Petition to revert the PPK change

[coro.3176]

I know the idea is to encourage fights, but I think the increased PPK score actually does the opposite of that, especially with the potential introduction of future match victory rewards. It's like this:

The vast majority of kills are not "good" kills. - Rarely, you will see fights with participants of roughly even numbers going at it, but most of the time, kills come from:

• comped boon blob farming pug defenders
• bigger zerg eating smaller zerg
• roamer gank squad picking off solo targets
• etc. etc.

This is not to complain. War isn't fair, and GW2 specifically encourages blobbing up to outnumber and outgun your enemies for success. However, we want to encourage people to at least try. The small group shouldn't feel like they're a liability to their team simply because they can't get enough population, and that it's better for them to log off rather than feed the enemy. The solo roamer should feel empowered to stay and try to win the 1v3 rather than always run away.

If the victory rewards are working, players will fight over objectives naturally since they want to hold them for PPT. I feel like having PPK, especially high PPK will lead to a more timid, less fun game mode.

[H K.4057]

I'm going to be that guy and say "skill issue." There aren't enough maps and those maps aren't large enough to where a group can "out-rotate" another server. When groups are taking objectives uncontested, it's because no one wants to bother chasing them after they ported to yet another BL. Kills should be rewarded because killing is important. And defenders need to know that dying has consequences. Maybe then we'd have less ridiculous stuff like people getting farmed for hours in front of SMC because they don't understand they literally aren't doing anything.

[TheGrimm.5624]

31 minutes ago, H K.4057 said:

I'm going to be that guy and say "skill issue." There aren't enough maps and those maps aren't large enough to where a group can "out-rotate" another server. When groups are taking objectives uncontested, it's because no one wants to bother chasing them after they ported to yet another BL. Kills should be rewarded because killing is important. And defenders need to know that dying has consequences. Maybe then we'd have less ridiculous stuff like people getting farmed for hours in front of SMC because they don't understand they literally aren't doing anything.

PPK does have a place at the table. But the higher you make it the more you risk of less fights. You don't want people to be worried about trying to fight. You want them to go for it. If PPK makes a player hesitate in saying should I fight, its a sign it's too high.

[oatsnjuices.1698]

just play celestial anything, problem solved.

[sduFire.8420]

One of the most toxic game play in wvw is the most powerful 2 servers/teams team-up ganking the least one.  Increasing the PPK is just making sure that the 2nd most powerful server/team will avoid confronting the top team even further. Why risk being wasted while you can PPT/PPK easier? If anet can make killing the players or capture the objectives from top team yield better reward, probably will make the 3 servers/teams fight a little bit more interesting and more dynamic.

[TheGrimm.5624]

2 hours ago, sduFire.8420 said:

One of the most toxic game play in wvw is the most powerful 2 servers/teams team-up ganking the least one.  Increasing the PPK is just making sure that the 2nd most powerful server/team will avoid confronting the top team even further. Why risk being wasted while you can PPT/PPK easier? If anet can make killing the players or capture the objectives from top team yield better reward, probably will make the 3 servers/teams fight a little bit more interesting and more dynamic.

This is where I was hoping they were going with the PPK changes. Encourage sides to choose to attack the ones above them, versus stack and attack the side on the lowest score. Again seems like they missed an opportunity here. It could also help and act as a catchup mechanic in matches while encouraging fighting at the same time. 

[Dawdler.8521]

3 hours ago, sduFire.8420 said:

One of the most toxic game play in wvw is the most powerful 2 servers/teams team-up ganking the least one.  Increasing the PPK is just making sure that the 2nd most powerful server/team will avoid confronting the top team even further. Why risk being wasted while you can PPT/PPK easier? If anet can make killing the players or capture the objectives from top team yield better reward, probably will make the 3 servers/teams fight a little bit more interesting and more dynamic.

Well… if you increase the points you get from killing the top server while getting less points from the bottom server then the same argument would apply - they’ll avoid getting into fights so they don’t give points or just go in large groups so they don’t risk dying.

The only way around that would be using outnumbered to give more PPK, since the enemy can’t tell if that’s active. But that’s not particularly accurate nor will work in full borders (or empty) even if one side dominate.

[XenesisII.1540]

4 hours ago, sduFire.8420 said:

One of the most toxic game play in wvw is the most powerful 2 servers/teams team-up ganking the least one. 

I agree. Not really much point to a three way match if it just encourages the two strongest to go after the weakest more often than not.

 

4 hours ago, sduFire.8420 said:

Increasing the PPK is just making sure that the 2nd most powerful server/team will avoid confronting the top team even further. Why risk being wasted while you can PPT/PPK easier?

