Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Skirmish claim ticket system needs to be reworked


hammu.1752

Recommended Posts

Hello all! I'm pretty sure that this has been discussed before but since i'm still quite new in wvw i want to pop this up again.

Lets say you're a person with family and work and therefore have limited weekly playing time, and your main goal (or one of them) in wvw is to get legendary armor. We all know that instead of fun and active play, like following commanders and killing stuff together, its twice faster to get skirmish tickets by solo roaming outnumbered maps, capture a camp every now and then to keep participation high enough and then afk 5 mins doing some rl stuff for example.

I really think that ANet shouldn't encourage this kind of stupid, lazy and slacking playing style, but instead reward people being active. But since it produces tickets TWO TIMES FASTER, temptation may be too high for a person with limited playing time like myself, who wants to play PvE also.

Therefore, in my opinion, instead of pips, skirmish claim tickets should be tied to wvw experience track, for example.What do you think?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Israel.7056 said:I'm not sure I understand the problem

Okay, let me try again.If you play active style and follow commanders, you get normal amount of pips. If you instead avoid commanders and other players and go solo roam outnumbered maps, you get twice the pips and therefore tickets two times faster in the same time period you invest in wvw. Thus your slacking gets rewarded. This is what i don't like.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@hammu.1752 said:

@Israel.7056 said:I'm not sure I understand the problem

Okay, let me try again.If you play active style and follow commanders, you get normal amount of pips. If you instead avoid commanders and other players and go solo roam outnumbered maps, you get twice the pips and therefore tickets two times faster in the same time period you invest in wvw. Thus your slacking gets rewarded. This is what i don't like.

You're talking as if blobbing up with 20+ other players and aoeing everything isnt the easier option than to solo roam. In my opinion, being solo or in a small group of a few other players roaming takes more effort than to roll a firebrand/scourge/revenant/weaver and just bombing while following a tag. Either way they have the option to take breaks while their pips count down. If the system needs a change, I don't believe this is the way to go about it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@hammu.1752 said:We all know that instead of fun and active play, like following commanders and killing stuff together, its twice faster to get skirmish tickets by solo roaming outnumbered maps, capture a camp every now and then to keep participation high enough and then afk 5 mins doing some rl stuff for example.

No it isn't. AFK has nothing to do with how fast you gain pips. You don't have to solo roam. Nor is there never a commander on an outnumbered map.

If you play active style and follow commanders, you get normal amount of pips. If you instead avoid commanders and other players and go solo roam outnumbered maps, you get twice the pips and therefore tickets two times faster in the same time period you invest in wvw. Thus your slacking gets rewarded. This is what i don't like.

Many of us find solo roaming fun and active play. And following a commander quite the opposite. I suggest broadening your horizons or keeping an open mind to what others may find fun. As another already said, following a commander is usually less active and less effort than solo roaming/small scale.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Khailyn.6248 said:You're talking as if blobbing up with 20+ other players and aoeing everything isnt the easier option than to solo roam.

IF the goal is to max your skirmish tickets, then as the OP describes, the easiest course is to find the BL map that has [Outnumbered] and just flip a camp or sentry every few minutes to keep your participation up.

While running in a zerg will get you significantly more WXP, you're likely only going to get 4-6 pips (if you're a low ranked player) since I've rarely seen [Outnumbered] while running in a squad; compare that to earning 9-11 pips for the same time period but finding a quiet BL where nobody (from your server) is fighting.

To the OP: I'm not sure there is a solution or even a problem for that matter. Yes it does seem counterintuitive, but really the extra pips are only a reflection that the map you're on has less people from your server, and it, I suspect, also helps to compensate roamers and scouts who are 'watching the store' as it were, and who likely aren't getting as much WXP as those in a squad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@hammu.1752 said:

@Israel.7056 said:I'm not sure I understand the problem

Okay, let me try again.If you play active style and follow commanders, you get normal amount of pips. If you instead avoid commanders and other players and go solo roam outnumbered maps, you get twice the pips and therefore tickets two times faster in the same time period you invest in wvw. Thus your slacking gets rewarded. This is what i don't like.

