some people have suggested fairly lengthy seasons which is at odds with more frequent balance patches. If a balance patch comes out should there be a waiting period before the season begins? If so, how long?

There are so many things to fix in this game (IA builds, dodge spam, instant damage unpredictable, passive condition proc, long immunity traits etc.) that 4 weeks for a balance patch is a MINIMUM.

You use a light approach with balance patch (only little changes) but it’s not enough for the actual status of the game (pvp side). A “light” balance patch every 4 months is not enough to change meta and to change “horror” things in this game.

Personally i don’t care if a balance patch comes in the middle of the season, or more times during the seasons, the actual status of the game needs heavy changes not a light patch every 4 months.

8 weeks per season is fine and the idea to use this to qualifie for a tournament to find the best i like even more

when i think about than why not:
8 weeks per season

and after this:

• 1 week break for arenanet and the top teams to get rdy for the tournament
• 1 week tournament for the 8 top teams with some rly special rewards like high gem price, or money or some from this arenant/gw2 items you can buy like keyboard or whatever
  but this with livestreams and all this stuff so everyone who played the 8 week season watch it and wanna know who win (maby can bet gold on a team?^^)
• after this 2 week break with big balancing stuff and whatever

next season

and before i forget – all this need INGAME leaderboards

thx

edit: and how i posted before

this all need:

unrankedQ

• for all this 1-5 man team (so players can play with friends)

soloQ

• for solo only

teamQ

• for 5 man teams only (leaderboard show TEAM/Guild ranking and not player ranking)

Maybe it’s because I’m more of a casual-competitive style, but I really think that the system should be simple and effective. Not going to lie, I like the current system’s simplicity a lot. What I personally would like to see:

12 week seasons
first week: balance patch, placement/adjustement week
10 weeks (with hotfixes during if needed)
last week: tournaments for the top 10 teams/guilds or so

I personally like the idea of being able to play with whoever one likes right away. Which is why perhaps guild teams could be encouraged? Instead of forcing people to play with a certain pre-formed team, one could perhaps be encouraged to play with a certain guild. Then the top 10 guilds would be selected for a season-end tournament.

The issue I see with this is that it could punish guilds with several great PvPers, so perhaps have the rewards be guild-wise? As long as a player has, say 10 games, played with their at least 75% of the team being guild, one would be eligible to earn said reward. Thus even if you didn’t participate in the final tournament, you still earn “rep” for that guild. Just an idea…

EDIT: Hmmm, I can see how it would be problematic if rewards are very valuable, so perhaps have the whole guild earn a certain “feature” reward (ie: title/achievement/skin/etc) while the players that did participate earn something more like gems, cash or whatever.

Also, with regards to how/when to patch with regards to seasons…

• I feel simple shaving of numbers here and there for individual skills (perhaps runes/sigils as well) at the beginning of each new season is ideal, even within the season itself, so long as no large patches occur once a season is well underway. 3 weeks into an 8 week season would be the cutoff point for applying any patches IMO.

• The goal would be to diminish the power/effectiveness of overpowered or overused builds, as these require the least amount of planning and testing time (in my eyes). The way I see it, it requires much more time to bring numbers up and buff certain builds without creating a sense of power creep or developer induced meta shift mid-season.

• After the end of season tournament has concluded, larger patches can be introduced to buff up classes or builds that are found wanting or found to be less used (which may or may not include skill redesigns/reworks, additional mechanics, and trait balances).

• The important thing is – from my point of view – both types of patches need to exist to not only fit the need of seasons, but also fit the needs of each game audience/world as a whole (PvE, WvW, and SPvP). The small balance patches to occur within the first few weeks of a season can quickly catch any builds that are drastically outperforming others, and the large patches to occur every 2 months (8 week season) can fill the desire of PvE and WvW, while still fitting within SPvP’s season schedule.

@John C:

My thoughts:
Season length: 8 weeks + 2 week playoffs afterwards

Balance patches: One before and one after the season

Format: Should be more focused around individuals vs teams. Why? Teams can’t stay together for long. If it is structured around teams, if one person needs a gw2 break, the team is done.

