Guild Wars 2

Server linking is a temporary solution to a very messy problem: WvW population.

For WvW players, there’s two main constraints to consider: faction and server. Faction (“color”) is a hard constraint: during a match you shouldn’t be able to join the other factions to spy, grief and what else. The Server is a “soft” constraint, as server linking clearly shows: players from two or more servers can easily fight for the same faction in the same matchup.

The problem is: how to spread out players to different factions in a way that is as balanced as possible during day and night and during the course of the week-long match? And how we keep guilds or servers “together” when we split the factions around? And how we maintain a healthy number of players in every map as long as possible?

In PvE it’s easy: everyone is on the same side, just create more copies of the same map and put them all in different copies. But for WvW we have the factions to consider, and possibly even the “server pride” that kept many communities together.

Getting rid of “servers”, consolidating the population in 3 different factions and having multiple copies of the same map(s) for each faction would open many options, for example there could be (player driven or ANet enforced) maps dedicated to different group sizes and playstyles: sometimes you are looking for small scale fights and there’s only blobs everywhere. Some other times you would rather relax and follow the blue dorito for some blobfest.

Maybe squads could be a good way of splitting the population. The commander picks a faction at the start of the matchup and who joins his squad is asked if he wants to lock with that particular faction for that matchup. Squads are big enough for a blob, but not enough to saturate a map, allowing for more people to join the same overflow (roamers, maybe one or two small guilds).

How to balance things up for the long term then? If everyone can pick his faction every week, we’ll soon end up with everyone trying to play for the same color and that wouldn’t be very funny.

Maybe there could be a system to spread out WvW guilds (but what if a player is in more than one WvW guild?) and public commanders (more questions: how do you define a “WvW guild” and a “public commander”?) between the factions, and players unaffiliated with either are assigned to the lowest population faction the first time they join WvW during a matchup, to balance things up.

I don’t know.
I gave this topic a lot of thought but I couldn’t find any solution that would completely satisfy me, so my “constructive contribution” here is limited to pointing out what I think the problems are and a few ideas I had about how to solve them.

This post is part of a series I made for the 4th birthday of the game. You can find links to the other posts in the overview

The population is unbalanced because the Devs get played by the players. And have been for years.

For example, it is obvious Blackgate didn’t need any more players but just a couple of weeks ago ANET in their infinite wisdom opened Blobgate up for transfers. The players played ANET……. again.

TC and the sh… alliance played ANET constantly. You would think ANET would have figured it out by now. But they keep coming back to the table with the rigged rules.

It’s sad when the players run the show.

Population balance is on the players. You can’t put this on Anet. Players have created this issue.

and Anet made it possible. It is without doubt their responsibility

Jayne.9251:

Population balance is on the players. You can’t put this on Anet. Players have created this issue.

ANet is in the position to incentivate or force players to balance out, but so far they failed to achieve that.

I think players enjoy winning (bandwagoning) at least as much as they hate not having fights because the borderlands are empty.

Menaka.5092:

Jayne.9251:

Population balance is on the players. You can’t put this on Anet. Players have created this issue.

ANet is in the position to incentivate or force players to balance out, but so far they failed to achieve that.

I think players enjoy winning (bandwagoning) at least as much as they hate not having fights because the borderlands are empty.

Population balancing requires the players to put forth the first step. But because of servers like TC and BG, we know this isn’t possible. Players created this mess, and the only way ANET can fix it is by kittening off the playerbase.

For example…setting a permanent hardcap on the amount of accounts a server can hold. Even if somebody hasn’t played the account in 3 years, they’d still have a placeholder in that count. It’s easier to link servers and fill the gaps if you have a set count on the number of players in WvW on that server. So people in servers who already reached that count, say BG, would have their remainder of numbers thrown in other servers until they reach that hardcap.

Would this kitten off the playerbase massively? YES. But the playerbase lost any rights it had when BG and TC pulled this crap they pulled in the past. It’s time for the foot to come down.

You made a good effort posting all these threads here, but don’t forget Anet isn’t paying you. You shouldn’t have to do their job.

Right now it takes months for them just to mix up maps they already have made. The simplest things, like making it so that your own server can see your WvW rank, seem too complicated.

They promised the Orbs would be back as well, never happened.

They are improving the game, but at the current speed it’s going to take years. I think their WvW teams is really, really small.

Xillllix.3485:

They promised the Orbs would be back as well, never happened.

Do you have a source for that?
The patchnotes for the removal said
“Orbs or some similar mechanic may return in the future, but only if we’re confident that they won’t create similar issues.”
The posts from Devon Carver also all said pretty much the same thing.

I agree with factions. If Anet doesn’t evolve the mode this way I forsee a lot of players bailing to CU for a proper RvRvR experience and play gw2 wvw as their secondary choice.

Menaka.5092:

Jayne.9251:

Population balance is on the players. You can’t put this on Anet. Players have created this issue.

I think players enjoy winning (bandwagoning) at least as much as they hate not having fights because the borderlands are empty.

If that was the case they’d split up and spread out, wouldn’t they?

The solution to balance is within the playerbase’s hands.

Menaka.5092:

ANet is in the position to incentivate or force players to balance out, but so far they failed to achieve that.

They tried server caps, then T1 players flooded the forums with complaints. People want instant fixes. This mess took four years to make. It’s not going to magically be remedied overnight.

Jayne.9251:

Population balance is on the players. You can’t put this on Anet. Players have created this issue.

Not really, putting aside any real incentive/disincentive for the bandwagoning aspect, population balance has been an issue at all tiers and goes way beyond “bandwagonning”, in fact imbalances have often been far worse in mid/lower tiers where “bandwagonning” was not really an issue.

The simple fact is server vs server is a bad design for RvR type game mode, factions / alliances are far better because they are far more flexible at producing balanced populations, but also at handling imbalanced populations to give better gameplay, server vs server is literally the worst most inflexible design you can have.

mordran.4750:

and Anet made it possible. It is without doubt their responsibility

Meh Anet gave us options, players took advantage of it for their own personal greed and need to win. Even if Anet had come down with heavy handed restrictions for populations, we would abuse it and of course complain to them about that too.

zinkz.7045:

Jayne.9251:

Population balance is on the players. You can’t put this on Anet. Players have created this issue.

Not really, putting aside any real incentive/disincentive for the bandwagoning aspect, population balance has been an issue at all tiers and goes way beyond “bandwagonning”, in fact imbalances have often has been far worse in mid/lower tiers where “bandwagonning” was not really an issue.

