Rewards and How To Discourage Night Capping

[Zyreva.1078]

18 minutes ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

That's not how dynamic caps work anywhere, I thought it would go without saying but I guess not... So here...

Example:

Current player cap is 25, suddenly Server A drops to 12, new cap 17.

Server B has 25 players on the map, no new players can come in BUT THE PLAYERS ALREADY THERE CAN STAY WITHOUT BEING REMOVED, as people leave on their own accord 24, 23, 22... still no new players can come in, because current cap is 17, as more players leave 19, 18, 17, 16 now 1 new player can come in.

You can also have a hard low limit cap of 10 players, even if no one else on the other sides is in the map.

WvW is inherently unbalanced, but there's different levels of unbalance, ever since the game came out people always tried to migrate to the side with the bigger numbers in an effort to outnumber the opponents for an easy win, with a dynamic cap in place (and aggressive AFK kick) you'd actively discourage outnumbering as the winning strategy, because you simply couldn't do that anymore, instead even out player numbers thus making WvW less unbalanced than it currently is, and with the way Anet plans to shuffle players around in the new system, this would be the best time to try something like this.

Still opens up the possibility to gamble and exploit the system and screw over your opposition or even your own side.

It would encourage players to not log off after the enemy did, to take advantage of their superior numbers as long as possible, or simply because they know they won't be able to get back in later (with potential burn out as result, because players feel "forced" to play longer than they want to). Or what if players know that a certain guild or popular commander logs on at a certain time and everyone logs off shortly before to prevent them from playing?

Dynamic population caps can only work if they are not too restrictive, to shave off peak imbalance, but not to create equal numbers in a game mode that is simply not designed for equal numbers. And that's something alliances are supposed to do anyway, so there should be no need for further restrictions.

 

Edited September 18, 2021 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Dean Calaway.9718]

[This message is unwelcomed and was removed.]

Edited September 30, 2021 by Dean Calaway.9718

[Zyreva.1078]

33 minutes ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

You can stay in the map right now while one side leaves in mass, it would change nothing, and good luck trying to tell everyone in a map "leave now, because Big Bossman Commander is coming on the other side and we must stop him" see how many players actually listen and leave OR stop anyone else from coming into the maps in the first place after that...

 

Because most players totally think and play by themself and aren't reliant on someone else telling them what to do ...

It already happens. Zerg gets wiped, comm quits and players stops playing. If it happens regularily at the same time/vs the same opponent, players will just quit in advance and nobody can play. And it doesn't even have to be intentional. Player activity fluctuates heavily all the time, due to a lot of different factors and not being able to play, just because others decided to not play is terrible. Being able to join and leave the game mode (almost) completely freely is one of the core designs of WvW.

Edited September 18, 2021 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Dean Calaway.9718]

[This message is unwelcomed and was removed.]

Edited September 30, 2021 by Dean Calaway.9718

[Zyreva.1078]

I'm currently on the EU server with the lowest population (bottom tier, losing every matchup) and yet not experiencing such massive disparities that it would prevent me from enjoying the game. And a few months ago i had the "pleasure" to be stuck in T1 vs what was probably the most overstacked server pair of recent times on EU. And i still had fun playing.

Population differences used to be much worse before linking. Nowadays it isn't that bad anymore and alliances should further improve the situation. Also uneven numbers don't have to ruin the fun. Some players don't mind being outnumbered (like myself) and not having enough enemies to fight is rarely a concern when running solo or in a small grp, even if my side has the most players at a time. WvW doesn't have to be balanced to be fun.

But when i log on and suddenly can't play my favourite game mode beause a lot of players on one of the opposing servers just happen to log off (while the 3rd server might still have high pop, and gets to freely PvDoor because players from the 2nd populated server can't join), i might as well not bother at all and look for a game that lets me play whenever i want.

