Increase Camp/Yak rewards, give Wall/Gate repair rewards back.

[Xenesis.6389]

13 minutes ago, Ubi.4136 said:

Yeah.  I have 2 accts I did the weekly on that still show it as completed.  The baby alts that I never really play anymore no longer have the defense ones listed.  Guessing Tuesday when they patched out defending, they removed them.

You're bugged I guess. I just logged into a f2p account that I haven't logged into for 3 years and it shows the defense events up in the weeklies still... https://i.imgur.com/N4niQ0t.jpg 🤷‍♂️

[Some Call Me Tim.2319]

On 3/18/2023 at 6:00 PM, Arc Sagi.4830 said:

Anet you finally included these only to disappointingly take them away. It really should have always been a part of the World vs. World game mechanics. It gives players of all kinds other positions to participate in. Camps and yaks are an important part of tower and keeps for defense and siege. Also repairing walls needs some incentive as it is very time consuming to do solo.

Please consider reinstating these.

Totally agree.  Much of the time I see people come and defend then leave without repairing beyond a few supplies.  I find myself just leaving along with the group if I’m in the squad because my pips will wind down by the time I finish repairing and catch back up.   
 

So short sighted of ANet!   Another example of a few people crying causing changes that hurt much more than they help.  

[roederich.2716]

3 hours ago, Some Call Me Tim.2319 said:

Totally agree.  Much of the time I see people come and defend then leave without repairing beyond a few supplies.  I find myself just leaving along with the group if I’m in the squad because my pips will wind down by the time I finish repairing and catch back up.   
 

So short sighted of ANet!   Another example of a few people crying causing changes that hurt much more than they help.  

Sometimes it makes no sense to repair directly to the max. Specially when there is a treb still shooting at this walls or while defending you just close on sight to prevent reruns. But why waste full supply if you know the blob will return and rebuild cata anyways while your people are already there to defend again?

if the overal attack is over i never saw one player being alone with repairs. Call in chat to repair and everyone does.

“im so alone repairing all the years we suddenly need rewards to get it done“

come on people its getting ridiculous now.

[Ohlgrist.9724]

On 3/19/2023 at 9:48 AM, roederich.2716 said:

Is that so? Rewards help integrating players into wvw community?

rewards grant them „easy way to contribute in a meaningful way“? Is that so? They cant contribute to the matchup without?

removing rewards which we didnt have long years is suddenly „harmful to the wvw community at large“? Is that so?

sorry but i think all this is rather political speech to get the easy to obtain rewards back instead of having any connection to reality.

making things up just for the sake that people get their pockets full by repairing a wall feels awkward man.

Apologies, I did not check this thread for a bit. 
And indeed it seems I have phrased this in a way that might be easy to misunderstand for some people. 
I shall try to elaborate further on what I mean. Should you have any further questions, please, by all means do not hesitate to ask!
I believe this to be somewhat important. 

Let's begin from the ground up, shall we? 
WvW has been somewhat stagnating for a long time.
I believe that is pretty much consensus among the player base at large? 
I furthermore do believe a large part of the player base would like to see anet put more resources into the game mode. 

Are we in agreement so far?
If not I actually would be interested in your point of view on that matter. 
Maybe in a different thread or in dm though, as I feel that would be a discussion a bit too off-topic. 

Anyway, my first point is this:
WvW luckily has a very passionate and committed veteran player base. Which is great!
However, even the most committed player base, over time, has some loss, right? 

That is not at all specific to Guild Wars, it is a completely normal process in any game.
People move on to other games, don't have the time anymore for various reasons or can not or no longer want to play for any number of other reasons. 
Ideally that gets balanced out by a steady influx of new player though.
(And considering the age of the game, all in all I feel GW has been doing rather well in that aspect, as for the player base as a whole. Could always be better, of course, but it is rather solid)

Hope this has been concise so far? Hold that thought. 

Now, at this point a few people already kinda summed up as to why tower repair and yak run rewards are a good thing for new players, but let me lay it out a bit more. 

