Guild Wars 2

Deli.1302:

John Corpening.9847:

There are a number of great ideas circulating attacking the problem from different angles and with varying levels of magnitude of change. One note though, I really feel that scoring is a separate issue that needs to be addressed on it’s own. We will discuss that one after we wrap this one up. Even if we were to overhaul the scoring system population imbalance will still be an issue.

Can you please elaborate further on this? Why do you think they are a separate issue? Population imbalance is a direct result of coverage issues which is a consequence of the scoring system. Honestly, if anet genuinely wants to fix this issue, then they need to hit it at it’s root. Right now we’re just trying to fix a symptom.

My guess would be that the “Conquest” system is also in place in sPvP, and causes a whole different set of problems there, and they’re likely looking at it as an enormous overhaul if they have to change that system anywhere. PPT is very different from the problems sPvP faces, but they’re somewhat related, and I feel like Anet is probably looking at this as one whole problem, rather than 2 very distinct ones. That might be the way to do it, even, I honestly don’t know. Just a guess.

Can anyone point out any major flaws in my suggestion?

Battlegroups, and

- no side can have more then 20% players then the other side on the map
- 3 × 8 hour matches per day for the timezones (double the current upgrade speed / half the cost) – matchmaking performed here against servers with similar populations online / in wvw.
- Each win / loss earns the battlegroup points, at the end of the week whoever has the most points wins.

This would help make the battles fast and furious, and still have a goal to work for each week.

Otokomae.9356:

Deli.1302:

John Corpening.9847:

There are a number of great ideas circulating attacking the problem from different angles and with varying levels of magnitude of change. One note though, I really feel that scoring is a separate issue that needs to be addressed on it’s own. We will discuss that one after we wrap this one up. Even if we were to overhaul the scoring system population imbalance will still be an issue.

Can you please elaborate further on this? Why do you think they are a separate issue? Population imbalance is a direct result of coverage issues which is a consequence of the scoring system. Honestly, if anet genuinely wants to fix this issue, then they need to hit it at it’s root. Right now we’re just trying to fix a symptom.

My guess would be that the “Conquest” system is also in place in sPvP, and causes a whole different set of problems there, and they’re likely looking at it as an enormous overhaul if they have to change that system anywhere. PPT is very different from the problems sPvP faces, but they’re somewhat related, and I feel like Anet is probably looking at this as one whole problem, rather than 2 very distinct ones. That might be the way to do it, even, I honestly don’t know. Just a guess.

We’re talking about WvW here, not spvp. Conquest doesn’t suffer from population imbalance, coverage problems, server related issues or a flawed scoring system.

Yenn.9185:

I think this comes down on how entice more players to play wvw. If more players hop on wvw, it will come to point where each server can saturate their queues. At that point, there will be a balance population.

The rewards relative to effort and participation needs a hard look. Players who used to not like dungeons now play them, and got better at them, because of rewards, for example.

If you do something like this, the rewards would have to be once a week, for WINNING, not for karma-training the map in a big “Queensdale 2.0”-style loop. There have been lots of discussions about increasing rewards in WvW over the past 2 years, and the consensus has generally been that WvW players prefer to lower the costs of WvW, rather than increase the rewards to PvE or greater levels, simply because we don’t want WvW flooded with former dungeon-runners, who never look at the score, but simply want to “run the map, rinse, repeat”, looking for the best “gold-per-hour” in the game.

And of course, tying the rewards to server performance brings us back to the issue of “stacking”, so…

Snorcha.7586:

- no side can have more then 20% players then the other side on the map

you can’t punish players just because they want to play but their side has more people.

- 3 × 8 hour matches per day for the timezones (double the current upgrade speed / half the cost) – matchmaking performed here against servers with similar populations online / in wvw.

Coverage will still be an issue. 8 hours is more than most people’s playtime.

- Each win / loss earns the battlegroup points, at the end of the week whoever has the most points wins.

See above.

Deli.1302:

Snorcha.7586:

- no side can have more then 20% players then the other side on the map

you can’t punish players just because they want to play but their side has more people.

- 3 × 8 hour matches per day for the timezones (double the current upgrade speed / half the cost) – matchmaking performed here against servers with similar populations online / in wvw.

Coverage will still be an issue. 8 hours is more than most people’s playtime.

- Each win / loss earns the battlegroup points, at the end of the week whoever has the most points wins.

See above.

Most of those are solved by proper match making as suggested, just throwing it out there.

Snorcha.7586:

Deli.1302:

Snorcha.7586:

- no side can have more then 20% players then the other side on the map

you can’t punish players just because they want to play but their side has more people.

- 3 × 8 hour matches per day for the timezones (double the current upgrade speed / half the cost) – matchmaking performed here against servers with similar populations online / in wvw.

Coverage will still be an issue. 8 hours is more than most people’s playtime.

- Each win / loss earns the battlegroup points, at the end of the week whoever has the most points wins.

See above.

Most of those are solved by proper match making as suggested, just throwing it out there.

at this stage proper match making cannot be achieved unless the scoring system is completely overhauled correctly.

Snorcha.7586:

Can anyone point out any major flaws in my suggestion?

Battlegroups

Not too hard, you put it right at the beginning. The very first word was a major flaw, with about 50+ posts already pointing out why people don’t want this.

Otokomae.9356:

Snorcha.7586:

Can anyone point out any major flaws in my suggestion?

Battlegroups

Not too hard, you put it right at the beginning. The very first word was a major flaw, with about 50+ posts already pointing out why people don’t want this.

Really? Because I’ve only seen mention of why BG would not want this.

EFWinters.5421:

Otokomae.9356:

Snorcha.7586:

Can anyone point out any major flaws in my suggestion?