Well there sorta is something in place to stop that, outnumbered buff, which means enemies don't earn points off you from kills, so there is that for the 3rd team getting double teamed. If the top two teams really are after points, they would have to go after each other. Reality is we all know players are not motivated by points, they're motivated by easy kills/captures for rewards.

 

4 hours ago, sduFire.8420 said:

If anet can make killing the players or capture the objectives from top team yield better reward, probably will make the 3 servers/teams fight a little bit more interesting and more dynamic.

Well I have suggested it many times over like a broken record, overwhelming buff, placed on the biggest team, the two weakest earn extras for killing them. I feel like I'm talking to empty space a lot in these forums, and anet certainly doesn't read the forums 99.9% of the time anyways...

Edited July 19 by XenesisII.1540

[T G.7496]

Does anybody really, seriously care about points or where they come from. At all.

I cannot remember a time when I was in a squad of any size or composition when there was a conversation, and a decision was made, about what to do next based on points.

I literally have no idea, one moment to the next, whether what I'm doing is costing or gaining points for my team. I simply don't care. My decisions are based only on what might be most fun.

Am I unusual?

[joneirikb.7506]

2 hours ago, T G.7496 said:

Does anybody really, seriously care about points or where they come from. At all.

I cannot remember a time when I was in a squad of any size or composition when there was a conversation, and a decision was made, about what to do next based on points.

I literally have no idea, one moment to the next, whether what I'm doing is costing or gaining points for my team. I simply don't care. My decisions are based only on what might be most fun.

Am I unusual?

I consider this to be the most common/normal way for people to interact with the Score system.

---

On the topic:

I find that PPT and PPK pulls in different directions, like they want to accomplish different things. And I really struggle to see them working well together. PPT is essentially a system rewarding teamwork and  common goals. Where PPK is a system that rewards activity/action. Which means that if you want teams to play against other team with the same goals, then those two will counteract each others.

I keep thinking that we should have one or the other, in order to better match up Teams with other Teams that plays the same way. Instead of having say one Team that just kills a lot of enemies and gets a lot of score and goes to a tier, plays against another server that just constantly keeps pressure on camps/towers and keeps them flipped all day long. Those two will not have a lot of fun playing against each others.

The more I think about it, the more I think we should have one or the other, depending upon which direction WvW should take.

[Gop.8713]

I agree that increased focus on ppk discourages fights, but I didn't see this change as an increased focus on ppk but rather an effort to have ppk keep pace with the increased ppt values . . .

[Dawdler.8521]

7 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

I find that PPT and PPK pulls in different directions, like they want to accomplish different things. And I really struggle to see them working well together. PPT is essentially a system rewarding teamwork and  common goals. Where PPK is a system that rewards activity/action. Which means that if you want teams to play against other team with the same goals, then those two will counteract each others.

Which pretty much make no sense at at all because it's always been linked no matter how much "fight guilds" claim WvW is only fighting or forumers throwing around oMg PpTers when a team wins a matchup. It's like the core foundation of WvW and how it scales from just a skirmish to a battle.

When you set a goal - cap an objective - it leads to action. The deeper you go into teamwork - gather a large enough groups to achieve previously mentioned goal - it leads to activity.

[HazyDaisy.4107]

21 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

PPK does have a place at the table. But the higher you make it the more you risk of less fights. You don't want people to be worried about trying to fight. You want them to go for it. If PPK makes a player hesitate in saying should I fight, its a sign it's too high.

Especially when you already know the only thing you'll come across is groups of gankers, the blob or a group of either the second you get the opponent from the first decent fight you've had all day down...never fails so why bother.

[joneirikb.7506]

1 hour ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Which pretty much make no sense at at all because it's always been linked no matter how much "fight guilds" claim WvW is only fighting or forumers throwing around oMg PpTers when a team wins a matchup. It's like the core foundation of WvW and how it scales from just a skirmish to a battle.

When you set a goal - cap an objective - it leads to action. The deeper you go into teamwork - gather a large enough groups to achieve previously mentioned goal - it leads to activity.

Still working on figuring out the differences properly.
I honestly don't think most players cares enough about either that it would make a big difference, so it's not like it's a big problem. It's just that I feel them causing conflicting purposes.

But in rough terms it's something like if you/player-group focus on PPT, then in many cases it might be smarter to just let them/enemy-zerg take the objective, not give them kills and just re-cap. And fighting them will just give them free points for PPK as well. So as you say, if we just had PPT, it would lead to activity anyways because people will fight over objectives (for PPT, rewards, participation, just seeking players to gank etc). As such PPK doesn't really do much for that.

