Guild Wars 2

But primetime players ARE already getting punished! Playing outside of primetime if way more profitable. Why do people not see how this is already unfair?

Arenanet is seeing a dilemma that is really not there. It’s fair to cut down point profit during the nighttime because it’s already TOO good. It’s more effecient than primetime.

And i understand that they want it fair for every player but night time players will still net points for their server and even if their points are halved or something based on the fact that they outman enemies, they might STILL get the same atmount of points as what the primetime folks can do. It’s fair and much more balanced overal.

DevonCarver.5370:

That’s certainly a different direction. My concern here would be that we put too much emphasis on a very specific time of day. It might be the case that we should try and put more emphasis on specific portions of the day, but the more focused it is, the more you encourage everyone to show up at exactly the same time, which makes the queue worse and just lessens the experience for everyone. I think there is something to the idea of PPT being higher during certain times of day, but it has sort of the opposite problem. That’s the balance we haven’t yet struck, in my opinion.

Please no. Specific timing balance will give unfair advantage/disadvantage to some servers resulting in much drama and it wont solve a thing but to make the queue time worse. You need to look at bigger picture.

What make ppl compete all the time? → When they know they still have chance to win? → less than 10k score gap on each server to be maintain

How to help 2nd/3rd servers to compete with leading server? → MORE INCENTIVES → Meaning more PPT gain if you hit 1st server, More WXP gain if you capture 1st server stuff.

2nd server always in the edge of success as the leading server will always suppress the 2nd while the 3rd server now acting as Kingmaker. 3rd server can choose to screw 2nd server because it’s easier for them to capture etc. With the new score system revised, they now have more motivated to gang the leading server with 2nd server. Making the score competitive til friday. This is how you solve the wvw attendance in long run.

IDarko.4709:

But primetime players ARE already getting punished! Playing outside of primetime if way more profitable. Why do people not see how this is already unfair?

Arenanet is seeing a dilemma that is really not there. It’s fair to cut down point profit during the nighttime because it’s already TOO good. It’s more effecient than primetime.

And i understand that they want it fair for every player but night time players will still net points for their server and even if their points are halved or something based on the fact that they outman enemies, they STILL get the same atmounf of points during the peopel from primetime. It’s fair and much more balanced overal.

The problem with this is there are servers who have a stronger night presence then “prime time presence” So while they may dominate at night they still lose more points then gained during the day. This would kill those servers, the bottom line is the population needs to spread somehow or someway whether its via implementing WvW guesting or transfers. PPT is not really the problem, losing a week matchup doesn’t sting nearly as much if it was fun and fairly even, losing a weeks matchup after getting stomped into the ground at every turn because your not capable of Queing 1 map while your opponent(s) can Que 2-4 maps is simply not fun, is the game not suppose to be fun ?

kntz.1420:

Some good ideas remain from these videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NedWPHZCcik

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMEq4PAFmnI

QUICK LINKS:

Number 10: Poor Advertising — 1:01
Number 9: World Vs. World — 2:54
Number 8: Loot and Magic Find — 5:27
Number 7: Personal Story — 8:22
Number 6: Dungeons — 13:48
Number 5: Guesting and Realms — 17:45 – Good ideias
Number 4: Events — 21:49
--———————————————————————————-
Number 2: User Friendlyness: — 28:24
Number 1: Polish and Optimization — 30:47

I don’t think this video is a good at all. He doesn’t have a real grasp of the fundamental problems that need to be fixed. He is more like an outside player looking in.

Nuzt.7894:

The problem with this is there are servers who have a stronger night presence then “prime time presence” So while they may dominate at night they still lose more points then gained during the day. This would kill those servers, the bottom line is the population needs to spread somehow or someway whether its via implementing WvW guesting or transfers.

These servers need to be killed. It has never, ever been fun to fight against servers with different timezone coverages. Logging in to PvDoor, then logging off and watching your stuff get PvDoored is fun for no one, even if it happened at the same rate to both servers (which it usually doesn’t, it usually favors the “nighttime” server since there is always primetime players)

DevonCarver.5370:

In addition, we don’t release specific numbers in terms of populations, queues, etc. and I can’t comment directly on those statistics. I’d be more curious to know what people think is the reason behind the fact that score is so directly related to the number of people on a server 24/7 and how WvW could be designed differently to address that moving forward. My personal observation is that the momentum you gain from even a small period of having more people online is so large that it can’t be overcome. Which makes me think we need to be doing more to slow that momentum.

Again, this is intended to be a discussion about the design principles, and not a forum for requests for information about current projects or to request specific changes.

Population imbalance reasons

WvW populations are imbalanced towards tier 1 because of the lack of competition present in tier 2 though 8. PvE transfers were attracted to successful WvW populations because of the WvW buffs.
The guild I am in has about 20-30 players and we want to fight other guilds and zergs of a similar size, all night – for hours on end.
In order to fight these large groups we are forced to go to tier 1 servers because they have the best Oceanic and South East Asian coverage.
The smaller tier 2 servers can’t supply enough bodies constantly for hours on end during the Oceanic / SEA time zone.
Recently when we have been forced to play tier 2 servers via league (or random match up) we actually have to organise with the other server’s commander to even get a fight.
Full time WvW guilds will always be drawn to tier 1 for the constant fights and the high quality opposition. The only way to get us off tier 1 servers is to merge servers sitting in tier 2 though tier 8 until they have similar time zone coverage to tier 1 servers.

Slowing server momentum

Your suggestion of slowing server momentum can be a double edged sword – you risk disadvantaging a “lesser” server that can only dominate 1 time period. e.g.,
Server 1 – coverage – Oceanic: Good, SEA: Good, EU:Good, US: Good
Server 2 – coverage – Oceanic: Excellent, SEA: Average, EU:Average, US: Average
The way that Server 2 stays in touch with Server 1 is by going really, really hard during Oceanic time period where they dominate – they can catch up on the huge gains that Server 1 has during SEA/EU/US.
So you risk giving an advantage to Server 1 (currently winning server) by slowing Server 2’s rapid advance during their Oceanic timezone.

Catch up mode

I would love to see some form of “Catch Up” mode in WvW that allows trailing server(s) to stay in touch with winning servers.
The best and most exciting matches are the close matches that come down to the wire.
I think you need to make ‘points based’ catch up rather than ‘rewards based’ catch up.

