Guild Wars 2

About populations caps: How do you go about capping a population like Desolation with a large population of PVE’ers compared to the ratio of WvWers which usually fills our queues? Simply, I don’t think there has been enough incentive for players to de-stack, so as you have it you’ve had players stacking on the EU side; on Deso and SFR, because it is the popular choice, with plenty of commanders and fights.

Previous Tournaments have been the same, apart from the fact you offered transfer periods with reduced gem costs that allowed players to choose as they please, but that was without even having any clue about the numbers on each Server, you ended up with several Servers which simply ended up having too much population compared to others.

I also don’t see merging Servers a problem, because as you imagine many Servers do not have the population to put up a fight. Server pride becomes less of a issue, because players and guilds move quite often to find a challenge or simply to have a fighting chance. Unfortunately I think Community is a overstated part of WvW, nowadays there is simply not many organized Servers as it is in the EU such as SFR, it’s all about having superior Population thus coverage.

Anyway I don’t really think I’ve added anything much that has probably been said, but IMO you cannot fix the problems without properly balanced Populations in the first place and that is near impossible right now, without some drastic change, or a change to PPT and its scaling. You could even try an Alliance war tournament try-run in the near future.

ANET shouldn’t fiddle with the populations, it would never bring anything good (who could forget the brilliant idea of making free transfer to medium populated servers when the leading server in EU was medium)

The brutal truth is if you want more competitive wvw, then it’s up to YOU.

You’ve had this gamemode for 2 years, 2 years to adjust. The Titan-Alliance secured 30-0 record by securing supreme coverage, vizunah secured first place in EU by having great organization and call to arms giving them huge numbers at night. Blacktide retaliated with Maxs’ morning push, SFR took their victory by having high quality guilds dominating aswell as a very motivated and dedicated server purely focused on WvW.

If we look at EU scene at the moment there’s exactly 2 servers with interest in pushing for competitive play, SFR and desolation, so of course it’s not a shocker if everyone transfers to these two servers when they’re the only servers on EU that care enough to make good coverage and fights all the time.

So 2 out of 27 european servers care about building community, pushing and doing politics. What is the motivation for playing on other servers than those two? And if we take hypothetical that some from deso and sfr went together to make an alliance to create a third server where would they go? All servers have pre existing population, and those populations aren’t interested in going up in ranks, or I’m pretty sure they would have made a push for it by now.

So the reason why there’s population imbalance is because there’s apparently no charismatic people left to lead a charge to gain ranks and make pushes, what we have left is people who only know how to complain.

The only way to adjust server population would be to create a purchase in gemshop that would give you a new server, so an alliance together could gather enough gold to start their own server. But then again as always, transfers will be a dilemma.

…aaand after reading through the thread I realized the dev didn’t want to talk about coverage issues in this thread, oops.

Anyway, while I kinda like the idea of Battle Groups/Factions, I don’t think a one-time change to each side being cross-server would help the issue, because you’ll still have people flocking to the “best” group/faction to get the best Wuv rewards, and the snowball effect that created the massive disparity between the servers now will end up rearing it’s head anyway.

I think Battle Groups, the idea of combining multiple servers for Wuv, would work best if the servers within said group changed regularly, so one group with an advantage doesn’t end up snowballing into a group with a massive advantage as people switch over to always be on the wining side. Maybe, make it some something that occurs only doing tournaments, based on pop/metrics over the previous x weeks before it starts? You would need to be careful to keep an eye on people trying to game the metrics in order to be in the “best” group, but it would work towards keeping the numbers balanced in the weeks were it probably matters the most.

Theres a difference between not wanting to make a push and not being able to make a push.

Lets say you have 100 people on a server who want to make a push, in a smaller tier. There isn’t much they can do. If each of them recruits 10 people, you have 1000 people on a server who want to push. That requires either each of them to be on 6hrs a day, in succession in order to get full coverage across all maps. Unreasonable at best, assuming that recruiting 10 is feesible. So lets be more realistic, every person can be on for 3 hrs, 3 days a week, and a good distribution to start a push is consistent 100 people in WVW (across 4 maps). So, in the 168hrs per week, you need 16,800 wvw play hours to push (assuming perfect coverage distribution. At 9hrs of wvw time per player thats a requirement of 1867 players. Lets assume randoms joining in with equal 9hrs a week of about 500. Thats still over 1300 players recruited for the push. And its harder to pull in non wvw’ers as they can’t be spam recruited from LA etc anymore.

Plus how do you get these players if you are a smaller? Do they transfer to you? That costs them gold, and is a huge risk for them. So, I guess you should transfer to them. But then you are leaving the server you are trying to develop so screw it, lets just jump in to one of the high servers where we can contribute and join in but don’t have to develop.

Now, lets cut the cap in half. It starts looking more feesible. Lets quarter it. Extreme example, but if you cut the max per map to 10, then 100 die hard fanatics could hold out against blackgate permanently, assuming they had the individual skill to face them.

Now Im not suggesting 10. That is ridiculous. But the point still stands that because of the sheer logistics of building a server, with such a high cap it is too late. (I believe this all stemmed from the initial free transfers, which caused the bandwagon trend rather then server development from the getgo). Reduce the cap, and you get the OPPORTUNITY to develop the lower tiers and rekindle some interest.

Having said that, I think wvw needs a structure revamp akin to my slightly earlier post.

@Holm its not about anet going in and forcing population changes its about giving players incentive to spread out and make it so more players/coverage does not mean instant win.

I think scoring should be less about how long you hold objective an more about taking and defending them.
(Example:)
take a undefended tower-1 point
take a defended tower-2 points
defend a tower-2 points
the issue with this is the defense event would have to be adjusted but it would help with servers who go to sleep with a close score and wake up 10k+ points behind

Another thing is getting new players/pve players into WvW maybe reward tracks that would get you all the mats to create ascended armor/weapons (over time) or ascended armor/weapons itself. The reward tracks could not be worked on in Eotm!

As far as guilds go there is a place for them but there should always be a place for pugs.
I have been playing for 2 years and I have never been or have wanted to be part of a large guild. Guilds are fine but I have seen myself how many new players/pugs have said forget WvW because of how hostile guild groups have been towards them.

titanlectro.5029:

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.

If you agree that things are looking bad now, like the end of petroleum bad, then best to cut down on our consumption while we find viable large-scale alternatives.

Dropping the cap (and it doesn’t have to be to forty – I was just going along with what previous posters had come up with) temporarily is that consumption reduction. And remember that if the cap is forty people that’s 160 people per server than can play in the four maps at once, with extras able to queue or be in EotM until room is available.

The idea is not to reduce zerging/blobbing, that’s just going to be a side effect (and there’s nothing stopping a server from gathering its forty people together to zerg around) of the population redistribution, which should have an incentive for people to move down. Moving up should be locked for the forseeable future for this to work.

Once the populations have normalized, then caps can be relaxed and that style of play can resume assuming people haven’t found a better way to play in the meantime. And the rapid mix of people from different servers could well spark some innovation which we’ve been missing for a while – to paint it broadly: higher tier “we queue frequently” large scale servers might have something to teach lower tier servers, and lower tier "we are few so we are Swiss army knives of roaming capability small-group “get ’er done” servers might have something to teach the higher tier server people.