The simple fact is server vs server is a bad design for RvR type game mode, factions / alliances are far better because they are far more flexible at producing balanced populations, but also at handling imbalanced populations to give better gameplay, server vs server is literally the worst most inflexible design you can have.

yup

Xenesis.6389:

mordran.4750:

and Anet made it possible. It is without doubt their responsibility

Meh Anet gave us options, players took advantage of it for their own personal greed and need to win. Even if Anet had come down with heavy handed restrictions for populations, we would abuse it and of course complain to them about that too.

Anet created an environment that is highly exploitable. Players will always

a) choose the easiest way possible
b) don´t give a kitten about population balance because of a)

This is, has been and will always be forseeable. So Anet has the responibility to create a as much as possible balanced environment for everybody, hands down. They horribly failed to do that. On my server people are simply tired of getting roflstomped constantly fighting against 2 linked servers while being the only one not linked for language reasons. So people simply don´t log in to wvw anymore, if that´s the whole point of that, congratulations to the Anet geniuses, mission accomplished.

zinkz.7045:

Jayne.9251:

Population balance is on the players. You can’t put this on Anet. Players have created this issue.

Not really, putting aside any real incentive/disincentive for the bandwagoning aspect, population balance has been an issue at all tiers and goes way beyond “bandwagonning”, in fact imbalances have often been far worse in mid/lower tiers where “bandwagonning” was not really an issue.

The simple fact is server vs server is a bad design for RvR type game mode, factions / alliances are far better because they are far more flexible at producing balanced populations, but also at handling imbalanced populations to give better gameplay, server vs server is literally the worst most inflexible design you can have.

Factions will reduce identity. Loss of identity means less attachment to game. Less attachment to game means players fairweather to other games,

Without community, identity, population balance becomes moot. Because there will be no players.

There’s a reason games like WoW and EQ franchises are still chugging along with paid monthly subs after 10-plus years.

Couple that with the fact that ANY rework of faction/server is useless without resolving bandwaggoning (aka community building/attachment), will result in the same scenario we are in today. Factions in no way will magically fix anything. It will only serve to alienate the loyalists and drive them away.

Jayne.9251:

Factions will reduce identity. Loss of identity means less attachment to game. Less attachment to game means players fairweather to other games,

Without community, identity, population balance becomes moot. Because there will be no players.

Not really, for example EVE Online is based on player made alliances and has a far stronger, far deeper community than the rather superficial WvW communities will ever have, and as for WvW “communities” please, you are in the minority, most veteran WvW players (those that have not quit) have swapped servers multiple times. (including a fair number of “loyalists” that make up your little community)

Jayne.9251:

There’s a reason games like WoW and EQ franchises are still chugging along with paid monthly subs after 10-plus years.

As does EVE Online, and in all 3 games there are a myriad of reasons why they are still chugging along, claiming that it is down to using an individual server based system in two of them is laughable.

Jayne.9251:

Couple that with the fact that ANY rework of faction/server is useless without resolving bandwaggoning (aka community building/attachment), will result in the same scenario we are in today. Factions in no way will magically fix anything. It will only serve to alienate the loyalists and drive them away.

To quote a pointy eared chap ‘the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’.

If you think the only way to have “community” in a game is fixed servers, you are misguided, if your “community” is any sort of “community” worthy of the word then it would cope fine with adapting to another system. (not that you need worry, this Anet, they only do band-aids, not actual fixes, which is why WvW is in the state it is in)

And yes factions / alliances of guilds, etc do fix things, because they more flexible systems, you can create balanced matchups far more easily because you are dealing with smaller units, or even if factions are imbalanced you can deal with it better by doing things like campaigns so even the weakest faction can stack a campaign or two and play on an equal footing in those, unlike the joke that is WvW where for most matchups over the course of this game they have been foregone conclusions over by Monday morning simply due to imbalanced numbers or where players have to take a week off because they are in a dead matchup.

Jayne.9251:

Factions will reduce identity. Loss of identity means less attachment to game. Less attachment to game means players fairweather to other games,

Without community, identity, population balance becomes moot. Because there will be no players.

If players “fairweather” to other games, they weren’t looking for a community identity in the first place. Also, you must be on a “host” server, or you would know that “guest” servers already have little identity left to speak of. Being on a “guest” server myself, I see very little of those from my own server in WvW anymore. When an objective gets taken and a message flashes across the screen, it does me no good to remember what server I came from, I have to remember who my “host” server is, which changes every 2 months. Right now, my server is paired with one that had previously been our mortal enemy for at least this last year. We loved to curse them…and now, I’m one of them. It really gives one a Jekyll/Hyde experience. What kind of identity is that?

At least if we’re talking factions, it would be possible to recruit for each faction on any mega-server instance. Now, when I’m in LA, all I see is recruitments for guilds that are not even on my server. I guess “vagabond” is an identity, but it’s not a community.

Jayne.9251:

Population balance is on the players. You can’t put this on Anet. Players have created this issue.

We didn’t design the game… We didn’t choose to rebuild the GW engine that can’t handle large scale maps with massive players battles, thus forcing the segregated map designs and match ups with caps… We didn’t choose to have abysmal rewards compared to the rest of the game… We didn’t choose the lack of separations in skills and mechanics between pvp and pve modes… We didn’t choose for a lack of interest in wvw and for the permanent losses of players…

Meanwhile CU, predecessor to DAoC that GW2 wvw is based of off, is running a 3 faction game, 10 unique classes per side built solely for rvr and pvp, an engine that an handle up to 500 players in one space while maintaining 30 fps, one map without instances and load screens… and a whole lot of other stuff…

So tell me more that it’s the players fault for any of the design choices and issues here?

zinkz.7045:

Jayne.9251:

Factions will reduce identity. Loss of identity means less attachment to game. Less attachment to game means players fairweather to other games,

Without community, identity, population balance becomes moot. Because there will be no players.

Not really, for example EVE Online is based on player made alliances and has a far stronger, far deeper community than the rather superficial WvW communities will ever have, and as for WvW “communities” please, you are in the minority, most veteran WvW players (those that have not quit) have swapped servers multiple times. (including a fair number of “loyalists” that make up your little community)

Jayne.9251:

There’s a reason games like WoW and EQ franchises are still chugging along with paid monthly subs after 10-plus years.

As does EVE Online, and in all 3 games there are a myriad of reasons why they are still chugging along, claiming that it is down to using an individual server based system in two of them is laughable.

