Guild Wars 2

I come from a world in the third lowest bracket (6/8) and we haven’t seen a truly balanced match in 5-7 weeks. Out of the last 5 weeks, 4 of them we have been vastly outmanned by at least one other world and 1 of them we have been the ones outmanning the bracket below us.

Right now my world has less than 15 people on Eternal Battlegrounds. This can’t be healthy for competition when a third of the worlds to have such large population gaps.

Are there any plans to balance server populations, encourage migration to smaller worlds and reinvigorate competition in the near dead lower brackets?

Thanks for the answers. I’ve seen half a dozen of the large and semi-large WvW guilds leave Sorrow’s Furnace because we don’t have any chance to win . I’m talking about [DRGN], [vVv], [ITM], and now [TG]. Really none of these guilds were a driving force for Sorrow’s Furnace, but they were all we had going for us. Now my own guild who frequents around 5 people in WvW together are planning on leaving.We’ve determined Sorrow’s Furnace is a dead world and what’s sad is it’s in the 3rd to lowest bracket which means there are at least 7 other worlds with equal or less activity than our world.

We’re not leaving because we want a world that wins. We’re leaving because we want a world that has a chance at winning and has more than 30 people in EB at peak.

You should consider the fact that currently WvW isn’t getting much attention due to all the new PvE content.

I myself who I’d consider a frequent WvWer haven’t stepped into WvW since the patch.

Things will probably normalize in a few weeks when everyone has gotten tired of grinding the Fractals Dungeon.

But honestly, without WvW being more rewarding, be it by dropping T6 Materials or something to put towards Ascended Gear, I don’t see it becoming the main endgame any longer.

This obviously addresses none of your issues. All I can really say is that the ranking system should ensure you always have an overall equal opponent, even if you’re out-manned at times.

If there has been one lesson WoW has taught every MMO developer to date then it’s that players go where the loot is.

It’s the lack of reward parity between PvE and PvP. If players knew they could gain equivalent rewards/shiny loot/GP from WvW as they could from dungeon grinding, then there would much more general interest in WvW.

It’s almost ironic that with the name Arena Net, there is very little PvP being promoted or developed. Right now PvP support has regressed. I hope to see this change, but as with most windows of opportunity I predict PS2 and other niche games putting the hurt on an already shrinking PvP community.

I reckon they should just get rid of the WvW ranking system altogether. Matchmaking should occur between servers that have the closest WvW average population over a 24 hour period. I wouldn’t mind getting stuck in a Dragonbrand/Darkhaven matchup for a while because everyone had a shot of winning the last time we played. It would also mean ET and HoD don’t have to suffer a long and punishing drop down the brackets since their score can’t correct itself faster than people can leave the server. Its really shameful.

If you have matchmaking by population rather than previous victories, there is no incentive to win by stacking brackets because theres no ladder to get to the top off and no ladder to kick away from anyone else. Its just your server and 2 other enemy servers with closely matched WvW attendance. If theres a mass exodus the brackets just change so that the lower pop server gets matched with other lower pop servers and there are less score blowouts. This can work with a server transfer lockout until the next WvW match to prevent players stacking their own bracket.

I like competition but the metagame has to be healthy and in WvW it ain’t that. There are very good reasons why people are always talking about population, coverage and baiting whatever transfers they can find (nobody asks questions about ability or character because these things aren’t as important as having numbers to begin with).

At a later date, they can maybe try to get a ranking system going but right now its just pointless.

Krakah, it pains me to have to agree with you. There has definetly been WvW regression. Last month I have averaged at least 2-3 hours a day in WvW but I played some pve at the weekend and well..The rewards are just so much better it is sickening.