Guild Wars 2

The problem with a straight Server Merging is that we keep all the current weaknesses of the Server structure. Especially the wonderful Server Stacking issue, that has caused NA a lot of problems. That alone is a good enough reason for me to prefer Server Linking, but it certainly needs some tweaking.

The OP is referring to 1vs1 servers, not 1vs1 players.

Though it would be awesome if you could invite 2 whole servers to your guild arena !

I’d love to see more maps focused on different game-types/ideas. Be it roaming, wall to wall fighting, trench warfare, jungle hunting etc.

Your map idea sounds a bit like old GW1 maps, with objectives and different "lanes" to go for, to encourage players to split up and attack different parts or sides at the same time. Sounds fun.

One day, I hope to see a map themed after Arrakis/Dune with giant sandworms that comes and devours groups of 20+

"Walk without rhythm and we won’t attract the worm"

Reh.5986:

This isn’t a skill thing either. Give me 40 pugs from my server against your 50 guild group and I’m fine. We probably won’t win most of the time but we will get some stomps and we won’t just watch our stuff being taken with no counter play.

The most common thing I see in those scenarios, is that the 40 pugs log out after 1-2 wipes, and you’re stuck with 50 vs 10.

That mentality might be the single largest problem with WvW.

Liston.9708:

you might be able accomplish something similar by have another map with much lower map cap ( 30? ) in the existing matches. id think as a 4th bl or 2nd EBG (same physical map) not replacing the existing….

Not sure I would choose this “mode”, but it does seem a decent amount of peeps would.

Yes, a “skirmish map” like this would also be an interesting variant, and would intrude even less on the game mode in general. Thought to be fair, I’d totally pick a low pop server if I could.

Like the idea of setting up different leagues or divisions for different play type. I certainly don’t know how many servers we would need, so can’t comment on that.

Hmm, I think the random element to the "Other League" is interesting, that would probably dissuade the more competitive players, and have them gravitate toward the "Top Tiers". It would essentially make the leaderboards/glicko useless for the "Other League".

There is something I can’t quote put my finger on that feels off, might just be that I can’t visualize it. But do like the idea.

Hmm, I wouldn’t mind making a own reward track for Tomes of Knowledge, but essentially they’re already integrated into the general reward track as is. I don’t think they are going to change it any time soon (is a fairly minor issue).

I still would prefer to just get that yellow currency thing I never remember the name of instead, and an option to buy tomes for those.

Vieteriukko.6075:

Nothing wrong with blobbing. With a good commander and semiproper blob the loot is overwhelming and gameplay is relaxed. I love it after a long day at work.

And I think this might be one of the problems, all upsides, no downsides.

I certainly don’t mind, and don’t want to take a game style away from someone, if people like blobbing, go for it!

But when you have to work the least, for the greatest amount of rewards ?

Least effort = Greatest rewards. This just seems wrong.

Johje Holan.4607:

NathanH.1465:

joneirikb.7506:

Anyone have any other suggestions or ideas for how to motivate people to de-stack ?

The first thing that comes to mind is, for anet to add several nice and wvw (exclusive) tracks and update the “out-maned” buff to give 25% (or so) faster track progression on top of cheaper (or free) transfers. Or just give that buff to any server for as long as they fall under a certain population limit. or maybe even split that buff (15% faster progression for being on a low tier and 10% extra progression when out-maned).
I have no idea on how many people would care about faster track progression, but we would at least need several good exclusive(!) tracks for wvw. (I believe pvp has several tracks not found in wvw, while wvw only has 1 track not available in pvp)

Currently there is no real reason to leave a winning server. An since people love rewards, just reward the low tier server more and make it easy (and cheap) to change servers (no point in changing servers if it takes a month or 2 to farm the needed gold to transfer)

edit: just to note that the 25% is a random number. Change it with whatever works better

Rewarding the lower server more is probably the only way to do it. But then what happens when everyone goes to the lower server; they then become the stacked server.

I don’t think its possible to get people to de-stack, at least not in NA servers – EU seems to be more sensible in this regard.

I think the only way to “deal” with the stacking is to incentivize playing the game as it was meant to be played – using the reason there are 3 servers in a match instead of just 2. Anet needs to incentivize the weaker servers ganging up on the stacked server. That is why its WvWvW and not just WvW.

