Guild Wars 2

This idea recently occured to me, and I think it might be a part of what WvW needs
Laffingseals made an excellent point in his video that gw2 WvW is old. The biggest issues in WvW are same matchups endlessly and same meta
There’s a really fun solution to the first issue. Destroy everything. Beat out the dusty old rug, make new servers and redistribute the entire game population randomly.
Now there’s a problem that you and your guild are scattered. Simple fix: enable monthly faction changes (or quarterly). Now everybody can reunite their guilds. However, it is unlikely that everybody will find themselves in the same fights again, because if things get stale, they can simply move out with their guild or find a new guild on a different server.
Will server pairs still exist? Yes, but they change more frequently. I think weekly or bi weekly would be best. What’s the difference? Enemies will be able to know if you’re on server a or server b and because everything was redistributed, there will no longer be hugely disproportionate differences in the server sizes.
There will be chaos, bandwagoning, and politics; but it will be different.
Tl;dr points
A) new servers, new people, new population
B) monthly free/cheap transfers that allow guilds to have a greater influence
C) current server congestion would be permanently destroyed
D) enemies being able to see both server nameplates aids server pride of paired servers

On a side note, I think WvW should have its own independent balance instead of PvE balance, because they are way too different to be balanced the same.

I don’t know if this would do much of anything. New server names would help cause old names known for winning are “blackgate! go there and win!”

But beyond that I don’t think many players truly care what server they are on so long as it has a competitive population.

Id almost liken current wvw as hotjoin, group que and eotm.

hotjoin forces players to the side with less players to balance the numbers, both on joining the match and if you are currently in it. And it also promotes volunteering with increased rewards AND winning reward.

group que aspect is more about your close companions you know you can count on. does it really truly matter what server you play on?

eotm removes servers (somewhat), shortens the matches and drops server identity. With no ownership there is little reason to defend. Many players fall into this category whether they will admit it or not. They just want to login, find a winning group and go crazy and have fun. If they get their face kicked in 3 times and/or tag leaves what happens? Everyone disperses and the “run” is over until someone else steps up to lead.

There needs to be more reasons for transferring to low population servers and then ways given to fight high population servers in return aswell as incentive to do so.

Players like to kill other players, not to get enemies downed only to be steam rolled 5sec later and watching those downed foes get rallied. If they cant balance that out then nobody is going to want to xfer to low pop servers unless they can take themselves, their guild and maybe 5 other guilds with them. But that’s just creating another problem with no pride/ server identity.

There another possibility close to your own suggestion that i was thinking on. All players into same pool. 20 total borderlands/maps and a total of 12 factions. Join the faction you want freely. No server movement. No transferring. Totally freeform to the limits of population. if you want to take your Guild and join faction Y as a mercenary guild for coin, do so. There a mix of the DL Borderlands and the alpine and EBG. Any faction that conquers an entire BL can claim it as their HOME bl.

There some restrictions to prevent stacking. There an upper limit one how many can declare for a faction. The ability to declare for a faction is allowed once every XXX days.

The nature of commanders is changed. Once a commander declared on a given map he can not be replaced until he stands down or leaves then another can declare. There are levels of commander each with unique abilities. For example if in the squad lead by “General of the Homelands” each member of that squad gains some small bonus like the ability to carry 10 more supply, 100 more vitality. Another might be “General of Raids” and each member in that squad gains 25 percent permanent movement bonus. These different levels of commander can co-exist on same map for a given faction, there just can not be two of one type general. If a general dies in battle then there a period of time where s/he can not general again.

Factions are free to make any deal they want among themselves and it in fact encouraged. if two weaker factions wish to combine forces to take down a larger one it their choice just like today but with 20 maps and 12 total factions. Factions retain the name of Current servers/paired servers in some manner and or names rotated (so as example one week a faction called HOD the next week it Ehmry bay)

There a 13th faction allowed as well. This faction comprises all of those that do not wish to declare for a given faction. Consider them like Ronin. They can battle any enemy they see and can flip camps and objectives however they accrue no points and when an objective flip it goes gray or neutral much like reset night. Gray objectives can never upgrade.

Justine.6351:

I don’t know if this would do much of anything. New server names would help cause old names known for winning are “blackgate! go there and win!”

But beyond that I don’t think many players truly care what server they are on so long as it has a competitive population.

Id almost liken current wvw as hotjoin, group que and eotm.

hotjoin forces players to the side with less players to balance the numbers, both on joining the match and if you are currently in it. And it also promotes volunteering with increased rewards AND winning reward.

group que aspect is more about your close companions you know you can count on. does it really truly matter what server you play on?

eotm removes servers (somewhat), shortens the matches and drops server identity. With no ownership there is little reason to defend. Many players fall into this category whether they will admit it or not. They just want to login, find a winning group and go crazy and have fun. If they get their face kicked in 3 times and/or tag leaves what happens? Everyone disperses and the “run” is over until someone else steps up to lead.

There needs to be more reasons for transferring to low population servers and then ways given to fight high population servers in return aswell as incentive to do so.

Players like to kill other players, not to get enemies downed only to be steam rolled 5sec later and watching those downed foes get rallied. If they cant balance that out then nobody is going to want to xfer to low pop servers unless they can take themselves, their guild and maybe 5 other guilds with them. But that’s just creating another problem with no pride/ server identity.

Exactly, servers names at this point have no use other than to tell you where to win. Real loyalty lies within guilds and the people in those guilds. Guilds can reward you for your loyalty with titles and permissions. A solution to server pride would be to reward players for being loyal to a server with titles and rewards (and permissions?).

