Guild Wars 2

The way I look at it, if you fix the way WvW is scored, you probably won’t have to fix the population imbalance.

If ArenaNet makes it so a small group defending an objective against a large group gets a significant amount of points, and servers stop getting huge points for passively owning something, then I honestly think a lot of the population imbalance issues will fix themselves.

For one, a server will a smaller population will be able to be much more competitive when playing a higher population server. And two, server transfers from higher-to-lower-tier servers will most likely become more common.

I’m not suggesting that all server populations will equalize, but there would probably be some movement there.

Three things I would absolutely LOVE to know:

1. What is the player cap per server?
2. What exactly does “very high” even mean?
3. How many unique WvW account logins does each server have in a week and how many hours does each of those accounts log?

Tryxtr.6295:

The way I look at it, if you fix the way WvW is scored, you probably won’t have to fix the population imbalance.

If ArenaNet makes it so a small group defending an objective against a large group gets a significant amount of points, and servers stop getting huge points for passively owning something, then I honestly think a lot of the population imbalance issues will fix themselves.

For one, a server will a smaller population will be able to be much more competitive when playing a higher population server. And two, server transfers from higher-to-lower-tier servers will most likely become more common.

I’m not suggesting that all server populations will equalize, but there would probably be some movement there.

Three things I would absolutely LOVE to know:

1. What is the player cap per server?
2. What exactly does “very high” even mean?
3. How many unique WvW account logins does each server have in a week and how many hours does each of those accounts log?

True. I doubt we’d get info like that. Be interesting to know what % on average of total population plays WvW though. I could prolly get a fairly accurate estimate for NSP.

I don’t really have a population or scoring solution but I want to point out that many of the mechanics in WvW and GW2 are working towards clustering of player on one “winning” server.

EotM lessened the strongest reason to join a lesser populated server.

(Then that EotM are more rewarding that normal WvW is a bad joke.)

Leagues and seasons in WvW is fun but suddenly the winning server got better personal loot for their members (just not show off items) and thus raising the temptation to switch server.

Now we have Megaservers so serverloyalty doesn’t exist anywhere else than in WvW.

I used to be on a mid populated server and see myself as a casual WvWer. I always thought it was a target rich environment and had fun even if the were having the lowest score. But with all these changes I too have moved to a WvW-winning server to get a share of the richer rewards.

About scoring and rewards I do feel there should be more rewarding for those building, sieging, repairing, defending and scouting as well as those guarding dolyaks to towers and keeps.

Sadly the biggest personal rewards is gotten from karma trains where you just hit the doors of the next Tower/keep and never defend anything hoping the other teams caps at the same pace you do. Or join those similar trains in EotM. It really shouldn’t be that way.

I am for loyalty bonuses. I am for handicap systems. Heck – if color is given out depending on the rank of the server – why not give the lower ranked server a better starting position? Make the outmanned buff really mean something? Maybe have an outscoring buff? And make the rewards in a tournament more about my personal contribution to my server instead of me belonging to the “right” server (is enough if gold/silver/bronze difference is about bragging rights like finishers or something).

Davey.7029:

Yes, you can enjoy playing on a bottom server, but your experience will suffer because the game mode was designed for large-scale battles supporting hundreds of players at the same time.

People keep saying this but:

1. While they are interesting when they happen occasionally, the truly large scale battles are some of the worst play experiences I have in WvW because they stop being about individual movement and targeting and at best are an exercise in sticking to a commander and following orders and at worse are a chaotic mess of people running all over the place and that’s far from ideal, in my opinion, even if it didn’t come with low frame rates, mass skill effects, and skill lag. When massive groups attack a target, it can not even matter if you disable or destroy their siege weapons because they can DPS the gates down. I don’t consider any of that the ideal I’m looking for in WvW.
2. What GM designed the game mode for has nothing to do with what individual players find fun or not fun. ArenaNet designed WvW to have a score and a winner but plenty of players don’t care or worry about that. ArenaNet may have designed the game for massive battles but plenty of players like solo and small group roaming or even simply open field fights with their guilds. And in some of those cases, the large scale battles only get in the way of what they really want.

Davey.7029:

And don’t tell me everyone is happy with the current state on WvW. I talked to and still talk to a lot of people who are disappointed about WvW in Bronze, and even though some have transfered so they could have a better WvW experience, some decided to stay. Not because they love playing outnumbered, being zerged down or regularly joining EB with nobody in it, but because of the friends they made in their guild and in their server.

And don’t tell me it’s all rainbows and unicorns at the higher tiers, because we also have people who transfer down to Bronze from higher tiers and they enjoy what they find at the bottom. It’s different. That’s good because people enjoy different things. Assuming that everyone plays any part of GW2 for one reason only and enhancing that one reason to play at the expensive of all others is a recipe for disaster unless you’ve got a very large audience looking for that one specialized reason to play.

Nick.7259:

I don’t really have a population or scoring solution but I want to point out that many of the mechanics in WvW and GW2 are working towards clustering of player on one “winning” server.

EotM lessened the strongest reason to join a lesser populated server.

(Then that EotM are more rewarding that normal WvW is a bad joke.)

Leagues and seasons in WvW is fun but suddenly the winning server got better personal loot for their members (just not show off items) and thus raising the temptation to switch server.

Now we have Megaservers so serverloyalty doesn’t exist anywhere else than in WvW.

I used to be on a mid populated server and see myself as a casual WvWer. I always thought it was a target rich environment and had fun even if the were having the lowest score. But with all these changes I too have moved to a WvW-winning server to get a share of the richer rewards.

About scoring and rewards I do feel there should be more rewarding for those building, sieging, repairing, defending and scouting as well as those guarding dolyaks to towers and keeps.

Sadly the biggest personal rewards is gotten from karma trains where you just hit the doors of the next Tower/keep and never defend anything hoping the other teams caps at the same pace you do. Or join those similar trains in EotM. It really shouldn’t be that way.

