Guild Wars 2

Ok, so people are complaining that the matchmaker forms teams of stacked classes.

ANet says that, because you can change characters at the start of the match, preventing class stacking via the matchmaker is pointless, therefore they won’t do it.

Maybe we shouldn’t be so black and white about it?

They should modify the matchmaking system based on the assumption that most people tend not to switch classes, and most people only have small number of classes they will prefer to play.

So have a matchmaking system that doesn’t create teams of stacked classes. And if people want to change characters to stack during the match, let them – but we know that the majority of players won’t bother, so it’s not a problem most of the time.

This will increase queue times, of course. We’d have to see whether there’s any increase in match quality to make it worthwhile.

The main possible problem, is if there is a super popular OP class in the balance. People who queue with that class will face extra long queue times since they are fighting for limited team spots with lots of other people with the same class. So you’ll end up with players manipulating the system – queue as another class, change to the OP class during startup. You’d hilariously see entire teams of mixed classes all changing to the OP class, etc.

But that’s a problem with class balance, which needs to be fixed regardless. And it’s not an argument against my proposal, since not having my system still results in everyone using the OP class anyways.

fishball.7204:

I guess you’re right. I just feel bad for the guys who play a lot and don’t really get anywhere.

Is there any way to make them feel somewhat rewarded and not frustration with nothing to show for it? 30 loss streaks aren’t really a good thing for the health of the game. Some people might argue they’re just bad players who don’t deserve anything but I’d rather these bad players eventually get good and integrate into the PvP community rather than just rage quit and never come back to PvP.

The thing is, a “teddy bear stamp for participation” doesn’t really work as a reward either.
The best way to encourage players to stay, is to have gameplay that is fun enough to keep them playing even when losing.

I used to play in an amateur basketball league. We were totally casual and near the bottom, we’d win some but most of our opponents were better.

Even when losing, matches were still enjoyable because of the little personal wins along the way. When you get a point, steal the ball, get a rebound, etc etc.

Especially when you could see yourself improving, the number of shots you get into the basket going up over time, it becomes quite enjoyable.

Being an mmo, GW2 somewhat lacks those skillful moments of personal glory. Unlike a fighting game where you can feel pleased about successfully pulling off a complex combo, or defending perfectly against an opponent’s pressure. In GW2 the build vs. build matchup is a big factor, so your actual play skill is a bit less important.

The actual choices you have that makes the biggest impact is probably when and where to rotate. But “I just pulled off a great rotation!” is less fun and motivating than, “I just pulled off a 30hit combo!” or, “I just hit a 3 point shot!”

The overwhelming majority of people who participate in amateur sports will never go pro or win an olympic medal. So why do they put so much effort into training and competing?

Presumably because they enjoy it?

OP, you’re mistaken if you think proper competitive players want to keep you participating just to lower their queue times.

Proper competitive players are motivated by enjoyable matches with serious opponents. Someone who isn’t enjoying themselves and is just there for a virtual shiny, isn’t wanted at all.

On a more practical level, if you seriously want those wings and you’re willing to do anything to get them, then rather than wasting your time playing pvp, instead spend your time networking and finding a team/guild. And working at a job to buy gold to bribe them to carry you.

Its not what you know, its who you know, and all that jazz.

I find that this is a very odd question. It’s like asking, “Should only the winners of Wimbledon receive a trophy, or should we give every participant a trophy?”

If you create a reward to recognize some kind of success in a game, then it can only work as recognition if people who don’t meet the requirements, don’t get the reward.

Maybe you could give everyone some lesser version of the rewards, like a “tin medal for effort”. But I’ll bet there’s still people who will complain that they should get the gold medal even if they don’t win.

WvW should revolve around fights.

- Holding objectives doesn’t award points.
- Instead, holding objectives will grant points and bonuses when your party/squad defeats an enemy.
- So the more objectives you hold, the more points your server gets per kill, and the more personal rewards you get when you or a party member makes a kill.

With this system, holding objectives is still important, but at the same time you’re encouraged to fight, both personally and as a server.

Your understanding is wrong, because you still remember the S1 matchmaking.

In S1:
- Get 10 players.
- Sort them into teams, trying to balance MMR between the teams. Giving each team a mix of good and bad players.

In Season 2, the matchmaking doesnt do the “Get 10 players” part. Here’s how I read the algorithm:

- Find 5 players with similar MMR to each other, within pip range. Make them into a team. Repeat this step until all the teams are formed.

- Get 2 teams that are within the pip range (as calculated by the highest pip member), and form a match.

So in season 2, its not “Get 10 players and put the best 5 into one team and the worst 5 into the other.”, the system forms teams with similar MMR and pip range, and then forms matches.

So your opposing team could have a higher MMR, equal, or lower. If your MMR is average for your pip range, then your teammates will be average, and you’re most likely to get average opponents too.

The problem comes when your MMR is below average for your division. You’re teammates will also be below average for the division, but your opponents will most likely be average.

In a proper system (at higher divisions in GW2) you’ll lose pips and divisions (but you won’t lose much MMR because you’re facing higher MMR opponents).

This means, eventually you’ll lose divisions until your MMR is once again average for your division. You’ll be matched with the (crappy) players who have average MMR for that lower division, and your (crappy) opponents will also have similar MMR to you.
If you are a rare diamond in the rough & in ELO hell, this means you’re team has 1 better player (you) and probably 4 crappy teammates, versus 5 crappy players. So you’ll win, your MMR will improve, and you can gradually climb out of ELO hell.

The problem with GW2, is that you can’t lose divisions until you get past Ruby. So there are many players stuck on Ruby and below, who have below-average MMR for their division, who can’t go down any further.

This means there’s a pool of players who have below-average MMR for their division, who are often getting matched against teams with average MMR, causing the losing streaks and permanent ELO hell.

The solution is to allow for division loss all the way through the ladder. If you absolutely must have a grindy “training division”, then just leave Amber as it is. But Emerald and Sapphire should have the same rules as the rest of the league.

Dunno, when I enter a fighting game tournament, its completely random who my opponents are. If its double elimination format, then maybe my second match will be easier. But I could get the tournament winner on my first match. Most tournaments are like this.

Whereas in my amateur basketball league, we have to play every other team in the league. Since we’re pretty casual, 3/4 of the other teams are stronger than us, and we end up near the bottom of the ladder with 25% winrate or so. Most sports leagues are like this.

