Guild Wars 2

DevonCarver.5370:

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.

It’s because towers and keeps can be so easily taken if you reach a critical number of persons. Too many arrow carts? Build some trebs somewhere else and defend them. You have the people, nothing they can do against it.

Once a T3 tower/keep has been taken it is nearly impossible to rebuilt them given the time it takes. Once you reach a critical mass over another realm you created an advantage for many hours.

Other teams cannot go on the offensive versy much because they have to rebuilt or being Karma trained.

Also if stomped a lot of people log out and it takes even longer until you have some mass in players and motivation to try another attack.

This is because the matchup is lost. Why is reset weekend always so populated? Because it is still close. Now if some PPT coverage modified people have something to play for. This means more daily logins and played hours for Anet.

As long as there is something to fight for pleople will continue playing.

As said the easy way without changing the current system as a whole is how points are awarded taking coverage into account (various suggestions how this can be done have been made in this thread).

It is similar to how you implemented the Glicko system. If rank 9 plays against rank 1 and 3, the server ranked at number 9 cannot win. But if you look at the progression in points, you see that they might not loose much rating points in a matchup because they are holding up well.

Now instead of existing ratings use a value around average coverage in the last few hours plus a modifier of average coverage in the last 24 and the whole matchup so far. When a matchup starts you have to start with some modified of course, based on rank of a server. But only for the first few hours before it is gone.

And also apply this to WxP, EXP, Karma and you are done.

This will leave everything as it is, but the server outmanning eveyone needs to work harder, do more to make a lot of points. If the underdog still fights hards he can be competitive points wise the same way as they don’t have too loose much points for ranking currently.

And as we are playing seasons from now on, points matter now.

This is the easiest solution for you guys that the community came up with. And it is a good start. Population will rebalance automatically as their is no incentive too stack on a few servers for people anymore as their is no guranteed win or tons of rewards if you just a lot of people.

Highly stacked server still have an advantage but they pay the price with longer queues. And the advantage they create for a few hours by massivley tearing down other towers is compensated by providing less rewards for the outmanning and more for the outmanned. If numbers get closed to each other it is on equal terms PPT wide again.

Just do some maths around it and probably fine tune it in an off-season over a couple of weeks as you are gathering the new metrics.

styx.7294:

I think this would be a fantastic and fresh change for season 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHcO6Xo8eJ8

Where instead of 3 servers fightin the servers are split by 3 colours and fight each other with WvW guesting allowed to servers within your colour.

OMG amazing. I love it. HIT THAT +1 BUTTON!!!!

Sirendor.1394:

styx.7294:

I think this would be a fantastic and fresh change for season 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHcO6Xo8eJ8

Where instead of 3 servers fightin the servers are split by 3 colours and fight each other with WvW guesting allowed to servers within your colour.

OMG amazing. I love it. HIT THAT +1 BUTTON!!!!

Whoever thought of this is a genius.

DevonCarver.5370:

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.

Hi Devon,

You are actually looking at the same problem just from a different angle. A small momentum you mention can also be derived by having a timezone advantage, ie. more 24/7 coverage.

The root cause has the same effect, a lead is built that can only be countered by finding a timezone gap to either stack more against your opposition or not having any opposition.

Possible Solution:
- Split up a week long battle into a number of smaller matches/sets
– You could have timezone battles
– Weekend Winners
– Daily Winners
– Top Kills
– Top Objectives Captured – Daily/Timeblock (8-12)
– Top Objectives Defended – Daily
– Top Ruins holder

Just like your achievements, servers could chose which ones that are suited to and gain points which lead up to a total score

What you have done here is negate the zerg somewhat, and still promote server and team play.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Pt 1/6
Devon Carver: 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.

Direct response to Devon asking about how the landslide occurs: The main problem with population imbalances is the upgrades that are used on every objective. The landslide happens when Server X outnumbers Server Y and Server Z. Server X flips every asset they can get their hands on, and the other servers are helpless to stop them. This creates the intial PPT gap, in which Server X rapidly increases their Points lead over the other two servers. This creates the first gap.

When Server Y and Z log on in the morning, they see their entire maps have been flipped, and everything is paper. They now have to start the process of retaking all of their assets, and start upgrades and replacing all the lost siege. (That is a lot of money spent.) As Server Z and Y start to retake their objectives, they still have to deal with Server X, who continuously comes and recaps everything, and hinders Server Y and Z’s progress in regaining their assets.

Now, low and behold, primetime occurs. Server X, Y, And Z are all relatively equal in their primetime, and can remain competitive. However, due to Server X flipping most if not all objectives, Many of Y and Z’s objectives are not fully upgraded, and can still be paper. So normally, where the three servers were relatively equal, Server X has a huge advantage: All their objectives are T3, completely full of supply. So during Primetime, Server X makes more headway against the other 2 servers, and continues to increase their lead over the other two servers.

After Primetime, most of Server Y and Server Z still have many objectives not fully upgraded, but have gone to bed. Server X continues to push, and flips everything faster because many objectives are not upgraded and sieged out. The period of Server X dominating PPT happens faster this time, and the lead continues to widen by a large margin. When Server Y and Z log on, they look at the map, and some decide to do something else this time, and many others choose not to spend money on upgrades and siege. The reclamation after the nightcap from Server X happens less effectively, meaning more points lost by Y and Z. And Server X makes captures even easier than before, facing less opponents, and less defense.

Primetime rolls around, and Server Y and Z look at the score and decide to relax, since the match has officially been loss. Less people turn out, they try less to play competitively, and start to karma train. And that is the landslide brought on by population imbalances. It not only effects the timezone it happens it, it effects the entirety of the match, causing a close match otherwise to become completely lopsided.

I decided to directly answer the first question you posed, since you seem to want to see a player’s take on what causes the landslide.

I have quite a few selections to post as well, but they will have to go into another post in order to fit. Bear with my walls-o-text.

There is to much to say in one post but I wanted to start with a serious problem that is at the core of WvW population.

Players who play WvW as their focus, vs. players that play WvW situationally.

On almost every server there are guilds and player groups that are focused on WvW, it is the reason they play the game, and they spend their time there, fighting, organizing, leading, and defending.

They are the driving force behind their servers. They are the guilds, the commanders, the scounts, the cappers, claimers, upgraders. They are sheild and swords of a server.

Then you have the more causal WvW players. The loot and xp grinders, the crafters, the achivement and daily hunters, and the fair weather warriors. If your doing well on the point score the population soar, if your doing poorly the population plummets. They are the masses, blown by the winds of victory.

When things go well the focused WvW players suffer, horrendous queues, and disorganized masses.

When things go badly, the full timers suffer from empty maps, and fully upgraded, defended objectives.

This causes a massive amount of frustration for those that play WvW full time. Often it feels you spend more time fighting the queues and your fellow server mates, than it does fighting the enemy servers.

Your effort is punished by your inability to play the game you like, by those that play for seperate reasons.

It is pvp, but of a different sort as intended.

Pt 2/6
To start off, my philosophy is that limiting a player’s ability to play, and their contributions to a game should never be introduced. Forcing players to play in rigid ways is an awful idea, and I avoid responding or hearing out most people because what they suggest limits a player’s contributions, or limits a player’s ability to play how and when they want. I believe me and Anet are on the same page with this.

Secondly, lots of words incoming! Lots of posts! Some things to keep in mind if you decide to stick it out and read it all:

1. Mention of outmanned in my posts should be assumed to mean all maps are considered in the calculation(unless otherwise stated), meaning you can’t keep numbers low on just one map in order to capitalize on the bonuses granted. Overall numbers on all maps are used, but if the map is nearly full with defenders, the buffs don’t take effect on that map.
2. I also use 400-500 PPT to show a difference in population at the time. (As we all know, numbers= higher PPT).
3. I use 15,000 points lead as a benchmark for a handicap. Anything below is still fairly competitive, and a server should try to succeed on their own merits. Anything above, a handicap can be useful to keep the scores competitive.
4. There are three ways to deal with the landslide as I see it. You can slow down the landslide, and you can decrease the size of the landslide, and you can make a shorter mountain. My first two posts include less drastic changes.*

My second post is how to decrease the point gap and size of the landslide.