Jayne.9251:

Couple that with the fact that ANY rework of faction/server is useless without resolving bandwaggoning (aka community building/attachment), will result in the same scenario we are in today. Factions in no way will magically fix anything. It will only serve to alienate the loyalists and drive them away.

To quote a pointy eared chap ‘the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’.

If you think the only way to have “community” in a game is fixed servers, you are misguided, if your “community” is any sort of “community” worthy of the word then it would cope fine with adapting to another system. (not that you need worry, this Anet, they only do band-aids, not actual fixes, which is why WvW is in the state it is in)

And yes factions / alliances of guilds, etc do fix things, because they more flexible systems, you can create balanced matchups far more easily because you are dealing with smaller units, or even if factions are imbalanced you can deal with it better by doing things like campaigns so even the weakest faction can stack a campaign or two and play on an equal footing in those, unlike the joke that is WvW where for most matchups over the course of this game they have been foregone conclusions over by Monday morning simply due to imbalanced numbers or where players have to take a week off because they are in a dead matchup.

EVE online isn’t “population” balanced.

There is no point linking servers to “balance them” if you are going to leave server transfer open.

How to balance population?

Solution – You don’t.

You encourage Communities to form around World Servers. You let players stack as much as they want, but design a game mode that reduces the advantage of an over-stacked Server.

1. Use a Pure King of the Hill Fight Model to create Match-Ups.
2. Assign each World Server 1 Map to Own.
3. Let Players Guest Fight by visiting any World Server they choose.
4. ANet then Tightly Controls How Many & Which World Server(s) that a player can visit for the week.
5. Enable World Rank Scoring that ENCOURAGES the Lower Ranked that attack the Higher Ranked.
6. Enable World Rank Scoring that DISCOURAGES the Higher Ranked that attack the Lower Ranked.

Guesting is nothing new & is already being used. For those not familiar with this already built-in Game Mechanic:

Next time you logon – Click [ World Selection ] Button – Pick a Different Home World – Click [ Guest ] Button.

Players using the Guesting Mechanic are freed to visit any World Server to Guest Fight on for the whole week.

ANet using the Guesting Mechanic can Tightly Control How Many & Which World Server(s) a Player can visit for the whole week.

Full details

For a Better Long Term Solution to WvW – Google Search – wvg world vs globes

Diku.2546:

How to balance population?

Solution – You don’t.

You encourage Communities to form around World Servers. You let players stack as much as they want, but design a game mode that reduces the advantage of an over-stacked Server.

1. Use a Pure King of the Hill Fight Model to create Match-Ups.
2. Assign each World Server 1 Map to Own.
3. Let Players Guest Fight by visiting any World Server they choose.
4. ANet then Tightly Controls How Many & Which World Server(s) that a player can visit for the week.
5. Enable World Rank Scoring that ENCOURAGES the Lower Ranked that attack the Higher Ranked.
6. Enable World Rank Scoring that DISCOURAGES the Higher Ranked that attack the Lower Ranked.

---

Guesting is nothing new & is already being used. For those not familiar with this already built-in Game Mechanic:

Next time you logon – Click [ World Selection ] Button – Pick a Different Home World – Click [ Guest ] Button.

---

Players using the Guesting Mechanic are freed to visit any World Server to Guest Fight on for the whole week.

ANet using the Guesting Mechanic can Tightly Control How Many & Which World Server(s) a Player can visit for the whole week.

---

Full details

For a Better Long Term Solution to WvW – Google Search – wvg world vs globes

Nah, you create a 3 faction war like ESO and CU.

Aezyr.5304:

EVE online isn’t “population” balanced.

I didn’t say it was, I was using it as an example in response to the notion that you can’t have community or identity in other systems that don’t use individual servers.

I don’t think it’s that difficult to balance WVW. All that is needed is to apply DR to server population. Servers that have above a certain threshold in population get DR on rewards. Slower progression on reward tracks, debuffs on damage, RI, rank progression etc.

mordran.4750:

Anet created an environment that is highly exploitable. Players will always

a) choose the easiest way possible
b) don´t give a kitten about population balance because of a)

This is, has been and will always be forseeable. So Anet has the responibility to create a as much as possible balanced environment for everybody, hands down. They horribly failed to do that. On my server people are simply tired of getting roflstomped constantly fighting against 2 linked servers while being the only one not linked for language reasons. So people simply don´t log in to wvw anymore, if that´s the whole point of that, congratulations to the Anet geniuses, mission accomplished.

You can make an environment with no transfers ever, but a) and b) will still exist, it has in any multi faction pvp game. There will always be 2nd accounts to get around everything, more so when they’re free.

They can go make 3 faction groups and we’ll still get people in here complaining about bandwagons to green , why is no one on red blah blah blah. You get roflstomped by a linked server, hey guess what that was happening even before links, hell it happens in eotm.

Population imbalance will always exist in a large open pvp areas like wvw, the only way around it is to run smaller instances like battlegrounds. What they needed to do was design wvw fighting for something else other than points, points which is dictated by the biggest population and best coverage, the system was broken from day one. In every competitive game that requires you to score points to win, the sides are always equal, just look at any sport for this.

The players are just as responsible for the imbalance especially when you have entire guilds pick up and leave with allies to other servers, they create the vacuums. But they leave for a purpose, to find a better environment for themselves, whether that’s finding better enemies or finding better allies and getting away from their previous allies who have become toxic(yes it happens and also the other way around). That’s all player created.

Swagger.1459:

Nah, you create a 3 faction war like ESO and CU.

No thanks…you should go play ESO & CU.

All the Faction Solutions I’ve seen posted here…have no easy way…or simply…don’t give any solution…to reduce the problems related to population in-balances…imho

Xenesis.6389:

Snip 8<
The players are just as responsible for the imbalance
Snip 8<

ANet needs to re-design the WvW game mode into a WvG mode that reduces the advantage of an over-stacked Server.

A Pure King of the Hill Match-Up that is Player Driven…

Is better than a Fixed 3 Way Match-Up that is Manually or automatically done by ANet…imho

zinkz.7045:

Not really, for example EVE Online is based on player made alliances and has a far stronger, far deeper community than the rather superficial WvW communities will ever have, and as for WvW “communities” please, you are in the minority, most veteran WvW players (those that have not quit) have swapped servers multiple times. (including a fair number of “loyalists” that make up your little community)

Any time I hear someone reference EVE, I recall long, drama-filled stories about people manipulating the system to their own benefit and not caring about anyone else but themselves or their immediate circle.

zinkz.7045:

As does EVE Online, and in all 3 games there are a myriad of reasons why they are still chugging along, claiming that it is down to using an individual server based system in two of them is laughable.