John Corpening.9847:

Ah ha, you brought me to my next question xantosnightwish, when should balance patches come in relation to the season? If we had our perfect world, how often would balance patches happen and how would that affect the duration of a season? Some people have suggested fairly lengthy seasons which is at odds with more frequent balance patches. If a balance patch comes out should there be a waiting period before the season begins? If so, how long?

If getting seasons and ladders means we have to wait longer for balance patches (just like PAX) – so as not to upset the meta mid tournament then please just don’t bother with the ladder system. I would rather have no ladder system if it means we get EVEN LESS balance changes.

tl;dr – balance is more important to me (and many others I am sure) than some ladder system. If the ladder and seasons system means we have to wait for balance (like with PAX) then PLEASE just don’t give us ladders and seasons. Before #esports must come #fun

John Corpening.9847:

Ah ha, you brought me to my next question xantosnightwish, when should balance patches come in relation to the season? If we had our perfect world, how often would balance patches happen and how would that affect the duration of a season? Some people have suggested fairly lengthy seasons which is at odds with more frequent balance patches. If a balance patch comes out should there be a waiting period before the season begins? If so, how long?

In my opinion, they should come regardless of the season.
If there is something it needs to be tuned, it should be addressed as soon as possible with no further waits, because the longer something broken stays in the meta, more angry people get.

I think also that it would be great to give a patch preview one week ahead in order to give teams the chance to adjust their setup properly and start the theorycrafting in advance, so the patch doesn’t hit leaving most teams unprepared.

John Corpening.9847:

A few of you guys have mentioned better incorporating guilds into the ladders. I’m curious what your thoughts are on how to achieve this? Would you let any member of your guild affect guild standing? If so how would you track ladder standing for the guild? Would you create one or more guild teams? If you could create teams within your guild what sort of functionality would you want or need to manage those teams? How many members would need to be present to represent? Would you allow alternates?

Do you envision any sort of guild wide reward for fielding a winning team or should only the team be rewarded? For example, if your guild has a PvP team and they come out on top of the ladder maybe they get some special reward for being the top team but the whole guild gets something for having the number one team. What could a reward like that be?

I suggest to create a some sort of “Team” system, in which you can pick a fixed formations of 5 players from a guild and assign them as “official team” as long as allowing to pick other people as back up of the team.

Of course you can create multiple teams, who still take the name of the guild with, perhaps, a number to identify that they aren’t the first team of the guild.
Let’s say that the “ArenaNet” guild has two teams, the main team will be called simply “ArenaNet” while the second team might be called “[ArenaNet] insert fancy name here”.

Only people who are in the team, either as official members or back up, can play ranked under the Team’s name.

There should be, also, a way to discourage people to jump from a team to another or guilds paying PvPers in order to bring their guild on top of the leaderboards.

Also, I prefer to avoid guild-based rewards, because it will happen what happened in GW1: people selling slots in gold-caped guilds.

John Corpening.9847:

Ah ha, you brought me to my next question xantosnightwish, when should balance patches come in relation to the season? If we had our perfect world, how often would balance patches happen and how would that affect the duration of a season? Some people have suggested fairly lengthy seasons which is at odds with more frequent balance patches. If a balance patch comes out should there be a waiting period before the season begins? If so, how long?

I want to say there could be a 3 maybe 4 week pre-season and a off-season that lasts about 2 weeks maybe less. This could be for players to practice the matchmaking before the season completely resets and starts anew. Also would allow the developers to release balance patches if necessary. If the game were in a more balanced state, there would not be a need for constant attention.

With a 8 or even 9 week season period, it allows both the players to reach their goals, and the developers to watch to see what is strong, and what could be not so strong and for balance patches to get in different seasons, only if necessary.

If anything absolutely has to be hot fixed in during the season, I do not see issues with this. Game-breaking bugs, quick fixes, anything that could be a quick fix, because it would be in the middle of the season.

John Corpening.9847:

Is this where the top end rewards for the season come from or should these have a completely different rewards structure.

I feel they should be different. I think there’s a not-so-small player base that is willing to play well and play a lot, but can’t commit to playing at specific times.
One of the original CDI-questions was about player participation. And there would be little as demotivating, as knowing you can’t get any of the good rewards, no matter how well you play during the season, just because you can’t be there, when the “end of season tournament” happens.

