Why did Anet kill off WvW with the 9/11/21 patch?

[Gorani.7205]

Like I said on other threads: The removal of participation for repairing isn't the problem, not giving participation for defense events outside EB is the problem. On the other hand, EB was the only place you could really keep up participation with repairing walls and trebbing SMC from towers - and not the borderlands. The fix Anet made, since they make a difference between BLs and EB is the complete opposite of what was needed:
EB no participation from defense events & repairs => BLs should give participation from defense events and perhaps even repairs to help defensive, scouting oriented play style and due to the fact that you can't treb structures from close by towers - with Hills => Lake being the only exception)

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Defending is far less likely to get kills than you'd think.  I've solo-defended a tower many times using a full marauder staff weaver, and it is actually quite rare for me to get a kill, even if the enemy only number 3 or so.  The reason why is because their friends rez each other.  Even if I down two people in a hail of meteors and ice storms, that third person will pop defensive utilities and resurrect their downed teammates while eating all of my AoEs and fireballs.  

One more person on your side would have secured those kills and you'd still have been outnumbered. 

Stop trying to hog all the kills, leave something for the rest.

[Blockhead Magee.3092]

Anet should work on giving more participation for things, not less.  We need bodies to get in wvw and find out that it is a good place to spend their time while in game.  We continue to hemorrhage players and I'd rather they do what they can to draw more people in.  Sure 8/10 might just be there for the rewards (who knows the actual number) but those 2 who jump in the deep end will keep the game mode going. 

[Xenesis.6389]

Do we really don't need more pve'er sitting around repairing walls? Not when the enemy decides to visit your borderland with two 60 man voltron blobs, and all you can respond with is 30 cause you have 10 wall repairers and 10 scouts plastering objectives links in chat to play 20 questions with after because they can't be bothered to type in side/guild/numbers/where/status in one sentence, but also can't be bothered to be on the tag when bodies are actually needed.

 

Sure, wvw always needs players, we just don't need the afking for loot kind. If a player doesn't get excited to play wvw after their first big open field zerg battle, or getting that first roaming kill, or their first major keep defense or capture win, then the mode probably isn't for them. Wall repairing is the last thing that should get anyone excited to stay, seriously.

[Zikory.6871]

14 hours ago, Oxford.9375 said:

Immediately after the last two server resets there have been only about10 people queued to get into EB and the borderlands have had one or two or no queue at all. Compare that to the previous weeks when there would be 50 people queued to get into EB and 15-20 waiting to get into each borderland. The conclusion would be that the number of people wanting to play wvw has dropped significantly. Given how many characters I used to see afk at the waypoint I find it hard to believe that all those people were pip farmers. 

Considering we have had afk people in spawn for various reasons since release. I'm more inclined to believe the drop in population is more likely people that lost there easy way to farm pips. But realistically, its probably both. Population always drops around Nov/Dec for holidays and what not. 

[Telgum.6071]

2 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Do we really don't need more pve'er sitting around repairing walls? Not when the enemy decides to visit your borderland with two 60 man voltron blobs, and all you can respond with is 30 cause you have 10 wall repairers and 10 scouts plastering objectives links in chat to play 20 questions with after because they can't be bothered to type in side/guild/numbers/where/status in one sentence, but also can't be bothered to be on the tag when bodies are actually needed.

 

Sure, wvw always needs players, we just don't need the afking for loot kind. If a player doesn't get excited to play wvw after their first big open field zerg battle, or getting that first roaming kill, or their first major keep defense or capture win, then the mode probably isn't for them. Wall repairing is the last thing that should get anyone excited to stay, seriously.

That's why I don't mind changes like the one listed on the OP. It only affects the PVErs that are already useless in fights, defending or attacking.

[godfat.2604]

A few points I want to make clear:

* We should not assume gaining participation from repairing is only for farmers. It's very helpful for outnumbered lone defenders and scouts as well. Shared participation from a squad is a scarce resources (1 for each 5 in a squad) and unlikely being available for a outnumbered team (there's probably even no squad to begin with). It has management cost as well. Lone defenders and scouts come and go and it does not work well for them.

* Giving participation does 2 things. One is giving actual participation, and the other one is giving grace period for the decay timer. We can see it from this table: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/WvW_Reward_Track#Increasing_Participation I think it's fine not giving actual participation, but it should give grace period, like using siege to damage players, or defeating sentries, give 0 participation but it does give 2 minutes grace period. It helps them maintain rewards while defending is the top priority for them. Note that it's highly unlikely under this scenario they are able to kill anyone. They can move on to do other things, sure, but I think that's hurting the game mode.

