Guild Wars 2

Night capping is an issue no matter how you look at it. The people saying just recruit more oceanic/eu players are wrong. There is a finite amount of people from those time zones and want to play with others during their prime time. So they naturally cluster together creating a few 24/7 servers. How is a #12 server going to convince them to move at this point? So telling people to recruit more Oceanic/EU isn’t a solution.

Others think we should just make points stop counting during a certain frame of time. The problem there is that the players playing during that time feel like their contributions are worthless. I can certainly understand that feeling but on the flip side keeping things as they are means that most of the US primetime players feel like their contributions are already worthless. So no solution there.

Then we have those that think ranking will fix it. Sorry to say that isn’t the case. Even if 3 night capping servers get matched together for a 2 week period, two of those worlds will lose. That means they will then be put against other servers, servers that don’t have a strong night crew. Waiting for ranking to sort it out still leaves some servers in a hopeless situation at some point and that is what we are trying to avoid.

The problem is that we need a system that doesn’t allow one realm to gain an insurmountable score because of them fighting against no one. The two ideas that I’ve come up with:

Make it so towers/keeps/forts/etc earn bonus points the longer they are held that are then awarded to the world that captures that point. It is like the bonus XP on mobs that haven’t been killed in a long time. Basically the idea is that when a world captures everything overnight they accrue the bonus XP. Once the towers/keeps/etc are retaken the point gap closes. Something in the order of 75% of the total value earned by that point is probably needed. So if a tower is captured at 3am and retaken at 3 pm it will accrue 120 pts, upon capture it will then award 90 points. There are some issues like when it should start getting bonus points, how much, etc. It might sound like devaluing points overnight but in reality it promotes taking what you can hold.

Another idea is completely change the scoring system. Piggyback off the event system and only award points based on taking objectives and defending objectives. So even if the entire map gets taken over night that world only gets the points for capping those objectives 1 time. Possibly make it so upgraded objectives are worth more points. You could also tack on players kills at 1 pt each. The problem here is tweaking the event threshold and disabling free transfers so griefers can’t go out to an enemy keep, spark a repel the invaders, then leave, or just do continual death runs. There is also a problem where this could promote players not attacking since they might just be giving the other realm points.

Other things like a weighted points system could also be used. The points could change value based on the population average of the 3 worlds at that time. The basic idea being that defended objectives should be worth more than undefended.

That’s just a few of my ideas and they are by no means perfect. You’re not going to please 100% of the players, but I think we can at least find a better system that allows both NA, EU, and Oceanic players to contribute without the run away scores that make it feel hopeless.

@Sanj Orto Doesn’t look like crying to me. Lots of constructive feedback from the OP, unlike your post.

Your night is not my night, ‘nuff said. I could complain that when you’re playing, that for me, that’s considered night capping with the logic you’re using right now. Just play the game when you can and not put your timezone into priority. Thankyou.

Daxramas.1940

Your night is not my night, ‘nuff said. I could complain that when you’re playing, that for me, that’s considered night capping with the logic you’re using right now. Just play the game when you can and not put your timezone into priority. Thankyou.

I’d say that night in a north american server is when it is night in a north american server. You’re making this more difficult than needed by proposing that there is a different night.

Kamos.2897:

Daxramas.1940

Your night is not my night, ‘nuff said. I could complain that when you’re playing, that for me, that’s considered night capping with the logic you’re using right now. Just play the game when you can and not put your timezone into priority. Thankyou.

I’d say that night in a north american server is when it is night in a north american server. You’re making this more difficult than needed by proposing that there is a different night.

As of right now there are NA and EU servers, these servers are pretty much global servers, i.e you’re not the only country on the server as they are catering to the majority of the world. Think of them as global servers rather then NA only.

No, sorry. I think of them as north american servers (as they are), and I’m not from the USA.

Kamos.2897:

No, sorry. I think of them as north american servers (as they are), and I’m not from the USA.

So you think it’d be appropriate for NA to have an advantage over the rest of the world playing on an NA hosted server?

I agree with OP
I’m so sick of all these Americans capping stuff while I sleep.

Daxramas.1940

So you think it’d be appropriate for NA to have an advantage over the rest of the world playing on an NA hosted server?

I think it would be appropriate for a NA game to be playable for NA gamers during reasonable NA hours.

I got this game to play WvW. I had no idea, though, that it would be required of me to play 24/7 to compensate for oceanic guilds strolling casually across the map and undoing everything we conquest, upgrade, etc.

But complaining about Oceanic players undoing what you’ve captured goes both ways. When You go to sleep I’ll be playing, when I go to sleep you’ll be undoing what I’ve done. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

I have found the sollution to nightcapping there are a few options:

#1. Get guilds / players from multiple time zone’s to your server.

