Guild Wars 2

Hello, one solution to the population problem would probably be how the points work.

If it would be “Points per Hour played” the Matchwinner wouldn’t be a matter of population anymore. And if you would win a match not just by points, but by points per hour i am sure a lot of people would switch the server, because they can win by playing good.
See Attached pic for an example.

You just have to record all hours played on a Server in the Week.
For a Server with 100 People that play 24/7 that would be 16800 hours
For a Server with 45 People that play 24/7 that would be 7560 hours

Record all hours and calculate the the % of coverage.
Then do: Weighted Points = Actual Points / Coverage[%]

This wouuld lead the good wvw-players to a matchup-win and the 1,1,1 pressing Zerg Karma trainers to a loss.

Perhaps this Idea need some finetuning, but it it surely a good startingpoint for a brainstorming.

Dayra.7405:

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, decays to zero.

And did you noticed my edit about ruins?

Yes, but i’m entirely against server mergers. I think there can be more balanced play by simply changing the point system away from PPT. Right now when you look at the scores all you see is player population. Changing the point system would reflect better players and tactics, it’d be much harder to tell what a server was doing by just looking at the score. Are they really strong in defense? Are they racking up points in kills? Are they really doing well with captures?

titanlectro.5029:

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.

That’s why it isn’t a good idea to merge the low-pop servers. Either

• start from scratch with fewer teams
• delete the nearly empty and the Top-Pop-server to force the overstacked people to spread out. (they have the people that are experienced in moving and that made the problems)

In both cases the balance-limits have to be implemented first (you are not allowed to overstack again)

IMO there are only really 2 solutions.

1

Merge or create WvW based on guild vs guild or faction vs faction. It’d operate the same way it does now, but allow players to pick one of 3 sides whenever they go into WvW. With 3 borderlands, this shouldn’t be an issue. There can be multiple instances of each map, where a new one opens up when the previous one is full. My guess is, there will always be at least 1-2 full maps at any given time. Conversely, there will always be 1-2 low population or dead maps for those players who prefer it. This also makes it easier for GvG to occur as they can all head to whatever map is the most vacant.

Give achievements based on each faction, and were good to go. Not sure if this is within their scope of development though.

2

The quicker, easier, and less desirable solution is to just lower the map population to 40 or 50. Players will just have to make the choice to either que or leave to a more vacant server. The only issue behind this some guilds being able to field that many players. This again is few and far between, so for the greater of good, this would still work out in the long run.

Sorry to sound like a Dev here but your suggestions must also take into consideration:

1. Every player should be able to play. Sorry, but that’s why EotM was originally made. Having someone want to play but not being able to play is bad, very very bad.
2. Skill is supposed to win over all. How does your suggestion make skill the determining factor in who wins?
3. Does your suggestion make one player’s contribution in a specific time/map better or worse than another player in the same or different time?
4. Have you thought about ways that a player, guild, guilds or servers could take advantage of your suggestion?
5. How important is server pride in your suggestion? Server pride is a factor in why players stay on a server, even as it drops from gold to bronze.

Are there any other criteria you want in WvW?

Blaeys.3102:

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 probably the best idea. So have an 8v8v8 but instead on 32 maps have it about 16 to 24 (so 1 borderland for each server and 6 eternal battlegrounds) maps to allow for increased population on certain maps that are underutilized. This will allow for over flowing servers to go support others in their league that are under populated while keeping the bigger server’s imaginary “community” in tack.

Dayra.7405:

titanlectro.5029:

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.

That’s why it isn’t a good idea to merge the low-pop servers. Either

• start from scratch with fewer teams
• delete the Top-Pop-server to force the overstacked people to spread out. (they have the people that made the problems)

In both cases the balance-limits have to be implemented first (you are allowed to overstack again)

And then you just destroyed every last server community for your solution. We are back to the cure being worse than the disease.

I realize that there are some vocal forum users that are convinced that WvW is 100% broken and that any and all changes are justified because there is nothing good left in WvW. Clearly this is not the case. If there was truly no good left, then people would not care about it at all.

We must assume there IS good left, or else no one would be posting here! Therefore, it is paramount that we do not sacrifice the good of WvW to fix the bad! Removing the existing server communities or removing any form of teamwork with 40+ people, are both perfect examples of destroying the good to try to fix the bad.

Perhaps just remove the PPT all together and reward score for kills and captures only. Then have the score dynamically reflect the amount of people (or lack there of on the map).

For example, having 100 on the map vs 30. The side with 100 has their points per kill/capture reduced 70% while the side with 30 has their points increased 70%.

Now this doesn’t directly affect the coverage/population issue, but what it might do is indirectly force players/guilds who specifically play for score to seek out another server where their efforts are better tallied. For example, a server with strong OCX coverage on maps with little to no presence will pretty much give them nothing in terms of score.

Sure they can play, upgrade, and siege everything up if they choose, but score wise, it will have little to no bearing on the overall score.

You could reduce the length of matches, or have regular map resets of some kind. You could find a way to make it fun to still play even if you are vastly outnumbered, vastly outnumber your foe, or if both sides have very small numbers present. (Those are the times that are not so much fun.) For example, if you are vastly outnumbered a Dragon event starts, and attacks the superior force/forces. Instead of nearly unstoppable champions, players take that role. The superior force gets big rewards for stopping the dragon, the smaller guys have fun being able to stomp massive numbers of the enemy for a short period of time. (plus all the loot bags). Maybe with mostly empty maps, NPC armies are generated that start attacking each other. (Soldiers disappear as people come to take their place.)

I don’t think you will ever see server balance unless the competition becomes to balance servers. Because in a competition you want to have the best team, and not all players are created equal. The good will clump together and become great, while the so-so will get stomped.

Shorter timed fights could help. For example, a over the weekend tourney. Or rankings based on time of day. (3 eight hour divisions, or 2 twelve hour divisions, or 4 six hour divisions, you get the point.) That way one server can rule the “day” while another can rule the “night.” Maybe your low pop server is really good in one section and gets to tier 3, while normally you are around tier 8. That would confuse fights, but it could help match things up better.

titanlectro.5029:

And then you just destroyed every last server community for your solution.

