[Balance in WvW] Who likes 1 vs Zerg?
You must be new. It doesn’t matter what we think, it won’t happen.
Edit: Give it some time, Anet will force EoTM style in WvW whether we like it or not.
Please buy more Gems.
Tacktical Killers [TK]
We’re looking for players.
PM me here or ING.
(edited by Loosmaster.8263)
You must be new. It doesn’t matter what we think, it won’t happen.
Edit: Give it some time, Anet will force EoTM style in WvW whether we like it or not.
Please buy more Gems.
If/when that happens I will leave and never look back.
Kaa Mchorror NSP grenadier [hayt]
You must be new. It doesn’t matter what we think, it won’t happen.
It does matter what we think. What doesn’t matter is when people introduce horrible ideas that punish everyone but them. Why should I be balanced away from my friends because others do not have any friends playing with them?
It becomes comical to read at times, when people make back handed comments trying to imply they are ignored, simply because they do not implement their bad ideas.
I’ve been here since the Beta. Players like myself rarely post on the forums except when we feel we have something worthwhile to share.
You may not like my idea dancingmonkey, but the reality is that World vs World is not balanced – in any sense of the word. Something must be done (my idea, something else) to change that and move the bar from Sheer Numbers —-———>> to Skill as a deciding factor in matches.
Server stacking is only a symptom of that larger problem.
Would there be a chance (in my above example, 1/55) you would be balanced away from your friends? Yes.
Could you queue back into that borderland immediately after? Of course.
Assuming my idea was implimented, you could always play with your friends:
if you are persistent (via queue) you can play with them;
if you don’t mind EoTM you can play with them;
if you prefer the Sanctum you can play with them.
You can play with them in a BL too, you just have to deal with the 1/55 chance.
Isn’t it more fun to be challenged then steamroll?
I see some problems with this. One, what decides which players get the boot to the Karma-Train map? Is it the duration of time spent on the map? If so, I see lots of people who afk by crafting stations seemingly indefinitely. Oops, our commander was just booted out to EotM, good luck now.
Also, why penalize players for wanting to play WvW but being unable to because the other server(s) just don’t feel like it at the moment. If one side keeps losing, it would be to their advantage to just empty the map forcing the opposing sides down to 10 and then refilling it to stop all big attacks.
There are also lots of map hoppers. The amount of players may be even globally but they are just spread out amongst other maps. If an opposing zerg shows up they can hop back to a map to defend the place and then hop away again. It may still be balanced but in a way Anet wouldn’t be able to calculate.
One last thing, balancing the maps would take away the thrill of being able to defeat a group twice your size. I had the luxury of doing this a few nights ago and it was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.
but the reality is that World vs World is not balanced
WvW is not supposed to be balanced.
Server stacking is a result of attrition (people leaving the game). Every game goes through this. As population gradually decreases, people look to move to servers that have more people to play with/against during their timezone. It’s got very little to do with the matchup system and there is no solution.
(edited by Deli.1302)
It would be completely random whether or not a player is pushed back into queue. It could also behave like sPvP Hotjoin. Everyone gets a message and the first 8 to choose yes are taken.
The whole point of this suggestion is to prevent or slow down PvDooring during off-hours play. If one side is losing so badly that they refuse to play – that is a very good reason to prevent massive zergs of the winning team dominating the map.
As a result, numbers would become less of a factor – and individual skill would become more important to the resulting match.
There are some servers that simply don’t have the numbers to compete but their individual player skill is high. This would allow a top tier 1 server to compete with a bottom tier one. Individual player skill would determine the winner, not ability to amass massive numbers.
Some guilds do transfer WvW servers to fight more even numbers. If a server truly doesn’t have the numbers to field players for World vs World I would hope Anet would simply step in to correct this.
However, stacking a server is the simple result of wanting to reap the rewards for being on a winning side while just contributing numbers and not necessarily skill.
This is what my idea is seeking to address.
(edited by Apokriphos.7042)
but the reality is that World vs World is not balanced
WvW is not supposed to be balanced.
Server stacking is a result of attrition (people leaving the game). Every game goes through this. As population gradually decreases, people look to move to servers that have more people to play with/against during their timezone. It’s got very little to do with the matchup system and there is no solution.
Wrong.
Instead of putting incentives to transfer to over-stacked servers with every season, there could be incentives to move to under-populated worlds. We know from the seasons, that these incentives have a large effect. I would be easy to turn them around.
Ceterum censeo SFR esse delendam!
(edited by Dayra.7405)
I 1vZ all the time and come out on top.
On top of a funeral pyre.
Saethe — Favorable Winds [Wind] — Maguuma
but the reality is that World vs World is not balanced
WvW is not supposed to be balanced.