* Giving participation/rewards is a hint to tell players that what is encouraged to do. For a new player joins a new game they don't know before, how do they learn? They learn by completing objectives, or whichever gives rewards. They see that repairing does not give participation, they get the impression that it's not encouraged to do so. This discourages them to repair and defend an objective when they're outnumbered. This might not have clear direct impact but we can see players are highly biased and once the impression is built, it's hard to change.

* Back then when participation was not a thing, my experience was that there were much more scouts and lone defenders. Yes, back then the rewards were even worse indeed, but there's no impression that repairing/defending can result in losing participation. This will change how people react. For myself I no longer want to idle in a WvW map anymore. Back then as long as there's no queue, I would just sit there checking trading post or managing my bank or even just chatting, and if there's a call on the chat, I would quickly come to help, or call out that the tower/keep I was sitting in was under attack. I don't judge if that's wanted or not here, but that changed my behaviour.

* WvW is never rewarding comparing to PvE. If there's a farmer trying to farm in WvW without enjoying it, they must be after things that they cannot earn via PvE, like Gift of Battle. I won't really count for legendary armours because that's taking for too long and it's going to be extremely boring and time consuming if they don't play normally. I don't really believe many players will do that. I would put all my bets on Gift of Battle. If this is a concern, just add a way for PvE players to get Gift of Battle without actually playing it. I do think ANet put this to try to attract new WvW players though. Also, I do believe doing dailies and enjoying the potions and moving on will be so much faster and more enjoying than farming with repairing walls. Or put it this way, what hurts the game beside wasting supplies (which is a separate issue and can be addressed with other means) and potentially occupying the queue?

All after all, we players don't have players activities/populations data to analyse the change. I can't say if this is a net positive or a net negative, but my bets would be on net negative. That being said, I suppose this is a relatively small change that doesn't really affect much for the whole game mode. People tend to over react to people who over react. We don't need to. Of course it's not killing off WvW, but we can still discuss the gain and loss.

Edited November 21, 2021 by godfat.2604
Remove extra blank lines

[Metzie.3451]

On 11/20/2021 at 3:27 AM, Chariote Moonchild.1058 said:

I've been trying to work out why Anet would have made the changes they made to WvW on 9/11/21. To me it seems to have killed off the game play completely. Sure yeah the changes were great for K-training zergs, but defending or small  group fun is no longer fun at all. if you defend now you loose participation, there is no drive to repair or upgrade anything. no one comes to defend T3 keeps because what's the use if you get no participation unless you actually kill something. I am truly saddened with the impact these changes have made.

Seriously, with any more kind of such messages or statements, I get more pimples.

Where is actually the problem - except in a curious view of wanting to play the game in the most minimal way (as passively as possible), and still be rewarded for it?

Let's have a look from my perspective, example: An attack on an object is called, I decide to help out. Fortunately, the attack could be repelled. Walls were damaged, the gate from the attack before was not yet completely repaired, so I get supplies and help to repair (usually I repair up to 3 times, others are usually there as well). Well, work done - I move on again, play my game, walk around, etc.

So, and now got no participation (I did not even think about it) - i don't care that much. Because I didn't come in the first place to defend the object, just to generate participation. The goal was to successfully repel the attack (and if not, unlucky - sh!t happens) and have fun fights. Apart from that, there are still enough ways (even if in some areas the system could be usefully improved, but not for permanently loitering in objects with the justification of wanting to "defend") to generate participation. Especially if you are actively playing the game (permanently "sitting in an object" is not one of them, in my opinion). Scouts who agree to do this should or could be rewarded by the WvW server community - without expecting it (I do that sometimes; I just send up to 5g or something comparable). Also, there is often the possibility to join a squad (commander), and get assigned participation when you take the scout part.

Nevertheless - the small change (09/11 or 11/09) had a far-reaching effect - a positive one (at least that's how I see it). WvW, or PvP in general, should consist of active involvement - even if you don't get rewarded for "every" little thing. It is (in an optimal game operation) about the big picture, the common success ...  which may be also rewarded by "appreciation, praise, and recognition" from other teammates.

There would be quite more to write and further examples ... however the small insight should express, what it is about. It's also about maybe playing the game in a different way (if necessary, in a less comfortable way ...) than before.

