Experimentee.7612

I look forward to testing the new game mode. However, I'm already quite confused about the context for it and what it is trying to achieve. Is conquest really that complex to get into? I'm one of the stupidest people alive. I started playing PvP about 9 months ago (albeit I played alot of WvW before that). All I did was watch a couple of YouTube guides from Vallun. It was more than enough to get started. Since then, just by playing some conquest games and gaining experience, I've become far more familiar with the intricacies of conquest (and I still have much more to learn). It was, overall, a fun experience and if I can do it, I'm sure that anyone can. Some things that hampered my experience, though, were how many games were one.sided, how often AFK players completely ruined the game for all the other players, and the level of toxicity I saw in chat. Those are the real problems that need addressing in PvP, if you ask me. In addition, I think Anet can improve the new player experience by not relying on external guides like Vallun's to teach players the basics of conquest. Anet probably should bring that ingame. Perhaps that can be in the form of an ingame interactive tutorial that explains slowly and clearly how it works. For that you could simply simulate a conquest game with a real player and NPCs in an instance and explain, step-by-step, what is happening and the kinds of things the player needs to think about. If I go along and accept that conquest is difficult to get into, then I don't think Push is a good stepping stone for getting players into conquest. From what has been written about Push already, Anet state that "multiple objectives" and "precise map awareness" are the things that players find challenging. Yet Push revolves around a single objective. Where is the opportunity here for players to get familiar with the idea of "multiple objectives" and "precise map awareness"? All you are doing is protecting players from the areas they supposedly find challenging. This will not help them on their journey to conquest. If you want to help players to get familiar with "multiple objectives" and "precise map awareness", you need something completely different. Maybe you have two nodes and 3vs3 instead of three nodes and 5vs5? Maybe you simplify the combat so players focus only on the objectives and rotations and not have to worry so much about builds and the combat itself - perhaps every player becomes a Choya and has one "push" skill that launches an opponent out of a node, and leave everything else (besides the unique map objectives) the same as standard conquest? I welcome another PvP game mode. One that is not intended as a stepping stone to conquest. One that also does not replace conquest either. Instead, one that alternates with conquest each ranked season. To help people into conquest, I think all you need is an ingame interactive tutorial and to fix things like matchmaking, afkers and toxicity. But if Anet insist that new players struggle with "multiple objective" and "precise map awareness", please redesign Push to actually help players to learn those things.

At the moment, there's not a great reason for many to care enough about score. I know there are discussions going on about changing that with the introduction of, for example, gizmos and such. If we are in a world where a lot more people start caring about score, then there has to be the right balance between PPK and PPT. I don't know what the right balance looks like. So I can't decide whether 3 points per kill is a good change or not. But it certainly shifts WvW in the direction of PPK. Both PPT and PPK rewards players with WXP and participation for skirmish pips and reward track progress. In addition, PPTers also get a bit of loot for killing lords and guards and karma for events, but it hardly compares to the lootbags rewarded to PPKers. I think that is a design problem, because lootbags become the primary reason many players PPK - not for the points. How many people would still PPK if they only earned points and not lootbags? I'm not here to discourage PPK. It's a legitimate and important playstyle in WvW. I just think it should not be rewarded disproportionately to the point where lootbags become the primary focus for many and score (whether for structures/objectives or kills) becomes secondary to them.

Exactly! In prime time, there is more work to be done because you have more opponents, but you also have more people active on your team to do that work. There is no need to award more points. I answered this exact question earlier in the thread to someone else. It is not a problem that should be solved with the scoring changes:

I believe that in a competitive game mode, teams earn points for skill/things they do, over and above the opposing teams. I don't see a justification for teams to earn more points simply because they are larger at a certain time. If you want more people to play together at a certain time of day - that is a different problem that requires a different solution. I mentioned an idea in another thread: "... I think we could go back to the server system, where each server has an identity/style/level of ambition and you simply join the server that best fits you. To enable that, players could be allowed to transfer for free an unlimited number of times until they find the right fit for them. Clearly, it would be very chaotic for people to constantly hop servers all the time, so the transfers could be restricted to certain windows/deadlines, as with the current world restructuring. And if the artificial balancing I mentioned before is implemented, different population levels on different servers would not be a concern either." That way you find a server that is active at the times you desire. As for being matched with compatible opponents, that is another problem still. I've had a desire for WvW to enter seasons each quarter for a period of two months or so - like the old season/league system. Matchmaking could ensure each server faces every other server at least once to then determine the overall winner. Then there would be an off-season period for one month or so, where maximising points is not the primary objective any longer, and WvW becomes a sandbox for people to play however they want. In this off-season, artificial balancing/scaling is removed, people are free to transfer servers an unlimited number of times, and players can arrange themselves as they wish. For you and others that enjoy the same playstyle (i.e. big epic zerg fights during primetime with tonnes of lootbags), you would have the freedom to arrange yourselves for this. This way, you satisfy the different groups of WvW players who are looking for different things out of the same game mode. It would also be convenient if the quarterly seasons coincided with the quarterly expansion updates, just to tie some interest among WvW players to the expansion release cycle, beyond new weapons and relics. You are right. But it's nice to dream. You are right. The scaling will have its weaknesses. It needs to be carefully designed to ensure it can not be exploited. If many people log out during a skirmish, it would have consider how best to manage that to avoid their team gaining an unfair advantage. The problem here is that it ultimately has the same problem as the recently implemented system - i.e that the contribution of players at certain times of the day is minimised or entirely ignored. That is not fair.

This is a different problem entirely. Scoring and weights should not be used to address this at all. The problem you are describing here is that there is a lack of consensus within a team over the type of matchups it would like to attract. I agree with you that this is a problem. To solve it, I think we could go back to to the server system, where each server has an identity/style/level of ambition and you simply join the server that best fits you. To enable that, players could be allowed to transfer for free an unlimited number of times until they find the right fit for them. Clearly, it would be very chaotic for people to constantly hop servers all the time, so the transfers could be restricted to certain windows/deadlines, as with the current world restructuring. And if the artificial balancing I mentioned before is implemented, different population levels on different servers would not be a concern either.

If teams are balanced, why should score generated by a 70v70v70 in peak times be worth more than a 5v5v5 in off-peak times? Awarding more points simply because there are more players online is absurd to me. This is a "competitive" game mode, not a popularity contest.

As I have mentioned in another thread,. the whole concept of applying weights based on timezones is ridiculous. The real problem here is that there are unbalanced teams, a problem that has been around since launch, but perhaps felt particularly nowadays in off-peak times for a game that is 12 years old. If teams are balanced, why should score generated by a 70v70v70 in peak times be worth more than a 5v5v5 in off-peak times? Awarding more points simply because there are more players online is absurd to me. This is a "competitive" game mode, not a popularity contest. If you are wondering how you might achieve balanced teams, an option could be to artificially balance the teams by scaling up the score generated by the teams with fewer players by a factor that accounts for, precisely, the difference in the number of players on each team. That way you get balanced teams/scores at all times of the day.

It is not equitable at all. It just swings the favour from one group of players to another, in a rather rash manner. And introduces additional risks as pointed out in my original post. You artificially balance the teams by scaling up the score generated by the team with fewer players by a factor that accounts for, precisely, the difference in the number of players on each team. That way you get balanced teams at all times of the day. That's not right at all. The principle you are arguing is that the score generated in a 5v5v5 is worth less than the score generated in a 70v70v70, which is absurd. I believe that the score generated in those two instances should be just as worthwhile as each other, because the teams were balanced, even if the total number of players were different.

Don't you see the unfairness? Let's say that due to life circumstances, you were only able to login to the game at midday to play. This change means that your contribution is suddenly worth a lot less than if you had logged in at 7pm. I think you are missing the real problem here. The problem with score generated in off-peak times is not the level of activity but rather that the population of each team is not balanced. If at 4am, score is generated when all three teams have only five players online, then I believe that that score is just as valid as score generated at 7pm when all three teams only have 70 players online. So, in my view, the solution should not be to weight the scores based on activity levels. The solution should be to balance the teams at all times. Obviously, it's not possible to control when players are active. So an alternative is to artificially balance the teams by scaling up the score generated by the team with fewer players by a factor that accounts for, precisely, the difference in the number of players on each team. Also, as a sidenote, please remember that the data on GW2mists is based on only the players that are registered on that site, and may not be a true reflection of reality. Agreed!

