Guild Wars 2

Some servers are full while others are low population. Despite the expensive one time server transfer cost and long WvW map queues, many players still want to transfer to a full server as WvW rewards the server that can field a larger army.

Supply in WvW is the summary for logistics in GW2 but it is flawed in that it does not mirror real life army logistics or upkeep costs in other games.

Server A has 50 people and 2 camps . It sends 20 to run supply and has 30 left over to fight. Server B has 30 people and 2 camps. It sends 20 to run supply and has 10 left to get stomped by server B’s 30. In comparision, for an army in the real world, there are costs of maintaining a large force in terms of logistics support ( food, water, ammunition, housing) in your country or in hostile territory. In classic games like Civilization, having a large army means higher gold upkeep costs and unhappy population in cities. In GW2, having a large army means you win. There is no downside or upkeep costs.

To keep programming costs down, we can use the same measuring tools that measures each map’s population for queue management and take that data over 6 hour intervals. Currently we have world bonuses that rewards WvW success, but only a small percentage of WvW players cares about that.

World penalties to reflect upkeep costs of having a large army should be implemented. Examples such as :

(a) – 50% supply carried by each player for full population server. so instead of 10 people carrying 100 supply to build a treb, they need 20 people.

(b) + 50% gold cost and time needed for tower/keep/castle upgrading. They have more players to contribute gold and it makes upgrades more valuable to a zergy server to guard rather than the cap, abandon and recap tactic.

© – 50% WXP earned for full population servers. This will be a very strong incentive for bandwagoners that leech off skilled WvWers to move to a low population server to earn their WvW ranks. I am sure many of you experienced a whole horde of casual players stopping to cap a sentry flag for miserable WXP while vent and map chat is going crazy asking for help to reinforce keep with inner door at 20%.

The new matchup equation every week is refreshing but it is basically rotating which server gets to be victim and who does the bullying. GW2 is a game and like football matches / track and field competitions, everyone wants to win. Winning matters, guild members are like football fans – demand winning results from their teams. The new matchup equations means that to have more wins than losses, you transfer your guild to a T1 server which are all zergy full . The worst case scenario for a T1 server is that they face 2 other T1 servers – which is the norm before matchup equation change : no biggie. But it means that the week after, they get matchup with other T2 or T3 or T4 servers and get to bash/bully them up badly.

Lets use an analogy of cars / vehicles on highways / expressways. To control or regulate the traffic flow , we use tolls / charges. There are the penalties for using these congested roads during peak hours and it works. Full servers hurt the players and Low population servers also hurt from under usage and getting trashed every week ( ask ET ). Using WvW penalties will encourage casual guilds to move to low population servers rather than stick to high population sure win most of the time full servers. A T1 full server will also have more penalty against a T4 high/medium server. If the T4 server has such skilful WvW population, they will rise and continue to enjoy less penalties. If bandwagoners start to join this T4 server and bring it from high population to full, they get maximum penalty and will cause the T4 server to drop again. A lot of focus has been on the T1 servers, little has been done for the T8 servers. Who wants to transfer their guild to the lowest of the low in T8 ? Eventually, you just have to shut it down for under usage.

I do think population should be spread. I think the population being aggregated in the higher tiers is probably the biggest single problem in WvW. However, I don’t think the solution should involve handicapping the bigger servers. I prefer the actual combat to be as fair as possible: if you have more people, you have more chance to win.

Also I’d say, give incentives instead of disincentives — something positive for people who are willing to move instead of punishing people who don’t move.
Perhaps something like: servers with lower WvW pops get higher magic find.

I like the idea of penalties. But the penalties should be based on the matchups. Depending on the 3 servers that are being paired, the penalty calculations should be done for that match. It’ll force the servers to try to even things out rather than stomp through smaller zergs with their 2-5X larger zergs. Rewards are increased for the side with less players. Costs for upgrades are higher for the side with more players.

Buffs and Penalties are actually the same thing depending on which side you are on. A penalty to player A = a buff to player B fighting him.

If you mouse over the outmanned icon, you will see that it actually has 33% increased experience , 10% WXP and 20% MF .

