Guild Wars 2

TheBandicoot.5294:

Map Caps hurt the high population servers too much, because the target should not to not let people play.

I’m not advocating map caps, but that’s exactly the idea. Over stacked servers need to be dispersed so that we have a lot of viable servers to compete against each other instead of 1 or 2 that just destroy everything else based on population.

Fuzzion.2504:

If it is dynamic, would players be able to manipulate it? For example, our world is ahead so we all agree to not play WvW so the other worlds are capped down and can’t counter us.

• That is a bad idea. Please do not implement it

If you relate the dynamic aspects to your match only, than your right it’s bad.

But the dynamics should balance ALL teams not only your match, therefore the dynamics should be related to all teams, not only the ones of your match.

If you relate the dynamic aspects to ALL teams (most of them have nothing to do with your match) then there is no way to manipulate things, your influence on the dynamics is only 1/teams, e.g. if we have 10 teams, your 100% absence from the map reduces the capacity by 10%, leaving your map vulnerable to 90% of your enemies.

Let me make an example, if at anytime 5 teams (L1,…,L5) have 30 people, 3 teams (N1,..,N3) have 50 and 2 teams (O1,O2) have 100 people that demand to play (expressing their demand by playing or sitting in the queue), the mean is (5*30+3*50+2*100)/10 = 50 people, then only 50 people can maximally play for each team and 50 on each of O1 and O2 have to sit in queue at that time (even if their match mean may be 100+100+50 = 83). Whenever someone sits in queue he is informed that on server L1,…,L5 he could immediately play. If he sees that often enough he may choose to move and by that increases balance.
If you try to manipulate and keep your 50 people at home, than you reduce the dynamic capacity by 5, i.e. still 45 of your enemies can devastate your possessions.

Fluffball.8307:

TheBandicoot.5294:

Map Caps hurt the high population servers too much, because the target should not to not let people play.

I’m not advocating map caps, but that’s exactly the idea. Over stacked servers need to be dispersed so that we have a lot of viable servers to compete against each other instead of 1 or 2 that just destroy everything else based on population.

I hated to come to that conclusion however I agree that however bad a lower map cap would be it has a positive side of forcing overstocked servers to disperse. We need a way to encourage players to move to other servers and spread out their own population.

No, lower map caps is not the way to go. Here is how I understand the majority of the problems in WvW today. Tournament is announced, guilds and players transfer to selected servers (can’t deny paying players the right to give NCsoft/ANet money), then blob>skill for the win (or at the very least overruns the skilled). The main problem I see here is metrics/ranks seemed to be used from the previous tournament season or pre-transfer/activity numbers to assist in creating matchups. This now outdated information leads to the unbalanced WvW matchups we have seen since the beginning.

What I propose is simple. After a tournament is announced and some may transfer here and there, lock in all players to their respective worlds (as you currently do). Now hold a “Qualification Week” with big rewards for participation prior to actual tournament. People will come out in force and bring their “A” game to qualify for rank 1-3, 4-5, (and so on) for two reasons. Reason 1: Prestige and bragging rights. Reason 2: If you reward them, they will come.

This will give you (ANet) all the data you need to make more fair and balanced matchup decisions with little to no change in your current software, instead of relying on algorithms and detached info. You still get money from transfers and your metrics will be higher as everyone will actually want to play. Win/Win. While its not a complete solution, I believe its a step in the right direction.
The extreme of limiting WvW achievement requirements to just 5 events was a wrong move imo as well, compounding the weakened WvW state with even less pugs in lower pop servers. Using moderation in your scale-backs and ramp-ups, will go along way with your player base.

The issue isn’t server population but as people have mentioned the reward factor. I have read “Carrot” several times and they are right. You increase your rewards by joining more populated servers. Since rewards are based on PPT then the real issue isn’t the server population but how PPT is calculated for people to win.

You can do a few things.

Option 1: As has been stated before and should be reviewed, how PPT is rewarded based on population.
Option 2: As has been stated before and should be reviewed, how drops are rewarded based on population
Option 3: Resolve the issues of PvD to ensure that points are awarded for siege use/defense as opposed to zerging (Could also be resolved in option 1)
Option 4: Battle Group. I wasn’t able to get a clear definition of what a battle group is. My take would be (and this could have already been said) merge servers into teams and make their combined PPT against other server groups declare the winner. Allow free transfers within your group so that if you have a blow out in one match, people can transfer to another server not doing well to increase PPT. This basically autobalances servers while keeping individuality. You can form teams of 3 or 4 servers which basically would create 6 – 8 teams. 8 teams would probably be best.

Or you could do all the above…that would be nice.

All of that is a long and complicated process. Why not set limits on population based on the lowest population server on each BL? So if “Server C” has 50 people on a BL then “Server A” and “Server B” can only have 50 people on that BL and so on for each BL.

In this scenario it will truly come down to nothing but skill as theoretically a lowest tier server could still fight a higher tier server. This will also encourage populations to move to new servers since coverage won’t matter anymore if you can’t get the people in.

Lastly, it will encourage more small group play. In my eyes this meets the three major needs that everyone has been complaining about for so long. If Anet deems it unfair to limit the population to the exact number of the lowest population server then they could set a parameter such as Lowest population server + 20% to allow more of the players in to wvw but not overwhelm.