Battlegroups

Not too hard, you put it right at the beginning. The very first word was a major flaw, with about 50+ posts already pointing out why people don’t want this.

Really? Because I’ve only seen mention of why BG would not want this.

Go back to page 1 and start over, then. The first argument AGAINST Battle Groups that I saw was on page 1, by a player from SBI, and it’s been pointed out by people in every Tier (including this thread’s OP, who is from Anvil Rock) why this would be bad for WvW for the past 15 pages.

How about,

mix of old and new,

Remove servers from wvw,
Add factions, god factions, Grenth, Balthazar etc… lets say 6… nice number…

you choose a faction, for a week lets say, fight for it, every faction win gives u reward in tokens like in dungeons for stuff, also brings bonuses to the whole world (like in start of gw1, halls win eu/us favor etc.) just here adds like discounted waypoint travel, faster moving speed thru world etc. access to some instaces like in gw1 etc…

that system would work great on this population…

u can even change the maps a little so that keeps and castles represent certain graphical styles of gods u are fighting for, make maybe some nice looking armors for each faction exclusive to wvw and there u go,

get the best of pvp and pve in a single package and resolve server issues in a blast…

gg

Battlegroups, alliances, whatever… are just another name for server merge.

Most disagreements seems to essentially be over what WvW is supposed to be. To me, WvW, as the name suggests, is worlds fighting against other worlds, like war between countries. Like real war between countries, not all countries (worlds) are equal or the same. They may have different populations, cultures, ideologies, etc.

When I used to play Cabal Online, that was split into two factions, and there was a game mode where factions could battle one another to claim/defend objects on a map. This game mode only happened a few times a day and lasts an hour each round. Prior to each round, would-be participants would gather in a waiting room. When the battle started, only equal numbers on each side would be allowed to proceed. So if one faction had 50 people waiting in queue, and the other had 5, only 5 from each team was allowed into battle. The game selects the highest level players in as a priority. If someone logged out during the battle, too bad, no one else can jump in, you have to wait for the next round.

Now, I think it wold be interesting if GW2 had something similar, but thinking about it, that’s more of a sPvP thing, not a WvW thing. A lot of the suggestions I see being thrown around give me the same impression: it’s not WvW, you might as well scrap WvW and tell everyone to go play sPvP.

Hey John,

I don’t play WvW a whole much outside of Edge of the Mists. In my opinion, “OutNumbered” needs to be completely and entirely re-worked because there’s little benefit in people willingly engaging in a “David vs. Goliath” server situation.

No one likes being kicked when they’re down and World vs. World or Edge of the Mists are no exception. Part of this sadly, in my opinion, has to do with the reward system even when many serious “WvW Players” refer to the Edge of the Mists, which is slowly becoming one of my favorite maps they do so with disdain, because it’s essentially worked out to be a representation of server imbalances and primarily functions as a “Karma Train”.

Often times as of late when I check an area like Coiled Watch in Frostgorge Sound it’s absolutely flooded with people because the rewards in such an area are absolutely and entirely out of sync with the rest of the game.

There’s no sense competing over rewards, land or territory when the rewards are all jaded towards an easily repeatable and exploitable PvE event that relies on intentional failure. I think that the “World Bonuses” that WvW offers are a really cool part of the game, but they’re entirely meaningless when they have no contextual application due to massive shifts in population and player instability.

I think that the creation of “Alliances” is a very solid idea. As someone who bought gems to switch servers and play with my friends on a higher population server prior to the Mega-Server system I think that you have to give strong considerations to Guilds willing to exploit an “Alliance” situation to create imbalances between servers. Being able to account for huge population shifts when huge “WvW Guilds” and Leaders that simply decide that they don’t want to play with one an other anymore is necessary for any successful mergers.

There should be some sort of grace period wherein Alliances are set in stone for multiple month periods at a time. I very much like the idea of Worlds becoming “Alliances” for continuity’s sake, but there should be a way to ensure cooperation between different groups rather than letting them shift into a more advantageous situation and disrupt the schema.

My thoughts as a casual player~.

Are you drunk?

My way make it so defending is worth it, but building siege will not gain you any etra points, now its not worth defending Fully upgraded keep because you will get the same points when you recap it that you did when it was fully upgraded.

Preferably they should also then add so you get 1point for stomp without any blood, that way the main income to the server will be from Stomps, but we that want defend will give a incentive that before you done upgrades (wall/gate) you get 0 points in tick for building.

And then to counter the night capping will give a server a lot off point you way the real point the server get with how many player is in playing WvW.

timmyf.1490:

Shadow.3475:

The why i believe is make ppt depend on how many players are on map, if you tick like 50points / tick if you own everything have everything max upgraded when no players on then it will give litle, and give 0 reward for capping paper places. then if you cap a fully upgraded Keep you get 100% reward if it is defended, if no defense you gain like 20% reward.

…you don’t see the problem with this?

“No! Stop building siege! Don’t defend! They’ll get more points if you defend! NOBODY PLACE SIEGE IN THIS KEEP! DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND HOW THE POINT SYSTEM WORKS?

LOOK, IT’S EASY, EVERY ARROW CART YOU PLACE MEANS THEY GAIN 1 EXTRA POINT PER TICK WHEN YOU PLACE IT, MORANS! OH FOR DWAYNA’S SAKE!"

And so on.

John,

Would Anet be open to having different cap levels for the different leagues?

