Guild Wars 2

The response to this CDI seems underwhelming compared to not only previous WvW CDI’s, but also other currently active CDI’s.

I’m not being snarky, but to an extent, I think this is reflective of the lack of attention we have received as World versus World players.

Perhaps CD: Edge of the Mists is the wrong name for the CDI thread? Many may misinterpret that this CDI is about improving EOTM, as opposed to transitioning ideas/mechanics from EOTM into the regular WvW maps.

DevonCarver.5370:

As an aside, I just wanted to call out the posts from Matipzieu KyA, which are incredibly detailed and well-thought out. We really appreciate the passion and dedication that it takes to go to those lengths. We are reading them and looking closely at the things contained within.

I just want to show my support for everything that Matipzieu KyA said. Everyone in this thread should take the time to read those posts.

I come from a guild on TC who specializes in small-mid number tactics and has been here since long before TC’s climb through the wvw tiers (guild is [DIS]). We are usually borderlands support, or a secondary force who helps augment the main force (in our case, usually the guild [NOPE]). We take camps and tower and weaken keeps for the larger group, and if necessary, reinforce the main if they need more numbers for an attempt to take a keep or defend an upgraded location. We often provide a distraction and lure large forces to respond to us, while the larger group takes the real objective. My individual guild has a great community sense, and even on top of that everyone in our wvw group knows the main commander of [NOPE] and trusts him. Our relation with this guild, and certainly other guilds on TC, is the main reason we don’t mind taking a supporting role. No one complains when we aren’t queuing into EB to take SMC. No one complains when we aren’t in the main attacking force at garrison, but are instead taking camps and running supply. No one complains when we intentionally lure much larger groups to us and face certain death so the other guilds can get an edge on a different objective.

But I can guarantee that if we weren’t fighting for TC and assisting the people we have come to know and trust even outside our own guild, that many of our players would stop running with us and just join a karma train or zerg with the largest group on the map.

Server pride and community is the backbone of wvw. Anyone who has played in T1 or T2 understands that. The answer is not to take that community out — the answer is to include those under T1 and T2 in this community-building game mode. Make players want to fight for their server instead of transferring to the winning ones.

For the Toast!

Baels.3469:

The response to this CDI seems underwhelming compared to not only previous WvW CDI’s, but also other currently active CDI’s.

Compared with the Fractals CDI and the sPvP leagues one, I’d have to agree. Reading back through this thread, it comes off as a lot of really enthusiastic, lengthy, and thoughtful posts by players, met with basically “Cool story, bro” in response.

Brannidus.4175:

Server pride and community is the backbone of wvw. Anyone who has played in T1 or T2 understands that. The answer is not to take that community out — the answer is to include those under T1 and T2 in this community-building game mode. Make players want to fight for their server instead of transferring to the winning ones.

I’d like to offer an amendment to that statement if I may. It’s true that pride and community is the backbone of WvW, but what precisely that sense of pride and community is centered around is another story – it need not necessarily be a server. The phrase “server pride” can be a bit misleading that way. It really has very little to do with the server, and very much to do with pride in itself.

A bit of context is in order I suppose. I currently play on Jade Quarry, which I transferred to from SBI just prior to free transfers ending. We have a great community on JQ, one that I’m proud to help represent on the battlefield. I agree that without some sense of common purpose, the people who play WvW would have little reason to feel invested in what they do, and I’d wager that holds true for my particular community as much as anyone else’s. However, I’ve also seen the flip side of the coin. The current system encourages WvW communities to cannibalize each other regularly in order to stay competitive, and having that happen to your community is painful. What is needed is a system that still allows for players to feel that they belong to something greater than themselves, while ending the incentives for servers to engage in predatory behavior.

It’s clear that the EotM model is not a satisfactory one if simply adopted as is. Players have no influence over which faction they represent or whom they play with, there’s little sense of organization, the matchup is too short for any long term investment to really be relevant, and so on. But the one thing that’s worth noting is that the impact of coverage is mitigated to a significant degree because each faction has a larger pool of players to draw on. I’d wager it is just as possible for players to dedicate themselves with equal fervor to such a “faction” (or alliance, or color, or whatever term you prefer) as they would to any server if the missing pieces of the puzzle were added. Players need influence over 1) which faction they represent, 2) where they play, and 3) whom the play with. You can’t just ship the player off to be part of some random color team, you let the player decide. You can’t randomly select which instance the player is allowed to play in, you let the player decide. You can’t bar the player from playing with other members of their community, you let the player decide.

Reading through this thread, the thing that strikes me the most is that these goals are somehow considered incompatible with the idea of a faction-based system, as opposed to the server-based system we have now. The kicker is you have to design a system that empowers the player. If you allow the player to be in the driver’s seat, to shape and reshape their own communities as they do now, I bet you’d end up with factions that are just as strong in terms of identity as our current servers. You simply have to allow for players (and guilds, and possible sub-factions) to control which faction they represent, which map they play on, and whom they play with.

That, or the current system can be allowed to run its course.

Heezdedjim.8902:

Baels.3469:

The response to this CDI seems underwhelming compared to not only previous WvW CDI’s, but also other currently active CDI’s.

Compared with the Fractals CDI and the sPvP leagues one, I’d have to agree. Reading back through this thread, it comes off as a lot of really enthusiastic, lengthy, and thoughtful posts by players, met with basically “Cool story, bro” in response.

Actually this is the most response in a WvW CDI thread that we’ve ever received. Of course if you compare it to the other CDI threads….

So… this thread is over then?

It’s not over, it’s more like the cake is a lie.

What exactly will this discussion bring? It took over a year to get the party system corrected, which is a year too late for any game!

Basically dont expect any result from this topic, just like the previous 2 WvW CDIs that happened, apparently.

WvW is Anet’s diamond in the rough, we’ve all been telling them that for so long, yet they refuse to see that and spend the resources on improving it. And I think it is too late now for them to do anything about it, if they listen to us from the beginning WvW could have been a lot better. Instead it will remain a piece of coal as we all eventually move onto other games.

I think the biggest problem Devon and the WvW team have, is simply that we as players want both completely opposite sides of a debate in a single game mode.

Reading this thread there are a ton of people who want ppt and basically the entire capture game mode to go away and for it to just be a massive roaming killfest similar to the GvG conversation and there are a less vocal group that wants the tactics of the maps to actually be increased.

Personally, I want to see the borderlands maps redesigned to be a little less open, it shouldn’t be quite so easy for a small force to walk unobserved from N camp to their opponents spawn camp and take it. You should have to funnel through a few openings which can be monitored.

The Keeps also need to be dragged behind fortifications as well. For example, Garrison, while it doesn’t seem to be protected, really only has 1 clean gate to attack (SE). If you attack a NE/NW gate, you walk by a guard tower, which can easily have a scout in it, if you hit SW or S (Watergate) it’s such a choke that you ask for easy death by AC. If we compare that to Hills or Bay, they’re wide open to attack from all sides (Bay worst, obviously.)

I was doing some havoc against a reinforced bay last week, and literally our group of ~5-7 took down every outer wall of bay in under 10 minutes or so, simultaneously. While hilarious, it suggests that the damage of siege is greatly increased, while the defenses of those walls has been stagnant.

While I don’t know that every map needs to be EB, EB’s design is much better for defense. The keep is in position to defend its towers, and its towers are in position for the most part to defend its keep (yea, sorry red) This leads to fights on outer towers, and only pushes to keeps if you either massively outnumber the opponents or you overextend and your keep becomes a target of opportunity. I think a BL map with some of the features of EB would increase the tactical options for groups who actually enjoy the tactics and map politics aspects of the game, while the center areas could still easily be open enough for ‘gvg’ teams to go fight.

