Analyzing the New VP System (Prime Time vs Off Hours)

[Hesione.9412]

32 minutes ago, bq pd.2148 said:

• with the changes to how structures get contested, outside of RBL side keeps any structure can be taken by 3-5 players before the first defense event ends, if there are no defenders. when structures are flipping back and forth, everyone will get the capture points eventually, so it is indeed quite an irrelevant exchange without players competing.
• if you need multiple ticks with completed defense events worth of time to capture a structure, it will only give the enemy more score if they capture it back within less. which if they use the same amount of resources (players), means they did a better job. sure they could use more players to get the structure back faster, the higher investment from their side will net them higher points for that structure exchange in particular, at some cost elsewhere.
• a group running with 50 people has to generate easily 10 times the score of a 5 people group that can also capture things really fast.  so if you capture a structure with 5 people needing 10 ticks with defense events = 50minutes, then defending it enough to make 50 people take 1 tick with completed defense event would even out the amount of points/resources. it is incredibly hard to actually be efficient with too large a blob without having large fights, because of things like siege caps that dont scale, building time taking up a larger portion of the siege or the very fact that the lord does scale up - they wont kill the lord 10 times as fast.

• ofc larger numbers generate more kills. but do they generate more kills per person? i don't know about you but when i solo roam i get a lot more kills than if i were to count what i get in the same time with 50+ people divided by 50+, especially as often in 50vs50 like 10-20 people will run away early enough.
• currently score from structures is indeed very high and you don't even need anyone to be online for that. if those numbers don't increase much with it, then ppk would be a much larger portion of the overall score, especially now that it is 3 (or 4 with stomp) .  it would mostly be kills -> ticks with completed defense events -> dolyaks (escort/kill). capture points should even out mostly with structures flipping back and forth. however i could see removing the scaling for defending higher tiered structures as them holding out longer is already providing the additional points.

what do you consider strategic map play?
this change would make it so closer to spawn structures should be prioritized as one is more likely to get more score defending them, then the enemy got. but that is already kind of the case as those tend to be the ones currently going up to t3 easier.
you don't need to bother about your opponent having that t3 tower on the other side of the map ticking passively their score up, you worry about that when your zone control reaches up to there, as the enemy does not get any benefit from that uncontested objective.
 

you are looking at balance between the sides, i argue about balance between timeslots.
if skirmishes give the same VP regardless of time, then you get more VP/playtime in offhours. making off hours players more valuable than prime time players.
that would be fine from a match balance point of view, if the time spent in off hours then also counts for respectively more  for when teams are build. 

however i do understand if people who do more likely play in primetime as preference or due to RL, would like their time to worth just as much as someone playing at an off hour.
if we assume that teams are build by simply WvW-play hours / participation, then we need to make sure the scoring treats everyones playtime equally.
 

3-5 players can sneak towers. It is difficult to sneak keeps as there are two sets of defences to get through. 3-5 players aren't capturing as fast as a blob. A blob can insta-build 5 flame rams or catas, 3-5 players cannot. When the enemy blob finds out that 3-5 players are capping in a bl, they come looking for those 3-5 players. It's never one cap after another. Blobs can do one cap after another. They don't even need to resupply.

Blobs are generating kills. Small groups do not generate kills against a blob. We find it hard to get through all the boons and barrier, and our damage is pretty much insta-healed by support. Which is why a small group loses participation trying to hold off a blob, even with siege. Multiple blob players hit a defender who is killed - participation refreshed for all those people, and WXP as well.

For score from structures, small groups have hardly any score because the blobs flip it back fast. Their structures also get tiered up as they have scouts.

I'm always intrigued by posts that are basically "the blob has it rough". When I come into WvW and my side is getting only 52 from structures, my side is the one that is having it rough. Yanno, the one with no blobs.

[TheGrimm.5624]

On 7/29/2024 at 8:03 AM, bq pd.2148 said:

edit :
one thing that could change about war score for example is when objectives provide their points. right now if you own the entire map, everyone is offline, really everyone - 0 players on the maps-, you still gain massive score. one could change objectives to only grant war score on: a) capture and b) ticks during which a defense event has occurred for the structure, you don't need any manpower to hold a structure that is not contested.
 

