Guild Wars 2

This issue was brought up quite a while ago right after release (and I’m sure since then) but I feel it may be a good point to bring this up again since the game been out for a while.

I’d like to propose to have the overall match score (maybe even ppt) from the interface. By Wednesday, most matchups are already decided. That leaves 3 days of rather lackluster quality of play. There is no sense of urgency to anything. Often times in TS or on map chat you will hear people say, “Well, we are already locked in for 2nd, who cares”. This will also give your WvW leaderboards some actual meaning now because we will want to know what happened in the past week. How well did we fare? Keeping the scores hidden will keep the “casual/fair-weather” players playing because they feel like they have something to fight for and are making progress. When you log in and see that you are down 70k, you really have little to no motivation to show up.

Maybe we could get some perspective from Devon on this one?

I guess I don’t see how you can make the score relevant. You will still see the same issues.

I don’t see the difference between “We are down by 70k” and “If we achieve 200k by the end of the match we get this achievement, but we are short by 70k”. In either instance, you have zero reason to show up as the outcome is likely sealed.

In the end, I don’t think the overall problem is the carrot at the end. I think the problem is we are already beaten so what is the point.

Burl.9567:

I guess I don’t see how you can make the score relevant. You will still see the same issues.

I don’t see the difference between “We are down by 70k” and “If we achieve 200k by the end of the match we get this achievement, but we are short by 70k”. In either instance, you have zero reason to show up as the outcome is likely sealed.

In the end, I don’t think the overall problem is the carrot at the end. I think the problem is we are already beaten so what is the point.

There’s a difference between being beaten and playing like it.

VOLKON.1290:

Burl.9567:

I guess I don’t see how you can make the score relevant. You will still see the same issues.

I don’t see the difference between “We are down by 70k” and “If we achieve 200k by the end of the match we get this achievement, but we are short by 70k”. In either instance, you have zero reason to show up as the outcome is likely sealed.

In the end, I don’t think the overall problem is the carrot at the end. I think the problem is we are already beaten so what is the point.

There’s a difference between being beaten and playing like it.

I don’t disagree with you. But outside of the core WvW guilds, you lose a lot of participation as the week goes on. I’d rather have 7 days of meaningful play than 4.

GIVE US back the Orbs….PLEASZEEE.

Make it interesting, reset the ladders

Score affects the magnitude of a world’s rating change – e.g. losing by 10,000 score will reduce your world’s rating more than losing by 1,000 score. Source.

The OP’s complaint is largely unfounded; score matters regardless of who wins.

That said, this does bring up a good point: information is not readily available for players in WvW. I’d like to see a tab in the new WvW window (which is an excellent addition!) called ‘Help’, ‘WvW Information’, or something similar. This tab should have

• general information about WvW – “What is it?”, “How do I participate?”, “Why are there 4 battlegrounds?”, an explanation of the user interface elements, etc.
• specific information about the battlefield – “What is a tower?”, “What is a keep?”, “What is a castle?”, “What are siege weapons?” etc., incl. point-per-period information.
• complex information about WvW – “How is a world’s rating calculated?”, “How does score affect a world’s rating?”, etc.
• (not necessary, but convenient) a list of world rankings.

(Yes, I’m aware that some of this information is available from the WvW training characters, but that isn’t very helpful – it isn’t accessible to fresh players who have never been to WvW and don’t know about it or how to get to it; it doesn’t provide a quick reference; and it lacks a lot of important information like score, rating, etc.)

Akaji.1296:

Score affects the magnitude of a world’s rating change – e.g. losing by 10,000 score will reduce your world’s rating more than losing by 1,000 score. Source.

The OP’s complaint is largely unfounded; score matters regardless of who wins.

That said, this does bring up a good point: information is not readily available for players in WvW. I’d like to see a tab in the new WvW window (which is an excellent addition!) called ‘Help’, ‘WvW Information’, or something similar. This tab should have

• general information about WvW – “What is it?”, “How do I participate?”, “Why are there 4 battlegrounds?”, an explanation of the user interface elements, etc.
• specific information about the battlefield – “What is a tower?”, “What is a keep?”, “What is a castle?”, “What are siege weapons?” etc., incl. point-per-period information.
• complex information about WvW – “How is a world’s rating calculated?”, “How does score affect a world’s rating?”, etc.
• (not necessary, but convenient) a list of world rankings.

(Yes, I’m aware that some of this information is available from the WvW training characters, but that isn’t very helpful – it isn’t accessible to fresh players who have never been to WvW and don’t know about it or how to get to it; it doesn’t provide a quick reference; and it lacks a lot of important information like score, rating, etc.)