Are the top server really the best communities we have?

Didn’t all server implosions happened in the top 6, showing the instability of those communities in face of losses?

Isn’t a community that stays together even while crushed more worthy than a community that runs over everyone without challenge?

Isn’t a community that has fewer closed and cleaned threads in the good old days of match-threads more worthy than a large collection of forum trolls?

Isn’t a community with a lower percentage of new joiner more worthy than a community with a high percentage of people moving around?

My expectation is that the top-server have a small good core community with a large periphery of unsteady people. Without doubt the core-community will be able to move together to build a new community somewhere else. And the periphery that disturbed the balance has to spread out.

Swamurabi.7890:

Sorry to sound like a Dev here but your suggestions must also take into consideration:

1. Every player should be able to play. Sorry, but that’s why EotM was originally made. Having someone want to play but not being able to play is bad, very very bad.
2. Skill is supposed to win over all. How does your suggestion make skill the determining factor in who wins?
3. Does your suggestion make one player’s contribution in a specific time/map better or worse than another player in the same or different time?
4. Have you thought about ways that a player, guild, guilds or servers could take advantage of your suggestion?
5. How important is server pride in your suggestion? Server pride is a factor in why players stay on a server, even as it drops from gold to bronze.

Are there any other criteria you want in WvW?

I still think changing the point system will have the biggest impact without changing anything else about the population, the servers, the current glicko, etc.

The biggest challenge for ANet, in all seriousness, is how to track player kills. I’m sure that would be quite a tough one. I think that it could work if we take the tagging mechanism from mobs the same way. Meaning if you take damage from a blue player and don’t recover and ultimately die, the point goes to blue. If you do recover, it gets reset till you take damage again. Falls to your death obviously would only count if someone hit you and in your get away you fall of a cliff. I have no idea how hard that would be to implement, maybe too hard, which is why we are stuck with this current system.

Population caps: Don’t change it. As is, it can already become a problem when a guild is trying to get their players on a queued map, and it can create a toxic environment for pugs.

Merge servers: Regardless of “server pride”, this is an option, but it in and of itself does not solve the primary issue of 24/7 coverage.

Battle Groups: May be a viable option, but would need to see how maps would be handled. EOTM style overflow would not be an option, as that would not fit with the PPT mechanic. (EOTM as a competitive map is pointless, as the creation of additional overflows always preferences the team with most players.)

Scaled PPT by population: I see variations of this proposed often, but I do not see it as a viable solution. The PPT mechanic should be fixed regardless of number of players, or otherwise it would also lead to a toxic environment as people try and manage the population on maps to favor the scaled mechanic.

I posted this idea last year when there was I think a CDI or something about population issues. At the time, I said balancing populations is the wrong way to tackle this problem because populations will fluctuate all the time for various reasons. I’m even more convinced of this now.

You have to adjust scoring in WvW to make population matter less.

1. Make unmanned structures decay. First losing upgrades, then going to a neutral uncapped state. Some indicator on the map will alert a team when a structure is in a state of decay. You have this in the ruins already. Just make it much longer for structures (30min of no defenders in a keep, 15 for towers?) This will spread zergs out and force defense. Of course people will try and bot to keep structures from decay so some kind of anti-bot measure would need to be in place.

2. Make neutral structures worth 0 PPT when captured. They will produce supply/can be upgraded, but won’t generate PPT until they’ve been defended. Once a successful defense event for that structure has been completed, it begins to generate normal PPT. Stops night-capping and pv-dooring from decimating a low pop server.

3. Neutral structures still give event completion, karma, wxp, champ bag etc when captured, so people can still karma-train even when the opposing servers are asleep.

4. Camps are left alone and don’t decay. They simply don’t send yaks to neutral structures.

5. Increase PPT the more ticks a structure is successfully kept-up (up to some cap) and the more upgrades a structure has. This allows a server with low pop to concentrate on making a ‘last stand’ in just a few structures while not getting blown out. This also promotes upgrading structures, and gives an opposing force a reason to besiege a difficult target rather than just flipping towers all day.

6. Remove waypoints from keeps.

These solutions are intended to address the problem of population/coverage imbalance without actually relying on populations being balanced or punishing servers with healthy wvw populations by lowering queue limits on them.

The scoring system as it is now heavily favors the servers with the best 24/7 coverage and the bloodlust mechanic has only made this worse. There needs to be a truly powerful comeback mechanic in place for low pop or spotty coverage.

The few servers that do organize 24/7 coverage might be initially upset that their hard work is somehow mitigated because of this but they’ll come around to it once they see more competitive matches. They will actually have to think about the battlefield and where to dig in rather than simply organize on some forum who’s blob is going to be where when.

Wouldn’t it be nice if 1st place each week wasn’t determined by Monday?

DeadlySynz.3471:

Perhaps just remove the PPT all together and reward score for kills and captures only. Then have the score dynamically reflect the amount of people (or lack there of on the map).

For example, having 100 on the map vs 30. The side with 100 has their points per kill/capture reduced 70% while the side with 30 has their points increased 70%.

Now this doesn’t directly affect the coverage/population issue, but what it might do is indirectly force players/guilds who specifically play for score to seek out another server where their efforts are better tallied. For example, a server with strong OCX coverage on maps with little to no presence will pretty much give them nothing in terms of score.

Sure they can play, upgrade, and siege everything up if they choose, but score wise, it will have little to no bearing on the overall score.

Exactly, however you wouldn’t need to go as far as changing point percentage. It would be far more risky to blob to take a defended/sieged tower since the chances of player death is much higher. The more numbers you brought to a map, the higher the risk of failure. I would also go so far as points for successful defense. We already have a defend event, so tacking points on to that (and a reward chest on success to the defenders) wouldn’t be that hard to implement, i wouldn’t think.

I’m tossing this idea out without being really committed to it because I’d like to hear what people think… What about regular free transfers to Bronze league servers? This would give guilds who are on larger servers a handful of potential destinations if they are unhappy with their current server community. It’d also give Bronze league servers regular infusions of new players.

