WDS Preseason 2 Changes and Feedback

Discussion in 'Official News and Announcements' started by Luperza, Feb 10, 2014.

  1. Zorro

    Thank you for your response to this issue, we are appreciative of your concern. SOE cares.
  2. Dark Pulse

    Here's what I think on WDS so far, although who knows if it's not rehash or even anything interesting. (Obviously, I didn't read all the pages on this thread, as I think that's slightly unrealistic.)
    • Point values are definitely too high, capping out at 100 for large facilities. I do know this is being reduced to 50, though, and also that defense will be given heavier weight as opposed to attacking (this is good for me, as I love being on defensive biolab fights, heh).
    • The way the defense system works is, in a way, also a bit weird - you get WDS points basically even if only one point in a multi-point system changes hands. It's technically cheeseable by letting attackers hit one point, swarming in and re-securing it - bam, instant WDS points for all defenders. There's a whole bunch of NC at Saurva on Waterson last night who got 32 points repeatedly due to TR not being able to get anything going.
    • One of the main ideas of WDS is to encourage bigger, longer battles. The tricky part with this is that right now there's a relative disparity between defense and attack - right now, zerg attacks will get you the most WDS points, but soon, zerg defense will do it, and obviously due to how the cap mechanics work, this means that it might be possible for defenders to rack up tons of WDS points while attackers may not feasibly be able to breach it without bringing something close to a whole continent's worth of might to bear on the defenders.
    _______________________________________________________________________________________

    Here's what I'd suggest to change that up, and make it more fun for both attackers and defenders. Be warned, this'll be a bit lengthy, possibly a bit convoluted, but in the end, I think this'll be one of the fairest systems for both attacker and defender alike - and, at the same time, make the goal not just "battle at this large spot" but "battle anywhere there's a good fight." With this system, WDS points are awarded on four scales: time-based, size-based, importance-based, and teamwork-based.
    • Time-based rewards are awarded every few minutes you're fighting (attacking or defending) in any given hex. This amount is relatively small, say 2-3 points per ten minutes.
      • This way, as long as you're not just sitting on your butt at a warpgate, you're always getting SOMETHING. However, this definitely needs idle checks, to prevent someone from just sitting in a spawnroom and racking WDS points for doing "nothing."
    • Size-based rewards act basically as a multiplier. A small squad (1-12), for example, will give a boost of 1x to the time-based award - so in other words, 2-3 WDS points per ten minutes is all they get. It's small battles, it's usually not for heavy objectives, so while it's a gain, it's a minimal gain. A 12-24 Squad could give 3x, for 6-9 WDS points, as this is usually the point where battles begin to heat up. 24-48 could be 4x for 8-12 WDS points, and 48+ could be 5x for 10-15 WDS points, with potentially even higher rewards contingent on whether the devs are willing to implement counters for, say, 48-96, 96-192, 192+, etc.
      • This means that essentially battles are, for the most part, scored according to the forces involved, because sometimes, huge battles DO happen at towers, or even smaller outposts, and this means battles in those sorts of areas get discouraged and everyone will just go to the nearest "big target," which will leave all those smaller outposts open and still result in technically easier WDS points for the attackers. Switching to this method counters that by encouraging you to go where the battle is - whether it's a huge tech plant or simply a hotly-contested Crown fight.
    • Location-based rewards are fixed-value rewards. They're given only upon completion of a defense or a capture, and due to the time and size-based mechanics above, the actual values are reduced from what they currently are as well as what's currently being proposed.
      • Small Outpost: 5 WDS Points
      • Large Outpost: 10 WDS Points
      • Biolabs: 15 WDS Points
      • Tech Plants: 25 WDS Points
    • Attackers get these points immediately upon successful capture, since once that happens, the defenders will be quickly shooed out. Defenders get these points when the attacking force has dropped by more than half from its largest number.
      • Defender Example: If 75 enemies were attacking at its heaviest moment, as soon as there were less than 37 enemies in the battle, the defenders would be considered to have defended it (as it would usually indicate a large-scale pull-out by the attackers) and get a Defense Bonus.
    • Once the points are awarded to the defenders, it's not considered a new battle unless the forces resume increasing by at least one more step (in this case, 48+), in which case it would then immediately re-trigger as a new assault, or unless the number of forces remains relatively stable within that step for at least five minutes.
      • Continuing with the above example, let's say about 42 attackers remain for the next five minutes after the other ~33 or so go somewhere else. Since it stays in the step, the game then considers it a new battle - accordingly, once the attacking force dropped below 21, the defenders would get another Defense Bonus. This encourages defenders to stick around until the attacking force is clearly destroyed, since even a lingering force can get you another nice chunk of WDS Points if you can push them out.
    • Teamwork-based rewards are to encourage impressive actions and the "little stuff" that can help turn the tides of a battle. Basically, if you repair, heal, rez, or hack enough stuff that you get a ribbon, it should also get you a relatively small amount (2-3) of WDS points per ribbon gained. This encourages medics to heal and rez more, engineers to repair more, infiltrators to hack more, and basically focus on a greater teamplay cohesion.
      • This only should apply to healing, repairing, engineering, or hacking - nothing related to guns, explosives, vehicles, etc. Also, due to the changes in scoring schema above, you shouldn't be getting any bonus WDS points for attacking/defending even though you do get ribbons for those.
    _______________________________________________________________________________________