This would be too easy to abuse. You don't want to grant them points, don't attack the objective. This would lead to more zerging as a valid tactic would be hit only one at a time versus that zerg should have broken up and hit 10 at a time instead. Part of the point of scaling up structures is that the other sides should try and block that by not scaling them up. This would be the same as a side saying skip all maps except EBG and we block them from earning points. Again, way to easy to abuse.

[godfat.2604]

The impact of missing 1 in a 50 vs 50 is of course smaller than missing 1 in a 10 vs 10 competition. If this is truly a team effort, there's no reason to make 10 vs 10 score only 20% of 50 vs 50, otherwise it's just a population competition, limited by the map queue.

Edited July 30 by godfat.2604

[godfat.2604]

One more thing. Some people seem to assume that it's prime 2~4 hours vs off 20~22 hours. That doesn't make sense. We should assume more like everyone can only play for 2 hours, and those who play outside of prime also can only play for 2 hours. It does not make sense to compare 2~4 hours with 20~22 hours.

[bq pd.2148]

34 minutes ago, Hesione.9412 said:

3-5 players can sneak towers. It is difficult to sneak keeps as there are two sets of defences to get through. 3-5 players aren't capturing as fast as a blob. A blob can insta-build 5 flame rams or catas, 3-5 players cannot. When the enemy blob finds out that 3-5 players are capping in a bl, they come looking for those 3-5 players. It's never one cap after another. Blobs can do one cap after another. They don't even need to resupply.

Blobs are generating kills. Small groups do not generate kills against a blob. We find it hard to get through all the boons and barrier, and our damage is pretty much insta-healed by support. Which is why a small group loses participation trying to hold off a blob, even with siege. Multiple blob players hit a defender who is killed - participation refreshed for all those people, and WXP as well.

For score from structures, small groups have hardly any score because the blobs flip it back fast. Their structures also get tiered up as they have scouts.

so you are heavily outnumbered and don't get anything done on the map. because of that your opponent is winning by a mile.

i don't see the problem in the scoring there, only in team balance. the scoring is supposed to capture the reality of the match, not make everything look balanced when it is not.

[Zyreva.1078]

1 hour ago, bq pd.2148 said:

• with the changes to how structures get contested, outside of RBL side keeps any structure can be taken by 3-5 players before the first defense event ends, if there are no defenders.

The changes to contesting don't change how fast one can take an undefended structure. It might have an impact on defender respone, tho which way depends on waypoint aviability. And i don't pay much attention to how long it actually takes to siege and capture a t2/3 (maybe even t1) structure with 4-5 players (= 2 guild catas/rams), but it definitely feels longer than 3 min even with no defenders present.

And it is fairly easy for defenders to stall out small grps of attackers and stalling (instead of fighting) would actually be incentivized and allows them to rack up score and the attackers would be better of just leaving instead of continuing to siege. Again, fights for structures would be disincentivized for both sides. For the attackers, because they want to take structures as fast as possible and therefore focus on those that don't have a significant amount of defenders and for defenders, because they would want to stall out the attacker for as long as possible without actually defeating them.

1 hour ago, bq pd.2148 said:

• if you need multiple ticks with completed defense events worth of time to capture a structure, it will only give the enemy more score if they capture it back within less. which if they use the same amount of resources (players), means they did a better job. sure they could use more players to get the structure back faster, the higher investment from their side will net them higher points for that structure exchange in particular, at some cost elsewhere.

At what cost? All those additional objectives that multiple smaller grps could theoretically capture are pretty worthless scorewise as long they aren't being contested and if the enemy just runs arround in a single blob that captures one at a time, they won't contest enough to make up for the score generated for the enemy by smaller gps. It could even lead to situations where the team that has multiple smaller grps owns almost the entire map and still loses to the team that runs arround with a single zerg attacking + few defenders to stall simply due to duration of defense events. Ofc the smaller grps could counter by stacking up and forming a zerg too, to either defend against the enemy zerg or to match them in capture speed, but that's exactly my point.