What? Do WoW or EQ franchises not use servers?

zinkz.7045:

To quote a pointy eared chap ‘the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’.

Thank god for Anet running polls to determine discrepancies between majorities and oh-so-vocal minorities.

zinkz.7045:

If you think the only way to have “community” in a game is fixed servers, you are misguided, if your “community” is any sort of “community” worthy of the word then it would cope fine with adapting to another system. (not that you need worry, this Anet, they only do band-aids, not actual fixes, which is why WvW is in the state it is in)

lol, the snark.

zinkz.7045:

And yes factions / alliances of guilds, etc do fix things, because they more flexible systems, you can create balanced matchups far more easily because you are dealing with smaller units, or even if factions are imbalanced you can deal with it better by doing things like campaigns so even the weakest faction can stack a campaign or two and play on an equal footing in those, unlike the joke that is WvW where for most matchups over the course of this game they have been foregone conclusions over by Monday morning simply due to imbalanced numbers or where players have to take a week off because they are in a dead matchup.

Ok, how are you going to prevent faction bandwagonning/stacking? How will factions prevent people from doing exactly what they’ve been doing with the server system?

If you cannot prevent stacking, then what’s the point of factions? It’ll result in the same situation, just with different lipstick.

Swagger.1459:

Meanwhile CU, predecessor to DAoC that GW2 wvw is based of off, is running a 3 faction game, 10 unique classes per side built solely for rvr and pvp, an engine that an handle up to 500 players in one space while maintaining 30 fps, one map without instances and load screens… and a whole lot of other stuff…

So tell me more that it’s the players fault for any of the design choices and issues here?

lol something tells me you didn’t play CU this past weekend. It was just exploring, running around, and it crashed with 100 people on map. Not even fighting.

Chatter in map chat was about FPS/latency and oh wow what’s going to happen when you get more than 100 people actually fighting in one spot?

Turamarth.3248:

Xillllix.3485:

They promised the Orbs would be back as well, never happened.

Do you have a source for that?
The patchnotes for the removal said
“Orbs or some similar mechanic may return in the future, but only if we’re confident that they won’t create similar issues.”
The posts from Devon Carver also all said pretty much the same thing.

2 years ago on this forum, WvW lead said it would come back. Lost the thread.

Xillllix.3485:

Turamarth.3248:

Xillllix.3485:

They promised the Orbs would be back as well, never happened.

Do you have a source for that?
The patchnotes for the removal said
“Orbs or some similar mechanic may return in the future, but only if we’re confident that they won’t create similar issues.”
The posts from Devon Carver also all said pretty much the same thing.

2 years ago on this forum, WvW lead said it would come back. Lost the thread.

It did, as the ruins… for the same bloodlust buiff, which means they couldn’t counter the fly hacking.

zinkz.7045:

Aezyr.5304:

EVE online isn’t “population” balanced.

I didn’t say it was, I was using it as an example in response to the notion that you can’t have community or identity in other systems that don’t use individual servers.

You are right but even a faction based system (instead of servers) will not solve the population issue.

Jayne.9251:

Any time I hear someone reference EVE, I recall long, drama-filled stories about people manipulating the system to their own benefit and not caring about anyone else but themselves or their immediate circle.

Which is nice, but irrelevant, and doesn’t alter that games like EVE that don’t have individual servers can have stronger communities than games like this with separate worlds/servers, and therefore the idea there is no community/identity without being attached to a world/server is utter nonsense.

zinkz.7045:

What? Do WoW or EQ franchises not use servers?

Which part of a “myriad of reasons” rather than specifically down to server based worlds are you are having difficulty with?

zinkz.7045:

Ok, how are you going to prevent faction bandwagonning/stacking? How will factions prevent people from doing exactly what they’ve been doing with the server system?

If you cannot prevent stacking, then what’s the point of factions? It’ll result in the same situation, just with different lipstick.

Under some systems you don’t need balanced populations as much, because those systems can handle the negative effects on the gameplay much better.

For example if you have a game like ESO with 3 factions that uses a campaign system, where players/guilds choose one campaign of several to join for the duration of the matchup, then if say the red faction overall has the least players, it can still get fun competitive matchups by stacking a couple of campaigns and have the same numbers in those campaigns as the more populous factions.

It also has other advantages, in that guilds that like to fight can all join a certain campaign, those that like to do the equivalent of PPT can join a certain campaign, those that like a sparsely populated type of gameplay can go join a low population campaign, etc, all things WvW struggles with due to its rigid system.

Now if you want a system that produces better population balance, one example is you can use an alliance system of guilds, you prevent stacking by limiting the max numbers in a guild, solo players can get assigned to a general alliance guild based on their friendlist, etc, this way you are dealing with much smaller units and can dynamically assign players/guilds to an alliance for each matchup, to provide a more balanced match, obviously in a system like that identity/community is built around guilds, much in the way it is in WvW for a lot of players whose “loyalty” is to their guild, not whichever server they happen to be on at that time.

zinkz.7045:

Jayne.9251:

Any time I hear someone reference EVE, I recall long, drama-filled stories about people manipulating the system to their own benefit and not caring about anyone else but themselves or their immediate circle.

Which is nice, but irrelevant, and doesn’t alter that games like EVE that don’t have individual servers can have stronger communities than games like this with separate worlds/servers, and therefore the idea there is no community/identity without being attached to a world/server is utter nonsense.

zinkz.7045:

What? Do WoW or EQ franchises not use servers?

Which part of a “myriad of reasons” rather than specifically down to server based worlds are you are having difficulty with?

zinkz.7045:

Ok, how are you going to prevent faction bandwagonning/stacking? How will factions prevent people from doing exactly what they’ve been doing with the server system?

If you cannot prevent stacking, then what’s the point of factions? It’ll result in the same situation, just with different lipstick.

Under some systems you don’t need balanced populations as much, because those systems can handle the negative effects on the gameplay much better.

For example if you have a game like ESO with 3 factions that uses a campaign system, where players/guilds choose one campaign of several to join for the duration of the matchup, then if say the red faction overall has the least players, it can still get fun competitive matchups by stacking a couple of campaigns and have the same numbers in those campaigns as the more populous factions.

