Guild Wars 2

Simple – only allow a certain number of players in from each server into a specific BL at a time and have a timer on the player so they can’t jump at will between the BL’s. This is what is happening now – blobs are transferring and to try to avoid fights – I think once a player is in a BL, except for EotM, then they need to be in that BL for an hour in game time – for each 24 hr period.

OR

Only allow a player ONE BL each 24 hr period. Once in – they are stuck.

What I see here is a bunch of suggestions to merge servers without calling it merged servers.

@Dusty Moon, no, being able to float and defend an objective is IMO a pretty important part of the game. BGBL is boring enough as is, if the TC/SoS forces couldn’t float there in an attempt to catch us off guard or get us off other maps then it’d just be completely dead, and I’d be stuck there twiddling my thumbs hating WvW.

Afya.5842:

Omega Mccoy.4237:

Curse Drew.8679:

Might be cool thing to try for 1 season and see how people react

Suggested Gold League:
BG+IOJ vs. JQ+DR vs. TC+SI
SOS+DB vs. FA+CD vs. YB+MAG

Suggested Silver League:
NSP+ET vs. HOD+AR vs. BP+SF
GOM+FC vs. KAIN+DH vs. SOR+EB

I guess you are trying to troll, the two lowest pop servers in T3/T2 together (YB and Mag)?
SoS and DB? so you will get no fights during NA and they will paper everything during OcX?
It would make more sense (BG can probably go at it alone)
BG vs JQ + IoJ vs TC + NSP
SoS + SBI vs FA + CD vs DB+Mag+YB

That would have almost equal coverage all around.

I don’t want to ally with YB…..

And we don’t wanna ally with whatever server you are on, just saying that would bring the most balanced numbers to the field.

Jerus.4350:

What I see here is a bunch of suggestions to merge servers without calling it merged servers.

@Dusty Moon, no, being able to float and defend an objective is IMO a pretty important part of the game. BGBL is boring enough as is, if the TC/SoS forces couldn’t float there in an attempt to catch us off guard or get us off other maps then it’d just be completely dead, and I’d be stuck there twiddling my thumbs hating WvW.

Not really – basically your server is your Alliance. If you cannot plan an Alliance general defense and plan (like what guilds go to what BL and not just blob together) then the balance should or could be there. If your server doesn’t have a cohesive plan or is just so big it only cares about numbers in a blob COUGH BG COUGH then maybe it is time you have one.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Jerus.4350:

What I see here is a bunch of suggestions to merge servers without calling it merged servers.

@Dusty Moon, no, being able to float and defend an objective is IMO a pretty important part of the game. BGBL is boring enough as is, if the TC/SoS forces couldn’t float there in an attempt to catch us off guard or get us off other maps then it’d just be completely dead, and I’d be stuck there twiddling my thumbs hating WvW.

Not really – basically your server is your Alliance. If you cannot plan an Alliance general defense and plan (like what guilds go to what server and not just blob together) then the balance should or could be there. If your server doesn’t have a cohesive plan or is just so big it only cares about numbers in a blob COUGH BG COUGH then maybe it is time you have one.

You’re misunderstanding the issue. My guild is assigned to BGBL, thing is we’re stuck there twiddling our thumbs hoping TC/SOS will attack the majority of the time. The only time we get action is when TC/SoS floats to our BL to make an attempt, then they’ll bounce back off. TC will show up in massive number (full blob) hit something, do pretty well, eventually get pushed out, and then we’re back to twiddling our thumbs hoping they’ll do it again. If it wasn’t for their ability to float we’d probably not see any action all night.

Jerus.4350:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Jerus.4350:

What I see here is a bunch of suggestions to merge servers without calling it merged servers.

@Dusty Moon, no, being able to float and defend an objective is IMO a pretty important part of the game. BGBL is boring enough as is, if the TC/SoS forces couldn’t float there in an attempt to catch us off guard or get us off other maps then it’d just be completely dead, and I’d be stuck there twiddling my thumbs hating WvW.

Not really – basically your server is your Alliance. If you cannot plan an Alliance general defense and plan (like what guilds go to what server and not just blob together) then the balance should or could be there. If your server doesn’t have a cohesive plan or is just so big it only cares about numbers in a blob COUGH BG COUGH then maybe it is time you have one.

You’re misunderstanding the issue. My guild is assigned to BGBL, thing is we’re stuck there twiddling our thumbs hoping TC/SOS will attack the majority of the time. The only time we get action is when TC/SoS floats to our BL to make an attempt, then they’ll bounce back off. TC will show up in massive number (full blob) hit something, do pretty well, eventually get pushed out, and then we’re back to twiddling our thumbs hoping they’ll do it again. If it wasn’t for their ability to float we’d probably not see any action all night.

The solution to this pseudo-problem is fully in your hand: transfer to TC or SOS and get as many action as you like by attacking BGBL. Problem solved.

That’s exactly the reason why I would recommend anyone in heavy one-side match to stay home or ignore score and concentrate on one map: bore the superior side to dead.

Jerus.4350:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Jerus.4350:

What I see here is a bunch of suggestions to merge servers without calling it merged servers.

@Dusty Moon, no, being able to float and defend an objective is IMO a pretty important part of the game. BGBL is boring enough as is, if the TC/SoS forces couldn’t float there in an attempt to catch us off guard or get us off other maps then it’d just be completely dead, and I’d be stuck there twiddling my thumbs hating WvW.

Not really – basically your server is your Alliance. If you cannot plan an Alliance general defense and plan (like what guilds go to what server and not just blob together) then the balance should or could be there. If your server doesn’t have a cohesive plan or is just so big it only cares about numbers in a blob COUGH BG COUGH then maybe it is time you have one.

You’re misunderstanding the issue. My guild is assigned to BGBL, thing is we’re stuck there twiddling our thumbs hoping TC/SOS will attack the majority of the time. The only time we get action is when TC/SoS floats to our BL to make an attempt, then they’ll bounce back off. TC will show up in massive number (full blob) hit something, do pretty well, eventually get pushed out, and then we’re back to twiddling our thumbs hoping they’ll do it again. If it wasn’t for their ability to float we’d probably not see any action all night.

That’s your own servers fault for over-stacking and destroying T1. It’s going to get much worse.

Right now, JQ and TC are basically outnumbered by BG 90% of the time. The problems of lower Tiers were brought into Tier 1 by StackGate greed.

Which is a good thing – destroying WvW might get aNet to wake up and realize a major part of their game is basically dead.

Dayra.7405:

Jerus.4350:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Jerus.4350:

What I see here is a bunch of suggestions to merge servers without calling it merged servers.

@Dusty Moon, no, being able to float and defend an objective is IMO a pretty important part of the game. BGBL is boring enough as is, if the TC/SoS forces couldn’t float there in an attempt to catch us off guard or get us off other maps then it’d just be completely dead, and I’d be stuck there twiddling my thumbs hating WvW.

Not really – basically your server is your Alliance. If you cannot plan an Alliance general defense and plan (like what guilds go to what server and not just blob together) then the balance should or could be there. If your server doesn’t have a cohesive plan or is just so big it only cares about numbers in a blob COUGH BG COUGH then maybe it is time you have one.