Hybridization may occur, and that would be a healthy shot in the arm for WvW at large. But if how things are currently is unsustainable, and the best specific solution anybody can come up with is “collapse the lower tier servers and forcibly relocate their population” to temporarily sustain the way the higher tier servers play… what happens when the player loss already being experienced by higher tier servers drains back down to how things are now again? Then there’ll be no other tiers to pull people from, and we’ll be in the same place.

Better to experiment and try to make something sustainable than run the current model into the ground, I say.

Make it so that if you want to capture a tower you must hold the respected camp this adds more depth to flipping objectives and splits the offensive groups population in two enabling smaller populated servers to better defend their objectives while providing them with two possibilities:

Flip the camp linked to the tower the enemy zerg is attempting to take, preventing the tower from flipping for an 4 minutes and giving the tower lord RI as well. Or attempt to wipe the offensive zerg which will some of its forces defending the camp.

This makes more room for small skirmish fights and also spreads out players across the map making it quite possible for low pop servers to still rally a group of 5 and easily flip a camp + hurt the PPT. Could prevent servers from receiving PPT for the respected objective if they don’t own the linked camp or tower e.t.c.

For lower pop servers they are able to distribute their forces more appropriately, Puts more emphasis on camps which do not require a blob to flip. Effectively enabling small skermish/outnumbered groups to split up and hurt the PPT far more.

Planetside did this fairly well so you weren’t able to go and instantly ninja flip something on the other side of the map without owning the linked objectives first and it also greatly helped rally people and find fights quickly (Which is another huge complaint many people have on low pop servers).

Blobs will still be able to dominate more with higher larger zergs, but the smaller servers also are able to split their forces appropriately to flip camps and capture towers and skermish/outplay their opposition while being outnumbered (Nobody wants to fight zerg vs zerg if you have a 10-20 man zerg vs a 60 man BG zerg).

In addition to this, I know many players get demoralized when they lose their fully upgraded keep by being quickly golem rushed. Small groups are quite capable of dealing damage to larger outnumber servers as virtually anyone can solo and flip a camp (even in t1 currently) and its far easier to find fights and predict where a server is hitting. (Which lets face it, is the main reason we are playing wvw so we don’t have to fight in a circle).

Mergers
Sever mergers will not solve the coverage problem, it will just add queues during NA/EU primetime and it will destroy some long-standing communities. My server has had a pretty stable population since the early days. Yes, guilds have left, some have transferred on, and some that left have since come back. But many of the mid-sized guilds and lot of PUGs have been on the server since day 1. We have a certain playstyle and generally pull together when we need to. Mergers could kill that, even if we keep our name, and not solve the biggest problem for most servers… which is coverage.

I’d be OK with mergers, even with the risk to community pride and shared tactics, if it solved the coverage problem. The only way I see to do that is to merge NA and EU. I have guildies on my NA server that are playing from EU. There has to be a way that could work.

Mercenaries
While most servers have a coverage problem, some do have a population problem. I’d like to see some kind of mercenary system, where people on high-population maps can guest to like-colored low-ranked WvW maps. You could drastically increase personal rewards for guesters. They may make friends there, or share/learn zerg busting tactics.

Combine the mercenary system with with free transfers anytime to the three lowest-ranked servers, and you could spread out the WvW population a bit.

Faster rank movement
I’d also like to see the ranking system be much more agile. You shouldn’t need more than two or three weeks of blowouts before dropping. Maybe use a system that takes into account only the last three weeks of matches? With faster rank changes and free transfers, it could give us more varied matches. Hopefully it would keep servers that are currently at about the same strength fighting each other instead of fighting servers which used to be a match for you.

Also there needs to be something to slow the point gain of servers that are ahead. Matches are usually not competitive at a certain point. One server’s lead just gets too insurmountable. The other servers have morale problem and have a harder time catching up. So when there is a lead of say 10,000, cut the amount of points the first place server gets for holding objectives. It could give the other servers a chance to rally and catch up and it would make the other server work harder to keep the lead.

Alliances?
I do think the Alliance idea sounds interesting, but it may be a bit drastic to start with.

Dreadforce.6980:

take a undefended tower-1 point
take a defended tower-2 points
defend a tower-2 points

I think that could help make the scores closer, but the server that can field 24/7 will still win.

The only real solution is for some sort of battle group whereby players from different timezones are evenly spread out.

Sube Dai.8496:

Dreadforce.6980:

take a undefended tower-1 point
take a defended tower-2 points
defend a tower-2 points

I think that could help make the scores closer, but the server that can field 24/7 will still win.

The only real solution is for some sort of battle group whereby players from different timezones are evenly spread out.

I don’t think you could reliably tune battle groups to have similar number of players across all times of day; there simply isn’t a large enough server pool to draw on, at least not without mixing NA and EU servers together, and I don’t believe that’s on the table.

Anyway, I think one thing that has to be done to “solve” the coverage problem would be to make caps/holding/etc worth less during early morning/midday than they do during the late afternoon/evening primetime. It would stink for some people finding their contributions are worth objectively less than others simply because they don’t/can’t play during the “best” times, but I honestly think it’s either that or only allowing caps at certain times of day, and that would be kittens for everyone.

Foefaller.1082:

Sube Dai.8496:

Dreadforce.6980:

take a undefended tower-1 point
take a defended tower-2 points
defend a tower-2 points

I think that could help make the scores closer, but the server that can field 24/7 will still win.

The only real solution is for some sort of battle group whereby players from different timezones are evenly spread out.

I don’t think you could reliably tune battle groups to have similar number of players across all times of day; there simply isn’t a large enough server pool to draw on, at least not without mixing NA and EU servers together, and I don’t believe that’s on the table.

Anyway, I think one thing that has to be done to “solve” the coverage problem would be to make caps/holding/etc worth less during early morning/midday than they do during the late afternoon/evening primetime. It would stink for some people finding their contributions are worth objectively less than others simply because they don’t/can’t play during the “best” times, but I honestly think it’s either that or only allowing caps at certain times of day, and that would be kittens for everyone.

You do that and you will have successfully killed wvw for all Non Americans. Its already a problem in OCE times as we actually FACE the coverage issues. Sure primetime players log in and see the score deficit, but we have to actually fight on a losing battle. If you make it so that our losing battle is not only a loss, but when we win we contribute limited to our team then why the hell not just turn off WVW outside of primetime since thats essentially what you are doing.

Dayra.7405:

Boris Losdindawoods.3098:

~ ~ As someone else said, this also looks cool, but seems like it would be complicated for Anet to implement. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHcO6Xo8eJ8&feature=youtu.be

Guesting isn’t a solution, it’s the opposite, it cements population imbalances. People over-stack even more, knowing they can freely guest somewhere else at will, when they aren’t needed at the “home-front”.

Paired server guesting is not meant to be a solution for overpopulation. The only solution needed for overpopulation is a little more incentive to change servers. I would have thought constantly queued maps would be enough, but apparently not. What paired server guesting is meant to fix is underpopulation and coverage, as well as adding some much needed variety to WvW. Guesting has the potential to “kickstart” a server’s own WvW population which would soon get the server rankings moving again.

Like quite a few others, I also suggested an Alliance Vs Alliance system. The reason I’m pushing for the above is because it has a good chance of fixing a lot of WvW issues while only taking a small fraction of the time it would to implement a completely new system.