Server stacking is a result of attrition (people leaving the game). Every game goes through this. As population gradually decreases, people look to move to servers that have more people to play with/against during their timezone. It’s got very little to do with the matchup system and there is no solution.Wrong.
Instead of putting incentives to transfer to over-stacked servers with every season, there could be incentives to move to under-populated worlds. We know from the seasons, that these incentives have a large effect. I would be easy to turn them around.
There is no incentive to stack for this season. It’s week by week. Enjoy getting a skin regardless of performance.
There is no incentive to stack for this season. It’s week by week. Enjoy getting a skin regardless of performance.
According to https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/announcing-the-world-vs-world-fall-tournament-2014/ there is no reason that Jade Quarry or Blackgate would ever lose to lower populated servers, even if they only fight eachother once.
Assuming a top tier server loses its first match against other top tier servers, it will still win all other matches based simply on its superior population and coverage.
Players will still benefit transferring to these servers so they can guarantee accruement of more tournament tickets.
There should be no incentive to pile onto the strongest server simply to get more tickets. It should be your server’s skill in battle, not numerical superiority – that wins you tickets.
(edited by Apokriphos.7042)
I’ve been here since the Beta. Players like myself rarely post on the forums except when we feel we have something worthwhile to share.
You may not like my idea dancingmonkey, but the reality is that World vs World is not balanced – in any sense of the word. Something must be done (my idea, something else) to change that and move the bar from Sheer Numbers —-———>> to Skill as a deciding factor in matches.
Server stacking is only a symptom of that larger problem.
Would there be a chance (in my above example, 1/55) you would be balanced away from your friends? Yes.
Could you queue back into that borderland immediately after? Of course.
Assuming my idea was implimented, you could always play with your friends:
if you are persistent (via queue) you can play with them;
if you don’t mind EoTM you can play with them;
if you prefer the Sanctum you can play with them.You can play with them in a BL too, you just have to deal with the 1/55 chance.
Isn’t it more fun to be challenged then steamroll?
WE KNOW
Where have you been the past two years? If you ever visited the WvW forums you would know this was complained about for way too long now
Goodluck
They can’t fix wvw balance without scraping wvw and starting over
Valik Shin
Darkwood Legion [DARK]
Yak’s Bend
Darkwood Legion [DARK]
Yak’s Bend
What do you guys think?
Absolutely not. This would destroy WvW.
Your guild wants to play together? Too bad, half of them just got kicked to EotM.
You just ran across the entire map to try to save a tower? Someone just popped in to take the shortcut back to LA, so you’ve been kicked out.
Calling in backup from another map to help against a bunch of omega golems? You already have 20 players to defend against those 15 omega golems, so all of your reinforcements have been redirected to EotM, leaving both maps vulnerable.
A group is costume brawling in the safe zone? No one else is allowed to play on this map, because one of the opponents doesn’t have anyone here. The other one does though, so your server is out of luck.
Light of Honor [Lite] – Founder / Warmaster
Sorrow’s Furnace Commander
“You’re the mount, karka’s ride you instead, and thus they die happy!”-Colin Johanson
Sorrow’s Furnace Commander
“You’re the mount, karka’s ride you instead, and thus they die happy!”-Colin Johanson
Its working as intended. I say that, standing in ET for the past years.
Teh Ouchies
@ OP
Nope not a good idea and I’ll tell you why.
WvWvW is 24/7 scoring and you’re telling players they can’t be where they want because…enough people aren’t on the opposing side…of a 24/7 open map.
It assumes every player on a given map is in the blob. Oh look you’re winning a 3v7 fight near golanta aaand you’re being told you’re getting booted. Nice.
Or
Commander in TS: “Guys I’m about to get kicked to EotM. I know we’ve been wearing down this T3 keep but now that they’re quitting, I guess some of us shouldn’t be here anymore. Don’t worry we’ll switch maps and have the same thing happen in a few minutes. Yay!”
Yeah, no thanks.
These kinds of situations will drive people away.
but the reality is that World vs World is not balanced
WvW is not supposed to be balanced.
Server stacking is a result of attrition (people leaving the game). Every game goes through this. As population gradually decreases, people look to move to servers that have more people to play with/against during their timezone. It’s got very little to do with the matchup system and there is no solution.Wrong.
Instead of putting incentives to transfer to over-stacked servers with every season, there could be incentives to move to under-populated worlds. We know from the seasons, that these incentives have a large effect. I would be easy to turn them around.
I’m willing to bet most of the people who server swap for transferring for “tournaments” are either PvErs who’ll stop playing when they’ve secured their rewards or guild groups who just don’t want to be on the receiving end of the try hard zombie hordes. How can you entice people to move to a losing side? Loot handicaps? It will have to be substantial to be worth getting steamrolled for an undetermined amount of time, then you’ll have endless whining if the gravy train goes off the rails due to population changes(which is something so fickle to begin with), it will probably create new bandwagons. Score handicaps? Still getting steamrolled on the battlefield constantly and it’s still not fun(some people try to put a good face on it). 24/7 scoring means no balance.