You’re misunderstanding the issue. My guild is assigned to BGBL, thing is we’re stuck there twiddling our thumbs hoping TC/SOS will attack the majority of the time. The only time we get action is when TC/SoS floats to our BL to make an attempt, then they’ll bounce back off. TC will show up in massive number (full blob) hit something, do pretty well, eventually get pushed out, and then we’re back to twiddling our thumbs hoping they’ll do it again. If it wasn’t for their ability to float we’d probably not see any action all night.

The solution to this pseudo-problem is fully in your hand: transfer to TC or SOS and get as many action as you like by attacking BGBL. Problem solved.

Omg, we’ve found the magic solution! Just like ET, HoD, SoR, SoS, SBI & so many other servers before us, if we all just transfer off of BG ASAP we will fix WvW FOREVER!!! I mean, after all, no one from ET, HoD, SoR, SoS, or SBI has been on here discussing any of this “Population Imbalance” nonsense, have they…?

Azumi.9572:

a major part of their game

Is this really how you think Anet views WvW these days?

Otokomae.9356:

Omg, we’ve found the magic solution! …

Obviously, you are still not bored to dead/transfer. Just stay it will happen rather sooner than later.

Don’t forget: you are trapped in T1 outside season and when JQ and TC loose fun fighting you and transfer away, you will be alone in T1 till next season.

Dayra.7405:

Otokomae.9356:

Omg, we’ve found the magic solution! …

Obviously, you are still not bored to dead/transfer. Just stay it will happen rather sooner than later.

Don’t forget: you are trapped in T1 outside season and when JQ and TC loose fun fighting you and transfer away, you will be alone in T1 till next season.

Actually, Tier 1 has been exactly like it is now for at least 1 year at this point…

Otokomae.9356:

Dayra.7405:

Otokomae.9356:

Omg, we’ve found the magic solution! …

Obviously, you are still not bored to dead/transfer. Just stay it will happen rather sooner than later.

Don’t forget: you are trapped in T1 outside season and when JQ and TC loose fun fighting you and transfer away, you will be alone in T1 till next season.

Actually, Tier 1 has been exactly like it is now for at least 1 year at this point…

Don’t know. I play EU and I remember the EU-T1 collapse with over 2 month trapped servers 1.5 years ago
(https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/matchups/Vizunah-Desolation-Seafarer-2-03-T1-EU if you don’t)

Till season NA-T1 seemed balanced, I don’t know if it still is, e.g. BG only has a stronger league push than JQ and TC, that will go away after season, but it only needs a few week of imbalance without hope of change (and you are all 3 full, no one will get more reinforcements) for a collapse.

Dayra.7405:

Otokomae.9356:

Dayra.7405:

Otokomae.9356:

Omg, we’ve found the magic solution! …

Obviously, you are still not bored to dead/transfer. Just stay it will happen rather sooner than later.

Don’t forget: you are trapped in T1 outside season and when JQ and TC loose fun fighting you and transfer away, you will be alone in T1 till next season.

Actually, Tier 1 has been exactly like it is now for at least 1 year at this point…

Don’t know. I play EU and I remember the EU-T1 collapse with over 2 month trapped servers 1.5 years ago
(https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/matchups/Vizunah-Desolation-Seafarer-2-03-T1-EU if you don’t)

Till season NA-T1 seemed balanced, I don’t know if it still is, e.g. BG only has a stronger league push than JQ and TC, that will go away after season, but it only needs a few week of imbalance without hope of change (and you are all 3 full, no one will get more reinforcements) for a collapse.

They call BG Hibergate because during off seasonal times we don’t show the same numbers or organization. As server leader I can tell you we do this on purpose because it takes many hours to cover our coverage gaps and prepare for a Season tournament.

Jerus.4350:

What I see here is a bunch of suggestions to merge servers without calling it merged servers.

@Dusty Moon, no, being able to float and defend an objective is IMO a pretty important part of the game. BGBL is boring enough as is, if the TC/SoS forces couldn’t float there in an attempt to catch us off guard or get us off other maps then it’d just be completely dead, and I’d be stuck there twiddling my thumbs hating WvW.

Apologies if you’re bored… in a way, BG is becoming a victim of its own success. It was the same way for us last week on TC; man what a snoozefest. I didn’t bother logging in after the weekend.

Doing the dominating is way more boring than being dominated. IMHO

Regarding BGBL… we did have a lot of fun pushing Bay a couple nights ago. In the end, you guys were just (surprise) way too bunkered down and obviously hungering for some action, any action. After your map blob showed up, we stalled and our reinforcements got cut off from inner and it was gg. We ended up hopping maps looking for some easier targets.

Boreal.9826:

Jerus.4350:

What I see here is a bunch of suggestions to merge servers without calling it merged servers.

@Dusty Moon, no, being able to float and defend an objective is IMO a pretty important part of the game. BGBL is boring enough as is, if the TC/SoS forces couldn’t float there in an attempt to catch us off guard or get us off other maps then it’d just be completely dead, and I’d be stuck there twiddling my thumbs hating WvW.

Apologies if you’re bored… in a way, BG is becoming a victim of its own success. It was the same way for us last week on TC; man what a snoozefest. I didn’t bother logging in after the weekend.

Doing the dominating is way more boring than being dominated. IMHO

Regarding BGBL… we did have a lot of fun pushing Bay a couple nights ago. In the end, you guys were just (surprise) way too bunkered down and obviously hungering for some action, any action. After your map blob showed up, we stalled and our reinforcements got cut off from inner and it was gg. We ended up hopping maps looking for some easier targets.

TC is always fun when they show up, Had a lot of fun fighting I think it was SE for a while last night, then suddenly some other guild broke into our garrison leading to a giant battle in the middle of that where we eventually pushed ya’ll out. Unfortunately that’s when the fun stopped though as TC never really showed up the rest of the night.

Luckily with everyone being able to float we can come to your BL or EBG get some fights till ya’ll float back over to ours and we can get back and have fun.

As for the other responses, yeah yeah yeah, expected that, try saying something productive.

Edit: Ohh yeah, and yeah we’re quite bunkered up on those places in the evenings, what else are we going to do when we’re left to escort yaks all night

My thoughts on this: And this is from a NA perspective

I don’t think it would be a great idea to remove T1 and T2 servers. Higher tier servers like these are super competitive, more people in these tiers are much more serious about WvW and removing these servers can potentially upset a huge WvW player base. WvW in these tiers are clearly at a higher level, and also having them removed can also balloon certain servers to a point where they would just dominate everything. I would think a lot of people would coordinate going onto select servers.

However, I do think they should remove Tier 7 and 8. These servers have been stuck down there in mediocrity forever. Clearly WvW isn’t as serious and competitive down there (if it was, even with lesser numbers they probably would be at least a tier 6 server). And there barely is a population there and there really isn’t a reason for empty servers like this to exist. They should make transfers to tier 4, 5 and 6 free for them to have them ease the transition from a bronze league to a silver league, without being completely overwhelmed by tier 1 and tier 2 WvW gameplay.

Also with that said, they shouldn’t put a hard cap on the amount of players but more of a combination of a hard/relative cap. And it should be different according to each borderland.