WvW as a game mode is quite different from pretty much any other game mode. There i a *bit* of an overlap with pvp, but all in all it is a very different beast, right? 
New players going in get pretty much dropped into some map and there really isn't much of an explanation on mechanics or anything. There is quite a bit to unpack getting started and builds that are sufficient for, say, open world content are not necessarily viable for WvW. 
Then WvW rewards in general are subpar compared to other game modes (though anet seem to want to tackle that issue now)

Point is, WvW, for a new player is not exactly the most welcoming/accessible experience. 
Death is kind of part of the experience, but a newbie will, in all likelihood get shafted.
A lot.

Which is ok. As I said, dying is part of the experience, better get used to it-

And then some people here have pointed out, that if this makes or breaks the game mode to new players, they would rather not have them on the server. 

Which is fair. I do not agree, but I can see where they are coming from.
There is always a % of rather entitled people who want to get everything, yesterday, but without engaging with the actual content. So you could say a high entry barrier weeds those out and that actually might have a merit. 

However, I believe it also weeds out a lot of semi casuals who try out the game mode, get a bit overwhelmed, have some frustrating experiences and then just move on. 

Before you did hint at your suspicion that people that would like to see those changes reversed merely want some easy rewards.
But you see, that notion does not hold water, since even when those rewards were still in-game those tasks still were drastically less profitable than just running with a group taking structures and killing players. 

I merely believe that such systems are a good mechanic to increase new player retention.
Not so they do that and nothing else forever, but so they have a way to contribute / sth to fall back to, while they gradually engage in other mechanics and learn at the same time. If they end up staying long term they eventually move on from that anyway. But it is something people could do for an easy, small success every now and then to counteract initial frustration. 


And again, you can now go and say 'So what? They stay or not, what do I care? If they don't have the mindset we are off better without them' 

But as I said, I disagree with that sentiment because it also drives out players that absolutely could become dedicated and involved in the community - and furthermore for a strictly pragmatic reason. 

I hands down do not believe we have the luxury of being wasteful with potential new players.
Not if we want to see the game mode be updated more at least. 
You can afford to turn away players if you have a plentiful, steady influx of new players and a really healthy player pool overall.   
 
But I do not believe that being the case for WvW. 
Don't get me wrong, it is far from dead. But it certainly isn't exactly prospering either. 
Which in parts also might be testimony to the lack of new content (not to throw shade on anet here) 
At the same time however it also makes little sense for anet to invest a lot of manhours/cashflow/resources into updating content on a larger scale if said content ultimately is an absolute niche area. 

Which, to be fair it probably always will be, but that does not mean there is nothing that can be improved. 


So, to sum it up, I do think that those mechanics might be a good bridge for new player, thus improving their starting experience in the game mode. Furthermore, a higher retention rate of newer player may increase the chances of anet working on WvW more actively again, thus it also would be good for the community at large.
And, on a side note, I do like it when a wall is not half broken and there actually are at least some supplies in place when I try to defend a place

I think this is all I have to add for now, apologies for the wall of text, but I tried to put this into a form as concise as I could.

And once again, if anything should be unclear, by all means let me know. It might take a day or two, but I will get back to you. 


Best regards and good hunt out there!
 




 

[Iniak.9815]

4 hours ago, Ohlgrist.9724 said:

Apologies, I did not check this thread for a bit. 
And indeed it seems I have phrased this in a way that might be easy to misunderstand for some people. 
I shall try to elaborate further on what I mean. Should you have any further questions, please, by all means do not hesitate to ask!
I believe this to be somewhat important. 

Let's begin from the ground up, shall we? 
WvW has been somewhat stagnating for a long time.
I believe that is pretty much consensus among the player base at large? 
I furthermore do believe a large part of the player base would like to see anet put more resources into the game mode. 

Are we in agreement so far?
If not I actually would be interested in your point of view on that matter. 
Maybe in a different thread or in dm though, as I feel that would be a discussion a bit too off-topic. 

Anyway, my first point is this:
WvW luckily has a very passionate and committed veteran player base. Which is great!
However, even the most committed player base, over time, has some loss, right? 

