Guild Wars 2

[Introductory Statement: This thread is requesting an exchange of views on the topic. I would ask commenters to attempt constructive discussion and to leave your match-up hatred outside. Please don’t turn this into a match-up thread, cause it’s something we do need to talk about.]

Anyway, we have these things called Seasons, which are supposed to be tournaments to find the best WvW server. we’ve had a different tournament system each time, and each time the system has demonstrated considerable flaws. I don’t have a good answer myself, so I’m throwing open the question. What would be a good tournament system?

It should be noted that the servers are fundamentally unequal. As time passes, Glicko does work well to ensure that each Tier is reasonably equal, but there’s a massive difference if you go up or down a Tier. A T3 server will get destroyed in T2, but dominate in T4. Obvious, I know, but the tournament system does kind of rely on all servers within a league being somewhat equal.

Season 1: Round-Robin
Season 1 tried to have a Round-Robin sort of system, with all matches scheduled in advance. There were a number of flaws with it, such as:
- Inescapably setting lower Tier servers against higher Tier ones
- Gaming the system by working out matches in advance
- Of the servers suggested to win the tournament, some getting more “easy” weeks than others
- Reliance on accumulating points over the course of the season
- Not enough weeks for a true round-robin

Season 2: Swiss Style
Season 2 attempted to fix some of these flaws, with the Swiss system. Instead of pre-arranged match-ups, each server gains a number of points based on their performance, and are ranked into Tiers based on those points. Flaws include:
- Treats each Tier as equal, so the winner of Week 1’s T5 gets the same amount of points as the winner of Week 1’s T3.
- Based on that, inescapably setting lower Tier servers against higher Tier ones
- Gaming the system by tanking one week to get a solid win the next
- Not treating every week as equal (the “2v1 question”). While this isn’t really about 2v1’s (whatever those actually are), servers are playing each week based on how it will help them for the tournament as a whole, rather than simply doing their best to win each week.
- Reliance on accumulation of points over the course of the season

Solutions?
Based on what I read on this (and other) forums, no one has appeared to be particularly happy with either season. While some of the problems with WvW are endemic and probably inescapable, the issues with Seasons might be, at least partly, solved by a better match up system, or by a re-thinking of the entire concept.

Examples/food for thought (I do not particularly support any of these, but rather hope for them to assist discussion. Each suggestion is independent of the others, obviously. And I’m working within the existing framework of WvW, so not discussing changing the PPT system, or removing the concept of servers entirely, etc. This is purely about how a Season is organised.):

- A round-robin system, but with undisclosed match-ups. Only solves a very few of the problems, of course.

- Swiss system, but treating each Tier as unequal. Eg: In a 3-Tier League (like NA Silver), winning the top tier might be worth 9 points, second place 7, 3rd place 5; in the middle tier, winning would be 7, 2nd place 5, 3rd place 3; and so on. The numbers are arbitrary. Of course, this slightly defeats the purpose of Seasons, in that it enforces the Glicko Tier system, and doesn’t allow a low-tier server to win (which is apparently desirable/possible).

- Smaller Leagues: only 6 or 3 servers per league. Would solve some problems, but again, might defeat the purpose of Seasons. And would probably be boring.

- Change to concept of Seasons to be longer, and based on normal WvW: instead of a special event, each 3 months would be a season. The server in each League with the best performance over the course of those 3 months would be considered the winner, and get some sort of reward.

- Get rid of Seasons altogether. Has the advantage of avoiding the problem completely, otherwise is probably undesirable.

So, what do you guys think? Please try to keep discussion civil and constructive

Keep seasons. They bring players out to do WvW. Add more WvW rewards but just make it regular match-ups instead of some high stakes thing. It makes it too desirable to play with BS tactics.

Sure the 2v1 is a legit thing but only because it is worth doing so to secure some sort of prize. Get rid of that prize and then gameplay and honest competition will be at the forefront again. You’ll have servers give their all each week because they enjoy playing instead of throwing matches and double teaming.