Quells.2498:

All of that is a long and complicated process. Why not set limits on population based on the lowest population server on each BL? So if “Server C” has 50 people on a BL then “Server A” and “Server B” can only have 50 people on that BL and so on for each BL.

In this scenario it will truly come down to nothing but skill as theoretically a lowest tier server could still fight a higher tier server. This will also force populations to new servers since coverage won’t matter anymore if you can’t get the people in.

It’s been covered, you can’t let 1 server manipulate the population of another. I.e. take an entire BL and then abandon it so that only a handful of opposition is available to take 3 keeps and multiple other objectives. Get up early on points and then stop playing WvW for a week so no one can play on all 3 servers?

then use the parameter of total number of players for a server throughout all BL’s.

anzenketh.3759:

Jim Hunter.6821:

anzenketh.3759:

Lower Population caps
You install lower population caps you have people upset about not being able to play WvW especially during the weekend. This also only solves the population problem. You could adjust the population dynamically depending on how many players of the apposing team is on the map however some maps(Borderlands) however you will run into a deadlock until the apposing team decides to join the map.

I’m curious what you mean by deadlocked? If you have roughly equal numbers you can take just about anything on the map if you are good enough. From my experience playing against lower pop servers (often during off hours), this is when you find the best fights. If you build a cata outside of ac range and in a spot where a bali can’t hit, they have to run out to fight you because they don’t have the numbers to spike build a counter treb.

This means the tower/keep goes to whoever wins the open field fight. During prime time, especially against certain servers who will go unnamed, there is nothing you can do to get them to fight outside of their sup ac range.

What I meant is even with a dynamically changing population cap the number of players that you have on any one given map is determined by how many of the other servers have on said map. No side can get in more players until both servers increase in said population.

I agree. That’s why I am for a hard cap. Figure out the average number of players across all servers and divide by the number of servers, then divide again by 4 for each map. Slightly raise the number to account for fluctuations. That should be the new map cap.

People can spread out so there is fairly equal numbers on all the servers or they can EotM/sit in queue while more balanced fights are taking place.

I do like the idea of offering incentives to move away from the blob though.

Outmanned should be the higher server loses their downed state, get’s insta rezzed at spawn, and the server with the buff gets bloodlust points for those kills.

Maybe also introduce diminishing returns for the amount of people around you. Like anything under X amount of players offers more Wxp, better drops, etc.

Somewhat unrelated but I think you should be awarded more points for taking objectives from whoever is leading in PPT, and the objectives of whoever is 2nd in PPT should be worth slightly more than who’s in 3rd. This might help maintain some balance to the fights rather than 2 servers steam rolling the last place server.

Quells.2498:

then use the parameter of total number of players for a server throughout all BL’s.

Fluffball.8307:

Get up early on points and then stop playing WvW for a week so no one can play on all 3 servers

Anyway you look at it, letting one server dictate the population of other servers is a bad idea.

How about changing from a PPT model to a kill/event point count?

If the only points a server could score against were kills and capture/defend, it would go a long way to quell some of the issues, like blobbing and coverage. Smaller numbers could defend to earn points (successful defense) and it would be far more risky to bring a blob to capture a defended position. Smaller groups using siege/aoe would earn far more points and have far less risk against a blob. The point tick really only supports the current “issues” we see in WvW and really doesn’t condone good open world fights. In all seriousness, PPT is about the most boring way of keeping track of a winner. I’m not sure why conquest is even used for a 24/7 battle.

Dunno if someone else posted it but server population should be based on wvw coverage with meta servers in pve doest matter what server your on full or not, base the average players that log into wvw for a week on all three maps and the population should look like at there prime time and rest of the time, compared it to T1 merge servers with the ones that had matching Prime times or even
rotate merges on different non T1 servers for experimenting wvw population
What you did with PVE meta was a great idea maybe its time to bring it to wvw on a smaller scale.

I hate to say it but reducing the gem cost to go to worlds is not working ppl just save there gems to stack T1, paying to transfer is what made wvw worlds stacked like China in the first place but it was the players fault for ruining the free transfers we had at first due to seige trolls

munkiman.3068:

How about changing from a PPT model to a kill/event point count?

If the only points a server could score against were kills and capture/defend, it would go a long way to quell some of the issues, like blobbing and coverage. Smaller numbers could defend to earn points (successful defense) and it would be far more risky to bring a blob to capture a defended position. Smaller groups using siege/aoe would earn far more points and have far less risk against a blob. The point tick really only supports the current “issues” we see in WvW and really doesn’t condone good open world fights. In all seriousness, PPT is about the most boring way of keeping track of a winner. I’m not sure why conquest is even used for a 24/7 battle.

This isn’t a bad idea but the downed state/rally mechanic still favors server stacking and blobbing.

Jim Hunter.6821:

munkiman.3068:

How about changing from a PPT model to a kill/event point count?

If the only points a server could score against were kills and capture/defend, it would go a long way to quell some of the issues, like blobbing and coverage. Smaller numbers could defend to earn points (successful defense) and it would be far more risky to bring a blob to capture a defended position. Smaller groups using siege/aoe would earn far more points and have far less risk against a blob. The point tick really only supports the current “issues” we see in WvW and really doesn’t condone good open world fights. In all seriousness, PPT is about the most boring way of keeping track of a winner. I’m not sure why conquest is even used for a 24/7 battle.