Nuzt.7894:

titanlectro.5029:

So… this thread is over then?

Unfortunately, it was over before it began. We already have had 2 previous CDI threads, much like this one it was players brainstorming and coming up with some pretty good Ideas/fixes with the occasional “I like where this is going, keep discussing guys honest were reading” from Devon. Long story short, not one thing has been adressed from the previous 2 threads.

I have very little faith that anything will come of having this particular CDI thread given past threads. I understand there is much Devon and his team cannot do as much as some of us want it, its just not possible. But there are some very serious issues with WvW that needs to be addressed first and foremost before we worry about, choke points, destructable terrain, more challenging NPC’s, and many of the things that come with EotM. Sure all those things are great, but before we get ahead of our selves lets fix the core issues, then we can worry about the fluff to make it better.

other colors of commander tags have been datamined on reddit. and the ninja r30 requirement that people got so mad at. and the 250 badge price modification (lol).

so theres that at least

edit: actually, @devon —
does the wvw team have any takeaways so far? what have yall liked about the discussion?

Wvw and ranger cdi attention from dev side: 0

Please realize before reading that I am not replying to use all of these. Some of these contradict each other but are worth looking into non the less. Some may also be wild fantasies, but hey we all gotta dream.

Things I would consider.

First and foremost I would say that not having forum match up threads hurt the wvw scene.

1.Create the ability to give a tower or keep the supply on you.

2.Be capable of not only fixing but using your supply to help upgrade the keep quicker.

3.Get rid of monsters that get on dolyaks walk path.

4.Get rid of spending gold to upgrade.

5.Give a quick optional walk through to all characters new to wvw. Simple 4 minute video will help out once you jump in. i.e. Discuss the ppt system, walls, gates, commander tags, supply, and squad chat so on so forth.

6. Video explaining combo fields. SOOOOO many players have no clue what they are. This is something that will excite newer players to continue playing cause they will realize a new aspect to the game that can be challenging but rewarding.

7. A 3rd floor to bay. If the enemy gets through outer, and they are overall able to beat you in combat, there isn’t much you can do to beat them. The height disadvantage at bay Gives them by far a superior edge on trebs. This ends up a lot of times being a very long wait while they treb your wall down. Now I like this cause I like having 8+ superior ballistas waiting for them at that chokepoint but most others do not like to wait. A simple ramp leading up to a 3rd floor close to the 2 east corners of inner would be a fun twist making it harder for enemy players to both treb you and or taking lords room.

8. Towers or gates do not pop swords until a gate or wall has taken 1k+ damage. Always that one guy that goes and touches the gate. Also discuss in video about that fact, and how sometimes it is best to not tap gates if you don’t want to be noticed.

9. Swords on keeps on any map and or towers in the map you are on are posted in a new chat system called wvw chat or something like that.

10. A new trap that once activated stays activated for 10 seconds and makes the location impossible to pass. Can not have more then 1 every 1000 range.

11. Give 5 second time frame to wp into a keep once swords have been put on again.

12. Arrow carts are overall fine. I would have them be a little bit weaker inside towers but have an upgrade in keeps that let the arrow carts and other siege be stronger then what they are atm.

13. A Green line coming out of the trebs to help improve shot efficiency.

14.Trebs do less damage to rams while mortars stay same.

15. Get rid of roof at overlook or recreate roof with a way to get on top and lay siege like you can in other 2 keeps in eternal.

16. Make siege glow or change color if within 5 minutes of decaying.

17. Kindve out there but the ability to have commander have a warning button that puts a symbol like maybe ! or * on screen if he sees a major threat. This would be applied to people on same map and within the commanders squad. This would help the non teamspeak users to know of enemy inc fast. Again this could be put in a small wvw video.

18. Have a basic video show up at lvl 10 or somewhere close to there and discuss the wvw in it so new players at least got a clue about it early on.

19. A guild billboard that guilds can post on in any city showing their guild if their guild is actively recruiting. Same would be applied in all wvw map spawns.

20. Starting to lose ideas but will likely have 30 more here soon.

21. Make it so you can see where squad members are at in wvw.

22. Possibly get rid of ppt and instead get points based off how many places you take and defend. For example. Every 10 minutes you hold off an enemy attack at a keep you get 30 pts. If however at 12 minutes they get the keep the enemy gets 10 pts. This would be more initiative to defend a keep, and give servers with a smaller amount of players a chance to still win. So much damage would have to be warranted on a gate or wall to deserve a successful 10 minute defense on a place.

Going into grander ideas next.

23. 1st off I would change the whole concept of wvw.
I would go with 3 colors. Red, green and blue and make it so that all res that week are on same team.
Main issue with that is that 4 maps will not suffice for 24 servers. I would find out how many in total on average is playing in wvw and eotm. I would then create enough maps so that on average a map would have 40 ish players per color.
To make simple. If a server fields 50 players on average you would need 10 maps to have every map average out to 40 players. Look in below paragraph to see how I came to that or skip.

So lets say on average a server produces 50 players. Now we need to figure out how many maps are needed to create 40 players per map on average. To do that we must 1st figure out how many players in total are on typically. So 50×24=1200 players total on based off average. Now we want an average of 40 players for each color so we next divide by 3 so 1200/3=400 Now we know on average your color should produce 400 members in total. Next we need to divide those 400 between enough maps to = 40 per map. 400/40 =10 So in total we would need 10 maps to make this be accomplished. Things to consider is overall fluctuation of numbers. A drastic decrease overall may require 1-2 maps to be taken out while a drastic increase might mean 1-2 more made. The theory that could possibly be put into effect is that 6 maps are guarantees while the rest are taken down or put up based off of overall numbers.
The maps could include the following. Eternal battleground, Eotm, and 6 different unique maps that gives no individual group an edge. I would make these 6 maps based off the cities and spawn areas of the 5 races of tyria and the last map off a race that will be coming to the game in the future. These 6 maps would be set up so that 2 of them would be given the city part of the map as a home base while the other 2 colors would be the invaders. Towers and keeps like always but a new concept at the heart of the cities. A reward of some sort if an enemy server can take w/e is at the heart of the city. Most be very difficult to get though. I would also have it so that you get very very good noticeable buffs for pve if you upgrade this spot in the middle of the city. The more cities and upgrades you have the more buffs you get for pve. This covers 8 of the 10 maps in the example. So for the extra maps I would do the following. I would use our home borderlands as extra maps. Have them come with wp’s done and again have no expenses for upgrading and possibly be given automatic siege in your character that is infinite and only usable on the extra maps. This would give players less reason to get upset if the numbers are dwindling down and those maps are not needed anymore aka oceanic time. Maybe instead of resetting eotm we reset the home bl’s instead every 4 hours.

3 ideas:

Description
Place a temporary Teleport anywhere on the map.

Goal of proposal
Give players more mobility and
oblige defenders to attack these Teleports and not only defend from within the Fortresses.

Proposal functionality
- Guilds can investigate the improvement to create temporary Teleports
- When a Guilds place a Teleports, their members can not place another one until 30 minutes later.
- This Teleports(TP) are temporary and it are destroyed by itself after 20 minutes.
- There are areas of the map where it are not allowed to place a TP of this type
- All players of the server can use this TP
- The TP is displayed on the map
- The enemy can attack and destroy those TPs
- Borders will only allow two simultaneous TPs of this type in their maps. C.Eternals will allow 3 simultaneous TPs of this type on the map.