If you had some sort of schedule for this, perhaps once every two months, players would know they can transfer for free in X weeks.

From my perspective, I have several guild members who are on other servers and would love to come WvW with us, but the insanely high price of a transfer is keeping them away. It’d be nice to say, “Hey, first week of October, we’ll have free transfers. Come on over.”

I’m just a casual WvWer, though, so I’ll let somebody else explain how this would completely ruin the game.

timmyf.1490:

I’m tossing this idea out without being really committed to it because I’d like to hear what people think… What about regular free transfers to Bronze league servers? This would give guilds who are on larger servers a handful of potential destinations if they are unhappy with their current server community. It’d also give Bronze league servers regular infusions of new players.

If you had some sort of schedule for this, perhaps once every two months, players would know they can transfer for free in X weeks.

From my perspective, I have several guild members who are on other servers and would love to come WvW with us, but the insanely high price of a transfer is keeping them away. It’d be nice to say, “Hey, first week of October, we’ll have free transfers. Come on over.”

I’m just a casual WvWer, though, so I’ll let somebody else explain how this would completely ruin the game.

Without being free, there is already incentive to transfer to lower pop servers, it’s a lot cheaper

This thead assumes population imbalance is an issue and that WvW was somehow supposed to be competitive

People go into WvW aka EotM to stomp people in zergs pressing 1 while earning karma and badges

If people wanted competition this would have been changed a while ago and EoTM would have never been created

All of the issues concerning WvW right now have to do with the kitten that is EotM

Unlike most here I think this is a complex issue that will require more than one suggestion to alleviate the problem.

First off, I am against limiting peoples access to the game therefore reducing the cap should not be considered.
I also am against losing server identity (with a caveat).

I think we need to do a couple of things.
Near term we need server alliances for scoring in tournaments (such as rank 1 + rank 6 total score vs rank 2 + rank 5 total score vs rank 3 + rank 4 total score etc.). We need to implement this to stop the bleed after each tournament because the bottom servers have NO CHANCE of getting any rewards, and this is not due to their own fault, but simple issue of player availability and coverage dominance of WvW.

Now on to my suggestions long term for WvW
Incentivise moving to a low population server
This is done by having tiered gem prices for transfers instituted 24/7/365. server ranked 24th should always be 0gems so that if someone wants to fight there they can do so for free, server ranked 1st should cost 1,800gems (or some other arbitrary number set by ANET).
This is one part, next we also have to make sure that stacking does not mean better rewards. Gold, Silver, and Bronze leagues do this to an extent, but lets take it a step further and make the rewards the same for each tier. Until we achieve population balance throughout the server list, then why reward stacking? Lets give people the reward for winning against similar numbers! That way, you have no reason to move up a tier because you’ll get a “better reward”. Now the negative here may be servers tanking for better chance at winning, but honestly the positives could really outweigh the negatives.
Lastly (for me I think some other small incentives could certainly be added) I would buff the outmanned buff to be something worth using. Right now slightly better rewards simply is not worth the risk you face by going into an outmanned map. Chances are you will be bowled over by a 10:1 fight for a small percentage of more karma/gold. This just won’t do.

New WvW servers/alliances/clusters
What we all want is fair, close non outmanned matches where each team has a chance. It’s exciting and helps keep people engaged in WvW. The way we could do this is by server alliances to a cluster. This can be done once or twice a year and the entire server fights for their alliance against others. You preserve the current server identity because all the players would still be able to play together, but they would have an infusion of players.
How to approach this(NA example):
Create 4 alliances for each color (4 green, 4 blue, 4 red). Then take the metrics of WvW participation and assign servers to each alliance in best population distribution possible. In NA that would mean an alliance of 4 servers would represent one fighting faction. (example here but the real alliances would be dermined by active player distribution by ANet once yearly to create an alliance: BG + Mag + SF + ET would be the new alliance Beastmode who would fight against a Jarring Warriors alliance of JQ + FA + SoR + EB and an alliance of TC + FC + SF + AR Garnished Rock)

EotM rewards must be curbed
I am one of the people who feel that the EotM train actually takes away from the WvW participation. Some say that it’s the PvE crowd that goes to EotM, but I counter with, don’t we want more people in WvW? In the end, aren’t most of the WvW players people who PvE. We need the fresh blood, and much like GW2 the game itself, if you get 100 people to try out WvW chances are 10 will like it and continue to play it. So several things need to be undertaken:

• EotM world experience should be reduced by up to 90%. EotM does not contribute to your server score/buffs, therefore it should not provide WvW based progression.
• Badges/Karma should also be reduced by at least 50% in EotM, and the comparitive rewards in WvW should be upgraded by that much to provide incentive for people to go to WvW to get badges for WvW. And since the objectives don’t change hands as much, karma should be upgraded as well.
• EotM should be treated as a training ground for WvW, not a farming map. Rewards for killing players remain the same, rewards for taking objective are curbed as stated above.

This turned out longer than I anticipated, but its my opinion of steps that can be taken to retain players’ interest in WvW, get new people to try it out, and provide a fair match-up options for a more engaging and dynamic game mode.

munkiman.3068:

Without being free, there is already incentive to transfer to lower pop servers, it’s a lot cheaper

That’s not an incentive to move down. Staying on an overstacked server is cheaper.

silvermember.8941:

Blaeys.3102:

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 probably the best idea. So have an 8v8v8 but instead on 32 maps have it about 16 to 24 (so 1 borderland for each server and 6 eternal battlegrounds) maps to allow for increased population on certain maps that are underutilized. This will allow for over flowing servers to go support others in their league that are under populated while keeping the bigger server’s imaginary “community” in tack.

Thanks.

I dont really see a down side. It would take the best parts of the megaserver without compromising server pride or identity – with the added benefit of giving us alot more people to play with 24/7. At the same time, it would virtually eliminate queues regardless of the server youre on.

At the same time, it would give powerhouse wvw guilds more to do – if they dominate a map and start finding it boring, they can just find another where their battlegroup needs help.