Whispers with meat.
(edited by gennyt.3428)
It sucks, but its the price to pay for a really quality fight some times.
Team Deathmatch for PvP – Raise the AoE cap for WvW – More unique events for PvE
Thank you for the comments. I will address each separately.
EnemyCrusher:
Issue #1: You seem to believe there would be a direct boot to EoTM.
According to my proposal, players over the maximum limit would be able to choose to requeue for their current map, or any other BL as well. Only not choosing would move them to EoTM.
Perhaps players who were forced back in Queue multiple times could get some sort of limited protection against autobalance – rewarding players who are more active in the Borderlands.
Issue #2: Non-participating players.
Every Server will be affected by players randomly deciding to use a borderland, which ultimately means -> over the course of a match these non-participating players on each server will cancel each other out.
Issue #3: Golem Users.
The lack of mobility of 20 suits is easily exploited by a more mobile server. You can have your 20 golems sit on an objective but the more mobile server will take the rest of the map. If this was implimented, it would actually work against the golem users favor – because the other teams would use tactics to exploit their weaknesses (mobility).
Gennyt:
24/7 WvW End All By All.
Simply because World vs World is going 24/7 doesn’t mean huge number imbalances are all of a sudden OK. 24/7 simply means coverages from all hours of the day are important.This also doesn’t excuse huge number imbalances across the servers.
My suggestion would aid in the removal of Massive PvDooring during the off-hours of your 24/7 that have a disproportionately huge effect! on current scoring.
So.
If you are sieging a t3 keep and the opposing side loses enough numbers to cause autobalance, that means your Server was outnumbering them to start.
Why would you think it would be fair, fun or challenging to gain an even larger numerical advantage during your attack?
Simply saying that the current Server Point Dive (see this very forum) pre tournament or the rush of transfers to high numbered servers is simply PvErs who will leave once they finish massively understates the current problems with WvW.
Wvw is not as of now, a real skill based battlefield. It is becoming identical to PvE World Bosses, where massive numbers of players fight (via gems) to be on the most populated map so they can win. Thats it.
As of now, there simply is no way a lesser numbered server can compete with a greater numbered one. It makes the upcoming Tournament predictable – and the server stacking is all the proof in the world.
(edited by Apokriphos.7042)
How can you entice people to move to a losing side? Loot handicaps?
Isn’t that what’s enticing people to stack on what they anticipate to be the winning server in each league?
Kerzic [CoI] – Ranger – Eredon Terrace
@ Apokriphos
I never said or even implied that huge number imbalances were O.K as a matter of fact I think it’s really dumb game design. What I’m saying is, you’re kittened if you do and kittened if you don’t. If you want some semblance of somewhat fair matches, you have to gut WvWvW.
If you are sieging a t3 keep and the opposing side loses enough numbers to cause autobalance, that means your Server was outnumbering them to start.
I would not generalize like that. Guild groups have happily helped pugmanders smash giant defense blobs plenty, enough to the point they start leaving.
What happens when you’re forced to choose another map where an opposing server has no presence? You get kicked from that too? And the next? Did it ever occur to you that some people have put in the time to build up enough contacts and a reputation to rally a big turn out? And once again, what about the small man teams who are not PvDooring? I could go on.
PvDoor sucks but it sucks more to have an international playerbase and shut out people because of when they can log in. It is not a solution.
———————
How can you entice people to move to a losing side? Loot handicaps?
Isn’t that what’s enticing people to stack on what they anticipate to be the winning server in each league?
So make, transferring to poorly performing worlds have equal or better rewards than actually “winning” the tournament? As I said, what practical perks would move players into an environment where they know they’ll be blobbed to kingdom come for heaven knows how long?
^Why does this thing have me quoting only myself? lol
Whispers with meat.
(edited by gennyt.3428)
This is a really bad idea, because simply destroy guilds experience. If this whole auto-balance idea is implemented, then it means the death of guilds in WvW. It would be just a pug fest, like EoTM, where skill is not founded anywhere.
You also haven’t thought about trolling. If a guild enters in a map, people from the other servers can just move to other maps and destroy that guild experience by forcing some of their members to leave the map cause of this autobalance.
And what would happen when a server has a lot more coverage than others in a certain period of time?
Like one server has 150 people wanting to play WvW and other server have just 5-10 people per map. This autobalance just denies more than 100 people to play whatever they want.
This is not fair by any mean, and is not a real solution to coverage problems.