These two formats are standard in most competitive activities, outside of online videogames. The notion that you should only ever get close matches, that the system should protect you from tough conditions, is a pretty recent and scrubby one.

(As for elo hell, I guess there usually aren’t any team sports in RL that even allow you to participate without a full team, so “solo queue” only exists in a small group of videogames.)

Hmm, no answer? Is pugging not common in GW2 at the moment?
I remember pugging being a very common thing in GW1.

http://strawpoll.me/6996103

Hah, so far the strawpoll is pretty close to 50%, with the meritocracy system edging ahead slightly.

A cynical person might say that the half of the playerbase who have winrates above 50% are voting meritocracy, and the half of the playerbase who have winrates below 50% are voting for the 50/50 system :P

Dark Souls 2 has good pvp.
Unless you want leaderboards and stuff… Streetfighter 5, maybe?

I was curious about how hard it is to find pugs at the moment:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/PUGing-vs-soloing

The fact that you’re starting a guild to help find pugs, does this mean the normal in game tools (lfg feature, or just asking in hotm chat) are inadequate?

Because you can’t lose downwards in the earlier divisions, you have to think of them as “training” divisions that anyone can possibly get out of, with some persistence and luck.

Ruby is actually the true bottom division, because bad players who managed to grind their way through the training divisions will collect here.

In a solo-only queue game, if you are in elo hell there’s not much you can do other than start a new account.

But in a mixed queue game, everyone has a method to get out of elo hell. Its called “find teammates and queue as a team”. Even if you get just one or two players you can trust, that will improve your chances.

Surely its better to spend a few minutes interviewing some pugs, and then winning 5 matches, compared to jumping right in and losing 8 matches?

Ohoni.6057:

Agreed. A 50/50 system might lead to some interesting individual match-ups, but it is HORRIBLE in their current system, for two reasons. 1. After Amber, losses make you go down. If you lose half your matches, you’ll never advance. 2. The game has win streak and lose streak bonuses. If you lose most matches then you at least get a bonus pip when you win, if you win most matches then you rocket ahead, but if you tend to lose one before winning one then not only are you down a pip, but you also will never see those streak bonuses. I’ve said it before, during, and will say it long after this season, the streak bonuses are toxic.

Realistically, if the system does insist on presenting 50/50 match-ups over the long term, what I would prefer is that it deliberately stack every match-up, but in a given order, and let me know that balance BEFORE the match starts. That is to say, deliberately give me 4-5 complete blow-out match-ups in a row, matches where it assumes my team will crush. Then give me 4-5 complete blow-outs the other way, in which my team stands no chance of winning. And warn me of this at the start of the match, so on the “you can’t win this one” match-ups I can relax and not take it too personally.

That way, my overall win-rate is the “fair” 50/50, but I’m benefiting from the streak bonuses and crossing tiers on the one side of it, and also benefiting form the bonuses and having a “cooling off” period on the down side of it, rather than stressing about every single loss.

Actually, I think LOL has a good system. It has a “expected MMR” for each division, if you have an MMR that’s above the expected for your current division, then you will gain bonus pips for a win, and lose less pips for a loss. (And vice versa)

That way, even if you’re winning 50%, you will still gain pips overall until you rise to your expected division.

To make this work though, a game has to be transparent about player’s mmr, and the expected mmr for each division. Otherwise people will be confused and angry about why they did/didn’t get bonus pips.

For some reason ANet is dead set against revealing players mmr, so they can’t use LOLs system until they change that principle.

Fivedawgs.4267:

The problem is that the ALGORITHM favor one side over the other, and a way to circumvent it is by using premade or duo. So, it’s becomes clear that the resurgence of teams in rank is due to the faulty Algorithm.

A = Now we are on the same wavelength, although I disagree with what you said and my 5 answers above should shed some light on it; but do you believe that the high MMR player who were packed together against low MMR players whilst protecting themselves for all the people playing the game ( thanks to Anet) deserve it?

Ok, lets put the general argument aside and focus on your specific concerns. I think the thing you are talking about is “ELO hell”, right?

You said that wooden racquet tennis can’t be compared to queuing solo, because the tennis player is in sole control of his choices, whereas the solo player can’t choose his teammates.

Well, in a solo-only queue, that would be true – if you’re in elo hell and can’t get good teammates, there’s not much you can do apart from start a new account.

But in a mixed queue, YOU have the power – you can choose the metal racquet! Its called “find teammates and queue as a team.”

If you CHOOSE not to use this metal racquet (or can’t afford it), that’s not the games fault.

Putting all of that aside, can you describe what a better algorithm would look like? How do you want it to work? Do you want the 50% winrate back? Or something else?

Fivedawgs.4267:

Rieselle.5079:

If i wanted to make an argument, it would basically be those players who think they are skilled but aren’t doing the other important things to perform better, shouldn’t have the expectation that they can win. But winning isn’t everything, you can take your fun

Of course, its perfectly fine to want a solo-only league, just like its fine to want a wooden racquet tennis league. But its not fine to feel entitled to one, and be all complainy about losing in the regular league. I guess its about having the right attitude.

Ok, you are wrong you are ignoring one thing tennis is not a team based game. And allow me that make this analogy (which is disagree with since you are comparing a team based game with one that doesn’t involve any), if a tennis player has less chance to win using a wooden racket. Then how is a lone low MMR (!= skills ) , grouped with low MMR player, supposed to win against a team full of high MMR players?

As a solo q er, your performance has a 20% impact on the outcome, and the way to fix it is to have a MMR system like Dota or lol uses where 50 is match up against 50. The performance issue although valid nullify the whole purpose of rank,why?? Because most exclusive spvp players do not play rank so they can team with fends, etc. .. We play to see how much we have improved or how better we are compared to our friends. People shouldn’t have to resort to duo/ trio to have a fair chance of winning, that’s all I am saying.

My tennis example is fine. Whether its a team sport is irrelevant, because my point is, in a league where you’re “supposed” to play like X, if you choose to do Y instead, you can’t expect to have a “fair chance of winning”.

You have to accept that you’ve chosen to reduce your chances of winning, but choose to play anyways and take what enjoyment you can from merely participating.

This applies for many different X and Y:
Metal tennis racquet vs. wooden
Team vs solo
Voice comms vs typing
Meta builds vs weaker builds
Playing how its supposed to be played vs not.