That is not at all specific to Guild Wars, it is a completely normal process in any game.
People move on to other games, don't have the time anymore for various reasons or can not or no longer want to play for any number of other reasons. 
Ideally that gets balanced out by a steady influx of new player though.
(And considering the age of the game, all in all I feel GW has been doing rather well in that aspect, as for the player base as a whole. Could always be better, of course, but it is rather solid)

Hope this has been concise so far? Hold that thought. 

Now, at this point a few people already kinda summed up as to why tower repair and yak run rewards are a good thing for new players, but let me lay it out a bit more. 

WvW as a game mode is quite different from pretty much any other game mode. There i a *bit* of an overlap with pvp, but all in all it is a very different beast, right? 
New players going in get pretty much dropped into some map and there really isn't much of an explanation on mechanics or anything. There is quite a bit to unpack getting started and builds that are sufficient for, say, open world content are not necessarily viable for WvW. 
Then WvW rewards in general are subpar compared to other game modes (though anet seem to want to tackle that issue now)

Point is, WvW, for a new player is not exactly the most welcoming/accessible experience. 
Death is kind of part of the experience, but a newbie will, in all likelihood get shafted.
A lot.

Which is ok. As I said, dying is part of the experience, better get used to it-

And then some people here have pointed out, that if this makes or breaks the game mode to new players, they would rather not have them on the server. 

Which is fair. I do not agree, but I can see where they are coming from.
There is always a % of rather entitled people who want to get everything, yesterday, but without engaging with the actual content. So you could say a high entry barrier weeds those out and that actually might have a merit. 

However, I believe it also weeds out a lot of semi casuals who try out the game mode, get a bit overwhelmed, have some frustrating experiences and then just move on. 

Before you did hint at your suspicion that people that would like to see those changes reversed merely want some easy rewards.
But you see, that notion does not hold water, since even when those rewards were still in-game those tasks still were drastically less profitable than just running with a group taking structures and killing players. 

I merely believe that such systems are a good mechanic to increase new player retention.
Not so they do that and nothing else forever, but so they have a way to contribute / sth to fall back to, while they gradually engage in other mechanics and learn at the same time. If they end up staying long term they eventually move on from that anyway. But it is something people could do for an easy, small success every now and then to counteract initial frustration. 


And again, you can now go and say 'So what? They stay or not, what do I care? If they don't have the mindset we are off better without them' 

But as I said, I disagree with that sentiment because it also drives out players that absolutely could become dedicated and involved in the community - and furthermore for a strictly pragmatic reason. 

I hands down do not believe we have the luxury of being wasteful with potential new players.
Not if we want to see the game mode be updated more at least. 
You can afford to turn away players if you have a plentiful, steady influx of new players and a really healthy player pool overall.   
 
But I do not believe that being the case for WvW. 
Don't get me wrong, it is far from dead. But it certainly isn't exactly prospering either. 
Which in parts also might be testimony to the lack of new content (not to throw shade on anet here) 
At the same time however it also makes little sense for anet to invest a lot of manhours/cashflow/resources into updating content on a larger scale if said content ultimately is an absolute niche area. 

Which, to be fair it probably always will be, but that does not mean there is nothing that can be improved. 


So, to sum it up, I do think that those mechanics might be a good bridge for new player, thus improving their starting experience in the game mode. Furthermore, a higher retention rate of newer player may increase the chances of anet working on WvW more actively again, thus it also would be good for the community at large.
And, on a side note, I do like it when a wall is not half broken and there actually are at least some supplies in place when I try to defend a place

I think this is all I have to add for now, apologies for the wall of text, but I tried to put this into a form as concise as I could.

And once again, if anything should be unclear, by all means let me know. It might take a day or two, but I will get back to you. 


Best regards and good hunt out there!
 




 

Fantastic summation from beginning to end.  No notes!