Losing rating due to the glicko system isn’t going to motivate me. Look at tier 1. If BG lost by 100k or 10k, they are still in tier 1. They aren’t going anywhere. Why should I care if I lost 40 rating or 4? Besides, most players don’t look at the glicko. They look at the match score to make a determination on whether they are going to play. Hide the score so no one sees it and they are much more willing to play.

Players need more motivation that losing a few glicko points, especially when the tiers rarely change nowadays.

From my part, i see the rating very interesting

DevonCarver.5370:

We are not going to remove the score. What we are going to try and do is find a way to make the score relevant throughout a match, but it is not an easy solution.

Easy solution:
Take the score and make the font much smaller.
Where the score is now, put the current calculated rating change, based on the scores, in large font.

So the focus should be on how your server’s rating is going to change, instead of on the score. People see things like “140,000 points versus 120,000 points and 110,000 points” and say “we’re in first place and winning, time to slack off”, not realizing that they are actually going to lose rating because they need to win by more than that.

Similarly, the 3rd place server says, “we lose, we suck, I quit”, not realizing that they may have little rating change or even be gaining rating and fighting harder would make that better, even if they can’t get out of 3rd.

Essentially, Friday night and Thursday night are equally important with regard to rating change but people don’t see that unless they go to a 3rd party website to look it up. Rating change is more important than score.

Fuzzion.2504:

GIVE US back the Orbs….PLEASZEEE.

That would be the worst possible decision.

The only way I would support the orbs if if they gave your team reduced versions of the outmanned buff. +MF & 50% chance your gear won’t be damaged on death. Stuff like that.

The Orbs were completely broken from day-1, and were rightfully removed.

Everyone should read this (or at least the second tl;dr), unless you’re on HoD or SF, in which case reading this will give you face cancer. If you’re on NSP, read the tl;dr then get back to WvW!

necessary tl;dr – never give up, never surrender.

Slightly longer tl;dr – any change in score for any world affects your Glicko rating significantly, so don’t ever give up on a match just because you’re losing. The closer the scores, the more of a difference that change makes, so keep that in mind when choosing strategies – if 2nd place has 1000 more points than you, and 1st place has 20000, forget 1st place and focus on 2nd for the greatest improvement.

To give a real world example of the impact that score has, say you are losing to a team with 200,880 points, and you have 188,460 points (this is US Eredon Terrace v. Gates of Madness right now). It’s a Friday at 5 PM UTC, and you aren’t going to catch up, so you give up. So your opponent takes +300 (they don’t give up because, hey, they’re winning!), you go down to +150. There are 28 time periods left in the day (420 minutes left / 15 minutes per period), so the result is 209,280 to 192,660.

The formula for GW2’s Glicko score is
(sin((wXScore / (wXScore + wYScore) – 0.5) * Pi) + 1) * 0.5
and is calculated for each world independently, e.g. wA’s score is calculated for X = A, Y = B; wB’s score is calculated for X = B, Y = A. The results are asymmetric, i.e. they do not add up to 1.0.

As a result, the match up between you and the winning team results in Glicko scores of 0.402314 to their 0.437383.

Now say that you hadn’t given up. Instead, you push hard, and they are lax from having a clear win, so you average 300 and they average 150. The result would be 205,080 to 196,860. This would result in Glicko scores of 0.411842 (you) to 0.429195 (them).

This results in a decrease (i.e. good for you) to the relative rating change (compared to your opponent’s) of about 49.48% (difference Glicko 2 / difference Glicko 1 = 0.017353 / 0.035069 = 0.49482…) – for 7 hours of effort!

On top of that, your score isn’t only calculated against the winner’s. There are 6 scores calculated for each matchup – wA v wB, wA v wC; wB v wA, wB v wC; wC v wA, wC v wB. I showed the result of changing the wA v wB and wB v wA scores, but there are 4 more calculations that would affect the overall Glicko scores for this matchup.

Burl.9567:

Akaji.1296:

Score affects the magnitude of a world’s rating change – e.g. losing by 10,000 score will reduce your world’s rating more than losing by 1,000 score. Source.

The OP’s complaint is largely unfounded; score matters regardless of who wins.

That said, this does bring up a good point: information is not readily available for players in WvW. I’d like to see a tab in the new WvW window (which is an excellent addition!) called ‘Help’, ‘WvW Information’, or something similar. This tab should have

• general information about WvW – “What is it?”, “How do I participate?”, “Why are there 4 battlegrounds?”, an explanation of the user interface elements, etc.
• specific information about the battlefield – “What is a tower?”, “What is a keep?”, “What is a castle?”, “What are siege weapons?” etc., incl. point-per-period information.
• complex information about WvW – “How is a world’s rating calculated?”, “How does score affect a world’s rating?”, etc.
• (not necessary, but convenient) a list of world rankings.