Rewarding Effort If Server X is ticking for over 400 PPT, the remaining potential points are considered double(or an extra amount set to scale) for the Servers Y and Z. This would scale according to PPT and not be a set number, so that the harder a server is dominating, the more the servers getting dominated receive for holding the small amount they own. This gives Server Y and Z a stronger PPT, decreasing the deficit caused by Server X’s dominance. This would also increase defense incentives, as every tick counts for extra. This system would reward outgunned servers that come out to fight and do what they can, while not reducing the contributions of the people who were unlucky enough to end up PvDooring.

A Garrison Redemption When Server X loses their garrison to Server Y that is dominating (Via PPT [400-500], or Server X is outmanned), a buff is placed on the characters in the map. This buff, “Redemption,” lasts for one hour. If Server X retakes their Garrison with the buff still on, they immediately gain 50 points (Equivalent of holding garrison for 30 minutes, or 2 ticks.) The rewards for retaking garrison should be improved (doubling or tripling the gains from the capture succeeded reward.) This can discourage some karma trains, because if an enemy mesmer is hiding, and reclaims the keep before the tick, Server X just made 50 points, and lost nothing PPT wise. This would also hopefully provide reasons for people to still come out to fight. This can be applied to other objectives as well.

Upgraded Returns If Server Z is Outmanned overall, and/or Server Y is ticking 400-500 PPT, Server Z gains a special bonus when taking objectives. The objectives come partially upgraded, and are given some supply (Varies per objective, and takes into account supply left from the capture.) So say Server Z manages to retake their bay from Server Y, Bay comes with Walls and Gates reinforced, and cannons halfway done. Bay also comes with a base 300 supply. (Anything below 300 is bumped up to 300 supply, and anything above is left as it is.) This helps a server get back on their feet quickly, and makes it so the server can’t just come back and plow through paper gates and wells. Can also reduce the costs for these, whether it be the gold, supply, or both.

Two Versus One If Server Z is dominating the match, and have extended their lead to be above 15000 points between 1st and 2nd place, Server X and Server Y gain better rewards when taking objectives from Server Z. When 2nd place and 3rd place take an objective from 1st place, they immediately gain points equivalent to the PPT value of that object. So if 2nd place takes 1st place’s camp, they immediately gain +5 points to their total score. Same with Towers, Keeps, and Stonemist. The rewards for capturing objectives from 1st place are also higher for the player, with more earned from the capture succeeded event, including increased chance of drops, and higher WXP gained. (Sidenote: I contemplated a defensive version of this, defending against 1st place, but I feel that would require a lot more server usage to know who is attacking, and who you are fighting off, etc., whereas attacking, whoever caps the point is the clear beneficiary, and requires little amounts of server usage to give extra rewards for it.

Pt 3/6
Another way to halt the landslide is to slow down the rate at which everything falls, and gives defenders a bigger chance to hold out for longer, decreasing the points gap, allowing for reinforcements to arrive, and to give some benefits to defenders.

• Dynamic Scaling If Server X is outnumbered at a specific time, the objectives scale up in difficulty. All Wall’s and Gate’s health are increased (based on the enemy numbers, scales kinda like a dynamic event) to give defenders more time to counter an attack. This would also buy more time for defenders to destroy enemy siege. Another approach would be to increase toughness on all objectives, decreasing the damage a wall or gate takes. Can also add a buff that removes player’s abilities to damage gates (Only siege could do damage, like walls.) Even a damage cap on objectives, making it so a specific amount of siege would be completely wasted, as their damage would not be counted, could go a long way. (Discourages 40 golem rushes.) The overall purpose of this would be to slow the capping by a lot, which may include how fast the circle is captured.
• Defensive Siege Might If Server X and Z are outmanned by Server Y, so the Outmanned Buff gives a 30% increase in siege damage. At the moment, 5 superior flame rams (Easily doable with a large zerg) can burn through a reinforced gate before 2-3 superior arrow carts can destroy the rams. Giving a bonus to siege damage allows defenders to properly counter the enemy siege before it is too late, and also create scenarios where a small group could create a killbox, and try and eliminate the enemies. Consider the buff as an equalizer of sorts.
• Supply Limitations Limit the amount of supply an large zerg can find when they outnumber the enemy. If Server Y has a large numerical superiority over Server Z on a map, Server Y only has access to 70% of supply. What this means is, when they take a camp, the players go and pick up supply, losing 3 supply in the process. This leaves each player who picked up 10 supply with 7. This will limit the amount of siege the large zerg can deploy, giving defenders more of a timeframe to work on a counter, and increasing the time it takes to flip a structure. As it is now, a zerg flipping a T3 keep with 1700 supply gets access to 500 supply after the cap, which is 5 more golems, or 12.5 flame rams. With a supply cap, the 500 gained becomes 350 supply, costing the enemy 2 golems, and 5 flame rams. Supply traps, and cutting off supply lines can be a great deterrent to the large zerg, and may save objectives for much longer than normal.
• The Last Stand If Server Z is outmanned by an enemy server, all Server Z objectives earn “The Last Stand” buff. This buff gives a small(yet not insignificant) increase to toughness, healing power, and vitality to any players in range. Can also throw on the aforementioned extra siege damage to give defenders a slight edge to defend their structures. This helps defenders fight larger odds, lets them survive longer, and hopefully hold out for even longer.

Pt 4/6
These are just some suggestions that fit in neither category, but some suggestions that should be considered to encourage defense.

• Defensive Rewards Make defending a keep event more accessible. Lower the event timer from 3 minutes to 1 minute. Keep the WP timer on the same 3 minute timer. After every minute, if a player has killed any enemy, downed any enemy, hit 10 enemies(Hard enough to earn kill credit, whatever that specific amount is), or contest the capture circle at any time, the defender gets credit for defending the objective. Defending an objective while outmanned should increase the monetary gain by double, if not triple the normal amount(~10 silver tripled). Every time the Defend Event ends, the rewards for defending are increased based on the number of sequential defend events a player has participated in. If the fighting has gone on for an hour, that is 60 defend events, and players should be receiving increased rewards if they have lasted through the 60 events.(Note: Just realized DR would hit kitten this, so a measure to not have that happen should be in place) This rewards the defender for a valiant defense, and increases incentives to stay and defend an objective.
• Dolyaks Return Dolyak Rewards! This vital event is still completely reward free. It is a thankless job, and it is about time you brought the rewards back, to give players a reason to escort dolyaks more often, which contributes to upgrades at a keep, which contributes to more defenses in times of attack. Maybe a point or two can be given to the total score each time a yak makes it into an objective. I think many agree rewards for this need to be returned.
• Outmanned Safety Net Make the Outmanned Buff able to be server-wide in some cases, instead of only map-specific. So if Server X has 50 players on each map, and Server Y has 20 players on each map, the outmanned buff goes into effect. However, if Server X has 50 on each map, and Server Y has 50 on a single map, outmanned is not applied on that map specifically where the numbers are equal. The point is to take into account total numbers in order to blanket a server, and give them some incentives to keep coming out.

Yerffejy summed it up perfectly +1

Pt 5/6
And finally, my last suggestion! Although I consider this one to be the most important.
This final solution is a way to stop the Landslide at a certain point. So instead of going all the way down the mountain like we see, it is stopped midway on the mountain, and not allowed to proceed further. However, while my other suggestions were small changes, this final suggestion would drastically alter WvW. (Aka, a lot of work to program and such.)

The 4-Matchup Solution

Reasoning: My reasoning was simple. I asked myself: What is a way to stop the Landslide effect from effecting all aspects of the matchup, having extreme repercussions to everyone playing. And it came to me, break up the segments of the day, so that one does not negatively impact another. So I split up the 24 day into 4 different time periods.
The way this would work, is that each segment of time is considered a different matchup, and so score in one segment would have no effect on that of another segment.
Implementation: So we start by dividing the day into 4 segments. I like using

1. Segment 1 3:00PM-9:00PM
2. Segment 2 9:00PM-3:00AM
3. Segment 3 3:00AM-9:00AM
4. Segment 4 9:00AM-3:00PM

Now I understand that reset (for NA) falls in between a segment, but I believe it is manageable.

So after we split up our timezones, we make each one its own separate matchup. What this means is that everything that happens in one timezone has absolutely zero consequences in another timezone. After every 6 hours, the match experiences a mini-reset, where the previous data is stored, and the data from the upcoming segment is restored, starting where you last left off in that matchup. So a server has a possibility to win in 4 different timezones.