Description
Some Towers owned by guilds for a full week .
We need larger maps.

Goal of proposal
Add new Towers that can be sieged only one day of the week (by example: Saturday) and be claimed by a Clan. Those towers will be owned by those Guilds the rest of week.

This Guild will investigate improvements as a Teletrasport which will be exclusive to the Guild members . NPCs , etc. .

Proposal functionality
These towers can be sieged Saturdays only. The three servers will can siege it, like any other tower. And at 23:59 on Saturday the siege will close and the Server owned at this hour will be the rest of the week.
Guilds of that Server must bid ( gold ) for its property.

- The auction will last only 1 hour ( 0:00 – 1:00 )
- Only Guilds with minimal members may participate
- Only the Guild leader may bid

The guild owner can investigate improvements as:
- Place a Teleport in the Tower (exclusive to members of the Clan)
- Enable NPCs in the Tower
- Improved vitality clan members

Description
Larger maps with teleports that can be disabled by cutting communications, like Teso.

Goal of proposal
Larger maps and more Fortresses and to prevent players having to travel long distances to reach the fighting, place strategic teleports.
But these teleports can be disabled destroying lines of communication, like Teso WvW.

(I am from spain. I trust that my English is understood)
Regards

Proposal Overview
Removing RNG drops from WvW, remove chest drops from lords and replace it with a kill counter that grants good/chest loot every X amount of player kills witout dying in wvw.
The counter can give a reward chest every X amounts of kills and it will become better loot every tier of kills..
25 kills without death = rare chest, 50 = Rare chest and dragonite 75= exotics chest. etc.
Player = 1 kill
All tower and keep lords count for 10 kills.

Goal of Proposal:
By doing this combat will be more smooth without delay, No more F-spam, no more PvD and most importantly breaking the zerg.

Proposal Functionality:
By removing/reducing rewards from towers and keeps and focusing on player kills for chest rewards every x amount. we might see less zerg’s of spam doing their normal rounds of capping for wxp and tag for that so desired lords chest.

You are forcing the players of wvw to actually go out and fight and fight hard because when you die you don’t get the loot.

Associated Risks
-There might be less people playing wvw because there is no “farm” anymore, no easy way to make gold.
-People might run away from fights over towers and keeps.
- Certain professions will be forced to play solo roaming because they have no place in larger groups..
-People might holp up in towers more and AC’s will be used more then before
-Certain classes will have less reason to join in wvw (ranger, ele, necro, engie) but that is mostly up to the meta.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Proposal Overview
Removing RNG drops from WvW, remove chest drops from lords and replace it with a kill counter that grants good/chest loot every X amount of player kills witout dying in wvw.
The counter can give a reward chest every X amounts of kills and it will become better loot every tier of kills..
25 kills without death = rare chest, 50 = Rare chest and dragonite 75= exotics chest. etc.
Player = 1 kill
All tower and keep lords count for 10 kills.

Goal of Proposal:
By doing this combat will be more smooth without delay, No more F-spam, no more PvD and most importantly breaking the zerg.

Break the zerg? This will reinforce the zerg!

If the only loot you get is by killing players, and the more you kill without dying gives better rewards, players will not want to die and continue running a zerg; if anything this will increase the zerg!

And if tower lords count as ten kills, well again everyone will want that kill, so again bigger zerg. Every server will become a “german” server!

Proposal Overview
WvW need re-working match-up system into Red vs Blue vs Green
Goal of proposal
I think re-working WvW match-up system into Red vs Blue vs Green with choosing campaign for some time(ESO style) will be good and necessary solution in future for dead servers…yes! this game has dead servers.
Proposal Functionality
Rewamp game into ONE server. When players login into WvW they choose campaign and side(color) for one week(or more)
Associated Risks
Any risk…only profit for players who still play WvW and don`t want to play with empty borderlands!

One thing on the multitude of stuff I would love to see added into Regular WvW is the Badges of Honor drop, in EotM when you kill a champ the quantity is a little higher which is great considering the prices of the new toys that we can use.

so please increase Badges drops in WvW same as EotM so I can afford to buy these toys/traps stuff etc.

Anet, have you seen this formula? :

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Calculation-points-based-in-enemies-online/first#post3634961

Baels.3469:

The response to this CDI seems underwhelming compared to not only previous WvW CDI’s, but also other currently active CDI’s.

I’m not being snarky, but to an extent, I think this is reflective of the lack of attention we have received as World versus World players.

Perhaps CD: Edge of the Mists is the wrong name for the CDI thread? Many may misinterpret that this CDI is about improving EOTM, as opposed to transitioning ideas/mechanics from EOTM into the regular WvW maps.

I think this might be the MOST that anet has responded in a WvW CDI so far. Compared to other CDI topics though, it is disappointing.

I think they should have a different ANET person coordinate the WvW CDI. I certainly do not mean that as disrespect to the current person. He has a ton of responsibilities and is coordinating all of the WvW activities. If you look at the balance CDI, they do not have a member of the balance team running it. They have Allie who is the community coordinator. It might be better to have someone in that type of role coordinate the CDI and then Devon could just pop in here when he has time and make comments.

Deathmond.7328:

Proposal Overview
WvW need re-working match-up system into Red vs Blue vs Green
Goal of proposal
I think re-working WvW match-up system into Red vs Blue vs Green with choosing campaign for some time(ESO style) will be good and necessary solution in future for dead servers…yes! this game has dead servers.
Proposal Functionality
Rewamp game into ONE server. When players login into WvW they choose campaign and side(color) for one week(or more)
Associated Risks
Any risk…only profit for players who still play WvW and don`t want to play with empty borderlands!

Risks are:
- no real identity (reason to fight/server pride/fight tactics [mostly roaming/skill group, bus or zerg])
- lesser motivation (being 1/50 means I have impact… being 1/500, means I mean nothing and the me being there or not makes no difference)
- kills tactics (as we saw with EoTM, that works by color, people mostly K-train following a blue doritos, and some times a few little groups run on the side / form when people got singled-out from the zerg OR guild group go there and owns the map because pugs with no vocal can hardly compete)
- language-specific (English might be expected from all NA players, but EU have language-specific servers, and the people from these servers usually expect to play in their language of choice – and EoTM is basically English or go away… You’d never believe all the kitten I’ve got for asking in french whether there were any french people on the map…)

style.6173:

Baels.3469:

The response to this CDI seems underwhelming compared to not only previous WvW CDI’s, but also other currently active CDI’s.

I’m not being snarky, but to an extent, I think this is reflective of the lack of attention we have received as World versus World players.

Perhaps CD: Edge of the Mists is the wrong name for the CDI thread? Many may misinterpret that this CDI is about improving EOTM, as opposed to transitioning ideas/mechanics from EOTM into the regular WvW maps.

I think this might be the MOST that anet has responded in a WvW CDI so far. Compared to other CDI topics though, it is disappointing.

I think they should have a different ANET person coordinate the WvW CDI. I certainly do not mean that as disrespect to the current person. He has a ton of responsibilities and is coordinating all of the WvW activities. If you look at the balance CDI, they do not have a member of the balance team running it. They have Allie who is the community coordinator. It might be better to have someone in that type of role coordinate the CDI and then Devon could just pop in here when he has time and make comments.