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Outmanned

I don’t know about you guys, but whenever we see that buff, the guild goes crazy and hunt down that server, knowing that they are just meat to devour and lootbags to own. It’s a “kick me” sign stapled to the back of the player. Most of the time, the said server ends up at their spawning base camped and not able to come out.

If we look at football league matches, the side that has 1 player red carded usually loses. We are talking about 11 a side football / soccer matches. It’s what a big difference 1 player makes. More-over, there is a transfer window where players are bought / transferred from clubs before the season starts and no transfer.

The guesting and party system means that dungeons and world pve content have not much influence on server transfers. Most transfer are due to WvW and the fact is that the winning servers have the most people going there. There is no "full "server that is not either in Tier 1 or 2. Numbers = WvW win.

Maybe the idea is that players will call their non GW2-playing friends to play this game to boost their population so that their server can win. Only Anet can tell if this strategy works or are servers just canabalizing other servers’ players.

This week, the three former Tier 1 server are grouped together again after 2 weeks and they are complaining in their matchup thread. They are not here to look for a challenge. They want to have weaker opponents to crush.

There has to be some brainstorming done to entice population to move from full to low population servers.

Sol.8341:

Buffs and Penalties are actually the same thing depending on which side you are on.

Mechanically, yes. Perceptually, no. People respond better to incentives than disincentives.

There are many issues with WvW and why the top servers have such a high population. Even if you limited the top WvW population servers through some kind of tax, guilds wouldn’t move because they want the fights provided by being a top server, whether it be wiping PUGs and smaller servers or lots of big guild fights.

Anything done to handicap a superior force couldn’t be done on a match by match basis, it would have to be a dynamic system. There were many times in the week where FC, Mag and EBay faced each other where the numbers on maps were fairly even and the fights were excellent – NA primetime specifically. I would have hated to be fighting a handicapped opponent because they had more people at a different time.

The only real way to solve it though is to figure out how to encourage populations to even out. Even if you penalize the crap out of the larger number, it doesn’t help a server with 20-30 people online spread across 4 maps from 3am to 7am face one with several guilds each of equal or greater numbers.

Why not simply award players with a magic find, XP and WXP bonus based on the current active WvW populations or the average active WvW populations.

For example: (PopulationServer1+PopulationServer2+PopulationServer3)/PopulationOwnServer*10%
server 1: 10 players —> receives a 60% bonus [(10+20+30)/10*10%]
server 2: 20 players —> receives a 30% bonus [(10+20+30)/20*10%]
server 3: 30 players —> receives a 20% bonus [(10+20+30)/30*10%]

That bonud should be capped (maybe 100%?), so that we have not an insane bonus when a server is brutally outmanned like Vabbi or FoW often.

I think wvw population needs clarification too. For me, the best metric would be total/average wvw player-hours in the prior week.

bobross.5034:

I think wvw population needs clarification too. For me, the best metric would be total/average wvw player-hours in the prior week.

Yes. I think population of wvw players during which time zones needs to be public. It’ll help those on all servers and those guilds who wants to have fights pick the servers that are in need of people rather than just stacking onto the same few servers…

Ques are, and remain, the best means to restrict/control wvw population. The problem is that the threshold is too high. Lower the threshold, and when people get tired of waiting to get into a battleground, they will move servers, as long as that means is available. They ruined this when they stopped free transfers.

1) Lower the thresholds (to 1/2~2/3 of what they are now)
2) Allow free transfers for 2-3 weeks
3) Watch the servers equalize

Let me get this straight: you want to hinder the ability of larger servers to actually siege and make tactical plays – you know, those servers with more people to zerg with. But hey, I guess PvDoor is fun too right?

I was expecting a half baked post about fairness, but it turned out to be a well thought out post that did make some sense.

I would support some an implementation as painful as it may seem.

Never being in a T1 server, I would assume a decent amount of bandwagoners who only zerg around and not really contributing to defense and upkeep, so there is potential the penalty will hit a smaller group than you realize. Though, this encourages those players to move to lower pop servers where their upgrades have more effect.

Ruin.3461:

Let me get this straight: you want to hinder the ability of larger servers to actually siege and make tactical plays – you know, those servers with more people to zerg with. But hey, I guess PvDoor is fun too right?

