WvW/PvP Update Preview Stream at Noon Pacific Time Today

[TheGrimm.5624]

3 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Again I’m not really seeing what you are saying. The change would only make attacks “hidden” if they fiddle about a long, long time before actually hitting it with siege. But that activity change nothing when it comes to rushing for defense. Guards ain’t gonna help you kill 20 players banging on the gate. That cannon ain’t gonna do crap against catas on the other side of the tower. 

You could be far more hidden now since you get a period of “stealth attacks” if you dumped up siege fast and ignored everything else. In that time you could be through the walls/doors before it even contested.

The change would mean you get instantly noticed if you do that since the swords now mean it’s definitely under siege, not just poked.

It make scouting a whole lot easier so hopefully they focus on the field instead and warn ahead of time instead of faffing about inside objectives like the average zergling wallhugger does in defense.

I roam, I havoc, I pugmand. 

While, pugmanding tonight it took no time to burn down walls and take defended keeps with siege and players defending. The less of an alert, the easier it is. Stop making it easy to take. That's even before considering how much easier it makes for havocs and roamers to do the same.

[Zok.4956]

3 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

The change would mean you get instantly noticed if you do that since the swords now mean it’s definitely under siege, not just poked.

After the change, it is easier to hide Thief/Mesmer in a structure because it is no longer contested.

I can imagine a new tactic: open up on the outside, hide a Thief/Mesmer inside and leave. Then, when it is no longer contested, port in and clear the defense inside. Unless you are seen by chance, it will not be noticed. And then finally open up quickly inside.

Sure, it doesn't work against servers that have real scouts (and not just countless AFK players) but since the WR changes I hardly see any real scouts anymore and when I do scouting myself it is hardly appreciated anymore, which is why I do it less and less.

 

4 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

since the swords now mean it’s definitely under siege, not just poked.

This will probably make a lot of thieves cry, but we will probably see more Dune Rollers getting a wall/gate below 98% to contest.

 

[Junkpile.7439]

Can you kill lord without getting keep contested? Probably. 🤔

[Cyninja.2954]

2 minutes ago, Junkpile.7439 said:

Can you kill lord without getting keep contested? Probably. 🤔

Not unless its implemented bugged. Engaging the lord will immediately through up white swords and thus contest the keep in the future.

[Gorani.7205]

So many questions about the "new contested mechanic"...

• New: you can clear NPCs and siege from walls and gates without provoking Swords all the time, when you are not damaging the gate (and you can't damage the wall anyway in a normal fight)
• New: You can hide inside a structure (unless noticed by a player) and do NPC siege/kills (like mentioned above) or camp the way point with "burst builds" to kill people teleporting to a "safe place" inside a keep. Depending on the delay on loading into the WP, you might not even know what killed you.
• New: You can kill off any NPCs at and around walls (gates, too ... but with higher risk to damage the gate to 98%) and pre-build several catas (rams) before actually assaulting the wall. Faster take down will be better than the short White Swords delay we have now. Response time for defenders will be shorter.
• New: Unclear? What will happen when you re-damage a gate that is below 98%? That can easily be done with a Warclaw chain pull & dash away ... allowing a new kind of "perma tag"
• New: Un-manned rams will be taken down quicker, gate repair threshold is still 50% - which will mean no defender will bother with repairing (as it is now) or take down rams in an active attack (you won't get participation for it, you are better off trying to counter attack at the lord). Nothing is gained here (?)
• (New): Assumption that ACs are  strong defensive siege makes me question Dev's perception and leaves me speechless.
• New: Several EWP are great, but can you ping them separately (Like EWP east / west  /north)?

[Mabi black.1824]

On 7/10/2024 at 10:13 PM, kash.9213 said:

They say this should make defending feel more valuable as it denies more points

If you want defense to become more valuable, you must first create the conditions for a player to perceive ''that'' structure as ''his'' structure. Right now that structure is only provisionally yours, plus you're sharing it with players you probably don't know, who will become your enemies after 4 weeks. Also, with WR the server/team concept is no longer of interest to anyone. So defend and get more points on what? When does the score still refer to the server? That no one watches? It would be very different if they finish what they started and the new scoring refers to guilds and alliances, so as to provide a new form of confrontation/competition.