Here is the solution.

No more seasons.

Since we still have servers and those servers have population imbalances as well as time zone coverage imbalances there are no tournament systems that will work. There are very few “fair” match-ups and those quickly become imbalanced from transfers. Even when matched against those closest to your servers score there will almost always be a dominant server. Until population, scoring, and coverage issues are addressed there should be no more seasons. Of course the population and coverage issues will never be addressed and therefor we will never have a decent competition. You can thank those that scream “community” whenever a possible solution is even brought up.

The coverage gaps between servers that are even adjacent in rank are too big to make any kind of tournament more than a sham.

Add to that the free transfers right before tournaments throwing the rankings out the window and it’s even worse.

Lock down on coverage wars and transfers going mostly upwards (to high tiered servers) then introduce a tournament system

Changing the points earned according to the tier might work.
For example T1 would be 7,5,3 for 1st, 2nd,third
T2 6,4,2
T3 5,3,1

This would make it for example that being 2nd twice in a row in T1 earns you more points than being 3rd in T1 + 1st in T2.
The difference isn’t much, 10 points against 9, but it’s enough to differentiate between servers and make the stronger server earn more points, but also not create such a huge gap so that the weaker server still has a chance of fighting back later in the season.

I think this season has been great. I’m in silver, and so many positions are still up for grabs. Sure, HoD is running away with 1st, and SoR is going to finish last, since they should be in bronze and GoM in silver.

BP seems to be a lock for 8th. After that, we can speculate on the finishes, but it only takes 1 upset to rock everything. And, YB, IoJ, SBI are all capable of beating each other. NSP is even pushing IoJ hard and might be able to upset IoJ, depending on how YB pushes IoJ as well. CD can benefit from these upsets as well as NSP. So, yeah, the season has been great, and the format is awesome. Just need to not offer free transfers the week before the season.

I think the Point System (5,3,1 points for 1st, 2nd,3rd place) is too static. Why not use the warscore as rating instead of points? This woud also give incentive to fight later in the match up, when places are mostly already decided.

Andrew Clear.1750:

I think this season has been great. I’m in silver, and so many positions are still up for grabs. Sure, HoD is running away with 1st, and SoR is going to finish last, since they should be in bronze and GoM in silver.

BP seems to be a lock for 8th. After that, we can speculate on the finishes, but it only takes 1 upset to rock everything. And, YB, IoJ, SBI are all capable of beating each other. NSP is even pushing IoJ hard and might be able to upset IoJ, depending on how YB pushes IoJ as well. CD can benefit from these upsets as well as NSP. So, yeah, the season has been great, and the format is awesome. Just need to not offer free transfers the week before the season.

Almost none are up for grabs:

1. HoD — For sure.
2. FA — For sure.

9. SoR — For sure.

Let’s analyze the rest of the servers:

One of SBI/YB will fight HoD and FA every other week and will place 3rd in that match. The other will win their matchup guaranteed (IoJ has zero chance against either). Because of this their points will be (starting at the end of week 5, which is this week):

YB: 17 18 23 24 29 <——- so YB has 29 pts at the end of week 9, when this all ends.
SBI: 15 20 21 26 27 <——— SBI has 27 pts at the end of week 9.

So YB gets 3rd in the tournament. (Note if the tournament ends after an even week, SBI would get 3rd.)

NSP and CD are in a similar situation. One will be matched up with BP and SoR every other week and win that match while the other will place 3rd that week. So points will go:

NSP: 13 18 19 24 25
CD: 15 16 21 22 27 <——— so CD places ahead of NSP (despite the fact that NSP beat CD head-to-head in week 1 — in fact if NSP had thrown the match in week 1, they and CD would swap point totals!)

Note that if the tournament ended in an even week NSP would place ahead of CD.

