Guild Wars 2

Down scale all gear to white.
Down scale all levels to 2.
Down scale all NPCs to rabbits.
Down scale all walls to slightly annoying inclines.
Down scale all WXP to not exist.
Down scale all food and potions to not exist.
Upscale all classes to Brightwizards.

Tada. Perfectly fair.

Okaishi.8320:

I’m not saying I don’t care if other things are unbalanced. Can you say you don’t care about that 100-man blob having 150 of all stats? That’s 1.5k hp, 150 armor, etc on all of them.

To be fair, I don’t actually think of 150 stats as anything of large relevance (its basically food). If the blob of a 100-men truly outnumbers you 10:1 than 150 stats don’t matter. If two blobs are fairly even 100:90 or even 100:100, there is incentive for the blobs to break and hold/defend those nodes for their immediate affect because a swing of 150 points from one team to another can influence things. By breaking up the blob, you add a lot more incentive for people to actually be good on the small scale and not rely on blobbing about.

And as far as my guild is concerned and open field fighting, a 150 stat buff (assuming we do nothing about it) isn’t going to break out backs anymore than a few more people showing up to fight us or having rallybait following us around. In fact, we can’t even control the latter two while we most certainly can control the ebb and flow of the former.

We roam and look for fights in the open field with group sizes anywhere from 10 to 30, we fight with siege and topology in mind. We’re never looking for fair fights, heck we’re largely looking for the complete opposite and steeped against us as much as humanely possible to overcome. Thats why we play WvW.

Okaishi.8320:

Golems are strong enough as it is, and I would suggest that the protection doesn’t work on them, much like how other buffs don’t work either. The numbers I mentioned are just examples anyway, if 10-15% proves to be far too strong then I wouldn’t mind settling for 5% or something. Whatever it takes to find an alternative to the silly stat buffs.

But this is besides the issue, you’re still on the mindset of: “I don’t care if it imbalances some other thing, so long as it does imbalance my thing.” This is called bias.

Okaishi.8320:

If there’s a huge blob with 20 golems and you’re outnumbered badly your keep will be lost either way. There’s no stopping that, period.

I don’t think you realize how powerful golems are even in fairly fair fights, or how much more powerful they’d be if they took 50% less damage from the thing designed to counter them (ie. siege).

Your comment on outplaying the blob depends on the caveat that you presume the blob to be comprised of idiots. What happens when the blobs are all comprised of organized guilds? All of a sudden, the organized + siege buffed force, pretty much has an auto-win in the siege war vs. your organized – siege buffed force. Yay! 50% damage is a staggeringly large amount (as is 30%). It turns superior ACs into regular ACs, it turns regular ACs into a breeze on the wind.

Protection, that buff some classes have, is an incredibly powerful buff and can (and will) completely decide the flow of a battle.

Okaishi.8320:

And unlike the stat buffs, siege protection won’t mess with so many other things, like small scale, open field fights and GvGs. If people are interested in somewhat fair fights that is.

Can we just stop all the deceptive foreplay at this point? Let’s just say it the way we want to say it: “I want buff X because it won’t imbalance my preferred gameplay Y. I don’t care if it imbalances Z.”

Pathos.5132:

Most escort events work in this matter already.

Most escort events are in PvE.

I don’t think we want more PvE in WvW.

Okaishi.8320:

Maybe 10-15% reduction per borderland you control them on. As such they are very relevant to warfare in WvW, and they do not damage morale as badly as the raw boost to the enemy stats.

My kitten they don’t. Do you realize what 30-45% siege damage reduction means? It means the bigger force is literally unstoppable and your defensive siege is irrelevant. You’ve effectively given everyone an extra couple thousand toughness.

If somehow, staring down 150 stats, is demoralizing. How do you think a defender is going to feel when he sees 20 golems with 45% siege damage reduction? What, exactly, are you going to do to stop that?

Luiz Swordbreaker.6547:

To add to your post, other good ideas given out already:
1) Faster / cheaper upgrades
2) More chance to drop siege blueprints
3) Extra supply carrying capacity
4) More supply carried by yaks

1.) Overpowered/worthless
2.) Worthless
3.) Way over the top
4.) Overpowered

Serdoc.7261:

There will be balance and QOL fixes in the Oct 1st patch, but ANet wont say what they are yet…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/No-Balance-for-sept-17-oct-1-patches/first#post2784630

Targeting and Templates have been flying around as possible hint words.

evilapprentice.6379:

I forgot that Microsoft has never hired or fired an employee in the entirety of their existence – you’ve pointed out to me that it would surely be impossible to bring in new people, familiarize them with your code base, and have them work on separate issues collaboratively in an effort to speed up production.

