Guild Wars 2

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

DeadlySynz.3471:

The only thing having servers does is implement server loyalty and nothing more.

What megaservers do is open up a vastly larger amounts of players and guilds to fight. Ends the empty dead maps. Removes the ques. Ultimately will make for much larger communities.

Everything you see right now with a server can be done with a megaserver EXCEPT being handcuffed to one server in the name of loyalty.

Lol. You’re one of those idiots that can’t think about consequences, aren’t you.

Clearly the consequences of doing things they way they are currently is MUCH better right? OH wait, server populations are dying, some dead, and you’re still going to rally on the “server pride” front?

The only consequence of merging servers or making a mega-server is killing server pride, given the repercussion of not doing so is the gamemode itself dying I’d say it’s a very smart move to megaserver up. I’m not so short sighted and selfish that I’d cling to some loose bond because it makes me feel special while the game dies. If you kill server communities, new communities will form. They always have and they always will. A new system could even include factions that guilds could join that mercenary out to whatever side has less people. Each week guilds and factions compete to see who can take more keeps, kill more enemies, etc. The other major bonus is that there is then a much easier time dealing with off-peak capping and population imbalances.

You need to face it. Server communities are all but dead. No one really cares anymore who won what matchup, not even T1. 2 years ago this forum would have been on fire with people from T1 flaming each other, now? Nothing. It’s time for a new system that combats off-peak domination, low(no) populations, and brings back competition.

Distaste.4801:

The only consequence of merging servers or making a mega-server is killing server pride, given the repercussion of not doing so is the gamemode itself dying I’d say it’s a very smart move to megaserver up. I’m not so short sighted and selfish that I’d cling to some loose bond because it makes me feel special while the game dies. If you kill server communities, new communities will form. They always have and they always will. A new system could even include factions that guilds could join that mercenary out to whatever side has less people. Each week guilds and factions compete to see who can take more keeps, kill more enemies, etc. The other major bonus is that there is then a much easier time dealing with off-peak capping and population imbalances.

I disagree. Server communities is what has kept people playing a reward-less game for the past three years. It’s only with the advent of the new map and the pve mechanics on those maps that WvW has completely sputtered out.

The problem with megaserver is that there is no brand loyalty. Your conclusion that new communities will emerge from it is specious if you look at how the mechanics will work.

First off, if you’re not in a big guild, you likely will have a randomized map. If you do defense at all for your server, you will know that the bulk of those defenders come from small or solo guilds.

Big guilds tend to want to run together, so they are not going to separate one or two members to scout and watch the maps. They just won’t.

And how many guilds do you know of that strictly do defense 24/7 in WvW? And how big are those guilds? Not likely very big.

And if those smaller solo/guilds are randomized into different matches, there’s no creation of team — the backbone of WvW will disappear simply because people won’t respond to scout call outs because they don’t know and trust that scout. Scouts will stop doing the most unrewarding task on map because their efforts are being ignored.

With no scouts, and no defenders, the map will consist of attack forces only. With nobody defending the keeps or towers, and only attack on the map, the map will ultimately morph into a pve-champ train map — all aboard the ktrain.

For those of us who have played this game, and loved this game mode, for the past three years — and honestly with the sheer lack of rewards in WvW and STILL it drew a loyal following is indication of people’s passion for this game. And all of that relied on a sense of community.

It didn’t happen because of guilds and their alliances. It happened because of a common purpose/server pride/goals that brought all those different guilds and single players together.

Take away that, and you’ll see WvW turn into a giant pve ktrain. Which will empty the next time a big update/shiny is announced.

Distaste.4801:

2 years ago this forum would have been on fire with people from T1 flaming each other, now? Nothing.

Apparently you missed the part where Anet removed the match threads because they were too high maintenance.

All in all, megaserver tech is a success so it serves as a great player pooling tool. It’s always fun with more players, and after all, we are taking about a player vs player environment here…

Swagger.1459:

All in all, megaserver tech is a success so it serves as a great player pooling tool. It’s always fun with more players, and after all, we are taking about a player vs player environment here…

… except it would be impossible to use in a 24/7 weekly scenario where coverage decide the winner of a matchup.

Swagger.1459:

All in all, megaserver tech is a success so it serves as a great player pooling tool. It’s always fun with more players, and after all, we are taking about a player vs player environment here…

Yep, EoTM has been a great success so far…

NiloyBardhan.9170:

Swagger.1459:

All in all, megaserver tech is a success so it serves as a great player pooling tool. It’s always fun with more players, and after all, we are taking about a player vs player environment here…

Yep, EoTM has been a great success so far…

EoTM is a waiting room… You can’t even pick your color, its not meant to be true WvW just a place to mess around for a couple mins.

Now if people were able to play together in real WvW that would be different story.