Ansau – Sylvari Mesmer – Exiled Warriors [wE] – Gandara
i7 5775c @ 4.1GHz – 12GB RAM @ 2400MHz – RX 480 @ 1390/2140MHz
i7 5775c @ 4.1GHz – 12GB RAM @ 2400MHz – RX 480 @ 1390/2140MHz
I’ve been here since the Beta. Players like myself rarely post on the forums except when we feel we have something worthwhile to share.
Good for you, but no one is going to give your opinion extra weight because you rarely post.
You may not like my idea dancingmonkey, but the reality is that World vs World is not balanced – in any sense of the word. Something must be done (my idea, something else) to change that and move the bar from Sheer Numbers —-———>> to Skill as a deciding factor in matches.
Of coarse I do not like it. It is a horrible idea because you are attempting to punish everyone else for your specific servers short comings. Not to mention the fact that they have specifically stated, and repeatedly, that WvW is not designed to be balanced. If you are unhappy with your converge, put time and effort into player recruitment.
Would there be a chance (in my above example, 1/55) you would be balanced away from your friends? Yes.
Exactly. You are here promoting ruining the fun for everyone else for your own personal gain.
Could you queue back into that borderland immediately after? Of course.
Again, you want to punish the rest of the players to simply solve your personal issues here. Shame on you.
Assuming my idea was implimented, you could always play with your friends:
if you are persistent (via queue) you can play with them;
if you don’t mind EoTM you can play with them;
if you prefer the Sanctum you can play with them.You can play with them in a BL too, you just have to deal with the 1/55 chance.
Isn’t it more fun to be challenged then steamroll?
You just solved your own problem with a comment here. Go play in the edge of the mist. You can have balanced fights in there. If your so keen on it being an option for everyone else, then go do it yourself.
I’ve been here since the Beta. Players like myself rarely post on the forums except when we feel we have something worthwhile to share.
Good for you, but no one is going to give your opinion extra weight because you rarely post.
You may not like my idea dancingmonkey, but the reality is that World vs World is not balanced – in any sense of the word. Something must be done (my idea, something else) to change that and move the bar from Sheer Numbers —-———>> to Skill as a deciding factor in matches.
Of coarse I do not like it. It is a horrible idea because you are attempting to punish everyone else for your specific servers short comings. Not to mention the fact that they have specifically stated, and repeatedly, that WvW is not designed to be balanced. If you are unhappy with your converge, put time and effort into player recruitment.
Would there be a chance (in my above example, 1/55) you would be balanced away from your friends? Yes.
Exactly. You are here promoting ruining the fun for everyone else for your own personal gain.
Could you queue back into that borderland immediately after? Of course.
Again, you want to punish the rest of the players to simply solve your personal issues here. Shame on you.
Assuming my idea was implimented, you could always play with your friends:
if you are persistent (via queue) you can play with them;
if you don’t mind EoTM you can play with them;
if you prefer the Sanctum you can play with them.You can play with them in a BL too, you just have to deal with the 1/55 chance.
Isn’t it more fun to be challenged then steamroll?
You just solved your own problem with a comment here. Go play in the edge of the mist. You can have balanced fights in there. If your so keen on it being an option for everyone else, then go do it yourself.
You beat me to it. Bless you.
I hate these kinda threads. I have read a lot of bad ideas on this forum, but the auto balance idea is probably one of the worst to date.
“We have now left Reason and Sanity Junction. Next stop, Looneyville.”
First, I’d like to see players not be able to enter a WvW map unless they are level 80 with at least exotic armor/trinkets/weapons and all of their trait points used. No more of this up-level silliness and people that don’t know what they’re doing.
Second, calculate the maximum damage potential of each of the three servers. Someone on the dev team has GOT to be able to figure out how to do that (ie, the factors involved, what level of impact they have, etc). Then, do a weighted average to balance the maximum damage potential of the other servers on the map to within something like 10%. That way, the server with more people still has more potential, but it’s going to make them work for the advantage rather than just steam-rolling over the other servers.
Ultimately these two things alone would transform WvW and make it more strategy oriented. I don’t know why this is so hard. And please understand, I get that seriously creative programming is involved, and perhaps server limitations are involved, but tell me if the two things above are not what people are looking for in WvW.
Also, I’m not including EotM in my statements above. The “rebalance” of maximum damage potential (which I think they call “outnumbered” as a buff currently, but it apparently doesn’t seem to work right) could be recalculated every 15 minutes. I truly believe this isn’t impossible. It’s just hard…until one of the devs actually figures out the code – like all code solutions are hard…until someone figures it out.
First, I’d like to see players not be able to enter a WvW map unless they are level 80 with at least exotic armor/trinkets/weapons and all of their trait points used. No more of this up-level silliness and people that don’t know what they’re doing.
