How to really fix WvW through game design

I came upon this article the other day which made a point that perfectly describes what is wrong with WvW.

https://www.1843magazine.com/features/tabletop-generals

"One of Monopoly’s big mistakes is positive feedback, designer-speak for a mechanism by which a small advantage early on snowballs into a big, insurmountable one later in the game, which makes things boring for the other players. Modern designers tend to prefer negative feedback, in which life gets harder for those doing well. Sometimes that is enforced by explicit penalties. Sometimes it emerges by itself, or through political dealing by other players. Conquering too many planets in a game of Twilight Imperium may make it hard to defend existing territory, for instance, especially if other players decide to gang up on the leader. That helps to keep things interesting for everyone."

WvW is designed as a positive feedback game instead of one of negative feedback. I'm not going to go through detailing every little thing that feeds into making it a positive feedback game. I feel that many of you reading this already inherently understand how life in game gets easier when you have upgraded objectives and higher numbers than an opponent. I'm only going to offer some ideas for introducing negative feedback and I encourage others to do the same in this thread.

• Introduce a DAoC-like new map/raid/dungeon only accessible to the server that is winning that makes it more difficult for that server to hold onto territory by pulling away population.
• Reset objectives back to T1 at start of every skirmish. May need to increase the rate at which objectives upgrade to under two hours. Possibly keep tactics/improvements in place though.
• (Once suggested in the past) Enforce a 2v1 against a winning server by making the two other servers temporary allies. Although I feel there are better negative feedback mechanisms that would make this suggestion unnecessary.
• Players with outnumbered buff do not show as revealed from Watchtower or Sentries (or players on winning server are always revealed).

Edit: Additional suggestions from other posters.

• Yaks from camps not in your starting zone deliver less supply. Yaks from camps not in your starting zone are slower. (Swamurabi)
• Controlling SMC drains supply from other structures in EBG. Controlling other keeps drains supply from other structures. (Swamurabi)

Edit: So far most responses center around using supply as a negative feedback mechanism.

@Chaba.5410 said:

• Reset objectives back to T1 at start of every skirmish. May need to increase the rate at which objectives upgrade to under two hours. Possibly keep tactics/improvements in place though.

While I love that idea - especially since you failed to mention what to a tee describe your snowballing issue, tier based PPT - this means people would just wait out a skirmish and then cap T3 (now T1).

This idea would only work if we unlink tiers and fortification strenght into something... more temporary. The current T3 system would just be broken if it reset to T1, T3 is simply too strong.

For example, T1 walls and T3 walls could offer roughly the same strength (maybe 10% hp boost per tier with no change in damage reduction), but T1 only have say 1 tactivator while T3 has 3. Or T1 has a siege cap of 10 and each additional tier adds 5 to the cap. You get the idea. Stuff like that.

This would definetly mesh better with the reset of tiers every skirmish.

Aint gonna happen though. Anet loves how their tier based PPT is unbalancing WvW and how defended T3 is so insanely strong compared to T0 you need a 50 man to even bother. They're not gonna cheapen the experience of a dozen people sitting on ACs in an impregnable fortress raking in easy points any time soon.

@"Chaba.5410" said:I came upon this article the other day which made a point that perfectly describes what is wrong with WvW.

https://www.1843magazine.com/features/tabletop-generals

• Introduce a DAoC-like new map/raid/dungeon only accessible to the server that is winning that makes it more difficult for that server to hold onto territory by pulling away population.

Would population in that dungeon count against your map cap? Because to hinder the overstacked servers I think it would have to be, or it wouldn't give as much of a disadvantage.

• (Once suggested in the past) Enforce a 2v1 against a winning server by making the two other servers temporary allies. Although I feel there are better negative feedback mechanisms that would make this suggestion unnecessary.

I really like the enforced 2v1. It makes the dominant server have to compete. I wonder if it would have to kick in once a certain spread in points. I could almost see it changing very frequently in close matches/skirmishes.

• Players with outnumbered buff do not show as revealed from Watchtower or Sentries (or players on winning server are always revealed).

I really like this one. Would allow ninja takes, and maybe more lords room fights with small numbers. Maybe reveal with numbers greater than 25 kind of like OJs.

I always thought that supply could be the equalizer.

