Guild Wars 2

This is technically a player created solution and its an incredibly simple one. We all know that since the genesis of gw2, population has made things very very unfair. WvW has been on decline below the t2 area. There is a pretty significant difference in numbers. A lot of people I know who were once are t3-t4 servers have moved up to t2 and t1.

Thats what I suggest the playerbase do. Stack on t2 and t1 and if everyone did it, then t3 as well. There is literally no point in having 24-27 servers anymore. The population is almost non existent the lower that you go. You may see one queue on a bl during reset night, and thats.

This is what DAoC did. They never solved the problem. They just stacked on 3 servers. Ye, it would mean queues again that lasted 30 minutes, but it would be better than ded gaem WvW. It would make the game feel like launch day when there was constant battling occuring.

T2 servers are more stacked on NA prime players than T1 servers. Word.

SkylightMoon.1980:

This is technically a player created solution and its an incredibly simple one. We all know that since the genesis of gw2, population has made things very very unfair. WvW has been on decline below the t2 area. There is a pretty significant difference in numbers. A lot of people I know who were once are t3-t4 servers have moved up to t2 and t1.

Thats what I suggest the playerbase do. Stack on t2 and t1 and if everyone did it, then t3 as well. There is literally no point in having 24-27 servers anymore. The population is almost non existent the lower that you go. You may see one queue on a bl during reset night, and thats.

This is what DAoC did. They never solved the problem. They just stacked on 3 servers. Ye, it would mean queues again that lasted 30 minutes, but it would be better than ded gaem WvW. It would make the game feel like launch day when there was constant battling occuring.

this is literally what wildstar did they now have 2 servers one pvp server and one pve server do you want to become wildstar? no i didnt think so

Reverence.6915:

T2 servers are more stacked on NA prime players than T1 servers. Word.

This is actually true. T1 (NA) just has most of the OCX, SEA, and EU populations.

I’m often confused when people are talking about population issues. Are they having trouble finding fights in their tier and want people to transfer to opposing servers because they don’t want to transfer? Are they constantly outmatched within their own tier?

SkylightMoon.1980:

Ive finally solved the population problem

SkylightMoon.1980:

This is what DAoC did. They never solved the problem.

Anyway this is a terrible idea and not a solution at all. All it would do is make it unplayable because you won’t be able to get your guild into any maps.

I wouldn’t say T2 is more “stacked” than T1 NA (TC’s late night blobs are real), but it would definitely be competitive any day of the week.

Seems like every other day someone comes with their own ultimate fix that doesn’t actually solve anything and creates its own problems. There was a massive thread with devs and stuff talking about this stuff, if you think your idea is worth it you should have piped up when it was active.

How is this a solution? And how is it any different from what already happens now?

Currently, everyone is able to transfer to another server, so if they’re not happy with the way things are on their current server and want to stack on a particular server, then they can bugger off to their server of choice. People who are happy with their server of choice can choose to stay where they are.

Bad idea, now you have queue for 1h+ on SFR when primetime and enemy playing.

They should just “boot” people off a server when their account is inactive for about 3-4 months. When they log back in they can pick whatever server they want. In the mean time it’ll reduce the inflated population on that server and show its true population, making it cheaper for the active players to move around.

It’s not a complete solution but it’ll help to get rid of the dead weight.

Welcome to socialist Tyria. Queues and food stamps.

There are still too many players to stack just 3 tiers. I’m in T4, and at least on reset, we can still queue 2 maps, and almost a 3rd. During the week, we can’t queue that many, but still, add all them people, plus 14 other servers to 9 servers, and you will get a queue fest along the lines of launch.

Now, I do believe maybe the bottom 3 to 6 servers should be shuttered, and offered free transfers to the server of their choice. At the same time, people are still playing on these servers because they want to. They can’t say they can’t afford to transfer, because it isn’t impossible to farm gold and transfer. So, they like their community, and forcing them to move, so we can add more people to the higher tiers, is really unfair to them.

Let’s be perfectly honest here. How many guilds have moved up, from lower servers, to t1/t2, just to quit? They get burned out? Most of the guilds in the lower tiers, that have been there for years, are still having fun. The lower tiers have multiple play styles, we get zerg fights, guild fights, roaming, small groups, etc. More variety.

I’m sure, one day the lower servers will die, but til then, let them have fun. The top servers have plenty of people.

I agree with the OP. We should all stack in the top two tiers. It wouldn’t cause queues that are too bad.