If people de-stack and re-stack servers until they’re all equal, chasing the rewards. I’d say we’re close to the goal! We would have a bunch of fairly equal servers.

I don’t know/doubt that we will ever see the end of stacking, and as you say especially NA. But rewarding the lower-pop would most likely encourage people with above average skill to go for the rewards, while the general low-skill zerglings would remain in stacked servers. Thus it might encourage (slightly) a quality vs quantity situation.

Agreed, would love to see the 3-way used more in-game. Other than “Server A is to big, lets hit the other guys.”

SkyShroud.2865:

That won’t do, for that to work, you first have to get people onto those servers without using any forceful means. Anet is looking for least-forceful methods for high approval rating, is like politics

joneirikb.7506:

I don’t know how, but encourage players that primary play in those time zones, to go to these new “designated” servers.

Obviously I agree with you :p I have no idea how to make people WANT to move/de-stack.

But some might find it tempting to have own designated coverage servers, that will guarantee them to face off against the other coverage servers. But obviously this is something (and probably part of why Tyler asked about this) that the community as a whole need to be questioned about and ask if they’re interested in etc.

Just another thought about the running multiple small servers for Linking.

If you either made or designated 3 servers for OCX, 3 servers for SEA, 3 servers for EU. I don’t know how, but encourage players that primary play in those time zones, to go to these new "designated" servers.

Then link one of each to each of the same link each week. This would only work for a single link, and we would still end up with more NA servers than could be linked together with these "coverage servers".

OCX1 + SEA1 +EU1 +NA 1,2 = one link.
OCX2 + SEA2 +EU2 +NA 3,4 = one link.
OCX3 + SEA3 +EU3 +NA 5,6 = one link.
NA 7+8 = one link
NA 9+10 = one link
NA 11+12 = one link

PS: Note, I’m not using the numbers as Ranked world, so don’t worry no BG+TC in same link etc.

This would be a good way for various time zone people to gather up and find other players from the same timezones, more people to play with and recruit from etc. It would also help these players guarantee to find fights/activity as they would be matched up with/against the other servers from the same coverage.

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I don’t know how this would work out in practice, obviously. I don’t know if this would be enough to make players de-stack existing servers to re-stack on the "coverage servers". And probably a whole lot of other things I can’t predict.

But this is one way the idea Tyler is talking about could be useful for dealing with coverage, both in helping those people together, and encouraging a closer to even match.

Obviously the problem with this is that it might depopulate "coverage" in the rest of the servers. Thoughts and ideas welcome.

For a system like this to work, there needs to be a reason for people to de-stack servers and go to low-pop servers. Without a good enough advantage it is dead fish in the water, stacking offers too many advantages for people to abandon it.

I think a system that gives Choice and Consequences would work best. You can play how you want, but you might have to suffer some consequences for it. Some are harder to manipulate than others (fight guilds, gvg, server pride etc), but there might be enough players willing to move for rewards.

So if you somehow added that when fighting against a outnumbering enemy (map, server, population, whatever. Many ways to spin this) you get a lot more rewards. Be the rewards in WXP, more and better loot bags, more badges, whatever. The idea is that it needs to be good enough that people that think they can handle the challenge is tempted to take it on to gain.

Anyone have any other suggestions or ideas for how to motivate people to de-stack ?

Thank you for the heads up Tyler!

Looking forward to the first two ones (mixed borderlands, and linking schedule), hoping you guys give us some multiple options on those.

Didn’t have time to read entire thread, so just to reply to OP:

In theory I think it would be a great idea to make lots of smaller servers, so they can be set up in equal matches by adjusting the number of servers. From a design perspective that would be a dream come through.

By linking together 3-4-5 servers, you could still make match-up’s that would give someone to fight even with very low pop servers. So that wouldn’t be a problem either.

In practise, you have to deal with human players, and it is quite obvious that the majority of players want to stack together for advantage, rather than split out for balance.

I think the net effect would be if you made +6 servers, that we would just get even more empty servers, and even more stacking on the top servers. And it would create some more shifting so you wouldn’t necessarily know who you’re playing with.

This idea would have worked much better with much lower server caps to begin with, if you halved the existing server pop limits, so that a single server would have a hard time to stack large enough to fill a match-up alone, this could have worked. But if you do that now, the rage-quit would be real.

In that regard you might be better off destroying the existing servers, and create new servers with a reduced population limit, and more numbers.

+1 to Tyler and Chris, thank you.

