Guild Wars 2

HOW TO FIX WORLD VERSUS WORLD POPULATION WITHOUT LOCKING SERVERS
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Introduction:

In this post I am going to present a few possible ways to fix population coverage issues and then beneath them explain how this would help with WvW’s current population/weekly score imbalances. First, I will outline the threads main points and then below I will expand on each of them. Additionally, I will explain why Arenanet’s current attempt to fix population coverage issues is bad and won’t help the WvW community. Please post your thoughts below, my hope is that this thread will have a lot of interaction from other people who enjoy the WvW game-mode just as much as I do (and hopefully someone at Arenanet sees this thread as well).

Briefly on my WvW experience:

I’ve been a commander for almost 3 years, I have 6,500 hours played in Guild Wars 2 and I have spent the majority of my time in tier 1 and tier 2 servers on North America. I also participated in the Adopt-A-Dev program that Arenanet set up by submitting a letter to the program and being chosen for the program. I tried to come up with solutions that do not negatively effect anyone that plays WvW regardless of how they play the game mode. The solutions below should either benefit a particular play style or not negatively effect a play style at all. When I say “play style” I am referring to the PPT’er, the GvG’er, the roamer, the scout, the havoc team, the PPK’er if they bring it back, and anyone else I am missing.

Part I: Possible Solutions to the Population Issue.

Before I explain the issues, I would like to say that I do think the population issue is multi-faceted and there isn’t one-thing that is going to fix it. My ideal scenario would be to see all three of possible solutions outlined below implemented together because they all address different parts of the population issue.

Outline:

1. Fix the rate of decay of PPT/weekly score during low-coverage time zones.

2. Create more player-based incentives for players who are active during low-coverage time zones to still login and fight for their world by giving higher-than-normal rewards and/or unique rewards.

3. Increase the PPT value of upgraded structures based on each completed upgrade-tier by +5 points so that when a server transitions from a high-coverage time zone to a low-coverage time zone there is more incentive to defend it and more points will accumulate before everything is papered.

Possible Fixes Explained:

1. Fix the rate of decay of PPT/weekly score.

The separation of score values and their unevenness after a full week is the glaring issue as far as having close match-ups in every tier is concerned. The main idea here is to reduce the sudden drop in PPT during low-coverage time zones daily so that the end result after a week is a closer, more competitive score. In order to fix this problem we need to increase the durability of structures and siege during those times when a server is “outnumbered” and clearly in a low-coverage time zone. For example, “when outnumbered a server gains +33% health and armor to structures and siege.” This would allow players to defend what they owned when they were strongest more easily while they are weakest. It also helps out the outnumbered server because each structure will take longer to be capped by enemy servers when there is an overwhelming disadvantage. Sure, a server that is massively out-gunned is still going to lose the majority of their stuff but the whole idea is to slow the bleeding not stop it and this also allows for strategies like back capping to be slightly more effective and increases the value of small groups during weak coverage areas. Since things will take longer to cap and are more easily defended, an “outnumbered” server could manage themselves more effectively when they are lacking players. Not to mention, this incentivizes people who play during high-coverage time zones to tick siege for their allies who play when the odds aren’t in their favor during low-coverage time zones.

Why would this work? It would work because it isn’t a player-buff and so it wouldn’t disrupt balance. Additionally, for servers that are already evenly matched you wouldn’t see much change because this buff would hardly come into effect but for servers with noticeable coverage gaps you would see less of a negative impact during those coverage gaps.

2. Create more player-based incentives when under the influence of the “outnumbered” buff.

Here’s what the outnumbered buff currently does:

+33% Experience
+20% Magic find
+25% World Experience
Take no armor damage on death

I would argue that this isn’t enough to encourage people to fight for their server when the odds aren’t in their favor. If people have more reasons to stay logged in when they are facing greater odds then they will continue to participate in low-coverage time zones which will increase their score and ability to recover. Also, if more people are motivated to play in “outnumbered” situations then over time you will see slight increases in total numbers during low-coverage time zones.

How can this be achieved? Give players who are playing on any map where the “outnumbered” buff is active enough tools to both defend versus the enemy and also receive higher-than-normal rewards for participating in a dire situation. Obviously we don’t want to give player stat-increases because that creates imbalances in small skirmishes but we can give players who are under the effects of the “outnumbered” buff non-player buffs that will keep them on the map. Finally, I think it would be beneficial to show the “outnumbered” buff in the WvW panel so that people who aren’t currently on map can take advantage of the buff and its increased rewards (if greater “outnumbered” buff rewards were implemented).

There is a lot of possibilities here for Arenanet and the WvW community to come up with but I do think adding more rewards to the “outnumbered” buff would be 1 of many necessary steps to fixing the population issue.

Here’s a few example ideas:

A. Allow players to carry double their regular supply capacity when under the effects of the “outnumbered” buff.

Explanation- This would help small groups build siege more easily when they have less people to shuffle back and forth from a supply depot allowing them to cut down on the time it takes to build siege and defend against large groups during low-coverage time zones.

B. +33% Gold Find

Explanation- When outnumbered, the amount of total kills and captures of structures is going to less anyways, so there should be things in place to give them a little extra for any successful endeavors they have while playing.

