Guild Wars 2

I am also finding the new matchup system to not be too my liking. At first I enjoyed not facing the same 2 servers, for variety sake, but then a different problem arose. I believe the problem is that servers are not close enough to each other in WvW capabilities (whether it is due to skill, communication or population is immaterial). The only WvW fights that are fun for me are the close ones. I don’t care whether I’m on the winning or losing side of a lopsided fight, either way I’m bored.

So, I would suggest to Anet that if they intend to push forward with this new non-tiered system, they need to find ways to make a fight like SoR vs SoS competitive. This means they need to somehow handicap the higher ranked server. To this end, I have a couple of ideas but I’m sure others can think up some others.

One idea would be to cap server transfers based on wvw rank as well as server space. Another idea would be to place an environmental debuff on the higher ranked server or an environmental buff on the lower ranked. A third idea would be to add new maps with terrain that might benefit the lower ranked team or possibly some NPC events that need to constantly be upkeeped by the higher ranked side.. Potentially even a combination, you get the idea.

Anyway, that’s my 2 cents. Hopefully a solution can be found because neither this system nor the previous were quite right imo.

A better handicap would be to give the lower ranked servers in each match a head start in terms of points for the week based upon their respective Glicko-2 ratings. It might take some time to determine appropriate handicaps, but now that ANet has freed the Glicko-2 system from the shackles of tiers it should be completely feasible to do so.

But yes … variety without equality is just obfuscation.

To be honest i dont get what the people expected.
I think it was pretty obvious that unbalanced matchups will come.
But people wanted this and there were many suggestions why the old system was bad.
This system is 2 weeks old so it will need time to get adjusted – what the developers actually want to do. So put up the best fight you can give since there will always be servers that have a better coverage then others.
My server has a tough matchup as well right now but do you think we will give up? Hell no we wont.

Another suggestion would be to make changes such that the home world maps were much more easily defended by the home army and very difficult to take over and defend by the opposition.

I have mixed feelings about the new system too. On one hand I expected that we on FoW and our “neighbours” Vabbi will get outnumbered even more. But on the other hand, for what reason ever, I sometimes saw a huge ammount of FoW players online in the evening. Hell, one day there was a que for our borderlands, that never happened before.

But most of the times (we are now matched against Arborstone) our opponents muster up even more ppl on their side. We even got the outmanned buff when I was in an 20-30 ppl Zerg, I had never experienced smth like that on this server…

While the new system might cause eventually some nice matchups, that are more balanced, but not allways the same server against each other, the two lowest populated servers Vabbi and FoW will allways be outmanned greatly.

I personally would not like a debuff or buff branting me more HP or attribute points. Because fights would be just unfair then. Also a handicap in the sense of more point at the beginning of the matchup doesn’t change the one sided engagements.

Just one idea that came just to my mind is, that after some time, when you have almost nothing in your own borderlands, you get access to an event (where the orb was before maybe?) where you can summon the forces of the gods to protect you and it will create temporarly a magical barrier arround the towers and the one keep surrounding the spawn of your map. This barrier can be crossed by invaders, but the ammount of ppl, able to pass through is limited, while defenders can pass it freely. Projectiles of siege weapons can pass normally through the barrier. This would allow the defenders to have an area of the map, where they are matched more fairly in numbers, while outside of that magical barrier, the WvW matchup would still be the same…

TyPin.9860:

Just one idea that came just to my mind is, that after some time, when you have almost nothing in your own borderlands, you get access to an event (where the orb was before maybe?) where you can summon the forces of the gods to protect you and it will create temporarly a magical barrier arround the towers and the one keep surrounding the spawn of your map. This barrier can be crossed by invaders, but the ammount of ppl, able to pass through is limited, while defenders can pass it freely. Projectiles of siege weapons can pass normally through the barrier. This would allow the defenders to have an area of the map, where they are matched more fairly in numbers, while outside of that magical barrier, the WvW matchup would still be the same…

This is an interesting, creative idea. I do like the idea of making the home world more difficult to conquer. The main battle should be taking place on EB but the reality is, it’s happening on the borderlands since the removal of the tier system. If this were an actual battle, things should get more difficult as you got further away from home. The fact that My team can fight on my homeland with the same efficacy as when on an opponent borderland doesn’t feel right. I’m not sure if balancing numbers is the right approach (numbers aren’t always the problem) or maybe massively nerfing the amount of supply you can receive while invading, or maybe something else entirely, but capturing an enemy borderland needs to be an increasingly uphill fight with holding the whole map a near impossibility.

Zelda.7013:

If this were an actual battle, things should get more difficult as you got further away from home. The fact that My team can fight on my homeland with the same efficacy as when on an opponent borderland doesn’t feel right. I’m not sure if balancing numbers is the right approach (numbers aren’t always the problem) or maybe massively nerfing the amount of supply you can receive while invading, or maybe something else entirely, but capturing an enemy borderland needs to be an increasingly uphill fight with holding the whole map a near impossibility.

I agree with this, the best way to deal with the current blowouts is to make it easier for weak teams to hold near their own lands, and harder for attackers to dominate enemy lands. Heres a few ways I can see to do it.

(1) Upgrade Tier locking:

Allowed upgrades should be capped depending on the location of the fort relative to your spawn. What at this means is the only team that is allowed Tier 3 upgrades in a garrison is the home borderland team. No one else can upgrade beyond tier2, that means no waypoints and no fortified walls in an enemy Garrison ever.

More specifically:
Home team :
Tier 3 in NW and NE towers, and Garrison.
Tier 2 in Bay and Hills (reinforced gates, but no Waypoints)
Tier 1 in SW and SE tower ( reinforced walls but not gates)

Left corner team:
Tier 3 in SW tower and Bay
Tier 2 in SE tower and NW tower
Tier 1 in Gar, NE tower, Hills

Right corner team:
Tier3 in SE tower and hills
Tier 2 in SW tower and NE tower
Tier 1 in Gar , NW tower and Bay.

This effectively caps the degree of domination possible in any BL, nobody will ever have more then one waypointed keep. You can still try to spawn camp a weak team, but it will be harder to lock down.

(2) Siege Cap adjustment

This can be applied in the same way the local area siege cap (Currently 5) can be adjusted depending on the area of the map. So according to the Tier of upgrades allowed in section (1) the local siege cap can also be reduced. Thus in T3 allowed home areas it remains 5, but in T2 restricted area it becomes cap of 3, and in T1 restricted area it reduces to 1.
This means when spawncamping an enemy garrison, you will be allowed to place a grand total of 1 cart when before you could place 5. Reducing overall gate coverage from 15-20 carts to more like 3-4 carts.

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These are anti-domination hard caps to encourage the weak sides to turn up and fight at least in their home areas while reducing the ability of strong teams to farm them with fortifications and siege.