This is a fantastic idea. Just give enough time for guilds to get their ducks in a row, then do it.

Trajan.4953:

This is a fantastic idea. Just give enough time for guilds to get their ducks in a row, then do it.

Pretty much. Give a little time for everybody to decide what they want to do, and then do it. After that, they can go in many directions: randomize matchups more to help prevent solid tiers from forming, hold a tournament to bring back big WvW guilds, ect.

Randomly disbursing the population and then allow monthly or quarterly faction changes? You would probably kill wvw faster than HoT did.

I think most vets are at the point where they’ve made friends, guilds, alliances, and they play for those things, now if it gets broken up then what’s the point in playing? Wait another month before they get the band back together? Too many players would be upset about that.

I’m all for a population reset, but you have to consider where veterans are at this stage of the game, and whether or not a shakeup like that is worth playing the game anymore afterwards. Population disbursal needs a more elegant solution, players want to play with friends, not be shipped off to Siberia for a month.

You’re still inviting stacking if you open any type of transfer system after, in both population and coverage. Sure you could limit the transfers per server cap, or per week or month or 6 months or whichever, but eventually people will find the servers that are doing well and want to go there whenever they get the chance.

If you’re going to blow things up it might as well be into a new faction system, that gets rid of the tier/server system and build 3 new faction identities for players to rally under, while keeping the guild communities intact.

Xenesis.6389:

Randomly disbursing the population and then allow monthly or quarterly faction changes? You would probably kill wvw faster than HoT did.

I think most vets are at the point where they’ve made friends, guilds, alliances, and they play for those things, now if it gets broken up then what’s the point in playing? Wait another month before they get the band back together? Too many players would be upset about that.

I’m all for a population reset, but you have to consider where veterans are at this stage of the game, and whether or not a shakeup like that is worth playing the game anymore afterwards. Population disbursal needs a more elegant solution, players want to play with friends, not be shipped off to Siberia for a month.

You’re still inviting stacking if you open any type of transfer system after, in both population and coverage. Sure you could limit the transfers per server cap, or per week or month or 6 months or whichever, but eventually people will find the servers that are doing well and want to go there whenever they get the chance.

If you’re going to blow things up it might as well be into a new faction system, that gets rid of the tier/server system and build 3 new faction identities for players to rally under, while keeping the guild communities intact.

You misunderstand. Players will be able to transfer for free right away to find friends and guild mates, and with current population caps, 6 full servers are going to be much smaller than they currently are, allowing for more spread and more even match ups.

Being able to switch sides reinforces the idea that Guild Wars 2 is about what the guilds do instead of what the servers do.

Even if everyone would want to go to fight in the best server, it would fill up fast, and then the server tied to it would fill and get moved elsewhere in the following matchup, keeping the population distributed.

Cecilia.5179:

This idea recently occured to me, and I think it might be a part of what WvW needs
Laffingseals made an excellent point in his video that gw2 WvW is old. The biggest issues in WvW are same matchups endlessly and same meta
There’s a really fun solution to the first issue. Destroy everything. Beat out the dusty old rug, make new servers and redistribute the entire game population randomly.
Now there’s a problem that you and your guild are scattered. Simple fix: enable monthly faction changes (or quarterly). Now everybody can reunite their guilds. However, it is unlikely that everybody will find themselves in the same fights again, because if things get stale, they can simply move out with their guild or find a new guild on a different server.
Will server pairs still exist? Yes, but they change more frequently. I think weekly or bi weekly would be best. What’s the difference? Enemies will be able to know if you’re on server a or server b and because everything was redistributed, there will no longer be hugely disproportionate differences in the server sizes.
There will be chaos, bandwagoning, and politics; but it will be different.
Tl;dr points
A) new servers, new people, new population
B) monthly free/cheap transfers that allow guilds to have a greater influence
C) current server congestion would be permanently destroyed
D) enemies being able to see both server nameplates aids server pride of paired servers

On a side note, I think WvW should have its own independent balance instead of PvE balance, because they are way too different to be balanced the same.

I actually mentioned a similar idea to a few people a little while back. What I think they should do is put everyone back on their native server, then give everyone 1 free transfer. Impose a hard cap, so that no server can just re-superstack. It’ll be a bit rough initially, since guild members may end up split across multiple servers, but with enough warning ahead of time, and good planning on the part of the players in the guild, They can all get back together easily enough. It won’t necessarily be on the same server, since some of them are filled well beyond capacity, which would mean that some guilds would need to spread out. The result would be some shifting of the ranks, hopefully which would be done quickly, and then far more even matches. Once the ranks are settled in, the hard caps can be relaxed a bit to allow any remaining players to rejoin their guild members. It would need active Anet attention, to ensure that everything settles into the proper place in a couple of weeks, rather than allowing Glicko to sort things out over a few months.

Let’s be honest, it’s not the numbers during NA primetime (for NA servers) or EU primetime (for Eu servers) that are causing the biggest complications. It’s the numbers outside of those primetimes that are. The ideal goal is for everyone to be fighting against an equal number of opponents, regardless of what timezone anyone plays in. The only way to do that is to reset things to undo the damage that was done with “coverage hoarding”, and to have people spread back out. One way or another. I don’t know if it’s possible, but if the timezones a player actually plays in could be tracked, that would be the best way to ensure somewhat balanced matchups.

The risks with this, though, is that some guilds may end up locked out of the server they had previously transferred to, and may not want to play on any other server. Which very well could result in them leaving the game. Guilds could also end up split up across multiple servers and not able to fully reform. But…. most of the people I’ve run across prefer balanced fights, so this could potentially work. If nothing else, it could be an option in a poll.

