WvW, prestige, progression, rewards and you.

[Razor.6392]

MMO players want to feel like they're the best, legends in a server or very well known. This is already really hard to accomplish in gw2 because you can't even see player names.

 

There's also no way to distinguish a good player from a bad one at a simple glance. Just because they're a mithril or diamond rank, it doesn't mean they're good. They might have K-trained for years on end. Same goes to fancy titles like Ultimate Dominator.

 

Why, 9 years later, isn't there a way for people to truly shine and battle for 'glory'? Yeah it's silly in a video game but if you think about it, all this keep flipping, PvD, zerg busting gameplay leads to... well, nothing. You get a keep, it will get captured later. You advance your selfish reward track, get your stuff and move on with your life. It honestly feels like a complete waste of time because nothing stays with you. There's no feeling of exclusivity. Some people do raids to get unique skins otherwise unavailable to most of the non-raiding playerbase - what can you do in wvw that can set you apart from everybody else? The legendary backpiece? There really is nothing aside from wxp ranks and titles, and half of that isn't even visible outside of WvW game modes.

 

I played a game that had a system of points on kill and death. If you killed someone, you gained a set amount of points, let's say 50. If you were in a group, you would get those 50 divided by the amount of people in your party. If you died, you would lose 50 points as well (symbol holders would lose more on death). Top point holders in the ladder (all-time) would have special symbols next to their name per server, and there was also a monthly resetting ladder. This made world pvp highly competitive because people wanted to be one of those guys. Having a symbol didn't give you a combat advantage or anything other than a mere daily gold reward but of course, this could be adjusted so that it is more useful. You could argue WXP already exists but come on, we KNOW it's not the same. The majority of WXP is earned by doing PVE stuff, while kills merely give you a fraction of it - also you never lose wxp.

 

"But only roamers will benefit from this!" Not really. A roamer or havoc player can't kill as much as a zergling, and the earnings would be tweaked to account for both cases anyway.

 

In sPVP you kinda have pvp badges in a season, which aren't amazing or anything, but at least they're there. On top of all the exclusive skins and rewards they get for winning AT's or finishing in the top of the ladder. Meanwhile, you could play WvW for years, flip 20000 keeps or towers, and other than your WXP rank, none of that would stay. Nothing to note that you've been a menace or got a sweet KDA ratio.

 

Please, for this future expansion, consider adding a system that gives prestige to hardcore wvw players. Even if it's just a badge system that distinguishes the #1, #2, #3, top 10, top 25, top 50 and top 100 wvwers per server, or better yet if some exclusive (time gated as you hold the rank) skins are added, or a special aura, or something. You can get creative.  It would make the game mode more active and quite frankly there are no downsides. Even if most people can't get into that elite category, even if I myself couldn't get it, I wouldn't mind having it.

 

Thoughts?

 

Edit: I'm aware the goal of the game mode IS to capture structures, and this might actually turn people away from doing so, focusing on pvp as this was a deathmatch. Maybe kills could reward more world score, or capturing keeps / towers / camps could work as a multiplier (ex: you start at 0 multiplier, towers increase it by 0.5, keeps by 1, smc by 1.25 and it scales additively until it reaches 2.5x - this multiplier has a set duration of 15 minutes though, and won't get refreshed unless you capture more of the previously mentioned. Camps and sentries refresh the duration of the multiplier for 300 and 90 seconds respectively). Or something like that.

Edited May 16, 2021 by Razor.6392

[kash.9213]

I feel like throughout a matchup that I register some peoples look and I'll remember them from a few matchups ago. I might see people in the Mistlock Sanctuary or in open world who I had been trying to pull off a wall the day before. If you're getting focused across fights to shut you down before you can get to work or set up something for your team then you know people are thinking about you. I save Call target for stuff I want to actually hit but I'll ping the area and the map with Alert Target as a heads up when I can feel someone plotting. Watching the area and reading people in general is helpful, but some people I'll tune into more because I've seen them around over time and I know they're capable and probably have a Pull list in their own heads. 

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

@kash.9213 wrong topic i guess

 

@ ontopic

well... i also feel we'd need one "hardcore tier" for those who prefer to play serious. one where ppt ticks barely nothing and every single kill give a lot of points instead.

 

including some big, prestigous rewards adequate to an endgame-mass-pvp format. like, hightier performance on spvp can earn you a lot. hightier wvw ... isn't even registered often by a lot of the Wvw casuals as that, and i heard similar amounts of ignorance from the spvp players.