While many large servers may use tactics, most can win by sheer numbers and that’s one of the arguments OP is making, I believe.

WvW is about big battles, but even I don’t think Anet intended it to be a major zerg fest where 50 people run around steam rolling everything for rewards. Zergs are more PvD than small group play as zergs have no opposition so they just take and retake towers most of the time… aka PvD.

Anet said they would penalize large groups in rewards (loot and WXP), but that aspect is negated by the quantity of caps they churn out per hour because of little to no resistance. How do you defend against a 50 person blob with 4-rams and enough people to out-heal and out-buff any damage a handful of AC’s can turn out, all the while players trying to get in are wrecked by the insane damage field they need to walk through? Thus the zerg caps more per hour and tower rewards are the same in a zerg as is for a 5-man cap team. So, no incentive not to zerg.

Changing rewards to favor smaller groups won’t stop zerging. It’s still the best way to do things because without numbers, you don’t win. Any increase in reward for less people is offset by the momentum of the zerg. If you want to stop zerging, you have to make it a less effective strategy or make it so that after a certain size, there is little benefit to more bodies.

The two main points to address about zergs are:
1. Inability for most smaller groups to stop it. Although a smaller group inside a fort can delay a large zerg, the zerg can change targets temporarily or simply starve out the defenders. In the open field, there are few ways for a smaller force to stop an opposing zerg.
2. It’s mobile enough to react to any keep attack. A giant ball can wipe a group in one location and then run across the entire borderlands map in order to wipe another group. This is especially true once waypoints are upgraded. If you can just do that, why split up?

Yes, the population should be spread.

But one should realise that PUNISHING players for doing what they deem the rational choice is just going to drive them from the game.

You’ll get alot of small pop servers in the end with this kind of harebrained initiative.

Neeho.3859:

Ques are, and remain, the best means to restrict/control wvw population. The problem is that the threshold is too high. Lower the threshold, and when people get tired of waiting to get into a battleground, they will move servers, as long as that means is available. They ruined this when they stopped free transfers.

1) Lower the thresholds (to 1/2~2/3 of what they are now)
2) Allow free transfers for 2-3 weeks
3) Watch the servers equalize

I so completely agree with this – just posted something similar in a different thread.

Looking at the CD/TC/SoS matchup at the moment (NA prime time) EB is pretty evenly split between three servers as they have equal numbers in there. But TC owns nearly all the borderlands. This is coverage not skill.

Some sort of cost for high populations makes sense and reflects real world armies. The question is what should that cost be? What is severe enough to even out pops but not so much to alienate those affected?

No.

I play on Desolation, last i checked a Full server. We’d get a massive penalty, or have adversary servers have a big boost.
But, Deso is a PvE server. It may be full, but we still get outmanned in the middle of the day in weekends, or during primetime. Because none of that “massive player base” is actually all that engaged in WvW.

You lower tier guys don’t understand just how good you have it

A vast majority of the players on T1 servers are bandwagoning fairweathers. They only come out to play when they’re winning and ride in the coattails of the stronger guilds. They run sub-optimal builds and are often the first to die/rally the enemy. They spam map chat with complaints everytime they die yet refuse to use voice chat as a means of communication.

Is this really the kind of player you want to transfer to your server?

Neeho.3859:

Ques are, and remain, the best means to restrict/control wvw population. The problem is that the threshold is too high. Lower the threshold, and when people get tired of waiting to get into a battleground, they will move servers, as long as that means is available. They ruined this when they stopped free transfers.

1) Lower the thresholds (to 1/2~2/3 of what they are now)
2) Allow free transfers for 2-3 weeks
3) Watch the servers equalize

This is pretty much exactly what is needed. BUT, I really don’t think Anet want to improve the gameplay in WvW. I think they actually want a lame zerg fest with stacked servers.

These aren’t suggestions to improve wvw for all, it’s for the benefit of a few.

Have you considered how lowering caps or imposing a tax would affect full servers with large pvx guild populations?

They would be effectively excluded from wvw, and asking them to move and rebuild influence and membership just because some other players would prefer what they perceive to be more balanced matchups is extremely selfish.

Aparr from a couple of blowouts the new matchup system does appear to be able to both distribute glicko by allowing what was previously very unusual – cross tier play.

