Reward Structure Changes Mentioned in the Postmortem

[Strider Pj.2193]

50 minutes ago, Soul SilverRose.6351 said:

Personally, I feel like this is a strange and hurtful change. The point was to increase the speed at which you level your skirmish rewards. Unless I'm misunderstanding the math, we're gaining +3 pips per tick if you meet the requirement but we're losing the Outnumbered pips which is +5. So we're actually losing a net 2 pips per tick. 

 

Now I can't speak for everyone, but in my experience, some of the servers I've played on need that Outnumbered incentive to motivate roamers to help out more when the server is lacking active population. This Outnumbered pip buff has been especially helpful to those I know who work often and have to miss regularly active server times so they have to roam late night when nobody is on.

 

What I believe was designed with good intentions instead poses a threat to those who don't want to run with a zerg on active maps or are online when those zergs aren't running.

 

If the population balance in matchups was fixed to only a 2% difference, that's cool but it doesn't fix the fact that this could harm other people's experience. A balanced match up doesn't mean outnumbered will NEVER occur. What is the harm in it existing if it doesn't occur often but helps when it does?

 

If the overall goal was to increase how fast we get through the skirmish reward track, leave the Outnumbered pips alone. Some people rely on that.

If the overwhelming bulk of your playtime is in the outnumbered buff, then your math is correct.

 

But generally speaking more than 50% of the overwhelming majority of players play time is not in ‘outnumbered’.  So the overall gain or loss is not as simple as +5 and +2.

 

But yes, if your playtime is (>40%) largely in ‘out numbered’) then you may have a net loss to pips.  

[Xenesis.6389]

Did that 7% come from pips gain of the entire wvw population, or just of the losing 3rd place servers, who you know, are most likely taking advantage of outnumbered pips in their matches?

Although you've basically replaced it with an extra pip from warscore placements, a new one for low rank finally so many years ago I mentioned that should happen, and additional ones for the higher ranks. Overall should be a good change for everyone.

Just a question of what will motivate those losing 3rd place players to play on empty outnumbered maps, one could hope the population spread will be successful and there's always going to be players on all four maps at all times, but that's up in the air until the system is actually in place whenever that may be.

Edited October 21, 2021 by Xenesis.6389

[TeamTebow.5274]

47 minutes ago, Soul SilverRose.6351 said:

What is the harm in it existing if it doesn't occur often but helps when it does?

 

This is the big sticking point to me. Restructuring is good, and hopefully it leads to outnumbered happening less, but it'll still happen. Why not leave outnumbered in, see how things play out, and then tweak it? Changing multiple things in one swoop just makes it unnecessarily harder to measure the actual impacts. Outnumbered could end up happening more if people are less willing to play outside of big zergs, at no fault of the restructuring...Or it could end up happening less just because zergs split into smaller groups to avoid it, no thanks to the restructuring. Can't predict the future, but you also can't pinpoint cause-and-effect when you throw in multiple variables at a time.
 

[DKRathalos.9625]

1 hour ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Posted this elsewhere, wanted to make sure I put it on the forums as well:

 

A quick follow-up here regarding the removal of the outnumbered pip bonus.

 

Looking at the sources of pips, outnumbered is a small percentage (7%) of overall pip gains compared to ranks and placement, despite the fact that outnumbered is a huge bonus (+5). The changes outlined in the blog (+2 baseline pips) are intended to provide more players, more pips, in more scenarios.

 

It's worth keeping in mind that the entire point of World Restructuring is improving population balance across match ups. The ability to benefit from outnumbered exists to the degree that it does currently because population isn't balanced as well as it could be. We're experimenting with this change now because the goal is that world population balance will improve with World Restructuring, meaning that the outnumbered bonus will be even more difficult to benefit from in the future.

 

And, I know this is hard to believe (trust me, I get it), but if we don't see the results we're looking for from this change, we'll make additional adjustments.

 

Before we forgot The Emblem of Avenger where we get from killing every 100 players now also got no use currently. Perhaps already there is idea where to use that or can be exchanged to something?

[Otter.3841]

1 minute ago, Strider Pj.2193 said:

If the overwhelming bulk of your playtime is in the outnumbered buff, then your math is correct.

 

But generally speaking more than 50% of the overwhelming majority of players play time is not in ‘outnumbered’.  So the overall gain or loss is not as simple as +5 and +2.

 

But yes, if your playtime is (>40%) largely in ‘out numbered’) then you may have a net loss to pips.  

50% is still a huge discrepancy in that. And like I mentioned, it won't matter to people who never play outnumbered. They won't notice a difference between now and then. But I'm thinking about the people who will find themselves in that boat. Let them benefit for playing Outnumbered, and those who never are won't notice a difference anyways.

[Widmo.3186]

1 hour ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Being saucy about it probably isn't the best way to show appreciation for it nor encourage it.

Because that wasnt my intention? Relax a little and realize that people are expressing THEIR opinions, not YOURS, saucy boi.

PS: Fine change to pips system, idc about rewards but at least its a good step in not promoting afk/looking for outnumbered maps kind of gameplay direction.