Phantom.8130:

I actually mentioned a similar idea to a few people a little while back. What I think they should do is put everyone back on their native server, then give everyone 1 free transfer. Impose a hard cap, so that no server can just re-superstack. It’ll be a bit rough initially, since guild members may end up split across multiple servers, but with enough warning ahead of time, and good planning on the part of the players in the guild, They can all get back together easily enough. It won’t necessarily be on the same server, since some of them are filled well beyond capacity, which would mean that some guilds would need to spread out. The result would be some shifting of the ranks, hopefully which would be done quickly, and then far more even matches. Once the ranks are settled in, the hard caps can be relaxed a bit to allow any remaining players to rejoin their guild members. It would need active Anet attention, to ensure that everything settles into the proper place in a couple of weeks, rather than allowing Glicko to sort things out over a few months.

I feel that it would be important to rename the servers and simply distribute it evenly based on activity in WvW. People get very attached to names, so new names (Arborstone, Isle of the Nameless, ect.) would be important to make it a fresh start.

The biggest problem about opening up matchmaking to players, especially if free or cheap, is that it creates incentive to stack more. But then if you drive up prices, it makes it harder for smaller groups to even begin trying to assemble.

A wipe would only work by randomly allocating every player as an individual to a random server, but this would obviously destroy guilds and many sub-communities, which would also drop participation from WvW in general.

The only way to fix the problem is to link servers very frequently to a point where the only reliable allies are your server-mates (to increase server loyalty/community cohesion), and to allocate servers into mixed pools to balance the matches as best as possible, based on player data such as activity per time (AKA coverage), total combatants, number of fights, number of structure flips and their corresponding times, etc., even if this means doing something like having five low-tier servers allied together on one side versus two from T2 versus one from T1.

Without this kind of system, stagnation and stacking and/or the massive destruction of WvW and its communities is guaranteed.

Until they resolve bandwaggoning, there is no “fix” for uneven matches. All the OPs suggestion would do is delay the inevitable and cause mass chaos in the process.

Jayne.9251:

Until they resolve bandwaggoning, there is no “fix” for uneven matches. All the OPs suggestion would do is delay the inevitable and cause mass chaos in the process.

The best fix for bandwagoning is to disperse the overcongested top tier severs that double what the current population cap is. So long as population isn’t exploited again, bandwagoning will never be as bad as it currently is.

DeceiverX.8361:

The biggest problem about opening up matchmaking to players, especially if free or cheap, is that it creates incentive to stack more. But then if you drive up prices, it makes it harder for smaller groups to even begin trying to assemble.

A wipe would only work by randomly allocating every player as an individual to a random server, but this would obviously destroy guilds and many sub-communities, which would also drop participation from WvW in general.

The only way to fix the problem is to link servers very frequently to a point where the only reliable allies are your server-mates (to increase server loyalty/community cohesion), and to allocate servers into mixed pools to balance the matches as best as possible, based on player data such as activity per time (AKA coverage), total combatants, number of fights, number of structure flips and their corresponding times, etc., even if this means doing something like having five low-tier servers allied together on one side versus two from T2 versus one from T1.

Without this kind of system, stagnation and stacking and/or the massive destruction of WvW and its communities is guaranteed.

Limiting WvW to one set of maps would drastically increase queues, and having 12 identical maps in one matchup is redundant. Splitting up every guild and community isn’t important when you can arrange with friends to pick a server you like the sound of. Wiping out the existence of the existing tiers, if only until top guilds form alliances, will make matches more competitive. Even if guild alliances exist, it comes down to player interaction and politics, which is more interesting than a giant of cluster of people stuck on the same server forever.

Cecilia.5179:

Jayne.9251:

Until they resolve bandwaggoning, there is no “fix” for uneven matches. All the OPs suggestion would do is delay the inevitable and cause mass chaos in the process.

The best fix for bandwagoning is to disperse the overcongested top tier severs that double what the current population cap is. So long as population isn’t exploited again, bandwagoning will never be as bad as it currently is.

DeceiverX.8361:

The biggest problem about opening up matchmaking to players, especially if free or cheap, is that it creates incentive to stack more. But then if you drive up prices, it makes it harder for smaller groups to even begin trying to assemble.

A wipe would only work by randomly allocating every player as an individual to a random server, but this would obviously destroy guilds and many sub-communities, which would also drop participation from WvW in general.

The only way to fix the problem is to link servers very frequently to a point where the only reliable allies are your server-mates (to increase server loyalty/community cohesion), and to allocate servers into mixed pools to balance the matches as best as possible, based on player data such as activity per time (AKA coverage), total combatants, number of fights, number of structure flips and their corresponding times, etc., even if this means doing something like having five low-tier servers allied together on one side versus two from T2 versus one from T1.

Without this kind of system, stagnation and stacking and/or the massive destruction of WvW and its communities is guaranteed.

Limiting WvW to one set of maps would drastically increase queues, and having 12 identical maps in one matchup is redundant. Splitting up every guild and community isn’t important when you can arrange with friends to pick a server you like the sound of. Wiping out the existence of the existing tiers, if only until top guilds form alliances, will make matches more competitive. Even if guild alliances exist, it comes down to player interaction and politics, which is more interesting than a giant of cluster of people stuck on the same server forever.

Once the population is “dispersed” how will you prevent people from switching servers?

Jayne.9251:

Cecilia.5179:

Jayne.9251:

Until they resolve bandwaggoning, there is no “fix” for uneven matches. All the OPs suggestion would do is delay the inevitable and cause mass chaos in the process.

