Hello, everyone,

In our very first World vs. World development poll, we asked the community if we should prioritize quality of life or scoring improvements. Scoring won that poll, and since then, the team has been hard at work bringing the first phase of improvements to fruition. We’re happy to announce that Phase 1 of Skirmishes will be activated on September 9!

What You Can Expect from Skirmishes

Matches are still a week long, but have been split into 2-hour time slices that we are calling Skirmishes. During a skirmish, players will earn War Score normally as they always have, but War Score is now being used to determine the winner of each skirmish. When each 2-hour skirmish ends, War Score is reset, but actual map state and objective status remains unchanged.

Skirmishes award Victory Points based on placement:

1st—3 Victory Points

2nd—2 Victory Points

3rd—1 Victory Point

Victory Points are used to determine the match victor.

Skirmishes will keep the winning and losing scores closer together, allowing the losing worlds a better fighting chance. Skirmishes should also help lessen the severity of runaway matches caused by off-hour coverage.

Skirmishes will be activated for both EU and NA when the EU reset happens on Friday, September 9, at 11:00 AM Pacific Time (UTC-7). We cannot turn on Skirmishes separately for EU and NA, so this will result in the last few hours of the NA matchup using the new scoring system.

What’s Next?

We’ll be releasing WvW scoring features in smaller pieces so we can ensure the systems are stable and working as intended before we add additional features. If everything goes smoothly once skirmishes are activated, the next update will give upgraded objectives more War Score based on their upgrade level (secured, reinforced, or fortified). Once that’s in, we’ll be monitoring skirmishes and your feedback to decide what to work on next.

Thank you for your continued feedback and support. We’ll see you in the Mists this Friday!