Yeah and Allie only responded a handful of times over the 40 pages

i posed a question to the lower tiers to see what opinions are regarding the idea of server mergers or alliances. these are the players such a change would most drastically impact. the upper tiers will not see significant difference in gameplay should such a change occur. they already have “enough” people to reasonably populate all maps all the time and have random players able to enter wvw and basically have something to do thrown in their face, as opposed to needing to seek out things to do.

so far the tally is:

• 75% do not want some form of alliances or mergers
• 25% do

the conclusion i can reasonably draw is that our low tier forum posters arent very amenable to pooling wvw populations such as is done in eotm.

my hypothesis based on the response to that thread:
if i were to ask… “does anet need to remodel server transfer options?” i would receive mostly “yes” responses, but we dont feel like overhauling the concept of servers as they are is necessary.

please consider this when discussing the viability of alliances or an R/G/B team system or factions or whatever. the servers are not largely abandoned, as is commonly assumed by those in t1 or t2. and we dont want a solution that will dissolve our communities. (i think we would want a solution that grows our communities, but i dont have even limited data to support saying “we” right there and speak only for myself).

The number one thing I would bring from EotM to normal WvW map is :

The ability to build siege at spawn

Reasons?

Is there anyone that like to be spawn camp or see their enemy upgrade all their structures in unbalance match up? No.

Allowing player to build siege at spawn would give outnumbered server a chance to retake their keep in Eternal Battleground for example.

DevonCarver.5370:

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?

Separating the wvw match into 21 matches over the week is a very good idea, but only if the upgrades doesn’t reset between each match.

Reasons to keep the upgrade?

There is already so few incentive to upgrade/defend and too many to attack/karma train. Let’s not make it even harder to defend/upgrade.

A big part of wvw is defending. When no one is defending it’s basically players fighting against door. Taking a keep that is undefended does not feel rewarding. It’s just meh… No one was here…

Reasons to separate in 21 matches?

It would greatly help with the thing that we call “nightcapping”. There is nothing wrong with nightcapping except when 1 server tick at like 500+ for 8 hours because of better coverage. It happens on the first day and the match is already over because of only 8 hours.

If you split in 21 matches, the server ticking at 500+ for 8 hours would only be guaranteed to win 1 match per day, then the other 2 servers still have a chance to win the other 2 matches in the day.

insanemaniac.2456:

i posed a question to the lower tiers to see what opinions are regarding the idea of server mergers or alliances. these are the players such a change would most drastically impact. the upper tiers will not see significant difference in gameplay should such a change occur. they already have “enough” people to reasonably populate all maps all the time and have random players able to enter wvw and basically have something to do thrown in their face, as opposed to needing to seek out things to do.

so far the tally is:

• 75% do not want some form of alliances or mergers
• 25% do

the conclusion i can reasonably draw is that our low tier forum posters arent very amenable to pooling wvw populations such as is done in eotm.

my hypothesis based on the response to that thread:
if i were to ask… “does anet need to remodel server transfer options?” i would receive mostly “yes” responses, but we dont feel like overhauling the concept of servers as they are is necessary.

please consider this when discussing the viability of alliances or an R/G/B team system or factions or whatever. the servers are not largely abandoned, as is commonly assumed by those in t1 or t2. and we dont want a solution that will dissolve our communities. (i think we would want a solution that grows our communities, but i dont have even limited data to support saying “we” right there and speak only for myself).

Relative to tiers 1 and 2, tiers 7 and 8 are absolutely dead, demolished and over with. The thing you should take away from your polling is that the remaining people on those servers are the reasons their servers are down there, and they like it that way.

We should support their desire to stay there.

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?

I like the idea of a more complex fight for Stonemist. As you said replacing the central capture point by 3 capture points might make it very hard to capture SM.

But there are ways to introduce multiple capture points that still make it possible to capture SM.

One way is to hold 2/3 capture point similar to how the ruins works.

But for me the central capping circle is not really what I would change about SM. I don’t like the big open space without anything in it and all the walls/gates. I feel that SM should be a constant battle with less walls and gates.

An idea would be to replace the inner gates by 3 capture points protected by NPCs. When the defending side lose all 3 capture points the inner gates becomes open and you can get in lord room for the final cap. There could be a 5 minutes between each cap of the control point (similar to lord/supervisor indignation)

Also, maybe make the outer gates/walls similar to towers. For example, each gate would be a tower. When you cap it you gain control over that part of SM wall and the side that is controlling SM has to recap it from you.

DevonCarver.5370:

Think of a tower that guards the only pass through a canyon, rather than bridges everywhere. Is that something that, in moderation, could provide for more varied and strategic gameplay?

For the purposes of the question, think in terms of building a new map from scratch, rather than retrofitting the current maps.

I think that adding a tower that block the access to a critical path on the map would be great.

It would probably not work with the current map but let’s say the 2 north towers in the borderland were blocking the only way to the north camp and north gates of garrison, then these 2 towers would suddenly become way more important for the map because when you hold them you would be guaranteed to get supply into garrison and not be attacked from the north.

When you start adding towers that block access to a part of the map, you can start adding little twist like keep easier to take if you have this tower. For example, let’s say that the 2 north towers in borderland are blocking all the access to the 2 north gates of garrison, then to make it easier to cap garrison after you control of these towers, we could simply remove the 2 north gates from garrison, so you only have 1 gate left to destroy to capture garrison after you capture 1 of the 2 towers.

Virtute.8251:

Relative to tiers 1 and 2, tiers 7 and 8 are absolutely dead, demolished and over with. The thing you should take away from your polling is that the remaining people on those servers are the reasons their servers are down there, and they like it that way.

We should support their desire to stay there.

have you remained on or transferred to a server post-exodus?

insanemaniac.2456:

Virtute.8251:

Relative to tiers 1 and 2, tiers 7 and 8 are absolutely dead, demolished and over with. The thing you should take away from your polling is that the remaining people on those servers are the reasons their servers are down there, and they like it that way.

We should support their desire to stay there.

have you remained on or transferred to a server post-exodus?

Helped cause a summer exodus, and remain in contact with people who stayed. The exodus never ended: it only deepens.

Virtute.8251:

insanemaniac.2456:

Virtute.8251:

Relative to tiers 1 and 2, tiers 7 and 8 are absolutely dead, demolished and over with. The thing you should take away from your polling is that the remaining people on those servers are the reasons their servers are down there, and they like it that way.

We should support their desire to stay there.

have you remained on or transferred to a server post-exodus?

Helped cause a summer exodus, and remain in contact with people who stayed. The exodus never ended: it only deepens.

see, thats a different thing though. not every server in low tiers is a hellhole populated by abrasive or unwelcoming people. some servers just never really took off after launch. some servers have healthily recovered and rebuilt their community after an exodus. and then theres the kind of community youre talking about. where certain players should probably just get a perma ban.

Its not always a desire to stay, a few people have told me they wouleave but either cannot afford the transfer costs or the cost to transfer those in their guild that cannot afford their own transfer. Without free transfers to low tiers or at the very least a reduced cost there is no incentive for people to transfer down leaving only the option to go up sadly.

Distaste.4801:

DevonCarver.5370:

Probably the most contentious issue has been the talk of getting rid of world’s and replacing the system with just the three colors. I think there is some merit to the idea, although I believe the worlds have a lot of value. I’d be curious to know if the folks who argue against and world pride feel that way because of being on underperforming worlds or not. I also wonder if there isn’t some work that could be done to restore that world pride without completely overhauling the WvW system. Someone mentioned alliances, which I think would work fairly well. If the less populous worlds were grouped together, does that seem like something that could reinvigorate them?

