Guild Wars 2

I had posted this reply in another person’s thread, yet didn’t recieve any kind of feedback as to whether it was a viable solution, so I decided to make a new topic. I don’t know if this is appropriate or not, but given that I couldn’t edit, nor delete my previous post, this was my only option.

While I have yet to play WvWvW myself, I have been reading through the forums trying to determine what the REAL issue is and potential solutions for fixing it.

So far, I’ve heard that “night-capping”, server imbalance, and organization are among the problems. Most people have been discussing throttling of the amount of players based on time zones, on-the-fly solutions like randomly kicking players from WvWvW based on whether they outnumber their opponents, or even capping the number of players allowed into WvWvW based on the population of the other two competing servers on the map.

Maybe instead of thinking of fixing WvWvW on a server, or global, basis….think about fixing it on an individual basis.

Reward the PLAYER for representing and defending their world when they are outnumbered.

My suggestion would be as follows:

The reward for being on a team that is fielding a full squad at the population cap limit for the server remains at 100%….just as it is now.

Now, imagine the people defending their server are outnumbered 5:1. Reward those players with 5x (or some sliding scale) the rewards of the players on the other server. I’m not talking about points for their server, or giving them an unfair advantage in WvWvW. The rewards for those players are INDIVIDUAL rewards (coin, karma, badges, etc.).

From what I’ve seen, regarding the mentality of many MMO players, is if they can get more than someone else, they will do it. So, what I see happening with a reward system like this is that players will look to see when the server populations are at their lowest and start playing during those times if they can….because THEY will be rewarded more for it. The rewards may be higher, but they’re going to have to work harder for them.

You’ll start to see organization at the INDIVIDUAL level and that in turn will trickle UP to guilds and servers.

Will there still be times when a server has a lower population and others have higher ones? Probably. I think over time, individual players will start forming groups at off times knowing that THEY will be rewarded more for defending their server.

There will still be zerg servers that only try to “night-cap”, but I feel that the individuals on the other servers will adjust THEIR play times so that THEY can be rewarded more.

As much as we’d all like to believe in a game that has a true global feel to it…..MMO’s are, and will always be, about the individual. The upper tier of players will do anything and everything in their power to get an advantage. By providing an additional reward to defending your server when its population is at its lowest, those players will change when they play, just to take advantage of it. It may also be the best way to get a more stable number of players 24/7.

Eventually, it won’t matter when you play, everyone will be getting the same individual rewards. What will happen at that point is that you will start to see players moving to times that are better suited to their own personal schedule, since it’s no longer more rewarding to play at odd times. This is when you’ll start seeing “night-capping” happening again….thereby giving more individual rewards to the players on less populated servers. I see this going back and forth forever.

Give the player a real reward for being outnumbered and you’ll see players jumping at the chance to take advantage of it.

What are your thoughts? Could this be a real solution?

GG on being proactive and offering a solution rather then bickering like many others.

However, how about we just wait it out a bit. Week long matches just started and A.Net has even said they are still collecting data thus no 2 week matches yet.

Like come on A.Net is still getting the info they need. I am sure they are aware of what is happening across the servers. They will come out and say something when they have the info they need and have a solution.

I suggest anybody getting worked up over this read the below link and take a chill pill. It is after all just a game.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/mike-ferguson-on-the-current-state-of-the-world-vs-world/

Indeed. There’s no problem here yet as the matchmaking system is only three weeks old. Let the system have a few months to stabilize matches, and THEN (and only then) start examining whether or not there is a real problem here.

Right now, the only problem I see is certain servers gaming the matchmaking system for intentional advantage by throwing matches.

I agree that the current situation is probably not the way WvWvW will be forever, I wanted to throw out an idea that rewards players rather than penalizing them.

If there’s something I’ve learned about MMO’s and PvP specifically its that the hard core players want 2 things…..

More wins and more stuff.

Maybe if the problem persists after the matchmaking system has enough data, this could be a viable option to help spread out the player base.

This is a good solution. It was used in WAR (called underdog) and gave up to 400% extra exp and renown (pvp levels) scaling along with how outnumbered you were, here it could give xp/karma boosts directly related to how outnumbered you are (so if the enemy has 50% more than you, you get 50% bonus, 100% more than you you get 100% more) and gold/magic find on a slightly lower scale. This would give a real incentive to go out and fight even if you stand no real chance of winning.

There is outmanned buff in game, do you know? It gives more magic find, more exp and more karma gain. But nobody cares, if one server is losing, people just transfer to a winning server or stop playing WvW altogether.