An example idea of this would be:

Underdog Buff:

• Earn 0.125% of score deficit on sentry capture.
• Earn 0.25% of score deficit on supply camp capture.
• Earn 1% of score deficit on tower capture.
• Earn 5% of score deficit on keep capture.
• Earn 10% of score deficit on Stonemist caputure.

Score deficit = Leading server’s score MINUS Your server’s score

Example of how it would operate:

Jade Quarry 220,000 (the server I play on currently)
BlackGate 180,000

Score defecit = 40,000

JQ captures anything = 0 point bonus – they are in the lead

BG SM capture = 40k * 0.30 = 4000 bonus points
BG sentry capture = 40k * 0.30 = 50 bonus points

So BG will constantly catch up to JQ and if JQ falls behind they will constantly catch up to BG.

As it is percentage based, the closer BG gets to JQ’s score the bonus points will start to diminish greatly and BG will be much closer to JQ – but BG will have to “earn” the actual lead. JQ’s hard work won’t be fully diminished by a catch up.

It’s like those racing car games where if you get a good lead the other cars catch up until they are close and then the catch up mode wears off. It keeps the race close until the finish rather than discouraging players when they see they are too far behind to ever catch their opponent.

Don’t get hung up on on percentages I am showing here – they are only an example and the optimal percentages would have to be worked on to be ‘fair’ – so the catch up is not too fast or too slow.

It might be an idea to only enable the catch up mode when the deficit is larger than 10k (or some other arbitrary number that makes sense).

a lot of this stuff isn’t very constructive.

Also, I find that personally I’m able to score anywhere from 2-5x more points in the middle of the night than I would during primetime. This is why people say WvW is about coverage more so than population, and there is a limited amount of oceanics/asians to go around.

Reducing the max map population during off hours, so that less nighttime players are needed per server, or reducing PPT gained during off hours needs to be done in order to say that man hours during primetime are equivalent to man hours during nighttime, otherwise I feel like I’m wasting time playing for PPT during the day.

Can I use the same argument? my night is your day – so we need to cut the mapsize down during your timeframe. See how that works?
It does need a solution – but coverage is not the issue, coverage and night capping will always take place. Less points for your night or my night is an eternal ring. My server may get its points 100% of the time during nighttime, yours during the day.
Its the way the leagues and tiers and points work that needs an overhaul. No-one minds coverage if its wonky – two close match servers with close points due to one being night, one being day.
Its when you get blowout weeks when you’re facing 24/7 vs 12/7.
A method to measure the pops on at x time of day and then adjust server matchings so close matchups are almost guaranteed. (there will always be blowouts etc on weekends lets face it).
server a – 120 players 90% of the first 12 hours, 30 players the next 8 hours.
Server b – 120 players 70% of the first 12 hours, 50 players the next 8 Hours.
Great fight potential.
In order to finetune the matchups you need data to start with – not just “oh noes! they took our stuff last night!”
If it gets measured accurately and often even sudden blowouts from an unexpected guild transfer can be adjusted for next matchup.
Because ultimately, we all want good matchups.

Talissa Chan.7208:

Can I use the same argument? my night is your day – so we need to cut the mapsize down during your timeframe. See how that works?

I don’t have a night time or day time, I was referring to the region’s. If you want something more “objective”, across all servers I guarantee you there is less population on during each region’s nighttime, so it makes sense to limit map population during those times.

Talissa Chan.7208:

No-one minds coverage if its wonky – two close match servers with close points due to one being night, one being day.

I do. Read my previous post.

Cake.4920:

Also, I find that personally I’m able to score anywhere from 2-5x more points in the middle of the night than I would during primetime. This is why people say WvW is about coverage more so than population, and there is a limited amount of oceanics/asians to go around.

Reducing the max map population during off hours, so that less nighttime players are needed per server, or reducing PPT gained during off hours needs to be done in order to say that man hours during primetime are equivalent to man hours during nighttime, otherwise I feel like I’m wasting time playing for PPT during the day.

Geez… not this again. Night capping restrictions during “NA’s nighttime” were ruled out a long time ago.

Your primetime is my night time. My primetime is what you call nighttime.

WvW is an international game – there is no ‘night time’ and every player considers ‘prime time’ to be the time when they are logged on.

I consider Oceanic and SEA to be the true ‘prime time’ on JQ because our North American and European guilds can’t match our Oceanic and SEA guild numbers.

Would you like it if SEA and Oceanic players asked for queue and points restrictions to be applied during your primetime? Probably not.

North American servers are NOT for North Americans – they are for everyone – they are simply hosted in North America.

Oceanic and SEA players should be able to play without restriction and our efforts should be just as valuable and just as rewarding to the server as the efforts of North American players.

Playing on Tarnished Coast, we constantly go against T1 servers that have a much larger population and coverage. This leaves us to spread out among all the servers attempting to take and defend against superior numbers. One solution I can think of that can go along with that handicap mode that is being discussed is this:

The trailing server gains a percentage bonus for everything the hold, and a larger percentage bonus for holding a larger portion of one map. The rank 2 server could receive a very small bonus to keep them competitive with the rank 1 server, while the rank 3 server receives a substantial bonus. The goal of this bonus is to to provide the trailing servers with a chance to stay in competition, while a server with less coverage can converge on one map and gain even more of a bonus. At this point, the other servers can’t just win through multiple queued servers.

Primetime is dependent on the region, not your schedule. You can’t debate this.

Nighttime players already score 2-5x the points per manhour, so imposing a score reduction on them is fair.

Usually – and this is just my experience, if players start arguing in a thread started by a dev, the dev locks it up and everyone loses out.
My apologies for arguing as I’m rather guilty there too.

EDIT For Clarification: Point being – Like the LS postings, we’re here to post our viewpoint. Not argue/debate with everyone elses. That leads nowhere fast.
also: Debate = point/counterpoint. Argue = point/counterpoint.
And now i’m off to slap scarlett a bit.

Debating isn’t arguing. EDIT: we aren’t suppose to debate? Really?

So many ideas here that I don’t agree with. There should be NO punishment for off-peak players. Why must it be that I earn less points when I play during my “prime time”? That’s even MORE unfair than the current situation.

