So let's talk Scoring

[XenesisII.1540]

As you may or may not know, from the studio spring/summer update, wvw will be receiving a scoring QoL on July 16th. https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/studio-update-guild-wars-2-in-spring-and-summer-2024/

They haven't told us what's going to be in this, so who knows, maybe there's a blog next week. But thought maybe we can throw around some speculations, cause what else is there to do in the wvw forums anyways, they don't usually listen. Plus scoring is pretty.. useless in wvw these days. 😕

 

So some basics about scoring...

PPT - points per tick, every 5 mins, passively collects points from every objective your side owns.

PPK - points per kill, more if you stomp or have borderland bloodlust.

Capture Points - points from capturing an objective.

Warscore - the overall score collected from the combination of ppt and ppk and captures in 2 hour periods. 

Victory Points - The match points earned from your placement with the total Warscore race after every 2 hours.

 

Potential mechanics never implemented but were mentioned once upon a time before skirmish mode was introduced. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Let-s-Talk-Scoring

Quote

Potential (controversial) additional change:

• While the above change takes steps to bring the value of off-hours coverage in-line, there’s a good chance it’ll still be overvalued. If that’s the case (and we’ll eventually poll on this), then we have plans for an additional system.
• This is the Action Level – Victory Point Multiplier system
  • This system would multiply the Victory Points awarded by Skirmishes based on map populations and time of day.
  • During prime time hours, the multiplier would always be at it’s maximum of 3.
  • During off hours, the multiplier might stay at 3 or drop to 2 or 1, depending on on activity level.
  • It’s important to include map populations as a factor, to make the system more fair for off hours players and its important to include time-of-day as a factor to prevent a winning team from trying to keep the score muliplier low by exiting WvW

Last Stand

• Last Stand describes the final day of any week long matchup
• During Last Stand, Skirmish placement Victory Points are multiplied
• This is intended to make the last day of the match as exciting as the first, and provide a final comeback mechanic for teams that are behind

 

So there is a number of things they could adjust, here's some examples...

Maybe boost ppk so fight groups contribute more to scoring? so these massive groups aren't dropping tiers to farm easier prey.

Maybe boost capture points so it moves to more active scoring than passive ppt? but then this may lead to everyone just train captures instead of defending.

Maybe add the action level so that if all 3 worlds are at peak populations, say NA prime time, then scoring is multiplied.

Maybe add random hotspot scoring, so certain objectives are worth more for certain amount of time, for example smc might be worth 3x it's usually capture points/ppt for the next hour, or maybe all three garrisons are worth 3x their points at the same time for the next hour.

 

Again overall scoring is just a tool to get worlds in tiers they belong to, because as much as they try to fool us with WR, they will not be able to even populations/coverage to make scoring work as a proper measurement for winning competitions. But, what would you change from the current system to make it better?

[coro.3176]

2 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Again overall scoring is just a tool to get worlds in tiers they belong to

This is the problem right now. Score is meaningless. It's just a way to move up or down, so guilds try and game the system to end up fighting different (easier) groups. The easier groups don't like being farmed, so they quit for the week. Then we have a boring WvW.

What you want in a game like this is for people to actually care about the score, however you choose measure it. The only way to do that is to offer some real incentive for winning.

[joneirikb.7506]

Tldr: The expected rant/wall of text.

The first question is really: "What should the Point/Score system do?" (I'm honestly expecting as many different answers to that as there are posters, and the majority of those answers to not really apply to Point/Score much at all.)

Ok, so lets try to simplify:
* Victory/Loss
* Matchmaking/Activity
* Remove Scoring
* What we're likely to get
* Linking rewards to winning

--- Victory/Loss ---

This would be the current design goal behind Score and the WvW mode. Players are "supposed" to feel motivated to gain points and win to rise in the ranks. (Based on numbers, skill, organisation, coverage, teamwork, etc)

I think we can all say that at this point, the majority of players doesn't care much about winning and thus not care much about the Score. Some seek only action, some only seek rewards (GoB), some only do guild runs, other go through the motions but doesn't care very much any longer, others are no longer motivated due to various reasons (hackers, exploits, boonball, stealth, gankers, and recently some feeling loss of community).

