What would you like to change about WVW to stimulate your participation?

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Now let's see how long it takes to get around acting on the feedback to boon ball, willbender, celestial, and relic of the ice trends.... 😏

Given the latest update and the fact that WvW is the only part of the game that would ever get an official "as a note, this is currently a stretch goal for the update and may need to shift out to a future update" disclaimer... well... you know...

The missing cornerstone on DBL garri hasnt been fixed yet, has it?

[Mistwraithe.3106]

Regarding the "winning" conversation I think it's a difficult balancing game.

I totally agree with the people who said that WvW is better if people are striving to win.

However, if there are significantly bigger bonuses (eg loot) to winning vs losing then that makes it much more likely that people will try to switch servers (or guilds under the new system) to get onto the winning side of match-ups. Lower rewards for the losing side also makes it more likely that the losing side will give up and decided to do other things (eg PvE) for the rest of the week. This is already a factor just with skirmish tickets, I'm less likely to play on weeks where we are badly losing as I need skirmish tickets and have limited GW2 playtime so the 25% difference between getting 8 per tick when losing and 10 when winning is significant (as Silver rank, it's even worse if initiate where the difference between 6 and 8 is 33%).

I think the biggest factor in WvW enjoyment is balanced matches but as mentioned above having bigger loot differences between the winning and losing team will actively work against that happening.

So the difficult challenge for Anet is to offer something which makes people want to win without making the "something" so important that people are discouraged from playing on the losing side.

 

[Sirius.4510]

I suppose this is the sort of WvW topic I should actually respond to. I used to play WvW a reasonable amount (got to rank 900 or so). I don't anymore, unless I need a Gift of Battle for legendary crafting. The reasons for that:

1. WvW seems to be most entertaining when you're playing with a group. The people I used to play with are all gone now. The people I still do play with are pretty heavily PvE; a few of them do participate in WvW, but it's on a different server from me and I can't be bothered spending gems on it when servers are going away at some point anyway. I'm not in that much of a hurry to play WvW; I have plenty of other things to do; so I wait.
2. The core WvW game mode, when you're just roaming and/or joining whatever tag is up at the moment, feels really pointless/empty to me. Nothing I do feels like it means anything; it'll be wiped away with the tide in another couple hours, if not minutes. There might be the brief bit of joy at accomplishments in a team fight, but they're sparse, and 90% of the outcomes are determined by pure numbers anyway. It rarely feels like my presence or participation matters. So what's the point?

The solution to the first problem would be to finish the alliance system. That one's not rocket science.

The solution to the second problem, I honestly have no idea. I've played PvP games just for the fun of PvP itself, but GW2 WvW doesn't afford much skill expression in comparison; time I invest into improving my skills largely feels wasted compared to those other games. If there were some way to fix that, that might help. Alternatively, I'd be happy just to help my team win if it felt like winning meant anything. Maybe there's some way to make that happen.

[TheGrimm.5624]

21 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

What would you base this on?

Efficiency. Personally we want players to do it all, at the same time. So its a matter of balance of how many needed to do it and how many to spread. In tournament days it was a mix of stack or spread. Right now we are in the mindset of stack. Since we have no reason to win. The idea to win would be to bring the numbers you need to fight and the rest to take other targets while you lockdown the other side. So it would be a matter of how many versus how many. So scaling what was used versus what was taken should be a thing.

[TheGrimm.5624]

12 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

I've been reviewing this thread and writing up a summary for the studio and just got to this post. 😄 

I think that I super appreciate the constructive posts throughout this thread--as with all threads that I summarize and pass along, it helps me share useful feedback and trends with the rest of the studio. 

oh hai!

We appreciate your time. lol, when you get a chance to game, may your bags be full! And be mindful, all are welcome in Forum Wars 2!  So welcome here anytime from this ex-Choppa!

