Guild Wars 2

Hi John, thanks for making this thread.

Firstly, I agree with people who are suggesting going back to read some of the threads that already exist on how to re-haul scoring. Many of the people who made those threads might not be around anymore so they can’t contribute to this thread. It is also evident in this thread just how many responses are from people re-posting ideas they have previously posted elsewhere.

I support the ideas being discussed around splitting the day into phases. I feel it is important for each phase to award 1st/2nd/3rd place rather than a ‘winner takes all’ as it encourages a fight between 2nd and 3rd.

I also feel that it is important that scoring reflects active play. Today if a server flips an entire map and goes to bed while the other servers are also asleep they are rewarded for pretty much nothing.

To mitigate the effects of snowballing and stagnation I feel the introduction of a ‘special objectives’ for the 2nd and 3rd place servers could work. The aim of these objectives should be such that successfully completing the objective would help a 3rd/2nd place server to catch (but not surpass) the 2nd/1st place server. These special objectives could be things like; attain a number of stomps, escort a number of dolyaks, hold a keep for a certain period of time etc. things that an organised server can rally around to try and achieve and stay in the fight.

The main problem at the moment is that there’s little reason to not run with the ‘zerg’ when your on a winning server at off peak times.
You need to add more tactical elements into the game mode by allowing small forces to make a huge difference and combat expansion in other ways apart from hopelessly defending a keep against overwhelming odds (which is totally demoralizing)
(However, i don’t think penalizing a winning side by them earning less points is fair in any way what so ever)

So my idea is to change the way supply camps works in wvw.
Lets say for example that your side is green. If you take a keep in the red area, your supply camps (in the green area) have to provide supply to those keeps too. If you take a red supply camp then you ‘disable’ it (as opposed to take control of it)

You can upgrade your own supply camps to increase the number of Dolyak caravans but with each keep you take further and further away then supply becomes more difficult/time consuming to deliver.

This would only work if you also change the way supply works in keeps. If the supply reaches 0 then the keep starts to crumble, eventually becoming a ruin and free for taking (this only happens if the keep isn’t in your color zone so an out numbered red sides keep with 0 supply will function as it does now and never decays)
So instead of the night team all zerging, you would have to split your forces to escort dolyaks/ ensure a steady supply chain/ make more strategic decisions. The more you expand, the thinner you have to spread your forces.

An out manned team could then make a huge difference by essentially cutting off supply/ starving the night team out.
It would alleviate the problem of a night team capping everything and then sitting on a 500+ ppt, requiring constant work to maintain the towers you’ve taken by providing enough supply for them to operate. It would give night teams something to do after they have capped an entire map and if the keeps were left without supply then the night team would only ever own their 1/3, thus minimizing the amount of points they would be able to achieve over an night time period.

So to recap.

Supply is only ever transported from your own supply camps

Enemy supply camps can be ‘disabled’ but not taken

Captured enemy keeps consume supply and decay if no supply is available. (they could become grey/neutral/open until taken again)

Supply camps can be upgraded to increase the number of caravans/ amount of supply delivered (which makes keeping a fully upgraded camp essential and an attractive target for a small group)

It’s more like how real conquest would have happened. ensuring supply chains to expand your territory.

The problem is that Anet has neglected WvW for too long!
The only way to fix it is the almost start from scratch again! This is take too long.

You have already lost way too many players due to the neglect and disrespect you have shown the WvW players, infraction and bans, ignoring issues, punishing us for reporting exploits and hacks whilst the hackers are out there STILL doing their stuff.

IMO first thing to do is to make a new borderlands map asap!
Why? Because everyone knows the current maps, we’ve had them for 2 years and they have grow old and stale.
New maps will allow players to come us with new strategies and tactics (what little there is as the game promotes zerging which requires the opposite!).
It may also bring back some of the players who have left already, they will come to see what’s new and try out the new maps.

I even made this post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/How-To-Cut-New-WvW-BL-Map-Dev-by-66/first
Any map will do so long as it’s new.
As for the “balance” issue. There isnt any balance in these maps, and there isnt any balance between the servers, so that excuse is mute.

So short-term fix: Make a new map for us to play on.
Long-term fix: Knock is all down and start again.

Both of these however, require time, effort and resources; but until your management realise that WvW needs regular updates and maintenance, I dont see either happening any time soon….

To put it simply the devs are like grocers trying to sell an apple that has been left in the corner of the shelf.
They are bemused as to why it wont sell whist most other products are selling well.
They dont make any effort to sell it, or even reduce the price.
It just sits there and starts to rot. Still they wonder why they cannot sell this rotten apple.
And now they need to make space, they want to try to fix up this rotten apple and sell it to someone.
But it doesnt matter, noone is gonna buy a rotten apple, you have to start with a fresh one!

Hey John, perhaps you could look at all the great suggestions made over the last two years?

Olvendred.3027:

phys.7689:

break the 24 hour periods into 3 rounds
win two rounds, you win the day
win 4 days you win the match

this way, one 8 hour shift cant win you the day. 2 however can, but i think if you lose two timeslots, then ehhhhh you lost that day.

soo now there would need to be a reason to play when you are getting blown out.
hmmm

Honestly, this doesn’t solve any of the ‘problems’ mentioned in the OP.

24 hours coverage: NA prime time would only account of 1 of the 3 8-hour slots. So no matter how you do in NA, it can still be overridden by whoever wins the other 2 slots.

Snowballing: the match can literally be absolutely decided after 4 days. Even if the PPT scores would actually be close enough to allow a comeback. And a single day can be decided after 2 8-hour slots: if it is, there’s no point in playing in the 3rd slot at all.

Stagnation: basically, the same things as said in snowballing.

---

My own opinions:

Snowballing/stagnation: Neither of these things are symptoms of the PPT scoring system. Both are simply because the matches last a whole week. Let’s imagine this is a basketball game (which lasts 40 mins, in 4 quarters). Team A manages to take a 70 point lead in the first half. Whereas it is technically possible for Team B to come back in the second half, it’s extremely unlikely, since Team A is probably much better than them, to have been so dominant in the first half. To have a fighting chance in the second half, Team B needed to give themselves that chance in the first half. The same applies to WvW – you have one whole week to get your server points and put yourselves in the lead; if you fail to do so early on, then yes, you will have very little chance to actually win later. Note that, due to reset and the weekend, there is generally far greater player participation in the first half of the week anyway, so it would be a bad idea to make the second half of the week somehow more decisive.

The week-long match also influences stagnation: Team B in our basketball game only had to keep trying to win for a further 20 mins, which, although it might have been almost impossible, was well within the bounds of human mental fortitude. A losing server has to continue playing for an entire week, which, quite frankly, gets boring. And a basketball game only happens every so often… WvW happens all week, every week without fail. Even if you shorten the matches, WvW would still be going on every day.

24 hour scoring: here, I have a solution. Designate the bottom few Tiers of servers as “NA-Prime” (or EU-Prime), while the top few Riers would be “International.” Offer some free transfers, and make it so points in “off-hours” count for less in the Prime servers. That way, players from OCX/SEA/etc would have a place where their contributions could count. Which would simply assist the situation at the moment, where “off hours” players are concentrated in the top few servers anyway.

forget NA or not NA, at some point you have to accept, if a server can outplay you 2/3rds of the time, they deserve the win.

you bring up a basketball analogy. Think of how the playoffs work, do you think the playoffs are unfair?
i mean you can lose 4 games by one point and win 3 by 20 points and still lose. The advantage to this system is blowouts in one game, dont effect the whole rest of the series. You can take a hard loss, and still come back. This is likely the reason they dont continue the scores in game series in proffessional sports.