The specific reasons aren't as important to this as the point that the majority of players doesn't care about Score. I've said before that I think the only way to change this, is to basically make a "hack". Basically make it so that all actions players do lead to points in some way, so any kind of activity adds to the Score. The two examples I've managed to think off:

* Rewards = Score
* Activity = Score

Rewards would be to tie in any kind of reward you get as player to also add to the Score. So the more players gain rewards on your Team, the more Score you get. So even if players aren't interested in Score, they're interested in Rewards and thus also by proxy are interested in maximising Score.

Activity would be to tie in any kind of actions players usually take in their normal play time, and link it up to a system to gain Score. Anything from doing siege damage, damage npc/players, claiming circles, harvesting nodes, using mount, etc. This basically just translates "player activity" into Score.

Both have their uses and drawbacks. Both could be added at the same time, but might be too much.

 

--- Matchmaking/Activity ---

This would be to hack up the Score system into just being a match-making system, where it's not intended to create winners or losers, but just try to put prime time activity against each others.

The most obvious way to do this would be to just remove PPT and only use PPK + capture. Which would make the entire Score system into just a "who kills most", and push servers that kills a lot up the ranks, until they meet someone that kills more. Drawbacks include that it won't take coverage into consideration so anyone outside of prime-time is screwed, and it will feel like a very shallow 24/7 mode and more like a weirdly drawn out WOW-Battleground mode.

 

--- Remove Scoring ---

The nuclear option. Embrace that players generally doesn't care about Score, and just focus on making the moment to moment spectacle/loot appealing (Bread and Circus). This could be achieved quite simple by just:

* EotM
* Add or replace map with EBG
* Add full rewards + PIPS
* Bonus add mount/glider

In fact, this might be the simplest and easiest way for ANet to just put the entire WvW mode into retirement mode, with the least amount of work and resources put into it, have it self adjust/adapt to ever changing player activity.

(Heck, if I was an ANet dev and I had a boss tell me I was now on the WvW team, and tasked with just fixing WvW so people shut up about it, without just shutting it down. This is exactly what I'd propose from a work perspective.)

I honestly believe the majority of players would be the most happy with this one. Even if it completely destroys the one thing that makes WvW unique from what practically any other game has. Here's a list of features:

* Match last only 2 hours, then resets. If one match is bad, there isn't long waiting times for a new one.
* System fills players into the map, so there's (almost) always lots of players/activity.
* You can still play together with your Team (guild now, server before)
* Since points doesn't matter, everything is just about action and rewards.
* Though the casuals might notice an increasing amount of more hardcore groups/guilds entering this mode and still farming them, so it's not just a casual loot pinata heaven.

 

--- What we're likely to get ---

Scoring adjustments. They're likely just going to adjust the existing Score system (the one I described under Victory/Loss), without putting any real effort and resources into dealing with players lack of interest/care for Scoring.

So realistically I don't think we can expect more than a couple of minor changes that will try to "mix-up" things a bit, try to create outcome more uncertain, which will just make the end result a bit more volatile but not really change much.

Examples using the ones suggested in that old post Xen quoted:
* Score multiplier based on activity: Is just going to make prime-time more deterministic, a Team with full prime-time and no other coverage could in many cases tie in score against a team that has no prime-time but full coverage. Doesn't change how people interact/care about Score, just makes the outcome more volatile.
* Last day score multiplier: In most cases no change as the team that can zerg/outnumber the enemy most of the week will usually do so at the last day as well. Sometimes they might not have much activity that day and another team can spike up to win the week, but again that just puts the wrong server up a rank, and creates more volatility. No one cared more about it.

 

--- Linking rewards to Winning ---

It's less terri-bad than it was during the Server system, since we no longer have transfers. That said it's still not a good idea, because the moment you start putting rewards on winning, players will start trying to game the system. If anyone thought that "Guild-alliances" was bad now, just wait until someone figures out the best way to get rewards through winning, and set ups a guild specifically for that.

This is why they put the entire reward-track system on personal rewards, and it's probably the single smartest change/decision they've made for WvW since launch.

