When the Participation System Punishes Participation

[T G.7496]

I don't think you should earn, or pause the decline of Participation from just being in combat.

It should be earned from the resolution of combat, i.e. winning or losing, killing or dying.

And it should be rewarded to both participants in that exchange - albeit in different amounts - because the winner cannot win without also the participation of the loser.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

22 hours ago, tobin.6754 said:

 

You are playing the wrong game mode, if you are in wvw just for participation and pips.

what a way to assume wrongly....

i play games/ modes because of the friendships and fun developed along the way. rewards are a lot lower than the two "big F"s i just mentioned.

it would be nice, however, to not lose out on participation awards while actually participating, especially since there are people who AFK for 90% of the time without participating that still earn full participation rewards. as long as someone who only participates 10% of the time gets full participation awards, what's the problem with awarding people who actually participate?

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

12 hours ago, T G.7496 said:

I don't think you should earn, or pause the decline of Participation from just being in combat.

It should be earned from the resolution of combat, i.e. winning or losing, killing or dying.

And it should be rewarded to both participants in that exchange - albeit in different amounts - because the winner cannot win without also the participation of the loser.

 

17 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

I don't know a single game that rewards players for losing. It is common to reward players for successfully achieving a certain goal, not just for trying. This appies to both PvE and PvP. Idk why it suddenly is a problem. It's like asking to gain raid rewards after dieing to the boss instead of killing it. "Because i tried". Everyone should know why that would be a terrible idea and similar applies to WvW.

 T G's suggestion appears to be based on PvE raid rewards, which DO reward failure by small amounts compared to the victory rewards. let me say that again: PvE raids (in this very game) reward failure. fail to kill the boss?: still receive a small amount of raid currency. 

receiving a small participation reward for dying to another player, in my opinion, would be equivelent to stopping the decay timer while in combat, or the same as raid players receiving raid currency upon a group wipe during a raid encounter, or even the same as killing a guard in WvW (rewards seconds of particiipation) even though no objective was captured, nor an event was completed.

If Anet already catered to this request by raiders (which happens to be a smaller population than WvW players, i base this assumption by the number of skins of legendary armour i see in game: many more WvW skins than PvE raid armor), then why not also implement this request into WvW?

Edited December 12, 2022 by Forgotten Legend.9281

[T G.7496]

I wasn't aware of the PvE raid reward thing.

My view is simply predicated on how Participation is defined, and its purpose.

To me it seems like its purpose, at core, is not really to reward success in any way but is simply a means to try and discourage non-participation (e.g. afking at spawn). There are other rewards that more clearly make the distinction between success vs. failure and, as we all know, none of the rewards in WvW are particularly great compared to other modes (correctly so, in my view).

If the purpose of Participation, as a mechanic, is to discourage non-participation by rewarding active participation, then for me there is no compelling reason whatsoever to reward only the killer and not the killed - since the dynamics and momentum of the game mode is entirely dependent on the active participation of both.

[tobin.6754]

12 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

what a way to assume wrongly....

i play games/ modes because of the friendships and fun developed along the way. rewards are a lot lower than the two "big F"s i just mentioned.

it would be nice, however, to not lose out on participation awards while actually participating, especially since there are people who AFK for 90% of the time without participating that still earn full participation rewards. as long as someone who only participates 10% of the time gets full participation awards, what's the problem with awarding people who actually participate?

 

I am not assuming anything, this entire thread and 2 other like it are about rewards. You're playing the wrong game mode if you want rewards for your effort, go do PVE for that.

 

FYI, the majority of people that are spawn camping you don't care about the rewards, they most likely already have enough tickets for all 3 legendary sets.

[TheGrimm.5624]

5 hours ago, tobin.6754 said:

 

I am not assuming anything, this entire thread and 2 other like it are about rewards. You're playing the wrong game mode if you want rewards for your effort, go do PVE for that.

 

FYI, the majority of people that are spawn camping you don't care about the rewards, they most likely already have enough tickets for all 3 legendary sets.

 

Lol, ello zergling #1768657383892999292. Sorry you feel your zerg views have merit since you need 15 v 1 to win a fight while you use numbers to try and block people entering a map. See how that works?

Never assume the other side, you fail to make a point and paint a picture in your mind that doesn't translate and instead paints you into the role of just needing numbers to win a fight. And we all already know that winning a fight means rewards, so apparently you are the reward seeking one. Spawn camping is only for people playing for rewards, so sorry you are just showing you are the one in the wrong game mode. If you wanted a fight you wouldn't be trying to zerg down people trying to enter a map. If you were into fighting, you wouldn't have left the map where you were outnumbered. See how that works?