Now in conjunction with my idea, i think they should keep track of, and create some special rewards for people who win within their time slots.

you may lose the overall match, but you can get some special credit/rewards/titles something for winning in your slot.

I think the only way to fix the scoring system is to make it actually mean something. This can only be done by implementing a couple of fundamental changes:

-Add a lose/win mechanic to WvW. Once a world loses control over their home turf on each map, their out of the game. Once you lose your base on a map, you can still join, but only on selected areas around the former home.
-Make matches last much shorter. Aim at something like 2-3 days.
-Points should matter, but only used as a tie-breaker, controlled towers and keeps should be weighted much higher for the tie-breaker.

Having a shorter duration for each matchup should balance coverage wars a little and making it possible to drive an enemy off a map should help guide players, add relevance for each player and make actions more meaningful for the average player.
Give players a goal, so they feel important when taking something.

My suggestion:

Remove the war score value on towers and distribute it amongst the camp war score. If possible add more camps or other open ended objectives. Maybe give a war score value to sentries. Just anything to give value to objectives that doesn’t have a wall protecting it.

This way, less PvD. Towers will still be valuable because they provide a safe haven for roamers, they can be powerful foward base to attack keeps or stonemist. Zergs can still take over towers for rewards.

Pros:

• Small roaming groups will be very valuable. Zergs will not be as valuable. Several small roaming groups can achieve a lot more than one big zerg now.
• At night when mostly everyone is asleep, they can pull their weight a lot more. The nightcappers don’t need to bash doors, they just need to take over camps.
• More open battles, less PvDoor.

cons:

• Can’t figure out the cons, someone else can list them for me.

My problem with almost ALL of the suggestions here is that everyone is ignoring some valuable assets to WvW. Namely scouting and defenders. These guys get squat now in terms of rewards. All the suggestions here for the scoring are also ignoring these people. When a team has an object they should be rewarded for holding it. Currently we get way more benefit from capping than for holding.
By not addressing this part or scoring and rewards you are leaving out vital people to the WvW system, in addition ignoring a certain play style.
I do like the suggestions of supply management if you are rolling all you get less supplies than the under dog. This however, doesn’t fix the scoring issues.
Basing scoring on population I feel undervalues people simply for the time they play. No one player or time slot is more valuable than another.
Basing scoring on stomps/kills only encourages a certain play style. Which then makes everyone forced to playing the “meta”. Not everyone plays the meta. The GvG which should be removed from WvW and given it’s only area of the game.
I know we all want changes to WvW. Mu biggest concern is that we make too many changes all at once before we see how it all plays out.
First change the GvG – they get their own place/system to thrive.
Second – After GvG is moved address population issues.
Third – adjust other things based on what happens to the first 2 mentioned. Things will change with above so how do figure scoring and other stuff wouldn’t change as well, possibly making scoring fine the way it is (not saying it will only it might).

And please leave siege disabler alone. As a defender it is one of the few items I have to hold things. They took bannering the lord from me. They added the 30 sec before swords appear both of which made my job much harder than before. Please for the love of god leave me the disabler!

One thing that could be changed is to change the scoring so that it encourages the losing/weaker/smaller servers to attack the winning/stronger/bigger server. This one change would go a long way toward evening out the score.

As numerous people have mentioned, WvW was designed as a 3-way fight so that one server couldn’t run away with the score because the weaker servers could gang up on them. However what actually happens is the opposite.

It would have to be based around both PPT and total score though. Just because a server has a high PPT for awhile they could still be the “weaker” server in the match.

It would also need to meet certain thresholds for the bonus to attack the strongest takes effect. In a close match, it wouldn’t apply. And as the other servers caught up, it would cease to apply.

TLDR; Encourage attacks on the winning server by the other two.

1. 3 time period zone split with scores being added up. However, all the structures and upgrades/siege stay through the scoring periods. So if a server has strong OCX/SEA they get a chance to upgrade their structures and paper enemy ones.

2. Structures taken from Leading server give bonus points.

3. If score difference is hight (more than 20% lead) add a handicap.

This just came to me as an idea (all details haven’t fully formed) but what if scoring were based on the WHOLE server and ALL play styles.
sPvP players contribute to the points – personal wins or server teams wins
PvE players contribute to the points – ap’s, world events, map completions, dungeons runs
GvG players (assuming they get their own system)contribute to points – stomps and guild wins.
EOTM players contribute to the points – caps and stomps
WvW players contribute to the points – same scoring contributes

This would allow for greater server loyalty, cutting server hopping and building solid communities by uniting the the different parts together. Each play style is important overall to the servers.

Any thoughts on this idea? As I said it kind of hit me, it isn’t fully thought out yet.

John Corpening.9847:

Someone had a question on this one from Phys that I wanted to answer:

• Break the day into scoring periods. The match is decided on the scoring periods not PPT.

Doing this would greatly buffer runaway score. If it is off hours and one world can cap most everything because of greater coverage they still just win the scoring period rather than rack up triple score all night. It means off hours play time still has value without creating blow outs. In conjunction with some of the other suggestions it has potential. I thought that was a pretty interesting suggestion from Phys.

Lots of great ideas guys, thanks for getting this rolling!

John

I posted that two years ago … https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Queue-size-data-from-9-14-to-9-18-NA/first#post202069

I call it “Game, Set, and Match”. Like in tennis, it’s splitting the match up so one person doesn’t just run away with it.

In addition to time blocks, score it per map (the API has per map scoring data, so I know you have this). For example instead of 3 points for winning all of the time block you might get 3 points for winning EB + 3 points for the home border + 2 points (2nd place) for each of the other border maps for a total of 10 points. Meanwhile opponent 1 gets 2 points for EB + 3 points for their home border + 2 points for my home + 1 point for the other border (8 points) and opponent 2 gets 1 point for EB + 3 points for their home + 1 point for my home + 1 point for the other border (6 points).

The best thing i can think of is to have goals times during the week so say a weekend goal if your in the lead by Sunday 12:00 est you get a set % insecure for the end of the of the wvw week. So this would let worlds who have more off times or down times to push for a win or a lot of points during the weekends when more ppl can play.

This can cause a lot of snow balling but i have no other ideal how you can fix 24hr coverages beyond simply making some times not count as much. That makes ppl who plays only during the off times feel worthless so i say have a “ppt weekend” that counts for a lot of the week but not so much that whom ever wins the weekends win the week.

Nabrok.9023:

John Corpening.9847:

Someone had a question on this one from Phys that I wanted to answer:

• Break the day into scoring periods. The match is decided on the scoring periods not PPT.

Doing this would greatly buffer runaway score. If it is off hours and one world can cap most everything because of greater coverage they still just win the scoring period rather than rack up triple score all night. It means off hours play time still has value without creating blow outs. In conjunction with some of the other suggestions it has potential. I thought that was a pretty interesting suggestion from Phys.

Lots of great ideas guys, thanks for getting this rolling!

John

I posted that two years ago … https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Queue-size-data-from-9-14-to-9-18-NA/first#post202069

I call it “Game, Set, and Match”. Like in tennis, it’s splitting the match up so one person doesn’t just run away with it.