One way to address the coverage problem is to have parallel matchups in 8-12hour time slices IMO. Primetime servers get matched up for primetime, oceanic for oceanic, etc.

Im also not averse to server merges, but there are similar things that can be done without hitting server pride. For example, implementing somekind of a guild-guesting feature and maybe a guild-mercenary feature to hop tiers temporarily or buy services from other guilds.

But I still think that it is conceivable that a servers WvW/general population can tank to such a level that a merge would be required. In which case I think it would be best to simply disband the server and allow everyone free transfers, instead of forcing servers to merge.

Since the introduction of MegaServers actual servers dont exist except for within WvW. PVE has been greatly improved since its release. The low population servers dont have

to guest to another more populated server just to do an event.
So lets do a WvW MegaServerFactions!!

Everybody gets to stay in their own current Servers Communities.
Make 3 factions inside of the 24 servers.
Each week the guild leaders may pick a faction before reset friday night,
if they stay on current faction there is no charge.
If they transfer to another faction there is a cost per member in the guild rather active or inactive.
The cost can be MUCH higher if there is a population imbalace per factions. A guild that changes a Faction cant add new members for 7 days.

Have the same 8 map/server copies that exist currently each week which equals 24 Home Borderlands and 8 EB’s.
Each faction is responsible for all 8 EB Map copies. There would be some great fights in StomeMist!
Each “OLD Server BG,JQ,DR,FC etc” gets their own Home Border Land named after them to defend.

My guild can hop to any of the 8 EB maps thats not qued and fight/defend for my choosen faction.
My guild can hop to any of the 24 Home Border Land maps thats not qued and fight/defend.
My guild if I choose doesnt have to belong to any “Server Community”.
If my guild Karma Train runs into an enemy “Home Border Land” thats outnumbered we cant take bay/hills/garry. Everything else is open game.
Guilds that want GVG can join oppsite sides and kill each other to their hearts content.
Server Communities are saved and given an actual piece of real eastate to fight/defend for when they are actual online to defend.

There is a Server Score and a Faction Score, I have no Ideal how to do the actual scoring but it cant be that hard.

Raina.8642:

Foefaller.1082:

Sube Dai.8496:

Dreadforce.6980:

take a undefended tower-1 point
take a defended tower-2 points
defend a tower-2 points

I think that could help make the scores closer, but the server that can field 24/7 will still win.

The only real solution is for some sort of battle group whereby players from different timezones are evenly spread out.

I don’t think you could reliably tune battle groups to have similar number of players across all times of day; there simply isn’t a large enough server pool to draw on, at least not without mixing NA and EU servers together, and I don’t believe that’s on the table.

Anyway, I think one thing that has to be done to “solve” the coverage problem would be to make caps/holding/etc worth less during early morning/midday than they do during the late afternoon/evening primetime. It would stink for some people finding their contributions are worth objectively less than others simply because they don’t/can’t play during the “best” times, but I honestly think it’s either that or only allowing caps at certain times of day, and that would be kittens for everyone.

You do that and you will have successfully killed wvw for all Non Americans. Its already a problem in OCE times as we actually FACE the coverage issues. Sure primetime players log in and see the score deficit, but we have to actually fight on a losing battle. If you make it so that our losing battle is not only a loss, but when we win we contribute limited to our team then why the hell not just turn off WVW outside of primetime since thats essentially what you are doing.

That’s kinda what I mean; there is pretty much no way to reduce coverage’s role as a huge game-changer without making coverage near-worthless, which makes any contribution for anyone playing during those times near-worthless as well.

Maybe I’m being pessimistic, and something like Battle Groups can fix that problem as well, but if ANet tries grouping the servers together in an attempt to balance the numbers, I just can’t see people staying in those groups long enough for it to be meaningful for more than a couple weeks without some other changes as well.

Merging severs won’t make population and coverage gap problems be solved at all. Now the WvW system is mostly depends on these 2 factors actually.
And actually most people who still playing WvW just want the fun from organized fights, all other casual or k-trainer went to eotm and never back to WvW at all long time ago.
Its time to make WvW system totally change, I’ve heard some great idea something like only make matchups during weekends, because only weekends population or coverage will be comparatively balanced, that means truly competitive game, not only population or coverage game. In the weekdays can make matchups like eotm, every 3 hours reset. Besides these short term competitive form, it can also give some more rewards after matchup ends, encourage players going to play it.
And we also heard Anet is doing some guild CDI now, if the GVG really come true in some days, and WvW still don’t make any changes still depends on population and coverage, maybe we will see WvW totally dead at that time.

Remove EotM from the game. That’ll bring a bit more people into WvW (though perhaps not that many since EotM is probably all PvEers?). It’s useless anyway.

The supposed reason for EotM was

1. queue alleviation (most likely for China launch). It’s not needed. Queues are rare on most servers on most days.
2. testing new features for WvW. It’s not needed. No new features have been tested, and it doesn’t look like any are coming ever.

John- would ArenaNet be willing to try an experiment? Doing away with servers and having some sort of Alliance system comes up a lot. Maybe it’s just the science geek in me, but I’d love to see a brief (2 or 4 week) experiment with Alliances.

Don’t change anything about the underlying server system, just allow players to declare themselves a part of an Alliance. Have AvAvA battles for a few weeks to see if people like them.

Put WvW on pause during that time with no effects to Glicko or server home.

At the end, collect feedback and see whether players prefer traditional WvW or the “new” AvA.

Most of the changes make the players leave wvw what is not good. I think let in less players is not a good sollution. Give the players something why they come and fill all the borders. Outmanned problem solved

In my own opinion any server merging would be a bad idea. Server have prided themselves on being a competitive team. Merging them would only further degrade any server pride.

I think what should happen is the same thing that sets guild wars 2 apart from other mmo’s, Dynamic scaling. The system that allows level 80’s to sill enjoy lv 10 events. It need to be brought to wvw.

My idea is this.
As the difference of players becomes apparent players on lower servers get stacks of outnumbered. (invisible to enemy players of course) Each stack unlocks bonus abilities for the server.

Stacks would be determined by the average of players between the other two servers minus your player total.

20 = 1 stack
40 = 2 stacks
65 = 3 stacks
75 = 4 stacks
90 = 5 stacks

Example
World A has 100 players
World B has 90 players
World C has 70 players

(A+B)/2-C = 25

In this example World C would qualify for 1 stack of outnumbered.

For the abilities here’s my suggestion.
First a new status called “Balanced Force” would be implemented for two of these that gives the target the same damage bonus as Righteous Indignation does but without the invulnerability.

Outnumbered Stacks
1 stack would be the traditional outnumbered buff. (minus armor repair since this is now defunct)

2 stacks would place additional veteran defenders at all captured areas(minus flags). They would be called something unique like “Veteran Equalizer” These veterans would be skilled at AoE Damage and gain “Balanced Force” if there is a player nearby them.

3 stacks would place free ghostly arrow carts on all keeps and towers these carts would disappear when the outnumbered stack diminishes. (if someone is on one of them it disappears when they leave it.)

4 stacks gives all lords “Balanced Force”.

5 stacks gives all players a ghostly ally that supports them in combat(there’s only going to be about 5-10 players on the map at this point.)