Even less people in WvW… really bad idea. Far better to remove the conditions that make having uplevels around a poor choice, namely rallying. Eliminate rally from player downed and uplevels would be welcome.
Second, calculate the maximum damage potential of each of the three servers. Someone on the dev team has GOT to be able to figure out how to do that (ie, the factors involved, what level of impact they have, etc). Then, do a weighted average to balance the maximum damage potential of the other servers on the map to within something like 10%. That way, the server with more people still has more potential, but it’s going to make them work for the advantage rather than just steam-rolling over the other servers.
Another bad idea. I would be a roaming god if they did this. Simply log in when out manned and proceed to stomp the crap out of every enemy I see. I could 4+v1 effectively in this system and be nigh unkillable.
Sarcasm For Hire [SFH]
“Youre lips are movin and youre complaining about something thats wingeing.”
“Youre lips are movin and youre complaining about something thats wingeing.”
First, I’d like to see players not be able to enter a WvW map unless they are level 80 with at least exotic armor/trinkets/weapons and all of their trait points used. No more of this up-level silliness and people that don’t know what they’re doing.
Even less people in WvW… really bad idea. Far better to remove the conditions that make having uplevels around a poor choice, namely rallying. Eliminate rally from player downed and uplevels would be welcome.
Second, calculate the maximum damage potential of each of the three servers. Someone on the dev team has GOT to be able to figure out how to do that (ie, the factors involved, what level of impact they have, etc). Then, do a weighted average to balance the maximum damage potential of the other servers on the map to within something like 10%. That way, the server with more people still has more potential, but it’s going to make them work for the advantage rather than just steam-rolling over the other servers.
Another bad idea. I would be a roaming god if they did this. Simply log in when out manned and proceed to stomp the crap out of every enemy I see. I could 4+v1 effectively in this system and be nigh unkillable.
The first point wouldn’t mean fewer people in WvW. It would just mean fewer people trying to up-level. They can use EotM for that – getting to level 80 there doesn’t take long anyway.
As for the second point, that wasn’t the point I’m making. The weighted average doesn’t make a PLAYER upscaled individually so much as the average for the whole team on the map. I’m not entirely clear on how in a 1v4 roaming situation the 1 player would be unkillable when there’s still a 10% advantage to the 4. But that 10% is just a number – weight the average boost however it works to most balance it.
Far better to remove the conditions that make having uplevels around a poor choice, namely rallying. Eliminate rally from player downed and uplevels would be welcome.
.
But this is a very interesting idea.
Even less people in WvW… really bad idea. Far better to remove the conditions that having uplevels around a poor choice, namely rallying. Eliminate rally from player downed and uplevels would be welcome.
I agree. I like the downed stare as a condition a player can get themselves out go it can be helped out of by another player but rallying means that dying not only hurts you but helps you enemy by getting downed players up. It should not be that difficult to remove just rallying from WvW.
Another bad idea. I would be a roaming god if they did this. Simply log in when out manned and proceed to stomp the crap out of every enemy I see. I could 4+v1 effectively in this system and be nigh unkillable.
The challenge to any handicapping is preventing it from being gamed. I’m not a big fan of special buffs in WvW (including food, Bloodlust, Guard Killer, Defense Against Guards, etc.) so I think it’s an awful way to handicap the game. I’d rather fights be about builds and skill less than stat boosts and maintaining stacks. I do think WvW needs handicapping but it needs to be revolve around the points, rewards, information (e.g., eliminating the delay before swords appear), and/or NPC strength and not the combat abilities of the players.
Kerzic [CoI] – Ranger – Eredon Terrace
Far better to remove the conditions that make having uplevels around a poor choice, namely rallying. Eliminate rally from player downed and uplevels would be welcome.
.But this is a very interesting idea.
Except it can’t happen, without making WvW like s/tPvP roughly with everyone having the same gear and specific builds with all traits unlocked and available…..
Because otherwise you need to scale up (or down) people to the same level, and scale their gear.
At that point, balance is already dead, simply because :
- while leveling to 80, you earn tons of free stats from your build upscaled people CAN’T have
- while leveling you can’t have a matched set of items with the right items/stats, on top of not getting access to superior runes/sigil, nor really rares/exos and such
- you don’t have the same traits unlocked either (and they are a major change)
If you have that, your upscaled players are either a liability, or they are too strong and will be gamed around a lot. Period.
I’m not really sure with the current state of WvW that you want to go the s/tPvP way and put everyone the same level and gear, and traits, but it could work.
