54 replies to this topic

[Soulstitchmmo]

Takato, on 05 September 2012 - 10:57 PM, said:

Unfortunately, I don't see why you want to ruin a group of people's fun just so you can basically have more fun.
While you might want to make coordinated assaults, maybe the other 50 want to zerg and enjoy their time on wvw.
This is rather selfish in my opinion.

The bright side is, if X team is busy wiping Y zerg. Why not coordinate a small group ( or larger whatever ) and either sneak off the sides and cap stuff under their noses?

You can always use any situation and make it YOUR advantage, just gotta take initiative and do so.

This reminds me of all the guys in WoW Battlegrounds who used to say "i'm having fun it's my game" blah blah blah .

That is the equivalent of bringing a hockey stick to a baseball game. With limited numbers and players you need to works as a team.

Sometimes that means standing guard duty off some where, sometimes that means being out in the action, but communities will win, players working for the benefit of each other, rather than the benefit of themselves.

[Takato]

Soulstitchmmo, on 06 September 2012 - 02:45 AM, said:

This reminds me of all the guys in WoW Battlegrounds who used to say "i'm having fun it's my game" blah blah blah .

That is the equivalent of bringing a hockey stick to a baseball game. With limited numbers and players you need to works as a team.

Sometimes that means standing guard duty off some where, sometimes that means being out in the action, but communities will win, players working for the benefit of each other, rather than the benefit of themselves.

Which is why the fun of 50 people is much more important than only one person.
And at the end of the day, WvW is designed to be casual by nature and such is populated by a majority of that crowd.

Like I said, get friends and use that zerg to get stuff done yourself.
Hell, grab a bunch of guildies and do so.

Edited by Takato, 06 September 2012 - 03:00 AM.

[Soulstitchmmo]

Takato, on 06 September 2012 - 02:59 AM, said:

Which is why the fun of 50 people is much more important than only one person.
And at the end of the day, WvW is designed to be casual by nature and such is populated by a majority of that crowd.

Like I said, get friends and use that zerg to get stuff done yourself.
Hell, grab a bunch of guildies and do so.

So why does having a real death penalty prevent any of that from happening?

[DiscoCactuar]

Stiffer death penalty sure - it's the "Get kicked out of WvW if you are bad" that really strikes a bad tone with me and many others.

[Soulstitchmmo]

DiscoCactuar, on 06 September 2012 - 05:13 AM, said:

Stiffer death penalty sure - it's the "Get kicked out of WvW if you are bad" that really strikes a bad tone with me and many others.

It's not that at all. It's not "get kicked out of wvw if you are bad" it's "get kicked out of wvw, or be forced out due to repair costs if you can't learn to be better".

That's a distinction. Like every raid or dungeon ever built. You get better, or you don't get to do it.

Would you like this game to go the easy mode way of Blizzard games, or would you like this game to challenge you to be a better player?

The investment that players are asked to make through siege/upgrades/time is greater than any other aspect of Gw2. The penalties need to reflect that.

[iEatCookies]

I don't know about you guys, but I do not buy gems, so I can't convert any for easy gold.
I currently wear all level 80 gear, and all yellows I believe. I die a couple times and it already costs roughly 5 silver even though only 2 pieces show damage. This is already a huge blow to my already strained pocket from trying to max out my second crafting tier.

[Absolutionis]

Upping the cost of repairs would only encourage people to zerg more.

As it stands, people that do WvW swarm in groups because it's safe even if it's not terribly effective. So long as you have 20 other people near you, the enemy isn't going to be able to "FINISH" you easily if you drop, and you'll likely have a person or two helping you get back up. I've personally thrown elixirs, healing areas, regen bursts, reviving elixirs, and blown back enemies trying to "FINISH" an ally countless times.

Zergs may not be organized, but they can successfully take camps and supply areas effectively. Their main bane is towers/garrisons/etc that have walls (nobody seems to bring ram plans) or inexplicably getting stuck in a poke-poke skirmish near the enemy camps staying out of range of Legendary Defenders.

