Guild Wars 2

Torsailr.8456:

Completely abandon the concept of worlds and servers for WvW and replace it with Alliances.

To start with, let players create their own alliances. These alliances would probably start as guild alliances but there shouldn’t be any reason why an individual couldn’t join one. These alliances would then be registered as WvW participants. After alliances are registered, retire the world servers.

Alliances would have a tiered registration.
*Tier 1: less than 500 members.
*Tier 2: 501 – 1000 members.
*Tier 3: 1001 – 1500 members
*Tier 4: 1501 – 2000 members
Have a cap of 2000 members forcing people to create other alliances and stopping stacking/bloating of an alliance. Members will belong to 1 alliance at a time. Have no cap on the number of alliances possible in the game.

Match ups will be based on tier first, then either by leaderboard score or a round robin rotating selection. I believe there would be enough alliances to make a round robin selection possible and effective.

Current world bonuses from WvW would instead be alliance bonuses.

All existing players would have an option to join an alliance, either with a guild or individually.

New players would never get an option to select worlds, their data would just be stored on a random server. The server at this point would be irrelevant. New players would then get to pick an alliance via game play from recruiters just like guilds do. This would allow for a much more informed decision about it as compared to now and allow for better development of “identity” in an alliance as opposed to world servers.

Problems may occur with individuals belonging to different alliances than their guilds belong to. However, this was also true of people belonging to different worlds in the same guild. That issue seems to have had only minor problems and I wouldn’t anticipate alliances creating significantly more in that respect.

This may also make a use for the team chat channel and differentiate it from map chat.

In short, this would level populations, increase the number of “players/alliances” in WvW, create a better sense of identity post megaserver, and still allow people to keep playing as they have been.

I second this ^.

It would create stronger bonds among the player base then what we have now.

Heck the writers working for Arena.net could even come up with some fiction for it.

Say we are fighting for treasures that are lost/hidden in the mists then create some lore about a few of the larger alliances.
Would be a great way to make the players feel like they are part of the world instead of just fighting over a point.

Disclaimer: I haven’t read all 23-ish pages of this thread.
I don’t know that you necessarily have to merge all servers. W3 population is pretty good NA on all the top three tiers, and tbh since I’ve moved to YB we’ve fought some T4 servers that have good numbers(pretty good drop off middle of T4).

What about merging just the lower tiers to make them more competitive? Obviously I don’t have numbers for the lower tiers, and have never played on the lower tiers, but if we’re talking good of the game, then it makes sense to make more servers competitive for server parity(at least in theory).
Here’s my idea.(taken from today’s predicted mos ratings)
T1: BG, JQ, TC
T2: SoS, FA, YB
T3: Mag, CD, DB
T4: SBI, DR, IoJ : This tier would get transfers from ET and AR.
T5: NSP, HoD, BP : This tier would get transfers from FC and SF
T6: GoM, DH, SoR : This tier would get transfers from EB and Kain

The transfers would have 1 week to choose the server they would move to, and if after 1 week they haven’t chosen(or inactive accounts) would be moved to the least populated of the servers in the tier they get to move. This initial move would be FREE. Immediately after this move, in theory, you should reset glicko ratings so that you would see a more fluid situation until everything gets resettled. Hopefully this would/could result in more movement through the tiers for a good long while.

This is far from perfect. T1 remains the same, and I doubt that there would be any of the new servers to even come close to challenging them. T1 is another animal, and short of forced destacking there is nothing to be done there(played on BG for almost a year so I know a bit about T1). T2/T3 may be getting the short end of the stick seeing as they get no one new(I am on YB atm), and some of the T4 servers are good enough now to rotate into T3 on occasion. I do think though that for the good of the game something similar to this needs to be done.

I’d just like to address server transfers one last time since it’s the only mechanism players have to help balance WvW themselves at this point.

Transfer costs are currently determined by world population, which no longer makes sense due to the introduction of mega-servers. They also do nothing to promote server balance.

Base transfer costs on the current WvW ranking of the server being transferred to. Provide an incentive by significantly reducing the transfer cost if a player is moving to a lower ranked server. I would also consider preventing transfers to the top 2 or 3 ranked servers.

Twinny.9304:

Sin.4130:

To devs:
The solution is really simple, how to do that?
Just change “tick score” system to “gain points” system – that’s all!
For claiming every object server gets points once.
Camp- 5
Tower -1 0
Keep – 25
SM – 35
As usual, but only once, so server which does pvd (player vs door) will get only max 695 points for all night for example, not like now that one or two nights with pvd and match is over.
Feel free to modify this system in anyway.
Benefits?:
- no more blob style, which will be extremely not effective with gain point system,
- no more zombies blob all day long,
- overpopulated servers will split naturally, because insane coverage factor will be crushed and not one way to win.

BTW:
For WvW community health I suggest to separate pvp servers, u can change names of that servers, because in one mega server time, PvE players just killing WvW in lower tiers, they rise transfer costs, and don’t participle in WvW. Make transfer to lower tiers cheaper and you will gain balance pretty soon.

Got a funny feeling that people wouldnt cap their stuff back until last day to avoid it being flipped again for more points.

I would probably say in regards to scoring:

Only get points per stomp – but your stomps are worth more the depending on what structures (keeps/towers) you hold.

at least this way night capping wouldn’t score any points unless they had enemies to stomp. Yes they could still turn things to paper and make stomps worth more, but without the actual stomps it wouldn’t affect the score.

That’s a really good idea and you should bring it up when they do the scoring discussion next week. Only change I would make is give points for kills in general and more points for stomps.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Twinny.9304:

Sin.4130:

To devs:
The solution is really simple, how to do that?
Just change “tick score” system to “gain points” system – that’s all!
For claiming every object server gets points once.
Camp- 5
Tower -1 0
Keep – 25
SM – 35
As usual, but only once, so server which does pvd (player vs door) will get only max 695 points for all night for example, not like now that one or two nights with pvd and match is over.
Feel free to modify this system in anyway.
Benefits?:
- no more blob style, which will be extremely not effective with gain point system,
- no more zombies blob all day long,
- overpopulated servers will split naturally, because insane coverage factor will be crushed and not one way to win.

BTW:
For WvW community health I suggest to separate pvp servers, u can change names of that servers, because in one mega server time, PvE players just killing WvW in lower tiers, they rise transfer costs, and don’t participle in WvW. Make transfer to lower tiers cheaper and you will gain balance pretty soon.