The best fix for bandwagoning is to disperse the overcongested top tier severs that double what the current population cap is. So long as population isn’t exploited again, bandwagoning will never be as bad as it currently is.

DeceiverX.8361:

The biggest problem about opening up matchmaking to players, especially if free or cheap, is that it creates incentive to stack more. But then if you drive up prices, it makes it harder for smaller groups to even begin trying to assemble.

A wipe would only work by randomly allocating every player as an individual to a random server, but this would obviously destroy guilds and many sub-communities, which would also drop participation from WvW in general.

The only way to fix the problem is to link servers very frequently to a point where the only reliable allies are your server-mates (to increase server loyalty/community cohesion), and to allocate servers into mixed pools to balance the matches as best as possible, based on player data such as activity per time (AKA coverage), total combatants, number of fights, number of structure flips and their corresponding times, etc., even if this means doing something like having five low-tier servers allied together on one side versus two from T2 versus one from T1.

Without this kind of system, stagnation and stacking and/or the massive destruction of WvW and its communities is guaranteed.

Limiting WvW to one set of maps would drastically increase queues, and having 12 identical maps in one matchup is redundant. Splitting up every guild and community isn’t important when you can arrange with friends to pick a server you like the sound of. Wiping out the existence of the existing tiers, if only until top guilds form alliances, will make matches more competitive. Even if guild alliances exist, it comes down to player interaction and politics, which is more interesting than a giant of cluster of people stuck on the same server forever.

Once the population is “dispersed” how will you prevent people from switching servers?

Why shouldn’t people switch servers? People shouldn’t be trapped on the server they move to. The only things that need to be done is to keep the populations at a reasonable cap, so that bg or tc 2.0 doesn’t happen and put a timegate on how often somebody can transfer. The movement of people will be a major part of what prevents stagnation.

This is going to be really unpopular.

Best way to solve population problems is to find a solution in which players will choose to spread out. That means the benefits of doing so must outweigh the benefits of bandwagoning, which isn’t going to be achieved long-term by reshuffling the deck.

What we need is 4 tiers. Keep the first 3 tiers and have their current partners permanently merged. Make the final tier 4 all new servers with free transfers to those new servers. Population Balance will never happen unless anet manually forces it, and making servers “full” is not going to force it.

Basically the plan is..
1. Lower server population hard cap.
2. Shuffle players randomly.
3. Leave transfers open so players who got thrown around(basically everyone)can move around to go back to their guilds provided that would even be available, with lower caps they can’t super stack a server.
4. Breaks BG and maybe TC’s overstacking at the moment.

There’s still problems with the proposed system, what if half a guild gets stuck on the revamped BG and the other half on all the other servers, and the server is already at it’s limit. You expect those players not with their guild to just say bye and reform into something else? Because you’ll more than likely just kitten off those players into quitting. Even free transfers is not going to matter then.

Players are stuck as a giant cluster because they choose to do so. Like I said you need to have more consideration for the players who have been playing this game for 3 years and have relationships in game with friends, guilds, alliances, server communities. Throwing them into the wind just for the sake of new politics is reckless and may result in players seeing that as the last straw to leave.

BG’s size is a problem, but that doesn’t mean you should blow up the rest of wvw because of them. A simpler solution would be just lower the caps, and offer free transfers for anyone on BG to whatever T3/4 server, then let’s see how many move.

Ben K.6238:

This is going to be really unpopular.

Best way to solve population problems is to find a solution in which players will choose to spread out. That means the benefits of doing so must outweigh the benefits of bandwagoning, which isn’t going to be achieved long-term by reshuffling the deck.

People are not going to willingly move in the current system. The only way for the current system to fix itself would be for large amounts of t1 and t2 to transfer by themselves, and I would love to hear an amazing plan that makes everyone in WvW want to pay arenanet to play WvW elsewhere, but I doubt that one exists.
As for reshuffling, gw2 transfers have changed since launch. People cannot easily sneak onto full servers anymore by waiting for an off hour, so bandwagoning can never reach the same level it at is right now.

Xenesis.6389:

Basically the plan is..
1. Lower server population hard cap.
2. Shuffle players randomly.
3. Leave transfers open so players who got thrown around(basically everyone)can move around to go back to their guilds provided that would even be available, with lower caps they can’t super stack a server.
4. Breaks BG and maybe TC’s overstacking at the moment.

There’s still problems with the proposed system, what if half a guild gets stuck on the revamped BG and the other half on all the other servers, and the server is already at it’s limit. You expect those players not with their guild to just say bye and reform into something else? Because you’ll more than likely just kitten off those players into quitting. Even free transfers is not going to matter then.

Players are stuck as a giant cluster because they choose to do so. Like I said you need to have more consideration for the players who have been playing this game for 3 years and have relationships in game with friends, guilds, alliances, server communities. Throwing them into the wind just for the sake of new politics is reckless and may result in players seeing that as the last straw to leave.

BG’s size is a problem, but that doesn’t mean you should blow up the rest of wvw because of them. A simpler solution would be just lower the caps, and offer free transfers for anyone on BG to whatever T3/4 server, then let’s see how many move.

There will be far less “getting stuck” in this system. Everyone in t1/t2 is stuck right now. With the option to transfer monthly, a guild doesn’t need to stay on a full server. Also, all of the servers will be evenly distributed among active WvWers, so none of the servers would be full during the time that active guilds pick their new homes. The population cap as is will probably be fine, so there will be ample room to transfer with everybody on 18 equal servers. Advance notice will be needed so that players who are not actively playing still have a chance to find their guild sooner than later.