So instead of just trying to assume peoples actions, maybe, have a discussion? That's kind of the point of the forums. In this day and age, its easy to be outraged, hard to be inspired, be inspired. 

 

[tobin.6754]

16 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

 

Lol, ello zergling #1768657383892999292. Sorry you feel your zerg views have merit since you need 15 v 1 to win a fight while you use numbers to try and block people entering a map. See how that works?

Never assume the other side, you fail to make a point and paint a picture in your mind that doesn't translate and instead paints you into the role of just needing numbers to win a fight. And we all already know that winning a fight means rewards, so apparently you are the reward seeking one. Spawn camping is only for people playing for rewards, so sorry you are just showing you are the one in the wrong game mode. If you wanted a fight you wouldn't be trying to zerg down people trying to enter a map. If you were into fighting, you wouldn't have left the map where you were outnumbered. See how that works?

So instead of just trying to assume peoples actions, maybe, have a discussion? That's kind of the point of the forums. In this day and age, its easy to be outraged, hard to be inspired, be inspired. 

 

 

You got me. This is how I totally play wvw. And here I am crying on forum about rewards and participation.

[Thron Stal.9367]

On 11/28/2022 at 8:47 PM, Bariel.3562 said:

Although spawn camping occurs I most commonly see it  because solo players take the 1 route over and over again to get farmed. Each spawn has 3 routes out of it so to say 1 team can stop both other teams even capping a sentry they'd have to be cover 2 teams x 4 maps x 3 routes out - 24 locations. It doesn't happen unless you allow it.

Admittedly it's frustrating when a group is camping spawns, especially  the small groups that rely on their mobility to avoid any equal/outnumbered fights and just gank 5v1, cowards always gonna be cowards and I can just go a different route or group with a few and watch them scatter.

For me it's nothing to do with participation, the game makes it easy to transfer worlds and/or create alt accounts so you will get the better/more organised groups transferring to the higher tier servers (not different than any sport with multiple leagues where players transfer teams) and that is ultimately  what leads to the population imbalance most of all.

 

Heya Genius this is not spawn camping.... this is WAY overmatch camping. GET IT?

[TheGrimm.5624]

19 hours ago, tobin.6754 said:

 

You got me. This is how I totally play wvw. And here I am crying on forum about rewards and participation.

 

That's my point exactly. You assumed and then made no points of your own. Hence the see how that works?

People that are fighting are participating, win or lose. You can't have a winner in a fight without some else losing or leaving the fight. Objectives are there to trigger a conflict. A conflict needs to have at least two sides. What we have currently it is most rewarding to have one side at an objective to trigger the conflict and then the other sides not show up. Its fast, it could be done with 1-5. Instead we have 50 doing what less than 5 could do and all 50 get the most for the least effort. Meanwhile you might have some trying to counter the larger side and the game treats them the same as an AFK player. If you want to encourage people to come and join in the conflict you you can't treat them like they were just AFK at spawn. Right now the simple discussion is should the decay timer for everyone in the conflict to be paused while they are in combat. Now there is a larger conversation waiting out there about more encouragement to defend and how defenders and attackers should be handled in a fight but that's OT. So are you actually saying people shouldn't fight? Or are you saying they should only fight if they can win? While roaming I am not looking to just attack other roamers, groups are fair game to target as well to see if I can drop one, some or all. Zergs are valid targets as well and if you distract and lure some off all the better. Let alone if you get two comped groups going at each other. Even if they are evenly matched and its a sustained fight, why should they be seen as AFK. That's not about rewards, that just doesn't make sense to just encourage them not to fight but go take an empty structure instead. So lets not just play the you are in it for the loot card, its about the feeling of progression which translates to different people differently. MMOs are about playing with others and that feeling of progression. Remove that and people then just see it as a waste of their time since MMOs are also time sinks. Good hunting.

[ArchonWing.9480]

I always feel it's a bit short sighted to be like "well, this works for me!", because WvW is home to many different playstyles. And the fact that many of us do not like the boring, non-combat activities means that we need to incentivize the more tedious ones. Sure, I don't have a problem since I'm d6 halfway through the week, but what about those people that do the lame kitten so I don't have to?

A good example is trebbing. I will simply not waste my time spending 15+ minutes trebbing a damned wall, even if it was rewarding. But someone has to do it. When you take the tower with the wall already down, do you just pat yourself on the back for a job well done?

Other people are like "But you shouldn't play WvW for the rewards!". Cool, you can still enjoy the game either way regardless of reward system, so you shouldn't care about this discussion either.