These abilities are off the top of my head so there bound to be needing balancing. The idea is to give the outnumbered players powers that balance the game but do not modify their combat abilities or prove more useful than being without outnumbered.

I havent read all 7 pages of this thread so maybe its alrdy been suggested…

battle groups, my thoughts on

have 3 (or 6 or 9) battle groups each server is assigned to at the start of the weekly reset. group assignments would be based on each realms contribution to the total score and would be remixed so that the next week is roughly equal.

in this way lower populations servers could be partnered with larger populations servers or many medium pops matched against mega pops.

how to measure contribution? keep a running tab of wvw xp earned.

next, when deciding to join wvw each time, a player can choose a low, medium, high population version of each map. in this way smaller groups can play smaller groups, zergs can fight zergs and raise the populations caps for the high pop versions.

this will allow more space into wvw yet limit how much score a player imbalance can cause. Mega blob server may dominate on the high pop map but be losing on the small pop map to the organized groups, scores remain equal. This will also increase the variety of wvw fighting a player can enjoy as well as providing action at all times of day.

for a tourney a server earns rewards based on how many times they were on the winning color for the week. they wont know who they are allied with or fighting against, populations should be comparable in numbers and they will have no choice but to fight as hard as they can every week.

IMO, add 3-6 more maps, then merge all servers into battle groups, but not EotM style.

That is to say, we form a battle group, yes. Green vs Red vs Blue.

• In addition to our home borderland, which is per-colour, we get “connecting borderlands”. End result would be 6 borderlands circling around Eternal Battlegrounds. The in-between borderlands would control the buff via the ruins, not the home borderland. And in these, no one starts with a good position.
• If needed, break up Eternal Battlegrounds to create 3 more new BG maps. Split each keep + surrounding area off into a map which is larger (full size), so there is more space between objectives again and defending/holding is of greater importance.
• Then, make SM it’s own map, make it a giant castle area with moats and all, creating a map which is but this single castle with 3 approach angles as spawn-in points.
• So in total: SM-map in the centrel surrounding by 3 maps which are one “side” of EBG each, in upsized to full map. Then 6 maps, 3 home borderlands and 3 connecting borderlands, in a circle around that.

And then, merge everyone into those colour-groups, but try to preserve server identity by varying shade per server. Say within the green faction, if Abaddon’s Mouth and Aurora Glade would be fighting together, AM has a rather dark-ish green, AG has a slightly cyan-ish green. These colours would be consistent across re-shuffles, so that every time AG is green, it has that colour and no other realm has it when green.

That way, it’s still immediately obvious who has what. Bonus points if each realm gets a flag which is flown in addition to the guild flag on keeps and SM castle when in possession of a guild from that realm.

Plus some peripheral maps for GvG castles and that would be WvW as I’d like to see it. Well, close enough.

I can’t think of any suggestions but I’ve seen some good ideas here and I’m happy the devs are reading this thread. WvW is a lot of fun when the matchups are balanced, but unfortunately that’s not always the case.

I have so little faith in Anet to actually do anything positive about WvW anymore that I can’t even be bothered reposting my ideas (again).

Someone important should just read my posting history and apply everything I’ve already suggested in the past. Warning: you might have to go back a year or so to get past all the cynicism. :P

Yeah ‘’Battle Groups’’ is the BEST option

A more costly + more manpower needed + with less guarrantee results is :
a) create a ’’Universe’’ with 25 ’’planets’’ and a big planet in the middle called : Eternal Battlegrounds :P

b) The population from the medium-big ’’Planets’’ need to pay 1 gold to travel with the teleporter to the ‘’small planets’’ . Each time they die or they want to travel to their old region they have to pay the same price .

c) they get a debuff that increase damage taken from everything (or debuff that reduce , their Stats) . The ‘’change of planets-enviroment’’ effects their bodies .

d) In order to capture the objectives in the ‘’Eternal Battlegrounds Planet’’ and win the War more easily , they need to be ’’friends’’ with the majority of the ‘’small sized Planets’’ .

e) The ‘’small sized Planets’’ can mine ‘’Unique Matirials’’ .
Instead of fighting – trying to defend their homalands , there could be quest like : ‘’Take this Axe and travel across the lands or any other ’’planet’’ and bring me some minerals (chance when you mine)

f) ‘’Medium Planets’’ can take those rew miniral and refin them into a ‘’new super duper God Slayer Golemon’’ (or any weason/cannon/lazer beam/flying ship) to breach the intristructable holy shieled Castles in the ‘’Eternal Battlegrounds Planet’’ .

g) The ‘’Bigger plannets’’ must fight 24/7 between them , so the others dont capture the objectives in the ‘’Eternal Battlegrounds Planet’’ .

h) The ’’’’Bigger plannets’’ either :
> capture everthing (even the lower-medium worlds) in order to get WvWvW Points
( but 1 vs 25 servers = wont go well :P)

> Creating ’’Alliances’’ "
By apturing a Castle/Keep/Suply Deposit , 50 ppl near the Commander must
’’accept’’ willingly to give the captured points to a server of their choise
, so that server will benefit from the WvWvW Points ganned from that objective
gained every 15min .
But at that same time a ‘’Friendly Bar’’ will fill up > where your server can interact with the Npcs of the ‘’lower tier +medium servers ’’ in order to buy the ’’Unique Materials + Refine them into Weapons .

i) If Your server is ’’friendly’’ with an other , you will see them in ‘’yellow color tags’’ but you can still attack them or take their Castle-Keeps-Suply Deposit (but you loose the friendly bar slowly) .
If the perticular server have ‘’harash you’’ multuply times, then it will be more easy from the other servers to be ’’friendly’’ with you .

j) If you killed more than 100 ‘’friendly targets’’ > you become hostiles to every1 , even in you faction (Pirates from Archage) :P
And the next time you respawn , the Guards willl keep 1-shotting you , prevending you from playing the WvW for XXX amount of hours .
But if the ‘’friendly target’’ hit you first (you get the sefdefence buff on your UI) , you dont get the backfire .
(This will lead to a huge moronig trollfest > but atleast prevents zergtrains that without thinking spamm 1 :P)
(or dont get rewards or WvWvW Tickets at the end of each 2-week tournament , if they have killed more than 1000 ppl , or if recaptures more tan 200 objectives that willingly offered to the ‘’small servers’’ (atleast not in the first 15 min))

ANet should be able to produce real number here is an estimate of match-capacity usage on my EU-Gold (EU #4-7 have approx similar numbers) server.
We have always a few people, at reset-evening we are (sometimes) able to generate moderate queue on all 4 maps, on most (not reset) evenings we are only able to generate queue on 2-3 maps.

An 24h player (red) compared to capacity (blue) graph is as attached.
At just 2 of 24hours we are able to fill all maps, at total our man-power is around 3200 play-hours per day and the match capacity is 9600 play-hours per day. We are able to use around 1/3 of the offered capacity.

The few servers above us may have a better capacity usage (that’s why they are above us) , maybe up to 50%, the majority of server have a worser capacity usage (that’s why they are below us).

Observation No 1: Player are able to fill less than 25% of offered match-capacity.

Observation No 2: If players would be evenly distributed this would also be true for prime-time (19:00-23:00). As they aren’t EU-Gold reaches capacity-limit for 1-2 hours a day. EU-Bronze, probably never does.

Observation No 3: During off-time (which is over 75% of the time) only 5-20% of match-capacity is used.