For example, I am from Isle of Janthir. On IoJ BL, there should be a hard cap of 15-20 players from each of the two servers, regardless of the amount of IoJ players on that borderland. You can keep the current hard cap the way it is at 80, but the opposing servers are not allowed to outnumber the home server’s borderland by more than 20 people. And the same goes with the rest of the borderlands. The homeserver in turn, cannot outnumber the server with the second most people by more than 20.

I think night capping is really lame and there should be a limit to that as well, or at least limit the rewards slightly so that it would discourage that a little bit and perhaps focus on objectives in which that there are actually people that can defend it at any given time.

However, do not impose any cap on Eternal Battlegrounds or change it, keep it as is. This is so people who actually want to WvW can enjoy it without the restrictions placed on the borderlands.

This way, I think you can satisfy all sides, and not make the changes so drastic.

Dayra.7405:

Jerus.4350:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Jerus.4350:

What I see here is a bunch of suggestions to merge servers without calling it merged servers.

@Dusty Moon, no, being able to float and defend an objective is IMO a pretty important part of the game. BGBL is boring enough as is, if the TC/SoS forces couldn’t float there in an attempt to catch us off guard or get us off other maps then it’d just be completely dead, and I’d be stuck there twiddling my thumbs hating WvW.

Not really – basically your server is your Alliance. If you cannot plan an Alliance general defense and plan (like what guilds go to what server and not just blob together) then the balance should or could be there. If your server doesn’t have a cohesive plan or is just so big it only cares about numbers in a blob COUGH BG COUGH then maybe it is time you have one.

You’re misunderstanding the issue. My guild is assigned to BGBL, thing is we’re stuck there twiddling our thumbs hoping TC/SOS will attack the majority of the time. The only time we get action is when TC/SoS floats to our BL to make an attempt, then they’ll bounce back off. TC will show up in massive number (full blob) hit something, do pretty well, eventually get pushed out, and then we’re back to twiddling our thumbs hoping they’ll do it again. If it wasn’t for their ability to float we’d probably not see any action all night.

The solution to this pseudo-problem is fully in your hand: transfer to TC or SOS and get as many action as you like by attacking BGBL. Problem solved.

That’s exactly the reason why I would recommend anyone in heavy one-side match to stay home or ignore score and concentrate on one map: bore the superior side to dead.

Accept you can’t transfer to TC or SOS because they are both at FULL status…

Not sure why I am posting this, not sure if it will be seen (but one can hope!). If alliances were to be done, it would have to be done between a series of servers. Here is how it would work (At least for NA).

At the end of every WvW season one-third of the servers, 8 for NA, one from each tier, would be put together in an “Alliance”. Each week, two servers from the alliance would team up to battle two other double matchups. Then, based on the placement of your server team (the two servers, not the whole alliance), you would receive a number of points at the end of the week. Then you would add up all the points from all of your alliance’s battles and the alliance with the most points wins that week.

On top of this, individual servers would go up in rating, or down in rating based on their placement in that weeks match. Thus, it would be entirely possible, for lets say, TC and SBI (who were “matched together” one week) to both be higher in rating if they won against BG and DR (Who were matched against them). Therefore, a lower tier server in my example (SBI) could theoretically be higher in rating than a higher tier server, if that server (SBI) had a better winning record than the losing server (BG).

This system capitalizes on the ability of the alliance to work as a whole, instead of banking on one or two servers. For example, lets say that TC and SBI from earlier were a part of green alliance, and DR and BG were a part of red alliance. Even though TC and SBI are ranked higher because they won, their alliance could lose that week if the other 6 servers in their alliance did not get enough points.

Finishing up on this, every week, the matchups among servers in an alliance would shift, thus giving varied and fun matchups. This system also protects server pride by allowing servers to individually climb ranks based on their personal (and their co-servers) performance.

In order to prevent lets say, the tier 1 and tier 2 servers in an alliance from being matched up often, the higher tier servers would be mostly matched with the lower and mid tiered servers of the alliance. The opposite would be true of the lower tiered servers in the alliance, they would mostly be matched up with the top, and upper middle servers to prevent being squashed.

In conclusion, there would be three different “Rankings”
1. Personal server (Based on win/loss)
2. Alliance (The placement of 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, based on the points tallied between server teams)
3. Tier rankings. These would be determined every few months by a WvW season, where at the end of the season, tiers are given to the servers. Alliances would also be dissolved during seasons. Then new alliances are formed from the tiers. Basically alliances are remade once a year.

Notes.
In this system, rating would not be indicative of population like it is now. That would be left to the tier ratings, which is decided by the WvW tournaments.
This is not a “How to fix matchups” post, I am simply detailing how I BELIEVE alliances should be done if done at all.

SO….After reviewing the majority of this thread I see 4 main types of choices.

1. DO nothing (lol…mostly suggested by upper-tier servers)
2. Mergers, whether permanently or temporarily (Battlegroups, Alliances, Mergers)
3. Map Caps (limit player #s on a map by population size)
4. Scaling Bonuses based on server population bigger=less (Wxp,MF,PPT,Bonuses….ect)

I think future posts should compare and contrast all these basic types because this thread is becoming rather splintered.
Personally:

1. Doing nothing is how we got here. If 900 posts in a few days suggests something is broken, that might be it.

2. MESSY, Can-of-Worms, Pandora’s Box. Same Problem..Alliance Stacking…ect. Solutions shouldn’t potentially create more problems than they fix.

3. Limits, scaling or not certainly solve the fairness problem, but to me its a potentially crippling limitation to even low population serves. That ONE opportunity they get to rush and smash the Green server’s keep because they FINALLY have enough people to carry enough supply and then….sorry level cap….go back to defending with your already limited resources and continue to be forced into a battle of attrition which we are more likely to lose anyway….Haha..rage quit.

4. Simple (meaning least complex) solution, scaling by population to increase buffs, Wxp, MF, defense, PPT…ect seems far Easier to implement, easier to adjust, and far more transparent. And of course this was the concept I also suggested so of course Im biased but that’s because being a biologist, I tend to work with balance, whether enzymatic reactions, chemistry, ecology, evolution, or WvW. Balance requires a continuously dynamic adjustment by 2 opposing forces i.e Supply/Demand, Cost/Befefit, Risk/Reward, Positive/Negative…I could go on and on. Currently there is Only one force in WvW regarding population…More = Better…. So until an opposing force is applied to get people to lower population servers, the stacking will continue.

5. Kinda related….Global GvG (not requiring them to be in your match-up) would seriously reduce SO much stacking and population polarization. Pls give these people the means to compete whenever wherever. It will be better for everyone.

Personally I only said do nothing in the idea that we’re purely talking population fixes. I’m very much in favor of scaling PPT and changing scoring, and IMO we need to move on to that discussion and leave the population alone. We won’t settle on an agreed correct size, some pretty vehemently like the smaller side, where others like the larger side, forcing everyone into one is a good way to push away a lot of people.