BP will be #2 in every match for the rest of the tournament. They will always beat SoR and lose to either CD or NSP. They will score:

BP: 13 16 19 22 25

IoJ will be #2 in every match for the rest of the tournament. History tells us they can’t beat SBI or YB. Their point totals will be:

IoJ: 15 18 21 24 27

So SBI, IOJ, and CD will all have 27 points; tied for 4th place.
NSP and BP will have 25 points; tied for 7th place.

In short: HoD FA YB (SBI IoJ CD) (NSP BP) SoR … parens mean tie.

If everything ended on an even week, then: HoD FA SBI (YB IoJ NSP) (CD BP) SoR.

Just takes 1 upset, and all your theory crafting goes…poof.

Keep Seasons.

1st choice: Deal with the population/coverage imbalance with any number of suggested methods. In fact, use the next season as a test ground for those changes (see thread on Nerf the domination of coverage, etc.). If they work, great, if not, ain’t no worse than it is now.

2nd choice: Make seasons winner take all. Meaning, 1 point for the match victor, 0 points for 2nd and 3rd. No more of this fighting for second nonsense.

3rd choice. Add an incentive for attacking the winning server so it doesn’t become a run away win.

Edit. After I wrote my 1st choice I thought it would be great to have some mini-seasons more often to test changes to solve the coverage/population imbalance.

Maybe we need two concurrent tournaments with different scoring systems. Kind of like playing in the English premier league and FA cup at the same time.

One based on points and the other a knockout.

You could also incorporate the 1v1v1 aspect where one match up is your points competitor and the other is your knockout competitor. Even if you lose to one you still care about the other.

Well over here in the EU you have two Servers who have far more coverage than any other in their corresponding League: Gandara and SFR.

If you are paired with these type of dominant Servers the other 2 have to fight over 2nd place which is just Three Points, which may technically bring more Competitive and Variable Match-Ups , but it just isn’t Fair when you are better off playing the system by coming 3rd so that you can end up in a more winnable Match-Up, in which you stand a better chance Maximum 5 points.

So yeah, this points system is flawed and open to exploitation and manipulation.

Distaste.4801:

Since we still have servers and those servers have population imbalances as well as time zone coverage imbalances there are no tournament systems that will work. There are very few “fair” match-ups and those quickly become imbalanced from transfers. Even when matched against those closest to your servers score there will almost always be a dominant server.

Pretty much this. Any WvW tournament structure is only as good as its underlying framework. If you want tournaments that are more fair, population imbalance has to be addressed. The rest will follow.

But looking at it realistically and working with what we have, if anything I actually prefer the Season 2 tournament structure to that of Season 1. It’s true that 2v1’s can be quite boring, but at least it opens up an opportunity for counterplay against raw coverage. It’s a bad system in several ways, but so is anything else you would care to put in its place so long as populations are what they are.

The best season is to have no season.

morrolan.9608:

The best season is to have no season.

No season was driving people away from WvW. People got bored with static matchups, or being blow out all the time (or blowing people out all the time).

Everytime the seasons come around, PvE players join in, and old WvW players come back and enjoy themselves for awhile.

Sure, nothing is gonna please everyone, but this season was 100% better than the 1st season. No other MMO is even attempting to have competitive 3 realm battles like GW2 is, let alone a competitive league system.

Andrew Clear.1750:

morrolan.9608:

The best season is to have no season.

No season was driving people away from WvW. People got bored with static matchups, or being blow out all the time (or blowing people out all the time).

Everytime the seasons come around, PvE players join in, and old WvW players come back and enjoy themselves for awhile.

Sure, nothing is gonna please everyone, but this season was 100% better than the 1st season. No other MMO is even attempting to have competitive 3 realm battles like GW2 is, let alone a competitive league system.

The PvE players come back for 2 weeks to get their achievements and leave that is hardly worth noting. They could make the actual WvW achievements realistic and you would see the same people joining and staying for longer.

Real fixes and changes or new maps for WvW would also bring a lot of old WvW players back and again probably longer than these leagues do.

Leagues introduced matchups that are even less dynamic than before, most servers will face the same match ups for the rest of the tournament with just one server swapping out.