I was on Blackgate before they even made T2 and only recently transferred off so I could play with a friend due to the server being full. I am absolutely for the color system and dumping servers. Server pride has some merit but I don’t think it even comes close to outweighing overall WvW health. WvW is dying, there is no competition left in almost all matchups. What’s worse is there is nothing really to fight over. With no competition and nothing to really gain there isn’t much reason to WvW. The only thing left is server pride, which you’ve mistakenly taken as a positive instead of the negative symptom to a larger problem. If you really wish to cling to server pride then see what it’s don for SoR, SBI, HoD, ET, SoS, etc. That fact that so many servers got destroyed shows how important server pride is. What you will find in all of those cases where server pride meant nothing is people wanting the chance to win.

WvW needs to be rebuilt into a competitive fight where there is something to actually fight over. Getting rid of servers is the first step to creating a battlefield where there are always friendlies to back you up and enemies to fight. With no servers everyone will have a competitive chance at winning. Once everyone has a chance to win you need to give them a reason to win, create some awesome looking WvW skins(like there should have been at launch) that you get to choose one of when your color wins a match.

Even if you went the alliance route and grouped all the lower tier servers together they would have zero chance against a T1 server. They might field a great NA primetime but outside of that they will get absolutely crushed. You’re going to end up putting so many servers into an alliance that you might as well just go the server-less route.

If you want to keep pride a factor you can then give guilds tools to foster pride. Give reasons to actually claim and defend keeps. Give them special GvG maps where guilds and any willing recruits duke it out in a 1hr matchup that aids their color. I can think of tons more you can do but lets leave that for another CDI.

The same server issues can be seen mirrored in PvE. Go to a lower tier server and you’re not going to see Teq/wurm getting killed. People want a chance to do the content and go where they can accomplish that. Going server-less would help not only WvW but it would help PvE. You guys would of course lose out on gem transfers but it’s all for the health of the game right?

+11111

Jocksy.3415:

Risks are:
- no real identity (reason to fight/server pride/fight tactics [mostly roaming/skill group, bus or zerg])
- lesser motivation (being 1/50 means I have impact… being 1/500, means I mean nothing and the me being there or not makes no difference)
- kills tactics (as we saw with EoTM, that works by color, people mostly K-train following a blue doritos, and some times a few little groups run on the side / form when people got singled-out from the zerg OR guild group go there and owns the map because pugs with no vocal can hardly compete)
- language-specific (English might be expected from all NA players, but EU have language-specific servers, and the people from these servers usually expect to play in their language of choice – and EoTM is basically English or go away… You’d never believe all the kitten I’ve got for asking in french whether there were any french people on the map…)

While I find the idea of server alliances very interesting, Jocksy clearly highlighted the problems associated with a 3 color system.

Honestly, have any of you every played EoTM without the 3 colors just going round in a Karmatrain with occasional clashes that are only determined by a) number of players in the zerg and b) number of skilled players. Both elements are random and cannot be controlled.
I have yet to see a meaningfully led zerg battle due to the language barrier and the lack of voice comms and coordination.
And haven’t we all run into organized guilds that are having a fun time farming the disorganized zerg blobs?

Please bear this in mind when you ask for a 3 color system. You lose most of what, imho, constitutes WvW:
- Server wide coordination
- Playing with players you know and (mostly) can count on supporting each other
- Communicating with voice comms
- Having interesting open field fights
- Defending objectives or sieging them (vs. karma training over them)
- The fun of fighting for your server (I do admit that this seems less of an incentive in lower tiers)

In that sense and in order to preserve what makes WvW dear to most of us let’s think about server alliances to boost numbers etc. but please do not remove the great elements of WvW by throwing everyone into 3 random colors and take away all the great strategy, tactics and coordination.

Thisdan.6871:

While I find the idea of server alliances very interesting, Jocksy clearly highlighted the problems associated with a 3 color system.

Those problems are mostly the result of assumptions he makes about the design of the system. Language barriers are only relevant to whatever extent you decide to play with people who do not speak your language – which is entirely your choice. It would certainly be a more relevant problem if players were grouped together randomly in WvW, but there’s no reason why that would have to be the case. Same goes for the risk of a color-based system “killing tactics”. It would be a relevant concern if players are randomly grouped, but not if players are allowed to organize as they do today. As for motivation, since the map size will most likely not increase (by a.net’s own admission they can’t make maps bigger than the current borderlands), you’re unlikely to ever end up on a map with 500 players on it. Rather a series of smaller (read: current size) maps is much more likely, and on whichever map you play, you’ll then have the same amount of influence as you do now – although it is correct that if the sum of all map scores is allowed to determine the winning color, and if match length is kept constant, the average influence each player has on the outcome will fall. However, if that’s the objection, I would say that even in the current WvW system the ultimate outcome of each weekly round is so far beyond the influence of each individual player that I can’t see this making much of a difference.

Which leaves us with identity. This is probably the most common objection held by players concerning EotM, namely that the “color alliances” are not communities of their own making. Players are assigned to a random color, in a random instance, with random teammates. But again, there’s no reason why that need necessarily be the case. Players can have every bit as much influence over those things as they do now, in which case you’ll have the same foundation for creating/maintaining player-driven communities as you do today.

Omaris Mortuus Est.2738:

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Proposal Overview
Removing RNG drops from WvW, remove chest drops from lords and replace it with a kill counter that grants good/chest loot every X amount of player kills witout dying in wvw.
The counter can give a reward chest every X amounts of kills and it will become better loot every tier of kills..
25 kills without death = rare chest, 50 = Rare chest and dragonite 75= exotics chest. etc.
Player = 1 kill
All tower and keep lords count for 10 kills.

Goal of Proposal:
By doing this combat will be more smooth without delay, No more F-spam, no more PvD and most importantly breaking the zerg.

Break the zerg? This will reinforce the zerg!

If the only loot you get is by killing players, and the more you kill without dying gives better rewards, players will not want to die and continue running a zerg; if anything this will increase the zerg!

And if tower lords count as ten kills, well again everyone will want that kill, so again bigger zerg. Every server will become a “german” server!

Hmmm. your probably right about lord being worth more kills..
Still if you are in the zerg you might get a few tags in, you may get your kill count up to 25 in one encounter.. people wil run tank builds, maybe upleveled are being shunned in the zerg.. i can see those problems..

I was thinking about making keeps worth defending too.. since when a zerg comes knocking there are always casualties… so people should come prepared..to take a keep and reap any reward.
Defense will become a important part of the overall game, yet if you want the reward.. you must come out and fight and defend smart to keep your count up same goes for attacking.

I didn’t keep in mind that people could just trade kills :S
then again everyone would go full bunker..
What if you get rewarded more kills for killing someone with a higher killcount and non for no killcount..?

ManaCraft.5630:

Thisdan.6871:

While I find the idea of server alliances very interesting, Jocksy clearly highlighted the problems associated with a 3 color system.

Those problems are mostly the result of assumptions he makes about the design of the system. Language barriers are only relevant to whatever extent you decide to play with people who do not speak your language – which is entirely your choice. It would certainly be a more relevant problem if players were grouped together randomly in WvW, but there’s no reason why that would have to be the case. Same goes for the risk of a color-based system “killing tactics”. It would be a relevant concern if players are randomly grouped, but not if players are allowed to organize as they do today. As for motivation, since the map size will most likely not increase (by a.net’s own admission they can’t make maps bigger than the current borderlands), you’re unlikely to ever end up on a map with 500 players on it. Rather a series of smaller (read: current size) maps is much more likely, and on whichever map you play, you’ll then have the same amount of influence as you do now – although it is correct that if the sum of all map scores is allowed to determine the winning color, and if match length is kept constant, the average influence each player has on the outcome will fall. However, if that’s the objection, I would say that even in the current WvW system the ultimate outcome of each weekly round is so far beyond the influence of each individual player that I can’t see this making much of a difference.