And as for balance patches:
I think they should occur during seasons, as often as necessary. While it might be upsetting to some, to have part of their play style changed during a season, that’s still much better than a whole class being hard-countered due to some balance issue.

AlbertoUlkesh.4517:

John Corpening.9847:

Is this where the top end rewards for the season come from or should these have a completely different rewards structure.

I feel they should be different. I think there’s a not-so-small player base that is willing to play well and play a lot, but can’t commit to playing at specific times.
One of the original CDI-questions was about player participation. And there would be little as demotivating, as knowing you can’t get any of the good rewards, no matter how well you play during the season, just because you can’t be there, when the “end of season tournament” happens.

And as for balance patches:
I think they should occur during seasons, as often as necessary. While it might be upsetting to some, to have part of their play style changed during a season, that’s still much better than a whole class being hard-countered due to some balance issue.

Yea i agree, some of us have other things to do than try to stay dedicated to a game for 9 weeks straight.

Shorter tournament times would be better

John Corpening.9847:

Ah ha, you brought me to my next question xantosnightwish, when should balance patches come in relation to the season? If we had our perfect world, how often would balance patches happen and how would that affect the duration of a season? Some people have suggested fairly lengthy seasons which is at odds with more frequent balance patches. If a balance patch comes out should there be a waiting period before the season begins? If so, how long?

Bring small patches every month. Adjust classes step by step. Take feedback into account and 1 SMALL patch every month is fine. Even if the patch only bring only something like -8% heal signet.

- Season should last longer than WvW ones…I`m thinking in the range of 6+ months,maybe even for 10 months with 2 month break at the end.If I`m not wrong seasons lasted this long in lol.

-I want to see team que and solo que,both with separate rankings.You can combine that with leader sistem….Once a player reaches certan milestone (let`s say gold league) he can not (at least not easily) drop to the lower league.In order to let player have a sense of progression I would implement certan badge sistem into each league,as players hidden MMR improves he is awarded with badges (let`s say there are 5 or ten of those).When he gets max badges he is promoted to the higher league.As an option I would also suggest to have 3 red badges that player gets by leaving games or by droping his hidden MMR dramaticly.When he gets 3 of those he gets moved to the lower league (in order to keep players from kitten ing or trolling or relaxing too much when they hit higher leagues).Leaving two games in short period of time would grant a player that red badge(like when you get time ban for leaving dota 2 games).
I would keep the number of leagues low for MM purposes.3 regular ones bronze gold and silver,and an elite one for very skilled players – diamond league.

- I would pump up gold rewards from ranked games a bit.So that very skiled and active pvp`ers get get reasonable amount of wealth (just remember how much gold you could make from pvp in gw1).

- I want rewards that depend on witch was the higher league you were in during the season.Rewards should be kept cosmetical.One part of the award should be unique armor and weapon set that is unlocked on player`s account (like zenith skins).Reaching gold would also unlock bronze and silver awards.The other one should be reasonable gold amount,or some exclusive pets,boosters,dyes…etc
And ofc an achievement for participating in season X and beeing in the league Y.For example “Golden Gladiator of season one”.

All that I wrote here would require some serious comitement and investement from Anet.By that I mean designing decent looking skins,making proper algoritam for MM,balancing and much more.I belive that is necessary in order to achieve great things.

I’m of the opinion that there should be a balance patch every 3 months if able. So a season should either be short (6-8 weeks with another 4-6 weeks as off season) or be long with a mid season patch (4-5 months with another 1-2 months as off season). If you went with the mid season patch, then that would be the minor shaving patch. The off season patch would be much more major with the mid season patch adding a couple of corrections for the run up to the season finals.

MarkPhilips.5169:

There are so many things to fix in this game (IA builds, dodge spam, instant damage unpredictable, passive condition proc, long immunity traits etc.) that 4 weeks for a balance patch is a MINIMUM.

You use a light approach with balance patch (only little changes) but it’s not enough for the actual status of the game (pvp side). A “light” balance patch every 4 months is not enough to change meta and to change “horror” things in this game.

Faster patches = less quality.
Patch quality is already… controversial… at the moment, so hitting it with a stick won’t give any candy.