Got a funny feeling that people wouldnt cap their stuff back until last day to avoid it being flipped again for more points.

I would probably say in regards to scoring:

Only get points per stomp – but your stomps are worth more the depending on what structures (keeps/towers) you hold.

at least this way night capping wouldn’t score any points unless they had enemies to stomp. Yes they could still turn things to paper and make stomps worth more, but without the actual stomps it wouldn’t affect the score.

That’s a really good idea and you should bring it up when they do the scoring discussion next week. Only change I would make is give points for kills in general and more points for stomps.

I don’t think points for stomp or kills is a good idea.

1. It would actually serve as an incentive to avoid fights unless you have the clear advantage.
2. It would bring about an Alt-F4 meta.

But as you said, we shall get to discuss that in next weeks Scoring Discussion.

The fall tourney failed because there is no risk, and no real reward.

Let’s shake it up a bit and solve the population unbalance in a more fair way rather then closing servers down just for the sake of it…

Servers placing 3rd in their respective tiers over a 8 week period will be closed down, and players forced to jump servers to one of a different tier for no charge!
You think your server is worth fighting for? Prove it!

On a side note, I am on Blackgate, but this is not an idea that spawns from that. An 8 week tourney gives jq and tc just as much advantage to 2v1 us and get rid of is once and for all! This goes for a lot of other tiers as well!
Discuss…

Fury.6281:

Servers placing 3rd in their respective tiers over a 8 week period will be closed down, and players forced to jump servers to one of a different tier for no charge!
You think your server is worth fighting for? Prove it!
Discuss…

Holly can of worms batman! . . . but given John has asked the discussion in this thread to end I would suggest starting a new one in another thread for any who want to go wild with that idea. It certainly provides a lot of food for thought. I have a feeling we would have to come up with so many exceptions to make it palatable enough to fly that it would no longer accomplish much tho.

My bad, you already have a new thread going here.

I don’t want to see server merges or population movement. There’s a sense of server pride that would be destroyed from any kind of merge.

We have an outmanned buff, why not add more to it? If a server is ahead by a certain threshhold of points, add in handicaps for the less resilient servers. A few ideas:

1. Persistent bloodlust in home borderland
2. Decapping/recapping bloodlust requiring less time and effort
3. Cheaper upgrades (in gold and/or supplies) on tower/keeps/castles
4. Reduced upgrade times
5. Camps starting off with the doubled yak upgrade
6. Small boons applied to fortified keeps and towers (require spending less supply on repair)
7. Marginal increase on player stats when faced off in outnumbered fights.
8. Automatic +5 supply when the odds are really stacked up.

Fury.6281:

The fall tourney failed because there is no risk, and no real reward.

Let’s shake it up a bit and solve the population unbalance in a more fair way rather then closing servers down just for the sake of it…

Servers placing 3rd in their respective tiers over a 8 week period will be closed down, and players forced to jump servers to one of a different tier for no charge!
You think your server is worth fighting for? Prove it!

On a side note, I am on Blackgate, but this is not an idea that spawns from that. An 8 week tourney gives jq and tc just as much advantage to 2v1 us and get rid of is once and for all! This goes for a lot of other tiers as well!
Discuss…

Forcing BG to disband would be horrible for the game on every level. Hell, forcing anyone to disband because of a stupid tourney is bad. The whole tourney system is the opposite of fun times.

I don’t know about what goes on over at BG, but I firmly believe a healthy, balanced population is what keeps the game healthy. It’s way out of whack right now, but killing off servers, and forcing people to literally OT themselves to death or face some sort of community kill? No thanks.

John Corpening.9847:

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

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

• population caps
• merge servers
• Battle Groups

I’d like to join in this brainstorm with some questions on these. For merging servers, how do we determine who gets merged? Where would we merge them to? How do we maintain any sort of world pride or identity they have? How do we handle potentially merging with your mortal enemies?

Thanks,
John

I’ve thought, for a while, that the best way to handle a server merger would be cut the number of servers to 18 and have two leagues of 9. You could take the bottom six servers and merger them with the next six servers, inversely. So 18 would merge with 19, 17 and 20, and so on.
You could even do this with a tournament to determine rankings and, temporarily, reduce the number allowed into maps for the length of the tournament to allow an even playing field.

Another thought that would help to truly balance the server pops would be to move accounts that have been inactive for a few months, or so, into an account limbo where they’d have to select a new server when they came back.
With megaserver, there’s no reason for trial accounts to have to pick a server and take a server spot until they purchase the game.

Johje Holan.4607:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Twinny.9304:

Sin.4130:

To devs:
The solution is really simple, how to do that?
Just change “tick score” system to “gain points” system – that’s all!
For claiming every object server gets points once.
Camp- 5
Tower -1 0
Keep – 25
SM – 35
As usual, but only once, so server which does pvd (player vs door) will get only max 695 points for all night for example, not like now that one or two nights with pvd and match is over.
Feel free to modify this system in anyway.
Benefits?:
- no more blob style, which will be extremely not effective with gain point system,
- no more zombies blob all day long,
- overpopulated servers will split naturally, because insane coverage factor will be crushed and not one way to win.

BTW:
For WvW community health I suggest to separate pvp servers, u can change names of that servers, because in one mega server time, PvE players just killing WvW in lower tiers, they rise transfer costs, and don’t participle in WvW. Make transfer to lower tiers cheaper and you will gain balance pretty soon.

Got a funny feeling that people wouldnt cap their stuff back until last day to avoid it being flipped again for more points.

I would probably say in regards to scoring:

Only get points per stomp – but your stomps are worth more the depending on what structures (keeps/towers) you hold.

at least this way night capping wouldn’t score any points unless they had enemies to stomp. Yes they could still turn things to paper and make stomps worth more, but without the actual stomps it wouldn’t affect the score.

That’s a really good idea and you should bring it up when they do the scoring discussion next week. Only change I would make is give points for kills in general and more points for stomps.

I don’t think points for stomp or kills is a good idea.

1. It would actually serve as an incentive to avoid fights unless you have the clear advantage.
2. It would bring about an Alt-F4 meta.

But as you said, we shall get to discuss that in next weeks Scoring Discussion.