The challenge to any handicapping is preventing it from being gamed. I’m not a big fan of special buffs in WvW (including food, Bloodlust, Guard Killer, Defense Against Guards, etc.) so I think it’s an awful way to handicap the game. I’d rather fights be about builds and skill less than stat boosts and maintaining stacks. I do think WvW needs handicapping but it needs to be revolve around the points, rewards, information (e.g., eliminating the delay before swords appear), and/or NPC strength and not the combat abilities of the players.
Brilliant – thank you for putting this in terms I understand. It makes sense to handicap points – aka alter the scoring methods, which is probably a LOT simpler to code too. if I understand this right, fights will always be imbalanced – which is kind of how it has to work – it’s entirely dependent on the players, not the system. But the scoring should match based on how important certain goals are.
Tell me this: should taking a keep be jacked up in points and individual stomps be reduced? I just want to be sure I’m following the CONCEPT, not necessarily the details.
Isn’t that what’s enticing people to stack on what they anticipate to be the winning server in each league?
So make, transferring to poorly performing worlds have equal or better rewards than actually “winning” the tournament? As I said, what practical perks would move players into an environment where they know they’ll be blobbed to kingdom come for heaven knows how long?
I think it’s a serious answer. How do they entice teachers and police officers to work in rough neighborhoods that are less desirable and more thankless to work in than nice areas where they are appreciated? They pay them more. It’s how incentives work and they’ll never work on everyone. There are two possible goals behind such compensation.
First, some nice compensation could make being a punching bag for larger servers more palatable and less thankless for those who do it (I say this as someone who plays on a bottom-ranked server). It doesn’t have to be the same reward as the winners of a tournament get nor even necessarily the same. In fact, it might be better if it were different and unique — something like an “Underdog of the Mists” title or a special Outnumbered Defender skin set would be cool. That wouldn’t solve the imbalance problem (because stacking on an underdog server to get a reward would make it not the underdog) but it would make sticking with an underdog server more rewarding.
Second, the goal of the compensation could be to get people to disperse and spread about to the less populated servers to unstack the players. Since server identity now means very little in PvE and will mean even less when guilds become global, server identity really only has meaning for WvW. So change the cost of transfers, in gems, to reflect an incentive system something like this (I know my example is crude and would need to be refined). Move up one league? Pay 800 gems. Move up two leagues? Pay 1600 gems. Move down one league? Get 200 gems. Move down two leagues? Get 400 gems (The actual system would need to be more sophisticated to avoid stacking on the top server in a league).
Limit the reward to the first 10-20 per week that transfer to a server to avoid swamping the bottom tier servers with hoards, to avoid everyone stacking on a single server, and to avoid a crude gem train where a mob quickly rides a bottom tier server to the top as the top servers tank and then jumps back to the bottom to earn gems, though this happening slowly and naturally wouldn’t be a bad thing. Maybe the severs at the top of a tier have a 10 person cap while those at the bottom have a 20 person cap. Also limit transfers to one compensated transfer per month (though you’d still have to pay to move up) to avoid exploits.
Of course let people know if the won’t be compensated for moving down if the cap is reached and let them still transfer without compensation if they want. Thus a 25 person guild moving down might only see 20 or even less of their members get gems for moving down and could work that out internally or move over several weeks.
So, yes, pay the players to disperse in WvW if that’s what people really want to see happen.
Kerzic [CoI] – Ranger – Eredon Terrace
Brilliant – thank you for putting this in terms I understand. It makes sense to handicap points – aka alter the scoring methods, which is probably a LOT simpler to code too. if I understand this right, fights will always be imbalanced – which is kind of how it has to work – it’s entirely dependent on the players, not the system. But the scoring should match based on how important certain goals are.
Yes, I think the fights should be imbalanced if the numbers and/or build quality and/or skill levels are imbalanced and I don’t think the game should try to fix that or really can in any useful or satisfactory way. My preference is that points should be handicapped based on some measure of effort, which I think would solve the population imbalance and coverage issues naturally if done right.
Tell me this: should taking a keep be jacked up in points and individual stomps be reduced? I just want to be sure I’m following the CONCEPT, not necessarily the details.
I’m going to answer conceptually, too, so don’t assume the ideas I’m tossing out are necessarily finished or ready to go.
Using consideration of effort as a guide, I don’t think it takes a lot of effort for a zerg to stomp a lone roamer that has the misfortune to stumble into their path. I’ve seen a single player hold off 3-5 attackers so I would say that up to maybe a 5:1, a stomp requires some effort and should be rewarded by points. But a zerg rolling over a lone player or small party requires no effort to stomp, so I wouldn’t given any points for that.
Taking a tower or keep where both sides are throwing orange swords requires effort and the winner of that encounter should get some significant rewards for fighting off a formidable enemy because such victories require a lot of effort. Even a handful of defenders with siege can put up some decent resistance, so a victorious attacker should get some reward for their effort and the defenders should get a greater reward if they can fend off a larger attacking force.