MarkPhilips.5169:

Personally i don’t care if a balance patch comes in the middle of the season

And no one does, I’m kinda sorry Anet is making the guy roll through questions like this on the forums, it’s just begging for people to start yelling at him, or Anet, more.
The game, and every feature in it so far, are teeming with issues and he’s told to talk about fine tuning esports.

Best of luck Corpening!!
Keep on keepin’ on!

A note about guild rewards and might have been said before…

I think guild rewards are amazing, but they should be only awarded to the players in the guild which has the required rating to reach the reward requirement.
So guilds can’t just invite random players and they still get rewards, i’m fine with guilds/teams power boosting people if they can.

I liked the team system for WoW arena where you had both team rating and personal rating in the team, you could have members than required but only the players with the rating required for rewards would get them.

I also want guilds/teams to show up on the leaderboard, or even ranked by guilds and then being able to click on it to see the actual players in it and their ranking.

Also would it be possible to somehow promote the top players/teams/guilds somehow on front page if you add a ladder/season thing.

As for actual rewards:

Guild capes/cloaks cause if there is one thing i miss in gw2 it’s cloaks/capes, altho i guess that will never happen cause of charrs(that was the excuse for no capes/cloaks last time)

Legendary trinkets with no stats but that gives fancy footstep effects like on legendary weapons or other effects like Halos etc, since trinkets aren’t being used in spvp. (this is my favorite idea)

John Corpening.9847:

sorrow.2364:

Also, I prefer to avoid guild-based rewards, because it will happen what happened in GW1: people selling slots in gold-caped guilds.

Do you think this is alleviated by temporary rewards? Like a travelling trophy. What if everyone in your guild got something like a finisher that lasted until the end of the next season? Another thought is if the season reward was strongly themed, for example the “map star” that was suggested could be the very specific Season 1 star and we have a different one for Season 2. Basically, what if the big forward facing, public, reward was something that you had to earn from season to season to continue to show off that your guild is the best.

what if you only disperse the reward once at the end of the season, based on guild rosters snapshotted before the seasons end? you can avoid the “selling guild slots” case cuz there wont really be a way to know whos gonna win. the one time dispersal just means the only people who get the reward would be those that “deserve” it, but you dont have to limit the reward to being like a one time use thing. you could hand out an infinite finisher for example: keep a list of the accounts with access to it and turn it off at the end of the next season OR just put a giant “1” somewhere on the finisher to represent season 1 and let them have it forever. change the “1” to a “2” for the next season, etc.

John Corpening.9847:

Credo.7231:

…In order to let player have a sense of progression I would implement certan badge sistem into each league,as players hidden MMR improves he is awarded with badges (let`s say there are 5 or ten of those).When he gets max badges he is promoted to the higher league.As an option I would also suggest to have 3 red badges that player gets by leaving games or by droping his hidden MMR dramaticly.When he gets 3 of those he gets moved to the lower league … Leaving two games in short period of time would grant a player that red badge…

This was an interesting thought that I wanted to riff on a little bit. I like the idea of having badges that you earn as you play to progress to the next tier and that you can lose to go back down. Tying it to hidden MMR is a little tricky because of how algorithms like Glicko2 work but incorporating it into the points used for progressing on the ladder would be much more straightforward. It would basically mean you could earn badges based on your performance especially against stronger opponents. It would almost be like tying it to hidden MMR but more manageable for players to understand and for the game to present. That was an interesting thought Credo. Wanted to see if anyone else wanted to riff on it a bit more?

i think you need to take a look at the workings of league of legends’ MMR/leagues/skill tiers. the badge system idea seems very similar. additionally, LoL has gone thru several iterations on the system. one thing theyve gotten rid of is an MMR drop from dodging a game. you used to be able to tank your rating down to play in the lowest skill tiers without ever playing a game (you took a loss, -13ish elo, and a time out from requeuing). but the resident social psychologist team found people were just abusing the system to get easy games or whatever, and it had a pretty detrimental effect on game quality.

so, the morals:

• dont give players a way to intentionally manipulate their rating.
• give strong disincentives to players that throw a match and dont be afraid to punish because if you do not players will walk all over you and your system.
• dont allow matchmaking to start any game that isnt 5v5 (or might depend on game mode, 3v3, whatever).
• add in afk detection and deter players from afking.

the community is probably small enough that a system like league’s tribunal isnt feasible, but… automating and crowdsourcing punishment (with final decisions made by an anet team) is a good paradigm.

this… is a situation where i really wish intellectual property wasnt proprietary, because riots been there done that and worked thru a lot of issues you guys are gonna have when trying to do esports.

