Idea: PIP squad bonus

[Dediggefedde.4961]

Getting a +5 pip reward for being in a zerg with +20 players would benefit organized zerg play and zerg players.

Ticket gain is mostly time gated.Being a squad leader and being first/last in squirmish has little influence.The latter is also not really influenceable by a single player, thus has little impact/reward on gameplay.

Outnumbered buff, however, gives +50% to +100% pip gain, but only benefits roamers on maps with low ally-count.Such a bonus to be in a squad, not only people k-train and blobs would benefit but also serious public squads and organized guilds.At the moment they effectively get a pip-penalty for not loitering in an outnumbered map instead of playing the zerg-part of WvW.It would also benefit new players as well as veterans, as long as they are a member of a medium-sized squad.

Side effects would be randoms joining public squads more often. Even if they still scattered across the map, the added communication would actually help the public. Also, roamers would most likely form a map-wide-squad more often, just for the sake of the reward, thus being able to locate each other and communicate more easily.Also the chance of being outnumbered despite having a +20-squad on map is pretty low in my opinion... but even then, since tickets are mostly used to gain armor and a full set takes multiple months of loitering around (base requirement) I think a small pip gain increase in those occasions won't have much influence there.

[Klipso.8653]

Once you have the legendary armor and after you pass rank 2k, you kind of stop paying attention to pips and wxp.

It doesn't really bother me if people want an extra pip for fighting in team play, but the incentive may be a good idea. The more organized a squad is -the better the fights are.

[rng.1024]

More pips might not be the way to go, as getting only +5 extra would mean that most players would be done with diamond chest by sunday and have no reason to enter WvW for the rest of the week.

As it currently is most players that I know of finish it around wednesday leaving a day or two of lesser activity until reset.

To add that would be quite the punishment for roamers or low pop servers with few commanders and that in general is terrible design in a "play as you want" environment.

My suggestion would be to rather increase wxp gain when in a group (notice how the maps flood when there's a wxp event?) and rather change the pip gain you get from placements (easier to understand than a skirmish) to 5,3,1 instead. This makes it more valuable to keep either 1st or 2nd position. If it's a stale matchup the 1st place players will finish the diamond chest first and maybe see a population dip, giving second a chance and third place will keep playing until they get there too harassing 2nd place.

Lastly we would want to encourage groups actually fighting eachother and not capping empty towers only. Already you get the benefit of easy tagging, however making kegs more available on player kill would definitely help alot in increasing both loot gained and reward track progress, both for roamers but also those in squads (with the wxp boost I mentioned earlier). You just can't get that from capping towers.

[Optimator.3589]

Yes, incentivize mindless zombie horde pressing 1. Brilliant.

If you have to have something like this, at least make it a relatively small radius around the commander so people are encouraged to stay on pin instead of squirreling off everywhere.

[Dawdler.8521]

Organized play?

Hahahahahaha...

No, I would just tag up (or join any squad) advertising the free pips while not demanding crap out of the members or doing any leading whatsoever. Hell, you could be in PvE and be in the squad for all I care, as long as I get my free pips.

[DemonSeed.3528]

Comm: 5g and I give you spot in squad while you do any game mode you want while earning pips/participation.

Hint: this already happens right now, at least something similar for participation. I know one guild in particular who takes payments this manner.

[Moira Shalaar.5620]

This also neglects the fact that there are classes that fall outside the meta for organized squads and are actively rejected by some commanders (ranger, thief). They are already penalized for net being in squads, this would only make that worse.

[Voltekka.2375]

No veterans that I know of actually count their pips or their rank. Theyre done with max tickets by sunday. Low rank players should play the already semiafk fiesta which is called wvw, if they want their shinies.

[TheGrimm.5624]

No, there is already less risk and more reward in zerging. -1 here. Don't see how this would not just lead to k-trains going around maps in opposite directions.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

Being in a zerg already has a number of benefits, which is why people join zergs in the first place; that kind of gameplay doesn't need added incentives.

[Blockhead Magee.3092]

There should never be any additional reward bonuses for the simply joining a group.

I don't think the commander should be getting an extra pip either, but its not something so far down the list of complaints that it should never come up.

[coro.3176]

I want the opposite of this.

I don't want more map-queue blobs running around steamrolling everything in their path and winning by sheer numbers. I want small, skilled, groups of ~3-10 players working on separate objectives.

[sephiroth.4217]

@coro.3176 said:I want the opposite of this.

I don't want more map-queue blobs running around steamrolling everything in their path and winning by sheer numbers. I want small, skilled, groups of ~3-10 players working on separate objectives.

So you want to time travel back to 2012-2013 where a big zerg or blob was actually just the pug group of 20 players.

[Zephyra.4709]

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@coro.3176 said:I want the opposite of this.

I don't want more map-queue blobs running around steamrolling everything in their path and winning by sheer numbers. I want small, skilled, groups of ~3-10 players working on separate objectives.

So you want to time travel back to 2012-2013 where a big zerg or blob was actually just the pug group of 20 players.

Pug group or not I'd take 2012-2013 WvW any day over the power-creep clown fiesta we have now. ;) Where can I sign up?

[Kovu.7560]

Guardians and Necromancers get +3 pips.There. Incentivized. =)

Eh. I wouldn't want to discourage roaming and small scale whilst promoting benefits for the servers with the bigger groups.A lot of people enjoy the small scale aspect and won't be interested in forming a buddy group to do the thing they do. (Sometimes I'll join a "scouting" party, but its rarely full and the players are rarely in the same place.)