Edited October 21, 2021 by Widmo.3186

[Otter.3841]

13 minutes ago, Legionnaire.9478 said:

I also feel like until Alliances are polished and fully released it's not a good idea to punish players on low server populations by taking away their outnumbered pip bonus. I believe if you want to make this change, you need to do it when alliances are live, and you are able to monitor if outnumbered is effective at incentivizing players to play WvW, when "balance" is achieved with alliances.

 

 

100% this for sure. I don't agree with removing the Outnumbered pips. But if it's going to happen, it should happen at or after the full launch of Alliances.

[Sylvyn.4750]

2 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

In addition, if taking away wall repair and such why keep daily veteran creature slayer? It should be replaced by dolyak defender.
 

Agreed...if Anet wants to move to more active participation, daily Veteran Creature already results in lost participation while you wait and listen to the Jeopardy timer countdown music playing over and over in your head.  I'd also like to get rid of all environmental creatures that aggro and keep you in combat longer when you could be hopping onto your mount or recovering health sooner.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@Josh Davis.7865, thank you so much for stopping by and commenting on the thread!

 

Can you provide any details on how the team is looking at rewards in general, specifically things like the Emblems and Gifts of Battle that rack up?

 

I think a lot of us would like to hear even a rough outline.

[Dawdler.8521]

44 minutes ago, Neutra.6857 said:

Just a quick thing, but one of the issues I have had when outnumbered is finding things to do on a map to get participation rewards. All to often I will find myself in decay because I get killed before I can take a camp or kill a player or open a wall. Walking dolyaks does not really do anything for this and often the camps when not on your home map are watched by people looking for easy kill in off hours. I think if you are outnumbered maybe decrease the decay somehow?

Well as Anet has declared by means of the participation system, dying to enemy players is not participating in WvW.

There's something about that which doesnt make sense but I cant quite put my finger on it...

 

Edited October 21, 2021 by Dawdler.8521

[Justacravat.8320]

Forgive me if there is another post I missed where this should be located, but I just wanted to take a moment after reading the postmortem to say how amazing it is to have a company with that degree of communication. I've heard Anet hasn't been the best with it, largely before I joined the game, but it's been a long time since I've seen something to the degree of that breakdown (or the proceeding one explaining server issues). There were admissions of things going wrong, no one was thrown under the buss for the issues, and things were explained in a way the average player could understand them.

 

I think most players understand bugs, hiccups, and issues and understand when things aren't absolutely perfect, but communication goes such a long way to making me feel more confident about supporting this company and this amazing game.

 

Again, thank you.

[Strider Pj.2193]

There is one:

 

 

[Pi Slinger.5801]

I currently exclusively play WvW when I can get the Outnumbered bonus because the pips feel too slow otherwise. This already doesn't feel great in a game type that already doesn't feel super rewarding for time investment.

When reading the article my response was effectively "Yay! An increase in base pips, now I can enjoy WvW more" and then "Boo! Now the goals I'm working on in WvW will feel even more grindy".

I'm already quite burnt out with the game from how long it took to farm the WvW legendary armor and the idea that it will take even longer in the future really sucks the interest out of it for me (even after getting everything for Warbringer and two Confluxes except for the parts that require skirmish tickets). That's also despite quite enjoying the gameplay of solo roaming, capping, and the thrill of sneaking around zergs and aggressive roaming groups.

 

Maybe it'd be a bit much, but honestly adding the +5 from outnumbered to the base level of pips would probably get pips to the point of feeling like they accumulate at a more reasonable pace and do a lot for making WvW feel more rewarding.

 

I mean, I love WvW but sometimes it feels more like a second job than a war simulator in a game that sells itself on the premise of respecting player time...especially if you're going for pip rewards, didn't farm out WvW experience in EotM when that was more of a thing, and/or don't have the time to dedicate on a daily basis to grinding out WvW levels to get better pip accrual.

[Strider Pj.2193]

Just now, Pi Slinger.5801 said:

I currently exclusively play WvW when I can get the Outnumbered bonus because the pips feel too slow otherwise. This already doesn't feel great in a game type that already doesn't feel super rewarding for time investment.

When reading the article my response was effectively "Yay! An increase in base pips, now I can enjoy WvW more" and then "Boo! Now the goals I'm working on in WvW will feel even more grindy".

I'm already quite burnt out with the game from how long it took to farm the WvW legendary armor and the idea that it will take even longer in the future really sucks the interest out of it for me (even after getting everything for Warbringer and two Confluxes except for the parts that require skirmish tickets). That's also despite quite enjoying the gameplay of solo roaming, capping, and the thrill of sneaking around zergs and aggressive roaming groups.

 

Maybe it'd be a bit much, but honestly adding the +5 from outnumbered to the base level of pips would probably get pips to the point of feeling like they accumulate at a more reasonable pace and do a lot for making WvW feel more rewarding.

 

I mean, I love WvW but sometimes it feels more like a second job than a war simulator in a game that sells itself on the premise of respecting player time...especially if you're going for pip rewards, didn't farm out WvW experience in EotM when that was more of a thing, and/or don't have the time to dedicate on a daily basis to grinding out WvW levels to get better pip accrual.

So..  as soon as outnumbered clears, you log out..  Got it.