Supreme Jim.8015:

How about,

mix of old and new,

Remove servers from wvw,
Add factions, god factions, Grenth, Balthazar etc… lets say 6… nice number…

you choose a faction, for a week lets say, fight for it, every faction win gives u reward in tokens like in dungeons for stuff, also brings bonuses to the whole world (like in start of gw1, halls win eu/us favor etc.) just here adds like discounted waypoint travel, faster moving speed thru world etc. access to some instaces like in gw1 etc…

that system would work great on this population…

u can even change the maps a little so that keeps and castles represent certain graphical styles of gods u are fighting for, make maybe some nice looking armors for each faction exclusive to wvw and there u go,

get the best of pvp and pve in a single package and resolve server issues in a blast…

gg

I like the factions idea, but I’m not sure about the number. I think 3 factions would be easier to balance. I’m not sure about other servers, but in mine, and even the ones I’ve been facing, it’s very hard to find someone to fight outside of prime time, unless you attack their keep. I think 6 factions would spread the population too much.

So yeah. Dont mess with anything. T1 is happy, T8 is happy. Everyone in between is probably happy

Except those who are not happy.

Swamurabi.7890:

Would Anet be open to having different cap levels for the different leagues?

I think that whatever they do needs to preserve multiple densities of play and they shouldn’t assume everyone is looking for a T1 experience. That’s the assumptions they made with the population caps on the megaservers in PvE and there are plenty of people who don’t like that at all.

EFWinters.5421:

Otokomae.9356:

Snorcha.7586:

Can anyone point out any major flaws in my suggestion?

Battlegroups

Not too hard, you put it right at the beginning. The very first word was a major flaw, with about 50+ posts already pointing out why people don’t want this.

Really? Because I’ve only seen mention of why BG would not want this.

I don’t want this either. It doesn’t improve the system.

Berk.8561:

Swamurabi.7890:

Would Anet be open to having different cap levels for the different leagues?

I think that whatever they do needs to preserve multiple densities of play and they shouldn’t assume everyone is looking for a T1 experience. That’s the assumptions they made with the population caps on the megaservers in PvE and there are plenty of people who don’t like that at all.

The reason I asked is because there are some players who prefer to play on low population maps. There are other players who’s machines can’t handle the lag generated by high population maps.

I will keep my comments short and to the point since I know your time is valuable.

1. I LOVE the idea of the “Alliance” system.

2. In order for it to be successful, I strongly believe that Alliances will need to be kept small enough that a it will take multiple alliances to form one “Team” in each match-up. If the entire WvW population of any T1 server are able to enter into a single Alliance, the benefit of the Alliance system, for the most part, is lost, since that Alliance is likely to remain “stacked” relative to the rest.

3. Some metric will need to be developed in order to rate individual players (and the Alliances they populate) based on the average number of hours they play, and at what time of the day those hours are played. Subdividing the 24h day into a series of coverage groups (maybe 6 4-hour groups?, or vise versa) then assigning each player a rating between 0 and 1 for each of those groups based on the amount of time they are actively engaged in WvW during those hours of the day.

4. When forming teams for weekly matchups, an algorithm would match Alliances and individual players (people who are not in an Alliance) based on both their size (Alliances) and their coverage group values. A simple weighted mean should work fine for this. The ratings for each Alliance would be the mean coverage group values of all its players multiplied by the total number of members of that Alliance (or some representative factor). Individual players could either be pooled (and treated as Alliances) or kept separate, but their coverage group values would be calculated similarly. The matchmaking script would need to find combinations of Alliances and players whose coverage group values add up to some designated value (server capacity, or whatever value is desired to control the “size of the matchup”) and are most similar to each other across the board. A decision would have to be made whether this process would find several sets of 3 teams with similar values within each set, or X teams that are all roughly comparable to each other. I suspect that several sets of 3 would be the way to go since it would be difficult create a large number of balanced teams unless Alliances were kept prohibitively small.

5. Some people have expressed a desire to stay in “small” matchups, etc…these preferences could all be set using a web-based or in-game interface and factor into the matchmaking system. ie. people who want smaller battles could be entered into a separate matchmaking run that uses a lower “size of the matchup” value.

That’s it for now. I’m very curious to see where all this discussion leads!

Berk.8561:

Swamurabi.7890:

Would Anet be open to having different cap levels for the different leagues?

I think that whatever they do needs to preserve multiple densities of play and they shouldn’t assume everyone is looking for a T1 experience. That’s the assumptions they made with the population caps on the megaservers in PvE and there are plenty of people who don’t like that at all.

I think whatever system they ultimately decide on (if they do) it needs to be kept simple. Some of the suggestion have been either way too complicated or convoluted. Some actually haven’t been given much thought, nor have people read the many posts that discuss why an idea isn’t beneficial or are just unwanted. Some of us are here that represent a larger discussion with our servers amongst people that play the mode almost continuously. Those discussions have been going on for a long time.

Unfortunately, discussions like this need more red posts, which doesn’t seem to happen much outside of Chris’s CDIs.

Aridia.3042:

Server merge/alliance/player cap solves nothing. Because you cannot prevent people from stacking. If you let it, they will stack.

How would a player cap not prevent stacking? It won’t fix everything that is wrong with WvW, that wasn’t my intention when posting this idea, but the one thing it will definitely fix is player stacking.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Aridia.3042:

Server merge/alliance/player cap solves nothing. Because you cannot prevent people from stacking. If you let it, they will stack.

How would a player cap not prevent stacking? It won’t fix everything that is wrong with WvW, that wasn’t my intention when posting this idea, but the one thing it will definitely fix is player stacking.

Set the cap too high and off peak coverage determines winners through stacking.
Set the cap too low and peak players might not get to play.

There’s no just right cap level because of population differences between peak and off peak.

Swamurabi.7890:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Aridia.3042:

Server merge/alliance/player cap solves nothing. Because you cannot prevent people from stacking. If you let it, they will stack.