It also has other advantages, in that guilds that like to fight can all join a certain campaign, those that like to do the equivalent of PPT can join a certain campaign, those that like a sparsely populated type of gameplay can go join a low population campaign, etc, all things WvW struggles with due to its rigid system.

Now if you want a system that produces better population balance, one example is you can use an alliance system of guilds, you prevent stacking by limiting the max numbers in a guild, solo players can get assigned to a general alliance guild based on their friendlist, etc, this way you are dealing with much smaller units and can dynamically assign players/guilds to an alliance for each matchup, to provide a more balanced match, obviously in a system like that identity/community is built around guilds, much in the way it is in WvW for a lot of players whose “loyalty” is to their guild, not whichever server they happen to be on at that time.

And how well is ESO doing? And if it’s superior, why are you here?

Your proposition for alliance restrictions can be easily employed to the existing server system, without alienating the existing playerbase.

Change for change sake is never a good idea.

The whole solo players can fill in the gaps indicates a basic lack of understanding of wvw GW2 gameplay. Those single players and small guilds are your server’s defense team. Split them up and you’ll get a pve champ train map and nothing else. Both sides need to exist for wvw to work.

What you are proposing STILL doesn’t resolve the core issue: stacking. The end result, as I’ve said, is the same thing with different lipstick. Plus the added bonus of ticking off the loyalists,

In any event, this debate is academic, at best. A poll would best determine results.

Jayne.9251:

Your proposition for alliance restrictions can be easily employed to the existing server system, without alienating the existing playerbase.

Not really.

Jayne.9251:

Change for change sake is never a good idea.

Quite, however change because a game mode is poorly designed and the game mode is moribund, is an entirely different matter.

Jayne.9251:

What you are proposing STILL doesn’t resolve the core issue: stacking.

Erm, the second system does indeed resolve stacking and the first greatly reduces the issue it causes, hence both are superior to the broken WvW system.

Jayne.9251:

In any event, this debate is academic, at best. A poll would best determine results.

Nearly everything on this forum is academic, especially when it comes to actually fixing fundamental issues, WvW still has the same basic flaws it had at launch that caused many of the big guilds that came here to play WvW specifically to quit within the first year.

Anet are terrible at addressing the real issues, which is why WvW is in the state it is in, even with what are in effect server merges (destroying your beloved concept of server identity, at least for some servers) the game is a pale shadow of what it was, especially outside prime. (at least on EU).

I have no delusions that Anet will make major changes, they will just come out with band-aid fixes as usual and continue to try and milk what is left of the playerbase.

P.S – I play ESO and Overwatch for that matter far more than GW2 now, which now mainly consists of me logging in, then logging out. (adn no ESO is not perfect, but in terms of an RvR system it is superior)

P.P.S – Server identity has been a joke in this game ever since they effectively removed servers as far as most of the playerbase is concerned.

Diku.2546:

Snip 8<
All the Faction Solutions I’ve seen posted here…have no easy way…or simply…don’t give any solution…to reduce the problems related to population in-balances…imho
Snip 8<

Faction based Solutions are Long Winded, Offer Incomplete Advice, and Gives No Concrete How To Plan on reducing the problems related to population in-balances.

Failing to provide any Concrete How To Plan…they attack & deflect other proposed solutions that do have a very detailed Concrete How To Plan…imho

Server based Solution can use existing game mechanics with a Simple How To instructions…that can be built upon to create an Epic Skyscrapper of a Game Mode…imho

Simple Server Solution:

Diku.2546:

Diku.2546:

Snip 8<
All the Faction Solutions I’ve seen posted here…have no easy way…or simply…don’t give any solution…to reduce the problems related to population in-balances…imho
Snip 8<

Faction based Solutions are Long Winded, Offer Incomplete Advice, and Gives No Concrete How To Plan on reducing the problems related to population in-balances.

Failing to provide any Concrete How To Plan…they attack & deflect other proposed solutions that do have a very detailed Concrete How To Plan…imho

Server based Solution can use existing game mechanics with a Simple How To instructions…that can be built upon to create an Epic Skyscrapper of a Game Mode…imho

Simple Server Solution:

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

You encourage Communities to form around World Servers. You let players stack as much as they want, but design a game mode that reduces the advantage of an over-stacked Server.

1. Use a Pure King of the Hill Fight Model to create Match-Ups.
2. Assign each World Server 1 Map to Own.
3. Let Players Guest Fight by visiting any World Server they choose.
4. ANet then Tightly Controls How Many & Which World Server(s) that a player can visit for the week.
5. Enable World Rank Scoring that ENCOURAGES the Lower Ranked that attack the Higher Ranked.
6. Enable World Rank Scoring that DISCOURAGES the Higher Ranked that attack the Lower Ranked.

---

Guesting is nothing new & is already being used. For those not familiar with this already built-in Game Mechanic:

Next time you logon – Click [ World Selection ] Button – Pick a Different Home World – Click [ Guest ] Button.

---

Players using the Guesting Mechanic are freed to visit any World Server to Guest Fight on for the whole week.

ANet using the Guesting Mechanic can Tightly Control How Many & Which World Server(s) a Player can visit for the whole week.

---

Full details

For a Better Long Term Solution to WvW – Google Search – wvg world vs globes

Yes, Diku, lets make balancing wvw 100x worse… Your “solution”, that you keep spamming, is poorly thought out and impractical…

Jayne.9251:

Swagger.1459:

Jayne.9251:

Swagger.1459:

Meanwhile CU, predecessor to DAoC that GW2 wvw is based of off, is running a 3 faction game, 10 unique classes per side built solely for rvr and pvp, an engine that an handle up to 500 players in one space while maintaining 30 fps, one map without instances and load screens… and a whole lot of other stuff…

So tell me more that it’s the players fault for any of the design choices and issues here?

lol something tells me you didn’t play CU this past weekend. It was just exploring, running around, and it crashed with 100 people on map. Not even fighting.

Chatter in map chat was about FPS/latency and oh wow what’s going to happen when you get more than 100 people actually fighting in one spot?

or you can just deflect and keep blaming players lol…

kinda like you just did?

You failed to respond to the spirit of the post and instead decided to comment on a game still in the alpha state of development…

I’m sorry that you can’t respond in civil ways and instead just deflect. You can keep blaming players for the wvw balance issues if that makes you feel good, but that doesn’t make you right.