Going out alone or with a small group carries its own risks. If you stray out alone, you will get ganked (and overall not do anything worthwhile). If you go out with a disorganized PUG, you're going to wander aimlessly accomplishing very little until you get killed by a larger group.

The only viable alternative is to get with a guild that is at the very least organized.

As it stands, zerg = safety and increasing the cost of repairs will only encourage WvW players to travel in large groups... not the opposite. Lower cost of repairs means people can take more risks and travel in smaller groups.

Plus, less cost of repairs means people will actually have money to spend on siege weapons. At lvl80, the cost of my repairs often are around 5s. If you double the cost of repairs, that's one less Flame Ram that I can deploy.

Don't get me wrong though, there should be SOME penalty for dying constantly.

[Soulstitchmmo]

That's fine. The actual zerg movement isn't the problem. It's the zerg dieing. The "we can just keep throwing bodies at this regardless". Death zerg should never be a strategy. If it is, it should cost you a LOT.

[Scribbles]

If you ask me, armor repair has no place in WvW as it anyway. The moneysink should be in the siege blueprints.

And if you want to discourage zerging, there are better ways than to basically annoy the player back to PvE.

[kitanas]

Soulstitchmmo, on 06 September 2012 - 06:46 AM, said:

That's fine. The actual zerg movement isn't the problem. It's the zerg dieing. The "we can just keep throwing bodies at this regardless". Death zerg should never be a strategy. If it is, it should cost you a LOT.

if you are especting to die, then the simple counter to repair costs is to take off your armor.

and why would you like such a wonderful income source to go away ( i love to nom on zergs)

[Kasern]

You wanna see some anti-zerging? DiE is gonna be crush the BG and JQ zerg armies on the JQ borderlands as soon as the servers are back up! Bring it on!

[darksol]

DeagarFA, on 05 September 2012 - 03:47 PM, said:

I've been stating for a long time that I'd love it if when you died you got kicked out of the zone if there was a queue.

Problem with this approach is its conducive to filling up maps with people who don't die - a group which includes afk'ers.

[Soulstitchmmo]

darksol, on 06 September 2012 - 02:39 PM, said:

Problem with this approach is its conducive to filling up maps with people who don't die - a group which includes afk'ers.

Yeah the best idea I heard for this, was every time you die in wvw, you get a stacking debuff that can't be removed, unless you zone out/in of WvW.

a stacking debuff that increases your repair cost, and incrementally decreases all your stats.

[kittenneko]

Death costs roughly 1s 60c for me at lvl 80 in all lvl 80 gear. I don't die much maybe once or twice an hour. When my server is doing badly in a wvw we don't earn much money and it is possible for people to spend upwards of 20s on a siege. What you're saying is you want to people to leave WvW and spend time farming to play to WvW. This either sounds like someone who had been living in total ignorance on the high side of things or pure elitism.

I know you guys switch servers after losing one match and have only been roling people but when you're not winning against people you don't make a lot of money in WvW in the middle of the pack servers. Making things cost more isn't the way to do things. This isn't a real good discussion as this only really pertains to the top and reeks of ignorance towards the middle and lower tier servers.

[Soulstitchmmo]

You can spend badges in siege, and locally farm to pay for repair costs. When server matching is actually implemented you will end up facing equally matched opponents so you shouldn't be getting trounced. Besides the idea is evolving to a stacking debuff. The more you die the greater the cost and penalty that can only be cleared by leaving WvW.

[kittenneko]

You don't actually kill many when you're pushed back against your spawn. Trust me Tarnished Coast is in this situation about once every third match up. This is a situation that will happen with server match ups. We will get bumped up into a match up we won't be able to handle and we get over matched. This will always be a problem with match ups for lower tier servers and will never go away. For higher tier servers it won't be a problem.

Badges are only realiable for times when you are able to kill people, and farming isn't something you should really be encouraging when you're losing a match anyways. Don't want team mates in la la land while you're losing. This penalty also isn't all that great of an idea because it also hurts us for having a bad team too. Sure TL has a good server, not every server is good all around,

This also punishes players who stick out in alosing situation just to hold out a little bit longer like a losing siege that will allow a defensifable position to be held down the road. Or maybe for an army that might arrive in time. I understand what you're trying to do and encourage better play I just feel it doesn't fit well with lower tier servers because of the drastic swing in quality server match ups they see.