This isn’t a bad idea but the downed state/rally mechanic still favors server stacking and blobbing.

True, although you could remove the downed state OR make it more punishing to get downed (i.e. lower health pool and longer revive time). This way if you fall off a cliff and aren’t getting attacked you could still rally.

munkiman.3068:

How about changing from a PPT model to a kill/event point count?

I don’t think counting only kills is a good thing. Possession and defense of valuable objects should score as well.

I would like a dynamic value of objectives: An objective has more value the more fights are about it and no (or low) value if it is taken or just in possession without any fights. And the value is higher the more people and the longer the time they fight for it.
It has a natural tendency towards zero, if not pushed up from time to time by events involving people on both sides. Capping something and owning it while everybody else sleeps has no value, beside maybe taking something valuable away from it’s original owner.

And the value of an object should also determine personal rewards (of successful as well as loosing side, a failed defense must be better than a PvD capture.), PvD karma-train must not be the most rewarding way of playing.

If an object is without a human defender, also has no NPCs (especially no Lord) to get loot from and no event to get rewards from.

If an objective is switched to often (or a wood objective is conquered) without defense it turns (with some probability) into a ruin (no doors, all destructible walls down, no lord, no owner, no events, no supply-caravans), that does not count anymore for the rest of the match. Maybe you can rebuild a ruin with massive player effort (like they have to deposit 10’000 supplies there manually). This way objective match-capacity can down-scale to the amount of objectives that both sides are able to fight for.

• Population Cap
A simple cap could be implemented that limits the number of players on your opponents’ borderlands. This means a server would have a “homefield advantage” against higher population servers. The “homefield advantage” would make defending easier, boosting the server’s morale and motivating fare-weather players to come help their server.

• Merge Servers
I don’t think it’s necessary to merge servers permanently but temporary alliances during tournament seasons could work. The alliances could be something like a low rank gold server + high rank bronze server so that mortal enemies aren’t paired together.

Only read the first page (have to dash), but I think Jim’s suggestion of lowering WvW map caps is a good idea, as it’s clearly only meant as a temporary measure. Couple that with reduced (on a scale) gem prices to transfer downward and a lock on transferring upward, and you may well get some WvW population (because that’s what we’re talking about, isn’kitten Not server population, but WvW population) leveling. Which is definitely a good thing.

What about guilds that can field more people than a given population cap? Split up and go to different maps, you blobby monsters.

Queue times? That’s what EotM is for. Yes, I don’t like playing it either, what with it being the Frostgorge Sound farming train that also gives badges of honour, but it’s your chance to run around killing people until some room on a map opens up. Or, you know, transfer to a lower population server.

“But I want large scale battles!”… yes, you’ll still get those. A cap limit of forty people still means up to 120 people on the map at the same time, and once populations level out somewhat the cap can be raised incrementally (and ideally, secretly – we don’t want selfish stack-oriented people to start imbalancing things deliberately again) and, assuming interest in WvW continues (or increases) the huge battles that some servers have come to know and love will return.

Think of lowering the cap as an austerity measure that nobody likes right now, but clears up a lot of mistakes and bad decisions made by players in the past, and gives us a chance to rebuild into something better. It’s going to be unpleasant for some, great for others, and have little discernible effect for the rest. But once things have settled out… we’ll be in a better place.

Think about it.

Dayra.7405:

munkiman.3068:

How about changing from a PPT model to a kill/event point count?

I don’t think counting only kills is a good thing. Possession and defense of valuable objects should score as well.

I would like a dynamic value of objectives: An objective has more value the more fights are about it and no (or low) value if it is taken or just in possession without any fights. And the value is higher the more people and the longer the time they fight for it.
It has a natural tendency towards zero, if not pushed up from time to time by events involving people on both sides. Capping something and owning it while everybody else sleeps has no value, beside maybe taking something valuable away from it’s original owner.

And the value of an object should also determine personal rewards (of successful as well as loosing side, a failed defense must be better than a PvD capture.), PvD karma-train must not be the most rewarding way of playing.

I did mention successful event points (successfully defending or capture). I’m not sure why it needs to be complicated by how long it’s been held or how many are defending it. This especially when you have 10v50 at stone mist, the 10 are racking up points killing various players in the 50 player blob. At a certain point, even if that blob managed to take it, it may actually cost them points to just capture it.

A population cap punishes higher tier servers because les speople can play and it punishes low tier players who like a slower paced game because more people will migrate to their servers.

This idea has been done to death and suggested like a trillion times but make the tick dependant on the average population.

However, this requires actual work and ANet prefers to go the lazy way so go ahead and lower the cap and make sure everyone is severely annoyed because you can only ever play WvW again after queuing up for hours.

Fairly simple solution (from a player’s perspective) that takes server pride, griefing and 24/7 coverage into account -

Right now, in North America, we have eight matches spread across 32 maps (3 borderlands and one EBG per match).

Instead, give us one huge match every week that is basically 8v8v8 (evenly split servers – can adjust if populations dont match up well).