Seasons are a way for Anet to make it look like they did something for WvW in between living stories.

Andrew Clear.1750:

morrolan.9608:

The best season is to have no season.

No season was driving people away from WvW. People got bored with static matchups, or being blow out all the time (or blowing people out all the time).

Everytime the seasons come around, PvE players join in, and old WvW players come back and enjoy themselves for awhile.

Yes come back to get their achievement then they’re out again. WvW losing players is more down to the complete lack of development for the game mode.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Well over here in the EU you have two Servers who have far more coverage than any other in their corresponding League: Gandara and SFR.

If you are paired with these type of dominant Servers the other 2 have to fight over 2nd place which is just Two Points, which may technically bring more Competitive and Variable Match-Ups , but it just isn’t Fair when you are better off playing the system by coming 3rd so that you can end up in a more winnable Match-Up, in which you stand a better chance Maximum 5 points.

So yeah, this points system is flawed and open to exploitation and manipulation.

Well they could have had a simple solution for Gandara, and that was the transfer window should have been 1-2 weeks sooner they weren’t giving time to settle into a more balanced fitting position where Augry Rock and Gandara would have ideally switched places, and Augry Rock would have probably had a great chance of winning silver but the silver league would have been slightly more balanced that it is now. But as for SFR I don’t know what the hell u can do there?

As long there are population imbalances, no form of competitive WvW should be made. Period.

The first tournament saw over 60% of my guild get sick of it and quit the game. The second tournament is even more unpleasant.

No. More. Tournaments. For gods sake anet.

ANet needs to stop hurting WvW and start helping it. What we need are new maps, new objectives, and new rewards. You know what? It is easy as hell to think those things up. Watch me whip this up:

Cut it down to three maps – one borderland for each team. You clearly need to start investing more money into your servers. I hope this helps with the lag. Lower population servers should enjoy it since they should fill 3 maps more easily than 4.

Each week the borderland map changes. Draw from all the maps in the game – IE Mount Maelstrom, the current Borderlands map, EBG, Southsun. Throw some keeps and towers and spawns in there. Sure each map may not be balanced, but since there is one home BL for each server it shouldn’t matter in the final outcome.

Get rid of the weird server gathering health etc boosts that we get for increasing our score. Instead, give everyone from the a server that won last week a passive boost that functions as 50% of a crafting booster, exp booster, magic find booster, etc. For the whole week. Only give this to the first place server so they feel like they have something to defend.

Your unique EotM buffs from various objectives was a good idea. Throw those things in there somewhere. Add more buffs that can be purchased with badges. You can just take things that we used from heart quests, like the experimental grenade kit, and give them to us in wvw for 10-50 badges.

Add a new siege weapon, call it a “Bastion.” Make it so the first person deploys it like they would a trap, taking 10 supply and it makes a small wall that can be broken down. From there, if 20 more siege is applied, make it into a box shaped wall with more health. If 30 more siege is applied it gains a small tower that can be climbed and periodically cleanses or grants might or plays a song idc. With 60 more supply it gains more health and shoots gnomes at people that explode and knock people down. Each “improvement” counts as building another siege weapon in the area for siege cap. Low pop servers can dump their supply into these things before going to bed to make it easier for whoever stays up to defend.

Most of these suggestions should take hardly any time to design. ANet could implement these while the people they pay to think stuff up figure out what weapon skins they can introduce next.

I was all up for swiss style but now I realise that it really doesn’t work at all when there are so few teams. It feels like there is no difference between the season/tournament and normal day matchups. Matches are pretty much always the same (same servers fighting each other), which is extremely boring.

