Guild Wars 2

These are things that, in my opinion, could be improved upon to make WvW a more enjoyable experience for everyone involved.

1. Limit the number of players a server can field at any given point to 40% of total WvW population at that point – Given WvW is a three-way battle where in ideal circumstances each server would have 33-34% of the total population fielded at one time, it’s disheartening that we see servers fielding 60%+ of the total population at times, especially in Silver and Bronze tiers where not all servers can boast an extremely active WvW community. Also getting rid of the ‘transfer servers to win’ as even though a server would have more WvW players they wouldn’t be able to field more than 40% so spreading the community evenly instead of creating dominant servers would be encouraged.

2. Reduce matches’ durations – A week long battle is all well and good when it is fairly close and well contested yet this is almost never the case outside of Gold tier and usually by Sunday there’s already a server with an insurmountable lead and 2 servers that have totally given up. I believe 3 days per match would prevent losing servers from losing motivation to play WvW and also add a sense of urgency to the battle.

3. Punish zerging tactics – As of today the main go-to tactic for every server remains to group up as many random people as possible and run around from point to point like a Champ Train. With all the PvE revamps to counter zerging I believe it’s high time WvW sees some love on this front, I’d say whenever there are more than 50 people together they’d gain a debuff that decreases their gains in EXP, WEXP, gold, loot, karma… the whole enchilada and sort of the ‘Outnumbered’ buff’s counterpart.

4. Encourage the use of clever strategies – Create a new buff that gives a server’s players extra gains when capturing multiple points within a given time window, therefore encouraging the appliance of the classic ‘Divide and Conquer’ strategy and once more countering grouping up into one giant zerg.

5. Encourage defensive play – Increase the World points gained from owning a capture point depending on how long that server has owned it, say +5 points gained from that structure every hour that the same server controls it. This would effectively crush ‘keep swapping’ and any other common practices of the like.

6. Reward the ‘Infiltrator’ role – Add levers to open gates from within a capture point, making everyone that was left alive within a recently capture structure as dangerous as a mesmer, therefore promoting class balance and make point owners be mindful of infiltrators.

7. Highlight object names for unbuilt siege or change the initial phase model to distinguish them – Cursed be the trolls that drop ballistas instead of rams at a gate and make a server waste precious supply.

P.S.: Screenshot to support my 1st suggestion.

i like the “Reduce matches’ durations”

In the actual state, the match up is decided in the first 3 or 4 days or even less. There is a lot of unbalanced match ups right now. A week is just too much.

No to first six suggestions. 7 is reasonable though.

Isaac.6041:

No to first six suggestions. 7 is reasonable though.

How is my 1st suggestion unreasonable? As it aims to make WvW about group coordination and not just about sheer numbers.

Only agree with 7th suggestion to, looks alike a good add-on for commanders.

1. Very easily exploited by servers with a smaller population or with mostly off-NA-hours coverage. 1 server, by themselves, could control the number of players that the other 2 servers are allowed to have in WvW.

The bigger issue, however, is 40% of WHAT WvW population? 40% of the total number of players from last week’s matchup? Or 40% from yesterday? Or from the last hour? Or is it recalculated every 15 minutes? And if the population shifts, if 1 server suddenly has their largest guild tag down an log out, do the other 2 servers see massive numbers of people getting kicked out of WvW randomly on all maps? Or could they maintain the same sort of “Outnumbered” problem that you’re trying to fix by just having everyone stay in WvW? If a server knew that they had a massive Oceanic population, for instance, and the 2 servers they were fighting against barely field 50 people across all maps during Oceanic, could they simply have all of their Oceanic players log in early, during NA, when “40% of popluation” is MUCH larger number, then wait for the other servers to go to sleep so they could go to work PvDooring everything in sight? Or would those Oceanic players get kicked from WvW the moment the other servers NA logged out?

2. Having a new matchup start on a Tuesday or Wednesday sounds a bit ridiculous, but the full 7-day matches do get pretty old. Keep in mind the ORIGINAL idea for WvW was TWO WEEK MATCHES! In fact, back when 1-week matches first started, we were often reminded that “Official” WvW had not started yet, and that 2-week matches would be coming soon! I guess we dodged a bullet on that one.