The slippery slope of the unwashed masses piling into WvW if it rewarded  is a silly fear especially if you actually know what PvE rewards. Doing a single set of t4 fractals yields almost as much gold as a 8 hour reward track in 1/10 the time Maybe 1/5 if you really suck.  Heck, even tier 1 fractals has more gold/hour than a reward track.  You are essentially afraid billionaires are going to come steal your quarters.

So is there any other negatives? It uses developer resources? Right because they'd totally use  it to do something else for WvW. 🤣

This is an MMO, of course the economy matters. Of course rewards matter. Unless WvWers and PvErs don't use the same trading post, then it matters. It's very nice if you don't care, but I think it's more about fairness.

Edited December 14, 2022 by ArchonWing.9480

[Gehenna.3625]

On 12/12/2022 at 1:17 AM, T G.7496 said:

I don't think you should earn, or pause the decline of Participation from just being in combat.

It should be earned from the resolution of combat, i.e. winning or losing, killing or dying.

And it should be rewarded to both participants in that exchange - albeit in different amounts - because the winner cannot win without also the participation of the loser.

So here's the thing. Thieves and mesmers have invisibility...I mean stealth. So when defending a camp against a couple of enemies with stealth, there is no resolution of combat when you can hold them off. And what they'll do is just take off (stealth out and hide somewhere a bit further away). Now you have a choice as a defender. You know they're out there somewhere and they'll take the camp as soon as you leave it or a little bit after.

In the meantime your participation counter keeps going and you'll have to leave to get it up again. 

This is why defending an objective, especially camps, is totally thankless and not worth doing. Take out stealth and this problem would be solved, but as long as stealth exists in this game (which is always), I disagree with you because not every combat gets resolved as you suggest. Instead it gets broken off when they can't win and they'll hide or go do something else in the meantime...but you as a defender won't know which.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Gehenna.3625

[T G.7496]

30 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

So here's the thing. Thieves and mesmers have invisibility...I mean stealth. So when defending a camp against a couple of enemies with stealth, there is no resolution of combat when you can hold them off. And what they'll do is just take off (stealth out and hide somewhere a bit further away). Now you have a choice as a defender. You know they're out there somewhere and they'll take the camp as soon as you leave it or a little bit after.

In the meantime your participation counter keeps going and you'll have to leave to get it up again. 

This is why defending an objective, especially camps, is totally thankless and not worth doing. Take out stealth and this problem would be solved, but as long as stealth exists in this game (which is always), I disagree with you because not every combat gets resolved as you suggest. Instead it gets broken off when they can't win and they'll hide or go do something else in the meantime...but you as a defender won't know which.

I feel your pain.

But this is an edge case, ideally fixed by deleting thief for example 😜... except their smoke field is actually super useful now since gyro was sold off for parts.

My point still stands though. When you can't stand the boredom any longer you can just die to the thief / mesmer and get Participation. See?

[Xenesis.6389]

You guys waste 15+ mins fighting in a camp with no kills?

[tobin.6754]

5 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

 

That's my point exactly. You assumed and then made no points of your own. Hence the see how that works?

People that are fighting are participating, win or lose. You can't have a winner in a fight without some else losing or leaving the fight. Objectives are there to trigger a conflict. A conflict needs to have at least two sides. What we have currently it is most rewarding to have one side at an objective to trigger the conflict and then the other sides not show up. Its fast, it could be done with 1-5. Instead we have 50 doing what less than 5 could do and all 50 get the most for the least effort. Meanwhile you might have some trying to counter the larger side and the game treats them the same as an AFK player. If you want to encourage people to come and join in the conflict you you can't treat them like they were just AFK at spawn. Right now the simple discussion is should the decay timer for everyone in the conflict to be paused while they are in combat. Now there is a larger conversation waiting out there about more encouragement to defend and how defenders and attackers should be handled in a fight but that's OT. So are you actually saying people shouldn't fight? Or are you saying they should only fight if they can win? While roaming I am not looking to just attack other roamers, groups are fair game to target as well to see if I can drop one, some or all. Zergs are valid targets as well and if you distract and lure some off all the better. Let alone if you get two comped groups going at each other. Even if they are evenly matched and its a sustained fight, why should they be seen as AFK. That's not about rewards, that just doesn't make sense to just encourage them not to fight but go take an empty structure instead. So lets not just play the you are in it for the loot card, its about the feeling of progression which translates to different people differently. MMOs are about playing with others and that feeling of progression. Remove that and people then just see it as a waste of their time since MMOs are also time sinks. Good hunting.

 

I'll concede to your point that people should get participation if they are actively engaging in combat with another player, win or lose. However, I still think it's pointless to play wvw for the rewards, but that's just me.