Regarding Server Linking vs Merging:

I’ll take Linking over Merging any day, for the very simple reason that linking can be changed/shuffled. I’m not talking about this from a PLAYER perspective but a system/dev perspective. This gives them the ability to unlink and relink servers again, this gives them a way to counter population stacking in the long term. Depending on how they tweak and fix it up.

A straight out server Merger would do nothing except recreate the same problem we have had over the last years, with server stacking, locked servers, etc.

Yes I’m aware of the problems with linking servers as well, but most of those can be worked around (eventually).

(Says the person that still can’t decide what to vote...)

Tiny Doom.4380:

I don’t doubt for a moment that there are people who will use macros to run siege but I personally know people who will happily treb for hour after hour, sitting at the keyboard pressing the hotkey every time it refreshes. I’m not that heavily into it but I do like to spend a quarter of an hour or more just lobbing rocks – it’s relaxing and I like to watch the trajectory. All siege machines are fun to use. I try to get on rams whenever possible – it’s pretty competitive. Like a lot of other things some people choose to automate, whether legally or not, getting a script to do something you could do yourself is, to me, just removing something that I would prefer to be doing. I mean, if firing a treb is so boring you’d rather run a macro to do it for you, why bother using it at all? Why not log out and go play a game you actually enjoy?

More power to you for enjoying it! Personally I find most siege boring, and prefer to run around doing something else instead. This is also why I have traditionally preferred to roam, as then I don’t have to deal much with walls, so don’t need so much siege. Just in general really enjoyed the combat in the game.

But I might just take your last tip there and roll with it soon.

The issue is more that people find it *boring* to fight against, rather than it being *dangerous*.

That is the one and only thing I do like about Mesmers, I can walk away from them.

I can’t really make myself to hate this, since it is so incredibly boring to sit on siege. So many times nobody takes the ram because no-one wants to sit mashing 1-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1.... etc. Same with all the other siege as well.

One of the reasons the Golem is popular with my guild, it can auto attack all by itself :p

Reducing the map caps will also affect Queue’s and total amount of people in WvW at the same time. So it is a pretty big thing.

Example option could be to reduce map caps but add another map to even out the total map population. But just reducing map-cap at this stage might be more problematic than it is worth.

Swagger.1459:

On a serious note, the continuous mid combat stealth design is not good. It is also the Achilles heel for thief, and to a lesser degree Mesmer, when broken.

I think we need to start moving away from stealth in general, and limit access to emergency use slot skills only. This would allow for profession improvements in other ways.

Agreed.

I would like to see some other way to make thief play more interesting than just “poof ninja bomb” all the time. Example: Making backstabs trigger on position (back, 50% flank), trigger when enemy is imbo or blinded, so you have to setup the backstabs properly or get help. And stop this whole “peekaboo war”.

lil devils x.6071:

They ALREADY stated 5pm PST is too early and does not work, so that idea has already been declined.

This.

ANet specified this in the voting thread, go look it up.

lil devils x.6071:

Maybe they should just make reset during OCX and call it a day so people will stop all trying to log in at once and make a horrible uncoordinated blobby mess anyhow. XD

lil devils x.6071:

I Have never understood why people think reset is even a good time to play, it is just a cluster kitten.

Quoted these two because I like them.

After reading through the entire thread I think I clicked "+1" on every or almost every post Sich wrote. Agree with him in just about everything he has said in this thread.

On the general idea of this thread, I like it quite a bit, and think it would be very interesting. But I too worry that it will simply be so much work that ANet will not consider it (or instead consider it for an Exp-pack or a new game entirely).

Do really love the ideas of having "grades" of maps to go to, that support each others, and functions as gateways to other maps:

Full PvP: EBG, ABL, EOTM, etc. No PVE at all, for the pure PVP entusiasts.

Hybrid PvPvE: the middle maps that work more like Open World PvP maps.

Safe Home PvE: Sort of like a server homeland, with citadels, and some pve events and enemies, to learn about Wvw objectives, claiming, upgrading, defending etc. While being a good way for players that doesn’t like PvP to get a taste.

These would really open up the game for more people (yes, also some trolls and gankers obviously), but I’d love to see it. Pity I probably won’t

PS: Swagger what you’re describing is the Alliance system (for servers etc), not actually MegaServer. Though they share some points and similarities.

Still can’t decide on this.

