WvW in GW2 has a ton of potential to have some epic battles. I have played MMORPGs since the time of Ultima Online. Here are the two major things I find wrong with WvW:
Balance: With the long needed fix to the match-making system in the pipe, as it got old playing the same servers over and over…and over again, it would be equally as nice to see a population balance in WvW. I understand this is easier said then done, but is achievable. If I log on and see we are playing a server that grossly “outmans” us, and will just zerg the map for the win; I just won’t play for that week (and see many others do this as well), or may hop on here and there for just a short period of time. When you look at casual players, and the time it takes to make any money in this game, it’s hard to justify the expense of upgrading anything in WvW when you know you simply have no way to hold it against the grossly superior numbers. Tactics only go so far when you are outnumbered 5 to 1, or worse. As far as the usefulness of the outmanned buff? It’s not. In no way does that help me as a player when facing far superior numbers. If you can code an icon to apply a buff that identifies you are greatly outnumbered; then you can easily tweak that code to give a slight power increase based on the population disparity. It shouldn’t be 1 for 1, just a percentage based buff to allow a fighting chance. Lets face it; if you get pitted against servers that are just going to steamroll you in WvW, you will stop doing it for that time frame. No need to waste the hard earned money. If you are a pvp based player, then you’re more likely to not play the game at all. Do you stop gaming for that time period? No, you look for something to fill the void. Not a good business model for retaining players, especially when a few tweaks could better balance this.
The second, is Notoriety. Why invest all this time in WvW? A few buffs, some points to make you stronger in WvW that take forever for a casual player to gain? again, I’m not hating even if it sounds like it. I put GW2 WvW on an entirely different level than WoWs mind-numbingly boring pvp. Wouldn’t it be great though if all that hard work, and expense paid off? There should be special WvW gear that is unique to those that are involved in the fight. When people upgrade keeps they get points, just as they do now for repairing walls, and taking points, etc. The rewards could be unique guild banners that only WvW can get you, unique guild siege weapons that progressively get “meaner” by design as they upgrade. Rewards for those that spend their money on the siege placed to help defend your hard earned ground. Again, it goes back to promoting more to chip in. If there is no reward; there will be less helping out.
For as young as GW2 is, and the effort they take listening to the players on what they would like to see, I think they have done an overall awesome job. Just balance WvW a little more; it’s so close to the perfect pvp battleground, yet still with it’s major flaws; a population balance mechanism, and some kind of reward based system for those that invest in the win for the server. Just some thoughts on changes I think a lot would like to see.