Observation No 4: Any game or sport that is competitive fills available capacity 100% at any time.

Observation No 5: Times with the lowest match-capacity usage are most decisive for the match-result. (See pic 2, scoring per hour of the current EU-Gold T1 from http://www.gw2score.com/server/Elona-Reach)

Implication No1: WvW is far away from being competitive, if a game is not competitive tournaments harm the game, and even scoring should not be done.

Alternative No 1: We can keep WvW as open playground WITHOUT any tournaments and score, but the 24/7 matches are a bad structure for that, some player you meet to often some you never meet.

Alternative No 2: We modify WvW to make it competitive, for that we need to restrict the capacity of the game such that EVERY team is able to 100% fill the capacity at ANY time.

Implikation for alternative No 2: To make WvW competitive we need to remove all the over-capacity (i.e. around 75% of it’s total capacity) that is never been used and we need to make sure that all server have the same capacity and the same chance of filling it.

Cut must not be equal all around the time, as demand isn’t equal all around the time.

Seems like this discussion is coming down to adjusting server population versus adjusting score based on population.

I feel like the ladder is the best idea because trying to force a change in population can potentially destroy guilds and server communities which would only make people quit the game.

Why should a server who has worked hard to create and maintain a strong community be punished by those who haven’t? Ideas such as battlegroups, factions, and server mergers seem to be like they are trying to force a change in population.

If servers are merged and a lower cap on WvW population were to happen, that means longer wait times for people who aren’t used to queues longer than 10-15 if they have any at all. I second merging larger servers into smaller servers if a merge is going to be done and keeping the cap the way it is. As far as NA goes, decrease the amount of servers from the whopping 24 to 18 or 12.

Maybe make the outnumbered buff feel like it actually counts for something in combat. Most of the time when our server is outnumbered, we’re a group of 15-20 against a zerg of 80+. Magic Find and Experience is a rather insulting buff if we’re the ones who keep getting run over—unless drops are buffed for outnumbered as well when the only things they can kill are camp veterans. Otherwise, I suggest buffing outnumbered WvW server abilities by 3% or 4% and maybe armor stats by 1% or 2%.

The problem with relying on server population is that not everyone in that server will play WvW and an even larger problem is that some servers have no oceanic coverage. My current server has little to no night coverage versus the monstrous night coverage of other servers that we go against. I honestly don’t know a solution to this except merging larger servers into smaller servers unless there’s some kind of algorithm to tell who spends a lot of time in WvW.

Sorry if this has already been discussed but I didn’t see it on the first or last page so thought I’d go for it!

Elsewhere we have discussed server “alliances” between NA and EU: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Is-it-about-time-for-a-few-Server-WvW-merges/first#post3708496

I can’t see any reason in this day and age why, with a modest investment, we could not have NA and EU servers all in the same competition. Plenty of NA players play in EU already and visa-versa.

If we joined the top NA team with the bottom EU, 2nd with 2nd from bottom etc (a little merger work on the lowest tiers of EU to equal the server numbers) we would improve coverage 24×7 (the main problem for lower tiers) without hugely impacting prime-time queues. It would also give the whole competition a much needed shake up – who would win in a Seafarer’s-Eredon/Blackgate-Vabbi matchup?! Would they beat Janthir-Gunners??

Alliances could also “shift” (infrequently) over time, to allow some degree of balance by ANet.

Jong.5937:

who would win in a Seafarer’s-Eredon/Blackgate-Vabbi matchup?!

I don’t know who will win, but will it be an interesting match?
In EU-prime (NA-Day) Seafarer’s-Eredon will dominate the maps 4:1, 400 bored Seafahrer will crush 80 Blackgates+30 Vabbi and tick 595:100
In NA-prime (EU-Night) Blackgate-Vabbi will dominate the maps 4:1, 400 bored Blackgates will crush 80 SFR + 30 ETs will tick 595:100
EU-Day/NA-Night/OCX-prime will probably decide the match, I don’t know who is stronger OCX at Blackgate or Day at SFR.

I think matches are only interesting if the opponents have a similar 24h manpower profile, and not if they just have their peaks at different times, i.e. if they just crush each other at different times.

I would like to see a variable buddy system in wvw. What i mean by this is pairing servers based on rank for one week at a time to fight together against other paired servers. For the NA competition it could be broken into 2 tiers. Tier 1 being servers ranked 1-12, tier 2 servers ranked 13-24. Server 1 would be paired up with server 12 for one week and depending on how the matchup goes assuming they win server 12 may rank up to be server 10 and then for the next matchup be paired with server 3 etc. When 2 servers are paired up they can go and help each others borderlands as the combined score is what wins a matchup.

The advantages of this system:
This system would let servers keep there own identity while improving the population imbalance to a point while working with new guilds from other servers and learning diffferent tactics. High population caps could also be brought in if deemed necessary while still providing small ques as a player/guild would have 8 maps to choose from. It may also improve the gvg scene as there would be more guilds to go up against per matchup. It also provides morale to servers who may be stuck loosing week in week out because they have low population as that they may occasionally get a win. I think a system like this would also fit well in the current seasons format aswell so most people will get reasonable rewards without having to bandwagon to 1 server.

The potential problems with this idea:
Cross server troll sieging.
In EU 3 servers would have to be culled.

Other general thought on the system:
Open the potential to pair NA and EU servers so that population imbalance in different timezones is lesser

Time-Sliced grouping of servers.

While servers can play (partially) competitive against each other in prime-time (i.e. evening from an Eu perspective). This is much less the case in off-time (night and day from an Eu perspective).
Also the overcapacity of match-slots is worst in off-time.

How about time-sliced server-mergers?

In the night 4 server build up a team and we have a total of 2 matches:
Match1: 1+24+12+13 vs 2+23+11+14 vs 3+22+10+15
Match2: 4+21+9+16 vs 5+20+8+17 vs 6+19+7+18

During the day teams of 2 server, i.e. each night 4-team splits into 2 day 2-teams
Match1.1: 1+24 vs 2+23 vs 3+22
Match1.2: 12+13 vs 11+14 vs 10+15
Match2.1: 4+21 vs 5+20 vs 6+19
Match2.2: 9+16 vs 8+17 vs 7+18

During the evening each server plays on it’s own
Match 1.1.1: 1 vs 2 vs 3
Match 1.1.2: 24 vs 23 vs 22
Match 1.2.1: 12 vs 11 vs 10
Match 1.2.2: 13 vs 14 vs 15
Match 2.1.1: 4 vs 5 vs 6
Match 2.1.2: 21 vs 20 vs 19
Match 2.2.1: 9 vs 8 vs 7
Match 2.2.2: 16 vs 17 vs 18

The score of a server is the sum of the scores of all it’s matches, e.g.
server 1 sums up it’s score in Match 1.1.1 + Match1.1 + Match1

Disadvantage:
- EU-servers 25-27 have to be disbanded, player of them have to choose a different team
Advantages:
- Prime-time is as it is today
- servers are as today (beside EU25-27, sorry)
- play is 24/7 for your team
- whenever you play for your server you score for your server.
- maps for everyone are much better filled at every time, i.e. always more friends and more enemies, without more danger for queue
- you will always have your primetime enemies, e.g. 1 vs 2 vs 3 happens at all times, just during day and night the teams are larger
- match-capacity is removed at times where it is not used, i.e. it is really over-capacity reduced, no one sit more often nor longer in queue.
- each single match runs for the full 7 days
- you have better changes to pickup in a state where you left, e.g. playing full 1.1.1 may be possible.
- you see more different enemies, if you play off-time
- you see more different friends, if you play off-time
- GvG’s between e.g. 24 and 2 or … are possible (when 1.1 or 1 are active) without transfer

Each slice can be 8h (e.g. 0-8,8-16,16-24), but maybe a different slice times are more adequate to get a better filled matches, the attached figure illustrates a possible more complex flow of game and player for reset till sunday morning.