Edited September 18, 2021 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Kassablanca.5821]

Skirmish point gain based on time zone:

NA 10 7 4

EU 1 2 3

OCX 1 2 3

SEA 1 2 3

[gloflop.3510]

3 minutes ago, Limodriver.4106 said:

Skirmish point gain based on time zone:

NA 10 7 4

EU 1 2 3

OCX 1 2 3

SEA 1 2 3

Then there is a public holiday and you can start all over again...

[Brandon Uzumaki.1524]

On the rewards side i think they should make the participation pip (completing Bronze chest), have more layers to it, like, kill X number of players (maybe have something like a 2 or 3 minute CD for the same player so people don't cheat with friends) and you get 1 extra pip, capture X number of objectives and get an extra pip, stuff to really reward participation a bit more, and maybe make these reset daily, so you have to really participate at all times to get maximum eficiency.

Of course, this suggestion is coming from the perspective of a "new player" (only lvl 430 right now), because extra pips are kinda meh for people that are super high lvl and already have their 5 pips from lvl 6k (kinda like having a perma outnumbered buff hehe), so Anet would still need to do some fine tunning on the pips/tracks rewards themselves.

[ASP.8093]

13 minutes ago, Brandon Uzumaki.1524 said:

On the rewards side i think they should make the participation pip (completing Bronze chest), have more layers to it, like, kill X number of players (maybe have something like a 2 or 3 minute CD for the same player so people don't cheat with friends) and you get 1 extra pip, capture X number of objectives and get an extra pip, stuff to really reward participation a bit more, and maybe make these reset daily, so you have to really participate at all times to get maximum eficiency.

Of course, this suggestion is coming from the perspective of a "new player" (only lvl 430 right now), because extra pips are kinda meh for people that are super high lvl and already have their 5 pips from lvl 6k (kinda like having a perma outnumbered buff hehe), so Anet would still need to do some fine tunning on the pips/tracks rewards themselves.

The thing is, the more stuff you add to pips, the more it becomes about gaming the algorithm for rewards rather than doing what's productive or fun.

The current implementation has its problems, but imo the ability to keep your participation up by just knocking over a sentry isn't one of them — that means you don't get overly punished if you just had to spend 10 minutes in a fight you ultimately lost, like trying to hold an open tower 5v1 or breaking into an SMC just to desiege it for later.

[Andred.1087]

While they're rather different in execution, I've often thought that there's a lot of interesting things to consider by comparing WvW to Planetside 2. Especially since the whole 3-way, large-scale war concept is the entirety of the game in PS2, so naturally they have been able to refine their implementation a good deal over the years. Of course that's not to say you could take any particular piece of it and just drop it into WvW and expect it to work, but I'd be very interested to see WvW devs taking some cues from it.

For instance, when we get siege turtles as mounts, they could probably introduce that into WvW in a way that is comparable to how tanks are provisioned in PS2: requiring a particular resource (objective supply in our case), only deployable from specific locations (keeps, maybe towers, likely with the requirement of a particular tactic slot). I think that could be a really cool and interesting new mechanic for the game mode, and still be very balanceable. 

Of course, one thing PS2 does quite well is the rock-paper-scissors aspect of different mechanics, which I don't think WvW has quite got down. Like, in PS2, a tank can decimate and effectively suppress most infantry; however, enough infantry with anti-armor weaponry can bring down a tank fairly easily. Whereas in WvW I don't really see a means for that same dynamic to exist with a siege turtle; the best way to take it down would probably be to just zerg rush it, as is the answer to just about everything in WvW, if you have a large enough group.

Anyway... yeah, overall I think I would like to see WvW look more like PS2 in some ways. There's no shortage of things to draw inspiration from.

Edited September 18, 2021 by Andred.1087

[DAN.7314]

On 9/17/2021 at 1:35 AM, adammantium.8031 said:

Super-tough problem to solve. I played in asian hours on US servers ("night crew") for several years, and now play EU prime on EU servers. Off-hours players clearly shouldn't have their experience hampered in any way though.