I am for loyalty bonuses. I am for handicap systems. Heck – if color is given out depending on the rank of the server – why not give the lower ranked server a better starting position? Make the outmanned buff really mean something? Maybe have an outscoring buff? And make the rewards in a tournament more about my personal contribution to my server instead of me belonging to the “right” server (is enough if gold/silver/bronze difference is about bragging rights like finishers or something).

Ok and what if that small group attacks the point of the large group… The blob come and kill them ….
Its not only the defence…
Give points to small groups ok i’m agree but this is only for the defence of a point. How small group should conquer points of the large groups?
Make [Outnumbered] boosting the stats of small groups to have more equal fights against zergs maybe…
There is another problem in this case.
1 man with [Outnumbered] vs 1 roamer of the opposite team…
If the buff boost is significant the romer is instantly dead…
Its very complex.
Im agree about EotM go to the train and hope that you don’t met another zerg…. Sadly its only for grind.

Here some thoughts of mine:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Scoring-Discussion/page/7#post4490117

To honestly fix the player imbalance, there are only five things that can be done.

1- Forcefully relocate guilds to low pop servers, even if only for the season tournament (not recommended)

2- Stop ALL transfers and new accounts to the tier 1 and 2 servers for 6 months, unless they move down a tier. I.E. Change them from very high to blocked.

3- Offer big incentives/rewards to those who move down at least 2-3 tiers. The lower the tier, the bigger the reward/incentive. And allow free transfers if they transfer down.

4- Merge the European and American servers. The coverage on both are during the downtimes of the other. Mix them so that the top server is paired with the bottom server of the other. The Asian countries tend to fill in the rest of the time zones.

This doesn’t even have to be permanent, but could be used as an alliance/meta-server type thing. this would result in servers constantly moving up and down the tiers, creating different matchups each week, making the WvW play more fun, and would eventually result in more players in the lower tiers.

5- Use most of the PvE map (excluding, Dry top, and Southsun) Modify it and use existing stuctures as Keeps, Towers, Camps, Objectives. Each Server would have one Keep to begin from, and these would change each week.
This would allow all of the servers to play against each other. Map population limits would remain in force, but now you could have actual guilds fighting rather then blobs.
It would allow for massive Havoc and solo opportunities everywhere, reduce queues, and with almost 23 maps (borderlands) to choose from, it would really open up the possibilities.
Cities could either be safe zones, or have safe zones(guild halls) and fighting in the various sections.
All you would have to do is, remove most of the Waypoints, modify towers and fortified camps to make them full towers. Places like claypool and Beetledun could be made into keeps. You could keep the portals or remove them.

My solution:

One set of WvW map to rule them all.
How?

Make 3 mini mega servers of Red, Blue and Green side. There are currently 24 servers if I am not mistaken, when season begins, server 1-8 will be alliances. 9-16 will be allinaces, 17-24 will be alliances. when they play they will be playing on the same map, working to build towards the same goal.

How to match up the servers, the matching system will be according to time zone, distributing all the players, so that all the time there are players on the WvW map.

points wise you have Gold Silver Bronze.

Server point wise, will be calculated by the presence of how many players from each server doing how many stuffs in helping out to win in WvW. etc.

could work i think.

They could make shards that only count the score if the numbers are near even.

For example:

• EB – 70 player limit. Counts score if each side has at least 40 players.
• Borderlands 1 – Will be created when EB is full – Leading server will have the citadel – 50 player limit – Counts score if at least 30 player active.
• Borderlands 2 – Will be created when Border 1 is full – Second leading server will have the citadel – 50 player limit – Counts score if at least 30 player active.
• etc…

Blackgate needs more people.

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?

You guys were willing to alienate your entire playerbase with ascended grind, I don’t see a problem compromising for the benefit of population balance. I’d have to say ‘who cares’ just fix the balance lol.

This is my solution. Not server merges, but Teaming. My idea is harder to implement for Anet, because it would require a physical changeover of server location 2x a day.

We have 26 North American and 26 European Servers. Someone mentioned bringing that number down to 20, Maybe that is necessary, maybe its not.That would depend on predicted competitiveness.

There are 3 things to consider when making a successful solution:

1: Solving Coverage wars. No matter what server you are on, you can agree that the biggest issue with this game is that if a server has a lower population during X time, that will be taken advantage of. Most servers believe that “If only we had people in X time, we would be competitive”.

2: Not turning this game into Blob Wars for lower tier servers. People on lower tier servers are there for a reason, and the reason is that they DO NOT WANT TO BE PART OF QUED MAP KARMA BLOBS. The reason is not a skill issue as those who are in T1 and T2 believe, it is often though that their computers cannot handle 200 people going at it OR that they simply do not enjoy that style of game play. Any solution has to take this into account.

3: Server identity. Any Solution should, for the great majority of the servers, encompass allowing us to fight for our server. Yes I agree that in some cases that may be untenable.

So, My Solution is Server Teaming . That has been discussed here, however I would like to do it differently. Instead of teaming up NA Servers to fight other NA servers, Team NA Servers with EU servers based upon known coverage gaps. These gaps have been recorded by Mos Millenium and other sites. “Just” ( this word always encompases a ton of work that the guy saying it doesn’t think or know about) Team up a NA server with the EU server that has somewhat the same population and coverage situation.

To me the problem with this idea would be the lag for each side if the server placement for the maps were static. EU would hate life with a server in Texas. NA would hate life with a server in Madrid.

The answer to this would be some sort of changeover period. Hopefully, since information on server status could be sent live from one server set to the other, very brief. People would need to be kicked from maps, but you guys dont seem to have a problem doing that to hot fix the flight path of ambient mosquitos, and we have gotten used to build “Dangits” so Im pretty sure we can work with this too. A couple minutes to change over the server placement during say 3:30AM and 3:30PM EST wouldn’t kill us.