There is already points for stomps. Players enter a PvP mode for PvP. Alt-F4 still awards Wxp, xp and a bag if one drops if someone logs out during a fight. Not to mention how many run from fights already. Sure there might be more pressure to perform better, but ism’t that a good thing?

The fix, it seems to population imbalance seems to be unilaterally a player choice in favor. But we can’t do that unless we rebuild the mechanics that helps promote players to not stack on winning servers.

I also think it’s a good idea to put inactives in a holding pattern till they log in again. While i’m not entirely sure exactly what weight is used to gauge population on a particular server, i’m guessing part of it is players that reside on that server.

zhonnika.1784:

Fury.6281:

The fall tourney failed because there is no risk, and no real reward.

Let’s shake it up a bit and solve the population unbalance in a more fair way rather then closing servers down just for the sake of it…

Servers placing 3rd in their respective tiers over a 8 week period will be closed down, and players forced to jump servers to one of a different tier for no charge!
You think your server is worth fighting for? Prove it!

On a side note, I am on Blackgate, but this is not an idea that spawns from that. An 8 week tourney gives jq and tc just as much advantage to 2v1 us and get rid of is once and for all! This goes for a lot of other tiers as well!
Discuss…

Forcing BG to disband would be horrible for the game on every level. Hell, forcing anyone to disband because of a stupid tourney is bad. The whole tourney system is the opposite of fun times.

I don’t know about what goes on over at BG, but I firmly believe a healthy, balanced population is what keeps the game healthy. It’s way out of whack right now, but killing off servers, and forcing people to literally OT themselves to death or face some sort of community kill? No thanks.

I disagree with the idea of forcing only BG to disband (although doing away with servers completely is, imo, the best solution for WvW’s population imbalance problem) but the reality is, servers are killed all the time (and BG is one of the primary contributors to this problem). Communities have been disbanding since GW2’s launch and WvW population imbalances cannibalised other servers as the primary means of winning. The first one I can remember was Henge of Denravi, but then others (SBI, SoS and SoR all had big falls). The exodus from a server snowballs and large groups of players leave the server. The sad reality these days is this kind of server cannibalism is brought on by the T1 servers scavenging lower tier servers to bolster the stacked T1 population (T2 servers do this to a lesser extent). It only takes one or two big guilds to leave a server for things to stop being competitive and then the entire play style of that server is no longer viable resulting in a community kill.

ArenaNet (and people in this thread) might be concerned about harming existing WvW communities, but the reality is the current system does this all the time and it does push players away from WvW and GW2. WvW is already full of guilds on the same servers as former rivals, or on opposing servers of former allies, server loyalty doesn’t matter to the majority of the hard core WvW community. Alliances are far less threatening to the players I like playing with staying with me in WvW than the volatile impacts of WvW’s population imbalance. The only way to insulate yourself from it is to transfer, the higher the better.

Shiren.9532:

I disagree with the idea of forcing only BG to disband (although doing away with servers completely is, imo, the best solution for WvW’s population imbalance problem) but the reality is, servers are killed all the time (and BG is one of the primary contributors to this problem). Communities have been disbanding since GW2’s launch and WvW population imbalances cannibalised other servers as the primary means of winning. The first one I can remember was Henge of Denravi, but then others (SBI, SoS and SoR all had big falls). The exodus from a server snowballs and large groups of players leave the server. The sad reality these days is this kind of server cannibalism is brought on by the T1 servers scavenging lower tier servers to bolster the stacked T1 population (T2 servers do this to a lesser extent). It only takes one or two big guilds to leave a server for things to stop being competitive and then the entire play style of that server is no longer viable resulting in a community kill.

ArenaNet (and people in this thread) might be concerned about harming existing WvW communities, but the reality is the current system does this all the time and it does push players away from WvW and GW2. WvW is already full of guilds on the same servers as former rivals, or on opposing servers of former allies, server loyalty doesn’t matter to the majority of the hard core WvW community. Alliances are far less threatening to the players I like playing with staying with me in WvW than the volatile impacts of WvW’s population imbalance. The only way to insulate yourself from it is to transfer, the higher the better.

Then you have servers like BP and NSP that have had pretty stable communities since launch. Although i’m still of the mind that world imbalances aren’t really a problem at all. I see very little benefit to mashing servers together or allying them in some way.

Shiren.9532:

(and BG is one of the primary contributors to this problem)

Yeah this is nitpicking… but this simply isn’t true. The last time we got a guild from a lower tier over to BG was [Munt]. Right now we’re getting a few T2 OCX/SEA guilds from SoS. Before that, you’ll have to go all the way back to Season 1 for BG to have absorbed any guilds from the lower tiers (and before season 1, you’ll have to go back to the end of the free transfers era for any mass transfers to BG). In fact, you’ll find that both JQ and TC have absorbed far more guilds than BG has in the past year, and that the T2 servers have absorbed even more than T1 servers ever did in the past year with the T2 GvG scene. Going back to Season 2, HoD recieved more transfers than BG did for season 1, for comparison (BG’s main recruits were mostly Europeans, 2 guilds totaling around 60-70 people, which won us the coverage war, shout out to ZDs and COIN). Most transfers to BG have been individuals who were looking for a different/better/more populated WvW server or experience, something that no one on any server can control.

Still, I agree with the rest of your post. Especially the fact that 1 or 2 large guilds affect a server in a huge way.

John Corpening.9847:

Hey guys,

It’s been an incredibly busy week for me and I’m not fully caught up yet but I am noticing patterns in the posts that I have been able to read. A lot of people are also saying that they can’t keep up so I think it is a good time to close this discussion out.

I think we have some good general ideas for me to take back to the team and discuss their feasibility. Thanks again for another constructive discussion. This has been incredibly informative!

I agree with those of you who have pointed out that population imbalance is just one aspect that needs to be adjusted and that the overall solution isn’t just in one area. So I’d like to kick off a discussion on scoring next week.

See you then!

John

Its only 23 pages and the 50% is reply content…

Lol you guys just got cdi for more convenient storage. weve had this discussions a few months after the game first came out and on a reg basis.

How do you decide who gets merged? Easy, You don’t. All servers get merged and split into the eotm style factions keeping populations somewhat equal randomly.