While linking rewards to winning certainly would motivate players a lot to try to win, it just brings too many negative aspects with it to be worth it. Among other things it would reward players to be as toxic as possible, create as terrible feeling as possible to play against them as possible, because the more people hate playing against you the more they leave and let you win for less effort. If the only thing you care about is the rewards, all of that is a win in your book. Expect everything you hate about the mode to get multiplied.

Edited July 4 by joneirikb.7506

[XenesisII.1540]

33 minutes ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

Tldr: The expected rant/wall of text.

The first question is really: "What should the Point/Score system do?" (I'm honestly expecting as many different answers to that as there are posters, and the majority of those answers to not really apply to Point/Score much at all.)

Ok, so lets try to simplify:
* Victory/Loss
* Matchmaking/Activity
* Remove Scoring
* What we're likely to get
* Linking rewards to winning

--- Victory/Loss ---

This would be the current design goal behind Score and the WvW mode. Players are "supposed" to feel motivated to gain points and win to rise in the ranks. (Based on numbers, skill, organisation, coverage, teamwork, etc)

I think we can all say that at this point, the majority of players doesn't care much about winning and thus not care much about the Score. Some seek only action, some only seek rewards (GoB), some only do guild runs, other go through the motions but doesn't care very much any longer, others are no longer motivated due to various reasons (hackers, exploits, boonball, stealth, gankers, and recently some feeling loss of community).

The specific reasons aren't as important to this as the point that the majority of players doesn't care about Score. I've said before that I think the only way to change this, is to basically make a "hack". Basically make it so that all actions players do lead to points in some way, so any kind of activity adds to the Score. The two examples I've managed to think off:

* Rewards = Score
* Activity = Score

Rewards would be to tie in any kind of reward you get as player to also add to the Score. So the more players gain rewards on your Team, the more Score you get. So even if players aren't interested in Score, they're interested in Rewards and thus also by proxy are interested in maximising Score.

Activity would be to tie in any kind of actions players usually take in their normal play time, and link it up to a system to gain Score. Anything from doing siege damage, damage npc/players, claiming circles, harvesting nodes, using mount, etc. This basically just translates "player activity" into Score.

Both have their uses and drawbacks. Both could be added at the same time, but might be too much.

 

--- Matchmaking/Activity ---

This would be to hack up the Score system into just being a match-making system, where it's not intended to create winners or losers, but just try to put prime time activity against each others.

The most obvious way to do this would be to just remove PPT and only use PPK + capture. Which would make the entire Score system into just a "who kills most", and push servers that kills a lot up the ranks, until they meet someone that kills more. Drawbacks include that it won't take coverage into consideration so anyone outside of prime-time is screwed, and it will feel like a very shallow 24/7 mode and more like a weirdly drawn out WOW-Battleground mode.

 

--- Remove Scoring ---

The nuclear option. Embrace that players generally doesn't care about Score, and just focus on making the moment to moment spectacle/loot appealing (Bread and Circus). This could be achieved quite simple by just:

* EotM
* Add or replace map with EBG
* Add full rewards + PIPS
* Bonus add mount/glider

In fact, this might be the simplest and easiest way for ANet to just put the entire WvW mode into retirement mode, with the least amount of work and resources put into it, have it self adjust/adapt to ever changing player activity.

(Heck, if I was an ANet dev and I had a boss tell me I was now on the WvW team, and tasked with just fixing WvW so people shut up about it, without just shutting it down. This is exactly what I'd propose from a work perspective.)

I honestly believe the majority of players would be the most happy with this one. Even if it completely destroys the one thing that makes WvW unique from what practically any other game has. Here's a list of features:

* Match last only 2 hours, then resets. If one match is bad, there isn't long waiting times for a new one.
* System fills players into the map, so there's (almost) always lots of players/activity.
* You can still play together with your Team (guild now, server before)
* Since points doesn't matter, everything is just about action and rewards.
* Though the casuals might notice an increasing amount of more hardcore groups/guilds entering this mode and still farming them, so it's not just a casual loot pinata heaven.

 

--- What we're likely to get ---

Scoring adjustments. They're likely just going to adjust the existing Score system (the one I described under Victory/Loss), without putting any real effort and resources into dealing with players lack of interest/care for Scoring.