Dawdler.8521:

Swagger.1459:

All in all, megaserver tech is a success so it serves as a great player pooling tool. It’s always fun with more players, and after all, we are taking about a player vs player environment here…

… except it would be impossible to use in a 24/7 weekly scenario where coverage decide the winner of a matchup.

1) I would prefer if “better fighting” would decide the match and not just coverage. So if mega-server technology in WvW would reduce or even eliminate the dominance of coverage it would already be an improvement in my view.

2) If we talk about “mega-server technology in WvW” we shurely do NOT get the current EotM, that would not need over a year development, it will be something else.

3) Rumors talk about alliances consisting of 3 guilds in the new WvW, that’s around 3000 people capacity per alliance. If I would be ANet I would initialize the alliances with the current servers communities, i.e. the 3000 most active player per server get a new (6th) guild called “server name”-1/2/3 and build together the alliance “server name”.

4) Alliances do only make sense, if all alliance members are places together onto the same maps such that they can fight together. That may be complicated and I’ve no idea how ANet will do it (but some ideas how it could be done) and is likely the reason why ANet needs over a year to implement it.

But if these 4 points work and are combined with a PPT that makes the score meaninful, the result will be a mayor improvement over the current WvW.

Xenesis.6389:

I think players are more on to community or guild loyalty than server loyalty at this point. Too many servers have already been destroyed by players moving away, and sometimes multiple guilds will move together to another server because they like playing with each other. Just like what we saw when some T1 guilds moved to YB to ride them to T1.

Megaserver tech definitely hurt recruitment and defense call outs for wvw, which is why they should have left LA as a server based city and not put every single zone on megaserver.

The eotm system could work, it’s just a matter of whether or Anet wants to put the work into making it work properly. What they need to provide is something else to rally behind instead of server identities made by the players. Besides guilds, players need a bigger purpose to rally behind, the other games that do this actually make it a war with distinct sides, which GW2 just makes it a war with servers.

I’ll use examples that they could use, world of warcraft alliance and horde sides. Both sides are distinct, they have lore to back it up, and there are players who are fiercely loyal to either side. Warhammer online, also 2 distinct sides that players were fiercely loyal to. Remember Dark age of camelot? the game that wvw was insipred by, same concept with 3 sides. Same thing another game called Planetside features, 3 distinct sides in lore to fight behind.

What Anet needs to do is create 3 new alliances, let’s just use this as a quick example say Durmand Priory, Order of Whispers, and the Vigil. There’s a lot of lore in game to back it up, there’s distinction between all 3 sides that players can support and rally behind, the rewards for them could also be unique as well.

Let’s take it further and use the Gods as sides instead:
6 gods that players are matched to from their character creation, Balthazar Dwayna Grenth Kormir Lyssa Melandru. (Option to change one time upon implementation).
So basically 6 separate pools of players (instead of 24-27 servers).
3 sides of 2 gods alliances, so 2 gods randomly matched into alliances every week.
You want to transfer? pay 1800 gems to transfer and get a prayer book back piece as a blessing to your new god, lol.
Offer new wvw season rewards with art/fashion that match the sides you’re playing for, such as the lyssa balthazar and dwayna outfits.

What we don’t need is 3 faceless sides, green blue red to fight for, or the stupidity of putting all the green ranked servers (usually the top server of the tier) player pools together. Nor do we need player made mercenary alliances filled with 3 guilds and 300 players to fill maps for a week.

I agree, we need new figures to rally around for WvW, especially with the 3 Orders. Maybe having it so the Mist War is an alternate reality where the 3 never compromised and instead ended up in a bloody war? If it was a 2 side conflict instead, we could have used the old Kiel vs Gnashblade for good effect.

Dayra.7405:

4) Alliances do only make sense, if all alliance members are places together onto the same maps such that they can fight together. That may be complicated and I’ve no idea how ANet will do it (but some ideas how it could be done) and is likely the reason why ANet needs over a year to implement it.

What they’ll probably do is give alliances their own maps for the week, in matchups of 3 alliances. Alliance members will probably have a certain amount of space reserved for them on in the maps (300 members over 4 maps = 75 each, or lower if map caps are only 100 players or less). While the rest of the space is filled out with randoms who are not part of the alliances, this is how they will keep those maps populated at all times.

How they will place players is no different than the current megaserver/eotm tech, match player alliance, then guilds, then friends, then server mates, etc. If any alliance members can’t be placed on a specific map because they already hit the 75 alliance player cap and map cap, then then they are placed in the queue, or they can choose another map which has space reserved for them.

Xenesis.6389:

Dayra.7405:

4) Alliances do only make sense, if all alliance members are places together onto the same maps such that they can fight together. That may be complicated and I’ve no idea how ANet will do it (but some ideas how it could be done) and is likely the reason why ANet needs over a year to implement it.

