Guild Wars 2

The mega maps are something I’m not a fan of because it’s zerg city. If we made wvw that it would be meh imo (and don’t know how we could do it without raising map caps)

I sort of like fighting for a certain server(whatever that server’s name is at the time).

Shorter matches are an interesting idea for sure!

Just my 2c

DevonCarver.5370:

I’d say there is a pretty strong sentiment against the idea of collapsing all of WvW into 3 colors, rather than the current world set up. Which I agree with. I think world pride and association is an important part of the way that WvW works currently.

Here’s a possible version of shorter matchups that wouldn’t necessarily sacrifice the long term fight of a WvW matchup currently and wouldn’t involve merging everyone into one of three teams.

Matches last 8 hours, there are 21 matches in a week with the same 3 worlds, the winner of the week is the world that wins the most matches over the course of that time.

.
.

I’m curious what you all think of that? Does it retain the feeling of victory in WvW right now and solve problems or does it just introduce more issues without solving any core concerns?

I agree with you on the first part and personally would like to try the 8 hour match ups. I think it would be fun to at least give it a shot for a week and see how it goes.

I also agree with the others talking about adjusting the cost/supply for upgrades as well.

DevonCarver.5370:

I’d say there is a pretty strong sentiment against the idea of collapsing all of WvW into 3 colors, rather than the current world set up. Which I agree with. I think world pride and association is an important part of the way that WvW works currently.

Thank you. That retains GW2’s unique WvW offering and more importantly retains community.

I am concerned about the 8 hour matches. Given that the current system is based on the aggregate of an entire week, I believe that system does a better job of capturing the community’s overall contribution than a series of 8 hour matches. There are players who cannot play except on weekends, those that can only play on off hours, those that can only play on weeknights. Segregating those out impacts the overall community feel and could end up further measuring population coverage, which might exacerbate this (current) issue.

If a change needs to be made, please consider the suggestion for 2 resets per week. One mid-week, one after the weekend. Or consider a 24 or 48 hour match for a better representative / more inclusive measurement.

SniffyCube.6107:

Really what you guys should do is open transfers to lower tier servers and get some variety… after all, getting some variety in the match ups and some new faces would really keep people interested in the short term …it would allow some servers to get a bit of a boost and keep things interesting

it’s a good idea for a short term bandaid

As someone who has spent a lot of time on a lower tier (like you), I can tell you that there is much less talk/intent on players on higher tiers to EVER transfer to lower ones now than even 1 year ago. Opening free transfers might get a few small guild groups and some random PUGs, but nothing significant enough to fix any of the lower tier issues.

With the lowered WvW populations (even in T2-T4) people are just flat out terrified it would be a ghostland in T6-8.

That all said, I would be behind them implementing free transfers, any help is better than none down there.

Chris.3290:

The desire for shorter matches, comes from the problem that once a dominant server has momentum out of the weekend; you rarely see a reversal.

So the answer isn’t necessarily to shorten the week, but to change the momentum.

Proposal: “Against All Odds!” a buff that increases in intensity as the score gap increases

Functionality: At 25,000, 50,000, 75,000, and 100,000 points behind the matchup leader; a server gets a progressive buff that will slow down the leading server.
+3%/6%/9%/12% to siege power and structure HP (for the server(s) behind in score).

Consequences: This gives the server(s) that are behind a lot of incentive to keep pushing, knowing that their structures will be more defensible while giving them greater ability to capture enemy structures. This will cause winning servers to see the consequences of running up the score; and will actually make the upcoming Tournament A LOT more interesting.

There is another possible outcomes with that.
The obvious counter to that buff would be keeping your own PPT low until later in the week. Then the outcome of the match can be determined just from the last hours of the match. The stronger server can take better advantage of this buff by hanging back and using it to help them maintain an appropriate point gap behind the weaker servers. Then once there is only a certain amount of time(someone needs to work out the math for that) left ignore the buff and go full force because the gaps created with only that amount of time left can’t be closed due remaining time and tick intervals. For example a 25,000 gap would take around 9 hours at +695 for the 9 hours so the goal would be to end up with slightly less than a 25,000 lead with 9 hours left on the match and then just defend a single supply camp or something.

King Amadaeus.8619:

SniffyCube.6107:

Really what you guys should do is open transfers to lower tier servers and get some variety… after all, getting some variety in the match ups and some new faces would really keep people interested in the short term …it would allow some servers to get a bit of a boost and keep things interesting … add the current transfer fee and you can forget it

it’s a good idea for a short term bandaid

As someone who has spent a lot of time on a lower tier (like you), I can tell you that there is much less talk/intent on players on higher tiers to EVER transfer to lower ones now than even 1 year ago. Opening free transfers might get a few small guild groups and some random PUGs, but nothing significant enough to fix any of the lower tier issues.

With the lowered WvW populations (even in T2-T4) people are just flat out terrified it would be a ghostland in T6-8.

That all said, I would be behind them implementing free transfers, any help is better than none down there.

Totally agree. It would be a bandaid, but I would take a bandaid over nothing at this point. During NA some of the fights down here are absolutely awesome, but there’s no incentive for anyone to even try to come down here.

Khisanth.2948:

Chris.3290:

The desire for shorter matches, comes from the problem that once a dominant server has momentum out of the weekend; you rarely see a reversal.

So the answer isn’t necessarily to shorten the week, but to change the momentum.

Proposal: “Against All Odds!” a buff that increases in intensity as the score gap increases

Functionality: At 25,000, 50,000, 75,000, and 100,000 points behind the matchup leader; a server gets a progressive buff that will slow down the leading server.
+3%/6%/9%/12% to siege power and structure HP (for the server(s) behind in score).

Consequences: This gives the server(s) that are behind a lot of incentive to keep pushing, knowing that their structures will be more defensible while giving them greater ability to capture enemy structures. This will cause winning servers to see the consequences of running up the score; and will actually make the upcoming Tournament A LOT more interesting.

There is another possible outcomes with that.
The obvious counter to that buff would be keeping your own PPT low until later in the week. Then the outcome of the match can be determined just from the last hours of the match. The stronger server can take better advantage of this buff by hanging back and using it to help them maintain an appropriate point gap behind the weaker servers. Then once there is only a certain amount of time(someone needs to work out the math for that) left ignore the buff and go full force because the gaps created with only that amount of time left can’t be closed due remaining time and tick intervals. For example a 25,000 gap would take around 9 hours at +695 for the 9 hours so the goal would be to end up with slightly less than a 25,000 lead with 9 hours left on the match and then just defend a single supply camp or something.

That is assuming you have a matchup where someone can pull +695 for 9 hours which isn’t really the case very often.

Also, that strategy could REALLY backfire more times than not so it sounds like a good reason to implement the system.

Besides, if there is a mismatch; you almost never see a dominant server successfully dial back it’s efforts.

Right now in T2 there are a lot of people on SoS talking about dialing it back a bit after yesterday. The result : SoS+450 vs FA+120
That’s in spite of everyone saying we shouldn’t push so hard (risking moving up a tier) and people taking breaks and finishing PvE content.

90% of the problems are all momentum (mentally and in terms of upgraded structures) and this idea addresses both.

Make that 7 matches of 24 hours that resets 1 hour after the daily instead of 21 of 8 hours and you’ll have a working formula. You also need to bring EOTM on par with the other maps and give it count for PPT. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind a queue on EOTM.

But at this point any changes would be welcome.