Now, the added twist, that really makes it a good system. Each segment has its own specific matchup. The segments have their own opponents, who are unrelated to the server’s other segments. Each segment has its own rating, and so each time segment faces a balanced (as much as possible) opponent for that timeslot.

This allows for servers to be competitive in a specific timezone, and not have to worry about being nightcapped or anything like that. If they stack NA primetime and nothing else, they can still be strong and compete, and not depend on offhours coverage to secure a win. This also allows a server to say without a doubt that they are number 1 in a specific timezone, because every other timeslot has no bearing on that specific timeslot’s performance.

During the downtime, while waiting for Segment 1 to come back into play, the score hasn’t been ticking. It only ticks when gameplay is active.

Pt 6/6

Pros:

• More competitive matches. We would see more competition in specific timezones (Like NA), where non-T1 servers could actually compete in a specific timezone, bridging the gap between T1 and everyone else, providing more opponents, variety, and excitement.
• No need to stack a server with 100% coverage. People who play in offhours can be strong in their timezone, without being bored against servers without coverage. And vice versa, servers with no offhours coverage wouldn’t be bored with no opponents, and getting night-capped while they sleep.
• Gives good competition (hopefully) in every segment, because you only need 6 hours of coverage. People with zero coverage in one timezone face similar opponents, making it so large crushing victories are not going to ruin the entire match.
• Server pride. A server who is rated 1st in Time Segment 1 would reliably be able to say that they are the #1 NA prime server, and can create a sense of pride in a player’s server. And larger servers can go for the Hat Trick and take a victory in all time-slots, asserting their dominance in every timezone.

Cons:

• 4 Resets a day, 5 on Main Reset day. This would be a little annoying, as gameplay would be interrupted 4 times a day, interrupting fights and sieges. I would hope Anet would be able to speed along the mini-resets, so they don’t take 15-20 minutes to start up.
• Complicated Match system. A new player entering for the first time may be confused that we fight 4 different matches throughout the day, and may be put off by it all. While some tooltips could be introduced to better explain the system, it still would be more complicated.
• Disruption of time zones. I don’t know exactly where SEA, OCX, and EU fall in the time scale, but it would be awkward if a split fell in between two segments, so the server was strong at the last 3 hours of a segment, and strong at the beginning of the next segment. It would make some smaller nightcaps happen, and would make it more unbalanced in amtchups.
• Less total points. Since each segment (Or match) would only tick for 6 hours a day, the amount of points gained would be much smaller than the grand totals we see now, and would disrupt the Server-wide effects that we gain through total points.

Note: All times based on Servertime.

[b] In conclusion, I hope I make some people think on some changes that could be done. All of this I sort of brainstormed with Me, Myself, and I, so it is definitely not perfect. I do hope that the devs can consider some of the things I have said, or maybe I give an idea that sparks the revolution! Anyways, thank you anyone and everyone if you took the time to read through it all. It is a lot to take in. And sadly, I have no TL;DR version. Gold stars to anyone who has made it this far, you all deserve a cookie! <3

Cheers, and let’s remember that this game is about having fun!

P.S. The devs have taken the time to make this thread, and they didn’t have to do it. So I think we all need to tone the hostility towards them WAY down, and keep it constructive. It takes time to read through all of these posts, and especially read them while absorbing the message we are trying to convey. Cut them some slack! Oh and if you aren’t contributing to the conversation, why not leave it out of this thread? And remember, play nice! [/b]

About the coverage topic: it is obvious that you can’t make some time zone more important than others, because everyone have the same right to play at all times.

Anyway, the goal should be to have more balanced scores, and the easiest thing to do would be to change the score system to a new one, where the points you get are PROPORTIONAL to how hard are you fighting; it is not a problem about times, but a problem about empty maps (that you see mostly at night time).

Why getting a keep after 1 hour figthing 100+ enemies give the same points that getting one in 2 minutes on an empty map? Do you think that is fair?

Points in this game are given in an indirect way for the most part (taking pve objectives), and that reflects in having scores where coverage is everything, because you don’t need enemies to win, you only need undefended objectives.

The concept now is " less enemies = less effort = more points (and rewards) ", while it should be the other way around.

So, the solution would be, change to a system in which direct points (actually given only by kills) have a bigger impact on the overall score. Find a good ratio between giving direct and indirect points, so that people from one side they don’t feel like it is a coverage war, and from the other they don’t think they are useless because playing at the “wrong” time.

Some examples of what you can do: give more points per kill, give less for objectives, scale objectives points depending on the number of enemies, find another way (like bloodlust) to give direct points.

If the goal is to keep scores closely together even if coverage differences exist than what the game needs is a catch up mechanic.
My suggestion for such a mechanic uses the newly introduced Bloodlust buff.

Let’s say we have three servers currently in a bracket.
Server A is leading the score.
Server B is following.
Server C is last.

Server A gets +10 all stats for every stack of bloodlust and 1 points for every stomp.
Server B gets +20 all stats for every stack of bloodlust and 2 points for every stomp.
Server C gets +30 all stats for every stack of bloodlust and 3 points for every stomp.

This accomplishes the following:

• It’s easier for server B to catch up to server A and it’s easier for server C to catch up to server B and A.
• If a server gets a lot of points by holding stuff in the off-hours, but doesn’t cope as well in prime time, they will be at a disadvantage, since the larger the population playing the more stomps occur so it’s easier to catch up during peak hours.
• Bloodlust stomping being important encourages small and medium groups (that can actually take the time to stomp) over large groups (that dps the downed because of their sheer numbers).
• The ruins gain an extra significance encouraging solo and small team play.

This mechanic aims at helping servers with strong prime times catch up or stay close to servers with a night crew. It is not very radical in the sense that it uses an already existing mechanic (“bloodlust”) and it doesn’t give the losing side too much of an advantage.
It also helps smaller population servers catch up to larger population ones. A large zerg might still kill the losing server players but a) they will not stomp them because everyone will be trying to tag and b) even if they do they get less points for doing it.

In general, I believe “catch up” mechanics is what is needed at this time to help servers with less coverage and smaller numbers compete without giving them too much of an advantage. If the system I’m suggesting seems too little to change anything, other types of catch up mechanics can be added (more ppt for the losing sides, capture bonuses for the losing sides etc)

tl;dr: Make bloodlust stomps award more points on losing servers.

Alpha an omega golems are too much effective, a dominating server can use a lot of them while their keeps and towers are resupplied with dolyaks. 6 months back, people were using a lot of alpha and you barely saw any omega, now people use a lot of omega which are way more effective.

Golems are meant to be slow, but portal allow them to move over a map even faster than players. Preventing golems from using portal or even WP could help to notice them from further and help defenders to organize.

An update was made to prevent golems to have boons, but if you buff someone before he get inside a golems, some boons stays, make sure all the boons are removed. You could also prevent golems to get buff like stealth, spirits, banners and quickness to reduce their effectiveness but also make them immune to conditions (the guy inside is protected by a steel suit).

Those things could reduce the effectiveness of golems and prevent a dominating server to easily reset every keeps and towers in a few minutes with tons of them.

Sirendor.1394:

styx.7294:

I think this would be a fantastic and fresh change for season 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHcO6Xo8eJ8

Where instead of 3 servers fightin the servers are split by 3 colours and fight each other with WvW guesting allowed to servers within your colour.

OMG amazing. I love it. HIT THAT +1 BUTTON!!!!

Works in an homogeneous environment like NA mostly, factor in language and timezone differences in the EU League and things aren’t that peachy, although I must admit it makes good sense to me.

Possibly incorporating ALL the servers in such a fashion would work leaving the organisation up to the infrastructure in place by each server and the guilds represented there.

Suggestions based around stat buffs/debuffs, loot/WXP changes, adjusting how PPT works, or anything else to enable or incentivise 10 to fight 80, is just plastering over the problem and not really helping.

The problem is that it is 10v80, and the solution will involve changing that to 45v45. Anything else is inadequate.

Unfortunately, the only way I can think to do that is to completely cut the link between PvE servers and WvW, but of course that will never happen.

I got some ideas about reducing the influence of night capping and the strength of larger groups attacking and taking objectives without much skill. I didn’t read every post in the thread so I apologize if something was already mentioned..

1. Arrow cart resolution bug: With this bug you can shoot other (mostly defensive) weapons which you actually shouldn’t be able to. This gives larger groups the opportunity to destroy well placed defense and force a zerg vs zerg fight over a structure.. in which mostly the larger zerg wins.. Fixing that would make defending structures with lower numbered zergs way easier.

