Guild Wars 2

TLDR version; What I say is, as they are things will never be balanced ever, it will continue with fluctuations and blowouts and stacked servers and at best new variations of the same old set-up from current time until the time Guild Wars 2 servers are taken off-line if no drastic change is made to the system as a whole.

If the company, ArenaNet really has an ideal of every three-way server fight having balance, they need to take it out of the hands of players. Players have been given far too much control to determine match-ups, and have done nothing but stack the servers and transfer from within the same 1-2 tiers repeatedly, with no interest in evening out ever.

I was surprised to see there are still people fighting on the forums throwing suggestions all over the place to achieve “long term balanced match ups” despite the fact that so many have given up this late in the game. It may be better if such posts are all focused in one place, since at this point the World vs World vs World [system] as it is may be something incapable of being balanced.

To chime in on this debate, I’ll personally say in its current form, I don’t think such is possible at all. There’s maybe only one viable solution that I’ve heard so far, the one about restricting numbers to match the lowest numbers fielded by on of the servers to guarantee even fielding for all three servers. This just isn’t going to work out if applied though. People already hate queues enough as is, and adding in a second layer of queues for WvWvW would be disastrous especially given how many players come from modernized society where “on-demand” is a basic standard of life. Asking people to wait on more unknowns before getting to enjoy the content they want to will just encourage more people to quit the game for up and coming competitors.

There might of been a few other suggestions, but most of them are outrageous.
I think we’re faced with a serious problem as a community (The dedicated WvWvW community that is) where as a whole we’re reaping what we sowed. That being, as far as WvWvW is concerned I think players were given to much control to determine the results. I’m talking specifically about things like stacking servers, declaring servers “unofficial national landing pads”(Ie. XYZ is the unofficial latino server, RGB is the unofficial Korean server and such) leading to some having massive coverage advantages during certain periods.

Believe me, I’ve played quite a few other MMO/MMORPG games, and those where the massive fights like those seen in WvWvW were best managed were always those with auto-balancing systems. Granted, that was a nightmare for team building and playing together as a guild. .Yet, if you REALLY want balance, you don’t leave it up to the players shuffling themselves to determine it, that NEVER WORKS. Players NEVER balance themselves. The traditional balancing scheme would been better, IMO. Now, say you have a single server with 1 person opting for a battle, another server with 19, and yet another with a full 20; it makes a lot more sense to take 40, split that 40 to produce 20 vs 20, or 13 vs 13 vs 13 in the case of a three-way fight(with the odd one in a queue.) or whatever the combat system calls for, to the best balance possible. But with our system, pairing together three servers three way with no care for the variance you can literally end up with 1 vs 19 vs 20 with the above numbers.

So my thoughts are that the players choice of server actually means too much, and that’s why we have such fluctuations and imbalances. When you have a PvP system like WvWvW (Yes, let’s get past the SPvP thing, players killing players in any environment regardless of objective or AI mob presence is a player vs player system, WvWvW is one also.) With the current system producing balanced match-ups is neigh impossible.

There are other factors to consider as well.

1)Ever decreasing WvW population. Let’s be honest, there’s gonna be less and less “new blood” available to work with. The boom this coming Christmas is gonna be smaller than the last and so-on. Servers that don’t already have tier 1 numbers are NEVER EVER going to grow to numbers to challenge those servers even if those tier 1 servers are “full”.

2) Most of us players actually have no interest in true balance. Think about it. WvWvW players will continue to stack servers: We saw this when free transfers were opened to the bottom servers. 99% of transfers to ET and FC were just temporary; the vast majority if not all of the permanent, dedicated players; the ones that really make a difference; transferred instead to the tier 7+ servers that were available for free during that period. This tells us that for whatever reasons (Most likely wanting to avoid coverage gaps and guarantee more consistently good matchups) players when given the choice will choose to move to a stronger server rather than a weaker server(especially where strength is determined above all by numbers and hourly coverage), and this is observed almost 100% of the time. The moment a large amount of slots open up in one of the top-tier servers, the “new blood” of hard core WvW players, if there are any are simply going to head there. Suppose we had 1000 dedicated WvWvW players looking to move, and free transfers were opened once again, right now to ALL servers. What percentage do you honestly think will move to servers tier 4 and below? My guess is maybe 10% tops.