DevonCarver.5370:

I’d say there is a pretty strong sentiment against the idea of collapsing all of WvW into 3 colors, rather than the current world set up. Which I agree with. I think world pride and association is an important part of the way that WvW works currently.

Here’s a possible version of shorter matchups that wouldn’t necessarily sacrifice the long term fight of a WvW matchup currently and wouldn’t involve merging everyone into one of three teams.

Matches last 8 hours, there are 21 matches in a week with the same 3 worlds, the winner of the week is the world that wins the most matches over the course of that time.

This solves some of the problems we see currently, namely the issues that can arise as matches get out of hand towards the end of the week. However, it would still give worlds with better coverage a leg up on their opponents. It also loses the feeling that you’ve had a long term battle for victory.

I’m curious what you all think of that? Does it retain the feeling of victory in WvW right now and solve problems or does it just introduce more issues without solving any core concerns?

I think it’s worth a try. Someone in this thread I think mentioned this as a way to mitigate coverage problems. So that if you break a 24-hour day into thirds, it will more fairly reward victories to the best coverage for that time of day. It’s still coverage victory, but I think it is BETTER than the current way.

I’m also not sure about how to blend the 8-hour victories into a weekly score without starting to use complicated math weighting based on trying to compensate for coverage problems…something more to think about. But again, if the winner is the server that won the most of the 21 weekly matches, I think it is flawed but BETTER than the current scoring method.

But thanks for thinking about it, Devon & team <3

Devon, I disagree about server pride. The lower tiers are becoming more barren as rewards encourage longer coverage – which in turn encourages transfers to higher populations/tiers. You need to break this cycle.

I’d like to suggest a hybrid approach; Encourage spreading out by having different ‘League Tiers’ promote different play styles. This probably works best in NA’s cluster; I’ve not seen the language setup for EU (probably would need to balance based on language as well).

Bronze (bottom 6/9 servers): Red v Blue v Green, as discussed in other posts. These servers are removed from the Gliko ranking calculations; this also allows some server consolidation later on, if needed 5+ years from now. Transfers here are free or at a special reduced cost; Transfers out are normal costs today, though a free/reduced ‘first transfer’ after this change would be nice. Depending on how the Tier works (perhaps a special cluster), this would also allow EU and NA servers to compete/guest together in future.

Silver (middle 6/9 servers): WvW as we have it today. Perhaps implement overflow (only) to EB, since its usually the most populated/contested map (reduce PPT per map if implemented).

Gold (top 6/9 servers): PPT is king here, encourage and enforce it. Examples: 50-75% reduction in karma, remove Bloodlust, remove golem siege deployment, remove ability for players to attack structures (siege only), +25% MF to player loot bags, -25% MF to NPC loot. These changes should also encourage GvG play, both open field and overall map fighting.

Yes, there’s a lot of work to this kind of idea. But it gives players in most play styles something to excel at.

DevonCarver.5370:

…Here’s a possible version of shorter matchups that wouldn’t necessarily sacrifice the long term fight of a WvW matchup currently and wouldn’t involve merging everyone into one of three teams.

Matches last 8 hours, there are 21 matches in a week with the same 3 worlds, the winner of the week is the world that wins the most matches over the course of that time.

This solves some of the problems we see currently, namely the issues that can arise as matches get out of hand towards the end of the week. However, it would still give worlds with better coverage a leg up on their opponents. It also loses the feeling that you’ve had a long term battle for victory.

I’m curious what you all think of that? Does it retain the feeling of victory in WvW right now and solve problems or does it just introduce more issues without solving any core concerns?

I think this is approaching the problem from the wrong direction and, as such, won’t solve anything. It will merely take the problem that exists now (imbalanced server populations and imbalanced coverage) and compress it into 8 hour long matches instead of 1 week long matches. With this change, instead of having a blowout once in the week, it’ll happen 21 times; oh, joy!

What’s more is, population and coverage imbalances are a symptom of the problem and not the problem itself. The true issue is game fundamentals that disproportionately favor and reward zerging and PvDoor to the exclusion of all else as the single most effective tactic for success; whether that be karma training or earning PPT.

As zerging and PvDoor are the most effective tactics, then many players naturally server-hop and gravitate towards high population servers in an effort to benefit the most (benefit here being defined as in-game loot and rewards).

We can QQ all we want about what a mistake it was to allow free transfers or any consequence-less transfers at all for that matter (for WvWvW purposes; not PvE), leading to the fiasco of stacked servers; but that’s water under the bridge. Now is the time for solutions; unfortunately, 8 hour long matches aren’t one of them.

Until there are equally rewarding in-game incentives and mechanics in place (versus intangible personal honor and/or server pride) for not zering and not PvDooring, the problem will persist and any attempt to fix it without addressing this core issue will ultimately fail.

There’ve been plenty of suggestions on the forums for how to address this:

• Remove AoE caps,

• No reward for capturing undefended objectives other than their contribution to the PPT,

• Divide rewards by the number of players participating in a capture event; more players = less individual rewards (change the current broken low risk/high reward paradigm that is zerging into the low risk/low reward paradigm that it should be),

• Make gates immune to damage from player skills once they’ve been sufficiently upgraded,

• Points are earned from an objective only on the successful completion of a defense event; no longer will camps, towers, forts, keeps, and Stonemist Castle earn PPT while sitting idle.
  PPT then becomes a measure of how successful a server is in attacking their opposition or defending against said attacks rather than who can grossly outnumber their opposition. A server that’s outnumbered is still likely to lose their fortifications to a zerg; but they will have earned considerable points while doing so if they put up a stalwart defense.
  If this were implemented in conjunction with a variation of the EotM scoring system wherein points are awarded on capture of an objective (but only for actively defended objectives), then the points system becomes a more accurate reflection of the actual combat between the servers rather than which server is better at mustering a zerg ball to play PvDoor.

• Chokepoints,

• Capturing objectives requires multiple coordinated and sustained actions/triggers to make an NPC lord vulnerable rather than simply balling up on the capture pad and DPS-ing down the lord

That’s just some of the suggestions. I’m not saying they’re all good or without their own unintended consequences. However, they attempt to address the core issue rather than the symptoms. As such, they represent a genuine attempt at solving the problem rather than avoiding it, ignoring it, or not even realizing where the problem lies.

No matter how many ways you slice it – 4 hour matches, 8 hour matches, 24 hour matches, 1 week matches, 1 month matches, etc. – the problem isn’t the time frame. The problem is a game mode rewarding a single tactic to the near-exclusion of all else. Until that is directly addressed, no amount of shuffling around the length of the matches will make any difference.

DevonCarver.5370:

I’d say there is a pretty strong sentiment against the idea of collapsing all of WvW into 3 colors, rather than the current world set up. Which I agree with. I think world pride and association is an important part of the way that WvW works currently.

Here’s a possible version of shorter matchups that wouldn’t necessarily sacrifice the long term fight of a WvW matchup currently and wouldn’t involve merging everyone into one of three teams.

Matches last 8 hours, there are 21 matches in a week with the same 3 worlds, the winner of the week is the world that wins the most matches over the course of that time.

This solves some of the problems we see currently, namely the issues that can arise as matches get out of hand towards the end of the week. However, it would still give worlds with better coverage a leg up on their opponents. It also loses the feeling that you’ve had a long term battle for victory.

I’m curious what you all think of that? Does it retain the feeling of victory in WvW right now and solve problems or does it just introduce more issues without solving any core concerns?