And, have that match on the exact same 32 maps. Every server would still have a “borderlands map” named after their server.

Players could queue for any of the following three: any enemy borderland, their own borderland (no other server in their battlegroup could), or any of the 8 EBGs (which would need unique names). This would give every player a total of 16 possible maps to play on each week – at any given time – with access to players from 8 different servers (which should fix the coverage problem as well).

To retain server identity, rewards would be two tiered. First, the servers in the winning battlegroup would get the same rewards winning servers get now.

Second, servers should get slight advantages while holding their own borderland, giving them something to hold/brag about. By limiting queues to server borderlands, it would retain server identity and reduce griefing. Griefing on other maps would be a non issue because guilds or server groups could simply move to another map to get away.

This seems like it would be easy to implement from a dev side as well – all we would need is a new interface (with new scoring) and player access to multiple maps.

This is the most essential part: The cure must not be worse than the disease!

If you break down the problem to its essence, it has two parts:
1) Server membership is voluntary
2) There is more incentive to stack than to unstack

Any effective solution has to change one of these two parts, without being worse than the disease. This rules out a lot of the proposed solutions. Some of them would even work, but would come at a terrible price.

• Merging servers will not change either #1 or #2, and will therefore not net any long-term improvement.
• Forcibly redistributing players until the match is balanced would fix the problem by changing #1, but the cost will be the entire existing WvW community. This makes the cure worse than the disease.
• Dramatically decreasing the WvW population limit would fix the problem by changing #2, but at the cost of removing all large group play. This makes the cure worse than the disease.

Finding a solution that will work:
I doubt that Anet or the player base really wants to make server membership involuntary (no matter how you do that, it will hurt community). Therefore if there is a solution, it must come from changing #2. Somehow, there must be more incentive to destack, than to stack.

Finding the right incentive to destack will be tricky. If you give servers monetary rewards for being the underdog, then teammates might turn against each other when they get reinforcements, because those reinforcements are reducing their rewards. While it might be tricky, it think it is doable. These rewards could be tweaked until they provide enough incentive to destack, without significant negative side-effects.

TL;DR
Because no one wants to lose their freedom, the best solution is to provide an incentive for voluntary destacking. This incentive could be some form of a precisely regulated monetary bonus to lower pop servers.

Resolving the population issue on the lower tier servers you’d expect to be easy. Delete the bottom X number of servers, create a new one, and move them all there. The lowest tier servers simply don’t have enough players to queue even on reset nights in WvW.

You could also do directed moves where players from servers X, Y, and Z and move to server A only. This is much more productive than simply making it so anyone can move to any of these 5 servers for free.

But is this thread also going to discuss the enormous coverage issues that exists and solutions to those as well?

retsuya.4708:

Add some new wvw reward tracks for unique skins to get some new blood.

Taking this idea and going a bit further, why not have server population factor into progression?
For example let’s say WvWvW has a “server pride” track.
You play and accomplish certain things, the track progresses.
After a while certain rewards pop up.
The progression, however, can be slowed due to your server reaching a high population level for WvWvW.

Overall you still get the track, you still get the rewards eventually.
The trick here is those who want to game the system would transfer to lower populated WvWvW server in order to complete track faster.

Those who don’t care about that stuff will still stay home.
It would at least provide a player some incentive to see how other servers are without adding some hard population cap.

titanlectro.5029:

1) Server membership is voluntary
2) There is more incentive to stack than to unstack

• Merging servers will not change either #1 or #2, and will therefore not net any long-term improvement.

While I agree with you on most parts, I think you forgot:
WvW has not enough population left to fill the maps for 51 (24+27) teams not even in primetime.

That’s where team reduction (less parallel matches) helps, and in my view is needed. (alternatively reduced number of maps per match, reduced match-capacity.)

Another alternative is to let teams (server) play various formats of matches. A few (3 or 6) play 24/7, some play 16/7 or 8/7, some play 24/2 (weekend only), then you choose your team based on: It plays when I like to play.

titanlectro.5029:

This is the most essential part: The cure must not be worse than the disease!

If you break down the problem to its essence, it has two parts:
1) Server membership is voluntary
2) There is more incentive to stack than to unstack

Any effective solution has to change one of these two parts, without being worse than the disease. This rules out a lot of the proposed solutions. Some of them would even work, but would come at a terrible price.

• Merging servers will not change either #1 or #2, and will therefore not net any long-term improvement.
• Forcibly redistributing players until the match is balanced would fix the problem by changing #1, but the cost will be the entire existing WvW community. This makes the cure worse than the disease.
• Dramatically decreasing the WvW population limit would fix the problem by changing #2, but at the cost of removing all large group play. This makes the cure worse than the disease.

Finding a solution that will work:
I doubt that Anet or the player base really wants to make server membership involuntary (no matter how you do that, it will hurt community). Therefore if there is a solution, it must come from changing #2. Somehow, there must be more incentive to destack, than to stack.

Finding the right incentive to destack will be tricky. If you give servers monetary rewards for being the underdog, then teammates might turn against each other when they get reinforcements, because those reinforcements are reducing their rewards. While it might be tricky, it think it is doable. These rewards could be tweaked until they provide enough incentive to destack, without significant negative side-effects.