C. +33% Health and armor to structures and siege (previously described in Section 1)

Explanation- While this is mentioned above because it will help slow PPT/weekly score decay, I feel that this should be included as part of the “outnumbered” buff. This gives small groups a fighting chance at each structure they attempt to defend and increases the length of time that they will be able to effectively utilize siege without making structures or siege overpowered. It also allows small groups to have additional time to react to attacks and prepare for the next defense when a structure is lost.

3. Increase the PPT value of upgraded structures based on each completed upgrade-tier by +5 points.

The reason I mention this is because while structures are more durable and there is a few quality of life benefits to having upgraded structures, you don’t actually get any increased value PPT/score-wise. My idea here basically is, when all of the Personnel and Structural upgrades are finished for a tier then you gain +5 points to that structure.

This would not only align well with Arenanet’s goals in HoT where upgrading is automated and follows a tiered system but also it would incentivize players to defend structures that are upgraded and would further motivate and justify saving a tier 3 tower over a tier 1 tower for example. But the main reason this would be a nice feature is because as servers transition between high and low coverage time zones their structures that are fully upgraded will have a higher tick even if it goes away over-time. Finally, enemy servers will have a greater sense of urgency to attack and seize upgraded towers because resetting them would be even more important.

These 3 solutions would help entice WvW players to play during times where they are at a disadvantage because they would have things in place to help them maintain relevancy/an impact on a map even at low numbers. Along with that, they would be recognized for their commitment to playing under less than ideal circumstances by higher-than normal rewards.

Part II: Why Arenanet locking servers and trying an algorithm that requires long-term analysis will only hurt the WvW game-mode and its communities.

1. Locking servers prevents people from playing together and doesn’t allow people who want to encourage their friends/family to buy the game to play on the same server in WvW. Additionally, it doesn’t allow two people who already own the game but are on different servers to transfer to the same server if they become friends by first meeting in PvE or PvP.

2. The population imbalance won’t be fixed fast enough. My solutions that were previously listed are dynamic and can change quickly based on moment to moment changes in population on any map, at any time (based on how the “outnumbered” buff mechanic operates). While an algorithm can analyze patterns and find common trends it is not going to be able to accurately equate for the variable known as “real-life.” A very active player might take a hiatus and not play for months. Another player may return to the game but only be active for one week. A guild might transfer servers. If our current “band-aid” is to sit here and wait and analyze numbers and patterns for a long period of time then we won’t ever be able to be ahead of the issue. We will always be approaching population issues in a reactive manner rather than a proactive manner. It’s extremely important that we find solutions to the population issue that are proactive, dynamic, and don’t disrupt balance.

3. Locking servers is just wrong for certain North American servers right now like Fort Aspenwood (FA) and Sea of Sorrows (SoS). Yaks Bend is destroying them every day, and every week, yet Fort Aspenwood is at “full” status meaning the server cannot recruit and cannot compete with a Yaks Bend server that ticks between +300-500 PPT and out scores FA and SoS by 2-2.5x their score each week.

4. Server locking really hurts people who play during the European (EU), Oceanic (OCX), and Southeast Asian (SEA) time zones on North American servers. These groups of players are much smaller in population across all the servers. There might be 2-3 servers that are going to attractive to them where they can play with people who actually get online when they do and live in the region of the world they do which is important because there can be a language barrier between people of these timezones and North American players. If the servers are locked then people who might want to join an OCX community won’t be able to and may be discouraged from playing WvW or the game in general (if they don’t enjoy PvE or PvP).

5. We have no idea how long the “full” status and locked servers are going to last. People who might hold out hope that the server they want to join will somehow be available eventually might be waiting for many months or longer because Arenanet’s current solution doesn’t at a glance appear to provide any avenue to join servers which are tagged as “full.” This is an even bigger issue on the European servers where we have currently 8 “full” servers.

Final Thoughts:

There has been a lot of concern about how to fix the population/coverage issue as well as the current server lockout. The current attempt by Arenanet to fix this issue won’t work because it doesn’t go far enough, it has too many negative effects, it isn’t dynamic enough, it doesn’t consider the EU, OCX, and SEA communities on NA servers properly, and it’s reactive rather than proactive. We need to come up with a better solution that doesn’t revolve around locking people out of servers because that just divides communities and keeps people from buying the game and trying out WvW with their friends/family, amongst other things. Activity and world-rating are not the only two metrics that need to be considered to balance WvW, we have to be equally aware of intangible things that go beyond numbers, and pattern analysis. Just like Arenanet changed dailies so that people are incentivized to login every day Arenanet should incentivize players to play when “outnumbered” and be rewarded for toughing it out when the odds aren’t in their favor. My 3-part solution is pretty simple and if a tier is fairly balanced well then servers in that tier won’t receive the buff as often because they won’t need to and it won’t hurt those tiers, and if a tier has significant gaps then the new changes I am proposing will help compensate for the lack of players when it needs to in order to minimize population discrepancies in different time zones and on any tier. It would also be nice to also have some kind of symbol in the WvW panel that identifies what maps are outnumbered so players in PvE and PvP are incentivized to go there when they see that their server needs help as well as to take advantage of the extra benefits that could be implemented with a more robust “outnumbered” buff. Just for clarity, this post wasn’t designed to attack Arenanet either, I appreciate all of the things we have been given and all the work that’s being done on HoT and the base-game. I only attached Arenanet to the server lockout because it is their attempt at a fix to the issue. Please post your thoughts below! I am hoping for an interactive thread here

EDIT: 08/09/2015 I didn’t mention this when I originally posted but PPK should be re-introduced permanently into the WvW game mode.