My statement was with regards to “Just throw man power at it!” and my answer was: “Its not always easy or helpful.”. You then wasted your time to tell me that it is possible provided you do a bunch of stuff that take time. No kitten sherlock, but if you’ve noticed a lot of people here have no concept of patience or time.

This is what it amounts to right now:
“We want stuff now!
- But that takes time.
“Hire more people to do it now!”
- But that would take time to train and then still take time to make it.
“You suck! Stop being understaffed!”

AndrewSX.3794:

Issue is, with maps not getting enlarged and all 5 points being clumped so close each other in the “lake area”, i don’t think zergs will split up at all.

I question the voracity of such a claim, particularly because someone has to be sitting around capping and defending the nodes, but this is a “wait and see” sort of thing.

AndrewSX.3794:

And, if stat based buffs are surely shiny, they’re also dangerous, overpowering and toxic for wvw in every aspect – being it roaming, gvg or whatever fight with a player.

The only thing its more toxic to than any regular day in WvW is structured combat (GvG). Roaming or whatever fights with a player have never been fair in WvW because there’s absolutely no normalization of stats or player numbers (or even levels). You could engage a 1v1 and end up in a 1v20. You could engage a 1v1 and end up getting killed by a boar.

When my crew roams around with a group of five or so, we aren’t exactly looking for nor expecting fair fights. A buff of 150 stats in the worst case scenario, isn’t going to break our backs anymore than another random player showing up to fight during an already started engagement.

AndrewSX.3794:

They got rid of orbs for a reason.
And no, it wasn’t just “too easy to hack”.

Ok we already had this posted in another thread, it was a lot of things but hacking was the prime culprit.

Johje Holan.4607:

Second, even disregarding the season:

1. If the match is close the buff won’t kick in anyway.
2. If the match is only slightly unbalanced it means the ratings are somewhat close anyway so won’t be effected that much – and the buff won’t be able to help a server over take the top server because once the scores get close enough, it goes away.
3. If the match is hugely unbalanced, it doesn’t matter because the buff is not going to make the weaker servers suddenly become that much better.

You realize you basically said it will: do nothing, right.

Score padding (which is what this is, a handicapping) won’t solve the crux of the issue -> you are greatly outnumbered or outmatched. It will just make your end-of-the-day score seem bigger but it won’t prevent you from waking up to a thatsnotourcolor home borderland. (TESO is going about it in this way, if you are behind by a lot of points, your taking of something awards more points… but it ultimately amounts to nothing more than a bigger number for you to look at while you still lose. Its nice PR on paper, pretty much pointless in practice. Sort of like TESO as a whole recently, a lot of PR atop of a whole lot of nothing. Badum tish!)

There really isn’t a great way of fixing this. Some games, well most actually, don’t even bother trying to fix it (Aion, WAR, WoW when World-PvP used to be a thing). Your server has a population imbalance? Tough luck.

The best way to fix the unfixable is to work around it, give servers a secondary “win” to work towards. Win by rating improvement is the best way I can think of at the moment because it allows even SF to try and hold a tower 24/7 against SoR, and reap massive rating improvements off of it. Add in the stomp+ too outmanned, and all of a sudden that daring and lopsided tower defense turns into a point gathering spree.

Johje Holan.4607:

Weaker would be defined as a certain amount of points or PPT behind. In the case of SoR/JQ/BG, none of them would likely fit the criteria so they would just have to fight over them for the same reason they fight over everything else – for the fights.

At this point you’re just score padding and screwing up the Glicko2 rating even more. If its based on some threshold of “losing” then when that threshold no longer exists, the weaker server will still lose. They may have a higher “score” but then their Glicko2 goes off the charts and they end up in even more crazy matches.

Johje Holan.4607:

The new map design and nodes are fine. The scoring method of the season does not encourage 2v1 against the stronger server. First place gets 5pts, second 3pts, 3rd 1pt. This encourages fighting for second when there is no hope of getting first.

Here, I agree. But I think this first season is really a test run. (And is why I keep advocating Best Improved based on Rating being a secondary “winners” bracket.)

Lord Kuru.3685:

For the two smaller servers to gang up on the strong one requires a huge amount of communication. Not to mention, a great deal of server organization is needed. This may be possible in T1, but it’s much harder in the lower tiers. Most players in the lower tiers are pugs or in smaller guilds. There will always be a significant portion of the population that will not get the message to double team. Those pugs from the middle server will attack the small server (easiest targets), the small server will retaliate, and pretty soon the truce is no more.

You can’t really expect the game to hold your hand at every turn now can you? The design of the three-way is to allow 2v1’s, but its not going to hold your hand and point the way. (It also allows for backstabbing.)