My idea would be to lessen the impact on scoring that holding structures provides on maps with low playercounts. For example,  tir 3 SMC only gives the full 30 points per tick if both enemy servers have full maps. If both enemies are half-full, give 15 points. Bottom out at 10 points per tick. 

There's still value in owning a t3 SMC, there's still a waypoint, but you get fewer rewards if you're not actually doing anything with SMC.

As has been said elsewhere, that an empty map can tier up itself and gain increased PPT is also problematic. Auto-upgrades should not be a thing.

I like the idea. I think more of the problem is a skirmish during overnight (non prime time hours) gives the same weight as a prime time skirmish to the week's match up. Changing the amount of PPT won't really effect anything other than total warscore. Whoever has the better numbers during overnight hours is still going to get the 5 skirmish points even if SMC is only ticking for 10 points. If they stopped basing match ups on skirmish scores and used total warscore instead to determine the winner then your idea would work. It would give PPT more value during higher population times. They could still use the skirmish system to give out extra PIPS to the 1st/2nd place teams during that skirmish. Just stop basing the winner of the match up on skirmish wins and switch to total warscore.

[panthera onca.4251]

On 9/17/2021 at 12:22 AM, Spongewebbs.9816 said:

I have just listened to the developers on tea time speaking about alliances and discussing population balance and rewards. Another game I am playing at the moment (Planetside 2) has faced similar issued described and their solutions may be of use:

"Alert" System: 

This system involves a bonus event on a certain map where 3 teams are given a certain amount of time (1hr 30m) to control the most bases on the map. This event can be triggered either by a certain team controlling too much of the map or by a certain amount of players being active at a time e.g. prime time. Players are then rewarded for playing during this event based on participation with the winners getting a bonus reward.

Dynamic Rewards:

With dynamic rewards players who are active in a team with lower population are given extra rewards. I guess this is similar to outnumbered which is already implemented. However outnumbered is map based rather than global.

Restricting Play Space During Off-Hours:

This could be freezing the borderlands and the points gained from them when a certain population threshold is met. Forcing people to play on EBG during Off-Hours would funnel people together and allow for more populated fights.

 Off-Hours? On many servers especially international some players primetime is your off-time... wont be fair to tell those " hey... play nighttime to better fit for some others primetime or you cant use the full maps even if you paid same for game ^^... its not fair for them you farm in your primetime points while they work or sleep too 🙂 

[Chaba.5410]

8 hours ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

If everyone on side A suddenly leaves that only prevents side B and C to get even more players in

This sounds like something some trolls on Side A will do to screw around with Sides B and C!

[kafka.1657]

14 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Uh... how do you work that in with timezones?

That would be midnight to 8am server time, which is different between EU and NA.

[Loules.8601]

3 hours ago, kafka.1657 said:

That would be midnight to 8am server time, which is different between EU and NA.

EU have MUCH more time-zones than NA, so it’s a bad idea even on this level. 
 

[gloflop.3510]

1 hour ago, Loules.8601 said:

EU have MUCH more time-zones than NA, so it’s a bad idea even on this level. 
 

In theory, I would agree. Especially, when looking at countries like Russia. In practice, I would say it is less time-zones. Most players are in the Central European Time-zone (CET), UK, Ireland, and Portugal have their own time-zone and are 1h behind, east Europe has its own time-zone as well and is 1h ahead. These 3 time-zones contain the clear majority of the players.

 

But I would say that Europe is much more complex than NA. NA is dominated by the USA. So, the Canadian players are probably extremely brave and proud but not so many in numbers. The same is true for Mexico. Such a dominance is lacking for the European servers. There are similarities among the European countries but also differences. Spain as an example is famous for a long lunch break in the middle of the day. Therefore, the total work day is longer. It gets even more complicated with public holidays. The national day is the clearest example. No country celebrates their national day at the same day as another. Getting a proper balance is under these circumstances rather difficult.