Keeping the same system while merging servers will just result in players flocking to the leading servers continuing the same problem. Pretty sure youd see this if you looked at transfers, well if you read past the second page that is….

munkiman.3068:

Shiren.9532:

I disagree with the idea of forcing only BG to disband (although doing away with servers completely is, imo, the best solution for WvW’s population imbalance problem) but the reality is, servers are killed all the time (and BG is one of the primary contributors to this problem). Communities have been disbanding since GW2’s launch and WvW population imbalances cannibalised other servers as the primary means of winning. The first one I can remember was Henge of Denravi, but then others (SBI, SoS and SoR all had big falls). The exodus from a server snowballs and large groups of players leave the server. The sad reality these days is this kind of server cannibalism is brought on by the T1 servers scavenging lower tier servers to bolster the stacked T1 population (T2 servers do this to a lesser extent). It only takes one or two big guilds to leave a server for things to stop being competitive and then the entire play style of that server is no longer viable resulting in a community kill.

ArenaNet (and people in this thread) might be concerned about harming existing WvW communities, but the reality is the current system does this all the time and it does push players away from WvW and GW2. WvW is already full of guilds on the same servers as former rivals, or on opposing servers of former allies, server loyalty doesn’t matter to the majority of the hard core WvW community. Alliances are far less threatening to the players I like playing with staying with me in WvW than the volatile impacts of WvW’s population imbalance. The only way to insulate yourself from it is to transfer, the higher the better.

Then you have servers like BP and NSP that have had pretty stable communities since launch. Although i’m still of the mind that world imbalances aren’t really a problem at all. I see very little benefit to mashing servers together or allying them in some way.

Of course they’re not a problem. People love playing outnumbered, right? That’s why they bought and support this game, so they can have unfair matches. People crying about population imbalances are probably just deluded and sore losers.

John Corpening.9847:

Hey guys,

[thread is TL;DR, nothing new being posted, closing thread]

John

• Can your team please keep us in the loop as to where this conversation is going this time, please?
• I fear that there is a danger of this thread being filed in the trashcan.

Davey.7029:

People crying about population imbalances are probably just

…too poor to transfer to another server.

And still waiting to hear a good reason why any server should merge. All merging (or alliances, which is just another word for server merge) does is temporarily spread players around while destroying established communities. Then soon after, selfish players who only care about rewards will stack on whatever server/alliance/battlegroup will give them the most reward, meaning the server merge has done nothing and has actually made things worse.

Some people like the play style that happens at lower tiers, some like the play style in higher tiers. Why destroy that for nothing? The way things are now are not perfect, things could be better, but don’t make things worse just because some people can’t afford to transfer to a server that caters to their tastes.

roxybudgy.8205:

Davey.7029:

People crying about population imbalances are probably just

…too poor to transfer to another server.

And still waiting to hear a good reason why any server should merge. All merging (or alliances, which is just another word for server merge) does is temporarily spread players around while destroying established communities. Then soon after, selfish players who only care about rewards will stack on whatever server/alliance/battlegroup will give them the most reward, meaning the server merge has done nothing and has actually made things worse.

Some people like the play style that happens at lower tiers, some like the play style in higher tiers. Why destroy that for nothing? The way things are now are not perfect, things could be better, but don’t make things worse just because some people can’t afford to transfer to a server that caters to their tastes.

This is part of the problem on what’s holding things back, sense of community or pride. This needs to be abandoned before things move forward. Even if more players abandon 1 server and move to another, it hurts both communities.

Players are just going to have to accept the fact that the communities as they know currently will have to end and new ones need to form in whatever format Anet decides to put forward.

With that said, I wish John would update the original post to reflect some of the more popular ideas here so us players can debate over them. 23 pages is a lot to siphon through now.. considering some people have exceptionally long posts.

Anet not only needs to put forth something that will keep current players engaged, but will entice old players to come back while also enticing new players to join.

roxybudgy.8205:

Davey.7029:

People crying about population imbalances are probably just

…too poor to transfer to another server.

And still waiting to hear a good reason why any server should merge. All merging (or alliances, which is just another word for server merge) does is temporarily spread players around while destroying established communities. Then soon after, selfish players who only care about rewards will stack on whatever server/alliance/battlegroup will give them the most reward, meaning the server merge has done nothing and has actually made things worse.

Some people like the play style that happens at lower tiers, some like the play style in higher tiers. Why destroy that for nothing? The way things are now are not perfect, things could be better, but don’t make things worse just because some people can’t afford to transfer to a server that caters to their tastes.

Obviously they’re all poor, and probably pretty selfish too? Yes, let’s jump into conclusions, because why not?…
I personally don’t mind low population servers, as it’s actually the only place where people can roam alone and in small groups (although sometimes they will only see an enemy every 10-20 minutes). It’s a different playstyle from zerging and it’s fun in it’s own right. The problem is when you put a low population server against a high population one.
It’s not fun for the low pop server because they will constantly run into zergs and won’t be able to hold objectives or capture or even find any fair fights at all, and it’s not fun for the high pop server because the other two servers will eventually just give up and won’t join WvW anymore. Facerolling the weak servers is only fun until it becomes a singleplayer game about capturing empty buildings.

So there should be a balance, which for now, is non-existent.

DeadlySynz.3471:

Players are just going to have to accept the fact that the communities as they know currently will have to end and new ones need to form in whatever format Anet decides to put forward.

Players don’t have to accept anything. This is a recreational activity. They can simply stop playing and/or go play another game.

The first step to fixing the population imbalance is to clean up the server population from PvE players and older players no longer playing WvW or the game.

As it stands now servers are “full” yet they do not have the same WvW population at all.

Davey.7029:

I personally don’t mind low population servers, as it’s actually the only place where people can roam alone and in small groups (although sometimes they will only see an enemy every 10-20 minutes). It’s a different playstyle from zerging and it’s fun in it’s own right. The problem is when you put a low population server against a high population one.

This, but there is also a coverage aspect to it.

This is an infographic from a Bronze League match-up my server payed in last week . Near the bottom is a section with the maximum PPT reached by each server:

• Eredon Terrace topped out at 680 points at 17:19 on 10/3 (Friday)
• Sorrows Furnace topped out at 600 points at 5:30 on 9/29 (Monday)
• Anvil Rock topped out at 510 points at 12:24 on 10/3 (Friday)

In the first few hours of our current match-up, Eredon Terrace had double the points of the next server and then was behind on Saturday. We got within a few hundred points of first place on Saturday night and were around 8,000 points behind this morning.

So each server had slices of time where they could dominate in PPT and also where they were dominated.