Edited July 12 by Mabi black.1824

[Mabi black.1824]

On 7/10/2024 at 11:08 PM, H K.4057 said:

Victory points will now be weight based on player population per skirmish.

• I like this change. I don't know if it will actually do what it's supposed to do, but the fact that they are trying to address is good. However, I wonder if this doesn't make off-hours guilds feel like they aren't actually contributing much on top of not having any good fights.

I can't understand this. If the points vary according to the number of players/participants, why are you talking about time slots? It should be valid at all times. Even when I'm playing in prime time and I'm outnumbered, let's say 50% compared to my opponents. I expect that the points generated by my structures are worth twice as much as the structures my opponents have. I feel like I'm missing something. I think ?

[Mistwraithe.3106]

2 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

I can't understand this. If the points vary according to the number of players/participants, why are you talking about time slots? It should be valid at all times. Even when I'm playing in prime time and I'm outnumbered, let's say 50% compared to my opponents. I expect that the points generated by my structures are worth twice as much as the structures my opponents have. I feel like I'm missing something. I think ?

Pretty sure that's not how it works. It isn't about how much your structures are worth. It's about how much VP is up for grabs at the end of each skirmish for the winning team. A 2 hour skirmish during prime time will be worth much more VP than a 2 hour skirmish in off peak because there are more players during peak time.

All three teams are still playing for the same VP award in each skirmish tho. If your team only had half the numbers and is getting stomped it just means you will come third and get the third place VP (which will still be much more during prime time than the third place VP for offpeak is).

[Mabi black.1824]

19 minutes ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

Pretty sure that's not how it works. It isn't about how much your structures are worth. It's about how much VP is up for grabs at the end of each skirmish for the winning team. A 2 hour skirmish during prime time will be worth much more VP than a 2 hour skirmish in off peak because there are more players during peak time.

All three teams are still playing for the same VP award in each skirmish tho. If your team only had half the numbers and is getting stomped it just means you will come third and get the third place VP (which will still be much more during prime time than the third place VP for offpeak is).

Then you should not write that victory points are weighted in reference to the number of players. you just have to write that they vary in reference to the time slots.

Which is definitely a misplaced change from the point of view of ''credible competition'' let's try to sum up. What is the best team that match at the end of the week? The one with 350 VP and 10,000 hours of gameplay or the one with 300 VP and 5,000 hours of gameplay? And now we're adding....... But which of these two teams put the most hours of play between 20.00 and 24.00? But how can you think this makes the competition more believable? I am speechless. crazy.

I want to hope that this is just a misunderstanding.

Edited July 12 by Mabi black.1824

[Mabi black.1824]

I give up. Mathematics has been around for thousands of years. And in these cases, where you are surrounded by a series of variables and will affect a final score, it is necessary to ''process'' these final scores through mathematical models (coefficients) that vary automatically and proportionally in reference to those variables that you want to cancel, to make a perfect and unequivocal comparison. If you don't want to do it, if you guys don't want to consult a mathematician that is able to provide you with all the knowledge that I see missing. It's impossible to get out of it. And I don't want to offend anyone. I'm sure you guys are first-rate computer technicians, but you need some help with ''mathematical thinking.''

[Dawdler.8521]

3 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

After the change, it is easier to hide Thief/Mesmer in a structure because it is no longer contested.

I can imagine a new tactic: open up on the outside, hide a Thief/Mesmer inside and leave. Then, when it is no longer contested, port in and clear the defense inside. Unless you are seen by chance, it will not be noticed. And then finally open up quickly inside.

Sure, it doesn't work against servers that have real scouts (and not just countless AFK players) but since the WR changes I hardly see any real scouts anymore and when I do scouting myself it is hardly appreciated anymore, which is why I do it less and less.