In addition to time blocks, score it per map (the API has per map scoring data, so I know you have this). For example instead of 3 points for winning all of the time block you might get 3 points for winning EB + 3 points for the home border + 2 points (2nd place) for each of the other border maps for a total of 10 points. Meanwhile opponent 1 gets 2 points for EB + 3 points for their home border + 2 points for my home + 1 point for the other border (8 points) and opponent 2 gets 1 point for EB + 3 points for their home + 1 point for my home + 1 point for the other border (6 points).

I like the idea of different time periods separated, each with their own score. However, I would prefer it if each time period was a completely separate match. Each time period would be matched up against other time periods of similar Glicko (representing population). This would solve both issues at once – population imbalance and coverage.

The problem with having different time periods but still having all time periods in the same match is this:

A server that can tick 500+ during their time period on Saturday will not have anything to do for the rest of the week. The match will be frozen at that point and when it starts back the next day they will still be at 500+. There would have been no other time zone people to take back the stuff.

Now this might still be ok. Because it might be great fun fighting over a smaller number of objectives. Actually now that I think about it, this might be great…

Honestly, right now, I’m in favor of any change whatsoever, even one I disagree with.

John, the thing is we will not know the effect of any of these suggestions – until they are live in game. Can you all do this in such a way that it can be reversed if it turns out to be an unmitigated disaster. If you could do that then it could be put into the game so we could try it out. And you all wouldn’t have to worry about making a disastrous change. It would give you more freedom to experiment.

I think scrapping ppt is a really drastic change. I understand why people would want it, but we have to remember, these population imbalances are not because of ppt game type, but because of the players. The fact is, population imbalances will exist as long as transfers exist. I suggest that the most important thing is that the game helps people when they are outnumbered. A couple things could go here.

—when outnumbered, siege refresh time goes to 3 hours as opposed to one
—bl defenders who want to defend objectives need to spend half their time as it is refreshing seige, and so objectives flip because of that.
—when a server’s “home” keep (EB keep, Garrison) is held by the home server, it gets 50-100 supply automatically, regardless of yaks, every tick. This would allow the outnumbered server to keep building siege, and attempt to stem the tide of enemy players

and some others.

I think the most important thing is that the players realize that changing the scoring drastically will have negative effects as well, just as ppt has it’s downsides. Therefore, I’m not for scrapping ppt in it’s entirety, its just small, structural changes that can fix some of WvW’s problems.

To be clear before I make my recommendation – the problem is lopsided populations. Until that is fixed (even if it means alliances/battlegroups or, god forbid, mergers/splitting servers), there is nothing that will make WvW the same enjoyment level on every server (which should be Anet’s only real goal). If that isnt fixed, WvW will continue to feel like it is designed around the Blackgate style servers, while the rest of us just have to live with it. People can deny it until the end of time, but there it is.

In the meantime, some small changes could make a difference:

- Scoring is directly proportionate to the size of the groups across all the maps at any given second. For example, if Server A has 20% more people than Server B, then Server B gains points 20% faster for any objectives captured in that time. To avoid exploits, this buff can only be gained by a team that is currently in last place (eg, if the score evens out, the buff doesnt apply).

- Defenses are directly related to score. If a team outscores the others by more than 50,000 points, then no defense upgrades (walls, doors, cannons, etc) can be used. If they outscore by more than 100,000, then all walls and doors disappear.

- Outnumbered servers (based on average wvw population from the month prior) get MUCH better rewards for taking objectives while the top population servers get severely nerfed rewards (possibly even no rewards from keep lords, other players, etc). It may seem unfair, but something big is needed to get people to stop bandwagonning.

- Outnumbered servers (again, based on average wvw population from the month prior) gain access to siege equipment others do not (Char tanks, Asura megalasers).

Once again, I STRONGLY believe the problem needs to be addressed where the problem resides – with WvW population numbers – but, until Anet makes that determination themselves (and they eventually will have to), they need to make one of the bandaid fixes above.

I still think the problem is not the number of points but the towers itself. Avoid fights, build sieges, upgrade, ninja cap enemy objects. Not fun at all. Give a bag of points is not a sollution. Lets check what is the fun and give points for that. What to do with sieges if the towers arent the only target? Make new, open field sieges. Flame throwers, razzor golems, force field generators and a bunch of other mobile or portable stuff

Four hour long matchups separated by time zone, where each time zone has its own glicko rating. For example, a server with an NA glicko of 1.7M would be matched up against other servers with roughly that glicko. Then, during OCX, that same server might have a glicko of 1.5M or something, and be matched up against other servers that have that glicko in that timezone.

This way you get competitive matchups in all time zones, and you don’t have to break up existing server communities.

The outnumbered buff should be heavily buffed, not statwise, but rewardwise… every event with outnumbered buff should give 4 times more rewards (at least in terms of silver/gold). And the other buffs should be something like
+50% Experience
+200% Magic find
+100% World Experience

and not

+33% Experience
+20% Magic find
+25% World Experience

The outnumbered buff should be global (not only checking the current numbers on eb, the numbers of all wvw maps should be checked) aswell, because every server that uses a voice chat program like TS³ has map hopping zergs (few ppl). The outnumbered thing needs these buffs, because u achieve less events and kills when ur outnumbered, while u should get over all more rewards than the server with the superior numbers, because u’ll die more often than them and have a less high points per tick.

maybe introduce aswell a “superior number – debuff” that gives u
-100% mf
-33% rewards from events
-33% wxp gain
-33% exp gain
-33% karma gain
when u outnumber ur enemys heavily. (maybe lower the debuff numbers, shouldn’t be too much punishing and it should only get active when u outnumber ur enemys very much) – outnumbering others is too much rewarding
Hopefully this encourage ppl to transfer to lower populated servers.

We need server merges, shut down the last 6 servers in EU and let them join for free the other lower populated servers.

Reduce the value of the Tick when server A has 250 ppl in wvw, server B has 60 on the maps and C 132. A is ticking for 460, B with 70 and C with 165. Reduce the value of the tick a bit… like in that case for 40% and introduce a maximum decrease of 50%, so it shouldn’t be that easy abusable.

Give us actually more rewards for playing, for spending hours in wvw activly doing stuff (killing enemys, defending & capping)
Stop the season, where tons of ppl just bandwagon to 1-2 servers because the know they just get there the maximum rewards.
Do a big rework on wvw achievements, introduce more tiers for every achievement (give us much more achievment points), while lower some of the final targets (e.g.: 1.000.000 to 100.000 dolyaks). They should be really hard to get, but at least a bit realistic.
Give us „Tournament Tickets“ (mistforged heros weapons, other skins, ascended accessorys,…) for long playing (like 1 skin every 10k kills, 1 skin for every 200 successful defense events,…)

Lower the rewards in eotm, it should be a map where everyone can join when he is in queue, but not a karmatrain, leveling and world rank farm area.

Give us more detailes, or a smarter system, on the real wvw populations of servers, because there should be much more transfer stops to high populated servers, while there should be free or at least cheap transfers to low populated servers

just my thoughts…

I think the current scoring system would work, if WvW was closer to RvR of DAoC.

First the maps are too small. They need to be larger.
Second, siege needs to be crafted parts that are put together not blueprints you stick supplies in. This would up the strageic value of attacking a structure, and it would also be the same for defending.
Third, death needs to matter. Not like RvR where you had to go back to your grave, but something to where you really don’t want to die. This would make the fights better in the open field and at the keeps/towers.

Changing certain areas of WvW to be more like RvR would really bring more value to anything you did there.

John Corpening.9847:

• 24 hour coverage
  • How do we make play time in off hours valuable without blowing out the score?

