This is going to be long, so I’ll put a tl;dr up front: A healthy WvW meta-game must be able to support viable strategies for all servers whether they have exactly even numbers or if they are temporarily outnumbered to a moderate degree.
Details follow~
In any conflict, the best strategy will be exploited in full by all sides. Thus, when designing a game that centers around conflict, it is of paramount importance to consider what the optimal strategy is. Ideally, this strategy should not be self-sufficient—if it is, then no other strategies will be viable. In addition, it is even better to have several strategies that compete for the top spot. This is referred to as having a healthy meta-game. Here, I want to talk about the current contenders for best strategy in WvW and where we might want to go. First, I want to look at the strategies being employed by the current top servers. I’ll evaluate them based on how healthy they are and how effective. Second, I want to talk about what balance between offensive play and defensive play is healthy. Third, I want to propose a way to make mobility in WvW maps more dynamic and more reflective of player’s choices.
YAK’S BEND
Currently, the top server (Yak’s Bend) uses a strategy that is based heavily in aggressively recapping lost objectives and protecting those that are owned with massive amounts of siege. They also value communication and an extensive network of independent scouts. Most of the server is somewhat weaker in straight fights than their competitors, but their excellence in other areas means that doesn’t translate into losing points. Some parts of this strategy (communication and scouting) are fine. Other parts (massive siege defense) are stifling. The first two components are not self-sufficient—the last, however, appears to be. So long as there are people to man the siege, there’s no need for anything else.
However, I haven’t heard much in the way of people attempting to counter-act this strategy. A battery of Arrow Carts is likely vulnerable to one or two siege disablers—potentially thrown by stealth classes. The absolute worst thing to do is to attempt to engage the enemy head on, but this was the prevailing strategy of the day before the rise of YB and it has stubbornly stuck around. Since this is not likely successful under a hail of arrows, YB’s siege defense appears impenetrable.
There are several choices for reducing the effectiveness of siege bunkering. First, the siege cap can be lowered so that not as many Arrow Carts can be built. This sounds appealing, but it is too blunt of an approach. Either there will be room for enough Arrow Carts or there won’t—rather than diminishing the strategy by giving players tools to counter it, it simply disallows the strategy entirely. Second, Arrow Cart damage can be reduced to players. However, this falls into the same trap as the first. Third, Siege Disablers can be made less expensive. This would help, but might not be enough on its own. However, WvW should be about strategy versus strategy—not wallet versus wallet. Just like in PvP, no gold investment should be required to compete. There may be more that can be done here, but there first needs to be an effort to overcome the strategy before we can conclude that it is oppressive. Therefore, making the existing potential counter more easily available is a good first step.
JADE QUARRY/BLACKGATE
I’m lumping the number two and three servers together as they tend to use variations of a single strategy. They both focus on gathering in mid-to-large size groups and winning fights before taking largely unguarded objectives or in fighting in or around the lord’s room. In both cases, their defense and offense revolves around winning a large-scale fight.
Given even numbers, this is probably the most basic and also the healthiest strategy. Unfortunately, it quickly becomes oppressive with even a slight population imbalance. Even in a perfect tier with strictly even server capacity, if there’s any point in the day where one side has more people logged on, they will win every fight unless profoundly out-skilled. In addition, if one server brings much more people to the fight, they will win. Thus, if this is the best strategy, the only way to counter it is to bring more bodies to the fight. Any other strategy is choked out. This leads directly to the blob mentality and to the tendency for groups to focus solely on winning fights. This strategy is weakest defensively when more than one objective is contested as it forces the group to split up or abandon something. It is weakest offensively when attacking an objective fortified by siege. There is no need to diminish its effectiveness in terms of winning fights—we only need to make sure that it is employed in specific instances instead of being the default and the most effective. On defense, there is nothing stifling about this. It is potent but also has clear weaknesses. On offense, it is powerful once it gets through walls, but is less effective at actually breaking into an objective since an assault on a single point is easiest to mitigate. However, it is largely shut down by siege defense. Two things should happen to both boost this strategy while also keeping it in check offensively.
First, something must be done to allow in-the-moment counters to siege. As discussed earlier, it would likely be best to fit siege disablers into this role. The idea is not to make siege defenses totally ineffective, but to give them a weakness that can be exploited. The group, when it uses the tools at its disposal, should be able to win or lose any fight based on how well it uses those tools. Second, uncounterable offensive siege must be addressed. Whereas defensive siege can be killed by using height advantages or made irrelevant by assaulting from a distance, proxy catapults are impossible to deal with outside of abandoning the defensive structure to fight head on. Their existence means that defenders must fight the group at their strongest point or wait until the walls are down and use siege bunkering. If a way to break siege defenses becomes prevalent while proxy catapults exist, then the only way to deal with this strategy will be to use this strategy. That is the very definition of oppressive.