So realistically I don't think we can expect more than a couple of minor changes that will try to "mix-up" things a bit, try to create outcome more uncertain, which will just make the end result a bit more volatile but not really change much.

Examples using the ones suggested in that old post Xen quoted:
* Score multiplier based on activity: Is just going to make prime-time more deterministic, a Team with full prime-time and no other coverage could in many cases tie in score against a team that has no prime-time but full coverage. Doesn't change how people interact/care about Score, just makes the outcome more volatile.
* Last day score multiplier: In most cases no change as the team that can zerg/outnumber the enemy most of the week will usually do so at the last day as well. Sometimes they might not have much activity that day and another team can spike up to win the week, but again that just puts the wrong server up a rank, and creates more volatility. No one cared more about it.

 

--- Linking rewards to Winning ---

It's less terri-bad than it was during the Server system, since we no longer have transfers. That said it's still not a good idea, because the moment you start putting rewards on winning, players will start trying to game the system. If anyone thought that "Guild-alliances" was bad now, just wait until someone figures out the best way to get rewards through winning, and set ups a guild specifically for that.

This is why they put the entire reward-track system on personal rewards, and it's probably the single smartest change/decision they've made for WvW since launch.

While linking rewards to winning certainly would motivate players a lot to try to win, it just brings too many negative aspects with it to be worth it. Among other things it would reward players to be as toxic as possible, create as terrible feeling as possible to play against them as possible, because the more people hate playing against you the more they leave and let you win for less effort. If the only thing you care about is the rewards, all of that is a win in your book. Expect everything you hate about the mode to get multiplied.

I somewhat think it might be time to retire the scoring system and move to a more traditional rvr terms for "winning" with territory control. And then make matchups just completely random(although given how bad the first weeks of a reshuffle(relinks or WR) tend to look, it probably isn't a good idea). Points scoring is just a terrible motivator to use anymore.

I would also make territory control a bit more involved and interesting and more valuable to hold, games like planetside do well with this, rather than the one shot break and take a paper keep in less than 3mins.

Or maybe it's time to take away the team scoring and start player based personal scoring, as you said, gaining points for doing all different kinds of activities, then at the end of the week add it all up for a grand total for all players on the world vs the other two worlds, and see who won. This would essentially promote players having to be active, and also the more you base scoring on personnel instead of the team, the more rewards you could potentially hand out to the stand outs. Like handing over Emperor to the top player in ESO which comes with some perks.

Only problem is anet is most likely not willing to invest in wvw anymore, and the scoring change will probably just end up being a boost to ppk so their zergs can feel good about rolling people over, and call it a day.

[Mistwraithe.3106]

I just thought I would add that my interest in WvW would be significantly less if scoring was removed (as some have suggested). Even tho it's not the reason I play WvW, the teams and the competition between them over objectives provides the framework for the gameplay (for me) and I suspect I would quickly give up on it without scoring.

[Hesione.9412]

3 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

I somewhat think it might be time to retire the scoring system and move to a more traditional rvr terms for "winning" with territory control. And then make matchups just completely random(although given how bad the first weeks of a reshuffle(relinks or WR) tend to look, it probably isn't a good idea). Points scoring is just a terrible motivator to use anymore.

I would also make territory control a bit more involved and interesting and more valuable to hold, games like planetside do well with this, rather than the one shot break and take a paper keep in less than 3mins.

Or maybe it's time to take away the team scoring and start player based personal scoring, as you said, gaining points for doing all different kinds of activities, then at the end of the week add it all up for a grand total for all players on the world vs the other two worlds, and see who won. This would essentially promote players having to be active, and also the more you base scoring on personnel instead of the team, the more rewards you could potentially hand out to the stand outs. Like handing over Emperor to the top player in ESO which comes with some perks.

Only problem is anet is most likely not willing to invest in wvw anymore, and the scoring change will probably just end up being a boost to ppk so their zergs can feel good about rolling people over, and call it a day.

It still won't help with players meeting blobs. If there's only a few of us, we won't down anyone in the blob and therefore won't get any points.

[Gop.8713]

Scoring is just like cutting, measure twice ; p

Actual response: The only thing I want to avoid is a meaningful increase in the value of ppk. Fighting is the fun part of wvw, and the vast majority of players are afraid to do it now even when there is no consequence to losing. If I've got to worry about how jumping in to that 1vX is going to impact my team, I'm going to be having a lot less fun in wvw . . .