When enough cross tier play has occurred a tightening of the variance in matchups should foster far more balanced matchups.

So far Sos and mags have just had really bad rolls, and it is a little unfair and unfortunate for them to bear the brunt of the volatility, but calling for PUNITIVE measures on higher population servers is selfish, short sighted and frankly – juvenile.

There are a few steps in problem solving :

Step 1 : Recognising there is an issue.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Server-Match-up-is-TERRIBLE/first

17,721 views cannot be wrong. It is not for benefit of a few, Mr Rawr of TC, tier 2 server, lucky matchups so far ? Look at Magumma, ranked 7th server, best of Tier 3 ? Do you think they enjoyed their 3 weeks so far ? Rank no 1, 2 and 3 server will always have normal conditions (matchup against each other) or better (matchup against lower servers). They will never experience getting trashed by a much superior server say there was a rank 0 server before rank 1. This also means that transfers to these 3 servers will keep continue because GW2 is a game and bigger zerg = win win win. Ultimately, it will affect everyone WvW or PvE players on these 3 servers it is overloaded. The population gap between Tier 1 and 2 will also increase because there is no stopping transfers.

Step 2 : Brainstorming for ideas.

This is for posters and readers to participate in, discuss and give sensible facts to disagree.

Step 3 : Gathering tools to implement ideas.

Anet development / programming staff have limited time too. Using and expanding existing tools to do changes is more effective than coming up with brilliant but hard to code stuff. There is already outmanned buff code in GW2, this can be easily tweaked to increase buffs to small servers or = penalty to big zergs.

PvE population and WvW population can also be split. The login screen gives total population. Anet can obtain WvW population by polling server queue times / frequency every 8 hours ( NA, EU and Oceanic ). This information can be presented to us to make a decision which server to go to / not to go to.

Bandwagoners have the most reason to oppose a tax since they spent a large amount of gems to enjoy zerging behind the actual WvW players to earn easy WXP / rank and level up low characters. By imposing tax on WXP gains to very low on high WvW population, you separate the bandwagoners and the actual WvWers that care more about fights than ranks. Fairweather bandwagoners will transfer off servers quickly if there was a -80% WXP gains compared to low population servers and serious WvWers enjoy shorter queues and less frustration.

To appease the bandwagoners, just give a period of free transfers for higher ranked servers to lower ranked. Say a Magumma bear (rank 7) wants to jump ship to become a Yak ( rank, it is free.

Step 4 : Finetune the changes.

E.g. -80% WXP no effect ? Fix it to -150% etc.
Or -80% WXP caused a ghost server ? Fix it to -50%.

There are 24 NA servers. If by design, WvW is balanced for High WvW population, then Full WvW population = penalty and Low WvW population = buff.

If no action is taken, 3 to 6 (Tier 1 and 2) servers will continue to swell with WvW transfers at the expense of 24 – 6 = 18 servers. That is a lot of hardware capacity wasted.

Sol.8341:

There are a few steps in problem solving :

Step 1 : Recognising there is an issue.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Server-Match-up-is-TERRIBLE/first

17,721 views cannot be wrong. It is not for benefit of a few, Mr Rawr of TC, tier 2 server, lucky matchups so far ? Look at Magumma, ranked 7th server, best of Tier 3 ? Do you think they enjoyed their 3 weeks so far ? Rank no 1, 2 and 3 server will always have normal conditions (matchup against each other) or better (matchup against lower servers). They will never experience getting trashed by a much superior server say there was a rank 0 server before rank 1. This also means that transfers to these 3 servers will keep continue because GW2 is a game and bigger zerg = win win win. Ultimately, it will affect everyone WvW or PvE players on these 3 servers it is overloaded. The population gap between Tier 1 and 2 will also increase because there is no stopping transfers.

Lol, really?

You’ve address nothing of the content of my post, instead attempting to paint me as a bandwagoner?

Resorting to a needless ad hominem is such a tired cliche.

First, number of views is meaningless, cat videos are amongst the most viewed on youtube.

You dont keep players playing by punishing them for actions they have already taken, it’s as simple as that.

