Guild Wars 2

I play WvW almost exclusively in this game – about 90% of the time I’ll be roaming, maybe raiding. Unfortunately the server I play for is Gunnar’s Hold, and as some of you may know, GH suffers from a dying population and constantly being outnumbered, since our links more often than that do absolutely kitten all. Despite half our time being spent outnumbered on not only the enemy bls (which is to be expected I guess?) but also EB and our own hbl, we’re still a host server for even tinier servers like Vabbi or Fissure of Woe that contribute far too little to make a difference, simply because of their size. Just to make it clear, I’m not trying to blame or insult these servers at all, it’s not their fault that they were linked with another small server, and it’s a shame that the players of Vabbi (who we are currently linked with) are also probably not enjoying WvW as much either. We should NOT be a host server at our current size, we’re far too small and we simply do not have the capacity to defend anything even during prime time.

Anyway.

Because of the issues I’ve just outlined (there are more, such as guilds leaving etc), we constantly lose. As a result, we’re constantly red, meaning we get the dbl, and every time this happens i find myself amazed at how bizarre some of your decisions are, Anet. Despite the dbl vote debacle you handled the situation pretty well; some people like the dbl, so fine, keep it as one map. But why would you enforce this map on just the red server?! One of the main reasons why GH loses so badly is because we’re just too small and too underpopulated to have a chance at defending such a big, spread out map. Coupled with the fact that most of GH (from my understanding) despises the dbls, you leave us with little choice but to lose, time and time again, every week.

As a result, I think that the only option here is to simply randomise which server gets the dbl each week. It simply isn’t fair that one server has to have this bl every week, especially when that bl contributes so much to why we lose this badly in the first place. Thanks for reading o/

As a fellow GH player I absolutely second this opinion, I think this should be the 4th week that we have DBL as our home border and from my experience and from what the first vote about DBL showed as well, most players don’t care a lot about the DBL (even after the changes were made). Btw, this should not turn into yet another DBL yes/no/maybe thread, I’m just stating what pretty much every GH player knows, that when we have Alpine Borderlands, we have more people to defend than we have when DBL is our home border. Either way, I don’t really mind the DBL/Alpine “rotation”, if it was actually a rotation, but from my understanding it’s usually the losing server who gets assigned to red and therefore DBL, so in our current state with two rather low populated servers being paired, we’ll always end up being red, because we just can’t get second place. And now some might say “well then why don’t you just transfer?”, my answer is, because I want to be able to play with the same people I’m used to, the same guilds, the same roamers and friends from my guild or server, because it’s more enjoyable that way, but at the same time I also don’t want to have DBL as my home borderland for as long as we get a new server pairing and then hope to not end up with an unlucky pairing that puts both server into this DBL cycle again. As of right now, with the match ups we had recently, I think we wouldn’t have made second place regardless of having DBL or Alpine as home borderland, but with DBL the matchup is even more unfavourable for us. So besides there being bad server pairings and also bad matchups against much stronger/more poplulated servers, you also have the factor of constantly having the disliked home borderland, so therefore even less players and due to the architecture of the map, an even harder map to defend. I understand that you can’t assign the DBL to a different colour so easily, but making it random who becomes red/green/blue, that should be doable and by doing that you’d also create some change for the servers which are usually winning so that they’d be able to get DBL too.

Well, they decided to make links out of Tier 6 – I guess their size would be rather good to be linked with Tier 5, but instead they were linked with T3 and T4 (former).
But some guy from anet said they wanted to lock tiers and to make it so that only certain servers can fight each other – so working as intended, I guess.

Jana.6831:

But some guy from anet said they wanted to lock tiers and to make it so that only certain servers can fight each other – so working as intended, I guess.

It’s not so much about the tier locking, in my opinion. The issue here is that we’re constantly given the dbls because we lose and that helps in making us lose even more, for reasons I’ve already outlined. Of course, server population balancing is an issue as well and GH is suffering a lot because of it, too.

