Guild Wars 2

As I am quite often lurking on these forums I’ve seen a lot of topics explaining that WvW has faults (population, coverage, matchups, …) that the matches would be more fun if balanced and sometimes I see topics proposing actions that are seen by the author (at least) as solutions but it seems to me we are missing an open discussion on the subject.

This topic is thus here to start a brainstorm between players with this simple question:

If you could do anything what would you do to balance/address the issues you see in WvW?

And since it wouldn’t do to launch such a topic without proposing a potential solution to a perceived problem here is mine:

The main problem as I see it (feel free to disagree) is that when there is a significant difference in populations in a matchup, whether that difference is achieved at peak times or outside of those, it becomes quite easy for one side to dominate thereby causing a situation in which one or two servers will have to fight a losing battle for the period of the matchup.

While this can be challenging, fighting a losing battle for a long time (depending on inherited matchups) can become frustrating leading to a server with lower population to have less and less players in the field which compounds the issue.

On the other side of the equation a server with higher population in WvW when faced with one of the pre mentionned servers will find himself in a non matchup which past the first few times it can crush opposition is a boring proposition due to the lack of challenge.

To address this problem my solution would be to use NPCs scripted to pop up and take action on the side that has the lower population. These NPCs would pop up in the home camp of the lower population server (like players) and would then in small groups take the same actions players would (attempt at the capture of a tower, camp, …) if they manage to do so they then will try to defend the captured place.

Advantages of using NPCs for this:

- They can be scripted to showcase tactics the developpers would like to bring to the attention of players (e.g. if a single big zerg is used on the side of the players while the NPCs are made of small groups attacking different places at the same time the zerg will have a harder time to defend all position and might be forced to adapt tactics)
- They should still be less effective than real players thereby giving an advantage to the server which can field players
- By reducing the population difference they would provide an environment that still retains a level of challenge for those players fighting against the lower population server while giving a bigger fighting chance to the lower population server.
- This solution doesn’t affect the cap for WvW maps
- A new player entering the field will see an NPC disappear

Disadvantages:

- In some ways it removes the Player versus Player part of WvW

The solution is simple, keep the numbers balanced.

If one server only has 10 people on a map, another server shouldn’t be able to run around with 100.

It eliminates any possibility of a remotely fair match and demoralizes the server on the wrong end of the numbers game, causing them to not queue as much further exacerbating the problem.

Defcon.8509:

If one server only has 10 people on a map, another server shouldn’t be able to run around with 100.

So, you’d punish the active people?

I wouldn’t change anything balance wise, ‘cept maybe force all equipment to be of exotic item quality. The population thing isn’t an issue. WvW is great.

frans.8092:

Defcon.8509:

If one server only has 10 people on a map, another server shouldn’t be able to run around with 100.

So, you’d punish the active people?

I don’t see it as punishment, moreso as an incentive to spread out amongst servers and even the population.

Consider this:

Under the current system, there is practically no benefit to not moving to servers who have the highest wvw numbers.

When up against servers that can’t compete with their numbers, they roll through the maps, taking whatever objectives they like. This is more wxp, more coin, more karma, more loot bags on a consistent basis. Not to mention less deaths, which equates to less coin lost and the lack of demoralization that occurs from constantly dealing with an opposing force you simply can’t overcome.

Add in the wvw server bonuses (which albeit small, become significant when you consider they’re directly increasing the entire server’s wealth) and there is a lack of pragmatic arguments for playing on anything but one of the top wvw servers.

The current system is seriously flawed, and unless it’s fixed the game will devolve into a handful of active wvw servers with the rest mostly devoid of competitive wvw activity. You could say things are already most of the way to that state.

styx.7294:

I wouldn’t change anything balance wise, ‘cept maybe force all equipment to be of exotic item quality. The population thing isn’t an issue. WvW is great.

Styx, you have an interseting perspective, could you develop on it a bit?

Would you block access to WvW to people who aren’t at a certain level / Equipment or would you treat it as it is done in PvP and make it so that people would automatically get access to top level Equipment?

Bring Siege Times to GW2. Keeps and Castles can only be attacked during a specific window of time (2-5 hours). Make it so Keeps in the same position in all borderlands are in window at the same time, same for castles, so the server has to choose between attacking or defending. Make the siege on SM happen every other day or with a smaller window. Make all the windows overlap during prime time.

This makes siege wars a thing of numbers and not a thing of coverage (ie, you won’t lose your keep because your server was sleeping). It will eventually match servers with equal population, because the amount of territory you can cover during siege time is directly determine by the amount of people that you can pull at the same time (ie, if you can pull 250 people, you can have 50 people defending your castle, 150 attacking the other servers and 50 attacking SM).