PPK is basically just there as an excuse for zerg vs zerg fights to feel they do something useful for "winning/score".

But on the other hand, if they turned it around and removed PPT, and made PPK the main mode, then we'd actually have a tier/match-making system that would push the biggest zerging servers against each others.

So it feels like they create two very different ways to raise in ranks, or different match-making systems. And I'm trying to figure out what I really think about the current hybrid and if it is a positive or a negative thing.

Sorry for unstructured ranting, haven't been able to figure out exactly what I think about this. Was something I started thinking about relating to the talk about Scoring changes, and people complaining about WR not having perfect matches.

[Cael.3960]

I feel, before we start getting all bent out of shape over the theoretical impact to PPT, we give it a week to see if the changes actually have any meaningful effect on warscore at all. It may turn out that the changes to PPT for tiered objectives--taken across all maps--may continue to make PPK a small factor in the overall matchup. According to gw2mists, PPK currently accounts for 10-15% of total warscore in most matchups. Even if PPK is boosted by 50% and nothing else were to change, it's likely that kills alone may impact only a handful of skirmishes. 

Something to bear in mind is that the changes to PPK don't just affect attacking zergs, they reward anyone who gets kills. Defending zergs provide PPK. Roamers picking off zerglings as they traverse the map? PPK. Further, if your team can't provide enough militia or a group to mount a defense... you're not really feeding the PPK anyway. Most players are experienced enough to avoid fights against impossible odds, so that 50-man zerg in the lord room isn't going to collect 100+ kills from the 5-10 defenders funneling themselves into the meat-grinder.

The groups that WILL make your team cringe by piling up corpses? The 'fight' groups getting stomped over and over while they respond to outnumbered situations milita/defenders can't handle. Or those who don't care about warscore at all and will happily full-wipe over and over on scrim island just because they prefer fights to PvE. Feel free to call them out for the 'bad' tags they are. The game obviously doesn't need any kind of organized presence to rally the casual players who aren't at your level of solo-excellence. 

[coro.3176]

1 hour ago, Cael.3960 said:

I feel, before we start getting all bent out of shape over the theoretical impact to PPT, we give it a week to see if the changes actually have any meaningful effect on warscore at all. It may turn out that the changes to PPT for tiered objectives--taken across all maps--may continue to make PPK a small factor in the overall matchup. According to gw2mists, PPK currently accounts for 10-15% of total warscore in most matchups. Even if PPK is boosted by 50% and nothing else were to change, it's likely that kills alone may impact only a handful of skirmishes. 

I don't think it matters right now, because no one cares about the score. However, there were some rumblings that the devs were going to start looking at rewards for winning (which, to be clear, would be awesome), and it would matter then. I'm also less concerned with the overall effect on matches, and more with the perceived effect on matches.

I want players to feel like they are free to take low-percentage fights without costing their team score when it matters.

[Stone.6751]

On 7/19/2024 at 12:17 AM, T G.7496 said:

Does anybody really, seriously care about points or where they come from. At all.

I cannot remember a time when I was in a squad of any size or composition when there was a conversation, and a decision was made, about what to do next based on points.

I literally have no idea, one moment to the next, whether what I'm doing is costing or gaining points for my team. I simply don't care. My decisions are based only on what might be most fun.

Am I unusual?

No, I don't think so. A lot of people try not to care about points and PPT. But the truth is war score and PPT score do matter because they affect player morale and signal to players whether the matchup is balanced and whether they'll have a chance to be more than a boon ball's bag if they log in to WvW.

If score and PPT get out of whack, more players decide it's probably a bad week to play WvW, which exacerbates the balance issue. ("Oh were getting stomped this week, maybe I'll just wait until next week to play")

So at any given moment points and PPT don't matter to my WvW experience either, but I understand why the matter to the larger experience of the day/week's matchup if they get really unbalanced.

Edited July 20 by Stone.6751

[H K.4057]

2 hours ago, Stone.6751 said:

No, I don't think so. A lot of people try not to care about points and PPT. But the truth is war score and PPT score do matter because they affect player morale and signal to players whether the matchup is balanced and whether they'll have a chance to be more than a boon ball's bag if they log in to WvW.

If score and PPT get out of whack, more players decide it's probably a bad week to play WvW, which exacerbates the balance issue. ("Oh were getting stomped this week, maybe I'll just wait until next week to play")

So at any given moment points and PPT don't matter to my WvW experience either, but I understand why the matter to the larger experience of the day/week's matchup if they get really unbalanced.