As ANet is doing the tournaments it’s always a disaster for WvW-balance, so I would say:

Please, no more tournaments done by ANet anymore

But of course they could be done better by:
1) Fix the dominance of off-time PvD https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Nerf-the-domination-of-Coverage
2a) Replace server by real teams: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Collaborative-Development-Edge-of-the-Mists
2b) Or enforce balance of servers: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Proposal-Enforced-Player-Balance/first#post3921574
3) Make a tournament that increase balance and not one that increase imbalance https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Proposal-Season-Rewards-for-better-balance

For a real tournament I would prefer 2-sided matches (no problem in NA, no problem with AvA, only a problem with the uneven number of EU-server) and for the maps:
remove red borderland, give blue both spawns on green BL and green both spawns on blue BL and either keep EB unchanged or remove lord and doors of red EB keep.

A tournament system first requires that the skill of players on a server actually reflect in the server’s score.

Server scores as of now only reflect which server has more overall coverage than another. No amount of skill from players during the NA primetime is going to replace the score won by the imbalanced asia primetime of one server. The score needs a system which will promote the balanced playtime over the imbalanced one. I’ve been wanting a player-kill based system over the current PPT with active score for defending structures. The exact system used doesn’t matter though, just that it focuses score when servers are balanced.

Once a system where player skill can shine is in place they can do tournaments. Until then any tournament is decided before the tournament actually begins when servers are recruiting guilds from other servers. We already fought and decided and it wasn’t on the battle field but at the recruitment desk. That can’t be a tournament.

A third way to do this is to use the color system from Edge of the Mist. Yes i’m against this because server pride (and Dragonbrand RULEZ) but that matchup system would remove the domination of coverage. Each server gets assigned a color either at random or based on ratings. Also allow guilds to choose a color to support. The only problem is GW2 didn’t build factions that fight against (lol factions… harr harr GW1 expansion 1) yet so such a matchup has no sense of pride or something to fight for.

speaking of that.
HEY ANET LISTEN UP!
GW2 FACTIONS! Bring back Cantha as a new expansion. Let’s see what the city looks like after 200 years. Bring back the spirits, Shiro, etc. and most of all. Bring back Luxon vs Kurzick as a new WvW format. Your guild (or yourself) choose a side and then

Mixed WvW/PVE map. It would be like how the battle lines moved in the old factions but instead of just fighting small pvp maps you’re fighting on one huge WvW map. You actually move the battle lines yourself.

Dayra.7405:

As ANet is doing the tournaments it’s always a disaster for WvW-balance, so I would say:

Please, no more tournaments done by ANet anymore

But of course they could be done better by:
1) Fix the dominance of off-time PvD https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Nerf-the-domination-of-Coverage
2a) Replace server by real teams: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Collaborative-Development-Edge-of-the-Mists
2b) Or enforce balance of servers: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Proposal-Enforced-Player-Balance/first#post3921574
3) Make a tournament that increase balance and not one that increase imbalance https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Proposal-Season-Rewards-for-better-balance

For a real tournament I would prefer 2-sided matches (no problem in NA, no problem with AvA, only a problem with the uneven number of EU-server) and for the maps:
remove red borderland, give blue both spawns on green BL and green both spawns on blue BL and either keep EB unchanged or remove lord and doors of red EB keep.

WvW balance was out of whack before Anet even announced tournaments. EBay fell apart before season 2 was announced. SBI lost guilds, and it was unrelated to season 2. SoR was falling apart from internal drama from season 1. YB fell apart, way before Season 2 was announced. BP fell apart…blah blah.

Sure, tons of people took free transfers to HoD. Some probably for the rewards, some just to change servers cause they didn’t like theirs anymore, and some probably had their own reasons.

We need to stop blaming Anet for everything that the players decide to do.

Best system is all servers meet,and last two week we have playoffs.

In playoffs first week will be like this 1v6v9 2v5v8 3v4v5 based on score in your season.

Winners will meet in finals,runners up will fight for 4-6spot and bottom servers fight for 7-9place.

Because ANet sets the rewards such that stacking is rewarded and avoids to make anything that helps to increase balance or that makes coverage less decisive.

Andrew Clear.1750:

WvW balance was out of whack before Anet even announced tournaments. EBay fell apart before season 2 was announced. SBI lost guilds, and it was unrelated to season 2. SoR was falling apart from internal drama from season 1. YB fell apart, way before Season 2 was announced. BP fell apart…blah blah.