The reality is, where players often go into WvWvW craving things like large numbers of kills, massive battles, not having to work hard to deal with some coverage weakness, recognition and pride purposes(Both individually and on the team/commander/guild level), and all that.. 90% of that leads people instinctively straight to tier 3+.

There is a way they could balance it long term but it would take ending WvW as we know it.

Basically turn it into faction based. There are 3 factions in the game, there are also already 3 borderlands so the numbers work. Players log on, decide they want to do some FvF, see the different maps, see the amount of players on each map from each faction, and choose accordingly. If one map fills up, players can create an additional tier for that particular map.. rinse and repeat.

Basically it will almost always be balanced, because players will in fact be able to see how many are sided with each faction at any time on any given map.

You’d eliminate the ques, and more than likely eliminate skill lag, unless you knowingly jump into a map that’s maxed out. Then in that case it’s the players own fault lol.

New rewards system could be put in place, different structures and/or siege could be implemented to reflect each faction. As I said, WvW would end as we know it, though the actual game play would remain the same.

DeadlySynz.3471:

There is a way they could balance it long term but it would take ending WvW as we know it.

Basically turn it into faction based. There are 3 factions in the game, there are also already 3 borderlands so the numbers work. Players log on, decide they want to do some FvF, see the different maps, see the amount of players on each map from each faction, and choose accordingly. If one map fills up, players can create an additional tier for that particular map.. rinse and repeat.

Basically it will almost always be balanced, because players will in fact be able to see how many are sided with each faction at any time on any given map.

You’d eliminate the ques, and more than likely eliminate skill lag, unless you knowingly jump into a map that’s maxed out. Then in that case it’s the players own fault lol.

New rewards system could be put in place, different structures and/or siege could be implemented to reflect each faction. As I said, WvW would end as we know it, though the actual game play would remain the same.

I could see that working. I said its only the current system that’s impossible to balance, however a completely new system would be a different story. Faction vs Faction vs Faction sounds alright.

I also think a system overhaul would be great if it were accompanied alongside an whole array of improvements, namely an entire content expansion, and while that would naturally mean new PvE content it could include maybe a new WvWvW map, or changes to current maps. (Wouldn’t it be cool if Red/Green/Blue all had different border maps with different themes/environments?) , new gem store options (especially lots of new fashion items for customization purposes.)

[ ** The reason for my mentioning this, is overall I worry for the lifespan of Guild Wars 2. New content will be necessary at some point to attract new players(and consequently revenue to fund new changes). ArenaNet would do well to consider the the potential of the gem shop. If you look at a lot of free to play games, the one that didn’t completely suck, they could pull in a lot of $ for the company just by putting some stat-less fashion to overlap their gear into their cash shops, while simultaneously satisfying the players. (Many of which in the battle to be unique were willing to purchase such things. I feel that would cause focus ArenaNet’s marketing focus shift from the necessity of “one time customers” more to “continued customers”. Overall that guarantees better customer service, consistent revenue and consequently as a result new content since every bit of new content does mean there are wages to be paid. ]

This wouldn’t have even been an issue in the first place had they charged for server transfers right from the start like they said they were going to do after the beta ended. This is entirely Anet’s fault. They should have known that all the scrubs would server hop to the ones who were dominating, especially when it was free to do so. We wouldn’t have such stacked servers and unbalanced odds if they would have had to actually pay for it in the beginning. Yes some people still server hop now, but not in as great a number as they did when it was free. If 2 servers are facing one super server that’s able to dominate them both, we should have the option of a temporary ceasefire with the other server where we cant kill eachother and would have to team up against the mega zerg.