Instead of punishing us Aussie/Kiwi/South East Asian players for not living in NA, how about something more constructive? I saw a post not too far above by JQ player that I strongly agree with. A catchup mode. That sounds pretty good.

The idea I posted before about removing the bottom tier WvW servers and making them transfer up (free transfers) also still seems viable in my opinion.

fix your Spvp………

There’s a few issues going on with pop imbalance that I can see – having higher pop causes a snowball effect, where servers are able to secure and defend their properties because they can win the field fights. There’s also the timezone issue, where having high-pop in a timezone where other servers are low-pop (Oceanic, for instance) makes it easy to cap targets and earn points.

What we’d want is a system that scores objectives only when there’s a risk of losing them. This could even be done directly, by tying scoring to defence events (with a minimum threshhold to prevent scoring by lone agents or spies). As for the field fights, a way for small groups to prevail against zergs they know are coming would be ideal – the arrow cart was supposed to do that, but large zergs can deploy arrow carts even quicker. Possibly something that deals exponential damage based on how many people are in range of the target, or deals damage to people hit and then spreads to nearby targets. Only hazard here is that it might discourage people from playing together.

But that’s sort of the problem, isn’kitten It’s so much safer to be in a zerg that there’s no reason to try and split forces, and anything to encourage small groups to stick around and try and deal with the zerg (and they will have to) will either discourage small groups from merging or discourage players from co-operating.

The real problem is not that servers do not have WvWers – it’s that they stop coming out to fight once it’s clear who will win the matchup. It’s even worse with League (since before you could (in theory) fight for your Glicko score. Why would EB or NSP come out to fight right now ? the ranks have been decided on Sunday.

To fix population imbalance, you need to make WvWing interesting and atractive again, past reset night. People will gladly come and play if they feel they have a chance of winning.

Suggestion : instead of one seven day matchup, make it 7 one day matchups, between the same three servers. Reset at fixed hours. Points (5, 3, 1) after each day. This would give hope and a meaning to fighting, when capping or defending a keep can change the final score.

The only relevance PPT score has from my point of view, is that it governs the numbers your server can muster.

The real game is the events that unfold as resources are captured and lost, over and over.

It all begins to fall down when your server cannot hold onto resources long enough to stop losing ground specifically due to a lack of numbers. These numbers ever dwindle and the whole experience becomes a lost cause.

Only while there is a sense of enjoyment and/or a sense of achievement, does the game continue being fun. Enjoyment and achievement mean different things to different people of course.

Cake.4920:

Primetime is dependent on the region, not your schedule. You can’t debate this.

Nighttime players already score 2-5x the points per manhour, so imposing a score reduction on them is fair.

My night time is your day time, I think its a great idea to impose a score reduction on “them”, oh wait there are other timezones in the world? woah

Eliminate Server Wars and implement Guild Wars.

Each week allow guilds to sign up for WvW battles. Create rosters of a certain size and let guild leaders select the players who will join them until the rosters are full for each week. This way guilds can form partnerships and play in a truly coordinated and competitive fashion. Create a cap that teams must reach (you could even do cap tiers), and if a team can’t reach the cap, but are within a certain range, they can still elect to go forward.

The matches can be random based on the size of the Guild teams each week, and the win can be for bragging rights. Casual WvW players, AKA pugs, could be placed into servers specified for non-guild WvW for the week or could place themselves up for auction as mercenaries for guilds that need extra bodies.

Its a huge change from the current Server vs. Server, but if you ever want this to be a fair and competitive e-sport you have to eliminate the randomness of the casual server population.

Because the size of the guild teams would be equal, or nearly equal, no one could complain about numbers. Guilds could play without interference or being trolled by casual players. People wouldn’t take supply randomly from keeps and towers, and the whole system could be played intelligently.

Plus, you could actually stand behind the name Guild Wars.

On the topic of World Population, it is hard to really give much feedback not knowing the data.

Please run a series of logs and display the statistics?

Example,
ET has X amount of players registered on the server, X amount of players are split into these regions.

Out of X players, the number of unique players entered WvW during Week 1 is X, out of X players, these players are split into these regions.

We know for the fact there are population imbalances. Without proper data, all we are doing is throwing suggestions to you devs.
Data is probably the biggest asset you can have, with these data you can start thinking of questions like below

1) Is it worth splitting/merging a server on these numbers?
2) Should we try and segregate PvE Worlds from WvW Worlds?
3) Should we implement Dynamic Map scaling?
As much as we love big battles, what happens when a server has 10x more the amount beating down on a server with less players?
Maybe scale the amount of map/objectives so the smaller server has a chance in defending?
Bronze Tier would appreciate this, we definitely would be able to hold off assaults from large numbers if all of us are able to defend a smaller number of objectives.
4) Should we introduce a new mode to WvW?

Fun suggestions (take it with a grain of salt)

King of the hill mode

3 servers starting position, 7 camps, 5 towers, 3 different bridges, 1 keep.

How will it work?

1) All servers start on the bottom of the hill, next to each other.
2) Fight your way to capture towers, hold 2 towers to gain access across a bridge over instadeath moats. the combination of towers dictate which bridge to cross
3) Once across the bridge, fight for the keep. Players run supply to build siege weapons, if they lose their tower the bridge is lost and open to be wiped.
4) There is no supply in the keep, supply runs are from players. Chain of supply, Camp → Tower → Keep

I’ve been on Desolation since October, we’ve been through many ups and downs, falling and rising; up the ranks and Tiers during the time I’ve been on here as you may have read, or seen for yourselves if you’ve been competing among the top of Tiers of the EU ladder.

I’ve seen both sides of the story where we’ve been stuck in Tier 1 for months despite losing our biggest and most influential Guild, to the time we rebuilt our community to rise back to become one of the top 5 servers in the EU, and lastly for us to face more drama which has left us with only a handful of wvw guilds left: which led us to dropping to the lowest rank we’ve ever been.

Point Per Tick

For me I like the general idea of the PPT, I like the coordination and strategy needed if there’s a close matchup, but we rarely see that these day.
A single Server can achieve a 400+ PPT through night capping or Alarm clocking in the morning, a single Zerg or what we call a “Karma Train” can simply capture an entire Borderlands with ease, it doesn’t matter if you make use of the Siegerazer and Siegecrusher Events as that “Karma Train” can just come back and cap everything back in the matter of minutes with everything wooden, being outnumbered is too much of a hindrance to bother playing unless that “Karma train” is stopped.