These teams could be permanent or they could be temporary based upon changes in population on each server, changes in how each server competes, etc.

Most importantly, each server would get a strong NA and a strong EU presence. This would change coverage wars in the lower tiers. Perhaps the upper tiers just don’t get teamed at all. Fly on Alone Little Blackgate! Be Free Seafarers Rest!

This allows 40+ servers to keep their identity, and for those in “silver and bronze” Get their fondest wish: Someone to fight in that G-d kitten time period when we arent awake or are at work.

This type of move would increase competitiveness on all servers. And, if made a weekly change, can be worked on until its done right.

This move also stops you from destroying communities by sending down what lower tiers perceive as “Arrogant SOBs” or pushing up what higher tiers perceive as “Skill-less Noobs”. None of us. NONE. OF. US. Want that drama.

^^^^^^^^
Please do this great idea

The problem with time limitation is some in EU works evening and then play at night when they come home from work, should they then not be allowed to play?

If you lower so servers and most important players get no reward if the building have no upgraded and no defense that would in it self fix it.

Like your server have 10player online, then those 10 decide we will defend Crag top and north Camp nothing else, so only way for the enemy to get points is to attack Crag top / north camp and that will then give the 10guys points for defending it.

hummm hummmm, let me imagine servers being merged by map location for a few seconds….

yak slappers + Borlis + north. shiverpeaks = Shiverpeaks Mountains, but thats 2 big ones with a small server think would not work :|

Without doing a forced repopulation of all the servers I don’t see them being able to do anything that’s going to correct this issue. People want to win so they go to the top servers that are winning. That’s just human nature. BG wins because they as a server have decided that wvw is important to them. On the other hand SoR does not win wvw because the vast majority of the server doesn’t care about it. So you have very few of us out there playing in that game mode. When a wvw player is looking at servers to move to guess which one they are going to sign up for? Hint: It’s not SoR.

munkiman.3068:

Jareth.9065:

I have no desire to play in top tier servers either. For me it’s fine to play in mid tier. I cant stand that in plenty of cases all day on the map have 5 – 8 ppl from my server…. and that’s not a joke.

Tell me what is your vision of the problem.

The low numbers in WvW means the mode is stale, unrewarding and encourages certain tactics to be the most effective (i.e. blobbing round robin style). Until they address those issues, the mode will continue to lose players. You have lower participation in the top tiers too.

They should create some way to deal with hacking/cheating.
They should make defense equally as rewarding as offense.
They should remove PPT, in place of capture, defense and player deaths points.
They should cripple the downed state (lower health significantly).
They should make AoE siege scale, along with NPC’s during defense events against outnumbered. (determined buff)
They should force neutral states to objectives if not refreshed.

If they address those, you’d see tactics change, you’d have more interesting battles, more even match-ups, people would spread around more and not blob v blob all day long. You’d see servers winning not based mostly on participation, but on skill and strategy.

^^This. Every one of those things needs addressing. A major one would is making WvW more rewarding. Especially for someone scouting a keep, or defending your corner in EB for example. Things I do because it’s needed, but don’t get kittene for compared to running with a group. And also, as stated by someone in another thread, change the uplevel system for WvW. Like if you’re an uplevel, you use your pvp set. Or something along those lines. Making it so if you see an uplevel in your group, you don’t look at them as a detriment to the team. Which they are. That’s not good for WvW or anyone except the other team

Merging servers isn’t a good idea, and all the reasons have been stated, so I won’t repeat. I could see a battle-group in some form working.

I feel the pain of all you in servers where maybe 10-15 will be on all day across all 4 maps(and maybe 3 of them on TS), and at night for maybe 3-4 hrs there will be a nice showing, depending on the day of the week. We kick kitten during those 3-4 hours, but then we’re back to under 100 ppt till the next night.

1. Rewards need to be addressed first. There just isn’t any gold to be made in doing WvW. People go broke and cant afford gear, siege, food, or utility buffs. It also takes much longer to craft your ascended items than PVE does. This is a game mode in which every little bit counts but it takes years (exaggeration(slightly)) to craft yourself a set. Rewards need to be increased, drastically.

2. EotM did a fair job of getting k-trains off of the WvW maps. Another map needs to be introduced for the solo roamers. That will take care of those that like to play on low population servers for the most part.

3. Up levels are fine in EotM but level 80 prerequisite should be in place for regular WvW.

4. A GvG queue needs to be placed in the LFG menu that just dumps that guild into Obsidian Sanctum, automatically.

The problem with smaller server caps is that guilds that just want to GvG will cap out the maps and then kitten around not doing anything for their server..

To the original post on the first page…

Jim Hunter.6821:

I like this idea too, make the limit of how many can be on map MUCH lower, something obscenely lower like fifty! I like it – I vote yes!

How about have a dynamic cap?
You have servers A, B and C, which ever has the smallest number of players on that map, that number is set as cap.

Lets imagine in the Eternal Battleground the servers have the following numbers:

A: 75
B: 42
C: 50

The cap limit would be set to 42, that means server C and server A cannot get any more people in unless more people come in server B, even if people from server A and C started leaving the map, it wouldn’t let anyone in unless they went below 42, because that would be the cap set by the server with the lowest presence on that map.
And because the system would work dynamically it would always keep the numbers close since you have people coming and going constantly.

Now you must be thinking there must be room in there to play with that system, but that would be pretty much impossible.
You’re probably imagining if you can prevent people from server A to get in a map after they cap everything, then server B and C can’t go in to retake it.
Not only this can be easily fixed by always having a minimum of lets say 10, but even if you could somehow tell everyone on server A not to get in that WvW map (which is impossible, but even if you could) a lot of people simply wouldn’t listen and go regardless, so any idea of somehow controlling it this way is pretty impossible.