How would a player cap not prevent stacking? It won’t fix everything that is wrong with WvW, that wasn’t my intention when posting this idea, but the one thing it will definitely fix is player stacking.

Set the cap too high and off peak coverage determines winners through stacking.
Set the cap too low and peak players might not get to play.

There’s no just right cap level because of population differences between peak and off peak.

Off peak can be affected by changes to the scoring system or by setting different caps for different times of the day. If there is a cap during peak preventing people on a certain server from playing but there is open space on any other server than it is up to the player to make the choice to move or sit in queue. That is what prevents stacking. People can say they don’t like it but they can’t argue that it wouldn’t prevent stacking.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Aridia.3042:

Server merge/alliance/player cap solves nothing. Because you cannot prevent people from stacking. If you let it, they will stack.

How would a player cap not prevent stacking? It won’t fix everything that is wrong with WvW, that wasn’t my intention when posting this idea, but the one thing it will definitely fix is player stacking.

I think if ANet thought this was a viable solution they’d have done it already. I can’t imagine they haven’t tweaked the numbers at least once (most likely more) since release. I’m with the folks on tier 1 and 2 servers that already have a more robust WvW community that are against just a flat out cap. Half-baked solutions like this is what we have come accustom to seeing in the game anyway, so it’s kinda sad we have to dumb down suggestions for fixes since the probability ANet might implement them is higher.

Lowest Animal.8014:

I agree with the idea of alliances as a solution to WvW population imbalance. Here is my vision of how it would work:

Alliance > Server > Guild

Using established server rankings, group servers into alliances such as:

Alliance A = Servers 1+24+21+18+15+12+9+6
Alliance B = Servers 2+23+20+17+14+11+8+5
Alliance C = Servers 3+21+19+16+13+10+7+4

The rankings used to divvy up the alliances should be a few matches or a tournament after locking transfers to prevent last minute mass transfers and let the rankings settle.

A better way to distribute the WvW population may exist this is just my best guess so far.

Next, make transfers to any server within your alliance free at any time with no restrictions. While at the same time making transfers to servers outside your alliance expensive with restrictions in place to hinder trolling or other bad behavior. This would be a permanent change.

For new players they should be locked out of WvW for at least the first 10 to 20 levels then asked to pick an alliance. The game then transfers them to a random middle tier server within their chosen alliance.

An alliance page could be added to the WvW window where news, goings on, PPT of all servers, and maybe an in game alliance only forum could be accessed. An alliance restricted part of the forums could be vital to encourage organization between allied guilds.

My hope is that with this system alliances reward guild organization and team work creating a tight knit community. Allied servers become battlefields guilds can move between so they can avoid queues, being too outnumbered in certain time zones, and maximize their impact on the match. This will make guilds will important beyond “which big guild zerg owns this map” and hopefully also solve the coverage problem.

Huh, I like the idea of keeping servers as they are and allying ourselves with a shared score via an alliance system. T1 still gets their intensity., and T8 still gets their “rural”/strategic feel.

Cross.6437:

Lowest Animal.8014:

I agree with the idea of alliances as a solution to WvW population imbalance. Here is my vision of how it would work:

Alliance > Server > Guild

Using established server rankings, group servers into alliances such as:

Alliance A = Servers 1+24+21+18+15+12+9+6
Alliance B = Servers 2+23+20+17+14+11+8+5
Alliance C = Servers 3+21+19+16+13+10+7+4

The rankings used to divvy up the alliances should be a few matches or a tournament after locking transfers to prevent last minute mass transfers and let the rankings settle.

A better way to distribute the WvW population may exist this is just my best guess so far.

Next, make transfers to any server within your alliance free at any time with no restrictions. While at the same time making transfers to servers outside your alliance expensive with restrictions in place to hinder trolling or other bad behavior. This would be a permanent change.

For new players they should be locked out of WvW for at least the first 10 to 20 levels then asked to pick an alliance. The game then transfers them to a random middle tier server within their chosen alliance.

An alliance page could be added to the WvW window where news, goings on, PPT of all servers, and maybe an in game alliance only forum could be accessed. An alliance restricted part of the forums could be vital to encourage organization between allied guilds.

My hope is that with this system alliances reward guild organization and team work creating a tight knit community. Allied servers become battlefields guilds can move between so they can avoid queues, being too outnumbered in certain time zones, and maximize their impact on the match. This will make guilds will important beyond “which big guild zerg owns this map” and hopefully also solve the coverage problem.

Huh, I like the idea of keeping servers as they are and allying ourselves with a shared score via an alliance system. T1 still gets their intensity., and T8 still gets their “rural”/strategic feel.

Um, it actually sounds to me like no one gets ANY of these things in this system; if we’re all sharing maps with 8 other servers, even if they do a good job of grouping people together with their own servers, you’re still likely to see T1 zergs forming up in T8 anytime there’s a que higher than 10, and those players are just going to karma train unless the T8 (or whatever map the higher Tier servers go to while in que) players are able to up a serious resistance, since most player’s won’t be able to take the score seriously, if their PPT is tired to 8 other servers (or Teams, or Alliance, or whatever word you want to use here). Any lower Tier maps that start to take on players from other Tiers who are waiting in que are just going to watch their maps get turned into EotM 2.0.

This suggestion actually sounds WORSE than using the EotM grouping system, imo.

munkiman.3068:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Aridia.3042:

Server merge/alliance/player cap solves nothing. Because you cannot prevent people from stacking. If you let it, they will stack.

How would a player cap not prevent stacking? It won’t fix everything that is wrong with WvW, that wasn’t my intention when posting this idea, but the one thing it will definitely fix is player stacking.