Sure it takes a lot of dedication and sacrifice (sleep!) especially if you are like me, I am one of the lead commanders of Desolation’s night crew, before the Leagues began thanks to RNG matchups we’ve been up against higher Tier servers with much more coverage than we do., but I relished the challenge it’s just a shame we get no support fighting outnumbered against zergs banging on our gates with Golems and Rams with mastery these days.

Naturally we’ve dropped down the Ranks and into the Silver Leagues due to the loss of many Guilds, but as everyone has noticed we have healthy lead in this current round of matchups after winning the last round with fair ease.
My point is from my experience from being steamrolled by other servers, to dominating the Silver League thus far is that I do not feel the PPT system is fair or fulfilling: it is bad game design that needs a rethink.

The problem is that defending has little reward compared to attacking objectives which brings about the zerg meta, more dedicated wvwers will understand and have a sense of fulfillment taking up these smaller tasks besides defending: escorting and killing Dolyaks, sniping camps, scouting, upgrading, and sieging/refreshing siege.

Server Transfers

I would like to think many of us know how much work is put in behind the scenes from people that dedicate their time towards organizing their wvw Community, drama and politics often happen among a server community even more so these days due to queues and lag, Players and Guilds can easily afford to transfer to another server due to transfer costs that do not take account wvw population.

The worse thing Anet did was to lower the transfer cost to High population servers before the Leagues started, this allowed band-wagoners to stack up on servers which did not need anymore wvwers, it has resulted in longer queues than it would’ve been without these additional transfers.

Transfers should have been closed as soon as wvw Season 1 began cause transfer as that will will end make matchups even more imbalanced and it will damage many wvw communities who will stuck in their current League for 6 more weeks, we are even seeing Guilds leave mainly due to the queues.

As much as it was a good idea to try to bring PVE’ers into wvw, it has done damage to some communities as a result with increased queue times and huge amounts of skill lag.
Many of them have little knowledge about wvw that they end up wandering about themselves, or they just end up following whatever zerg is around as a result, and they often test the patience of our commanders.
There are some that are willing to learn though, eventually they may end up in wvw Guild.

Anet should be trying to give more incentive for Guilds and Players to stick with their Community in for the long run, from my own experience I’ve seen many Friends and Guilds leave Desolation for servers which cost much less than ourselves, so we have to rely on our PVE population to boost our numbers in wvw, which will fluctuate during the Leagues.
There are communities that have ended up fragmented, or they were deserted by so many guilds, that they have ended up free-falling down the Tiers as a result.

Queues and Population Numbers

As everybody has asked for what we need is official wvw population numbers from Anet to properly correlate the difference between each Server, to get a real idea of the differences between coverage and population, and if at all possible the numbers that get stuck in the queue during prime time.

But the evidence has been there from those who still play regularly since the games’ launch, it’s about time we get official numbers and start thinking about how we can make the PPT system more relevant during regular hours, I really want to see more competitive matchups that are not complete blowouts after a few days.

Give us Guilds more incentive to play for the PPT, make it feel like we make more of contribution, and make it more so small groups can make a contribution.

However I have to say that we cannot stop people playing when they want or when they can, I have met many people from different countries who have made a valuable contribution towards our wvw community.
There is also the advantage that ‘International’ Servers have over ‘National’ Servers where most people know the Universal Language that is English, unless you are Vizunah of course.

Stone.6751:

but if you ever want this to be a fair and competitive e-sport

I’m not interested in e-sport specifically, just good ‘balanced’ casual fun in primetime (2am-6am PST). Maybe I’m the minority, and WvW is only really for those who play for PPT.

On a side note, I’d like to see statues honoring achievements, like guild statues and player statues placed around the map for specific achievements from the ‘previous round’.

There’s honestly no solution.
It is what it is.
Speaking for the NA servers… You need enough map capacity for NA primetime which is the bulk of usage for the maps. More people play in NA primetime on the NA servers than any other time zone. The PPT accrued in this time is the LEAST valuable. Unfortunately, the 4 maps become a burden to most servers outside of NA primetime.
In our match this week versus Ehmry Bay and NSP… I honestly doubt either server has more than 20 people max in WvW for a 10-12 hour stretch throughout the night and morning. What use is 4 maps to servers that have a dozen people online?
This entire nightcapping issue has been discussed ad nauseum since the game released over a year ago. Unless ANet is willing to severely handicap off hours play, this entire discussion is pointless. There will NEVER be a time where servers are on equal footing due to 24 hour coverage that is needed. Whatever map caps are needed for NA primetime play will be abused by servers with coverage when NA primetime ends.
Unless they merge NA and EU servers, which they say is an impossibility, then parity will not happen.
My only suggestion for somewhat even play would be to scrap all NA and EU servers, so get rid of all 51 of them, and make like 36 new ones that are all just global servers.
Maybe even 24 global servers would be a better number depending on population.
Hopefully then all servers will have at least adequate coverage.

DevonCarver.5370:

I think there is something to the idea of PPT being higher during certain times of day, but it has sort of the opposite problem.

[Before I begin, I want to point out that the game currently lacks Oceanic and South-East Asian server options, so players from these regions are forced to play on either a North American or European server and therefore shouldn’t be penalised in their efforts because they have no other options.]

As an Oceanic WvW player on a North American server, I know that servers struggle to pull numbers during the Oceanic (OC), South-East Asian (SEA) and European (EU) time zones in contrast to the North American (NA) time slot. However, the WvW-focused guilds online during OC, SEA and EU slots put in just as much effort as the NA guilds do. Penalising these time slots not only devalues the effort players put in, but also reduces the desire to put in hours for a time zone which barely helps the servers war score.

I do, however, see the problem in a server stacking a specific time zone. Up until recently Blackgate severely lacked in the EU slot compared to Sanctum of Rall who had previously gained several large European guilds which dominated tier 1 during the EU hours. Part of overcoming this has been trying to find new WvW players who could fill our time zone.

All servers lack population during certain hours, but I believe part of being a WvW community is aiming to grow your WvW player base all times of the day, not just NA. This might be recruiting guilds from others servers, or simply organising for a PvE guild on your own server to join you in WvW occasionally.