You get more pips but less WXP. So it's all subjective: if you're trying to gain WvW ranks then you're better off blobbing. If you're trying to get skirmish tickets, your strategy is the most efficient. Both will net you the same reward track. I guess balance?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

@Khailyn.6248 said:You're talking as if blobbing up with 20+ other players and aoeing everything isnt the easier option than to solo roam.

IF the goal is to max your skirmish tickets, then as the OP describes, the easiest course is to find the BL map that has [Outnumbered] and just flip a camp or sentry every few minutes to keep your participation up.

While running in a zerg will get you significantly more WXP, you're likely only going to get 4-6 pips (if you're a low ranked player) since I've rarely seen [Outnumbered] while running in a squad; compare that to earning 9-11 pips for the same time period but finding a quiet BL where nobody (from your server) is fighting.

To the OP: I'm not sure there is a solution or even a problem for that matter. Yes it does seem counterintuitive, but really the extra pips are only a reflection that the map you're on has less people from your server, and it, I suspect, also helps to compensate roamers and scouts who are 'watching the store' as it were, and who likely aren't getting as much WXP as those in a squad.

It definitely seems like a trade off of getting more of one or the other. TY for pointing that out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You're talking as if blobbing up with 20+ other players and aoeing everything isnt the easier option than to solo roam. In my opinion, being solo or in a small group of a few other players roaming takes more effort than to roll a firebrand/scourge/revenant/weaver and just bombing while following a tag. Either way they have the option to take breaks while their pips count down. If the system needs a change, I don't believe this is the way to go about it.

I totally agree with you about the red circle spam. But I play only warrior. Since a well-timed sb bubble can sometimes win a fight (or at least used to before the nerf), i find zerk fights more challenging for me than taking camps at empty maps. But those boring camps give you +5 pips in the same time... Maybe this is just my problem.

@Turk.5460 said:No it isn't. AFK has nothing to do with how fast you gain pips. You don't have to solo roam. Nor is there never a commander on an outnumbered map.

My point is, you CAN afk at the outnumbered maps after taking some camp or smt and still get the double pips, which is the fastest and easiest way, which i feel wrong.

Many of us find solo roaming fun and active play. And following a commander quite the opposite. I suggest broadening your horizons or keeping an open mind to what others may find fun. As another already said, following a commander is usually less active and less effort than solo roaming/small scale.

Yes i understand that. Maybe i suffer from LtP problem, since as a beginner wvw warrior i find mesmers, permastealth thieves and ranged rangers really op and frustrating. I feel that at least 95% of time its impossible for me beat those classes unless they screw up badly. And i hardly see any other roaming classes, which obviously reduces my roaming enjoyment.

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:To the OP: I'm not sure there is a solution or even a problem for that matter. Yes it does seem counterintuitive, but really the extra pips are only a reflection that the map you're on has less people from your server, and it, I suspect, also helps to compensate roamers and scouts who are 'watching the store' as it were, and who likely aren't getting as much WXP as those in a squad.

Yes you may be right there. After all this is a game ad i should be doing only stuff i really like. But those easy +5 pips... :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just my opinion:

Give players whatever rewards they want to play wvw. Give them 50 gold an hour - I don't care. Give them their legendary tokens. Create 8 new currencies and give them 7k of each every minute. Whatever. Make it 3x as profitable as PvE or raids. I honestly could not give less of a skritt.

As long as it gets people in WvW to play - even if all they're doing is coming out to try and cap a camp every 10 minutes, I'm happy. WvW needs warm bodies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's cute, blame the outnumberedees for the server stacking outnumberers laziness. So, they're lazy because they're getting 5 extra pips at varying sometimes unpredictable times, while the outnumberers are almost always getting tons of extra experience in the form of zergballing ppt disquised as fights yet these guys aren't the issue, the 5 extra pips are???

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My point is, you CAN afk at the outnumbered maps after taking some camp or smt and still get the double pips, which is the fastest and easiest way, which i feel wrong.Near as I can tell, that's the only concern you've stated that doesn't come down to preference. The easiest solution to that is to eliminate the extra pips for outnumbered.