You could try offering free transfers to BG, but begging players to move from the most reputable server that will permanently lose them is not too convincing. People like winning. The problem is that the other two servers hate constantly losing, and server pairing has no impact in matches because the shuffling of 3 little servers in t1 doesn’t matter when the population imbalance is so huge.

If a guild somehow does get cut off mid transfer, the simply need to wait a month and move elsewhere or wait for a guild to move off of the other server and open a spot for them.

Cecilia.5179:

Jayne.9251:

Cecilia.5179:

Jayne.9251:

Until they resolve bandwaggoning, there is no “fix” for uneven matches. All the OPs suggestion would do is delay the inevitable and cause mass chaos in the process.

The best fix for bandwagoning is to disperse the overcongested top tier severs that double what the current population cap is. So long as population isn’t exploited again, bandwagoning will never be as bad as it currently is.

DeceiverX.8361:

The biggest problem about opening up matchmaking to players, especially if free or cheap, is that it creates incentive to stack more. But then if you drive up prices, it makes it harder for smaller groups to even begin trying to assemble.

A wipe would only work by randomly allocating every player as an individual to a random server, but this would obviously destroy guilds and many sub-communities, which would also drop participation from WvW in general.

The only way to fix the problem is to link servers very frequently to a point where the only reliable allies are your server-mates (to increase server loyalty/community cohesion), and to allocate servers into mixed pools to balance the matches as best as possible, based on player data such as activity per time (AKA coverage), total combatants, number of fights, number of structure flips and their corresponding times, etc., even if this means doing something like having five low-tier servers allied together on one side versus two from T2 versus one from T1.

Without this kind of system, stagnation and stacking and/or the massive destruction of WvW and its communities is guaranteed.

Limiting WvW to one set of maps would drastically increase queues, and having 12 identical maps in one matchup is redundant. Splitting up every guild and community isn’t important when you can arrange with friends to pick a server you like the sound of. Wiping out the existence of the existing tiers, if only until top guilds form alliances, will make matches more competitive. Even if guild alliances exist, it comes down to player interaction and politics, which is more interesting than a giant of cluster of people stuck on the same server forever.

Once the population is “dispersed” how will you prevent people from switching servers?

Why shouldn’t people switch servers? People shouldn’t be trapped on the server they move to. The only things that need to be done is to keep the populations at a reasonable cap, so that bg or tc 2.0 doesn’t happen and put a timegate on how often somebody can transfer. The movement of people will be a major part of what prevents stagnation.

I think you’re missing the point.

I do agree with this actually. I think they should literally just do a big bang open up 9 servers once they get full open another 3 also give people 2 free transfer and before they do big bang give people heads up.

I’d like to see this based on alliances instead of servers and with guilds joining alliances. I’d like to see guilds able to maintain wvw spots…maybe with some cost per matchup.

Jayne.9251:

Cecilia.5179:

Jayne.9251:

Cecilia.5179:

Jayne.9251:

Until they resolve bandwaggoning, there is no “fix” for uneven matches. All the OPs suggestion would do is delay the inevitable and cause mass chaos in the process.

The best fix for bandwagoning is to disperse the overcongested top tier severs that double what the current population cap is. So long as population isn’t exploited again, bandwagoning will never be as bad as it currently is.

DeceiverX.8361:

The biggest problem about opening up matchmaking to players, especially if free or cheap, is that it creates incentive to stack more. But then if you drive up prices, it makes it harder for smaller groups to even begin trying to assemble.

A wipe would only work by randomly allocating every player as an individual to a random server, but this would obviously destroy guilds and many sub-communities, which would also drop participation from WvW in general.

The only way to fix the problem is to link servers very frequently to a point where the only reliable allies are your server-mates (to increase server loyalty/community cohesion), and to allocate servers into mixed pools to balance the matches as best as possible, based on player data such as activity per time (AKA coverage), total combatants, number of fights, number of structure flips and their corresponding times, etc., even if this means doing something like having five low-tier servers allied together on one side versus two from T2 versus one from T1.

Without this kind of system, stagnation and stacking and/or the massive destruction of WvW and its communities is guaranteed.

Limiting WvW to one set of maps would drastically increase queues, and having 12 identical maps in one matchup is redundant. Splitting up every guild and community isn’t important when you can arrange with friends to pick a server you like the sound of. Wiping out the existence of the existing tiers, if only until top guilds form alliances, will make matches more competitive. Even if guild alliances exist, it comes down to player interaction and politics, which is more interesting than a giant of cluster of people stuck on the same server forever.

Once the population is “dispersed” how will you prevent people from switching servers?

Why shouldn’t people switch servers? People shouldn’t be trapped on the server they move to. The only things that need to be done is to keep the populations at a reasonable cap, so that bg or tc 2.0 doesn’t happen and put a timegate on how often somebody can transfer. The movement of people will be a major part of what prevents stagnation.

I think you’re missing the point.

You’re talking about guilds abandoning servers? That’s a thing even now, but when your paired server is matched according to your strength and changes very often, a dying server will still have lots of support from a higher or equal population server depending on how big they are, and because transfers are easier, there is a much better chance of guilds moving in to make the server better.

This is not a fix all solution to everything wrong with WvW. It deals with population imbalance across all servers effectively and gives players more freedom to make their matchups better instead of complaining that they can’t win in top WvW if they aren’t on bg because it is so much bigger and they can’t bring a t3 server up because it is so much smaller than the currently full servers. This change cannot fix the meta, it does not make dbl better, and it won’t make every guild return (some will), but it isn’t trying to do that. This system will give the players an opportunity to eliminate concrete match ups by deciding where they want to fight and still cycling enemies for people who stay (loyalty rewards?).