I’ll respond again when you can actually carry a decent conversation…

Swagger.1459:

Diku.2546:

Diku.2546:

Snip 8<
All the Faction Solutions I’ve seen posted here…have no easy way…or simply…don’t give any solution…to reduce the problems related to population in-balances…imho
Snip 8<

Faction based Solutions are Long Winded, Offer Incomplete Advice, and Gives No Concrete How To Plan on reducing the problems related to population in-balances.

Failing to provide any Concrete How To Plan…they attack & deflect other proposed solutions that do have a very detailed Concrete How To Plan…imho

Server based Solution can use existing game mechanics with a Simple How To instructions…that can be built upon to create an Epic Skyscrapper of a Game Mode…imho

Simple Server Solution:

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

You encourage Communities to form around World Servers. You let players stack as much as they want, but design a game mode that reduces the advantage of an over-stacked Server.

1. Use a Pure King of the Hill Fight Model to create Match-Ups.
2. Assign each World Server 1 Map to Own.
3. Let Players Guest Fight by visiting any World Server they choose.
4. ANet then Tightly Controls How Many & Which World Server(s) that a player can visit for the week.
5. Enable World Rank Scoring that ENCOURAGES the Lower Ranked that attack the Higher Ranked.
6. Enable World Rank Scoring that DISCOURAGES the Higher Ranked that attack the Lower Ranked.

---

Guesting is nothing new & is already being used. For those not familiar with this already built-in Game Mechanic:

Next time you logon – Click [ World Selection ] Button – Pick a Different Home World – Click [ Guest ] Button.

---

Players using the Guesting Mechanic are freed to visit any World Server to Guest Fight on for the whole week.

ANet using the Guesting Mechanic can Tightly Control How Many & Which World Server(s) a Player can visit for the whole week.

---

Full details

For a Better Long Term Solution to WvW – Google Search – wvg world vs globes

Yes, Diku, lets make balancing wvw 100x worse… Your “solution”, that you keep spamming, is poorly thought out and impractical…

Thanks…

You just totally validated my whole point about people who typically encourage a Faction Based Solution. You have no solution & end up attacking or deflecting.

Posted Server How To Solution +1 = See above Spoiler
Posted Faction How To Solution + 0 = See above Post

My solution is very well thought out & very detailed.

Diku.2546:

Swagger.1459:

Diku.2546:

Diku.2546:

Snip 8<
All the Faction Solutions I’ve seen posted here…have no easy way…or simply…don’t give any solution…to reduce the problems related to population in-balances…imho
Snip 8<

Faction based Solutions are Long Winded, Offer Incomplete Advice, and Gives No Concrete How To Plan on reducing the problems related to population in-balances.

Failing to provide any Concrete How To Plan…they attack & deflect other proposed solutions that do have a very detailed Concrete How To Plan…imho

Server based Solution can use existing game mechanics with a Simple How To instructions…that can be built upon to create an Epic Skyscrapper of a Game Mode…imho

Simple Server Solution:

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

You encourage Communities to form around World Servers. You let players stack as much as they want, but design a game mode that reduces the advantage of an over-stacked Server.

1. Use a Pure King of the Hill Fight Model to create Match-Ups.
2. Assign each World Server 1 Map to Own.
3. Let Players Guest Fight by visiting any World Server they choose.
4. ANet then Tightly Controls How Many & Which World Server(s) that a player can visit for the week.
5. Enable World Rank Scoring that ENCOURAGES the Lower Ranked that attack the Higher Ranked.
6. Enable World Rank Scoring that DISCOURAGES the Higher Ranked that attack the Lower Ranked.

---

Guesting is nothing new & is already being used. For those not familiar with this already built-in Game Mechanic:

Next time you logon – Click [ World Selection ] Button – Pick a Different Home World – Click [ Guest ] Button.

---

Players using the Guesting Mechanic are freed to visit any World Server to Guest Fight on for the whole week.

ANet using the Guesting Mechanic can Tightly Control How Many & Which World Server(s) a Player can visit for the whole week.

---

Full details

For a Better Long Term Solution to WvW – Google Search – wvg world vs globes

Yes, Diku, lets make balancing wvw 100x worse… Your “solution”, that you keep spamming, is poorly thought out and impractical…

---

Thanks…

You just totally validated my whole point about people who typically encourage a Faction Based Solution. You have no solution & end up attacking or deflecting.

Posted Server Solution +1 = See above Spoiler
Posted Faction Solution + 0 = See above Post

I don’t have to post “solutions” here on your behalf or request.

You seem to forget your post in my factions thread…

Swagger.1459:

Jayne.9251:

Swagger.1459:

Jayne.9251:

Swagger.1459:

Meanwhile CU, predecessor to DAoC that GW2 wvw is based of off, is running a 3 faction game, 10 unique classes per side built solely for rvr and pvp, an engine that an handle up to 500 players in one space while maintaining 30 fps, one map without instances and load screens… and a whole lot of other stuff…

So tell me more that it’s the players fault for any of the design choices and issues here?

lol something tells me you didn’t play CU this past weekend. It was just exploring, running around, and it crashed with 100 people on map. Not even fighting.

Chatter in map chat was about FPS/latency and oh wow what’s going to happen when you get more than 100 people actually fighting in one spot?

or you can just deflect and keep blaming players lol…

kinda like you just did?

You failed to respond to the spirit of the post and instead decided to comment on a game still in the alpha state of development…

I’m sorry that you can’t respond in civil ways and instead just deflect. You can keep blaming players for the wvw balance issues if that makes you feel good, but that doesn’t make you right.

I’ll respond again when you can actually carry a decent conversation…

I believe I responded directly to your post and even quoted you and the relevant material. I would recommend you just not respond to anything I post as you seem to have a very different set of rules for yourself than you do for everyone else. And you wind up derailing threads with arguments about dichotomy.

Straw. Man.

Swagger.1459:

Diku.2546:

Swagger.1459:

Diku.2546:

Diku.2546:

Snip 8<
All the Faction Solutions I’ve seen posted here…have no easy way…or simply…don’t give any solution…to reduce the problems related to population in-balances…imho
Snip 8<

Faction based Solutions are Long Winded, Offer Incomplete Advice, and Gives No Concrete How To Plan on reducing the problems related to population in-balances.

Failing to provide any Concrete How To Plan…they attack & deflect other proposed solutions that do have a very detailed Concrete How To Plan…imho

Server based Solution can use existing game mechanics with a Simple How To instructions…that can be built upon to create an Epic Skyscrapper of a Game Mode…imho

Simple Server Solution:

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

You encourage Communities to form around World Servers. You let players stack as much as they want, but design a game mode that reduces the advantage of an over-stacked Server.