This idea of reducing PPT during certain hours also raises the issue of unofficial OC and SEA servers. Servers such as Sea of Sorrows, Fort Aspenwood and Isle of Janthir are rich in OC players but lack NA coverage, yet are based on a NA server. If the PPT gained during the OC slot was reduced, they could put in the same amount of hours as NA on their opposing server and still loose because their time and effort isn’t worth as much. The same would apply to Jade Quarry which has a large SEA player base and a smaller NA coverage, so they would be at a major disadvantage despite the dedicated and skilled players on the server.

All in all, I don’t believe reducing the PPT rate during selected times of the day is a good idea at all, as the efforts of OC and SEA players would be neglected, and I’m sure EU players would go back to EU servers where their hard work could be more effective.

DevonCarver.5370:

The way that we try and find answers to the types of problems raised in this thread are by trying to get to the heart of the issue. Saying things like “populations aren’t balanced” doesn’t lead to any productive solutions because they all involve things like drastically redistributing the populations of the game. Finding the core reasons for that like “score momentum is overpowering” allow us to attack the actual problem. What I hope to get out of this is a sense of why people think that the population causes the scoring issues, because that is something we can find a solution to.

I think there are actually two problems created by the server population imbalance. One of them is points and the inevitability of the bigger server and/or server with better coverage winning by points. The second, which I think is even more important than the first, isn’t about the points but the ability to achieve objectives while playing and not simply provide loot bags for their opponents.

You’ve been widely quoted for saying, “WvW is not intended to be ‘fair’,” and I think you are correct that it never will be perfectly fair, and one could easily argue that the server that can win battles should win in points. But at a bare minimum, the game needs to be fun and being spawn camped, roflstomped, and being powerless to stop your entire borderland from being taken at the whim of a much larger server simply is not fun for most people, to the point where people give up on WvW and the population problem gets even worse.

As I said in an earlier reply, I like the dynamics of my low-WvW participation Bronze League server, so I don’t want to see my server as stacked as a T1 server, even if the queue and lag issues were resolved. There is something to be said for “small town” WvW play instead of “big city” WvW play. And maybe the smaller servers will never be a match for the big servers with 7X24 full coversage, and I’m fine with that, so long as the match-up system doesn’t actually put my smaller server up against a significantly larger server, and that’s what a lot of people seem to be asking for on the forums here. Many acknowledge that the former tier system was too rigid, leading to the same match-up week after week, but the current system goes too far in the other direction, putting, for example, then-21st Ranked Eredon Terrace against 10th Ranked Yak’s Bend.

The current leagues have helped to some degree, in my opinion, by putting servers that are far apart in the rankings out of each other’s reach (Eredon Terrace can’t face Yak’s Bend in league play), but have done so imperfectly because the league boundaries were not drawn with competitiveness in mind and there are servers that would have fit poorly regardless of whether they were pushed above or below the cut-off line they were near. So a bare minimum, the goal should be to prevent blow-out match-ups by making sure servers aren’t matched against servers that will blow them out.

The other solution is to use handicapping to make a weaker server competitive against a stronger server or modify the game rules in such a way that numbers matter less. I recommend taking a look at the various forms that handicapping takes in different sports, board games, and computer games because the solutions used elsewhere might give you ideas of how to do this in GW2.

Why more players mean more coverage means autowin
Because 15 players can’t be hitting 3 keeps at once, 50 players can and will outnumber the 15 players all the time. Even if that 15 player group can wipe all those 50, it makes no difference since that group of 50 can split into 2×25, 1 which slows down the 15 and the other 25 just cap cap cap. It is impossible for lesser populated servers to have an impact. The only impact they have is more loot in their bags, so we might as well remove the point system and just give more loot for capping stuff. Not only are the caps faster, they are also more effective when a group carries 750 supply instead of 225.

To the WvW devteam
Since you seem to be refusing, incapable of fixing population issues, might as well remove towers, ppt and just make a huge open plain where 2 teams go at each other. It is the only place where actual skill will matter. However, with all the good will behind your design intentions, that is not the product you deliver. In case you haven’t noticed, we cant be sold a dream because as soon as we log in, reality hits hard.

Tonight
Tonight during my primetime, we were ticking over 500 PPT. Those are against teams that supposedly belong in the bronze tier. Sure they’ll cap everything during the early morning, but they still wont have the coverage to cap it all. Against Yak’s Bend before the season started, we had loot bag farming every 2 minutes, now that was fun, though they capped everything because while we were fighting one zerg, they had 4 capping everything behind us.

Thanks for the boring week
Server merges, do it.

Slushey.8236:

DevonCarver.5370:

I think there is something to the idea of PPT being higher during certain times of day, but it has sort of the opposite problem.

[Before I begin, I want to point out that the game currently lacks Oceanic and South-East Asian server options, so players from these regions are forced to play on either a North American or European server and therefore shouldn’t be penalised in their efforts because they have no other options.]

As an Oceanic WvW player on a North American server, I know that servers struggle to pull numbers during the Oceanic (OC), South-East Asian (SEA) and European (EU) time zones in contrast to the North American (NA) time slot. However, the WvW-focused guilds online during OC, SEA and EU slots put in just as much effort as the NA guilds do. Penalising these time slots not only devalues the effort players put in, but also reduces the desire to put in hours for a time zone which barely helps the servers war score.

I do, however, see the problem in a server stacking a specific time zone. Up until recently Blackgate severely lacked in the EU slot compared to Sanctum of Rall who had previously gained several large European guilds which dominated tier 1 during the EU hours. Part of overcoming this has been trying to find new WvW players who could fill our time zone.

All servers lack population during certain hours, but I believe part of being a WvW community is aiming to grow your WvW player base all times of the day, not just NA. This might be recruiting guilds from others servers, or simply organising for a PvE guild on your own server to join you in WvW occasionally.

This idea of reducing PPT during certain hours also raises the issue of unofficial OC and SEA servers. Servers such as Sea of Sorrows, Fort Aspenwood and Isle of Janthir are rich in OC players but lack NA coverage, yet are based on a NA server. If the PPT gained during the OC slot was reduced, they could put in the same amount of hours as NA on their opposing server and still loose because their time and effort isn’t worth as much. The same would apply to Jade Quarry which has a large SEA player base and a smaller NA coverage, so they would be at a major disadvantage despite the dedicated and skilled players on the server.