I’d really like to have this dynamic cap implemented, we’d keep the huge battles when opposing servers have the numbers for it and at the same time prevent some massive outnumbering that I see everyday and everyone has been complaining about since always.

Dean Calaway.9718:

To the original post on the first page…

Jim Hunter.6821:

I like this idea too, make the limit of how many can be on map MUCH lower, something obscenely lower like fifty! I like it – I vote yes!

How about have a dynamic cap?
You have servers A, B and C, which ever has the smallest number of players on that map, that number is set as cap.

Lets imagine in the Eternal Battleground the servers have the following numbers:

A: 75
B: 42
C: 50
(…)

so what if a BL is left w/o any player?

And then you will need to kick players, if 3 leave server b then 3have to be kicked from c and a, no Think that is a good idea.

Still think the solution is to give points/exp for battles not capping undefended places, that goes most defiantly for the new map, now its a zerg capping and getting karma and kitten for doing nothing, lower so they get 0karma 0 exp if its not defended.

Asglarek.8976:

The answer is rather simple…World Alliances aka Battle Groups. Take the top 3 populated servers and divide the rest equally among the 3.

Details to follow.

I like that idea. Or make transfers free to nonT1 servers. Many servers were great at wvw until half the guilds left to cherrypick onto t1 servers.

Aeolus.3615:

so what if a BL is left w/o any player?

Refer to my original post.

Dean Calaway.9718:

(…)Now you must be thinking there must be room in there to play with that system (…) this can be easily fixed by always having a minimum of lets say 10(…)

I really think this could work and I’ve love to see a four week tournament with this in place, just to give it a good try.

It would suddenly be about who’s the best organize since numbers would be pretty much the same on either of the three sides.

I don’t think this can be fixed without completely reworking the transfers and world system. People who want to play wvw will want to be on a winning team. That means there will probably always be a few tier one teams playing each other over and over.

Nanyetah Elohi.4852:

I don’t think this can be fixed without completely reworking the transfers and world system. People who want to play wvw will want to be on a winning team. That means there will probably always be a few tier one teams playing each other over and over.

People who want to play on a winning team is better off transferring to a low tier server as any significant population changes can have a larger effect on wins and losses. Just take ET as an example.

People transfer to T1 for more people to play with, not more wins

I’m on the same server since Beta and am really attached to it. Now that the Metaservers are here, it might be time for a complete rework of the server system for WvW too though.

Maybe something similar to the way ESO does it. (Although I have no idea about ESO matchups in detail honestly) Maybe like this: People who want to partake in WvW join a game, as soon as that “game” or “Wvw server” is full, no one can join anymore. You’re stuck with that team for let’s say one season. After the season you can signup for whatever “WvWServer” you like again. There might be need for a guild system of some sort. Maybe guilds should be able to open up “WvW servers” at the start of a season with a certain number of “slots”. I don’t know – I guess everything’s better than now.

Gw2 is a nice game, but WvW starts to really suck. There’s a lot of potential but without somewhat balanced matchups it’s just no fun anymore – and I really don’t care about losing or winning, all I care for are interesting fights and matchups. Right now WvW unfortunately starts to get very, very boring – even for a fanboy like me.

My question is how do you satisfy those that wish to zerg, those that wish to be a part of smaller forces, and those that wish to roam solo all at once?

How do you allow equal forces on a map in order to balance it but prevent one force from gathering and overwhelming another one that is smaller because its broken up to have scouts all over to warn in case of a feint attack?

You may have a player balance cap implemented across all of wvw or per map or what have you but in the end you still have players that are just exploring for map completion, players crafting, sitting on the TP, vendoring, Mystic forging, completing Jumping Puzzles.

So you may have balanced numbers but will it matter if they are all busy doing other things?

Instead of merging servers and potentially ruining their unity and/or identities, you could take low pop servers and simply make them WvW allies.

For instance, ET, DR, & FC would all be Red team together and zone in at the same spawn. Then green and blue teams could potentially be composed of either one or two servers each depending on the populations of the intended servers.

I realize that this would complicate match making, but it solves the problem of destroying established server pride. Instead of losing their identity, a server could begrudgingly accept an alliance with an old enemy for the sake of beating a greater foe.

Why don’t we just embrace the imbalance

It seems apparent that the complaints of population imbalance are radically different based on the tier of the individual. This leads me to believe that a blanket solution cannot be achieved that will address everyone’s concerns.

My suggestion is therefore to address different tiers differently. Lower tier servers for example have no que at all. Most of the time each server holds its own borderland and battles it out in eb. This means that 2 of the 4 maps is not utilized. Eb fluctuates depending on the stronger server but generally battles occur around and for sm. small zergs run around capturing each other’s towers etc. it seems to me that wvw with these smaller populations should be designed differently. You could potentially have a single map rather than 4 that is designed to be more rewarding to the roamer population.

This is how I imagine it:
Bronze tiers:
Single map, larger than eb with the same general design of eb except that instead of sm in the middle you can introduce a city that has multiple capture points. This map would reward roaming and small group tactical play
Silver tiers:
This is harder to figure out. Generally silver tiers can reach ques on their own borderlands and eb. I think the trick here might be to get rid of eb altogether and have a central point (again a city design would be interesting) connect the 3 borderlands. This would funnel forces through this point and create opportunities for small group skirmishes but still allow a Zerg to push through and attempt to conquer other servers borderlands
Gold tier:
This tier should remain generally the same as the current wvw map as it is being used as designed. Some changes I would introduce would include providing some open capture points to reward open field battles

That’s about it. Any suggestions or comments are appreciated.
As always if Anet decides to use these ideas I expect a juggernaut and a predator in my mailbox

Nanyetah Elohi.4852:

I don’t think this can be fixed without completely reworking the transfers and world system. People who want to play wvw will want to be on a winning team. That means there will probably always be a few tier one teams playing each other over and over.