Don’t you see that your complaint can have any of these things, and its impossible to have a competitive league that accommodates these complaints?

people shouldn’t have to resort to meta builds just to have a fair chance of winning
people shouldn’t have to resort to voice comms just to have a fair chance of winning
Etc etc.

Currently the “optimal” way of playing the game is to queue with people you trust, using a powerful coordinated team build, and voice comms. Doing less reduces your chances of winning.

ANet has decided, due to the population, to lump everyone into the same league. So unfortunately, your chance of winning is influenced by these things.

I get that you want the system changed to protect solos from teams. Other people want to protect themselves from class stacking, or from voice comms, or from HOT classes. So who gets their wish?

Maybe we should have matchmaking settings that allow you to control what matches you get (and increase your queue time)
- solo queue only
- no elite classes
- no voice comms
- no class stacking
- narrow mmr / pip range

Then everyone is happy? Although queue times will make them unhappy, I suspect.

But then we get to the problem, is it valid to have a competitive ladder where everyone is playing under different rules? If you reach Legendary whilst protecting yourself from all the people playing the game “properly”, do you really “deserve” it?

Fivedawgs.4267:

Rieselle.5079:

I don’t have an argument, I only posed a question, and stated a definition.

High performance, the way I’m using it, means doing what you need to do, to get results.

Your example is a faulty one. To highlight the difference between performance vs skill, here’s a better example.

Team A is full of all stars. 1v1 they are the best. They have the highest “skill”.
However,they don’t use voice comms, don’t practice team tactics, don’t coordinate their builds.

Team B have “lesser skilled” players. However, they use voice comms, practice team tactics, coordinate their builds.

If Team B defeats Team A, then they are higher performing, despite being less “skilled”.
(If team A wins, they are higher performing AND more skilled. But suck at teamwork)

Its impossible to base a competitive activity on skill, or teamwork. (Well, unless you have human judges like ice skating, I guess.) You can only have a competition based on performance. (Skill and teamwork helps, of course.)

If i wanted to make an argument, it would basically be those players who think they are skilled but aren’t doing the other important things to perform better, shouldn’t have the expectation that they can win. But winning isn’t everything, you can take your fun where you can find it.

Nice example indeed, but you are insinuating that rank is for team only; that’s where you are wrong. Solo q er should have a chance to compete ( I am not saying we don’t, but the odds are stacked against us).

Youre using the wrong meaning of “compete”. You’re using the meaning like, “our prices are competitive”, ie. Similar to your opposition.

That’s not the meaning when we’re talking about a competition, or a competitive game. That one is, “to be in opposition against others.” Ie. Opposite of cooperate.

Solo players have every opportunity to compete, as you said. But just because a tennis player is allowed to compete using a wooden racquet, doesn’t mean he should expect a fair chance at winning, and it certainly doesn’t mean the rules should be changed to accommodate him. (And the ITF is not obligated to make a grand slam circuit just for wooden racquet players.)

Of course, its perfectly fine to want a solo-only league, just like its fine to want a wooden racquet tennis league. But its not fine to feel entitled to one, and be all complainy about losing in the regular league. I guess its about having the right attitude.

You have no way of knowing whether this is the matchmaking actually working, or when the matchmaker has given up due to lack of players.

I think a much better change is to give players control over the matchmaker. If you want teammates and opponents close to your MMR, you can set those settings (and accept longer or even infinite queue times.)
If you set the mmr/class stacking/solo queue parameters to be “anything goes”, then you get teammates and opponents with compatible settings, and faster queues.

Let players decide what match quality vs queue time they prefer.

Fivedawgs.4267:

Lol at high performance, if I may OP what is performance to you?? It’s doesn’t take a brain to know that a team full of good player will have a better performance than one full of noobs. So, your argument is invalid, although it has a few good points.

I don’t have an argument, I only posed a question, and stated a definition.

High performance, the way I’m using it, means doing what you need to do, to get results.

Your example is a faulty one. To highlight the difference between performance vs skill, here’s a better example.

Team A is full of all stars. 1v1 they are the best. They have the highest “skill”.
However,they don’t use voice comms, don’t practice team tactics, don’t coordinate their builds.

Team B have “lesser skilled” players. However, they use voice comms, practice team tactics, coordinate their builds.

If Team B defeats Team A, then they are higher performing, despite being less “skilled”.
(If team A wins, they are higher performing AND more skilled. But suck at teamwork)

Its impossible to base a competitive activity on skill, or teamwork. (Well, unless you have human judges like ice skating, I guess.) You can only have a competition based on performance. (Skill and teamwork helps, of course.)

If i wanted to make an argument, it would basically be those players who think they are skilled but aren’t doing the other important things to perform better, shouldn’t have the expectation that they can win. But winning isn’t everything, you can take your fun where you can find it.

jessiestiles.9437:

The exact reason people don’t want to play a game that involves them losing constantly is this is something they do to enjoy themselves (something the scrubs philosophy frowns upon above winning) and they might as well do something else. Being cannon fodder is not something they see as enjoyable. Some of them even, get this, don’t enjoy using other people as cannon fodder either and don’t care to win that way. They don’t see a flaw in the system and think “I can exploit this to interrupt someone else’s enjoyment.” They would much rather lose than degrade their own morals. That sounds perfectly rational to some people and insane to others.

I can totally see where you are coming from with your basketball and you sound really passionate and it’s so commendable that you stick with it. But not everyone thinks the same and they don’t need to be demeaned because of that.

Well, I’m not so passionate, since we don’t train or anything. We just turn up and have fun. But while we’re on the court, we do our best to win, regardless of whether our oppenents are top in the league or bottom.

Its possible to be competitive, do everything you can to win, and still have morals. that’s what “sportsmanship” is. On the winners side, you fight hard, don’t cheat, respect your opponent. On the losers side, you try your best, respect your opponent, and accept your defeat graciously.

I guess the reason “true” competitive players keep going even when they’re not the best, is the sense of improvement. In basketball, even though we lose a lot, there are always little victories from each match. The couple of times you got a sweet rebound, the time you faked out your defender and shot a goal, etc etc. As the season goes on, those little victories increase as we get better. (And between seasons we get flabby again because we don’t practice lol)

Does gw2 offer little victories like this in a match? I feel like this might be a problem with the balance and gameplay right now?

Certainly in fighting games, its very satisfying to get a big combo or take control of a round, even if you lose.

Rolisteel.1375:

It’s not easy to find pug that any better than the people you get solo.