All in all, I don’t believe reducing the PPT rate during selected times of the day is a good idea at all, as the efforts of OC and SEA players would be neglected, and I’m sure EU players would go back to EU servers where their hard work could be more effective.

The problem is that some timezones do not work anywhere near as hard as NA primetime, yet they determine the match. Are you really trying to say that those timezones where pretty much no map has a queue and things aren’t well defended is equal to NA primetime where nearly every map has a queue and everything is well defended? Sorry, but I don’t think the effort the timezones put in is near what NA primetime has to put in. Sure you put in the same amount of time, but there is a whole lot less stress and tactics involved.

What needs to be incorporated is scaling points based on population. Meaning that if you’re taking things while a map is completely queued for all sides it is worth a lot more than when a map has 20 people on one side and maybe 5 on the other two. It doesn’t discriminated against any timezone but it emphasizes the difficulty and effort required to do so when you’re actually fighting an opponent. There would obviously be a baseline value so contributions when matchups are lopsided are still worth something but not high enough to solely determine the winner of the match.

@ Devon if you want to encourage playing in bigger groups of skilled players, then make some guild party option. Because mostly those skilled players are in guild and want to play together. But with current grouping they have difficulties to play together.

ricekrispys.5304:

I would suggest a change to how PPT is calculated.

Barebones( no upgrades) camps and towers would give reduced karma and exp( discourage cooperative karma trains), and also significantly less PPT. For example, all un-upgraded towers/keeps/camps would just add just 5 PPT. As you upgrade the structure, x PPT is added for each completed upgrade depending on the structure and karma/exp rewards increase exponentially for successful assaults/defenses.

Camp PPT: 5 (upgrades at camps do not add PPT)
Tower PPT:5 + [(# of completed upgrades) x (Multiplier 1 )]
Keep PPT:+5 + [(# of completed upgrades) x (Multiplier 2 )]
Stonemist: +5 + [(# of completed upgrades) x (Multiplier 3 )]

What this means is that if a server has a weak night time presence, they can potentially retain a competitive PPT if they lockdown/defend their fully upgraded holdings in their borderlands, while occasionally resetting the upgrades at their enemies territories.

Reverse this

The entire flaw in your argument is the last paragraph, servers with weak night time presence CANNOT lockdown/defend their own stuff and reset upgrades in enemy BLs because they’re so massively outnumbered

If higher upgraded towers give less PPT, then servers with big numbers advantages will want to not fortify them else risk a lower point tick

This will ensure that off-hours population for every server will be automatically balanced. If servers want to gain more points they have to not upgrade their towers. This would also encourage zergs to split up and hit multiple targets, and for defenders to spread out and watch numerous, weaker targets

The entire PPT system tends to favor the world(s) with larger population. Many times maps will be left lightly defended by the winning server while the opposing servers are struggling across 1-2 other maps. So the losing server(s) are either too preoccupied defending what they have or are too demoralized to get offensive on other maps.

It always seemed odd to me that a winning server could abandon their home BL and pretty much just assume that they get full PPT from that map because it’s almost always devoid of any opposing players. IMO empty maps where both enemy servers would be outmanned shouldn’t give full PPT.

Exactly, scaling rewards and PPT values for objectives should be based on effort…..you outman your opponents you get less rewards and PPT for each objective taken/defended. You’re undermanned at the time of an objective being captured/defended you get more rewards and PPT value assigned to objective.

More effort required———>better the rewards……This would result in weaker servers gunning for the strongest because reward payout and PPT gained is greater.

Population ratios are not fixed and are forever fluctuating so an average is taken every hour. “Nightcapping” effects would be lessened. And different strategies my come into play because of fluctuating PPT values of objectives (a tower captured while undermanned maybe worth more than a keep taken while you were steamrolling your opponents).

Each objective has a base loot and ppt value when taken. Multiply base value by population ratio to determine rewards are given and what PPT value it has.

A server steamrolling another because of population imbalance wouldn’t benefit as much because not much effort is needed.

Removing advantages of being stacked by lessening rewards should help spread population.

Remember it should always be more effort more rewards and not the opposite…..

This shouldn’t be taken as a magical fix which will instantly balance populations but as a long term solution to try and create a balance. It would give weaker servers an incentive to keep fighting (reap great rewards for their efforts) while discouraging bandwagoning for easy wins (by giving out a proportionally less payout)

First I would say that as a whole anyone from Anet who was responsible for pushing the League should be embarrassed. The community who actively plays WvW on a daily basis told you it was a bad idea and not ready to be implemented. You chose to ignore it and push out a product that was in no way even remotely balanced for the vast majority of the player base. It reeks of utter incompetence, indifference, and negligence on your part. Furthermore, the final decision maker is too spineless to stand up, admit his or her error, and address the situation and efforts to remedy it.

Now that is out of they way. In my opinion the entire foundation of GW2’s WvW is so fundamentally flawed at its core that I don’t think it will be easily remedied. You have managed to make further and further mistakes in new “content” for WvW that has done nothing than promote bandwagoning and massive zerging. Almost every wxp skill you can get gives bonuses to offense and very little to defensive options. Bloodlust further benefits servers who already have a numerical advantage often times. Season Rewards and Achievements that favor the top servers in their respective leagues. The ability to transfer right up to the start of the league to already stacked servers. And lastly, a refusal to boost the “outmanned” buff into anything that actually might benefit the server with it when it comes to FIGHTING…..oh other than a free repair bill while you get farmed. Truly, a comedy of errors.

Glad you are taking your time to respond to all of these posts from your customers…..too bad you didn’t take this kind of time to realize how poorly planned your execution of Season 1 was going to be.

A quick relatively easy adjustment might be to at least address the “outmanned” buff. It wont fix things entirely but at least it might help. I suggest lowering the supply cost to build siege when you are outmanned. I would also decrease the amount of supply needed to make repairs. Make siege more effective while you are outmanned, like increasing the hp’s and damage they do. I would also increase the Guard level and damage they do, as well as increase their spawn rates. I would also suggest a substantial increase to wxp gained while outmanned.