2. Don’t let every team have access to every upgrade because most upgrades finish at night and have influence over the whole day what makes night capping that important. For example on borderlands the “fortify tower” upgrade at the northern 2 towers is only available for the owner of the borderland. As well as Garrisons “fortify keep” and “build waypoint”. Furthermore “fortify keep” and “build waypoint” upgrades should be completely removed from the hill and bay keep. And at the 2 southern spawn towers the “fortify tower” upgrade should only be available for the team with the nearest spawn. This would greatly decrease frustration over things that got taken at night and brought up to t3 until the morning and make it easier to get presence on a one-colored map. For eternal battlegrounds “fortify tower”, “build waypoint” and “fortify keep” should also be disabled for enemies at your keep and the 2 towers next to your spawn. “Fortify keep” and “build waypoint” should also be removed from SM for all teams, because getting a t3 SM is practically impossible at day but easy at night and the influence of a t3 SM castle changes the whole day.

3. Reduce the time a corpse can exist without going to a waypoint to 1 minute. Large zergs can always rezz their people in no time what makes reducing them very difficult. If corpses despawn after 1 min players could defend enemy corpses and deny rezzing. Additionally you could reduce the times you go to downed state before you’re instantly dead to one and/or cap the amount of players that can rally from 1 downed player to 3.
This would greatly reduce mass rallying in large zergs. (And with the waypoint changes above the walking distances become larger what would make it way easier to reduce a large zerg to a smaller one).

4. Reduce the amount of/Remove siege blueprints from drops. Only make them buyable or as a reward through rank up/achievement points. Normalize prices once again, would greatly reduce 20+ omega golem attacks (which are mainly made by the zerg with the higher number of players (—> at night)

5. If you enter a golem remove ALL boons from you (some classes can keep up swiftness) and make golems immune to mesmer’s time warp. Highly increase reaction time of a server against large golem attacks.. with a large enough zerg doors are gone in no time.. (also reduce the amount of mesmers needed for efficient golem attacks)

6. On borderlands map the southeastern spawntower can be attacked from the hill keep (with trebs). The southwestern tower can’t be attacked from the bay keep.. Remove the ability to shoot this tower with trebs from the hill keep to make it possible to gain a foothold that’s kinda save even if you don’t own the hill keep (the ability to shoot that tower mostly helps the dominant server —> the server with night capping/larger numbers)

7. Add a “Hire Scout” upgrade for all towers, keeps and SM that gives out a map-wide notice whenever a wall/door looses more than 10% Hp within one minute. Reduce the need of scouts which are more important for the lower numbered servers than for the flooded ones because you often need the same amount of scouts but have a lower amount of players. Also scouting is very frustrating…

8. On home borderlands mesmers can make a portal at garrison, use a wp to go back to spawn and open a portal there. This should not be possible. I guess sometimes it’s an advantage to smaller zergs as well but in most cases it helps the stronger server (golem ports, switching map and instantly be at garrison while it’s attacked…)

9. Borderlands garrison south inner gate (through the water) isn’t upgraded when the other gates are. This makes it very easy for large zergs to get through the door really fast.. Would be a good time to finally fix this bug…

10. Reduce skill lag.. Skill lag is another factor that favors larger zergs because it takes the skill out of the game what means that higher numbers almost always win.

This is all that I can come up with right now but all of these mechanics/bugs are giving the stronger server (with night capping/higher player numbers) a big advantage what really isn’t necessary. All these changes wouldn’t really solve the server population imbalances but greatly reduce the strength of the server with more people what would decrease the effects of the problem..

DevonCarver.5370:

Madam Pomfrey.4162:

You want to know why? Really? I mean you really expect an answer to that? And suggestions on how to address that have been already provided, but will probably be ignored cause things are already in development anyway.

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. As part of that it’s important for us to more clearly explain why we’ve made some of the decisions we have made so that we talk about the reasoning behind those and how they’ve been in practice.

These threads are intended to be a discussion about the design of various aspects of the game and how the team and the players view them. Our decision making in terms of what actions we take and what we are already doing have to take a wide range of things into account including available resources. So it was never my intent to imply that we would jump to do the things mentioned in this thread because some aren’t feasible, some require resources we don’t have, and some might already be in progress.

I think the heart of the problem is that at the moment easy mode is rewarded more then hard mode in WvW. People transfer to the winning server to be part of this. It is easier and you get more loot etc when you play on the winning server.

With easy mode I mean to outnumber people with a lot and take everything without much resistance. Especially in off hours this happens a lot. A karma train will form taking stuff in zones where there is the least resistance. If to many enemies show up they will transfer to another zone, or wait till the enemy log.

Getting everything during off hours is also the best way to win. Its easier to upgrade during this time. Its easier to defend. And the point ticks for a much longer time then prime time (prime time = about 4 hours). So the way to win is at the moment having the biggest force in off time (what happen in prime time doesn’t matter). That’s why servers recruited guilds from other time zones and a lot of solo people joined on the same servers to benefit of the off hour karma trains.

I am not saying you should penalize players who live and play in different time zones.
But to change the reward and points you get when playing easy mode.
So playing when you heavenly outnumber both opponents in the border.(doesn’t matter what time or time zone)
And if you play hard mode (being outnumbered to one or both servers)rewards and points should be increased.

This will resolve in people stop playing in easy mode. Having biggest populations is less important score wise. Transferring to servers that are outnumbered in the time zones they play, to get hard or at least normal mode(all servers has same number in the zone) rewards.

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.

I never understood why you guys set up the servers in a manner that segregates the player base in such a way and limits development potential. Cause having them merged would go a long way to fix the WvW coverage and it would be one less problem for your to solve giving you time to fix other things that are broken.

UltraHiDef.4809:

Sirendor.1394:

styx.7294:

I think this would be a fantastic and fresh change for season 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHcO6Xo8eJ8

Where instead of 3 servers fightin the servers are split by 3 colours and fight each other with WvW guesting allowed to servers within your colour.

OMG amazing. I love it. HIT THAT +1 BUTTON!!!!

Whoever thought of this is a genius.

I still not convinced by this idea.
After 1 week players again know what server cluster is best.
What server cluster has biggest karma trains during the time they play.
And people will transfer again to these servers
What even worse is, off hours karma trains will have even have more space to move and avoid hard fights. To much defenders on this server lets all move to Y.

DevonCarver.5370:

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to provide a little direction here to the discussion. Firstly I want to reiterate Chris’ point in the original post: “2: We will not be disclosing information pertaining to what is currently in development.” I think there are a lot of really intriguing ideas to be found in this thread, but it’s not the purpose of this space for us to discuss what we are or aren’t doing to address the issue. More broadly speaking I wanted to clarify the types of things we take into consideration when we make large changes to WvW. One of the most important aspects of Guild Wars 2 is the spirit of collaboration that we want to foster between players. It’s a core principle behind the event system, the skills in the game, the way we created gathering nodes, etc. Simply put, if a change will cause players to be less inclined to playing with other players, we won’t make it. Changes to WvW that incentivize players to avoid others on the map or that create incentives to have a smaller general population on the map create just that problem. When we look to make changes to WvW we look towards encouraging players to play together, finding ways to empower groups of skilled players to be able to make their mark even against superior numbers, etc. Solutions to the population imbalance would absolutely have to take that into account.

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.

Thanks again for the discussion, I hope it continues to progress positively.

Score momentum is a good way to put it.

I think changing the way the score is calculated is ultimately the best way. As was suggested in a previous post, increasing the score for the 2nd and 3rd place team would be pretty good. I think if you gave rewards for the 2nd and 3rd place people would try to tank intentionally (at least the pve achievement hunters).

Instead of time based PPT every 15 min…..give points for a successfully defend (repel event, also remove the npc’kittenting camps) and a successfuly camp/tower/keep flip. Instead of a time based point system. So if you have killing it and flip everything on the map….you don’t CONTINUE to gain points and rating just for having it sitting there flipped.