Gilosean.3805:

2) Shout For Help
Make it easier for outnumbered players to coordinate and fight together by providing more communication. Treat commanders from the outnumbered server like a POI and have the minimap point players to them. Popup an event when a player from the outnumbered server gets into combat. Try to provide some of the communication an organized WvW guild would.

With the megaserver in pve, the wvw players have lost LA to ask their pve crowd to help them. Today an asking in a map channel would be nonesense or counterproductive. Based on your ideas I would add a server warning that your server needs you, if you are outmanned or lay behind the other servers. During Living Story Season 1 we got messages in the wvw maps for the pve event. So, why not use that in the opposite direction?

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.

There are a couple of ideas already going in this thread:

• population caps
• merge servers
• Battle Groups

Unfortunately, because of this post it seems the topic of conversation revolves around variations of these 3 things. All of which, IMO, are bad ideas and simply don’t address the root problem, PPT. Right now the game is (at least in silver) round-robin capture. Players simply blob from point to point flipping things back and forth and only really defend the higher PPT objectives. Guilds that focus on busting the zergs, ones that are at a high level of play, simply don’t care about points, since their efforts are wasted once they leave. Open field fights are all about demoralizing the other server, so they stay off the map and can’t rack up points.

The PPT system is likely the easiest system to implement and may even take less server processing to calculate (speculation), but if you really want to make a change that impacts the game mode to a more balanced way, you really need to address the scoring system.

I’ve already suggested this, while not perfect, i think it goes much farther to improve the mode without dismantling communities:

Remove or cripple the down-state
While blobbing has the ability to help keep players healthy via aoe heals and buffs, it also has the added benefit of quick res, which makes a good blob, that are at least partially aware, fairly indestructible.

Bolster siege fire and NPCs when defending against a blob
Upscale (not drastically mind you) NPC defenders and siege output when a mass attacks.

Change PPT to a kill/successful event completion scoring system
Player kills (similar to how you already calculate drops for bags) tick a point on the score board. Success on Defends and Capture tick points as well. You can keep the high level captures like Stone Mist at a higher value, like it is now, along with the lesser objectives, they just only tick once on flip. Since we already have the system in place to slow down the flip, we keep that as well.

Reward successful defend events
If a group is successful at driving off the offense at an objective, give them equal reward as it is for capture. It’s pretty obvious right now why trains run captures and don’t focus on defense nearly as often.

Neutralize unmanned objectives
This gives the “night-crew” or off-peak groups the ability to earn points, but at a cap. I would also make neutralized objectives scale up as well, making them a bit harder to capture. This would help keep players aware and add a deeper level to tactics. You could start with the siege refresh timer and adjust from there.

All these things are geared to shake up the meta and bring more balance to the WvW population imbalances. Servers that go against high numbers have a really good chance to beat those numbers by simply playing better, more organized. As servers shift in performance, you could bolster movement from servers where lower performing servers get a capped free-transfer (maybe open 100 free slots).

Dayra.7405:

Jong.5937:

who would win in a Seafarer’s-Eredon/Blackgate-Vabbi matchup?!

I don’t know who will win, but will it be an interesting match?
In EU-prime (NA-Day) Seafarer’s-Eredon will dominate the maps 4:1, 400 bored Seafahrer will crush 80 Blackgates+30 Vabbi and tick 595:100
In NA-prime (EU-Night) Blackgate-Vabbi will dominate the maps 4:1, 400 bored Blackgates will crush 80 SFR + 30 ETs will tick 595:100
EU-Day/NA-Night/OCX-prime will probably decide the match, I don’t know who is stronger OCX at Blackgate or Day at SFR.

I think matches are only interesting if the opponents have a similar 24h manpower profile, and not if they just have their peaks at different times, i.e. if they just crush each other at different times.

Ofc, this wouldn’t be the only matchup. SFR would still have equivalent match up to now, like Deso-Sorrows, just with better off peak coverage.

It would inject some unpredictability and give all servers a chance to compete. The hours of overlap could be interesting. I also think you underestimate the effect combining peak hours T8 and off-peak T1, especially with population movements, but accept that’s unproven! Eredon might be an interesting home for some top tier NA guilds, tired of queues, interested in allying with SFR, for example. Having played from T8 to T1 and most points between I can say the biggest obstacle to guilds hanging around at the lower tiers is, although they can transform peak times for lower servers, all that work is undone off-peak due to coverage.

Even if we think this is too risky and/or expensive to commit to permanently, it might make for really interesting and different Spring Tournament!

Merge servers is a good measure. Servers affected will adjust to the welcome change, but most will not admit at the beginning due too much pride; however once is done Time help to clear natural mind resistance to changes and then servers get more benefits than perjury from this.

Other game contents (sPvP and PvE) already benefit from the introduction of the Megaservers.

This suggestion of mine was done take in consideration language issues (for Europe), the present rank based in Word versus World low population. Both NA and EU will be leveled to 18 servers (18 /3 = 6 matchups every Friday reset).

North America (NA) future merged servers (18)
Tarnished Coast
Blackgate
Jade Quarry
Sea of Sorrows
Fort Aspenwood
Yak’s Bend
Maguuma
Dragonbrand
Crystal Desert
Stormbluff Isle
Devona’s Rest
Isle of Janthir
Northern Shiverpeaks & Eredon Terrace
Henge of Denravi & Anvil Rock
Borlis Pass & Sorrow’s Furnace
Gate of Madness & Fergunson’s Crossing
Sanctum of Rall & Kaineng
Darkhaven & Ehmry Bay

Europe (EU) future merged servers (18)
Seafarer’s Rest
Desolation
Kodash (DE)
Elona Reach (DE)
Baruch Bay (SP)
Gandara
Riverside (DE)
Far Shiverpeaks
Jade Sea (FR)
Piken Square & Underworld
Abaddon’s Mouth & Dzagonur (DE)
Augury Rock & Fort Ranik (FR)
Gunnar’s Hold & Vabbi
Aurora Glade & Whiteside Ridge
Drakkar Lake & Miller’s Sound (DE)
Vizunah Square & Arbortstone (FR)
Ring of Fire & Fissure of Woe
Ruins of Surmia & Blacktide

Note: please check this pictures for details

How does this help FA to avoid being crushed by TC, Elona, Gandara, … to avoid being dominated by SFR, …? That would not be enough merge.
Maybe merge 1st with 24th, 2nd with 23th, … (add 27 to 10+15, 26 to 11+14, 27 to 12+13 in EU) would help, but that doesn’t respect languages.
And still most maps would be mostly empty most of the time.