(Yes, I’m aware that some of this information is available from the WvW training characters, but that isn’t very helpful – it isn’t accessible to fresh players who have never been to WvW and don’t know about it or how to get to it; it doesn’t provide a quick reference; and it lacks a lot of important information like score, rating, etc.)

Losing rating due to the glicko system isn’t going to motivate me. Look at tier 1. If BG lost by 100k or 10k, they are still in tier 1. They aren’t going anywhere. Why should I care if I lost 40 rating or 4? Besides, most players don’t look at the glicko. They look at the match score to make a determination on whether they are going to play. Hide the score so no one sees it and they are much more willing to play.

Players need more motivation that losing a few glicko points, especially when the tiers rarely change nowadays.

So what would you want? I mean, the poster made a good point: the more you lose by the more rating you lose, and more rating you lose, the faster you drop into a lower teir. Now, if teir doesn’t matter, and your ranking doesn’t matter, than what DOES matter to you? What would you want? Instead of just saying no, when you give a critism like this, post what you would like to see done

Hickeroar.9734:

Fuzzion.2504:

GIVE US back the Orbs….PLEASZEEE.

That would be the worst possible decision.

The only way I would support the orbs if if they gave your team reduced versions of the outmanned buff. +MF & 50% chance your gear won’t be damaged on death. Stuff like that.

The Orbs were completely broken from day-1, and were rightfully removed.

The orbs were broken, and hacked etc. but honestly WvW needs the orbs back to balance WvW, if anything give them a 10-15 point value for holding it and simply leave the buffs/perks off them all together.

Burl.9567:

Losing rating due to the glicko system isn’t going to motivate me. Look at tier 1. If BG lost by 100k or 10k, they are still in tier 1. They aren’t going anywhere. Why should I care if I lost 40 rating or 4? Besides, most players don’t look at the glicko. They look at the match score to make a determination on whether they are going to play. Hide the score so no one sees it and they are much more willing to play.

Players need more motivation that losing a few glicko points, especially when the tiers rarely change nowadays.

It’s funny you use tier 1 as your example. Tier 1 worlds aren’t going to drop to tier 2 any time soon, sure, but that tier is competitive as hell – they want first place (or want to keep it), so most WvW players certainly care if they lose 40 rating or 4 or even 0.4.

Regardless, you should care. You sound like you only care if your world is going to change positions right now, which is just stupid. If that’s your attitude, then you might as well just give up now – very, very few matchups will cause a ranking change, much less a tier change. The important part is the trend.

Here’s an example: Blackgate (#2) lost 14 points this week. Tarnished Coast (#4) gained 11.86. If they both averaged half that (-7 and +5.93 respectively), they would swap places in 11 weeks. This probably won’t happen unless Blackgate players become extremely discouraged and/or Tarnished Coast severely ramps up its efforts, but it could easily happen just on the efforts (or lack of effort in Blackgate’s case) of Wed. through Fri. players.

Hoots.9564:

Hickeroar.9734:

Fuzzion.2504:

GIVE US back the Orbs….PLEASZEEE.

That would be the worst possible decision.

The only way I would support the orbs if if they gave your team reduced versions of the outmanned buff. +MF & 50% chance your gear won’t be damaged on death. Stuff like that.

The Orbs were completely broken from day-1, and were rightfully removed.

The orbs were broken, and hacked etc. but honestly WvW needs the orbs back to balance WvW, if anything give them a 10-15 point value for holding it and simply leave the buffs/perks off them all together.

Balance? They UNBALANCED WvW. Removing them balanced it back out….

I would agree with your idea though. 15 points for holding an orb is a nice plan and doesn’t give a team an unfair advantage.

Before…you were strong. Then you got an Orb. Then you got so strong no one would beat you…even though it was artificial strength. That is utterly broken.

Taking away information is hardly ever the correct solution. On a side note, I would love to see the space where the orbs used to be be utilized. It would be awesome if they build another type of keep there, or have something that can be a part of WvW.

OK, I have an idea for you all. Instead of the way the current PPT system works try this.

Right now everything has a fixed value (other than killing yaks). What if they were not. What if they ramped up over time. But also, you add in a bonus for capturing something which also ramps up over time.

So what this would mean is lets just say that Green just took their garrison. Well that garrison is now only worth +2ppt, and after the next tick it will be worth +4ppt. And then after a bunch of ticks it caps out at its current +25PPT. But what is also happening is there is a second mechanic ticking. This would be the value that this keep would be worth if another team was to take it from green. So lets just say that its worth +10 if you take it before the next tick. And then maybe +15 after that. Finally capping out at like +200 or +300 something like that.