What they’ll probably do is give alliances their own maps for the week, in matchups of 3 alliances. Alliance members will probably have a certain amount of space reserved for them on in the maps (300 members over 4 maps = 75 each, or lower if map caps are only 100 players or less). While the rest of the space is filled out with randoms who are not part of the alliances, this is how they will keep those maps populated at all times.

How they will place players is no different than the current megaserver/eotm tech, match player alliance, then guilds, then friends, then server mates, etc. If any alliance members can’t be placed on a specific map because they already hit the 75 alliance player cap and map cap, then then they are placed in the queue, or they can choose another map which has space reserved for them.

So let’s split up guilds if they can’t find room in the alliance du jour. Not enough players? No problem just let randoms in from here and there where they have no loyalty, no coordination, and no motivation. Shared Teamspeak? We don’t need no stinking Teamspeak.

This “Alliance” idea is stupid for true, competitive RvR, and if it’s such a great idea why is EotM so despised by real WvW guilds?

The real solution is to encapsulate the remaining WvW players in the top 3 brackets, and then let them fight.

Dawdler.8521:

Swagger.1459:

All in all, megaserver tech is a success so it serves as a great player pooling tool. It’s always fun with more players, and after all, we are taking about a player vs player environment here…

… except it would be impossible to use in a 24/7 weekly scenario where coverage decide the winner of a matchup.

Timed matches and rewards for 1st, 2nd, 3rd place winners maybe? HoT style objective reward system?

We all have to think out of the current wvw box more… Obviously all current wvw things are failing, so it’s time to make wvw great again!

Xenesis.6389:

What they’ll probably do is give alliances their own maps for the week, in matchups of 3 alliances. Alliance members will probably have a certain amount of space reserved for them on in the maps (300 members over 4 maps = 75 each, or lower if map caps are only 100 players or less). While the rest of the space is filled out with randoms who are not part of the alliances, this is how they will keep those maps populated at all times.

Why do people still keep talking about these “alliances”? Its freakin impossible that it would be guild size based. We cant even fill 4 maps with entire T1 servers. You could probably slap together 3 servers and still just barely get enough coverage for one “alliance”.

Assuming of course, we’re actually talking about WvW.

At this point, it wouldnt surprise me if Anet shuts down WvW and introduce this as a new gameplay mode, quick EoTM matchups with these guild based “alliances”. They dont have to care about reset day anymore and they dont have to care about matchup balance issues (even if one side roflstomp the other its like oh okay the next match is in 3h anyway).

Whatever it takes to get back to good fights is fine by me. As far as I’m concerned they could randomly assign all guilds to alliances each season (lasting 1 month). While we’re at it, each WvW player should pay 3 gold for a ticket to WvW for the month. Then every day when a player completes a WvW daily, the player gets back 5 silver (in addition to the other rewards from normal play). If there are 4 WvW dailies and a player earns all of them every day, then that player doubles their investment (20s/day x 30 days = 6g). People would come back for the chance to make a profit, and when the maps fill up it gets fun again.

Kaiser.9873:

This “Alliance” idea is stupid for true, competitive RvR, and if it’s such a great idea why is EotM so despised by real WvW guilds?

EotM is a waiting room. It has little to do with WvW, it has no balancing, poor design, and is not meant to be a full time RvR.

Real WvW is still better but much too spread out atm. And putting so much reliance on guilds to drive WvW was a big mistake. Guilds run around being selfish.. they don’t defend or scout, your lucky if they even respond to callouts.

So what does eotm do well?

High participation numbers and better reward pace.

That’s what’s missing from wvw right now… We need to think about those fundamental things more.

Swagger.1459:

So what does eotm do well?

High participation numbers and better reward pace.

That’s what’s missing from wvw right now… We need to think about those fundamental things more.

The people that particate in EotM are not the ones you want in WvW. They want the most mindless PvE experience you can find. Probably all foreign prisoners being forced to gold farm/sell/scam.

displayname.8315:

Swagger.1459:

So what does eotm do well?

High participation numbers and better reward pace.

That’s what’s missing from wvw right now… We need to think about those fundamental things more.

The people that particate in EotM are not the ones you want in WvW. They want the most mindless PvE experience you can find. Probably all foreign prisoners being forced to gold farm/sell/scam.

I believe you are missing the points…

Swagger.1459:

So what does eotm do well?

High participation numbers and better reward pace.

The thing EotM does better is NOT higher participation numbers (I am in doubt that more people play EotM than WvW), BUT adaptation of map-capacity to player-demand, such that it feels like higher participation numbers.

In EotM you have 1 map per EU/NA if less than 300 like to play, and e.g. 100 if 30000 would like to play.

In WvW you have always 36/32 maps, if 300 want to play (every map feels empty) or if 30000 want (most people sit in queues).

Dynamic demand oriented number of maps is the trick.

Swagger.1459:

I believe you are missing the points…

@Dayra summed it up better than I could.

