Guild Wars 2

It’s my personal view that many of the problems that come with the current version of World versus World stem from the way the scoring system works. I believe this is the catalyst for not only server imbalance (read: population stacking), but a number of other issues which contribute to a lessening desire to participate in the ‘PPT’ game.

I feel that with this disinterest, tactical gameplay has flown out the window. World versus World was once about controlling the map, tactical strikes etc. Now it’s about taking an 80 man from map to map, bullying your way into vacant objectives whilst your enemy does the same.

Whether you agree or disagree with this sentiment, I’m posing a question to see what we could come up with.

So as the title reads: If you could change the scoring mechanic of World versus World, how would you change it?’

Think outside the box, not simply something like reducing the match-up duration, time between scoring ‘ticks’ etc.

Get rid of the tower/keeps upgrade. So they are all paper.
No more ppt, you get points when you cap keeps, and the rest of scores come from stomp points.

Stacked server will gain no points after they full capped the BLs.

Or get rid of the servers vs servers and based the teams on their color with the mix of all servers from eu and na. Make wvw overflow like eotm

I feel that with this disinterest, tactical gameplay has flown out the window. World versus World was once about controlling the map, tactical strikes etc. Now it’s about taking an 80 man from map to map, bullying your way into vacant objectives whilst your enemy does the same.

Only for karma trains. Large zergs get together to turn well defended areas back into paper.

Have you gotten on your teamspeak channel? Even in ET (a T8 server), if someone mentions that our Waypointed keep is under attack, the main Zerg drops everything to protect it.

Defense of our own T3 Keeps and Waypoints take priority over turning the opponent’s stuff into paper. Of course, when we lose a waypoint, we have “nothing left” and will fight again and again until our opponents lose their waypoints.

From a PPT perspective, there is only one real way to win. You must hold the most objectives during the tick. It is much much much easier to hold a “Fortified Tower” compared to a paper one… and much of the strategy of the main zerg is to ensure that the opponent has as few fortified / waypointed keeps and towers as possible.

Joe.6184:

Get rid of the tower/keeps upgrade. So they are all paper.
No more ppt, you get points when you cap keeps, and the rest of scores come from stomp points.

Stacked server will gain no points after they full capped the BLs.

Or get rid of the servers vs servers and based the teams on their color with the mix of all servers from eu and na. Make wvw overflow like eotm

The problem with that is that you now turn it into an entirely offensive game. That makes the massive blobs even more effective. Keep the upgrades I say, but put in a mechanic that allows individuals, small groups, everyone to contribute to the score. Make half or more of the total score about killing enemy players. This will promote engagements and open field fights. If think we all want to see more player fighting and less chasing each other around or just taking points.

Well there are as many “solutions” to the scoring mechanic as there are people posting on this forum… So its a rather broad topic. But I can argue a part of it.

If we assume that PPT is kept intact on the whole then I would change the “value” of each keep according to a dynamic curve. It would no longer be a fixed amount each tick, it would also be visible on the minimap what the current value of a keep is. The value go up when its higher tier. In the example below, do note the completely random numbers, I’m just using simple ones here. Maybe a T3 keep should be worth double that of a T2, whatever (10-20-40). Maybe the ramp up/down should be considerably slower. Examples.

Capping a T3 keep scenario:
PPT + 0 : A T3 keep worth 30 points each tick is capped.
PPT + 1: The keep is worth 25 points (5 lost each tick)
PPT + 2: The keep is worth 20 points (5 more lost). It has not been upgraded.
PPT + 4: The keep is worth 10 points. Its still not upgraded, but an upgrade is ordered.
PPT + X: 10 points is the max worth of a T1 keep.
PPT + 7: The keep was upgraded to T2.
PPT + 8: The keep is worth 15 points.
PPT + 9: The keep is worth 20 points (max for T2).
Etc and so on.

The point of this system would to:

- Encourage active defense of newly capped high tier keeps even if they now wooden, as their worth is slowly dropping down rather than instantly reduced.

- Reduce the effect of the “night shift” as keeps that has remained uncontested during the night and upgraded to T3 slowly ramp up points, rather than instantly be worth max.

- Actually bring meaning for capping a higher tier keep, rather than just the defenders sitting in there with 10 arrowcarts laughing. You dont “flip” a keep anymore, you’re literally taking the points they built up. An idea would be to award the tier difference (Tx to T1) directly to the capping team.