Berk.8561:

DeadlySynz.3471:

Players are just going to have to accept the fact that the communities as they know currently will have to end and new ones need to form in whatever format Anet decides to put forward.

Players don’t have to accept anything. This is a recreational activity. They can simply stop playing and/or go play another game.

Yes they are going to have to accept it one way or another if the population balance is to be fixed. Keeping the populations as is, aka, keeping the communities together doesn’t work. As you said though, maybe some of these players should find another game.. mainly the ones holding onto server pride. They are basically the ones holding things back.

My frustration lies with individuals like Kress and Troma. They raise one server (because they dont play the game but purely focus on campaign to make their wvw succesful, almost like a GM supporting one server). This creates severere inbalance as other servers just ’log in the game and play, and organize from there on TS, without all the massive preparation/recruiting/other campaigns that started before the actual matchup.

It’s been this bad, that during a tournement match (supposed to be superiorly serious fight), most of one server decided not to fight against the over full recruitment server: SFR (new vizunah square). SFR has kresh. Vizu had Troma. If you don’t believe the effect this individuals have on servers, then look at Troma’s account, and when he stopped playing. Look at how fast vizunah square dropped after that.

Are this people cheating? No. But they are doing something almost nobody like/Wants/will do. They are full time not playing the game, to support it from behind the scenes, giving one server a gigantic advantage over other servers. This creates demoralizing, on the other servers, as well as stopping their fighting spirit down, making matches very stale and boring, without much of interesting fights. As long as these indiviuals exist, and they are allowed to do what they do, one server will always ‘outmatch’ other server, causing severe unbalance. I hope Anet considers this. Especially since NA has this problem not as much since the holy T1 trinity (BG, JQ, TC) are at least strong enough to put up a fight against each other.

John Corpening.9847:

Hey guys,

It’s been an incredibly busy week for me and I’m not fully caught up yet but I am noticing patterns in the posts that I have been able to read. A lot of people are also saying that they can’t keep up so I think it is a good time to close this discussion out.

I think we have some good general ideas for me to take back to the team and discuss their feasibility. Thanks again for another constructive discussion. This has been incredibly informative!

I agree with those of you who have pointed out that population imbalance is just one aspect that needs to be adjusted and that the overall solution isn’t just in one area. So I’d like to kick off a discussion on scoring next week.

See you then!

John

i have played a lot of times under the outnumbered buff and the only that i wanted was the tools to keep safe the upgraded keeps .

disabler trap is a good tool to slow a blob , but not for long and there is also a spam problem while not outnumbered .

so , at least for late night / early morning crews , i think the most precious changes will be some tweaks on existent protecting sieges , like

• every time outnumber buff appears , all sieges will refreshed their timers . it is very hard for 1 – 5 men to refresh sieges and fight same time in a home border against a blob . also , traps and tricks should double theit affected time .

• all the time change : superior / guild sieges will have x3 time decay time than simple .

• when outnumber buff appears all full upgraded keep will have x3 times more toughness and hp . it makes no sense this buff gives only more luck on loot while you can not fight str8 against a blob .

• also , when outnumbered buff appears all full upgraded keep should open a new option to hire real hard npc to protect the inner zone of keep . hard npc means hard , not just trash npc . npc that can make nightmare a blob and this option will cost ingame gold ( people spend tones of gold for upgrades and this unbalance situation when they are frequently outnumber makes them stop spending their money …. give them a reason not feel dump when they spend their gold and encourage them spend more gold for upgrades too ) and npc will remain until the outnumbered buff has disappeared for over 5 minutes. towers should not have this option , only keeps that have wp and they make the game more interest because lowers the times to travel from one point to other

• make all the upgrades and sieges show the character name that build / order . i am playing in an other mmo now and all things in-game show me the owner on mouse over . this is something you have it in game’s database and it needs just the dev to make the tool-tip to give the name . i want to know who to thank or blame for sieges or upgrades . anonymity block the creation of communities in-game . all are playing for themselves now and not for their server or for their guild .

• involve more the guilds in wvw claiming system . claiming a tower should cost and reward after defense the guild . now only cost and it is anonymous again …..

make these changes only for specific time zones ( excpet these for guilds claim and siege decay time , that should be permanent ) . most of the times the coverage problem appears on late night / early morning . all other times all the servers from first of Tier 1 to the last of Tier 3 are almost equals

these changes will make the tournaments more interesting , because all servers will depending their position in score from players skills not from population

p.s. these changes on outnumbered buff should apply on defending mode , so , it is better to separate the outnumbered buff to a defender outnumber buff ( a blue new icon ) and one offensive one ( same as we have it now and red ) and ofc only for home borders and not for EB

Davey.7029:

Of course they’re not a problem. People love playing outnumbered, right? That’s why they bought and support this game, so they can have unfair matches. People crying about population imbalances are probably just deluded and sore losers.

It’s a short-sighted solution to a much larger, more complicated problem. Merges and/or alliances will still end up lopsided as long as players can move around. It’s really that simply. We’ll be having this exact same conversation (which we basically have had since release) in a couple months.

Until solid solutions are developed for coverage and promoting defense (making it as effective and rewarding as offense) by changing the scoring system, then it’s still the same round-robin game mode, with lots of kittened off players.

Xillllix.3485:

The first step to fixing the population imbalance is to clean up the server population from PvE players and older players no longer playing WvW or the game.

As it stands now servers are “full” yet they do not have the same WvW population at all.

I find this idea interesting, and would like to expand on it a bit using (mostly) current mechanics:

- Create three new ‘meta’ servers outside the Glicko series; they will rotate color weekly, have no login cap, and not participate in Tournaments. ‘Seed’ these servers initially with any accounts that have not logged into the game more than 6 months. Willing transfer onto these servers would cost 400 gems (same cost to transfer between them afterward), but you are initially assigned a server at random. Transfer out would be the cost of the target server.

- Implement a hidden ‘timer’ on the backend that tracks the last time a player has entered a normal WvW map (EotM excluded). After one month of not entering a map, you will be sent a warning email (second warning after two more weeks). After two months (eight weeks), you are re-assigned to the mini-cluster above on a random server.

- Players sent to these ‘meta’ servers (due to inactivity) will be given the ability to transfer back to their original server, at half its current cost. This should be stated in the ‘automated transfer’ email.