Jana.6831:

Well, they decided to make links out of Tier 6 – I guess their size would be rather good to be linked with Tier 5, but instead they were linked with T3 and T4 (former).
But some guy from anet said they wanted to lock tiers and to make it so that only certain servers can fight each other – so working as intended, I guess.

Fair enough, but that’s not really what we’re talking about, it’s not just about losing all the time (which sucks enough as it is) due to tiers or the aforementioned reasons, it’s also about having at least some diversity (meaning different home border) even whilst losing constantly

I was talking about “GH shouldn’t be a host” – UW was pretty good and RoF would’ve been good, maybe a bit too big actually. But instead of giving us RoF they gave it AG which was considerably bigger at that time (that was shortly after KISS left?)
I’m sorry: I’m usually picking points I agree/disagree with – I’m not answering on whole walls of text :P

And the locking is a problem as “bigger is better” – there’s no reason to stay on GH, so guilds and people will transfer or quit. The DBL is an additional problem, but I don’t think any of those who left will come back just because we have a chance not to be red. The DBL should’ve never been brought back – but that’s another story.

Using mixed borderlands would probably be fair & work better if everybody’s Home BL was set to DBL…while Enemy Entry point BLs were set to Alpine.

However, this isn’t possible with the current game design.

ANet would have to change the Base Map Mechanic for this to work.

Having mixed borderlands would then be “fair” & would properly provide more variety…if this change is done…imho

Diku.2546:

Using mixed borderlands would probably be fair & work better if everybody’s Home BL was set to DBL…while Enemy Entry point BLs were set to Alpine.

What? No, just randomise which colour gets the dbls. It’s literally that easy.

Jana.6831:

And the locking is a problem as “bigger is better” – there’s no reason to stay on GH, so guilds and people will transfer or quit. The DBL is an additional problem, but I don’t think any of those who left will come back just because we have a chance not to be red. The DBL should’ve never been brought back – but that’s another story.

Of course they won’t come back, but that’s not the point- the whole point of this thread is that red should not be permanently stuck with the dbls. That’s the point I want people to comment on.

NekoNoKoi.9137:

Diku.2546:

Using mixed borderlands would probably be fair & work better if everybody’s Home BL was set to DBL…while Enemy Entry point BLs were set to Alpine.

What? No, just randomise which colour gets the dbls. It’s literally that easy.

I agree. It’s literally that easy & this would work, but it’s a “short-term” solution…imho

“Short-term” solutions that band-aid the problem tend to create built-in limitations to what the future design can evolve into.

Our current WvW game design is flawed & needs to address these “built-in” limitations in order for it to evolve into something larger in scope…imho

Just adding my 2 cent opinion…you can continue the discussion. I’m hoping for a more long term solution.

Diku.2546:

NekoNoKoi.9137:

Diku.2546:

Using mixed borderlands would probably be fair & work better if everybody’s Home BL was set to DBL…while Enemy Entry point BLs were set to Alpine.

What? No, just randomise which colour gets the dbls. It’s literally that easy.

I agree. It’s literally that easy & this would work, but it’s a “short-term” solution…imho

“Short-term” solutions that band-aid the problem tend to create built-in limitations to what the future design can evolve into.

Our current WvW game design is flawed & needs to address these “built-in” limitations in order for it to evolve into something larger in scope…imho

Just adding my 2 cent opinion…you can continue the discussion. I’m hoping for a more long term solution.

That’s true, it’d be a short term solution and it wouldn’t necessarily change the issue of population being completely screwed or how bad the dbls still are, but it would certainly make it more manageable. As someone that plays WvW daily (although less now, because this is getting too annoying for me to enjoy anymore to be honest) I can attest to seeing far less roamers nowadays on GH than before, and I do think that being permanently given the dbls contributes to that because no one wants to play on them, not only because we generally dislike them, but also because they’re too big for our population.