 

reading stuff like "only button mashing" is just showing how far this goes. because yeah, we cannot earn tremendous amounts of gold by winning our fights unlike spvpers.

 

people have no motivation to learn to play in this current state of the game.

[Infusion.7149]

If this weeklong event doesn't show you why balancing based on kills is meaningless I don't know what will.
 

Kills are already factored into Emblems and the Ultimate Dominator title plus they give WXP. War score is only awarded from finishers.

This suggestion would just mean even more minstrel blobbing with full tank builds.

 

Delivering on alliances and making GvG in Armistice Bastion / EotM a community event would be more effective. If you just want more rewards for kills then instead of liquid rewards there should accountbound ingredients for meta food which isn't really going to be used by roamers or k-trainers : this could use the emblems you get currently.

To me the most rewarding aspect is stopping full blob with a cannon or oil because they think they can k-train but don't know how to place siege or use shield gens to protect carapults.

Edited May 17, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[GutterRat.1269]

I have been a home border defender since 2013. I don’t remember any individual objective recaptures or successful defense efforts, but I remember people I engaged in them with. It’s an MMO. It’s about the people, and I think it’s important to reflect on it from time to time. 

Edited May 17, 2021 by msalakka.4653

[Zok.4956]

20 hours ago, Razor.6392 said:

There's also no way to distinguish a good player from a bad one at a simple glance.

(...)

Why, 9 years later, isn't there a way for people to truly shine and battle for 'glory'?

 

 

Because WvW is an unstructured, unbalanced and (sometimes/often) unfair three-way  (WvWvW) PvP-mode where the game can not seperate personal player skill from the skills of your fellow players and also the skill (and intentions) of the players you play against. And also the game can not see if your are a good or bad player in 1v1, GvG, as a commander, as a zerg player, as a defender, etc. or if you have the luck to be on a "better" server or run as a zergling with a "better" commander or with a "better" zerg.

 

If you are playing 1v1 or GvG you will learn over time the good and bad players/guilds you play with or against (in the 1v1 or GvG community). And if you are into zerg-play you will learn over time the good and bad (enemy) commanders/zergs/guilds and which one are more focussed on PvE/karmatrain and which are focussed on fighting. Some good commanders/guilds that "truly shine" are known on several servers.

 

But the game itself can not see this.

 

[Chichimec.9364]

Of course I can't speak for anyone else but myself. Personally though, I rarely even notice, let alone am impressed by other player's titles or special badges. In my early Tyria days I was impressed by the GWAMM title but by now I've seen so many of them that I don't pay attention to it anymore. Once I saw a marker by someone's name that I didn't recognize. When I looked it up, it turned out to be a badge for having ranked high in the PvP tournament that I hadn't even known was then underway. I was impressed for all of five seconds and then promptly forgot about it and went on with my own business. Even if you put a gun to my head, I couldn't tell you the name of that player, of their badge, or what rank it signified. 

The players who's names I do know, outside of my own guildies, are those who have contributed something to the general community, not ones who earned themselves personal "glory". That's folks like Dulfy (whom I still miss), AynMaiden, Cellofrag, Jen, and of course The Krytan Herald. Again though, this is just me. I'm sure other folks have other opinions.

Edited May 17, 2021 by Chichimec.9364

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Having penalties for death or rewards for kdr creates very selfish motives. People end up playing very passively and would favor builds that can always run away and reset even more than they do now. Anyways its not really possible to have a system that recognizes skill in wvw. For instance, is a high kdr shadow arts deadeye who only picks off glassy zerg builds really that skilled? Would they deserve a title or badge for being "one of the best" wvw players? Even if there was something like arcdps to monitor the weekly average dps, cleansing, strips, etc, the people who top the meters arent necessarily the "best". Players who follow the commanders instructions, only bomb targets that get called, save cleanses/strips for when they matter, they have far more value in a squad than those who are just trying to get top dps by throwing out damage off cooldown.

 

Wvw was never really intended to be competitive, but if you want to be well known then join or start a guild that is notorious for being skilled. If you just want bragging rights there are plenty of pvp titles you can unlock for being a good player.

[charrboiledeggs.8164]

Prestige in wvw? omfg lol. 99% of wvw playerbase has anything but prestige.

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

7 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

If this weeklong event doesn't show you why balancing based on kills is meaningless I don't know what will.
 

Kills are already factored into Emblems and the Ultimate Dominator title plus they give WXP. War score is only awarded from finishers.

This suggestion would just mean even more minstrel blobbing with full tank builds.