This is Finality from GoF, been in tier 1 for almost 3 years. Lots of experience commanding and borderland control. There are some great suggestions here, 100% agree with the thoughts put forth.

It seems that this new population balance scheme Anet is implementing is only going to further drive populations off the lower tier servers into higher tiers since there will be more openings for transfers.

Anyone that wants to transfer to lower tier servers can already do so fairly easily, these changes do nothing for them.

While this might provide some balance for higher tiers servers, it is going to leave the lower tiers even more empty than they are now. Although, I guess you could consider 0v0v0 fights balanced.

I had an idea about how to incentivize people to defend and not just karma train.

Make the initial take of a tower, keep, camp worth 0 for the first tick. Then for subsequent ticks have it worth some minimum value, say 1 point for a camp, 3 points for a tower, 5 points for a keep, etc. So you have to hold for at least one full tick to start getting anything added to your score.

The way to increase your tick is to complete upgrades, a fully upgraded site will begin ticking at full value.

If you want your full PPT, then you have to upgrade and defend.

Karma training might rob the other side of PPT but it isn’t going to do much of anything for your PPT either.

Also, I think Anet needs to permanently implement PPK. However, PPK should only apply to kills made on players that DO NOT have the outnumbered buff.

Conceivably, you could have one team with a massive karma train running rampant on its outnumbered opponent, but due to the PPT changes I proposed above, a few outnumbered roamers could be out there picking off people and back-capping thus greatly reducing the bleed of points in the off hours.

MomentofWeakness.1246:

2. Create more player-based incentives for players who are active during low-coverage time zones to still login and fight for their world by giving higher-than-normal rewards and/or unique rewards.

I havent read everything, but that is a horrible idea. Its the worst kind of game design. Loot or unique rewards should never be given to “special” players – its not the average players fault that normal people play during normal hours. There is enough problems with the PvE/WvW split in terms of loot, we dont need another split inside WvW.

Nightcapping/coverage is an issue purely revolving around static and inflexible PPT, not players.

Another thought. If a zerg takes an objective of an outmanned team, they should receive no karma or experience. If there is no outmanned, then the reward should scale up based on the PPT value of the objective based on my above proposed changes. So you receive very little karma and experience for taking a completely un-upgraded objective and full reward for a capping a completely upgraded objective.

Those are good ideas in an environment where there is already a WvW population playing.

The prob here is that this does not represent everyone.

There are several servers in EU (and prob in NA as well) that will gain nothing from your ideas simply because they have no more players to play the gamemode.

We’ve been asking for population balances:
-To either help move players from full servers (with queues) towards empty ones. (and no Medium transfer prices will not help anything even over time.)
-Or to merge us with upper tiers, save server space and make the experience better.

But no. Just a crappy renaming system that dubbed all the empty servers as “medium” so they’re sure they don’t have to face the fact that they have a real problem with population and still maintain relatively expensive prices to transfer even towards end tiers.

The gamemode needs the redesign it should have had after year 1 or it needs to be dropped officially and without the “wow we’re totally gonna focus on it at some point” lies.

Just no more lies and hypocrisy from Anet… That is just pathetic

Removing score would be good start. You can’t keep score every side doesn’t have same amount players online whole time.

Junkpile.7439:

Removing score would be good start. You can’t keep score every side doesn’t have same amount players online whole time.

Yes, yes you can. The score is the only declaration of a win state for starters. Winners do not cry about fairness.

Dawdler.8521:

MomentofWeakness.1246:

2. Create more player-based incentives for players who are active during low-coverage time zones to still login and fight for their world by giving higher-than-normal rewards and/or unique rewards.

I havent read everything, but that is a horrible idea. Its the worst kind of game design. Loot or unique rewards should never be given to “special” players – its not the average players fault that normal people play during normal hours. There is enough problems with the PvE/WvW split in terms of loot, we dont need another split inside WvW.

Nightcapping/coverage is an issue purely revolving around static and inflexible PPT, not players.

I suggest you read the whole thing… All I said was to give the outnumbered buff a few more player-based incentives they don’t have to be out of this world things… like I suggest if you actually keep reading. I gave 3 examples (although this was only 1 part of my 3 part solution to the issue):

A. Allow players to carry double their regular supply capacity when under the effects of the “outnumbered” buff.

Explanation- This would help small groups build siege more easily when they have less people to shuffle back and forth from a supply depot allowing them to cut down on the time it takes to build siege and defend against large groups during low-coverage time zones.

B. +33% Gold Find

Explanation- When outnumbered, the amount of total kills and captures of structures is going to less anyways, so there should be things in place to give them a little extra for any successful endeavors they have while playing.

C. +33% Health and armor to structures and siege (previously described in Section 1)

Explanation- While this is mentioned above because it will help slow PPT/weekly score decay, I feel that this should be included as part of the “outnumbered” buff. This gives small groups a fighting chance at each structure they attempt to defend and increases the length of time that they will be able to effectively utilize siege without making structures or siege overpowered. It also allows small groups to have additional time to react to attacks and prepare for the next defense when a structure is lost.