DevonCarver.5370:

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to provide a little direction here to the discussion. Firstly I want to reiterate Chris’ point in the original post: “2: We will not be disclosing information pertaining to what is currently in development.” I think there are a lot of really intriguing ideas to be found in this thread, but it’s not the purpose of this space for us to discuss what we are or aren’t doing to address the issue. More broadly speaking I wanted to clarify the types of things we take into consideration when we make large changes to WvW. One of the most important aspects of Guild Wars 2 is the spirit of collaboration that we want to foster between players. It’s a core principle behind the event system, the skills in the game, the way we created gathering nodes, etc. Simply put, if a change will cause players to be less inclined to playing with other players, we won’t make it. Changes to WvW that incentivize players to avoid others on the map or that create incentives to have a smaller general population on the map create just that problem. When we look to make changes to WvW we look towards encouraging players to play together, finding ways to empower groups of skilled players to be able to make their mark even against superior numbers, etc. Solutions to the population imbalance would absolutely have to take that into account.

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.

Thanks again for the discussion, I hope it continues to progress positively.

My apologies if this has already been discussed, but how would it look to have a system that took the “Outmanned” buff into account? If 1 enemy server on the map has the buff your points per objective are cut by a certain percentage. If both enemy servers have it your points per objective are cut by an even greater percentage.

The same could work in reverse (if you have outmanned your objectives are worth more) but that gets even closer to the line of someone in map chat yelling at someone for coming on the map and making the outmanned buff go away.

Population imbalance doesn’t have to be a thing at all.

I know it isn’t a simple shift, but I would like to see GW2 move toward invalidating the idea of a home server when it comes to accessing parts of the game. There are three things they would need to do to accomplish this (probably more, but these are the three I can think of) -

1. Share guild influence and boosts between members across all servers.
2. Completely remove all server transfer costs and cooldowns from the game.
3. Establish a way of determining WvW teams that has nothing to do with servers.

The third is obviously the sticking point. I’ve seen some great ideas in this post. If one could be implemented that didnt potentially separate friends from playing (which is happening now, btw – with friends on different servers), then it would make every aspect of the game more fun.

To put it simply, server choice shouldnt matter in this game for anything. A new player choosing Eradon Terrace or Henge of Denravi as their home server should have the same fun game experience that a new player choosing Jade Quarry or Tarnished Coast does. At most server choice should be about who you want to hang out with in Lion’s Arch.

I know it would take work, but it would add longevity to the game, even the playing field (eliminate population imbalance) and make sure EVERY player in the game has the same access to enticing and fun gameplay, regardless of which server they choose.

Blaeys.3102:

2. Completely remove all server transfer costs and cooldowns from the game.

A great way to completely destroy WvW within a few weeks.

Human nature makes us want to win, some will do anything to achieve victory at any cost and for the least amount of personal effort. hence population imbalance.

Why struggle for second or third place when you can simply transfer to a winning server and take the easy option?

Yet there are thousands of people who still join WvW everyday even though they know they have no chance of winning their current match. The outcome decided after 2 days, hours of effort and teamwork wiped out in minutes every day and yet they come back, day after day and start again. These are the real WvW players, not the bandwagoning easymoders and yet they get shafted every single day.

The current scoring system is so weighted in favour of ‘The Winner’ the majority of matches are over by the end of the weekend, meaningful competition is over within hours of reset. all we are left with is the game mode.

Take out the score, the achievements, the leagues (the jumping puzzles), camps, towers, keeps and you would still have people in WvW. It may not be the most exciting game in the world but people would still play and Anet could start again from an almost blank canvas and rebuild it into something a little more balanced.

There have been a number of workable suggestions made which, when put together and fleshed out could turn WvW into a game about enjoyment rather than ‘Win at all Costs’

In the age of entitlement not everyone wants things handed to them on a plate and yet the people putting in the maximum effort recieve the least reward. The guys who spend their limited game time running Dolyaks for hours so their server might manage to get a waypoint in their Garrison after yet another round of night capping, or spend their game time guarding their last T3 tower even though they know it will be gone the next day. The guild groups who spend their time trying to stop the zerg?

The game really needs to change its current ‘Winning is Everything’ attitude.

To the issue of servers not automatically allying. This is server pride. For our server this means: We don’t ally, no matter what. Most of us would see an alliance against a good, well playing, dominating server as a dishonest and disrespectful thing. We give 100%, no matter what, and if we’re defeated – as frustrating as it is – we deserved no better.

Cheers.

all the ideas that would allow to move from “victory in numbers” mentality are good and would probably turn
WvW into the ultimate end game content for everyone.
I will take this opportunity to quote an idea I already posted in a thread featuring Devon Carver (the original post is available here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Anet-doesn-t-care-about-WvW-edit-pg3-INFO/2604078 )

and was this:
“many PvE folks don’t WvW, many WvW folks don’t PvE. The two tribes, instead of feeling part of the same game, look down at each other.
I suppose you agree with me that this is wrong, and a different approach should be encouraged.
Well, then why don’t you guys help us? make PvE have effects in WvW, and make WvW have effects on PvE.
Example: PvE folks win Temple of Grenth? cool, a Pact legendary champion shows up in the Mists to help WvW folks do something.
WvW folks cap towers/keeps/Stonemist? a powerful buff will prevent the guys at Grenth to be thrown in the air/a small army of Veteran Mist Warriors will show up to help/a Legendary Mist Warrior\Beast will help overthrowing the Temple.
People cap Melandru? higher regen/hp/condition resistence for WvW
People cap Lyssa? Random Boon for all the WvW every 30 secs
I could continue for days, but I suppose you already got the picture.”

such game mechanic may give a chance to balance those matchups in which servers apparently have similar average
population, when in reality only one or two make use in WvW of that population, the rest is in PvE.
So, giving importance to PvE massive events in WvW would accomplish many goals:

- more people would be attracted by such events, because they would “feel important” and understand that
they are actually contributing to the server in an understandable and widely acknowledged way.
- give a chance of balance
- add a very unpredictable factor which may lead to exciting results

the most critical factor for obtaining balance, is giving players instruments to self-counter zergs.
’Tho instead of using a “punitive policy” against zergs, try to encourage smart small scale playing:

- implement powerups (quad damage, invulnerability, gate shatter, hyperspeed, fly, mega-jump, wall crusher, map-teleport, remote vision, invisibility ecc)
- have them last 60 seconds, and make them unique (as in "only one will spawn in each map, and won’t spawn again until someone find it and use it).
- make sure them are scattered around the map, randomly appearing and disappearing in zones in which the game detects that there are less players. (I’m sure this can be done: for example, each player can have a 120 radius area that defines his presence in game. Therefore, many of those circles very close may define a zerg, creating a bigger circle with a specific center, which can also be followed while moving and thus allowing to predict with fair chances where to have Power Ups spawning).
- Obviously, even if a zerg spots a Power Up, it disappears as soon as it is approached. Let’s say, the powerup can be picked up only if there are no more than ten players (5 friendly and 5 foes in total) in a trebuchet range radius.
- give players rewards for making good use of territory (this will require to modify the morphology of the terrain, rocks, trees ecc): setting up an ambush to a large force from a small party.
- land mines (they won’t trigger for a small amount of players passing by though)

HTH and thanks for reading

DevonCarver.5370:

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.

But drastically redistributing the populations of the game is exactly what needs to happen…
That is the solution. If you’re not willing to do that, there really isn’t much discussion to be had.
Find a way to balance out the populations.
No mechanics or implementations of designs will change the fact that 10 people can’t defeat 80 for 18 hours a day. 10 people can’t defend anything against a blob, until the server with 10 people have nothing left but a few supply camps and towers they manage to flip somewhere. No kidding they’re going to be demoralized and play less, nodoby wants to get their face smashed in all day. Giving superman buffs or anything similar isn’t fair to the server that is actually showing up to play.

Apparently you’re supposed to be playing on NSP for the leagues… in what way at all this week could your server have done anything to stop SBI’s population around the clock?
Any of these suggestions, like certain towers or keeps ticking for less at certain hours, having different time areas where points count for more or less, some towers not being able to be upgraded, increased bags/tokens/karma… would it have made any difference at all? Or would NSP still be getting just crushed by having inferior numbers?

It’s also not fair to penalize people who play outside of NA primetime in other time zones by reducing their effectiveness. It’s not their fault populations are imbalanced. There simply is not enough players to go around outside of NA primetime on NA servers. The same would apply to EU servers and their offhours.

Ask yourself what possibly could be implemented to enable Anvil Rock to defeat Blackgate… the only answer is massive population redistribution. Nobody will move for increased magic find, or anything silly like that. WvW’ers don’t care about fluff. WvW’ers want close fights/competition/parity/blood/destruction.