I don't think this is true. The average WvW player probably couldn't tell you what the warscore is. Some of them probably don't even understand how warscore and skirmish points work, much less how they affect the matchups the next week. What the average WvW player does care about is getting spawn camped. They care about it feeling like they are outnumbered 5 to 1 where ever they go. They care about grinding out a win 2v1, only to watch a friendly jump in, die instantly, and rally the enemy.

As someone who spent a decade on Dragonbrand where often the only tags we had were from guilds that actively avoided fights only did PvD, the experience was miserable even when we were "winning." Unless I followed the zerg around and just stared at walls and gates all night, I was literally outnumbered everywhere I went. The zerg would suck up all of the pop in whatever map they were on, and the zerg never, ever defended, so scouting and roaming became an exercise  in futility. The only people who had a "good" time were the PvDers who avoided fights.

[coro.3176]

I listened to Roy & Cecil's comments on PPK score here: 

I understand the devs' mindset better now, and while I still think the knock-on effects of players avoiding fights will be worse than the positive effects of fight groups feeling like their playstyle matters, I at least get what they're trying to do.

Again though, I think this will lead to the bad kind of "fights" eg. only taking the ones you're sure can easily win, and trying to run from the ones you might lose.

[Chaba.5410]

On 7/18/2024 at 8:00 PM, sduFire.8420 said:

One of the most toxic game play in wvw is the most powerful 2 servers/teams team-up ganking the least one.  Increasing the PPK is just making sure that the 2nd most powerful server/team will avoid confronting the top team even further. Why risk being wasted while you can PPT/PPK easier? If anet can make killing the players or capture the objectives from top team yield better reward, probably will make the 3 servers/teams fight a little bit more interesting and more dynamic.

Man, that's an understatement.  Maybe Anet can start addressing this long time problem of where the two weaker servers are not incentivized to gang up on the stronger server.  I feel like that's gotten lost in all the focus on talking about boonballs and WR.

[TheGrimm.5624]

17 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Man, that's an understatement.  Maybe Anet can start addressing this long time problem of where the two weaker servers are not incentivized to gang up on the stronger server.  I feel like that's gotten lost in all the focus on talking about boonballs and WR.

^^^ This. As I said when they said PPK changes was coming was hoping that was what they were addressing. More encouragement to go for the top kid. We still might get there as they are still considering scoring. 

[Sheff.4851]

13 hours ago, coro.3176 said:

I listened to Roy & Cecil's comments on PPK score here: 

I understand the devs' mindset better now, and while I still think the knock-on effects of players avoiding fights will be worse than the positive effects of fight groups feeling like their playstyle matters, I at least get what they're trying to do.

Again though, I think this will lead to the bad kind of "fights" eg. only taking the ones you're sure can easily win, and trying to run from the ones you might lose.

It's possible, but if you spend all your time running from fights that you might lose you're still not generating any warscore from PPK, so you're going to sink lower in tiers to get matched with all the other groups that spend all their time running from fights that they might lose.

It's not the most elegant implementation of skill-based matchmaking ever, but it'll probably do at least a little bit to break up to issue that the old scoring system had, which was any group that wanted fights was heavily incentivized to tank into bottom tiers.

[Luthan.5236]

They increased it I think? But didn't they increase other stuff related to the objectives you cap and upgrade ... by far more? (I didn't really do the maths though. Trying to compare.)
Imo the best should be to play the mode as intended: Getting points from the captured objectives. No points for kills at all.

But steps into the direction to make the objectives more important (while still giving points for kills) ... are also okay. Not sure how - on average matchup - the changes influence this ... with the objectives also awarding more now.

Fore pure fighting in big zergs ... they should make different game modes. (Or EotM map maybe.) Why have the objectives in the first place when you want just a kind of a zerg death match and kills being important?

[H K.4057]

4 hours ago, Luthan.5236 said:

They increased it I think? But didn't they increase other stuff related to the objectives you cap and upgrade ... by far more?

That doesn't affect people who are complaining about the PPK increase. Thy specifically play in a way that avoids fights, which means they do not defend and they only attack paper objectives. Basically, the path of least resistance. All of the changes, from the PPK increase to the increase points for capping t3 objectives, benefit people who actually fight.

That's the crux of the problem: we have a large subset of players in WvW who do not want to fight other players, and who do not want other players to benefit from fighting other players.

[Zyreva.1078]

5 minutes ago, H K.4057 said:

All of the changes, from the PPK increase to the increase points for capping t3 objectives, benefit people who actually fight.

It benefits zergs - the larger the more. It does not benefit players who want to fight outside of zergs.

Edited July 23 by Zyreva.1078