I think if ANet thought this was a viable solution they’d have done it already. I can’t imagine they haven’t tweaked the numbers at least once (most likely more) since release. I’m with the folks on tier 1 and 2 servers that already have a more robust WvW community that are against just a flat out cap. Half-baked solutions like this is what we have come accustom to seeing in the game anyway, so it’s kinda sad we have to dumb down suggestions for fixes since the probability ANet might implement them is higher.

I can’t argue that point. I’ve said before that the reason I proposed this solution is because it would be easy for them to implement, and even though it would upset some people, it would be effective.

I don’t agree that Anet would have implemented this already if they thought it was viable. Everything about WvW seems to be geared towards encouraging players to stack to win. It seems like they put the money they can get in the short term through transfers above the over all health of the game mode.

Deli.1302:

Snorcha.7586:

- no side can have more then 20% players then the other side on the map

you can’t punish players just because they want to play but their side has more people.

You can offer them an immediate permanent transfer to any side without queue, if they refuse, you have to educate them that insisting to play on the predominate side is punished by queue.

The population issue is edge of the mists has an easy/simple fix.

“Order” the various shards and don’t send players on blue/red/green to the subsequent shard unless the current shard is full for heir color. If red isn’t full on shard #1, then all red go to shard #1.

This way there is population balance on at least on shard for Edge of the mists, instead of what it is now, where an already outnumbered Red gets its population spread too thin.

Conner.4702:

How to say this politely. Nothing in this thread is an actual solution to the population imbalance. Nothing adresses the 24/7 nature of WvW. There are only 2 solutions and neither will be implemented. Removing the aoe cap to make the difference in population moot or redoing the entire server architecture to make a true global wvw system and not this US and EU server crap.

Anything else will do nothing, but create more queues during primetime and still not enough people during off hours or create wins by some sort of point algorithm eventhough you got trampled all week anyway.

All this talk about alliances and grouping does not take into account that people are still going to play at teh time they always do and thus it will never be a solution. The population needs to be spread over timezones not just servers to truly fix an imbalance. removing the aoe cap would be second best, as it would give people a chance, though most liekly still lose in the end.

THIS is what ive been saying.

Lowest Animal.8014:

I agree with the idea of alliances as a solution to WvW population imbalance. Here is my vision of how it would work:

Alliance > Server > Guild

Using established server rankings, group servers into alliances such as:

Alliance A = Servers 1+24+21+18+15+12+9+6
Alliance B = Servers 2+23+20+17+14+11+8+5
Alliance C = Servers 3+21+19+16+13+10+7+4

The rankings used to divvy up the alliances should be a few matches or a tournament after locking transfers to prevent last minute mass transfers and let the rankings settle.

A better way to distribute the WvW population may exist this is just my best guess so far.

Next, make transfers to any server within your alliance free at any time with no restrictions. While at the same time making transfers to servers outside your alliance expensive with restrictions in place to hinder trolling or other bad behavior. This would be a permanent change.

For new players they should be locked out of WvW for at least the first 10 to 20 levels then asked to pick an alliance. The game then transfers them to a random middle tier server within their chosen alliance.

An alliance page could be added to the WvW window where news, goings on, PPT of all servers, and maybe an in game alliance only forum could be accessed. An alliance restricted part of the forums could be vital to encourage organization between allied guilds.

My hope is that with this system alliances reward guild organization and team work creating a tight knit community. Allied servers become battlefields guilds can move between so they can avoid queues, being too outnumbered in certain time zones, and maximize their impact on the match. This will make guilds will important beyond “which big guild zerg owns this map” and hopefully also solve the coverage problem.

I tend to think this is how John kinda envisioned it work too, in his post. But, it’s pretty much how EotM works now (in the “win”). I don’t know that i would have it so new players could only be randomly tossed on to a server though (maybe a “pick a server for me” button).

The one big caveat to this is organization/communication when a group from one server plays on anothers. There are also some pretty big rivalries in WvW already, which would make something like this really chaotic and at times, pretty toxic.

After 2+ years of players settling in to their server communities, this might ultimately do more harm than good, IMO. I also don’t think this would address scoring and coverage issues. I’d hate to just assume people would happily move around to help other servers in their alliances all that much. There’s definitely something to doing well in your own community, that mashing a win into an alliance system really takes away from. It might be better a while down the road, but it could be really bad (like continuing to lose players), which would basically force us to see merges.

I’d rather see changes that impact the mode itself, to bring in/back more players in general. One thing i would seriously consider is incorporating EotM into WvW or seriously nerfing the rewards from it. I really think it takes players that would normally play WvW out.

Jim Hunter.6821:

munkiman.3068:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Aridia.3042:

Server merge/alliance/player cap solves nothing. Because you cannot prevent people from stacking. If you let it, they will stack.

How would a player cap not prevent stacking? It won’t fix everything that is wrong with WvW, that wasn’t my intention when posting this idea, but the one thing it will definitely fix is player stacking.

I think if ANet thought this was a viable solution they’d have done it already. I can’t imagine they haven’t tweaked the numbers at least once (most likely more) since release. I’m with the folks on tier 1 and 2 servers that already have a more robust WvW community that are against just a flat out cap. Half-baked solutions like this is what we have come accustom to seeing in the game anyway, so it’s kinda sad we have to dumb down suggestions for fixes since the probability ANet might implement them is higher.

I can’t argue that point. I’ve said before that the reason I proposed this solution is because it would be easy for them to implement, and even though it would upset some people, it would be effective.

I don’t agree that Anet would have implemented this already if they thought it was viable. Everything about WvW seems to be geared towards encouraging players to stack to win. It seems like they put the money they can get in the short term through transfers above the over all health of the game mode.