If I had my way, each BL map would get 5 or so objectives that are worth points for capturing/holding. Lets say 1 keep, 2 towers and 2 camps each tick. Other than player stomps, nothing else would generate points for a server. These objective points would also be a draw for players and offer a lot more coordination options for servers.

No more running around mowing a map for free points.

I’d change the scoring so that the point value for objectives goes up the longer you hold them. or possibly based on how many upgrades are built.

the reward for taking and holding territory should far exceed the reward for sweeping a map with a huge zerg, then leaving everything undefended until your next sweep.

-ken

They need to find someway to spread out the zerg (by making defending and sieging a bigger part of the game) and adjust the scoring mechanic in some way to account for large disparities in coverage and population. Now how you do this is anyone’s best guess as there’s probably no way to fix every problem we have right now.

To make sieging and defending more useful they should probably make hardpoints in keeps and towers that can’t be harmed by other siege. They should also make it so players can’t harm gates without siege. Introduce hand-held siege weapons that players can use that do damage to doors but nothing to players. This way there’s a risk/reward scenario to stacking at a gate and hitting it.

to encourage zergs to split up they should introduce some kind of linear sieging system.

Imagine if the map was a more pronounced Y shape for example. No way to attack take over stuff outside of your side of the Y unless you have your lord alive in every tower and keep on your side. Introduce a quazi-moba tyle of play where platoons of guards go from your spawn to your first tower. a smaller platoon goes from that tower to your overlook. A smaller platoon goes from your overlook to the next tower. A very small platoon goes from that tower to SMC. This way these NPC’s force the enemy to defend newly captured things. It makes captured stuff easier to take back because NPC’s will bolster your units etc etc.

You can then make each individual borderland control how many NPC’s spawn in EB or something so zergs can’t just take SMC and ignore their own map.

You then turn WvW into a take-and-hold type game where everyone stays at 0 points and you only gain points based on time spent outside of your side of the Y in EB.

I’m just throwing out random ideas here… but the only way to split up a zerg is to force them to leave defenders at something that’s captured. The only way to overcome population and coverage disparity is for NPC involvement or to make defending more beneficial than attacking.

Stupid pre-coffee idea:

Have points awarded based on number of players present when tower/lord turns. Or award bonus points if the number of players there is under say 10. Reward the tactics/strategy required for smaller groups. And the use of siege.

Ditto on defending.

I like being able to score points by taking a keep/tower with just 4 of us. Sometimes we get 2-3 people who see us charging in and they manage to get there in time to help us take the lord. Same with defense. 4 of us holding off a small-med size zerg, sometimes joined at the last minute by another 1-2 players.

Might help balance low pop servers who cannot muster large zergs.

And encourage anti-zerging.

I’m sure folks here can shoot holes in this but if helps with the discussion, I’m willing to be stupid.

Change the PPT system where camps start at 1 pt and add points per upgrade same with towers and keeps. If you flip a map and make it paper you dont run away with the score. Also after a year of offensive bonus to wxp maybe try a few defensive ones, camp defender etc. Or overhaul the guild system in wvw where camps, towers and keeps gain bonus depending on the level of your art of war and or buffs running. Also if your not running a buff with your guild claim your claim can be overridden.

Joe.6184:

Get rid of the tower/keeps upgrade. So they are all paper.
No more ppt, you get points when you cap keeps, and the rest of scores come from stomp points.

Stacked server will gain no points after they full capped the BLs.

Or get rid of the servers vs servers and based the teams on their color with the mix of all servers from eu and na. Make wvw overflow like eotm

That’s the opposite of what needs to be done. there is zero strategy to your suggestion, and all that would result is for more of what already occurs … large groups randomly roaming the map to attack undefended keeps and towers while trying their best to avoid each other.

Your last idea makes more sense … but it still needs some way to retain the strategic element if WvW isn’t going to be simply large scale sPvP.

Elochai.1280:

Make half or more of the total score about killing enemy players. This will promote engagements and open field fights. If think we all want to see more player fighting and less chasing each other around or just taking points.

I definitley agree that we want to see more player fighting. I’m not so sure that giving score for killing players would promote engagements and open field fighting though. In fact, it might make it less likely for players to engage.

People already dislike dying. Dying in and of itself is s negative. If a large amount of the score is going to be made from deaths it may make people less likely to engage. Especially when you know you don’t have a very good chance. I’ll bet it would increase tower hugging, running from fights, siege use – especially open field siege use.

I would say the best way to encourage open field fighting is to reward it more. Give more loot for player kills (not just stomps) than for capturing something or killing NPCs.