Just randomize the color attachment, getting this DBL for the 5th week in a row as home bdl is getting tiring. However i still find this a weird setup, weakest server gets DBL, barely any access to the bloodlust buff ( longer then 5min that is), eb keep being trebbed form the safety of a t3 sm, (yes you can treb sm back but you won’t get it easily).

I find it a better idea to have 2 weeks of alpine/1 week of DBL. That way all servers have to endure the same stuff at the same time and Anet plus the people who voted it to stay can have their joy. win/win situation if you ask me.

DBL is easier to defend if you can get bodies on the map to do so. Only need half the numbers you need for alpine with proper siege placement.

time to get rid of DBL its just a ktrain map and ppl who voted to keep it dont even play it, they are all queueing EBG.

We’re usually 5 – I guess that’s not enough

But anyway: Not being red wouldn’t change a thing – sorry. It would just slow down the dying process by a margin.

Two in each keep and one floating between keep/north towers.

Jayne.9251:

Two in each keep and one floating between keep/north towers.

There’s 3 keeps – and like I said (in another thread I guess), I was on spot necro, I knew attackers would come, I started running when the “being attacked” popped up and found them (8, 2 catas) when the wall fell. Yay.

Jana.6831:

We’re usually 5 – I guess that’s not enough

But anyway: Not being red wouldn’t change a thing – sorry. It would just slow down the dying process by a margin.

I disagree. I think that if we changed how the dbls are assigned (i.e. make it random, or just have a set rotation so that it’s always red, blue, green or whatever) then it would already make WvW more bearable. Of course it wouldn’t counteract GH dying, we’d need a lot more changes for that, but that’s not my point – my point is that it makes no sense for dbls to always be red, and it’s also not fair that they’re always given to the red server. I am not saying that such a change would fix WvW (if that’s even possible anymore lmao), I’m saying that it would help make it more enjoyable and also give us at least a tiny bit more of a fighting chance.

NekoNoKoi.9137:

Jana.6831:

But anyway: Not being red wouldn’t change a thing – sorry. It would just slow down the dying process by a margin.

I disagree. I think that if we changed how the dbls are assigned (i.e. make it random, or just have a set rotation so that it’s always red, blue, green or whatever) then it would already make WvW more bearable. Of course it wouldn’t counteract GH dying, [..]

So you agree with me, ok

ETA: No matter what you do, if anet keeps their Tier locking police up – that was it – GH is dead. We were a bunch of weirdos without commanders even before, now there’s 2? 3? guilds left. We have no chance to ever get our hopes up.
Maybe that’s why they deleted T6, because RoF was in the same position and if they delete T5 some other servers will be dying as a consequence and so on and so on – it will never stop.

Jana.6831:

NekoNoKoi.9137:

Jana.6831:

But anyway: Not being red wouldn’t change a thing – sorry. It would just slow down the dying process by a margin.

I disagree. I think that if we changed how the dbls are assigned (i.e. make it random, or just have a set rotation so that it’s always red, blue, green or whatever) then it would already make WvW more bearable. Of course it wouldn’t counteract GH dying, [..]

So you agree with me, ok

No, I disagree. You said it would change nothing, I said it would make this game mode more playable and more fun. Technically you disagreed with yourself by saying it would change nothing, but then going on to say that it would slow down the dying process, but hey, pedantics.

Jana.6831:

ETA: No matter what you do, if anet keeps their Tier locking police up – that was it – GH is dead. We were a bunch of weirdos without commanders even before, now there’s 2? 3? guilds left. We have no chance to ever get our hopes up.
Maybe that’s why they deleted T6, because RoF was in the same position and if they delete T5 some other servers will be dying as a consequence and so on and so on – it will never stop.

I’ll repeat myself once again and say that I did not make this thread in order to save GH or to balance the population. I made this thread because the concept of the losing server being punished every week by being given the dbls is ridiculous. Nothing more.