Most importantly, though, it has the potential to make WvW more fun for everyone – keeping the fights going somewhere regardless of population issues.

Swamurabi.7890:

Sorry to sound like a Dev here but your suggestions must also take into consideration:

1. Every player should be able to play. Sorry, but that’s why EotM was originally made. Having someone want to play but not being able to play is bad, very very bad.
2. Skill is supposed to win over all. How does your suggestion make skill the determining factor in who wins?
3. Does your suggestion make one player’s contribution in a specific time/map better or worse than another player in the same or different time?
4. Have you thought about ways that a player, guild, guilds or servers could take advantage of your suggestion?
5. How important is server pride in your suggestion? Server pride is a factor in why players stay on a server, even as it drops from gold to bronze.

Are there any other criteria you want in WvW?

This. I would suggest that those who are truly passionate about this rewrite their suggestion into these catagories: Changes in the next 4 months, Changes in the next 8 months, changes in the next Year. I get it that we have waited 2 years for a fix for this but if we can, as reasonable people, look at what is the quickest change we think possible and suggest that and then place what would take the longest to implement then at least we, as players, could help Anet develop WvW roadmap.

Next 4 Months:
Rewards: Update the Outmanned buff to provide greater MF (ex. 100%) for players and keep lords so that players are rewarded more for being on low population servers.
PPT: Group servers into Teams so that PPT is averaged across multiple servers to decide the “winner.” This will allow those who are about “server pride” to stay on their servers while those who want “the win” can transfer to a teammate to assist in PPT.

Next 8 Months:
PPT: Update structures so that PPT is based on difficulty of the capture. Create a PPT bonus over time for taking difficult structures.
Rewards: Create WvW reward tracks so that each captured point provides EXP toward a reward track. With each structure rewards more/less depending on PPT value. This allows people to get good rewards without “winning” the PPT war.

Next 12 months:
Guilds:
Add Guild Fortifications Just like you can build guild siege weapons, you can upgrade fortifications based on what your guild has unlocked for WvW. This will strengthen gates/walls or upgrade defenders from Vet’s to Champions. Make guilds have a presence other than “capturing” a point. It should take LESS time or provide BETTER defense than the normal tree
Allow guilds to claim NPC camps in Home BL (centaurs) and EB (ogres, dredge, frogs) that provide a buff to all the players in that map (speed, toughness, vitality, power)
Add guild missions in WvW that provide PPT when completed as well as normal rewards. Downside is that the opposing team can wipe the guild and prevent the mission from succeeding.

I like your idea of allowing guilds to use buffs for all guilded players on a map Thiefz. There would need to be a discussion though on how to make sure that doesn’t make people feel like they MUST be in a guild in order to feel competitive. +hp/ap/crit should stay around objectives, not in the entire map, but maybe could be changed with other buffs…
Nice way of getting guilds more engaged I think.

silvermember.8941:

Blaeys.3102:

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 probably the best idea. So have an 8v8v8 but instead on 32 maps have it about 16 to 24 (so 1 borderland for each server and 6 eternal battlegrounds) maps to allow for increased population on certain maps that are underutilized. This will allow for over flowing servers to go support others in their league that are under populated while keeping the bigger server’s imaginary “community” in tack.

I also think something along these lines is really interesting. It takes advantage of the existing structure, solves a lot of the que and population issues at once. Individual servers maintain identity and there would be lots of opportunities for getting the particular type of WvW play that groups would be looking for.
Determining the 8 server groups is an interesting issue. Random assignment is probably the best, clear the PPT run them for 1 month, rewards at the end based on server group score. Next month shuffle, reset PPT. Additional bonuses for keeping borderlands clear for individual servers could be interesting and perhaps another bonus for having all of your server group’s borderlands clear. That would reward server cooperation, it could be like bloodlust, or give some points towards a special title or armor or something. Spoon

Dayra.7405:

munkiman.3068:

Without being free, there is already incentive to transfer to lower pop servers, it’s a lot cheaper

That’s not an incentive to move down. Staying on an overstacked server is cheaper.

Yes, they’ve done free transfers in the past though, didn’t really impact balance all that much. If anything it caused the same group to shift off the high tier into ONE (a single server) in the lower tiers. Basically swapping the positions of the two servers.

Dayra.7405:

munkiman.3068:

Without being free, there is already incentive to transfer to lower pop servers, it’s a lot cheaper

That’s not an incentive to move down. Staying on an overstacked server is cheaper.

Keep in mind that munkiman is on NSP. Silver league, cheapest transfer costs (Medium pop). 500 gems.

I’m on Sanctum of Rall. Very high population, Bronze league. 1800 gems.

It’s 3.6 times as expensive to come to my server even though we’re ranked lower. That’s why I suggested making transfer fees based on WvW tier, not server population. We’ve got A LOT of PvEers on SoR who don’t set foot in WvW due to some… toxic experiences in our T1 days.

Many of us have created communities for our servers which we happen to like. Merging servers would only destroy these communities.

Reducing maximum map capacity will probably be counter productive to trying to balance server population since higher tier servers can already queue a map. The game is to the point where players would rather quit than transfer somewhere else. WvW itself is a sandbox style element of the game and trying to force players to do things makes it less and less of a sandbox.

Changing the scoring system which can give a less populated force a slight handicap would probably be better than trying to force a population balance.

Bloodlust seemed like a good way to encourage fights by earning PPT through stomps however it seems like the server with the biggest population will have the most control over bloodlust. It’s probably about time for a change to the maps and getting rid of bloodlust might be for the better. To still encourage PPT through fighting, stomps can be worth 1 point.

Another suggestion is to change the Outnumbered buff so it works globally across all maps. If the scoring system is based on all four maps why can’t Outnumbered be triggered based on the current population across all maps? Making the Outnumbered buff actually useful has been suggested since it came out and is long overdue for a change. Somethings which might be useful while outnumbered is decreasing the amount of supply it takes to repair/build, make people with the outnumbered buff not worth any points for stomps, and all kills performed while outnumbered worth a single point with stomps worth two. Adding marginal stat increases such as what bloodlust already does would also be beneficial without being overpowered. Last but not least, allow Outnumbered to be stackable if both opposing servers in your match up have you outnumbered.