Surely just having the chance to talk to someone for 30s, (and having the option to kick them), means you can much more reliably get a decent teammate than solo randoms?

Ohoni.6057:

I want a 100% win rate. Of course so does everyone else, so a 100% win rate isn’t exactly sustainable, but that’s why I don’t like PvP. For you to win, someone else has to lose. I’d prefer to avoid PvP entirely, because I know for a fact that I do not like it, but they don’t give players that option if they want to get the Ascension wings, so it’s a Catch 22.
But yeah, 100% winrate.

Yeah, I was going to make another thread called, “Rewards ruin everything.”

jessiestiles.9437:

This is a cogent explanation of the current system however i think there are a couple of misconceptions. At the lower levels the placement of teams will not be random as there’s less people with lower MMR than higher. So this would account for many of the huge loss streaks and I’d say the range of MMR would vary more widely as well. As a result people are put into teams with an almost 100% loss rate despite the algorithm not appearing to behave like that.

Or change the game to 50% (no one should have the match stacked agaisnt them) and make progressing up and beyond ruby something that only highly skilled players can do.

Well, it’s an inconvenient (and unspoken) truth that there are players out there who are actually less effective than your average PvP beginner, and will never improve. (It’s not necessarily their “fault” – part of improving effectiveness is getting a team you trust, playing often, using voice comms, etc. Not everyone is able to go to those lengths.)

In a meritocracy-based ladder, we imagine that everyone will improve, and climb over the newer players, finding their place in the middle-upper sections of the ladder somewhere.
But actually, there will be players who are less effective than even the average beginner, who can’t be anything other than the stepping stones for everyone else. Being destined for 100% losses may be a rude shock to some of those players, I guess. (well, except when these players randomly match against each other. Then they might get a lucky win.)

Dunno, my other competitive experiences are with Fighting Game tournaments and amateur (real life) basketball leagues. Since I’m quite casual, it’s normal for me to be cannon fodder for 90% of the participants in any tournament. I expect to be destroyed in my first match in a tournament, and if I’m lucky, I’ll get a fair fight in the loser’s bracket on my second match.
Similarly in basketball, although we weren’t the worst team in our division, 3/4 of the other teams were much better and would easily win.

So yeah, I don’t really get the mentality “The matchmaking must only give me fair matches! Preferably ones I will win!!1!”

In most other competitive activities, matchmaking is either completely random (tournaments) or you play -everyone- else (leagues.)

(Oh, and compounding all of this is the fact that new players start with average MMR, which means that, unless they prepared carefully by training in unranked / customs first, they’re destined to lose their way to their proper MMR, taking down other teammates struggling to climb out in the process.)

http://strawpoll.me/6996103

So, originally there was a matchmaking system that tried to equalise teams as much as possible.

If there were 10 players of a wide range of MMR, the system would shuffle everyone between the teams, giving each team some high MMR players and some low players.

Overall, the system kinda achieved its goal – regardless of complaints, the stats said that most people had around 50% win rate. This was just an outcome of the algorithm, it’s not it’s “goal” – it’s not deliberately trying to make you lose after some wins.

Some people complained about this, though. They didn’t like the 50% win rate, and they accused the system of deliberately giving you some bad team mates after a win streak, etc. Personally I find these claims a bit hard to believe, but I don’t have any personal evidence one way or the other so whatever.

So anyways, this season ANet changed the matchmaking to be MMR based for finding teammates, and ladder based for finding opponents.

Some people cling to the old idea that the game gets 10 players and then sorts into teams (accusing the system of sorting the best 5 into one team, and the worst into other, meaning 100% chance of unbalanced matchup), but reading the algorithm I don’t think that’s true.
It finds teams with MMR ratings close to each other, and then finds an opposing near your pip level, also formed with similar MMRs to themselves. So it’s mostly random whether your opponent team has a higher, lower or equal average MMR – the only factor is their pip level.

Anyways, the outcome of this is, high performance teams (I’m deliberately avoiding the word “skill” here – performance is all that matters), will have a higher winrate. But for every winning team, there has to be a losing team. Which means that half of the population will have a winrate above 50%, and the other half will have a winrate below 50%

Logically, it’s impossible to have it both ways – either everyone is 50%, or half the players are above 50% and the other half below 50%.

So, which system do you prefer?
A fair match system, where the outcome is a 50% win rate for everyone?
Or a meritocracy system, where the outcome is that high performance teams will win often, and low performance players will lose a lot?

(Note that I said “performance”, not “skill”. Even Roger Federer would lose, if he plays with a wooden racquet and high heels. And even Michael Jordan would lose, if he chooses his team mates by picking people out of the audience randomly. There’s more to being successful in a game/sport than just what you do inside the match.)

Hi, haven’t played in years, but I lurk in forums every now and then.

Listening to the matchmaking complaints, I was wondering, is it difficult to find a PUG these days?
Are there enough people in the PVP lobby map, or is it too split up between servers?
Does the LFG feature work for PvP, and do people use it?

Seems to me like one way out of ELO hell is to just grab random people in your division, spend a minute or so making sure they know what they’re doing & coordinating builds, and then enjoying your massive win streak?

Even if you have limited time to play, surely it’s more fun to spend 10 mins grabbing some pugs, and then winning 5 matches, compared to losing 8 matches in a night?

Or is it hard to find pugs?

Ithilwen.1529:

Elite Specs: These need to actually be elite specs. Otherwise, there isn’t value for money. The Elite needs to be significantly stronger than the core.

Your expectation differs from mine. And also ANets own promises.

ANet sells its pvp on the promise of a level playing field. They promised that those who spend more grind or money would not get an advantage, unlike some other pvp MMOs.

PvP needs to fulfill this promise to have any hope of getting back any credibility at all.

Hi, I think we’re all fans of GW2’s underlying combat engine, and we see a lot of potential in the gameplay. But that potential is usually ruined by balance problems.

It would be cool if someone (who is not me), decided to run some tournaments to showcase what GW2 gameplay -could- be, if the balance was done well.

Since we don’t have modding in this game, I guess the only way is for the tournament to have a rule where players must pick from a list of allowed builds.

The community can then carefully design each allowed build for these goals:
- Equally viable as each other. (so most classes will not be using their optimal / meta builds)
- Requires active and skillful play.
- Fun to play, fun to fight, fun to watch.

What do you think would be good builds for such a tournament?