* I have no idea what other alternative solutions could be done instead, which will not happen if I vote Yes.
* I do think server Linking could be a nice technology and could be used to accomplish some good things.
* But personally I hate the current iteration, and would rather go back to old 8 tiers, but that is not a good long term solution.

Sorry, I have no idea how to vote on this. I think I’ll go and just click "count my vote".

Actually like this idea. Everyone needs a break etc. Or small events could also work a similar purpose.

Can just imagine a day of everyone walking around as different colored quaggans wailing at doors. Well, leave OS out of it, so people can have fight night that day

Don’t quite know what to answer to this. I think the base idea is good, but needs to be tweaked and altered a good bit before it is worth keeping. As-is right now, I can’t support it. But the technology has uses that could make for more interesting links in the future.

I’m completely against a "full merging" as I see people suggest, for 2 reasons:

1) Destroying existing communities.

2) Recreate the same problem with stacking we have had for 3 years. The "linking" system with tweaks and changes allows for possibilities of putting multiple servers up against stacked servers to give more fair match-ups.

The only logical way to have everyone play when they want on Fridays = reset on Thursday.

One thing I’d like to see though is that if you block someone, you are also blocked. So you have to remove the block before you can actually whisper. The 1-way-whisper is what really gets me.

Or turning that around, instead of giving us so much Tomes of Knowledge, give us a WvW currency (like the one we got, the yellow round one), and use those to buy things like Tomes, or spirit shards, or other stuff. Heck it would already let us use them to buy siege etc!

Also add a voice of support for the idea:

1 EBG
1 Desert BG
3 Alpine BL

If you (ANet) is willing to consider altering the number of maps (since it will also affect max population in a match, might also reduce map-limit at most maps as well to compensate for this. Bonus benefit slightly less lag). And the extra work on reworking the map from BL to BG style.

Guess if you keep a single slop free, you can make a new ton, use them to level up to X level and perhaps get something useful from the level-up stuff ? dunno. I tend to get mostly annoyed at the stuff I get at level up anyways :p

Tyler Bearce.3427:

The current plan is to rotate the borderlands maps each quarterly update. That said, now that we are actively polling the community, perhaps we can start exploring other options.

For instance, nothing is really stopping us from having a combination of ABL and DBL maps running simultaneously. 2 of one and 1 of the other. If we polled that, and players approved it, then there’d be no need for the rotation, and players on both sides of the issue could play on their preferred map. The downside of course, would be any perception of imbalance that may arise from one map being considered the stronger “Home” map, but we could always give the more defensible map to Red/Blue and leave the less defensible map to Green.

+1

Want to see both maps at the same time.

More options for people to play what they want.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

Chris Barrett.3280:

there is no time which exists that will please everyone.

Exactly.

End of thread

Got to agree with this.

Otherwise, the only logical argument is move Reset to Thursday, so everyone can enjoy Friday in a new match-up.

What is Spirit Shards ? I think I remember something about them mentioned in the patch changes back in june 2015, when they stopped giving us hero points after level 80. I think I probably have a few, are they useful for anything ? Oh trade them for badges that sounds nice !

(Ok, I do know what they are, just never used them, because I avoid the crafting system and such like the plague, and sworn I’ll never craft a legendary weapon ever etc. So I would like to see some use for them)

Cluster Bomb: trick/trap, deals small damage to large aoe +1% per enemy player caught in the same aoe. cost 10 supply to use etc. It won’t solve things, but it would be hilarious to see it added for a day or two a week.

Bit more serious: Conflict of player interest. "I like this and hate that." I like that and hate this.".

The general idea is to build something for both, and honestly if you want to win the match, then I think you’d have more success running multiple 5-10 man groups and take, back-cap, and lead the enemy 60-70 zerg on a merry chase. You certainly would win on points.

But most people would find that boring or hard (do notice the "or", just want to point that out before someone starts picking on that). A lot of players enjoys the large scale, or find it easy etc. Will you remove their fun just because you don’t like it ?

I do like the idea of adding maps with lower caps, but probably from a different perspective. I’d like to see ANet drop the 3-4 identical styled maps, and rather make specific maps to different play styles. So making one map with few big objectives, lots of terrain, chokes, etc and make it a low pop roaming map. And another (themed after old Kaineng town) where you’re basically in a huge urban area with multiple walls for a full time siege on siege warfare etc.