[XenesisII.1540]

29 minutes ago, Gop.8713 said:

Fighting is the fun part of wvw, and the vast majority of players are afraid to do it now even when there is no consequence to losing. If I've got to worry about how jumping in to that 1vX is going to impact my team, I'm going to be having a lot less fun in wvw . . .

Probably because of boon spam and some roamer specs that are overwhelming... 🤷‍♂️

And I already worry about jumping into a 1vX because of certain classes/specs involved, I avoid certain specs because it's a waste of time or hard counters, soo already having less fun as it is, in fact on another break going on two weeks.... 🤷‍♂️

Honestly don't think anyone really thinks about ppk when in fights... 🤷‍♂️

[Dawdler.8521]

Tbh I just want the pip system to be more frontloaded ie all you get today up to 1450 should be what you get up to 1000 with more rewards up to 1450 and the participation system to be revised for a less hectic score hunt and timer decay.

The team score mechanic in itself is good enough encouraging people to actually play for their own gains would be better. 

Edited July 5 by Dawdler.8521

[CafPow.1542]

10 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

these massive groups aren't dropping tiers to farm easier prey.

Maybe boost capture points so it moves to more active scoring than passive ppt? but then this may lead to everyone just train captures instead of defending.

Maybe add the action level so that if all 3 worlds are at peak populations, say NA prime time, then scoring is multiplied.

Maybe add random hotspot scoring, so certain objectives are worth more for certain amount of time, for example smc might be worth 3x it's usually capture points/ppt for the next hour, or maybe all three garrisons are worth 3x their points at the same time for the next hour.

The issue is, and that’s just my opinion.

 

every aspect of wvw, capturing, defending, fighting…. Everything should be equally valuable and what is more worth, depends on the situation you’re in.

this thinking process („what do i do now? What makes the most sense?“) is what wvw is for me, that is my fun.

only focusing on 1 thing and tunnelvision it is boring and i think it’s also quite stupid. You ruin the gamemode for yourself if you do that.

 

now if we wanna buff / nerf some aspects of score like you mentioned, this will automatically influence the others. (Example: buff ppk automatically kinda nerfs ppt cause killing becomes more valuable)

the „perfect idea“ should be, that everything should be equally worth. Since people are not able to switch tactics they would grind the 1 thing… so maybe you need some form of…. Decline? Just like contribution.

like, you only tunnelvision kills, but after doing that for 20 minutes, killing enemies will result in less loot / score/ whatever. Or you just defend / ppt … you lose contribution if you don’t try to fight a player directly every now and then.

 

is this a good idea? I don’t know. And i am not sure how it should be done. I am also generally not a big fan of babysitting people so letting wvw be kinda sandboxy could be better. 

Edited July 5 by CafPow.1542

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, CafPow.1542 said:

is this a good idea? I don’t know.

The problem is that in a 24/7 mode you dont want to make it painful to play. It should be simple so that people can enjoy doing whatever on the field when they hop in. This has always been the strength of WvW (ESO alliance wars and spending 20m+ just getting to the frontline and doing something compared to hopping into WvW and having more action in the first minute comes to mind). 

As mentioned before I'd rather see reasons for playing more, not playing "better" by increasing a number on some score chart. 

For example, you could put more reliance on supply and link it to PPT scoring - make objectives downgradeable. When objectives get starved of supplies, they give lower points naturally. That increases the value of PPK by proxy. And in order to starve them, you of course need to block the supply routes. Which lead to fights because defenders will want to counter that. So one encourage activity on the field and leaning toward PPK over PPT without even touching the static scoring of either.

[CafPow.1542]

7 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

The problem is that in a 24/7 mode you dont want to make it painful to play. It should be simple so that people can enjoy doing whatever on the field when they hop in. This has always been the strength of WvW (ESO alliance wars and spending 20m+ just getting to the frontline and doing something compared to hopping into WvW and having more action in the first minute comes to mind). 

As mentioned before I'd rather see reasons for playing more, not playing "better" by increasing a number on some score chart. 