- These three servers may need adjustments to karma and gold later, depending on any resurgence of activity. Some small ‘perks’ may also be applied to anyone on these servers – permanent ‘no armor damage on death’ (or just permanent Outmanned) on everyone (including in EotM) would be a small, if useful start. The idea here is to turn them into ‘training’ WvW servers for new or returning players (I envision the atmosphere to be like low-sec space in Eve).

Sorry I know this discussion is over but it just hit me what needs to happen.

Speaking for NA. We need to go down to 12 servers. In two leagues, six servers each.

The two leagues will never play each other – neither in regular season nor tournaments.

Each league has a different WvW map pop cap.

• League A: For those who like large scale combat. Like T1 now. Same pop cap as now.

• League B: For those who don’t like the T1 type population. Like lower tier servers now. Anet will need to determine the pop cap that is best.

You should ban guilds from seeking recruiting to out of hours territories on the forums.
You know the type:- “NA /Eu server seeks Oceanic/ Russian/ Australian guilds to shore up our numbers while the enemy is asleep”.

Make is so after 1am local time, you can transfer to one border and you are stuck there until the morning XD

I’m not sure if this has been suggested before but:

Why not just set links between cap points, where it needs to be linked to attacking side’s tower in order to cap an opposing tower.
I’ve noticed most zerg commanders tend to avoid head on engagement against the opposing zerg.
Linking towers would allow outnumbered side to defend and force zerg to cross path’s.

Why does it have to be positive? Especially given the sorry state of the game.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Feel free to post your thoughts, but please stay on topic and make positive, meaningful suggestions.

You can learn from mistakes too. You should learn from mistakes.

That is the problem with Anet, only want nice comments. Constructive criticism are good too, this is not kindergarten. You should understand why WvW is what it is now and is not because good decisions. Don’t repeat that please, listen the community, you repeated it AGAIN one month ago with this last, swiss style, tournament.

Don’t take this wrong, I am trying to telling you you shouldn’t repeat the same mistake over and over. Just that.

Btw i think upfilling the maps is 1 sollution, and changing the point system is an other good one
More less points for pvd and a fix amount for killing a player +x if you stomp. Big zergs still have the advantage, but zerg busting guilds now make a difference. (And fighting is more fun as protecting a door)

And one more: when your prime time starting and you see your own spawn tower is upgraded to t3… Thats discouraging. Fighting an hour just to own one thing is not fun. Tower/keep/garri upgrades should work as bloodlust. Keep x supply camp for x time and your things will be tier x.
T3 objects are totaly ruining everything because this siege dissabler. Befor that trick it was realy hard, but now…

Remake score system:
T0 (Paper) you get 0points for buildings both capping and owning.
T1 33% points for buildings both capping and owning.
T2 66% points for buildings both capping and owning.
T3 100% points for buildings both capping and owning.
1 Tear is Reinforced gate and walls, 1tear Fortify, 1tear (Mortar tower) (Waypoint Keep/SM). (for supply camp T1 2 first upgrades and then 1 T ever on second row.

And then the most important part is that if your server have buildings for 400points you don’t autonomic ally tick that and how you solve that is simple, you count how many players there is on the 4 WvW maps and there you do 0% = 10% then for every 1% players you gain 1.5% in tick, so if there is 10% full on all 4 maps and your server have 400Points you will tick 20% of that with then mean tick is 80. When there is 60% full on all 4 maps and all 3 servers you tick 100%

Escorting Dolys should give a buff were bronze give you +1supply you can carry Silver +2 Gold +3 supply you can carry and it last for 1hour (only successful escorts), it don’t stack but the 1hour is reset/you get higher if you had bronze and then do Gold you get +3 instead off +1 if you Escort again within the hour you have the buff.

When queue on the map lower AFK timeout to 5min and if you run against a wall to 2min, if you have scout buff and are in scout area AFK timer normal 10min.

And add so you get 1point for stomp without any bloodlust then +1 for every BL your server have.

That way it will be much harder to gain points with PVD, you will need to hold your building until they are upgraded with takes a lot off time and a small group can take supply camp / kill dollys with then stops upgrades.

urieldhynne.2743:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Feel free to post your thoughts, but please stay on topic and make positive, meaningful suggestions.

You can learn from mistakes too. You should learn from mistakes.

That is the problem with Anet, only want nice comments. Constructive criticism are good too, this is not kindergarten. You should understand why WvW is what it is now and is not because good decisions. Don’t repeat that please, listen the community, you repeated it AGAIN one month ago with this last, swiss style, tournament.

Don’t take this wrong, I am trying to telling you you shouldn’t repeat the same mistake over and over. Just that.

I read positive suggestions, not don’t post negative feedback. A poster above said something about the thread being over, so I think she’s just saying they are still reading it. Least that’s how I read it.

munkiman.3068:

urieldhynne.2743:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Feel free to post your thoughts, but please stay on topic and make positive, meaningful suggestions.

You can learn from mistakes too. You should learn from mistakes.

That is the problem with Anet, only want nice comments. Constructive criticism are good too, this is not kindergarten. You should understand why WvW is what it is now and is not because good decisions. Don’t repeat that please, listen the community, you repeated it AGAIN one month ago with this last, swiss style, tournament.

Don’t take this wrong, I am trying to telling you you shouldn’t repeat the same mistake over and over. Just that.

I read positive suggestions, not don’t post negative feedback. A poster above said something about the thread being over, so I think she’s just saying they are still reading it. Least that’s how I read it.

Have you not been around? Or perhaps you are undyingly optimistic. Anet has shown time and time again that they don’t really want to hear where they went wrong, but what they are doing right. They even posted a while back and went essentially into lock down mode on anyone who had anything remotely negative to say about anything on the game. Their version of “constructive criticism” is to tell them 10 things they do right with only 1 minor adjustment on how it could be better. A good example of Anet being their overbearing selves is to look at the SAB World 2 fiasco. Even the dev responsible got his hand slapped for basically admitting they screwed up.

dancingmonkey.4902:

The problem I see here is I feel your looking at it wrong. If you want a sport, go to sPvP or tPvP. If you want easy fun, go to PvP………………………..If you want a trophy for everyone on your team even if they lose, you do not go to war. WvW is war. It is not a sport, or a fair game. And pouncing on unsuspecting prey or smaller numbered groups, is the name of the game.