Good question but probably a tough nut to crack. Maybe take a look at the server statistics that you have available already and see if it paints anything. Personally I believe it comes down to server populations and wall clock availability. It appears we can see via the current rankings across both regions the sweet spot after matches. A blow out vs. games within 20,000 or so points. Those games within 20k of one another are actually pretty well balanced and probably be enhanced via the questions you are asking.

Example. Take last week when Ehmry Bay (I play there) vs. Gate of Madness vs. Sanctum of Rall. GoM 267K, SoR 196K vs. Ehmry Bay at 181K. SoR and Ehmry Bay are close.

You could maybe tie points to players and scale accordingly based on server side statistics that would increase GoM’s worth and dumb down the others in this matchup discussion.

• Snowballing
  • How do we give worlds a fighting chance throughout the duration of the match?

See above. I think they are tied together because by Sunday you know how the week is going to play out and people just won’t show outside those that play that meta of play. Objectives become more difficult to take but dedicated players of that format still do things like flipping camps, guards, and events. The difficulty is taking towers, upgraded towers, and playing hide and seek from the zergs or larger forces

• Stagnation
  • How do I feel continuously challenged when my world is ahead?
  • How does my world break the hold that other worlds have on me when I’m behind?

Balance. Look at the historical scores between matchups. In my example above between GoM, SoR, and EB SoR and EB are close and both have a chance to win. Neither will win vs. GoM – just a pure numbers game. How to keep it interesting to players – enhance the package.

First. Alliances between guilds. This is already being discussed is my understanding based on a few threads.

Second. Change guild claiming and enhance it. Give guilds, alliances, and members incentives to do things around their claimed area. Increase luck or exp. Increase duration of exp boost based on longevity of asset holding. Boots game wide, not just WvW (player incentive to come defend from other maps). Allow guards to warn when enemies pass by or hit them.

Third. Fix Obsidian Sanctum. Great area – just like the ruins but empty. You have walls, you have traps. You have this crazy thing at the beginning that no one understands what it does. Move the waypoints around a bit and tie it to each borderland ruin center. Move chest up top to the bottom somewhere lower middle. Cut or dim the lights, add some torches, let players fire weapons light up the area and spells, and add a metric ton of hostile creatures on the way to the chest. When your guild claims a tower you get boosts, luck, and exp boost – enter OS and now you can level and farm mats with a chest at the bottom with a shiny object…

Lastly – incentives I believe are larger for people who play this format. Guilds and alliances like swag. Bragging rights more or less. Yes, GoM destroyed both SoR and EB. However, we put up a fight but the player doesn’t see it outside the lopsided victory. Statistics is what we need and a portal updated after each match. You have the data. Make the portal.

Player, guild, and alliance statistics updated every Saturday morning. To include, but not limited to:

Server win, loss, ratio
Top 25 player in kills
Top 25 player in kill by class
Top guilds based in player kills
Top alliances based on guilds and player kill
Top 25 in least deaths
Guild claiming
Longest tower or castle held, by guild or alliance
Longest siege

Basically what I’m saying is that those who play this format are probably looking for individual statistics that would make it more entertaining. It would help with your question about interest even if you are on the losing side for the week. You can still fight for individual pride knowing each thing you do is going to have a report that will adjust your / guild score.

Also note that WvW players have always felt PvE / Dungeon and the other PvP format of play got more attention. I don’t know what the player base is overall in regards to WvW but I know you have the data to generate this portal but maybe it isn’t on the to-do list. I just think it would be a lot of fun for bragging rights and maybe help out the overall issues we are facing. I mean my match up last week was bad, but not as bad as Jade Quarry vs. Fort Aspenwood vs. Maguuma. And if people don’t leave to other servers on their own and the top tier are complaining about queues, then maybe it is time to remove the mini WvW mist map and merge the two together.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Here’s a proposal I pieced together from several ideas posted by forum users:
(exactly one year ago! o_O)

http://youtu.be/qHcO6Xo8eJ8

Dude…This is like real good.

• We don’t lose server pride.
• We are still merged.
• Loving the idea of assisting other matchs on different tiers.
• Reducing queues.

Attention to this man.

Can we discuss this?

MakubeC.3026:

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Here’s a proposal I pieced together from several ideas posted by forum users:
(exactly one year ago! o_O)

http://youtu.be/qHcO6Xo8eJ8

Dude…This is like real good.

• We don’t lose server pride.
• We are still merged.
• Loving the idea of assisting other matchs on different tiers.
• Reducing queues.

Attention to this man.

Can we discuss this?

This is what needs to happen. Simple. Elegant. Fixes pretty much every issue on every server. Additionally, it would “time proof” the game against population fluctuation, bandwagoning and simple player attrition/resurgences.

I really wish Anet would do this. WvW would be fun again for those of us on servers other than Blackgate or in T1.

The score is a symptom of the larger population/coverage issue. Treating the symptom will not fix anything.

Do not get target locked on balancing the score when reasonably fair fights is what is important. Some previously suggested “fixes” to this include:

• Guild Alliance matches that are aligned weekly rather than Server v Server
• Allow some guilds to be unaffiliated with servers and assign them to servers that need them each week
• Create a limited amount of free transfers to specific servers each week to help balance out populations

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Here’s a proposal I pieced together from several ideas posted by forum users:
(exactly one year ago! o_O)

http://youtu.be/qHcO6Xo8eJ8

Amazing propuse.

Johje Holan.4607:

Nabrok.9023:

John Corpening.9847:

Someone had a question on this one from Phys that I wanted to answer:

• Break the day into scoring periods. The match is decided on the scoring periods not PPT.

Doing this would greatly buffer runaway score. If it is off hours and one world can cap most everything because of greater coverage they still just win the scoring period rather than rack up triple score all night. It means off hours play time still has value without creating blow outs. In conjunction with some of the other suggestions it has potential. I thought that was a pretty interesting suggestion from Phys.

Lots of great ideas guys, thanks for getting this rolling!

John

I posted that two years ago … https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Queue-size-data-from-9-14-to-9-18-NA/first#post202069

I call it “Game, Set, and Match”. Like in tennis, it’s splitting the match up so one person doesn’t just run away with it.

In addition to time blocks, score it per map (the API has per map scoring data, so I know you have this). For example instead of 3 points for winning all of the time block you might get 3 points for winning EB + 3 points for the home border + 2 points (2nd place) for each of the other border maps for a total of 10 points. Meanwhile opponent 1 gets 2 points for EB + 3 points for their home border + 2 points for my home + 1 point for the other border (8 points) and opponent 2 gets 1 point for EB + 3 points for their home + 1 point for my home + 1 point for the other border (6 points).

I like the idea of different time periods separated, each with their own score. However, I would prefer it if each time period was a completely separate match. Each time period would be matched up against other time periods of similar Glicko (representing population). This would solve both issues at once – population imbalance and coverage.

The problem with having different time periods but still having all time periods in the same match is this:

A server that can tick 500+ during their time period on Saturday will not have anything to do for the rest of the week. The match will be frozen at that point and when it starts back the next day they will still be at 500+. There would have been no other time zone people to take back the stuff.

Now this might still be ok. Because it might be great fun fighting over a smaller number of objectives. Actually now that I think about it, this might be great…

Honestly, right now, I’m in favor of any change whatsoever, even one I disagree with.

John, the thing is we will not know the effect of any of these suggestions – until they are live in game. Can you all do this in such a way that it can be reversed if it turns out to be an unmitigated disaster. If you could do that then it could be put into the game so we could try it out. And you all wouldn’t have to worry about making a disastrous change. It would give you more freedom to experiment.