Which leaves us with identity. This is probably the most common objection held by players concerning EotM, namely that the “color alliances” are not communities of their own making. Players are assigned to a random color, in a random instance, with random teammates. But again, there’s no reason why that need necessarily be the case. Players can have every bit as much influence over those things as they do now, in which case you’ll have the same foundation for creating/maintaining player-driven communities as you do today.

I totally agree!

so to brutally sum up, it seems we got 2 fields of opinions:
- change the way wvw is with color system matching and loose on identity and community but solving the problems on many low-tier matchups
- take the system as it is preserving identities and community that are the real “value” of this gamemode but also mantain the situations of low-tier matchups

other proposal were made to keep things together but involve in some “deep impact” on the current way wvw is (getting rid of ppt, changing maps and npcs, and many others)

I belive there is room for a third idea that keep guilds/servers/community identities and at the same time solve the low-tier issues. It will impact deeply (and positively!) also on the objective of current wvw but not the mechanics in-map.

The idea is based on a guesting system built around color grouping.

I’ve already expressed it on my previous post so i will not repost it, even if I have rearrenged and refined it quite a bit. Just to put my hands forward on possible objections:

- guesting should be a “scarce resource” for players in order to incentivate more stategical use of it (ie: 2×24h tickets like pve, or others solution to put some friction and make map hopping karma trains not so convenients)
- color grouping should be made with at least the criterion to not give it as a mean for easy sabotage (group together non direct competitors: given the current ranking at each time, group 1st+4th+7th+10th+…. on one color 2nd+5th+8th+… on another and so on)
- prioritize host’s server players on their matchup in respect to guests

at the end it is a hybrid solution between the current system and a possible “colored system”

I think it is really a viable solution, and you?

I like the hybrid concept. Have the three colors as a scoring pool and allow guesting from same color servers up and down tier. Stay on your home server but have forces that are already ahead in score on their matchup free to move where they are needed. Maybe there is a score trigger where you have to be ahead in your matchup by 15,000 and then it open up an opportunity to guest. This will spread population across servers, reduce overmanned servers dominance and allow people to make new connections. I would love to have a reliable guesting guild or five that came from a regularly dominant server and swung through once or twice a week to give our server a boost.

veo.9243:

I think it is really a viable solution, and you?

I’ll agree with you insofar that we’re looking for some sort of middle ground. What seems to have been the stumbling block for the debate thus far, and what people seem to base their objections on, is the notion that the EotM model must either be adopted fully or not at all. This is of course a false dilemma. The basic idea of a faction-based system is to mitigate the impact of differences in coverage by allowing the game to draw on a larger pool of players (i.e. all players of a certain faction/alliance/color/whatever, as opposed to just the players from a single server) to make up the difference. That aspect is essentially all we need to import from EotM. The rest of the model – the random assignment of faction based on whatever color your server happens to be that week, the random selection of the map you play on, the random selection of players on your team – can, and should, be left by the wayside.

With regard to the “guesting solution” (i.e. allowing players to play WvW on all servers of their color via something similar to the guesting system we have today), I’ve seen several different versions of it presented, and none of them have impressed me quite enough to sway me. I’m not opposed to it either though, as it’s definitely an improvement over what we have today, so I suppose you can chalk me up as an agnostic. However, if you care to take a stab at winning me over, my objections to those suggestions in general are as follows:

First, guesting just isn’t flexible enough. Precisely as you say, in order for the system to have any meaning, guesting will have to be a limited resource. However, a limited ability to move across different maps/instances means that at some point you end up preventing players from being able to play with each other. One example would be if you have already spent your guesting privileges for the day, and your guild suddenly decides to guest another server. Or if you want to go play with friends on a certain map, but can’t because you know you’ll need your guesting privileges that day for something else. You get the idea. The bottom line is that telling people they can’t play with their friends – for any reason – is just bad policy. I much prefer a system without such limitations (i.e. where players can move between maps/instances freely), since there’s really no need for them in the first place.

Second, there’s the problem of the relative worth of excess players. If one color should enjoy a surplus of players during a certain time period, they can now throw that extra force around not just on their own server(s), but on multiple additional servers as well. Guesting systems generally do nothing to diminish the value of such surplus force – in fact they tend to run the risk of exacerbating differences across time zones (to the degree that they exist).

Third, players are disproportionately awarded for guesting servers with a lack of opposition. Players invariably choose the path of least resistance to achieve their goals, and WvW is no different. If you want to play for PPT, it is relatively more effective to go for the low hanging fruit (i.e. guest a low tier server and PvDoor everything) than it is to take the fight to your enemy.

Note that I’m perhaps doing guesting systems a disservice here, in that I’m not taking time to list the benefits, but this post has run long enough as it is. Briefly, if I was to say something positive about them, guesting systems tend to be very simple and require very few modifications to existing structures (including player communities), and for that reason alone I actually think they, out of all the solutions on offer, stand the highest chance of being implemented.

ManaCraft.5630:

Third, players are disproportionately awarded for guesting servers with a lack of opposition. Players invariably choose the path of least resistance to achieve their goals, and WvW is no different. If you want to play for PPT, it is relatively more effective to go for the low hanging fruit (i.e. guest a low tier server and PvDoor everything) than it is to take the fight to your enemy.

With regards to this specific issue, the solution is relatively simple. As has been suggested previously, change which actions are rewarded in WvW. If PvDoor has little or, preferably, no reward while fighting against other players (even players behind the wall of a tower or keep) is highly rewarded, we’ll see a shift in behavior in WvW. Players will then take the fight to their enemy because that’s the only action that will earn them rewards.

Manacraft,

Flexibility as an issue – I would envision WvW guesting within the faction as only limited by two game mechanics. Meet the gateway on your home server to demonstrate surplus and guesting to 2 servers in a 24 hour period similar to PVE guesting now. Once on a host server you should have full freedom of movement from map to map until such time as you leave server. Challenges to making this move effective would be coordination between leaders across servers. Yes I could look at a tracking website to see what other matches in my faction need help but with a limitation on the availability of guesting I wouldn’t just go for the empty opponent. I would want to go where I could make a impact over time. I would work to establish guild alliances between servers in my faction so that I could dependably call on 3-5 guilds off of a server I know has the gateway met. In order to keep these alliances viable servers would have to be locked into faction, tier positions would shift within the faction and overall match victory for the week would be based on the faction total score. If I made friends with a allied force to the point I resented not having them on the field with me permanently then it would be a discussion about transfers.

One factions excess based on time zones – If there is enough excess in one faction on a particular time zone I don’t have a fast answer.

Addressing the focus on empty maps- This can be resolved through communication and coordination. Know your people, your leaders, your available resources and place a call to arms. We do this now with 4 maps. Adapting this to a much greater spread would be a challenge but I believe it could be accomplished over time.I think that the potential for a reinforcement from a higher tiers excess force would enhance the defensive play of those somewhat empty maps. If I knew I could call for cavalry on Tuesday – Thursday I would make sure the night shift upgraded and the day shift built siege to give the cavalry something to fight for when the horde flooded in.