But that ignores the reason for having it in the first place and how it works. It's intended as an incentive to get people to move maps, to zerg less. It has been modestly effective at that, more so in the past. In particular, it attracts roamers, who work to slow the entropic change of color from your side to the other. That's still a benefit.

To get the extra pips, you have to be on the map during two ticks, a minimum of 5+ minutes. You can run down the clock, but then you stop getting pips. Or you could do a bare minimum to keep participation going. Largely, you have to do something; AFK won't cut it. There is a cheeze way and I think a lot of people wouldn't mind if that was eliminated.

So another way that ANet can handle it is to change the mechanic for maintaining Outnumbered. Right now, it's just having participation on an outnumbered map. ANet could alter that requirement.

All in all, I think the OP is too worried about a "free rider" problem (people who do little work to get rewards), when there are other issues that are more vexing to the mode, e.g. "costly riders" -- those players who actively hurt progress, by wasting siege, by pulling tactics.


I'm not against ANet making changes to outnumbered. I don't think it's a big problem for the game mode, so I'd prefer that they leave it alone unless they are planning some sort of massive overhaul to the entire system.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But that ignores the reason for having it in the first place and how it works. It's intended as an incentive to get people to move maps, to zerg less. It has been modestly effective at that, more so in the past. In particular, it attracts roamers, who work to slow the entropic change of color from your side to the other. That's still a benefit.

This is a good point, to reduce red circle spam.

All in all, I think the OP is too worried about a "free rider" problem (people who do little work to get rewards), when there are other issues that are more vexing to the mode, e.g. "costly riders" -- those players who actively hurt progress, by wasting siege, by pulling tactics.

Other good point.But i'm not that worried about free riders, and also some other posters maybe misunderstood me.I'm just saying that ACTIVE play style, whether it be zerking or solo roaming what ever SHOULD be at least as rewarding as this half-slacking kinda abuse i described. And i was talking ONLY about pips and tickets, for that legendary armor. Atm game mechanics allow me to look for an outnumbered map, do some stuff for couple of minutes, then go f.e. cook some breakfast for 10 mins and repeat, and this gives me DOUBLE of pips and tickets. Many times i'm tempted to do so to get the tickets i need 'cos my playing time is limited. Though i may feel a bit shamed, ho hoo.

But if this armor-by-pips is the best possible system, so be it. No problem whatsoever.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@coro.3176 said:Just my opinion:

Give players whatever rewards they want to play wvw. Give them 50 gold an hour - I don't care. Give them their legendary tokens. Create 8 new currencies and give them 7k of each every minute. Whatever. Make it 3x as profitable as PvE or raids. I honestly could not give less of a skritt.

As long as it gets people in WvW to play - even if all they're doing is coming out to try and cap a camp every 10 minutes, I'm happy. WvW needs warm bodies.

Not to derail the thread, but those warm bodies are already there, but many players don't see them.

Want to know how to build the WvW population? Type in /m inviting other players to group up with you. Not talking about pugmandering, but just running a 5 person squad, giving players new to WvW someone to follow, and yes, to lean on for support, will get more people who experiment with the game mode coming out with a positive experience.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@hammu.1752 said:

@Israel.7056 said:I'm not sure I understand the problem

Okay, let me try again.If you play active style and follow commanders, you get normal amount of pips. If you instead avoid commanders and other players and go solo roam outnumbered maps, you get twice the pips and therefore tickets two times faster in the same time period you invest in wvw. Thus your slacking gets rewarded. This is what i don't like.

How do you propose they program the game to be able to tell the difference?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Odinens.5920 said:Acquiring Skirmish tickets isn't a problem. The rate seems just right. The problem is Memories of Battle - THOSE need to be adjusted...don't get nearly enough.

I may disagree with you. To me, it’s a source of income that it’s value is rising and one of the few sellable rewards WvW gets consistently (not including the 6 mystic coins a week..) that can garner some revenue.

But to the OP points: a ‘more active playstyle’ has been suggested in multiple threads. The biggest worry is creating a K-Train style as found in EOTM.

If it’s tied to ‘capping’ or flipping structures, then you ge a K-Train.

If it’s tied to kills, that also becomes a potential for kill trading I.e. Obsidean Sanctum kill farming.