Let players go after what interest them, instead of trying to force them to play with all the others that want to play something else.

SkyShroud:

The Population discrepancy is the main problem agreed, but the scoring has also been one of the reasons why especially NA has kept stacking servers and time zones. So scoring is another piece in the puzzle.

Fixing scoring will not magically solve everything by itself, but combined with other changes could make stacking less desirable.

Chaba.5410:

joneirikb.7506:

The more I read on this one, the more obvious it becomes that we have absolutely no idea how it works. Would it be possible to get some more info on how this is intended to work ?

Especially how do you plan to calculate the active population ? Is it just more than say 200 players online at the same time over all 3 servers ? Is it when 2-3 sides are roughly equal in numbers ? Is this a single map or all 4 map thing ?

How quickly will it change/react to changes in population ? If all servers have 100 players online, and one side is losing and deciding to log out say 90 players, how quickly would the system react this this ? (Regarding gaming the system).

As said before, remove the “set” x3 multiplier in prime-time, and you’ll likely lose 90% of the complaints in this thread, even if this entire suggested rule is optional and all that.

Previously I wrote that the map population-based action level seemed to calculate population disparity and why. As in, when teams are closer to equal size, the activity level/multiplier is high. The thought occurred to me last night that it must also include a threshold, a minimum number of players. Population disparity alone would create some odd scores.

Why would population disparity not quite work? Take for example two low tier servers. Assume that during OCX, they both have only 10 players running around all four maps. Since they are both teams of roughly equal size, they’d end up with high activity level and score high even though they may hardly ever run into each other, which would be absurd; just as absurd as a threshold alone would be (i.e., 100 players running around chasing 10 is not high action).

Since the intent of action level seems to be to mute the effect of population imbalance (where one team cannot exit WvW to force the multiplier to be low), it’s gotta be that population-based action level would be determined by a combination of team sizes and size difference. For example, action level would not be considered high unless all sides had at least 60 players in WvW. It would stay low if one side had 60 players and another had only 10.

Lastly, Tyler wrote on Reddit that they’d make it much more difficult to manipulate than the outmanned buff. I thought I read somewhere else that action level could not be changed in the middle of a skirmish.

That is some good points there, I guessed at some of them, but didn’t think of all the implications. I guess this is something they have as an idea, but not nailed down just yet, so they can change and adjust things depending on feedback.

Should this trigger in 2 or 3 servers at the same time ? I can see cases for both, and I can imagine servers such as SoS would not like it triggering on 2 during NA (if they removed the auto x3 in prime).

Well, even if they don’t give us exact numbers of how this would work, I’d like to see some examples and how they planned to use it, what it would accomplish and not etc. Just annoyed at how vague the original text on this is.

Anyway, still want to see Skirmish/Time Slice added first without this, so we can try/evaluate that stand alone. And see how much it evens out the score (or not)

Been more and more tempted to take a break and go visit FergHaven a bit, but honestly don’t play enough these days to cash up gems for a transfer. I guess I’ll just try my EU account when I need a change.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Potential (controversial) additional change:

• While the above change takes steps to bring the value of off-hours coverage in-line, there’s a good chance it’ll still be overvalued. If that’s the case (and we’ll eventually poll on this), then we have plans for an additional system.
• This is the Action Level – Victory Point Multiplier system
  • This system would multiply the Victory Points awarded by Skirmishes based on map populations and time of day.
  • During prime time hours, the multiplier would always be at it’s maximum of 3.
  • During off hours, the multiplier might stay at 3 or drop to 2 or 1, depending on on activity level.
  • It’s important to include map populations as a factor, to make the system more fair for off hours players and its important to include time-of-day as a factor to prevent a winning team from trying to keep the score muliplier low by exiting WvW

The more I read on this one, the more obvious it becomes that we have absolutely no idea how it works. Would it be possible to get some more info on how this is intended to work ?

Especially how do you plan to calculate the active population ? Is it just more than say 200 players online at the same time over all 3 servers ? Is it when 2-3 sides are roughly equal in numbers ? Is this a single map or all 4 map thing ?

How quickly will it change/react to changes in population ? If all servers have 100 players online, and one side is losing and deciding to log out say 90 players, how quickly would the system react this this ? (Regarding gaming the system).

As said before, remove the “set” x3 multiplier in prime-time, and you’ll likely lose 90% of the complaints in this thread, even if this entire suggested rule is optional and all that.