u cant balance somthing like wvw because 30% of the playerbase is fairweather and only show for wins and then leave if its hard

I’ve posted this before, but the problem is that MMO players are highly driven by incentives and at the moment there is absolutely no incentive to play on lower ranked (often times losing) servers. Players on the winning servers get to run around mowing down enemies left and right due to sheer numbers (providing plenty of loot and experience), can capture towers and keeps with little effort, and get tons of bonuses because of their ridiculously high scores. I think if something as simple as giving larger event rewards the lower your server rating is were to be implemented, the server populations would even out a lot more. For example, if players on ET got 200% more xp, wxp, karma, and gold from WvW events I would wager there would be a large group of players willing to transfer there. As players stack on to ET, their rating would rise and their event bonuses would drop, which would cause other players in high rating servers to search for other low rated worlds to transfer to. Assuming players continue transferring in search of higher event bonuses, the system would eventually result in all servers having roughly the same rating, which would be ideal.

^That is quite possibly the best solution for this. I doubt they will listen to that though.

Anet just needs to get heavy handed and take a direct approach. Force the top servers to unstack. Approach some guilds give them free transfers off to lower pop servers and a window of time to do so maybe some bonus ‘pay’ for moving. A lot like when a state forces you to sell your house for some impending construction. And if that’s not enough then they will just have to manually move people. And maybe combine a lower tier server or two together. The bottom line is wvw will never have the variety of balanced matches anet wants until all the servers have roughly balanced wvw populations. And the players will never do it themselves. Will a heavy handed approach step on some toes? Very likely, but it would be better for the long term health and vision of the game.

Nikkinella.8254:

This wouldn’t have even been an issue in the first place had they charged for server transfers right from the start like they said they were going to do after the beta ended. This is entirely Anet’s fault. They should have known that all the scrubs would server hop to the ones who were dominating, especially when it was free to do so. We wouldn’t have such stacked servers and unbalanced odds if they would have had to actually pay for it in the beginning. Yes some people still server hop now, but not in as great a number as they did when it was free. If 2 servers are facing one super server that’s able to dominate them both, we should have the option of a temporary ceasefire with the other server where we cant kill eachother and would have to team up against the mega zerg.

what about when anet added the additional servers a couple weeks later? those servers wouldve been dead servers for wvw if not for free xfers. KN for example literally fielding more than 1 player was amazing to see during its beginning, Those who started on KN know what tht was, KN was basically worse than what ET is now, they didn’t start getting more xfers til some recruitment threads by players like Fubuki.

How about a special draft-call daily for servers that start the day in match where they only have half the points of the leading server, e.g. If A has 50k score and B has 25k or less at 0 UTC, then the player on server B get a draft-call daily

Achievements of draft-call daily
- form a squad of 25+ (on EB, on each BL)
- Conquer the fortress on EB
- Conquer your third on EB (fortress, 4 towers) and keep it for 1h (-> boss chest, if you are 1h on this map while your team control it))
- Conquer SN and keep it for 1h (-> boss chest)
- Conquer HL Garrision
- Conquer HL third (Garrision, 2 spawn towers) and keep it for 1h (-> boss chest)
- Conquer BL third (Fortress + tower) and keep it for 1h (-> boss chest)
- …

boss-chest is like the account-daily chest you get per boss, i.e. a rare+ maybe also 1 siege
all the above require at least 1hour, i.e. more effort than a boss-kill in PvE.
Maybe that can help to motivate more PvE player to farm WvW-chests and enjoy matches more, where they are loosing 1:2.

Another important thing of course is to change transfer costs away from the unnatural world population that counts any inactive ever registered on a server, to WvW-population. They only (and quite good) published measure for active WvW population is the rating on https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/

How about transfer costs = (server-rating -1000) * 3, e.g.
Sor 2195 rating => 3585 gens
HoD 1088 rating => 264 gems
FC & ET free transfer
Any server above 1500 rating is marked as FULL for new accounts.