Does anyone remember the game Fury? It was “the next big PvP thing” back when GW1 was in PvP decline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fury_%28video_game%29

It completely failed.

Let’s look at the 3 biggest eSport game franchises. Starcraft, Dota and its clones, and Counterstrike.

Putting aside Starcraft (which I still view as an accident of history) the other two all came from mods, which overtook their base game in competitive popularity.

A player created mod can be patched and changed far more quickly and easily than a commercial game.

And don’t forget that Half Life and Warcraft 3 had hundreds/thousands of mods, and Dota / CS rose to popularity via “survival of the fittest”.

It’s almost impossible to just “decide” to make an esport, especially if your platform is a huge, expensive, slow-to-develop MMO.

Anyways, your only hope is for someone to make a mod that brings MMO controls and small-scale PvP to a first person shooter like Unreal X or Half Life X. And make that mod open-source so other people can make variations of it. Then, if one of them is good and gets popular, they can spin it off into its own game.

Better idea: Keep track of solo-queue MMR & League points separately. (when you queue solo, it uses your solo MMR and League points.)

You can view the Solo Ladder separately from Team Ladder.

You’ll still fight premades, and you’ll still lose – but every other solo player faces the same problem. So even though you’re still getting beaten by premades, you can filter the ladder by solo-Points and comfort yourself that you’re #1 on the solo ladder

This gives you a Solo Ladder to compete on, but it doesn’t split the player pool like a separate solo queue would.

Hmm, according to the LoL Wiki:
http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/League_system

“Each ranked game you win earns you League Points while each lost one decreases your current LP. The exact amount of lost or earned League Points per game depends on your hidden Match Making Rating. If you have higher MMR than a set amount for your division you gain more LP per won game and lose less LP per lost game, if your MMR is lower you gain less and lose more LP per game. "

This means that, in LOL, your League point gain/loss is not just dependent on your MMR compared to your opponents’, but also your MMR compared to the “expected” MMR of your division.

If your MMR “deserves” to be in Division 4, but you’re in Division 3, then you’ll win more and lose less League points. This means, even with a 50% win rate, you’ll gain points and eventually reach Division 4, where you belong. (and stay there.)

-

However! In LoL your current Division has no effect on matchmaking. You can be matched with people outside of your division, as long as your MMRs are even.

Whereas in GW2, Division has an influence on matchmaking, along with MMR.

I guess what ANet was hoping for was something like:
- If you “deserve” to be in a higher division, then most of the time in you’ll be matched against players with lower MMR, in your current division. This means your winrate will be higher than 50% until you reach your proper division.

Unfortunately this method doesn’t work so well when -everyone- is trying to claw their way up. High MMR + low division players will be matched against other High MMR + low division players, and they’ll just trade points with each other, making no progress. Until they luck out and get matched against same-division + lower-MMR opponents.

Since MMR is hidden it’s hard to be sure, but generally you can’t “boost” your MMR beyond your skill level. You’re misunderstanding how glicko works.

So when you have a high MMR, and you’re winning a lot in Amber, you won’t gain much MMR when you beat lower MMR opponents. By the time you get to Emerald, your MMR is still your “true” MMR.

You won’t suffer extra losses, just because you won your way through Amber.

The missing ingredient seems to be something that LOL has:
http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/League_system

According to that wiki, in LoL, if your MMR is higher than the expected amount for your division, you will gain more points for a win, and lose less for a loss.

This means, if your MMR “deserves” to be Sapphire, but you’re in Emerald, then even with a 50% win rate, because you gain more points and lose less, you’ll eventually rise up to Sapphire.

Instead of the megaserver/alliance based suggestions, here’s an alternative.

Rather than a Server ladder, what if ANet locked the matchups and gave each of them its own purpose?

ie.
Get rid of the Server ladder, and convert the tiers into specific matchups.
Tier 1 = Match A: High map cap, 24/7 matches
Tier 2 = Match B: Low map cap, 24/7 matches
Tier 3/4/5 = Match C/D/E: Medium map cap. Only available 8 hours a day. (each matchup caters to a different timezone region.)
Tier 6+ = Match F+: other special purpose, like language-specific servers, “old borderlands”, alternate rule sets, etc.

Since there’s no longer a server ladder, the matches don’t even need to last the same amount of time. Match G could be “3 day matches” for example. Or the timezone specific matches could last longer, to compensate for fewer game hours in a day.

The negative side of this proposal, is that you’ll never fight different servers ever again. Effectively, it becomes a “3 faction battle” like DAOC, except you choose your server based on which Match suits your preferred play style.

However, the positive side is that you get to keep servers and server pride, and problems like nightcapping are eliminated for those that don’t like it.

- So players who like 24/7, large scale combat, can join one of the servers on Match A.
- Players who like 24/7, but prefer smaller groups, can transfer to one of the servers in Match B.
- Players who don’t like nightcapping, can transfer to one of the servers in Match C/D/E appropriate to the timezone they want to commit to.
- Other players might be catered for by Matches F+ if there is enough demand for ANet to create a match for them. (eg. German speakers, French Speakers, Spanish etc.)

It’s like boxing – you can win with a knockout or by points. Or MMA, where you can win with submissions too.

I think it’s more interesting when there are several ways to win, it gives more variety in the kinds of team builds that are viable.

Having a fixed time limit also makes it easier to schedule tournaments and play sessions.

If you want to argue for a longer time limit though, I’m not against that.

Sure, you might think winning with a knockout is the only valid way to win, but I’ll bet most would agree that boxing/MMA is more interesting and skillful when the other win conditions also exist.

Personally, I’d prefer a more open-world-sandbox, kinda like EVE Online.

For example:

- Have a world map composed of tiles. Each tile is an instance. There are several different types of tiles available, with different terrain.
Each tile can have up to 8 exits along its edge, to take you to the next tile.
eg. 9×9 map:
ABC
DEF
GHI

- To travel from tile A to tile C, you’ll have to walk all the way across tile B. However, if tile B is full, then you can either queue for B, or skip it and go directly to C, D,E, or F.

- In each tile are a variety of keeps, towers, camps, and other objectives.

- Each guild is its own faction. Guilds can ally together to form alliances.

- Every guild/alliance is just out to expand its territory and defeat its enemies. There are rewards associated with holding objectives and entire tiles.

- Just like EVE, to move supplies, equipment, siege, anything around, you have to physically carry or escort a yak across the map, allowing enemies to come and steal/destroy your stuff if they intercept you.