 

The best idea which I read here so far is (in my eyes) to stop auto-upgrading. We return to the previous system just without gold costs. It would not solve the problem but it would mitigate the damage caused. It would occur less often that one comes online in the morning and something is t3 just because nobody was online to flip it back. A tiny side-bonus is that players who simply run around and upgrade stuff would become more valued again.

[SweetPotato.7456]

This topic shows us, that, players still think of the 3-5 (estimation) hours they spend in WvW is the only time WvW game mode is active.  I am not going to make another thread, because I think what this thread has brought to light is, what I observe happening on my server. I don't know what people are doing on their chat program since I don't join them, I assume the alliance pact are made in chat outside of game. 

 

What I do see and find out is, there are Guild that says they didn't receive any invitation to be alliance with anyone, there are people advertising for alliances, DURING the time their guild is active, this all comes back to the perception that players have that the game time revolves around time they active/play in WvW.

So assuming the above, if all or most of the guilds only ally with other guilds of the same time zone, how is alliance going to fix the population time zone/imbalance problem? 

 

[Dawdler.8521]

52 minutes ago, SweetPotato.7456 said:

So assuming the above, if all or most of the guilds only ally with other guilds of the same time zone, how is alliance going to fix the population time zone/imbalance problem? 

The alliance system is there to level the population numbers of all worlds, not fix time zones.

But in theory they could weigh the activity values based on which 24h skirmishes they are most active and in the matchup algorithm try to spread it out.

[retsuya.4708]

They can always start by removing Desert Borderlands

[cobbah.3102]

A lot of selfish thinking here ,no such thing as "night" capping ,just people playing the game as the world turns it is round after all.

[Sinmir.6504]

I know time zones may complicate what is called Night Capping, but when you start playing you choose a server and it will say the continent. So say I'm playing at 3AM, it's likely  not to be peak time for the majority of players I could meet.

I think the term Night Capping is being used to give stigma to people who play late at night. Like I'm deliberately flipping the maps while it's quiet, my teams going to get the tier three structures over the night, that stuff you network of camps, towers, keeps you left at midnight to level up, expecting to come back at 8AM to see it fully upgraded, nah, I'm gonna flip that and it will be tier three, but for my server.

Could just be that I've had a busy day and I'm playing late at night. I don't think of giving my team an unfair advantage by night capping, I just feel like playing at that time. And if I'm playing at night, why should I avoid capping at night? If an enemy server had a structure and the two camps feeding into it at night then in the morning it will be upgraded, easier for them to defend and harder for my server to take. The points over the night will go to their server and not mine. I'm online, I like WvW, why should I leave that to happen? And hey, if  the enemy server has a player online they can flip them back, and if I'm still online then I can fight to defend them, or take them back again.

That's why I don't think Night Capping should carry a stigma or be discouraged. It's simply playing WvW, it's just like Day Capping only it's done at night.

[Raizel.1839]

With upcoming alliances, this should be solved becase night-capping guilds should be paired in matchups against other night-capping guilds.

[Dean Calaway.9718]

[This message is unwelcomed and was removed.]

Edited September 30, 2021 by Dean Calaway.9718

[kafka.1657]

11 hours ago, Loules.8601 said:

EU have MUCH more time-zones than NA, so it’s a bad idea even on this level. 
 

MUCH??   NA has 5 if we include Alaska and Newfoundland.  EU has 4 if we include Moscow.  I think you'll find there isn't MUCH more Europe to be found east of Moscow's timezone.

In any case, I'd agree with gloflop's suggestion to select a compromise timezone from the middle of each region.

[Chaba.5410]

3 hours ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

This sounds like someone with very little WvW experience would say.

This sounds like someone upset about my response to them in another thread.

 

Every single time over the years someone has proposed "solutions" that involve adjusting player caps, they usually haven't thought about the full implications because they are always making the assumption that all players are going to play the game in a sincere manner or "as intended".  That just doesn't happen and it reveals a naivete.  Competitive players will always push the boundaries of defined game rules and mechanics to gain a winning edge.  Give them a tool to mess with queues on another side and they will use it.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Chaba.5410