Cecilia.5179:

Jayne.9251:

Until they resolve bandwaggoning, there is no “fix” for uneven matches. All the OPs suggestion would do is delay the inevitable and cause mass chaos in the process.

The best fix for bandwagoning is to disperse the overcongested top tier severs that double what the current population cap is. So long as population isn’t exploited again, bandwagoning will never be as bad as it currently is.

DeceiverX.8361:

The biggest problem about opening up matchmaking to players, especially if free or cheap, is that it creates incentive to stack more. But then if you drive up prices, it makes it harder for smaller groups to even begin trying to assemble.

A wipe would only work by randomly allocating every player as an individual to a random server, but this would obviously destroy guilds and many sub-communities, which would also drop participation from WvW in general.

The only way to fix the problem is to link servers very frequently to a point where the only reliable allies are your server-mates (to increase server loyalty/community cohesion), and to allocate servers into mixed pools to balance the matches as best as possible, based on player data such as activity per time (AKA coverage), total combatants, number of fights, number of structure flips and their corresponding times, etc., even if this means doing something like having five low-tier servers allied together on one side versus two from T2 versus one from T1.

Without this kind of system, stagnation and stacking and/or the massive destruction of WvW and its communities is guaranteed.

Limiting WvW to one set of maps would drastically increase queues, and having 12 identical maps in one matchup is redundant. Splitting up every guild and community isn’t important when you can arrange with friends to pick a server you like the sound of. Wiping out the existence of the existing tiers, if only until top guilds form alliances, will make matches more competitive. Even if guild alliances exist, it comes down to player interaction and politics, which is more interesting than a giant of cluster of people stuck on the same server forever.

I don’t think you understand my proposal.

It’s not all-in-one or split evenly at all.

The number of tiers themselves would become volatile based on data-driven analysis using some kind of AI to automate the process, with some initial degree of RNG as to prevent stagnant matchups.

The entire concept of tiers is removed up until matchmaking is decided.

So one week the matchups may look like they are now with several sets of servers linked in pairs, whereas another week there might be a “T1” server matched against two other links consisting of several lower effective-tier/ranked servers each.

If things like population considerations and coverage are minded by the system (lots of data processing through a genetic neural net), there also won’t be drastically increased queues, either.

This random pairing and high volatility of the pairings which then are based on previous play-data prevents stacking in all forms, prevents tier-plummeting, and balances matchups dynamically week-to-week, overall decreasing runaway matches and stagnation/“Tier lock” while enforcing server communities to band together for their own personal ranks, and such communities would be the only things consistent through matchups.

Allowing matchmaking to be decided by the players reduces competitiveness long-term and reduces the number of active players in WvW as a whole. This has occurred many times throughout WvW history, and has all culminated in the same effect: a net loss of players, fractured communities, lower net competition, and overall increased bandwagoning and guild monopoly. Guilds are not fighting for resources and therefore have little stake in fighting each other aside from doing it for fun. As we’ve seen many, many times, once-competing guilds will often bandwagon to another server/alliance together to dominate the scene once bored of fighting each other and going nowhere in terms of match volatility. Loyalty to fight a dedicated enemy is nonexistent in this game, and thus player-driven matchups would encourage sprawling alliances and similar matchup deadlock.

DeceiverX.8361:

Cecilia.5179:

Jayne.9251:

Until they resolve bandwaggoning, there is no “fix” for uneven matches. All the OPs suggestion would do is delay the inevitable and cause mass chaos in the process.

The best fix for bandwagoning is to disperse the overcongested top tier severs that double what the current population cap is. So long as population isn’t exploited again, bandwagoning will never be as bad as it currently is.

DeceiverX.8361:

The biggest problem about opening up matchmaking to players, especially if free or cheap, is that it creates incentive to stack more. But then if you drive up prices, it makes it harder for smaller groups to even begin trying to assemble.

A wipe would only work by randomly allocating every player as an individual to a random server, but this would obviously destroy guilds and many sub-communities, which would also drop participation from WvW in general.

The only way to fix the problem is to link servers very frequently to a point where the only reliable allies are your server-mates (to increase server loyalty/community cohesion), and to allocate servers into mixed pools to balance the matches as best as possible, based on player data such as activity per time (AKA coverage), total combatants, number of fights, number of structure flips and their corresponding times, etc., even if this means doing something like having five low-tier servers allied together on one side versus two from T2 versus one from T1.

Without this kind of system, stagnation and stacking and/or the massive destruction of WvW and its communities is guaranteed.

Limiting WvW to one set of maps would drastically increase queues, and having 12 identical maps in one matchup is redundant. Splitting up every guild and community isn’t important when you can arrange with friends to pick a server you like the sound of. Wiping out the existence of the existing tiers, if only until top guilds form alliances, will make matches more competitive. Even if guild alliances exist, it comes down to player interaction and politics, which is more interesting than a giant of cluster of people stuck on the same server forever.

I don’t think you understand my proposal.

It’s not all-in-one or split evenly at all.

The number of tiers themselves would become volatile based on data-driven analysis using some kind of AI to automate the process, with some initial degree of RNG as to prevent stagnant matchups.

The entire concept of tiers is removed up until matchmaking is decided.

So one week the matchups may look like they are now with several sets of servers linked in pairs, whereas another week there might be a “T1” server matched against two other links consisting of several lower effective-tier/ranked servers each.

If things like population considerations and coverage are minded by the system (lots of data processing through a genetic neural net), there also won’t be drastically increased queues, either.