Reaper Alim.4176:

That’s what is alot of WvWers problem with the “PvP Amulet” system it squashes build diversity only making sure that the most brain dead builds are good and the more complex builds are horrible. Where as of now in GW2 WvW you can absolutely fine tune any of your character to “your” preferred playstyle and again not one being forced down your throat.

The post you quoted me on was in response to replies to this:

joneirikb.7506:

To those of you that like the “build diversity” in WvW, what if they added the sPvP builds for the auto level to 80, set exotic stats, selectable sigils and runes etc. And selectable stats on all items ?

So you can go through a list and selec stats for: weapon, helm, shoulders, chest, hands, legs, feet, backpack, amulet, ring x2, accessory x2 ?

Would you still hate it ? You’d gain the ability to swap sigils, runes, stats etc on the fly. You wouldn’t need to level or buy gear to get to 80, the only thing is that it would limit you to Exotic level.

Would you still hate the build diversity in that case ? It would clearly completely remove the “PvP Amulet” as you know it.

The post you quoted was in response to those that prefer to actually “earn their own gear” so to speak.

Edit: Warning, wall of text! Read at own risk >_<

Yuffi:

I so agree that the scaling is not excessive, I’m just saying that I really don’t like messing with combat stats at all. Even with the local variation of the Outnumbered, and how that would work with lots of people within 2500 range, it is going to be either too little, or too much. I just don’t think there is a golden range of this.

Some players just aren’t good enough tat even with the buff, they’re getting killed. Then I’ve seen people go 1vs5 and win, or 1 vs 20 eotm zerglings and kill almost all of them before dying, imagine such a player or 2-3 such players with this buff.

The skill level is too different between players, but the target of the Outnumbered and the Outnumbering, that what is "enough" for one person, is too much or too little for the next 99.

Anyway. The idea is that defensive objects like towers and keeps are advantages to be used while outnumbered. And should be used to fight against an outnumbering foe. The Outnumbered shouldn’t make us able to fight off the enemy, but give us OPTIONS that we CAN do against them to be somewhat efficient.

(Also yes, the ones I’ve suggested are for the map wide Outnumbered, since it doesn’t look like they’ve been planning to change it).

The reason I suggested things like the faster/more supply is because this allows you to somewhat counter the enemies number in a siege war. If you got 10 that can carry 15 supply that is 150 supply. If enemy is 20 with 15 each then that is 300 supply and they can also hammer it into things twice as fast. It was meant as a way to counteract some of that, so you have a more even ground on a defensive siege of a keep.

Reduced siege damage to players, trigger some other defensive advantages in towerskeeps like boons or such, might make your siege take less damage, might even make gates/walls take more punishment. Dunno.

I think that those kind of options would be better for outnumbered.

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On the other hand, I’d love to see a new "trap", a "Cluster-bomb" that like the other ones cost a few silver or bdges or something, takes 10 supply, and a cool down. When it blows up it does a small number of damage in a good size aoe, +1% damage per other enemy player inside the aoe, to each.

You know, that moment when they breach the doors, and everyone just swarm through the door. Standing on the stairs in hills looking down at south outer gate as this happens, and just screen shot away, and the salt comes pouring in. Priceless.

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Sylux:

ANet will never ever give you a debuff for having more players around you. Their entire design philosophy for the game has been that you should always be happy to see another player with you. So any reason to scream for someone to "go away, you’re ruining it for us!" is totally a nono.

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Jaruselka/Yuffi:

Regarding the "oh noes we’re outnumbered" reaction. Reward playing defensively. Say it gives a huge bonus to reward tracks, kill points, especially when near or by towers/keeps. If slapping on some other bonuses to defending, playnig outnumbered would be about trying to be as much of a pain to the enemy as possible, and get lots for it.

Grim West.3194:

psizone.8437:

Getting the gear is part of the fun, especially if I don’t have to farm PvE for it.

This..

So much this..

Well, we sure are different then. I absolutely hate leveling, grinding, getting gear etc in any and all games and game modes. If I could have an option for it when creating a character to use the sPvP or the normal system. I’d pick the sPvP system on all but my guardian (first one), just to avoid all of that.

But I’ve argued with enough people over the years that enjoy those aspects (level, gearing, grinding, creating your own character by blood and sweat etc) that I can understand the point of view.