Even if EotM does attract more people it does it by giving the easiest, most mindless form of farming the game has to offer. That’s not why we play WvW.

As to the rewards, its just fine if your not getting one-pushed. If your not good enough to make loot there’s always a ton of other ways to get that stuff.

displayname.8315:

Swagger.1459:

I believe you are missing the points…

@Dayra summed it up better than I could.

Even if EotM does attract more people it does it by giving the easiest, most mindless form of farming the game has to offer. That’s not why we play WvW.

As to the rewards, its just fine if your not getting one-pushed. If your not good enough to make loot there’s always a ton of other ways to get that stuff.

nah It does it by having access to the most players. If I want to play WvW and fight other zergs, I go to EoTM since my EB map is dead population wise.

EoTM design is way better than WvW. The only problem is the way maps are designed.
The EoTM map punish defenses since the walls dont really defend well since there are many ways around walls, and the structures arent well defended by design.

Ok ok ok….

The 4 wvw maps that need to be coordinated and are the place for tournaments ARE DIFFRENT than eotm..,

Overall objectives are DIFFERENT

Megaserver does not mean anything besides megaserver…

Separate the two peeps because most of you see the word megaserver wvw and megaserver eotm and make an assumption they are the same…

Most common players want rewards, hence all the reward systems in game. Wvw can’t survive without a decent reward system to cater to folk. Just because some of you can scout or stand on a tower for 12hrs without some type of actual reward and be happy, most don’t share that same feeling…

Wvw lacks a decent reward system…

Knighthonor.4061:

nah It does it by having access to the most players. If I want to play WvW and fight other zergs, I go to EoTM since my EB map is dead population wise.

EoTM design is way better than WvW. The only problem is the way maps are designed.
The EoTM map punish defenses since the walls dont really defend well since there are many ways around walls, and the structures arent well defended by design.

The design is “better” only because it pulls from all the servers. But it is not a “good” design because it is a legacy of the servers. In stead of using dynamic balancing it inherits the imbalance of the servers.

The map design is poor for sure, which is the main reason why WvW should have gotten the alliance treatment instead of adding this EotM map as a waiting room.

To @Swagger WvW is not a grinding map, it is end game. The whole menafesto of Anet was that GW2 would NOT be your typical loot grind MMO. People can not be trusted with something as simple as mist skins and tournament tickets when it comes to victors getting more rewards than the vanquished.

Who said anything about grinding maps or gold?….

Rewards mean a lot of things…. Are you anti-reward structure?

So if there were, for example, ways to earn ascended armor and weapons with badges of honor would you complain?

Maybe the devs are going to make ascended runes and sigils for earned rewards.

Maybe the devs will make a set of special legendary armor for wvw players…

It’s called incentivized gameplay… Most players want rewards. You want more peeps in wvw? Give out better rewards…

Sigh…

Swagger.1459:

Who said anything about grinding maps or gold?….

Rewards mean a lot of things…. Are you anti-reward structure?

So if there were, for example, ways to earn ascended armor and weapons with badges of honor would you complain?

Maybe the devs are going to make ascended runes and sigils for earned rewards.

Maybe the devs will make a set of special legendary armor for wvw players…

It’s called incentivized gameplay… Most players want rewards. You want more peeps in wvw? Give out better rewards…

Sigh…

First off not sure why your trying to make this thread about loot, its about wanting dynamic servers.

Second if you want the mats to make ascended, WvW gives those just fine. Just open the heavy loot bags from player kills. Or the exotic loot bags from champ kills. Or salvage the gear dropped by everything else. Myself I just put it all on the vendor now that I’m equipped, not like it took long.

WvW only legendary gear?? You used to have to WvW a little to get legendary, they removed that because of player complaints. I don’t like that there is fractal only loot but whatever. Its not going to be a good thing changing rewards. You see how well mist skins and tornament tickets went over with loot hounds.

Well you won’t have “dynamic” wvw unless you use the megaserver tech and have a good reward structure to incentivize wvw gameplay…

The Eotm system would be very very bad for WvW. But Megaservers could be a good thing if they are done properly to retain a sense of community/pride.

Server Pride matters? Then why were u jumping around so much from server to server? Is everyone supposed to do what u did? Your server pride in yak’s bend, or whatever the current server your in, is a learned behaviour. There are plenty of systems that ‘could’ bolster alliance/megaserver pride….you are just being closed minded.

Yeah neither the EoTM tech or the PvE megaserver tech would be right for WvW.

IMO just treating the servers like a FPS game would do it. Join one, switch to another if you don’t like, queue for one if you wish… Easy peasy.

They will never do that otherwise they’ll lose revenues they get from the transfers. Transferring to a very high server is $22.5 per individual atm.

displayname.8315:

NiloyBardhan.9170:

Swagger.1459:

All in all, megaserver tech is a success so it serves as a great player pooling tool. It’s always fun with more players, and after all, we are taking about a player vs player environment here…

Yep, EoTM has been a great success so far…

EoTM is a waiting room… You can’t even pick your color, its not meant to be true WvW just a place to mess around for a couple mins.

