After playing for two weeks in the current WDS system (and scoring 2k points for my three chars both weeks) I think that the WDS reward scoring system needs to be tweaked to encourage actually focusing on the WDS objectives rather than just cap/defend. Here's what I observed during these past two weeks: Evidence During week 1, the heavily weighted WDS points associated with capturing bases caused massive zergs to form and sweep entire maps with little to no opposition. The reason that no one opposed these zergs was two-fold: first, no one wants to fight a mindless zerg unless they had ample back-up. Fighting zergs by yourself (head-on fighting, that is) just isn't very fun. Second, defending against a zerg was significantly less rewarding than forming your own zerg on the opposite side of the map and then sweeping that area for free WDS. By forming or joining a zerg, you could maximize your WDS intake while minimizing the effort you would need to acquire that WDS. As much as people hate to admit it, maximal income with minimal effort/risk will always appeal to the majority of the population that wants to earn those "free" item rewards. Overall, the lopsided WDS scoring for bases was the main cause for the grievances in the first week. In contrast to week 1, week 2 saw a complete shift from offensive zergs to defensive zergs. This is due to the fact that WDS capture scoring was brought in line with defense scoring. Unfortunately, making the capture score nearly equal to the defense score does not mean that the two option of obtaining WDS were made equal. Capturing bases required completely exhausting the base timer and a base could only offer capture scoring once. In contrast, defending bases made it so that WDS score could be acquired multiple times without having to completely exhaust the base defense timer (you merely had to restore it to its original starting point). This, again, made defending the better option for obtaining WDS score and, as such, there was a shift toward defending large facilities (biolabs in particular). Attacking seemed to return to normal but it felt more sluggish than usual. Problem The problem with both the implementations of WDS scoring is that they do not have a strong relation to the objectives of WDS. Sure, defending and attacking are both parts of WDS, but, more importantly, the main objective of WDS is to hold territory to earn points for your empire. Why would people be motivated to defend a set of 8 point bases when they could just fall back and farm the 32 point biolab? Why bother to go and stop that small 12 person squad who is sweeping the right side of the map when you are getting more defense points by staying where you are? The problem is that WDS reward scoring is too localized and not dependent on how well your empire is doing. Even if your empire has no territory except for a single large facility that is being well defended, you can still get a large number of points by sitting at that facility and letting the enemy flip the point! Solution The solution to this localized reward scoring is to connect personal scoring to the overall success of the empire by making it so that all the territory held by your empire contributes to your personal score gain. Every territory lost or captured impacts the rate at which you gain score and, thus, you have an actual reason to defend points that you could defend. Of course, the income rate would need some serious balancing in order to make it so that score is neither gained too fast nor too slowly; however, it would change the dynamic of WDS to be more inline with what SOE is trying to achieve. Ideally, a faction that controls every territory on every continent should be able to obtain 2k score in roughly 5 hours of constant holding while a faction that controls 1/3 of all possible territory should be able to earn 2k in 15 hours of constant holding. This makes it so that obtaining 2k score isn't extremely tedious or impossible. Obviously, if a faction is doing poorly then more play time will be needed to obtain that 2k score. In order to avoid exploitation and farming, this proposed system needs to have limitations on how scoring can be gained. For starters, the scoring should be gained similarly to how resources are gained: passively via periodic ticks. Additionally, players would need to earn kills or a certain amount of score every 30 minutes in order to be eligible to earn WDS score. This would make it so that playing would be necessary for earning score and idling would not work as a farming method. TL;DR: Make Personal Reward Scoring be based on total territory held by your empire!