I’ve brought up the idea of making separate groups of servers to serve different playstyles, though originally that was just to make Gold/Silver/Bronze different.

A consolidation of what I have in mind now would be something like the following:

General: All the below groups are new servers. The existing world sets will stay in ‘maintenance mode’ for 6 months while guilds decide and move. One discounted (1/3 cost) transfer to everyone who logged into WvW (not EotM) within two months of the rollout. Also, only siege is allowed to take out walls and doors (balanced by having the ballista take out doors, from a distance).

For EU’s language-based servers, I’m up for suggestions, since I’ve not had experience there. EU could have 9 servers in Groups 2/3 to allow for that, while NA can live with 6 in those.

Group 1: Inactives / New Players / Returning Players. 3 Servers. No cap, no Glicko, constantly rotated in color each week, not in Tournament. All ‘inactive to WvW’ accounts (not entered a BL/EB/OS for three months) will be re-assigned here on a regular basis, with a discounted transfer out available. All new accounts go to one of these servers automatically (choosing is no longer an option), with one free transfer available after one month (hopefully by then the player has one L80, and roamed around a bit). Players may voluntarily transfer to one of these for 400 Gems, and transfer between them for 400 Gems each week without penalty. This setup could easily double for GvG matches as well.

Optional – A second set of ‘Group 1’ servers, using PvP characters instead of PvE. These will not be part of EotM though.

Group 2: Normal. 6/9 servers, WvW as you see it today, is part of Tournament, and are part of the Glicko ladder (can move in and out of Group 3 ranking, below).

Group 3: Hardcore. 6/9 servers, part of Glicko ladder and Tournament. These high-ranked servers are focused around scoring. PvE-type rewards are reduced here (amounts debatable, but should be less – could be offset by raising XP/WXP a bit). Bloodlust removed if appropriate (depends on scoring changes). Remove all Ambient and Yellow/Red creatures that are unrelated to scoring (partially for changes in strategy, partially for optimizing server load). Maps do not upscale (optional).

Rodrigo.1486:

Why don’t we just embrace the imbalance

It would be easier to embrace the imbalance if the game didn’t keep rewarding the imbalance by giving advantages and better rewards to the winner. “You get to show up and die so the other team can slay you like NPCs and get more loot bags and rewards than you do,” isn’t exactly a pitch that’s going to get most people to turn up every week.

And it happened again. A friend of mine that has been on piken square for ages, even though he won silver tournement got bored. He thought I want to go to t1 for more fun fights. So he looked at the scores. Guess wich server he chose?

Seafarer’s rest.

It’s getting to the point, that even the most competitive commanders on the server fighting SFR are giving up, and when that happens, everything falls into destruction. Time and time again, all servers loose people because the wvw inbalance and other problems aren’t fixed, But once server, gets almost 1 person back for every person they loose: Seafarer’s rest. This has to stop.

Even if you magically bring the most exiting wvw overhaul (not balance but just map overhaul) in years, it will every wvw player back, and guess where 70% of the accounts will be? Seafarer’s rest. All of them will be on the winning server. And they will snowball the other servers into even more bandwagoning to sfr.

This post is not a vendetta against SFR. It’s a warning that endless snowballing to winning server without anything different to come in the near future is a dangerouns precedent for the competitive spirit of players, servers and community.

Therefore I hope sincerely Anet goes true with a ‘remove servers, insert Alliances’ system. It will be very hard to pull of like anything. But fights have to be balanced. And the way SFR is absorbing all bored wvw players is just not the way to go.

If you don’t believe me. Pull up your archieves Anet of top 50 EU players of the Achievement ladder. A year ago or so. You will see a few seaferer’s rest, but not something that will blow you away. The ap farmers existed back then, but they had piece with: ap farming. They didn’t need wvw wins back then to feel good. Now People like Evil.xxxx have like every permanent ap they can get except: the superior grindy wvw ones. Guess twice why he transferred servers? Guess twice why there are 10+ sfr in the top 50 EU ladder ap farmers now?

And no this isn’t critic on ap farmer, it’s more an example of why one group of players is snowballing to sfr, just like a lot of others are as well (casual players).

Put a stop to it Anet, i don’t care at this point how. EU doesnt have the NA ‘t1 trinity luxury’ (3 relative strong server communities that somehow keep rebalancing each other, with different fights, in different times).

Berk.8561:

Rodrigo.1486:

Why don’t we just embrace the imbalance

It would be easier to embrace the imbalance if the game didn’t keep rewarding the imbalance by giving advantages and better rewards to the winner. “You get to show up and die so the other team can slay you like NPCs and get more loot bags and rewards than you do,” isn’t exactly a pitch that’s going to get most people to turn up every week.

I am looking at the map size as the imbalance. A map with 5 subsections meant to be played by 400 people per side is not as rewarding when in reality there are only 40 people per side. That is why I think the answer is variable maps:
Gold tier- remains as is generally
Silver tier- 1 map with 2 subsections
Bronze tier- 1 map without subsections

The imbalance within the tiers will always remain. I understand that it is no fun getting kicked around week after week by a server that simply has more people. But this is the reason why it is a 3 pronged fight. Lower population servers need to come together to defeat their bigger foe.

I am on SFR and I want that you get Points for Active playing not as it is now, been here from nov 2012 so been with on its up and downs.

And as I wrote many times before I think the only way to go is that the reward for the server and players are set so you get nothing on a building that have no upgraded and no defense, something like 0-40% upgraded and 0-60% defends on players.

With then do if you have a weak night team they can all go to 1 building and defend that.

Ps remove tick points totally.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

And it happened again. A friend of mine that has been on piken square for ages, even though he won silver tournement got bored. He thought I want to go to t1 for more fun fights. So he looked at the scores. Guess wich server he chose?