WvW has already been a unique construction site for a long time, in different areas - yes - and I hope, for my part, that the "reward and participation system" will be thoughtfully revised, someday!

Not nearly last, it is still WvW, a "player versus player" mode and not exclusively PvE! Also, in this case, the focus should not lie primarily on the rewards or items to be obtained (...)! Those who play the mode exclusively with this in mind will probably always have something to complain about and may also not really have understood the meaning of the system itself (even if outdated) and will also not recognize this mode as such, which this should primarily refer to, namely the PvP part!

Edited November 22, 2021 by Metzie.3451

[ASP.8093]

I don't think most people have even noticed the repair participation change. Even in the situation described, I'd chalk up most changes in player behavior to the loss of Outnumbered pips (meaning that there's less incentive to stay on a "ktrained" map instead of hopping maps to try to find more even fights elsewhere).

[HazyDaisy.4107]

If it was an issue of pip farming, the issue could've been solved with only removing outnumbered pips. 

 

Taking it that extra step made and still makes no sense.  You could argue that it solved the problem of afk tact pullers which in a way it did, but it also allowed those people to win, because now no one cares if the tacts are pulled, the supply is wasted or if the objective is zerged. 

 

It's similar to the Lake Doric leather farm, they instituted things so legitimate afk farmers had trouble afk farming, which is good, but in the end, the farmers moved on and now the actual players have to deal with these annoyances just trying to collect a few chests outside of the meta.  The WRONG people got punished, the mode was made worse and the actual problem wasn't solved, but people will still say it was because they parrot what they were told, that afk repairing was such a huge problem and now it's not...except in ebg.  GG!

 

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

I think the removal of extra pips for outnumbered was a bad idea. Now there is no reason to stay on an outnumbered map. With extra pips you can still try to annoy the other servers and get a reward for the extra risk. But now? No reason to stay. Just move on. Which is sad. 

[Dawdler.8521]

18 minutes ago, VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig. said:

I think the removal of extra pips for outnumbered was a bad idea. Now there is no reason to stay on an outnumbered map. With extra pips you can still try to annoy the other servers and get a reward for the extra risk. But now? No reason to stay. Just move on. Which is sad. 

You still got outnumbered buff you know. You dont have that on non-outnumbered maps so by the same logic there's no reason to move away from the border either. People that wish for outnumbered maps get the exact same gameplay they had before and most of them still probably get more pips on average than before.

[Obtena.7952]

In two words ... ACTIVE participation. Some parts of WvW will suffer but I have no doubt the overall goal is that. You have to have a higher level view to understand this change. 

Edited November 21, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Leo.5693]

It's World vs World, not Wall vs Wall. You're right that to "defend T3 keeps" you don't necessarily have to "kill something". You actually need to KILL EVERYTHING.

Anyway, you still get participation if you repair wall when the defense event is up; and I really hope Anet patches this, because I still see players who fix walls when the enemy siege is still up then run away once their participation is secured.

Edited November 22, 2021 by Pizzous.4783

[suialthor.7164]

On 11/21/2021 at 5:31 PM, Obtena.7952 said:

In two words ... ACTIVE participation. Some parts of WvW will suffer but I have no doubt the overall goal is that. You have to have a higher level view to understand this change. 

Then I hope they drastically reduce the size of the maps if that is their goal.

[Dawdler.8521]

2 hours ago, suialthor.7164 said:

Then I hope they drastically reduce the size of the maps if that is their goal.

Reducing the maps in size even more would just mean longbow rangers stand in respective spawn and shoot at each other.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

It doesn't matter what you do, the tag's always going to blame someone for the queues.

 

The other day a tag told a 5man guild group to get off the map because they were wasting space that could be used for squadmates. That same group had already taken several T3 enemy objectives by themselves and probably had more coordination than the entire squad.

 

Tonight it was blaming roamers, even though the tag wasn't even repairing inner gates at SMC and roamers were. As a late-night PUG commander for years, these things make me sad.

 

The number one thing to understand as a comm is its never your side's fault that they're losing, there's often a million variables involved beyond that including the enemy just being too strong sometimes. Even if you get every single player on the map in your squad (which wouldn't happen because half of them get rejected). it still doesn't magically guarantee victory because its a video game and losing is a part of it.

 

Yes, you should try to win, but you're not always going to win. Its a hard fact of life itself.

 

I'd rather play humble and have servermates that trust me (yes, even Rangers and Thieves), and have players  spending their time in WvW repairing walls and chatting around on /map if they want, and enjoying the game in general, than pushing everyone to the point of burnout just so we can move up a tier and get crushed all week afterwards.