Now if people were able to play together in real WvW that would be different story.

EoTM was designed for players to have a WvW,l experience and as an alternative when male are queued except for the fact that scores doesn’t matter there. Little did Anet know (or did they just pretend? Idk) the way it would turn out like it is now…

NiloyBardhan.9170:

They will never do that otherwise they’ll lose revenues they get from the transfers. Transferring to a very high server is $22.5 per individual atm.

It could also be argued that they are losing revenue with all the people leaving due to broken servers.

I’d like to believe they are not counting on WvW transfers to keep them in the black.

They didn’t care about PvE transfers when they made that a megaserver. They probably don’t care about WvW xfers at this point.

Most of their money is probably made by outfits and mining picks, character slots ect. That’s how all the other MMOs work.

displayname.8315:

NiloyBardhan.9170:

They will never do that otherwise they’ll lose revenues they get from the transfers. Transferring to a very high server is $22.5 per individual atm.

It could also be argued that they are losing revenue with all the people leaving due to brocken servers.

I’d like to believe they are not counting on WvW transfers to keep them in the black.

Few things:

1) There are far too many servers for too few WvW’ers
2) WvW population is at an all time low because of the “New overhaul” it got on 23rd October, 2015.

Keeping this in mind, its only a lose-lose situation for Anet if they decide to make transfers free. Judging by people’s response, going megaserver in WvW will also cause many to leave and Anet will have one of its sources of $$$ cut forever. Also, bandwagoning…we saw what happened with HoD in season 2.

NiloyBardhan.9170:

Few things:

1) There are far too many servers for too few WvW’ers
2) WvW population is at an all time low because of the “New overhaul” it got on 23rd October, 2015.

Keeping this in mind, its only a lose-lose situation for Anet if they decide to make transfers free. Judging by people’s response, going megaserver in WvW will also cause many to leave and Anet will have one of its sources of $$$ cut forever. Also, bandwagoning…we saw what happened with HoD in season 2.

If they lose either way I hope they decide on free xfers or megaserver, at least I can still play some that way.

Its not like player attrition is just some theory, there have been dead timezones and dead weekdays for a long time now.

Nothing do about bandwagoning it seems, even if numbers are even players will screw it up with 2v1 or some other lamer tactics. I’ve fought with and against bandwagons, its not the end of the earth.

The only thing that makes me decide on TV in stead of GW2 is empty maps.

Dawdler.8521:

Why do people still keep talking about these “alliances”? Its freakin impossible that it would be guild size based. We cant even fill 4 maps with entire T1 servers. You could probably slap together 3 servers and still just barely get enough coverage for one “alliance”.

Clam down buddy, was only using the rumored number as an example.

Swagger.1459:

Most common players want rewards, hence all the reward systems in game. Wvw can’t survive without a decent reward system to cater to folk. Just because some of you can scout or stand on a tower for 12hrs without some type of actual reward and be happy, most don’t share that same feeling…

Wvw lacks a decent reward system…

I honestly believe this is the core of the issue. Everything else in game is so much more rewarding than WvW atm. It used to be that eventually, even if you never left WvW, you would be “on par” with everyone else. Then power creep started to inch its way into the game. Now, that goal is unattainable.

It is especially egregious after HoT with gated materials that are in no way, shape, or form obtainable through WvW. The time has come to revamp the rewards in WvW. The stat combinations(for the most part) for WvW are different enough from PvE meta stat combinations to introduce better gear through WvW currencies. Make this new generation of gear attainable through a mixture of proofs, badges, and gold. Gate availability by WvW ranks( ie you can’t begin purchasing the “new” gear until rank whatever). Make the new generation of gear stat combinations that are more geared towards WvW. This way you truly have some equivalency between PvE and WvW without making it “easier” to gear up through one or the other.

Daddar.5971:

Whatever it takes to get back to good fights is fine by me. As far as I’m concerned they could randomly assign all guilds to alliances each season (lasting 1 month). While we’re at it, each WvW player should pay 3 gold for a ticket to WvW for the month. Then every day when a player completes a WvW daily, the player gets back 5 silver (in addition to the other rewards from normal play). If there are 4 WvW dailies and a player earns all of them every day, then that player doubles their investment (20s/day x 30 days = 6g). People would come back for the chance to make a profit, and when the maps fill up it gets fun again.

Great idea, know what would make it even better?

300 gems per WvW ticket and no return of gold.

I’m a genius!

Jayne.9251:

I disagree. Server communities is what has kept people playing a reward-less game for the past three years. It’s only with the advent of the new map and the pve mechanics on those maps that WvW has completely sputtered out.