I don’t think using WAR as a model for how to implement WvWvW is a particularly good idea, seeing as how people found WAR’s endgame so poor that they would intentionally reroll just to RvR in the lower-level areas, or just quit the game entirely.

I agree that RvR in WAR was fun, and I really, really wanted WAR to succeed, but I think one should think long and hard about how and why WAR RvR failed before borrowing any of their mechanics.

I didn’t play WAR, so I didn’t realize I was even borrowing mechanics from another game, lol.

It’s good to get constructive feedback that is based on a similar idea implemented in another game that didn’t work as intended.

mcl.9240:

I don’t think using WAR as a model for how to implement WvWvW is a particularly good idea, seeing as how people found WAR’s endgame so poor that they would intentionally reroll just to RvR in the lower-level areas, or just quit the game entirely.

I agree that RvR in WAR was fun, and I really, really wanted WAR to succeed, but I think one should think long and hard about how and why WAR RvR failed before borrowing any of their mechanics.

That was more due to balancing than mechanics. In WAR you had small guild squads dominating forces 10x their size (I should know, my guild used to do it) due to 3 classes being horribly OP at what they did (sorc for aoe dps, dok for aoe healing and chosen for tanking, and equivalents on order side).

@Vayra:

So what you’re saying about WAR was that it wasn’t necessarily the incentives used to get people to play while outmanned that caused people to stop playing, it was the mechanics of the character professions that made it unbalanced?

@forever:

The problem you suggest is a problem with the player base. So many people have a sense of entitlement and feel that if it takes hard work to get something, it isn’t worth getting. A problem becoming more and more prevalent in the real world….not just in online gaming.

Basically…if it’s not handed to you (not saying you feel this way) on a silver platter, then there’s something wrong with the mechanics or the way things work.

I think once ANet shuts down the free server transfers and implements the waiting period for participating in WvWvW after a transfer, people will start settling in and figuring out ways to make the server they’re on better. Right now, there’s no disincentive (is that a word?) not to just hop around the servers and take advantage of someone else’s hard work.

I’ve been seeing similar arguements when discussing (complaining) about crafting Legendary items….but that is a conversation for a different thread, lol.

@Charismatic Harm: Essentially yes, the fundamental mechanics of WARs RvR system were fairly solid. In fact, after they introduced the Underdog system people were actively seeking out zones where they had that buff to fight in, which is exactly what the system was designed to do. What caused people to quit was the very slow balancing process where a select few classes reigned supreme in dps and healing, pushing all the others away in high-level RvR. I would go so far as to say that if someone got a hold of the WAR engine, fixed up the bugs and did a proper balancing job, it would be the best PvP MMO ever.

The matchmaking system can’t work itself out until transfers are locked. By leaving transfers open they are prolonging the matchup system from doing its intended job. You only need to read the posts on these forums to read of the server exodus’ after they get stomped.

I actually think WARs system could work here because the classes are better balanced.

Elthurien.8356:

The matchmaking system can’t work itself out until transfers are locked. By leaving transfers open they are prolonging the matchup system from doing its intended job. You only need to read the posts on these forums to read of the server exodus’ after they get stomped.

I actually think WARs system could work here because the classes are better balanced.

The ranking system will never fix this issue, transfers disabled or otherwise. If 3 night capping worlds get matched together, 2 of them will lose. At least 1 of those 2 will then be matched up with worlds below them, worlds that don’t night cap. Those worlds will then be stomped into the ground for 2 weeks. Does that sound fixed?

A new scoring system is needed that doesn’t allow night capping to create such a large gap in scores. You can see my suggestions in the link below.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Solution-to-night-capping-point-advantage/first#post176118

Imo at this point maybe they should just scrap the match system and make the server matches constantly random. I mean if takes stripping content away from players in order to fix thekittenthing then it shouldnt have been added in the first place. Have the matchs random, keep matchs to 1 week, increase cap threshold, rework orb buff.

I mean dont get me wrong the point system was a good intention in order to match servers against equally powered servers, but with all this QQ i think random would be less of a headache. it seems like everyone thinks that the points some how make you server gain some fantastic reward although they are just for matching up servers and giving passive PvE gains.

Heaven forbid that the devs put in a system to keep people from getting stomp constantly from having a set server vs server list and instead they implemented a way to keep the servers rotating so that players have a chance to fight close to equal servers.

Half these people would have never survived DAoC, when there was only one way to fight a different group of players, rerolling.