I vaguely remember the 24 hour match-ups they had at launch before they went into the 1 week matches. They sucked. There’s no investment in anything, nobody upgrades anything because there’s no point.

If the overall match is reduced in time, all of WvW will degenerate into what EotM has become.

Straegen.2938:

The score is a symptom of the larger population/coverage issue. Treating the symptom will not fix anything.

Do not get target locked on balancing the score when reasonably fair fights is what is important. Some previously suggested “fixes” to this include:

• Guild Alliance matches that are aligned weekly rather than Server v Server
• Allow some guilds to be unaffiliated with servers and assign them to servers that need them each week
• Create a limited amount of free transfers to specific servers each week to help balance out populations

While I agree that fixing imbalance issues will have a profound effect on scoring, we’ve already had that discussion.

Nabrok.9023:

Straegen.2938:

The score is a symptom of the larger population/coverage issue. Treating the symptom will not fix anything.

Do not get target locked on balancing the score when reasonably fair fights is what is important. Some previously suggested “fixes” to this include:

• Guild Alliance matches that are aligned weekly rather than Server v Server
• Allow some guilds to be unaffiliated with servers and assign them to servers that need them each week
• Create a limited amount of free transfers to specific servers each week to help balance out populations

While I agree that fixing imbalance issues will have a profound effect on scoring, we’ve already had that discussion.

I dont think we can have the conversation in a vacuum.

Especially when so many of us believe that any scoring change will be most likely be a bandaid until they can address the real problem of lopsided servers/population imbalances.

The proposed idea (which I loved a year ago when it was first proposed) would – most likely – fix it all – without disrupting server communities or in any way and let them focus on other ways to make WvW fun for everyone without having to get creative with scoring or lopsided buffs (which other games have tried and failed with – if anyone remembers WoW’s Wintergrasp “solutions” to a similar issue years ago) .

Blaeys.3102:

Nabrok.9023:

Straegen.2938:

The score is a symptom of the larger population/coverage issue. Treating the symptom will not fix anything.

Do not get target locked on balancing the score when reasonably fair fights is what is important. Some previously suggested “fixes” to this include:

• Guild Alliance matches that are aligned weekly rather than Server v Server
• Allow some guilds to be unaffiliated with servers and assign them to servers that need them each week
• Create a limited amount of free transfers to specific servers each week to help balance out populations

While I agree that fixing imbalance issues will have a profound effect on scoring, we’ve already had that discussion.

I dont think we can have the conversation in a vacuum.

Especially when so many of us believe that any scoring change will be most likely be a bandaid until they can address the real problem of lopsided servers/population imbalances.

The proposed idea (which I loved a year ago when it was first proposed) would – most likely – fix it all – without disrupting server communities or in any way and let them focus on other ways to make WvW fun for everyone without having to get creative with scoring or lopsided buffs (which other games have tried and failed with – if anyone remembers WoW’s Wintergrasp “solutions” to a similar issue years ago) .

Personally I’m a big fan of the original proposal from John(?) of creating new worlds populated with alliances to form balanced populations.

Anyway, we’ve already had that discussion, I feel that this discussion should proceed under the assumption that some of the things discussed there are implemented and should be about how we would like scoring to work in a population balanced environment, bearing in mind that overall population balance does not mean that the population will be balanced at all hours. If your answer to that is “The current scoring will work great with balanced populations!” then that is a valid answer.

Blaeys.3102:

MakubeC.3026:

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Here’s a proposal I pieced together from several ideas posted by forum users:
(exactly one year ago! o_O)

http://youtu.be/qHcO6Xo8eJ8

Dude…This is like real good.

• We don’t lose server pride.
• We are still merged.
• Loving the idea of assisting other matchs on different tiers.
• Reducing queues.

Attention to this man.

Can we discuss this?

This is what needs to happen. Simple. Elegant. Fixes pretty much every issue on every server. Additionally, it would “time proof” the game against population fluctuation, bandwagoning and simple player attrition/resurgences.

I really wish Anet would do this. WvW would be fun again for those of us on servers other than Blackgate or in T1.

I see a lot of ideas here, ideas that have come in past threads where I’ve participated and that have been dismissed in those occasions.

People need to stop and look at other people’s ideas instead of just throwing out theirs without even reading the thread.
This was THE VERY FIRST RESPONSE in this thread and it looks like no one even read, even when it was a VIDEO with AWESOME BACKGROUND MUSIC. I’m not saying its perfect, it could use some twerking, but had the brainstorming started disscusing it, it would of been in a better place right now. IMHO.

John attention to this please.

John thanks for starting this..

My idea is one I’ve mentioned all over in the past..

Reform scoring to give diminishing returns based on how many people take an objective. Couple this with a de-buff for traveling with above 10 people in a certain radius.

This radius debuff will allow smaller groups to actually matter, and when there’s the ability for skilled fights to take place, smaller servers will actually be able to take on servers larger than themselves.

Nabrok.9023:

Blaeys.3102:

Nabrok.9023:

Straegen.2938:

The score is a symptom of the larger population/coverage issue. Treating the symptom will not fix anything.

Do not get target locked on balancing the score when reasonably fair fights is what is important. Some previously suggested “fixes” to this include:

• Guild Alliance matches that are aligned weekly rather than Server v Server
• Allow some guilds to be unaffiliated with servers and assign them to servers that need them each week
• Create a limited amount of free transfers to specific servers each week to help balance out populations

While I agree that fixing imbalance issues will have a profound effect on scoring, we’ve already had that discussion.

I dont think we can have the conversation in a vacuum.

Especially when so many of us believe that any scoring change will be most likely be a bandaid until they can address the real problem of lopsided servers/population imbalances.

The proposed idea (which I loved a year ago when it was first proposed) would – most likely – fix it all – without disrupting server communities or in any way and let them focus on other ways to make WvW fun for everyone without having to get creative with scoring or lopsided buffs (which other games have tried and failed with – if anyone remembers WoW’s Wintergrasp “solutions” to a similar issue years ago) .

Personally I’m a big fan of the original proposal from John(?) of creating new worlds populated with alliances to form balanced populations.

Anyway, we’ve already had that discussion, I feel that this discussion should proceed under the assumption that some of the things discussed there are implemented and should be about how we would like scoring to work in a population balanced environment. If your answer to that is “The current scoring will work great with balanced populations!” then that is a valid answer.

I think the other side is saying (legitimately so) that fixing the population issues will alleviate many of the scoring issues.

That’s not saying that there arent some good ideas to improve scoring, just that they need to deal with both the disease and the symptoms – and if we get too far down the symptom road (scoring), we will lose sight of dealing with the disease (population imbalances) itself. They can change scoring all they want, but until the underlying problem of lopsided populations is addressed head on, the situation will just continue to deteriorate.

Blaeys.3102:

Nabrok.9023:

Blaeys.3102:

Nabrok.9023:

Straegen.2938:

The score is a symptom of the larger population/coverage issue. Treating the symptom will not fix anything.

Do not get target locked on balancing the score when reasonably fair fights is what is important. Some previously suggested “fixes” to this include:

• Guild Alliance matches that are aligned weekly rather than Server v Server
• Allow some guilds to be unaffiliated with servers and assign them to servers that need them each week
• Create a limited amount of free transfers to specific servers each week to help balance out populations

While I agree that fixing imbalance issues will have a profound effect on scoring, we’ve already had that discussion.