Personally I like the idea of scaling PPT duration by population %. I believe it was explained as something like if all maps are capped out it’s 8minute ticks, if they’re all at the lowest increment it’s 24 minute ticks. I think that’s a solid idea and simplistic enough situation. I’d also like to see points for kills, smaller force doing well will yield less deaths and therefor less points, while taking in more kills therefor more points. Overall I think those two things could be solid scaling rewarding quality play over pure population and coverage.

titanlectro.5029:

PabbyGaul.9682:

Apparently, there aren’t any ecologists that play/program in this game.

The slow polarization of WvW servers is inevitable because the system doesn’t mimic reality and is being played by real people. There is NO incentive to move to lower populated areas because right now More Population = More Kills = More Rewards. Its not rocket science…….its ecology.

Scale Magic Find, Drop Rates and Experience based on simulating a limited resource (Bags) rather than an infinite one (because its computer game) and the problem solves itself.

The result would be that high population servers have a severely impaired Magic Find, Drop rate, and Experience bonus in WvW. WHY?….Because in reality bags don’t drop out of thin air, they are a limited resource. So if there’s only a thousand bags to be had, I would much rather be after them with only 50 ppl rather than 2000. Making these stat bonuses inversely proportional to population mimics the reality that when you have lots and lots of people good stuff is harder to find. Exp would scale also because fighting on lower populations is simply more challenging. If it wasn’t people wouldn’t be leaving. If yer always the underdog why shouldn’t their efforts be considered more difficult? Isnt experience related to the difficulty of the task…ect.

So….the solution is really simple. Limit rewards in a way that mimics the consequences of actual population size.

The details of this idea were already submitted via Adopt-A-Dev. Would welcome some criticism.

This is perfectly inline with my analysis also.
(for reference :https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Solution-to-fix-the-population-imbalance/4438581)

I propose a test! Lets give this idea a try for a few months.

This is one of the least disruptive ideas. It will not break server communities or server coordination or large group combat or any of that stuff. It is not overly complicated. If it works, then we can be done with all of these crazy “remake everything about WvW” ideas. If it doesn’t work, then there is nothing stopping Anet from doing something more drastic later.

This idea has a lot of potential benefits, and very few risks. Most of these other ideas come with huge risks and sacrifices (including the one Anet proposed); some might even completely ruin WvW and turn it into EotM. Before we try anything drastic, lets give this simple but powerful tweak a try.

His suggestion is the Outmanned buff by another name. Look how well that works as incentive to move to an Outmanned map (i.e. it doesn’t). Scale it to server size. Personallly, I don’t see it having the desired effect.

It could also be abused by the “server riding” effect where swathes of people transfer to a low server and ride it up the league, then repeat.

Boreal.9826:

Why not a simple, perhaps elegant even, solution like:

(#1 + #24) vs (#2 + #23) vs (#3 + #22)
(#4 + #21) vs (#5 + #20) vs (#6 + #19)
(#7 + #18) vs (#8 + #17) vs (#9 + #16)
(#10 + #15) vs (#11 + #14) vs (#12 + #13)

This would be much more balanced, top to bottom. BL caps would have to be increased, but lag hasn’t really been an issue (for me) in many months… and I play in the T1.

I play in T8. It I wanted to play on Blackgate (and that’s what merging ET with Blackgate would amount to), I’d transfer to Blackgate. There are quite a few people in the lower tiers who are there specifically because they don’t like or want the play they get on T1. If you like T1 play and are having fun, that’s great. Not everyone wants the same thing, which is why I also think the megaservers are a disaster (everyone gets high-population play now in PvE, whether they wanted it or not). I would think it’s in ANet’s interest to cater to a wide variety of player preferences to reach the largest audience possible rather than a single narrow preference that appeals to a more narrow audience.

Jerus.4350:

Personally I only said do nothing in the idea that we’re purely talking population fixes. I’m very much in favor of scaling PPT and changing scoring, and IMO we need to move on to that discussion and leave the population alone. We won’t settle on an agreed correct size, some pretty vehemently like the smaller side, where others like the larger side, forcing everyone into one is a good way to push away a lot of people.

Personally I like the idea of scaling PPT duration by population %. I believe it was explained as something like if all maps are capped out it’s 8minute ticks, if they’re all at the lowest increment it’s 24 minute ticks. I think that’s a solid idea and simplistic enough situation. I’d also like to see points for kills, smaller force doing well will yield less deaths and therefor less points, while taking in more kills therefor more points. Overall I think those two things could be solid scaling rewarding quality play over pure population and coverage.

Scaling PPT by map population is not only easily exploitable, but it goes against Anets design philosophy in regards to disuading players from participation.

Scaling PPT by server population would make matters worse. Just look at NA. You would have servers like Maguuma and FA pushed into kitten be matched against the likes of JQ and BG on a regular basis.

Get off my map so I can generate more points.

The only reason people are advocating do nothing, is forcing population normalization will ruin wvw for large groups of players.

Either you force everyone into T1 population levels, which players who prefer more chill wvw will understandably hate.

Or you cut population so all wvw is more T2/3 level which any one in T1 will hate.

I have yet to hear a solution (to population imballence) that fits all players better than doing nothing. Now altering point gain based off of the out manned buff or other changes to the point system are a totally different subject.

Lurock Turoth.9085:

The only reason people are advocating do nothing, is forcing population normalization will ruin wvw for large groups of players.

Either you force everyone into T1 population levels, which players who prefer more chill wvw will understandably hate.

Or you cut population so all wvw is more T2/3 level which any one in T1 will hate.

I have yet to hear a solution (to population imballence) that fits all players better than doing nothing. Now altering point gain based off of the out manned buff or other changes to the point system are a totally different subject.

Pretty much this. This is why I tried to push the discussion earlier in the thread towards looking for “a solution” which had an impact on the least amount of players. The way I see it, no matter what is done, there are going to be players that will be disgruntled by the changes.

nirvana.8245:

Jerus.4350:

Personally I only said do nothing in the idea that we’re purely talking population fixes. I’m very much in favor of scaling PPT and changing scoring, and IMO we need to move on to that discussion and leave the population alone. We won’t settle on an agreed correct size, some pretty vehemently like the smaller side, where others like the larger side, forcing everyone into one is a good way to push away a lot of people.

Personally I like the idea of scaling PPT duration by population %. I believe it was explained as something like if all maps are capped out it’s 8minute ticks, if they’re all at the lowest increment it’s 24 minute ticks. I think that’s a solid idea and simplistic enough situation. I’d also like to see points for kills, smaller force doing well will yield less deaths and therefor less points, while taking in more kills therefor more points. Overall I think those two things could be solid scaling rewarding quality play over pure population and coverage.

Scaling PPT by map population is not only easily exploitable, but it goes against Anets design philosophy in regards to disuading players from participation.

Scaling PPT by server population would make matters worse. Just look at NA. You would have servers like Maguuma and FA pushed into kitten be matched against the likes of JQ and BG on a regular basis.

Get off my map so I can generate more points.

I’ve seen a lot of suggestions on scaling PPT and a lot fo them I’d agree with your thoughts on it. This one though I think is solid. You’re looking at the overall population, not just an individual world. A few people won’t throw the scoring off too much so the idea of yelling at an individual to leave because he’s a poor player would be silly. You’d be better off yelling at them for being rally bait.