 

Delivering on alliances and making GvG in Armistice Bastion / EotM a community event would be more effective. If you just want more rewards for kills then instead of liquid rewards there should accountbound ingredients for meta food which isn't really going to be used by roamers or k-trainers : this could use the emblems you get currently.

To me the most rewarding aspect is stopping full blob with a cannon or oil because they think they can k-train but don't know how to place siege or use shield gens to protect carapults.

its only because this week a lot of new players come mate. its basically not a legit week by any means. half of the zergs gets onepushed and just farmed by any 25 sized guildgroup. its so absurdly easy, and people don't even react to 3 second pre-attack warnings...

 

emblems of avenger are sofar NOTHING. they only fill our inventory with their stacks, big thanks. Ultimate Dominator is worthless since all the oldies farmed it over the years with faster and real damage. now we have to try the same thing with our wet noodle dps and it just sucks. i just reached 100.000 kills lately. i could kill way more people if i did not have to rely on potatoes left and right not deding while they rally the enemies faster than my bombs can delete their downed bodies.

 

we all know by know that ultimate dominator title was farmed during some bugged event time in old EotM.... these days, to get a single kill in EotM you'd need seek for hours, very likely.

 

its not freaking blobbing. people entered the danger zone, while sofar having only played in the "my little pony"-world, what do u expect?

THE ARE NO FULL MINSTREL BLOBBINGS... its just people not doing any dmg. stuff does die if u have dmg. it does not if u just run and don't even kite off /bomb your back bc your objectively not useful class has no option for that.

 

siege is only for the weak in the end. it should even get nerfs in all regards. (so siege stays only useful against other siege)

 

 

[bigo.9037]

I agree with OP, but unfortunately every time anet has tried to make anything for us that isn’t easily available through something akin to dailies, the casual pve collectors lose their mind over the fact they can have ever AP in the game or every skin etc. remember how they rolled back hot elite spec unlocking? Before that they also made the mini llamas from spvp available to everyone, which before were only available through tournaments hosted by verified hosters. Spvp at least has the gizmos currently, which do show up in wvw also. But they are almost a bit too exclusive. Spvp these days is so different from wvw even in terms of actual combat. 
 

TLDR: casuals will never be OK with wvw exclusivity items or titles, status etc so I doubt it will happen unfortunately.

[XenesisII.1540]

The only way to really get your recognition in wvw is through it's community, hence why some guilds are remembered fondly to this day for the things they did on the battlefield (good or bad) or for their community, back when.. communities... existed anyways.....

 

It's a sea of players and you're trying to find ways to be the top of them? Well just look at the groups or players who are recognized in wvw to this day I guess, guilds like Red Guard, or guilds that used portal bomb tactics often like TSYM, or Titan alliance that won a bunch of matches before wvw normal matches, or the handful of ganker guilds that bother everyone with their cheap runaway builds to this day. Players I guess you can look at the ones that made a nuisance of themselves like Fastcar or Monkey, plenty of people know about them etc. Unfortunately those are more about being on the server with them than against them, since we can't even see enemy names to give them that recognition either (other than guild tags).

 

There is no real way to distinguish between skill or carry (by others or mechanics or builds) in wvw. You or your opponents are not even being sorted into proper ranks to fight each other, it's a constant open field of random players. There is no way to properly assess ones skill when fighting a bunch of random players in random builds in random gear, this is why they have ladders  and ranks in arena type play where situations are more controlled, the build you use is more controlled, where you're not going to find a roamer spec fighting a random zergling spec (well less of it I would expect I don't know the state of spvp these days).

Stuff like top 25% in kills(there's a certain group of players that would love to brag about this, more than they already do), or wxp, or captures, or even 1v1 kills, are all meaningless stuff in a game mode that so drastic in it's roles, most of the zerglings would get the kill or capture ranks, while the 1v1 ones would be filled with thieves from ganking zerg spec players running back to their zergs. And then you already have stuff like ultimate dominator titles ruined because of OS kill farming done long ago, or the 10k wxp title tarnished by ktraining in eotm all those years ago. Tournaments ruined by unbalanced populations and coverage, Blackgate won the first tournament! /slowclap who didn't see that one coming even before the tournament was announced.

 

The only small way I could see something like a top list working is if it's isolated to just their own classes and not on the entire class base (like diablo 3 seasons), like top kills by thieves, top stability use by guards, top boons produced by purity of purpose by engineers, top boons corrupted by necros... top banner healing by warriors (lol these are all jokes btw). Lastly, I'm sorry to say but people who want their names on a top ten list are ego fueled and frankly anymore of that toxicity isn't needed in wvw, we get more than enough from pretend "fight" guilds that think wvw is all about them.