Does this promote zerging the sieges? Yes, and that is not a bad thing: Sieges are about zergs.

Towers and Camps can be flipped at any time, to keep something to do for people that play “off-hours” and/or like to roam.

Darak BG.5396:

styx.7294:

I wouldn’t change anything balance wise, ‘cept maybe force all equipment to be of exotic item quality. The population thing isn’t an issue. WvW is great.

Styx, you have an interseting perspective, could you develop on it a bit?

Would you block access to WvW to people who aren’t at a certain level / Equipment or would you treat it as it is done in PvP and make it so that people would automatically get access to top level Equipment?

Population isn’t an issue (at least in NA) since Eredon Terrace and Ferguson’s Crossing can get a fairly balanced match up as long the two aren’t together. What happens in any battle depends on what’s happening in the map.

There can be 50 people on each map for every server 24/7 but you’ll end up with uneven numbers of people in the map because where people how many people go is part of the game. You’ll still end up with solo people ganked by zergs, you’ll still end up with some team being outnumbered because someone disconnected/had to go the washroom whatever. WvW is about warfare, it’s about walls you can’t climb, it’s about siege that will hit you from out of range, it’s about cliffs that will kill you if you’re pushed off, it’s about someone watching where you’re going on the map and ambushing you with twice your number. Sometimes it’s about 20 people farming a 10 man at spawn hoping that the 10 man goes to another map to cap things. It’s long term, it’s morale, it’s dynamic. It’s wonderful.

And since any server in North America (Eredon Terrace did beat my server some weeks ago) can win a match up every week, there is no problem. Frankly, you get all sorts of idiots on these forums. People posting about how their top 10 server is dead since it’s not top 5, others how they won’t show up WvW since they aren’t winning. I think the people that transfer, at the end of the day, transfer for communities. If you have a crappy one, people don’t wanna spend time with you and move to the higher tiers, where they assume things are more functional.

Honestly, Jade Quarry can supposedly beat (though I’d wonder how they’d do in a match against Tarnished Coast and Dragonbrand) 21 other servers but for some reason they have probably the most people beggin for recruits. Like I give a kitten that they are losing by 30k in their match up. That’s a balanced match up and it’s not a problem.

id give one side a set of nuclear devices and then next rotation give the other side a set of nuclear devices, etc.

now thats fair as kitten.

I’d reduce the supply cost of rams/catapults and/or increase their effectiveness (especially against wood). A small team of 15 could take an undefended keep/tower quicker than a zerg could run across the map to defend it.

If you don’t upgrade or defend towers, you lose them.

Easily best solutions are the ones that push tactics and splitting zergs over zoneblobbing.

So:
-fix skill lag. with lag everybody can only press 1, so who have more ppl wins. no skill lag = undermanned side can actually play = tactics are possible = result of the battle is not set.
-redo maps. they don’t need huge overhauls in overall structure…but. make them bigger. fix some issues/balance regarding trebbing/siege/patterns (like red EB side able to treb directly in SM, and blue one having the worst tower placements of the 3). get rid of all the useless stuff in BL (namely, huge lake and areas filled of NPCs that are actually only wasted space on map), add in more enviromental tools to use as tactical advantage. In general, maps should be changed to deter a “everybody on the blue tag” zoneblobbing playstyle. Oh, and some differences between borders (terrain textures and elements are enough, like – Blue have icebrood themed atmosphere, Red destroyer Green sylvari and so on)… and maybe additional map (s) would be cool too i guess.
-fix skill lag.
-allow, wvw only, few specific skills to bypass the aoe limit (both defensive and offensive ones) – or have a higher limit. This creates tools to fight undermanned – also creating a “meta” in specific builds and weapons that have skills able to hit more than 5 target.
-fix skill lag.
-scoring system needs to be revised. how – it’s a totally differenf topic – but anything to diminish the “Coverage Wars” that WvW has become is ok.
-fix skill lag.
-matchmaking needs to be fine-tuned.
-fix skill lag.
-need a dedicate balance for skills. For example confusion dmg should be brought up again from spvp levels (but not until pve ones. oh, the whiners) because it had a much more important role being a real zerg breaker. Also, some skills could use tweaks to be more efficent in the wvw enviroment, where in spvp they’re not needed (and thus not added).
-fix skill lag.
-for the “punish mono zerg” topic again, WP to keeps under attack should be fixed. Blocking the 10 sec window where 80 man zergs can port in a keep under attack – or, at very least – limit the amount of players that can port in a contested WP. reached that limit, nobody can port there anymore.
-fix skill lag.
-siege weapons needs fine-tuning. manly, they should get buffed in the situation of defending a structure undermanned – but a straight dmg/efficency boost would lead to zergs able to istant build them or fight outmanned AND backed up by powerful siege (yes, AC buff has been a real shock while playing with servers like VS that just build ACs everywhere)
-fix skill lag.
-add a support for GvG, even better if gets some inlfuence on score. also, commander tag needs dramatic improvements.
-fix skill lag.