Have it take more supply to upgrade structures not in your starting zone.Yaks from camps not in your starting zone deliver less supply.Yaks from camps not in your starting zone are slower.Controlling SMC drains supply from other structures in EBGControlling other keeps drains supply from other structures.

@Strider Pj.2193 said:Would population in that dungeon count against your map cap? Because to hinder the overstacked servers I think it would have to be, or it wouldn't give as much of a disadvantage.

Good point. It would have to or, as you say, it wouldn't be such a disadvantage.

The Yaks are somewhat faulty anyway (unless they changed it the past 2 months) : Every objective (minus SM?) needs the same amount of yaks to fortify, but keeps get 2 yaks, towers only one. I'd start with that actually.

@Jana.6831 said:The Yaks are somewhat faulty anyway (unless they changed it the past 2 months) : Every objective (minus SM?) needs the same amount of yaks to fortify, but keeps get 2 yaks, towers only one. I'd start with that actually.

I thought towers get two? On ABL, southern towers get south camp and the same side camp like water and vale.

I would suggest making supply a lot more relevant, in fact more than just that: make it essential for holding towers & keeps and make the supply requirement increase based on the tier of the tower/keep so that the loosing party can sabotage high tier objectives by cutting off supply which is easily achieveable by small numbers of players all over the map instead of one big zerg that can easily be tracked by the enemies.This also keeps the more large scale objective based feel that many, including myself, love about WvW.

@OP Thanks for posting that article, that was quite interesting! :)

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@Jana.6831 said:The Yaks are somewhat faulty anyway (unless they changed it the past 2 months) : Every objective (minus SM?) needs the same amount of yaks to fortify, but keeps get 2 yaks, towers only one. I'd start with that actually.

Same for DBL for what it's worth. I think they're referring to EBG however.

i got some taboo ideas.... less aoe/cleave spam, more single target skills type so players need to know whta they are atacking rather than spam cause it will stack with everything else.

@GDchiaScrub.3241 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@"Jana.6831" said:The Yaks are somewhat faulty anyway (unless they changed it the past 2 months) : Every objective (minus SM?) needs the same amount of yaks to fortify, but keeps get 2 yaks, towers only one. I'd start with that actually.

I did, yes, but it's also the northern towers in each borderland, I think. That's a pet peeve of mine when we lost one of the flanking towers "How on earth should we get that fortified again??"

WvW fix: Remove the need for servers, change the WvW factions to named factions like Edge of the Mist. The only difference is that instead you can sign up to be on a chosen faction, which is how you will go in with friends.

Have extra rewards to choose a random faction that sorts players into lower population factions so the population will be balanced. Factions end and reset at the end of a WvW season.

@Jana.6831 said:

@GDchiaScrub.3241 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@Jana.6831 said:The Yaks are somewhat faulty anyway (unless they changed it the past 2 months) : Every objective (minus SM?) needs the same amount of yaks to fortify, but keeps get 2 yaks, towers only one. I'd start with that actually.

I think North towers get NC and NW/NEC dolys as well.

TBH, since it automated, I pay less attention to it.....

I have no idea on EBG. I didn't realize that was where you meant. My bad..

@Zaviel.1245 said:WvW fix: Remove the need for servers, change the WvW factions to named factions like Edge of the Mist. The only difference is that instead you can sign up to be on a chosen faction, which is how you will go in with friends.

Have extra rewards to choose a random faction that sorts players into lower population factions so the population will be balanced. Factions end and reset at the end of a WvW season.

And kill the use of VOIP. Except for guilds. Even then, guilds would stand to risk being split.

Fix Class Balance.. otherwise no matter they do the mode will remain broken.

@Strider Pj.2193 said:I think North towers get NC and NW/NEC dolys as well.No, they only get NC on ABL - I mostly avoided the DBL, so I have no idea if that's the case there as well, but I assume it is.

TBH, since it automated, I pay less attention to it.....

I have no idea on EBG. I didn't realize that was where you meant. My bad..All good, I didn't specify the towers/map I was referring to, so nothing to feel bad about, or I would have to as well.Just that it makes no sense that it takes basically twice the amount of yaks to fortify a tower. And I don't know why no one reviewed and fixed this. It's really the small things that need to be looked at - wvw actually doesn't need an overhaul, they need to take a few steps back, in my opinion.