Edited by kittenneko, 06 September 2012 - 04:39 PM.

[DeagarFA]

I've never seen an occurrence where someone is truly pushed back into their spawn. I've seen lots of occurrences where one of the three sides has a large mass of enemy players blocking the entrance, and the spawning players are attracted to that death trap like a magnet instead of simply going around them.

Now tell me this, would more severe death penalties make players more likely to run into a death trap, or think about the situation before running into the death trap?

[kittenneko]

the problem is how hard is it once a server is contained to set a scout on the side (there is relatively no real way to sneak out) and to say that group is sneaking out. Once you're pushed back, you're pretty much locked in. If your team doesn't have the supply and blueprints or unwilling to drop blueprints to get siege up to counter the masses of siege they have up pinning you in which is typical is a bad situation.

Sometimes you can swing out and take a side tower and supply, but this is extreme hard to hold as your supply line in terms of man power is cut and people have to sneak to join you. The problem is people are already not willing to drop costly things right now, if you make things more costly why are they going to risk any more.

I know Tarnish Coast has done a little push back from this situation once before but it was in terms of blue prints and deaths costly if it costed more I dont' know how much more it would have been. I don't think people would have done it, and it would have been possible. I do not think this is a death penalty situation thing will solve, this is a leadership solution. When people arrive and actively start leading people start listening and things get done.

[CNDFalconer]

I don't think Soulstitch's original idea is a terrible one, but I do think that it will never happen, simply because it goes against a whole series of audience-broadening game design principles.  Namely, that for new or more casual players, behavior is best shaped by:

1)  Providing carrots rather than sticks.
2)  Removing the puzzle factor, by providing accessible and comprehensive information about an approach to take.
3)  Designing gameplay experiences based on cognitive theory, namely experiences that introduce new mechanics early and simply (building knowledge) and then ramping up over time so that players are required to use the knowledge that they've acquired to tackle increasing challenges (application, evaluation, and synthesis.)

Since WvW, as a specific design objective, is to broaden the PVP audience to a newer and more casual subset of the MMO population, all implementation decisions are going to be based on that design goal.  (As an example, this is the reason why it's Server Name Invader, rather than specific player names.)

Suffice to say, we'd be better off thinking up new carrots that could be offered, as well as methods that ArenaNet could use to train players over time - such as a more robust tutorial system.

The above principles are, by the way, the reason Miyamoto's games have been so successful.  Mario, Zelda, and the rest of the Nintendo canon all do this:  

1) Introduce a new mechanic simply:  "You can block the attack with Link's shield."
2) Ramp up the knowledge to application: "You must block the attack with Link's shield in order to progress through the dungeon room."
3) Ramp up the application to synthesis:  "You now face a boss fight where the only way to win is to block particular attacks with the shield, but must combine it with other bits of knowledge that you've learned in every previous boss fight."

[DeagarFA]

They could extend their "Sigil of Bloodlust" upgrade by giving you additional bonuses when you kill a lot of players without dying.

Of course, this would also make it easier for a group that pins down an enemy in their spawnpoint, because they'll get max bonus while fighting fresh enemies.

[Kazim]

Higher Armor Repair Costs ---> Less people at WvW.

Perhaps we should discuss this after initial hype cooled down and see the real persistent population on WvW.

Also remember for more than few times developers announced WvW is a "Casual PvP" zone. So I don't expect harsher penalties there. Perhaps even a decrease in Armor Repair cost might be on the way in future.

CNDFalconer, on 06 September 2012 - 05:06 PM, said:

...

Great explanation btw

DeagarFA, on 06 September 2012 - 04:40 PM, said:

Now tell me this, would more severe death penalties make players more likely to run into a death trap, or think about the situation before running into the death trap?

From my vast ( ) experience on Zerg movements and motivations, I presume it will just cause them to leave the area and do something else.

Penalties have never been a good way to motivate people for thinking more.