The thing is, Anet will need to gate it or something to prevent everyone from going to one or two servers. There would need to be some mechanism to distribute newcomers so that they are spread out.

It would take free transfers as well. Many people, including me, just stop playing instead of transferring. I wish there were more people on my server but there just aren’t. And I’m on a T3/4 server.

The OP is not saying to close servers so if you like small population maps then just stay on a lower server. Plus for all the people saying they like small population and are still having fun on lower servers there are multiple people who have quit – that’s why there are small population servers.

In fact I was going to make a post that Anet should wipe all server affiliations with the new expansion. When you buy the expansion and log in you can pick a server just like at launch. I still may make that post.

Unless Anet does something to address the population imbalance/coverage issue with the expansion a new map is not going to help. Its actually going to make things worse.

Crius.5487:

Are they constantly outmatched within their own tier?

Ding!

T3 has been a mess for 2 months because there’s basically 4 T2 caliber servers and each week one is forced down against two servers that have about 10% of the coverage/population.

@OP:

Some of us actually like to play vs sitting in queues.

Also, population difference is perfectly fine when comparing T1 vs T5 for example. What isn’t fine is when there isn’t a 3way matchup that works, for example T3.

Well then if we want to fix t3, then just send people from lower tiers to ioj and nsp. Sending people from t2 and t1 wont happen.

One thing that has been suggested multiple times is that we should just even out the population by sending all higher tier populated server people, to lower tier servers. By this, the population in lower tiers could be better and even that. So ye, besides the fact that this will never happen, its also a bad idea. A thinned out population in the game, throughout WvW, will give a very bad atmosphere. It will make things feel even more dead. Everything will feel like t3 or t4 which right now, is pretty dead.

Also the thing about spreading everyone out, is that population will inevitably become unstable again and then we will have certain servers stronger than others. The reason I don’t think this is a problem if we stacked on 3 tiers is that yes, the population would be stacked as hell, and maybe one server may have twice the population as another, but after a certain point in population, it makes no difference in WvW. Thats because after all servers have a certain population, they have constant queues, or near constant queues. Which means the fights are even almost all the time because the bl’s are queued and all have roughly the same amount of people on all sides.

SkylightMoon.1980:

The reason I don’t think this is a problem if we stacked on 3 tiers is that yes, the population would be stacked as hell, and maybe one server may have twice the population as another, but after a certain point in population, it makes no difference in WvW. Thats because after all servers have a certain population, they have constant queues, or near constant queues. Which means the fights are even almost all the time because the bl’s are queued and all have roughly the same amount of people on all sides.

The problem you’re ignoring is that not everyone enjoys max capacity fights.

many of us prefer smaller battles where individual contributions actually matter.

Mostly everyone can agree that near-equal population is ideal, but that’s not tied to a specific population size. And even if you disregard preferences in encounter size, it’s pretty obvious that the ideal way of attaining that is NOT by making everyone deal with queues.

Stacking all the servers isn’t going to work. Some people have “server loyalty”. Which would only create salt on the mashed-up servers. Also most of this thread handles about NA’s “problem” with T3 and T2 and doesn’t really take into account that most (EU) silver league servers are quite happy with their situation.

(I’m from EU btw and afaik most of the servers are happy about their situation, except maybe the lowest tiers.)

Your “solution” isn’t going to solve anything, only create more queues.

Less QQ more pew pew guys.

You can’t pew pew if there are no enemies to pew pew. So all that’s left is to come to the forms and QQ. It’s pretty bad when the forum is more interesting than the game.

Population/coverage imbalance is an issue that has been complained about since launch.

Anet doesn’t know how to fix it. I believe it is actually unfixable in a 24/7 format. You can only do things to mitigate the problem. Which Anet has unfortunately not done either.

I don’t understand why people are arguing against a player created solution. We actually did contribute to the issue by forming alliances and stacking certain serves at launch. Titan Alliance, Ascension Alliance, etc.

Instead of stacking all the serious WvW people on one or two servers we need to spread them out. There’s probably enough of a WvW population left for “big battle” servers.

So your solution to players leaving low populated servers to high populated servers, is to leave the low populated servers to go to high populated servers?

Population imbalance is not an Anet issue, it’s a player issue. I don’t think that Anet can even do anything about it really. Players transfered because they want to be in a server with more WvW action. Sure Anet can change rewards, some mechanics, etc. But if there is a small WvW population on your current server, then you’ll still want to go where you can find some action.