Except today they can do the same and have the lord down before it even start contesting. 

If the enemy knows there is a thief inside, it’s gonna be a pain to remove it anyway. 

You also just described a method of capping that is very ineffective compared to… you know, just going ahead and capping it. If defenders come the thief can hide just as good inside.

[H K.4057]

1 hour ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

Then you should not write that victory points are weighted in reference to the number of players. you just have to write that they vary in reference to the time slots.

I'm not sure what you are confused about. Victory points vary in reference to the time slots . . . based on the number of players. This means the same thing as "victory points will now be weight based on player population per skirmish." What it means is that people who play during off hours will no longer be upwards of 20 times more than people who play during prime time. It's a good change and a necessary change in order for ANET's very limited matchmaking system to work.

[disForm.2837]

1 hour ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

Then you should not write that victory points are weighted in reference to the number of players. you just have to write that they vary in reference to the time slots.

Which is definitely a misplaced change from the point of view of ''credible competition'' let's try to sum up. What is the best team that match at the end of the week? The one with 350 VP and 10,000 hours of gameplay or the one with 300 VP and 5,000 hours of gameplay? And now we're adding....... But which of these two teams put the most hours of play between 20.00 and 24.00? But how can you think this makes the competition more believable? I am speechless. crazy.

I want to hope that this is just a misunderstanding.

But points are weighted based on participants per skirmish. Skirmish are defined by time slots. So yes, it works all the time, just the reference for number of participants change every 2h.

There are still a ton of questions about what is considered "participants" on any given skirmish.

Is it based on time, activity, actions?

VP don't have a direct correlation with hours played. For example, on the current version, fight guilds accrue a lot less points than pure PPT for similar hours played. In fact, a competent havoc of 15 players can score more than a full squad focused on fighting. 

[Conner.4702]

So how much worse will getting defense credit on towers be with the new contested rules. It's already stupid enough to not get credit even though you killed people.

[H K.4057]

2 minutes ago, Conner.4702 said:

So how much worse will getting defense credit on towers be with the new contested rules. It's already stupid enough to not get credit even though you killed people.

They badly need to change how defense is rewarded, but I don't think they have the tech to implement it effectively. For tower defenses, the only ways of reliably getting defense credit is to:

1. Kill a player inside the tower objective "aura" that has been attacked by a guard. Defense credit is given when the defense event timer completes.
2. Kill a player inside the tower objective "aura" that has been attacked by a guard. Defense credit is given when the tower is lost.

In both cases, kills against siege, against players not in the objective aura, and against players who have not been attacked by a guard, do not give defense credit. This means that in the vast majority of cases where catapults are set away from the tower, and any kills are either outside of the objective aura or the range of guards, no defense credit is given. Because towers only have 1 wall and tower lords are relatively fragile, the only way to get defense credit is to allow the enemy to break the wall, allow them to come inside the tower, and then kill them. This is such a narrow way of gaining credit that ironically the most common way to get a tower "defense" is to attack and capture a tower and then kill the remaining defenders.

How should tower defenses be scored? First, the "medal" system for events should be revamped in WvW. Killing someone who has damaged the the tower lord or has killed a player inside the tower objective aura should provide a gold medal at the end of the defense timer or when the tower is lost. This gives 10 minutes of participation. Killing someone who has used siege that damaged the tower should provide a silver medal at the end of the defense timer or when the tower is lose. Killing siege that has damaged the tower before the walls/gate is broken should also provide a silver medal. This gives 5 minutes of participation. Killing someone who was in a 600 range radius of a siege weapon when it was used to damage the tower, or killing siege after the walls/door is broken should provide a bronze medal. This gives 2 minutes of participation.

The issue is whether or not ANET has the tech to make this type of change. I believe they neither have the capability nor the need to make this type of change simply because defending in the way I'm describing simply does not matter to them. There are basically no ANET employees that solo roam or scout, and they place no value in these activities. They play exclusively in zergs, and they do not as rule defend towers or other "lesser" objectives unless they are wiping attackers inside the tower. A more realistic and feasible solution is to simply remove defense achievements from dailies/weeklies, and make it clear that outnumbered defense is not a viable or supported way to play.