All the people offering suggestions on how to change this or that… bloodlust… outmanned… who cares. It’s all meaningless. 10 people will still get rolled and the server with the higher population will tick at 500+ for 18 hours a day.
There’s been probably five hundred million threads created on this topic, 50 billion suggestions on things they can change in WvW over the past year, and at the end of the day, all that matters is coverage in non-primetime. That’s what WvW is… coverage wars.
Separate WvW from the pve servers. People in pve don’t care that our efforts give them increased chance of crafting critical success, or 5% faster endurance gain. Nor do WvW’ers care if the pve’ers get their achievements.

Make global WvW servers, reduce the total number of servers, separate them from PvE, and don’t separate NA and EU. It gives WvW the best chance at having somewhat even populations.
Anything less than that will change nothing. Just being a realist.
If you want to see excitement put back into WvW, make this happen. WvW and pvp thrives off of drama and guild politics.

the deal is to do with time zones and not population. of course it helps to have population, but the server with the most players in a foreign timezone is key for stupid leads which lead to the discussions we are having now

Theres not enough Australians or Chinese players to distribute to every single server, theres barely enough for 2 servers, Those servers are the ones that are refereed to as “stacked” and generate much ppt

Its to the point where if an aussie guild moved outside of JQ, BG or SOR, they will never see a fight when they log in WvW. This means it causes a circular motion for aussies to join these servers, which further heightens the PPT for a server in the late foreign hours of NA thus blowing out everyone else.

A good deterant for this is:
Australian Servers
Chinesse Servers
Maybe Russian Servers?

At the end of the day if earning PPT has some kind of reward (AKA leagues) – Servers and foreign guilds will join to stack and blow the rest out for said treasure.

Thus rewarding a stacked server for winning ppt (AKA LEAGUE), yet devising a system to handicap them if they are to strong is like having two heads walking left and right. Its seems its not to well mapped out so far imho from a development point of view

Sure you could have an auto balance. I believe the system i pointed out on page 3 still has a fix to the problem

DevonCarver.5370:

akanibbles.6237:

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

IDEA: auto teamups of the two trailing teams

When leading team score > (2nd + 3rd) / modifier then 2nd and 3rd become automatically allied and/or gain bonuses for attacking the leading team.

I like this idea. Too often the 3rd place team drops off and has no effect on the game other than to stop the 2nd place team be competitive to the 1st place team.

This is an intriguing concept. The original idea behind WvW was that this would happen of its own accord, but I haven’t seen that in practice. I think it could be much more of a part of the game if there were a way to do this. Would it make more sense to provide increased score from this or to increase the individual rewards? I would lean slightly towards the latter. I also wonder if it would work to be really heavy handed about it and actually put the two losing servers on the same team. Of course, that presents numerous problems including score tracking at that juncture. But I would think we can find some sort of system that encourages servers to work together to defeat a bigger server.

I have posted previously regarding this, and am delighted to see that others are similarly minded.

I suggest all of the following happen when one side gets beyond the threshold:

1. bags, points, tokens, wxp, karma decrease for non-dominant server players/objectives
2. bags, points, tokens, wxp, karma increase for dominant server players/objectives

Perhaps there should be several steps of dominance.
When a server hits threshold #2, for example, there could something that makes the other two sides even less likely to attack one another. Or perhaps each of the above should be it’s own threshold.
———————————————————-
EDIT:
I want to point out that the “one dominant server” problem would not go away with JUST this solution. It should be a part of a grander redesign, in my opinion. If the dominant force is able to build tier 3 upgrades, then the other sides will be more incentivised to attack each others’ tier 1 objectives, as they actually have a much better chance to capture these.

Lots of complicated ideas here. I think the solution is a quite simple reworking of PPT.

Just have the PPT reduce over time.

So a structure might only contribute to the tick for a period of time (SM 4 ticks, keeps 3, towers 2. Camps on the other hand should contribute to the tick at least 4 times or even permanently.

Why camps should operate like that? Because supply is actually more important than towers or keeps and they don’t have walls therefore encouraging open field play and more small group play that can contribute to the overall score.

Finally glad this discussion (long overdue) is happening-

Suggestion:
Take the top 3 ideas of participation improvements and run mini-live server tests after WvW season 1 is completed.

Don’t be afraid to do wild things like purposely match two lower ranking servers and match them up with a high coverage server to test the new mechanic. Learn based on objective metrics of participation/goal setting to improve player participation (boards are fine but you really need a survey option).

You can’t please everyone but you can please the majority and provide longer term health of the WvW.

The only problem I see immediately is the new WvW map which will take from the true testing population to fix the PPT/scoring issues. You probably need to disable the new map or greatly limit access for these tests.

Feedback:
Also, consider using smaller timeframe (i.e. the 1-day of WvW when GW2 first started or a 3-day cycle of WvW (in between the one week marathon and the 1-day cover) as just one example to alleviate mass pull ahead games, then reset the matches and move on)

I have a hypothesis that WvW population was far more active/enjoyable during shorter match times because if you were getting beaten badly you could log in the next day with fresh eyes or your server could collectively take a day off from the game and be right back in it tomorrow.

To address momentum, why not simply shift the weight of the dominating server’s accumulating score away from ppt points towards non-ppt points?

The definition of what a “dominating server” needs to be determined but it no doubt has something to do with disproportionate coverage and map control and probably a massive accumulated lead.

Taking and Holding Structures
After some threshold has been reached, stop rewarding ppt points to the dominating server for simply holding a structure unless they are required to defend it. At the same time, encourage the server who should own that structure to capture it by rewarding them a sizeable chunk non-ppt points for the objective.

Pinning
So the dominating server has completely over ran an opposing server’s borderland… Why reward them for holding structures? Nerf the points they get from structures and make them look for people to fight. Force the server to pin for points. If there are no people, then they don’t get points. (No reward for disproportionate coverage, no massive accumulation of points that become insurmountable because it goes unchecked)

Please Make Outmanned Buff Mean Something
Encourage the dominating to spread out by further nerfing the points they get for outmanning an opponent. Why reward the dominating server for zerging an empty borderland? Minimize the point they can get from this.

At the present time, coverage is king because WvW is all about holding structures. If we can make it less about holding structures we might be able to make WvW less about coverage.

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.

I’ve having trouble understanding this.

It sounds to me like you are saying that if the problem is hard to fix, then it is not actually the problem.

We all realize that massive population shifts are a big deal, but the truth is that we already have massive population shifts. Ruling out population shifts as a solution (or encouraging population shifts in the CORRECT direction) does not make sense to me.

Truth is, we as a community were asked what we thought was the biggest problem in WvW, and we said population imbalance. You are arguing that it is not really population imbalance, but instead game mechanics. Clearly, the community doesn’t see it that way, or we would have asked for game mechanics instead of population balance.

However, my mind is open and I’m willing to be convinced. If population imbalance is not the issue, please explain it to me.

DevonCarver.5370:

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to provide a little direction here to the discussion. Firstly I want to reiterate Chris’ point in the original post: “2: We will not be disclosing information pertaining to what is currently in development.” I think there are a lot of really intriguing ideas to be found in this thread, but it’s not the purpose of this space for us to discuss what we are or aren’t doing to address the issue. More broadly speaking I wanted to clarify the types of things we take into consideration when we make large changes to WvW. One of the most important aspects of Guild Wars 2 is the spirit of collaboration that we want to foster between players. It’s a core principle behind the event system, the skills in the game, the way we created gathering nodes, etc. Simply put, if a change will cause players to be less inclined to playing with other players, we won’t make it. Changes to WvW that incentivize players to avoid others on the map or that create incentives to have a smaller general population on the map create just that problem. When we look to make changes to WvW we look towards encouraging players to play together, finding ways to empower groups of skilled players to be able to make their mark even against superior numbers, etc. Solutions to the population imbalance would absolutely have to take that into account.

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.

Thanks again for the discussion, I hope it continues to progress positively.

You must of missed this weekend Gold T1 match-up. SOR had a 20k lead they built up over the weekend. It was looking like they had the victory in the bag, for the reason you stated. Yet, Blackgate steam rolled them, and we have turned around the score completely.

I would be careful about slowing down momentum because, how would a server ever catch up if a server was able to farm PPT for 3 straight days? Such as BG did this week.