[b k.1648]

40 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Well as Anet has declared by means of the participation system, dying to enemy players is not participating in WvW.

There's something about that which doesnt make sense but I cant quite put my finger on it...

 

As it turns out, this makes playing certain matches during OCX hours rather challenging to keep participation up, and it'll be worse if repairing structures no longer gives credit.

[LyonTheCat.6857]

So just to check my math if I am Silver, with the changes we loose 5 pips when outnumbered, gain 2 always... so if we play and its not outnumbered for 10 min we get an extra 4 pips, if we play and it is outnumbered we gain 4 pips but loose the extra 10 we would have gotten ( minus 6 net).  If I played on a world that was smaller in numbers I would more than likely get the outnumbered far more often but if I was in a more populated world I would not get the outnumbered as often.  So this change would be much better for larger worlds??? am I correct??  since they do not get the outnumbered as often anyways. This does not seem to be an even distribution of increase...  Why not just do the +2 pip increase, everyone gets rewards faster, leave the outnumbered alone for now and change it ( if it needs it)  when the new world linking is up and running well?  just a thought.

[Otter.3841]

11 minutes ago, Strider Pj.2193 said:

So..  as soon as outnumbered clears, you log out..  Got it.

I think you entirely missed the point of that post. The post was about how under rewarded your time is. It's fine to love WvW with a passion but you certainly cannot deny that it does at times feel like it isn't your best bang for your buck. And by penalizing roamers and people who prefer Outnumbered, you are effectively driving away a crucial part of the WvW player base.

[Strider Pj.2193]

5 minutes ago, Soul SilverRose.6351 said:

I think you entirely missed the point of that post. The post was about how under rewarded your time is. It's fine to love WvW with a passion but you certainly cannot deny that it does at times feel like it isn't your best bang for your buck. And by penalizing roamers and people who prefer Outnumbered, you are effectively driving away a crucial part of the WvW player base.

And I think you missed the point of my post as well which was, the math of missed pips with the new system for outnumbered won’t show nearly as much as you believe it to.  
 

In fact, I think the number who LOSE pips in this new system vs gain more will surprise you.

 

 

[Danikat.8537]

I'm curious about how it will work out in practice, but in theory this sounds good for me. I'm trying to make Warbringer and getting enough skirmish tickets has been a real pain point, both literally because playing WvW as much as I can sets off RSI in my mouse hand and figuratively because I've never actually been able to finish the skirmish reward track, I just don't have that much free time in one week.

The changes mean I'm going to be getting +2 pips (one from placement, one from bronze rank bonus) per tick, which doesn't sound like a lot but if my maths is correct that means it will take me a maximum of 21 hours to complete the skirmish track (down from about 30 hours). Of course I'll lose out on the Outnumbered buff, but for me that's relatively rare (I couldn't say what percentage of the time, but certainly not every evening and never for more than 3-4 ticks) so overall I think it will be a benefit.

[Neutra.6857]

1 hour ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Well as Anet has declared by means of the participation system, dying to enemy players is not participating in WvW.

There's something about that which doesnt make sense but I cant quite put my finger on it...

 

I understand why they do not want to count dying, since they want to prevent exchanging kills, but that makes other issues.

[Otter.3841]

12 minutes ago, Strider Pj.2193 said:

And I think you missed the point of my post as well which was, the math of missed pips with the new system for outnumbered won’t show nearly as much as you believe it to.  
 

In fact, I think the number who LOSE pips in this new system vs gain more will surprise you.

 

 

K, let me break this down. Literally nobody here is arguing against the +2 we are getting. It's a good change. Very positive actually.

 

But the removal of Outnumbered is the topic for debate and everyone is basically saying don't remove Outnumbered pips. Roamers and others actually want to be outnumbered for those pips and it helps WvW servers as a whole.

 

Once again, nobody here is saying not to do the +2. You are defending something nobody was attacking.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Personally I'd be in favor of making the outnumbered pips baseline, Grouch did state that they'll keep an eye on it. Which means if the incoming changes are still too slow then they'll buff it again. So, I'm not really worried about pips going forward, it's the overall rewards, and gifts/emblems that stockpile that I am more concerned about.

[Otter.3841]

5 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Personally I'd be in favor of making the outnumbered pips baseline, Grouch did state that they'll keep an eye on it. Which means if the incoming changes are still too slow then they'll buff it again. So, I'm not really worried about pips going forward, it's the overall rewards, and gifts/emblems that stockpile that I am more concerned about.

Agreed. I'm sure there will be plenty of changes and improvements along with way.

 

I, also, would like to know more about the future of the rewards system in WvW. It was mentioned that once Alliances we're launched, the next thing they'd do was start looking into how to rework rewards. I would be very interested in some info on that.

[MedievalThings.5417]

Repairing and damaging are the same mechanic.  So, if you are removing participation time grants from repairing, you should remove it from damaging at the same time.  Unless, you are once again just trying to tell everyone that you do NOT want anyone defending, and instead only want blobs running around fighting doors.

[VictorLeal.4102]

Hmmm 

AFK Treb attacking - OK

AFK Wall Defender - NOPE