- PUG players can list themselves on a marketplace to be hired as mercenaries, or they can simply enter the maps solo/in a party and try to do bandit raids on yaks etc.

- If your guild/alliance holds some objectives in a tile, you can teleport into the tile and spawn along any edge.

- If you don’t hold any objectives anywhere, you can only spawn along the outer edge of the entire map.

- ANet can add more tiles to accomodate more players. The size of the map is adjusted to fit the game’s population.

- There is no reset, the match continues. However, if one alliance has taken all/most of the tiles, ANet can declare a winner and reset.

So yeah, basically I wanted fantasy EVE Online, with GW2 combat. (Well, ideally, Dark Souls combat :P)

Chaba.5410:

This all looks like an attempt to heavy-hand force population to spread out just for the sake of speeding up a process that will naturally occur over time due to the world population calculation change.

Just not seeing the necessity, especially with HoT release upcoming.

It’s not heavy-handed, since it’s entirely voluntary and limited.

As for speeding up the process, if the final destination is a desirable one, wouldn’t you want to reach it as soon as possible? Why suffer from a poor situation longer than you have to?

The HoT release is a dangerous time – new players might not understand the consequences of their server choice, and you’ll risk more players being stranded and unhappy on low-population servers. There’s no guarantee that there will be enough new players to meaningfully fill the lower pop servers.

But yes, when writing this I had the thought that it’s better to wait until after HoT before implementing these ideas.

In the long run, these sorts of systems will absolutely be necessary (since population imbalances will always be a risk unless the entire design of WvW changes.) But better to wait until after the dust settles from HoT.

GW1 didn’t have separate servers. Coming from games like WoW, where I had to choose between different groups of friends spread out on different servers, GW1 felt wonderful and revolutionary. Lack of servers is one of the reasons I loved GW1.

When GW2 came around, and we had servers again, I felt that was a huge step back. It’s mostly fixed now with Megaserver, but WvW is left with this legacy and its associated problems.

Let’s pretend that GW2 had the “One Server” technology from GW1, right from the beginning.
YOU are the WvW Lead Designer at ANet. How would you design WvW in a “One server” game?

Would you have servers anyway? (Just for WvW)
Would you have some sort of system based on guilds? Alliances?
Would you still have 3 way battles, or something else?
Would you have fixed matchups, or dynamically generate matches as needed?
etc.

I’m interested in these ideas, to either benefit GW3, “GW2 in a distant future” or other competing upcoming MMOs. And because I’m just curious.

Now that the server full system is actually tied to WvW activity, it’s a good chance to try to shuffle players around a bit to balance server populations.

However, open free transfers lead to too much stacking and bandwagoning, and server merges upset those who are quite happy with their existing server, and it’s not right to force them to give up their server.

Similarly, splitting top tier servers is distruptive to communities and again, it’s not right to force people to give up their server.

One solution might be free transfers available only in certain situations.

Problem 1 – Empty bottom tier servers
There are some players who are unhappy being stuck in empty lower tier servers. Ideally they want to move up to a more populated server, but they feel insulted that they are being forced to pay for a problem that’s not really their fault.
Also, whilst it’s good overall for the game to condense some players into the middle tiers, we don’t want to allow free transfers because it might cause all players to stack on one middle tier server and unbalance populations even more.

Solution – soft-merge servers
Permanent free transfers along the following pattern:
[Tier 8 #3] + [Tier 7 #3] -> [Tier 6 #1]
[Tier 8 #2] + [Tier 7 #2] -> [Tier 6 #2]
[Tier 8 #1] + [Tier 7 #1] -> [Tier 6 #1]
(similarly for EU, add Tier 9)

In other words, players from the least populated Tier 7 and 8 servers (and 9 for EU), can transfer for free to the most populated Tier 6 server, etc.

People who want to stay on their servers are happy.
People who want to transfer up are happy.
People who want to force others to stay on their server are unhappy, but I dont think we need to cater for this desire.
People who already paid for a transfer are unhappy. Sorry.
Server communities are mostly preserved – entire lower tier communities can move together to their designated server
Population shifts are fairly balanced, spread evenly amongst the Tier 6 servers

Problem 2 – overfull top tier servers
Now that all upper tier servers are full and completely closed to transfers, we don’t have the risk of additional stacking anymore. But, some of those servers are more full than others, with population and coverage problems that are now more locked in because most people won’t want to give up their upper tier server with no hope of returning.

There might be some players that want to transfer to another high-tier server (but with fewer players), to avoid queues or whatever, which could balance things out. But currently the system prevents that – full servers are full, even if they’re less full.

Solution – Free transfer ticket lottery

• ANet chooses an overfull server (ignorant example – Jade Quarry?)
• ANet calculates a certain amount of players that need to transfer to make things more balanced (eg. 100)
• ANet chooses some Full servers that could still benefit from more players, to even out their tier. (ignorant example – FA and SoS?)
• ANet announced a “Free Transfer ticket lottery”. Any player who participates in WvW for a few hours that week, will be in the running to win one of 100 free transfer tickets.
• Free transfer tickets can only be owned by players in JQ.
• If you use the ticket, you can transfer for free to FA or SoS, or any non-full server.
• Tickets can be mailed/given to others, or sold on the marketplace.
• ANet can wait and see the effects, then hold more lotteries if needed.

This allows ANet to modify the population in top tier servers in a controlled way.
RNG is the only fair way to distribute a limited resource.
People who want a ticket can beg, buy or trade tickets from winners who don’t want one.

Ok, let’s say I wanted to create a new game mode (or an entirely new game!) that captures the essence of a single battle in WvW, in a competitive format.

- 2 sides (20-30 players each?)
- Smaller map (maybe about 1/3 the size of a borderland?)
- Less objectives (maybe 1 keep each, and 1-2 minor secondary objectives.)
- Resources for siege, repairs, etc acquired completely inside the match.
- Instantly created fully equipped characters.
- Shorter match length, maybe 1 hour or less.

I’m opening up suggestions/discussion/speculation about what people want from such a mode, based on their WvW experience.

What’s your preferred win condition?
Personally I’d like a combination of different win conditions:
- Each player has a certain number of lives. Kill them enough, they don’t respawn. Defeat the enemy side to win.
- Capture the enemy keep to win.
- Matches have time limit. Kills will earn points. If time runs out, team with highest score will win.