[Thron Stal.9367]

On 11/28/2022 at 12:13 PM, Spiderman.5468 said:

 

Yeah, I hate when this scenario happens, especially at the same time.  Seems to be the norm now.  People are refusing to play wvw now. 

Anet won, I paid 1800 gems to get the hell off that server with all the DB crap guilds.

[Noc Rubu.5804]

1 hour ago, Spiderman.5468 said:

Anet won, I paid 1800 gems to get the hell off that server with all the DB crap guilds.

Me too, sheesh.  😞

[TheGrimm.5624]

20 hours ago, tobin.6754 said:

 

I'll concede to your point that people should get participation if they are actively engaging in combat with another player, win or lose. However, I still think it's pointless to play wvw for the rewards, but that's just me.

 

I agree if anyone is coming here for rewards that translate to coinage and gold, yeah this is a terrible place for that. Much better off to go to the newer PvE maps and do some map meta, or fractals, or even sPvP if its coinage people are after. Its a big topic here since for years a lot of us had to go do PvE to pay for WvW activities. Its better now than it was, but I wouldn't say its on par with the other game modes. May need to run the farming calculator on gw2efficeny.com to do some current comparisons. Last time I did was running havoc on RBL and I think based on siege/banner/food and such it indicated I had lost 20 some gold for the night while playing. So no, would never tell anyone go out to WvW to make coin. The joke we use is whoever gets the first broken spoon wins the night.

So when some of us are referring to rewards, its not the actual coinage, but the acts that feel rewarding. Even death can feel rewarding if you were able to achieve your objective. Holding a breach that allows your side to get there in time to block a cap, is quite rewarding in itself even if it means you are the one that's about to be a bag for them. The fact that the game says it was a worthless cause is the annoying bit, because you are right its not about the coinage out in WvW. As people have said before people like to chase numbers and the participation bar is just another form of that in the end. Its kind of 'how are we doing' meter in its own way. So when you have been active and says it you have been AFK, that does impact the feel of rewarding game play.

In either case, good gaming and good hunting! Seeya out there.

[Bariel.3562]

On 12/14/2022 at 5:26 PM, Spiderman.5468 said:

Heya Genius this is not spawn camping.... this is WAY overmatch camping. GET IT?

Aww so kind, thank you for spotting and realising I'm a genius and smarter than you. That's really nice to hear. 

[TheGrimm.5624]

On 12/14/2022 at 8:40 PM, tobin.6754 said:

 

I'll concede to your point that people should get participation if they are actively engaging in combat with another player, win or lose. However, I still think it's pointless to play wvw for the rewards, but that's just me.

 

🙂 Went ahead and ran the farming tracker during reset while havocing lol:

 

Farming for 2 hours, 55 minutes and 41 seconds

Next update in 1 minute and 20 seconds

-1g69s65c

-57s93c

 per hour

 

Now granted that's deploying siege so mileage will way vary for people that are not but no, not somewhere to go to make coin. Will agree there. 

 

 

 

[Gehenna.3625]

On 12/15/2022 at 12:15 AM, T G.7496 said:

I feel your pain.

But this is an edge case, ideally fixed by deleting thief for example 😜... except their smoke field is actually super useful now since gyro was sold off for parts.

My point still stands though. When you can't stand the boredom any longer you can just die to the thief / mesmer and get Participation. See?

You don't get participation unless an opponent actually dies. So just dying to them doesn't give you any participation.

[Gehenna.3625]

On 12/15/2022 at 11:51 PM, TheGrimm.5624 said:

 

I agree if anyone is coming here for rewards that translate to coinage and gold, yeah this is a terrible place for that. Much better off to go to the newer PvE maps and do some map meta, or fractals, or even sPvP if its coinage people are after. Its a big topic here since for years a lot of us had to go do PvE to pay for WvW activities. Its better now than it was, but I wouldn't say its on par with the other game modes. May need to run the farming calculator on gw2efficeny.com to do some current comparisons. Last time I did was running havoc on RBL and I think based on siege/banner/food and such it indicated I had lost 20 some gold for the night while playing. So no, would never tell anyone go out to WvW to make coin. The joke we use is whoever gets the first broken spoon wins the night.

So when some of us are referring to rewards, its not the actual coinage, but the acts that feel rewarding. Even death can feel rewarding if you were able to achieve your objective. Holding a breach that allows your side to get there in time to block a cap, is quite rewarding in itself even if it means you are the one that's about to be a bag for them. The fact that the game says it was a worthless cause is the annoying bit, because you are right its not about the coinage out in WvW. As people have said before people like to chase numbers and the participation bar is just another form of that in the end. Its kind of 'how are we doing' meter in its own way. So when you have been active and says it you have been AFK, that does impact the feel of rewarding game play.