[XenesisII.1540]

23 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Efficiency. Personally we want players to do it all, at the same time. So its a matter of balance of how many needed to do it and how many to spread. In tournament days it was a mix of stack or spread. Right now we are in the mindset of stack. Since we have no reason to win. The idea to win would be to bring the numbers you need to fight and the rest to take other targets while you lockdown the other side. So it would be a matter of how many versus how many. So scaling what was used versus what was taken should be a thing.

Yeah but what metric or statistics are you going to use to measure the value someone personally added through the week? Playing wvw as a solo roamer to a zerg player is vastly different. So what personal measurements are you going to use on players to figure out the value of their input for the value of their end of week reward? How much they ppt'd? how much they ppk'd? how many objectives they captured? how much they captured while under a certain threshold of allies?

The good thing about the skirmish reward track is it doesn't discriminate on whatever role you play, but on the other hand you can do the bare minimums for it.

[Mabi black.1824]

16 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

I've been reviewing this thread and writing up a summary for the studio and just got to this post. 😄 

I think that I super appreciate the constructive posts throughout this thread--as with all threads that I summarize and pass along, it helps me share useful feedback and trends with the rest of the studio. 

It's good to read it and know it, thank you. And I'm in debt for a beer at this point. 😉

[dexteerz.1753]

17 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

I've been reviewing this thread and writing up a summary for the studio and just got to this post. 😄 

I think that I super appreciate the constructive posts throughout this thread--as with all threads that I summarize and pass along, it helps me share useful feedback and trends with the rest of the studio. 

I would be grateful if they improved the WvW servers. I don't know exactly how the game's network architecture works, but during fights with large groups there is always a lot of skill lag or the ping reaches 3-4k.

[Mabi black.1824]

12 hours ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

I totally agree with the people who said that WvW is better if people are striving to win.

However, if there are significantly bigger bonuses (eg loot) to winning vs losing then that makes it much more likely that people will try to switch servers (or guilds under the new system) to get onto the winning side of match-ups. Lower rewards for the losing side also makes it more likely that the losing side will give up and decided to do other things (eg PvE) for the rest of the week

Let's just say that if we want to change WVW in its scoring system to move towards a 'seasonal' format, we definitely need to do it smartly. The aim is to stimulate the participation of all players. Drawing a meaning in participation is the most important thing, ''winning'' in its literal meaning must get a congruous meaning. because the team that wins is only 1.

[Mabi black.1824]

9 hours ago, Sirius.4510 said:

WvW seems to be most entertaining when you're playing with a group. The people I used to play with are all gone now. The people I still do play with are pretty heavily PvE; a few of them do participate in WvW, but it's on a different server from me

What you wrote here is probably shareable by everyone, in the sense that it is something that has happened and happens to everyone. Let's say that it's a bit of a characteristic of this genre of online group games that have a long-term time perspective (years) to see players leaving, others arriving, others coming back etc etc is quite normal. But, as other players have suggested in this post, social, aggregative tools help. 

When I write that our scoring system could be updated to be more interesting. When I write that WVW could move from a 'perpetual' format to a 'seasonal' format, I am convinced that we are adding one more social tool to WVW. Going a little off topic, I'm so convinced of this, that I'll add a new suggestion: We often read players complaining about huge groups (50+) rolling on anything, because they would like to see more diverse groups at the same time smaller (20+) propose their own content. Well, work on the points, to get it. If you make it so that when an outnumbered team captures, just say, an enemy Garry gets 2 extra points for their server, I guess the result will be to see smaller groups try. If you make 'win' take on meaning, you're sure to see smaller groups trying.

[Mabi black.1824]

6 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Yeah but what metric or statistics are you going to use to measure the value someone personally added through the week?