No, we do not know the exact number of players playing at different times. But if we choose an off-peak time slot and a peak time slot, and control for the number of players, then the contribution of the players in off-peak times is worth objectively less than the same contribution by the same number of players during peak teams, under the recently implemented scoring system.

I gave an example comparing two points in time, one off-peak, another at peak. I do not assume those are the only entities, and I fully understand that there are several different weights.at different times. My 'essay' is not invalidated at all by that. That is no different to today, where players can exploit their alt accounts and take up limited places in WvW to manipulate matches. This does not invalidate the dynamic scoring I proposed. But I do think it's an issue that Arenanet need to resolve. I did not think of it as a step-multiplier. The multiplier would be dynamic and change instantly based on the precise number of people on the map. The 'multiplier' is another name for the weights/ratios I mentioned in my proposal. The idea was for the 'multiplier' to consider the number of players only, and disregard the time of day. I imagined it would be applied per map, but haven't really given enough thought to alternatives such as applying it to the overall WvW population across all four maps. Exactly how the 'multiplier' works is up for debate, but I wouldn't count on it having thresholds. I imagined it would be dynamic and change instantly based on the precise number of people on the map.

I also have memories of the WvW seasons being quite stressful and leading to burnout. At the same time, I treasure memories of rushing home from work to see how my server (Gandara) was scoring, jumping into voice comms and hearing the intense communication and coordination that took place. I treasure memories of staying up late for the sake of the realm, and going into work the following days completely exhausted, but content that I gave my all and made a contribution. I have never experienced anything like that since. Working as a team with so many other strangers on the internet for one common goal was incredible. Honestly, I wouldn't mind if they bring seasons back occasionally. I'm confused. How did you reach the conclusion that I assumed there is only one player per time zone? As for your counter example, I want to be clear that under the system I propose, the time of day becomes completely irrelevant. It depends entirely on how many players are actively involved in the map, at any point in time. If one side has fewer players, then the points they score will be scaled up to account for the difference in the number of players on each team. While the weights that were applied in the recently implemented system do lessen the inequality you mentioned (to prevent the 15 off-peak players outscoring the efforts of the 70 players at peak times), the problem is that it does so in a way that makes the effort of players in off peak times less meaningful, and that is not fair at all. The system I propose ensures that everyone can make an equal contribution regardless of population levels, and it solves the problem of points scored in peak vs off-peak times by ensuring that points scored at any time of the day are fairly balanced. 1) With such a significant change to the scoring system in WvW, I think it is important for the data to be transparent, or at the very least, have a competent person in a neutral/unrelated role that can verify the calculations for the player base. 2 + 3) You don't have to take an average pattern of the entire NA/EU playerbase. If the solution I propose is adopted, weights are calculated automatically on an ongoing basis as the population in each map and in each matchup changes. It's far more accurate. 4) That is a fair comment. I think you are right. If players are logged into and active on only one of their accounts at any time, then it is not an exploit at all. If they are actively playing on multiple accounts at the same time, then I believe that is a policy violation. This is ridiculous. Did you ever notice the many objectives/structures in WvW? They can be captured, defended and lost. Capturing and holding them earns your team points? Unbelievable, right? What I'm trying to say here, is that there is way more to WvW than just epic fights. WvW has always tried to cater for all players, casual and hardcore. When did Arenanet officially decide casual players are no longer allowed in WvW? I don't recall seeing an announcement on it. Agreed!

Not only did they present the changes, but they also gave a glimpse into the the internal workings of how the spreadsheet was put together. 30:52 - CC says: "If these numbers felt a little all over the place to you guys, we can confirm that Roy has a mad scientist sheet that he put together to figure out the right values." 31:38 - CC says: "No one understands the spreadsheet except for Roy. He bought it to me and says(?) 'can you look at this' and I'm like 'can you explain to me what's happening on this spreadsheet?', but once he explained it, it all made sense." Some of that was humour, of course, but it suggests to me that besides Roy and CC (and maybe even Trig), nobody else was involved in putting it together or reviewing it.

It was mentioned in the competitive update stream 2 weeks ago. You can watch the VOD from this timestamp onwards for a few minutes: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2194238192?t=00h29m18s

Another problem of the static weights that I forgot to mention in my initial post are that they do not differentiate between activity on weekdays and weekends.