What kind of NPCs do you want?
Personally I say no NPCs. At the very most, non-combat NPCs like Dolyaks.
I’m not a fan of MOBAs so I prefer to keep all combat between players.

What kinds of objectives?
- I’d like a keep for each team, with an outer wall and inner keep. Each side also have 2 towers. You can build a trebuchet on a tower to attack the enemy keep. Your own tower can hit the enemy outer wall. If you capture the enemy tower, you can attack their inner keep walls.
You can also respawn at a tower if you die.
- Maybe also 3 supply camps across the middle of the map, that spawns Dolyaks, which gives supply for you to build siege & repair walls.

What kind of siege?
- I’d prefer no defensive siege at all. Catapults and rams, and trebuchets on the towers.
Rather than defending from on top of a wall, I prefer the defense advantage to come from the fact that you can retreat back into your keep to recover/heal in safety.
Maybe you can drag/carry a downed ally across the ground back to the keep, to res inside?
Defending your keep involves bringing an assault squad out to kill the attackers, rather than sitting behind your wall firing antipersonnel siege.

So what are your ideas and preferences? Have you seen any other games that have this sort of medium-scale competitive siege warfare? Would you enjoy such a game?

I used to play the RTS Supreme Commander. One of the great things about that game was, you could sort/filter the ladder by location.

Sure, I was #650430 in the world, but I was #21 in my home state! And that darn #19… every time I rank up, he’s one step ahead of me raargh
This made it much more fun and motivating than being #650430 in the whole world.

I’m thinking it would be great if the GW2 ladder could be sorted and filtered by many different things too:

- Season points
- MMR
- Preferred team size (ie. if you play majority of matches solo, you’re listed as “solo player”)
- etc.

So #1 in season points will be grindable, but encouraging players to play more is not a bad thing.

1. in MMR is good for bragging rights.
2. solo queuer.

Rather than splitting the community into solo and team queue, or messing around with the leaderboard algorithm, maybe it’s better to be able to sort/filter leaderboard into what’s relevant for you?

Shrug, if you’re disregarding my post based on the use of a pronoun, then I’ll disregard yours based on your excessive pedantry, lol.

dancingmonkey.4902:

There is a difference between “lumping” who ever you want and being dishonest. First off, lumping people together is prejudging by definition. Secondly, your being dishonest when you suggest you speak for more then just yourself. What makes it worse, is when it is pointed out, you disregard it.

All guild wars 2 players are not WvW players. I do not agree with some of what you said yourself. Yet you claim you have a right to lump me in with you, and by extension, dishonestly claim to speak for me. If you want an honest discussion with WvW players, you cannot start by being dishonest.

I don’t claim to speak for anyone. Just by reading the forums, you can see some players complaining about stale matchups. And the person I replied to was quite happy with their matchup. So a spectrum of opinion is obvious. I don’t see where honesty comes in, when simply summarising opinions heard from others.
Anyways, this is a derail so I’ll try not to reply to this sub-topic anymore. Feel free to have the last word if you want.

If I recall, at launch we had 24 hour matches, but people were getting burned out fighting after reset every day.

Previously I suggested that the matches be 3 days + 2 hours long. (ie. 74 hours)
This means “reset time” will change every match, so people in different timezones can enjoy the exciting post-reset gameplay.

3 days also seems like a good middle ground for match length.

coglin.1867:

One thing I see OP, is that you say “we” a great deal. Such as your reference to what you call stale match ups. I have never heard anyone in my guild, or even on my server mention that even once in all this time. Some folks may see it that way, but you cannot lump everyone together in that manner. I am sure some players feel it is stale, but in my circles, it appears a great many enjoy the rivalry.

Hah, I can lump anyone I want :P

Like I said, there are many contradictions and opposing forces in the design of WvW. Some players may prefer one end of the spectrum, others might prefer the opposite. Some people are in the middle and torn between both sides.

If I group all GW2 players as “we”, then my statements are perfectly valid :P

roxybudgy.8205:

Rieselle.5079:

For those who care about server pride, how important is it that you “force” server pride onto others?

How important is it that you beat your wife?

Noone is forcing “server pride” on anyone.

There’s been numerous suggestions (some by me) trying to address population & coverage imbalances. My example in the OP, creates a pool of unaffiliated players who can be randomly assigned to fill out gaps in coverage.

People have mentioned problems such as trolls and griefers, but we might be able to solve those by limiting the ability/access of unaffiliated players, etc. As for spying, it’s probably no harder or easier than spying now.

Anyways, the reason for my title is that, such suggestions (along with server merges, etc) are usually met with resistance from people who value “server pride”.

So I gave an example proposal in the OP where players who valued their server community get to keep it, and players who don’t care can stay unaffiliated.

People who argue against this suggestion, therefore would prefer that the concept of “server pride” / fixed communities be forced upon players that otherwise don’t care.

From other people’s comments, I’ve already acknowledged that there’s some value in forcing randoms/new players/PUGs to only meet/see players from their own server, because over time they might start recognising some names, and become more integrated into their community. (whereas a truly random system like my OP would take that away.)
This is a benefit that would have to be weighed against the benefits of improving coverage/population balance, if ANet wants to implement suggestions such as my OP, or server merges, etc.

joneirikb.7506:

I’m going to give some of my views on this, and what methods I’ve seen that could change or moderate the problems of these. Not the answer, but food for thought.

Thanks for a very thoughtful post!

I sometimes think it might be interesting if ANet divides the tiers up by population/coverage.

Instead of glicko, instead the tiers are hand-picked by ANet (with community feedback, and supported by WvW participation statistics.)

Basically trying to match servers up based on similar population and coverage. If a server is consistently winning its tier easily, and the server above it is consistently losing, then ANet can consult with the servers involved to see if they want to trial a swap.

“Winning” would then mean something, because it means your server is “punching above your weight” in terms of organisation and skill. It also removes a disincentive for winning (the thought that, if you win too much, you’ll go up a tier and get destroyed by higher population/coverage servers.)

A server that consistently wins its tier would get a bit more kudos then.

I don’t like suggestions that vary PPT or other bonuses based on population, because it creates a incentive to lower your map population. PUGs and random PVE players trying out WvW would get even more flak, for “taking up slots” on the map and possibly costing the server some advantages. I think this would foster an unfriendly atmosphere in WvW.

