Guild Wars 2

I noticed this towards the end of last week. Normally on my server all borderlands and eternal battlegrounds are full during peak hours. But as last week progressed and our score deficit approached and surpassed 100k from night capping, players stopped queueing for wvw. I understand anets desire to not punish off hour players but what of the majority of players who play during peak hours but are effectively barred from wvw for the second half of the week?

The best solution I have heard (which has probably been discussed thoroughly on this forum) is to adjust point gains in wvw as a function of relative server participation at a given time. If one server outnumbers the other two in a given map then the amount of points gained will be appropriately modified down. This way off hour players still have reason to play and cap during the night but its effects are not game breaking.

Sorry if this observation and proposed solution has already been canvased. What I really love about wvw was the feeling that my small actions were helping my server in something much larger and bigger than myself. But when were 100k+ points back that feeling really goes away.

The only thing that would disincentivize me from wanting to play is if my server was in last place and by a considerable amount from second place. I don’t even think nightcapping is that big of a deal, because that server that is nightcapping you is going to sleep eventually and when you start taking back your points you are effectively nightcapping them. It doesn’t seem so bad and I bet you don’t notice it when it happens to you but it’s a double-edged sword. It was meant to go back and forth like this, not one server takes everything and then just rides the point ticks to victory. Look at the Ioj/ET/CD match. We were in last place and now we’ve bumped down CD and are in second place and keeping a good amount of points in our possession. We will eventually surpass ET as we have the sheer determination to do so. The only reason nightcapping even works at all is because once people feel overwhelmed they aren’t going to keep returning to the battlefield after they die.

Interestingly enough, a massive score advantage is a disincetive to do WvW. The PVE bonuses max out, and when that happens, there’s an incentive to PVE instead.

droober.3256:

I noticed this towards the end of last week. Normally on my server all borderlands and eternal battlegrounds are full during peak hours. But as last week progressed and our score deficit approached and surpassed 100k from night capping, players stopped queueing for wvw. I understand anets desire to not punish off hour players but what of the majority of players who play during peak hours but are effectively barred from wvw for the second half of the week?

The best solution I have heard (which has probably been discussed thoroughly on this forum) is to adjust point gains in wvw as a function of relative server participation at a given time. If one server outnumbers the other two in a given map then the amount of points gained will be appropriately modified down. This way off hour players still have reason to play and cap during the night but its effects are not game breaking.

Sorry if this observation and proposed solution has already been canvased. What I really love about wvw was the feeling that my small actions were helping my server in something much larger and bigger than myself. But when were 100k+ points back that feeling really goes away.

The current system has a point of no return, where you are basically locked in your place no matter how good your server plays.
If that point is reached, whatever you do, it won’t change anything, so why bother, or even invest money in siege engines or upgrades.

If your server has already 100k point deficit it would take you 144 point ticks to overtake them if you hold absolutly everything.
With ticks every 15 minutes that would be 36 hours.
Of course that is just completly unrealistic, so that point is often reached way earlier.

The current system has no mechanics to help a losing team get back in the game. In fact, it has mechanics that favor the leader.

Not having such mechanics is considered poor design even in 30 mins long moba games, let alone in week long matches.

The only explanation (besides ANet devs being very inexperienced which I doubt) is that ANet expected the two losing servers to gank up on the leader.

This rarely happens however as the current ELO system doesn’t take much away for being second (maybe even rewards some?). If we want to see this sort of allying happen, the ELO loss for being second/third has to be the same.

On top of the already mentioned points, many players simply refuse to invest gold since it has much more value outside of WvW. This problem becomes even more apparent once a large score deficit occurs. They should have implemented another currency that is earned and spent (only) in WvW to upgrade bases and purchase blueprints. Make it tied to the countless number of mobs that wander around the battlegrounds or other events, in addition to base takeovers. WvW players are already punished by a much greater incidence of death penalties, less loot, and mediocre experience. Asking them to pay gold (and a lot of it) to stay competitive is a bit overkill.

Catch up mechanics. Most good competitive games have them. WvW has the opposite.

We need a score system that increases score values as the match-up goes on. This not only adds in the much needed catch up ability of the losing team, but also makes the final hours of each match the most climatic and exciting instead of the most boring and anti-climatic. Right now, the team that can reach the areas first in a match and score points early have a HUGE advantage (which in EU is in the middle of the night). This is completely backwards to what would be the most fun, suspenseful, and balanced.

Also, those Orbs of Power really need to give PvE buffs. It’s pretty dire. And the out-manned buffs need to actually encourage/help the players that are disadvantaged, not encourage them to avoid battle.

In hindsight, Anet really messed up with the scoring system and free transfers. The scoring system allowed people to see which servers were doing the best. The free transfer allowed people to flock to those servers. I just hope it isn’t to late to fix the problem. I really wish they would make some sort of announcement that will address the lopsided servers. If not, we can expect to see a small amount of servers 24 hour queues and the rest of the servers near empty. That would suck for such a fun game.

Bugs have a lot to do with ruining a match as well. If a bug occurs early enough in a match making capturing something vital to victory impossible then the week is shot.

For some maybe – I’m still in WvW even though our server is outzerged night and daily and I log in after work seeing a 200-400 deficit.

It’s very demoralizing seeing how easily our own random “zerg” (or small group of people compared to the enemy) crumbles and cannot coordinate, but then – when running with the guild and pushing back the enemy, it counterweights that experience.

If you can’t ‘compete’ on the large scale – find enjoyment in what you can do – otherwise, it’s time to move on to something else you enjoy – perhaps sPvP or another game entirely while waiting to see if what you want gets implemented.