Personally, I think adjusting the scoring system so less populated forces can still compete is the best idea over forcing any type of server merges, transfers, or some type of battlegroup/faction idea which can turn into what EotM already is.

nekretaal.6485:

Then just do it during SEA/Overnight.

[..]redistribute according to active population.

So you mean determine a prime-time (by looking at # of active players) per timezone (US/EU/whatever) and raise the map caps during those hours? I quite like that idea.

timmyf.1490:

I’m tossing this idea out without being really committed to it because I’d like to hear what people think… What about regular free transfers to Bronze league servers? This would give guilds who are on larger servers a handful of potential destinations if they are unhappy with their current server community. It’d also give Bronze league servers regular infusions of new players.

If you had some sort of schedule for this, perhaps once every two months, players would know they can transfer for free in X weeks.

From my perspective, I have several guild members who are on other servers and would love to come WvW with us, but the insanely high price of a transfer is keeping them away. It’d be nice to say, “Hey, first week of October, we’ll have free transfers. Come on over.”

I’m just a casual WvWer, though, so I’ll let somebody else explain how this would completely ruin the game.

free transfers dont work

we just produce bandwagons that act like economic bubbles — people are happy for a short term and then the bubble pops and everyone goes back to what they were doing (see: hod season 2, kain 12/2012 until wm quit). no one really intends to stick around because they have no investment in the server.

and unfortunately it doesnt really hold the interest of a lot of people in high tiers. they have the comfort of the ability to take a break and do something else and not worry about having a huge negative impact on their server precisely because the population density is already high enough that someone else will pick up the slack.

often times when a guild leaves low tiers, the reasoning is that they dont want to feel so much pressure to perform. they feel like theyre somehow carrying the server during that time slot cuz they get called in to do things that need to be done and dont have much time for things they want to do.

so thats the incentive to stay in high tiers — you dont have to be necessary. you can do what you want more. and its a disincentive to move to low tiers. and the opportunity of free transfers provides an escape route for groups that dont want to stay where they are due to negative community relations at the cost of being more necessary to a server. its a tradeoff. in addition to the whole other problem introduced by bandwagoning that comes with free transfers.

munkiman.3068:

Dayra.7405:

munkiman.3068:

Without being free, there is already incentive to transfer to lower pop servers, it’s a lot cheaper

That’s not an incentive to move down. Staying on an overstacked server is cheaper.

Yes, they’ve done free transfers in the past though, didn’t really impact balance all that much. If anything it caused the same group to shift off the high tier into ONE (a single server) in the lower tiers. Basically swapping the positions of the two servers.

If you want to turn the transfer prices into an balance incentive you need some additional things, as taxing (or not) transfers is only a function to reduce (or not) the amount of (specific) transfers, but not a way to increase specific transfers:

• accurate WvW-population counts, that are updated on every transfer/activation of former inactive WvW-player (such that underpopulated can be adequately assigned and removed whenever its isn’t true anymore)
• free/cheap transfer to any low-pop server (to test it out)
• a payment for playing WvW (better increased income from participating in WvW) on a (still) underpopulated world (it stops when it’s no longer underpopulated).

Tspatula.9086:

silvermember.8941:

Blaeys.3102:

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 probably the best idea. So have an 8v8v8 but instead on 32 maps have it about 16 to 24 (so 1 borderland for each server and 6 eternal battlegrounds) maps to allow for increased population on certain maps that are underutilized. This will allow for over flowing servers to go support others in their league that are under populated while keeping the bigger server’s imaginary “community” in tack.

I also think something along these lines is really interesting. It takes advantage of the existing structure, solves a lot of the que and population issues at once. Individual servers maintain identity and there would be lots of opportunities for getting the particular type of WvW play that groups would be looking for.
Determining the 8 server groups is an interesting issue. Random assignment is probably the best, clear the PPT run them for 1 month, rewards at the end based on server group score. Next month shuffle, reset PPT. Additional bonuses for keeping borderlands clear for individual servers could be interesting and perhaps another bonus for having all of your server group’s borderlands clear. That would reward server cooperation, it could be like bloodlust, or give some points towards a special title or armor or something. Spoon

I know Im harping on my own idea, but another potential benefit of this type of system would be design flexibility and growth potential in WvW. It would really easy for developers to introduce new maps to a system like this in the future.

So, a system like this would -

- Retain server identities/pride
- Eliminate queues on all servers
- Better ensure all players (regardless of server) would have access to fights 24/7
- Encourage new and better ties between players across the game (new friends )
- Offer an easier way for developers to grow the WvW portion of the game in the future

all without having to merge servers, mess around with transfer incentives (or punishments), reduce map caps or add/delete any current resources (eg, the current maps). All it would take is a scoring and interface change.

DeadlySynz.3471:

Perhaps just remove the PPT all together and reward score for kills and captures only. Then have the score dynamically reflect the amount of people (or lack there of on the map).

For example, having 100 on the map vs 30. The side with 100 has their points per kill/capture reduced 70% while the side with 30 has their points increased 70%.

Now this doesn’t directly affect the coverage/population issue, but what it might do is indirectly force players/guilds who specifically play for score to seek out another server where their efforts are better tallied. For example, a server with strong OCX coverage on maps with little to no presence will pretty much give them nothing in terms of score.

Sure they can play, upgrade, and siege everything up if they choose, but score wise, it will have little to no bearing on the overall score.

Not an option for people like me, playing as a “deffer” only. This would make defending kinda useless, or at least make people feel like defending would be useless. At one of the last german community meetings we’ve been talking about structures giving more points for longer time held or for being upgraded, so defending would become a more important or interesting aspect of wvw. I dont know how this is seen on other servers, but on Kodash defending is still an important aspect of wvw and there are many people playing this way.

Instead, Anet could start to make objects pretty much harder to cap for huge numbers of players by removing damage against gates by players. So zergs need to be more creative if they want to cap an object instead of kitten 1-clicking against the gate. Smaller groups could defend their objects easier, so they still have a chance to hold them, even if they are outnumbered.