Organize your server and form contacts on other servers, thats pretty much standard. The size of your server is immaterial to the task and, in fact, the smaller the server the easier it should be manage fewer people.

Just a detail, its not the next patch on Sept 17th. Its the October 4th patch.

Lord Kuru.3685:

yep… 3 servers fighting. And we consistently see the two bigger servers gang up on the smallest one because they are the easiest source of points.

That’s how people decided to play it.

Nothing prevents servers from striking truces to stay off each other’s borderlands, and constantly 2v1 EBG/enemy BL. I don’t really know why this doesn’t happen more often than it does, but it sure as hell happens in T1 NA.

Map politics are a big deal.

butch.8136:

Sry, if you took that so seriously. It’s more the thought behind it. And no, I’m not gonna explain myself. I’ve wasted enough effort.

Its not really about seriousness, its just a non-starter solution. Ten coders won’t necessarily finish something in less time than one coder. In fact, since most people have personal coding nuances, the more people you cram on a project the more confusing it gets to have them try and mesh their work.

What we need isn’t more coders, we just need a more robust and active balance team. I love seeing Karl show up on sPvPTV but he needs to do that on the forums from time to time with a list of “Here are our plans and possible patch notes!” And they really need to roll out updates on balance a bit more frequently than they do, or at least open up aforementioned “patch notes” plans.

Thrumdi.9216:

This depends of course on using scouts, and some stalling bunker builds to prevent the cap until the zerg arrives.

Given how over-the-top offensive specs are in WvW, I don’t think you can actually bunker a point the way you can in sPvP. Especially not against those super glassy thieves.

Lordrosicky.5813:

In the recent sotg it was stated that they wanted to clean up the battlefield and make sure that AI specs are not competitive at the very highest level. The reasons were solid. Ai specs clutter up the battlefield making both playing and spectating frustrating, or even impossible.

“Their actions don’t follow their words.” Well of course not, their actions came four+ months before their words. Its impossible for their actions to follow their words when you make a regressive comparison, which is, more over, impossible to even discuss.

This thread is a waste of time.

I think, from now on, everyone should be graded on how they performed in kindergarten.

Johje Holan.4607:

Sure there is. This forum is full of them.

I have yet to see a good one that is either: something actually worthwhile or not categorically worse (as in even more imba) across the board.

Johje Holan.4607:

I’m against personal stat buffs. But you can have certain buffs for the weaker servers but not the stronger servers. The reason for the weaker servers to take the points is obvious. The reason for the stronger server to take the points would be to keep it out of the hands of the weaker servers.

How do you define “weaker” in SoR/JQ/BG?

Johje Holan.4607:

You can have mechanics that actually encourage a 2v1 against the stronger server instead of discouraging it.

How does open field, three of five node control, not encourage teaming up against the (stronger) server controlling them? Its a giant kitten target in the middle of three maps.

Lord Kuru.3685:

The bigger the population imbalance, the less chance the victim server has waypoints at garrison, bay, or hills.

The server with the bigger population will run a circle through all the points wiping everyone in the way. Then they cap the points as their foes are running back from spawn.

Now since the bigger pop server has bloodlust, there’s even less chance the victim server can recover their territory.

Ahh if only this game had three servers fighting each other, too bad its only 1v1.

Oh wait…

Johje Holan.4607:

What I’m arguing is that it will make the stronger server even stronger and lead to a snowball effect.

The only way this wouldn’t be true is if the buff did nothing of consequence, in which case there is nothing to manage, in which case there is no breaking up the zerg, in which case the buff was irrelevant… and on it goes.

You have to realize that there is nothing that they can add, that will also have an impact and be relevant to WvW, that won’t always surmount to “the strongest server will have it and snowball”.

Aneu.1748:

But people want to sit around for hours using siege, so why not?

People sit around for hours scouting and they don’t really enjoy it. I don’t think anyone actually just sits on a piece of siege for hours on end giggling maniacally.

Johje Holan.4607:

I think that’s part of the point.

I think the point is to force the zerg to split and manage the central buffs; stats are, simply, very shinny for your average random and hold decent value for your coordinated strike teams to fight over. Long buffs as suggested here (either in capping or effect) break up the flow, along with being largely disinteresting to your average random.

Here’s my random suggestion:
I say, make the outmanned buff scale Siegerazor and his path. The higher the disparity the stronger his buff and the further he goes to the point where he will begin attacking the keep if the populations are truly desolate by comparison. (When the populations are 100:1, he turns into an Ancient Karka.)