#2. Move to servers who provide 24/7 defence.

#3. Let servers balance themselves, altough this can be problematic as you will always have people playing.

I transfered from a servers i played on since beta to a new server that provided 24/7 WvW.
I aint going to stay on a server and hope for the best, my commitment to GW2 will be longterm, its best to make a good decision now then to regret stuff later.

Kamos.2897:

Daxramas.1940

So you think it’d be appropriate for NA to have an advantage over the rest of the world playing on an NA hosted server?

I think it would be appropriate for a NA game to be playable for NA gamers during reasonable NA hours.

I got this game to play WvW. I had no idea, though, that it would be required of me to play 24/7 to compensate for oceanic guilds strolling casually across the map and undoing everything we conquest, upgrade, etc.

Oh yeah let me just switch to an Oceanic server. Do you even think?

Daxramas.1940

But complaining about Oceanic players undoing what you’ve captured goes both ways. When You go to sleep I’ll be playing, when I go to sleep you’ll be undoing what I’ve done. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Except the NA server you play in loses stuff during “prime time” because they suck. Mine loses stuff during the “night” because there is no one to defend while you attack. Congratulations.

Kamos.2897:

Daxramas.1940

But complaining about Oceanic players undoing what you’ve captured goes both ways. When You go to sleep I’ll be playing, when I go to sleep you’ll be undoing what I’ve done. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Except the NA server you play in loses stuff during “prime time” because they suck. Mine loses stuff during the “night” because there is no one to defend while you attack. Congratulations.

What I’m trying to get across is that, these servers, NA and EU, are not specifically for NA and EU. They’re are named NA and EU servers purely for the location of the servers to designate latency, the NA servers are hosted in NA but the server in Guild Wars 2 are global servers, i.e the server you’re in is catering to everyone on the planet that gets a better ping on the NA hosted server rather then the EU.

What ive done is moved away and stettled down on a 24/7 server where all time zone’s are present.
If you care that much about WvW its the only sollution at this point.

People might be undergoing mass migrations to those servers, nothing worse then losing 100% of the map when your server owns the place at prime time.

Kamos.2897:

Daxramas.1940

But complaining about Oceanic players undoing what you’ve captured goes both ways. When You go to sleep I’ll be playing, when I go to sleep you’ll be undoing what I’ve done. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Except the NA server you play in loses stuff during “prime time” because they suck. Mine loses stuff during the “night” because there is no one to defend while you attack. Congratulations.

The servers that “night cap” are full of alliances who saw that wuvwuv is a 24/7 event, and took measures to ensure they have active members at all times, IE oceanic and asian players. Your server didn’t and that’s that, once the match ups change servers will be more evenly matched. It’ll sort itself out.

All your base are belong to us. Deal with it

People are going to deal with it by quitting WvW.

By all means, make WvW hardcore 24/7 worldwide alliances like Eve Online and watch the playerbase top out at 500k max. Can you say niche game?

Or, investigate options for balancing off-peak capping like the Op has suggested.

I’ll take what’s behind door #2.

Thrumdi.9216:

People are going to deal with it by quitting WvW.

By all means, make WvW hardcore 24/7 worldwide alliances like Eve Online and watch the playerbase top out at 500k max. Can you say niche game?

Or, investigate options for balancing off-peak capping like the Op has suggested.

I’ll take what’s behind door #2.

I’ll take door #3 – server rankings and no kneejerk reactions because people can’t handle losing a single match.

As for people quitting WvW, they’ll do that when a better organised server kicks their tails, regardless of population.

Daxramas.1940

What I’m trying to get across is that, these servers, NA and EU, are not specifically for NA and EU. They’re are named NA and EU servers purely for the location of the servers to designate latency, the NA servers are hosted in NA but the server in Guild Wars 2 are global servers, i.e the server you’re in is catering to everyone on the planet that gets a better ping on the NA hosted server rather then the EU.

And what I’m trying to get across is that, while these really aren’t NA and EU servers intended for NA and EU players, perhaps they should be.

WvW could be run everyday from 5pm to 1am and use a “snapshot of the battlefield” made at the last second. Problem solved. No night capping, no “population vs. time” balancing issue. I am simply, honestly trying to understand the design decision, from the gameplay standpoint, that led Anet to decide that WvW would be a 24/7 battle. How does the game benefit, exactly?

Or they could stay the way they are, the game has been intended to be global servers for a very long time, don’t act like it’s new info. So you’d like the WvW to be closed off at a certain time, meaning anyone outside of the NA timezone would not be able to play WvW? yeah, nice logic there.