[Some Call Me Tim.2319]

On 3/20/2023 at 4:29 AM, roederich.2716 said:

Sometimes it makes no sense to repair directly to the max. Specially when there is a treb still shooting at this walls or while defending you just close on sight to prevent reruns. But why waste full supply if you know the blob will return and rebuild cata anyways while your people are already there to defend again?

if the overal attack is over i never saw one player being alone with repairs. Call in chat to repair and everyone does.

“im so alone repairing all the years we suddenly need rewards to get it done“

come on people its getting ridiculous now.

of course…. I’m talking about times when there is no other siege continuing to hit.  Frankly SMC is the only thing I never repair since it’s always being hit.  
 

Also, when I’ve been repairing and call for help it sometimes gets a response.  Not typically from the large group since they have moved on.  It is what it is and I didn’t mind doing it before when there was at least some return on effort.  Now I just decide ok and keep up with the squad and can always backcap later if it flips.   

Edited March 22, 2023 by Some Call Me Tim.2319

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

escorting yaks: you get credit for the Event, only if you actually escort the yak close to 75% of the total distance travelled or more. and you need to complete the event in order to receive participation toward the pip system. simply "tapping" the yak (staying close enough to the Yak to cause it's  "ally is in proximity reduce incoming damage to 10%) buff will only result in achievement progression, but not event nor pip participation.

 

keep defense is much easier event to complete than tower defense after the change. still need to complete the defense event, but now there is a lot of confusion as to what actually counts toward the event. right now, i'm under the impression that you need to kill an enemy who sieged and broke the walls, or an enemy who killed a guard. it's not even good enough to kill an enemy within the walls of the tower. it's not even good enough to kill an enemy who ran outside the wall to escape.

 

ANET said the change was to stop the degenerate gameplay of AFK repairers, who simply take up space and don't actually play the game mode. i agree that something had to be done, but the current solution is only half of what should have been done. Those who actively participate in the defense, ie, they show up and stop the enemy from taking the tower, regardless of if they kill one of the assaulters, should still get credit for the event. especially if they are attacking the assaulters with siege or personal skills. or destroying enemy siege.

[Iniak.9815]

7 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

escorting yaks: you get credit for the Event, only if you actually escort the yak close to 75% of the total distance travelled or more. and you need to complete the event in order to receive participation toward the pip system. simply "tapping" the yak (staying close enough to the Yak to cause it's  "ally is in proximity reduce incoming damage to 10%) buff will only result in achievement progression, but not event nor pip participation.

 

keep defense is much easier event to complete than tower defense after the change. still need to complete the defense event, but now there is a lot of confusion as to what actually counts toward the event. right now, i'm under the impression that you need to kill an enemy who sieged and broke the walls, or an enemy who killed a guard. it's not even good enough to kill an enemy within the walls of the tower. it's not even good enough to kill an enemy who ran outside the wall to escape.

 

ANET said the change was to stop the degenerate gameplay of AFK repairers, who simply take up space and don't actually play the game mode. i agree that something had to be done, but the current solution is only half of what should have been done. Those who actively participate in the defense, ie, they show up and stop the enemy from taking the tower, regardless of if they kill one of the assaulters, should still get credit for the event. especially if they are attacking the assaulters with siege or personal skills. or destroying enemy siege.

 

7 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

escorting yaks: you get credit for the Event, only if you actually escort the yak close to 75% of the total distance travelled or more. and you need to complete the event in order to receive participation toward the pip system. simply "tapping" the yak (staying close enough to the Yak to cause it's  "ally is in proximity reduce incoming damage to 10%) buff will only result in achievement progression, but not event nor pip participation.

 

keep defense is much easier event to complete than tower defense after the change. still need to complete the defense event, but now there is a lot of confusion as to what actually counts toward the event. right now, i'm under the impression that you need to kill an enemy who sieged and broke the walls, or an enemy who killed a guard. it's not even good enough to kill an enemy within the walls of the tower. it's not even good enough to kill an enemy who ran outside the wall to escape.

 

ANET said the change was to stop the degenerate gameplay of AFK repairers, who simply take up space and don't actually play the game mode. i agree that something had to be done, but the current solution is only half of what should have been done. Those who actively participate in the defense, ie, they show up and stop the enemy from taking the tower, regardless of if they kill one of the assaulters, should still get credit for the event. especially if they are attacking the assaulters with siege or personal skills. or destroying enemy siege.