Derps.7421:

I would agree with you if pvp actually had more up dates. This game was advertised as THE pvp mmo do you remember that? All the play us at pax/games con we are a legit pvp game made for pvpers! Ever heard of the game Rift? The game Rift had more pvp updates in its first year then gw2 had in its first year and Rift straight up said we would like this game to be more pve focused. But they still put out just as much pvp content as pve content. They didn’t ignore part of their player population and they gave the community straight up answers about balance and the state of the game not cryptic clues.

Actually it was advertised as an MMO they want to make into an e-sport; they certainly fanned the hype flames but many of them were self induced based on legacy. The question then becomes what does one define as an update: content vs. features. PvE is filled with content updates but there’s little in the way of content that can actually be added to PvP. PvP is almost entirely feature driven with the occasional map coming in as content.

I never played Rift, so it would be hard of me to say or even compare properly.

Kwll.1468:

Warhammer… with better testing/communication then a-net and all much smaller budgets.

Hahaha, no. Not a smaller budget. Comparable maybe, smaller no.

But I will give you that it was certainly balanced in that they only released one class: Brightwizard. A game can’t possibly be imbalanced if there is only one class, after all.

Kwll.1468:

What the hell is wrong with saying here is what we are thinking of doing? I’m sure Vena will have some kitten answer to that.

Actually I agree with this because it was how they worked in GW1.

I only have kittens for people who spout nonsense. Kittens for stuffing down said spouts. Death to all kittens!… and spouts!

evilapprentice.6379:

If this were true, every single MMO in the world would be in the same position.

What? Pull your head out of the sand and consider what other MMOs even do: multi-month release schedules that often times bring nothing new to the table in terms of technology.

So yes, every single MMO in the world is in the same position.

evilapprentice.6379:

It seems to me ANet puts priority on PvE and not PvP, because this isn’t the case for every single MMO in the world. Direct comparisons aren’t allowed, but not so long ago I played a game where PvP content/balancing patches were heavily discussed/tested with the communities help, and they were fairly successful, and it didn’t even take an entire year.

If the game you are referring to is the one I am thinking of, then it wasn’t a MMO. Moreover, entirely successful is a joke of epic proportions because the game was utterly destroyed balance wise at the year mark.

evilapprentice.6379:

Your statement also doesn’t touch on how PvP has seen 3 new maps in 12 months – by your own argument, that’s an easy addition.

Easy to make with dev tools? Yes.
Easy to make balanced? No.

Its like you’re arguing for arguments sake…

evilapprentice.6379:

Furthermore, as it’s been brought up a hundred times on these forums, and PTR would do wonders for both the Dev’s AND the community.
A) A place to test balance/content changes that don’t screw up the game for everyone
B) A chance to allow players to playtest your changes FOR FREE.
C) It frees the team from the responsibility of guaranteeing everything works from the getgo – the team could be more adventurous with balance changes and content changes because if it doesn’t work out, there’s still time to tweak without kitten ing off the entire community.

Zzzzzz….. the game we must not mention didn’t have a PTR.

s.7421:

So we call the Dev on some complete bullkitten answer and then he stops replying. We have been Anetted.

The answer was actually valid, people just made idiotic statements afterwards.

Aneu.1748:

Point 1. 20s stealth to everyone from the aligned server on the current map (Active – Requires activation) – Capture time 2min – Recharge time 5min

Completely pointless. We already have veil for the people who actually want coordinated stealth, random “he stood on a node” stealth is worthless to just about everyone.

The zerg won’t even care about it.

Aneu.1748:

Point 2. 1 PPT per stomp (Passive) – Capture time 2min
Point 3. 1 PPT per stomp (passive) – Capture time 2min

This is far too weak on its own, the majority of large scale encounters have little stomping. The biggest problem is that, to your average pugger, its an irrelevant buff.

The zerg won’t even care about it.

Aneu.1748:

Point 4. 60s siege damage reduction to players (90%) (Active – Requires activation) – Capture time 5min – Recharge time 10min

Undependable at best, the buff itself is borderline worthless in fair fights. What is 90% siege damage reduction going to do for you, in 60 seconds, exactly? Attacking a lord’s room stocked with siege? Easier to just cata/treb everything down. Stuck in the lord’s room facing siege walls? You’re probably screwed and getting 2v1ed anyway.

You’re not going to get through a door/wall in 60 seconds unless it undefended paper and you have an army of golems, at which point siege was irrelevant anyway.

The zerg won’t even care about it. (Not to mention that this completely empowers more man power servers to completely crush a smaller server stuck on the defensive as they won’t have the man power to defend and cap a node over five minutes. The larger server will cap this and walk over the lesser, completely nullifying the whole point of siege for defenders.)

