Guild Wars 2

The current mechanics of WvW have created schisms within the community , and in my opinion are ruining some servers.

Let’s begin with the core concept of WvW. You capture objectives, and as long as you hold those objectives at the end of a 15 minute countdown you’re rewarded with points. It’s my belief that this is a major flaw within the system, because it relies on proper WvW population to work correctly.

If you’re lacking a proper population you end with situations like this (See attachment). You have a server holding 95% of a map for hours without any kind of opposition, essentially offering free points to a group because the other server fails to show up, or just does not have enough people interested in WvW.

Which brings me to my main point; this massive separation between people who want to WvW and those who don’t care for WvW has caused much strive within servers. I’m starting to notice this happening on my own server, as we have recently had a number of individuals and guilds begin to leave.

If you’re faced with a low WvW population you have a few options, all of them are pretty ridiculous in terms of game mechanics and design:

• Transfer to another server that has proper WvW population and coverage. If you’re a competitive person this is a valid option, but the fact that it will cost you gold/money to transfer because of a flaw within the mechanics is an absolute joke.

• Try and recruit guilds from other servers. The fact that you almost need to create a a semi political campaign to get new players on your servers is ludicrous. It takes a lot of time, effort and people to successfully campaign for a server. Players are forced to find ways to fix the broken population mechanics.

• Try and get more people interested in WvW. This is pretty difficult. It’s hard enough to get players interested when there is an overall feeling that their efforts make no difference. You spend several hours upgrading and defending a keep only to log off and lose everything. Why bother with WvW when I can spend just as much time in PvE and feel like my time matters. You either like WvW or you don’t and the massive separation between the two is pretty evident on some servers.

So what it comes down to is the big elephant in the room. The one people have been screaming about since launch many months back; WvW population and the divide between those who care about WvW and those that don’t.

At times it feels like there is such a massive divide between WvW and the rest of the game that I sometimes wish WvW was only offered on a few select servers. It’s frustrating for competitive players to know that the PvE world is full of people, but none of them find any interest or reason for WvW. And with the new (awesome) content coming out every 2-3 weeks it’s even more difficult to get peoples interested.

So what ultimately happens is players are forced to make a decision, deal with the flaws of WvW mechanics, or move to another server were those flaws can hopefully be overcome, leaving many servers feeling a bit empty.

The ideas laid out in Devon’s Future of WvW news post (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/devon-carver-on-the-future-of-world-vs-world/) can’t come fast enough for servers like mine. We seem to be losing some of our main force because there’s not enough support in other time zones (or, not enough game support for the lower populated time zones) and it’s frustrating to do the same thing every night and lose rather than progress through the week. It’s taking its toll on morale, which, when you are in the position that we are, can mean a world of difference. Even as someone who approaches WvW with as fresh an attitude every night as I possibly can, sometimes the storm clouds do creep in.

Population divides need help. Either by in-game buffs using the outmanned system and working overall population into the equation, or by encouraging and rewarding guilds who transfer to servers with low participation at certain times of day. There’s no incentive to transfer down, and I think there should be. (Other than just costing less to transfer – that’s still just money out of your pocket, whether going to a full or medium pop server!)

Matchups could be run just a bit differently by taking more of a population factor into the mix. I know there’s gotta be charts somewhere that show server participation and numbers of people on maps and when their “prime time” is… Why not shift the matchups a bit more toward servers with similar “prime time” forces instead of just by rating? Then the matches can be fought a bit more evenly – pit the main forces against each other and then the “overnight” forces can enjoy a more guerrilla-style fight rather than mapping in, seeing 80 man zergs and leaving.

Just a couple of my thoughts on the subject.

Any more word on when we might be seeing some of those WvW changes, Devon / WvW team? The natives are restless.

grifflyman.8102:

So what ultimately happens is players are forced to make a decision, deal with the flaws of WvW mechanics, or move to another server were those flaws can hopefully be overcome, leaving many servers feeling a bit empty.