So, a more active playstyle is one that is both fraught with potential for abuse and one that is also an issue for what playstyle all (most) players view as ‘active’

@hammu.1752 said:

@Israel.7056 said:I'm not sure I understand the problem

Okay, let me try again.If you play active style and follow commanders, you get normal amount of pips. If you instead avoid commanders and other players and go solo roam outnumbered maps, you get twice the pips and therefore tickets two times faster in the same time period you invest in wvw. Thus your slacking gets rewarded. This is what i don't like.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Israel.7056 said:

@Israel.7056 said:I'm not sure I understand the problem

Okay, let me try again.If you play active style and follow commanders, you get normal amount of pips. If you instead avoid commanders and other players and go solo roam outnumbered maps, you get twice the pips and therefore tickets two times faster in the same time period you invest in wvw. Thus your slacking gets rewarded. This is what i don't like.

How do you propose they program the game to be able to tell the difference?

Participation used to decay faster, and harder to raise. Pips used to be also harder to obtain. Then players complained. I don't know if the adjustments to make the rewards easier to achieve coincides with more people slacking, but I do know that there used to be more activity in WvW maps past mid-week.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Israel.7056 said:How do you propose they program the game to be able to tell the difference?

If i want to get the skirmish claim tickets at maximum rate, of which this whole thread is all about, i'm kinda forced to constantly search for an outnumbered map and play solo/small scale. It just doesn't feel right. And, i'm happy to notice, some1 else seems to agree with me currently in another thread(s), and i agree with them - the pip system kinda sucks. I have nothing against outnumbered system, i just wish that skirmish tickets would be awarded some another way. Maybe tied to exp track, for example, or then reduce the amount of those needed for legendary armor. I'd like to play WvW as versatile as possible, without need to constantly think about the stupid pips.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@hammu.1752 said:

@Israel.7056 said:How do you propose they program the game to be able to tell the difference?

If i want to get the skirmish claim tickets at maximum rate, of which this whole thread is all about, i'm kinda forced to constantly search for an outnumbered map and play solo/small scale. It just doesn't feel right. And, i'm happy to notice, some1 else seems to agree with me currently in another thread(s), and i agree with them - the pip system kinda sucks. I have nothing against outnumbered system, i just wish that skirmish tickets would be awarded some another way. Maybe tied to exp track, for example, or then reduce the amount of those needed for legendary armor. I'd like to play WvW as versatile as possible, without need to constantly think about the stupid pips.

It is understandable for a New wvw player to want wvw shinies fast. Slow pips mean grind. It is also no secret that, in that regard, Anet boosted Base pips for everyone, on a previous update, and that favors all players, new and old. It also means that bronze/silver players will not get as easily discouraged as when the pip/tickets system was implemented. (175 tickets/week, base pips low).And it is also true that mode, ANY mode, favors veterans in some regard. Take fractals, for instance. Those who did em daily, had a healthy supply of relics and pristine relics. Thus, they were able to make everything easier, from the infinite potiin to ad Infinitum to the fractal god title. Does Anet HAVE to boost pristine relic aquisition, so that New players can get sad items fast? No, they dont.Same applies in wvw. You want that sweet leggy armor? Be prepared to either spend 22 weeks of Diamond chest farming, or more if you are a casual player. Otherwise, if you feel like it takes too long, pve raid armor can be gotten much much faster.There is a certain feeling of achievement, legendary armor - even wvw variant, which arguably is the easiest (not fastest) of all to get- shows some degree of dedication. And it SHOULD. So all i can recommend, is keep playing the mode if you enjoy it, rank up, have fun, and you will get the tickets for the armor in no time. If you are there for the grind, prepared to be disappointed. And that stands true for every mode, for every game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You are thinking of outnumbered pips as the standard and everyone not outnumbered is having pips stolen from them. Its true that outnumbered pips is a lopsided boost but the real solution to remedy that would be to lower them from +5 to +1. Is that what you want? Or are you really just begging for more pips for zerging?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let's look at the difference in time the outnumbered buff actually yields.