There for sure needs to be some tweaks to what constitutes participation in the defense event.  I take your point about people abusing defense events and not really participating but should all the honest people go without rewards just because of a few bad apples?

 

I have repaired multiple walls solo on a T3 keep because the attacking group was pushed back and being fought off the objective.  Just today we had a zerg in Hills and I was defending SWT from a group of 7 by myself.  I disabled and repaired multiple times but got zero defense event rewards.  Repairing is an important WvW mechanic and should count for event participation.

Edited March 24, 2023 by Iniak.9815

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

On 3/24/2023 at 12:32 AM, Iniak.9815 said:

I take your point about people abusing defense events and not really participating but should all the honest people go without rewards just because of a few bad apples?

i believe that question to be rhetorical because i "answered" it in the post you quoted (emphasis added):

 

On 3/23/2023 at 5:30 PM, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

...but the current solution is only half of what should have been done. Those who actively participate in the defense, ie, they show up and stop the enemy from taking the tower, regardless of if they kill one of the assaulters, should still get credit for the event. especially if they are attacking the assaulters with siege or personal skills. or destroying enemy siege.

 

[Phelan.2014]

I wonder if a lot of the frustration has to do with the lack of consistency and transparency in how many of these systems work.

 

For example, in some places escorting a yak is a simple as standing next to it in a camp under attack, or walking a small percentage of the total distance to get credit. Conversely, a number of yaks require you to walk them for extreme distances to even get bronze, like the run from NC to Garri on Alpine vs the run from SWC to Bay.

 

Obviously some of these will be easier to abuse, and some of them have been tuned over the years to encourage active play or discourage afk play.

 

Similarly, we seem to mostly agree that the SMC repair meta was wack and antithesis to the game mode, but the blanket removal of defense credit for repairing was a mistake. Overall the system is inconsistent as I sometimes get credit when I didn't get a kill, other times I get no credit when I get kills but maybe I was a little too far away from the defense objective bounds, but actively killed the players and seige they used to damage the walls.

 

I'd prefer the system to be transparent and consistent, but failing that, since WvW is a ball of spaghetti code held together with bandaids, maybe just put diminishing returns on SMC repairs and roll the dice to see what happens.

[ghost scyth.3148]

I see a afk players/ bot pipes farmer xd 🤣

[Astralporing.1957]

On 3/27/2023 at 10:45 AM, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

i believe that question to be rhetorical because i "answered" it in the post you quoted (emphasis added):

 

 

The issue is that it's quite hard to distinguish those that repair as a part of actively participating in defense from those that abuse it for easy rewards. In fact, whatever participation requirements you will create, they will either be so strict to exclude a lot of honest participants, or wide enough to work for all of them, but also be open to abuse.

Personally, i'd rather Anet erred on the side of players, not against them. Better to have some bad apples, than to discourage players from participating, after all.

[Iniak.9815]

10 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

The issue is that it's quite hard to distinguish those that repair as a part of actively participating in defense from those that abuse it for easy rewards. In fact, whatever participation requirements you will create, they will either be so strict to exclude a lot of honest participants, or wide enough to work for all of them, but also be open to abuse.

Personally, i'd rather Anet erred on the side of players, not against them. Better to have some bad apples, than to discourage players from participating, after all.

I think this gets right to the heart of it.  We have players in the regular zones camped afk with pets and turrets afk farming, and although this is a bit problematic, it is accepted because to address this they either have to manually ban every afk farmer or reduce rewards for honest player's efforts 

 

The only additional problem we have in WvW is there are limited player spots available and are those abusing rewards negatively impacting the rest of the team?  To me, this is the only valid concern with respect to allowing rewards for only repairing.

 

After reading everyone's responses, my suggestion to fix the system is:

Tie in participation with eligibility of event rewards  and reduce the duration of time repairing refreshes your participation.  