Edited May 17, 2021 by XenesisII.1540

[Zyreva.1078]

I'll take all the siege and emotes spammed over my dead body after getting Xvs1'ed as reward, with salty whispers as icing on the cake.

After all the likelihood of those things increases the longer and the more players it takes for the kill, so it has to be some sort of commendation, right?

Edited May 17, 2021 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Razor.6392]

9 hours ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

Having penalties for death or rewards for kdr creates very selfish motives. People end up playing very passively and would favor builds that can always run away and reset even more than they do now. Anyways its not really possible to have a system that recognizes skill in wvw. For instance, is a high kdr shadow arts deadeye who only picks off glassy zerg builds really that skilled? Would they deserve a title or badge for being "one of the best" wvw players? Even if there was something like arcdps to monitor the weekly average dps, cleansing, strips, etc, the people who top the meters arent necessarily the "best". Players who follow the commanders instructions, only bomb targets that get called, save cleanses/strips for when they matter, they have far more value in a squad than those who are just trying to get top dps by throwing out damage off cooldown.

 

Wvw was never really intended to be competitive, but if you want to be well known then join or start a guild that is notorious for being skilled. If you just want bragging rights there are plenty of pvp titles you can unlock for being a good player.

I mean, would average people really care about these points anyway? It's just a system to gauge who kills more and dies less. I doubt high KDR stealth builds tag as much people as those in zergs anyway.

 

All you get is a special badge or symbol next to your name. It's nothing special - even in the mmo that I used as example, those symbols usually went to the one class with a ton of AoE anyway (that killed a LOT, and also died a lot but still averaged way more), still, it was a fine addition.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Razor.6392

[jemdarr.2158]

On 5/17/2021 at 3:17 AM, kamikharzeeh.8016 said:

@kash.9213 wrong topic i guess

 

@ ontopic

well... i also feel we'd need one "hardcore tier" for those who prefer to play serious. one where ppt ticks barely nothing and every single kill give a lot of points instead.

 

Ok, let's think this through for a moment. What will happen? Exactly the same that happened on NA some years ago. "GvG" players start a server, more GvG players join the server, because it's easier to join than to stick to what they have and improve, until there is no one left to fight and they start complaining about "they only cloud", "they sit in siege", "nobody wants to fight us". The whole thing gets boring, the guilds leave, the server dies.

Same goes on EU for some years now. Vabbi > WSR.

No, don't make the game for a small percentage of people that just play for steamrolling over people and quit when they don't. These are always the first people to leave, because they always destroy their own precious content. Instead of splitting or "not accepting" new veteran players in their ranks, they merge into a huge blob absorbing everyone, causing bandwagons and are a huge part of the sad state of EU wvw and suddenly there is no one to fight and they play something else.

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

u say "let's think this through", but u argument from the view of a person who is rarely within the bulk of the carrying zergs. these doing the dirt work when the numbers are really low. and are usually not those who log out at hard fights, that's just not true.

 

the bandwagoning has nothing to do with guilds directly, but with the people following in the next weeks. guilds tend to have satellite players, and the bandwagoners are the pugs and randoms that see "oh that's gonna be a strong server + good enough link, we go there to get carried by them"

 

guilds often swap servers for tactical reasons or even because it was necessary. we had often three-four other guilds on the guildraid days that just double or even triplepushed in us and would try their worst to not let us fight other guilds on openfield alone. that causes a guild after some time to just "NOPE" and try another server. since so many EU servers are just pretty pointless bc not a single other guild beeing on it that u can coordinate your raids with, this causes serverhopping. the mass of the players who transfer are in most cases still the non-guilds.

 

in an ideal Wvw environment, most if not everyone would be part of  Wvw-guilds.

 

the servermovements are really not thaat unexpected often.

Edited May 18, 2021 by kamikharzeeh.8016

[Shroud.2307]

While I love the idea of "prestige", I don't think we need any more than we already have. Titles are plenty enough, and WvW has a bunch of them. 

I always thought it'd be cool to further increase the ranks, or add titles for each rank tier (let's say for example, Gold ranks = Knight of WvW, Mithril ranks = Major of WvW, etc.) but that's all I could really see being necessary.
 