……..Or create a Public Test server to try out some of the ideas. I am sure there are plenty of volunteers from the WvW community

herrard.1274:

To address momentum, why not simply shift the weight of the dominating server’s accumulating score away from ppt points towards non-ppt points?

The definition of what a “dominating server” needs to be determined but it no doubt has something to do with disproportionate coverage and map control and probably a massive accumulated lead.

Taking and Holding Structures
After some threshold has been reached, stop rewarding ppt points to the dominating server for simply holding a structure unless they are required to defend it. At the same time, encourage the server who should own that structure to capture it by rewarding them a sizeable chunk non-ppt points for the objective.

Pinning
So the dominating server has completely over ran an opposing server’s borderland… Why reward them for holding structures? Nerf the points they get from structures and make them look for people to fight. Force the server to pin for points. If there are no people, then they don’t get points. (No reward for disproportionate coverage, no massive accumulation of points that become insurmountable because it goes unchecked)

Please Make Outmanned Buff Mean Something
Encourage the dominating to spread out by further nerfing the points they get for outmanning an opponent. Why reward the dominating server for zerging an empty borderland? Minimize the point they can get from this.

At the present time, coverage is king because WvW is all about holding structures. If we can make it less about holding structures we might be able to make WvW less about coverage.

No offense… but those are terrible suggestions.
They do nothing to discuss the topic of the thread… which is population imbalance.

But if I may touch on each…

Taking and Holding Structures
Stop awarding points to the team that owns it…
what, and make karma training worse?

Pinning
“Why reward them for holding structures? Nerf the points they get from structures and make them look for people to fight. Force the server to pin for points. If there are no people, then they don’t get points”
So you’re penalising the server that is actually out trying to play the game? As if somehow it’s their fault your server doesn’t show up.
This does nothing to alleviate the population disparity. It just makes both sides not want to play instead of only one side.

Please Make Outmanned Buff Mean Something
Actually after reading your 3 points… I couldn’t distinguish the difference in any of them… you just want to penalize people that show up to play. How much do you want to nerf points by? 50%? 75% So like instead of most servers winning by 300k every week, they’ll only win by 150k… awesome, great idea… does a lot to change the population differences…

UltraHiDef.4809:

Sirendor.1394:

styx.7294:

I think this would be a fantastic and fresh change for season 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHcO6Xo8eJ8

Where instead of 3 servers fightin the servers are split by 3 colours and fight each other with WvW guesting allowed to servers within your colour.

OMG amazing. I love it. HIT THAT +1 BUTTON!!!!

Whoever thought of this is a genius.

I was typing something about this video then I noticed someone posted it before me. I do think this is one of the best idea. This could be applied in the non season week.

Ok I am not wading through 10 pages to see what everyone has to say, but I will throw in my .02, as I have done for the last 12 months.

Stop trying to balance the population(s). This will likely have no real “fix”. Populations are related to people, and people have too many variables to control.

What you can fix, is how the points are tallied. Many things have been suggested, two of the more obvious are:

-Getting away from PPT (points per tick), and going with some sort of PPC (points per cap) system. So that a server that has superior nighttime coverage does not accumulate a vast number of points by simply holding empty towers/keeps overnight.

-Leaving PPT and adjusting the “tick amounts” based on population. IE: Handicapping.

There will always be population imbalances, but some things could be done to allow outmanned servers at least a fighting chance.

If you aren’t going to fix population itself, then I would say:

- Structures should automatically upgrade. (Also solves the constant and inane fighting about whether to take supply from structures) ‘Upgrade Supply’ should be generated each time a yak makes it but also there should be maybe X upgrade supply generated each tick that is split among all structures that side controls. This means people holding less will have it upgrade faster.

- Points for kills. A point for every stomp, bonus point if Outnumbered and another if you have bloodlust?

- The number of points in the potential pool for each tick – Add to it based on how many kills happened in the previous 15 minutes, also add to it based on the total points scored so far in the matchup. (This means that things are worth more points as the week goes along AND during periods of more activity)

Have PPT auto adjust based on the size of the lowest populated server. If one server only has 10% of the most populated server make the PPT of each objective much less. This gives the servers with less coverage a chance to make up the point difference when they are equal in population. It also dramatically slows down the ability to jump 15,000 points in a couple hours when one server equals 80% of everyone on. Dominating during peak hours would become the leading factor for victory, as opposed to 24/7 coverage.

lordkrall.7241:

Blaeys.3102:

2. Completely remove all server transfer costs and cooldowns from the game.

A great way to completely destroy WvW within a few weeks.

Why? They had it for 6 months and the situation didnt get any better since implementing costs. It’s 100g to xfer, that’s 7 days of WvW.

Crazy idea incoming:

What if you could no longer resurrect at a waypoint within WvW zones?

Stick with me here:

The way it is now, if you are queued for a map, you are waiting for someone on that map to either get tired of playing or disconnect. In effect, one person is playing their preferred game-type at the expense of another.

What if (if it’s programatically possible of course) you could no longer rez at a waypoint in WvW zones? Then whenever a player is defeated, they are limited to (let’s say) 5 minutes in the defeated state before they are forced to resurrect in Lion’s Arch (or perhaps those new Edge of the Mists zones) and requeue to enter WvW.

This would have the effect of force cycling the queued population much more frequently than happens now. Instead of one person playing for an hour while another is queued waiting for that hour, it’s more likely that both players would get to play in WvW for at least part of that hour.

Yes, it’s a worse situation for the people who usually get into WvW first and avoid the queue, but it’s more equal for the playerbase as a whole.

It might have a slight zerg-breaking effect as well. Zergs (generally I’ve found) aren’t terribly organized or team-oriented. As people get dropped, a zerg is less likely than an organized group to pick up defeated people. If those defeated people are replaced with new players from the queue (who don’t know the location of the zerg immediately), I think it’s possible that the zerg might attrit more over time than an organized group would.

Yes, it would be harder for guilds and organized groups to maintain cohesion, but equally, it’s actually important for guilds and organized groups to focus on picking up their dead – counter attacking an area to get to their defeated allies before they are kicked.

This would also introduce a new risk-reward dynamic that might be interesting. People (on high population servers anyway) would be more conscious of the risks of being defeated (i.e. it impacts their playtime) and might make different choices than when defeat is just a small amount of silver and a short run back to the fight.

Angelic.1365:

Have PPT auto adjust based on the size of the lowest populated server. If one server only has 10% of the most populated server make the PPT of each objective much less. This gives the servers with less coverage a chance to make up the point difference when they are equal in population. It also dramatically slows down the ability to jump 15,000 points in a couple hours when one server equals 80% of everyone on. Dominating during peak hours would become the leading factor for victory, as opposed to 24/7 coverage.

/signed

PPT should heavily favor where there is actual competition. You should get more PPT owning 40% of map where all 3 sides are about equal in strength than you should owning 100% of a map where 1 or 2 of the teams are outmanned.

I wouldn’t base the modify solely on the lowest pop server but instead a comparison of all 3 servers map population. So like if 2 servers are about equal but one is outmanned PPT on that map, that would be worth more than the PPT on a map where 2 of the teams are outmanned.

Also to counteract the lower PPT on less competitive maps more meaning should be given to holding objectives over a long period of time. They should be good enough that tracking how long a server has owned an objective becomes a part of the meta.

DevonCarver.5370:

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.

It is pretty simple really, imagine you log into WvW thinking: I am going to run around solo and cap some camps, do some roaming etc. Now imagine there are 20-50 man zergs running around just owning you everywhere you go. After a while you realize, there is really no point in getting zerged down against 10-1 odds, etc. Sure you have free armor repairs, but that is about it. So most people find another map, or just come back when there is less people to steam roll you.

Now take this concept and apply it to 20vs50-60 and you quickly see why outmanned servers lose so many people, which in turn feeds the vicious cycle. Couple that with PPT (ticking away all this time) and in 6-8hrs time you can almost lose a week long match because the lead becomes “insurmountable” in the average PUGs mind. SO now you lose even more people today, more tomorrow, etc, etc….All the while the already “stacked” enemy is picking up more and more people.

We call this the “fair-weather” effect. And it is the single biggest problem with WvW and PPT, in relation to the population imbalances.

DevonCarver.5370:

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.