Keep in mind that from another perspective, a lot of this ‘world pride’ stuff goes out the window within two weeks when your server is losing. It’s easy to say that when you’re sitting on JQ or BG, but the communities in lower tiers have been trashed over and over again due to bandwagoning, so any solution involving the present 24 NA and 27 EU servers is going to have to figure out what to do with all the dead servers.

You could merge them perhaps, and leave the servers that have no problems yet as they are. That may be kicking the can down the road, though – nothing but the WvW map population caps is going to affect bandwagoning in the current state of affairs.

One of the principal draws to EotM is that, for the players on servers whose WvW populations have imploded, it can bring them back to WvW as it used to be (sort of). As such I don’t think you should entirely discount grouping servers together in WvW, but don’t do it every week.

That’s something I feel could make WvW more interesting – week-to-week rotations of game format. You mention 21 matches of 8h (think about fort upgrades by the way) – I say one week of that, next week of the one long match.

goldenwing.8473:

DevonCarver.5370:

I’d say there is a pretty strong sentiment against the idea of collapsing all of WvW into 3 colors, rather than the current world set up. Which I agree with. I think world pride and association is an important part of the way that WvW works currently.

Thank you. That retains GW2’s unique WvW offering and more importantly retains community.

I am concerned about the 8 hour matches. Given that the current system is based on the aggregate of an entire week, I believe that system does a better job of capturing the community’s overall contribution than a series of 8 hour matches. There are players who cannot play except on weekends, those that can only play on off hours, those that can only play on weeknights. Segregating those out impacts the overall community feel and could end up further measuring population coverage, which might exacerbate this (current) issue.

If a change needs to be made, please consider the suggestion for 2 resets per week. One mid-week, one after the weekend. Or consider a 24 or 48 hour match for a better representative / more inclusive measurement.

Agreed, 8hr matches seems a bit extreme and would require a lot of changes to the current WvW format to work well so I think it would be a lot easier and more useful to test the effects of shorter matches by maybe starting with something like 2 per week. Friday/Monday split mentioned before seems reasonable and might actually help make the Glicko ratings more dynamic. There are some 3rd place worlds in current match-ups who could work their kitten off once in awhile to actually take gold on the Weekend Wars.

Thank you for the assurance Devon that your feel world pride is important to the way WvW works but I just have to point out that it seems to thrive without any help from ANET which just goes to show how much stronger it could be if used to tie things together and with the right incentives.

DevonCarver.5370:

I’d say there is a pretty strong sentiment against the idea of collapsing all of WvW into 3 colors, rather than the current world set up. Which I agree with. I think world pride and association is an important part of the way that WvW works currently.

Here’s a possible version of shorter matchups that wouldn’t necessarily sacrifice the long term fight of a WvW matchup currently and wouldn’t involve merging everyone into one of three teams.

Matches last 8 hours, there are 21 matches in a week with the same 3 worlds, the winner of the week is the world that wins the most matches over the course of that time.

This solves some of the problems we see currently, namely the issues that can arise as matches get out of hand towards the end of the week. However, it would still give worlds with better coverage a leg up on their opponents. It also loses the feeling that you’ve had a long term battle for victory.

I’m curious what you all think of that? Does it retain the feeling of victory in WvW right now and solve problems or does it just introduce more issues without solving any core concerns?

it looks to me that at the core of this idea youre looking for a way to break up the unstoppable momentum a server can accrue by completely dominating a certain time zone or a certain time of week. thats a good goal.

one of the paradigms that makes other pvp games/modes/types fun is the potential for comebacks. comebacks are practically nonexistent in wvw. this could potentially allow, for example, a server to notice theyre doing poorly by monday and step up their game because they still have the potential to win overall. our current mentality is closer to… well if were down by 15k+ at any point… give up. we need incentives to not give up.

however, this idea wouldnt work without restructuring the upgrade system (assuming upgrades are reset each 8 hours). perhaps you could delete upgrades on “enemy” territory, but keep what youve invested in “your” corner of eb + sm + home bl. this gives you incentive to defend your own stuff but less motivation to snowball a series of matches by holding “enemy” territory.

With the EotM format and adding some variety week-to-week as mentioned above, here’s the basics of what I’d like to see.

Proposal Overview
A rotation, week-to-week, of three different game modes that emphasise different strategies – short-term point-scoring, long-term endurance, and long-term large-scale campaign.

Goal
To provide more variety in WvW settings without further fracturing the playerbase, through different game modes with facets that appeal to all existing players. Existing servers retain their identity, playing as themselves in two out of three proposed settings.

Setting Outlines
Point-based
As suggested by Devon above, this would award points based on victories in 21 8-hour matches. Upgrade costs and their build times would be reduced substantially, but the maps would otherwise be much the same as present-day WvW in design. There should be a new pool of borderland maps (and possibly EB).

Endurance
In duration, this would be the same as WvW is now. However, maps would be configured with additional walls that may be upgraded to impede enemy movement. No upgrades on walls, towers, or forts (except waypoints) are lost on capture – instead, the conqueror must rebuild the walls and doors with their own supply.

Campaign
Bringing the EotM-style colour-grouped servers into a large world-map to accommodate the 8- or 9-fold player caps, this would see three factions – Orr, Kryta and Ascalon – fight for dominance of Tyria during the last Guild War. More freedom of movement than the Endurance setting above, but invading player caps are reduced to raiding parties, perhaps 20-30, beyond the front-line maps.

Problems
The development time for the Campaign setting would be huge. I don’t deny it’s an aspirational thing, but how cool would it be to fight in the Guild Wars in historical Tyria?

Aside from that, the goal of this proposal is to avoid alienating players during any of the three weeks, so suggestions of what may be distasteful for some are welcome.

Have a match up of 8h how can solve the blob train and the desert field? (without take in consideration the upgrade of the structures)
When I played in a higher population server, in the evening I’ve waited even 1h in queue and during the rematch was impossible get inside.

By the way, even with 8h, if a server with a high WvW population meet a server with a low WvW population like now, what will happen? that the blob train will last 8h before restart again?
What will do the WvW guilds of the high populated server? will face a desert field for 8h instead for a week? that in one of the 21 matches maybe the will have a balance match? -_-"

I thought the problem was the balance, I can’t see how a short matchup can solve it.

There are just 3 pages of comments written by: hardcore WvW players, semihardcore WvW players and casual WvW players against hundred and hundred of players out there.
We talking about identity of the server, how we can be sure that is what everyone think? We are neither the 10%

Since the end of this game I moved from Surmia, Vabbi, Blacktide, Surmia, Piken, FSP and played in three differents WvW guilds and this sadly will continue all the time we will have unbalanced matches, that means especially desert server, so has did my previous guilds so has did a lot of other WvW guilds.

I’m sorry but until now I don’t read anything that solve the desert server and blob server, except the server split in red, blue and green when you join the WvW, at least in this way we will have equal numbers, as much as possible.

If we switch to a cycle of 8 h for matches then all building sites for burning oil, cannons and mortar should be unlocked as they are on EOTM.

As mentioned before a shorter time for the matches will not solve the fundamental problem of coverage and population.

Twinny.9304:

Thats probably the main thing i hate about EoTM’s is that while I’m there I lose my servers identity.

That’s something I experienced too. Don’t get me wrong I met some great people in the EotM but it was a passing moment.

Community for me is a HUGE part of what makes WvW is what it is. People I associate with who aren’t friends per se but I know them, understand them and want to play WvW along side them.