I think some kind of merge/battlegroup option would work. I’m on SoS and there are so many times that all our WvW maps have the outnumbered debuff and we’re supposedly the 4th biggest server in terms of WvW pop.

So I would hate to think what its like for the 19 servers below us, it must be horribly empty a majority of the time.

Sigmar.2185:

Merge servers is a good measure. Servers affected will adjust to the welcome change, but most will not admit at the beginning due too much pride; however once is done Time help to clear natural mind resistance to changes and then servers get more benefits than perjury from this.

Other game contents (sPvP and PvE) already benefit from the introduction of the Megaservers.

This suggestion of mine was done take in consideration language issues (for Europe), the present rank based in Word versus World low population. Both NA and EU will be leveled to 18 servers (18 /3 = 6 matchups every Friday reset).

North America (NA) future merged servers (18)
Tarnished Coast
Blackgate
Jade Quarry
Sea of Sorrows
Fort Aspenwood
Yak’s Bend
Maguuma
Dragonbrand
Crystal Desert
Stormbluff Isle
Devona’s Rest
Isle of Janthir
Northern Shiverpeaks & Eredon Terrace
Henge of Denravi & Anvil Rock
Borlis Pass & Sorrow’s Furnace
Gate of Madness & Fergunson’s Crossing
Sanctum of Rall & Kaineng
Darkhaven & Ehmry Bay

Europe (EU) future merged servers (18)
Seafarer’s Rest
Desolation
Kodash (DE)
Elona Reach (DE)
Baruch Bay (SP)
Gandara
Riverside (DE)
Far Shiverpeaks
Jade Sea (FR)
Piken Square & Underworld
Abaddon’s Mouth & Dzagonur (DE)
Augury Rock & Fort Ranik (FR)
Gunnar’s Hold & Vabbi
Aurora Glade & Whiteside Ridge
Drakkar Lake & Miller’s Sound (DE)
Vizunah Square & Arbortstone (FR)
Ring of Fire & Fissure of Woe
Ruins of Surmia & Blacktide

Note: please check this pictures for details

This is so arbitrary. If this happens (or something similar) i know a lot of people that would simply uninstall this game.

Servers themselves aren’t the problem, its the developers not paying any attention to who fights who. If the Developers or even someone they hired could take a bit of time to manually set up matches, it would help a bit.

The Outnumbered buff should give bonuses not related to Stats, but things like Capping Speed, Righteous indignation duration, Re-supply Speed, Upgrade Costs, ect.

Another thing that would help World vs World is the Rewards. Give players better rewards for Defending and Taking objectives.

Its also annoying when players use World vs World for gathering, daily killing, jumping puzzles, and skill points. they add nothing to the match accept there numbers making it harder for us to get the Outnumbered Buff.

Add types of Siege equipment that deals more damage to each person proportional to the amount of targets it hits. this would give smaller groups a defense against larger zergs.

Make the Bloodlust buff temporary forcing players to Re-capture it every half hour, but at the same time, make bloodlust easier for the smaller population to capture by changing the amount of Ruins required to activate it.

allow players to do mini events that speed up the Supply Renewal Rate (Example: Collecting Logs at the Saw-Mill and bringing them to the Guild Claim. The Smaller Population Server would have an easier time completing this Event)

Keep Upgrade Tree: So instead of having a liner amount of upgrades, have the ability to pick from different type of upgrades that would give Keeps Strengths and Weaknesses.
For example you could have a Upgrade that Reduces the HP of the Inner Wall, but Increases the HP of the Outer Wall. Another example would be having the option to replace all Mortars with Ballistas effectively making the Keep stronger at short range protecting, but hindering it against Trebuchets.
-To balance out this idea have the Guild who claimed it have priority over the Upgrades, but give other Guilds the option to “Purchase” the Keep from the current guild who owns it. the Guild who owns the keep must maintain it or else it will be unclaimed. (the way maintaining a Keep would be up to the Developers)

the general idea of this post was to make WvW more appealing to drag people back in and help out there server. if all servers were at there max que without reducing the map que, wouldn’t that effectively have a similar result without the cons?

Sigmar.2185:

Merge servers is a good measure. Servers affected will adjust to the welcome change, but most will not admit at the beginning due too much pride; however once is done Time help to clear natural mind resistance to changes and then servers get more benefits than perjury from this.

Other game contents (sPvP and PvE) already benefit from the introduction of the Megaservers.

This suggestion of mine was done take in consideration language issues (for Europe), the present rank based in Word versus World low population. Both NA and EU will be leveled to 18 servers (18 /3 = 6 matchups every Friday reset).

North America (NA) future merged servers (18)
Tarnished Coast
Blackgate
Jade Quarry
Sea of Sorrows
Fort Aspenwood
Yak’s Bend
Maguuma
Dragonbrand
Crystal Desert
Stormbluff Isle
Devona’s Rest
Isle of Janthir
Northern Shiverpeaks & Eredon Terrace
Henge of Denravi & Anvil Rock
Borlis Pass & Sorrow’s Furnace
Gate of Madness & Fergunson’s Crossing
Sanctum of Rall & Kaineng
Darkhaven & Ehmry Bay

Europe (EU) future merged servers (18)
Seafarer’s Rest
Desolation
Kodash (DE)
Elona Reach (DE)
Baruch Bay (SP)
Gandara
Riverside (DE)
Far Shiverpeaks
Jade Sea (FR)
Piken Square & Underworld
Abaddon’s Mouth & Dzagonur (DE)
Augury Rock & Fort Ranik (FR)
Gunnar’s Hold & Vabbi
Aurora Glade & Whiteside Ridge
Drakkar Lake & Miller’s Sound (DE)
Vizunah Square & Arbortstone (FR)
Ring of Fire & Fissure of Woe
Ruins of Surmia & Blacktide

Note: please check this pictures for details

What’s to stop people from continuing to stack on the winning servers until we have the same population imbalance? Merges won’t fix the problem, at best they might delay it for a few months.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Sigmar.2185:

Merge servers is a good measure. Servers affected will adjust to the welcome change, but most will not admit at the beginning due too much pride; however once is done Time help to clear natural mind resistance to changes and then servers get more benefits than perjury from this.

Other game contents (sPvP and PvE) already benefit from the introduction of the Megaservers.

This suggestion of mine was done take in consideration language issues (for Europe), the present rank based in Word versus World low population. Both NA and EU will be leveled to 18 servers (18 /3 = 6 matchups every Friday reset).

<<snip for brevity>>

Note: please check this pictures for details

What’s to stop people from continuing to stack on the winning servers until we have the same population imbalance? Merges won’t fix the problem, at best they might delay it for a few months.

Indeed, also if you take into account the people that would stop playing entirely, you’re only contributing to the population problems.

Firstly, be wary of the vocal minority. In my town, we have a line of big gorgeous fig trees. I love how beautiful they are an how they attract birds to the area. But the other day, I found out that 26 residents complained about the trees and petitioned to have them cut down. The council initially agreed, but once the wider community found out, they started their own petition, which I signed. Over 200 local residents signed that petition, and the trees were saved, hooray! Why should only ~10% of the population dictate what happens to the town?

Back on topic: merging servers. This has been discussed to death before.

One viewpoint that especially strikes a chord with me is that players from higher tier seem to only want a server merge for their own personal gain, and view lower tier servers as a resource to be picked and plundered.