As far as manipulating it, each world would only have power over 1/3 of the system, and that’s over 4 maps. So trying to get a bunch of people to drop might drop the tick timer by one bracket but in doing so you’d lose people and be at a disadvantage most likely.

I think it’s a pretty solid idea, pretty much just rewarding prime time with bonus points and scaling back the impact that off hours have and being on such a large scale makes the manipulation not as impactful or even really reasonable to try.

Jerus.4350:

nirvana.8245:

Jerus.4350:

Personally I only said do nothing in the idea that we’re purely talking population fixes. I’m very much in favor of scaling PPT and changing scoring, and IMO we need to move on to that discussion and leave the population alone. We won’t settle on an agreed correct size, some pretty vehemently like the smaller side, where others like the larger side, forcing everyone into one is a good way to push away a lot of people.

Personally I like the idea of scaling PPT duration by population %. I believe it was explained as something like if all maps are capped out it’s 8minute ticks, if they’re all at the lowest increment it’s 24 minute ticks. I think that’s a solid idea and simplistic enough situation. I’d also like to see points for kills, smaller force doing well will yield less deaths and therefor less points, while taking in more kills therefor more points. Overall I think those two things could be solid scaling rewarding quality play over pure population and coverage.

Scaling PPT by map population is not only easily exploitable, but it goes against Anets design philosophy in regards to disuading players from participation.

Scaling PPT by server population would make matters worse. Just look at NA. You would have servers like Maguuma and FA pushed into kitten be matched against the likes of JQ and BG on a regular basis.

Get off my map so I can generate more points.

I’ve seen a lot of suggestions on scaling PPT and a lot fo them I’d agree with your thoughts on it. This one though I think is solid. You’re looking at the overall population, not just an individual world. A few people won’t throw the scoring off too much so the idea of yelling at an individual to leave because he’s a poor player would be silly. You’d be better off yelling at them for being rally bait.

As far as manipulating it, each world would only have power over 1/3 of the system, and that’s over 4 maps. So trying to get a bunch of people to drop might drop the tick timer by one bracket but in doing so you’d lose people and be at a disadvantage most likely.

I think it’s a pretty solid idea, pretty much just rewarding prime time with bonus points and scaling back the impact that off hours have and being on such a large scale makes the manipulation not as impactful or even really reasonable to try.

So unless you play during Americas prime time, your efforts are not worth as much. How can this make sense to you? You know the world is round right? How about they reduce the points from Americas prime time so that it reduces the incentive to blobbing that goes on. And that makes more sense because you are achieving more with less. Why are Americans so self centred.

No actually, if you read properly, scaling the ppt to population is fairer. This creates a better reward structure since it scales with how much was actually contributed in.

As of right now, off-time effort is more valuable. People who play off hours, whatever real zone it is, are a contributing a disproportional amount of ppt for the same work. This is not fair to everyone else.

The vision should be equal reward for equal work which is not happening right now.

nirvana.8245:

So unless you play during Americas prime time, your efforts are not worth as much. How can this make sense to you? You know the world is round right? How about they reduce the points from Americas prime time so that it reduces the incentive to blobbing that goes on. And that makes more sense because you are achieving more with less. Why are Americans so self centred.

Latency.3907:

As of right now, off-time effort is more valuable.

BS. Points system is exactly the same during YOUR off hours as it is during MY off hours. I am starting to see why people hate americans.

Server status (Full/High/Medium/Low) should be updated weekly or based on active accounts (week or two) not the currently logged players.

nirvana.8245:

Jerus.4350:

nirvana.8245:

Jerus.4350:

Personally I only said do nothing in the idea that we’re purely talking population fixes. I’m very much in favor of scaling PPT and changing scoring, and IMO we need to move on to that discussion and leave the population alone. We won’t settle on an agreed correct size, some pretty vehemently like the smaller side, where others like the larger side, forcing everyone into one is a good way to push away a lot of people.

Personally I like the idea of scaling PPT duration by population %. I believe it was explained as something like if all maps are capped out it’s 8minute ticks, if they’re all at the lowest increment it’s 24 minute ticks. I think that’s a solid idea and simplistic enough situation. I’d also like to see points for kills, smaller force doing well will yield less deaths and therefor less points, while taking in more kills therefor more points. Overall I think those two things could be solid scaling rewarding quality play over pure population and coverage.

Scaling PPT by map population is not only easily exploitable, but it goes against Anets design philosophy in regards to disuading players from participation.

Scaling PPT by server population would make matters worse. Just look at NA. You would have servers like Maguuma and FA pushed into kitten be matched against the likes of JQ and BG on a regular basis.

Get off my map so I can generate more points.

I’ve seen a lot of suggestions on scaling PPT and a lot fo them I’d agree with your thoughts on it. This one though I think is solid. You’re looking at the overall population, not just an individual world. A few people won’t throw the scoring off too much so the idea of yelling at an individual to leave because he’s a poor player would be silly. You’d be better off yelling at them for being rally bait.

As far as manipulating it, each world would only have power over 1/3 of the system, and that’s over 4 maps. So trying to get a bunch of people to drop might drop the tick timer by one bracket but in doing so you’d lose people and be at a disadvantage most likely.

I think it’s a pretty solid idea, pretty much just rewarding prime time with bonus points and scaling back the impact that off hours have and being on such a large scale makes the manipulation not as impactful or even really reasonable to try.

So unless you play during Americas prime time, your efforts are not worth as much. How can this make sense to you? You know the world is round right? How about they reduce the points from Americas prime time so that it reduces the incentive to blobbing that goes on. And that makes more sense because you are achieving more with less. Why are Americans so self centred.

It’s a solution to a major complaint for servers as a whole. As an individual sure you’re doing the same thing. Fighting people, capturing points. I agree it’s a bit unfair to the individual but it’s a pretty big issue to servers as a whole /shrug.

And as far as it being about self centered Americans, I really don’t see it as that, if there was equal off hour populations it wouldn’t be an issue as it’s be always fair, but there just isn’t. Those populations are more stacked on certain servers than NA where there is a healthy population on more servers. If it was simply NA has 100v100v100 and say 50v50v50 the other times we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

The fact 5 hours of me playing WvW on a given night is only worth half what 5 hours of an American player is worth just doesn’t go so well with me. I am an Oceanic, which I assume you figured. The timezone died a good 6 months ago when guilds and players started to switch over to new MMO’s and/or lost interest in this game. Most of the guilds that have this timezone as a regular raid are usually only scraping together ~15 players and maybe some pugs.

But the majority of players in this timezone are American players staying up till 4am or SEA players logging in early. They do it to fill the coverage gap that everyone now has. This is why if they were going to nerf the timezone in anyway, Id much rather see them reduce the map cap. This way it allows NA players to go to bed early, SEA players to take a shower and eat some dinner when they get home from work and my contribution to WvW isn’t halved despite fighting similar numbers on any given night.

There is certainly a specific issue with this timezone that requires specific adjustments. But if it came down to my contribution being worth half another players contribution just because of the timezone I am in, Id definitely stop playing WvW.