Daxramas.1940

So you’d like the WvW to be closed off at a certain time, meaning anyone outside of the NA timezone would not be able to play WvW? yeah, nice logic there.

Yes, that is precisely what I would like. If the game mechanics do not support “global, 24/7” games, then the game should not be open 24/7 to a global audience.

If this is a problem to the oceanic audience, then perhaps there should be a server to accommodate their timezone.

Except the game mechanics DO support 24/7 battles, just go talk to any of the top 4 US servers and ask them how much of an issue night capping really is.

What you would like is for the world to change for you. Anet have established a set rules of engagement that makes this GW2. The rest of us accept and play by those rules. Feel free to play spvp if this is not to your liking, or another game.

Alternatively feel free to fund any additional hardware and labour to Anet to implement your rule changes for a completely different game.

Kamos.2897:

Daxramas.1940

So you’d like the WvW to be closed off at a certain time, meaning anyone outside of the NA timezone would not be able to play WvW? yeah, nice logic there.

Yes, that is precisely what I would like. If the game mechanics do not support “global, 24/7” games, then the game should not be open 24/7 to a global audience.

If this is a problem to the oceanic audience, then perhaps there should be a server to accommodate their timezone.

That won’t happen, because it’s unnecessary. You understand how match ups work right? Each match up has a server far ahead of the other two, those servers will move on to face each other, while the rest will be matched up and form more balanced WvW. It’s going to work itself out, people are just acting like it’s the end of the world because it’s a week long match. It’s ending soon, tough it out.

The game mechanics ARE for 24/7 battles, you need to understand that it’s you that has a problem with the 24/7 WvW and that you should go to a server that has a larger player base outside of the US or harden up and wait till player come to your server. The server wasn’t made for just you, it’s for everyone.

Daxramas.1940:

The game mechanics ARE for 24/7 battles, you need to understand that it’s you that has a problem with the 24/7 WvW and that you should go to a server that has a larger player base outside of the US or harden up and wait till player come to your server. The server wasn’t made for just you, it’s for everyone.

The game wasn’t made for one side to have twice the population of the other side either. Leaving things the way they are and waiting for time and migration to fix the problem won’t help either. Nobody will want to move to low pop loser servers, as they will just constantly lose in wvw.

Tzash.5748:

Thrumdi.9216:

People are going to deal with it by quitting WvW.

By all means, make WvW hardcore 24/7 worldwide alliances like Eve Online and watch the playerbase top out at 500k max. Can you say niche game?

Or, investigate options for balancing off-peak capping like the Op has suggested.

I’ll take what’s behind door #2.

I’ll take door #3 – server rankings and no kneejerk reactions because people can’t handle losing a single match.

As for people quitting WvW, they’ll do that when a better organised server kicks their tails, regardless of population.

I’ve already addressed server rankings in the original post, but I will repeat myself. THEY DO NOT FIX THE PROBLEM. Eventually and more than likely often, servers will be matched against night capping servers, thus the problem is still there. The entire “wait and see” approach does not work in MMO’s. Players want to know that devs understand the problem and are working on it.

The whole point of this thread was to find a system that allows people to play 24/7 but does not favor capping things when there is zero opposition.

The overall health of this game depends on WvW being fun and competitive. Currently that isn’t the case. Complete domination isn’t fun for either side. People don’t quit or jump ship when they lose, they quit or jump ship when they get completely crushed. The ratio of servers getting completely crushed to having a competitive fun fight is way higher than it should be, thus the scoring system in place is not adequate.

So again I will say; we need to find a system that rewards all players no matter their time zone without allowing complete domination via the off hours.

I don’t have a dog in this fight, because I am on a well populated server with 24/7 presence. Like someone above me stated, “your nighttime isn’t my nighttime.” Which is absolutely true and should be considered when talking about possible solutions. Lock outs won’t work, making it impossible to capture keeps/towers might work, but I think the first thing they need to do is very simple — take server activity into account when matchmaking.

If they want to do further, they might even consider a scaling point system tied to active population on the server (note: NOT tied to how many people in the WvW zone). I am not sure if this is the way to go, and it probably isn’t, but there are alternatives to the lockouts that I keep seeing mentioned across these threads.

Kiviar.7063:

The game wasn’t made for one side to have twice the population of the other side either. Leaving things the way they are and waiting for time and migration to fix the problem won’t help either. Nobody will want to move to low pop loser servers, as they will just constantly lose in wvw.

Do you know why its WvWvW instead of just WvW? Its because if 1 side starts to dominate then the other 2 can work together to overcome it. So yes, the game WAS made in anticipation of one side dominating.