Kills need to be a bigger portion of the score, not necessarily to promote fights, but so that PvD’ing an empty server is worth less points than winning epic fights in prime time. Player skill becomes more represented in the score, and coverage less.

Stop giving PPT for enemy objectives. It’s enough that you are denying them the PPT, but squashing server A shouldn’t give you the lead over server B. Also, if all your points come from your own stuff, then it becomes more important to defend! Lastly, the actual score differences created by coverage gaps will at the very least appear less drastic and demoralizing.

No more PPT.

You gain points for cap KEEPS, TOWERS, and SM and get more points for hold any of these for 12 hours since each cap.

Points for STOMP.

No more Server vs Server. You or your guild can join (or queue to join) in a monthly team (like servers now)

A lot of these suggestions are far too radical and would change the fundamental nature of WvW, and not always to the better.

A simple fix to the current system would be the following:

• Scale the “tick” speed with the number of active players in WvW. The more active WvW, the faster the score “ticks”. So while 1500 people are fighting, it might “tick” every 10 minutes, however when only 100 people are fighting at 5AM, then it only “ticks” once every 45 minutes.

• Kills matter and the score should reflect that. +1 Score for every kill, regardless of buff or stomping.

• Reward Tier 3 Keeps with more Karma/Gold and Paper Keeps with less.

• Doors should only be vulnerable to melee weapons. This limits the ability of a zerg to plow through everything and gives Burning Oil more purpose.

This would be good enough for starters. Change this and I’d be happy to see how things evolve.

I dont see how anyone can still care about ppt with:
off hours capping
treb monkeys
huge karma trains
occasional mesmer+thief zerg port or solo cap
Hacks, exploits, bugs

I rarely ever look at the top of the screen. Just take on big numbers with my guild group. Only way to stay sane up in this world gone mad.

I would change the scoring so that it depends on the amount of people of each server.

Server A has 100, Server B 10
If Server A takes a keep of Server B it should apply less points than the other way around.

Something like: Server A / Server B + C multiplied by x = points

Just bring up the amount of points you get from killing people (NOT yaks and whatnot) and bring down ppt across the board. Make sure that both are still important, but that fights are viewed as more significant, maybe 40%+ of the overall points garnered in a match.

To make kills a big part of the score ALL they need to do is figure out how to attribute points on KILL instead of on STOMP. Immediately a lot of problems fixed imho

Resource camps have 4 upgrades, everything else has 12 upgrades, so the easiest way is:

1) Score can be alligned to upgrades:
- base camp 1, for every upgrade done +1 up to a total of 5
- base tower 1, every upgrade done +1, up to a total of 13
- base keep 2, every upgrade done +2, up to a total of 26
- base castle 3, every upgrade done +3, up to a total of 39

2) Any objective need a garrision of at least 1 person per full 5 pts of score (0 garrision for 1-4pts, 1 garrision for 5-9, 2 for 10-14, … , 7 persons for 35-39), if it does not have such a minimal garrison for 1 min at any time during the tick a randomly selected upgrade may decay per tick (may be rebuild). Whenever the garrison requirement is not meet, upgrades are stopped till it is meet again.

3) The binding between claiming guild and objective should be increased such that a Guild has reponsibilities due to the claim and gains advantages from the claim. E.g. the following:
- Upgardes cost guild influence (and maybe a bit guild money, but no individual money),
- only the claiming guild may start upgrades,
- only guild members count as garrisions,
- only guild members can build siege inside the objective,
- guild members can take over siege manned by non guild members,
- guild can set a treshold for supplies in the objectives, only supplies in excess of that threshold can be taken out by non-guild members.
- If at any time during the tick the guild does not satisfy the garrision requirement (and a decay happen), the claim may be overtaken by another guild.
- an objective with a score of 4 or less and no running upgrade (since a min) can be overtaken (claimed) by any other guild.
- An objective generates influence equal to score for the guild.
- The speed (and amount of parallel builds) of building guild upgrades is influenced by type and upgrade status of the claimed objective.
- The claimed objective increases the number of guild bufs that can be active at any point in time.

1) can be done alone. However 2) should be done with 3) together, I do not want that the server (commanders) have to search for garrisons, that gain nothing from it. The guild should search them, and the guild has advantages from the claim. And if a guild fails to fulfill it’s overtaken duties, it’s investments may get lost as another guild can take them over.

The advantage of the garrision requirement is that it limits off-time scoring, if you have only a few people, you cannot garrison enough. It also assigns a default defence force, and the zerg should be smaller due to that.