On 5/16/2021 at 9:07 AM, Razor.6392 said:

There's also no way to distinguish a good player from a bad one at a simple glance. Just because they're a mithril or diamond rank, it doesn't mean they're good. They might have K-trained for years on end. Same goes to fancy titles like Ultimate Dominator.

And there never will be. The only way to tell whether or not someone is skilled is to engage them. No title, rank, gizmo or otherwise will be enough evidence. There are even PvP players with high rank titles that aren't that great, the only exception being top 5 which more often than not are extremely good, but there are still a handful that didn't earn their titles legitimately.

I'm literally in the top 5, 10, and 50 in 10 of 15 WvW categories according to GW2efficiency and I assure you those stats are in no way indicative of my skill, or lack there of. 

[Cuks.8241]

While in general agree with promoting competition, prestige and also some drama in pvp modes I don't think WvW is a good example for a personal prestige. The system you described would just promote certain style of play which is not healthy for the mode.

WvW on the other hand is good for guild and commander prestige. I would like more prestige for top guilds on servers. 

I also don't think alliances are a good answer to that. I've played games with different alliance systems in large scale pvp modes. Every time the best guilds and players stacked into 1 or 2 alliance. Every time. Everyone else felt like t1 EU non Deso/WSR servers felt these last weeks. 

 

[jemdarr.2158]

21 hours ago, kamikharzeeh.8016 said:

u say "let's think this through", but u argument from the view of a person who is rarely within the bulk of the carrying zergs. these doing the dirt work when the numbers are really low. and are usually not those who log out at hard fights, that's just not true.

 

the bandwagoning has nothing to do with guilds directly, but with the people following in the next weeks. guilds tend to have satellite players, and the bandwagoners are the pugs and randoms that see "oh that's gonna be a strong server + good enough link, we go there to get carried by them"

 

guilds often swap servers for tactical reasons or even because it was necessary. we had often three-four other guilds on the guildraid days that just double or even triplepushed in us and would try their worst to not let us fight other guilds on openfield alone. that causes a guild after some time to just "NOPE" and try another server. since so many EU servers are just pretty pointless bc not a single other guild beeing on it that u can coordinate your raids with, this causes serverhopping. the mass of the players who transfer are in most cases still the non-guilds.

 

in an ideal Wvw environment, most if not everyone would be part of  Wvw-guilds.

 

the servermovements are really not thaat unexpected often.

 

The carrying is done by the ppt'ers and always was. A fight guild that refuses to fight for a sieged up hills or flipping it is a bad thing for every server. So is fighting in closed squads for "prestige" somewhere on the map.

That's why the WSR guilds transfer every re-link. They can't carry a server. They rely heavily on their link that keeps stuff upgraded, flip camps, save yaks, siege up structure so the ppk zerg can go where they want.

 

And of course it's true. I was linked to WSR more than once and most commanders run their closed squads and fight other closed squads on the southern alpine sentry. And when this is your content, you end up in tier 5 if you don't have a link that does all the "dirty work".

 

And yes, YOU as a player are the #1 part of the problem. Everyone with enough experience told you WSR guys that's a stupid decision to recruit all the "veteran" fight players. And of course people transfer where more content is, but why don't you just stay on your server? Right, you need the bandwagon to survive. Without that bandwagon you create your server is dead, because you can run a 50 man blob and fight a 50 man blob, but you can't play the game, you can't siege up a castle, you can't siege a castle or refuse to do it.

Everyone that transfers is  a huge part of the problem because it creates inequalities in numbers and strength. The re-link is to create a balance. What you do is killing that balance directly after the link

 

Underworld to FoW: 68 Players

Dzagonur to WSR: 136 Players

RoS to WSR: 27

RoS to BT: 92

RoS to Vabbi: 47

 

All after the relink. It's you that created the abomination Deso/WSR link. It's other transfers that created the failed AG/RoS link.

If FoW hadn't become a small bandwagon itself it would be another dead link, because Dzago lost 2/3 of it's population.

 

So, tell me again what is it that you "do for the game" besides making it terrible and not logging in when there is no blob fights? I haven't seen any of those WSR guys streaming WvW in days or for longer than an hour. Why when there is enough content in the game and the server relies so heavily on your carry.

 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

IMO, KDR in WvW is idiotic.  It just promotes a set of very bad behaviors--the top two being ganking and running meme builds. You also have the people that never leave structures and thus never die but can get many kills through siege or 'door warfare'.   

 

I agree with promoting guild prestige though.  There needs to be more to recognize guilds that do a lot for their servers.