1 hour ago, bq pd.2148 said:

• ofc larger numbers generate more kills. but do they generate more kills per person? i don't know about you but when i solo roam i get a lot more kills than if i were to count what i get in the same time with 50+ people divided by 50+, especially as often in 50vs50 like 10-20 people will run away early enough.

Depends heavily on the enemy. If they run arround in a single zerg, you won't get any kills as solo player. The more important ppk, the more important it might become to play safe and only engage when outnumbering enough that a win is guaranteed. Risky fights are discouraged even more and that just makes it harder and harder for solo roamers and small grps.

1 hour ago, bq pd.2148 said:

what do you consider strategic map play?

Trying to split up enemy forces (and then hopefully beating them in combat) by contesting multiple structures at the same time. Contesting waypoints to slow down reinforcements (another thing that your suggestion would "punish"). Controlling camps and dolyaks to slow down upgrades. And so on. Basically stuff that goes beyond bruteforcing with superior numbers.

1 hour ago, bq pd.2148 said:

you are looking at balance between the sides, i argue about balance between timeslots.
if skirmishes give the same VP regardless of time, then you get more VP/playtime in offhours. making off hours players more valuable than prime time players.
that would be fine from a match balance point of view, if the time spent in off hours then also counts for respectively more  for when teams are build.

I'm not looking at this in regards to balance, but in regards to potential implication on gameplay and player behaviour.

Also structures generate warscore, not VP. For VP it doesn't matter whether structures generate score passively while nobody plays or not, because VP are awarded based on relative and not on absolute score. So your suggestion wouldn't really change anything in regards to playtime balance unless you'd want to get rid of the skirmish system (which was implemented to alleviate the impact of population imbalanced during off hours, mind you) and got back to warscore only.

And since most players tend to choose low personal impact gameplay (eg zerging over smallscale/roaming) i don't see how having less personal impact on score relative to player numbers is suddenly an issue. But w/e. We will have to wait and see if weighted VP scoring improves matchmaking. But again, that's not what your suggestion was about.

Edited July 30 by Zyreva.1078

[bq pd.2148]

2 minutes ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

The changes to contesting don't change how fast one can take an undefended structure. It might have an impact on defender respone, tho which way depends on waypoint aviability. And i don't pay much attention to how long it actually takes to siege and capture a t2/3 (maybe even t1) structure with 4-5 players (= 2 guild catas/rams), but it definitely feels longer than 3 min even with no defenders present.

it changes in so far that you can build siege for everyone before the structure starts to be contest. before, getting close to a structure would already trigger the event due to some veteran guard.

4 minutes ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

At what cost? All those additional objectives that multiple smaller grps could theoretically capture are pretty worthless scorewise as long they aren't being contested and if the enemy just runs arround in a single blob that captures one at a time, they won't contest enough to make up for the score generated for the enemy by smaller gps. It could even lead to situations where the team that has multiple smaller grps owns almost the entire map and still loses to the team that runs arround with a single zerg attacking + few defenders to stall simply due to duration of defense events. Ofc the smaller grps could counter by stacking up and forming a zerg too, to either defend against the enemy zerg or to match them in capture speed, but that's exactly my point.

i suppose you are right that changing the scoring to only reward direct player interactions, gives one the option to deny the enemy any score by not interacting with them on unfavorable terms. tho i am not quite sure this still holds true with 3 teams in the match, by heavily rewarding encounters with the opponents, you might not be able to afford being left out of the action by holing up in your spawn tower.

anyway it was never meant to be a primary point of my argument and so might not be the right place to argue about it.
 i gave the example after a longer exchange with Arete, primarily because after some back and forth, the main argument left in the room was that they feel like war score does not represent a teams current strength in the skirmish, which i think it should and thus gave an example on how it could easily redefine what makes for a strong team by the score.

[bq pd.2148]

1 hour ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

I'm not looking at this in regards to balance, but in regards to potential implication on gameplay and player behaviour.

Also structures generate warscore, not VP. For VP it doesn't matter whether structures generate score passively while nobody plays or not, because VP are awarded based on relative and not on absolute score. So your suggestion wouldn't really change anything in regards to playtime balance unless you'd want to get rid of the skirmish system (which was implemented to alleviate the impact of population imbalanced during off hours, mind you) and got back to warscore only.