I believe that Grimm's suggestion refers to a team/server perspective. And this brings us to the WR problem, or rather what compromise we want to make for a team competition in a 'season' format, taking advantage of the new mechanics of WR. It's hard to imagine a new scoring system outside of the team/server perspective. in a team/server game mode. although I have to say........ here we are imagining giving a meaning to ''win'' with the purpose of stimulating player participation, what draws crowds into team sports competitions? Certainly the teams, but if you think about it, also the individual players within it. Above all, the outstanders, the champions. I think it would be great to have a historical track in the individual guilds' score ( and the individual player ) has the power to influence the final outcome of the team ranking. example. If your guild is formidable at enemy kills, and if at the end of the season it is the guild with the most kills, that guild's team gets 5 extra points (I'm making up random numbers just to express the concept) which maybe are what the team needed to finish the competition in second place instead of third place.

Emphasizing and emphasizing the influence of guilds and also the individual in our mode is still adding a social tool in this mode. Getting a historical track of our 'champions' guild or individual, is something that has the power to involve everyone else in comparison and participation.

Edited February 22 by Mabi black.1824

[ZTeamG.4603]

14 hours ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

Regarding the "winning" conversation I think it's a difficult balancing game.

I totally agree with the people who said that WvW is better if people are striving to win.

However, if there are significantly bigger bonuses (eg loot) to winning vs losing then that makes it much more likely that people will try to switch servers (or guilds under the new system) to get onto the winning side of match-ups. Lower rewards for the losing side also makes it more likely that the losing side will give up and decided to do other things (eg PvE) for the rest of the week. This is already a factor just with skirmish tickets, I'm less likely to play on weeks where we are badly losing as I need skirmish tickets and have limited GW2 playtime so the 25% difference between getting 8 per tick when losing and 10 when winning is significant (as Silver rank, it's even worse if initiate where the difference between 6 and 8 is 33%).

I think the biggest factor in WvW enjoyment is balanced matches but as mentioned above having bigger loot differences between the winning and losing team will actively work against that happening.

So the difficult challenge for Anet is to offer something which makes people want to win without making the "something" so important that people are discouraged from playing on the losing side.

 

This is a big reason why I think the "more rewards for winning" is a terrible idea. Server stacking (guilds transferring to a bigger server to make sure they're on the bigger, winning side) is already a big enough problem when there is barely any reason to transfer en masse, and because of it matchups will end up wildly imbalanced even if the matchmaking at the start of the links would have made them relatively balanced. On some links I've been on, a large, active guild transferring off it at the start of the links led to the server being pretty much dead and perpetually outnumbered for 90% of the day--which, of course, only served to make more people stop playing. If you start giving rewards for winning like in the WvW tournament from the old days, stacking will just get more ridiculous and you'll lose people whose experience it ruins. 

And, of course, one server having night coverage when the others don't will almost certainly make that one the winner due to the late night PPT trains that flip everything. 

The great thing about the participation system and skirmish chests is that you can (mostly, with the one exception being defense since they removed repair credit and defense credit is notoriously unreliable) play in the way that you find most fun in the mode without worrying about missing out on rewards. If something changed to incentivize defense instead of just attack (such as giving participation for destroying enemy siege or for driving off enemies from an objective even if they don't die), then I think the rewards system would be in a great spot and just be a matter of tuning the rewards.

[Mabi black.1824]

28 minutes ago, ZTeamG.4603 said:

This is a big reason why I think the "more rewards for winning" is a terrible idea. Server stacking (guilds transferring to a bigger server to make sure they're on the bigger, winning side) is already a big enough problem when there is barely any reason to transfer en masse, and because of it matchups will end up wildly imbalanced even if the matchmaking at the start of the links would have made them relatively balanced

I understand very well what you are saying. But it depends on how you do it. We're going to have WR, we're going to have 'seasonal' servers, are mass transfers still a thing? The balance will be better, we want to add some math to filter the new scoring system with a flow coefficient to make it practically ''perfect'' yes or no? Because there's a huge difference. The more you stack up, the more your points will be worth less than mine. 

We can freely reason about an idea of change, but the result that that change will bring you depends a lot on 'how' you do it. If we are involved in WVW with a seasonal format, if I give you the chance to participate in a big credible competition, will your interest in this mode be stimulated? It would already be a success to understand if it is an interest shared by many of us or not. Pretending to get into the merits of ''how'' you do it is too big a claim I would say.