OFFENSIVE/DEFENSIVE BALANCE
Inevitably, population is the largest factor in determining what a healthy WvW looks like. It is fair to be slightly idealistic—we can assume that populations are reasonably even since, if they aren’t, no attempt at balance will be successful. Our goal should be to create a model that works for reasonably even total populations but does not fall apart during temporary imbalances throughout the day. That is, there should be viable strategies for every server at all times, whether they have the lowest current population, the highest, or even.
If the only way to defend a structure is by bringing a force of comparable size, a server that is currently less populous has no viable strategies for defense. On offense, they can only hope to attack and take a structure before any defense is established. In other words, players are encouraged to avoid interacting with other players in any way. Thus, it must be possible to defend with a smaller group than the attacking enemies. However, to avoid making offense futile outside of overwhelming force, this defense must be limited by supply. The components of this set-up are already in place: It is possible to counter offensive siege (save for a few exploits such as proxy catapults) so long as there is supply to build counter siege. Offensive groups have the advantage of hitting first, so they will likely do supply damage even if the assault ultimately fails. Finally, there is no way to replenish supply from within an objective (save for a single tactic with a 15m cooldown), so it will ultimately fall. Skilled offensive groups will be able to drain supply faster or breach the walls before supply is drained and then move on to a straight fight where their numbers will give them an advantage. Meanwhile, skilled defenders will be able to slow the enemy advance so that their server’s prime time gains stand. This model holds up both for even numbers and for inevitable imbalances.
If the only way to successfully assault a structure is by bringing a force of comparable size, a server that is currently less populous still has viable strategies for offense. They are unlikely to take any defended structures, but they can gain points by killing Yaks and flipping camps. If they are crafty, they can drain structures of supply and then converge on one and flip it before the defense can reorganize into a comparatively sized group. Offense’s advantage over defense lies in its mobility. Granted, with lower population, they must have allies defending or must be much more skilled in offense than their enemies are in defending or their server will hemorrhage points. The end result of this is that servers can either switch between offense and defense based on population or have some mix of the two with each individual player choosing the role they are best at. Thankfully, the components for this are already in place—they are simply overshadowed by more oppressive strategies.
MOBILITY
On the Alpine maps and EBG, mobility is created by waypoints and relatively flat terrain. On the Desert maps, it is created and restricted by waypoints and holding certain objectives. The particulars of this are up for discussion, but I want to suggest creating a more dynamic means of mobility.
Consider a new piece of siege: the Teleporter. It would function as a waypoint that is powered by supply. It would need to require a substantial amount of supply to set up—say, about 100, and would then cost at least 5 supply to use. It must be fragile and also fairly large so that it cannot be hidden easily. If found undefended, it will be easily destroyed, so it will either need a sizeable force nearby or a great hiding spot.
The idea is that large groups can get their members back into the fray quickly at the cost of dedicating supply to build the Teleporter and then draining member’s supply on use. Meanwhile, roaming groups can create a base of operations deep within enemy territory to better go about their trickery. Since it drains supply, it won’t be ideal for blitz attacks since it limits how much offensive siege can be built after using it. Defenders will have to be wary of enemies owning camps that they can reach from a nearby Teleporter but will be amply warned since the camp is not owned.
Defensively, the Teleporter will allow players to get into the fray but at the cost of draining the lifeblood of their defense: supply. Either they take supply from the besieged objective or they spend precious moments running to a camp before returning. Once the walls are breached, any Teleporter will be quickly found and destroyed. This would serve to both increase player interaction and also speed up sieges if it causes supply to drain more quickly.
CONCLUSION
The ideal meta for WvW should be multi-dimensional. That means that any one strategy should have its limits. Siege bunkering should be weak to a well-placed disabler. Blobs should not be able to bypass their weakness (single-point sieges) and skip to their strength (running things over). A skilled WvW assault group should be good at breaking up to quickly crack a structure and/or drain it of supply and at fighting together once the walls are down. A skilled WvW defense group should excel in countering siege, draining enemy players of supply and scouting assaults before damage is done. Additionally, population imbalance should be manageable on at least a temporary basis: If two servers have diametrically opposed high population times, the winner should be the one that attacks and defends the best at the appropriate times—not necessarily the one that karma trains hardest when it has the advantage. If a server has more low-pop times than high-pop, they should be able to compete by defending better than their opponents so long as they can also go on offense when needed. A server that has more high-pop times should not automatically win unless they do their jobs well.
P.S. It is necessary, when all is done, to make such things visible. There is currently no meaningful tutorial for WvW. At the very least, players should be able to have access to a list of guilds that will be willing to show them the ropes. They also need to know exactly how scoring is done.