No, it’s a game. If it was ‘War’ then when you got killed in said ‘War’ you would not be able to play in it again until server re-set. As it stands, you can’t even play defensive and try to even the odds via attrition (you know, like they did in the siege and castles days).

A easy way to fix the population imbalance is to make it in this way:

For example a Map have 300 people.
So every Server have 100 people free for this map.

Server1: 100 / Server 2: 100 / Server 3: 100

so if not alle Player from Server 1 on this map will not give the other two Server the rest of the free Places.

Mean every serve have only this 100 and will not give the other server the rest. So if any server have very much population, they will get long waiting times. I think the player will then go to other servers with not so a high population, for not so long waiting times.

I hope you guys understand what I mean. ^^

I’ve been on Underworld since the beginning, and right now WvW there is pretty sad. A group of half a dozen players is a zerg, and a group of over a dozen players is a fantasy. Fissure of Woe have it even worse. Current this week we are up against Dz and it’s not even worth turning up – the population imbalance is so massively severe we have no hope of getting anywhere. That’s not even fun for Dz – generally they just sit in their fortresses and once in a while go out roaming and watching UW people run away from them or get steamrollered.

My guild are thinking of moving to another server higher up the ladder, but then that just makes the problem worse for anyone left on UW.

You really HAVE to do something about this – for new players coming into WvW here it’s not an enjoyable experience at all. Here’s what I suggest as some possible quick & dirty fixes:

1. Merge the bottom four servers into one. The WvW population disparity is so severe at the bottom tier that the entire tier added together still would only form one fairly low-end contender. It would be an relatively simple fix and finally give the lower tier servers some decent combat.

2. Another solution would be simply make server transfers free to the bottom Tier servers. I have a few friends who would happily transfer over to join our Guild there but the cost is prohibitive. Yeah, I know ANet make money from server transfers and I respect that, but if you’re not going to merge the servers I assume you actually want the servers you have to have a viable minimum population. You can have it one way or the other way, but right now you have the worst of both worlds.

3. Give massively increased Magic Find to anyone on a map with a very low number of teammates, regardless of whether they are outnumbered or not. For example, there are frequently times in UW when there are less than 10 people on a map. So give them all a bonus +50% Magic Find. Or even a bonus 100% – anything that would incentivise people to jump into a map and go roaming. Right now UW can’t even raise enough people at any one instant to both cover EB and our own borderlands, never mind attack the enemy borderlands. And because there’s no-one to fight, there are no rewards in being there. If I can kill 30 players in one session on a major server, or 3 (if I’m lucky) on a bottom Tier server, then you need to make the rewards for killing those 3 appropriate. So bump up the Magic Find and then people will WANT to come here.

In short: either merge the bottom four servers, or if you must keep them at the very least give people incentive to want to move there AND take away any roadblocks stopping them.

Or watch it die on the vine, and I really don’t think any of us wants to see that.

I have little doubt that it’s been suggested someplace in this thread already, but could we please get a map (or maps) that are server-specific outside of WvW? The days of recruiting even hasty help from somewhere like Lion’s Arch are gone due to megaserver. It’s been a help to PVE in some cases (and terrible in others) but has absolutely gutted the ability to do short or long term recruitment from one’s own server for WvW use. We don’t even have custom chat channels to fall back on to facilitate such conversation in this game.

Dashwood.3215:

I’ve been on Underworld since the beginning, and right now WvW there is pretty sad. A group of half a dozen players is a zerg, and a group of over a dozen players is a fantasy. Fissure of Woe have it even worse. Current this week we are up against Dz and it’s not even worth turning up – the population imbalance is so massively severe we have no hope of getting anywhere. That’s not even fun for Dz – generally they just sit in their fortresses and once in a while go out roaming and watching UW people run away from them or get steamrollered.

My guild are thinking of moving to another server higher up the ladder, but then that just makes the problem worse for anyone left on UW.

You really HAVE to do something about this – for new players coming into WvW here it’s not an enjoyable experience at all. Here’s what I suggest as some possible quick & dirty fixes:

1. Merge the bottom four servers into one. The WvW population disparity is so severe at the bottom tier that the entire tier added together still would only form one fairly low-end contender. It would be an relatively simple fix and finally give the lower tier servers some decent combat.

2. Another solution would be simply make server transfers free to the bottom Tier servers. I have a few friends who would happily transfer over to join our Guild there but the cost is prohibitive. Yeah, I know ANet make money from server transfers and I respect that, but if you’re not going to merge the servers I assume you actually want the servers you have to have a viable minimum population. You can have it one way or the other way, but right now you have the worst of both worlds.

3. Give massively increased Magic Find to anyone on a map with a very low number of teammates, regardless of whether they are outnumbered or not. For example, there are frequently times in UW when there are less than 10 people on a map. So give them all a bonus +50% Magic Find. Or even a bonus 100% – anything that would incentivise people to jump into a map and go roaming. Right now UW can’t even raise enough people at any one instant to both cover EB and our own borderlands, never mind attack the enemy borderlands. And because there’s no-one to fight, there are no rewards in being there. If I can kill 30 players in one session on a major server, or 3 (if I’m lucky) on a bottom Tier server, then you need to make the rewards for killing those 3 appropriate. So bump up the Magic Find and then people will WANT to come here.

In short: either merge the bottom four servers, or if you must keep them at the very least give people incentive to want to move there AND take away any roadblocks stopping them.

Or watch it die on the vine, and I really don’t think any of us wants to see that.

Your first suggestion was good but I’m not sure about the second and third one. Roaming is fine and it’s a fun thing to do specially when you’re in a small group of people you know, but besides that, the rest of the WvW experience suffers.

The maps feel very empty and lifeless, it takes ages to even capture a tower since you have to resupply and you can only use 1-2 rams at a time (rarely 3 outside of prime time) and the large scale fights which was one big selling point of this game just aren’t there.

GvG is also non-existent since most of the WvW dedicated guilds transfered to the top servers. There is also little incentive to upgrade and siege keeps and towers since nobody will be there to defend them.

I don’t think better loot would do any miracles when the core gameplay just isn’t fun, and I don’t think this is what Arena Net had in mind when they were designing WvW.

I’m also from Underworld and I do love when we can people excited and motivated to play WvW and we can get a modest group of 20-30 players. I just wish this happened more often.

P.S.: Regarding your second suggetion, I don’t think anyone will transfer to the bottom servers because that’s not the experience the vast majority of players are looking for.