    I'll now summarize my system in a single, hopefully clear example. Let's say a 48 v 48 battle erupts at Rashnu Bio Lab, and to make sure that we get an idea of daily life, let's follow the day of a TR Medic, "Handsome" Jack Sureshot, who's quick on the trigger of both his Healing Tool as well as his gun.
    • The battle would be considered "on" as soon as either a stable number of attackers/defenders were reached within five minutes, or the number of attackers outnumbers the number of defenders by at least one step. So if 12-24 defenders were there normally, the battle is considered active either as soon as the attackers reach 24-48, or as soon as both sides have 12-24 men to each side for 5+ minutes.
      • Once the proportions reach their maximum amount of 48+, both sides will be getting 10-15 WDS points per 10 minutes (so 60-75 an hour), regardless of what is happening.As long as their numbers hold up, you get WDS points just plain for trying, not always critical on either succeeding or failing, and this way, forces are encouraged into being met with appropriate force since the more people that show up, the more WDS points everyone gets. It also means you don't feel like you're wasting your time if the fight is stalemated.
        • It also means that a team that quickly steamrolls a territory due to a massive zerg will gain relatively few points, since oftentimes, those sorts of things don't even take 10 minutes to capture, and oftentimes it'll mean defenders will have fallen back and gained more numbers to meet the zerg. Possibly even have it so it awards ZERO WDS points aside from teamwork and the location amount - meaning that 48-man zerg that rolls up and kicks six defenders out of a small outpost gets a whopping 5 WDS Points. Defenders, of course, won't get much out of it either (actually they'll get nothing as they'll be kicked out that damn fast with zero chance to defend), but the attackers won't be able to count on a zerg for easy points.
    • Oh no! The defenders lose Rashnu after about half an hour and are kicked out. The attackers gain an immediate +15 WDS Points for their success. Jack, however, does his darnedest to keep his buddies alive. In the process, he gains two ribbons for rezzing and one ribbon for healing, in a valiant, but noble, defeat.
      • Scores:
        • Both Sides: 30-45 over 30 minutes.
        • New Defenders: 45-60 (+15 Capture Bonus)
        • Ex-Defenders: 30-45 (No bonus due to failed defense)
        • Jack's Score: 36-54 (Cumulative Ribbon Bonus: +6-9)
    • The battle then moves on to the one teleporter they have access to, at Rashnu Watchtower - which is a 25-48 battle for both sides (in both places) due to some continued hit-and-run attacks on Rashnu by the now-Ex Defenders and moderate defense by the now-New Defenders. Each of these battles is now scoring 8-12 WDS points per 10 minutes for both sides. For the clarity of this example, we'll follow the New Defenders' push to try to take Rashnu Watchtower, so Jack will go along to help keep the New Defenders from taking it.
    • The Ex-Defenders manage to push the new defenders back out after twenty minutes and begin to surge into Mao again. The battle is now pushed back up to its 10-15 WDS Points per 10 minutes levels, and the Ex-Defenders get a Defense Bonus for defending the teleporter territory. (Please note I don't know what these are considered in the schemes above - I'm assuming "Large Outpost.") Jack, while down there, snags a few kills himself, but most importantly, he healed the MAXes who stemmed the tide and helped keep the Sundy up - as a result, he got four Repairing ribbons.
      • Scores:
        • Both Sides: 16-24 over 20 minutes.
        • New Defenders: 61-76 (No bonus due to failed assault)
        • Ex-Defenders: 56-79 (+10 Defense Bonus)
        • Jack's Score: 70-100 (Cumulative ribbon bonus: +14-21)
    • The new Defenders, however, pull out their crossbows, convince their enemies to make love, not war, and the assault thus fails after another half an hour. Enamored with their fellow soldier of whatever their preferences may be, Jack is among the many that decide to hightail it back to the Warpgate for a little, shall we say, R&R. Before he decides to split, he gets two more ribbons for rezzing and one more for healing.
      • Scores:
        • Both Sides: 30-45 over 30 minutes.
        • New Defenders: 91-106 (No bonus as enough Ex-Defenders haven't left yet)
        • Ex-Defenders: 86-124 (No bonus as they failed the assault)
        • Jack's Score: 106-154 (Cumulative ribbon bonus: +20-30)
    • As soon as the attackers drop below 24 (as the highest was 48), the defenders get a +15 WDS Point Defense Bonus. The battle is now considered terminated until either the ex-defenders get it back up over 48 players, or unless it remains in that 12-24 player state for at least five minutes or more.
      • Final Scores once Ex-Defenders reach 23 or less players:
        • New Defenders: 106-121 (+15 Defense Bonus)
        • Ex-Defenders: 86-124 (Better luck next time, guys!)
        • "Handsome" Jack Sureshot: 106-154, quality R&R :)
    • End result: Even the losing side can get as many - and, depending on their teamwork - even greater WDS rewards than someone who is purely "killing, killing, killing," since it's the guys who do the teamwork that keep the battles going for everyone! To me, this is what WDS is supposed to encourage, and my system rewards that.
    If you read through that whole thing, thanks for reading it. I'm hoping I got the math right as math was my worst subject in school and I hate having to deal with it - so if you're going to nitpick my numbers, please don't bother, as the whole point is to illustrate how the system works.