No, moving out of low population servers to higher ones is what caused this very problem. Just doing it more en masse won’t really solve anything. Thats like spending more money to get out of debt, without paying your debt.

The only way to solve it is to give the lower tiers an eviction notice and a free transfer to the higher server of their choice and cap the transfer limits to not throw it too far off balance then shut the lower tiers down tbh.

Would be awesome if they could add maps and raise the population limit where you can have massive battles like on Eve online… Eve is all on one server and people fight for zones and resources. I know that isn’t going to happen here, but they might be able to raise population for the servers if they add more maps to play on for wvw.

Server loyalty only goes so far.. just have the story line destroy the low servers…countries get destroyed in reality.. it can happen on a game too. XD

Of course you could destroy all the servers.. and make new ones and people have to choose. HAHA

Johje Holan.4607:

Instead of stacking all the serious WvW people on one or two servers we need to spread them out. There’s probably enough of a WvW population left for “big battle” servers.

Not a solution either. Guilds often transfer to X server so they can fight against Y guild on Z server. This is why T2 NA is currently booming with GvG guilds. If my guild group of 20 can one push a group of 40-50 casuals the fights become dull. We aren’t going to one push an experienced guild group with an equal number composition which makes for a much more enjoyable fight.

People who absolutely enjoy fighting are going to go to where the fights are.

Crius.5487:

Johje Holan.4607:

Instead of stacking all the serious WvW people on one or two servers we need to spread them out. There’s probably enough of a WvW population left for “big battle” servers.

Not a solution either. Guilds often transfer to X server so they can fight against Y guild on Z server. This is why T2 NA is currently booming with GvG guilds. If my guild group of 20 can one push a group of 40-50 casuals the fights become dull. We aren’t going to one push an experienced guild group with an equal number composition which makes for a much more enjoyable fight.

People who absolutely enjoy fighting are going to go to where the fights are.

Though if they actually implemented structured GVG properly, you wouldn’t have to change servers to GVG whoever you wanted, you could fight them all making it much more fun for everyone ( though it STILL makes no sense why " guild wars" doesn’t have GUILD WARS).
I think we should stack all the wvw on a few servers though, just add more maps to be able to support the population.

Crius.5487:

Johje Holan.4607:

Instead of stacking all the serious WvW people on one or two servers we need to spread them out. There’s probably enough of a WvW population left for “big battle” servers.

Not a solution either. Guilds often transfer to X server so they can fight against Y guild on Z server. This is why T2 NA is currently booming with GvG guilds. If my guild group of 20 can one push a group of 40-50 casuals the fights become dull. We aren’t going to one push an experienced guild group with an equal number composition which makes for a much more enjoyable fight.

People who absolutely enjoy fighting are going to go to where the fights are.

Sorry I left something out of my sentence. I meant to write, "There’s probably enough of a WvW population left for 6 or 9 “big battle” servers in NA. I think we agree.

“Guild Wars” has more to do with the back story of the game and not warring between player created guilds.

Yes, a GvG game mode which allows guilds to fight other guilds regardless of which server either are on would allow guilds to transfer to the server they want to be on instead of transferring just to fight a specific guild on a specific server.

However, trying to forcibly balance the WvW population would only drive people away from the game. There is not viable solution to the population issue. Instead we need some sort of handicap system better than the current Outnumbered buff so a lesser populated server can still compete regardless of numbers.

Crius.5487:

“Guild Wars” has more to do with the back story of the game and not warring between player created guilds.

Yes, a GvG game mode which allows guilds to fight other guilds regardless of which server either are on would allow guilds to transfer to the server they want to be on instead of transferring just to fight a specific guild on a specific server.

However, trying to forcibly balance the WvW population would only drive people away from the game. There is not viable solution to the population issue. Instead we need some sort of handicap system better than the current Outnumbered buff so a lesser populated server can still compete regardless of numbers.

There is no way to make a handicap system effective enough to counter having Oceanic and Sea coverage on a server and there being none on another. I see only 2 real solutions either destroy the lower tier servers by meteorite and give them a free pass to the server of their choice of the remaining servers, or 2) destroy all the servers and make everyone choose between the new ones.

One thing I’ve been thinking that could, maybe, perhaps balance things out would be to disallow transfers based on Tier instead of on population. You want to transfer? That’s fine, but not to anything higher than T3. Meaning a T1/T2 server that lost guild(s) would be stuck until they dropped to T3 or below.