The way things are now, if you don’t enjoy how things are on a server, you can transfer elsewhere. My brother started on Sea of Sorrows, then moved to Blackgate, then to Jade Quarry, then to Blackgate again, if he wants to hop from place to place, go for it! I’ve been on the same server (Ehmry Bay) since day one and have experienced various fluctuations in tiers, and I have a great time, whether it’s the chaos of being heavily outnumbered, or effortlessly steam rolling through maps devoid of enemies.

Ah, but there are costs involved in transferring. I suppose Anet has good reasons for this, such as avoiding having too many people flocking on to a server, or maybe it’s a good money-maker for them.

If it were up to me, server transfers would be free, so all those whiners who hate the way the server players can go somewhere else, and leave the rest of us in peace. In regards to server merging, I don’t see what problem is solves that can’t already be solved via transfers. All I see server mergers doing is kittening off a whole lot of people who are being forced into an environment they don’t want to be in.

Alas, I don’t see transfers ever being free, and I would offer to pay people to transfer but I would be broke in no time.

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.

There are a couple of ideas already going in this thread:

• population caps
• merge servers
• Battle Groups

Thanks,
John

Sorry, but I think this discussion is a waste of time as population balance is, for the most part, not the problem, but a effect of the real problems.

Here are some issues that I think should be addressed first before there is any talk of population caps, server merge or battle groups.

*WvW reward system – Currently non-existent (Create reward track specifically for WvW)
*Recognition – Currently only server ranking (Create leader boards for guild, profession and individual, create special titles for top players and create special target frame for top players)
*Rally system – Currently one death can rally all who tagged. (Should be limited to one for one)
*Healing downed players – Currently most non-healing spec’d person can rez faster than the stomp animation. (Combination of limiting rez’ers to one per downed player, reduce healing amount, reduce cool down timing of down state skills and revamp down state skills to provide “equal”/ better survivability)
*Break up the Blob – Currently easiest way to win is with a blob (Revamp rules to encourage more spread out/tactical play; i.e. remove waypoints from WvW)
*Change balancing development cycle – Currently about every 6 months (Change to smaller changes every 4-6 weeks)
*Maps – Currently maps are old and stale (Create new maps and/or rotate EotM for EB)
*Develop metrics of active WvW participants, monitor and adjust server ratings accordingly – Limits length of imbalanced match-ups.
*Season/Leagues should be groups of 6 for 4 weeks.
*Stop considering EotM as WvW – EotM is a champ/karma train map.
*Add random PvE map to WvW map selection – The idea is to remove all quests and NPCs and have a large PvP area to fight in.

These are just some of the areas that need work.

munkiman.3068:

Remove or cripple the down-state
While blobbing has the ability to help keep players healthy via aoe heals and buffs, it also has the added benefit of quick res, which makes a good blob, that are at least partially aware, fairly indestructible.

You’re right. Anet should start fixing root causes. Some ideas are interesting but I don’t think down-state is the problem. It gives benefits to both sides. Yes, zerg gets bigger but main problem is hard-resing during fight. This gives zerg the power and slowly wears down smaller organized groups. Zerg has players for resing dead, smaller groups can’t spare anybody during fight. 5 minutes limit before forced-respawn is good step but it would be great to add next step and forbid resing fully dead players by allies in combat.

roxybudgy.8205:

The way things are now, if you don’t enjoy how things are on a server, you can transfer elsewhere. My brother started on Sea of Sorrows, then moved to Blackgate, then to Jade Quarry, then to Blackgate again, if he wants to hop from place to place, go for it! I’ve been on the same server (Ehmry Bay) since day one and have experienced various fluctuations in tiers, and I have a great time, whether it’s the chaos of being heavily outnumbered, or effortlessly steam rolling through maps devoid of enemies.

That’s a possibility, however in this case:

• don’t make the matches (same world opponents) 1 week, 4h to 2 days is enough
• don’t compute a score (and no ranking), but instead provide several statistics about the match, such that everyone can look on what interests him most.
• make matches completely random SFR-Deso-Kodash should have the same probability as SFR-Vabbi-Millers
• NEVER EVER make a competition
• NEVER EVER reward winning, in fact never ever determine a winner.

I personally think it would be nice to have both a

• a playground, EotM style (not necessarily EotM map, EB map and BL-triple maps may be used as well) may be best for that (EotM has a mayor problem, only attack is rewarding defense is not, turning it into a karma-train, but that’s a different problem) (maybe in EU with English-speaking vs French+Spanish- speaking vs German-speaking would be a better idea than the current WvW-color based system)
• a competition, but for a real competition it must be possible for every team to fill the map(s) 100% of the time of the match, all participants in the competition must be equal in fielded manpower and coverage. They may have 10 times as many people on the reserve bank, but on the field, the power must be always equal. I also believe that for a competition an guild/alliance based system is better, as you can control whom you want in your guild/alliance, e.g. disabling trolling and grieving.

The problem of today WvW is that it sits between those chairs. It’s not competitive but used in one. It’s not a playground as it has a score and a rewarded winner.

Just to develop the server idea further:

Given that we now have megaservers in PvE, servers only matter in WvW, where they’re teams that play off against each other and have a history and character. What if WvW servers were explicitly teams? Specifically, like soccer teams, which generally form through grassroots efforts and have to play their way up the ladder. Players don’t have a world when they create a character; it’s only when they start playing WvW that they have to pick a world, and the better performing worlds are invite-only.

We’d then be able to use existing solutions for balancing teams, like ‘salary caps’ depending on a world’s rank. New players can only be invited into a high-ranked world through spending some kind of population currency, and if they leave a world that’s over the cap, they earn some kind of personal reward, maybe gold or gems or an account-bound currency.

However, I broadly agree with other posters that the core problem is that population and coverage is the biggest factor in scoring well, and that encourages population imbalance.

Jezynka.2651:

Yes, zerg gets bigger but main problem is hard-resing during fight.

No the problem is resing of the winner after the fight. That way the zerg keeps size and never has looses due to several small group that are only able to produce causalities, but aren’t able to win.

If instead every complete dead would be send to spawn, the zerg shrinks as a result of every fight. A group of 10 (with a short way) that can force a 40 zerg (with a long way) to fail by repeated attacks: 5 kills on 1st try leaving 35 left, on 2nd attack they have better odds 35:10 and they are able to kill 8, leaving 27, 3rd attack odds are 27:10 they kill 12, leaving 15, …

Jezynka.2651:

munkiman.3068:

Remove or cripple the down-state
While blobbing has the ability to help keep players healthy via aoe heals and buffs, it also has the added benefit of quick res, which makes a good blob, that are at least partially aware, fairly indestructible.

You’re right. Anet should start fixing root causes. Some ideas are interesting but I don’t think down-state is the problem. It gives benefits to both sides. Yes, zerg gets bigger but main problem is hard-resing during fight. This gives zerg the power and slowly wears down smaller organized groups. Zerg has players for resing dead, smaller groups can’t spare anybody during fight. 5 minutes limit before forced-respawn is good step but it would be great to add next step and forbid resing fully dead players by allies in combat.

Sure, i only brought up the down-state as a bolster to the idea of points per kill. Hard res takes a good deal of time. Besides, if the group is losing and hard-res the dead, that’s just more points available for the winners. Which really isn’t a good idea for the loosing side.