For some of us, that is the issue. I’m on Anvil Rock. We have outmanned in 2 to 4 zones 24/7. We never have queues. To be honest, unless people are delusional, they know we aren’t going to win against a tier 1 server. Time of day matters in that we get absolutely decimated instead of simply losing. Score momentum only matters because there is no way we will ever have enough people to gain more momentum than our opponents.

I understand that you aren’t allowed to post the actual numerics. However, someone needs to sit down and discuss this thing from a mathematical perspective. In an ideal competitive setting, you have a uniform distribution on everything except skill. Your entire structural pvp setting revolves around that concept. When this happens, you can attribute victory to skill and reward it appropriately. In reality, a uniform distribution won’t happen unless it is entirely structured (sPvP). At best in a WvW setting, we hope for a normal distribution. While not ideal, the rewards will still balance out and you can go that route.

Enter WvW, we aren’t even close to a uniform distribution on population. It isn’t uniform through the day. It isn’t uniform on the overall. Thanks to server transfers and the ability for players to pick their own servers, it isn’t even normal! We have a messy distribution that doles out rewards based on that distribution. The only way to fix this issue is to normalize.

There are a number of suggestions to normalize population. You’ve basically told us that most won’t work under current paradigms. I get that. World pvp is impossible to normalize without things that most people hate. Gating, boosts to a team based on players, forced transfers, long queues, etc. are not good ways to make a community happy.

That really leaves us with one option. If you can’t normalize (balance) something, you have to normalize rewards. I don’t know if you played SW:TOR, but it had some of the most unbalanced pvp I’ve ever seen when it launched. However, there was a massive showing in pvp because the rewards reflected that fact. Losers and winners got similar things and both were roughly equivalent with pve. The same should be true here.

TLDR: Ultimately, you have two solutions. You can decide to normalize WvW population (scaling points per population, giving a real undermanned buff that is stupidly OP, gating, forcing transfers, assigning servers, etc) so that it is actually balanced. Alternatively, you can decide to normalize the rewards so that the winner and loser end up getting the same incentives to play.

Alternatively, you can leave it the way it is. As someone who played WoW and watched the population shift from ~57% horde to over 75% horde on their server, I can tell you that population based rewards lead to everyone sitting on the same side of the teeter-totter. With a new map to help queues on its way, I think you can guess where we are headed.

DevonCarver.5370:

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to provide a little direction here to the discussion. Firstly I want to reiterate Chris’ point in the original post: “2: We will not be disclosing information pertaining to what is currently in development.” I think there are a lot of really intriguing ideas to be found in this thread, but it’s not the purpose of this space for us to discuss what we are or aren’t doing to address the issue. More broadly speaking I wanted to clarify the types of things we take into consideration when we make large changes to WvW. One of the most important aspects of Guild Wars 2 is the spirit of collaboration that we want to foster between players. It’s a core principle behind the event system, the skills in the game, the way we created gathering nodes, etc. Simply put, if a change will cause players to be less inclined to playing with other players, we won’t make it. Changes to WvW that incentivize players to avoid others on the map or that create incentives to have a smaller general population on the map create just that problem. When we look to make changes to WvW we look towards encouraging players to play together, finding ways to empower groups of skilled players to be able to make their mark even against superior numbers, etc. Solutions to the population imbalance would absolutely have to take that into account.

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.

Thanks again for the discussion, I hope it continues to progress positively.

You could having diminishing returns no points based on the number of items you own. For example, owning 2 keeps could give less than twice the number of points that holding 1 keep does. So that holding that last tower (while still a net gain) is not as important as holding the first one.

This would keep the score closer in tight matchups and encourage less populated servers to defend what they have.

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. As part of that it’s important for us to more clearly explain why we’ve made some of the decisions we have made so that we talk about the reasoning behind those and how they’ve been in practice.

These threads are intended to be a discussion about the design of various aspects of the game and how the team and the players view them. Our decision making in terms of what actions we take and what we are already doing have to take a wide range of things into account including available resources. So it was never my intent to imply that we would jump to do the things mentioned in this thread because some aren’t feasible, some require resources we don’t have, and some might already be in progress.

lets say there are 2 people on a borderland. an invader takes a camp. a defender maybe cant get to the camp in time to save it, but now he knows theres an invader on the map and can contest or stop the next camp takes. if he gets a kill, he has an opportunity to retake the flipped camp. if he dies, he may or may not be able to save the 2nd or 3rd camp. the battleground is 2-3 camps, maybe 4-5 if the invader is more skilled than the defender. but the invader cant make serious progress without meeting the defender at pretty much every camp after the 1st.

if we increase the invaders to 2 and have them split up, the defender can only be in 1 place at once. there is always an invader taking a camp, and always a 1v1 at another camp. it doesnt take long before the defender loses all but maybe 1 camp, because he cant keep up with the pace at which 2 people can take camps. 1 invader is always free to do as he pleases.

the invaders dont even need to be on the same team.

it isnt necessarily a problem with score momentum i think, it really is an issue with the ability to field 2 people instead of 1 at any given time. t1 has overcome it by stacking 3 servers to the brim so that everyone has maximum available populations at all times. if you want to redesign the scoring system so that it doesnt really matter that 1 server has 2 people when facing another with only 1… then i think you will have to marginalize the contributions of a lot of people. and they wont like feeling useless.

is a redesign of the transferring system really unfeasible? the current population indicators have no bearing or meaning in wvw. anvil rock is “very high”, jade quarry is “very high”. the only metric that matters for wvw is wvw population, we dont care if jq has a horde of pvers… but that is reflected in the ability to transfer. and reflected poorly, because anvil rock pve is abandoned in comparison to jq, but yet theyre in the same category for transfers. i think if total time put into wvw for each server was approximately equal we wouldnt need to discuss breaking score momentum. matches overall are really fun when the team sizes arent very different. you really start to pick up on the impact individual guilds/groups have within each server. in matches where one server dwarfs another, i tend to just throw up my hands in frustration instead of trying to figure out what an enemys overall composition is.

i think youre trying too hard to look for underlying issues. the base problem really is that servers have wildly differing populations. its against your design principles to marginalize the contributions of random people, which is what you would need to do to be able to have competitive matches with wildly differing populations… and i dont mean like totally oceanic server vs totally na server, i mean like t8 vs t1. if 2 servers have equivalent populations but different time zone strong points, the match can still be close but is likely to turn into just a karma train at all times for 1 server or another.

i feel like my thoughts are kind of scattered.

As it stands now, fixing population imbalances isn’t going to happen. Therefore, we need to look to something else.

Instead of tinkering with population, we can tinker with the PPT objectives offer. Taking something from the #1 in a match should yield more points than something you take from the #3. Also, this effect must be stronger when the #1 is very far ahead, but as weak as possible when the match is fairly equal.

I suggest adding a factor to the PPT for objectives on enemy borderlands based on the current scores of a match.
For example:

World A has 180k points,
World B has 150k points,
World C has 120k points.
The total amount of points is 450k, so the average is 150k.

Now we divide each world’s points by the average to get a factor:
Objectives in A’s BL and in their EB corner should be worth 180k/150k = 1.2x regular PPT
Objectives in B’s BL and in their EB corner should be worth 150k/150k = 1.0x regular PPT
Objectives in C’s BL and in their EB corner should be worth 120k/150k = 0.8x regular PPT

We do still have a problem: each world will hold their own BL and EB corner most of the time, so this would be very beneficial to #1 while hurting #3. Therefore, your own borderland and EB corner should always be regular PPT. Only when taking an objective in enemy territory (their BL or EB corner) this factor should come into play.

This means that (with the example above) A gets 1x PPT on A’s BL and C gets 1x PPT on C’s BL.
But A only gets 0.8x PPT in C’s BL while C gets 1.2x PPT in A’s BL.

Because we base the factor on the difference in scores, the effect will get stronger as the match is more lopsided, giving #2 and #3 in a match more incentive to fight for #1’s territory and makes it easier to catch up. If the match is balanced, the effect of this will become very limited (because the factors will be roughly 1.0) so it barely affects the match anymore, keeping things fair.

It will also put more emphasis on defending your home territory when you’re getting ahead in points, and more on offensive play when you’re falling behind. I think it can make some very interesting changes in tactics and strategical meta. For example, you can choose to trade a tower on your home BL for a tower on another server’s BL, because the latter is worth more points overall.

There might still be some problems with this, as I came up with it only just now, but I think it has a lot of potential. If you see a problem, please do raise your concerns and possibly solutions if you think of one.