Edited by Kazim, 06 September 2012 - 05:21 PM.

[Soulstitchmmo]

Kazim, on 06 September 2012 - 05:21 PM, said:

Higher Armor Repair Costs ---> Less people at WvW.

Perhaps we should discuss this after initial hype cooled down and see the real persistent population on WvW.

Also remember for more than few times developers announced WvW is a "Casual PvP" zone. So I don't expect harsher penalties there. Perhaps even a decrease in Armor Repair cost might be on the way in future.



Great explanation btw



From my vast ( ) experience on Zerg movements and motivations, I presume it will just cause them to leave the area and do something else.

Penalties have never been a good way to motivate people for thinking more.

If you're worried about repair costs, go into spvp? There needs to be a mechanic that encourages players to do the right thing instead of running around with their hockey stick on a baseball field "because it's fun". The only way to encourage players to work together is to make working alone undesirable, or not thinking undesirable.

Remove the armor penalty, and players will just throw themselves relentlessly at doors or guilds and be farmed because they have nothing to lose. Players individually have to have something to lose.

It does not make it less casual to have a high death penalty, or a stacking penalty. And even if the "cost" thing has people so irate (honestly making up armor costs on an individual level is laughable, kill a few npc's sell the drops, BAM, armor is repaired) what if it was just a stacking stat dropper.

Eventually people need to be forced to re-evaluate their gameplay if they are constantly dieing.

If WvW was truly meant to be purely casual friendly, why did they require wvw to have the greatest cost and greatest time investment of all the activities in the game?

If it's truly meant to be a "pvp gateway" remove armor costs, lower siege costs, remove objective costs (beyond supply) and let people "have fun".

Otherwise it needs to be meaningful to the average player.

[CNDFalconer]

Kazim, on 06 September 2012 - 05:21 PM, said:

From my vast ( ) experience on Zerg movements and motivations, I presume it will just cause them to leave the area and do something else.

Penalties have never been a good way to motivate people for thinking more.

This is correct.  When faced with a stick rather than a carrot, especially with a stick as severe as the one Soulstich proposes, the vast majority of players won't learn - they'll quit.

As another anecdote, the initial design of World of Warcraft assumed that the leveling experience - with abilities introduced over time - would create the knowledge->synthesis cognitive design that Miyamoto made work in his games.  When this was clearly not the case (no amount of quest grinding prepared new players for the situational awareness and puzzle-solving of raid boss encounters) they took another route - creating a more casual friendly "normal mode" that would then serve as a building block for harder content.  It's the same reason that most of the hard mode fights are "all the mechanics of normal mode at a higher difficulty level + new mechanics that must be problem solved."  (This requires players to synthesize, which increases the challenge cognitively, not just mechanically.)

[Kazim]

Soulstitchmmo, on 06 September 2012 - 05:29 PM, said:

If you're worried about repair costs, go into spvp? There needs to be a mechanic that encourages players to do the right thing instead of running around with their hockey stick on a baseball field "because it's fun". The only way to encourage players to work together is to make working alone undesirable, or not thinking undesirable.

I don't believe making something undesirable is a good motivation for people to do the other thing. The better motivation would be making the other way around more desirable. This game provides all those bonuses for acting as a organized group, it just takes time for people to realize it. No more penalties needed it's just a matter of time. I already see a lot difference compared to 2 weeks ago.

Soulstitchmmo, on 06 September 2012 - 05:29 PM, said:

Remove the armor penalty, and players will just throw themselves relentlessly at doors or guilds and be farmed because they have nothing to lose. Players individually have to have something to lose.

They loose time, they loose fun. Loosing the game/fight in general is already a strong motivation to find the ways to win. They will realize this eventually, they already started. On the other hand increasing armor penalty will make players to give up when things are going bad.

Soulstitchmmo, on 06 September 2012 - 05:29 PM, said:

It does not make it less casual to have a high death penalty, or a stacking penalty. And even if the "cost" thing has people so irate (honestly making up armor costs on an individual level is laughable, kill a few npc's sell the drops, BAM, armor is repaired) what if it was just a stacking stat dropper.