I would manage the across server fight to gain score / rank and open gates so that as many servers in my faction had freedom to guest as possible. Of course this all depends on people on those servers with excess being willing to support the fight on less successful servers throughout the match. I think having a scoring system tied to a faction would motivate that commitment to help a weaker server.

There are second and third order effects to guesting that have a different impact on matches. There is potential for migration based on a known playing environment rather then sending scouts forward as ambassadors and evaluators prior to a transfer. There is potential to open up GvG across factions as guilds can work to make the gateway for guesting on the server and then guest to a certain tier for matches.

@Kraag: I think the case here is that the solution appears simple, but the devil is in the details. To begin with, how exactly do we tell the two scenarios apart? Do you still get credit if opposition is in fact present on the map but preoccupied elsewhere? How many defending players does it take, exactly, for a captured structure to no longer count as a case of “PvDoor”? Can defenders simply port out to deny the attackers credit? Or speculate in not defending at all if they suspect they will not succeed to begin with? Speaking more generally, what precisely are the criteria that must be met to receive credit for capturing a structure, and how do we track if player behavior conforms to those criteria? I definitely agree that there’s room for improving incentive structures, if for no other reason than that they currently aren’t very good, but I’d love for you to flesh out some of the details for me (or direct me to an earlier post of yours if I missed it, in which case I apologize).

@Phlogus: I’m not worried at all about coordination across servers, the system design doesn’t have to specifically accommodate that in any way, it’s up to the players to handle it and I think they will adjust nicely. Also, just to clarify, when I talk about freedom of movement, I’m talking about the freedom to move unrestricted across all maps on all servers (i.e. removing the possible drawbacks of the model by offering “unlimited guesting” as it were).

Anyway, I appreciate that you would endeavor to not just look for empty servers, but go where you would be the most effective over time – but aren’t those more or less one and the same? Isn’t the empty server with no opposition precisely where you would get the most PPT for your buck? I don’t dispute that you could mitigate the effects of such malignant guesting through effective planning and “counter-guesting”, but that’s missing the point somewhat. The issue is that you shouldn’t be rewarded for avoiding the opposition to begin with. The greatest rewards should be found where the opposition is likely to be.

Incidentally, here’s another thing I’d like your thoughts on: some tiers are inherently imbalanced, in that there’s a significant difference in performance between servers in those matchups (this happens when, for example, one server clearly dominates the other two). The underperforming servers in such tiers will effectively constitute an artificial “guesting sink”, in that players that represent the losing colors will have to dedicate part of their guesting budget to dealing with the constant PPT drain, while the color that profits from this arrangement does not. In other words, some colors are inherently forced to spend more of their guesting budget on defensive guesting. Is this a problem? If so, do we simply cross our fingers and hope that such problematic matchups will average out across all three colors?

ManaCraft.5630:

…
First, guesting just isn’t flexible enough. Precisely as you say, in order for the system to have any meaning, guesting will have to be a limited resource. However, a limited ability to move across different maps/instances means that at some point you end up preventing players from being able to play with each other.
…
I much prefer a system without such limitations (i.e. where players can move between maps/instances freely), since there’s really no need for them in the first place.

Me to! But i look at this in this way: with guesting I’ll have 2 (or wathever) more chance to play with the people I want to, namely the commanders that left our dying server (Teldec, Lord Aragorn, Goldly, we miss you sooooo much!!) and maybe even have them come back from time to time.
Gusting will not be the total freedom solution, but will be better than what is atm.

ManaCraft.5630:

Second, there’s the problem of the relative worth of excess players. If one color should enjoy a surplus of players during a certain time period, they can now throw that extra force around not just on their own server(s), but on multiple additional servers as well. Guesting systems generally do nothing to diminish the value of such surplus force – in fact they tend to run the risk of exacerbating differences across time zones (to the degree that they exist).

Third, players are disproportionately awarded for guesting servers with a lack of opposition. Players invariably choose the path of least resistance to achieve their goals, and WvW is no different. If you want to play for PPT, it is relatively more effective to go for the low hanging fruit (i.e. guest a low tier server and PvDoor everything) than it is to take the fight to your enemy.

Second and 3rd goes hand in hand also with your subsequent thoughts on matchups imbalances.
I’ve to admit i did not take in considerations time coverage issues, but thinking about it, i belive that at the end imbalances (on time coverage, cold numbers and pure strenght), if and only if marginals, are one piece of the “engine” for tacticals and strategicals innovations.
Having always the “perfect balance” with matches will at the end kill the competition. You’ll end up with the only factor being the skills and coordination of teams, which at first glance seems the haven but it isn’t because the only meta will be how to bring the bests team together, not how to build up teams to be flexible smart skilled and coordinated enough to adapt to diverse situations.
And again, guesting will help to lessen imbalances on average (not crossing fingers, but building a system that push towards that direction), mantainig a degree of diversity and building enough room to deal with it.

ManaCraft.5630:

Note that I’m perhaps doing guesting systems a disservice here, in that I’m not taking time to list the benefits, but this post has run long enough as it is. Briefly, if I was to say something positive about them, guesting systems tend to be very simple and require very few modifications to existing structures (including player communities), and for that reason alone I actually think they, out of all the solutions on offer, stand the highest chance of being implemented.

No disservice at all, you pointed out things that are rational and need to be addressed better.
I also double your last sentece.

Phlogus.2371:

Manacraft,

Flexibility as an issue – I would envision WvW guesting within the faction as only limited by two game mechanics. Meet the gateway on your home server to demonstrate surplus and guesting to 2 servers in a 24 hour period similar to PVE guesting now. Once on a host server you should have full freedom of movement from map to map until such time as you leave server.
…

I think guesting should not be subordinated to other mechanics, first for the freedom that it will negate, second ‘cause you automatically lock out lower tier players from guesting incentivating them to transfer home (and that’s bad). At most I can see it subordinated on some mechanics in EoTM if EoTM change it’s purpose of being the overflow for WvW to be the hub for guesting in WvW.

Phlogus.2371:

…
I would want to go where I could make a impact over time. I would work to establish guild alliances between servers in my faction so that I could dependably call on 3-5 guilds off of a server I know has the gateway met.

Gateway excluded, you touched the really heart of the subject: open up to inter-server cooperations, giving new stategical opportunities in wvw gamemode.

Phlogus.2371:

…
In order to keep these alliances viable servers would have to be locked into faction, tier positions would shift within the faction and overall match victory for the week would be based on the faction total score. If I made friends with a allied force to the point I resented not having them on the field with me permanently then it would be a discussion about transfers.
…

Locking servers in alliances… maybe. For sure it will help strengthen relationships (which is good).
But also having a “shifting ground” on alliances will be interesting in terms of complexity of the relations bringing to deeper “political manuvering”. Dunno, it is an interesting aspect to dig more.

veo.9243:

But i look at this in this way: with guesting I’ll have 2 (or wathever) more chance to play with the people I want to. […] Gusting will not be the total freedom solution, but will be better than what is atm.

I’ll agree that if you approach guesting strictly as the amount of opportunity each individual player has, the result is positive. The picture becomes somewhat more complicated when you consider the practical implications of players making different choices at different times. Putting limits on players’ movement throughout the system in a format where maphopping is frequently needed leads to limitations as well as opportunities. Although I’m not exactly opposed to guesting systems, this is part of the reason why I’m not enthusiastic about them either. I prefer actual freedom to limited freedom (but I’ll be the first to admit that that freedom comes at a price). If I want to play with my friends, I never want the game to tell me “no”.