Aneu.1748:

Point 5. 100% damage to siege damage on structures (Passive) – Capture time 10min

More golem wars! Yay! The moment this thing caps, and it will cap by the stronger server, the game is pretty much over. Nightcapping or “PvD” will simply become PvAir as the structures simply open their doors and let the attackers in free of charge.

No one wants to sit around for 5/10 minutes capping a node.

B-but muh fair fights!

evilapprentice.6379:

I just want to use what butch said to clarify – The point of my post wasn’t “Wah, why aren’t WE getting bi-weekly updates!” I don’t think PvP needs new toys every 2 weeks. The point is why are our updates so sporadic, ill-functioning and poorly tested while PvE is guaranteed new fun every 2 weeks. The extreme disparity between the 2 should be reduced.

Is it really that hard for you to comprehend?

PvE updates are created using dev kits and map tools that exist and are simply a question of map designers and content creators putting the tools to work.

PvP updates (balancing is the balancing team) require actually creating tools from scratch; hence why they are sporadic and sometimes ill.

butch.8136:

Invest one time in a bunch of programmers and get the infrastructure solid. After that we don’t require bi-weekly updates.

I have this odd feeling that you’ve never done any programming work in your life.

Istaf.1953:

Hey Devon, wheres your silly comments/excuses in this thread?

He doesn’t need one.

DrWhom.3105:

Well, I wasn’t saying the buff should be all those things instead of stats, just that they were more interesting alternatives. I didn’t specify any percentages or specifics, they were just suggestions I’d seen posted elsewhere that sounded better to me. Yes 150% faster yaks would be crazy but 33% would only really be equivalent to having one person giving each yak swiftness. And there would still be reason to hold the buffs after a particular BL is upgraded, as you’d still have the points for stomps part of the mechanic (which is a decent idea). Plus remember the effect is not limited to the current map, so holding 3/5 on home BL would still be worthwhile to help you upgrade other maps.

While, yes, all of them would be absurd (that was largely just to paint the point). Even any one of them is also over the top when you consider the fact that this sort of buff cannot be undone. If I neutralize the central nodes, I do not undo that yaks have delivered 33% more supply than mine, for example, or 25% faster upgrades. That is done and done, and the server losing the buff has only lost efficiency. (33% faster yaks is actually rather strong, especially if they are then further sped up with swiftness. This is the problem, no buff will ever be “fair” unless it does absolutely nothing of relevance. If you make it too weak vs. effort, then its just meaningless for everyone in its entirety. It is supposed to be strong to be threatening but to have it affect core mechanics like supply lines (which can not be reversed when the buff is lost: delivered supply is delivered supply) is far stronger than 150+ stats.)

Neutralizing a stat buff, neutralizes it wholesale. There is no “stocked up” stats. (Moreover, in this case, neutralizing the buff means taking the buff for yourself, means that you become more threatening immediately if the buff is lost. I cannot take the supply already delivered by the yaks or undo the massive upgrades done in less time because of the buff.)

DrWhom.3105:

Also I disagree that siege/upgrading/capture points are the core of WvW. To me PvP, fighting other players, is the core of WvW and the rest are mechanical elements added to enhance it, because a simple kiling field with no objectives wouldn’t be as complex or fun in the long term. After all you might play WvW with the structures, siege and capture points removed for a little while before getting bored, but I can’t see anyone playing the upgrading, yak escorting and siege building metagame at all if there weren’t other players there trying to kill you.

I’m pretty sure the very win condition of WvW would disagree with you. Siege, upgrading, and capture points are the core mechanics of WvW by definition of how WvW decides who wins. PvP is a means to that end and it is a mechanic therein.

Map politics, resource management, PvP, etc, these are all elements of WvW that decide who wins but the core lies in PPT because that is the ultimate deciding factor.

DrWhom.3105:

Honestly I’d rather the buff were entirely reward orientated, which wouldn’t step on either side’s toes. +50% XP, MF, WXP. Maybe to make the buff more meaningful, you get twice or three times as many points for stomps. I don’t think that’s enough of a “gamechanger” for Anet though, which is why I made those other suggestions.

But then its irrelevant and doesn’t do anything.

I’d bet my bottom dollar that the whole point of making it “stats” and a “game changer” is to force people to care about it. The same way no one cares about Outmanned now, is the same way no one will care about Bloodlust if all it did was give you PvE rewards.

Lokki.1092:

My point is They could make those stats useful to WvW players. Basically make it so when you are winning you get some nice bonuses.

Because then they lose their primary (or perhaps auxiliary) function and design goal: force the zerg to split (or at least manage itself) or lose something tangible (which, sadly, PvE boosts like karma and experience, really aren’t). Its definitely designed with “fair fight” in mind and, therein, forcing the fair-fighting servers to manage the maps and body count in more than the current: “Throw X bodies at it until it changes color!”