Edit: I agree with you about the tier locking policy, but it’s not really the point of this thread.

They need to change it so winner gets red because the other two maps get bloodlust, which helps them compete. Would be easier to implement than random assignment of dbl.

NekoNoKoi.9137:

I’ll repeat myself once again and say that I did not make this thread in order to save GH or to balance the population. I made this thread because the concept of the losing server being punished every week by being given the dbls is ridiculous. Nothing more.

Edit: I agree with you about the tier locking policy, but it’s not really the point of this thread.

Changing red is a bit more complicated than that – in fact the whole issue is a bit more complicated than that – but ok, I accept that you don’t want to hear about it – you’d rather expect a magical change that won’t happen.

ETA: Like jayne already said and I believe her: If you have enough people defending DBL is easier. The bigger your server the more likely you find a handful who are interested in doing so – so the bigger server would in fact have an advantage when having the DBL.
There is no smaller server than GH. So best would be if either everybody had the DBL or no one.
And now the Poll-Believer will punch me again with their “but the people wanted this” it was the “do you want DBL or DBL” poll that made me quit polls.

Jana.6831:

Changing red is a bit more complicated than that – in fact the whole issue is a bit more complicated than that – but ok, I accept that you don’t want to hear about it – you’d rather expect a magical change that won’t happen.

How is it more complicated to simply randomise the allocation of dbls, or to have a set rotation, than it is to start implementing changes to server populations and getting rid of the tier locking you mentioned previously? All I am suggesting is that the dbls are not set to be given to the red server but randomised/etc and I highly doubt it’s a more complicated procedure than solving the population issue.

NekoNoKoi.9137:

How is it more complicated to simply randomise the allocation of dbls, or to have a set rotation, than it is to start implementing changes to server populations and getting rid of the tier locking you mentioned previously? All I am suggesting is that the dbls are not set to be given to the red server but randomised/etc and I highly doubt it’s a more complicated procedure than solving the population issue.

The 3 corners on EB aren’t the same. I’d say green and blue are easier to defend than red. There you already have an advantage/disadvantage. The strongest server would usually get green but green gets less points for what they’re doing than red. Don’t know if you have been around when GH fought to not rank down which was out of our hands because the servers in other tiers were going to bypass us because of the red-blue-green PPT earning difference. We had to have ~500 PPT 24/7 as we were green. We were mayor bullies that week.

Now you have: biggest server is green and gets the DBL. They’ve got 2 blobs, one for EB, one for the BLs – so they will pressure the ABLs while 10 of them stay on the DBL to defend. The morale of the lower populated server will go down regardless.

The issue is more complex than just switching colours. And yes, it would be a nice change but in the end it wouldn’t change a thing, because of the reasons listed above.

Edit: spelling

ETA: I have no idea if the battlepoints system finally replaced the glicko or if it’s still buggy and how it’s supposed to work anyway. So, no idea if the “green earns less” still applies.
ETA² : Probably not if you look at deso’s history:
http://mos.millenium.org/servers/history/15
(I mean at least we’ve been on 15 for eternity)
So maybe another problem is that the battlepoints thingy isn’t working out. Maybe they shouldn’t have changed links and glicko/battlepoints at the same time.

Jana.6831:

The 3 corners on EB aren’t the same.

This is largely irrelevant as I am not talking about eb, I am specifically talking about the dbls.

I’d say green and blue are easier to defend than red. There you already have an advantage/disadvantage. The strongest server would usually get green but green gets less points for what they’re doing than red. Don’t know if you have been around when GH fought to not rank down which was out of our hands because the servers in other tiers were going to bypass us because of the red-blue-green PPT earning difference. We had to have ~500 PPT 24/7 as we were green. We were mayor bullies that week.

No offense, but also irrelevant. An interesting point, definitely, but irrelevant to the discussion. You should make a thread about it and then we can discuss that there.