Sure, tons of people took free transfers to HoD. Some probably for the rewards, some just to change servers cause they didn’t like theirs anymore, and some probably had their own reasons.

We need to stop blaming Anet for everything that the players decide to do.

WvW balance has been out of whack because of the system that Anet has put in place though. You can blame everything on the players all you want, that doesn’t change the fact that the players are simply using the system created by Anet. The players didn’t allow for free transfers to a select few servers immediately before the season started. That was Anet. The players didn’t create a reward system for the season would make it much more profitable to transfer to a server destined for 1st or 2nd place. That was Anet.

I agree that the mentality of the players is to blame to a degree though. The fact of the matter is, whether WvW players admit it or not, the majority of players would rather put in minimal effort for the maximum amount of reward. You can’t really blame them for that. The overall philosophy regarding WvW from the majority of the players as well as Anet seems to be the underlying issue. If Anet truly wants WvW to be an end-game game mode, than they need to make it more than something that people just want to karma-train and get free rewards from by transferring to a server to stack it. It’s not an easy task to fix WvW though, but Anet has had what is approaching 2 years to do something to change the inherent balance issues with the PPT system and server population imbalances, yet instead they choose to implement seasons with rewards that encourage exoduses off of most servers in favor of stacking a select few. It’s bad for the overall health of the game honestly.

Players are like water, they inevitably follow the path of least resistance. If a.net creates a system that promotes stacking to win, players will stack. Blaming players for the current state of affairs in WvW is putting the cart before the horse.

Killface.1896:

Best system is all servers meet,and last two week we have playoffs.

In playoffs first week will be like this 1v6v9 2v5v8 3v4v5 based on score in your season.

Winners will meet in finals,runners up will fight for 4-6spot and bottom servers fight for 7-9place.

Is this someone from SBI, IoJ, or YB? Cause everyone knows how the 1/6/9 and 2/5/8 matches will turn out. The only competitive on is 3/4/5, but in silver that is competitive, in gold that is not. I don’t know about bronze, but I would figure it would be competitive there more so than gold.

They should make it points per stomp and thats it, no points for holding objectives (keeps etc) but u must hold said keep for stomp to count like with bloodlust buffs and ruins atm. For example ur points per stomp is more valued dependent on the amount of structures u have. So PvD wouldn’t make a difference if there is no enemies on the map to get points from stomps.

I think Tourney’s are a great idea it make the match ups more interesting (and this is coming from someone who is going to be facing Gandara most of the season), they just need to be wise about where they are giving the transfers to and get the timing right in giving them, giving newly stacked servers time to get their selves stable in the ratings.

godz raiden.2631:

Andrew Clear.1750:

WvW balance was out of whack before Anet even announced tournaments. EBay fell apart before season 2 was announced. SBI lost guilds, and it was unrelated to season 2. SoR was falling apart from internal drama from season 1. YB fell apart, way before Season 2 was announced. BP fell apart…blah blah.

Sure, tons of people took free transfers to HoD. Some probably for the rewards, some just to change servers cause they didn’t like theirs anymore, and some probably had their own reasons.

We need to stop blaming Anet for everything that the players decide to do.

WvW balance has been out of whack because of the system that Anet has put in place though. You can blame everything on the players all you want, that doesn’t change the fact that the players are simply using the system created by Anet. The players didn’t allow for free transfers to a select few servers immediately before the season started. That was Anet. The players didn’t create a reward system for the season would make it much more profitable to transfer to a server destined for 1st or 2nd place. That was Anet.