And I understand the “yeah, but if your fighting equal numbers your points will be the same”. But it doesn’t take into consideration that they may just purposely not login. Any new system in place should promote actively playing WvW to win, not promote playing something else to minimise your losses.

Nightingale.8364:

@ Mal. Thank you for your sweet reply. I was touched and i almost had a tear in my eye.

As you have admitted, certain servers and you yourself have encouraged guilds to transfer by offering to pay for transfers or even paying them extra gold once they had moved. This isn’t new, another example of this would be the sudden arrival of ZD’s onto a T1 NA server for season 1 and then their sudden departure as soon as season had finished…. blah blah blah

The problem is that the players will not fix them for themselves. All those on t1 servers are there for the easy wins. Simple as that. They will not leave for servers that are not blobbing over everything and getting crap loads of karma and loot.

I think it’s great that this discussion is happening and that we’ve steered towards an Alliance Vs Alliance system, but what do people in my situation do in the meantime? I play during the OCX time zone on Maguuma (god bless) where there are typically less than 5 people playing. What does anet suggest I do? Will a WvW support pack help me?

If anet are truly committed to fixing this problem and if we are heading towards an Alliance based system, then why not just allow free transfers to servers with poor wvw coverage? Work out what servers need help and in what time zone and make a plea to the community. A few extra incentives wouldn’t hurt either.

PabbyGaul.9682:

1. DO nothing (lol…mostly suggested by upper-tier servers)

I think it would be better to do nothing than to do something that just makes things worse and fixes nothing in the long term.

From what I’ve seen, the people who are clamouring for server mergers do so because they feel that their server’s losses are due to a lack of numbers (and can’t afford to transfer), so they want to destroy the small tight-knit communities that love playing on the server they are on (regardless of whether they win or lose) and force them to either quit WvW or play in blobs.

The other day, I had great fun defending our towers, despite being outmanned most of the time. We managed to hold off the enemy for quite a long time, with several of us on the ground trying to fight them off, and a few of us on siege backing them up. We eventually lost our tower, but man it was fun! People who only care about winning and don’t give a crap about their server community seem to be deluded into thinking that the poor outnumbered lower tier servers are miserable unorganised neanderthals who dream of becoming like top tier servers.

I don’t have any deep comment on this, but I’d like to just propose one thing: Since megaserver is here and no one ended up dead, I think it’s pretty clear, no one would get hurt if the idea of worlds went to the trash bin (w/o removing servers) and create a concept of worlds being instances based on alliances. Everything would be more or less just like it already is in pve, but in wvw there wouldn’t be any server x against y and z.

Also, don’t create GvGs, please, focus on WvW. After this you can make as many GvG as you want. 10 × 10, 15 x15, w/e. Just fix WvW imbalance before that.

Sorry in advance for not reading the 21 pages.

The issue cannot be fixed by changing the population caps on the maps, because the real issue brought by low population is lack of coverage.

Fort Aspenwood (my server) can hold itself just fine against JQ, TC and SoS at reset, when all the maps are queued. EU and especially NA are our prime time. But once OCE hits, we get our butt handed to us because we have no coverage and everything gets capped. Changing population caps of WvW maps isn’t going to change our lack of OCE coverage.

The only real solution is to even the servers out. Now this can be accomplished in 2 ways : Lower the maximum server population to force people to “trickle down” to other servers and/or modify the barrier to servers transfers.
A few suggestions on how to achieve that :

• Let people transfer for free in the few days leading up to the next tournament, but make switching servers impossible during the following regular season. Do it once and see how it plays out.
• Give everyone a free transfer or reset everyone’s server selection, lower the server caps and let people reorganize themselves. I know, this would be unfair to many because then, some people would be unable to get back on the server they were on, but that’s kind of the point. This could force entire WvW guilds to move around, improving 24/7 coverage.
• Remove the 1 or 2 lowest population servers and give everyone in those servers a free transfer.
• Give a free transfer to everyone in the fully populated servers and reduce the population cap gradually as people move out to other servers.
• Edit : I actually LOVE the idea of enlisting that GreenRipper.6432 proposed. It’s the same as the first point in the list, but could it be guild-wide enlists instead? Say that guilds pick a server to enlist in for a season and in turn, players pick one of their 5 guilds to WvW with for the length of the season with a 2 weeks cooldown if switching WvW guilds? This would give guilds a purpose again and would be generally awesome, I think.

Berk.8561:

Boreal.9826:

Why not a simple, perhaps elegant even, solution like:

(#1 + #24) vs (#2 + #23) vs (#3 + #22)
(#4 + #21) vs (#5 + #20) vs (#6 + #19)
(#7 + #18) vs (#8 + #17) vs (#9 + #16)
(#10 + #15) vs (#11 + #14) vs (#12 + #13)

This would be much more balanced, top to bottom. BL caps would have to be increased, but lag hasn’t really been an issue (for me) in many months… and I play in the T1.

I play in T8. It I wanted to play on Blackgate (and that’s what merging ET with Blackgate would amount to), I’d transfer to Blackgate. There are quite a few people in the lower tiers who are there specifically because they don’t like or want the play they get on T1. If you like T1 play and are having fun, that’s great. Not everyone wants the same thing, which is why I also think the megaservers are a disaster (everyone gets high-population play now in PvE, whether they wanted it or not). I would think it’s in ANet’s interest to cater to a wide variety of player preferences to reach the largest audience possible rather than a single narrow preference that appeals to a more narrow audience.

This could be solved by having 2 types of servers ; high-cap and low-cap servers and make it so high and low cap servers can’t face each other.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Simple – only allow a certain number of players in from each server into a specific BL at a time and have a timer on the player so they can’t jump at will between the BL’s. This is what is happening now – blobs are transferring and to try to avoid fights – I think once a player is in a BL, except for EotM, then they need to be in that BL for an hour in game time – for each 24 hr period.

OR

Only allow a player ONE BL each 24 hr period. Once in – they are stuck.

lol that would suck… a LOT.

Manual interaction is not a fix. The problem remains and the problem is:
more manpower/coverage => more score and rewards => more attractive transfer-target => more manpower/coverage

Solutions that want to last longer than a few weeks or month, therefore have to break this self-reinforcing feedback loop.

If we would have effective play = more score than stacking at the winning side would usually lead to less effective play (as the newcomer have to be trained and integrated, before they become effective) and therefore less score and rewards, I.e. we get a self-balancing system, instead of an self-reinforcing system.

The best way I see for effective play = more score is dynamic values for objectives.
An objective worth more the worser your odds were at conquest and it worth less the better your odds were at conquest and nothing if you conquer it vs no opponents
(See e.g. In https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Solution-to-fix-the-population-imbalance/4452770)

It would be good if the same is done for rewards, conquering an objective while you are superior should give you less rewards than conquest while you are inferrior.

And the same for kills, with the odds in your favor, kills should be worth less (score and drop-table) than kills done against the odds.

How large you make the area in which the odds are calculated leads to interesting variations. For the dynamic value of objectives I would propose map based odds, for battles maybe smaller areas are interesting as well.

It helps vs a bunch of related problems

• man-power imbalance of teams
• coverage (as domination vs no opposition generates only low score objectives)
• Zerg-size (as better odds are rewarded less)

Kasima.8143:

Sorry in advance for not reading the 21 pages.

