Guild Wars 2

The Kingdom system is a battlegroup-esque system I have been pondering on to fix some of the major issues in WvW.

The system works as follows:

KINGDOMS:

All servers will now be called to serve one of three kingdoms as an “army:”

The Crimson Lion (Red)

Tempest Watch (Blue)

Viridian Guard (Green)

Player name labels will still reflect what server they come from but will also have a new icon in place that shows which kingdom they are serving.

MAP ROTATION AND BATTLES:

When entering WvW, the old map system and selection is now gone. It is now replaced by a new system. Each week, when WvW resets the new WvW system begins with a single map, which is randomly selected from:

-Eternal Battlegrounds
-Edge of the Mists
-Old Borderlands
-New HoT Borderlands
-Fortunes Vale (unreleased map)
*Anet can add new maps as needed.

When the current map reaches its limit, a new random map is spawned similar to edge of the mists. New maps that spawn are shown in the map selection page, which now will look like the game selection page from SPvP hot join. When looking at the map selection players will be able to see how many players on each map in order to best decide where to deploy their armies and commanders.

WvW maps have a fixed player limit (example 100-200 per side) and a time limit (5-6hrs for example) for play similar to the edge of the mist system once spawned. Once the time limit expires for a map, the map is removed from the selection screen and the Kingdom that scores the most points in that map gains a victory.

This system allows for an infinite number of maps to be spawned to support the WvW population just like Edge of the Mists.

In addition new maps would be added to the rotation that have objectives unique to to taking forts and points per tick. These maps may include supply train maps where armies have to escort supply doylaks from one side to another and the team with the most supply at the end of the timer wins.

Other ideas may include maps that specifically focus on Guild vs. Guild combat and capture the flag type objectives on a larger scale.

KINGDOM AND ARMY REWARDS:

Each week when WvW resets players earn weekly rewards based on the performance of their Kingdom as a whole. Players also gain additional rewards based on the individual performance of their servers. The top 3 servers for each Kingdom are rewarded with the ability to wear a bronze, silver, or gold banner that shows their guild emblem to show off their prestige for the following week until the next reset.

Each week all of the server armies are shuffled into one of the three kingdoms based on individual performance. Each server has a hidden performance rating that is used to pair up servers under kingdoms to ensure that the three sides are balanced. This also allows people from lower ranking servers to play along side more organized servers to foster better tactics and learn.

PROBLEMS SOLVED:

-Sever imbalance is solved through pairing servers under kingdoms
-Never wait in the queue again due to the edge of the mist style map spawning
-Extended domination is mitigated by the reshuffling of servers under kingdoms each week. Every week the system starts fresh.
-Kingdoms and servers have to tactically decide where to spread their armies as new battle maps are spawned in order to continually win victories on maps.
-The system randomly spawns maps to ensure all WvW maps are used. This allows Anet to constantly add new maps and prevents old content from being lost when HoT comes out.
-Battles are time limited to prevent a single battle map from stagnating or being covered with siege because its been up for a week.
-Controlled player populations per map allows for better performance and more balanced battles. Players will be able to see how populated maps are as they spawn.
-Players gain server pride by winning and gaining gold, silver, or bronze wearables.
-Servers are also paired by strong with weak to ensure no servers are left behind and everyone gains a chance to be led by good commanders.
-This system builds on the already existing architecture of edge of the mists.

So… We can all agree on:

1. WvW is bad.
2. EotM is incredibly bad.
3. You want to turn WvW into EotM.

I mean I’m not the one to discourage ideas but jesus christ OP…

Variations of this have already been suggested before, ie: Factions, Guilds, Colors etc.. It’s also come with additions of adding PvP style quests or objectives to each map.

The reason these types of ideas keep coming up is because it’s one of the only real fixes to end stagnation & coverage problems.

DeadlySynz.3471:

Variations of this have already been suggested before, ie: Factions, Guilds, Colors etc.. It’s also come with additions of adding PvP style quests or objectives to each map.