So what would happen is that the longer an enemy would have a tower the more rewarding it would be for them to hold it and for someone else to try and take it from them. I think this would encourage people to go after high value targets while trying to hold onto their own. As a +2 tick and +10 for taking a keep would not be worth the time or effort that would go into trying to siege something.

The op point is valid. To your average player its the score you see in the game that matters. Who is going to sit there and calculate your rating? And only a fraction of players even know about the mos site.

If someone logs in and sees they have no chance, they are less likely to log in to WvW and play. (Now for us serious WvW’ers, which most reading these forums are I would think, this doesn’t matter. We could be down by half and say, “Great a challenge”.)

Anet has said they’re not removing the score. So the real question then becomes how to keep the average players interest even when their server is getting wholloped?

Akaji.1296:

Here’s an example: Blackgate (#2) lost 14 points this week. Tarnished Coast (#4) gained 11.86. If they both averaged half that (-7 and +5.93 respectively), they would swap places in 11 weeks.

Emphasis added is mine. That is precisely the problem.

Fixeon.5076:

OK, I have an idea for you all. Instead of the way the current PPT system works try this.

Right now everything has a fixed value (other than killing yaks). What if they were not. What if they ramped up over time. But also, you add in a bonus for capturing something which also ramps up over time.

So what this would mean is lets just say that Green just took their garrison. Well that garrison is now only worth +2ppt, and after the next tick it will be worth +4ppt. And then after a bunch of ticks it caps out at its current +25PPT. But what is also happening is there is a second mechanic ticking. This would be the value that this keep would be worth if another team was to take it from green. So lets just say that its worth +10 if you take it before the next tick. And then maybe +15 after that. Finally capping out at like +200 or +300 something like that.

So what would happen is that the longer an enemy would have a tower the more rewarding it would be for them to hold it and for someone else to try and take it from them. I think this would encourage people to go after high value targets while trying to hold onto their own. As a +2 tick and +10 for taking a keep would not be worth the time or effort that would go into trying to siege something.

This is a solid idea. Another thing I thought of is a “underdog bonus” type deal, where 2nd and 3rd place teams earn slightly more points for each objective taken in a single tick, and keep the PPTs the same as they are now

Here’s something I’ve posted before that I think would reward the other half of WvW (i.e. fighting instead of just avoiding fights to take towers) and also neuter the eternal pursuit of coverage that burns people out and creates queues:

Fix WvW’s scoreboard. Stop rewarding people to doing the most boring aspects of WvW – flipping towers/camps and killing yaks and sentries. In almost every match thread you’ll see someone say “stop worrying about the score, it’s just a reflection population”. The problem with this is, score is the only objective way for us to define success in a match, unfortunately. This doesn’t motivate everyone, but I think it’s safe to say it motivates A LOT of people.

Reduce the reliance on these existing items to score and add player kills as a way to score points. Reduce the value of the point by some formula related to the number of players that “tagged” the enemy before death. You want more points so you win the match? Roll in smaller groups. You could maybe stretch this theory into tower/camp flips too.

Server X has mad #‘s, but we’re better. They took 40 guys to take our keep. We used 10 and took theirs. Who should be rewarded more? kitten that your server will suffer because you won the coverage game? Transfer to a lower pop server.

As I said in another thread, Anet needs to review their structure. Their incentives are completely out of whack with some of the most enjoyable components of the game. The result of the current points system leads to a desire for nonstop coverage which eventually generates burnout.

Edit to add — Thanks for being so active in the forums Devon and taking on these challenges.

Burl.9567:

Akaji.1296:

Score affects the magnitude of a world’s rating change – e.g. losing by 10,000 score will reduce your world’s rating more than losing by 1,000 score. Source.

The OP’s complaint is largely unfounded; score matters regardless of who wins.

That said, this does bring up a good point: information is not readily available for players in WvW. I’d like to see a tab in the new WvW window (which is an excellent addition!) called ‘Help’, ‘WvW Information’, or something similar. This tab should have

• general information about WvW – “What is it?”, “How do I participate?”, “Why are there 4 battlegrounds?”, an explanation of the user interface elements, etc.
• specific information about the battlefield – “What is a tower?”, “What is a keep?”, “What is a castle?”, “What are siege weapons?” etc., incl. point-per-period information.
• complex information about WvW – “How is a world’s rating calculated?”, “How does score affect a world’s rating?”, etc.
• (not necessary, but convenient) a list of world rankings.