I dont think we can have the conversation in a vacuum.

Especially when so many of us believe that any scoring change will be most likely be a bandaid until they can address the real problem of lopsided servers/population imbalances.

The proposed idea (which I loved a year ago when it was first proposed) would – most likely – fix it all – without disrupting server communities or in any way and let them focus on other ways to make WvW fun for everyone without having to get creative with scoring or lopsided buffs (which other games have tried and failed with – if anyone remembers WoW’s Wintergrasp “solutions” to a similar issue years ago) .

Personally I’m a big fan of the original proposal from John(?) of creating new worlds populated with alliances to form balanced populations.

Anyway, we’ve already had that discussion, I feel that this discussion should proceed under the assumption that some of the things discussed there are implemented and should be about how we would like scoring to work in a population balanced environment. If your answer to that is “The current scoring will work great with balanced populations!” then that is a valid answer.

I think the other side is saying (legitimately so) that fixing the population issues will alleviate many of the scoring issues.

That’s not saying that there arent some good ideas to improve scoring, just that they need to deal with both the disease and the symptoms – and if we get too far down the symptom road (scoring), we will lose sight of dealing with the disease (population imbalances) itself. They can change scoring all they want, but until the underlying problem of lopsided populations is addressed head on, the situation will just continue to deteriorate.

Absolutely, I agree with this completely.

i like the idea of having no PPT – but to get points for capping or defending! i feel like the defending thing has to be really well balanced so people cant abuse it to easy.
Outnumbered Buff with siege dmg increase might be a good thing.

What about possibly making possesion of camps/keeps/towers worth less and making player kills worth points.

This would encourage actual player vs player in WvW rather than player vs door.

Split the current monolithic score into several sub-scores.

Why People/Server can define their own goals they want to reach, e.g. we don’t have the manpower to compete with SFR 24/7 on 4 maps, i.e. to win the match, but we want to win primetime on EB against them, and yeah we did it.

How Dimensions:

• Split by map
  - EB
  - Homelands
  - Enemy border

• Split by source
  - PPT Fortifications
  - PPT camps (maybe replace it by: dolyaks reached destination)
  - Dolyak kills
  - sentry conquered
  - player stomped while bloodlust (1 bonus point)
  - player killed (always 1 point)
  - player got killed
  - player got stomped while bloodlust

• Split by time
  - 0-4 UTC
  - 4-8 UTC
  - 8-12 UTC
  - 12-16 UTC
  - 16-20 UTC
  - 20-24 UTC

This gives a bunch of cells (choosing 1 value per dimension):
e.g.: EB, Dolyak kills, 12-16 UTC
each cell should be visible ingame as well as exportet via API, such that
external sides can setup OLAP tools to browse and aggregate them.

Currently the score is to sum them all up. This could bethe case afterwards as well,
but it could be also points for winning individual cells, summed up. Different ways to combine could be used from time to time, to make stale matches interesting again.

New efficiency scores

Why The main problem of the current scoring is that it is mainly determined by manpower-balance.
More people = higher tick,and More people more often = higher score
This makes matches stale, and quite often one-sided, as man-power balance is known in advance, doesn’t change very much during a match and to often to imbalanced to be fair. It’s also the base of the coverage problem, 10 people more in prime-time on a map means 100:90 still quite fair, but 10 people difference in off-time may mean 20:10 i.e. a hard to handle 2.1 superiority.

How We could use the actual man-power balance as a handicap as follows:

The default is: the score-share of each side is proportional to its manpower share,
e.g. if server A has (in mean during the tick) 350 people in the match, server B has 200 and server C has 145 people
than we can expect that server A ticks with 350 score, server B with 200 and server C with 145. Each server get the difference between it’s actual tick and it’s expected tick added to it’s score.

If the actual tick is A 380, B 240, C 75, then A is +30 above expectation, B +40 above expectation and C -70 below expectation.

Such an effiency based scoring can be meaningfully compared over all matches. (e.g. the current table on http://www.gw2score.com/currentscore/total_score/desc could be filled with much more meaningful numbers to compare servers). This adds a new motivation as additionally to winning or loosing the match, you can compare how your rivals do in other matches do, e.g.: ok, we on Elona loose vs SFR, but we are still more efficient vs SFR, then our main rival Riverside is against Deso.
You can also compare your efficiency of last week, with your efficiency this week. You can also more easily increase or decrease your efficiency over the week, than you are able to increase or decrease your man-power, e.g. as you did bad so far, band-waggoners disappeared, increasing your efficiency a lot or vice versa.

These efficiency scores can of course also be aggregated for different times, maps and sources as outlined above for the current score. And they can be added as score, or as points for winning a cell.

I think such a “efficent usage of man power based scoring” is much more fair and much more competitive, then declaring the side with more people as winner as it is currently. But maybe they can be also combined. And maybe they can be combined differently for normal play and seasons, e.g. more weight to (or only) PPT during normal play, more weight to (or only) efficiency during league. In fact I think efficiency scoring could make a match between first and last chalanging for both sides, such that we can merge Gold, Silver, Bronze into one big league.

Last but all servers get more facts about how they play could/should improve for internal discussion. I would also like to see (in match-threads on other forums of course) more sentences like “yeah, you are more, but we are more efficient” supported by real facts and not only subjective impressions.

Blaeys.3102:

Nabrok.9023:

Straegen.2938:

The score is a symptom of the larger population/coverage issue. Treating the symptom will not fix anything.

Do not get target locked on balancing the score when reasonably fair fights is what is important. Some previously suggested “fixes” to this include:

• Guild Alliance matches that are aligned weekly rather than Server v Server
• Allow some guilds to be unaffiliated with servers and assign them to servers that need them each week
• Create a limited amount of free transfers to specific servers each week to help balance out populations

While I agree that fixing imbalance issues will have a profound effect on scoring, we’ve already had that discussion.

I dont think we can have the conversation in a vacuum.

Especially when so many of us believe that any scoring change will be most likely be a bandaid until they can address the real problem of lopsided servers/population imbalances.

The proposed idea (which I loved a year ago when it was first proposed) would – most likely – fix it all – without disrupting server communities or in any way and let them focus on other ways to make WvW fun for everyone without having to get creative with scoring or lopsided buffs (which other games have tried and failed with – if anyone remembers WoW’s Wintergrasp “solutions” to a similar issue years ago) .

DaOC – front runner with this type of play back in 2001 had it right. They had a player portal for weekly stats. That alone resolved 90% of the issues with population because even if one server didn’t own all the relics you could still do things that assisted the individual players reputation and score.

Provide a similar incentive and guild alliances with rewards for defending assets one tends to forget the match score. Roamers still score points and zergs still do their thing. At the end of the day kill is still a kill and a point is still a point. Solo kill player gets all the points vs. a zerg getting 1/16th of the same point distribution…

We can’t shorten the match from a week, to a couple days, to a couple hours because the population and clock coverage is still there. I’m not a huge fan of guild merging options across servers or something like that because then we face the last person picked for a team syndrome

24 Hour Coverage

Since the game is 24 hours there should be no emphasis on one time zone over another, we all have different prime times and off hours. The server with the best coverage will have an advantage and in reality should since they are able to match an advantage to a disadvantage. That said it can still be mitigated some.