Might seem a bit unfair, but you are already seeing guilds leave T1 for T2, and not small guilds either. It would also allow for more dynamism in the mid-tiers.

Honestly I wish there was a way to fix offhours coverage, because you see many servers able to field large NA populations, but a server can dominate NA and still finish third in a matchup if they don’t have enough/any offhours players.

T2 servers have as many NA players as T1 servers do, but they don’t have the wealth of OCX/SEA/EU coverage, and so you see them having great fights during NA, but if one or another of them have offhours you get lopsided matches, and you see this to some extent througout the tiers. As was demonstrated when SoS had a large OCX advantage.

T2 the last several weeks has been great, and I’m sorry it has ruined T3(and it has). But it’s only been great, because coverage has been comparable. You get a large enough SEA/OCX/EU guild moving to one of the servers, and it will be back to lopsided matches again in no time.

SkylightMoon.1980:

This is technically a player created solution and its an incredibly simple one. We all know that since the genesis of gw2, population has made things very very unfair. WvW has been on decline below the t2 area. There is a pretty significant difference in numbers. A lot of people I know who were once are t3-t4 servers have moved up to t2 and t1.

Thats what I suggest the playerbase do. Stack on t2 and t1 and if everyone did it, then t3 as well. There is literally no point in having 24-27 servers anymore. The population is almost non existent the lower that you go. You may see one queue on a bl during reset night, and thats.

This is what DAoC did. They never solved the problem. They just stacked on 3 servers. Ye, it would mean queues again that lasted 30 minutes, but it would be better than ded gaem WvW. It would make the game feel like launch day when there was constant battling occuring.

Every single time a higher tier player suggests this, it’s insulting and ignores the countless other threads that have been started over the exact same thing.

My server was in T3/T4, guilds left to higher servers, and we plummeted down to T8 (rank 24). We’ve now clawed our way back up to T5 (rank 15). You think we want to be merged into some other tier because a few higher-ranked servers want blobbier fights?

No thanks. We’re not a resource to be used by the likes of you.

When the lower tier servers complain about population imbalance, it’s when there is a matchup like the essentially permanent one in T3 – where one server (and sometimes two, although not in T3) has such a huge comparative population that there is nearly no play to be had by the overwhelmed server. It has nothing to do with “the game won’t support 24 servers”, and that kind of thinking can just be tossed, thanks.

You know what we get on the lower servers? A sense that what we do matters. Our servers go up and down, within the tiers and across them. A few people can make a significant difference, even when we are popping queues (my lowly server had a queue in EBG last night – a Tuesday!) but we have a scant dozen to twenty on during the day. See the imbalance?

We don’t want to be merged.

We know where the gold servers are and how to farm if we want to be there, and since we’re still where we are… take the hint.

Rimmy.9217:

SkylightMoon.1980:

This is technically a player created solution and its an incredibly simple one. We all know that since the genesis of gw2, population has made things very very unfair. WvW has been on decline below the t2 area. There is a pretty significant difference in numbers. A lot of people I know who were once are t3-t4 servers have moved up to t2 and t1.

Thats what I suggest the playerbase do. Stack on t2 and t1 and if everyone did it, then t3 as well. There is literally no point in having 24-27 servers anymore. The population is almost non existent the lower that you go. You may see one queue on a bl during reset night, and thats.

This is what DAoC did. They never solved the problem. They just stacked on 3 servers. Ye, it would mean queues again that lasted 30 minutes, but it would be better than ded gaem WvW. It would make the game feel like launch day when there was constant battling occuring.

Every single time a higher tier player suggests this, it’s insulting and ignores the countless other threads that have been started over the exact same thing.

My server was in T3/T4, guilds left to higher servers, and we plummeted down to T8 (rank 24). We’ve now clawed our way back up to T5 (rank 15). You think we want to be merged into some other tier because a few higher-ranked servers want blobbier fights?

No thanks. We’re not a resource to be used by the likes of you.

When the lower tier servers complain about population imbalance, it’s when there is a matchup like the essentially permanent one in T3 – where one server (and sometimes two, although not in T3) has such a huge comparative population that there is nearly no play to be had by the overwhelmed server. It has nothing to do with “the game won’t support 24 servers”, and that kind of thinking can just be tossed, thanks.