Seafarer’s rest.(…)

No surprise there, but it’s not like they are any good.
This week I destroyed an Ele and a War 1v1, that Warrior with 2 legendaries, always love those, even teased her in a whisper but no reply.
Having that said SFR will ALWAYS run away from 1v1, that warrior I talked about, had to chase her half way across the map.

How often do I see one of them alone heading my way then quickly turn back and run away only till they find some mates to turn to me again and then “fight like heros”?

Last night someone was complaining on /m about an SFR Engi jumping all happy on one of us after a 6v1, how pathetic can they be?

They can gloat about “winning” all I have to say is, really? The way they outnumber everyone else that’s not difficult. Guess they’re the kind to chant victory if they beat a toddler or an elderly person…

The problem with wvw, is the top players/guilds will always migrate to be together. That’s why you have such a collection of talent at the top. I’ve played on 2 different servers, and I can tell you that all our top guilds on both those servers left for more popular servers. We weren’t even doing bad, we were tier 2 on one those. But ppl always want to be on the winning side.

Ayrilana.1396:

No. Reducing map population cap is not the way to go.

A simple solution to wvw balance population, close 4/5 lowest tier server so players on those servers will go to medium rank servers.

Solstace.2514:

The problem with wvw, is the top players/guilds will always migrate to be together. That’s why you have such a collection of talent at the top. I’ve played on 2 different servers, and I can tell you that all our top guilds on both those servers left for more popular servers. We weren’t even doing bad, we were tier 2 on one those. But ppl always want to be on the winning side.

Yep, been that way since launch. People formed alliances even before the game came out and stayed up all night so they could get in when it went live just to plan on all getting on the same server. Only way to get population balance is to force it.

swellercross.3974:

Ayrilana.1396:

No. Reducing map population cap is not the way to go.

A simple solution to wvw balance population, close 4/5 lowest tier server so players on those servers will go to medium rank servers.

At this point you’d need to close more than 4/5 servers. We’re dead even in T4 NA.

Solstace.2514:

The problem with wvw, is the top players/guilds will always migrate to be together. That’s why you have such a collection of talent at the top. I’ve played on 2 different servers, and I can tell you that all our top guilds on both those servers left for more popular servers. We weren’t even doing bad, we were tier 2 on one those. But ppl always want to be on the winning side.

It’s more complicated than that. ArenaNet’s design for WvW currently (unintentionally) pushes players into T1 servers. This happens for a variety of reasons.

• Moving to the first place server means easy wins. WvW is all about numbers and on the 1st place server, for a 1800 gem price you can buy wins.
• WvW guilds need players if they want to accomplish anything. Players leave over time and the best way to get more is to be on a stacked server with a huge pool of recruitable players. The longer a server is T1, the more stacked it becomes.
• T1 servers are mostly stable. It’s a risk to transfer to lower tier servers because they rise and fall. If another server out-recruits them, morale can get low and players will want to leave. On T1 servers players transfer to you and staying there means you are unlikely to drop to lower tiers with problems less common in kitten
• servers have reliable coverage, especially for players from non NA time zones. Some people like PvDoor but most players want to fight other players. If you are an OCX or EU player on an NA server, in lower tiers it’s common to have little to no competition making the format stale. You will find it hard to recruit players and your raids can become boring. On a T1 server you have allies to work with and opposing servers have guilds to fight against. If you upgrade structures, you likely have commanders and guilds that will defend them.
• Lower tier servers will passively lose players. Some become canablised by T1 servers, others lose players due to normal MMO attrition. T1 servers have normal MMO attrition but being T1 alone self-advertises and attracts active players. It becomes easier to replace lost guild members and fill time slots. Lower tier servers usually need to actively recruit if they want anyone to choose them.
• Guilds that want to fight can feel free to do so on T1 servers, they have allies worrying about PPT. On lower tier servers, sometimes the only group with the numbers to take objectives are the fight guild/commander at that time. This can pressure them into boring PvDoor and karma training to please their allies on the server or keep the server in it’s current tier without dropping due to low PPT.

ArenaNet have created a PvP format which is constantly hurting lower tier servers and pushing players into transferring to T1. There are so many reasons players move to T1 servers (most of them aren’t about winning) and as the game ages, the situation for lower tier servers becomes increasingly worse. I really hope something is done about the population imbalance, it’s the achilles heel of WvW’s current design and it’s the key to solving many of WvW’s biggest problems. Scoring periods will only mask the problem (it doesn’t provide opponents for bored OCX players in lower tiers, it doesn’t provide allies for outmanned players against stacked coverage, it just hides the PPT impacts of these bigger problems).

A suggestion for the developers at Arena Net:
There has been a lot of static gameplay with world vs world vs world due to low player activity within world vs world vs world on certain servers that are already full of players. If the developers would see fit to change the wvw structure to that of a system more similar to the mega-server where players were grouped based on their guilds and friends list but also somewhat restricted based on rank and time spent in wvw during the previous week, the top tiers would be more evenly matched in terms of manpower and the pvp/pve players would be in a position where their lack of contribution to wvw would not necessarily deficit other players that do play wvw on their servers. In this way, the players that want to play wvw would be grouped with other like-minded players that also want to play wvw and the ones that don’t want to wvw won’t be negatively impacted.
If such a structure is implemented certain measures must be in place that allow players to transfer to lower tier servers (for free) in order to be with their friends that are not able to join them on the higher tier servers. In this way the freedom of choice is preserved and the greater good is maintained. There should also be a choice presented when one qualifies for a higher tier server. A choice of the 3 servers in the next tier or to stay on the current server (to take place the next week of wvw).
The server progression might still play in effect based on the amount of player activity on servers at times of winning or losing. If a server wins without much change in player participation in wvw they might increase in rank (based upon the current wvw ranking system but with some modifications to account for player activity). In this way a server might still rally and rise to the top of the ranks to become the champions despite their experience and/or time spent in the wvw game mode.
World rank might also be reset, which may result in an unpleasant reaction at first, but may also bring more players into wvw. Veterans would once again have a sense of progression in wvw and players new to wvw might feel like they have a chance to compete with the players that have already invested time into the game mode. This might be a partial reset based on rank groupings (such as bronze, silver, gold, platinum, etc), in order to make sure those who have spent their due time increasing their world rank do not lose their progress in vain for a change that might not impact them in much of a positive manner.
Following these suggestions, the sense of community that has been built among servers might be upset for a time, but in a matter of months a new order would set in and new communities would form, providing a more secure and stable environment for all involved.
This idea was inspired by the recent change in the population and effort among the citizens of Sea of Sorrows and as a result the mass exodus from that server by the players that don’t want to stay aboard a sinking ship (no one can blame them, who wants to lose for reasons out of their control?).
I appreciate all those who read this post and encourage response and rebuttle. this post is meant as food for thought to get people (and Anet staff) to change their way of thinking regarding wvw and make a difference that positively impacts the player base of GW2.
Thank you for reading,
WOOPS