I would recommend breaking the scoring into 4 hour blocks. In this scoring method you have a Ranking Score, Weekly PPT and a Period PPT. Ranking Score would be points awarded for placement during each of the 4 hour periods. Ranking Score is what defines the winner at the end of the week. The Weekly PPT would be the same as it is now, but would only be used in the event of a tie in the Ranking Score at the end of the week. If two sides have the same points them the tie is broken based on the Weeky PPT. The Period PPT would be the PPT for that 4 hour period, it is used only to define the placement for each server for that 4 hour period.

At the end of the 4 hours each server is awarded points for the Ranking Score based on their Period PPT placement. First earns 7 points, second earns 5 points and third earns 3 points. Period PPT is then reset for the next 4 hours. At the 4 hour reset existing ownership/siege and all else remains, just the Period PPT is reset.

What this addresses is the case where one server can simply just play in a different time zone and create enough points to pull ahead where the others can not make up the difference and just give up. A close win in an active time zone would be worth the same value as a landslide in another due to lack of coverage. If the system was able to show a history of the points over the blocks in the week then players that play for the win alone would be able to see they won their timezone for a match period. For the players that play for loot a reward chest could be sent to those playing during the period for more than an hour. Random number of rolls in the chest defined by the servers placement in the 4 hour block. 3,2,1 rolls. For those just playing for the fun of it, those extras would just be fluff and wouldn’t matter anyway.

Now for a more controversial issue that could be optionally rolled in, this structure would also allow EoTM to be rolled into weekly scoring. Since EoTM is already on a 4 hour period, I would grant points based on the placement of the servers in that match up to add to the Weekly Score, but on a lower point value. First place servers would be granted 3 points, second place would be 2 points and third would be 1 point. Since EoTM allows for overflows the points awarded would be granted to the first instance only to prevent a side from just being able to flood the maps with players where the others can not. This would tie EoTM into the fight and add an additional level of strategy to the match since it would aid your server to win the match up but not be worth as much as the normal borderlands.

Will cover the other points and scoring in separate posts since out of lunch time for now. Good hunting!

MakubeC.3026:

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Here’s a proposal I pieced together from several ideas posted by forum users:
(exactly one year ago! o_O)

http://youtu.be/qHcO6Xo8eJ8

Dude…This is like real good.

• We don’t lose server pride.
• We are still merged.
• Loving the idea of assisting other matchs on different tiers.
• Reducing queues.

Attention to this man.

Can we discuss this?

I feel this idea would be spreading everyone too thin. While generally in t1 you can find fights at any time, and that’s why I enjoy it, even in t1 sometimes there’s just dead periods, and spread that population out over half a dozen servers… that’s going to mean a lot less action.

Contrary to popular belief we’re not queuing maps 24/7, we have a deep queue reset night, then we queue one map if that at any given time, we may see 2 maps queued on a saturday/sunday but that’s about it.

A year ago when the guy made the video it may have been solid, but I really don’t think the current population can handle that without it being a pretty spread out and small force type thing which honestly would have me not very interested in WvW anymore as even now I’m logging off sometimes when after 30+ mins we can’t find a force to fight. Walking Yaks isn’t fun to me.

I don’t think it’s a bad idea, I just don’t think the current population can handle that many servers. Alliance up and use fewer overall servers for a season then we could talk but not half a dozen servers with 4 maps each spreading the current populations over all that area.

Claudius.5381:

Otokomae.9356:

Claudius.5381:

coverage/population imbalance:

Another mechanism to approach the problem that servers with good coverage “run away” too fast would be to erase the lowest third of the tick ppt scores per day per server.

Currently in a 24 hour time period there are 96 ticks. For every server the worst 32 tick point results (the points earned in the 15 minute period of the tick) are erased. Only the remaining 64 “best ticks” remain for the score.

A server with great coverage loses more points than a server who cannot cover all times, giving them a better chance to fight back.

A modification would be to count stomps/player kills seperately (no deleting of points here). Reason for that would be that a server with lower coverage offers less opportunities for the more populous server to get stomp points because there are less potential victims to stomp on.

So, each server keeps their 64 “Best” Ticks, is that what you’re saying? Because that makes score gaps caused by coverage vastly worse than they are now! A server with 8 hours of massive coverage that their opponents don’t have might tick @ +500 several times during off-hours, while during NA, if even 2 of the 3 servers have decent coverage, it would be nearly impossible for any of the servers to match that +500 tick. This system greatly favors servers with better 24/7 coverage.

No. Simplified example with only 3 ticks:

Big server A: 500, 350, 380

Small server B: 110, 200, 180

Even smaller server C: 80, 140, 130

Currently the scores would be:

A: 1,230, B: 490, C: 350

My proposal would lead to:

A: 880, B: 380, C: 270

As you see the gaps are smaller. And I chose an extreme example with a very strong server A and 2 very weak servers (in these cases my proposal helps the least because these weak servers in the example are weak during all 3 ticks).

In your “Extreme” example here, your system makes a less than 5% difference in the scoring gap. Again, that is the “EXTREME” version. If we look at the current Gold League matchups for NA, giving an extra 5% to the 2nd and 3rd place servers in those matchups would still lead to the same runaway victory in both matches, and that’s with Blackgate being practically asleep this week. This system would only make a difference in matches that were already extremely close in score, and those are EXACTLY the kind of rare matchups that we DON’T want to mess with right now~! This whole thread is about searching for a way to fix completely lopsided matchups, which are relatively unaffected by your system.

In my opinion, there isn’t a problem with scoring. The problem is stagnation and a stale/aging game mode.

This could be addressed by doing several things:

1) A reward track in WvW similar to SPVP so people have more rewards for playing.
2) New Maps that are part of the PPT (not just an overflowmap) We need two to replace two of the boarderlands.
3) There needs to be some punishment for zerging in the game (not sure what but maybe . . . )
allowing AoE damage up to 10 players but keep boons and heals at 5. This will minimize zerg play and help lower Tiers.
Change the outmanned buff to a localized area where there is orange swords giving enemies in the area buffs that scale based on how outnumbered you are. This would not be for the entire map but an area near the orange swords on the map for example at >5 everyone gets stability for 3 seconds with a 10 second cool down on rinse and repeat, then >10, everyone gets quickness in addition to stability on the same rotation, etc. This of course would need tweaking and balancing
4) Introduce Guild vs Guild in a meaningful way so it includes the PvE population. For example if you take a tower, keep, SMC, whatever, then your Guild can queue into a GVG guild match. Then you are matched against other GvG that hold the same location on the other tiers. So if HEL holds SMC and que for the map, let’s call it the Hall of Heroes to bring back a Guild Wars 1 concept, then the OnS holds it in BG, and SF on Jade Quary, and so on and so on for all the tiers, then that Guild can queue for a one time quick GvG match on that map. Once the cycle is over another GvG match is started. Or it can be round robin style, whatever the concept is bring GvG to the map. This could also open up an area in Tyria for PvE folks to run an instance that’s only available to that server that wins the matchups. It could be broadcasted throughout chat in the game that OnS Onslaught has won a battle in the Hall of Heroes and the Temple of Ages open up the Fissure of Woe or the Underworld instance for 10 minutes. This would give us reasons to defend points in WvW and to win GvG’s. They could also be ranked over a period of Seasons.

I think those ideas would bring more people into the game. You could even have GvG give some benefit in PPT (score not from tick) for those who win 3 in a row.

We need people back in WvW again playing the game, so just give the players what they want, or any modification you make for the existing game mode will only be a band aid until the population is completely gone. My 2 cents. Peace!

Shadow.3475:

Add this here to.

