Guild Wars 2

I actually wanted to put this in title but dang 45 characters limit:
[Suggestion] Coverage: Punish Karma Train Not Timezone
Sounds a lot better right?

I’m not sure if this had been brought up before, since I don’t lurk in the forum everyday, but I just want to share some of my personal ideas on how to balance coverage.

Skip these 4 paragraphs if you don’t want to see paragraphs of rant

From what I’ve seen on post around the forum, a lot of people suggested a flat reduction in contribution for specific timezone they do not play in. This is (obviously) a controversial move.

I play on NA server, so I’ll be speaking from NA’s perspectives.

It’s easy to point the finger and blame on people who don’t live in the US. I won’t argue that OCX/SEA timezone can occasionally be extremely unbalanced, but it isn’t always mega blob vs a few people.

There are also times when 5-10 people (lets say red) can flip everything because the 5-10 people from blue didn’t bother grouping up and defend (or playing solo, i.e. roaming, RP) – or that 1 person cursing in team chat because no one wants to defend. Why should red be penalised for it? Just because they play in a different timezone? The last thing I want to see in WvW is T1 servers having a close match with a low tier server with similar NA population, just because anything outside of NA is negligible.

There are also times on off-days, where you can find massive karma trains during NA timezone. Shouldn’t they receive the same treatment?

The Problem:

1. Imbalance of population coverage
2. Don’t want to penalise timezones
3. Ensure everyone can contribute as much as they deserve.
   (Examples)
   – If difference between active players on all sides in a given time span is balanced, nothing is penalised (even if they don’t want to defend)
   – If its a megablob karma training vs a few defenders, reduce the total contribution to ALL servers.

What we seem to have already:

1. It seems like the tool to calculate how many players are on each map at the given time already exist (Outnumbered Buff)
2. Skirmishes and a short 5 minute ppt update (whatever you call that)

A Potential Solution: (of course values can be tweaked, these are just examples)

1. Observe the total number of players every 5 minutes and continue for 2 hours until skirmish ends.
2. At each skirmish, calculate the total difference in player between all teams within that skirtmish.
   – Three servers all balanced gets (1st: 5pts, 2nd: 4pts, 3rd: 3pts)
   – Two servers balanced gets (1st: 4pts, 2nd: 3pts, 3rd: 2pts)
   – One super mega blob karma train (1st: 3pts, 2nd: 2pts, 3rd: 1pt)
   – 10 players on all sides in the range of 2 hours (just tell those servers to kys)
   (By balanced I mean within idk?(maybe a percentage difference between servers?))
3. Not limited to timezone – can also happen during prime time

I don’t see the problem with the additional +2, +1 the skirmish points we currently have – more excitement more reward, right? Matches can be decided during times when people fight over it.

“BUT EVERYONE WILL JUST QUIT WVW TO MANIPULATE THE SYSTEM” – well, if they would prefer not to have fun playing just to win PPT and get nothing………………………… might as well reconsider life.
When the day comes when population and coverage balance are solved and we can get rewards for winning matchups, if some server quits close to reset – who cares, drama fuels wvw interest anyways <3 – and at least there’s enough competition to do that, better than karma train Friday

This is the Action Level – Victory Point Multiplier system introduced in Let’s Talk Scoring thread. It is a lengthy thread but you if you wade through it, you will discover why this feature is not in the game.

Pity these forums do not have a search that works.