And since most players tend to choose low personal impact gameplay (eg zerging over smallscale/roaming) i don't see how having less personal impact on score relative to player numbers is suddenly an issue. But w/e. We will have to wait and see if weighted VP scoring improves matchmaking. But again, that's not what your suggestion was about.

this last part that you quoted was not directed at you, but a response to a different person. probably should have split the comment.

[Zyreva.1078]

1 hour ago, bq pd.2148 said:

it changes in so far that you can build siege for everyone before the structure starts to be contest. before, getting close to a structure would already trigger the event due to some veteran guard.

Even before you could build catas at most if not all structures without contesting if you didn't want to.

1 hour ago, bq pd.2148 said:

i gave the example after a longer exchange with Arete, primarily because after some back and forth, the main argument left in the room was that they feel like war score does not represent a teams current strength in the skirmish, which i think it should and thus gave an example on how it could easily redefine what makes for a strong team by the score.

Fair enough. Neither warscore nor VP are representative of a teams absolute "strength", that is true. I do think that warscore in particular is a good measurement of how "strong" teams are relative to each other tho. Is there even a way to actually have a scoring system that offers an absolute measurement tho? Don't think so, because in the end it always depends heavily on what the enemy teams do.

My main concern is simply that changes that favour numbers and stacking even more, end up having negative implications on player behaviour and resulting gameplay. That's why i chimed in there, just wanted to point out potential concerns.

15 minutes ago, bq pd.2148 said:

this last part that you quoted was not directed at you, but a response to a different person. probably should have split the comment.

My bad, didn't actually realize that.

Still don't understand why VP per player suddenly matters, when the vast majority of players still tend to prefer to keep their personal impact low in pretty much every other regard and the reward system also doesn't take into consideration individual contribution. But i guess it's not about "fairness" after all ...

[bq pd.2148]

23 minutes ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

Fair enough. Neither warscore nor VP are representative of a teams absolute "strength", that is true. I do think that warscore in particular is a good measurement of how "strong" teams are relative to each other tho. Is there even a way to actually have a scoring system that offers an absolute measurement tho? Don't think so, because in the end it always depends heavily on what the enemy teams do.

My main concern is simply that changes that favour numbers and stacking even more, end up having negative implications on player behaviour and resulting gameplay. That's why i chimed in there, just wanted to point out potential concerns.

My bad, didn't actually realize that.

Still don't understand why VP per player suddenly matters, when the vast majority of players still tend to prefer to keep their personal impact low in pretty much every other regard and the reward system also doesn't take into consideration individual contribution. But i guess it's not about "fairness" after all ...

to bring both of these together a bit, so far scoring does only affect whether you go up or down/your next week color. in that regard it doesn't really matter as by the time the teams are sorted by the score, they get reshuffled anyway.

however if there were to be a reason to care about winning, like rewards tied to that, then the scoring needs to accurately represent what is happening in the match.
(of course that still would not fix the problem of unbalanced teams and given the impact of the individual, ones success and consequently reward would be essentially tied to too many factors outside ones control for this to be competitive.)
so for that my take was that while weighting the VP pools per skirmish by activity makes the score closer to the average experience of any given player in the match, it still could be improved upon by weighting the score within the skirmish by war score (which should represent relative performance at that time) the reasons for that i did bring forth were:

1. more accurate representation of what is actually happening in the match, as especially prime time the 1st rarely has 3x the score of the 3rd
2. as prime time matches are weighted more, the unfair fixed distribution in those typically more balanced skirmishes of the day makes it so, one can hardly afford to not win the prime time skirmishes in particular.
3. fixed VP distribution within skirmishes means that any effort that wont change your placement within the skirmish is not valued and only adds to your playtime, which might affect future teams and thus gives reason to play less to win more on average. weighting the VP distribution by the war score in the skirmish, makes most contributions still count.

but yeah over the pages with too much text, kinda got lost in details.

Edited July 30 by bq pd.2148