Sol.8341:

Bandwagoners have the most reason to oppose a tax since they spent a large amount of gems to enjoy zerging behind the actual WvW players to earn easy WXP / rank and level up low characters. By imposing tax on WXP gains to very low on high WvW population, you separate the bandwagoners and the actual WvWers that care more about fights than ranks. Fairweather bandwagoners will transfer off servers quickly if there was a -80% WXP gains compared to low population servers and serious WvWers enjoy shorter queues and less frustration.

To appease the bandwagoners, just give a period of free transfers for higher ranked servers to lower ranked. Say a Magumma bear (rank 7) wants to jump ship to become a Yak ( rank, it is free.

Step 4 : Finetune the changes.

E.g. -80% WXP no effect ? Fix it to -150% etc.
Or -80% WXP caused a ghost server ? Fix it to -50%.

There are 24 NA servers. If by design, WvW is balanced for High WvW population, then Full WvW population = penalty and Low WvW population = buff.

If no action is taken, 3 to 6 (Tier 1 and 2) servers will continue to swell with WvW transfers at the expense of 24 – 6 = 18 servers. That is a lot of hardware capacity wasted.

A silly suggestion like this is only going to drive players away from the game, so unless you want to have 24 small pop servers go right ahead promoting what is beneficial only to the few, and not the many.

Like it or not there are more bandwagoners than there are people like you, and they pay the bills.

On principle i agree that matching servers based on coverage and populations is the way to go, but attempting to “balance” coverage thru punitive measures is almost certainly counterproductive and destructive.

Rawr.5930:

These aren’t suggestions to improve wvw for all, it’s for the benefit of a few.

Have you considered how lowering caps or imposing a tax would affect full servers with large pvx guild populations? .

Why would a WvW tax affect PvE population ? Does WXP give PvErs uber loot ? Outmanned buff is only present in WvW for your information. Anet can easily separate PvE population and WvW population.

Rawr.5930:

They would be effectively excluded from wvw, and asking them to move and rebuild influence and membership just because some other players would prefer what they perceive to be more balanced matchups is extremely selfish..

Spoken like a true bandwagoner ! I guess WvWers are very concerned about guild influence. It’s so important and no 1 concern that guild leaders have sleepless nights deciding whether to lose all influence to go to restart on Tier 1 servers.

Rawr.5930:

Aparr from a couple of blowouts the new matchup system does appear to be able to both distribute glicko by allowing what was previously very unusual – cross tier play.

When enough cross tier play has occurred a tightening of the variance in matchups should foster far more balanced matchups..

When the lower ranked servers realise that they are being used as punching bags for higher ranked servers, they will transfer to Tier 1 to enjoy never experiencing the possibility of facing servers one Tier above.

Rawr.5930:

So far Sos and mags have just had really bad rolls, and it is a little unfair and unfortunate for them to bear the brunt of the volatility, but calling for PUNITIVE measures on higher population servers is selfish, short sighted and frankly – juvenile.

A little ? SoS and Mags players, please send your thoughts to this TC bandwagoner.

Sol.8341:

Rawr.5930:

These aren’t suggestions to improve wvw for all, it’s for the benefit of a few.

Have you considered how lowering caps or imposing a tax would affect full servers with large pvx guild populations? .

Why would a WvW tax affect PvE population ? Does WXP give PvErs uber loot ? Outmanned buff is only present in WvW for your information. Anet can easily separate PvE population and WvW population.

What has WXP got to do with the enjoyment of pvx guilds who already have made a home and an investment on their home server?

By taxing participation in wvw – which pvx guilds enjoy, you are PUNISHING them for no reason other than being on the server.

Does that seem fair?

Will it encourage those players to stay in gw2 or go somewhere else?

Understand basic psychology, you DO NOT PUNISH people for taking actions deemed reasonable and rational post hoc.

Such silliness DESTROYS the playerbase.

Separating Pve and wvw is possibly an avenue to explore, BUT then wvw wouldnt be server based then, would it?

Sol.8341:

Rawr.5930:

They would be effectively excluded from wvw, and asking them to move and rebuild influence and membership just because some other players would prefer what they perceive to be more balanced matchups is extremely selfish..