The reason these types of ideas keep coming up is because it’s one of the only real fixes to end stagnation & coverage problems.

They are not a fix if they drive the players away. Which will happen if we are forced into an overflow system like EoTM.

DeadlySynz.3471:

Variations of this have already been suggested before, ie: Factions, Guilds, Colors etc.. It’s also come with additions of adding PvP style quests or objectives to each map.

The reason these types of ideas keep coming up is because it’s one of the only real fixes to end stagnation & coverage problems.

Right, my personal story on this is that I’ve been stuck on an island due to pretty much everyone I know migrating off of Tarnished Coast to Blackgate.

There’s been a practice of every guild per tier consolidating to the single #1 server and WvW has pretty much turned into nothing but a domination joke.

TC is so bad that you can’t even kill a single Blackgate roamer without incurring the wrath of the entire server within 20 seconds of the stomp due to their consolidation of organized guilds and communication.

Out of all of the servers per tier only the top tier server really experiences any resemblance of decent WvW and that’s only until they stop enjoying the dominant position and start becoming bored.

There is a huge line of separation between servers within the same tier and the entire system just needs to die a horrible flaming death because mechanically I don’t believe its capable of being saved.

The solution I provided gives constant battles, room for expansion, and prevents singular domination by grouping mentors with tiers that need help instead of allowing everyone to just get on one server and create their own totalitarian regime, which just ruins the game everyone.

Talyn.3295:

DeadlySynz.3471:

Variations of this have already been suggested before, ie: Factions, Guilds, Colors etc.. It’s also come with additions of adding PvP style quests or objectives to each map.

The reason these types of ideas keep coming up is because it’s one of the only real fixes to end stagnation & coverage problems.

They are not a fix if they drive the players away. Which will happen if we are forced into an overflow system like EoTM.

I don’t think this will happen. The only problem with EoTM is that the rewards are lackluster, which is understandable because it was created as a filler system to give people something to do while the primary WvW maps are occupied.

Which is funny because the overflow system of EoTM has better mechanics and only degrades into a Karma train because there is no server level or tournament level incentive to play it.

If you add this to the EoTM system and kill the old system (which is toxic and needs to die), I think you will notice a great level of success.

Talyn.3295:

DeadlySynz.3471:

Variations of this have already been suggested before, ie: Factions, Guilds, Colors etc.. It’s also come with additions of adding PvP style quests or objectives to each map.

The reason these types of ideas keep coming up is because it’s one of the only real fixes to end stagnation & coverage problems.

They are not a fix if they drive the players away. Which will happen if we are forced into an overflow system like EoTM.

I’ve occasionally heard this argument and it’s complete bull.

While it may drive literally a handful of people away, it’d draw a lot more people in which benefits everyone. It solves the 2 biggest issues, stagnation and coverage, while fixing a lesser issue, guildies not being able to play together (ques). Fix that any which way (which a system like this does), more people will play.

Now unless a player prefers to PvD with nobody on the map, then no, this system will not benefit them at all.

DeadlySynz.3471:

Talyn.3295:

DeadlySynz.3471:

Variations of this have already been suggested before, ie: Factions, Guilds, Colors etc.. It’s also come with additions of adding PvP style quests or objectives to each map.

The reason these types of ideas keep coming up is because it’s one of the only real fixes to end stagnation & coverage problems.

They are not a fix if they drive the players away. Which will happen if we are forced into an overflow system like EoTM.

I’ve occasionally heard this argument and it’s complete bull.

While it may drive literally a handful of people away, it’d draw a lot more people in which benefits everyone. It solves the 2 biggest issues, stagnation and coverage, while fixing a lesser issue, guildies not being able to play together (ques). Fix that any which way (which a system like this does), more people will play.

Now unless a player prefers to PvD with nobody on the map, then no, this system will not benefit them at all.