It also gives skirmishers something to fight for to immediately benefit their servers chance for success, and to make them threatening to other servers if they do not manage them. Skirmishers fighting over +% Gold Find might as well be ignored when balanced servers come head to head, and begin to fight over real-estate therein allowing them to just blob up. But if the skirmishers are fighting over something like a tangible stat buff, the server just blobbing up will find itself at a disadvantage compared to the other server.

Its a punishment for just running around as a big ball of death. You can still do it… its just that the other, smaller, ball of death will be fractionally stronger than you man for man.

I do hope I am making this clear.

Think of it, simplest case, as a Karma Bonfire vs. Food/Oil. Which one are people readily paying attention to when fighting? Its not the Karma. This is a server wide extension to the food buff, in a sort of silly analogy… and you can steal the other server’s food.

DrWhom.3105:

No to the buff, or more specifically no to a buff that effects combat. Better options are faster dolyaks, faster upgrades, more supply capacity, or any number of other sensible things that have been suggested.

Yes, let’s completely imbalance the core of WvW (supply, yaks, upgrades, supply capacity (are you nuts?)) so that “combat isn’t affected unfairly” in a format where combat was never fair. (To think you’d want to the stronger server to actually WP, fortify, and repair faster, and readily carry more supply than you over +150 stats… is a bit mind boggling if one were to be thinking about it from the point of view of WvW mechanics.)

While we’re at it, let’s also cut down the trees in the south, cull those pesky spiders, and barbecue those hogs, all for the sake of “WvW” and “combat”.

PS: Canceling a servers buff, given your suggestion, wouldn’t undo their reaped benefits (ie. they will have their better supplied, upgraded, whatever-ed keeps and zerg) so there’s almost nothing lost to them aside from efficiency. Moreover, once they are fully fortified and upgraded, they won’t care about the buff anymore and will now simply crush you without having to divvy up resources to controls aid buff.

Whereas canceling a servers buff, when stats are involved, cancels the stats and they simply don’t have them anymore.

Solstice.1097:

that’s not true you are missing the point. the Glicko2 would end up exactly the same it’s just being calculated up front rather than back-end.

Alright, missed that detail.

Solstice.1097:

unless the scores being close made a server fight better than usual which is one of the main benefits of this system. Many players will see they are down by a ton of points and won’t even join WvW. Most don’t go check to see if their evolution is up or even give a kitten about evolution, they just want to see the score.

Won’t actually change anything in this regard because people still won’t enter when they see FA full capped by JQ/BG, facing T3-WP keeps on their own Borderland.

Solstice.1097:

This is simply a way of reflecting your evolution into the score rather than having to go check it out on a website, and it helps eliminate the “we know who will win the season before it starts” scenario which let’s be honest is NOTHING anyone should be defending.

But yes, I have long since said that showing (and rewarding) rating evolution is the way to go about encouraging lower servers when facing bigger ones.

I just don’t like score padding especially since it encourages the stronger servers to be all the more lethal/brutal against their opponents. If you reward both winning and rating deltas, everyone wins (except the middle server, but screw them!).

We will always know “who will win before it starts”, no amount of padding on from Glicko2 rating deltas will ever actually allow a truly out-matched server to overcome its opponent unless the padding is so severe that the effort required to win becomes so daunting as to not even be fun.

AndrewSX.3794:

Stat buffs are the worse kind for WvW. I don’t even need to speculate: we had Orbs back in first months, and it was bad. Very bad.

You can tweak buffs to be something more interesting than + X % to exp/MF/gold/karma/WXP, sure. Things like “Armor don’t get damaged” “Upgrades and Yaks progresses faster” “Orange/White swords pops istantly when your structures are attacked”. Powerful but still in the field of “Utility”, not “Power”.

No buff will help if all arguments or discussion about it dissolve to: “The stronger server will have it because more people.”, if the buff is to be of any actual use to WvW and not PvE garbage (ie. the finds, experience and karma gain).

• Utility buff to yaks or supply? You make the stronger not only have more available supply and faster, but their structures upgrade to T3 faster. Their repairs are faster.
• Faster upgrades? See above.
• Swords? So now you can’t even ninja from the bigger server.
• Hold +X supply? Ho boy. Dread the future there.

See the problem? You will always “enable” the stronger server, no matter what the buff says. Wouldn’t you love to face a stronger server that also got to T3-WP in half of the time it to you to get to Reinforced Gates? If anything, a 150+ stat boost is almost peddler’s change compared something like faster upgrading, more supply, or faster yaks.

But then, if there is no buff… there’s no reason for the stronger server to even divvy up the man power to control said buff, and the whole point is lost; the strong server simply crushes you anyway and without having to worry about you possibly even having a buff to help.