Chris.3290:

The desire for shorter matches, comes from the problem that once a dominant server has momentum out of the weekend; you rarely see a reversal.

So the answer isn’t necessarily to shorten the week, but to change the momentum.

Proposal: “Against All Odds!” a buff that increases in intensity as the score gap increases

Functionality: At 25,000, 50,000, 75,000, and 100,000 points behind the matchup leader; a server gets a progressive buff that will slow down the leading server.
+3%/6%/9%/12% to siege power and structure HP (for the server(s) behind in score).

Consequences: This gives the server(s) that are behind a lot of incentive to keep pushing, knowing that their structures will be more defensible while giving them greater ability to capture enemy structures. This will cause winning servers to see the consequences of running up the score; and will actually make the upcoming Tournament A LOT more interesting.

I like this idea.

Deli.1302:

Chris.3290:

The desire for shorter matches, comes from the problem that once a dominant server has momentum out of the weekend; you rarely see a reversal.

So the answer isn’t necessarily to shorten the week, but to change the momentum.

Proposal: “Against All Odds!” a buff that increases in intensity as the score gap increases

Functionality: At 25,000, 50,000, 75,000, and 100,000 points behind the matchup leader; a server gets a progressive buff that will slow down the leading server.
+3%/6%/9%/12% to siege power and structure HP (for the server(s) behind in score).

Consequences: This gives the server(s) that are behind a lot of incentive to keep pushing, knowing that their structures will be more defensible while giving them greater ability to capture enemy structures. This will cause winning servers to see the consequences of running up the score; and will actually make the upcoming Tournament A LOT more interesting.

I like this idea.

One of the warfronts (PvP battleground) in Rift kinda sorta did something similar. It had a capture-the-flag format with three flags representing a win, except that enemy flags could be recaptured for your side. The mechanism was totally different, of course, but the principle was the same … no matter how far behind you were throughout the match you always had a chance to pull out a win at the very end. It was the most exciting warfront they had and most players loved it.

If there was some way for an outmanned server in WvW to catch up at the end I think it would have huge benefits, but only if the matches were shortened to something like the eight hours Devon suggested (or even less) … it wouldn’t make any sense to play for for 168 hours knowing that you could lose it all at the end.

DevonCarver.5370:

I’d say there is a pretty strong sentiment against the idea of collapsing all of WvW into 3 colors, rather than the current world set up. Which I agree with. I think world pride and association is an important part of the way that WvW works currently.

Here’s a possible version of shorter matchups that wouldn’t necessarily sacrifice the long term fight of a WvW matchup currently and wouldn’t involve merging everyone into one of three teams.

Matches last 8 hours, there are 21 matches in a week with the same 3 worlds, the winner of the week is the world that wins the most matches over the course of that time.

This solves some of the problems we see currently, namely the issues that can arise as matches get out of hand towards the end of the week. However, it would still give worlds with better coverage a leg up on their opponents. It also loses the feeling that you’ve had a long term battle for victory.

I’m curious what you all think of that? Does it retain the feeling of victory in WvW right now and solve problems or does it just introduce more issues without solving any core concerns?

I would actually love to see the current world/server system gone entirely (not just in WvW either) but that would probably be unpopular and possibly technically problematic.

About the shorter matchups. I think 8 hours is far too short, I’d love the 1-2 day matches we had at the very start of the game to return occasionally though (by which I mean every 3-4 weeks have a week that’s made up of 1 and 2 day matches).

DevonCarver.5370:

I’d say there is a pretty strong sentiment against the idea of collapsing all of WvW into 3 colors, rather than the current world set up. Which I agree with. I think world pride and association is an important part of the way that WvW works currently.

Players need something to play for and colours certainly are not it but as others have said at this point in the games development server pride has gone by the wayside, just ask SOR.

DevonCarver.5370:

Here’s a possible version of shorter matchups that wouldn’t necessarily sacrifice the long term fight of a WvW matchup currently and wouldn’t involve merging everyone into one of three teams.

Matches last 8 hours, there are 21 matches in a week with the same 3 worlds, the winner of the week is the world that wins the most matches over the course of that time.

On face value I kinda like the idea, although 8 hours does seem a bit short. Would need more discussion.

DevonCarver.5370:

I’d say there is a pretty strong sentiment against the idea of collapsing all of WvW into 3 colors, rather than the current world set up. Which I agree with. I think world pride and association is an important part of the way that WvW works currently.

Here’s a possible version of shorter matchups that wouldn’t necessarily sacrifice the long term fight of a WvW matchup currently and wouldn’t involve merging everyone into one of three teams.

Matches last 8 hours, there are 21 matches in a week with the same 3 worlds, the winner of the week is the world that wins the most matches over the course of that time.

This solves some of the problems we see currently, namely the issues that can arise as matches get out of hand towards the end of the week. However, it would still give worlds with better coverage a leg up on their opponents. It also loses the feeling that you’ve had a long term battle for victory.

I’m curious what you all think of that? Does it retain the feeling of victory in WvW right now and solve problems or does it just introduce more issues without solving any core concerns?

I agree with your sentiment.

I also think the eight hour scoring matches can work, with some changes.
make it be rounds, and days.
theres 3 rounds in a day, in 8 hour bursts, all upgrades will last till the end of the day.
This way upgrades matter, but you wont get the benefit of an upgrade for the whole week.
so a round is basically a fresh new score, but not new upgrades, every day starts fresh, the advantage i think here is that it wont matter how badly you lose a round

The potential of a team with no overnight to win is much stronger.

I think the days is better because it will be easier to understand at a glance, and it makes it clear that things are only completely reset once per day, though the scoring blocks change 3 times.

It may diminish the long term feeling of the stuff you own, but honestly i have rarely seem long term owned items aside from your home garrison. Perhaps you can make upgrades on garrisons stay.

grasshopper.8539:

---

Server wvw balance——

Proposal Overview
-Find a way to Fix server wvw imbalance by opening FREE server transfers to lower ranked servers

Goal of proposal
-Encourage players and guilds to move to lower rank server for more balanced and competitive wvw matchups

Proposal Functionality
-After the upcoming WvW tournament open free server transfers to lower ranked servers till a month before the next wvw tournament. Maybe repeat this for a few tournament seasons.

Associated Risk
-After the 2nd tournament season server, communities and leadership would need to look at all servers and what servers need more coverage to be more balanced and competitive.

-Players and guilds wiling to move to lower ranked servers

-GW2 might only have the wvw population for 9-12 servers to be balanced maybe more

I know this is not about EOTM but I think this is a really important topic.
Any thoughts?

i have to express my disappointment in the cdi topic as well. i dont think eotm deals with major fundamental issues, but it successfully treats some symptoms. im glad the team is at least willing to entertain ideas and comments about what we perceive as flaws.

that said… i dont think free transfers are the correct solution. we have a precedent. the bandwagoning of kaineng. if there is no tax levied, nothing at stake, theres no reason to build a community and work together. because hey, if you dont like it, just leave. no consequences.

if transfers are conditionally incentivized, people will go into their new server with a more positive attitude, theyll be more inclined to want to make things work out. for example, pay back the gem cost over the next 8 matches, forfeit upon transferring again.

we of the low tiers dont care to get carried by arrogant kittenbags who came to escape an old hellhole instead of to pioneer new frontiers.