They have lowered the map cap in the past. For a while it was around 60 on the bl’s. This did not cause the servers to destack like you assume it would.

eithinan.9841:

Conner.4702:

How to say this politely. Nothing in this thread is an actual solution to the population imbalance. Nothing adresses the 24/7 nature of WvW. There are only 2 solutions and neither will be implemented. Removing the aoe cap to make the difference in population moot or redoing the entire server architecture to make a true global wvw system and not this US and EU server crap.

Anything else will do nothing, but create more queues during primetime and still not enough people during off hours or create wins by some sort of point algorithm eventhough you got trampled all week anyway.

All this talk about alliances and grouping does not take into account that people are still going to play at teh time they always do and thus it will never be a solution. The population needs to be spread over timezones not just servers to truly fix an imbalance. removing the aoe cap would be second best, as it would give people a chance, though most liekly still lose in the end.

THIS is what ive been saying.

You mine as well just offer up a suggestion of turning WvW into a game of duck duck goose. I guess if you want to alienate all of EU for things like language barriers, higher latency and rather large social differences, then this is a stellar idea. Not to mention what it would cost to just scrap the whole thing.

It might be money better spent if ANet did a huge marketing campaign in oceanics and brought more players in from there

munkiman.3068:

I tend to think this is how John kinda envisioned it work too, in his post. But, it’s pretty much how EotM works now (in the “win”). I don’t know that i would have it so new players could only be randomly tossed on to a server though (maybe a “pick a server for me” button).

There are a bunch of important differences:

• EotM does not care about balance (it just takes the most imbalanced WvW color), a placement of servers into teams should do that.
• EotM has an unlimited number of anonymous overflow maps only existing for 4hours, WvW should have continuos (for the whole week) named maps you should be able to choose.
  This is the most important feature to make combat organized: You can assign a server to maps. (you cannot in EotM)
  As a nice extension to today I would propose that you can easily find out how many players from your side are on which map (in EotM you not even know how many maps exist).
• A EotM score no one ever notice, who wasn’t by chance on the map when the match ended, a match score in WvW can be computed and people interested can care about.

munkiman.3068:

It has, probably many times in many threads. even PvE is limited on the reward level. WvW has been pretty neglected on the rewards as well. Not that it’s not worth bringing up again and again though.

Fair enough.

Swamurabi.7890:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Aridia.3042:

Server merge/alliance/player cap solves nothing. Because you cannot prevent people from stacking. If you let it, they will stack.

How would a player cap not prevent stacking? It won’t fix everything that is wrong with WvW, that wasn’t my intention when posting this idea, but the one thing it will definitely fix is player stacking.

Set the cap too high and off peak coverage determines winners through stacking.
Set the cap too low and peak players might not get to play.

There’s no just right cap level because of population differences between peak and off peak.

Make the cap demand dependend: cap = mean-demand*1.1
The mean-demand is sum all 3 sides player on Map and in Queue (only count queue if all maps have queue and even then do not count people queued but already on another WvW-map) for that map divided by 3.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Swamurabi.7890:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Aridia.3042:

Server merge/alliance/player cap solves nothing. Because you cannot prevent people from stacking. If you let it, they will stack.

How would a player cap not prevent stacking? It won’t fix everything that is wrong with WvW, that wasn’t my intention when posting this idea, but the one thing it will definitely fix is player stacking.

Set the cap too high and off peak coverage determines winners through stacking.
Set the cap too low and peak players might not get to play.

There’s no just right cap level because of population differences between peak and off peak.

Off peak can be affected by changes to the scoring system or by setting different caps for different times of the day. If there is a cap during peak preventing people on a certain server from playing but there is open space on any other server than it is up to the player to make the choice to move or sit in queue. That is what prevents stacking. People can say they don’t like it but they can’t argue that it wouldn’t prevent stacking.

You either have caps so that every match has 80v80v80 during peak times and 30v30v30 for off peak OR you have a few matches where you have 80v80v80 on peak and off peak but you also have other matches where you have 80v80v80 for peak and 0v0v0 for off peak.

Changing scoring does not change the fact that 10v80 is not fun.

Swamurabi.7890:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Swamurabi.7890:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Aridia.3042:

Server merge/alliance/player cap solves nothing. Because you cannot prevent people from stacking. If you let it, they will stack.

How would a player cap not prevent stacking? It won’t fix everything that is wrong with WvW, that wasn’t my intention when posting this idea, but the one thing it will definitely fix is player stacking.

Set the cap too high and off peak coverage determines winners through stacking.
Set the cap too low and peak players might not get to play.

There’s no just right cap level because of population differences between peak and off peak.

Off peak can be affected by changes to the scoring system or by setting different caps for different times of the day. If there is a cap during peak preventing people on a certain server from playing but there is open space on any other server than it is up to the player to make the choice to move or sit in queue. That is what prevents stacking. People can say they don’t like it but they can’t argue that it wouldn’t prevent stacking.

You either have caps so that every match has 80v80v80 during peak times and 30v30v30 for off peak OR you have a few matches where you have 80v80v80 on peak and off peak but you also have other matches where you have 80v80v80 for peak and 0v0v0 for off peak.

Changing scoring does not change the fact that 10v80 is not fun.

10 vs 80 isn’t but 10 vs 30 can be a lot of fun right now. If they got rid of the AoE limit for damage and removed the downed state 10 vs 50 could be a blast.

Swamurabi.7890:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Swamurabi.7890:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Aridia.3042:

Server merge/alliance/player cap solves nothing. Because you cannot prevent people from stacking. If you let it, they will stack.