You know what we get on the lower servers? A sense that what we do matters. Our servers go up and down, within the tiers and across them. A few people can make a significant difference, even when we are popping queues (my lowly server had a queue in EBG last night – a Tuesday!) but we have a scant dozen to twenty on during the day. See the imbalance?

We don’t want to be merged.

We know where the gold servers are and how to farm if we want to be there, and since we’re still where we are… take the hint.

This needs to be copy/pasted into every thread where the bloated servers suggest this trash.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

This needs to be copy/pasted into every thread where the bloated servers suggest this trash.

If you could see my posts that have been upvoted, it would look like it already has. :-P

Rimmy.9217:

SkylightMoon.1980:

This is technically a player created solution and its an incredibly simple one. We all know that since the genesis of gw2, population has made things very very unfair. WvW has been on decline below the t2 area. There is a pretty significant difference in numbers. A lot of people I know who were once are t3-t4 servers have moved up to t2 and t1.

Thats what I suggest the playerbase do. Stack on t2 and t1 and if everyone did it, then t3 as well. There is literally no point in having 24-27 servers anymore. The population is almost non existent the lower that you go. You may see one queue on a bl during reset night, and thats.

This is what DAoC did. They never solved the problem. They just stacked on 3 servers. Ye, it would mean queues again that lasted 30 minutes, but it would be better than ded gaem WvW. It would make the game feel like launch day when there was constant battling occuring.

Every single time a higher tier player suggests this, it’s insulting and ignores the countless other threads that have been started over the exact same thing.

My server was in T3/T4, guilds left to higher servers, and we plummeted down to T8 (rank 24). We’ve now clawed our way back up to T5 (rank 15). You think we want to be merged into some other tier because a few higher-ranked servers want blobbier fights?

No thanks. We’re not a resource to be used by the likes of you.

When the lower tier servers complain about population imbalance, it’s when there is a matchup like the essentially permanent one in T3 – where one server (and sometimes two, although not in T3) has such a huge comparative population that there is nearly no play to be had by the overwhelmed server. It has nothing to do with “the game won’t support 24 servers”, and that kind of thinking can just be tossed, thanks.

You know what we get on the lower servers? A sense that what we do matters. Our servers go up and down, within the tiers and across them. A few people can make a significant difference, even when we are popping queues (my lowly server had a queue in EBG last night – a Tuesday!) but we have a scant dozen to twenty on during the day. See the imbalance?

We don’t want to be merged.

We know where the gold servers are and how to farm if we want to be there, and since we’re still where we are… take the hint.

Well then the people who want to make a decision and move to a more balanced matchup in t2 and t1 can do that, and the people who don’t want to wait in 5 minute queues can wait in t8.

SkylightMoon.1980:

Well then the people who want to make a decision and move to a more balanced matchup in t2 and t1 can do that, and the people who don’t want to wait in 5 minute queues can wait in t8.

There’s the third, more analog option that doesn’t fit into your binary worldview: people can stay on their servers to try to fix things AND keeping open the option for a variety of playstyles and experiences so that players on other servers (even T1) can choose where and how they play.

Remember that T1 and T2 aren’t “the best place for everyone” just because of their glicko rating. And there’s nothing wrong with T8, either. I’ve ridden my server there and back out it. Have you?

I’ll add that when you say “balanced” when referring to gold, I see “stagnant”. What changes there?

Rimmy.9217:

I’ll add that when you say “balanced” when referring to gold, I see “stagnant”. What changes there?

Qft. In the past couple months my server has faced at least 8 different servers with a variety of play styles, different roamers, different guild groups, etc.
When is the last time T1 had a different match up?

SkylightMoon.1980:

This is technically a player created solution and its an incredibly simple one. We all know that since the genesis of gw2, population has made things very very unfair. WvW has been on decline below the t2 area. There is a pretty significant difference in numbers. A lot of people I know who were once are t3-t4 servers have moved up to t2 and t1.

Thats what I suggest the playerbase do. Stack on t2 and t1 and if everyone did it, then t3 as well. There is literally no point in having 24-27 servers anymore. The population is almost non existent the lower that you go. You may see one queue on a bl during reset night, and thats.

This is what DAoC did. They never solved the problem. They just stacked on 3 servers. Ye, it would mean queues again that lasted 30 minutes, but it would be better than ded gaem WvW. It would make the game feel like launch day when there was constant battling occuring.

while i agree that condensing the population into less worlds is ideal, i dont think people should give money to Anet for it.

Nah my new solution is the best!