Maybe a one time special action to get WvW-veterans to low level servers:
if you transfer to a lower server you get 1/500 of the rating difference multiplied with your WEXP-rank in gems and for everyone transfered you get less
if you are the first transfer from SoR to ET and have rank 50 => 130gems

Outside of gaining experience points; some coin & rank/ability points what are the incentives for playing W v W v W? Sure you obtain rare weapons & armor at times, no more so than when playing P v E.
My server is currently dominant and we are not highly ranked, this has taken any fun out of the game as there is nothing to capture, no battles because the majority of the time as we have 90 – 100% control of the maps.
I agree with others this imbalance needs to be addressed somehow. Can this be done without evening out world populations? Do more world servers need to be merged for W v W v W, it would seem so.

Short answer no. So long as players get to pick their servers, and transfer as they desire, there will never be balance.

More complex answer, the question doesn’t even matter anymore.

1) WvW populations across the game is dropping.
2) With the random factor in match-making and tiers no longer truly existing, there is no particular reason to push hard to win. Because next week will be some roll of the magical Anet dice, and a new match-up. You can’t effect the outcome.
3) Hardcore WvW guilds do not care about PPT or playing to win. They play for the fights, and to play against the best other WvW guilds.
4) Over time every guild that takes WvW seriously migrates into higher and higher servers, looking for better fights.
5) By the end of this summer almost every major NA WvW guild will be on the three top ranked servers, trying to keep WvW alive and interesting. You’ll see a lot of guilds disbanding, and a lot merging into other guilds as a by-product of this.

Possibly there will be some sort of balance in the lower tiers, but it will be a balance of most empty WvW maps(already is you could argue).

Balance is completely possible, all you need is a more heavy handed approach to it.

Start changing the scoring system to reflect player activity rather than player INactivity for one. Start putting in autobalancing systems like bigger and bigger npc waves trying to reconquer “their” server’s structures, make it impossible to upgrade structures near the enemy spawn zones, reduce the maximum total amount of supply stockpiles a server can have on a map by making it increase sub-linearly with the amount of structures owned etc. etc. etc.
Easiest one, give combat stats buffs to outnumbered side. I keep reading it’s bad, well is the current situation good instead?

Wanna kill zergballs for good? Implement non-capped AoE abilities (either on characters or on siege) whose damage increases exponentially with the amount of enemies present in the AoE radius. There you go, bye bye zergs, forever.

There have been a million suggestions on how to go about these things, the ball is in Arenanet’s court. But please don’t go around suggesting players are at fault for sloppy game design choices.

Agree. The current system has failed to give us an even field. Personally, I believe they need to dissolve the idea of server based teams entirely. First we need a system that will not encourage/allow people to transfer to the side that won their last two matches in a row, and work from there. I don’t like the way it is, but I’m at a loss as to how to fix it. But I probably won’t be back until it is.

100 percent balance is not possible. Should not be possible in WvW. But ArenaNet should work to remove huge imbalances… like Vabbi and the other server down there where there is a huge gap between both of them and the next higher ranked server.

(Also can be tried to counter this ingame with different systems already suggested).

Balance shouldn’t be necessary. In a 3-way fight you are always outnumbered, which means you always have a target-rich environment.

The problem is that in GW2 the advantage is always to the greater numbers, and its difficult to feel like you are accomplishing anything unless you have more people on your side. The game design just favors numbers more than skill or tactics. Down state, no autoloot, not splitting WXP between attackers, AOE cap, no cc invulnerablility all favor the zerg.

Anet just implemented the 3-way fight without understanding what made it so successful in DAOC. Another game that was close to being great, but will never quite make it. Makes me a sad panda.

I think the 3-way fight is implemented very much like DAOC and don’t see what your laundry list has to do with that.

Of course, one might point out that DAOC and Warhammer had an AE cap (just like every game, pretty much). Also, they has super-easy in-combat ranged resurrection that makes picking up downed players look like hard mode…..