For example, you could put more reliance on supply and link it to PPT scoring - make objectives downgradeable. When objectives get starved of supplies, they give lower points naturally. That increases the value of PPK by proxy. And in order to starve them, you of course need to block the supply routes. Which lead to fights because defenders will want to counter that. So one encourage activity on the field and leaning toward PPK over PPT without even touching the static scoring of either.

I like this better yeah.

as i said, i am not a fan of babysitting players and think, keeping wvw sandboxy as it is is possibly better. So basically i tend to agree on your firts paragraph especially… i was just brainstorming.

 

cause we also know: people don’t only do what they like / what is fun for them, a lot of them play for what is „the most efficient thing to do“. I was thinking about „how can we make it most efficient to play the entire gamemode and not just 1 aspect?“

but i tend to think that my proposals would backfire and cause more trouble than solving it hehe.

[Mabi black.1824]

I've been saying this for a while, but since we've chosen that the only reference in a decent timeline is the guild, I expect the new scoring system to address this. Who today has some sort of interest in verifying/tracking/comparing server score or ranking? With WR's mechanics? Obvious answer: None. 

As a result, if today you want to renew and build the confrontation between players and involve the PvP player, you have to do it with reference to the guild and no longer to the server. This forces Anet to define an adequate automatic multiplier that makes it possible to compare, from a competitive point of view, a guild of 10 men against a guild of 100 men.

That said, it's best for someone to tell our development team that for a points system of a 24/7 game mode with expected teams of 1500/2000 players, there are a lot of variables with respect to the final score. Consequently, in order to obtain a ''credible'' score, it is advisable to call on mathematics and all the comparative coefficients that it can offer you for free. which, among other things, no one can dispute.

I'll point out only 1 out of all. hours of play. We know that Anet knows and tracks the hours of play. So, absurdly, you could not even change anything to the current score, but only filter at the end of the week the victory points that the 3 teams have accrued through the coefficient of hours of play. which only for example assumes a value equal to 1 for the team with the most hours played, and only for example could take a value equal to 2 for the other 2 teams because both have expressed both a play time that is exactly 50% less. You'll find that you can literally give a kitten when a team has coverage issues at night rather than a team that has 30% fewer players in prime time etc etc, because the scoring system automatically and mathematically It makes the variable of 'hours of play'' irrelevant, equal to zero. ( it's no longer something you try to correct , just because it's a variable, you can't correct it , you can't get 3 teams with the same number of hours of play ) But you can get an indisputable final score, through a mathematical coefficient that changes by itself and constantly with reference to the variation of the differences in hours played by the 3 teams.

It's not rocket science (an expression I often read in this forum) and it's not even Albert Einstenin, it's just basic math.

Edited July 5 by Mabi black.1824

[Mabi black.1824]

WVW is a great show, let's make sure it continues to be. The opportunity to revise/update the scoring system is not a triviality, on the contrary it is another great opportunity (capable of adjusting/making sense of what WR has questioned) and deserves a comparison with development.

[Mabi black.1824]

If we build the comparison and competition on the guild, we will also get a ranking of the guilds, and when WR works by redistributing these guilds, the average positioning of the assigned guilds in the various servers, can also define the pairings from week 1, and theoretically get more engaging matches immediately from week 1, rather than waiting for 3 weeks of 1 up and 1 down.

[Cuks.8241]

Scoring doesn't matter if no one cares about winning. I think scoring is just fine but it's just meaningless because no one cares.

If you want winning to matter they need to change reward and recognition structure. But then there comes a problem. This might become a competitive mode. Say goodbye to your casual reward structure that rewards everyone almost the same based on participation. 

If winning get more or even exclusive rewards those big guilds that are now fighting under hidden tags somewhere in the corner will suddenly become the big bullies. 

I am all for only win gives reward. I would do the same in spvp, pips only for win (solves alot of problems with afking and bots also). But games haven't been this way in a long time. All games. And every time I say this not many agree with me. But it's a very easy solution to make everyone play for the win.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

49 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Scoring doesn't matter if no one cares about winning. I think scoring is just fine but it's just meaningless because no one cares.

If you want winning to matter they need to change reward and recognition structure. But then there comes a problem. This might become a competitive mode. Say goodbye to your casual reward structure that rewards everyone almost the same based on participation. 