Couldnt you combine 3 servers each into like a “super server” (alliance) that would help solve population problems if you combined them smartly (No combining all T1 into one server).

Say ET + DB+ JQ or AR+YB+TC ( I just threw some random servers in, idk their current strengths, i left the game in December.)

It would also allow the Alliances to still have a sense of community (Not at first after it happens of course, but over time most people would get used to each other and get to know each other). a lot of people would complain for the sake of complaining at first.

So it would be A vs A Which would really be the 3 servers that make up each alliance vs the 3 other servers. ( This solves variety problems and allows for alliance pride, got EOTM for overflows).

24 servers / 3 = 8 alliances = AvA
You could make one of the borderlands neutral for either side to try and claim at reset.

Of course you would have to change somethings around map wise (third side in EB, maybe make it neutral too) and maybe introduce another map.

Each match would last 12 or 24 hours.

It would be a lot of work so I dont see it all happening.

Deli.1302:

Chris.3290:

The desire for shorter matches, comes from the problem that once a dominant server has momentum out of the weekend; you rarely see a reversal.

So the answer isn’t necessarily to shorten the week, but to change the momentum.

Proposal: “Against All Odds!” a buff that increases in intensity as the score gap increases

Functionality: At 25,000, 50,000, 75,000, and 100,000 points behind the matchup leader; a server gets a progressive buff that will slow down the leading server.
+3%/6%/9%/12% to siege power and structure HP (for the server(s) behind in score).

Consequences: This gives the server(s) that are behind a lot of incentive to keep pushing, knowing that their structures will be more defensible while giving them greater ability to capture enemy structures. This will cause winning servers to see the consequences of running up the score; and will actually make the upcoming Tournament A LOT more interesting.

I like this idea.

I don’t like it. It doesn’t sound as a solution, but like more a temporary solution waiting for something better.

We already experimented the buff on on health and has been dropped.
+25.000 does not mean necessary that the server doesn’t has numbers, potentially means that the wvw guilds on the other server are not so good, so why give them a buff?

Many time we lost the match even for 70.000 points, but we was satisfied ’cause the numbers on the battlefield was good and the fight as well, we would not have been happy to fight with extra buffs.

Moreover on the highest positions, there are still server that worked hard to get a night coverage, this system mess up their effort and the effort of the night guilds.
If a server is +100.000 even we that buff, will not be able to do so much, probably means that they don’t have numbers, they will be unable to defend all the objects and I don’t think that buffs of such kind are enough to stop a blob of 70 players hitting a tower with inside 30 players.

Scoring on capture feed the karma trains. I think scoring on kill is a better idea. I know i know. But capturing the middle points and finish an enemy in a big fight is too much. 1 point for every kill is a better idea.
More open field fights!
Btw i think the idea of not upgradeable things is great. Some auto upgrade thing could be good. Or towers upgrade automaticly up or down if you capture the supplys and sentrys around them.
1 more thing: pls do something against the massive siege deffense. The AC line of sight was a GREAT first step!

clint.5681:

Couldnt you combine 3 servers each into like a “super server” (alliance) that would help solve population problems if you combined them smartly (No combining all T1 into one server).

Say ET + DB+ JQ AR+YB+TC

This can sound interesting, tell me if I got it.

Instead have:

1 – Seafarer’s Rest VS Elona Reach VS Vizunah Square
2 – Jade Sea VS Baruch Bay VS Kodash
3 – Riverside VS Aurora Glade VS Piken Square

For example automatically at the end of the week or by a still not clear vote of the servers is created an alliance between three servers. This alliance provide a pool of a larger number of players to have something like:

Square of Vizunah Reach VS Kodash Bay of Jade VS Riverglade Square

I think this will not solve the balance problem, what happen if the alliance Riverglade Square has less players in WvW than the others two alliances?

Niadon.9270:

clint.5681:

Couldnt you combine 3 servers each into like a “super server” (alliance) that would help solve population problems if you combined them smartly (No combining all T1 into one server).

Say ET + DB+ JQ AR+YB+TC

This can sound interesting, tell me if I got it.

Instead have:

1 – Seafarer’s Rest VS Elona Reach VS Vizunah Square
2 – Jade Sea VS Baruch Bay VS Kodash
3 – Riverside VS Aurora Glade VS Piken Square

For example automatically at the end of the week or by a still not clear vote of the servers is created an alliance between three servers. This alliance provide a pool of a larger number of players to have something like:

Square of Vizunah Reach VS Kodash Bay of Jade VS Riverglade Square

I think this will not solve the balance problem, what happen if the alliance Riverglade Square has less players in WvW than the others two alliances?

no, he was pairing specifically different tier servers. so you dont have t1 vs t2 vs t3, which would obviously result in t1 blowing out the match cuz of the coverage aspect of population imbalance.

insanemaniac.2456:

Niadon.9270:

clint.5681:

Couldnt you combine 3 servers each into like a “super server” (alliance) that would help solve population problems if you combined them smartly (No combining all T1 into one server).

Say ET + DB+ JQ AR+YB+TC

This can sound interesting, tell me if I got it.

Instead have:

1 – Seafarer’s Rest VS Elona Reach VS Vizunah Square
2 – Jade Sea VS Baruch Bay VS Kodash
3 – Riverside VS Aurora Glade VS Piken Square

For example automatically at the end of the week or by a still not clear vote of the servers is created an alliance between three servers. This alliance provide a pool of a larger number of players to have something like:

Square of Vizunah Reach VS Kodash Bay of Jade VS Riverglade Square

I think this will not solve the balance problem, what happen if the alliance Riverglade Square has less players in WvW than the others two alliances?

no, he was pairing specifically different tier servers. so you dont have t1 vs t2 vs t3, which would obviously result in t1 blowing out the match cuz of the coverage aspect of population imbalance.

But even if you pairing different tier servers, how the system can calculate a balance number, is just like now but on large scale.
If you put together Seafare, Augury and Vabbi against Vizuna, Gunnars, Whiteside how you can determinate a balance number better than an evaluation in real time?

Niadon.9270:

insanemaniac.2456:

Niadon.9270:

clint.5681:

Couldnt you combine 3 servers each into like a “super server” (alliance) that would help solve population problems if you combined them smartly (No combining all T1 into one server).

Say ET + DB+ JQ AR+YB+TC

This can sound interesting, tell me if I got it.

Instead have:

1 – Seafarer’s Rest VS Elona Reach VS Vizunah Square
2 – Jade Sea VS Baruch Bay VS Kodash
3 – Riverside VS Aurora Glade VS Piken Square

For example automatically at the end of the week or by a still not clear vote of the servers is created an alliance between three servers. This alliance provide a pool of a larger number of players to have something like:

Square of Vizunah Reach VS Kodash Bay of Jade VS Riverglade Square

I think this will not solve the balance problem, what happen if the alliance Riverglade Square has less players in WvW than the others two alliances?

no, he was pairing specifically different tier servers. so you dont have t1 vs t2 vs t3, which would obviously result in t1 blowing out the match cuz of the coverage aspect of population imbalance.

But even if you pairing different tier servers, how the system can calculate a balance number, is just like now but on large scale.
If you put together Seafare, Augury and Vabbi against Vizuna, Gunnars, Whiteside how you can determinate a balance number better than an evaluation in real time?

The wvw team would pick the three servers to put together, not a system. I was talking about either a permanent alliance or a (more realistically since servers and populations changed) a semi permanent (say like 6 months) alliance.