TL;DR
Because no one wants to lose their freedom, the best solution is to provide an incentive for voluntary destacking. This incentive could be some form of a precisely regulated monetary bonus to lower pop servers.

That’s why i mentioned simply changing the way points are earned. Moving from a PPT system to a kill/event success (capture/defense) system. It also has the added benefit where large off peak coverage couldn’t keep racking up points, they’d be capped to how many players they were against or how many objectives they could flip.

One problem with this, however… Is a server could just stop playing totally if they are winning, making the losing servers never have a chance to catch up, but a way around this would be neutralizing objectives that are unmanned after a certain period of time. I personally don’t think that situation would come around too often though.

John Corpening.9847:

You guys beat me to it. After last week’s positive discussion on siege trolls I wanted to bring up the topic of population imbalance and ideas that you have on it.
[..]

Thanks,
John

Thank you for endorsing this with your redness, John. It shows that you are reacting to the concerns of many posters (i.e. you read the thread names) and means a lot to us (i.e. makes us believe there’s a chance of an improvement in the future).

titanlectro.5029:

This is the most essential part: The cure must not be worse than the disease!

If you break down the problem to its essence, it has two parts:
1) Server membership is voluntary
2) There is more incentive to stack than to unstack

Any effective solution has to change one of these two parts, without being worse than the disease. This rules out a lot of the proposed solutions. Some of them would even work, but would come at a terrible price.

• Merging servers will not change either #1 or #2, and will therefore not net any long-term improvement.
• Forcibly redistributing players until the match is balanced would fix the problem by changing #1, but the cost will be the entire existing WvW community. This makes the cure worse than the disease.
• Dramatically decreasing the WvW population limit would fix the problem by changing #2, but at the cost of removing all large group play. This makes the cure worse than the disease.

Finding a solution that will work:
I doubt that Anet or the player base really wants to make server membership involuntary (no matter how you do that, it will hurt community). Therefore if there is a solution, it must come from changing #2. Somehow, there must be more incentive to destack, than to stack.

Finding the right incentive to destack will be tricky. If you give servers monetary rewards for being the underdog, then teammates might turn against each other when they get reinforcements, because those reinforcements are reducing their rewards. While it might be tricky, it think it is doable. These rewards could be tweaked until they provide enough incentive to destack, without significant negative side-effects.

TL;DR
Because no one wants to lose their freedom, the best solution is to provide an incentive for voluntary destacking. This incentive could be some form of a precisely regulated monetary bonus to lower pop servers.

I know a lot of people don’t bother reading the whole thread so I’m going to repost this bit of what Rimmy said since I think he explained it a little better than me.

Rimmy.9217:

“But I want large scale battles!”… yes, you’ll still get those. A cap limit of forty people still means up to 120 people on the map at the same time, and once populations level out somewhat the cap can be raised incrementally (and ideally, secretly – we don’t want selfish stack-oriented people to start imbalancing things deliberately again) and, assuming interest in WvW continues (or increases) the huge battles that some servers have come to know and love will return.

Think of lowering the cap as an austerity measure that nobody likes right now, but clears up a lot of mistakes and bad decisions made by players in the past, and gives us a chance to rebuild into something better. It’s going to be unpleasant for some, great for others, and have little discernible effect for the rest. But once things have settled out… we’ll be in a better place.

munkiman.3068:

Dayra.7405:

munkiman.3068:

How about changing from a PPT model to a kill/event point count?

I don’t think counting only kills is a good thing. Possession and defense of valuable objects should score as well.

….

I did mention successful event points (successfully defending or capture). I’m not sure why it needs to be complicated by how long it’s been held or how many are defending it. This especially when you have 10v50 at stone mist, the 10 are racking up points killing various players in the 50 player blob. At a certain point, even if that blob managed to take it, it may actually cost them points to just capture it.

Because a pure event system that does not respect time of possession and players fighting for it is a zero sum game between two teams: you cannot make an event, if the other side didn’t made one before (you cannot conquer what you already own). So you are always exactly one event ahead or behind per objective. It’s also susceptible to manipulation if two server trade events both get ahead of the third.

If 2 teams do not show up for the first 6 days, the one team that does show up cannot do anything after it completed map conquest, the possession of the whole match does not generate any score. Matches will be decided in the last hour only (who controls most at match end).

Jim Hunter.6821:

I know a lot of people don’t bother reading the whole thread so I’m going to repost this bit of what Rimmy said since I think he explained it a little better than me.

Rimmy.9217:

“But I want large scale battles!”… yes, you’ll still get those. A cap limit of forty people still means up to 120 people on the map at the same time, and once populations level out somewhat the cap can be raised incrementally (and ideally, secretly – we don’t want selfish stack-oriented people to start imbalancing things deliberately again) and, assuming interest in WvW continues (or increases) the huge battles that some servers have come to know and love will return.

Think of lowering the cap as an austerity measure that nobody likes right now, but clears up a lot of mistakes and bad decisions made by players in the past, and gives us a chance to rebuild into something better. It’s going to be unpleasant for some, great for others, and have little discernible effect for the rest. But once things have settled out… we’ll be in a better place.

I did read that post.

I’ve been on GoM since headstart so I’ve pretty much always been a lower tier player.