This random pairing and high volatility of the pairings which then are based on previous play-data prevents stacking in all forms, prevents tier-plummeting, and balances matchups dynamically week-to-week, overall decreasing runaway matches and stagnation/“Tier lock” while enforcing server communities to band together for their own personal ranks, and such communities would be the only things consistent through matchups.

Allowing matchmaking to be decided by the players reduces competitiveness long-term and reduces the number of active players in WvW as a whole. This has occurred many times throughout WvW history, and has all culminated in the same effect: a net loss of players, fractured communities, lower net competition, and overall increased bandwagoning and guild monopoly. Guilds are not fighting for resources and therefore have little stake in fighting each other aside from doing it for fun. As we’ve seen many, many times, once-competing guilds will often bandwagon to another server/alliance together to dominate the scene once bored of fighting each other and going nowhere in terms of match volatility. Loyalty to fight a dedicated enemy is nonexistent in this game, and thus player-driven matchups would encourage sprawling alliances and similar matchup deadlock.

That’s somewhat similar to what I suggested, except you don’t trust players to not create a bg 2.0. I don’t either, however, with populations and servers reset, bandwagoning won’t even result in a massive server. The biggest server also will get paired with a smaller server. I don’t think pitting 6 servers against the current bg will work. It will increase the challenge for bg depending on how strong those 6 servers are, or bg will crush them with superior coverage and trained pugs from off-duty fighting guilds. This also leaves every other matchup lopsisded and may even remove an entire matchup.
If the community desires to make their WvW experience boring and easy to the point where they try to turn an entire system on its head not once, but twice, there will be no systemthat can save WvW.
Arenanet is fully capable of micromanaging a new system by:
-Locking severs that people are moving to in droves
-asking guilds to switch servers and offer them bribes to do so.
Therefore, we should be able to handle servers that aren’t already completely screwed on server population with some effort.

My bet next relinking, they’ll treat NA like they did EU, with some stand alone servers.

All this will also help propagate bandwagoning anyways… :/

Famine.7915:

All this will also help propagate bandwagoning anyways… :/

Bandwagoning is a choice of the players. People what to log in to a server that is active whenever they are. Even with management, it will exist in some form.
However, management is essential. If arenanet limits transfers to one week monthly or quarterly, they will be able to carefully manage the flow of people, limit the number of guilds who can transfer onto a server, keep guilds together, and lock servers that are recieving too much attention.

Nice idea. Don’t worry too much about negative feedback, most people on the forums are arrogant/stubborn on their own ideas and just narrow minded. The only thing I yet to figure out is just a way to make people loyal to a server. people talk about bandwagon, its not a system problem, its a problem created by players themselves. Just need to add motivation to server loyalty and motivation to play wvw frequently.

Kano.3720:

Nice idea. Don’t worry too much about negative feedback, most people on the forums are arrogant/stubborn on their own ideas and just narrow minded. The only thing I yet to figure out is just a way to make people loyal to a server. people talk about bandwagon, its not a system problem, its a problem created by players themselves. Just need to add motivation to server loyalty and motivation to play wvw frequently.

Loyalty rewards. Make it like a reward track, only over a much longer period of time, such as one level per week, up to 10 weeks, and have it give unique/WvW specific rewards. Things like WvW specific skins and minis, as well as fairly large boxes of superior blueprints, for example. To qualify, you’d have to complete one regular reward track per week. Then add a 2-4 week cooldown period post transfer, where a person couldn’t enter WvW at all, and you’d see a LOT less hopping around.

Phantom.8130:

Kano.3720:

Nice idea. Don’t worry too much about negative feedback, most people on the forums are arrogant/stubborn on their own ideas and just narrow minded. The only thing I yet to figure out is just a way to make people loyal to a server. people talk about bandwagon, its not a system problem, its a problem created by players themselves. Just need to add motivation to server loyalty and motivation to play wvw frequently.

Loyalty rewards. Make it like a reward track, only over a much longer period of time, such as one level per week, up to 10 weeks, and have it give unique/WvW specific rewards. Things like WvW specific skins and minis, as well as fairly large boxes of superior blueprints, for example. To qualify, you’d have to complete one regular reward track per week. Then add a 2-4 week cooldown period post transfer, where a person couldn’t enter WvW at all, and you’d see a LOT less hopping around.

Bingo. Play an an hour a two in WvW a day. Get a reward. Play on a server for 10 weeks, get an ascended loot box.

I think both the original semi-leaked post HoT plan to address WvW population imbalance (some kind of alliance plan) and their “blow it up and start over” option probably held elements of this idea. I know a lot of us realm pride types were pretty upset over the idea of alliances and the resulting forum ruckus over the leak sent ANET back to the drawing board but what they came up with (world linking) isn’t really all the great for around 30% of the players anyways (low tiers) and given the poll on maintaining world linking came back pretty highly in favor of it, I am not sure if the forum reaction to the leaked alliance proposal wasn’t just another case of the vocal minority trying to inflict their will on the rest similar to the recent DBL removal vote debacle.

I would be a member of that vocal minority in this instance but would not be opposed to re-visiting some version of the alliance idea with more details. I fear that ship has sailed for now and we will be stuck with the “world-linking” solution for a while now. That should not stop people from making other suggestions however, who knows when that next re-iteration might come. After a few more rounds of world-linking I am not sure those players who were dead set against such proposals will still be around anyways.

PariahX.6970:

I think both the original semi-leaked post HoT plan to address WvW population imbalance (some kind of alliance plan) and their “blow it up and start over” option probably held elements of this idea. I know a lot of us realm pride types were pretty upset over the idea of alliances and the resulting forum ruckus over the leak sent ANET back to the drawing board but what they came up with (world linking) isn’t really all the great for around 30% of the players anyways (low tiers) and given the poll on maintaining world linking came back pretty highly in favor of it, I am not sure if the forum reaction to the leaked alliance proposal wasn’t just another case of the vocal minority trying to inflict their will on the rest similar to the recent DBL removal vote debacle.