There would be A vs A battles, not three different alliances (that seems like way too many people for the servers and size of maps we have).

I dont know much about EU wvw (Imin NA) but you would probably want to merge a high + medium + low tier.

But in NA you could probably get away with 2 low tier and one t1/t2 since the population on t1 is out of kittening control these days.

I honestly not sure if what I said would work for EU or at all. At the end of the day the wvw needs to be separated from the pve servers like people have suggested in the past. Na could probably use a server merger as well.

clint.5681:

The wvw team would pick the three servers to put together, not a system. I was talking about either a permanent alliance or a (more realistically since servers and populations changed) a semi permanent (say like 6 months) alliance.

There would be A vs A battles, not three different alliances (that seems like way too many people for the servers and size of maps we have).

I dont know much about EU wvw (Imin NA) but you would probably want to merge a high + medium + low tier.

But in NA you could probably get away with 2 low tier and one t1/t2 since the population on t1 is out of kittening control these days.

Mate, call me i***t but still I miss how it should guarantee a good balance such the splitting system in red, green and blue team.
Even if you put together the servers in that way, as you go down in the server rankings the number of players per WvW decreases making it more difficult the combination.
How you would make the combinations? How you would determinate which is the highest medium WvW populate server and which is the highest or the lowest WvW populate server?
Going ahead in the combinations you would finish to have unbalanced alliances, ’cause not all the T1 servers have the same WvW population, moreover 6 months I think is a too long time and other games have showed that 1 faction VS 1 faction is not a big deal.
Talking about permanent and semi permanent alliances, if I learned something playing WvW with other guilds, is that due the lack of tease contents in WvW, the WvW player is costantly looking for something new, especially if he can face new guilds. With this system he would not be able anymore to face for 6 months the guilds of two servers.

DevonCarver.5370:

I’d say there is a pretty strong sentiment against the idea of collapsing all of WvW into 3 colors, rather than the current world set up. Which I agree with. I think world pride and association is an important part of the way that WvW works currently.

Here’s a possible version of shorter matchups that wouldn’t necessarily sacrifice the long term fight of a WvW matchup currently and wouldn’t involve merging everyone into one of three teams.

Matches last 8 hours, there are 21 matches in a week with the same 3 worlds, the winner of the week is the world that wins the most matches over the course of that time.

This solves some of the problems we see currently, namely the issues that can arise as matches get out of hand towards the end of the week.

Merging all servers to colors might function sort of okay in NA, but here in EU it won’t work well, because we have so many different languages. I am glad that Arenanet developers understand that server pride (but also guild pride) are important aspects of this game. I hope to see more actions from the devs to strengthen the community side of the game, which is sadly completely lacking from EotM.

Actually the proposed 8 hour system would not solve any of the problems and would in many cases lead to the situation at the last matches are completely irrelevant to all servers!

Here is a realistic example:
6 days behind in a weekly matchup, 1 day remaining
Server A has 10 wins out of the 8-hour matches
Server B has 6 wins
Server C has 2 wins
Now the last 3 matches (3 × 8 = 24 hours) don’t matter at all. Even if A would completely stop playing it would still win and C cannot even end up 2nd no matter what. With current system it is still possible to turn the tide even if the point difference is 30k points before the last day and every server point counts.

I think 8 hour match up and scoring based on how many such 8 h strips you win during the week would be worse than the current scoring system. It would just further complicate the system and alleviate the coverage differences. Assume one server would have slightly better coverage at one of those 8 hour slots (let’s say night time), it would consistently give it wins, because 7 points out of the potential 3*7 = 21 points is a lot. And if you already leading by lots of points during your 8 h matchup, why to play more points if just few hours remain, you already won that.

8 hour match up would lead to unnecessary amount of resets and WvWvW downtime. Upgrading keeps takes a long time and it is also costly. With 8 hour match ups there would be much less sense to upgrade anything. This would even further push WvWvW into a game of flipping stuff, instead of defending and planning long-term.

*We could however experiment 24 hour reset time, but this should be experimented for a week or two before the leagues. *

I see one major advantage in faster 24h reset time: imagine if the colors are always rotated e.g. clockwise: red—> blue —> green --> red again, then players who are aiming for 100% world completion have less time to wait to get the different colors. EotM and EB map design are not symmetric and it has been argued that some colors are better than others. Now with the clockwise color rotation every server would play roughly equal amount time each color, making it more fair. Every server would play roughly 10 times green, blue and red every month. What do you think of the faster color rotation?

Why don’t you use the leagues to experiment with shorter match-ups?

How about the next league be a 28h or 52h weekend tournament?
The tournament match starts friday normal reset time and runs for 28h (till Sa evening) or 52h (till sunday evening). At that time the tournament score is taken (but the match is not stopped, but) then the match continues over the week as a normal ranking match (for after tournament match-making).

Maybe this can be even made a permanent thing if successful. My expectation would be that even lower WvW-populated server would be able to compete in a weekend-only tournament.

Midius.6501:

Coloured Teams like Eotm in WvW

In a nutshell this is a very bad Idea, because it will kill all server communitys in an instance.

One of the big archievements of WvW was the server-communitys it created. The more or less organized public zergs is what keeps WvW alive and enables everybody to join WvW and NOT be alone like in sPvP and this nearly whenever you want, this is nothing a Guild can archieve.
In NA this might be possible to build up very fluid systems for organizing groups and zergs, but what about the EU, the language differences will make this impossible.

All tactics and long time projects like upgrading a keep/tower will be lost due to the Karmatrain we will get instead, because there is not enough communication for more.

The only winner of this are Hardcore-WvW Guilds that have even more Karmatrains to farm.
You want “balanced” matches with karmatrains and no tactics besides 1,1,1,1,1,1 join EOTM, but don’t make WvW a second EotM, one is already enough.

greetz

NOTE:
A heavy decrease in the matchup time will have a similar effect. It will also create more Karmatrain and less real combat.

^ This bazillion times.

I was thrilled when I heard about the new map and I had really high hopes for it. Maybe we will get a small scale paradise! Maybe we can finally get away from the blobs, PPT and we won’t have to worry about getting hit by siege! But boy was I wrong. It’s the total opposite. I really like the map design, the chocke points, the terrain and the fact there are people from other servers too but.. That’s about it. The small fights are very few and far between due the monoblobs rolling. In some match ups the karmatrains in BLs are pretty insane already, turning the normal matchups into Eotm vol. 2 would just destroy wubwub completely.

Scaling and NPCs – This is already increasingly being used in PvE events to discourage map blobbing – events tend to fail if everyone goes for the same objective, and teamwork is rewarded by splitting up forces and encouraging communication. There is no reason why a similar concept cannot apply to WvW. In WvW, the best way to take an objective is to send as many people as possible towards the same place. When entire map queues are in the same fight, everything that makes combat in GW2 fun loses its meaning. If a server insists on sending every single person on the map to a single objective, they have given up on tactics and should be penalized by having a tough time.

Chokes and verticality – Could be a good change, but in moderation. Large-scale, open-field combat definitely has its place in the current WvW paradigm and should be allowed to thrive. At the same time, smaller groups could use the help of such terrain to more easily maneuver around map blobs. The borderlands in particular are generally very open and could use a little more intricacy in map design. Mobility, clever use of map design and creative play should be encouraged and rewarded.