Added: People who suggest the “no stat buff, yes utility buff” often do it with different reasons in the back of their minds. Because its not ever usually carefully thought about in terms of relative power and impact on WvW as WvW. Like it or not, many people like to suggest buffs that conform to their views of what they want to keep safe… ie. combat safe from stat buffs.

Solstice.1097:

This way if things played out the same way, the same server would still win, but by only 20% as many points. Instead of 100k victory it would be 20k.

On the other hand it may play out differently because seeing the scores close together would make everyone fight a lot harder.

It won’t change anything but the numbers. Blackgate is still going to full cap Fort Aspenwood irregardless of how much you might pad their score. Moreover, your actually putting the strain on Blackgate to full cap Fort Aspenwood and make sure they never recap a single structure.

…Meanwhile, because FA got a much higher score, their Glicko2 evovles rapidly upwards, BGs evolves rapidly downards, and now you start having BGvsCD and FAvsSoR with even more regularity.

Lokki.1092:

Uhh?

And what does it say one line after, or through out the rest of the paragraph? The main reason is the hacking nevertheless. (But you’re right, my memory has failed me.)

Lokki.1092:

But this wasn’t the norm at all back with the orbs.

I don’t know where you played, but when the orb was in Bay or Hills or Garrison, that was always target-numero-uno for both servers sans the orb. Wherever the shiny was, that was where people gravitated towards. That was, largely, the point of it. One would expect the stronger to have the orbs, coercing the weaker to 2v1 the stronger. The buff was, then, 5% of stats per orb and meant to slightly off-set the 2v1 disadvantage. Far more imposing than its current iteration.

(And this was in T3/4 where BG often sat at that time. Resets, on enemy borderlands, were blitz tactics north to the orb every time, and then map politics evolved from whoever won the northern bout.)

Nowadays, people have to politics the 2v1 by playing cat and mouse all over the map.

Lokki.1092:

The whole reason they took them away is that if you are not in a position to compete with another world normally, how would you compete when they have constant 150 to all stats and outnumber you?

This wasn’t why they were taken away or, at the very least, not the reason provided for why it was taken away.

It was taken away because of hackers ruining it for everyone.

Lord Kuru.3685:

OP’s idea seems reasonable to me. If I were Anet, I’d give it a shot for a few weeks to see how it’d turn out. But it’s unlikely this will happen.

It doesn’t work with Glicko2; what would be better would be to measure Glicko2 rating changes given the current math that we have and, in particular, when Leagues start. Its very hard for a “stacked” server to actually maintain its rating against lower opponents but its easy for them to win. If you reward (as well as winning, since you don’t want to screw over servers in tight match ups or somehow make winning seem like a bad thing) on rating improvements, then even CD can try and hold that one supply camp against all odds from hordes of ravenous SoRians, and end up being winners.

Joey.3928:

It is common sense, but I like the idea of having points actually worth more for capturing from the winning server. Maybe if the leading server is up by x amount, their points are worth more to the two other servers. Would really reinforce the idea of protecting your own BL too!

I also like how the losing server will get more pts if they can hold the points they have. So instead of trying to push out and get as many points as possible, they can focus on capturing a few and really holding those to yield a lot of pts.

The problem is, it doesn’t actually solve any of the problems, it just sugar coats them with a larger number for the losing team… so that they have a larger Glicko2… so that they face more of the bad match-ups.

The devil is in the details:

• How do you know when to reward a server with more points? If it just “down by >x” then that doesn’t do anything but pad their score, they will never be able to make up the <x portion of the score difference. (And if you are score padding… how can you possibly create a matchmaking system?)
• It can possibly punish a server that has equal but simply harder playing population by making their playtime worth less (this is why “night capping” doesn’t reward less points).
• Adverse affects on actual skill given the above. That is, in the case of a more skilled server fighting a lesser one (of equal pops), the more skilled server has to try harder to earn points when winning.

There is no “common sense” solution.

Johje Holan.4607:

But instead, GW2 gives bonuses to the team that is already winning.

“Gives” would imply they didn’t earn it. They did.

PS: The “Elder Scrolls” will do the same thing. DAoC relic raids did the same thing.

Lokki.1092:

Bloodlust

1. One point for every stomp made while under effects. (stackable)
2. +33% Magic find (stackable)
3. +33% Karma bonus (stackable)
4. +33% Experience (stackable)
5. +10% World Experience (stackable)?

And then no one would care about it, and the whole purpose of it would be lost.

Better suggestions (upgrade speeds, yak speeds/supply) have been made but, purely and simply, stat buffs are shinnies that people actively chase and fight over (like they did with the old orbs which often forced conflicts against the buff holder).