That said, if my team had a 40 person limit, and so did the enemy, that would suck. It would remove an entire form of play from WvW, which is a HUGE price to pay. Perhaps you do not enjoy playing with more than 40 people, and that is your prerogative. However many people LOVE that kind of play, and that play style would be completely destroyed by this “fix.”

Sacrificing an entire play style for a fix is excessive. That is why I say the cure is worse than the disease.

Dayra.7405:

titanlectro.5029:

1) Server membership is voluntary
2) There is more incentive to stack than to unstack

• Merging servers will not change either #1 or #2, and will therefore not net any long-term improvement.

While I agree with you on most parts, I think you forgot:
WvW has not enough population left to fill the maps for 51 (24+27) teams not even in primetime.

That’s where team reduction (less parallel matches) helps, and in my view is needed. (alternatively reduced number of maps per match, reduced match-capacity.)

Another alternative is to let teams (server) play various formats of matches. A few (3 or 6) play 24/7, some play 16/7 or 8/7, some play 24/2 (weekend only), then you choose your team based on: It plays when I like to play.

You bring up some good points!

If WvW population has taken such a big hit that we need less servers, then I’m all for it Although I’d be interested in giving incentive to destack first and see how it goes.

That said, server mergers will not solve the population balance issues. People will still stack to the winning servers, because they have incentive to do so.

anzenketh.3759:

Fluffball.8307:

TheBandicoot.5294:

Map Caps hurt the high population servers too much, because the target should not to not let people play.

I’m not advocating map caps, but that’s exactly the idea. Over stacked servers need to be dispersed so that we have a lot of viable servers to compete against each other instead of 1 or 2 that just destroy everything else based on population.

I hated to come to that conclusion however I agree that however bad a lower map cap would be it has a positive side of forcing overstocked servers to disperse. We need a way to encourage players to move to other servers and spread out their own population.

I like the mixture of force and encourage .Many of these posts have included the term " we need to force " ie you want ANET to force players to play the way you want .ANET did not stack the servers players did , ANET did not make ZERGS players did and ANET do not shout wheres the zerg on every map you go to players do.
Removing servers , forced caps etc will not I believe get the results you desire .Well maybe it will by forcing people to do what they clearly do not want they will leave and the limited number of posters will be left to play in there perfect WvW.
Outmanned benefits need to be looked at ,as at present, specially since free repairs came ,they give no real minus to the side with numbers .A scaled effect of benefits and handicaps based on percentage differences may work to spread numbers more evenly both between servers and maps .

I don’t want server mergers. I like fights but I would rather pvd than have to fight 80 man blobs every day

titanlectro.5029:

Jim Hunter.6821:

I know a lot of people don’t bother reading the whole thread so I’m going to repost this bit of what Rimmy said since I think he explained it a little better than me.

Rimmy.9217:

“But I want large scale battles!”… yes, you’ll still get those. A cap limit of forty people still means up to 120 people on the map at the same time, and once populations level out somewhat the cap can be raised incrementally (and ideally, secretly – we don’t want selfish stack-oriented people to start imbalancing things deliberately again) and, assuming interest in WvW continues (or increases) the huge battles that some servers have come to know and love will return.

Think of lowering the cap as an austerity measure that nobody likes right now, but clears up a lot of mistakes and bad decisions made by players in the past, and gives us a chance to rebuild into something better. It’s going to be unpleasant for some, great for others, and have little discernible effect for the rest. But once things have settled out… we’ll be in a better place.

I did read that post.

I’ve been on GoM since headstart so I’ve pretty much always been a lower tier player.

That said, if my team had a 40 person limit, and so did the enemy, that would suck. It would remove an entire form of play from WvW, which is a HUGE price to pay. Perhaps you do not enjoy playing with more than 40 people, and that is your prerogative. However many people LOVE that kind of play, and that play style would be completely destroyed by this “fix.”

Sacrificing an entire play style for a fix is excessive. That is why I say the cure is worse than the disease.

It is also a temporary measure. Once the servers balance out the population can be raised as needed.

30-40 man zergs hitting each other is still a huge fight. Heck the number might be higher than that, I don’t know how many people consistently play. The average number might come out higher.

Then just do it during SEA/Overnight.

Plenty of servers other than T1 queue maps during prime time, but stacking goes to those servers that are full all day. So redistribute according to active population.

titanlectro.5029:

That said, if my team had a 40 person limit, and so did the enemy, that would suck. It would remove an entire form of play from WvW, which is a HUGE price to pay. Perhaps you do not enjoy playing with more than 40 people, and that is your prerogative. However many people LOVE that kind of play, and that play style would be completely destroyed by this “fix.”

Sacrificing an entire play style for a fix is excessive. That is why I say the cure is worse than the disease.

1) Fewer teams will result in higher limits for all teams, thats why team reduction is needed in my view.
2) I have no idea why people are on a server in the bottom half (my server is EU-Gold since ever) of the ranking. Some say they prefer lower populated maps, some say the opposite. In any case, a match-capacity reduction does not have to be uniform. It could be e.g. 30 on borderlands and 80 on EB, if you want smaller scale fights you go to borderlands, if you want larger scale fights you go to EB. Another possibility is to split the teams into smaller-scale (lower map capacity) and larger scale leagues (higher map capacity) permanently, then player can simply choose, what kind of fights they prefer.