First, let's assume low pip gain:

  • Lowest Warscore (3 pips)
  • Bronze WvW rank (1 pip)
  • Not commanding (0 pips)
  • Completed wood last week (1 pip)

So this gives you 5 pips every tick, and 10 pips every tick if outnumbered.

Since you need 1450 pips to reach end of diamond (therefore no longer receiving tickets), your playtime will be:

  • 1450/5= 290 ticks (not outnumbered)
  • 1450/10= 145 ticks (outnumbered).

Since a tick happens every 5 minutes, you will need:

  • 290×5=1450min/60min=24,17 hours of play when not outnumbered
  • 145×5=725min/60min=12,08 hours of play when outnumbered.

Now let's look at someone with a much better pip gain:

  • Highest Warscore (5 pips)
  • Mithril WvW rank (5 pips)
  • Not commanding (0 pips)
  • Completed wood last week (1 pip)

So this one earns 11 pips each tick, 16 if outnumbered.

1450/11=132 ticks not outnumbered1450/16=91 ticks when outnumbered

This gives:

132×5=11 hours of play (not outnumbered)91×5=7,58 hours of play (when outnumbered)

So what can we conclude from this data?

  • First off it seems playing only on outnumbered maps as a new player will require the same time investment as it would an experienced WvWer playing on a non-outnumbered map.
  • Second the outnumbered buff scales based on your pip gain rate, becoming much more effective for those with a low rate (low rank) than for those with high rate

But to answer the question at hand - better to play low rank on outnumbered map or higher rank and not outnumbered?

Here we have to aim for middle warscore, completed wood last week, no commanding and we end on 5 pips per tick.

Now if you are low rank, this means 6 pips regular, 11 if outnumbered. Outnumbered pips now allows you to complete the divisions 83% faster.

Let's assume you increase your rank and get another +1, then it's 7/12, which means you save 17% of the time needed. Outnumbered now allows you to complete divisions 71,4% faster.

Let's get another rank, then it's 8/13. Now you save 33% of the total time needed compared to the first scenario. Otnumbered completes it 62,5% faster.

Let's do another for good measure, now it's 9/14. You save 50% of total time needed, and outnumbered completes it 56% faster.

What this basically shows us, is that the higher your rank the less time you need to spend in an outnumbered map in order to gain your tickets at the same interval. In order for rank to outshine the ON bonus, you need to become mithril rank. However, your higher rank also contributes if you are on an outnumbered map allowing you to get the end chest even faster than you ever could as a low rank, this goes even with just 1 extra pip point. How much time will 1 extra pip save you? 1450/12=121 ticks, 121×5= 605 mins/60=10,08 hours. We know from earlier it originally took you 12, 08 hours to do this, so a single rank up from +1(bronze) to +2(silver) chops off ~16% of the time needed just playing like you play today. Increasing rank will be slow at the start but benefit you all the time, while playing outnumbered will be fast in the beginning and just carry less and less as you increase your rank. Now the intersection of these 2 graphs would happen fairly high (mithril like mentioned earlier), but you also need to consider convenience:

  • Ease of gaining rank
  • Ease of finding ON maps
  • Rewards for your time investment
  • What you find fun!

Now that you get to keep participation outside WvW maps it should also make it a ton easier and faster for you since there is no need to build participation from scratch on your own once you find an outnumbered map.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@hammu.1752 said:

@Israel.7056 said:How do you propose they program the game to be able to tell the difference?

If i want to get the skirmish claim tickets at maximum rate, of which this whole thread is all about, i'm kinda forced to constantly search for an outnumbered map and play solo/small scale. It just doesn't feel right. And, i'm happy to notice, some1 else seems to agree with me currently in another thread(s), and i agree with them - the pip system kinda sucks. I have nothing against outnumbered system, i just wish that skirmish tickets would be awarded some another way. Maybe tied to exp track, for example, or then reduce the amount of those needed for legendary armor. I'd like to play WvW as versatile as possible, without need to constantly think about the stupid pips.

My understanding is that the outnumbered bonus is to pay people a little extra if they're willing to play on outnumbered maps even if all they're doing is flipping camps. I personally don't care if you or anyone else farm only outnumbered pips every matchup of every week it doesn't effect me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...