The problem we have right now is the lack of any coordination between the weaker 2 sides. Once they do start coordinating (or at least stop attacking each other) then things start to get a bit better. If you doubt me then look at what is happening with the ETvsSoSvsIoJ matchup.

Distaste.4801:

I’ve already addressed server rankings in the original post, but I will repeat myself. THEY DO NOT FIX THE PROBLEM. Eventually and more than likely often, servers will be matched against night capping servers, thus the problem is still there. The entire “wait and see” approach does not work in MMO’s. Players want to know that devs understand the problem and are working on it.

How do you know what impact server rankings will have? If you are basing your statements on previous MMOs then which ones are they? I don’t recall any that have had this type of mechanism other than maybe DAoC.

Tzash.5748

Except the game mechanics DO support 24/7 battles, just go talk to any of the top 4 US servers and ask them how much of an issue night capping really is.

It would be extraordinarily pointless to ask someone in a server that does not face a “time vs. population” distribution issue how bad night capping is.

OH! I get it. That was a disguised way of telling me to “suck it up”, wasn’t it? Oh, you! So smart!

Firefly.4165

What you would like is for the world to change for you.

While “changing the world” would be nice (for some hippie), I’d settle for this game having balanced server populations over time, or some in-game mechanism that allows for dynamic balancing of WvW matches. Surely it is not unreasonable to ask that 50 players play against about other 50 players?

But yeah, perhaps I should go “play something else” if the “rules of engagement that makes this GW2” consist of you playing PvE against the keep lord inside my WvW zone at my expense. Of course, as soon as you refund me.

Eathanskies.3817

Oh yeah let me just switch to an Oceanic server. Do you even think?

Yes, I do.

Eathanskies.3817

That won’t happen, because it’s unnecessary. You understand how match ups work right? Each match up has a server far ahead of the other two, those servers will move on to face each other, while the rest will be matched up and form more balanced WvW. It’s going to work itself out, people are just acting like it’s the end of the world because it’s a week long match. It’s ending soon, tough it out.

See? This is a reasonable response. I do not agree, but it is reasonable, unlike your first one.

Daxramas.1940

The game mechanics ARE for 24/7 battles, you need to understand that it’s you that has a problem with the 24/7 WvW and that you should go to a server that has a larger player base outside of the US or harden up and wait till player come to your server. The server wasn’t made for just you, it’s for everyone.

Daxramas.1940, I invite you to hit the “back” button in your browser and to take a look at the other people (who I assure you, are not my clones) reporting night capping as a ‘problem’.

I assure you that I have no personal problem with you or anyone born in your timezone. See, I’m not an evil person. I just wish you had your own server.

Like Tzash already said, if 1 server is totaly dominating team up with the other team and make them go defensive.
Good coordiantion, enough suply’s and a little investments for sieges goes a long way.

24 hour matches dint realy put alot of balance between servers
Free tranfers isnt helping it either in 7 days matches

But it some point more balance will come and even then there will always be a winner and always be a losing server.

What people want are epic battles that can put a smile on your face, for some servers that smile is far away untill some more time is given to let it resolve and settle down.

I still liked the 24h battles better, at least everybody got a reset everyday.

I’m playing on Far Shiverpeaks, and while during the weekend we had around 3k points lead, now after half week of night capping we are 130k points behind (!!) and the 3rd server has even less poitns.

During the monday prime time I saw that people actually tried to do something , as the chart showed that we were gaining almost the same amount of points as the winning team, but on wednesday no one seemed to care anymore as we were 100k behind and even during the prime time the chart was sodomized with winning server’s colour.

Now let me enlighten you, FS was EU 2nd server in ranking AN posted right before introducing 7days WvW and the nightcapping one was 1st, how is matchmaking system going to help us ?

WvW is supposedly one of the bigger points of endgame, and that’s been taken from us.

Anyone saying that it was our fault that we didnt get oceanic players to join our server is just pathetic – yea the first thing that came to my mind after buying the game was to get different timezone players to win matches in something I did’t fully understand yet (not everyone played the betas mind you, nor everyone playing GW2 is such a nerd to be aware that such things might happen).

Score multiplier based on participants ratio would greatly help – if one team’s numbers are twice as big as other teams, they should earn half the points (notice I’m not talking about changing rewards individual player gets)

As for this being unjust.. Well, you are most likely living in democratic country and if majority wants something you have to adjust, I think there are more EU players that are sick of nightcapping than players in communities that actually nightcap… so go figure

Not having servers dedicated to your timezone does not entitle you to ruin game experience of other people.