Anyone on any server can receive the “outnumbered” buff it just depends on what is happening on that map. It’s not just limited to low-coverage time zones. Sometimes in NA prime you will have 1 map that is like that as well. I am suggesting something that is transparent and equal across tiers and time zones where a server may lack players on a map because it is adaptive and can be applied immediately based on large population discrepancies on a map. It applies to everyone equally because it’s already a component to every server and every tier, I am just adding to its design with my suggestions.

Just as a side.. there’s no point of commenting at all if you’re going to take a snippet of my post and ignore the rest of it…please give it a thorough read.

Chobits.2430:

Another thought. If a zerg takes an objective of an outmanned team, they should receive no karma or experience. If there is no outmanned, then the reward should scale up based on the PPT value of the objective based on my above proposed changes. So you receive very little karma and experience for taking a completely un-upgraded objective and full reward for a capping a completely upgraded objective.

the population scheme that Arenanet is implementing is “supposed-to” force people to go to lower tier servers or non-full status/less populated ones. Im not sure why you think the opposite based on your first post.

Your idea about upgrades having PPT value is in my post but owning the structure in the first place should give a base value PPT amount like it currently does.

I 100% agree with you about implementing PPK permanently. Players should be equally rewarded for winning fights and being fights-focused just as they are for being map/structurally-focused.

I don’t like your suggestion about gaining nothing if you take structures when the other server is outmanned. People should be rewarded regardless of when they log in, it’s no ones fault that their server has a population advantage when they decide to play.

DiscoJacen.1590:

Those are good ideas in an environment where there is already a WvW population playing.

The prob here is that this does not represent everyone.

There are several servers in EU (and prob in NA as well) that will gain nothing from your ideas simply because they have no more players to play the gamemode.

We’ve been asking for population balances:
-To either help move players from full servers (with queues) towards empty ones. (and no Medium transfer prices will not help anything even over time.)
-Or to merge us with upper tiers, save server space and make the experience better.

But no. Just a crappy renaming system that dubbed all the empty servers as “medium” so they’re sure they don’t have to face the fact that they have a real problem with population and still maintain relatively expensive prices to transfer even towards end tiers.

The gamemode needs the redesign it should have had after year 1 or it needs to be dropped officially and without the “wow we’re totally gonna focus on it at some point” lies.

Just no more lies and hypocrisy from Anet… That is just pathetic

I don’t know what server you play on but based on this weeks EU matchups my ideas would ideally be helping the tier 9 matchup: Underworld and Fissure of Woe who are fighting vs. Whiteside Ridge as well as helping the tier 6 matchup: Arborstone and Miller’s Sound against Aurora Glade and finally the tier 1 matchup: where Desolation and Gandara are struggling vs. Seafarer’s Rest most significantly. Those three matchups have a single server dominating the other two in an extreme way score-wise. My suggestions would hopefully help mitigate some of that gap in score for three matchups. Also, it would hopefully incentivize the people who do play on the weaker servers in those match-ups to play and feel like they have a fighting chance. Although just because I mention those three matchups doesn’t mean that my suggestion wouldn’t help servers with relatively closer scores as well, because it would, but you would see the “outnumbered” buff apply less often in those cases because there is going to be less downtime (most likely) where one server has far greater coverage than the other two when scores between 3 servers in a tier are close to each other and the match up is competitive.

On NA my ideas would most benefit tier 2, tier 7, and tier 8, but as I said above my ideas would help every server but you don’t see “outnumbered” as often in close matches.

MomentofWeakness.1246:

3. Increase the PPT value of upgraded structures based on each completed upgrade-tier by +5 points.

The reason I mention this is because while structures are more durable and there is a few quality of life benefits to having upgraded structures, you don’t actually get any increased value PPT/score-wise. My idea here basically is, when all of the Personnel and Structural upgrades are finished for a tier then you gain +5 points to that structure.

This would not only align well with Arenanet’s goals in HoT where upgrading is automated and follows a tiered system but also it would incentivize players to defend structures that are upgraded and would further motivate and justify saving a tier 3 tower over a tier 1 tower for example. But the main reason this would be a nice feature is because as servers transition between high and low coverage time zones their structures that are fully upgraded will have a higher tick even if it goes away over-time. Finally, enemy servers will have a greater sense of urgency to attack and seize upgraded towers because resetting them would be even more important.

Hi

Some of these are good ideas, but I disagree with your idea #3.

Low pop servers will simply never have / keep upgraded structures anywhere near as much as high pop. They simply do not have enough people to spread out and defend in the 1st place, whereas a high pop offense does have the people to take structures. Thus by default it will be the high pop gaining not the low pop.

With the automatic upgrades this is double bad for low pop because high pop takes multiple locations while low pop manages to defend a single one (most likely their gari).

This change will work out directly in advantage of high pop, not the low pop servers.

There are a few things I have been thinking about, and another good advantage that can be done is make a tiered “outnumbered” buff, and an additional home defender buff, both of which would stack. Thus an outnumbered server could not fully utilize the system to take offensive advantage on enemy maps, but at least have a much easier time defending. The “Home defender” buff would kick in on home BL only, and only when at least somewhat outnumbered.

Double or even triple the default time it takes for a “circle” to cap the objective, then reduce that time based on the “on map” population. Lets say for the sake of argument, that default map cap is 60-70 people per side, per map (this actual value may be different but I will use it for the sake of conversation here).