The issue cannot be fixed by changing the population caps on the maps, because the real issue brought by low population is lack of coverage.

Fort Aspenwood (my server) can hold itself just fine against JQ, TC and SoS at reset, when all the maps are queued. EU and especially NA are our prime time. But once OCE hits, we get our butt handed to us because we have no coverage and everything gets capped. Changing population caps of WvW maps isn’t going to change our lack of OCE coverage.

The only real solution is to even the servers out. Now this can be accomplished in 2 ways : Lower the maximum server population to force people to “trickle down” to other servers and/or modify the barrier to servers transfers.
A few suggestions on how to achieve that :

• Let people transfer for free in the few days leading up to the next tournament, but make switching servers impossible during the following regular season. Do it once and see how it plays out.
• Give everyone a free transfer or reset everyone’s server selection, lower the server caps and let people reorganize themselves. I know, this would be unfair to many because then, some people would be unable to get back on the server they were on, but that’s kind of the point. This could force entire WvW guilds to move around, improving 24/7 coverage.
• Remove the 1 or 2 lowest population servers and give everyone in those servers a free transfer.
• Give a free transfer to everyone in the fully populated servers and reduce the population cap gradually as people move out to other servers.

Forcing people to move out of servers is gonna cause a huge outcry and a lot of negative PR for anet. It is akin to forcing families to move out of their homes. Even if people did leave, it is 100% certain that the problem will still exist after. People need to start thinking a little more in the long term and about the ramifications of their suggestions.

Deli.1302:

Kasima.8143:

A few suggestions on how to achieve that :

• Let people transfer for free in the few days leading up to the next tournament, but make switching servers impossible during the following regular season. Do it once and see how it plays out.
• Give everyone a free transfer or reset everyone’s server selection, lower the server caps and let people reorganize themselves. I know, this would be unfair to many because then, some people would be unable to get back on the server they were on, but that’s kind of the point. This could force entire WvW guilds to move around, improving 24/7 coverage.
• Remove the 1 or 2 lowest population servers and give everyone in those servers a free transfer.
• Give a free transfer to everyone in the fully populated servers and reduce the population cap gradually as people move out to other servers.

Forcing people to move out of servers is gonna cause a huge outcry and a lot of negative PR for anet. It is akin to forcing families to move out of their homes. Even if people did leave, it is 100% certain that the problem will still exist after. People need to start thinking a little more in the long term and about the ramifications of their suggestions.

These people could move to other low populated servers together if they wish to stay together. Nothing that can’t be solved there.

PabbyGaul.9682:

1. Doing nothing is how we got here. If 900 posts in a few days suggests something is broken, that might be it.

Doing nothing doesn’t solve anything, but nor does it break anything. Remember, all the people who are passionate about WvW now, are people who got into it using the existing system. This is the system they grew to like. That’s why nobody’s suggested a solution that heaps of other people immediately disagree with: because everyone has their own vested interests in the type of WvW they currently play. It’s a lot harder to implement change now, than at the start.

This problem has 2 aspects: 1) to even up population imbalance in match-ups, and 2) to get more people playing WvW/stop people leaving WvW. The first one is actually the easier. The problem with 2) is that any change is probably going to anger quite a lot of players, and not necessarily provide enough of a hook to get new people wanting to play WvW long-term. Meaning overall WvW populations drop even faster.

So, yes. Absolutely yes. Until someone comes up with a solution that can please all types of WvW players, and doesn’t destroy things which people think are essential to their WvW experience, and is viable as a long-term solution to complaints, doing nothing is the best option. If anything, “doing something” is what got us here: when Anet introduced seasons (as a response to player complaints), all sorts of things got messed up.

idk why but i feel that if it wasnt for the chinese release and their apparently liking for WvW, we wouldnt be having these discussions.

Dont you think its too little too late? So many guilds have already left the game due to WvW being so neglected….

nirvana.8245:

The fact 5 hours of me playing WvW on a given night is only worth half what 5 hours of an American player is worth just doesn’t go so well with me.

But that’s simply not true. If we have 50 people in during NA primetime and tick 250 points, that’s 5 points per player per tick. If you have 5 Oceanic players on during NA off hours and tick 250 points, that’s 50 points per player per tick. And if you manage to PvDoor your way around empty enemy borderlands, you can be worth even more than that. When I can go to bed with my server a few hundred points ahead and wake up with my server a few thousand points behind, it’s pretty clear that Oceanic players are deciding the outcome way out of proportion to their numbers.

Yes, I know you want to feel that you are making an important contribution to your server’s outcome, but the current system means that primetime players don’t really contribute all that much to their server’s outcome, especially if the primetime populations are fairly balanced.

Svarty.8019:

titanlectro.5029:

PabbyGaul.9682:

Apparently, there aren’t any ecologists that play/program in this game.

The slow polarization of WvW servers is inevitable because the system doesn’t mimic reality and is being played by real people. There is NO incentive to move to lower populated areas because right now More Population = More Kills = More Rewards. Its not rocket science…….its ecology.

Scale Magic Find, Drop Rates and Experience based on simulating a limited resource (Bags) rather than an infinite one (because its computer game) and the problem solves itself.

The result would be that high population servers have a severely impaired Magic Find, Drop rate, and Experience bonus in WvW. WHY?….Because in reality bags don’t drop out of thin air, they are a limited resource. So if there’s only a thousand bags to be had, I would much rather be after them with only 50 ppl rather than 2000. Making these stat bonuses inversely proportional to population mimics the reality that when you have lots and lots of people good stuff is harder to find. Exp would scale also because fighting on lower populations is simply more challenging. If it wasn’t people wouldn’t be leaving. If yer always the underdog why shouldn’t their efforts be considered more difficult? Isnt experience related to the difficulty of the task…ect.

So….the solution is really simple. Limit rewards in a way that mimics the consequences of actual population size.

The details of this idea were already submitted via Adopt-A-Dev. Would welcome some criticism.

This is perfectly inline with my analysis also.
(for reference :https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Solution-to-fix-the-population-imbalance/4438581)

I propose a test! Lets give this idea a try for a few months.

This is one of the least disruptive ideas. It will not break server communities or server coordination or large group combat or any of that stuff. It is not overly complicated. If it works, then we can be done with all of these crazy “remake everything about WvW” ideas. If it doesn’t work, then there is nothing stopping Anet from doing something more drastic later.

This idea has a lot of potential benefits, and very few risks. Most of these other ideas come with huge risks and sacrifices (including the one Anet proposed); some might even completely ruin WvW and turn it into EotM. Before we try anything drastic, lets give this simple but powerful tweak a try.

His suggestion is the Outmanned buff by another name. Look how well that works as incentive to move to an Outmanned map (i.e. it doesn’t). Scale it to server size. Personallly, I don’t see it having the desired effect.

It could also be abused by the “server riding” effect where swathes of people transfer to a low server and ride it up the league, then repeat.

This suggestion is significantly different than the Outmanned buff.

Outmanned is a minor buff (1.3x loot) that effects a map only so long as it has 4v1 odds.