I like the idea of scaling points gained by everything (kills, ppt, whatever) due to the relation of player numbers per server per map. Why not using this for ppt either by taking the average relation between player numbers of 15 minutes or an hour or whatever. Or by using the relation at the “tick moment”? ^^

I think the best way to try and resolve imbalanced matches is instead of glicko rating determining the match ups, use active population. Measure the amount of people logging in over the past week (or 2 weeks?) and at what times and match up servers with similar patterns.

The biggest and the smallest servers will still always be together.

Tiers rankings don’t need to be changed, the fullest servers will continue to be T1.

Bandwagons/implosions can be detected and corrected within a couple of weeks. Instead of taking 3 months to go from where you are to where you should be it could take 3 weeks.

Lopsided coverage would be avoided as much as possible. This mostly only applies to OCX and SEA. Meaning those servers with said player base will be in the top third of the tiers. I think they pretty much all are anyway. Instead of being spread out across 3 or 4 tiers it could be 2 or 3.

This might lead to prolonged periods of identical match ups. You can put in a fail safe after a set amount of weeks that forces a server to go up or down tiers based of points/performance. It might still end up being a blow out match but it will still be corrected the next week.

There can still be a weighted scoring system to put a buffer on possible blow out weeks. If a server doesn’t belong in the tier from coverage there doesn’t have to be 400k-100k-50k score board. The next weeks match up can correct this. Everyone still has a meaningful contribution to their servers performance during the week. Weighted scores would also mean you can still win, or not lose, a match up even if you have less people. Thus, promoting high quality play instead of playing more hours.

Servers can still have their communities. No-one is forced anywhere with anyone. No-one or groups of people are locked out of their match ups with capacity restrictions.

I’m not sure about bad things, I’m sure there is some.

No easy and viable solution, it’s many-sided problem.
Setting up caps it’s no good solution, so neither is when you don’t allow people to blob even if they wish (Char’s solution https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Solution-to-fix-the-population-imbalance/4438862).
1) EOTM model – at the end you sum the scores from all X colour servers then divide it by the their number and get average result for X colour.

2) Anti blob/Outmanned mechanic – health of doors, walls and npcs around the objective scales with the number of people in X radius like it does in PvE. I realize people will eventually find tricks to attack gates/doors from outside the radius but everyone wants wxp and karma so it’s unlikely people not to rush in lord’s room where the lord will be like one of those insanely scaled up mobs that 1 shots you.

3) No PPT, gain X points when you cap, and take X/3 points away from the server who failed to prevent the cap. Or maybe don’t take points away at all. Just a rough idea.

There are many other nice solutions in the thread too. I feel like merging servers would be the best idea and most easy. It will not hurt the communities, but the people who run ts/website will have to work together.

But lets be honest, in 6 months we will be still here talking about the same issue. WvW players and devs = Carrot and the stick idiom.

Dayra.7405:

munkiman.3068:

Dayra.7405:

munkiman.3068:

Without being free, there is already incentive to transfer to lower pop servers, it’s a lot cheaper

That’s not an incentive to move down. Staying on an overstacked server is cheaper.

Yes, they’ve done free transfers in the past though, didn’t really impact balance all that much. If anything it caused the same group to shift off the high tier into ONE (a single server) in the lower tiers. Basically swapping the positions of the two servers.

If you want to turn the transfer prices into an balance incentive you need some additional things, as taxing (or not) transfers is only a function to reduce the amount of transfers:

• accurate WvW-population counts, that are updated on every transfer/activation of former inactive WvW-player (such that underpopulated can be adequately assigned and removed whenever its isn’t true anymore)
• free/cheap transfer to any low-pop server (to test it out)
• a payment for playing WvW (better increased income from participating in WvW) on a (still) underpopulated world (it stops when it’s no longer underpopulated).

The post above this is exactly why free transfer don’t work, let alone adding incentive to move, then eventually back. NSP has been one (if not the only) stable server in WvW pop since day one. We’ve (mostly) all felt PPT is the absolute worse way to gauge server performance, so much so that most of our experienced guild could care less about it.

If we want to balance out the system, if we want to fix coverage issues, make blobing be less useful, we have to address the fundamental flaws of the points system.

Merging servers will just kitten people off.

Having battle groups or any other system like it doesn’t address anything and doesn’t improve the system. It takes away from the fact that people actually move to silver or bronze because they don’t want to be another number. Some people like being the underdog too.

I’m with a few folks here that we need to make a change that improves the current state and doesn’t make it worse. So far changing the scoring system seems the least disruptive solution to a lot of the problems we are trying to correct.

Firs of all i dont read all the threats, sorry aboutt this. This is my idea, i think that its impossible but well….i wont lose anything….

Forget about the actual servers populations, and open only X servers, and forget about national servers for WvW, all international. Open a period of inscription with a cap about Y ppl, when this cap is reached at 80% of servers increase the cap another 20%(for example) and like this always. Always leaving a little margin to let the guilds move, but not letting a massive transfer of too many guilds or players to only one server. I hope that you can see the point.

If the ppl wont spread by themselves(because this will never happen) you’ll have to force it.

The problems that I see is that the ppl that are attached to one server maybe will stop playing that much and all the organization that all the servers have right now will be lost to start again. And that the game already have too much time with an uncared game mode to do something like this.

For me, the quickest, easiest, and fairest system to go with to balance out WvW would be based around points scoring. Just run everything as it is now, but with every tick each server’s population in WvW would also be recorded and added to an aggregate. At the end of each week divide the total number of points a server scored by the total number of players logged into WvW for that server during that week and use that figure to determine 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places, and adjustment to server rankings.

e.g. With numbers pulled from thin air, and for a single Tick:

Green = 365pts WvW pop = 320 Adjusted Result for Tick = 1.14
Blue = 170 pts WvW pop = 250 Adjusted Result for Tick = 0.68
Red = 160 pts WvW pop = 100 Adjusted Result for Tick = 1.6

I used a single Tick as an example because it’s easier to see the numbers, but imagine the example using the weekly score and weekly population figures and you see what I am getting at.

