Guild Wars 2

It feels like there should be less maps on the lower tiers in WvW.

4 maps is only useful for the first 2-3 tiers that can have queue on several maps at a time. My server has been from tier 4 to tier 8 and back to tier 4 in the last 2 years and here is what I noticed :

Tier 8 : Cannot queue any map even on reset
Suggestion : Only EBG should be enough

Tier 7-6 : Can queue one map at best on reset. The rest of the week there is no queue at all
Suggestion : EBG + One Borderland

Tier 5-4 : Often able to queue 1 map during the week and can queue 2 maps on reset.
Suggestion : EBG + Two Borderlands

Tier 3-2-1 : Can queue multiple maps
Suggestion : EBG + Three Borderlands

It would feel more right if it was something like that. Lower tiers just don’t have the population to cover all 4 maps. When you force them to spread on all 4 maps you are basically telling them that what they should enjoy is empty WvW were the only thing you have to fight are doors, walls and NPC.

It would also give a “reward” to climb up in the tiers. If you want to have more maps and possibly a home bl every week, you have to climb up in the tiers.

I know that HoT is coming and it will bring a lot of players but from the reports I got so far it seems like the map is gigantic which will spread the players even further. Might not be a problem at first because of the expansion hype, but when the hype will go down, covering those 3 gigantic borderlands will be an even bigger problem than it was before.

So, I think that having less map on lower tiers would go a long way to make WvW more lively for them.

I could definitely get behind your T8 proposal of EBG only, but Anet would never go for that because then T8 wouldn’t be getting the new BL come HoT.

As for anything between only EBG and all four maps you’d have to alter the BL maps to be balanced for 3-way action the way EBG is. Also not going to happen.

Those issues aside Anet would never close down maps on lower tiers for the same reason T8 is listed as medium population. It would be admitting they can’t fill servers.

Yeah, the balance issue is kinda problematic. Borderland map are design to favor the “home” server.

One could wish that they learned from their first BL map and the fact that it’s empty most of the day on more than half the tiers and that they would design the new map as a 3 way symetrical like EBG/EotM to be able to change the number of maps per tier but…

Good news is that they have started to admit they can’t fill all servers. Some servers are ranked medium now instead of very high

This strikes me as something you may desire to wait until after HoT releases, and see how the population is after that point, before anyone starts discussing compressing things like amount of maps.

I play in tier 9 (EU). Looks like there wont be any playable maps left for tier 9…

I do agree that for low population servers maps (specially new HoT bl maps) are too big and empty most of the times. WvW maps without players to fight is just boring PvE, and if we want to play PvE we can do it in actual maps designed for PvE.

But this does not solve bigger problem, that we have low population servers and high population servers. For most interesting matchups all servers should have fairly equal population, and once total playerbase is shared among all possible servers, it may turn out we dont need to reduce number of available maps because much more people will be playing in every server.

Personally I prefer the idea of dynamic borders through all tiers, as it would solve some ppt issues as well.

EB would be the fixed point thats open 24/7 while others open based on total current population. A closed border would have frozen ppt. The max tick possible would be dramatically reduced outside primetime. This would mean a considerable redesign though (cant have home borders).

@ Gudradain

Like the idea myself, but I’d prefer an actual dynamic….

Dawdler.8521:

Personally I prefer the idea of dynamic borders through all tiers, as it would solve some ppt issues as well.

EB would be the fixed point thats open 24/7 while others open based on total current population. A closed border would have frozen ppt. The max tick possible would be dramatically reduced outside primetime. This would mean a considerable redesign though (cant have home borders).

..yeah that, thank you for posting it Dawdler! I made a long overly verbose post about this once before, but you’re much better at summarise it than I’ll ever be >_<

(You can even just disable the PPT on the maps that are off, it won’t really make much difference. Just base the glicko gains on percentages instead of the static numbers. You can take that even further and have it affect all PPT so there is no diffrence in point gains for offtime vs prime time as well, depending on how you want it.)

Would think it sad if T8 lost access to BL though.

joneirikb.7506:

@ Gudradain

Like the idea myself, but I’d prefer an actual dynamic….

Dawdler.8521:

Personally I prefer the idea of dynamic borders through all tiers, as it would solve some ppt issues as well.

EB would be the fixed point thats open 24/7 while others open based on total current population. A closed border would have frozen ppt. The max tick possible would be dramatically reduced outside primetime. This would mean a considerable redesign though (cant have home borders).