nirvana.8245:

The problem is your posting “a solution” to something that the majority of players and Anet do not think is “a problem that needs to be resolved”.

a.k.a
Bill: "Hey Frank, you remember that time we helped develop and implement WvW? "
Frank: “WTF is WvW?”

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

My own thoughts on this are none of the above. I believe before going to those drastic measures try other options first.

• Have keep/tower/camp lords scale with x amount of people attacking. Just like in pve
  This would give the lower pop servers more time to cap other objects while the bigger
  zerg is busy.
• The outnumbered buff
  This should give better battle stats like the bloodlust. + healing,vitality, power, etc.
  This would give the lower server pops a better chance.
• New BL maps
  Very much like the Eotm, have red be a barren land with turrets that automatically
  fire.
  Green with sentry turrets
  Blue with slowed movement

The other major problem is the ranking system. I would try possibly
1-6, 7-12, 13-18, 19-24
instead of the current system of
1-6, 7-15, and 16-24
there is a very big population imbalance between 7 and 15 and I’m sure between 16 and 24.

I also think that once a tower/keep is FULLY upgraded then if any damage is done to it and there is supply the workers should automatically repair just like in eotm.

1. Rewards:
WvW needs better rewards as often told ITT already. People go broke in it. One step would be to remove / drastically decrease the gold-cost of upgrades, increasing / implementing rewards for defense and cap-events.
Scouting could also made being rewarding:
offer rewards for speaking to the upgrade-npc in towers/keeps/camps with a 30min cd. If you offer 2.5 silver, that would be 17.5 silver each 30min that a scout could collect just from their EB corner or 55 silver for whole EB if a server happens to be dominant. Suddenly you have greedy scouts / camp-flippers running all over the place. And since that would be roughly on par with the time spent in dungeons, you see more PvE’s sticking their nose into WvW, therefore converting more server-pop into wvw-pop. Teaching them how to report sightings is a easy step from then on. Even out-manned and outblobbed servers suddenly have a reason to harras aggressively regardless then.
And defending your stuff instead of running a karma-train becomes most viable, else you loose structures you could collect money from, lol

2. Scoring:
So many good ideas in this thread, pick one.

3. GvG’s:
Guilds are able to research a new permanent upgrade.
It’s called “call to arms”.
Once unlocked, a new permission can be given to guild-ranks (most probably leaders / officers).
This permission allows players to send a “call to arms” invitation to other players of other guilds, who inherit the same permission in their respective guild.
If a “call to arms” is declined 2 times in a row, the invited player can not be invited for the next hour (to avoid spam-abuse).
If it gets accepted, all representing players of both guilds get a invitation to join a instanced copy of the obsidian refugium arena (or better, a custom designed map).

Both guilds will be enemies in that map towards each other, regardless on which server they play on, and the instance stays open for 1h or until all players have left it (auto-kick after 5min afk-time for players).

What you do in there is completely up to you. Be it organized GvG’s or just a RolePlay-orgy, I don’t care.

I’m on SFR from the start, and trust we never want that, not even for minute, not even when SFR was middle population server and we had hard time fighting VIZ mindless blob, day and night. When we SFR become EU #1 server we were still middle population server and when Anet open transfer to us, we were literally in shock.
So don’t blame SFR for Anet mistakes.
SFR become what is now, because Anets endless greediness.
Anet create this problem, all this is Anet fault, they choose to ignore WvW for 2 long years.
I hope i’m wrong, coz i love WvW, but i don’t think this can be fix, not without some very drastic measures.
We’ll live to see, i hope.

wvw / pvp is y i play this game … living story is lame

and i don’t play it much anymore my wvw is all ways empty .