Remake score system:
T0 (Paper) you get 0points for buildings both capping and owning.
T1 33% points for buildings both capping and owning.
T2 66% points for buildings both capping and owning.
T3 100% points for buildings both capping and owning.
1 Tear is Reinforced gate and walls, 1tear Fortify, 1tear (Mortar tower) (Waypoint Keep/SM). (for supply camp T1 2 first upgrades and then 1 T ever on second row.

If you want it in points, camp 0, 3, 6, 10, Tower 0, 5, 10, 15, Keep 0, 10, 20, 30 SM 0, 15, 25, 40

This system would work ENTIRELY in favor of the PvD servers. The main complaint people have with off-NA coverage in NA matchups is that they go to bed with the maps looking relatively even, then wake up to find that the server with the best coverage has FULL T3 STRUCTURES ON EVERY MAP!

Shadow.3475:

And then the most important part is that if your server have buildings for 400points you don’t autonomic ally tick that and how you solve that is simple, you count how many players there is on the 4 WvW maps and there you do 0% = 10% then for every 1% players you gain 1.5% in tick, so if there is 10% full on all 4 maps and your server have 400Points you will tick 20% of that with then mean tick is 80. When there is 60% full on all 4 maps and all 3 servers you tick 100%
Then to take a building that is fully upgraded and fully defended we say you get 100points (50k exp), then if there is 0defenders you get 10% 10points 5k exp and then race the points you get with how many defenders, say 10def camp, 20tower, 30keep/sm is what is needed to get to max.

First of all, this sounds extremely complicated, especially if the point tick is constantly changing every time a new guild decides to form up on a map, or whenever a guild ends their raid and starts going to bed. This is also one of those systems that would be easy to exploit, as the moment your main guilds start to log off or you see your server’s WvW population start to dip, you would immediately have Commanders yelling “EVERYONE OUT OF THE TOWERS NOW! Defending anything on this map only means handing bonus points to the enemy!” etc, etc.

Shadow.3475:

Escorting Dolys should give a buff were bronze give you +1supply you can carry Silver +2 Gold +3 supply you can carry and it last for 1hour (only successful escorts), it don’t stack but the 1hour is reset/you get higher if you had bronze and then do Gold you get +3 instead off +1 if you Escort again within the hour you have the buff.
When queue on the map lower AFK timeout to 5min and if you run against a wall to 2min, if you have scout buff and are in scout area AFK timer normal 10min.
And add so you get 1point for stomp without any bloodlust then +1 for every BL your server have.
That way it will be much harder to gain points with PVD, you will need to hold your building until they are upgraded with takes a lot off time and a small group can take supply camp / kill dolys with then stops upgrades.

I’m going to assume that you were NOT playing GW2 anytime time in 2012, or near release, as there is a good (albeit sad) reason why escorting Dolyaks doesn’t give any tangible rewards… back when the game came out, and for several months after, escorting a Dolyak to its respective tower/keep gave essentially the same rewards as taking a camp, but was 1,000 times easier, and could be repeated over and over again on a set schedule, for as long as you held the camp. As a result, back in 2012 we used to have massive armies of 50+ people doing NOTHING but escorting Yaks for hours on end, in every timezone, in every Tier!

What you have listed here is different, and isn’t really a bad idea, but it certainly doesn’t address any balance issues. This would likely work in favor of the higher population servers, actually, as it would simply become part of the meta to have your full zerg escort a Dolyak once an hour along the shortest available route. Hello, 20 Omega Golem rush from the most stacked server in the matchup…

Maybe change the out numbered buffs into an outscored buffs. None of them are very useful anyways and it might get more players into WvW which is what the losing team really needs.
I think one of the problems is that having a huge zerg always wins in every situation. The losing teams should be offered bonus points if they flip multiple objectives in a certain time limit(timed attacks ) to the sides above them. That would mean small scale organized tactics could over come a huge zerg unless the zerg splits up into smaller teams to defend objectives. That would mean small groups fighting small groups instead of huge zergs slaughtering everything they come across.

It’s only now that you guys decide to fix it… while the players are leaving the game? Launch an expansion already…

Sam Gem.1246:

It’s only now that you guys decide to fix it… while the players are leaving the game? Launch an expansion already…

That isn’t going to resolve the questions they asked related to WvW.

While I do see the underlying point you raise, and I actually agree 100% (if you care), expansion isn’t going to help.

Substance. Reason. Incentive. Three keys to a successful PvW/WvW subsystem. Today coverage wins every single match and the match ups that are 20 to 40k apart are far and few between. When they do happen they last for a single week and the team that wins and moves up gets destroyed the next week only to fall back down again… It is like climbing a ladder with the next 3 rungs / steps ahead of you broken

Scoring

I think PPT still makes sense versus other systems since you want to encourage people to take and hold versus just take but often fighting is not encouraged nor is there value in holding an objective with upgrades.

The system does not reward people to do upgrades since a T1 objective has the same weight as a T3 objective. I would therefore propose that upgraded objective be worth more for both tick and for capture. Each additional upgrade done should make that control point worth more. The number of points could be associated to the value of the upgrade. For example at a keep the waypoint upgrade and the hire second worker should not have the same weight but both should increase the value of holding the objective for the tick and for the points awarded in capturing it. I would also double the initial value of the objective (see below on rewards for player kills and on upgrades). So in this example the system could look something like:

PPT     Base Points     Fully Upgraded
Camp                 10                             20
Tower                 20                             50
Keep                   50                           110 
SM                      70                           130

*Camps*
Tier Additions  Upgrades
T1                 +1              +2
T2                 +3              +4

*Towers*
Tier  Personal Upgrades   Structural Upgrades
T1                                 +1                                  +2
T2                                 +2                                  +3
T3                                 +3                                  +4

*Keeps/Stonemist*
Tier  Personal Upgrades   Structural Upgrades
T1                                 +2                                  +5
T2                                 +3                                  +7
T3                                 +4                                  +9

The points for capturing an objective should be worth one fifth the value of the points that the structure would have been valued at the tick. This awards a side that is assaulting some value in taking an objective but not as much as upgrading and holding it.

In addition to this I would adjust the points on player kills:

                                  No Bloodlust   Minor Bloodlust  Major Bloodlust 
Downing a player:                    +1                             +1                          +2
Killing a player     :                    +1                             +2                          +3
Spiking a player   :                    +3                             +4                          +5

Examples:
- Downing, killing with no Bloodlust them would be: 2
- Downing, spiking with no Bloodlust would: 4
- Downing, spiking with Major Bloodlust: 7

An example of point balancing during a 15 minute tick then would be:
- 0 Upgraded Camp for Tick = 5 player kills with no spiking and no Bloodlust
- Fully Upgraded Camp for Tick = 10 player kills with no spiking and no Bloodlust
- 0 Upgraded Camp for Tick = >2 players downed,spiked with Major Bloodlust

This would increase the value in player kills and also increase the value in the holding Bloodlust to gain maximum points yet still leave values in holding objectives.

More later on closing the gap and snowballing. Good hunting!

Simple. Don’t do anything. People in inferior servers will stop playing out of disgust from losing, consequently, players on larger servers will stop playing out of disinterest.

I don’t feel anything needs to be changed with the score at all. If the population imbalances were fixes, none of this would matter nearly as much.

This game is called guild wars, right? Tie rewards with guilds. A server loses power when a guild leaves because guilds encapsulates organization.

Wow, I’m glad to see that the discussion is actually pretty solid! What I want to say has pretty much been said in previous posts.
But PLEASE value this chance ANET, because if you don’t, you might not get another one anytime soon.