Jana.6831:

Now you have: biggest server is green and gets the DBL. They’ve got 2 blobs, one for EB, one for the BLs – so they will pressure the ABLs while 10 of them stay on the DBL to defend. The morale of the lower populated server will go down regardless.

At no point did I suggest locking the dbls to one colour. In fact, this whole thread is about how I think that is silly.

Jana.6831:

The issue is more complex than just switching colours. And yes, it would be a nice change but in the end it wouldn’t change a thing, because of the reasons listed above.

If you had only read and understood what I’d written, you’d see that it literally can be that simple. I’m not saying that my way is best (i.e. just randomizing allocation or having a set rotation), but if you stop overthinking it and making points that don’t really address the issue, you’ll find it can be quite simple.

With all due respect Jana, you have some valid points and ideas but I feel as though you’ve either misunderstood or just ignored the main point of this thread.

I’m sorry: I’m usually picking points I agree/disagree with – I’m not answering on whole walls of text :P

Unfortunately you’ve picked up on points that aren’t really relevant.

I really don’t want to get this thread locked down because some mod deems it to have gone offtopic as I’d really like anet to consider something like my proposal, so can we maybe stick to discussing the main point? Thanks

So 90% of the time you’re really into pve, right?

RodOfDeath.5247:

So 90% of the time you’re really into pve, right?

Colin, why hast thou forsaken me?!

Taxidriver.2043:

time to get rid of DBL its just a ktrain map and ppl who voted to keep it dont even play it, they are all queueing EBG.

^^ this ^^

Actually I also voted for 2 Alpine and 1 DBL, because the options were so bad. I really rather have this imbalanced current system than to have 3x DBL many months in a row.

NekoNoKoi.9137:

This is largely irrelevant as I am not talking about eb, I am specifically talking about the dbls.

So you don’t have to have people on EB to defend stuff?

NekoNoKoi.9137:

No offense, but also irrelevant. An interesting point, definitely, but irrelevant to the discussion. You should make a thread about it and then we can discuss that there.

Not irrelevant as being red is harder than being another colour and back the the day the point earning difference made up for it. It doesn’t anymore. Being red/green/blue though is still coupled to battlepoints and that system is obviously failing. Even if you would randomly distribute colours the system is messed up.

NekoNoKoi.9137:

I really don’t want to get this thread locked down because some mod deems it to have gone offtopic as I’d really like anet to consider something like my proposal, so can we maybe stick to discussing the main point? Thanks

The problem with you guys on the forums and anet is that you think that working on the symptoms is fixing anything. It isn’t – wvw is dying, the more anet tries to fix the symptoms the faster that game mode goes down.

And know what: I just let it – I’m the one standing on top of every hill watching everything around me burn – I don’t care anymore.
Just remember what I said for now over a year:
I told you so
As everything I have predicted came true.

Btw: Just report me – a mod will delete and infract everything I wrote and eventually I’ll be blocked. And I didn’t go offtopic, I tried to explain to you why your simple solution wouldn’t work – but you didn’t want to listen. Alas.

NekoNoKoi.9137:

I play WvW almost exclusively in this game…./

I wonder if they linked:

top server+ bottom server
second server + second bottom server
… and so on.

It might not make much of a population difference because the lower tier servers wouldn’t have that many players, but it might lift their participation.

Who knows, it a difficult thing they’re trying to do.

Personally I preferred it when three lightly populated WvW servers fought. At least then you were dealing with people of numbers and skill level similar to your own.

Now its just being run over by zergs.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Taxidriver.2043:

time to get rid of DBL its just a ktrain map and ppl who voted to keep it dont even play it, they are all queueing EBG.

^^ this ^^

Actually I also voted for 2 Alpine and 1 DBL, because the options were so bad. I really rather have this imbalanced current system than to have 3x DBL many months in a row.

Agreed, I see nothing in the DBL. Absolutely a desert for real.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Taxidriver.2043:

time to get rid of DBL its just a ktrain map and ppl who voted to keep it dont even play it, they are all queueing EBG.