If winning get more or even exclusive rewards those big guilds that are now fighting under hidden tags somewhere in the corner will suddenly become the big bullies. 

I am all for only win gives reward. I would do the same in spvp, pips only for win (solves alot of problems with afking and bots also). But games haven't been this way in a long time. All games. And every time I say this not many agree with me. But it's a very easy solution to make everyone play for the win.

There needs to be rewards for winning, I agree, or no one cares about winning.

However, removing all participation rewards makes it far too easy for trolls to ruin it for those who legitimately compete. ( It's no fun to play 3v5 for 10 match ups in a row because the algorithm loves to team you up with AFKers. It's why I quit sPvP shortly after HoT launched at rank 57: 8 out of every 10 match ups with AFK teammates for a whole season )

And yes, there are a lot of trolls who actively try to sabotage their team. Just look at all the activation of tactics when there's no attack on the objective, or players actively destroying allied golems through fall damage,  jumping the golems off cliffs, or players actively spying for other teams, constantly relaying zerg positions to the enemy teams. 

All these troll tactics are legitimate ONLY because of participation rewards. Remove those rewards and those troll tactics suddenly become bans due to match manipulation, and preventing others from enjoying the game. Because lack of bans for this behavior will mean players will stop playing the game, word of mouth will mean nobody buys the game, and Anet goes out of business.

[ArchonWing.9480]

17 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Probably because of boon spam and some roamer specs that are overwhelming... 🤷‍♂️

And I already worry about jumping into a 1vX because of certain classes/specs involved, I avoid certain specs because it's a waste of time or hard counters, soo already having less fun as it is, in fact on another break going on two weeks.... 🤷‍♂️

Honestly don't think anyone really thinks about ppk when in fights... 🤷‍♂️

Fighting a comped small scale gtoup is probably the most cringe thing in this game.

Like bigger boon balls can be evaded, but these people love chasing singles down with their 1-2 oneshot (well in theory one shot, they usually can't even with macros) and 4-5 healer friends is pretty [insert terminal illness here]

Even if you do kill some of them, you have to put up with like 2-3 tubro res's and whatever cc/immob spam they have.

When I see that kitten I either shoot that with a cannon or call the map there.

Edited July 5 by ArchonWing.9480

[igmolicious.5986]

1 minute ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Fighting a comped small scale gtoup is probably the most cringe thing in this game.

Like bigger boon balls can be evaded, but these people love chasing singles down with their 1-2 oneshot (well in theory one shot, they usually can't even with macros) and 4-5 healer friends is pretty [insert terminal illness here]

When I see that kitten I either shoot that with a cannon or call the map there.

To be fair, I've had 25+ person zergs chase me down solo too, and they usually have at least a portion of people able to mount and chase even if you manage to escape the initial attack. Escaping smaller groups is usually easier for me unless they catch me by surprise.

[ArchonWing.9480]

3 minutes ago, igmolicious.5986 said:

To be fair, I've had 25+ person zergs chase me down solo too, and they usually have at least a portion of people able to mount and chase even if you manage to escape the initial attack. Escaping smaller groups is usually easier for me unless they catch me by surprise.

They do, but I feel like those that break off from a 25 person group tend to give more free kills should the zerg turn around.

Edited July 5 by ArchonWing.9480

[Gehenna.3625]

23 hours ago, coro.3176 said:

What you want in a game like this is for people to actually care about the score, however you choose measure it. The only way to do that is to offer some real incentive for winning.

Of course if you have a good enough incentive to motivate people to win, then there will be servers who will never win because they're not as good as others (due to skill level, cheating, organization, player numbers or whatever), which then means lots of complaints about that. I really am not sure how Anet should handle this tbh.

[Cuks.8241]

1 hour ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

There needs to be rewards for winning, I agree, or no one cares about winning.

However, removing all participation rewards makes it far too easy for trolls to ruin it for those who legitimately compete. ( It's no fun to play 3v5 for 10 match ups in a row because the algorithm loves to team you up with AFKers. It's why I quit sPvP shortly after HoT launched at rank 57: 8 out of every 10 match ups with AFK teammates for a whole season )

And yes, there are a lot of trolls who actively try to sabotage their team. Just look at all the activation of tactics when there's no attack on the objective, or players actively destroying allied golems through fall damage,  jumping the golems off cliffs, or players actively spying for other teams, constantly relaying zerg positions to the enemy teams. 