I like the “noisy zerg” idea too. I’ve previously made suggestions that there should be some sort of “radar” siege object, that will detect zergs and highlight them on your server’s map. The larger the zerg, the further away your radar can detect them. Then remove orange and white swords. This creates an information meta-game where you have to actively scout and build radars to detect the enemy, whilst they have to split their zergs into smaller groups to avoid detection and meet up at the objective to perform a surprise attack.

As for “perfect game”, my definition of “perfect” is a bit different from most, I guess.
To me a “perfect game” is a game without flaws. It might not be the most fun game, or a game that everyone prefers. Just that it does what it’s trying to do without flaws.
The more complex a game, the harder it is for it to be perfect.
Eg. Tetris is a perfect game.
Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance is less perfect than Starcraft 2. But I consider it a more fun and better game, because of its grand ambition. etc.

Geikamir.6329:

Why is this a thing? If they were going to match new players with experienced players because of a lack of other players to choose from, why not do it evenly? Or put new players on the same team as a 3-member premade. It seems so obvious.

From dev posts, it seems that’s what it’s trying to do. Premades are given a bonus to MMR so they’ll be matched with higher-MMR solos or given lower-MMR solo teammates to carry.

Also a previous change (before the current matchmaking) had the game form a group of 10 players first, and then try to sort everyone into the teams in a balanced way so the team MMR’s would match.
I don’t know if this feature is still active in the new matchmaking system though. They haven’t mentioned it much recently.

Stoaga.8190:

As for low playerbase, I usually have 2-3 minutes queues which means it doesnt even try long enough to match people at the right mmr. I used to play league, dota and csgo ranked, every time i got high rank / played during dead hours / played when game wasnt popular i had 10 minutes +. For example in league it takes about 20 minutes of queue time to get a game where ranks are all over, here in gw2 it takes 2 minutes of queue time to get a clusterkitten of a match when brand new players are matched against people that have been pvping for 2 years.

The short queue time doesnt imply high population, though. All that matters is what the timeout period is before the matchmaker “gives up” and then does whatever.

Sure, you might prefer to wait 10+ minutes for a satisfactory match, but other people have expressed a preference for shorter queues.

I’ve made a suggestion previously that players should be able to set their preferred matchmaking timeout period, so both types of players can be happy. (although it might mean that players with long timeouts never get matches at all, since short-timeout players will constantly be getting into matches with each other quickly.)

I think the other problem is there’s a lack of transparency about the matchmaking results. I wish we could go to a website and access the logs of previous matches, the MMR’s of the players, whether they were in a party or not, whether the matchmaker gave up or thinks it’s a successful match, etc.
Then there would be a lot less suspicion, ignorance and complaints.

Exedore.6320:

Rieselle.5079:

There’s so much more gameplay with an NPC, compared to a circle on the ground, or a static Trebuchet/Wall, Flag, etc.

Compared to players, NPCs have the intelligence of a gnat. Players can abuse the hell out of them. NPCs run into Line of Warding over and over, can be kited endlessly, etc. Throwing them in to fight players just makes a mockery of PvP.

NPCs have better intelligence than a circle on the ground, though. Or a fixed wall/turret/trebuchet/flag.

Unless you’re advocating for Deathmatch (which ultimately doesn’t have much grand strategy, only “skills and tactics”) then you have to have -some- map mechanics.

And I’m saying it’s deeper to have map mechanics represented by NPCs than fixed objects / effects.

It’s more interesting to kill/defend a demolition skritt, than it is to autoattack a trebuchet object to death, etc.

From another thread, I posted:

Anyways, we probably all know that WvW is a bundle of contradictions.

We want fair matches, but we don’t want the same stale matchups.

We want to play anytime, but we don’t want coverage to be an unfair advantage.

We want to win, but we don’t want people to stack on the winning server.

We want to have as many players in our map as we can, but we don’t want our opponents to have more players on the map than us.

We want to be able to fight in the numbers that we want (zerg/solo/roaming), but we don’t like bumping into a much larger group and getting insta-melted.

We want server pride, but most players have no idea about their WvW server and never consciously chose it.

etc.

I guess this means that WvW will always be an unhappy balance between all of these opposing desires, and thus it will always be somwhat flawed?

Hah, I’m going to disagree with most of the people here.

Personally I think stat-customisation (even to the limited extent provided by amulets) is just waste complexity. It makes the game harder to balance, harder to understand, but it doesn’t really provide any additional good gameplay.

Is it really that deep, fun or exciting to think… “hmm… I have a zerker amulet on my build… but what if…. I SWITCH TO CELE? WOOHOO!!!” ?

Coming from other competitive games like RTS and Fighting games, I think truly worthwhile/fun/deep complexity comes from customisation that really changes your gameplay mechanics.

Using Ryu in Streetfighter is a totally different experience than Zangief, or in Starcraft, Zerg vs Terran, etc. In contrast, if you keep everything else the same, there’s not much different gameplay from one amulet on a build to another. (you just die faster, etc.)

Personally I think ANet should just get rid of all stat items from PvP (or even the whole game.) And get rid of all those boring “+10% damage/chance of something/defense/whatever” traits. Every trait should have a major impact on how your character works, like Ele’s Fresh Air or Arcane Evasion.

They can then balance the classes more easily by adjusting the base stats of each class, since players aren’t able to customise those stats anymore.

And the gameplay becomes better and less static. If someone is tanky, I want it to be because they are skilled at using their defensive abilities, not because they chose some items that gave them high defensive statistics. And similarly for doing damage, etc.

Hmm, a thought I just had.

Stronghold is getting some criticism for having NPCs, thus being more “PvE-like”, but when you think about it, actually it’s far better for map mechanics to be expressed as NPCs, rather than as objects or effects.

Because the game is designed around player combat, there’s so much more complexity around Player-Enemy gameplay than anything else.

Imagine if Conquest, instead of capture points, instead had an NPC “Point Elemental”. It sits in the middle of the point, and you have to be near it to capture the point. Just like how it is now.

But! Since it’s an NPC, there’s now so much more you can do with/to it. Turret Engi camping the point? Well, you can Fear (or Taunt) the Point Elemental so it runs away from the turrets, and then CC it to prevent it from going back, and then capture the point somewhere else.

You could have mechanics like stunning/knockdown on the Point Elemental will reduce its capture speed, killing the Point Elemental will capture it instantly, etc.

There’s so much more gameplay with an NPC, compared to a circle on the ground, or a static Trebuchet/Wall, Flag, etc.