The problem with megaserver is that there is no brand loyalty. Your conclusion that new communities will emerge from it is specious if you look at how the mechanics will work.

First off, if you’re not in a big guild, you likely will have a randomized map. If you do defense at all for your server, you will know that the bulk of those defenders come from small or solo guilds.

Big guilds tend to want to run together, so they are not going to separate one or two members to scout and watch the maps. They just won’t.

And how many guilds do you know of that strictly do defense 24/7 in WvW? And how big are those guilds? Not likely very big.

And if those smaller solo/guilds are randomized into different matches, there’s no creation of team — the backbone of WvW will disappear simply because people won’t respond to scout call outs because they don’t know and trust that scout. Scouts will stop doing the most unrewarding task on map because their efforts are being ignored.

With no scouts, and no defenders, the map will consist of attack forces only. With nobody defending the keeps or towers, and only attack on the map, the map will ultimately morph into a pve-champ train map — all aboard the ktrain.

For those of us who have played this game, and loved this game mode, for the past three years — and honestly with the sheer lack of rewards in WvW and STILL it drew a loyal following is indication of people’s passion for this game. And all of that relied on a sense of community.

It didn’t happen because of guilds and their alliances. It happened because of a common purpose/server pride/goals that brought all those different guilds and single players together.

Take away that, and you’ll see WvW turn into a giant pve ktrain. Which will empty the next time a big update/shiny is announced.

Well said! I agree completely.

atheria.2837:

Dear Fellow Players:

(…)

If players can’t " one " to " three shot " one dead, it’s going to be up to skill to “win”. Give us a chance for skill to be evident, not impossible.

Wrong game mate, last big changes(lat year)made Aoe blob and numbers plus alot of stuff going on the oposite way of that… it seams game is evolving not for “much of player skill” but to player skill/cleverness to find cheaper gameplay.

If every one needs a few press buttons to kill eveyone fill rewarded, game balance was never good except fot those “clever” players that play the gimmick builds and game tends to balance itself on gimmick vs gimmick, it means less maintainance time balancing classes because no balance is needed.

displayname.8315:

Yeah neither the EoTM tech or the PvE megaserver tech would be right for WvW.

IMO just treating the servers like a FPS game would do it. Join one, switch to another if you don’t like, queue for one if you wish… Easy peasy.

I understand what ur saying but dont agree with that, games need to have some meaning to the players, something that makes them stay, not making player work even more useless, wich IMO that is what that change would create, less importance of the player more player flip server, more stacking, more confusion etc.

The gw2 problem is way to much unbalanced action skills, and player importance is zero, beside AOE stack and PVD.
Another one is megaserver hardly work, because game engine does not support the necessary changes for make it work., megaserver itself is an ilusion.
sorry my bad english :\

Yeah the PvP tends to be gimmick vs gimmick.. which is why WvW is the only part I enjoy since it is a mesh of PvP, PvE, and a tower defence game.

I don’t believe allowing people to transfer fast and free would take the "meaning" out of the game. Its not really that much of role play. Its like a team fortress 2 but with more involved mechanics. People want role play that its some sort of sims game but its not really.

Megaserver will happen one way or another I suspect. Eventually the remaining WvW population will move to T1 or T2 to find fights. Even now T1 runs most NA prime nights with no queue or very little queue at least on YB. Outside of NA Prime it is pretty common to only have a dozen people on a map throughout the day depending on which server a player is on.

Kaiser.9873:

PopeUrban.2578:

That’s all well and good for the chosen few that sit in the upper echelons of the leaderboard. What about the rest of us?

What about the people that log in to WvW and are lucky to see five enemies all day?

What about their inability to transfer to a higher pop WvW server? What about what happens to people when their server empties out for the week because of tier population imbalances?

What about the fact that removing servers does not dismantle communities. Communities choosing to dismantle themselves does

If you need the game to tell you who is on your team, then your team isn’t as strong as you thought it was.

WvW might seem fine from the perpective of the top. I used to run on TC, and it looked fine from that vantage point.

However, more than half of all servers don’t have the ability to fight competitive WvW matches, and exhorbitant server transfer fees shouldn’t be a permanent requirement for guilds to reorganize in to and out of larger armies.

It’s easy to forget how horrible WvW is as a game mode when you’re not at the top. This is unlike any other part of the game. Even in complete noob tier pvp you are still getting good matches. Even in completely screwed PvE maps you still have events adjusted to solo.

When there isn’t a population that is roughly equivalent for all teams involved there is no WvW and the current server model does not support, and can not support enough teams to make that happen due to the effect of server stacking and basic human desire to win

Okay so merge the low end servers. Then all is good again, no? Bottom line is we have way too many servers for the number of players we have.

The current system isn’t broken just because there are too many servers.