[XenesisII.1540]

2 hours ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

I believe that Grimm's suggestion refers to a team/server perspective.

He referred to both..

Quote

Pay the server on the win, pay the player for their value add on the week end. Group and player goals encouraging wins and changing tier placements

This is why I'm asking what methods he would use for the player value to come up with the value of their reward. The one we currently use is participation, and some have a problem with it, but it's the most fair system you could use given the many different ways people play wvw.

[Lucy.3728]

Why not add a Hall of Heroes system from GW1 altered for GW2 into WvW at specific times? Best if the middle of the red map gets altered for it. Then GvG has a home without annoying wvw players.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Hall_of_Heroes_(arena)

Ofc incl. broadcast of the winner. Like in the good old times.

[Firefly.5982]

On 2/18/2024 at 2:37 PM, disForm.2837 said:

I'm surprised not many mentioned performance. 

If I had one wish, it would be Anet doing something about the kitten lag. The whole reason I play WvW are the massive battles between multiple teams. I do my fair share of roaming, but has never "clicked" like two/three similarly strong squads trying to win.

Second, re-orient the game direction in a way comped squads are not that much stronger than similarly numbered PUGs. I've been in both sides, it's boring either way.

Interestingly enough, I -would have- said this a couple weeks ago. Back then, I was playing on a 12 year old PC and the lag was horrible. However, I finally got a new PC and I have zero lag now except for an occasional internet blip issue which isn't Anets fault. So maybe others simply also don't experience (enough) lag for it to be an issue.

[kash.9213]

1 hour ago, Lucy.3728 said:

Why not add a Hall of Heroes system from GW1 altered for GW2 into WvW at specific times? Best if the middle of the red map gets altered for it. Then GvG has a home without annoying wvw players.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Hall_of_Heroes_(arena)

Ofc incl. broadcast of the winner. Like in the good old times.

I don't know if the portal of entry should be in a WvW, unless one is put on all of the maps, or entering and exiting and guild staging would mess with the map population a lot. That would be fun as long as the guilds and players in that instance can still see Team chat so they can respond to stuff.

Broadcast it all over the game though, including pve maps, like from an npc or item, then clicking on it can let you pick from one of the several instances of guild/team fights to spectate. 

 

[Edibleghost.5631]

• Layout a well detailed and reasoned vision for design within the mode and actually stick to it coupled with patch notes that show the logic of how a change serves that vision.
• Address Boonball and boon generation
• A reevaluation of base health and armor values for every class. My feeling is that many pain points could be alleviated by bring some up and potentially a few down.
• Either the addition of new maps or normalization and rotation of borderland maps so that nobody feels like they draw the short straw when assigned to red.
• The permanent removal of downstate, in large group play downstate disables smaller or less coordinated groups from meaningfully damaging a larger coordinated group to the degree that some will simply leave the mode rather than continue trying. In small scale or solo fights it feels unhealthy because some downstates are incredibly strong (mesmer, necro, warrior, ele) while others feel like an afterthought.
• Better incentives for semi-organized pug activity like at least trying to defend when there isn't a tag; this could be through rewards or defense bolstering mechanics or anything but I'm often struck, especially during events that draw in more pve players that the mode is brought down by a lack of aggression when tags aren't present.
• A reevaluation of feel-bad mechanics within the mode such as stealth, invuln, distortion, etc... I understand that it needs to be a balance and that these are sometimes very interwoven with a class but I don't think it's healthy for people to view fighting any particular thing as completely unwinnable or a chore.
• A reevaluation of movement speed across the mode. The warclaw could stand to be a bit faster so that people can get back to the action or respond to threats faster but also I feel that player movement speed is seeing unhealthy extremes between classes that degrade the health of the mode. Some classes get a baked in movement speed increase from traits, some have incredible ease of perma-swiftness (coupled with speed runes, relic, sometimes superspeed) while others have to devote considerable build space to match what others get for free. Tack on a few classes having a plethora of additional leaps, dashes and such and you quickly arrive at a point where like in my previous bullet it is better to not even engage with some classes because they have the ability to disengage the moment they sense the fight isn't going their way so why bother. Disengaging through stronger movement is definitely a valid tactic and it has its place but I think that it should be a much more deliberate choice to build for rather than thrown for free to some and not for others.