I have heard those arguments before and they are bull.

Why should I bother to upgrade or defend anything if the overflow map just fades away when the population drops?

Why should I care about playing with my guild if there is nothing to do besides karma train like people do in EoTM?

Edit: We have been through this countless times. Overflow ideas never get much support from the WvW community, outside a few people. honestly I am not sure why I bothered to respond. I don’t feel like going down this same road again with the same arguments for and against it.

Cheers.

Talyn.3295:

DeadlySynz.3471:

Talyn.3295:

DeadlySynz.3471:

Variations of this have already been suggested before, ie: Factions, Guilds, Colors etc.. It’s also come with additions of adding PvP style quests or objectives to each map.

The reason these types of ideas keep coming up is because it’s one of the only real fixes to end stagnation & coverage problems.

They are not a fix if they drive the players away. Which will happen if we are forced into an overflow system like EoTM.

I’ve occasionally heard this argument and it’s complete bull.

While it may drive literally a handful of people away, it’d draw a lot more people in which benefits everyone. It solves the 2 biggest issues, stagnation and coverage, while fixing a lesser issue, guildies not being able to play together (ques). Fix that any which way (which a system like this does), more people will play.

Now unless a player prefers to PvD with nobody on the map, then no, this system will not benefit them at all.

I have heard those arguments before and they are bull.

Why should I bother to upgrade or defend anything if the overflow map just fades away when the population drops?

Why should I care about playing with my guild if there is nothing to do besides karma train like people do in EoTM?

Edit: We have been through this countless times. Overflow ideas never get much support from the WvW community, outside a few people. honestly I am not sure why I bothered to respond. I don’t feel like going down this same road again with the same arguments for and against it.

Cheers.

If you use my system the map will only fade once the timer is up. If you don’t defend it and allow everything to be taken you are just giving an enemy kingdom victory points towards the weekly score.

I think in this system there is more incentive to defend because attacking a low population map already in play is a viable strategy. If your stuff isn’t reinforced your giving the opportunity for an enemy kingdom to port to that map and attempt a quick takeover before you can respond.

You also have to remember that even though the maps are timed scoring is still based on PPT. So you can’t expect to win a map just by letting the enemy have all of it until the last hour then porting in and attempting to take it all back before the timer is up.

While I’m putting this out there I think we all can agree that the current system is going to be unsustainable as the game’s population increases as part of HoT.

Overflows are the logical conclusion to a population that shifts regularly. New players to WvW that are unable to get into top ranking servers like Blackgate and end up getting farmed coming in is just going to destroy WvW on its own.

WvW is already killing itself. The problem will only become exponential when WvW comes in and brings an entirely new playerbase to a broken system.

While the overall idea is sound, it fails at a critical point – it rely on players to be able to organize very quickly and fight in a “short” ~6 hour campaign. Thats not going to work at all. Case of point – EoTM. Its not working as WvW.

Players can just barely organize right now with perpetual WvW maps and fixed servers. Even T1 servers fall apart as soon as a commander goes away to eat dinner and no one replace him. Just popping up map after map after map and expecting commanders and guilds to organize themselves there is just… ugh…

The ~6 hour battle also mean that no player that begin can end it (unless they are really hardcore). That probably means that a fight is determined after 2 hours – whichever commander leaves first (or loose the first couple of fights so that people leave him) will loose the fight. Players will not want to join in on a lost cause for a couple of hours.

TL;DR your idea is overcomplicated and wont work. WvW need a simple solution, not something that wreck havoc on everything we know (and love).

Problem is, I dont think there are any simple solutions. No matter how you twist and turn it, the varying population is the core of the problem. Not just on one server, on all three of them. You can use a “dynamic” overflow and say “hey only 200 people play right now, we’ll shut down 3 out of 4 WvW maps!”. But what if those 200 people are just 2 servers and the third is a French server or something that begins playing an hour later? Then you just created 50 man queues on EB for 2 servers just because people wanted to play WvW. GG, have fun. The system need to be much more predictable than that, we cant guess when an overflow close or open.