^^ this ^^

Actually I also voted for 2 Alpine and 1 DBL, because the options were so bad. I really rather have this imbalanced current system than to have 3x DBL many months in a row.

Yep. Honestly wish dbl would just go away. I know there are some that still like it but alpine is so much better. Both for roaming and big fights.

I’m in GH too.

I want play in blob with our players but we are so outnumbered that I have had 3 vs me fights within blob fights. Mostly our blob is so small that our players are not able to help me. Would be nice if there would be automatic mechanism to protect less skilled players. Now less skilled vanilla ranger seems to be target number one, while they should attack most skilled player first.

NekoNoKoi.9137:

Diku.2546:

NekoNoKoi.9137:

Diku.2546:

Using mixed borderlands would probably be fair & work better if everybody’s Home BL was set to DBL…while Enemy Entry point BLs were set to Alpine.

What? No, just randomise which colour gets the dbls. It’s literally that easy.

I agree. It’s literally that easy & this would work, but it’s a “short-term” solution…imho

“Short-term” solutions that band-aid the problem tend to create built-in limitations to what the future design can evolve into.

Our current WvW game design is flawed & needs to address these “built-in” limitations in order for it to evolve into something larger in scope…imho

Just adding my 2 cent opinion…you can continue the discussion. I’m hoping for a more long term solution.

That’s true, it’d be a short term solution and it wouldn’t necessarily change the issue of population being completely screwed or how bad the dbls still are, but it would certainly make it more manageable. As someone that plays WvW daily (although less now, because this is getting too annoying for me to enjoy anymore to be honest) I can attest to seeing far less roamers nowadays on GH than before, and I do think that being permanently given the dbls contributes to that because no one wants to play on them, not only because we generally dislike them, but also because they’re too big for our population.

WvW Population levels are like sediment.

If you allow all servers to naturally settle like sediment…you’ll have a wide range of game playstyle that can occur within these “geological” layers.

Geologically speaking…consistent & constant pressures allow for change.

Servers should move up or down based on their “Earned” WvW Rank.

At the very top…there would be servers with large population levels that zerg a lot & community is like a large city.

At the very bottom…there would be servers with small population levels that tend to roam a lot & community is like a small town.

Next, we’d need to remove the Tiers & allow players to “free” travel between the bottom through the top layers.

So in the end…which specific server you decide to call home can be totally different from which server(s) that you can visit for the week. If Tiers are removed.

Finding the right sediment layer to live in would give people choices to pick their in-game happiness.

The game mechanics are in place to allow this to happen…it just needs to be re-purposed for WvW.

Nobody needs to get punished…imho

As far as the DBL assignment…I agree with you.

Given the way how WvW is currently designed…I’d prefer a set rotation between the 3 different colors within the time frame (currently 2 months) of the assigned linking for things to be “fair”.

All colors should have an equal amount & opportunity to have DBL as their Home BL.

I always thought you should give DBL to the highest ranked server (not necessarily green).

In a lot of the matchups I see the higher ranked server usually has all keeps on their home BL fully upgraded where they haven’t flipped in days, so why not give them a map nobody is going to play on anyway.

Secondly, with DBL not having bloodlust, the higher ranked server will always have to get bloodlust from one of the two other BLs.

I’m not quoting the huge post – but I agree, giving the losing server the desert borderlands is extra punishment. Perhaps we should make the message to the devs simpler:

Please make losing fun.

The higher a dominating server must score to get up the less fun it is for a vastly weaker server. Being spawncamped by bored enemies is no fun. Getting the home border wiped every 30 minutes is no fun.

The reason why this is so important is that otherwise, people will just stop playing. Then nobody has fun anymore – WvW without enemies is boring.

I find that defending DBL is easier due to the distances and elevation changes between the inner and outer of keeps as well as the general strength of Lords and while controlling the keeps, getting to the other objectives to easier.