It’s broken because it load balances against total population rather than wvw population, and it’s broken because it allows people to easily bandwagon on to already successful servers every week provided they can pony up a few bucks, creating a population snowball effect that kills competitive matches for 2 of 3 teams in a given match.

What WvW needs is a legitimate opt-in faction system and a rotating season.

Servers are already opt-in factions, the only difference being that you can switch sides whenever you feel like, and bandwagon on to successful teams which makes competitive matches even harder to find as losers become more frustrated and thus more likely to jump to an already winning server.

If WvW incorporated a “sign up” phase timer similar to the way guild mission settings work, by having your faction swap only at reset, swap for free, and load balancing those factions every match, you’d see a much more competitive game across the board.

The changes to the system would be fairly simple:

• “server” becomes “team” During the week, in the wvw panel, you can either choose to be assigned a random team (default) a preferred team (select by name) or a guild you are a member of to control where you end up each matchup.

• No mid-match swapping Swapping works exactly like guild missions. You can say “I prefer to be on YB” but you won’t move to YB until the next reset.

• Formal guild alliance functionality/guild team selection This is specifically for guild officers. Guilds in an alliance will automatically have their guild’s team set to match the alliance leading guild’s team. Guilds can also choose a team (similar interface to personal selection) This functionality allows pve guilds to remain hands off, and allows players in multiple guilds to choose which guild they want to wvw with. The guild chooses its alliance and preferred team, but players choose which guild they want to follow, or choose their team individually

• Teams are balanced every reset automatically. You will always end up with your guild/alliance, but at reset the game will balance population based on people who already have a preference set, and fill out the remainder with people with no preference. This means that while your alliance is set to ‘Tarnished Coast’ and all members/guilds are set to follow the alliance lead, if another equally large alliance is also set to ‘Tarnished Coast’ The system will attempt to population balance per match based upon guild/alliance members with logins in the last week, and after that fill population from players set to random. This shifts the focus of communities from server to guild/alliance, and ensures that if any one community grows too large the system will attempt to balance population against it so that matches remain competitive and fun.

• Incentivize being filler to further equalize pops. Individuals can choose to be assigned at random, rather than alongside a guild or alliance. Being randomly assigned means there is no guarantee you’ll play alongside any of your friends or guildmates, but it will grant you bonus WXP for the duration of the match. This is the default option, and exists primarily so that the system has a way to separate organized groups of players and soloists, and ensure that people who don’t actually normally play WvW aren’t skewing population numbers. The WXP bonus is there specifically to entice new players and soloists to choose this option, while experienced and organized groups can easily see the larger benefits of retaining their communitites.

• Total number of teams is dynamically adjusted each match. Simply put, wvw matches will track concurrent players. if five matches with 3 teams each take place this week, and we can see that to average number of players in two of those matches were down to ten a day, the system knows there are too many teams. Thus, next reset, in stead of five matches, it’ll drop three teams and there will be 4 matches. If it seems regular servers ending up in heavy ques all week, it’ll create more matches. This means communities will continue to play together, but the system is dynamically adjusting to ensure each reset there are an optimal number of teams and matches for players actually playing wvw, preventing both heavy ques and dead matchups.

• Server Leaderboards become Alliance and Guild Leaderboards Using the same setup as the guild challenger league leaderboard, with a similar ranking system, but fixing the obvious problem exploit the challenger leaderboard has right now of generating infinity new teams. This setup encourages guilds and alliances to win matches consistantly, and, with the proposed population balancing measures, better reflects skill and organization than how much server stacking someone did. A seasonal system could be built around this with unique rewards, skins, guild hall trophies, etc.

Now that we have guild halls. Let’s have actual guild wars in WvW. How about a megaserver that fixes the lag issues WvW has been plagued with, and fixes population problems, ensures highly populated WvW maps at all times, but the loyalty you speak of is to your player guild. Allow guilds to form alliances before each tournament when they register. Allow commanders RTS controls to communicate to ally players and guildies for strategy. Add a polit called system do guilds aren’t reliant on outside websites for negotiations and planning.

More players = more combat = more fun.

Bring megaservers for WvW and forget about the show-offs that use server pride posts for self-promotion fairy tales…

Kaiser.9873:

Okay so merge the low end servers. Then all is good again, no? Bottom line is we have way too many servers for the number of players we have.

This isn’t a sustainable model and reflects poorly on the health of the game to stockholders/investors and to potential prospective players.

WvW is in the state it is in for a variety of reasons. Those reasons will continue to perpetuate until a lot of core issues are resolved, many of which are an extension of the current server vs server model through population stacking and time-zone imbalances.

Server vs Server model can be fixed imho.

Nope, definitely want fights.

WvW Server loyalty is a 2 year old concept. It was nice while it lasted, but it’s well-past time to move on.

Megaservers for WvW will do nothing to fix the actual problems plagueing WvW.