In either case, good gaming and good hunting! Seeya out there.

Well there is one thing you forget in the rewards. It's neither coins nor feeling rewarded for the actions you take...but legendaries. Some of us really don't like Raiding or PvP. They're two of the most controversial activities. WvW is cool by itself, but in practice there's a lot of stuff that can ruin your day in WvW without being able to do anything about it. Population imbalance, servers tanking so they can go ganking (I know, it's bad as a rhyme but it's true), etc.

I personally got interested in WvW because it made some things in PvE easier. You know, like buying of HoT/PoF/EoD hero points and transmutation charges. And also the reward tracks that made getting some PvE stuff much easier. 

But then, the legendary armory came. Before that I didn't really care about legendary armor sets or trinkets and I barely had any legendary weapons. However, I do have 18 characters that are all level 80 and as such when the legendary armory came out, all my characters could benefit from legendary items. And well, since I'm goal oriented, I do focus on the rewards now and have been for a while now. I got the heavy armor set, got the backpack and one conflux... working on the light currently and then I will get the second conflux.

I do enjoy WvW, but I'm doing for the rewards still and I'm a more defensive player. And this is where it gets tricky for me because WvW doesn't reward defensive play but does reward offensive play. That's why we have PPT servers after all. So, I do wish that WvW rewarded defensive play more because that's where my enjoyment of WvW is. And if they don't change that, chances are that when I get done with my WvW legendary goals, I might just be done with WvW, because then I will have to focus on WvW enjoyment itself and as a defensive player it's not rewarding, but in the sense of what you're talking about and not in coinage.

Defensive actions go unnoticed a lot and zergs don't care about those things. A lot of the time a commander asks in map chat that roamers take care of repairing walls. They don't want to do that themselves. But Anet took participation away from repairing stuff. And that's what I mean with not being rewarded. When I put siege on objectives, I don't get rewarded with participation, when I repair walls I don't get participation and if I die defending our camps, I don't get participation. So why even try? Best to just let them take our camp and recap it in 5 mins. But is that really the way to do it?

Now, I understand that people might use those things in a wrong way, but it does mean that defending is not rewarding in the sense of participation even though I do participate to my side's success by doing these things.

I guess I just want participation for those things and currently I just have to watch my participation too much to just focus on the gameplay. In the end I'm still going for legendary armor pieces and by losing track of my participation I don't do myself any favours because of the time it takes to get the wvw tickets together.

Edited December 18, 2022 by Gehenna.3625

[T G.7496]

3 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

You don't get participation unless an opponent actually dies. So just dying to them doesn't give you any participation.

Right now, yes.

But the suggestion of this thread is to change that.

[Gehenna.3625]

22 hours ago, T G.7496 said:

Right now, yes.

But the suggestion of this thread is to change that.

Ah like that. Yeah, there are issues with rewarding being in combat just flat out. It's not good to do that just like that.

But there are no proper rewards for playing defensively. And I'm not sure there are real solutions for that either. Though I would like to see some participation rewards for placing siege in objectives and repairing walls even if they are small.

And the other side of that is that offensive play is rewarded most which has created PPT gameplay and also tanking servers. Also healers in zergs get limited rewards. The question I ask there, is if Anet even knows what they want WvW to be. I mean zerging around a map is what is most profitable in WvW reward systems.

Sometimes T0 towers are just being taken and retaken endlessly. Almost like it's wintrading, which it isn't but you know what I mean. It just looks like it, because that's the type of gameplay WvW rewards.

It might be that the problem is the participation system itself. It doesn't really fit with the actual gameplay. All I can say is that I'd rather not watch my participation and concentrate on what I'm doing, but I can't because otherwise it will take me weeks to cover the lost wvw tickets. But for me, the issue will be gone when I don't need wvw tickets so much anymore. So 4 more light armor pieces and one more conflux and that's that.

 

[Noc Rubu.5804]

Mag today is 400 + against two servers 150+... Algorithm is freaking broke.  Can you add? 

[Xenesis.6389]

On 1/3/2023 at 11:36 AM, Soupeod.5714 said:

Mag today is 400 + against two servers 150+... Algorithm is freaking broke.  Can you add? 

Nothing wrong with the algorithm when players CHOOSE not to show up, they have the players, but they CHOOSE not to show up.

 

Thanks for the confusion ppter's 🤣 btw sos doesn't seem to have trouble ppting and double teaming in t2, hm wonder what their problem really was.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Xenesis.6389