The reason I favour this system, it rewards good tactics (gaining points for stomping w/bloodlust, capping sentries, ganking dollies), good strategy (aiming to gain and hold objectives for the tick), and removes built in advantages that very high population servers would otherwise have.

While I appeciate that discussions like this one and the siege troll one are going on, you guys are about 2 years too late.

Hm, we have to few people to fill the current capacity of matches, but there is a strong opposition against sever reduction and against global capacity limits.

How about differentiating the capacity per permanent leagues?

• a league of 6 server play 24/7 matches on the 4 maps as currently all matches are.
• a league 6 server play matches where only EB is 24/7 and the borderlands are 6/7 (every day only in EU/NA prime time)
• a league of 6-9 server playing only EB 24/7
• a league of 6-9 server playing only borderlands 6/7 (every day only in EU/NA prime time)

(Or something like that, only ANet can get all the numbers to calculate the real demand)

It would enable all servers to fill their maps, player can choose their preferred match style, it probably is very close to the current capabilities of the server.

Transfers between leagues should be very cheap and easy, transfer between servers of the same league should be severely restricted. (E.g. By remembering the last-server in every league for every player)

Balancing methods can be much more relaxed and would fit current servers much better. But it’s probably a good thing to add some, before things run out of control again.

Concerning EU only: per league 3-4 English, 1-2 German, 1-2 French, and 1 league with a Spanish server (1st or 2nd?) would probably best. Currently I would say for league 1: 3 EU, 1-2 German, 1 French, 0-1 Spanish.

Ebisun.9682:

Firs of all i dont read all the threats, sorry aboutt this. This is my idea, i think that its impossible but well….i wont lose anything….

Forget about the actual servers populations, and open only X servers, and forget about national servers for WvW, all international. Open a period of inscription with a cap about Y ppl, when this cap is reached at 80% of servers increase the cap another 20%(for example) and like this always. Always leaving a little margin to let the guilds move, but not letting a massive transfer of too many guilds or players to only one server. I hope that you can see the point.

If the ppl wont spread by themselves(because this will never happen) you’ll have to force it.

The problems that I see is that the ppl that are attached to one server maybe will stop playing that much and all the organization that all the servers have right now will be lost to start again. And that the game already have too much time to do something like this.

I’ve seen a couple other people post the same idea and I don’t really understand it. Why destroy all servers and then add the cap? It would end up with the same result of just lowering the cap, which would be good for the game, but it would upset a lot more people.

@ All those that have suggested free transfers and equal rewards: I wish that was enough to get people to move but it’s not. I think most of us can agree the rewards are garbage, people transfer to bandwagon servers so they can have the satisfaction of “winning” with less effort.

There are two issues:

1. Population difference

• Set a baseline, so each server can have up to ‘X’ players on the map no matter what.
• Only allow new people into the map if their server population is less than ‘X’ players above the lowest populated server on the current map.
• Do not kick players if this rule gets broken over a large number of players leaving the map at once. That would be by choice for the now outmanned team and it will eventually balance out on its own.

2. Coverage difference.

• Split the week long Match into 21 separate Battles
• Each Battle lasting 8 hours and worth points. ‘X’ for First, ‘Y’ for Second, ‘Z’ for Third place
• After each Battle the points total for the last 8 hours resets only. Location ownership and upgrades stay so it will be a continual war that rewards consistency.
• If your server does not have SEA coverage, you won’t get blown out during that time to the point where you can’t come back in the limited time you do have coverage. All you need to do is win those times where you do have players. (which should be much more feasible because of rule set 1 above)

So in conclusion, this would solve the need to stack on the server with the most people, thus causing queues, and create competitive fights during all time zones. Players can spread out across all severs and have the same chance of winning. You could literally turn the last place server in the current system into a top tier competitor with a couple guild transfers.

This thead will go NOWHERE

Everyone is throwing out there ideas without reading any previous threads or building on the topics

Reminds me of the failure known as CDI

There is a third issue:

3) in total not enough player to fill all maps in all matches.

PS: don’t know about the others, but I read most posts, otherwise I wouldn’t have noted the opposition. And a player brainstorming and opinion overview, saturated by ANet is probably not bad.

Narkodx.1472:

This thead will go NOWHERE

Everyone is throwing out there ideas without reading any previous threads or building on the topics

Reminds me of the failure known as CDI

That’s okay, the best idea is in the opening post

First, I enjoy WvW a lot now. Even if my server gets matched against a much bigger server (as is the case this week), I would prefer that to any solution that prevents me from playing.

I think any change is likely to have issues. Also, any system is likely to introduce more “best” behaviors that will be hard for new players to learn.

The two best approaches I can imagine are scaled rewards and variable maps in play.

Scaled rewards is mentioned in a couple of prior posts, but basically the rewards that one server can earn are scaled by the amount of opposition present. So on a given map, take the average number of total opposing players and divide by the average number of server A players during the 15 minute window and then multiply that times the point value of each objective held. Capturing and holding objectives while greatly outnumbered will be greatly rewarded. This takes some tuning and special handling for cases where a map is totally vacant by one or both sides, but it greatly mitigates coverage.

Variable maps in play is more complicated. Basically, the idea is to pull maps out of the contest if there’s not enough population. EB is always up. For each other borderland, if there are fewer than X (5?) players from that server present for a full hour, then a message is broadcast to say that the map will be shut down. That BL is then closed for the next three hours. All objectives revert to the neutral state and do not score points for anyone. So if a server has very minimal coverage during a particular time, they try to coordinate to get their people to fight on EB or another BL. They are likely to give up all the points on their map for one hour out of every four. But this could limit the amount a server falls behind during low coverage times.

Thanks for all the hard work on WvW. Good luck!