So that for example, if your side is outnumbered by 30%, give +1 PPT per stomp, increase supply carrying capacity by 1 point, and circle cap time would be reduced by 10%, it would be a very light buff.

Side is outnumbered by 50%: Increase supply carry cap by +2 or +3, +2PPT per stomp, reduce circle cap time further, start kicking in the cumulative magic find bonuses, no repair bills, increase upgrade speed by 10%, etc.

Side is outnumbered by 70%: Increase supp carry by +5, +3PPT per stomp, reduce circle cap time further, somewhat where it is today, add magic find, no repair bills etc., increase upgrade speed.

Home Defenders buff:
Since Guard Stacks are going away in HoT, let them or the equivalent buff, kick in during defense events on Home BL. As most of you know, guard stacks help, but we still manage just fine to take groups that have them even though we dont have any. So this while being a combat boost would not unbalance the game, since we are proving that today and have been doing so for relatively long time. Also, apply the damage done from it to siege. The last option would kick in exclusively during defense events and exclusively on Home BL thus can not be abused for offense.

Do not let empty, undefended structures on enemy BLs continue to stand and tick. They should automatically be taken back to the original side if left undefended and unattended. There are many ways to accomplish this, once is an NPC force (yes I know, pve but….) as most of you know Siegerazer can already take a tower by himself if you pop the gates open and kill some guards for him. Just use alike NPCs + 2-3 vet guards that will dispatch automatically to a structure after X amount of time to retake it. These NPCs can also give boons to outnumbered defenders accompanying them ETC and can be a good site for small / mid scale fights to take place as they can be intercepted by active offense on the map.

Anet goal is to drove the population to the lesser populated server and then given enough time, those server will become populated enough to create a variety of matchups. That is long term solution, to create variety of matchups than the current fixed servers on each tiers due to population difference.

Your suggestions are based on PPT and not about population balancing. The main concern has always been population balancing and this has been discussed for months and even years. Your suggestions while on the surface, on the graph, on the PPT, it seems promising but the reality is that your suggestion is trying to sweep the population issue under the rug.

Tongku.5326:

MomentofWeakness.1246:

3. Increase the PPT value of upgraded structures based on each completed upgrade-tier by +5 points.

The reason I mention this is because while structures are more durable and there is a few quality of life benefits to having upgraded structures, you don’t actually get any increased value PPT/score-wise. My idea here basically is, when all of the Personnel and Structural upgrades are finished for a tier then you gain +5 points to that structure.

This would not only align well with Arenanet’s goals in HoT where upgrading is automated and follows a tiered system but also it would incentivize players to defend structures that are upgraded and would further motivate and justify saving a tier 3 tower over a tier 1 tower for example. But the main reason this would be a nice feature is because as servers transition between high and low coverage time zones their structures that are fully upgraded will have a higher tick even if it goes away over-time. Finally, enemy servers will have a greater sense of urgency to attack and seize upgraded towers because resetting them would be even more important.

Hi

Some of these are good ideas, but I disagree with your idea #3.

[Cut out your points so I could reply, but I did read your entire post @ Tongku.5326]

I can appreciate your perspective and I can see how my point #3 would mostly be useful in matchups that are currently more balanced amongst all time zones. As far as your suggestions I liked most of what you said except the idea of empty structures that aren’t being attended not being able to stand/tick. I have never been a fan of forcing people to sentry or making someone babysit a structure because it takes their ability to participate out of the game mode. Plus on low population servers this would be an absolute disaster because you would have almost no one in your groups because they would all be occupying structures. Sentry’ing unless voluntary is really not good for the game-mode. It would be ideal to give commanders more tools to respond to attacks and monitor upgrades/supply/etc. so that everyone can play instead of having to sit in TeamSpeak/Mumble and babysit a garrison or other structure.

SkyShroud.2865:

Anet goal is to drove the population to the lesser populated server and then given enough time, those server will become populated enough to create a variety of matchups. That is long term solution, to create variety of matchups than the current fixed servers on each tiers due to population difference.

Your suggestions are based on PPT and not about population balancing. The main concern has always been population balancing and this has been discussed for months and even years. Your suggestions while on the surface, on the graph, on the PPT, it seems promising but the reality is that your suggestion is trying to sweep the population issue under the rug.

Yes you’re right, my suggestions are related to balancing the PPT. I don’t think its a good idea to try to “force” people to go to a certain server because it breaks up communities, discourages new people from buying the game who might want to play with people they know on a “full” server, hurts certain timezones like EU, OCX, and SEA, where the overall populations are much smaller and are segmented to fewer servers because people from those time-zones want to play with other people who live where they live, speak their language, share their culture and most of all, play when they play. My suggestion may not completely “balance” population and make every server have an equivalent amount of players on it, but what it does do is allow every server to be competitive week in and week out in PPT/weekly score and allows every server to have a fighting chance at winning each week. I don’t think people would mind being “out-gunned” as much if they felt like they could still win the week and knew that even when they are outnumbered that there are tools in place to help them defend their territories successfully as well as be rewarded for taking on the challenging task of fighting against great odds. So while I cannot dispute your point because it is valid I would say that you aren’t trying to look at the issue from my angle. I care more about keeping guilds and communities intact and allowing people of different time zones to be able to play together. I’m suggesting a solution that allows for every server to stay competitive in the weekly score regardless of population gap. Trying to force populations to be equivalent amongst all servers is a worthless goal anyways because this games population is volatile and changes daily. It would be better to search for solutions that are adaptive, will benefit everyone equally, and will work whether a server has a large population or a small population.