so i just stopped playing :S

(Long rant, months in the making)
Suggested (3) WvW changes:
1.) Problem: Server Population differences/Stale Matchups (same 2-3 Enemy Servers)/Static Maps
I play for Kaineng so I’m not sure if these apply as much for the higher populated Servers; but unfortunately having to play the same Servers (apart from Tourneys) the same every match up is getting a little stale. Predictable enemy tactics, population fluxes, and well it’s starting to feel like a grind. Also having the same map repeated over three times is not helping (yes home has crafting merchants, but the 2 enemy borderlands have only the difference of war paint colour coverage as the changing factor….).
Solution: Imagine if the matchups were for 4 Servers not 3. Your own, a friendly world and 2 enemies. Have the 1st place and last go against 2nd and 2nd last. It would encourage World loyalty still as there would be more ‘friendlies’ (better for lower populated Servers) but wouldn’t discourage transfers if you found a ‘friendly’ other Server guild you like running with (so as to not destroy Anet’s business model). Obviously a 4th map would be needed, but instead of having 4 borderlands and an EB imagine 4 EB still maps: 3 keeps and a Stonemist on each. Where your home Server had the advantage towards Stonemist. (Or if not 2 EB maps and 2 Borderlands; 1 per team).
Possible Solution Problems:
Q-Multi-Server Capping who gets ownership?
A-Majority ownership I guess (similar to guild taking ownership mechanics); twist it with also if it’s your home Server make it possible to buy back your own objectives (like an upgrade) with obvious scaling costs if upgraded.
Q-Multi-Server Capping who gets points?
A-Again majority ownership (similar to guild taking ownership mechanics) gets the PPT; but maybe give the minority Server a Static Point for the objective (like sentry capping).
Q-Weekly Points changed?
A-Yes, with the idea of your Server is your own world score plus a fraction (say 1/2) of your ‘friendly’ Server. Why? If you help defend your ‘friendly’ servers objectives shouldn’t you get some sort of credit other than the defend event itself? Also to encourage ‘friendly’ Servers from allowing caps to quick cap after for themselves for PPT.
Q-(Anet) You expect us to make new maps on your whim?
A-Considering the fabulous maps I’ve seen elsewhere in the game, I’d leave it to you professionals; but if exhaustion, time constraints (plain laziness) gets the better of you……. contest it out! Best entries get random in game stuff! (Anet: Great I get to look at millions of Jpgs now…..)

2.) Problem: Mists? This doesn’t look like the rest of the Mists
I might be wrong but the WvW I read on the wiki is supposed to be in the Mists; exciting maps with areas like the Mad King Realm, the Underworld, and the Tomb of the Primeval Kings (yes throwback references). The maps just don’t feel….. that much different than a regular PvE map. It’s kinda disappointing. Also how empty they feel. Nice big open plains to frolic in, but in all honesty who uses them for other than running through or chasing that uplevel who got separated from the ‘zerg herd.’ Apart from going for map completion almost all my WvW ‘excitement’ happens within Longbow range of an objective; rough estimate is half the map is ‘frolicked’ through only.
Solution: (Adding on to the new map idea above)
WvW I imagine? City fighting! With streets similar to that of the corridors in the Mad King’s Realm or the little village attached to the bottom of the Red Keep in EB. Little ‘destroyable’ houses and street fights: where running through bring terror of rounding a corner and facing an army of golems, or a roadblock with several Ballista trigger-happy enemies. Destroyable house in the way? Take it down and carve a path behind them, or be sneaky and go on top of the house to hammer them from above! Enemies didn’t fall for the trap? Attacked from the rooftops? Vice-versa destroy that building and send those sneaky buggers tumbling down! (Side thought on destructible buildings: Events! That was the town pub in that building! Several angry/drunk norns show up! Or instead it was an Inquest lab and the contained ‘Lab Experiment’ is now uncontained!)
Of course don’t forget the end boss: some random nameless generic champ npc? I think not! Throwback some of our favourites from the Mists: Lich, Shiro, and Varesh come to mind but maybe do it with heroes: 16 heroes (4 maps x 4 heroes) and you’ve got a party! (Achievement Idea: Killing each Hero as their class, ie- Warrior taking Koss/Jora)
Possible Solution Problems:
Q-Stuck in re-made objects everywhere.
A-I’ve been caught stuck in many objects: rams, walls, and bridges come to mind. Not really sure on this one other than more waypoints, or possibly having the houses hollow inside with 1-2 doors.
Q-How to remake houses/destroyable Terrain.
A-Use the same model at the bridges in EOTM; maybe give Static Points (like sentries) for remaking your own houses back.
Q-Access to roofs?
A-Well, maybe have access to roofs only every few houses, say 3: 1 that’s exterior and 1 that’s interior with them being on opposite side of the rows perhaps.
3.) Dealing with Cheaters/Hackers and complainers of Previously Mentioned
Well this dead horse has been pretty well beaten (see many other posts if your oblivious). Looking for a Band-Aid fix then?
Solution: Imagine a new ability given to objective Leaders (specifically towers/keeps/stonemist). Call is ‘Structural Invulnerability’ (SI). Something along the lines of once an upgrade has been COMPLETED on the objective then the Leader gains SI which lasts until a wall or gate has been completely destroyed (I’ve never timed how long it takes to finish an upgrade, but this is more to help T2-3 sturctures from being sidestepped).
Q-This doesn’t fix all cheats/hacks.
A-Obviously not; this doesn’t however help remove some of them and make map colour changing still a longer progress (which most cheats/hacks try to circumnavigate).
Q- Anet: Why would we want to do this change?
A- Well the profit made from these cheats/hacks doesn’t go to you, and the honest players would are constantly seeing/hearing about this (and the lack of support) will only lose faith in it’s system: why give Anet money for a slight in-game advantage when a third-party can give a bigger in-game advantage with foreseeable consequences? Anet and your loyal customers are losing in this and only Anet can make the changes…..
Q- Anet: this isn’t the question I asked.
A- You are correct, it isn’t. Who keeps playing a game with obvious cheats/hacks? I think your own request to ‘why the decline/imbalance’ shows you part of the reason. I’m not saying only the winning Servers are the cheats/hacks but it’s ruining the game for the rest who don’t.
(If you’ve read this far thanks)
Signed,
-GW1&2 Player

Battlegroups would be an good solution on the short run. Eventually people will transfer to the “bigger battlegroup” So there should be some cap aswell per instance of for example eotm

Incrase the T6 mat drop rate from lootbags, decrase elsewhere (reward)
Introduce a wvw point system for guilds. Players make points for there guilds when represent and gain wxp. (Guild pride)
Every guild will be dish out by this scores at every reset. (Population balance and new enemys)
Players must select a guild. Depend on this they will play on that guilds server next week. On tournament guilds will stuck for the whole time.
Aliances should stay together if anet introduce them

Again, just merge some kitten servers.