    And if there's any questions, I'm always up for answering them. I'm sometimes guilty of stuff being clearer in my head than "in text," so if I can help clarify an aspect, I'd be happy to oblige.
    • Up x 3
  3. 458Magnum

    In days when there were not enough people, prior to Helios merging into Connery, 4th factions were a worse problem. But there is another problem not visible by log out/log in. Warp gate vehicle flipping! Call it faction 3.5.

    The aggressor/cheater is protected from vehicle damage...and since no damage is technically done, there is no logging of these people. On the other hand, the people they are harassing can't get their vehicle back after the faction 3.5 flips it. If you are going to make cheaters immortal, at least make vehicles unflippable in a warp gate! I also dare GMs, during any ongoing event, to sit in a warp gate and simply nullify whoever is obviously flipping vehicles. Faction 3.5 will never be logged, all you can do is watch.
    • Up x 1
  4. cobaltlightning

    What the above forgot to mention was the increase of Friendly Fire since the WDS started. Y'know, the 'harmless' shooting a teamates shields away, or the teeny damage to ESFs.


    Would th enext update make weapons locking due to friendly fire a bit more aggresive, please? I know I'm not the only one annoyed by watching my mossy's health tick away because of some guy's semi-auto repeater
    • Up x 1
  5. Dark Pulse

    The problem with that is sometimes friendlies run into your fire as well. You can't distinguish between how friendly fire happens, just that it does, and this can definitely be griefed.

    Friendly Fire is tough enough as it is, it doesn't need to be tougher. If anything, you're probably getting shot more because players shoot at any target that doesn't have a dorito, and - surprise! - some friendly vehicles don't get a dorito until they get closer, for some reason. I've gotten into the habit of tapping "Spot" and if it lights up as an enemy, then I know I can fire, and if it doesn't light up at all, I know it's a friendly.

    Granted, that's annoying and I'd prefer all friendly vehicles in line of sight be auto-doritoed out to render distance (with showing up through walls within 50-100 meters as well), but well, this will have to do.
  6. cobaltlightning

    This has actually been happening at 10-50 meters, usually butt-patting distance. Distinguishing Friend from Foe is not a factor.
  7. skyN3T