3. Eh, it could work on some servers, maybe. People who are playing to win the matchup won’t care that they get 33% less XP or loot. Would this also extend to EotM, btw? Because a large % of people are there solely for xp/wvp/loot/karma, and there’s a good chance that the map would become a ghost town (think Southsun Cove pre-Megaserver). But this won’t stop the zerg from winning week after week, or even slow them down, really. At most, large guilds might start trying to find ways to shake their PUGs. Maybe.

But this is moot, as ArenaNet has said for a long time that they won’t do anything that makes cooperation between players less effective. I mean, how often does a PvE event actually fail because of “scaling”? Grenth, about 1 time out of 20? But it’s not like 5 people could finish that event any easier. But ya, you have to keep in mind that what you’re suggesting is COMPLETELY different from anything ArenaNet has done to slow down zergs in PvE. What they’ve always done is add Champs to a previously easy fight and/or nerf the loot from the area across the board, not just for zergs. Putting a “debuff” on loot would be closer to ArenaNet’s earlier “War on Bots”, with the mysterious “Diminished Returns” mechanic that may or may not exist…

4. What is the time window? I mean, maps are pretty small, and WvW zergs tend to run with near permanent Swiftness. Zergs in the higher Tiers are already in the habit of sweeping through camps and towers, having the zerg kill everything/open doors & walls, but only leaving a couple of people to cap (everyone involved gets credit whether they cap or not, anyway.) So how would you make the window SO SMALL that a zerg couldn’t take advantage of it? Would you have to cap all objectives within 1 minute of each other? A decent zerg could certainly cap at least 3 objectives in that time, and a well-coordinated zerg could possibly cap a WHOLE MAP that way. All they need to do kill everything, leave 1-3 people to cap, but have them step outside the circle until a Commander says “ready to cap!” Then everybody steps into the circle to cap, and the zerg gets the same bonus that your small ops team would get, but easier! I really think this suggestion would benefit large PvDoor populations more than anyone else in the game.

5. Again, PvDoor populations get FAR more benefit from this than anyone else in the game. In fact, people have been suggesting the EXACT OPPOSITE of this for well over a year now! But yeah, if the other servers are mostly asleep, EVEN if we used your first suggestion of limited population, the 1 server that is awake during a specific timezone would have the best chance at holding structures all night long while you slept, and this would give them a BONUS for doing so!

6. Thief only; all other classes need not apply…

7. Yeah, we could do this one. It would actually be nice.

The levers would need yo be opposing server operation only otherwise you could have griefers or cross server xfers opening the gates all willy nilly like. Give theif, warrior and maybe ranger the abilities to climb outter walls only at 1-2 restricted access points. Add a second gate to the tower lord room and add another gate on the keep lord rooms. Garisons only outter wall can be climbed. Make the ability to climb cost 15 supply.

Lets call the ability climbing spikes:
Use 15 supply to fashion climbing spikes that allow you to climb the outter most wall of a fortification. The spikes last for 5 seconds. If you are not on solid ground you take falling dmg based on the height you fall from.

You can still be knocked off the climbing wall spot or crippled or feared or immobilized or chilled or interrupted while fashioning the climbing spikes animation.

High risk. Moderate reward.

That will make things more interesting.

Obviously the other professions need counters.

Engi/necro/guardian – pressure plate trap/ mark of vertigo/ symbol of detonation

Cost 15 supply. Duration 10 mins reusable 10-15 mins. Only one per character (function similar to supply/stealth traps).

Elementalist/Mesmer whatever else. I duno. Gotta go back to work lol

None of these suggestions are viable. What we need is to have Anet double the CPU and RAM power of the servers, thus being able to handle more players per map. I’m tired of 80 man BL caps. We need at least 150 players per side.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

None of these suggestions are viable. What we need is to have Anet double the CPU and RAM power of the servers, thus being able to handle more players per map. I’m tired of 80 man BL caps. We need at least 150 players per side.

I agree. I miss DAoC epic 200v200v200 battles.

Good suggestions. WvW is simply a player blob war with lots and lots of running around. They need to add PvPvE side objectives; timed objectives that ping the entire map; vicinity triggers that indicate concentrated player populations in any given area or around objectives; revamp siege adding defensive engiines like scorpions and ballistas so you dont simply spam rams and have to construct trebuchets/catapults; buff gate/wall health to encourage longer, more meaningful battles and the use of ranged artillery; increase XP/reward gain to make it all worthwhile; add ladders, sapping points, the ability for thieves to climb walls/engineers to contruct gliders for airborne assaults, add ways to sneak into objectives (forts/castles/whatever,) etc. etc. etc.