How would a player cap not prevent stacking? It won’t fix everything that is wrong with WvW, that wasn’t my intention when posting this idea, but the one thing it will definitely fix is player stacking.

Set the cap too high and off peak coverage determines winners through stacking.
Set the cap too low and peak players might not get to play.

There’s no just right cap level because of population differences between peak and off peak.

Off peak can be affected by changes to the scoring system or by setting different caps for different times of the day. If there is a cap during peak preventing people on a certain server from playing but there is open space on any other server than it is up to the player to make the choice to move or sit in queue. That is what prevents stacking. People can say they don’t like it but they can’t argue that it wouldn’t prevent stacking.

You either have caps so that every match has 80v80v80 during peak times and 30v30v30 for off peak OR you have a few matches where you have 80v80v80 on peak and off peak but you also have other matches where you have 80v80v80 for peak and 0v0v0 for off peak.

Changing scoring does not change the fact that 10v80 is not fun.

Some things to consider here.

• Defense should be scaled, either in damage output from siege or in structural integrity or both when defenders are highly out manned. This wouldn’t affect undefended structures.
• Reward for successful defense should be equal to successful capture.
• Scoring should take into account population discrepancies and focus more on skill/tactics. Suggesting to remove PPT as a mechanism and replace it with event success (defensive and offensive) and player kills. Bloodlust should remain as a bonus point for a stomp.
• Unmanned objectives should neutralize – this gives off-peak players the ability to still score points during their play hours, once PPT is removed. It also gives them something to do once they completely flip a map. Yet, it also places a cap on how many points they can effectively rack up when there is less going on.

This also lowers the point system significantly. Point tallies will be smaller and will actually reflect player participation in any given tier. It should also give the added benefit for more movement in the ladder since point gaps will be tighter.

I put my thoughts here

I don’t think you’re going to get much support from off peak players telling them that they can only play with a map cap of 30 while peak players have a cap of 80, when for two years everyone has been playing with a map cap of 60-80.

Why should peak players get to keep their server pride but off peak players don’t?

munkiman.3068:

• Reward for successful defense should be equal to successful capture.

Well, this would have to added benefit of ending the annoying Meta of “Tapping Waypoints”, should those taps continue to set off the Defense the Keep event.

This would also, however, make Trolling an enemy server 1234987987314 times easier than ever before, since a solo-troll could simply set off defense events all over the map and walk away, handing points to the enemy server.

Otokomae.9356:

munkiman.3068:

• Reward for successful defense should be equal to successful capture.

Well, this would have to added benefit of ending the annoying Meta of “Tapping Waypoints”, should those taps continue to set off the Defense the Keep event.

This would also, however, make Trolling an enemy server 1234987987314 times easier than ever before, since a solo-troll could simply set off defense events all over the map and walk away, handing points to the enemy server.

Well it would only do that if the point was actually manned. You could probably make it so at least 2 players were there to defend it. You could also add a timer on it so i could only trigger every so often (the reward/points).

Also wouldn’t that be a reverse troll? Why would an enemy troll want to give the server they are trolling points/rewards? Scratch that i see what you mean now… But don’t you have to do so much damage to toss up orange swords? I forget now how that works.

munkiman.3068:

eithinan.9841:

Conner.4702:

How to say this politely. Nothing in this thread is an actual solution to the population imbalance. Nothing adresses the 24/7 nature of WvW. There are only 2 solutions and neither will be implemented. Removing the aoe cap to make the difference in population moot or redoing the entire server architecture to make a true global wvw system and not this US and EU server crap.

Anything else will do nothing, but create more queues during primetime and still not enough people during off hours or create wins by some sort of point algorithm eventhough you got trampled all week anyway.

All this talk about alliances and grouping does not take into account that people are still going to play at teh time they always do and thus it will never be a solution. The population needs to be spread over timezones not just servers to truly fix an imbalance. removing the aoe cap would be second best, as it would give people a chance, though most liekly still lose in the end.

THIS is what ive been saying.

You mine as well just offer up a suggestion of turning WvW into a game of duck duck goose. I guess if you want to alienate all of EU for things like language barriers, higher latency and rather large social differences, then this is a stellar idea. Not to mention what it would cost to just scrap the whole thing.

It might be money better spent if ANet did a huge marketing campaign in oceanics and brought more players in from there

It was called internally a while back that Oceanic has been dead for a good six months now. In T1 the playerbase during Oceanic timezone on an average weeknight is like 10% Oceanic, 45% NA doing overtime staying up till 4am and 45% SEA logging in early. I can vouch that it is the opinion of the bulk of players in T1 that the timezone isn’t going to come back to life and its slowly going to dwindle. TBH I wouldn’t be opposed to a map cap reduction during this timezone and its one of the few changes that I don’t think many, if any, would be impacted negatively by and there certainly would be some who would be positively impacted by it. It would certainly alleviate the pressure on T1 NA to stay up late to fill that coverage gap and would reduce the impact of “PvD”. But you could really only have that cap between Monday and Thursday as there is significantly larger numbers who play on Friday/Saturday/Sunday nights.

TLDR I don’t think many Oceanics will come to GW2 now, they are all playing CS:GO :p

Hello everyone!
First, sorry my bad english, Secondly, sorry not to have read all the previous reply but they are really a lot.

I think about a solution but i need to explain.

We can’t force the player to play, or decrease the max players cap.

The WvW (in EU) is organized in 2 parts (apart the reset):
-All the time around the prime time win which there isn’t balancing at all. (19-20 hours)
-The “prime time” in which the match is more balanced. (4-5 hours)

So the WvW is more often unbalanced than it is balanced.