Nope, like I said, your suggestions is only about the PPT and not the actual situation. It doesn’t help with what is happening on the ground but rather just trying to make them feel better in a outman situation but it doesn’t change the fact that they are outman. Your suggestion is more towards keeping the status quo but anet is taking that big step to break that status quo and bring back what WvW meant to be, a variety of wars between different servers, not just between 3 same servers weeks after weeks.

Btw, to be precise, you are thinking about the top few server communities and ignoring the many other servers communities. However, to begin with, being at the top few servers, one should be prepared that they will have difficulties getting players in.

SkyShroud.2865:

Nope, like I said, your suggestions is only about the PPT and not the actual situation. It doesn’t help with what is happening on the ground but rather just trying to make them feel better in a outman situation but it doesn’t change the fact that they are outman. Your suggestion is more towards keeping the status quo but anet is taking that big step to break that status quo and bring back what WvW meant to be, a variety of wars between different servers, not just between 3 same servers weeks after weeks.

Btw, to be precise, you are thinking about the top few server communities and ignoring the many other servers communities. However, to begin with, being at the top few servers, one should be prepared that they will have difficulties getting players in.

How does giving players who are outnumbered +33% health and armor to structures and siege, double supply carry, and +33% gold find (just to name a few possible ideas) not help them on the ground level? By making both siege and structures harder to capture when a server is “outnumbered” a server can hold onto more of their territory when they are in a low-coverage time zone. That directly helps the “ground-level” as you suggest. It also makes back-capping more important and more effective as a last resort strategy when things are really rough because the structures you take will be harder to capture by the enemy while their structures and siege will be at the default health/armor values. I’m not just thinking about top communities, my posts consider all servers, their communities and all time zones.

You are indeed thinking about the top few servers when you come out with these suggestions. Giving them buffs and so on are not equivalent in having more people to play with and to work with, that is just making them feels better and less sorry about their own state. It also not any more fun than it is.

SkyShroud.2865:

You are indeed thinking about the top few servers when you come out with these suggestions. Giving them buffs and so on are not equivalent in having more people to play with and to work with, that is just making them feels better and less sorry about their own state. It also not any more fun than it is.

No I’m not lol these buffs would help out servers with less population and servers with population gaps in certain time zones…Contrary to what you might think, some people actually like to defend stuff in WvW. It’s not my favorite thing to do personally, but I know people who enjoy it. It doesn’t “make them feel better” as you suggest, this allows their server to stay competitive and win weekly matches even if there is a difference in population. It’s like you didn’t even read the post lol, servers who are “outnumbered” receive the buff on maps where it applies to them, that is going to happen MORE to servers with less population, the buff would hardly apply to servers with good coverage because even now they don’t see that buff very often.

Here is the issue. Without locking transfers, you’ll always have the flavor of the month server, and those who are bandwagon jumpers by nature. Look at everyone who transferred to Yak’s Bend recently as the most recent example. That type of server stacking benefits no one since they’ll just dominate T2, but MMR is too static to allow them to move to T1.

Personally, I like the idea of locking servers, but in a different way than it is being done today. It needs to focus both on total player hours AND number of transfers to that server over the past month. Once a magic number is reached, new members can’t transfer for awhile.

style.6173:

Here is the issue. Without locking transfers, you’ll always have the flavor of the month server, and those who are bandwagon jumpers by nature. Look at everyone who transferred to Yak’s Bend recently as the most recent example. That type of server stacking benefits no one since they’ll just dominate T2, but MMR is too static to allow them to move to T1.

Personally, I like the idea of locking servers, but in a different way than it is being done today. It needs to focus both on total player hours AND number of transfers to that server over the past month. Once a magic number is reached, new members can’t transfer for awhile.

Sort of, Yaks Bend lost a bunch of guilds because T1 guilds came to Yaks Bend so I don’t necessarily agree. Yeah sometimes you get a bunch of guilds that move to a new place but it’s not a monthly occurrence. I’d be in favor of something like you proposed though, maybe make the time between transfers longer than 7 days? Make it 30 days or 60 days that way you have less movement but still allow players to have the freedom to move every once in awhile. What do you think about that?

MomentofWeakness.1246

Sort of, Yaks Bend lost a bunch of guilds because T1 guilds came to Yaks Bend so I don’t necessarily agree. Yeah sometimes you get a bunch of guilds that move to a new place but it’s not a monthly occurrence. I’d be in favor of something like you proposed though, maybe make the time between transfers longer than 7 days? Make it 30 days or 60 days that way you have less movement but still allow players to have the freedom to move every once in awhile. What do you think about that?

A couple things:

1. This will fix the population inequality. That is fairly obvious. It may not be enjoyed by people that are stuck in tiers thy don’t want to be in, but it will balance them.

2. Somewhere in your OP, you noted people want to play with their friends. If people are THAT enamored by playing with their friends, I am sure that Tier 8 & 9 have room to accommodate. But I really don’t think that is your real issue here.

3. You state you have been in tier 1 for 3 years. We’re you not in one of the guilds that transferred to YB? Correction: your OP stated tier one and two.