There should be more of a difference between gold/silver/bronze league other than the color of the trophies. I think a start is to limit the number of people in a bl…let’s say to a third of what it is now. Then add in one extra copy of each borderland to silver, and one more for gold. That way at gold level they still can fit in their population like right now but if they go to silver they won’t be able to zerg everything as it becomes 2/3 of what they can normally fit in, giving silver league at least better fights instead of zerged. Same would happen entering from silver to bronze

Sakura No Seirei.6120:

For me, the quickest, easiest, and fairest system to go with to balance out WvW would be based around points scoring. Just run everything as it is now, but with every tick each server’s population in WvW would also be recorded and added to an aggregate. At the end of each week divide the total number of points a server scored by the total number of players logged into WvW for that server during that week and use that figure to determine 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places, and adjustment to server rankings.

e.g. With numbers pulled from thin air, and for a single Tick:

Green = 365pts WvW pop = 320 Adjusted Result for Tick = 1.14
Blue = 170 pts WvW pop = 250 Adjusted Result for Tick = 0.68
Red = 160 pts WvW pop = 100 Adjusted Result for Tick = 1.6

I used a single Tick as an example because it’s easier to see the numbers, but imagine the example using the weekly score and weekly population figures and you see what I am getting at.

The reason I favour this system, it rewards good tactics (gaining points for stomping w/bloodlust, capping sentries, ganking dollies), good strategy (aiming to gain and hold objectives for the tick), and removes built in advantages that very high population servers would otherwise have.

Interesting idea to change the tick based on population but this can easily be manipulated by trolls. I’m going to take your concept and put my own spin on it. For this discussion, which I have said in previous posts, since forces can hop between maps and since scoring is based on all maps anything which has to do with population should be considered based on all maps.

Adjusting the end of the week score based on the total players who logged into WvW is probably a bad idea considering some people play longer than others. Green may have had 200 players who each logged in for an hour a day while Blue had 100 players who logged in for three hours each day. Green may have had more people, but Blue had more man hours played. Blue’s may already be higher and basing by players who logged in would only increase it.

Adjusting each individual tick is probably better than the end of the week score. This would also give you an idea of how your server is doing through out the week.

Scenario 1: Blue has 350 PPT and leaves WvW with scouts in place. Red with 150 PPT now out numbers Blue however Blue is getting increased PPT on top of already having 350. Red is trying to catch up and hits a T3 Blue objective, Blue ports blob in from LA, wipes Red, and ports back to LA before tick trying to manipulate the score.

Counter: End tick is adjusted based on the number of people who earned WXP during the 15 minute tick window.

I’m still a bit partial to this idea but it might work.

Someone mentioned earlier the idea of completing removing damage against gates. This is probably a good idea so it forces you to use siege to get through gates, however with siege disablers sometimes it’s the only way. If one person can solo defend a paper tower against a map blob by throwing a siege disabler and countering the enemy siege while it’s disabled, it kind of ruins the game.

It’s rather disappointing that the most commonly proposed solution to “there aren’t enough people on some servers” is “limit the number of players who can play the game mode.”

timmyf.1490:

It’s rather disappointing that the most commonly proposed solution to “there aren’t enough people on some servers” is “limit the number of players who can play the game mode.”

No it’s trying to find a good way to adapt the provided capacity to the requested demand.
Currently we have much to much overcapacity (nearly empty maps most of the time on most servers).

And the other thing is: try to reach more balance, and there I prefer adapted rewards (more rewards if you play with fewer players) over capacity restrictions.

Aarna.5178:

Server merges will not save the problem. Poeple wil migrate, either to other servers or to other games. Take Vizunah Square as example. Long time no. 1 wvw server in EU with a nearly 24/7 coverage. In spring they lost a lot of wvw players and are currently ranked 15th.

The question to ask is, why players are asking for rebalancing wvw. It’s not because they loosing fights in open field. You can easily outnumbered while running around. And not the bigger team wins every fight. A good guild can take down a public zerg with double size quit easily.

Poeple are asking for rebalancing wvw because the loose the match because of points. The server with better overall coverage wins.

So, how can you balance this? Here some ideas I have in mind.

Keeps, towers and supply camps are harder to capture

If a server has lesser player on a map, their keeps, towers and supply camps are harder to capture. For example: Server A and B have 84 players on a map, server C only 47. If server A tries to capture a tower from server B, there will be no different to now. But if server A tries to capture a tower from server C, it will be harder. Either they will get a debuff or the walls, doors and lords a stronger. (To take down the lord of a supply camp of an outnumbered server as hard as to take down the champion commander siegerazer.) The debuff will be removed if players from server A left or players of server C join the map.

Balancing points per tick

The points per tick are based on players on all maps. If a server has more players on all maps together, it will get lesser points for their objects.

devide a match into rounds

Break down matches to a shorter rounds. Every 6 or 8 hours a round will end and all points will be reset. (Not the objects!) The winner of the round will get 5 points, the second 3 and the third 2. So if a server dominate a round or two, its not possible to get too much in front of the other servers.

At last: Change the rewards and the achievments in wvw. I don’t know how someone will ever get the “Ultimate Chaperone” title for example.

These are excellent solutions to the true problem! Best of all these solutions are available to be implemented in-game right now! Kudos to you.

Blaeys.3102:

silvermember.8941:

Blaeys.3102:

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 probably the best idea. So have an 8v8v8 but instead on 32 maps have it about 16 to 24 (so 1 borderland for each server and 6 eternal battlegrounds) maps to allow for increased population on certain maps that are underutilized. This will allow for over flowing servers to go support others in their league that are under populated while keeping the bigger server’s imaginary “community” in tack.

Thanks.

I dont really see a down side. It would take the best parts of the megaserver without compromising server pride or identity – with the added benefit of giving us alot more people to play with 24/7. At the same time, it would virtually eliminate queues regardless of the server youre on.

At the same time, it would give powerhouse wvw guilds more to do – if they dominate a map and start finding it boring, they can just find another where their battlegroup needs help.

Most importantly, though, it has the potential to make WvW more fun for everyone – keeping the fights going somewhere regardless of population issues.

I am surprised more people aren’t jumping on this idea. The other big plus is that it is a small change to the existing structure and would be doable with the existing menus and megaserver code already written… They could even limit the maps you could look at based on whatever set of BLs and EBG you are currently on, and just use a drop down menu to move to another set.