To salvage some of your ideas and keeping it simple, I would say employ the “timed” EoTM style battles on the borders but use regular WvW scoring. Just fixed borders with fixed open times. EB is open 24/7, border 1 open in the morning, border 2 and 3 in the afternoon followed by the closing of all three borders during the night. Times that are all made clear so that players can plan around them and the exact same the entire week. No points are made from closed borders, but they save their previous state when opening. For low tier servers, they can simply keep a border permanently closed as the system now allows more flexibility in how many zones there are.

So…

1.Guilds: They might find fights every moment so a bit of heaven, BUT they might not be able to pomp their ppl in , disband and their member will probably quit the game

2.Pugs: No more open raids, no more ts3 raids etc. cos why to give ts3 to someone who might be ur enemy next few hours :P – It’s like that at eotm atm. Also 6 hours matches? It wouldn’t be even worth upgrading keeps( 3g to upgrade just to make it again after 6h)

3.Who chose kingdom? Random? Players? Server itself? Wtf is happening?

3.1. If players chose their kingdom:
Numbers Balance: Did u ever think about ppl banging 1 kingdom? For example all SFR players will go to red one and since rest wouldn’t have to transfer to play with em they will chose it too and then bah 90% of ppl will play red kingdom ^^
How will they be able to play at their server but be in other kingdoms?
3.2. If random chose:
Numbers Balance: Kingdom that get SFR will win every time
What if some players wouldn’t want to be in some kingdom cos of too many FR or DE ppl there and comms leading in this langauges?

4. And finally something that I mentioned in 3.2 point and is most important here: did u ever think about langauges varienty? U know it might not be a problem for NA but in EU we have: English servers, Spanish server, French servers, German servers. So how would it work? English players put in same map with german players that want to lead in german, but 1/3 of the map that is english speaking and don’t understand a thing So in result 1/3 of map leaded by Eng Com, 1/3 by DE com and 1/3 by FR com, then enemy with 90% of map leaded by Eng comm. Result? Insta lose for any of those groups ^^ Also I personaly wouldn’t want to play with ppl from servers like Blacktide or Fort Rannik[FR] ^^ Also I’m English speaking person( not native tho) and this is reason why I play at English speaking server and not some FR server, which will change after ur “sollution” and I will be bundled with all language players and ppl that i don’t like. There will be also lot of discrimination and other communication probalems

@lordhelmos

Kingdoms:

Battlegroup system, will solve the population problem as well as can be done with the game in current state. The only other alternative would be to remove servers entirely and make everything into a join random color system (which would tick off people even more). This would allow for changing teams to avoid stagnation and to much server jumping to stack one. IF you also avoid the 8vs8vs8 setup of current EotM, this can also adjust itself better to the big (WvW) population differences between servers by having it scale itself.

Problems related to this:

Server PRide: While this will retain servers, it will reduce the value of one, it is up to each individual to how bad this is for them.

Communications: Each server is setup with their own voice-com/forums/websites etc, and there is no reason to share this with players from other servers, if they might be enemies the next week. This will limit communications inside a "Kingdom".

Languages: As someone else pointed out earlier, EU has a unique problem here with non english speaking servers.

Personal opinion: I’m not a particular fan of this system myself, but it probably the best solution we have to the problem, and the alternative is most likely a slow bleeding death to WvW.

Map Rotation And Battles:

Dynamic Map Adjustment. Good, this will deal with coverage, Queue’s, nightcap’s and other changes in population over the day. Depending on the amount of players online it can range from 1 map to dozens.

The change to a sPvP style map selector is a nice touch, easier to adjust to the number of maps. The ability to see number of players feels a bit weird. I guess a graphical representation would work since ANet refuses to show clear numbers. The numbers seems a bit off but as you said they are to be adjusted, another idea here is to dynamically remove maps once they pass a certain low threshold to avoid empty maps for 2-4 hours.