Edited February 23 by Edibleghost.5631
revision for clarity

[TheGrimm.5624]

7 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

He referred to both..

This is why I'm asking what methods he would use for the player value to come up with the value of their reward. The one we currently use is participation, and some have a problem with it, but it's the most fair system you could use given the many different ways people play wvw.

I did say both. I wouldn't adjust the participation logic here and this is mostly outside of it. It is doing similar but is for the overall week results. The goal is to encourage activity but not just for a ktrain either. Xen since your question was more of the measurement targeting the player so in this post so most will just look at the fight side.

Mind you I am still trying to see if this could be done and not be gamed so bad and since I don't have underlying information on what data is captured it leaves some of this to speculation. Aka take it as a rough pass and that it needs to be more thought thru. Needless to say we would want to have an underlying point so that its not gamed by kill traders and pondering that one. 

Picture first there are different pools out there. At quick glance is a pool for attacking objectives, pool for defending objectives, pool for fighting. Lets take the pool for fighting.

To address your main question it comes down to the system looking at as percentages versus whole numbers for this weekend ante. 1 player is still just 1 kill. So if its a 1v1 the player gets 1 point in their weekly bucket. If its 1 v 10 then each of the players that were involved in the kill get 0.1 in their weekly. Support would follow along the same rules that are in use now to define if the support player should get credit in the fight. So numbers would get the job done but still not reward in the same way. Note: this for the ante pool, scoring does not change. That's a topic for the server versus server thread, which I need to double check is in this one. More on that later.

The system is already tracking what players are in a given fight so its a matter of adding to an account value to the players for a weekend averaging to divvy up the overall ante based on the players active as a percentage of the whole.

In each type of weekend payout the size of the pool is dependent on the activity. The more activity the larger the pool. We would need to crunch numbers to see what make sense. Just to try and frame this I am going to use unidentified gear as a conversation point but this can be whatever would encourage players to want to be more active.

The numbers I throw out are more of an example to paint the idea. So for the server every 100 player kills adds in10 pieces of blue gear. After every 500 10 pieces of green gear and 50 silver are added. After every1,000 kills 10 pieces of yellow gear are added. A server ending the week with 10,000 kills would have a fight pool of: 1000 blues, 200 green, 100 yellows and 1000 silver in the mix. The more they fight and win the bigger the pool. The more they do themselves and are efficient the bigger the piece of the pie they get.

Going to start there since it's an ongoing thought and can come back to cover ideas on the objective pools and how to pay the server if there is an interest in the discussion.

Side note: this is not about the loot as much as players like to chase goals and it adds some additional fun as players might even compete with themselves, man I thought I did better than that. Less slacking next week. 

Edited February 23 by TheGrimm.5624
Side note

[XenesisII.1540]

9 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

I did say both. I wouldn't adjust the participation logic here and this is mostly outside of it. It is doing similar but is for the overall week results. The goal is to encourage activity but not just for a ktrain either. Xen since your question was more of the measurement targeting the player so in this post so most will just look at the fight side.

Mind you I am still trying to see if this could be done and not be gamed so bad and since I don't have underlying information on what data is captured it leaves some of this to speculation. Aka take it as a rough pass and that it needs to be more thought thru. Needless to say we would want to have an underlying point so that its not gamed by kill traders and pondering that one. 

Picture first there are different pools out there. At quick glance is a pool for attacking objectives, pool for defending objectives, pool for fighting. Lets take the pool for fighting.