Just see so much hate for the “pvp amulet”, so was curious about peoples views if that amulet was exactly as flexible as you’re used to in the current system.

• Like the local outnumbered part
• Dislike the scaling part
  # In general dislike messing with stats in a pvp mode, keep it equal
  # Despite low scaling it can create situations of “leave so we get buff”

Outnumbered is tricky. I’ve suggested a few things in the past, and I’m still not sure how well they would fix things (if at all). But the +X targets posted above was one of them. In general things that helps smaller numbers compete against larger numbers, without changing the combat mechanics (of a 5vs5) much or at all.

I suggested things like:

• Carry more supply
• Use Supply faster
• Increase target limits
• Adjust rallying to outnumbered

15 forum bugs bunny

No idea how this would work or not, but curious what would happen if towers blocked yak’s from reaching keeps. So you had to either baby sit a yak past, or take the tower if you ever wanted to upgrade keeps.

That would make them "tactical".

Anvil.9230

Good post and ideas, like it.

I think it would end up with some weird situations, where 2 servers might have 100 and 50 people on the map, but the 3rd server has a 0. So the two remaining servers have to find each others and fight for points, or just go away.

But you’re spot on as for why this game mode has trouble becoming a serious competitive game mode.

To those of you that like the "build diversity" in WvW, what if they added the sPvP builds for the auto level to 80, set exotic stats, selectable sigils and runes etc. And selectable stats on all items ?

So you can go through a list and selec stats for: weapon, helm, shoulders, chest, hands, legs, feet, backpack, amulet, ring x2, accessory x2 ?

Would you still hate it ? You’d gain the ability to swap sigils, runes, stats etc on the fly. You wouldn’t need to level or buy gear to get to 80, the only thing is that it would limit you to Exotic level.

Personally I think that is way too many sliders to click, and would prefer something like a 2 or 3 way split of the pvp amulet, so you could pick something like Soldier+Zerk or Knight+Zerk+Cleric or whatever for my guardian for ex.

15 forum bugs charrs

morrolan.9608:

joneirikb.7506:

This entire thread fails at reading comprehension.

(And I don’t have the energy to even begin to try to correct it, it would take more text than I could fit into a single post.)

I would guess that you mean the fact that the prime and off hours multiplier is an optional, possible addition after the main changes and that they will have a poll on it.

I don’t think that means the discussion is wasted. It has given anet a good idea on where the community stands on it now and it has provided worthwhile suggestions for possible alternative methods, most of which are better than the anet proposal.

Good point.

Was just getting frustrated by reading through 9 pages of posts of people getting angry about an optional feature, they specified they would poll first. My bad.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Hey guys, as most of your are probably aware, Scoring Improvements won over QoL improvements in the last poll. So now it’s time to delve deeper into what that means.

Hello to you, and thanks!

*We want to improve scoring for a few big reasons:*
* Reduce the need for 24 hour coverage by reducing the effects of off-hours capping (night capping)
** It’s not okay that the time periods with the smallest number of active players have the largest impact on the score
** Of course we don’t want to alienate players who play during these period, off-hours coverage will still matter, it just will no longer be the primary factor in determining which world wins any given matchup
* Reduce the number of runaway matches
** That feeling of hopelessness when your team is down 100,000 points after a single day
* Give players a real opportunity to make a comeback
** Matches are often decided in the first few days, making playing in the final days feel pointless
* In conjunction with population rebalancing, updating Scoring allows us to decide a winner of a match more fairly, and thus reward players more fairly
** Currently we can’t give out worthwhile rewards for winning, as most match-ups are already decided before they begin

Agree with the reasoning of these.

*Next I’ll talk about how we plan to achieve those goals.*

*Changes to Match Structure:*
* We’ll split the week long matches into 2 hour time slices we are calling ’Skirmishes’
* Warscore is used to determine the winner of a Skirmish
* Skirmishes award varying amounts of Victory Points based on placement
* Victory Points are used to determine Match victor
* When a Skirmish ends, Warscore is reset, but actual map-state remains unchanged

*Benefits*
* Winning a Skirmish by a small margin, or a large margin, awards the same number of victory points.
* This keeps the winning and losing scores closer together, allowing the losing worlds a fighting chance
* Teams will still want to win as many time slices as possible, off-hours coverage is still important, but less dominant

Agree with/Like the time slice/Skirmish system. Would need to see it in action before I could come with any real suggestions or opinions to tweak it. Slightly curious at the choice of 2 hours instead of 3 hours, but that is irrelevant.