Haworth.4561:

You could even play and be part of the epic battles and the epic story as a low level who were new to PvP.

But it only works if you are on an even playing ground.

Have you seen an upscaled level 2 with Guild Buffs?

They have more raw stats than you do in max gear, and they barely even have any gear equipped.

Zeal.1376:

Furthermore I’d like to point out that a non-official stream of a person in GvG gets what, 5x more viewers than an official SPVP stream?

For some random events, sure.

I don’t think I’ve seen kitten viewers GvG stream yet though.

LadyHorus.8214:

@Vena.8436: Something tells me it wouldn’t be hard for a large population server to round up a few groups of people to go keep some of those capture points. The loss of those people probably wont even matter to the main zerg in the long run because the stat boost will be plenty to make up for some of that loss. Thus the stronger server will be stronger. Like they need any help anyway. :p

You’d need something like 5ish people to a node or patrolling the vacinity to really guarantee keeping all three under control (and they decap naturally, and some of them have unfriendly terrain for defense), but that leaves two undefended nodes (to the south and near enemy spawns) and all that an opposing team has to do is cap two and then hard-hit one of yours, and you find your self losing the buff.

But in a scenario where the zerg outnumbers by such a large margin that 15 people are completely inconsequential to it, then the buff or lack-there-of, is completely irrelevant. Hence, in a fairer fight, this adds a layer or depth, in an already lopsided fight it doesn’t do anything.

(+50/150 doesn’t add up to 15 people over the remaining 65, of which a good chunk are probably also scouting, escorting, roaming solo, etc.)

Benjamin.6235:

Single color fully fortified EBG.

You’re an elite guild who laughs at scrubs hiding behind arrow carts, go show um what you’re made of and take a single keep! I believe in you!

Isn’t this old though? Or did I miss a ninja-patch?

Reslinal.2359:

I love the map change and the new mechanism as I can’t wait for more small group fights. However I feel the stat buff is really not needed to achieve the goal and is actually dividing the community, not to mention the snow balling effect. It is already hard enough to take back a map with 3 waypointed keeps, we don’t need them to have stat advantage as well:)

The stat buff has two values:

• It is attractive to the zerg because it can make them strong, but to have control of it the zerg must split.
• Defenders or attackers, if one or the other force is too focused and “zergy” on a target, can capture and use the buff to their advantage.

The zerg will simply and wholesale ignore anything else as anything more than some lucrative side amusement after they’ve capped everything, ie. Magic Find et al. Similarly to how everyone ignored the rather inconsequential quaggans.

Hule.8794:

1x Bloodlust = 100% magic find, 100% gold find
3x Bloodlust = 300% magic find, 300% gold find
Outnumbered – 100Vitality,100toughness, 100 power, +5 supply

This would have 2 effects – Bloodlust would be demanded to have. And it will reduce loot problems in WvW. And it will give outnumbered servers a chance.

You seem to live in some bizarre alternate reality if you think anyone would give two kittens and half a stick for magic or gold find from the orb buffs. Magic find hardly affects more than half of the things you can collect in WvW: loot bags, badges, junk; and 300% of 0.01% of something valuable is still insignificant. Gold find… I don’t even.

If you think +5 supply to Outnumbered isn’t broken, you’re off your rocker.

My answer is: Yes.

runeblade.7514:

Traits only for guardians.

I don’t see why retal should not have extenders when there is a rune made for retal.

I think they generally keep retal off of extenders, sans guardian, because of its effects in other formats… particularly WvW where it is rather overpowered. (Trying going Nades on an Engi in WvW, you’ll be dead in three salvos.) Therein they consider it “strong”.

I’m personally not a fan of long-lasting boons as it is, I like stability (mostly) in that it is either (a.) hard to access or (b.) short lived.

The less ways people have of killing others through passives, the better.

????

/15chars

runeblade.7514:

And retal is game-changing because…?

I was specifically talking about Stability at that point, sorry if that wasn’t clear.

Retal has extenders, in traits, just not in runes.

No runes affect either (and only a few traits affect the duration of the former), the latter for a good reason. You have to (inefficiently) stack boon duration to extend the already powerful Stability.

Less game-changing boons have specific, more efficient boon duration extensions because, well, they are less game-changing. (This was all in regards to stability extensions, for clarity.)

Kasama.8941:

Move “Search and Rescue” and “Guard” (without stealth) on the pet skill bar, as permanent pet skills. This will make the pet useful when it’s on passive, and give more pet control to the Ranger. Any new player doesn’t need to use these skills, but they can make a difference at a higher skill level.

Thats not broken or anything.

No, not at all.