A way to fix WvW is to accept that lot of player only play guild wars 2 get loot. So why not make WvW give as much loot as PvE.

So introduce WvW exclusive tracks similar to sPvP, but design in such a way that its progressives faster than getting WvW levels. Make the amount of loot and reward you get equivalent or greater than PvE. PvE will always have more players by virtue of certain players being afraid of any PvP, but a lot of people don’t do WvW because it rewards are terrible.

silvermember.8941:

A way to fix WvW is to accept that lot of player only play guild wars 2 get loot. So why not make WvW give as much loot as PvE.

So introduce WvW exclusive tracks similar to sPvP, but design in such a way that its progressives faster than getting WvW levels. Make the amount of loot and reward you get equivalent or greater than PvE. PvE will always have more players by virtue of certain players being afraid of any PvP, but a lot of people don’t do WvW because it rewards are terrible.

This would attract some players, but those (mainly PvE-focused champion/karma trainers) would only be interested in loot instead of being focused on server score, defending, tactic etc. They hardy help a server since they tend to only appear when there is easy loot, which is, during a matchup against significantly weaker servers. When your server gets matched up against a more powerful enemy, they mysteriously disappear and suddenly you have 10 instead of 50 people on commander.

So the result would be the opposite of what you want. Even more imbalance and disproportion between servers.

I still believe the solution is to make wvw a mega server and use 3 different factions kinda like how eotm is setup when have players choose what faction they rep an thats where they play then make a priority system so you can play with your guild etc which i think is already implemented if im not mistaken.

I just dont see how changing points around and some of these other suggustions are really gonna fix wvw imbalance when it comes to population, a mega server would fix the issue right away. Changing factions can be as expensive as it currently is to change servers if not more since most people migrate strictly to be in a server they feel will be more competitive.

Thats not to say changing points around could not make a difference in balancing wvw but just not for fixing population. Not to mention thar are still many guild who focus more on combat an open field fighting then pvdooring.

24 hour coverage. How do we make play time in off hours valuable without blowing out the score?

As an Oceanic player and WvW commander from ye olde Titan Alliance, responsible for the term “night capping”, I strongly believe that my play time and efforts are equally as valuable as anyone else’s. Having also been on the receiving end of JQ’s SEA dominance for a time, I’d argue that their time and effort are similarly valuable.

I believe that WvW coverage is part of what passes for the GW2 “meta”. It’s not EVE, but the considerable efforts of sever leadership to recruit, retain and resource 24 hour coverage go unrecognised. Particularly by players who don’t have the diplomacy, drive, determination or vision to put in the same effort. Yes, band wagoning plays a part, but that’s a reward issue.

Ultimately, players will go where the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards are the greatest for their playtime. ANet does not create player imbalances, we do. Anet’s role, imo, should be to fix the cause and not bandaid the symptoms. Provide incentives that encourage us to self balance. Carrot > stick.

Snowballing. How do we give worlds a fighting chance throughout the duration of the match?

Assuming you’ve fixed the population balance incentives, then I see the ‘fighting chance’ as largely a question of server leadership and morale. And “losing” a match doesn’t – or shouldn’t, imo – be seen as having a direct correlation to ANet action. For example, during the fixed games of NA Tier 1, Season 2, BG had no chance of winning, but the fights were constant and little less than epic. Being on this losing side has given me far better memories of WvW than will “winning” Season 3.

Stagnation – How do I feel continuously challenged when my world is ahead?

There’s usually some degree of pride when your server is in a dominant position, which can be motivation in itself. If it’s particularly one sided then I might play an alt or take a break from playing, reducing my play time and doing more IRL, saving extended effort for when the match is in doubt.

For me, times like these also build an appreciation for the players and guilds on the dominated server – the ones who WvW regardless of the overall score.

Stagnation – How does my world break the hold that other worlds have on me when I’m behind?

Server leadership. Hard work. Resilience.

Hey, guess the activity on this topics shows well how WvWers rly need a big change. Its impossible to have read all topics but ill risk putting in my 2 cents.

My idea would basically mean a complete overhaul of how WvW works. Fyi, im a former GW1 and GvG player and currently playing GW2 WvW (nothing else : P).

1. Fusion of maps between WvW and EOTM, keeping the 3 colour factions scheme. 1 Single map, EOTM style and not 3 separate like actual WvW;
2. Change reputation from Server to Guilds, meaning the end of servers as we know it in WvW. Guess ppl who didn’t play GW1 might be afraid of this but, from my experience, Guild rep is much stronger than any server rep. No gems from transfer ANET…er.
3. Track guilds activity (hour, points gained for your faction) and make a ladder with guild reputation in WvW (!!!), according to those periods.
4. The beginning of each matchup would see Guilds being assigned faction according to points gathered on, say, 3 different periods of the day (8h each), keeping the balance. ANET could make as many matchups as they like…so, solves the empty WvW server´s issue. This way, a 1 week matchup would be no problem at all.
5. Tracking guilds WvW activity would allow a good assignment to forthcoming matches (ANET responsibility) and, therefore, solve 2 big problems: Population imbalance (again, ANET can start as many matches as they want, say 15-20), and “Night capping” issues severely reduced. Also, PPT would be replaced by Kills, Stomps and Secure map points.
6. Introduce GvG Tournament Arena where Guilds could battle each other (10 Vs 10, 20Vs20) in elimination rounds, say, best out of 3 wins; and also introduce the Guild Challenge Banner (upg with merits and influence), that a guild can lay down on the ground and another can pick up and accept or not. That GvG would have a timelimit of 25 mins. Result would give reputation to winning guild and points for the winning faction side. This would need a thread of its own to develop more insight on it.
7. A concentration of more than 40 players in a 1200 area would give a full map alert and a debuff on that grp, renewed every 2 mins if it still stands. This is to reduce zerging and karma training and improve battle experience overall.
8. Make breaching towers and keeps easier but getting the cap much harder (ditch the golems and siege disabler ideas plz…).
9. Introduce “Ressurection Sickness” when a player rallies/ gets bannered: A player with this debuff (lasting like 2 mins) is truly dead if HP gets to 0 again, no downed state anymore. Meaning: every1 has a chance for 1 rally when downed and not continuously… This would allow samller, more tactical groups to fight bigger numbers more effectively = better fights for every1.

Ty if u took the time to read all this!

Cheers, Bubba