To address your main question it comes down to the system looking at as percentages versus whole numbers for this weekend ante. 1 player is still just 1 kill. So if its a 1v1 the player gets 1 point in their weekly bucket. If its 1 v 10 then each of the players that were involved in the kill get 0.1 in their weekly. Support would follow along the same rules that are in use now to define if the support player should get credit in the fight. So numbers would get the job done but still not reward in the same way. Note: this for the ante pool, scoring does not change. That's a topic for the server versus server thread, which I need to double check is in this one. More on that later.

The system is already tracking what players are in a given fight so its a matter of adding to an account value to the players for a weekend averaging to divvy up the overall ante based on the players active as a percentage of the whole.

In each type of weekend payout the size of the pool is dependent on the activity. The more activity the larger the pool. We would need to crunch numbers to see what make sense. Just to try and frame this I am going to use unidentified gear as a conversation point but this can be whatever would encourage players to want to be more active.

The numbers I throw out are more of an example to paint the idea. So for the server every 100 player kills adds in10 pieces of blue gear. After every 500 10 pieces of green gear and 50 silver are added. After every1,000 kills 10 pieces of yellow gear are added. A server ending the week with 10,000 kills would have a fight pool of: 1000 blues, 200 green, 100 yellows and 1000 silver in the mix. The more they fight and win the bigger the pool. The more they do themselves and are efficient the bigger the piece of the pie they get.

Going to start there since it's an ongoing thought and can come back to cover ideas on the objective pools and how to pay the server if there is an interest in the discussion.

Side note: this is not about the loot as much as players like to chase goals and it adds some additional fun as players might even compete with themselves, man I thought I did better than that. Less slacking next week. 

So you want to create a loot pool for the server and then split it in the end according to individual performances?

In the end this will just encourage even more stacking and blobbing, defending is buggy so no one will want to pursue that avenue very much, so I bet attacking and killing will get the bulk of the participation.

Players are already given rewards for each of those those different areas of the game through kill drops and osr as they happen, so I dunno if it makes sense to add another complex layer of rewards for that. Might just be better to add guild and player bounties.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Need to give a reason for roaming back.  Right now, there is no incentive to it--you can get more reward for just flipping the nearest camp and going afk.  

There needs to be a reason to repair, refresh siege, scout, etc. again.  Most times I can't even get help with a north camp defense anymore, because there is no point--that should change.  It's also been ages that you can call out south camp and have anyone do anything--it is literally the most useless camp.  

EBG is one part of the mode but the biggest because anyone can sit in a structure or in middle of friendly blob and 'press 1 for rewards'.  That's not super engaging for those of us that like smaller battles.  We just leave the mode and go to sPvP (which might be what they want...not sure?).  

Edited February 23 by Gotejjeken.1267

[TheGrimm.5624]

6 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

So you want to create a loot pool for the server and then split it in the end according to individual performances?

I want to encourage more conflict. Yes I want players to try and use less to more versus use more to do less.

6 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

In the end this will just encourage even more stacking and blobbing

Think about this way, a smaller side risks less when they attack a bigger group. 

6 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

, defending is buggy so no one will want to pursue that avenue very much, so I bet attacking and killing will get the bulk of the participation.

Mind you I said still pondering the factors on the objective events. As I said checking on interest in efficiency first. 

6 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Players are already given rewards for each of those those different areas of the game through kill drops and osr as they happen, so I dunno if it makes sense to add another complex layer of rewards for that.

I can't speak for everyone, but I have seen players chase goals and have a blast. Part of this is adding to the fun factor for some players.

6 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Might just be better to add guild and player bounties.

I don't see this as mutually exclusive. I think these both could be added and be complementary to each other.

Again as I see bounties as adding a risk factor in. Players buy into bounties and that costs them. But if they complete them in a time factor they are rewarded for going big.

Side question: How did you read the option of not using whole numbers if I might ask? Do you feel that accounts for number variations in fights?