    Personally keeping a close eye on this, and you guys will indeed have a hard time ironing a "fix" for this, as (with the current system) there are servers where marginally smaller population factions still have a chance to even the scores. As far as my observation (might be my bias) goes the real difference starts to show when [insert faction here] has a population lead of 100(+) people for a considerable amount of time; and most probably at "crucial" (alerts, another empire with lots of 50+ worth locations waiting to get Z'd) points of time. Obviously more people can get more things done, honestly I have no clue what can be done about this while remaining "fair".
    I would find a data set about {[(Empire points earned/Empire Population)/Continent]/Server} over time most interesting, if my formulae here is comprehensible. That might show which continent earned Empire the most points and how the populations shifted there - split between servers. Maybe, and just maybe, on continents where large deviations in population (by the piece, not necessarily by the percentage) show up, a "fair handicap" might be given on that server for the time interval the disbalance remains (keeping in mind only for the continent where it stands). I know it sounds compicated, and compiling an algorythm doing this on the fly even more so; I just guessed to leave my thoughts here.
  8. Dark Pulse

    Then you just plain have idiot friendlies. Don't make everyone else suffer due to that.

    Or feel free to light them up once in awhile. After all, as long as you don't do it TOO often, you won't get weapon locked either.
    • Up x 1
  9. Smoo

    Yes. Many yes.

    The current problem is discrete actions giving the reward. And how it can be repeated without much coordination. Let attackers take a point, and then MAX-crash it and take it back. Attackers get nothing. Defenders get points. Fall back to spawn room, let independent people die. Repeat as desired.

    And SOE... don't think players won't work together to cheese these things. They will. I remember WoW, when there were those big fights in Tol Barad. The rewards for losing it and re-capturing it the next fight were significantly better than trying to defend it like you were supposed to. So, every fight it changed hands, and the few people who actually tried to defend were left out to dry by people who wanted to farm captures. Because of cross-faction coordination. Players will always do what benefits them more.

    You want to reward fighting? Someone named Captain Obvious would suggest rewarding fighting. Not just flipping points, for attack OR defense. Weight fights by intensity, and adjust scores by empire population. If one side has more players than the other, give them fewer points, and reward the underpopulated side with MORE points. At 2:1 odds, the overpopulated side gets no WDS points at all. Give out the points every 5-15 minutes or something, and don't leave people who drive tanks or aircraft out in the cold just because they can't stay in the SOI continuously.

    Suddenly, zerg-based anything becomes worthless, and fights self-regulate because of greed. Rely on greed.
    • Up x 1
  10. Safiras

    This is so awesome. The first 200 WDS Points got me 3x Single Use Digital Camo. Okay, i can live with that. Its not that i have Digital already permanent use. But just before i got the 800 Points and look for the next reward, there was the Reset of WDS and i did not played until today. I logged in, saw i got 1999 Points. Awesome! 2000er Reward could be a little bit more useful! Lets defend a biolab. Bam. Defended. Here is your reward: 10x Digital Single Use. FFFFFFFFFF****************** What the Hell is this!? Not that i got it 2 Times already but DEFINITIVELY IT SHOULD NOT BE GIVEN TO PLAYERS THAT ALREADY HAVE THAT CAMO PERMANENT OMFG!
    • Up x 1
  11. Dark Pulse

    They've said that the rewards in this preseason is basically for tuning and that the rewards in the real season (which will start in March I think?) will be more applicable to everyone.

    Also, I'm pretty sure the reward system giving out stuff you already own is an acknowledged bug.
  12. ValorousBob


    It's really people on the losing factions logging off because they're frustrated and don't want to play, and people on the winning factions staying online,
  13. JENOC1DE



    I concur. This is a great and perfect idea. I like this idea because it prevents sooo much bs. Like the %1 who switch. I play one faction, that is it. I feel that switching teams depending on who's winning is just down right stupid. Its like switching football teams, or basketball teams because your team decided to lose. There is no loyalty when people do this, and all we get is "fair weather fans". By allowing the creation of only a single character per server based on IP and or MAC Address is a wonderful idea. I salute your NeoKhor for your wonderful and genius idea. May it be heard!

    P.S. please please fix the WDS. Lol, its not all bad but damn it.. Seriously could use some serious fixes. Like, better rewards. Also, I prefer to focus on certs. WDS does not help me get those, so no reason to focus on WDS as its completely useless to me as a paying member. Oh.. And its quite useless to any other paying member. IF WDS gave me certs then i'd focus on it. But since it does not. No thanks. =D
  14. Polarbeargaming

    I am not sure if someone has already thought up this Einstein idea but...... A LOT of people here are screaming "4TH FACTION 4TH FACTION". Ok. Since Luperza announced that they had found that only 1% of the player base actually fourth factions, this doesn't make sense. 1% is not enough to swing an alert around after a faction has been dominating it. So how does this work???? How the pops spiking for one faction and nose diving for the others??? John has 5 coins. So does Lilly and Vladimir. Ho has the most coins when Vladimir and Lilly have none left? John does. Why? It could because Lilly and Vladimir gave John their coins. Or more probably, Lilly and Vladimir lost theirs. This theory makes complete sense with what the debs have discovered on the topic of fourth factioning. Fourth factioning isn't a problem. The reason pops for faction spike and others dive bomb, is that faction X and faction Y have 50% of there people log off. This causes faction Z's pop to rocket into the skies.