Maybe players must be participation level 5 and 6, for instance, to get event rewards.  Players time is a currency the same as anything else and if the people wanting to abuse the system for easy rewards are required to do more than just repair, they will move on to an activity that requires less effort.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Iniak.9815

[Iniak.9815]

As an aside, I also believe restoring built in siege(cannon, oil and mortars) should count in defense event participation.

[Solvar.7953]

It seems like the repair wasn't an issue until they upped the rewards for doing repairs to a very high level, players got wise and found it was a fast way to get experience and other stuff, and started doing it.

If instead of dropping participation for doing repairs, they just reverted the reward to before that change, everything would be OK.  For that matter, with the revised rewards and weekly meta, people might do repair activities even with worse rewards then before, knowing they will get something at the end of the week to make it worthwhile.

As is, I don't even bother with trying to do repairs now, simply because it is so unpredictable, and a problem that WvW has is doing something that you get no reward for is a waste of time - participation is decaying.  So generally, I only do an activity if I think it will work.  Related, I may avoid combats with other players for exactly the same reason - spending a minute fighting another player and then losing gets me nothing.

 

[andrewlcl.8176]

16 hours ago, Iniak.9815 said:

... reduce the duration of time repairing refreshes your participation.  

Maybe players must be participation level 5 and 6, for instance, to get event rewards. 

 Those are really solid ideas, and this sort of fine-tuning will probably get much better results than the typical sledgehammer approach we tend to see from the team. 

[Gehenna.3625]

On 3/18/2023 at 5:29 PM, Me Kill You.9035 said:

So annoying to see people in team chat celebrating how now there will be fewer “pve noobs” running around and joining wvw

Which is total bs because these "PvE noobs" are generally only there for the pips and if they want something more in the sense of rewards they'll just run along zergs to get credit for caps.

I still see people recapping camps (instead of defending them) and I still see people in zergs not really doing anything, so I'd say that nothing has changed in that respect.

 

[Draygo.9473]

Repairing should not reward participation or event credit ever. Removing it was a step forward, but anet needs to go farther. 

 

Anet should move forward with adding more active defense to reward participation. They should also increase the WXP gain for repairing something when the defense quest is not active, but no participation. 

 

Anet needs to fix issues with kills counting or not counting for participation. Every kill within an objective should count for the defense quest and currently it is not.

Damaging/Destroying siege should give defense credit.

Disabling siege should give defense credit.

Actively damaging enemies above a certain threshold and time should give defense credit.

Actively healing/booning allies who are in combat with the enemy for a certain threshold and time should give defense credit.

 

Repairing a wall during active defense should remain a tactical choice that players can use, but should not be something players are actively encouraged to do above all else. After Anet finally removed the repair credit problem, I have been able to build defensive siege again when defending objectives even during longer sieges. I see more disablers being used, and more countersiege being built in general. There are also a lot less semi-afk people on eternal battlegrounds leading to more active play overall as well. 

 

I don't want Anet to go backwards, I want them to go forward and look at implementing more ways to award credit for active defense/offense. 

[Zyreva.1078]

1 hour ago, Draygo.9473 said:

Every kill within an objective should count for the defense quest and currently it is not.

Why only inside an objective? The best way to defend objectives is to stop the enemy before they get inside ...

1 hour ago, Draygo.9473 said:

Damaging/Destroying siege should give defense credit.

Destroying ok. Just hitting - no.

1 hour ago, Draygo.9473 said:

Disabling siege should give defense credit.

Actively damaging enemies above a certain threshold and time should give defense credit.

Actively healing/booning allies who are in combat with the enemy for a certain threshold and time should give defense credit.

No. Too easily exploitable and rewards unnecessary stalling instead of trying to actually defeat the attackers - the later should be the goal of any successful defense.

Regarding repairs - the problem of players not wanting to repair (or defend in general) isn't a matter of lack of rewards. Because it wasn't much of an issue when there were no rewards at all. It's a matter of players not caring about the objectives. Objectives meant something to players, when they had to invest time and effort (and even gold) to get them upgraded, instead of having everything happening automatically in a fraction of time. They meant something when the competition with enemy players - whether in direct combat or in terms of ppt - was the only reason to play WvW. Defending and upgrading objectives - without all the guild aura gimmicks of todays objectives - felt like an accomplishment. That was all the reward needed. But that's largely gone.