DevonCarver.5370:

That’s certainly a different direction. My concern here would be that we put too much emphasis on a very specific time of day. It might be the case that we should try and put more emphasis on specific portions of the day, but the more focused it is, the more you encourage everyone to show up at exactly the same time, which makes the queue worse and just lessens the experience for everyone. I think there is something to the idea of PPT being higher during certain times of day, but it has sort of the opposite problem. That’s the balance we haven’t yet struck, in my opinion.

Forget one thing. Please also suggest your team to remove Jumping Puzzle as well as all irrelevent PvE zone (top left-right) of borderland… The queue time is really worse enough during reset and NA prime. We dont want ppl to just wondering around doing nothing but their own jumping puzzle. I dont see the point at all to put jumping puzzle in WvW map. (Also please remove its archivement from WvW season too)

I have been reading Anet WvW Coordinator Devon reply to this thread and would like to give my thoughts to them.

First of all, I would like to give credit to Anet’s Christ Whiteside for polling the players’ concerns and validating that population issues is not a minority opinion of the playerbase.

I gather from Devon’s replies that Anet’s cardinal rule for GW2 is to encourage players to play with each other and build communities. Hence, some of the forum posters ideas are not good because they will affect community building.

Now, I would like to remind you that the league system destroyed WvW communities on lower tier servers especially those in Bronze as the Gold Tier servers went on recruitment drives before league start with free transfers and legendary weapon gifts to capable Guild leaders and commanders to bring their team over. This means that the gold league servers’ community grew at the expenses of the lower tier servers.

Despite the warning of long queues from Devon and threats of not meeting achievement requirements, nobody listened to him and transferred anyway, resulting in 8 hour weekend queues. Now, question is : Did the gold league servers’ build up community or are the long queues = not being able to play at all with your friends ? Are people blaming the transfers now for not being able to enter WvW ?

The easiest solution would be to go to Finance and ask for bigger server upgrades and more bandwidth from your service providers, but the truth is that you cannot do so. This is because Finance will come back and ask you if ALL your servers are full. If not, it just shows that you are not optimizing your available resources.

My point is to Devon : Not to trash ideas on the surface that it might / will affect communities. Digest and think over them and reach a compromise that benefits your playerbase.

P.S. My new year’s resolution is for world peace and an end for poverty. If it takes pointing nuclear warheads at each other to enjoy world peace, I’ll take it. I cannot end poverty alone but my monthly contribution to charity plays a small part.

DevonCarver.5370:

…it’s not the purpose of this space for us to discuss what we are or aren’t doing to address the issue.

Hmm, maybe change the name of the thread?

Here my 2cents

• EUR players should not be allowed on NA servers. They have their own servers. The ones that do move to NA cause imbalance.
• Have couple of ascended or legendary items only drop via WvW. This will encourage PVE players to participate. I don’t see a problem in this if the item is only cosmetic upgrade and does not make the player overpowered.

I have more ideas but this is a starting point to improve server balance.

earendil.1290:

The real problem is not that servers do not have WvWers – it’s that they stop coming out to fight once it’s clear who will win the matchup.

It’s not that simple. More people stop coming when they are losing than if they are winning. ANet has to implement something that will encourage and allow smaller groups to keep fighting against vastly superior numbers. Siege is not an anti-zerg, because the larger group can build more siege than you, and can get more supply easier. They can also take down your siege with mass AoE.

To fix the balance issue can’t be any simpler. Leagues should be what they imply, teaming up of servers. Strong servers and a weaker server are to be teamed against some others of different matchups like BG VS. JQ VS. SoR as one match up and the other FA VS. MAG VS. TC. Like jq+FA vs. BG+ Maguuma SoR+TC.
The teaming process is to allow people of allied servers to be able to guest to the other’s match up and help the allied servers if their coverage is in trouble and the allied servers with thw most War Points wins.
There was a vvideo about this and I can link it if you want.

I’ve been discussing this on other threads – I didn’t want to start it here because I wanted to refine how i explain it and 2nd it deals with what I think is the core issue.

When you add a score to the game – there is competition.

At this moment, imo – wvw is one of 2 things -

it’s either an epic pve area that allows pvp – but has no storyline

or

it’s a pvp arena – thats unbalanced in numbers – requires you to grind for equipment, and has too many distracting pve elements that detract from serious competition -

That said – adding a score will naturally cause people to want to take the easiest path to the win ….thus cause them to transfer to preferred servers for the best coverage. – if all servers had equal amount of wvw’rs, that point would be irrelevant – but not all servers have those number of people interested in wvw.

To fix this one of 2 things has to happen -

Either you remove the score – and allow it to be a full blown Pve area – that allows pvp – now while this seems to abandon competitive pvp – the truth is – when the scores don’t matter – people do their own 1 v1’s or as we saw people create their own gvg fights – these are small player run events that are played out on an open field – these are the role play stories that get posted play by play on forums – in this scenario there should be no computer generated score and these matches are run and judged by the players involved. Basically wvw would be a stage to play whatever strategy game you want – a deck of cards.

the 2nd way to fix it – is make it pure competitive pvp – which is to balance the numbers and add the sPvp locker to it – to remove the pve grind – in the pve format – the grind doesn’t matter because any competition is agreed to by players – so they can say no ascended weapons or any variety of rules.

when you added the score to the whole wvw match – everyone had to think as one – and no one has time to make unique events – they have to win as a whole – the player run events can’t happen. They ain’t got time for that. – the score kills the rpg – pvp storyline.

imo – simply balancing the server numbers is not going to the root of the problem – the fact is the game can be balanced by everyone simply transferring on their own right now – they can easily make this the pve side of pvp by ignoring a score and forming their own events – but the score is causing them to choose the easiest path to a win. It’s a natural consequence.

UltraHiDef.4809:

To fix the balance issue can’t be any simpler. Leagues should be what they imply, teaming up of servers. Strong servers and a weaker server are to be teamed against some others of different matchups like BG VS. JQ VS. SoR as one match up and the other FA VS. MAG VS. TC. Like jq+FA vs. BG+ Maguuma SoR+TC.
The teaming process is to allow people of allied servers to be able to guest to the other’s match up and help the allied servers if their coverage is in trouble and the allied servers with thw most War Points wins.
There was a vvideo about this and I can link it if you want.