I agree its an issue, and the result is players migrating to the top servers leaving little to no WvW on the bottom servers. This is the way the game is going.

grifflyman.8102:

• Transfer to another server that has proper WvW population and coverage. If you’re a competitive person this is a valid option, but the fact that it will cost you gold/money to transfer because of a flaw within the mechanics is an absolute joke.

• Try and recruit guilds from other servers. The fact that you almost need to create a a semi political campaign to get new players on your servers is ludicrous. It takes a lot of time, effort and people to successfully campaign for a server. Players are forced to find ways to fix the broken population mechanics.

First point. There is a server for every level of WvW. “tier 1/2” (or top 6) tend to be much more WvW focused so if your looking for full time WvW these are the servers to go to. If you want part time fun try the next 9 “tiers 3/4/5” I mean look at tier 5 right now! That is a crazy close fight! If you think that it should be even across every server you should probably start recruiting people to play GW2, there just isn’t enough people to have full coverage. As for cost, they had FREE transfers for a very long time, I know you couldn’t have guess what the best bandwagon server to be on will be but it was there. Honestly I’m surprised they had them at all, also you should be thankful that you can transfer with gold. A lot of games make you pay money and won’t let you farm it in game. And if your desperate you can delete all your characters and transfer free.

Second point. Thats part of the fun for high tier WvW. I know for SoR/BG/JQ we always want fresh blood to fight. Its great when new guilds come from other servers to join in the battles. Keeps things from stagnating in a tier that has been basically the same 3 servers for a very long time. As from the guild point a view it must feel good to have the 3 top NA server fighting for you to come then welcome new friends to your community.

IMO WvW promotes teamwork and coordination on a very large scale. You have hundreds of people from tons of guilds in different time zones working together to build a strong WvW community.

Have you ever been on a server with a WvW population/coverage problem.

If the correct answer is to transfer to a server, doesn’t that point out the huge flaw in the way WvW is designed?

You’re arguments are only valid if you have the required population and coverage in WvW. Not every server has a guild to cover time slots, and it’s silly that it’s become a requirement to compete in WvW.

grifflyman.8102:

Have you ever been on a server with a WvW population/coverage problem.

If the correct answer is to transfer to a server, doesn’t that point out the huge flaw in the way WvW is designed?

You’re arguments are only valid if you have the required population and coverage in WvW. Not every server has a guild to cover time slots, and it’s silly that it’s become a requirement to compete in WvW.

I think a lot of people would disagree with you on that there is no competition outside of the top 3 wvw servers.

Look at MOS. There’s a lot of competition on the NA servers. I can’t speak for EU, because I’ve never played on one of their servers.

Part of the problem is that Anet themselves have not decided if WvW is a casual or hardcore game mode. They causes them to send mixed messages across a whole range of issues.

Not doing anything about population imbalances or off-peak capping is them with their hardcore caps on. Yet, at the same time they tie WvW gear acquisition to the PvE system, giving the PvE gear treadmill precedence. That’s them with the casual hat on (can’t let the PvE’ers QQ WvW is getting anything better).

It would be much better for the future of the game if Anet decide what they wanted WvW to be: hardcore or casual? Not just for the benefit of their players, but for their own bottom line. Other RvR games are coming up, and by all accounts they will be catering to the hardcore.

(If it isn’t obvious, I think clearing separating PvE and WvW, and making WvW less casual is the way to go).

Why lock players out of a feature of the game for not picking a certain server? It would be different if we were talking about open world PVP…

Thrumdi.9216:

It would be much better for the future of the game if Anet decide what they wanted WvW to be: hardcore or casual? Not just for the benefit of their players, but for their own bottom line. Other RvR games are coming up, and by all accounts they will be catering to the hardcore.

(If it isn’t obvious, I think clearing separating PvE and WvW, and making WvW less casual is the way to go).

I agree but I’m 100% sure anet don’t. However they’re now beginning to make design decisions which are at odds with the casual nature of the game they want eg. the final guard killer and guard defence abilities.

More and more guilds are leaving servers for ones that can actually compete, it’s going to leave a lot of servers feeling empty in WvW.