4. I have heard rumor of some who feel they are/have been in ‘control’ of the top tier servers, helping some rise and fall at their whim. Wouldn’t this be a great opportunity to test that? I mean, with this in place, the (I think they refer to themselves as the ‘Illuminati’) could prove their superiority and transfer down to a tier 6 or 7 server and drive it up to tier 1. This change would actually make that possible and solidify their ‘greatness’.

Strider Pj.2193:

MomentofWeakness.1246

Sort of, Yaks Bend lost a bunch of guilds because T1 guilds came to Yaks Bend so I don’t necessarily agree. Yeah sometimes you get a bunch of guilds that move to a new place but it’s not a monthly occurrence. I’d be in favor of something like you proposed though, maybe make the time between transfers longer than 7 days? Make it 30 days or 60 days that way you have less movement but still allow players to have the freedom to move every once in awhile. What do you think about that?

A couple things:

1. This will fix the population inequality. That is fairly obvious. It may not be enjoyed by people that are stuck in tiers thy don’t want to be in, but it will balance them.

2. Somewhere in your OP, you noted people want to play with their friends. If people are THAT enamored by playing with their friends, I am sure that Tier 8 & 9 have room to accommodate. But I really don’t think that is your real issue here.

3. You state you have been in tier 1 for 3 years. We’re you not in one of the guilds that transferred to YB? Correction: your OP stated tier one and two.

4. I have heard rumor of some who feel they are/have been in ‘control’ of the top tier servers, helping some rise and fall at their whim. Wouldn’t this be a great opportunity to test that? I mean, with this in place, the (I think they refer to themselves as the ‘Illuminati’) could prove their superiority and transfer down to a tier 6 or 7 server and drive it up to tier 1. This change would actually make that possible and solidify their ‘greatness’.

I’ll respond to everything in the same numerical order you provided your points in.

1. No it won’t fix population inequality. Population values are constantly changing and cannot be fully controlled. They said that the new algorithm requires a significant amount of time in order to see changes so it will always be behind-the-curve and as I said in my post the best that this new change implemented by Arenanet will be able to do is attempt to fix/balance population issues in a slow and reactive manner. That’s the whole problem, we need something adaptive that is able to change as dynamically as populations do on servers and we need it to be proactive not reactive.

2. I mentioned playing with friends because for some people that is their reason, you cannot expect someone who has integrated into a WvW community to leave everyone who they play with in their guild(s) and on their server just because they want to have their family member buy the game and since their family member can’t join them on their “full” server they have to go elsewhere. It’s not realistic it just leaves that person in a lose-lose situation.

3. Actually I you must’ve misread what I wrote because this is what I said “I’ve been a commander for almost 3 years, I have 6,500 hours played in Guild Wars 2 and I have spent the majority of my time in tier 1 and tier 2 servers on North America.” I transferred to Yaks Bend because my friends moved here and then moved to Crystal Desert so nearly all of them aren’t on Yaks Bend anymore and I would leave if I could as well.

4. There are people with dual accounts on two tier 1 servers. Yes, those people try to manipulate the matchup but that isn’t an issue isolated to tier 1, it happens in every tier in varying amounts. Also, there’s already been a server that was tier 6-7 that came to tier 1 it was called Sanctum of Rall and that happened a very long time ago so we have already observed a server ascending tiers in a rapid manner.

Diku.2546:

I’d like to suggest we throw out the Current Tier based Match-Up structure and let players chose for themselves who they want to fight against:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Discuss-New-WvW-Map-Mechanic-v2-0

What a horrible idea. I see no logic in removing server rankings, in order to simply have some manipulatable voting system that just cries to be trolled.

I agree with coglin, you want to have tiers and competition with other servers who are near-equal strength to your own. I want to see balance not chaos. That’s what this thread is about. Finding a solution within the tier system.

MomentofWeakness.1246:

Tongku.5326:

MomentofWeakness.1246:

3. Increase the PPT value of upgraded structures based on each completed upgrade-tier by +5 points.

The reason I mention this is because while structures are more durable and there is a few quality of life benefits to having upgraded structures, you don’t actually get any increased value PPT/score-wise. My idea here basically is, when all of the Personnel and Structural upgrades are finished for a tier then you gain +5 points to that structure.

This would not only align well with Arenanet’s goals in HoT where upgrading is automated and follows a tiered system but also it would incentivize players to defend structures that are upgraded and would further motivate and justify saving a tier 3 tower over a tier 1 tower for example. But the main reason this would be a nice feature is because as servers transition between high and low coverage time zones their structures that are fully upgraded will have a higher tick even if it goes away over-time. Finally, enemy servers will have a greater sense of urgency to attack and seize upgraded towers because resetting them would be even more important.

Hi

Some of these are good ideas, but I disagree with your idea #3.

[Cut out your points so I could reply, but I did read your entire post @ Tongku.5326]

I can appreciate your perspective and I can see how my point #3 would mostly be useful in matchups that are currently more balanced amongst all time zones. As far as your suggestions I liked most of what you said except the idea of empty structures that aren’t being attended not being able to stand/tick. I have never been a fan of forcing people to sentry or making someone babysit a structure because it takes their ability to participate out of the game mode. Plus on low population servers this would be an absolute disaster because you would have almost no one in your groups because they would all be occupying structures. Sentry’ing unless voluntary is really not good for the game-mode. It would be ideal to give commanders more tools to respond to attacks and monitor upgrades/supply/etc. so that everyone can play instead of having to sit in TeamSpeak/Mumble and babysit a garrison or other structure.