What happens if there’s bad blood between two servers that get allied with one another? I don’t think JQ and Dragonbrand want to be allies…. or SoR+TC

Deli.1302:

UltraHiDef.4809:

To fix the balance issue can’t be any simpler. Leagues should be what they imply, teaming up of servers. Strong servers and a weaker server are to be teamed against some others of different matchups like BG VS. JQ VS. SoR as one match up and the other FA VS. MAG VS. TC. Like jq+FA vs. BG+ Maguuma SoR+TC.
The teaming process is to allow people of allied servers to be able to guest to the other’s match up and help the allied servers if their coverage is in trouble and the allied servers with thw most War Points wins.
There was a vvideo about this and I can link it if you want.

What happens if there’s bad blood between two servers that get allied with one another? I don’t think JQ and Dragonbrand want to be allies…. or SoR+TC

If they don’t work together and rather screw eachother then BG and whoever is with them they’d win easily.

It would make sense if the staff at Anet concerned with these issues were to spend several hours actually in one or more of the more unbalanced matchups. Possibly EU matches as the time difference would be more suitable.

They could see the problems first hand and the damage ‘off peak’ superiority causes. monitor map chat on a server which is ticking >100 against a server ticking <500 i.e.
AM/GH/UW or FoW/DL/AS or DZ/RoS/Vabbi.

When you have spent time in these situations you will better understand the frustration due to the constant zerging, ineffective upgrades. Being there for an extended period is going to be far more useful than simple number crunching.

First WvW is a 24/7 game, nite capping is part of it

what people are complaining about is finding out they have sub 100ppt when they log in and need to rebuild everything in order to be able to start to be able to even the score by then they log out and are then back to sub 100ppt this cycle continues until they decide hell I should not bother to even log in as it will get capped during the night anyway

ideas to fix this
make home BL easy to defend
make it more difficult to be able to cap garrison and the 2 spawn towers on a BL, get rid of the switchback near the towers, get rid of watergate and move the north gates out more towards the centaurs and skrit to act as a choke point and add doors to the camp’s upgrade list, this enables less people to defend against higher off peak populations and easier scouting

increase supply delivery and the rate which buildings upgrade
the game should be about fights not siegeing up for off hours to try and defend, if the buildings increased their rate of upgrading then it encourages more fighting as a building getting flipped is not a huge lose as it will be upgraded in 30 mins or an hour instead of 3 hours it takes now

get rid of repair cost for WvW
never understood why you penalize people for fighting in wvw, the ppt gain from being stomped should be enough of a deterrent to lemmings

get rid of the cost for upgrading keeps
make it cost more supply or hell dragonite ore (i think we have enough dragonite :P) if it costs 200 supply to start building an upgrade it will require a number of people to start it or time for supply to build up in a building

do not show current ppt or overall score until the last day of the week
too many people look at the score say we are being smashed and do not log in, if instead they went in and started looking for fights, had fun killed people or flipped buildings they are playing the game not worrying about ppt

get rid of all Waypoints except for garrison
the only waypoints which are needed are spawn and garrison, its too easy to move around maps, a single zerg can defend multiple maps because of waypoints get rid of them and watch the zerg need to split up to defend multiple key areas

encourage off-peak play
for NA increase the item drop rates and MF of non NA timezones, for EU do the same for non EU timezones, we need to encourage more EU to play on NA servers and more NA to play on EU servers (esp if as you say the server must stay separate), and im not talking about rewards for taking keeps or killing guards im talking the reward for killing an opponent

bloodlust buff
it is a great idea but should return to granting 3 ppt per stomp if you have 3 orbs as it encouraged fights for ppt not capping building for ppt, and spread the ruins out alittle more, its too easy to zerg them all or run around and circle cap them

reduce WvW map populations
longer ques means guilds will transfer to a server without them, if they enjoy the fights they will stay there

reduce siege use in wvw
yes i said it, throwing 5 sup rams on a door is overkill , there is no way that all 5 would be able to fit in an area to take down a door without hitting each other, put a seige cap of 2 siege in the area and make a golem worth 2 siege, having 6 golems takes about 2 mins to take down 2 doors, that is what causes night capping not the numbers difference, if 2 golems attack while in the same area they blow each other up

make siege the only thing to damage gates and walls
1000 people swinging at a gate with axes, swords and arrows will not bring it down, esp if it is upgraded to an iron-bound gate, that is why rams were invented in the first place

fix exploitable siege areas
if a defender cannot place siege which can counter any offensive siege placed then burn the building to the ground and build it somewhere else

building degradation
make it the longer a server has an objective the less ppt the building is worth, clearly it is not worth an opponent taking the objective so it has little to no strategic value and should represent this, im not saying it should be worth nothing but making a keep the same value as a camp will discourage people from defending it and allow another group to flip it, this will have an additional effect of allowing the new owner to gain more ppt

if you have read all these suggestions then you will see what i am suggesting is ways to discourage zerging and making population less important to strategy, defense is easier than attack and fighting should be rewarded not discouraged

DevonCarver.5370:

ferra.9867:

I still think that 24h coverage is the main issue and the solution is to merge american and european servers, so we should have more 24h coverage servers and more fun matchups, at least the golden league servers must have all a 24h coverage.

While an interesting idea, merging EU and NA servers is a technical impossibility. They have to remain separated.

It is not technical impossible. That this one is out of question regarding the involved work for your current architecture is a different thing, but it is technical doable.

ViRuE.3612:

I’m desperately trying NOT to be cynical but actually sounds to me more like the fact you have already decided a direction and want to steer the community to discuss it and somehow rubber stamp whatever you had in mind anyway?

No, you just prefer 1v1 or smallscale roaming in WvW and they don’t because they want it to be server vs server. And now you’re angry. :P

I mean, there is an entire game mode for smallscale PvP. Ofc they’re not going to focus on it for WvW, why would they?

As night capping does not necessarily mean large numbers, it could be as little as 30 or 40 people against 10 or 20, how about having the southern towers/keeps/camps being on a timer?
If the objective is empty of players, ownership reverts to the home team after a set time. This would allow the outnumbered team to concentrate their defensive efforts into a smaller area.
Primetime is about capturing as much as possible whilst numbers are more even, everything else is about holding as much as possible with very limited resources.