Guild Wars 2

How about this idea:

When a server gets really far away from the rest in points, there is a chance every hour or so, that the lands and keeps that server controls will be attacked by dragons. The dragons would start damaging walls and doors and destroying siege machines, forcing that server to deploy a significant number of people to repel the new threat, opening new opportunities for the other two servers to attack the leading team.

There are two ways this could work. Either dragons that land in predefined spots, and start launching attacks at nearby keeps (owned by the leading team only), sort of like a super-trebuchet-fireball-attack, or the dragons could fly in circles around a keep damaging the walls greatly, then flying away. The 2 other servers could use this as an opening to strike.

We could even have the existing dragons make an appearance, the Claw, Shatterer, Tequatl. Or just some random dragons like those from the final story quest.

It is clear there is a need for some PvE mechanisms to balance WvW, since otherwise we get stuck in multi-week long scenarios, where one server dominates, and the weakest server looses all motivation. This would be a lore friendly solution. It would probably not make a huge impact, but would be a step towards a more balanced field of war.

The idea has been suggested before. Dev’s didn’t react to it, not that they react to very much around here.

I personally like the idea.

add more pve to a pvp situation? bad idea imo

@Scilly

More pve to create more pvp.

I’m sure most people in DH (dominating server this week) are not having fun controling all the map. Same thing for the 2 other weak server, it’s not always fun to be outnumbered and having to siege fully upgraded with siege weapon keep.

Borderland are empty outside the primetime (about 2 hours a day) so their no real pvp except spawn camping and Karma train(pve).

With a chaotic pve event like the dragon, people would come back in WvW. It’s like the friday after the reset, the borderland are full because people know there will be action. You will siege tower and defend and have good fight. Same thing for that kind of pve event, you know the ennemy will be in trouble and you will be able to launch attack and have some pvp.

I like the idea, not sure of the result, but it would create some dynamic!

Not a huge fan of PvE being added to balance PvP. They need to help the teams that are losing due to balance reasons, not hurt the teams for winning. And no, those two are not one in the same.

works hard scilly? there’s nothing hard about taking the entire map when the other two teams are offline. there’s nothing hard about sitting on a cushy double secondplace score for an entire week. there’s nothing hard about keeping that double the next place score when one or both of the other servers just give up.

and i say that knowing full well, that blackgate suffered from that easy mode halfway through our match last matchup. we took first place and then got an obscene lead because fortaspen essentially gave up(as a whole, there were still some dedicated guys trying to make a comeback the rest of the match). that’s not fun, it’s not challenging, and it just ruins what wvwvw should be.

I am yet to see a winning server that actually “worked hard” to be there. It’s either automatic win though nightcapping or through numbers. You can not achieve a 100k point difference though “hard work”. The other servers log because they have no ways to beat you, that’s why you win. I have experienced both sides of the spectrum, one week we were dominating, another week we were crushed. In no way were we working hard when we dominated, we just took all 4 maps with 10 people at 2am. No opposition.

In this case adding more PvE content to balance PvP, would generate MORE PvP. Why? Because instead of logging off after 2 minutes, people from the loosing servers would invest more time trying to win, knowing the unbeatable 1st server might get hit by a natural disaster. Right now my server has no queue in EB at prime time. Why? Because people see the ridiculous point advantage the winning server gets at night, and quit.

Dragons destroying keep defences and walls would allow small teams to take keeps at night, even though the enemy server has overwhelming forces at this late hour. IT would help, a bit, to even the score and more importantly give hope and new motivation to keep fighting.

The team that is winning not only takes all keeps at night, but can safely upgrade and fortify them to a point where it would be silly to even attempt to take them back in the morning, Dragons could solve this issue. And no, building 10 golems as a loosing team is not a solution to taking a fortified keep we won’t be able to hold for more than a few hours.

Right not, there is no hope. I still log in and play, but I see many are not. And we are not even at the end of the first week!

I smell a former Aion player! Lol all kidding aside though, I don’t know if you did play Aion or not but that’s basically what they did. They had a 2 faction game with the Balaur being the 3rd NPC faction designed to balance things out in exactly that way. Not sure it worked all that well in Aion, though.

It’s an interesting idea and I’m kind of on the fence about it for this game. On the one hand, the 3 worlds battling at once is supposed to be the balancing mechanic, assuming the other two worlds team up. But I do think having dragons attack only when one server severely outnumbers the others in current players on the map could be interesting.

So instead of one server taking over the entire map while the others are asleep (which let’s face it, is not fun for any of us regardless of what side we’re on), the Dragons could attack the dominating server during those hours until one of the other servers had enough people logged in to counter them. This would slow down “night cappers” so that the losing teams wouldn’t have such a huge defecit when they wake up and would provide an interesting challenge to the night team so they’re actually fighting something.

Nevron.9413:

Not a huge fan of PvE being added to balance PvP. They need to help the teams that are losing due to balance reasons, not hurt the teams for winning. And no, those two are not one in the same.

I think the server ranking system does a decent job of pairing up servers with a close enough skill level, but the bigger issue is when people can log in and play. You can’t really “fix” that. People are going to log in whenever is convenient for them and in a game mode that is active for 24 hours a day that issue is not going away. Instead they need to introduce a way to minimize the damage done if one server doesn’t have enough nighttime players. If anyone has more PvP oriented suggestions for how to do that I’m sure we’d all love to hear them. But right now the OP’s suggestion is not bad. It’s a start at least to getting a convo going.

Leiloni.7951:

I think the server ranking system does a decent job of pairing up servers with a close enough skill level, but the bigger issue is when people can log in and play..

Depend of the tier. The 2 last tier just can’t be solved by the current ranking system. The last tier always have a server that totaly dominate them, and the same thing for the tier ahead. The step between some server is just too huge.

When Borliss Pass or Fergusson get thrown in the last tier, they are just too strong for them. Sadly, each week, one of them is thrown there.

That’s why I like the idea of the dragon. Ranking can’t solve some issue, but some chaotic PVE event like that might at least make it less painful. Being able to hold a keep or a bay from time to time give people hope and raise the moral!

Tripp.9862:

works hard scilly? there’s nothing hard about taking the entire map when the other two teams are offline. there’s nothing hard about sitting on a cushy double secondplace score for an entire week. there’s nothing hard about keeping that double the next place score when one or both of the other servers just give up.

and i say that knowing full well, that blackgate suffered from that easy mode halfway through our match last matchup. we took first place and then got an obscene lead because fortaspen essentially gave up(as a whole, there were still some dedicated guys trying to make a comeback the rest of the match). that’s not fun, it’s not challenging, and it just ruins what wvwvw should be.

Me also. I was on dragonbrand, the third server in that match up. At one point they were so bored they camped our mystwrought vault, and Parts of OS

As I said the last time this idea was brought up: I want less PvE in my WvW, not more.

Civilization building games use civilian or political unrest to destabilize or thwart dominance. This is really about Eternal Battlegrounds. If a terrorized civilian population around towers revolted or caused mayhem that caused damage costing resources (time, coin, players) to repair, then this feedback loop would add pressure on dominant forces. Guilds could buy abilities in each tree that supported uprisings.

politics – gain one soothsayer per level to turn the people against the Lording faction
economy – finance an underground economy to supply rebel forces
art of war – increased rebel training per level
architecture – increase rebel siege units per level