ETA:All camps on ABL have got 2 Yaks.NC: NW and NE tower and GarriEC: Garri and HillsWC: Garri and BayVale: Bay and SW towerSC: SW and SE tower (and actually bay and hills, right?)SEC: SE tower and Hills

Same on EB:Each camp has got 2 yaks, one delivers the towers up to the Keep and the Keep, the other the towers up to SM and SM, if you don't own SM they'll run back to camp.NC on DBL has actually 4 yaks and I think 2 deliver Garri while each one delivers the side towers.

I learned something today! :)

I didn't realize that. 5 years in.... dang.

-Introduce a DAoC-like new map/raid/dungeon only accessible to the server that is winning that makes it more difficult for that server to hold onto territory by pulling away population.*Are they rewarded for stacking in other words? It seems like it might get the wvw tournament feel I guess. I could see certain servers loving this because they could get special access and continue to pummel smaller servers. Players would abuse it, they can't help themselves.

-Reset objectives back to T1 at start of every skirmish. May need to increase the rate at which objectives upgrade to under two hours. Possibly keep tactics/improvements in place though.I do like this being on small server and nearly EVERY tower, keep, smc is fully T3 with all the toys at their disposal. I worry though pvers will flock to wvw to get easy experience. However, it may promote more fights.The one cool thing I think that could be put into wvw is having the upgrades more player driven. You must slowly upgrade the wall, gate, etc by hand. Which means bring those guys back to the game who loved babying their tower. Imagine players spread out and they are soul lead player on managing that tower supply, upgrades, and what is the most critical item in que. They could even have an NPC team they could assign work to. Supervisor simulator basically and it could give people ROLES in wvw again. We're lacking roles and responsibilities in wvw these days.

-(Once suggested in the past) Enforce a 2v1 against a winning server by making the two other servers temporary allies. Although I feel there are better negative feedback mechanisms that would make this suggestion unnecessary.*I run a roaming guild, I want you all dead and care not for your alliance.

-Players with outnumbered buff do not show as revealed from Watchtower or Sentries (or players on winning server are always revealed).*This is probably the best idea I've ever heard in wvw. We need to get back to the good ole days when 3-5 brave players can ninja a T3 tower against the big dog server without the tiniest hint of orange dots attracting a 50 man zerg. This is a common issue in T4 with small teams on CD server. Again, ROLES of scouts and tower upgraders. A player should be the sentry, a living human being, not some cheesy automated feature that now promotes zerging down a roamer.Small teams are rare because its not worth it to attempt a T3 tower because in the end, a blob is going to come. Pug tags and large guilds can't help themselves. Then the community wonders why everyone blobs. And I have seen anet devs in these packs, which is concerning. I'm sure they are just.....gathering data, right? :)

4 hour skirmishes 2 hr off to reset things. perhaps only garrison should start off rollover upgrades.

@shiri.4257 said:4 hour skirmishes 2 hr off to reset things. perhaps only garrison should start off rollover upgrades.

4 hours would be fine, but 2 hours off?? Please say you meant score, not actual gameplay....

Hmm...guess better way to put is 4hrs of scoring and 2hrs off with no scoring or basically closed wvw. purpose for the 2 hr closure is to offset some of the deadzone coverage issues and semi force players to play in set time blocks. Take those 2 hrs to take a dump or go outside.

@"Chaba.5410" said:"One of Monopoly’s big mistakes is positive feedback, designer-speak for a mechanism by which a small advantage early on snowballs into a big, insurmountable one later in the game, which makes things boring for the other players. Modern designers tend to prefer negative feedback, in which life gets harder for those doing well. Sometimes that is enforced by explicit penalties. Sometimes it emerges by itself, or through political dealing by other players. Conquering too many planets in a game of Twilight Imperium may make it hard to defend existing territory, for instance, especially if other players decide to gang up on the leader. That helps to keep things interesting for everyone."

I've always favored the idea of looking at "supply lines" as an element in the game. Twilight Imperium is a very good example of this, the larger your empire gets, the harder it is to move your ships about to where you need them, if one enemy jumps through a warphole and gets into your rear, you often need 2-3 rounds to get them where it is needed to counter them, Or at least 2 to build new ships and move them. And unless you've planned well, and no one sabotaged for you, you might not have a good production center outside your home planet etc.

In WvW this could be used for things like Supplies/Yak's/Guards etc. If each time has a rough X number of each of those, so the less structures you have they more guards you got guarding it, the more yaks comes to it, and the faster it generates supply. The more structures you have, the less guards you got for each objective, yaks are spread thin making it take longer to upgrade, and get less supply.