 

Except players AFK running into walls, make them explode please.

 

The game is what you make of it. and losing is never, ever anyone's "fault". Because if you don't lose, the enemy can't win, and if the enemy doesn't lose, you can't win. You'd just have no game to play.

 

Imagine punishing players because the queue system exists (and alot more these days..).

Edited November 23, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

Even if you get every single player on the map in your squad (which wouldn't happen because half of them get rejected).

Commanders: "Lol what loosers, they need to bring an entire zoneblob just to beat us!"

Also commanders: "GTFO of the border need everyone on tag so we can get good fights."

[Xenesis.6389]

3 minutes ago, Nocturnal Lunacy.8563 said:

but really how many of these leechers do you really think there are?

None now!

 

Quote

 

im pretty sure the number of actual players greatly outweighs the amount of leechers and therefore this change only hurts the greater populace trying to punish the small group in that populace. Its nonsensical and imo not very smart to do. 

 

Doesn't hurt them if they were already active players. They took out the two lowest minimal effort participation gain situations out of the 20+ you could do for participation, hurts the leechers and afkers not the actual active players.

Taking out defense event participation is actually more impactful to all players, and that should be fixed across all maps, not just working in ebg.

[Josh Davis.7865]

Lots of interesting discussion here. I'd like to reiterate, as we mentioned prior to the Nov 9 update, we're keeping a close eye on the pip/repair changes. If the changes don't achieve our goals, we'll make additional adjustments. I don't anticipate any adjustments in the near-term, but that could change as we continue to get more data.

 

I did want to note that WvW playtime (average time spent per player on a WvW map) has been on an upward climb since the beginning of November - both before and after the changes. The number of active WvW players is also pretty much inline with typical week-to-week fluctuations. There's been some "gaem mode is ded" talk here, so I just wanted to clear that up.

 

-j

Edited November 24, 2021 by Josh Davis.7865

[Xenesis.6389]

17 minutes ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

I don't anticipate any adjustments in the near-term, but that could change as we continue to get more data.

 

Hopefully you guys are not ignoring the reports of the defense events not giving proper credit on borderlands...

[Strider Pj.2193]

11 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

 

Hopefully you guys are not ignoring the reports of the defense events not giving proper credit on borderlands...

Or, if the defense event isn’t supposed to give credit, then it shouldn’t give it on EbG.  Either way, it should be the same.

@Josh Davis.7865

[Divirel.4953]

2 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

The number of active WvW players is also pretty much inline with typical week-to-week fluctuations.

I'd still like to know the concrete one number on average per week for EU and NA - And China too for the interest.

[Chariote Moonchild.1058]

Josh Davis.7865

I think I've been misunderstood. The lack of defense participation has hurt. I dont sit in a tower and wait for participation. i dont just wait and repair a wall... here is a scenario from last night.

So here is an example of repair/siege changes that have impacted
Join Red BL at t6 participation... only 2 of you so we decide to take a tower.
it takes 50 supps to make a sup cata... so have to run to get supply why building
participation timer ticks down
cata built. Use cata... no participation given whilst using cata (wall has to be brought down before participation is given)
group of 5 enemy descend on you... you die
participation still ticking away
try again hoping the group of enemy have left
have to rebuild cata as they destroyed it
run to camp to get supply or change bl to get supply from camp owned
run supply back and build cata
hit tower again
takes 14 hits to get tower down with max skill and max power
only get participation when wall drops.. participation now t5
get into tower only to realize that you need more peeps to take it
call out for assistance... no one comes
run towards camp or sentry to take it to keep participation up... call out to defend bay on home bl
forget sentry and head to home bl
participation dropping again
help defend by building siege and running supps to walls
participation now red
our zerg comes and pushes enemy the out but I dont get any hits on enemy so kills dont count, participation still dropping
repair wall back to 100
participation still dropping and now hills needs defenders... no time to take a camp or sentry.. you spawn at garry and run to hills
help build siege again and defend but still get no kills
participation now t4 and dropping faster

[Gorem.8104]

we did already have a thread addressing this: 

Cause yes, wvw is objectively worse now since the update, active players lost two sources of active Grace time and afk players are un-affected. Defenders, roamers and scouts need to use the K-training zergs slots to keep up participation essentially. Cause all this update helps is mindless zerging K-training. Eventually wvw will die off if they keep updates like this up, no matter how many people try and defend bad actions.