Now it's apparently all about the loot and the completely reward driven gameplay is what leads to many problems. And the more and easer accessible "rewards" - the worse it gets.

On a side note - repairing is one of the few things that's actually done best by zergs and one of the least efficient things to do as solo player. So if the zerg doesn't repair - just don't bother either.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Zyreva.1078

[Draygo.9473]

1 hour ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

Why only inside an objective? The best way to defend objectives is to stop the enemy before they get inside ...

Destroying ok. Just hitting - no.

No. Too easily exploitable and rewards unnecessary stalling instead of trying to actually defeat the attackers - the later should be the goal of any successful defense.

Regarding repairs - the problem of players not wanting to repair (or defend in general) isn't a matter of lack of rewards. Because it wasn't much of an issue when there were no rewards at all. It's a matter of players not caring about the objectives. Objectives meant something to players, when they had to invest time and effort (and even gold) to get them upgraded, instead of having everything happening automatically in a fraction of time. They meant something when the competition with enemy players - whether in direct combat or in terms of ppt - was the only reason to play WvW. Defending and upgrading objectives - without all the guild aura gimmicks of todays objectives - felt like an accomplishment. That was all the reward needed. But that's largely gone.

Now it's apparently all about the loot and the completely reward driven gameplay is what leads to many problems. And the more and easer accessible "rewards" - the worse it gets.

On a side note - repairing is one of the few things that's actually done best by zergs and one of the least efficient things to do as solo player. So if the zerg doesn't repair - just don't bother either.

 

Disabling siege isn't something that should be rewarded? Defenders when outnumbered should be stalling out the opponent so they can get reinforcements and drive them out, or alternatively just stall the attacker enough for their own team to capture another objective or two on the map to gain an initiative advantage. I don't see a problem with rewarding active play. Stalling is PPT play.

 

Rewards on inactive play should not be part of the mode. Repairs can often be detrimental to defense because it is one of the least valuable things you can use supply for in an active siege, with some exceptions.

 

I will say the higher reward tiers for defending upgraded structures does provide an incentive to defend things. 

 

I wouldn't be opposed to removing defensive rewards or offense bonus rewards for a system that rewarded winning the matchup, but then how do you weight said rewards based on participation in that matchup? How do you prevent burnout from guilds that really push hard for that win? How do you stop server stacking? I think a lot of the reasons anet is pushing into this style of reward system is because of the huge problems the WvW tournaments caused in the past, especially around player burnout. 

 

 

[Riba.3271]

Just fight, bros.

 

There are like 10 posts at the top asking for afking rewards every week but none that actually affect the fun you're having. Virtual currencies are so important, hehe.

 

Have you thought that maybe people aren't repairing because it just isn't that important anymore with monoservers gone and siege balance being in the worst state we have seen? Not because they worry about not finding a sentry to flip in next 5 minutes.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Riba.3271

[SlateSloan.3654]

This thread should be closed for trolling.

[Zyreva.1078]

19 hours ago, Draygo.9473 said:

Disabling siege isn't something that should be rewarded? Defenders when outnumbered should be stalling out the opponent so they can get reinforcements and drive them out, or alternatively just stall the attacker enough for their own team to capture another objective or two on the map to gain an initiative advantage.

 

Disabling Siege requires about as much "activity" as repairing.

The thing is - there is no need to reward every single button press. If players want to defend structures, then they'll do whatever is needed for a successful defense anyway. Just like there is no point in rewarding players for using their heal skill or stun break or dmg skills when trying to incentivise players to fight each other.

And a successful defense should ideally involve defeating the attackers - which is where the rewards then come from. Rewarding single actions is only relevant if someone only wants to do that one thing , eg. repairing  - and it opens all doors for exloitation and degenerate gameplay. Like why would anyone actually want to defeat the attackers - and therefore end the defend events and related rewards - if continuously throwing disablers gets more?