But there is an underlying problem.
Before the “prime time” the Big Servers can build better wall, better door, more siege weapons and they take all the supply that they can. So the prime time can start with a balanced amount of players but the structures are pretty unfair and some little servers have to try to take there home tower during all the prime time.

Based on this observation i think it could be balanced to reset all the servers every days before the prime time. Not a big reset but a soft one:
The servers get all their home structure without upgrade. The Stonemist castle is free.
All of the players are teleports to the spawn. And all of the siege wepons are destroyed.

In addition i think the 4-5 hour past reset (the more balanced period) could give twice or thrice the amout of the points than the other (non prime time) period.

I tried to find a new system but what about upgrade during the prime time?
I think the upgrades could be faster and cheaper in supply and money.

It could be a more dynamic system with more turnaround in which the biggest server doesn’t get the advantage all the week.

Thank you for reading and again sorry for my bad english ^^.

This is how Alliance, aka guilds, aka factions, should work, at least IMO. This will also include “overflow” style maps.

First

Separate the matches into 3 match-ups throughout the day (12-8, 8-4, 4-Midnight). There is a PPT ticker for each time slot. Each time slot constitutes a “point”. For a team (alliance) to win, they have to win 2 out of 3 time slots. This stops those with a massive coverage advantage during a given time slot. The only way for an alliance to win is to have strong coverage through all 3 slots. Massive SEA coverage will no longer work.

Advantages – Strong coverage in one area no longer works
Disadvantages- ?

Second

Cap the amount of players per map to say 70ish. This is more so to help control lag. There will also be “overflow” maps which become available once that particular map gets close to capping. The “overflow” maps will also count towards PPT, as long as, there is at least 25 people per side. I think there would be enough players at any given time to fill all maps 2 times over

Advantages – No more ques & not likely to have population imbalances any longer
Disadvantages – Might not work for players who like small populated maps

Third

Introduce a new set of siege and achievements native to each alliance so it gives achievement hunters something to work towards. Make the achievements more in-line, unlike the current WvW achievements.

Fourth

Add some sort of dynamic questing schedule inside based on the current map conditions. Gw2 is built a lot around questing, so why not add WvW specific questing based on what’s going on the map at any given time. Completing the quests awards additional PPT. WvW specific questing would be things like capturing objectives or killing “X” number of players of each alliance.

DeadlySynz.3471:

This is how Alliance, aka guilds, aka factions, should work, at least IMO. This will also include “overflow” style maps.

First

Separate the matches into 3 match-ups throughout the day (12-8, 8-4, 4-Midnight). There is a PPT ticker for each time slot. Each time slot constitutes a “point”. For a team (alliance) to win, they have to win 2 out of 3 time slots. This stops those with a massive coverage advantage during a given time slot. The only way for an alliance to win is to have strong coverage through all 3 slots. Massive SEA coverage will no longer work.

Advantages – Strong coverage in one area no longer works
Disadvantages- ?

Second

Cap the amount of players per map to say 70ish. This is more so to help control lag. There will also be “overflow” maps which become available once that particular map gets close to capping. The “overflow” maps will also count towards PPT, as long as, there is at least 25 people per side. I think there would be enough players at any given time to fill all maps 2 times over

Advantages – No more ques & not likely to have population imbalances any longer
Disadvantages – Might not work for players who like small populated maps

Third

Introduce a new set of siege and achievements native to each alliance so it gives achievement hunters something to work towards. Make the achievements more in-line, unlike the current WvW achievements.

Fourth

Add some sort of dynamic questing schedule inside based on the current map conditions. Gw2 is built a lot around questing, so why not add WvW specific questing based on what’s going on the map at any given time. Completing the quests awards additional PPT. WvW specific questing would be things like capturing objectives or killing “X” number of players of each alliance.

The disadvantage you aren’t seeing is you are removing incentive for people to defend. Your idea is like a slightly better version of EotM. It will end up being just another karma train.

DeadlySynz.3471:

This is how Alliance, aka guilds, aka factions, should work, at least IMO. This will also include “overflow” style maps.

First

Separate the matches into 3 match-ups throughout the day (12-8, 8-4, 4-Midnight). There is a PPT ticker for each time slot. Each time slot constitutes a “point”. For a team (alliance) to win, they have to win 2 out of 3 time slots. This stops those with a massive coverage advantage during a given time slot. The only way for an alliance to win is to have strong coverage through all 3 slots. Massive SEA coverage will no longer work.

Advantages – Strong coverage in one area no longer works
Disadvantages- ?

Second

Cap the amount of players per map to say 70ish. This is more so to help control lag. There will also be “overflow” maps which become available once that particular map gets close to capping. The “overflow” maps will also count towards PPT, as long as, there is at least 25 people per side. I think there would be enough players at any given time to fill all maps 2 times over

Advantages – No more ques & not likely to have population imbalances any longer
Disadvantages – Might not work for players who like small populated maps

Third

Introduce a new set of siege and achievements native to each alliance so it gives achievement hunters something to work towards. Make the achievements more in-line, unlike the current WvW achievements.

Fourth

Add some sort of dynamic questing schedule inside based on the current map conditions. Gw2 is built a lot around questing, so why not add WvW specific questing based on what’s going on the map at any given time. Completing the quests awards additional PPT. WvW specific questing would be things like capturing objectives or killing “X” number of players of each alliance.

While there’s some good ideas, it seems most people don’t want flat out mergers. There is also the technical issue, (ANet confirmed) that you can’t select an overflow shard (ala Districts in GW), so it would be fairly difficult to quickly run off an help your guild/team/party/squad in an overflow situation. Also, communication (via voice chat) would be extremely limited (most only handle 500 clients). Not to mention the fact that people actually enjoy having the option to play on lower populations.