Shorter match timing – 8h matches will encourage further timezone stacking and take out a lot of the excitement of comebacks. Most servers in the upper tiers have clear strengths and weaknesses in timezones, and learning these characteristics and putting them into week-long strategies with cross-timezone coordination within servers is a big part of the current metagame. Shortening in general may be an idea worth exploring, but 8h is much too short. 24h is the minimum that would make any sense at all and even that feels too short to me.

More on blob gameplay – It cannot be overstated how the blob mentality is hurting WvW. Removing the ability to hard-resurrect fully dead players while still in combat would be a decent start – when a blob train can instantly rez anybody that goes down at all, there’s very very little an outnumbered force can do. When more and more people realize that numbers are all that matters, all the problems associated with WvW (server stacking, population attrition…) start to arise. Nothing about blob gameplay is fun in the slightest for anybody involved, but people are drawn to it because it is the best way to take objectives and gain points and rewards. Your game is screwed when people are encouraged to play it in the most boring way possible.

Deniara Devious.3948:

DevonCarver.5370:

I’d say there is a pretty strong sentiment against the idea of collapsing all of WvW into 3 colors, rather than the current world set up. Which I agree with. I think world pride and association is an important part of the way that WvW works currently.

Here’s a possible version of shorter matchups that wouldn’t necessarily sacrifice the long term fight of a WvW matchup currently and wouldn’t involve merging everyone into one of three teams.

Matches last 8 hours, there are 21 matches in a week with the same 3 worlds, the winner of the week is the world that wins the most matches over the course of that time.

This solves some of the problems we see currently, namely the issues that can arise as matches get out of hand towards the end of the week.

Merging all servers to colors might function sort of okay in NA, but here in EU it won’t work well, because we have so many different languages. I am glad that Arenanet developers understand that server pride (but also guild pride) are important aspects of this game.

Many different languages? 3…english, german and spanish and we are all EU citizens, this means that at least if you are not a +50y at bit of english to communicate with the other europeans should be in your skills…
Then seriously, all the wvw guilds have their ts channels, map chat is always been full of a lot of anything are communication like “guild xxx call the raid, gn8” no degree is needed.
Guild pride is something not involved, as has been said that in case Arenanet should implement the warband guild and avoid the split of the members, so the guild parties join the same map.

DevonCarver.5370:

I’d say there is a pretty strong sentiment against the idea of collapsing all of WvW into 3 colors, rather than the current world set up. Which I agree with. I think world pride and association is an important part of the way that WvW works currently.

Here’s a possible version of shorter matchups that wouldn’t necessarily sacrifice the long term fight of a WvW matchup currently and wouldn’t involve merging everyone into one of three teams.

Matches last 8 hours, there are 21 matches in a week with the same 3 worlds, the winner of the week is the world that wins the most matches over the course of that time.

This solves some of the problems we see currently, namely the issues that can arise as matches get out of hand towards the end of the week. However, it would still give worlds with better coverage a leg up on their opponents. It also loses the feeling that you’ve had a long term battle for victory.

I’m curious what you all think of that? Does it retain the feeling of victory in WvW right now and solve problems or does it just introduce more issues without solving any core concerns?

That is actually awesome idea. That way it will be more dynamic and interesting. PPT will be more important, therefore players will be more motivated. Also, if it’s 3 resets a day that will mean that players from any time zone will be able to participate on at least 1 reset. +100

Deniara Devious.3948:

Merging all servers to colors might function sort of okay in NA, but here in EU it won’t work well, because we have so many different languages. I am glad that Arenanet developers understand that server pride (but also guild pride) are important aspects of this game.

“Server pride” is only a thing because servers are what we have. Other games with single-server universes have just as strong — if anything far stronger — communities. But they’re formed around other anchors like factions or player-made alliances, not an arbitrary set of load-balancing bins (which, after all, only serve to divide, not unite players).

“Servers” are not an integral or even a helpful feature for developing communities. Some sort of stable anchor for identity that will let players form lasting groups is. There could be other mechanics like global factions that would allow that, and that also would decouple the community anchoring elements from the underlying WvW population balancing elements.

As others have pointed out — and SoR’s recent failscade proves — given a choice between “server pride” and just bolting to a server with higher population and better coverage, to avoid the pointy end of the stacking + coverage meta, it is abundantly clear which thing is actually most important to most active WvW players.

It is certainly true that randomly tossing players on the fly into Red v. Blue bins does and would obstruct attempts to maintain stable communities in WvW. It is certainly false that “servers” and “server pride” are the only, the best, or even a very good alternative.

There are approaches that would preserve the ability to build stable communities and also allow ANet to address head on the elephant in the room, which everyone knows is the stacking + coverage meta. Those approaches should get serious thought and real consideration.

My proposal to spread the population out, a ‘population co-efficient’ could be assigned to each server. The score is multiplied/divided by this number to determine the actual match outcome.

The math behind this number should be very complex and completely opaque, maybe even changing over time. This will keep the min/maxers and the spreadsheet wizards quite busy. Also, Anet could rake in huge amounts of money as people transfer all over the place trying to figure out which co-efficient number leads to the easiest wins. Cynical perhaps, but it would probably work.

My proposal for shorter match times would be to have seven 24 hour matches, with the match ups determined by one of the tournament formats. The week long tournament could start on Sunday afternoon or evening, so the servers that are gunning for the win have their big matchups on Friday and Saturday. A shorter match time of something like 21 hours would spread the resets through the time zones, but would risk players not knowing when the reset is without a schedule and would also upset the week long format.

This gives shorter match times, and still has a end of week winner.

clint.5681:

Couldnt you combine 3 servers each into like a “super server” (alliance) that would help solve population problems if you combined them smartly (No combining all T1 into one server). Say ET + DB+ JQ or AR+YB+TC ( I just threw some random servers in, idk their current strengths, i left the game in December.)

This is a reasonably good idea, even with the issues it would create. It might not be the best possible solution. But of the things that plausibly could be done, it might be the least worst thing that could make a real dent in the current meta.

Given that the total population of active WvW players seems to be quite small, I would go even further and combine all of NA into three permanent alliances, each with an equal share of the current servers from each tier. So each one would have a single T1 server, and equal numbers of servers from the other tiers down the line, for a total of 8 servers in each Alliance.

Stacking would still be “possible,” but with eight servers all ganged together it would become a whole lot harder to pull off and a whole lot easier to counter. It also would be a lot harder for a small group to keep up the effort when the ultimate results would depend on what happens on the other seven servers in the alliance.

Of the things that might be done, this seems like it could be one of the less difficult ones to implement, because they already have the back end in place to queue players from multiple servers into global overflow maps, which is what happens in EOTM.

The work would be setting up fixed server groups that would take the place of the on-the-fly R-G-B groups in EOTM, but mechanically from that point it works the same as EOTM does already. They also would have to implement the EOTM queueing and overflow scheme for the old WvW maps, which is work, but at least it means only adapting work they already have done.

EU would be a bit of an issue with the languages, but it might be less worse than what we have now.

I play on an NA server but often am on during oceanic hours, and even us ignorant ‘mericans do fairly well following a couple excellent Chinese commanders who speak zero English. They have chat macros for “Ctrl-T + stay on pin” “stack = power” and “push = veil”; and that’s actually about all they ever need to say.

Heezdedjim.8902:

Deniara Devious.3948:

Merging all servers to colors might function sort of okay in NA, but here in EU it won’t work well, because we have so many different languages. I am glad that Arenanet developers understand that server pride (but also guild pride) are important aspects of this game.

