Guild Wars 2

Hey Anet Team, let me try and explain my idea.

I play Guild Wars 2 mainly for its PvP features, but don’t really have the time to invest myself into tournament teams and such. So I usually play Hot-Join and Free Tournaments.

I was happy to hear that matchmaking would be implemented soon in Free Tournaments, helping casual players like me to enjoy the tournament system at their own pace/skill level.

But till then, casual players will still have to play in Hot-join to experience sPvP.
The fps-style server browser is fine, being able to enter or leave a match without restrictions is a brilliant idea, problem is, most matches will end up unbalanced in term of numbers of players in each team, especially since 5v5 servers were implemented, where each player counts much more than in 8v8.
Matchmaking unfortunatly is not enough when a 3v4 or 4v5 occurs in a round.
It is not pleasant to be in the outnumbered team, nor is it to easily crush it.
Your only solution at that point if you are looking for some kind of balanced challenge is to simply leave the server.

My idea is, why not implement a queue system? In addition to the server browser of course.
Players would have the option in the PvP interface to queue for a random server where room is available or has just been made.

The goal would be to more efficiently fill each and every server, instead of randomly joining a half full server. Thus making 5v5 servers actually 5v5 matches, and making sure it stays that way.
In addition it would reduce the number of active PvP servers and maybe (I’m no network engineer) lessen the server-side work.
It’s kinda the same idea than behind overflow servers when you think of it. Instead the overflow server would be the mists, and you would join a match when a player leaves a full server.

I’m aware this concept is already present in the “Play Now” button of the PvP interface.
Personnally, being of high rank (40+), the button would systematically send me to an empty server, the system being unable to find a server matching my rank, being so few of high ranked players.
So it’s kinda useless for me :/ , and I guess it would be the same for any player of a rank over 30.
Of course prioritizing rank matchmaking is important for balance in a match, but why send me to an empty server when there are so many half full ones?

This idea, plus an efficient tournament matchmaking server, would make sPvP much more enjoyable to casual players, and would be a big step towards making Guild Wars 2 a popular PvP game, and maybe further, a popular e-sport.

The next step would be an in-game vocal server, but I think I’m asking too much for now :p