It also should not be equal during all times of the day, limits in times where many people want to play should be higher than in times where only a few want to play, e.g. 100% in prime-time, 20% in lowest off-time.

Dayra.7405:

munkiman.3068:

Dayra.7405:

munkiman.3068:

How about changing from a PPT model to a kill/event point count?

I don’t think counting only kills is a good thing. Possession and defense of valuable objects should score as well.

….

I did mention successful event points (successfully defending or capture). I’m not sure why it needs to be complicated by how long it’s been held or how many are defending it. This especially when you have 10v50 at stone mist, the 10 are racking up points killing various players in the 50 player blob. At a certain point, even if that blob managed to take it, it may actually cost them points to just capture it.

Because a pure event system that does not respect time of possession and players fighting for it is a zero sum game between two teams: you cannot make an event, if the other side didn’t made one before (you cannot conquer what you already own). So you are always exactly one event ahead or behind per objective. It’s also susceptible to manipulation if two server trade events both get ahead of the third.

If 2 teams do not show up for the first 6 days, the one team that does show up cannot do anything after it completed map conquest, the possession of the whole match does not generate any score. Matches will be decided in the last hour only (who controls most at match end).

Higher points will still be awarded for Stone Mist than keeps/towers/camps (as they are now). Sure if all you’re talking about is flipping one objective back and forth, maybe. And if like you mentioned, it would all be decided at the end of the match, how is that much different than what we have now, where a server can dominate on reset and then just stumble around the rest of the week?

In another post, i also mention the problem with this system, however you could have a neutralize timer, were objective go neutral if unmanned for a period of time. Making it a scramble to capture that point.

If you want to bust up zerg play and give lower coverage servers more equal footing, this does just that. PPT is a horrible system for this type of 24/7 battle, especially since objectives can go unmanned for days and still earn that server points.

I’d be interested in discussing more possible caveats, but holding an objective for a longer time yielding more points makes it basically a PPT type system again, for really no benefit and it only complicates things.

• Merge Servers
- Remove existing servers and create 12 new servers.
- Let the players decide the server go
- The population of these servers that depend on population wvw and not pve
- Encourage transfers to servers low population

sorry for my poor English

My recommendations would be keep a server cap at a specific number, consolidate servers (merge) by removing lower population servers and keeping 12 servers. This would help to enhance the activity on each server and help with coverage between servers.

My suggestion on merging servers would be taking the lower population servers and combining the ones that are the least populated with the most populated in active servers.

Ex)
Eredon Terrace with Fort Aspenwood
Nothern Shiverpeaks with Isle of Janthir
Anvil Rock with Yaks Bend

Cheloss.1453:

• Merge Servers
- Remove existing servers and create 12 new servers.
- Let the players decide the server go
- The population of these servers that depend on population wvw and not pve
- Encourage transfers to servers low population

sorry for my poor English

Thanks for the pregnant summary of my to long proposal above
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Solution-to-fix-the-population-imbalance/4437920 + https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Solution-to-fix-the-population-imbalance/4437923

Merging Servers vs. Mega Servers.

One is is solid the other is flowing. Either way there are actual ways to maintain a servers sense of identity and pride. I prefer the Mega servers idea as it provides a long term solution vs. a temporal one of Merging servers.

With Mega servers:

A. Preliminary set-up. Server alliances are introduced and servers are given special titles when joining that alliance. Alliances are given special armor pursuant to that alliance as a memento. Alliances are given Strongholds to unite in. How an alliances performs in WvW (activity ect) unlocks special things, what those are I have no clue.

B. Transition period: Server alliances are given one of three factions to represent. Movement between factions will be locked after movement during transition periods. Alliances are given guaranteed of movement together to a faction. (The three factions could be a semi-evil faction, a rebel faction, and a Good guy faction.) If one faction becomes to full it is closed off and alliances must pick between the other two, until all factions have been filled.

C. Post-Move. Mega servers put Guilds/Alliance into maps first filling up maps and creating them as needed. If a map becomes empty it is cleared just like in PVE.

IF a map has to many of one side on it and is imbalanced the amount of points gained from taking stuff alliances with the *outnumbered buff drops to almost nill, people are given the option to move to EOTM or queu up for a more even map.
OR
alternatively, if one faction is dominating(with numbers not good fighting ability lol) a current map, new maps are not created for uneven numbers and they are queud (they can move to eotm if they want while they wait) just like they are now for one of the already created maps.

Merging Servers:*
All Servers are re-rolled into a newly named server.

A. Preliminary: To maintain a sense of identity Servers are allowed to make Alliances named after their former server and are once more introduced with the same or similiar rewards described above. The alliances is allowed to vote on the top three choices for which named server they would be moved to. The alliance is guaranteed to move together.

B. Transition: Alliances are moved to new server and servers become locked for a period of time.

C. Post-Move, Incentives are given and tools to help the new alliance continue to grow and stay alive. Perhaps Alliance strongholds are introduced. During off hours and low peak times a system is introduced to tied to the outnumbered buff where taking items from outnumbered servers is not optimal.

Whew it in writing now I cant take it back.. Its easier for me to look at this way..