[Chaba.5410]

2 hours ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

I give up. Mathematics has been around for thousands of years.

Have _you_ done the math though?  Have you not figured out yet why the NA and EU proposed new victory points per skirmish are different from each other?  Could it be that NA and EU have very different population activity profiles and the new victory points are "mathed" off actual player data?

If 20% of player activity in EU occurs in Skirmish 1, shouldn't they contribute about 20% to their team's overall score?  Because someone I know who did do the math checked the new scores against his gathered API data and it matches pretty closely.  The expectation was it wouldn't match that well since he's using API data and not the kind of data Anet has access to.

The downside here is the system doesn't seem dynamic.  That's not to say that Anet won't change the VP again manually.  Just that it would be better from a game management stance if it were automated in some way.  And all this really should be made more transparent to players through the UI to cut down on the mystery of it.

Edited July 12 by Chaba.5410

[Symbiosis.8729]

I watched the stream and a few things confuse me.

• EU play regularly goes beyond midnight, yet these new time slots let points fall off a cliff at midnight, the US doesn't have this, this was hand waved away as 'only the dev who came up with it understands it' that does not fill me with confidence,  they didn't even bother trying to get language match ups in the EU.
• Time slots are rubbish anyway, won't this now encourage people to abandon coverage and just all go to prime creating even more queue issues ( and a queue bug they never fixed and is now worse)? so this is how they deal with their match making not working and their spread not working? they just abandon it and cchange to a game mode that no longer uses 24 hour coverage? is this how they are going to deal with everything, not deal with the actual issue just create some weird new get around? which leads to...
• 3 EWP I mean come on, who asked for this? and they are not even far enough apart to use tactically, and they dont have names, they are going live without getting around to naming them, I see squad drama here. Why not 3 seconds of invulnerability?
• Siege, Flame rams and iron hide 'added when you use ram' - 'Gain Iron Hide while interacting with the flame ram '  already happens at rank 1 of siege, there is likely not a person in WvW who feel able to use flame rams that doesnt have this rank already.
• Nothing mentioned about actual issues post restructure and some guy admitting at the beggining there was no reason for him to be there  and proceeded to do...nothing.

The anti tapping is good.

[Chaba.5410]

3 hours ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

Right now that structure is only provisionally yours, plus you're sharing it with players you probably don't know, who will become your enemies after 4 weeks.

It is very difficult to relate to this, Mabi.  I can't say I've ever logged in to a game and taken some time to contemplate the meaning of ownership before deciding whether to engage in play.  Most players don't question de facto possession in a game.  It's like when you play sPvP, your side is given to you.

Edited July 12 by Chaba.5410

[H K.4057]

36 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

The downside here is the system doesn't seem dynamic.  That's not to say that Anet won't change the VP again manually.  Just that it would be better from a game management stance if it were automated in some way.  And all this really should be made more transparent to players through the UI to cut down on the mystery of it.

This is the biggest issue. Players can and will game any system that ANET comes up with, and a system not being dynamic is ripe for abuse.

[Charybdis.9042]

Quote

-Victory points will now be weight based on player population per skirmish.
    -Range from 6 points for first to 42 for EU.
    -9 points to 33 for NA.

I would have thought that the edge-cases don't really make for good or competitive gameplay.

For EU there are 34 points up for grabs for winning all three prime time skirmish slots (over the second place team). It'll take you all the rest of the day (9 skirmish slots) to match just by reversing the order of the win (second becomes first, first becomes second). Claiming inertia into the next skirmish is also a factor.

Two predictions: Prime time will become heavily queued, and many fights will be over by Sunday rather than running closer to the wire.

Having just introduced a new matching system to try and give effective opposition across the day, this changes seems to try and focus activity into a smaller time window. More points at peak time is fine, but perhaps not this decisively.