All these troll tactics are legitimate ONLY because of participation rewards. Remove those rewards and those troll tactics suddenly become bans due to match manipulation, and preventing others from enjoying the game. Because lack of bans for this behavior will mean players will stop playing the game, word of mouth will mean nobody buys the game, and Anet goes out of business.

Well first of all if there is no participation reward, afking becomes kinda pointless. Depends on how rewards would be structured but no "participation reward"  means you have to contribute and win.

Trolls are trolls. They will always do what they do. Besides most of the trolling described doesn't really effect the score as much as players think and players see it only when it happens to them (while they take that portal for easy keep capture and don't care that the guy might have glitched in). Also winning is winning, all means available. That is also a part that many players don't like when you have competitive environment. Playing for win doesn't have much with playing nice and honourable.

[joneirikb.7506]

11 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Well first of all if there is no participation reward, afking becomes kinda pointless. Depends on how rewards would be structured but no "participation reward"  means you have to contribute and win.

Trolls are trolls. They will always do what they do. Besides most of the trolling described doesn't really effect the score as much as players think and players see it only when it happens to them (while they take that portal for easy keep capture and don't care that the guy might have glitched in). Also winning is winning, all means available. That is also a part that many players don't like when you have competitive environment. Playing for win doesn't have much with playing nice and honourable.

Yeah, basically this, if we add rewards then players/groups/guilds will "play to win by any means". And that means using every single dirty trick they can get away with.

Which means toxic messages, groups full of stealth gankers, small groups chasing down anyone they think they can kill, corpse siege and silly emotes, probably bunch of nasty/dumb whispers, trying to zerg out and spawn camp as much as possible, cheating and exploiting. Basically EVERY act they can imagine they'll get away with to de-motivate the opponents from even bothering to log in and play.

Which is exactly why I really don't want rewards for wins, because that would destroy the mode for any casuals (Though I'll admit, the screams as PVE players would realize what they'd actually have to go through for a GoB would be fun to read).

Frankly, if they where to add any kind of rewards for winning, they'd have to narrow that out from the bigger mode in some way. So there's a own map or something for just that, and the rest of the players can go to other maps to play for personal rewards. Otherwise things just wouldn't work.

[XenesisII.1540]

1 hour ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Fighting a comped small scale gtoup is probably the most cringe thing in this game.

Like bigger boon balls can be evaded, but these people love chasing singles down with their 1-2 oneshot (well in theory one shot, they usually can't even with macros) and 4-5 healer friends is pretty [insert terminal illness here]

Even if you do kill some of them, you have to put up with like 2-3 tubro res's and whatever cc/immob spam they have.

When I see that kitten I either shoot that with a cannon or call the map there.

The res system really needs to be looked at for wvw. And warclaw pounce should have never been nerfed.

[TheGrimm.5624]

PPT is to encourage sides to hold their stuff, while also creating a point for conflict to occur. It took a lot of time to get to that 2016 point that the longer something is held the more value it should have. It also should encourage the other side that the T3 target should be a bigger target. PPT already has incentive in those terms that higher tier targets should be the main targets. In that sense PPT is in a pretty good spot overall. 

On the PPK side you don't want to reward too much score/points else you will get groups that are worried about losing fights and telling people they should just avoid the fight. Some players care about KDR, some don't. But the more score you put behind it the more people will just go with we didn't have double their numbers so skip the fight we need more. Versus fight and try it out. You also don't want people to avoiding trying to defend an objective since they lost more points then trying to power their way thru to defend against the odds.

What PPK doesn't have is incentive to go for the larger side (highest score)  versus just farm players on the smaller side. Now here there might be some room to adjust PPK.

The PPK to PPT scoring isn't in a bad spot. PPK though should reward the player more for their actions and PPT should reward the server. 

I have to agree a no scoring model would remove incentive to play, same as it not being  a week long venture.  

Edited July 6 by TheGrimm.5624
missing context