[TheGrimm.5624]

2 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Need to give a reason for roaming back.  Right now, there is no incentive to it--you can get more reward for just flipping the nearest camp and going afk.  

Yes and no. Roamers are still going to roam. The issue you point out is players trying to farm rewards versus roam. 

2 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

There needs to be a reason to repair, refresh siege, scout, etc. again. 

Agree, but haven't ID'd how that couldn't be abused. Hence the idea of reward the server and pay the player. In this case you can't pay the player but could reward the server for passive aspects of game play.

 

[TheGrimm.5624]

On 2/21/2024 at 7:27 PM, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

Regarding the "winning" conversation I think it's a difficult balancing game.

I totally agree with the people who said that WvW is better if people are striving to win.

However, if there are significantly bigger bonuses (eg loot) to winning vs losing then that makes it much more likely that people will try to switch servers (or guilds under the new system) to get onto the winning side of match-ups. Lower rewards for the losing side also makes it more likely that the losing side will give up and decided to do other things (eg PvE) for the rest of the week. This is already a factor just with skirmish tickets, I'm less likely to play on weeks where we are badly losing as I need skirmish tickets and have limited GW2 playtime so the 25% difference between getting 8 per tick when losing and 10 when winning is significant (as Silver rank, it's even worse if initiate where the difference between 6 and 8 is 33%).

I think the biggest factor in WvW enjoyment is balanced matches but as mentioned above having bigger loot differences between the winning and losing team will actively work against that happening.

So the difficult challenge for Anet is to offer something which makes people want to win without making the "something" so important that people are discouraged from playing on the losing side.

 

I used: "Pay the server on the win, pay the player for their value add on the week end."

So in this case we could build upon the options like the Wizard Vault and give players purchase options via tokens earned on winning. First place earns 3, second earns two and 3rd earns one. Losing a tier applies a -1 and earning one applies a +1 with a min of both at 1 token. Rewards for the server tokens can range from cosmetics to options that player might want to buy into for various rewards that Anet may opt-up for the given period. We already have server stacking, this could produce less since there might be just as much encourage to stack lower to move up more and earn more on moves.

[TheGrimm.5624]

16 hours ago, ZTeamG.4603 said:

This is a big reason why I think the "more rewards for winning" is a terrible idea.

Limited agree based on post issues.

16 hours ago, ZTeamG.4603 said:

Server stacking (guilds transferring to a bigger server to make sure they're on the bigger, winning side) is already a big enough problem when there is barely any reason to transfer en masse,

Agree during Tourny days.

16 hours ago, ZTeamG.4603 said:

and because of it matchups will end up wildly imbalanced even if the matchmaking at the start of the links would have made them relatively balanced.

The idea of the WR is no transfers to not allow players to impact a new sort. 

16 hours ago, ZTeamG.4603 said:

On some links I've been on, a large, active guild transferring off it at the start of the links led to the server being pretty much dead and perpetually outnumbered for 90% of the day--which, of course, only served to make more people stop playing.

So far the WR is looking to block this. 

16 hours ago, ZTeamG.4603 said:

If you start giving rewards for winning like in the WvW tournament from the old days, stacking will just get more ridiculous and you'll lose people whose experience it ruins. 

I don't miss tourney days when players were asked to cover 3AM-6AM shifts when they needed to be at work at 7 AM.

16 hours ago, ZTeamG.4603 said:

And, of course, one server having night coverage when the others don't will almost certainly make that one the winner due to the late night PPT trains that flip everything. 

The great thing about the participation system and skirmish chests is that you can (mostly, with the one exception being defense since they removed repair credit and defense credit is notoriously unreliable) play in the way that you find most fun in the mode without worrying about missing out on rewards. If something changed to incentivize defense instead of just attack (such as giving participation for destroying enemy siege or for driving off enemies from an objective even if they don't die), then I think the rewards system would be in a great spot and just be a matter of tuning the rewards.

Rewarding the player limits the impact of a zerg taking an empty structure.