(Yes, I’m aware that some of this information is available from the WvW training characters, but that isn’t very helpful – it isn’t accessible to fresh players who have never been to WvW and don’t know about it or how to get to it; it doesn’t provide a quick reference; and it lacks a lot of important information like score, rating, etc.)

Losing rating due to the glicko system isn’t going to motivate me. Look at tier 1. If BG lost by 100k or 10k, they are still in tier 1. They aren’t going anywhere. Why should I care if I lost 40 rating or 4? Besides, most players don’t look at the glicko. They look at the match score to make a determination on whether they are going to play. Hide the score so no one sees it and they are much more willing to play.

Players need more motivation that losing a few glicko points, especially when the tiers rarely change nowadays.

If they keep losing by 100k they will be tier 2. So yes how much you are losing by does matter. Also it appear blackgate will be losing by enough this week to drop them to 3rd or the red server.

Players do need more info in game because many don’t know the difference between red, blue and, green and why they are in that position. Many also don’t know that the score each week is compiled in the glicko system and the better or worst they do will eventually determine will they move up a tier or not.

Yeah, red is better. Nothing like gaining a place in the standing only to inherit tactically worse ground.

Can’t figure point of score. I just wanna go enemy keep and stole their treasures. No need for score.

DevonCarver.5370:

We are not going to remove the score. What we are going to try and do is find a way to make the score relevant throughout a match, but it is not an easy solution.

I have something you should seriously consider Devon:

Bring back the orbs of power.

Here’s the difference though: while the orb of power is
held, points are granted to the owning server proportional to how well it is doing against the other two servers. Obviously it’d be balanced so that you gain less points (down to a minimum) if you’re already stomping the opposition, but being able to at least keep and hold the orb would make it possible for even the most downtrodden server to make a come back, at least, that’s how I envision it.

Effort required to implement: Low, probably. Most of the time would just be balancing how many points are given per tick.

Problems: If it’s the case that server A has no towers, no camps, nothing, servers B and C can simply zerg into the altar of power in order to block the capture.

Solutions: Remove the feature wherein the orb of power makes the carrier visible to everyone on the map. Instead, have a large, very flashy beam of light or something such to indicate the presence of the orb when it is not being held. This way when it is taken, anyone paying attention will realise, however they won’t know exactly where it is.

This does a few things: Makes scouts and defenders more important and also makes it possible for a determined group of players to win against simple zerging.

Lastly, I’d recommend adding swiftness as an orb effect (that refreshes constantly), making the wielder immune to immobilize (not cripple) and massively increasing the toughness (not health) of the wielder. The degen from holding the orb can be kept.

Solo burst players will already be enough of a problem without having to worry about getting perma-immobilize, etc.

Feasible? Thoughts?

Agreed.

Taking the orb from a keep must require the lord to be dead to prevent exploit like. Points should go like,if A hold one orb, pts = C+ k . (scoreB + scoreC) /(scoreA + scoreB + scoreC) where k and C are for balancing purpose. Thus owning orbs is more rewarding when it’s hard to keep them.
I don’t think swiftness is needed on the carrier but giving him a break-immune seems good.

Fixeon.5076:

OK, I have an idea for you all. Instead of the way the current PPT system works try this.

Right now everything has a fixed value (other than killing yaks). What if they were not. What if they ramped up over time. But also, you add in a bonus for capturing something which also ramps up over time.

So what this would mean is lets just say that Green just took their garrison. Well that garrison is now only worth +2ppt, and after the next tick it will be worth +4ppt. And then after a bunch of ticks it caps out at its current +25PPT. But what is also happening is there is a second mechanic ticking. This would be the value that this keep would be worth if another team was to take it from green. So lets just say that its worth +10 if you take it before the next tick. And then maybe +15 after that. Finally capping out at like +200 or +300 something like that.

So what would happen is that the longer an enemy would have a tower the more rewarding it would be for them to hold it and for someone else to try and take it from them. I think this would encourage people to go after high value targets while trying to hold onto their own. As a +2 tick and +10 for taking a keep would not be worth the time or effort that would go into trying to siege something.

Really, really like this idea in principle.

Making the value of the objectives dynamic, in this way, might solve the problem of mid-week match sterility (take enough high value objectives on Thurs/Fri and you could catch-up with the servers ahead of you).
Also, it would add more of a reason to defend, thus halting the wxp/karma train issue that was raised after the Mar-26 patch.

2 birds, 1 stone = +1 Fixeon

Burl.9567:

I guess I don’t see how you can make the score relevant. I think the problem is we are already beaten so what is the point.

I don’t know…to have fun?