But we can certainly agree that guesting systems are better than the status quo.

veo.9243:

I’ve to admit i did not take in considerations time coverage issues, but thinking about it, i belive that at the end imbalances (on time coverage, cold numbers and pure strenght), if and only if marginals, are one piece of the “engine” for tacticals and strategicals innovations.
Having always the “perfect balance” with matches will at the end kill the competition. You’ll end up with the only factor being the skills and coordination of teams, which at first glance seems the haven but it isn’t because the only meta will be how to bring the bests team together, not how to build up teams to be flexible smart skilled and coordinated enough to adapt to diverse situations.

If possible I’d like to request a rewrite of the above argument, because … well, it’s bad. I’m sorry, but it is. Essentially what you’re saying here is that we should not pursue a system which promotes skill and coordination, because the meta will then no longer be about skills and coordination. That, or I’m just not understanding you at all. Care to clarify?

In any case, I don’t advocate perfection. Perfect balance does not exist, and neither do perfect solutions. All of them carry within themselves their own sets of drawbacks. Some solutions are just more acceptable than others. None of the objections I offer here are meant to be seen as insurmountable obstacles that must be perfectly addressed come hell or high kitten. They are simply the price, as I see it, that you pay for accepting one solution over another. It is inevitable that you will accept certain drawbacks, regardless of which solution you advocate.

veo.9243:

And again, guesting will help to lessen imbalances on average (not crossing fingers, but building a system that push towards that direction), mantainig a degree of diversity and building enough room to deal with it.

Agreed. Faction-based systems, if they do their job, reduce the overall volatility of player distribution, even if there might be problems within subsets of the population. That being said, I’ve yet to see a guesting system that works to lessen the value of a player surplus within one faction. As I explained, if anything they only tend to allow those players to exert their influence over more servers.

ManaCraft.5630:

…

I’ve to admit i did not take in considerations time coverage issues, but thinking about it, i belive that at the end imbalances (on time coverage, cold numbers and pure strenght), if and only if marginals, are one piece of the “engine” for tacticals and strategicals innovations.
Having always the “perfect balance” with matches will at the end kill the competition. You’ll end up with the only factor being the skills and coordination of teams, which at first glance seems the haven but it isn’t because the only meta will be how to bring the bests team together, not how to build up teams to be flexible smart skilled and coordinated enough to adapt to diverse situations.

If possible I’d like to request a rewrite of the above argument, because … well, it’s bad. I’m sorry, but it is. Essentially what you’re saying here is that we should not pursue a system which promotes skill and coordination, because the meta will then no longer be about skills and coordination. That, or I’m just not understanding you at all. Care to clarify?

You’r right, i’ve expressed myself in a wrong way. I’ll try to reformulate.
The aim of the game, this one in particular, is to promote skillfull gampelay and cooperation between players.
Given everything equal (“perfect balance”, also in average skills and coordination of the opposing sides), in order for one side to overrun the other the best option will be “steal” other best forces. That will be the most (and only, given no more room to improve skills and coordination… everybody top players) rewarding strategy.
Having little (and impredictable) imbalances gives at least more dimensions in order to improve skills and coordination requiring flexibilty and adaptability. (Having a zerg overrun you is fine, being systematically overrun week afte week is not)
Btw, i’ll drop this position: too abstract and extreme and … just bad

ManaCraft.5630:

In any case, I don’t advocate perfection. Perfect balance does not exist, and neither do perfect solutions. All of them carry within themselves their own sets of drawbacks. Some solutions are just more acceptable than others. None of the objections I offer here are meant to be seen as insurmountable obstacles that must be perfectly addressed come hell or high kitten. They are simply the price, as I see it, that you pay for accepting one solution over another. It is inevitable that you will accept certain drawbacks, regardless of which solution you advocate.

veo.9243:

And again, guesting will help to lessen imbalances on average (not crossing fingers, but building a system that push towards that direction), mantainig a degree of diversity and building enough room to deal with it.

Agreed. Faction-based systems, if they do their job, reduce the overall volatility of player distribution, even if there might be problems within subsets of the population. That being said, I’ve yet to see a guesting system that works to lessen the value of a player surplus within one faction. As I explained, if anything they only tend to allow those players to exert their influence over more servers.

Sure, perfect solutions does not exists, me as you as (almost) everybody in this thread we’re just trying to suggest what we belive are good solutions.
I belive that guesting is the best on the table also because, as i see it, it’s drawbacks are acceptable.

Right that guesting will valorize more the surplus: now its value is 0, simply ‘cause is unusable, it’s wasted. You automatically valorize it if you put in use.
Agreed that if you have so much, then we got problems again.
For this reason is important players base partitioning.
Atm is (for NA) partitioned in 24 (or 8 if you center it on matchups), too much as we all see the situation.
Having reduced only to 3 parts is too few in order for interesting variablity of sides (ending up fighting always the other 2).
Having it dived by 24 (or eight) than again regruped transversely by 3 (and i belive not more than 3, and shifting too) can lead to a more balanced subdivision… dunno, but sounds mathematically funny at least
Anyhow, I would rather prefer to risk some temporary imbalanced situation than a costant (and diverging) imbalanced situation.

PS. I apologize for strange phrasing and mispellings, I’m not english, and I’m struggling a lot to try to express myself effectively. I belive that my brain is starting partitioning itself ^L^

veo.9243:

Given everything equal (“perfect balance”, also in average skills and coordination of the opposing sides), in order for one side to overrun the other the best option will be “steal” other best forces.

In my opinion this is really a non-issue. In fact, servers regularly cannibalizing each other’s WvW populations is precisely one of the main reasons why a faction-based system is better in the first place. You won’t see the transfer of a single guild or two trigger full blown meltdowns as you do now, because the overall impact is much smaller.

veo.9243:

Anyhow, I would rather prefer to risk some temporary imbalanced situation than a costant (and diverging) imbalanced situation.

Likewise. But I also prefer a system that does mitigate the impact of surplus players to one that doesn’t. In my opinion the strength of the guesting system isn’t that it’s the better solution as such, but rather that there’s a chance it might be the better compromise.

DevonCarver.5370:

Do you think that the amount of travel that you have to put in makes the maps feel better? Does it feel like there is a consequence for dying and that you can whittle down an opposing force?

I’m curious what your thoughts are and if you think it would make the fighting better or worse in the borderlands and EB.

Waypoints make no difference when zergs hard res dead players. Fix that, and you practically fix the game mode.
If that was fixed, then the more waypoints the better. Most people dont like running for 5 minutes to find a fight.
The problem is when a zerg ports en masse to defend a structure, while flipping the rest of the map. The smaller force is punished while the larger and less organized force receives no penalty.
So instead of a timer, put a cap on how many players can port per minute or something like that. Something has to be done, because I guarantee that wvw loses more people to hard ressing and no zerg penalties then anything else.

I always thought that Edge of the Mists is made for more casual WvW players. The map itself is awesome, but having to run 5 minutes to get anywhere kind of contradicts that casuality for me. Let’s be honest – there’s nothing cool in running through the whole map after dying.

I also don’t like that there is only one waypoint. It is no fun to run over the map for 5mins, just to arrive at the fighting zone to realize everyone of team or every enemy is alreay dead… or the times when someone fears/pushs you over the edge and then you are at the start. Real annoying. Of course I can also see that big zerks waypointing all over the map is a problem, but I don’t feel like having almost no way points is a real solution to this. Perhaps really some limit to how many people can port in a minute or something like this…