PvDoor, on the other hand, requires very little effort unless there are very few people doing it. Soloing a supply camp requires effort. 2-3 people capping an empty tower requires some effort. Those activities should be worth something. A zerg capping an empty paper tower before swords are even thrown? No real effort there and not worth much, in my opinion.
At least that’s the concept. Rewards should follow effort. Hard should be worth a lot. Easy should’t be worth much at all. But you need to make sure that the smaller force can’t game the system by deliberately not challenging attackers to make their attacks easy (that’s what makes this hard to do right), so rather than look at individual encounters, population levels across all the WvW maps, as a measure of the potential challenge an opponent represents were the two sides to clash directly.
At the most basic level, that means counting the players on all of the WvW maps and scaling the points based on the population. The population needs to be some sort of rolling average over time to mitigate the effects of large groups entering and/or leaving WvW. The problem there is that WvW players can hide outside of WvW to suppress the points of a stronger enemy, so a system that couldn’t be easily gamed might have to count all the players in GW2 that have recently played WvW to capture all of the people who might pop into WvW at any moment or might be hiding out to manipulate the score (which would als count fairweathers not deliberately sandbagging and with no intention of showing up that week). Even with that, people could still just log off to hide. Basically, the hard challenge here it to prevent anyone from getting an advantage by deliberately not showing up. There needs to be a reason why it’s always better to go into WvW and fight instead of letting the enemy forces roll over a map without opposition.
Kerzic [CoI] – Ranger – Eredon Terrace
What do you guys think?
I read this as another way to punish Black Gate. Because they’re the #1 server, you want Anet to “balance” them out so that they’re not so powerful anymore. By forcing auto team balances, you effectively punish players by ruining their game mode. If a server doesn’t have the man power to cover WvW BLs, that’s not Anet’s fault. Servers’ players decide to WvW, SPvP, or PvE.
In GW2, Trading Post plays you!
Not sure how that idea would pan out. Consider this scenario. We have a small group of homeland defenders that number about a dozen people in the midnight hours. At times the ratio of us vs enemy players is 12v0 as there is no enemy on the map. We spend our time upgrading, repairing, refreshing and building siege and yet are ready to stop a breakout or a small enemy incursion into our BL. So according to your idea we would be “autobalanced” and some of us would be forced to another map or go to EotM which most of us abhor with a passion. I for one do not do EotM nor EBG nor enemy Borderlands. I am a Home BL defender yet you would force me to move?
Theftwind (HoD)
At least that’s the concept. Rewards should follow effort. Hard should be worth a lot. Easy should’t be worth much at all. But you need to make sure that the smaller force can’t game the system by deliberately not challenging attackers to make their attacks easy (that’s what makes this hard to do right), so rather than look at individual encounters, population levels across all the WvW maps, as a measure of the potential challenge an opponent represents were the two sides to clash directly.
Makes total sense. Thanks!
I do think WvW needs handicapping but it needs to be revolve around the points, rewards, information (e.g., eliminating the delay before swords appear), and/or NPC strength and not the combat abilities of the players.
We can fix the score all day long but that doesn’t make the fights any better. For example, we can add 200 points per tick to Mags score but the 5v1 fighting is still going to keep people from logging in.
Handicapping will also keep a server artificially higher up than it should be.
The current system is akin to a high school team playing a college team playing a pro team in many matchups. We can spot the high school team a ton of points but the game itself is still going to suck for them.
Sarcasm For Hire [SFH]
“Youre lips are movin and youre complaining about something thats wingeing.”
“Youre lips are movin and youre complaining about something thats wingeing.”
The current system is akin to a high school team playing a college team playing a pro team in many matchups. We can spot the high school team a ton of points but the game itself is still going to suck for them.
Fair point. I think this is the quandary the devs are in: how to achieve fairness across tiers while at the same time rewarding the servers that score the highest. There’s got to be a concept to resolve it before it can be programmed…so far, I haven’t read one that fully encompasses this.
The current system is akin to a high school team playing a college team playing a pro team in many matchups. We can spot the high school team a ton of points but the game itself is still going to suck for them.
Fair point. I think this is the quandary the devs are in: how to achieve fairness across tiers while at the same time rewarding the servers that score the highest. There’s got to be a concept to resolve it before it can be programmed…so far, I haven’t read one that fully encompasses this.
Might be because slapping a scoreboard on 24/7 open maps for a modern international community is an absurd idea.
Whispers with meat.
Isn’t that what’s enticing people to stack on what they anticipate to be the winning server in each league?
So make, transferring to poorly performing worlds have equal or better rewards than actually “winning” the tournament? As I said, what practical perks would move players into an environment where they know they’ll be blobbed to kingdom come for heaven knows how long?
