To get started, what do I dislike about WvW Currently?
-Uneven player distribution.
-Low Morale.
-Unbalanced matchups.
-Static matchups.
-Being bound to a single world, regardless of if I like or dislike it, knowing I’m stuck there forever.
Those are a few of the problems I have with WvW, but many of these are obvious and well established. I do think my dream of WvW could fix some of these… Let’s get started!
How would my dream WvW Season begin?
It would start with a Sorting. This is an event where the game matches up balanced groupings rather than groupings based on a world you selected a year ago and potentially regret. Why? This offers a chance to give each grouping a fighting chance, the balancing will focus on key aspects of winning, such as coverage and player count.
It’s also strongly dependent upon “Guild Ranking” an idea of mine I’ll explain later as it’s a huge topic on its own. The end product should be a season with potential, one where it’s uncertain who will be victorious, one with fair field for rivalries and opportunity. The season would consist of a few weeks of “Practice” rounds, just like the weekly setups are now, to seed groupings, give a rough idea for whom may win and time for the new groupings to become acquainted with the many new people one person will meet. The seasons will be dynamic, the guilds that led you to victory one season, may be your rival the next.
Looting, Rewards, and Participation
First off, any of the loot you would normally get, would be gone in my dream. This sounds scary, but you’ll still find loot. Loot will be acquired in new ways. Players and NPCs will only drop badges just as they do now, badges would be a currency, used to select chosen rewards, similar to karma or laurels, and similar to how they are used now, but with many more options. Raw loot is also obtainable via chests. Chests would be found after COMPLETING various events, capturing a Sentry or killing a Yak would spawn a small chest, a supply camp’s chest would be slightly larger, working up to Keep or Castle loot, which would yield a random Rare or Exotic, a random unit of WvW exp, a chance at a unit of karma or some obsidian shards, several badges, and a few green-exotic items at random. There would also be a weekly chest, highly competed for. Each team gets a chest, like the overall winner, but to a much lesser extent, the chests are tiered, offering better loot to the winner, and worse loot to the loser, the guy in the middle getting no bonus or penalty. Your weekly “points” would also function as magic find to your chest. A player with no points will find that their chest is empty, a player with a fair amount of points finding some loot, and a player with tons of contribution finding lots of rewards. These rewards would include maybe some rares, some exotics, maybe some money, karma, and badges, and of course blue prints! Blue prints can also be found frequently in their common variety in the chests from successful captures. Loot wouldn’t really good away, you just have to accomplish something to get it. This ties in with participation, a player would does nothing, doesn’t work with others, they won’t find themselves getting well rewarded. Loot and to a lesser extent, points only being rewarded when you do something that helps your team, killing players or WvW NPCs being the only way to get points without capturing something, but probably not reward chests.
What are these points?
These points have a greater impact than just loot, they effect placement in the next season. Guilds have all of their members points totaled, this will determine their placement. The system will try to make sure each grouping has similar point totals, Guilds of high point values being assigned first, while small guilds and rogue players will fill in the gaps. This roughly balances skill and activity while making sure guilds aren’t broken up.
Things I would not include in WvW
-Season Achievements
This takes away focus from the main objectives, simply serving as more of a diversion, the pointing system would eliminate the need for achievements as well.
-Living Story Content
Why is irrelevant stuff in WvW? Toxic alliance doesn’t belong in Eternal Battlegrounds.
Benefits of my dream
-WvW stays competitive for everyone.
-The winners won’t always be the same, it should theoretically come down to those who participate.
-If you get stuck on a bad team, it’s okay, there’s always next season where you’ll have a fresh chance at winning!
-Removes many of the PvE farming aspects from WvW, it just doesn’t belong here!
-Makes the groupings dynamic! You’ll get to meet new guilds and new people, if you really like one guild you can join them and go for victory with them as long as you’d like! If you hate it, you’re not trapped nor will you have to be real life money to do so. You will have to endure a bad season though, but due to the balancing, nobody should get slaughtered.