I would be a member of that vocal minority in this instance but would not be opposed to re-visiting some version of the alliance idea with more details. I fear that ship has sailed for now and we will be stuck with the “world-linking” solution for a while now. That should not stop people from making other suggestions however, who knows when that next re-iteration might come. After a few more rounds of world-linking I am not sure those players who were dead set against such proposals will still be around anyways.

World linking isn’t terrible, but the existing servers are terrible. Current world linking is just going to turn into a cash treadmill to get into t1 (stack linked t1 server, linked server drops to t4, abandon server and stack new t1 server). World linking is technically alliances between two servers, but it doesn’t feel good because of how servers are hugely disproportionate, and because one server is the “host” and the other one is completely obscured.

I think world linking is a good start but it needs to factor in timezone coverage weighed against the larger of the 3 servers in a matchup. Because it isn’t just raw numbers that’s the issues, it’s the off peak coverage that’s always thrown off the balance.

Famine.7915:

All this will also help propagate bandwagoning anyways… :/

^^ This. Basically, if you have any history with WvW …. the exact thing you are asking to have occur, is how the overstacking began. First it was HoD, then JQ, then BG & I think SoR… I was part of the Kaineng allegiance.

With any amount of planning, guilds can arrange to stack a server. I don’t see how resetting – and redistributing all accounts, and giving them 1 free transfer will entise someone to spread evenly. If anything it just gives everyone a 1 shot deal to arrange the next Server stacking.

The only way i see any chance at balancing is either through alliances (which I’m not a fan of) … it would basically be the same deal only with 3 colours across all servers, and diminishes server pride. Or somehow measuring the off prime hours activity and balancing that out.

I like where your going with this, it’s just a square peg with a round hole. We need to find the round peg solution.

Hexinx.1872:

Famine.7915:

All this will also help propagate bandwagoning anyways… :/

^^ This. Basically, if you have any history with WvW …. the exact thing you are asking to have occur, is how the overstacking began. First it was HoD, then JQ, then BG & I think SoR… I was part of the Kaineng allegiance.

With any amount of planning, guilds can arrange to stack a server. I don’t see how resetting – and redistributing all accounts, and giving them 1 free transfer will entise someone to spread evenly. If anything it just gives everyone a 1 shot deal to arrange the next Server stacking.

The only way i see any chance at balancing is either through alliances (which I’m not a fan of) … it would basically be the same deal only with 3 colours across all servers, and diminishes server pride. Or somehow measuring the off prime hours activity and balancing that out.

I like where your going with this, it’s just a square peg with a round hole. We need to find the round peg solution.

Non-exploitable server caps, management of transfer traffic, and server pairings that aim to make equal numbers for each team should help with that a lot. Despite being a sandbox style game mode, WvW needs more than sandbox level management to stay competitive. These changes alone won’t mean anything if they are not maintained, because we will repeat the past and break WvW again. However, if Arenanet keeps a careful eye on the traffic between servers, they can prevent people from bandwagoning as much as they currently do, and without the huge size difference between servers marked as full, server-linking will properly balance out the populations in match-ups.

We have a 5 man team to work with atm, something of this scale would require much more headcount to support.

Hexinx.1872:

We have a 5 man team to work with atm, something of this scale would require much more headcount to support.

WvW deserves at least a 10 man team. It is 1/3 of this game’s appeal, and it is probably the one that makes the most loyal players.

Hello all, I was brought here by one of my officers cecilia.5179

I have been suggesting to the ANET dev to create factions for wvw however I’m sure most of the income gathered are from whole zerg guilds being bought by other servers. creating a new structure that eliminates the need for server transferring would decrease the revenue generated from transferring 30-50+. It might have already increased their income by introducing this server merge system on lets say this piggy backing system, lower tier hitching a ride on a higher tier.

With this being said and with all the other implementations of trying to rehype this game again with insta-80s and recycling vaulted gem store items it is on a death spiral cycle ive seen before with other MMOs.

This is of course speaking of people who spend 90% of their time in WvW mostly.

Implementation of Factions and larger maps to accommodate would increase the longevity of this game. The reward system so far is a step in the right direction however bad timing since those who have already WVW ranked over the years shouldve been rewarded tenfold on the recycled pvp style reward system with the dungeon boxes.

WvW is a wonderful end game type. however the lack of WvW focus is clearly reflected by the rate of progress in the right direction according to most of the WvW community.

I really urge the point that bringing a new chapter for WvW would be very refreshing and implementing Factions including more map releases for all game types WvW, PvE and PvP will bring others back and keep those still struggling to find a reason to keep playing.

linking the game types will have never been so easy introducing the ancient empire of the dragon, Cantha.

Changing factions however should cost gems to mitigate the loss of server transferring, since Mass Servers, and Cross Tier server systems have already eliminated other reasons to transfer.

3 factions total, with unique faction weapons, gear, guild hall upgrades, and wvw skills maybe.

Kurzick, Luxon, and some other faction relating to Tyria Lore.

also voting systems for Lead Guilds and Lead Commanders for not only a motivation for fame in each faction but would also help consolidate the population into contributing to the wvw server success having more of the population being apart of the Guild Hall system and benefiting all game types.

Lots of development with this, but well worth it in the long run. Release an Expansion, proceed to the next. keeps the loyal players interested and can be identified as your best marketing resource.