High death penalties make games less casual. As it requires more time investment to continue on the things player enjoy. For example if I enjoy WvW but not killing NPCs, but if I have to kill 30 NPCs to be able to continue on WvW this makes the game less casual (fun oriented) for me. It might result on me to think more so die less, but when I start to think I'm dying because players on my side sucks I just give up. That's how it works for majority. (I suspect you would do the same too but of course can't prove this)

Soulstitchmmo, on 06 September 2012 - 05:29 PM, said:

Eventually people need to be forced to re-evaluate their gameplay if they are constantly dieing.

Or most probably they will blame their server, blame people around them, and give up. That's what happens most of the time rather than re-evaluation. That's what I experienced on WvW matches our server lost badly even with current Armor Penalties.

Soulstitchmmo, on 06 September 2012 - 05:29 PM, said:

If WvW was truly meant to be purely casual friendly, why did they require wvw to have the greatest cost and greatest time investment of all the activities in the game?

It's a gold/time sink. A well balanced one indeed. Gold/time sinks are major parts of online games whether it's casual or hardcore.

Soulstitchmmo, on 06 September 2012 - 05:29 PM, said:

If it's truly meant to be a "pvp gateway" remove armor costs, lower siege costs, remove objective costs (beyond supply) and let people "have fun".

Otherwise it needs to be meaningful to the average player.

It's already balanced right now. We don't need to go extremes on both ends. You and me are pretty competent WvW players and think/organize a lot and die less. But majority is not. So WvW should be balanced for majority. Otherwise only minority will stay there.

Edited by Kazim, 06 September 2012 - 05:46 PM.

[CNDFalconer]

Soulstitchmmo, on 06 September 2012 - 05:29 PM, said:

If you're worried about repair costs, go into spvp? There needs to be a mechanic that encourages players to do the right thing instead of running around with their hockey stick on a baseball field "because it's fun". The only way to encourage players to work together is to make working alone undesirable, or not thinking undesirable.

Remove the armor penalty, and players will just throw themselves relentlessly at doors or guilds and be farmed because they have nothing to lose. Players individually have to have something to lose.

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It does not make it less casual to have a high death penalty, or a stacking penalty

This may be your opinion, but it goes against nearly 30-years of evolution in game design theory, particularly in the MMO space.  Text-based MUDs, prior to MMOs, laid clear this phenomenon - which was the subject of a great article by Bartle.  In the 90's, most MUDs were classified as either casual-friendly PVE MUDs (including the DIKU Sojourn/Toril, on which Everquest was based) or hard-core "perma-death" - Bartle was able to find an almost exact correlation between the lesser degree of death penalties and the amount of players in a game, when all other features were roughly comparable (which was common, given how many derivative MUDs there were.)

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what if it was just a stacking stat dropper.

Won't work with player psychology.  Players need to learn through repetition.

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Eventually people need to be forced to re-evaluate their gameplay if they are constantly dieing.

But this just doesn't happen, unfortunately, if you use a stick rather than a carrot.  The success of the PVE raiding model is built on carrots - repeat a problem or puzzle until you can solve it, after which you reap the rewards.  The rewards in WvW - both for individuals and for the server - aren't significant enough to make players want to adapt behavior.

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If WvW was truly meant to be purely casual friendly, why did they require wvw to have the greatest cost and greatest time investment of all the activities in the game?

Because ArenaNet's entire monetization strategy is based on having hefty gold sinks.  In PVE, like WvW, this is supposed to be repair costs and waypoint costs after death, but ArenaNet's technology is not yet at a point where they can make the dynamic events and explorable dungeon encounters have multiple phases of challenging mechanics, resulting in the sinks not being as effective as they should be.  This should change over the next year or so as their technology improves.

In sPVP, the main gold sink - paid tournament tickets and paid tournaments - is not currently available.

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Otherwise it needs to be meaningful to the average player.

To be meaningful to the average player, you need meaningful rewards, not meaningful punishment - something that is only meaningful, rather than frustrating, to the right leg of the bell-curve of MMO players in skill and focus.