Love the ideas for new maps, been wanting some of those myself. The more diverse maps the more interest for larger amount of players, the more variation etc. Especially think we would need 1-2 maps designed specifically to ease new players and PvE’ers into WvW, to get used to the format and play style without feeling overwhelmed.

Some points:

Keep EBG as the default map. It is the most popular one, and a good amount of players would just leave if they found the EotM map etc. (Each to their own, personally like the EotM map, but no point in making more frustration than needed)

One important note is to make certain people feel/notice that each map actually does matter for the WvW points. A *lot* of people are just going to join and casually say "meeh eotm" and leave the map without even bothering to check that it does indeed give points, and Queue on the main EBG map thinking it is the only map "that matters". Keep maps open for as long as there is population, shut them down when they get empty, and somehow show clearly that you gain points from the other maps.

Kingdom and Army Rewards:

Don’t have much comments on rewards, never really mattered to me.

What I am curious about is how will this work with the leaderboard, server ratings/glicko etc. This would make it mostly hopeless to keep a ranking system as we have today. I don’t really have a problem with that myself, but the ranking is important for some, and a driving motivation for many. Having a hidden rating for match-ups is ok, but how will servers be ranked ? This is a huge part of driving peoples competitive instincts.

Problems Solved:

Agree with all points except these two:

-Kingdoms and servers have to tactically decide where to spread their armies as new battle maps are spawned in order to continually win victories on maps.

Servers perhaps, but kingdoms will lack the communication to pull this off. Some minor ways to work with this is to make a new chatt channel "/server" that will work for all players in WvW maps on the same server to communicate. And change "/team" to work for the kingdom and all players in WvW for the same kingdom. It would also make them troll-able, so some way to deal with that would be needed, but that is not the purpose of this post.

-Players gain server pride by winning and gaining gold, silver, or bronze wearables.

I guess this might work for some (wouldn’t do a thing for me though), but I’m mostly curious how this should be rated ? I mean if Blackgate and Eredon Terrace plays in the same Kingdom what metrics are used to calculate this ? Blackgate has a gazillion more players and a bunch more guilds, are they going to grab the gold reward every week ?

And if they don’t, won’t they feel cheated for having "participated the most" and not getting rewarded for it ?

Tricky.

Love the idea all over, thank you for sharing this and hope to see more from you forward.

I think 5-6 hours is a little too short. 12-24 hours may be better. I still am unsure how this would resolve any coverage issues though. What if Red Kingdom has multiple SEA servers, while the green and blue have next to none. Coverage wars 2.0

12 hour may resolve that. Interesting idea regardless

@Hexin

Well if all servers with sea coverage rolls into one kingdom, then yes, pretty kitten. Hopefully it means that the other sides get more coverage in other times to even it out. On the whole however for NA at least, I think the top 3 servers are still going to face each others each week, and that is probably going to solve 50% of the coverage by itself with their numbers...

Hexin.5603:

I think 5-6 hours is a little too short. 12-24 hours may be better. I still am unsure how this would resolve any coverage issues though. What if Red Kingdom has multiple SEA servers, while the green and blue have next to none. Coverage wars 2.0

12 hour may resolve that. Interesting idea regardless

12 hours would make it even worse. As you say, coverage wars 2.0. If one side dominate the matchup for say 3 of those 12 hours, the others will just give up. Just look at how reset night is today. It doesnt matter how good your server is, if you dominate all night by pure numbers the others servers will be so demoralized over the weekend its already lost.

A 4 hour window in primetime would be much more balanced in terms of fights as guilds would determine victory, but its not WvW anymore, just a glorified PvP match. And if it occur outside the primetime window, its pointless again as coverage is everything. 12 hour or 4 hour matches, it does not help.

I maintain that this idea will not work. Its not WvW.