The suggested change will effect the loot for entire servers. Every server in T8 would be getting a massive loot bonus relative to T1. Before the population begins to balance out, that difference could be more than 3x the loot. That bonus would not go away just because a guild group switched maps.

If a large group of people transfer to a server, then that bonus would decrease (assuming that it is tied to man-hours as it should be). They could not cheese the system that way. They only way to “manipulate” the system would be to constantly transfer to underdog servers, which is EXACTLY what we want to have happen.

Here is the best part. We could try it and see who is right! If the naysays are correct, then we can try something else, no harm done.

Berk.8561:

Boreal.9826:

Why not a simple, perhaps elegant even, solution like:

(#1 + #24) vs (#2 + #23) vs (#3 + #22)
(#4 + #21) vs (#5 + #20) vs (#6 + #19)
(#7 + #18) vs (#8 + #17) vs (#9 + #16)
(#10 + #15) vs (#11 + #14) vs (#12 + #13)

This would be much more balanced, top to bottom. BL caps would have to be increased, but lag hasn’t really been an issue (for me) in many months… and I play in the T1.

I play in T8. It I wanted to play on Blackgate (and that’s what merging ET with Blackgate would amount to), I’d transfer to Blackgate. There are quite a few people in the lower tiers who are there specifically because they don’t like or want the play they get on T1. If you like T1 play and are having fun, that’s great. Not everyone wants the same thing, which is why I also think the megaservers are a disaster (everyone gets high-population play now in PvE, whether they wanted it or not). I would think it’s in ANet’s interest to cater to a wide variety of player preferences to reach the largest audience possible rather than a single narrow preference that appeals to a more narrow audience.

Sorry if it wasn’t clear, but I was talking alliances not mergers. The former is a more dynamic, thus effective, solution since server rankings are always changing. I’m never ever a proponent of server mergers unless absolutely necessary.

Obviously, no one solution will make everyone happy. I realize (albeit, don’t understand why) some actually prefer empty WvW maps.

Perhaps seasons could be a good way to test drive such concepts such as alliances, or population scaled scoring, or whatever. If it gets a favorable reception, it could be implemented permanently.

I enjoy the zerg v zerg playstyle is somewhat unique so I would not want to lower player limit on a map too much but I do think lower the player limit by just a small amount simpl for lag issues try lowering it by about 10 players per side so 30 less in total on map might be just enough to stop the lag.

I would really like a bit more details on how ANet think this would work.

Will the ranking be connected to the alliances?

If true, how will the matchmaking work?

I assume each one of the first 3 alliances will go to a different servers and the process will repeat until the servers are “full”, with the option of having more alliances in one server if some alliances are smaller than the others:

• Red server has just one big alliance for a total of 2000 players;
• Green server has 3 alliances for a total of 2000 players;
• Blue server has 6 different alliances for a total of 2000 players.

If that’s the case, the Red server would probably have the upper hand because has better coordination between his 2000 players and this would mean that all alliances will try to “stack up” exactly as the servers are stacked at the moment and nothing would change.

Also: will the matchmaking consider coverage during the alliance selection? Let’s say there’s one alliance of American players playing on EU servers. Will the alliance have priority to join a server that lacks coverage in that timezone?

The risk is, again, that the most serious alliances would try to have the full coverage for all timezones, ending up with “stacked” alliances.

Another consideration I would make is about the size of the guilds participating in one alliance. Let’s say alliance A has only 4 big (400+ members) “PvX” guilds, while alliance B has 10-12 WvW guilds that tend to run in small organized groups. Will the matchmaking algorithm try to avoid the “blob vs small organized group” situation? If not, then not only the alliances will be “stacked”, but the guilds will try to be “stacked” aswell.

I really hope ANet will consider that the servers will need to strike a balance between combat groups (organized guilds, etc), “militia” (semi-organized), scouts and defenders and that’s not easily achieved with a “random” or “rank based” matchmaking algorithm.

The only scenario in which a server can achieve that balance is with a full capacity alliance that organizes internally to have guilds and players taking care of each role, but that would be very hard to balance when you need to put that alliance against two smaller alliances that may or may not provide the same coverage in all roles.

titanlectro.5029:

Svarty.8019:

titanlectro.5029:

PabbyGaul.9682:

Apparently, there aren’t any ecologists that play/program in this game.

The slow polarization of WvW servers is inevitable because the system doesn’t mimic reality and is being played by real people. There is NO incentive to move to lower populated areas because right now More Population = More Kills = More Rewards. Its not rocket science…….its ecology.

Scale Magic Find, Drop Rates and Experience based on simulating a limited resource (Bags) rather than an infinite one (because its computer game) and the problem solves itself.

The result would be that high population servers have a severely impaired Magic Find, Drop rate, and Experience bonus in WvW. WHY?….Because in reality bags don’t drop out of thin air, they are a limited resource. So if there’s only a thousand bags to be had, I would much rather be after them with only 50 ppl rather than 2000. Making these stat bonuses inversely proportional to population mimics the reality that when you have lots and lots of people good stuff is harder to find. Exp would scale also because fighting on lower populations is simply more challenging. If it wasn’t people wouldn’t be leaving. If yer always the underdog why shouldn’t their efforts be considered more difficult? Isnt experience related to the difficulty of the task…ect.

So….the solution is really simple. Limit rewards in a way that mimics the consequences of actual population size.

The details of this idea were already submitted via Adopt-A-Dev. Would welcome some criticism.

This is perfectly inline with my analysis also.
(for reference :https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Solution-to-fix-the-population-imbalance/4438581)

I propose a test! Lets give this idea a try for a few months.

This is one of the least disruptive ideas. It will not break server communities or server coordination or large group combat or any of that stuff. It is not overly complicated. If it works, then we can be done with all of these crazy “remake everything about WvW” ideas. If it doesn’t work, then there is nothing stopping Anet from doing something more drastic later.

This idea has a lot of potential benefits, and very few risks. Most of these other ideas come with huge risks and sacrifices (including the one Anet proposed); some might even completely ruin WvW and turn it into EotM. Before we try anything drastic, lets give this simple but powerful tweak a try.

His suggestion is the Outmanned buff by another name. Look how well that works as incentive to move to an Outmanned map (i.e. it doesn’t). Scale it to server size. Personallly, I don’t see it having the desired effect.

It could also be abused by the “server riding” effect where swathes of people transfer to a low server and ride it up the league, then repeat.

This suggestion is significantly different than the Outmanned buff.

Outmanned is a minor buff (1.3x loot) that effects a map only so long as it has 4v1 odds.

The suggested change will effect the loot for entire servers. Every server in T8 would be getting a massive loot bonus relative to T1. Before the population begins to balance out, that difference could be more than 3x the loot. That bonus would not go away just because a guild group switched maps.

If a large group of people transfer to a server, then that bonus would decrease (assuming that it is tied to man-hours as it should be). They could not cheese the system that way. They only way to “manipulate” the system would be to constantly transfer to underdog servers, which is EXACTLY what we want to have happen.

Here is the best part. We could try it and see who is right! If the naysays are correct, then we can try something else, no harm done.

Haha…excellent….SEE HE^ Gets it!