Well, that’s quite few things just on top off my head…

(edit: oh, and do something for whole zergs rallying off a single downed guy or istant ressing their guys. take out the downed state, make ppl not able to res in combat, whatever, but do something)

I would say… let my dog choose the match-ups. It’s sure to be more balanced than this kitten. Our server is fighting germans for weeks now, and they have 2x our numbers. Blobber’s Sound, Blobbadon’s Mouth, yeah I think that’d work.

Remove AC’s or nerf their dmg by 25-50% and not letting them hit people behind a gate.
Change the out manned buff to be more useful like 10% more health and dmg done depending how much you are outmanned.
Fixing the lag issues the times i died because of lag even when it was just 10-20 people on my screen is absurd and this seems only too happen in WvW.

Easy…

Make the game more tactical
And less about the numbers.

As long running in large numbers is the only/best tactic you will always have lots of people running in large blobs.. even if it means they have lag.

So changing commander like:
-max size of squad = 30 people
-commanders can activate banners on people in his/her squad
– all banners have a cool-down of 1 hour and need to be charged up by killing people or guards(killing 50 people/100 guards for each banner) .
– there are 5 different kind of banners
—— healing banner (heal allies(not yourself) around you for 400 every x seconds (Radius: 120 )
—— freeze banner (freeze enemies around you for 10 seconds (radius 120))
——shield banner (create a dome around you.. enemies can enter the dome.. but you cant hit people inside the dome with range (count for enemies and allies) .. ground targets don’t work inside the dome(size like mesmers Feedback bubble))
—- siege defense (create a dome around you.. enemies can enter the dome.. siege cant be use inside the dome. People inside the dome cant get hit by siege(size like mesmers Feedback bubble))
—- suicide banner (explode after 10 seconds killing every thing(carrier + allies + enemies) around it instantly (radius 120) )
-The banner ability will stop working when the person who carries it dies. Or when the banner is picked up by an enemy. A carrier of a banner can also plant the banner so another ally can pick it up.
Or when their are more then 35 allies in range of the banner carrier(1200)
Or after 5 minutes (so max 5 minutes)
– Banners can only be cast if their are more then 20 allies inside the squad. And if their are less then 35 allies in range (1200)
– charges for banners will only increase if their are less then 35 allies in range(1200)
– the commander has also an ability to teleport allies home if an ally, who is not in his/her squad.. stays for longer then a minute in range(1200) , cool-down 3 minutes

So a 30 man group can kill a 100+ zerg when squad abilities are up. (more tactical )

Also I would change keep fights so it is more then all in front of a door waiting till the door /wall goes down..
Like: have objectives/points around/inside the keep you need to hold.
Having these objectives will mean damage to gate/walls goes up (having all = same damage as now).

And..

Give keeps and towers extra special supply depots.
People can bring supply to this depot (so no dolyaks)
A guild can claim a keep/tower and order a lock down(or stop it .. next point tick).
A lock down means:
- tower/keep will give no more points even if you own it.
- tower/keep doors and walls will get indestructible.
A lock down costs 200 supplies (SM) 100 supplies(keeps) 50 supplies(tower) (special supply depot) for every 15 minutes.
When supplies in the special supply depot runs out of supplies your keep/tower will down grade a tier every 30 minutes.
The lock down will be stopped if the tower/keep is tier 1 and their is no more supplies in the special supply depot.
All lock downs will be stopped if you have most people inside the zone(so more then the 2 other servers)
A lock down can only be ordered if one of the 2 other servers has more then 2 times the number of people inside the zone then your server has.

This will make sure night /early morning capping is kept to a minimum.

There are a lot of things to fix about WvW, but the biggest one is stopping the zerg vs. zerg combat. The game is more about numbers than strategy and tactics. If you give a smaller squad the ability to stop a larger one in the open field, the giant zergs won’t be necessary. Theoretically, the meta would then shift to small (5-10 players) and medium squads (15-25 players), which are much closer to the squad sizes of guilds. That would then bring a lot more people to WvW. Less people in a blob also means less stress on the server, reducing skill lag.