I have been a fan of giving rewards for active effort, taking a structure then holding it without any active players in it = zero effort. Thus should yield 0 reward. And yes, it would drive people away from sentry duty, thats the point. On low tiers, they dont have the numebrs to split up and sentry everything, higher server slacks off cause as you stated sentry duty is boring, thus higher server loses that structure. This would work exactly and precisely as intended.

Also note, I stated this would be applicable to home BL map only, thus if left unattended, this would cause the home BL to return to its owner, not continue ticking in favor of a k-train that only had to take it once then leave. Overall effect on the score is that it would improve the balance quite a bit in favor of defenders. Especially on the lower tier servers, trust me, I came from one.

Tongku.5326:

MomentofWeakness.1246:

Tongku.5326:

MomentofWeakness.1246:

3. Increase the PPT value of upgraded structures based on each completed upgrade-tier by +5 points.

The reason I mention this is because while structures are more durable and there is a few quality of life benefits to having upgraded structures, you don’t actually get any increased value PPT/score-wise. My idea here basically is, when all of the Personnel and Structural upgrades are finished for a tier then you gain +5 points to that structure.

This would not only align well with Arenanet’s goals in HoT where upgrading is automated and follows a tiered system but also it would incentivize players to defend structures that are upgraded and would further motivate and justify saving a tier 3 tower over a tier 1 tower for example. But the main reason this would be a nice feature is because as servers transition between high and low coverage time zones their structures that are fully upgraded will have a higher tick even if it goes away over-time. Finally, enemy servers will have a greater sense of urgency to attack and seize upgraded towers because resetting them would be even more important.

Hi

Some of these are good ideas, but I disagree with your idea #3.

[Cut out your points so I could reply, but I did read your entire post @ Tongku.5326]

I can appreciate your perspective and I can see how my point #3 would mostly be useful in matchups that are currently more balanced amongst all time zones. As far as your suggestions I liked most of what you said except the idea of empty structures that aren’t being attended not being able to stand/tick. I have never been a fan of forcing people to sentry or making someone babysit a structure because it takes their ability to participate out of the game mode. Plus on low population servers this would be an absolute disaster because you would have almost no one in your groups because they would all be occupying structures. Sentry’ing unless voluntary is really not good for the game-mode. It would be ideal to give commanders more tools to respond to attacks and monitor upgrades/supply/etc. so that everyone can play instead of having to sit in TeamSpeak/Mumble and babysit a garrison or other structure.

I have been a fan of giving rewards for active effort, taking a structure then holding it without any active players in it = zero effort. Thus should yield 0 reward. And yes, it would drive people away from sentry duty, thats the point. On low tiers, they dont have the numebrs to split up and sentry everything, higher server slacks off cause as you stated sentry duty is boring, thus higher server loses that structure. This would work exactly and precisely as intended.

Also note, I stated this would be applicable to home BL map only, thus if left unattended, this would cause the home BL to return to its owner, not continue ticking in favor of a k-train that only had to take it once then leave. Overall effect on the score is that it would improve the balance quite a bit in favor of defenders. Especially on the lower tier servers, trust me, I came from one.

Your suggestion only helps more populated servers and that’s not a good thing. You’re assuming that lower tier servers are more disciplined but I’ve been on many servers (BP, Mag, FA, YB, TC, BG, JQ, and Kaineng) I can tell you that the lower down in tiers you go the less organized the pugs are, the less organized TS/Mumble is, and the less organized commanders are when they are working together on separate maps. Sure you’ll have organized guild groups that can be very effective (there is great players in all tiers) but the pugs tend to be worse. Regardless of that, your suggestion is going to force weaker servers to put all their people in keeps, towers, and camps just to hold them. When they only have 10 on the map then they won’t be able to move to another map and get things done or even defend anything on that map when the enemy comes in because it would be 1 person per structure. It’s a bad idea and it doesn’t allow people to actually play the game mode, it just makes them babysit keeps, towers, and camps.

Just as a side note, I’m looking for input on my proposal so maybe you can gear comments towards my suggestions and their potential impact, thanks!

Diku.2546:

coglin.1867:

What a horrible idea. I see no logic in removing server rankings, in order to simply have some manipulatable voting system that just cries to be trolled.

The Tier Based System that Matches 3 Worlds to fight Based on a “Server’s Rank” is being proposed to be thrown out.

Please go back & read the thread carefully.

Server Ranking IS NOT being proposed to be thrown out.

World Rank is no longer used to decide the Match-Ups in Tiers. There is no Tier.

World Rank is affected by the following & is really used for Tournaments & World Pride:

a) Weekly Count of Active WvW players for a Home World.
b) Weekly Overall Tick Score for a Home World
c) Weekly Time Counter(s) for Objective(s) held by a Home World
d) Weekly Objective(s) claimed by Enemy Guilds.

World Rank is still used, but will probably be used to determine Tournament Match-Ups.

Reference thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Discuss-New-WvW-Map-Mechanic-v2-0

I’m looking for input on my proposal please don’t inject your thread into mine. I am looking for comments towards my suggestions and their potential impact, thanks!

Diku.2546:

Sorry…will stop.

Please do not reply to my comments here moving forward.

Thank you.