*Potential (controversial) additional change:*
* While the above change takes steps to bring the value of off-hours coverage in-line, there’s a good chance it’ll still be overvalued. If that’s the case (and we’ll eventually poll on this), then we have plans for an additional system.
* This is the *Action Level - Victory Point Multiplier* system
** This system would multiply the Victory Points awarded by Skirmishes based on map populations and time of day.
** During prime time hours, the multiplier would always be at it’s maximum of 3.
** During off hours, the multiplier might stay at 3 or drop to 2 or 1, depending on on activity level.
** It’s important to include map populations as a factor, to make the system more fair for off hours players and its important to include time-of-day as a factor to prevent a winning team from trying to keep the score muliplier low by exiting WvW

Considering this is *OPTIONAL* and *not planned for initial testing*, I really don’t understand why people are making such a fuzz about it.

But anyway, just remove the Automatic x3 multiplier to "Prime time", and let it be entirely "Activity based" and you will see 90% of the complaints here disappear.

I really don’t think it is needed anyway.

*Last Stand*
* Last Stand describes the final day of any week long matchup
* During Last Stand, Skirmish placement Victory Points are multiplied
* This is intended to make the last day of the match as exciting as the first, and provide a final comeback mechanic for teams that are behind

Undecided. I can see the reasoning behind it, but at the same time hat people that have played through the week would feel cheated.

I’d recommend testing without this first (Skirmish system first), then after 2 weeks, add it in and see how it runs. Give both yourself and us players some chance to compare with and without.

*Reduced the Score Tick Timer from 15 minutes to 5 minutes*
* This will guarantee that every objective is grants at least one score pulse before it can be flipped by another team.
* Objective Score will be reduce by 2/3rds since they’d be ticking 3x as often. This keeps the relative score from all sources the same.
* Reward Track points will also be ticking 3x as often, and likewise be decreased by 2/3rds.

Ok, not a big change, but makes sense.

Personally always wanted to see RI extended to 15 minutes, to move fights away from it until the next tick. Could have been interesting.

*Upgraded Objectives Score Higher*
* Each tier of objective upgrade increases the amount of score per tick
* The goal is to incentivize defending your upgraded objectives and assaulting opposing upgraded objectives

Not a fan of this, I understand why people feel it makes sense/natural etc, and want to be rewarded for upgrading and defending things. But this is also a receipt for run away scores in general...

*Points for Capture*
* Capturing an objective awards immediate score.
* If the objective is upgraded it is worth additional score.

...And because of how Tick vs Capture works, this isn’t enough to even out the advantage of increased ticks.

Also note that with increasing number of ticks, you’re "theoretically" increasing the tick 3x more times than normal (I’m guessing you’ve planned a bit for this, but it is one of those things that often get miss calculated).

I’d be more in favour for something like a bonus to points for upgrading, as a one time bonus, instead of as a tick.

*Points for Kill*
* The amount of score earned from PPK will be increased, so that it contributes more to the overall score.
* As a rough number, PPK may increase to 3-5 points, rather than 1, with diminishing returns on killing players who have been alive for less than 5 minutes.
* We will also rebalance the Warscore for Caravan Kills, Caravan Delivery and Sentry Captures.

Ok with most of this, only one complaint:

I’d like to see more of the Points Per Kill to be moved over to Points Per Stomp.

Reasoning: PPK often devolves into a zerg just running over smaller numbers, spamming attacks, and gets PPK points. Where securing a Stomp is generally harder, requires more teamwork/skill in most small/medium fights. It would also be an advantage for smaller groups, as opposed to large groups/zerg that have no problems contributing to the Battle anyway (Even if just for the fear factor).

*UI*
* Many of these new systems and changes will also necessitate updates to the UI, to display all this new information.

*Rewards*
* Once we have these scoring updates in, we can look at adding placement rewards for Skirmishes and Matches.

*Edit* - Fixed some minor errors in the text.

UI: Ok. Not much else to say to this generic statement.

Rewards: Ok. Think a lot of people would be happy for this.

Edit: \m/ *^_^* \m/ You that grammar man!

This entire thread fails at reading comprehension.

(And I don’t have the energy to even begin to try to correct it, it would take more text than I could fit into a single post.)