“Server pride” is only a thing because servers are what we have. Other games with single-server universes have just as strong — if anything far stronger — communities. But they’re formed around other anchors like factions or player-made alliances, not an arbitrary set of load-balancing bins (which, after all, only serve to divide, not unite players).

“Servers” are not an integral or even a helpful feature for developing communities. Some sort of stable anchor for identity that will let players form lasting groups is. There could be other mechanics like global factions that would allow that, and that also would decouple the community anchoring elements from the underlying WvW population balancing elements.

As others have pointed out — and SoR’s recent failscade proves — given a choice between “server pride” and just bolting to a server with higher population and better coverage, to avoid the pointy end of the stacking + coverage meta, it is abundantly clear which thing is actually most important to most active WvW players.

It is certainly true that randomly tossing players on the fly into Red v. Blue bins does and would obstruct attempts to maintain stable communities in WvW. It is certainly false that “servers” and “server pride” are the only, the best, or even a very good alternative.

There are approaches that would preserve the ability to build stable communities and also allow ANet to address head on the elephant in the room, which everyone knows is the stacking + coverage meta. Sadly it doesn’t appear from this thread that they have any interest in facing up to and fixing those big, underlying problems.

when a server crashes, its because its failing as a community. It can happen anywhere. It is true that server identity is somewhat random for many, i think anet needs to work on server commitment and connection. It should not be near as easy to alter your allegience in WvW.

At the same time, server should be something you choose, and should have an identity associated with it. I know anet was hoping that the communities would form on their own, and they have to a degree, but they need more developer backing.
Taking down the match up forums was a big mistake, as childish as it may seem to forum mods, it makes people involved, and gives them a narrative to the story. If they wanted to remove matchups, i think they would have had to build some sort of WvW current events/commentary etc in its place.

I will say though, devons idea has a lot of merit, like i said i would break it into days, and have 3 rounds per day. For someone looking they can see hey, we lost two days, maybe if we work hard today, or right now, we can win the day, which can turn into winning the week. It also lowers the advantage of coverage gaps, because 8 hours of no coverage cant defeat 16 hours of winning. Of course you cant win with 16 hours of no coverage, but nothing you can really do about that.

phys.7689:

I will say though, devons idea has a lot of merit, like i said i would break it into days, and have 3 rounds per day.

If you consider an idea with no apparent benefits, that nobody asked for, which does nothing to solve any core, underlying problems to have “merit,” then I guess so.

You also can substitute any of a dozen words in place of “server” into the things you’re saying and get to the exact same place. Again, this is amply proven by the successful games that do have strong communities, and do not have “servers.”

Community is crucial to the game, and not just in WvW. “Servers” are not crucial to a sense of community; they never have been and never will be. They are, if anything, obstacles to a sense of community, and, as recent experience shows, often the very instruments of its demise.

I hope any ideas about NPC complexity or any other PVE things are not thought of when developing new stuff for WvW.

WvW is PVP (at least its supposed to be regardless of how its turning into casual karma/WXP trains in the regular maps and a PVE farm fest in EotMs)

If the Devs could make changes that are more in tune with PVP skill based fights. Not PVE farms or Blob v Blob auto attack spam it would be better for the game and the game mode.

- A WvW roamer (the minority vote)

Edit: PS I like being a Gandaran I would rather not be just a color like in EotM so please do not collapse all the servers into colors. It might be fine for the trains in WvW but for organized WvW I see the absolute pain of organizing things across all the allied servers.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Actually the proposed 8 hour system would not solve any of the problems and would in many cases lead to the situation at the last matches are completely irrelevant to all servers!

So give rewards based on win count.

Deniara Devious.3948:

I think 8 hour match up and scoring based on how many such 8 h strips you win during the week would be worse than the current scoring system. It would just further complicate the system and alleviate the coverage differences. Assume one server would have slightly better coverage at one of those 8 hour slots (let’s say night time), it would consistently give it wins, because 7 points out of the potential 3*7 = 21 points is a lot.

This is a valid concern – if the night-time presence on one server is stronger, but not overpowering, they’re guaranteed 7 points based on wins where they may only hold 40-50% of the score. All they have to do is find another 1-4 from the rest of the week and that’s the game.

GW2 already has issues with coverage wars – this would give a server with a slight advantage absolute domination over the points during off-hours. For this reason a 24-hour format, or different scoring method (e.g. handing out several points per game based on score), would be a better idea.

No pve in wvw.

There is a whole game format in GW2 dedicated to those fans of pve, it gets regular updates, new bosses, new zones. This format should be kept separate from the wvw format.

WvW doesnt need unique bosses like those seen in EOTM. Any developement on this is time wasted. I’ve seen countless blobs run right past the wurm in the bl’s or the grub in EB. No one goes around killing skritt or centaurs. The pve currently Inside wvw is ignored because there is enough pve in this game to fulfill anyone’s need for it. WvW players dont want to do pve, thats why they are playing wvw.

By all means, buff up the guards, make lords harder to kill (but please if you are gonna do this make it so that lords cannot be bannered, only hard ressed). But dont start putting in huge trolls or the such like that will start roaming around an area. They will most likely be ignored like all the other current pve elements are.

Just a side note…could we also stop putting in bits and pièces of the living story too?

DevonCarver.5370:

I wanted to pivot to something that Luna mentioned early in the thread, the idea of a more complex fight for Stonemist.

Would it make Stonemist feel too difficult to capture if the assaulting team had to capture and hold 3 capture points? Here are some of the problems I see with it.

1) It would encourage everyone defending to just blob up on one point and hold out as a group.
2) It could be so difficult to actually accomplish that it becomes nearly impossible to flip Stonemist.

However, I think it would be an improvement to the current rush the middle of the room scenario.

Do any of you think this version of Stonemist would be an improvement or does it not really make any positive changes in your mind?

1) It would encourage everyone defending to just blob up on one point and hold out as a group.

Which due to several reasons, sadly is the answer to 90% of the questions in this game.

DevonCarver.5370:

Would it make Stonemist feel too difficult to capture if the assaulting team had to capture and hold 3 capture points? Here are some of the problems I see with it.

Maybe SM could be divided into three lower zones that could be capped (and fought over) individually, and the fourth zone (upper floors) could only be accessed if you hold all three lower ones. Basically the lower level could be three separate towers glued together by common walls and gates between.

This might lead to an ongoing battle raging between sides that hold only one or two of the three segments, and only occasionally someone could gain control of all of it and thus the strategic advantage of using the higher floors to build commanding siege.

It would be hard to capture the whole thing, but also hard to hold the whole thing, since someone could make a hard push to take just one segment away, and thereby deny use of the upper levels to anyone.

I does have the advantage of inviting a focused, continuous war for control over the single biggest strategic asset on the map. It also would mitigate the large PPT bonus that comes from holding what is otherwise kind of an unremarkable and not hard to flip control point now.

EDIT: Alternatively, maybe holding any one lower zone would open up a portal from that zone to the upper floors, so if each side held one corner of SM, the upper floors would become a total no-mans-land, where nobody could build siege without it being instantly overrun, and big raging battles could ensue.

DevonCarver.5370:

Would it make Stonemist feel too difficult to capture if the assaulting team had to capture and hold 3 capture points? Here are some of the problems I see with it.

1) It would encourage everyone defending to just blob up on one point and hold out as a group.

What if you only needed to own 2 out of the 3 spots (like the Ruins where we own 3 out of the 5)