[Mabi black.1824]

2 hours ago, H K.4057 said:

I'm not sure what you are confused about. Victory points vary in reference to the time slots . . . based on the number of players. This means the same thing as "victory points will now be weight based on player population per skirmish."

I'm sorry but that's not possible. I vary in reference to the time slots. or vary in reference to the number of players/participants. unless you prove to me that the following condition is impossible: I can play in prime time on my home border and be on average for 2 hours after the reset outnumbered by up to 50% compared to my opponents. If what I have written to you is an ordinary condition, How are points managed? in reference to the time slot or in reference to the number of players/participants? if please answer clearly.

[Chaba.5410]

7 minutes ago, H K.4057 said:

This is the biggest issue. Players can and will game any system that ANET comes up with, and a system not being dynamic is ripe for abuse.

I think maybe Mabi intended to point that out too.

[Chaba.5410]

9 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

I can play in prime time on my home border and be on average for 2 hours after the reset outnumbered by up to 50% compared to my opponents.

Player activity/population and thus scoring isn't measured by being outnumbered on a single team during any one particular skirmish.  That would be extremely ripe for player abuse.

Proportional scoring finds the distribution of total player activity on all teams across timezones.  Then it values each individual skirmish based on what % of player activity each skirmish has.

Edited July 12 by Chaba.5410

[Mabi black.1824]

18 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Player activity/population and thus scoring isn't measured by being outnumbered on a single team during any one particular skirmish.  That would be extremely ripe for player abuse.

Proportional scoring finds the distribution of total player activity on all teams across timezones.  Then it values each individual skirmish based on what % of player activity each skirmish has.

Perfect, so we are varying the score only and exclusively in reference to the time slots, and not in reference to the number of players. So, how 3 servers comparing 25 vs 25 vs 25 where team 1 is winning compared to 3 servers facing each other 50 vs 50 vs 50 where team 3 is winning, explain to me why those players should weigh differently? In terms of scoring? For the first 3 it was easier to capture the enemy Garry compared to the 3 seconds ? 

[coro.3176]

4 hours ago, Gorani.7205 said:

So many questions about the "new contested mechanic"...

• New: you can clear NPCs and siege from walls and gates without provoking Swords all the time, when you are not damaging the gate (and you can't damage the wall anyway in a normal fight)

Clearing NPCs is kind of whatever. They're mostly just annoying. Clearing siege is only relevant for a few spots. Most attack points avoid wall siege angles.

4 hours ago, Gorani.7205 said:

So many questions about the "new contested mechanic"...

• New: You can hide inside a structure (unless noticed by a player) and do NPC siege/kills (like mentioned above) or camp the way point with "burst builds" to kill people teleporting to a "safe place" inside a keep. Depending on the delay on loading into the WP, you might not even know what killed you.

Sounds fun .. except your target can *immediately* respawn at the waypoint again at full health, and call their friends who can teleport right to you. You probably won't get away with this for very long.

4 hours ago, Gorani.7205 said:

 

• New: You can kill off any NPCs at and around walls (gates, too ... but with higher risk to damage the gate to 98%) and pre-build several catas (rams) before actually assaulting the wall. Faster take down will be better than the short White Swords delay we have now. Response time for defenders will be shorter.

Yes, swords won't pop until you actually start your attack, which gives time to set up. However, from the defenders perspective, once swords do pop, they know 100% it's a real attack, and can go there right away. Right now, they have to send a scout to check if it's a real attack, then send defenders. I think this certainty that swords=gate/wall/lord damage is a bigger buff to defense than it is to offense.

4 hours ago, Gorani.7205 said:

 

• New: Unclear? What will happen when you re-damage a gate that is below 98%? That can easily be done with a Warclaw chain pull & dash away ... allowing a new kind of "perma tag"

Chain pull costs supply though, so it's not really permanent. I think it would pop swords, and it should because it's damaging the gate. I don't know. Can you chain pull and cancel it such that it damages the gate but doesn't use sup?