I agree that the mentality of the players is to blame to a degree though. The fact of the matter is, whether WvW players admit it or not, the majority of players would rather put in minimal effort for the maximum amount of reward. You can’t really blame them for that. The overall philosophy regarding WvW from the majority of the players as well as Anet seems to be the underlying issue. If Anet truly wants WvW to be an end-game game mode, than they need to make it more than something that people just want to karma-train and get free rewards from by transferring to a server to stack it. It’s not an easy task to fix WvW though, but Anet has had what is approaching 2 years to do something to change the inherent balance issues with the PPT system and server population imbalances, yet instead they choose to implement seasons with rewards that encourage exoduses off of most servers in favor of stacking a select few. It’s bad for the overall health of the game honestly.

I’m not blaming players. Players can choose to play the game how they want to. I am saying to not blame Anet. Sure, Anet setup the system, but the players implement the system. No one would like it if Anet too away their freedoms and enacted very harsh ways to play the game.

You know, FFXI has a Ninja class. It was designed to be a DPS class. As players started playing it, they turned it into a tank class. SE never even tried to kitten the class some, and even buffed up Paladins(the class they wanted to be the true tank). People started to play Ninja less, and still never used it as a DPS class. Eventually they officially added some tanking ability to Ninjas.

Point of that story is….. players will play the game how they see fit, no matter what system is in place. Balance is out of whack because of players. Sure, coverage will be an issue, but even servers with great night coverage can get beat, because they don’t have coverage anywhere else.

Learn how to make the system work for you, that is what people have done.

This is by far probably not the best solution, but could perhaps benefit the WvW community as a whole by combining everything earned in terms of points accumulated for the end of each week within each separate league.

Example: Green/Blue/Red (Green from 1 match, Blue from an entirely different match and Red from the last match), let me repeat, those servers from THREE DIFFERENT matchups within the same LEAGUE would have their score combined at the end of the week to help decide the winner.

If coverage is the name of the game, then you will almost always (with the exception of T1) have one or two servers who just out coverage the others. This system could possibly help prevent that indefinitely, ensuring that even the “little guy” has a chance at winning and isn’t just a spectator to the top contenders for the number 1 spot.

Using the current matchups for Silver League, I’ve made a sort of chart that helps detail somewhat how the matches play out. To make life easier, I’m using the current week as an example.

Match 1
GREEN: Henge of Denravi – 109 756
BLUE: Fort Aspenwood – 93 730
RED: Stormbluff Isle – 67 331

Match 2
GREEN: Yak’s Bend – 116 296
BLUE: Isle of Janthir – 83 306
RED: Northern Shiverpeaks – 62 473

Match 3
GREEN: Crystal Desert – 121 030
BLUE: Borlis Pass – 77 106
RED: Sanctum of Rall – 57 584

If the system were to be in place, Henge of Denravi, Isle of Janthir and Sanctum of Rall would all have their scores combined at the end of the week.The same would be done to Fort Aspenwood, Northern Shiverpeaks and Crystal Desert. Finally, Stormbluff Isle, Yak’s Bend and Borlis Pass have their scores combined as well. Now, as you can see, HoD/YB/CD are ALL winning their matches pretty comfortably, though FA could make a strong push and could perhaps close the gap on HoD, but that’s besides the point. The point is, the little guys don’t have a fighters chance. But what if they don’t have to rely solely on themselves?

Once all was said and done, if the scores were to be combined it would look like this:

HoD/IoJ/SoR: 250,646
FA/NS/CD: 277,233
SI/YB/BP: 260,729

So it’s Monday, and the lead from “1st” to “2nd” would only be 16,504 when everything is accumulated on paper. From 1st to 3rd is 26,587.

What does that mean? Well, with the exception of the HoD/FA/SI matchup which has a 16,026, deficit between 1st and 2nd, every other matchup is EXTREMELY closer and far more competitive due to the shared system. Matches 2 and 3 could be considered blowouts with one having a 30k+ lead and the other 40k+ but this system put in place cuts it down by more than half!

Of course, Anet could still do a 1 up, 1/2 down system at the end of the week to make sure they mix things up and to ensure some kind of variety, but this is honestly one of the ways I see Anet being able to salvage WvW and “fight back” the zerg/stack mentality a lot of people are seemingly fed up with.