Jhawk.1360:

My recommendations would be keep a server cap at a specific number, consolidate servers (merge) by removing lower population servers and keeping 12 servers. This would help to enhance the activity on each server and help with coverage between servers.

My suggestion on merging servers would be taking the lower population servers and combining the ones that are the least populated with the most populated in active servers.

Ex)
Eredon Terrace with Fort Aspenwood
Nothern Shiverpeaks with Isle of Janthir
Anvil Rock with Yaks Bend

Merging servers and adding a cap? So we all want higher queues?

NSP is a pretty tight nit server, merges for us is completely out of the question and i’d speculate we’d (the game overall) would lose a lot of it’s WvW players. I’m highly against server mergers. Maybe when t1 and 2 servers have such low pop that it only makes sense.

munkiman.3068:

especially since objectives can go unmanned for days and still earn that server points.

That’s exactly why I proposed to that “the value of an objective decays over time, if it has no action”

Dayra.7405:

munkiman.3068:

especially since objectives can go unmanned for days and still earn that server points.

That’s exactly why I proposed to that “the value of an objective decays over time, if it has no action”

What about neutralizing it entirely?

Nightshade.2570:

Merging Servers vs. Mega Servers.

One is is solid the other is flowing. Either way there are actual ways to maintain a servers sense of identity and pride. I prefer the Mega servers idea as it provides a long term solution vs. a temporal one of Merging servers.

Do not do the following now, the servers are to imbalanced.

But if we face a situation in the future, where map-caps shrink to low as all teams lost players: Make a league where the teams fight for survival (last 3 are closed).
Should we ever face a situation of increasing population, that increase queue to much, add 3 new teams and give players that move there a time-limited “colonization”-bonus.

This way, server-reduction solutions can get a very long time perspective as well.

Whatever you do, please don’t merge servers. More blobbing on wvw incomming, more reason for myself (and many others i guess) to play other games instead of gw2.
As I can see, there are many ideas in this thread, which are much better than merging servers.
Same with “mixed-up”-(megaserver)matchups in eotm-style. This would make wvw an all-day-long eotm part 2. Its the server communities, who keep competition alive. I dont think, you should change that.

munkiman.3068:

Dayra.7405:

munkiman.3068:

especially since objectives can go unmanned for days and still earn that server points.

That’s exactly why I proposed to that “the value of an objective decays over time, if it has no action”

What about neutralizing it entirely?

Yes, decay to zero. (maybe best a logarithmic decay: For every tick without action, the value is halved (or 75% or …), an action involving at least X player (treb-shooting, and the thief hitting the guards, better do not count) double (or add 25% or …) the value (up to some max value))

And did you noticed my edit about ruins that happened after you cited it?

Suggestion:
Increase the difficulty for higher population servers to take objectives from lower population servers;

What if the Outmanned buff allowed the following:

Determined buff to persist in objectives held by your faction (no more 30 v 1 defender being a washout)
Upgrades happen faster and take less supply
Camp invulnerability was longer
Walls and gates were stronger
Guards gain the same invulnerability buff as The Lord
Breakouts were guaranteed(siege raiser gives automatic foothold on the battleground instead of an excuse for high pop server to grind the low pop into the dirt)
Supply regenerated in objectives (a higher pop server has no problem resource starving which ruins the ability to defend at all)

It won’t prevent the Zerg from taking objectives ; just slow them down
but it would help the lower pop server to at least keep a few objectives or slow down the larger pop’s dominance (it also still allow the Zerg to curb stomp anyone caught in the open which is a big reason people Zerg in the first place)
Lower pop would have to work harder to keep objectives, but at least their efficiency would be such that they could mount a reasonable challenge

Lower pops stay low because there are no tools to counter the advantage of numbers and no way to enhance a lower pops ability to influence or change the outcome (short of flipping camps or catching a server off guard for a tick or two)

incentivize players to destack.

population caps dont do that, they only disincentivize stacking by making the experience frustrating. but there is no incentive to destack, you still win for being the zergiest.

mergers dont do that, mergers just eliminate the sense of community a lot of players have and dont want to give up.

screwing around with ppt and underdog buffs affects the mechanics of matchups, but does not really incentivize transfers to underdogs, although its sort of closer. (basically the solution to this whole other problem will lie in making it worth it to 2v1 the leader instead of fighting for 2nd, for example enforce green and red allies when blue is the leader, and make allies earn a combined ppt. matches should then gravitate towards being close all week instead of runaway wins. the issue with enforcing a solution is that its not the choice of the players to self moderate. if it isnt something we want to do, you really cant make us do it unless you force the issue to be outside of the ruleset.)

heres something that could actually address the issue:
hold the transfer cost gems as a security deposit, and after a long while, return them along with a gift if you transferred to a server in… say bronze. numbers dont really matter, except that the gift needs to be substantial (either an incomparable or much bigger than the transfer cost). at the same time, implement changes to ppt similar to what i just outlined above to truly eliminate snowballed match scores and drive matches into a back-and-forth.

decrease the map cap and let then rot in queue and eotm or transfer to balance out a bit.

and please send stomped/dead to spawn. hard ressing only benefits the bigger zerg

This would also be the perfect time to tweak the ever so useless outmanned buff. As it is right now it doesn’t help the outmanned players in any way.