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A nicely compensated punching bag is still a punching bag, vanity item(s) and a handful of gems most likely won’t make people stick around through getting blobbed down or dealing dead zones during their play time. It is supposed to be entertainment after all. What happens when opponent servers get these transfers as well? Unless the perks are attached to server rating(hello manipulation!), the already dominant server will probably be the more attractive. And I seriously doubt Anet would give gems for transferring down, when they can get people to shell out real money to transfer up and I also doubt they’d spend resources making unique items that won’t end up in the gem shop instead.
Whispers with meat.
A nicely compensated punching bag is still a punching bag, vanity item(s) and a handful of gems most likely won’t make people stick around through getting blobbed down or dealing dead zones during their play time.
They were two different incentives. The vanity items are because saying “thanks” can mean a great deal to someone who is already willing to put up with being a punching bag and can help prevent them from reaching a tipping point where they give up. It says the effort is appreciated.
The goal of the gems is to get enough people to try transferring down in order to equalize the server populations so there are fewer punching bags and just about everyone in the lower tiers could use at least a few more people. If they don’t stick around, then they pay ANet more in gems than they got for coming down to go back up again.
It is supposed to be entertainment after all. What happens when opponent servers get these transfers as well? Unless the perks are attached to server rating(hello manipulation!), the already dominant server will probably be the more attractive.
Sure, and I already mentioned putting a much lower cap on how many people can transfer per week based on rank to provide additional incentive to transfer as far down as the person is willing to go.
And I seriously doubt Anet would give gems for transferring down, when they can get people to shell out real money to transfer up and I also doubt they’d spend resources making unique items that won’t end up in the gem shop instead.
ANet gives 400 gems for getting 10,000 achievement points and it’s currently worth about 36 gold, so it’s not a huge reward and you’d need to pay ANet more to move back up. The incentive for ANet is that it will help fix a player distribution problem that’s hurting part of the game play without forcibly merging or redistributing people.
Kerzic [CoI] – Ranger – Eredon Terrace
Again, thank you everyone for your replies.
You just solved your own problem with a comment here. Go play in the edge of the mist. You can have balanced fights in there. If your so keen on it being an option for everyone else, then go do it yourself.
It is common knowledge that Edge of the Mists is the least balanced game mode that Arena Net has developed. It revolves around uplevels following a commander to PvDoor keeps and towers while avoiding other Zergs.
In fact, a player just posted reaching maximum rank while following such a Zerg in EoTM. What EoTM has accomplished is devaluing the concept of WvW points since they are so much easier to achieve in EoTM.
Dancingmonkey, you should play EoTM so you can understand this game mode.
I noticed some responders are from Blackgate. Blackgate is currently (as some of you have said) the Most Populated Server for coverage and numbers in WvW. My proposed suggestion would force Blackgate to be challenged more then they are currently.
I acknowledge that this change, if implemented, would cause players who had paid gems to transfer to this server for an easy win to be upset. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
However, the end goal is a good one, skill would become more rewarding in WvW then sheer coverage and numbers.
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No one has addressed any of the major questions I raised in my previous response so I will relist it here:
Simply saying that the current Server Point Dive (see this very forum) pre tournament or the rush of transfers to high numbered servers is simply PvErs who will leave once they finish massively understates the current problems with WvW.
Wvw is not a real skill based battlefield. It is becoming identical to PvE World Bosses, where massive numbers of players fight (via gems) to be on the most populated map so they can win. Thats it.
As of now, there simply is no way a lesser numbered server can compete with a greater numbered one. It makes the upcoming Tournament predictable – and the server stacking is all the proof in the world.
What is your solution to someone gaming the system? For example: If ((Blue Team)) knows that ((Red Team)) is going to do a large Golem Rush, they could evacuate the map to disrupt their plans.
I support the idea of a dynamic map cap, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a system that can’t be gamed by the enemy while still maintaining the balance you want it to bestow.
Any system can be manipulated. After all, that is why we are in our current situation -with massive server stacking for easy wins.
Addressing your point , there are a variety of things you can do to combat a guild purposefully leaving all at once to combat a golem rush.
You could make it so that queues adjust based on this system as well.
Sure they can all leave at once to try to game the system and disrupt your rush, but now they are all stuck in queues on other maps. Queue could be the number of the lowest pop server +10, same as autobalance.
You can also have the readjustment occur during longer time periods. Instead of 1 minute, it could happen every 2,5 or 10.
You could also limit it to happening only outside of combat.
This system could be versatile as it needs to be and would still allow for much more skillful play.
This would result in less numerical advantage being the only decider in a win.
(edited by Apokriphos.7042)
I think this is a good idea to improve balance in World v World. Players from high numbered servers will strongly dislike it.