~ Kovu

[LetoII.3782]

Pip farm squads..BuzzandWoody.jpgPip farm squads everywhere

[Kylden Ar.3724]

@coro.3176 said:I want the opposite of this.

I don't want more map-queue blobs running around steamrolling everything in their path and winning by sheer numbers. I want small, skilled, groups of ~3-10 players working on separate objectives.

That died with Warclaw and they nailed the coffin shut with reducing fort HP.

[bq pd.2148]

ok more pips in larger squads, if you change the other rewards to favor smaller groups. for example instead of getting loot or wxp from participating in killing opponents/taking objectives/defending onbjectives no matter how many were involved, they now have a much higher base reward but share it equally between the participants. take a tower with 50, share the reward with 50, but take a tower with 3 and you get much more. then you gain more pips in a zerg but if you dont just want to walk mindlessly over the map, you actually get rewarded for playing efficient, wich is usually in a smaller-medium sized group.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

@Optimator.3589 said:Yes, incentivize mindless zombie horde pressing 1. Brilliant.

If you have to have something like this, at least make it a relatively small radius around the commander so people are encouraged to stay on pin instead of squirreling off everywhere.

I never understood the „pressing 1“ part of comments like this.

Because one of the first things you learn in wvw is NOT pressing 1.

Auto Attacks of meta builds are terrible.

Ele Staff: ProjectileRev Hammer: ProjectileNecro Staff: Projectile....

[coro.3176]

@DanAlcedo.3281 said:

@Optimator.3589 said:Yes, incentivize mindless zombie horde pressing 1. Brilliant.

If you have to have something like this, at least make it a relatively small radius around the commander so people are encouraged to stay on pin instead of squirreling off everywhere.

I never understood the „pressing 1“ part of comments like this.

Because one of the first things you learn in wvw is NOT pressing 1.

Auto Attacks of meta builds are terrible.

Ele Staff: ProjectileRev Hammer: ProjectileNecro Staff: Projectile....

Because once the zergs get large enough and the game gets laggy enough, autoattack is the only thing that will work reliably without 10s of skill-lag.

Eg. SMC fights on reset night.

[archmagus.7249]

Bad idea. You're penalizing roamers, because you'll get roamers who join a squad just for the extra pips. Commanders will then kick the roamers. Most commanders already kick anyone who doesn't stick with the zerg.

[DaFishBob.6518]

Only if you have to turn into a mook (lose all major trait spec bonuses and get counted as a mercenary so that enemy players with that WvW mastery can kill you easier) to receive that bonus. More rewards should come from riskier gameplay, not herding up for greater safety and success rate. That's like a kid saying they're going to give up homework, chores, and vegetables for some religious practice or something.

[joneirikb.7506]

Sometimes I wonder if they shouldn't just do something so ham-fisted as giving 1 reward for each type of play. If you want all the things, or even anything that requires multiple types of rewards, do more different types of play.

• Zerg gives pips
• Roaming/Scouting gives WxP
• Havoc gives X of Heroics
• Successful defense events against enemy players gives Skirmish Claim Tickets

Or some other silly setup, so if you wanted to get some legendary armors or something you'd have to do a lot of all of them. I think it's the only way people would actually bother to play multiple play-styles if they don't actually enjoy WvW already. And nope, no idea how they'd handle that.

[Quarktastic.1027]

@Klipso.8653 said:Once you have the legendary armor and after you pass rank 2k, you kind of stop paying attention to pips and wxp.

It doesn't really bother me if people want an extra pip for fighting in team play, but the incentive may be a good idea. The more organized a squad is -the better the fights are.

As someone who doesn't have these things, but would like to have these things, I'm all for reducing the ridiculous grind a little. I don't have the kind of free time it takes to finish diamond every week at 4 pips per tick. And considering I only gain 10-20 ranks a week (depending on what servers we're up against -this past week was pretty bad for WXP) getting to 2k from my meager 92, will take literal years.

[Dediggefedde.4961]

@Klipso.8653 said:Once you have the legendary armor and after you pass rank 2k, you kind of stop paying attention to pips and wxp.

Well... I'm on my third legendary set, where I have everything excluding tickets, so I still pay attention. ^^As I play a couple of classes frequently in zergs, having a legendary armor for each weight (light, middle, heavy) sounds like a good idea.

@joneirikb.7506 said:Sometimes I wonder if they shouldn't just do something so ham-fisted as giving 1 reward for each type of play. If you want all the things or even anything that requires multiple types of rewards, do more different types of play.Well, at the moment it's actually similar... In zergs, you usually have higher WxP and Karma intake. Roaming on outnumbered maps gives pips. Havoc is probably indistinguishable from other play modes. Defenses are kind of a part of zerging and roaming (repairing a wall already gives gold-reward).

@archmagus.7249 said:Bad idea. You're penalizing roamers because you'll get roamers who join a squad just for the extra pips. Commanders will then kick the roamers. Most commanders already kick anyone who doesn't stick with the zerg.Well, I had something like a roamer-squad in mind. Single group, running separately, informing each other about duels or defense-events. Map chat mostly works for that, too, if there are no spammers, but it might help roamers if they are able to see each other's locations across the map.