John Corpening.9847:

Ah ha, you brought me to my next question xantosnightwish, when should balance patches come in relation to the season? If we had our perfect world, how often would balance patches happen and how would that affect the duration of a season? Some people have suggested fairly lengthy seasons which is at odds with more frequent balance patches. If a balance patch comes out should there be a waiting period before the season begins? If so, how long?

This is the biggest problem i see in GW2 right now. You need to differentiate between balance patches and hotfixing/tweaking patches. In WoW for example just like Gw2 they have the big balance patches that will overhaul class mechanics at the end of arena seasons, but they constantly hotfix outlier abilitys/classes between those major patches. If you don’t do this then PLEASE do not incorporate seasons because it will just become a detriment to pvp.

The current system is unacceptable. For example healing signet right now is imbalanced, the devs confirmed it 2 months ago on ‘ReadyUp’ and notified us that a fix is incoming, yet we have to wait 3 months (maybe more?) for a simple fix to a broken mechanic because you refuse to make any class balance changes outside the designated ‘balance patches’. If this was during a season the WHOLE season would be ruined due to a simple coefficient tweak. If you’re going to introduce a ladder you need to take responsibility and maintain class balance throughout the season. Especially in Gw2 since we don’t have a PTR where thousands of players can thoroughly test each incoming change.

John Corpening.9847:

Do you think this is alleviated by temporary rewards? Like a travelling trophy. What if everyone in your guild got something like a finisher that lasted until the end of the next season? Another thought is if the season reward was strongly themed, for example the “map star” that was suggested could be the very specific Season 1 star and we have a different one for Season 2. Basically, what if the big forward facing, public, reward was something that you had to earn from season to season to continue to show off that your guild is the best.

This is a good idea because people will be discouraged to buy slots in a guild you don’t know how long the “map star” will stay while, on the other hand, it will encourage the guild to keep competing to hold their status and increase their prestige among the community, making dedicated PvP players extremely desiderable in guilds.

I also think that people who actively partecipated in the season should have an exclusive reward to show off added to the “map star” given guild-wide, so that people who actually worked to bring the guild to the winner spot are more recognizable compared to a guy who just grabbed the exclusive reward joining the guild after it won the season.

Another thing which came in my mind today and I think it will work great as a sPvP reward.

Why don’t incorporate PvP season results into the world of Tyria as a part of the “Living Story”?
I mean, the winners of a PvP season are the most skilled players and, on a lore-perspective, the most strong and feared 5 people in the continent of Tyria but, still, no NPC and no player knows anything about them.

It would be great to walk in Lion’s Ar.. err… Vigil’s Keep and hear an NPC talking about the Thief of the winning team of the last season saying:
NPC A: “Have you heard about XXX? People say that once you realize he’s around, it is too late”
NPC B: “Oh dear, I really don’t want to be his enemy then…”

Also, it would be also great to have big statues of winners’ characters in the main city along with a short caption chosen by the players.
The winners of PAX only had a wall in a narrow angle with their names on, which is kind of… meh… considering they are the best GW2 players in the world.

For instance, let’s say that XXX won the last season and he’s an Asuran Thief. The statue shows his Asuran Thief with the exact same armor he had when he won the season with a short caption shown when interacting with the statue:

XXX, Thief for Team YYY, winner of the Season X
“You should fear what you can’t see”

It really should be something that any player look at and thing “Wow, that is super cool! Those people really must be extremely good! I want to have a statue like that too!”.
Making players be aware that there is a competitive mode in GW2 and it holds glory and fame for the winners is a great way to build an e-sport fanbase and a pool of people willing to compete for the ultimate glory, at least in my opinion.