Maybe it would be better if defense events weren't on a timer but instead only granted rewards when the objective actually got defended successfully and is not contested anymore, so there is less incentive to drag things out indefinitely?

[Draygo.9473]

37 minutes ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

 

Disabling Siege requires about as much "activity" as repairing.

The thing is - there is no need to reward every single button press. If players want to defend structures, then they'll do whatever is needed for a successful defense anyway. Just like there is no point in rewarding players for using their heal skill or stun break or dmg skills when trying to incentivise players to fight each other.

And a successful defense should ideally involve defeating the attackers - which is where the rewards then come from. Rewarding single actions is only relevant if someone only wants to do that one thing , eg. repairing  - and it opens all doors for exloitation and degenerate gameplay. Like why would anyone actually want to defeat the attackers - and therefore end the defend events and related rewards - if continuously throwing disablers gets more?

Maybe it would be better if defense events weren't on a timer but instead only granted rewards when the objective actually got defended successfully and is not contested anymore, so there is less incentive to drag things out indefinitely?

Disabling siege requires interacting with an enemy, repairing a wall does not. They are not the same. Also disabling already disabled siege wont count. 

 

With your logic you can get a single kill and afk, but it seems nearly everyone agrees that getting a kill should count. 

 

You are being extremely unclear on what you think should count for participation in the event to determine if you deserve the reward for a successful defense. That is what this is about. The things I listed, and even things you listed can still be 'exploited', but all of them require interacting with an enemy and do contribute to the defense. Repair does not always contribute to defense and does not require interacting with an enemy.

 

The whole question is how we should count participation in the defense event such that everyone that is actively participating is rewarded for participating, and those that are seeking to afk or negatively participate are not rewarded. It feels bad to fight hard against an enemy for 5-10 minutes and get nothing for it. 

 

Thats where the request for active fight participation to also come in play, for example healing/booning for at least a minimum amount of time in combat. Now each of these things can be weighted such that kills are the most valueable thing, but other things should count so healers get rewarded as well.

 

I can agree with removing reward on the timer, and only rewarding when the timer doesnt get renewed but I assume anet lacks that tech right now and isnt a simple ask, but in either case determining how you count participation is the same problem under either system. 

[Zyreva.1078]

2 hours ago, Draygo.9473 said:

Disabling siege requires interacting with an enemy

Throwing  a disabler - usually from stealth or from walls - then running away, does not equal interacting with an enemy (the siege isn't the enemy, players are).

2 hours ago, Draygo.9473 said:

With your logic you can get a single kill and afk, but it seems nearly everyone agrees that getting a kill should count. 

Well, at least killing another player usually requires a little bit more - which is why so many are asking for an easier alternative. Unless it's zerg vs1 ofc. But that's more related to another problem with the rewards sytem (multiplied rewards favouring numbers over anything else).

2 hours ago, Draygo.9473 said:

Repair does not always contribute to defense and does not require interacting with an enemy.

Neither does using a disabler.

2 hours ago, Draygo.9473 said:

It feels bad to fight hard against an enemy for 5-10 minutes and get nothing for it. 

If you fight "hard" for 10 minutes without getting anything, maybe you should change your approach to those fights. It's like two minstrel noodles hitting each other and complaining they don't get anything for their "fighting". And yes, i'm very well aware that not every fight can be won, but it should still always be the goal.

2 hours ago, Draygo.9473 said:

but other things should count so healers get rewarded as well.

That could be easily fixed by just giving everyone within a squad the same rewards (and then splitting rewards instead of multiplying everything, so players actually have to contribute in a meaningful way regardless of numbers, and leeching results in less rewards).

The reward system is very flawed and i don't think there is a perfect solution, let alone an easy one. And because i value enjoyable gameplay way more than any tangible rewards and reward driven behaviour has never been beneficial for the game mode, i think it's better to keep rewards low and not too easy to farm, even if it means sometimes players get less than they might "deserve".

Edited April 5, 2023 by Zyreva.1078