..yeah that, thank you for posting it Dawdler! I made a long overly verbose post about this once before, but you’re much better at summarise it than I’ll ever be >_<

(You can even just disable the PPT on the maps that are off, it won’t really make much difference. Just base the glicko gains on percentages instead of the static numbers. You can take that even further and have it affect all PPT so there is no diffrence in point gains for offtime vs prime time as well, depending on how you want it.)

Would think it sad if T8 lost access to BL though.

Yeah dynamic would probably be better in term of activity but brings other problems. For example, server that capitalize on “off hours” to reset upgrade would now lose that advantage. Don’t know how I feel about that…

The way I had imagined the dynamic map adjustments, was that it could scale up and down during activity peaks. So at night time, it might cut down to 1-2 maps, thus concentrating players into small enough an arena to actually play against each others. While perhaps even making extra copies of maps in NA prime if you actually had queues. It could work for all tiers.

Obviously the whole upgrades mentality will have to change anyways with HoT, the auto/free upgrades over time (UoT). So I don’t know how much of a problem it will cause, even if some maps jumps on and off and resets entire map etc. You would still have at the very least one EBG main map that you can keep the upgrades on all week, and possibly a BL depending on how it is setup (or population).

It is however dependent upon a slight tweak of existing BL’s, since they need to be changed away from the "home server" system we currently got. It wouldn’t be too much work for Alpine, but I have no idea about the Desert one.

Of course there are some bad situations in this system as well. One example would be Kaineng vs Anvil Rock (classic), traditionally we’ve dominated about 12 hours each over a day. So during day AR could keep 2 maps open when Kain doesn’t have the population for more than 1. And then during night it is the other way around.

Now if ANet would just do something like this *looks at the stars*

You could place a “lock” such as indefinite righteous indignation on tower, keep, supply camps on the servers fighting undermanned and change the scoring system a little.

For example, You can only score points for you own objectives you hold and defend not from other servers objectives. This would limit PPT gains to any single server to a maximum if they held all their properties. They can reduce opponents PPT by destroying (capturing) rival server objectives.

This would make defending your own property just as important as raiding.

When operating Undermanned certain objectives gain immunity from raiding making it easier for the less populated servers to defend their territories (no more PVD because of lack of coverage). Servers who have more players have more targets open to attack so must actively defend more or face losing more ppt.

The determining factor for objective immunities should be based on population counts and overall PPT score.

Lead score server gets no immunity.

2nd place server gets maximum of 50% objectives immune per map.

3rd place server gets maximum of 75% of objective immune per map.

Population differences based on all wvw maps (total player count) determine what percentage is given.

The resulting changes would ensure that the weakest server is not double teamed by the stronger ones and make defending much more important. (eg. you can’t gain more ppt by raiding the weaker server you can only win a match by hitting the leader while defending your territory.)

This will ensure that the strongest server is targeted the most while preventing PVD score blowouts.

P.s. In order for an objective to gain immunity it has to be “owned” by the Undermanned server (meaning you can’t abandon the maps as a server to recapture objectives without effort)

Wow things like this would be a cool idea. It would be nice to see larger pop servers have to work harder for those points and less night capping (sorry night capping that is more in proportion to the number of people doing the capping).
Also I think that the crafting points should be moved to the PvP lobby (why are they not already) and the mystic toilet as people often nip in on lower tier servers just to craft (I know I use it – hey hast to be some plus to being low pop WvW server)

Also can we have some way of knowing who claims a tower/keep atm someone can and not have bonuses or they run out and your stuck trying to work out from some generic flag.

The new map may solve the problem

The ideas I posted above is to try to curb “server stacking” as a means to get easy wins. If giving more teeth to the UM buff is not a satisfactory option then reducing what an undermanned server needs to protect allows those people playing on those servers to concentrate on offense and not get “PVD’ed” into a point deficit which can’t be overcome.

I Believe it would lead to more pvp action as weaker servers are not forced to spread so thin that they have no chance of winning, thus give up playing that week.

Server stacking would be discouraged by forcing those servers into defensive play only. Sure they may still win but the matches should be closer and Karma trains will be eliminated.

Gudradain.3892:

Yeah dynamic would probably be better in term of activity but brings other problems. For example, server that capitalize on “off hours” to reset upgrade would now lose that advantage. Don’t know how I feel about that…

The way dynamic borders work would change that, true. But tbh the passive tick is just a poor way to score.

Another way to handle it would be to shift from PPT to keep upgrades giving points. A T3 keep may have given your side 1000 points, but if the enemy cap it and upgrade it to T3 they get 1000 points too, making points equal. PPK would handle the rest of the points.