I think we can say that there’s a few things that are lowish on the “fun” scale:
- Having one server staying over +450 or under +100.
- Fighting for hours, to cleave out some territory, knowing you’ll be fighting to regain the same land the very next night.
- (debatable) Seeing the same matchups week after week.
There are at least a few things which cause imbalance in WvW:
- Server Population. Not just overall, but around the clock.
- Overall Server Skill level.
For now, we have the “Outmanned” bonus, which mainly boosts the rewards for overcoming a population mismatch. However, it doesn’t overcome that being spawn camped isn’t fun.
I’ll propose a different solution, which builds off an already existing GW2 mechanic: downleveling.
The theory is fairly simple:
As one server begins to dominate a map, the players from that server on that map begin to be downleveled, making it more difficult for them to continue dominating, and easier for the other servers to come back. Even one or two levels could make a significant difference. In just base attributes, L80 has 2.2% more points than L79.
Obviously, the higher the domination, the more they can be downleveled.
To keep rewards meaningful, downleveled servers would recieve a bonus percentage to points accrued while downleveled, percentage based on how downleveled they are.
Per player loot and XP would similarly need to be adjusted.
Some notes:
- This would be per map, not per matchup. Thus, a server could be stomping all three BL’s, but not be penalized if EB is fair match.
- This is based on how well you’re doing on the map, not how many people.
- It’s possible that two servers could be downleveled on the same map, if the third server is struggling.
- It would now be possible to earn more than +695pts per tick, and similarly increase the weekly totals. This should not impact the ratings, since those are based on the ratio of scores in the match, not the actual number.
- This would be applied dynamically as the match goes on. However, I’d see the adjustments being applied only at scoring ticks, with a full 15minute warning period.
- Servers with high skill but low population could concentrate on just one map for competative play.
What this could allow:
- Once the logic is tweaked, matches could become truly randomized, since disparities would be worked out during play.
- Tournaments! There could be an “regular season”, but then every couple months, the servers could go into a bracketed tourney to determine a champion, with players on that server getting some minor cosmetic bonus for a reward.