In order to make the game fair and balanced, everyone who tries to join any map is entered into a queue.
In order to get onto the map one player from each of the other 2 servers must also be in a queue.
This guarantees that the number of players on a map are equal for each server on each map.
No more outnumbered, no more complaining about zergs cos if the enemy has a zerg you know you have an identical zerg on your map somewhere.

The end.

Pinkamena Diane Pie.8054:

Nah my new solution is the best!

In order to make the game fair and balanced, everyone who tries to join any map is entered into a queue.
In order to get onto the map one player from each of the other 2 servers must also be in a queue.
This guarantees that the number of players on a map are equal for each server on each map.
No more outnumbered, no more complaining about zergs cos if the enemy has a zerg you know you have an identical zerg on your map somewhere.

The end.

What do you call this expansion, that forces queue times on everyone for the sake your version of balance, “Queue Wars 2”? I think this is a very very bad idea.

They have been very very clear from the beginning that, like war, WvW is neither designed to be balanced or fair. Hard forcing queues on other players for having different life schedules is horrible.

I do not want perfectly even matches. I enjoy the war like aspect of adapting to changing flows of battle. I absolutely do not want to sit in queue, simply because you, and other players who see it like this, do not have fortitude to handle a little adversity.

Pinkamena Diane Pie.8054:

Nah my new solution is the best!

In order to make the game fair and balanced, everyone who tries to join any map is entered into a queue.
In order to get onto the map one player from each of the other 2 servers must also be in a queue.
This guarantees that the number of players on a map are equal for each server on each map.
No more outnumbered, no more complaining about zergs cos if the enemy has a zerg you know you have an identical zerg on your map somewhere.

The end.

So what happens when someone logs off? do you randomly select another person from each other server and kick them back to queue?

Or you could disband all T1 and T2 servers and evenly move the population out to the lower tiers. Neither OP’s idea or this will ever happen without Anet intervention: too much tragedy of the commons at play. But it’s pretty clear Anet has no plans to address the issue. Just ride out WvW into the sunset and hope another, better game will appear before it gets too unfun.

(There will be a bump in population when the expansion comes out and that might even out things, but with Anet’s clear lack of insight into how their own game is played, that won’t last long.)

Lord Kuru.3685:

There will be a bump in population when the expansion comes out and that might even out things

not likely, judging by the large number of “Hey I’m new and I want to join my friends on Blackguard but it’s full, how do I get in?” posts on reddit this week.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Lord Kuru.3685:

There will be a bump in population when the expansion comes out and that might even out things

not likely, judging by the large number of “Hey I’m new and I want to join my friends on Blackguard but it’s full, how do I get in?” posts on reddit this week.

It might, if they lock off starting or transfering to the top seven servers in NA.

They should do that anyway – permanently.

Sorry, but you solved nothing.

LMAO at the guy who seem to have taken my last comment seriously

The fact that I ended it with “The End” should have given it away, but I guess there’s always 1 :P

coglin.1867:

They have been very very clear from the beginning that, like war, WvW is neither designed to be balanced or fair.

That’s funny, cos when it came to designing new maps, the main excuse used was that it take time to map balanced maps. So which is it, balanced or unbalanced?

The fixed, named server model just doesn’t work. They need a new model to balance competing populations similar to PvE megaserver, and still allows guilds/friends to fight on same side. When people can log in at any time of day from any location in the world and find full, active WvW they can join in easily, it will start to grow again. Right now, WvW has so many barriers to playing the game as it was intended, even for dedicated, organized players and guilds.

Pinkamena Diane Pie.8054:

coglin.1867:

They have been very very clear from the beginning that, like war, WvW is neither designed to be balanced or fair.

That’s funny, cos when it came to designing new maps, the main excuse used was that it take time to map balanced maps. So which is it, balanced or unbalanced?

I am unclear how that is funny. No one said the territory wasn’t designed to be equivalent. There is a difference between map design being done in a manner to avoid offering an innate advantage based on terrain, and the combat being designed for balance. Fights cannot be controlled in the sense of being able to control the various numbers of one side or another, or all 3 for that matter, when they meet in various size forces.

To answer your question, it is both balanced and imbalanced. The maps are balance in a manner to limit inherent advantage. the imbalance lies in the ability for any number of players to fight any other number of player, with in the limit of the available population cap per map.

If there is anything else I can assist or educate you about in the context of WvW, please fell free to ask. I am always glad to help.