Ballista Re-work
Ballista as an anti-siege weapon is stupid. The siege it’s trying to counter has longer range and has indirect fire (doesn’t require line-of-sight). Instead, it should be anti-personnel against tight groups suitable for the open field.
- Double base damage of #1 and #2.
- Increase base range, and then increase projectile speed slightly to compensate.
- Raise the initial height of the projectile so it can fire over small walls and hills.
- The #1 attack has some width and hits everyone in the path (pierces), even if it misses the selected target. If technically possible, make it useable without a target.
- #2 remains the same, but increased damage.
- #3 changed to use the same new mechanic as #1, but is a knockdown.
- #4 ability (through world XP) is now a recycle option, which returns 10 supply and destroys the ballista.

Traps
These have so much potential to help small squads, but need more options
- “Quicksand trap” that dramatically slows enemies through a pulsing debuff (not a condition). When triggered, the area persists for a brief time (say 30 seconds) and as long as you’re in the area, you’re slowed. This can be used to set up a kill zone for the re-worked ballista and to delay a response to stopping an attack.
- Minefield. When activated, sets off a series of explosions over a short time (say 5 seconds) that deal a lot of damage and bleed and cripple. Basically, if you step on it, you’re going to die or come close to dying. If a big group charges into it as a tight ball, there’ll be a lot of dead bodies. Remember that siege and traps have an AoE cap of 20, not 5.

Rally Mechanics
Limit the number of downed players that can rally from an enemy dying to 2 per enemy. The biggest issue in group combat in GW2 is that you’ll have a bunch of enemies downed and then some random up-level dies and rallies them all, which completely changes the momentum of the battle.

Fort Siege
Fort siege (oil, cannon, mortar) mostly sucks. It seems good on paper, but is awful in practice.
- Almost every tower mortar is in a terrible spot. Half the keep mortars are in terrible spots. If it’s an indirect fire weapon, put it in a spot where it can’t take direct fire from enemy players on the ground. Move them to elevated terrain or add in the large circular sections along walls extending into the fort so that they can be placed further back. Also, don’t put it in a location with obstructions (inner garrison mortars).
- Oil and Cannons are great for damage and at stalling or defeating enemy attacks. Except that anyone trying to use them dies a horrible death in seconds, rendering them next to useless. Anyone using cannons or oil should have constant stability (effect, not a boon like earth elementals) and reduced damage from all sources by at least half. Attackers can no longer suppress the use of these siege items and have to kill them instead before going after a gate. A vigilant defender can now delay an assault by even a large force.

Incentive to attack the leader
The three-way fight is a nice idea, but what often happens is that the winner is decided in a day and the other two servers fight for second. The middle server gets hit by the top trying to maintain the lead and the bottom, trying to move into second. This draws pressure from the leader, which ideally should be the focus of both the second and third place server.
- Similar to out-manned, when one server has a significant score lead (not PPT), attacking the leader gives significantly increased rewards (experience, karma, gold, world XP). It could also scale with how badly you’re being beaten. A 10% margin would give +20% rewards, 15% gives +50%, etc.
- By pulling down the leader and pulling up the other two, the match-up seems closer, which draws more people in and is generally more enjoyable.

Defcon.8509:

frans.8092:

Defcon.8509:

If one server only has 10 people on a map, another server shouldn’t be able to run around with 100.

So, you’d punish the active people?

I don’t see it as punishment, moreso as an incentive to spread out amongst servers and even the population.

Changing server? There’s guilds and friends and all that, and changing servers costs money. That is punishing players for being active.

Defcon.8509:

The solution is simple, keep the numbers balanced.

If one server only has 10 people on a map, another server shouldn’t be able to run around with 100.

It eliminates any possibility of a remotely fair match and demoralizes the server on the wrong end of the numbers game, causing them to not queue as much further exacerbating the problem.

The problem with that is there are 4 maps. There is stratagy in having X number of people on each map at any given time. If it was across ALL maps… and it had a certain allowance in that balance (say 20 more people per map) AND they allowed free transfers… then ok fine whatever.

I personally have far more issues with the rally/revive system in WvW. They both heavily favor the larger numbers. At the VERY least they need to be more limited. Say… you can only rally a couple of people off of a kill & no rallies from random moas/deer.

Reviving needs to have some DR on it… as it is now you are hard pressed to out damage the healing done by multiple players. Again… this is a big problem when outnumbered.

If these two things weren’t they way they currently are… then being outnumbered wouldn’t be as big of a deal in the first place.