1. Use a Pure King of the Hill Fight Model to create Match-Ups.
2. Assign each World Server 1 Map to Own.
3. Let Players Guest Fight by visiting any World Server they choose.
4. ANet then Tightly Controls How Many & Which World Server(s) that a player can visit for the week.
5. Enable World Rank Scoring that ENCOURAGES the Lower Ranked that attack the Higher Ranked.
6. Enable World Rank Scoring that DISCOURAGES the Higher Ranked that attack the Lower Ranked.

---

Guesting is nothing new & is already being used. For those not familiar with this already built-in Game Mechanic:

Next time you logon – Click [ World Selection ] Button – Pick a Different Home World – Click [ Guest ] Button.

---

Players using the Guesting Mechanic are freed to visit any World Server to Guest Fight on for the whole week.

ANet using the Guesting Mechanic can Tightly Control How Many & Which World Server(s) a Player can visit for the whole week.

---

Full details

For a Better Long Term Solution to WvW – Google Search – wvg world vs globes

Yes, Diku, lets make balancing wvw 100x worse… Your “solution”, that you keep spamming, is poorly thought out and impractical…

---

Thanks…

You just totally validated my whole point about people who typically encourage a Faction Based Solution. You have no solution & end up attacking or deflecting.

Posted Server Solution +1 = See above Spoiler
Posted Faction Solution + 0 = See above Post

I don’t have to post “solutions” here on your behalf or request.

You seem to forget your post in my factions thread…

I still firmly stand behind my offered Server Based Solution.

While you continue to paint yourself into a Corner with a Faction Based Solution…imho

Simple Server Solution:

Jayne.9251:

Factions will reduce identity. Loss of identity means less attachment to game. Less attachment to game means players fairweather to other games,

Without community, identity, population balance becomes moot. Because there will be no players.

I don’t see any difference identifying with a faction rather than a server. The issue is that doing it now would disrupt server identification, but then anet are doing a pretty good job of ruining that anyway with the linkage system. Also communities would develop around factions.

As for blaming players for population issues I’ve said it before but expecting players to act altruistically is foolish, game design has to account for human nature and that is to exploit and find the path of easiest resistance.

Jayne.9251:

Swagger.1459:

Jayne.9251:

Swagger.1459:

Jayne.9251:

Swagger.1459:

Meanwhile CU, predecessor to DAoC that GW2 wvw is based of off, is running a 3 faction game, 10 unique classes per side built solely for rvr and pvp, an engine that an handle up to 500 players in one space while maintaining 30 fps, one map without instances and load screens… and a whole lot of other stuff…

So tell me more that it’s the players fault for any of the design choices and issues here?

lol something tells me you didn’t play CU this past weekend. It was just exploring, running around, and it crashed with 100 people on map. Not even fighting.

Chatter in map chat was about FPS/latency and oh wow what’s going to happen when you get more than 100 people actually fighting in one spot?

or you can just deflect and keep blaming players lol…

kinda like you just did?

You failed to respond to the spirit of the post and instead decided to comment on a game still in the alpha state of development…

I’m sorry that you can’t respond in civil ways and instead just deflect. You can keep blaming players for the wvw balance issues if that makes you feel good, but that doesn’t make you right.

I’ll respond again when you can actually carry a decent conversation…

I believe I responded directly to your post and even quoted you and the relevant material. I would recommend you just not respond to anything I post as you seem to have a very different set of rules for yourself than you do for everyone else. And you wind up derailing threads with arguments about dichotomy.

Straw. Man.

Swagger.1459:

Jayne.9251:

Population balance is on the players. You can’t put this on Anet. Players have created this issue.

We didn’t design the game… We didn’t choose to rebuild the GW engine that can’t handle large scale maps with massive players battles, thus forcing the segregated map designs and match ups with caps… We didn’t choose to have abysmal rewards compared to the rest of the game… We didn’t choose the lack of separations in skills and mechanics between pvp and pve modes… We didn’t choose for a lack of interest in wvw and for the permanent losses of players…

Meanwhile CU, predecessor to DAoC that GW2 wvw is based of off, is running a 3 faction game, 10 unique classes per side built solely for rvr and pvp, an engine that an handle up to 500 players in one space while maintaining 30 fps, one map without instances and load screens… and a whole lot of other stuff…

So tell me more that it’s the players fault for any of the design choices and issues here?

Jayne.9251:

Swagger.1459:

Meanwhile CU, predecessor to DAoC that GW2 wvw is based of off, is running a 3 faction game, 10 unique classes per side built solely for rvr and pvp, an engine that an handle up to 500 players in one space while maintaining 30 fps, one map without instances and load screens… and a whole lot of other stuff…

So tell me more that it’s the players fault for any of the design choices and issues here?

lol something tells me you didn’t play CU this past weekend. It was just exploring, running around, and it crashed with 100 people on map. Not even fighting.

Chatter in map chat was about FPS/latency and oh wow what’s going to happen when you get more than 100 people actually fighting in one spot?

You responded to nothing except what was going in during alpha play testing and completely missed the main points… I’ll bold those points for you…

You blame players for the dev design choices that ultimately led us to this state which is pretty ridiculous… Meanwhile, all the other RvRvR games have 3 factions and gw2 is juggling around these individual servers… 3 factions is sensible and we can already see the potential benefits here with how EotM was designed…

You don’t really look at the bigger picture of things.

Diku.2546:

For Full details

For a Better Long Term Solution to WvW – Google Search – wvg world vs globes

Geez dude, you gonna spam that in every single population thread that comes up? make your own thread and bump it.

zinkz.7045:

The simple fact is server vs server is a bad design for RvR type game mode, factions / alliances are far better because they are far more flexible at producing balanced populations, but also at handling imbalanced populations to give better gameplay, server vs server is literally the worst most inflexible design you can have.

I agree with this. I don’t think there’s any solution under the current system that would work for a sufficient number of players that people would feel that the solution fixes the primary question of how to get a satisfying series of match-ups with a variety of similarly-skilled and populated opponents without having to play the same opponent over and over. And what drama may occur over shifting alliances and factions would be borne by the individuals and guilds directly involved in the drama, rather than having as serious a ripple-down effect on the whole game, EU or NA, thus incentivizing civilized treatment of one’s allies.

But it’d be such a massive retooling of the system, I can’t even begin to believe it would happen. Even if they started working on it today, it’d probably be two more expansions down the road before we’d see the shift.