    Now, Luperza said that only 1% of the player base actually fourth factions. What do they mean by this? What is meant is that 1% of the player base have accounts on the same server. This does not mean that 1% of the player base changes factions mid alert or battle. So this one percent is the total percentage of the people who have accounts on a different faction on the same server. This isn't even the ACTIVE fourth factioners. As we see from this, the effective fourth faction rate is UNDER 1%. Oh and don't make me mention that some accounts which have same server characters aren't always online. Oh and don't make me mention that the one percent is most likely across servers.

    TLDR: fourth factioning is a misconception of percentages. The one percent stated by the devs is much more than the effective fourth faction rate.

    I think that the idea of fourth fourth factioning can easily be destroyed by the devs by simply looking at the amount of accounts with cross-faction characters that are online during and alert for example. I would be very surprised if this number is even .75% of the player base.
  15. Winthor

    SoE should stop the WDS, should also stop the fact that people can join more than one faction on a server and last but not least remove the stupid KD-"I´m a cheating hero-Thing. It ruins Planetside.

    All I can see right now is that SoE is putting more effort in holding/binding players to the game with stupid reward promises than real content.

    Servers are laggy. Characters warping around. You zerg or you get zerged = mostly boring and unsatisfying fights. Unbalanced factions and discrimination of european players (almost no support, no playerstudio, cheap servers) but hey we take your money.

    I lost hope that SoE hear oure voices and get in to it. They may read all of this post, but in the end they change no counting things.
  16. Orosian

    If only there was some kind of system which would work well with WDS. I don't know, say a system which has already been tried and tested. A system that's been tested in a MMOFPS that SOE already own the rights to. A system which promoted big fights and would reward everybody involved.

    Then everything would be so much better.
    • Up x 1
  17. Pacster

    All I can tell you is that you should try to have fun in the game cause the rewards are really not worth it. I got 12xdigital camo(most ugly camo ever for VS) and like 20x 1h 50% xp boost. So it's not worth thinking about it. We won the first WDS week...no rewards as of yet...and I don't think we gonna win another week let alone the entire WDS due to being outnumbered by about 20% by NC(not sure how we managed to squeeze in the victory by 2k in the first week but this week we are already 20k behind). The WDS decal is ugly anyway....and even less deserved(cause now it's really just the one with the highest pop again...like first week last season) than the one last season.
  18. dirtYbird

    If you are testing this in the preseason then the 2nd week in its still not working consistently.
    The rewards for Tier 1 and Tier 3 are often the same. eg. 3x 1hr XP Boosts.
    If you wanted to test that the reward system could scale the allocation correctly why wouldn't you just give 1x for Tier 1, 2x for Tier 2 and 3x for Tier 3.

    If you cant do it in testing what hope do we have that you will get it right when testing ends?

    I also notice that you have removed or simply not included that particular bit of text from the WDS Event Details page.
    Perhaps tiered rewards are being ditched?

    Another thing, why not make it an option to opt out of these rewards while you are testing or even when it goes live for that matter.
    I cannot see any way to remove them from my characters account without overriding my existing 6mth boost.

    Thanks.
  19. Yoinkzorz

    Th
    THIS 100 times. My biggest problem with WDS is the fights are awful. I've only been playing for a couple months and it's been a night and day difference in fight quality and size since WDS.
  20. Flyaxl

    I have a question, is there anybody else that get stuck with the same WDS rewards (for my part; i get the 1h 50% xp boost) i already got 18 of those; im feeling a bit disapointed doing all this as im loosing interest in getting wds point. Also i d like to know when we will get the reward for the winner of the last week, as im playing NC on Ceres and we won as i could see. Not that i really need more xp boost but id like to get what i deserve. So please could you give me a feedback about those 2 questions:

    1. Anybody is stuck with xp boost reward in each crate?
    2.Anybody got the winner of the 1st wds week's reward,or have any information about it?