John Corpening.9847:

This is some pretty incredible feedback thank you for taking the time to post. There were a couple of items that struck me and I was interested in exploring a little more.

sorrow.2364:

Also, I prefer to avoid guild-based rewards, because it will happen what happened in GW1: people selling slots in gold-caped guilds.

Do you think this is alleviated by temporary rewards? Like a travelling trophy. What if everyone in your guild got something like a finisher that lasted until the end of the next season? Another thought is if the season reward was strongly themed, for example the “map star” that was suggested could be the very specific Season 1 star and we have a different one for Season 2. Basically, what if the big forward facing, public, reward was something that you had to earn from season to season to continue to show off that your guild is the best.

Credo.7231:

…In order to let player have a sense of progression I would implement certan badge sistem into each league,as players hidden MMR improves he is awarded with badges (let`s say there are 5 or ten of those).When he gets max badges he is promoted to the higher league.As an option I would also suggest to have 3 red badges that player gets by leaving games or by droping his hidden MMR dramaticly.When he gets 3 of those he gets moved to the lower league … Leaving two games in short period of time would grant a player that red badge…

This was an interesting thought that I wanted to riff on a little bit. I like the idea of having badges that you earn as you play to progress to the next tier and that you can lose to go back down. Tying it to hidden MMR is a little tricky because of how algorithms like Glicko2 work but incorporating it into the points used for progressing on the ladder would be much more straightforward. It would basically mean you could earn badges based on your performance especially against stronger opponents. It would almost be like tying it to hidden MMR but more manageable for players to understand and for the game to present. That was an interesting thought Credo. Wanted to see if anyone else wanted to riff on it a bit more?

Again, thanks a ton guys for an excellent discussion. Sorry for the span of a few days since my last post but things got a little crazy this week. Its been fun kicking around ideas with you all. Please feel free to discuss anything related to this topic or to riff on some of the great ideas in this discussion.

To let you all know, I’m probably going to close out this thread in a couple of days. I think we got some really great stuff here so it’s been a fantastic CDI.

Thanks again guys!
John

I am almost of the mind that only the people that actually participated should get the reward in the guild. A dev should join the guild that wins and personally tweak the particular characters or accounts that did the winning and only if they rep that guild should they be able to display whatever the reward is. That would actually reinforce players repping that specific guild that they won in for a long duration.

It was bad enough in GW1 when people were outright in trade chat spamming “WTS Gold Trim XX Ectos” in Great Temple of Balthazar. There were a few camps irritated by this. The first camp was ticked that there were people who were profiting a second time —i.e. They got the gold trim cape and that was supposed to be the reward-- and now they were making obscene amounts of money. The second camp was ticked because anyone could run around with a trimmed cape and all they had to do was spend their PvE coin on it or ectos. With the size of guilds being way larger in GW2 than GW1 the profit margins would be exponentially increased.

It stinks that you guys have to go to these lengths to curb this type of behavior, but then again that is why steroids are so rampant in sports as well. People will do whatever they can to profit as much as they can in competition.

@sorrow The primary issue I see with this is voice acting. I don’t know how far in advance they record lines, but it may be hard to have lines changed at the end of a season. At the beginning of a season might be more feasible. If you don’t care about ambient voice acting, then it’d be easy.

@Iason Evan If only the players get the reward, then there’s no point to have the team be the guild. It’d just be like the current system we have right now with slight changes to window dressing. If there is any insistence on having guilds be the representation of the team, then the guild needs to also get some kind of reward to show reputation at the very least.

John’s idea of temporary rewards is a good one. A type of guild finisher, a type of cape/back piece, or an icon next to the player’s name like the World Completion star are all possible temporary rewards. The actual players who won could then get either better versions of those rewards or other permanent rewards. Say a certain type of permanent cape with a color representing you won in a certain season and a design representing that you won in a certain year. A special finisher only the actual winners get that lasts until the next year. And a special permanent glow or addition to your PvP icon that let’s people know you were at least once a big winner.

But the guild absolutely needs some type of reputation reward or else there’s no point in having guilds take any part in this system.

I think first we have to get rid of hotjoin to get the playerbase to make ladders and seasons work. Afterwards I appreciate all those good ideas from this thread.