Spoken like a true bandwagoner ! I guess WvWers are very concerned about guild influence. It’s so important and no 1 concern that guild leaders have sleepless nights deciding whether to lose all influence to go to restart on Tier 1 servers.

Again will the silly ad hominem?

Building upgrades for a guild is NOT trivial, especially now with guild missions and the commendations that come with it.

Would YOU move your guild just because ANET says so at the behest of someone else who isnt enjoying the game?

Do NOT expect others to suffer for your benefit.

Sol.8341:

Rawr.5930:

Aparr from a couple of blowouts the new matchup system does appear to be able to both distribute glicko by allowing what was previously very unusual – cross tier play.

When enough cross tier play has occurred a tightening of the variance in matchups should foster far more balanced matchups..

When the lower ranked servers realise that they are being used as punching bags for higher ranked servers, they will transfer to Tier 1 to enjoy never experiencing the possibility of facing servers one Tier above.

It’s already happened.

Deal with it.

Sol.8341:

Rawr.5930:

So far Sos and mags have just had really bad rolls, and it is a little unfair and unfortunate for them to bear the brunt of the volatility, but calling for PUNITIVE measures on higher population servers is selfish, short sighted and frankly – juvenile.

A little ? SoS and Mags players, please send your thoughts to this TC bandwagoner.

You’ve been unlucky?

So what?

The issue is that you are proposing something DESTRUCTIVE to the playerbase at large, and it’s just because YOU arent having fun, that’s the definition of selfish.

More tiers are balanced and becoming more balanced as glicko better reflects coverage and population, in the short term you do get the ridiculousness like the CD-TC-SoS matchup, but that SHOULD even out within a few weeks.

Instead of actually understanding the dynamics of the system you instead lash out with a poorly thought out “solution”, and name call when you cant address an argument.

@OP. I agree with a reduction in world XP. I do not agree with the other options.

World XP should work like this…. Every server currently has a ranking. 1-24 in NA.

Rank 1: 50% the world xp as normal
Rank 12: 100% the world xp as normal
Rank 24: 200% the world xp as normal

Every other server than is on a sliding scale based on their position (example: rank 2 might get 55% of normal)

Let me give you another solution :

Let the weekly matchup draws be only possible for :

Tier 1 & 2 (Alpha League)

Tier 3 and 4 (Bravo League)

Tier 5 and 6 ( Charlie League)

Every 4 (or more ?) weeks, the top scorer of each league advances up one league and the top loser goes down. Sort of WULD but modified.

This means that a rank 7th server like Magumma gets to try Alpha League and if unsuccessful, goes down to Bravo League.

you do not need glicko to know that the 3 Tier 1 servers belong together in matchup. But they complain it was stale and they want to beat up new faces. Well, let them have their cake : feed them Tier 2 servers rather than Tier 3 and Tier 4.

I believer that true WvWers will gladly take a WXP reduction in exchange for better quality fights and queue times. If bandwagoners are given a free transfer to a low population server , they stop being bandwagoners because on low population servers, they have to WvW as per design instead of leeching.

Sol.8341:

Let me give you another solution :

Let the weekly matchup draws be only possible for :

Tier 1 & 2 (Alpha League)

Tier 3 and 4 (Bravo League)

Tier 5 and 6 ( Charlie League)

Every 4 (or more ?) weeks, the top scorer of each league advances up one league and the top loser goes down. Sort of WULD but modified.

This means that a rank 7th server like Magumma gets to try Alpha League and if unsuccessful, goes down to Bravo League.

you do not need glicko to know that the 3 Tier 1 servers belong together in matchup. But they complain it was stale and they want to beat up new faces. Well, let them have their cake : feed them Tier 2 servers rather than Tier 3 and Tier 4.

That’s a good starting point for a discussion, if only anet would listen.

They do seem hell bent on using glicko tho, so good luck on getting them to listen.

Fluctuating coin price of armor repair and all upgrades would be nice.

It shouldn’t be done through any sort buff/debuff to stats or income, as that will encourage people to move/stay on certain servers. Rather it should be something like an increase in supply capacity for outmanned pop. Giving a small number of players the ability to cap a tower before the zerg shows up.

Or perhaps it could be an increase in siege/ram damage included with the outmanned buff.