The biggest problem in WvW is coverage disparity. All others are non technical in nature, which is why megaservers will do nothing. Eotm often perfectly shows why the coverage problem won’t be fixed. How often does a balanced 3h matchup happen compared to unbalanced ones. Now I have no statistics, but the unbalanced ons vastly outnumber the balanced ones. To often 1 or even 2 sides can muster a bare minimum to roam a bit, but are obliterated when they meet up with the dominate side. This wil be the future of WvW with megaservers. Even in primetime this will be the case. You can’t and won’t change people time of day play, which is wghat is causing the coverage problems to begin with. Megaservers are a lateral solution and not a forward one. It very well could turn into a backwards solution.

The reason people aren’t playing anymore are bad rewards. Bad design decisions like how automatic upgrades were handled. Bad map design of new borderland. Overly favorable designs to the bigger better covered servers. Yes people don’t like to play against overwhelming odds, but those odds are only like that because of poor handling by anet and a certain former lead WvW designer.

Just because WvW is unbalanced doesn’t mean you don’t strive for balance and that is a lesson anet still hasn’t learned, probably never will.

So what is the solution. It one that will never happen as anet doesn’t want to spend time or money. The border between regions needs to be removed. US and EU need to become one set of servers only then will coverage not be a problem. On top of that a lot of non mechanical issues like the ones mentioned need to be changed.

In short Megaservers are not a solution to anything when looking at the big overal picture. Something most people need to start doing.

Conner.4702:

In short Megaservers are not a solution to anything when looking at the big overal picture. Something most people need to start doing.

We all know this already. It’s simply a solution for one of many things that will need to be done. But the solution has to start somewhere. Creating a high population is the foundation from which you can start to fix any sort of game.

Conner.4702:

Megaservers for WvW will do nothing to fix the actual problems plagueing WvW.

I do NOT agree. Especially for coverage, emptiness and imbalance mega-server-technology (or more precise: demand driven map-capacity and grouping of alliances into sides) can do a lot.

• demand driven map-capacity: The coverage problem is mainly one of to much map (and therefore objectives and score) for to few players. In a typical off-time situation there is e.g. 50vs20 or 25vs10 or 20vs5 … (ignoring the 3rd side for simplicity) on 4 maps results in scores of 500+:200- i.e. a score-difference of 300+ per tick. But even 50vs20 can easily fit on 1 map, e.g. EB which limits the available score to 260 and the score-difference will be even smaller. This of course also helps vs emptiness, instead of jumping around on 4 maps, they can fight on 1. So a simple freeze and shut-down of all borderlands outside prime-time (2-4 hours day, maybe 8 on weekends) would already help a lot.
• grouping of alliances into sides Imbalance of EotM is true, but only shows how bad ANet’s current grouping strategy is. This could be done much better, especially when active population over the last rounds is counted (as it is done now for the WvW population calculation). In fact it’s a variant of a well known optimization problem for which many good approximations exist.

If both methods are combined intelligently, coverage, imbalance and emptiness would not be noticable any longer.

Dayra.7405:

Conner.4702:

Megaservers for WvW will do nothing to fix the actual problems plagueing WvW.

I do NOT agree. Especially for coverage, emptiness and imbalance mega-server-technology (or more precise: demand driven map-capacity and grouping of alliances into sides) can do a lot.

• demand driven map-capacity: The coverage problem is mainly one of to much map (and therefore objectives and score) for to few players. In a typical off-time situation there is e.g. 50vs20 or 25vs10 or 20vs5 … (ignoring the 3rd side for simplicity) on 4 maps results in scores of 500+:200- i.e. a score-difference of 300+ per tick. But even 50vs20 can easily fit on 1 map, e.g. EB which limits the available score to 260 and the score-difference will be even smaller. This of course also helps vs emptiness, instead of jumping around on 4 maps, they can fight on 1. So a simple freeze and shut-down of all borderlands outside prime-time (2-4 hours day, maybe 8 on weekends) would already help a lot.
• grouping of alliances into sides Imbalance of EotM is true, but only shows how bad ANet’s current grouping strategy is. This could be done much better, especially when active population over the last rounds is counted (as it is done now for the WvW population calculation). In fact it’s a variant of a well known optimization problem for which many good approximations exist.

If both methods are combined intelligently, coverage, imbalance and emptiness would not be noticable any longer.

I agree with him, but the reason is different. Mega-servers only consolidate the population but WvW will still be plagued by the same stale scoring and reward issues that lead to population decline in the first place. They do nothing to incentivize guilds to perform a long siege (not saying there should be long sieges only that we’re forced into it sometimes), incentivizing non-PPTers to start PPTing, etc. Everyone jokes about how mega-server will make anonymous ktrains like EOTM. Alliances will remove the anonymity yet still guilds go to EOTM for fights and not to do a long siege or PPT. I can’t see that changing with just improved population. See the flaws now?