Regarding a few of the other points:

• "Reset objectives every skirmish"

I see the point, but that would severely limit/remove the feeling of building up something, that a lot of players enjoy, and is one of the defining differences from PvP etc.

• "forced 2v1"

Don't like the forced part, but would certainly appreciate some strong incentives toward it. Heck I'd be game for removing points from killing/taking from each others, and only from the leader.

• "Outnumbered = Ninjas"

Well, kinda like it. But at the same time, if the leading server is revealed too much, it will be hard for them to do roaming and havoc squads etc, it would have to be done in a way that doesn't ruin entire ways to play for people.

I'd also like to point out the fun idea someone posted once, that the larger the zerg, the more noise they generated and youcould hear them coming, and the ground shaking etc. Would do about the same job (and be immersive!).

Lastly just to be clear, I think this would be a start to solve 1 of the things wrong with WvW, but certainly not all, and not enough alone to fix WvW. But it would be starting to fix some of the problems inherent with the WvW design.

@shiri.4257 said:Hmm...guess better way to put is 4hrs of scoring and 2hrs off with no scoring or basically closed wvw. purpose for the 2 hr closure is to offset some of the deadzone coverage issues and semi force players to play in set time blocks. Take those 2 hrs to take a dump or go outside.

No. Reset is long enough.

@"Chaba.5410" said:I came upon this article the other day which made a point that perfectly describes what is wrong with WvW.

https://www.1843magazine.com/features/tabletop-generals

"One of Monopoly’s big mistakes is positive feedback, designer-speak for a mechanism by which a small advantage early on snowballs into a big, insurmountable one later in the game, which makes things boring for the other players. Modern designers tend to prefer negative feedback, in which life gets harder for those doing well. Sometimes that is enforced by explicit penalties. Sometimes it emerges by itself, or through political dealing by other players. Conquering too many planets in a game of Twilight Imperium may make it hard to defend existing territory, for instance, especially if other players decide to gang up on the leader. That helps to keep things interesting for everyone."

WvW is designed as a positive feedback game instead of one of negative feedback. I'm not going to go through detailing every little thing that feeds into making it a positive feedback game. I feel that many of you reading this already inherently understand how life in game gets easier when you have upgraded objectives and higher numbers than an opponent. I'm only going to offer some ideas for introducing negative feedback and I encourage others to do the same in this thread.

• Introduce a DAoC-like new map/raid/dungeon only accessible to the server that is winning that makes it more difficult for that server to hold onto territory by pulling away population.
• Reset objectives back to T1 at start of every skirmish. May need to increase the rate at which objectives upgrade to under two hours. Possibly keep tactics/improvements in place though.
• (Once suggested in the past) Enforce a 2v1 against a winning server by making the two other servers temporary allies. Although I feel there are better negative feedback mechanisms that would make this suggestion unnecessary.
• Players with outnumbered buff do not show as revealed from Watchtower or Sentries (or players on winning server are always revealed).

Edit: Additional suggestions from other posters.

• Yaks from camps not in your starting zone deliver less supply. Yaks from camps not in your starting zone are slower. (Swamurabi)
• Controlling SMC drains supply from other structures in EBG. Controlling other keeps drains supply from other structures. (Swamurabi)

You have some great ideas and I always loved clearing out Darkness Falls after my realm gained access. I really like the idea of the objective reset after a skirmish is complete. In DAOC it seemed like the 2v1 occurred organically, but I don't see servers do this often on their own or if it does happen it is usually the top server and one of the bottom servers tag teaming the other weaker server. it would be interesting to see what this would look like in WvW.

I think one issue that will always be a problem is the small size of the WvW maps. In DAOC you had 4(?) fairly large zones per realm so zergs couldn't get to keeps under siege in seconds where in GW2 zergs can get to the other side of the map in a few seconds. This also made for some interesting cat and mouse for smaller groups. I realize this will probably never change as it would require significant development, but here's to hoping.

@STIHL.2489 said:Fix Class Balance.. otherwise no matter they do the mode will remain broken.

Possibly, but class balance doesn't affect WvW mechanics that help snowball a winner like objective upgrades, tactics, yaks. I was hoping this thread would focus on WvW mechanics.