Some things can be fixed for WvW (rewards, siege capabilities, separating skill functionality from PvE or sPvP)—regardless of whether they will be fixed—but I think it might just be time to accept that the population imbalance thing just can’t be fixed.

Diku.2546:

*
Server Based Solution – Ready to Go & Concrete Design & How To

Here’s an easy & available Solution:

I read your solution. There are things I like about it and things I don’t, and things I don’t think it really addresses thoroughly, but regardless, it’s just as much of a retooling of the system as anything I talked about, so the point that nothing under the current system is going to fix the population problem still stands, fatalistic as it may be.

zinkz.7045:

Jayne.9251:

Factions will reduce identity. Loss of identity means less attachment to game. Less attachment to game means players fairweather to other games,

Without community, identity, population balance becomes moot. Because there will be no players.

Not really, for example EVE Online is based on player made alliances and has a far stronger, far deeper community than the rather superficial WvW communities will ever have, and as for WvW “communities” please, you are in the minority, most veteran WvW players (those that have not quit) have swapped servers multiple times. (including a fair number of “loyalists” that make up your little community)

Jayne.9251:

There’s a reason games like WoW and EQ franchises are still chugging along with paid monthly subs after 10-plus years.

As does EVE Online, and in all 3 games there are a myriad of reasons why they are still chugging along, claiming that it is down to using an individual server based system in two of them is laughable.

Jayne.9251:

Couple that with the fact that ANY rework of faction/server is useless without resolving bandwaggoning (aka community building/attachment), will result in the same scenario we are in today. Factions in no way will magically fix anything. It will only serve to alienate the loyalists and drive them away.

To quote a pointy eared chap ‘the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’.

If you think the only way to have “community” in a game is fixed servers, you are misguided, if your “community” is any sort of “community” worthy of the word then it would cope fine with adapting to another system. (not that you need worry, this Anet, they only do band-aids, not actual fixes, which is why WvW is in the state it is in)

And yes factions / alliances of guilds, etc do fix things, because they more flexible systems, you can create balanced matchups far more easily because you are dealing with smaller units, or even if factions are imbalanced you can deal with it better by doing things like campaigns so even the weakest faction can stack a campaign or two and play on an equal footing in those, unlike the joke that is WvW where for most matchups over the course of this game they have been foregone conclusions over by Monday morning simply due to imbalanced numbers or where players have to take a week off because they are in a dead matchup.

Do I need to remind you that it took CCCP a few years and a COMPLETE overhaul of the whole sov mechanics just so that everyone in the game was actually able to fight against goons ?

Where is the equivalent of that here done by A-Net ? Where is the equivalent of a complete and total system overhaul so that the rest of us can fight off the “alliance” and the other bandwagon groups here ?

Show me what has been done here, because the last time A-Net actually tried and put their foot down and locked the bandwagon servers, so many of these guys started logging in their alt accounts and posting here that A-Net finally caved in. CCCP in Eve Online did not fail like A-Net did here. +you are comparing apples to oranges. Eve Online is a single server game with between 20-40k active players on it at any given time, whereas WVW in GW2 can have a total of around 12k players IF all the maps were qued on ALL servers, which they arent. The number goes up and down with timezones and given weeks, months, but it seems to me to hover around 1/3 that.

Blowing up the servers is considered a controversial solution. The dev did consider that option but called it off, presuming fearing majority backlash. However, blowing up servers is definitely the only sure way to balance the populations. Of course, the populations will go unbalance eventually in long terms and thus you blow it up again when that happen.

Tongku.5326:

zinkz.7045:

Jayne.9251:

Factions will reduce identity. Loss of identity means less attachment to game. Less attachment to game means players fairweather to other games,

Without community, identity, population balance becomes moot. Because there will be no players.

Not really, for example EVE Online is based on player made alliances and has a far stronger, far deeper community than the rather superficial WvW communities will ever have, and as for WvW “communities” please, you are in the minority, most veteran WvW players (those that have not quit) have swapped servers multiple times. (including a fair number of “loyalists” that make up your little community)

Jayne.9251:

There’s a reason games like WoW and EQ franchises are still chugging along with paid monthly subs after 10-plus years.

As does EVE Online, and in all 3 games there are a myriad of reasons why they are still chugging along, claiming that it is down to using an individual server based system in two of them is laughable.

Jayne.9251:

Couple that with the fact that ANY rework of faction/server is useless without resolving bandwaggoning (aka community building/attachment), will result in the same scenario we are in today. Factions in no way will magically fix anything. It will only serve to alienate the loyalists and drive them away.

To quote a pointy eared chap ‘the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’.

If you think the only way to have “community” in a game is fixed servers, you are misguided, if your “community” is any sort of “community” worthy of the word then it would cope fine with adapting to another system. (not that you need worry, this Anet, they only do band-aids, not actual fixes, which is why WvW is in the state it is in)

And yes factions / alliances of guilds, etc do fix things, because they more flexible systems, you can create balanced matchups far more easily because you are dealing with smaller units, or even if factions are imbalanced you can deal with it better by doing things like campaigns so even the weakest faction can stack a campaign or two and play on an equal footing in those, unlike the joke that is WvW where for most matchups over the course of this game they have been foregone conclusions over by Monday morning simply due to imbalanced numbers or where players have to take a week off because they are in a dead matchup.

Do I need to remind you that it took CCCP a few years and a COMPLETE overhaul of the whole sov mechanics just so that everyone in the game was actually able to fight against goons ?

Where is the equivalent of that here done by A-Net ? Where is the equivalent of a complete and total system overhaul so that the rest of us can fight off the “alliance” and the other bandwagon groups here ?

Show me what has been done here, because the last time A-Net actually tried and put their foot down and locked the bandwagon servers, so many of these guys started logging in their alt accounts and posting here that A-Net finally caved in. CCCP in Eve Online did not fail like A-Net did here. +you are comparing apples to oranges. Eve Online is a single server game with between 20-40k active players on it at any given time, whereas WVW in GW2 can have a total of around 12k players IF all the maps were qued on ALL servers, which they arent. The number goes up and down with timezones and given weeks, months, but it seems to me to hover around 1/3 that.

The developer of EVE online is named CCP.

The complete overhaul of the sov mechanic you speaking of isn’t undisputed. It costs CCP active subscriptions and therefore money. It’s also not the first “complete overhaul”. CCP introduced Dominion, the successor to Pos spam, as new sov system. It took them 6 years to rework it.