Guild Wars 2

For game modes like WvW that require somewhat larger populations to make consistent and fun gameplay, one of the biggest difficulties seems to be making sure a relatively even number of people are logged in at the same time to create interesting and competitive battles. Ive been on both ends where the population is too little on my server and we just get stomped, and when the population is too big on my server and we destroy people, but neither is really fun.

Would creating temporary powerful NPCs that make up for those population differences be a possibility of evening up a population discrepancy? Those NPCS power could increase or decrease depending upon the population of the server and maybe even disappear altogether if enough people log in for an underpopulated server during that time deadzone. And/or maybe NPCs that are sided with neither server could periodically attack the castle/keep of a server that is dominating in terms of population and zone control. This might distract some of their resources toward fighting something like a dragon and thus give a lower population server a chance to make a strong effort to take back the castle and/or at least some of their territory.

I feel like it would be a temporary artificial boost that wouldnt be there or even appear during regular play times when all servers are relatively evenly matched in terms of population and so that when the population was equal, the winner would be determined purely by skill. But just for those time zones when no one is on, and/or one server has a massive advantage in terms of population, it might temporarily set a more even playing field which I feel would make it fun for everyone.

Just my 2 cents!

Is this what is being asked for again?
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Hero

Make yourself a Necro Minion Master…Problem solved.

I am afraid the new bl keep lords, which allready scale, caused much disdain (is that even the right word?) in my servers community. I can not speak for the entirety ofcourse, but many people said they just do not want more |pve|. I had similar thoughts myself but in the end, after talking to guildies we could not come up with a satisfying solution.
I think posts like yours are very helpfull and even if the general feedback you recive might feel negative, i think you and any one careing or interested in change should make suggestions and offer polite responses to those. I think this is a greater help than telling the devs over and over how much of a barstuard the wvw gameplay is. I think we Were Quote vocal about that for the last 3 years
Edit: autocorrect once again…

Oh boy, so much conflicting like/dislike on this.

I think the idea itself is a good one, that NPC’s can make up for some of the lack of enemy players. Unfortunately most NPC’s are so boring to play against, and just really not what a lot of players WANTS to fight against.

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We’ve joked a few times about making Siegerazer into a roamer, having him walk around the map, build his own ram and start jamming those gates. He is quite competent in killing a camp or tower+lord himself. Not entirely certain about the new Keep lords...

Another idea I’ve seen mentioned a few times, that I Think could be fun, is to have a set limit of number of NPC’s per team. The more structures you got the more the NPC’s are spread thinner to protect them. The less objects you control, your NPC’s are focused around those. (Just imagine losing everything except for North Camp on your home BL. Enemy comes to flip it and finds 4-5 keep lords, 8 tower lords, 8 camp lords, and a horde of guards.)

Personally just really want to see the AI’s used for the practise NPC’s in PvP lobby used for NPC’s, they’re at least somewhat more interesting to fight against. And some roaming groups of those could be fun to fight against while waiting for something else.

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The main problem though is that "they’re not players". Most people that want to play in a PvP mode like WvW does so to fight against human players, not NPC’s. And while something like this would fill out a dead time zone for some, they could just as well defend a tower in Silver Wastes.

I honestly don’t see how "Off-Peak" is going to be solved in any other way than some variation of MegaServer. Even if they just mega-server the off-peak time and left the peak times as is.

I like the idea and would support it. In the meantime I would be in favour of more methods to defend when outnumbered and up against a large zerg capping everything. Maybe something like the current breakout events we have. I’d also like the breakouts to happen sooner and the details pertaining to how they activate to be disclosed.

Maybe player kills could grant tickets that could be given to a bunch of vendors. And when a vendor gets enough ticket it will go on cd and disappear. It will active an ability if and only if your bl becomes outnumbered and has the outnumbered buff. This ability will be a powerful npc/npc’s that will protect an objective you own. If your bl stops becoming outnumbered, it will activate a 5 minutes countdown to retreat and then disappear for good an the vendor will respawn. If it cycles between outnumbred and not outnumbered before the npc retreats….then the cd simply resets to 5 minutes each time. it only truly disappears when 5 minutes of not being outnumbered occurs or the objective it taken or it is killed.

I mean the npc could be like the mercenary camps guards except much more powerful and dealing damage and abilities that severely debuff and cripple large zergs and allow for smaller groups to fight them. If its a group of npc then if they die they can be simply res’d within 3 minutes of death like any other merc camp npc can. That way zergs AND npc have the same ability of respawn. SO the zerg can’t just wear the objective down gradually….they have to take it in their push. If they wipe, the npc can just be rez’d and the zerg has to try again. This allows defenders the same benefits of having a large zerg that simply respawns over and over indefinitely. As it stands right now….if u and a much smaller force defend against a large zerg they just wear you down gradually and regardless of how many victories u achieve against them you only stand to lose as time goes by. We are talking ‘outnumbered’ here remember, most of the time this means just one bl k-training all of ebg.

So effectively add more PvE? No thanks.

NPCs are not players, they do not think or act the same. There will never be the same challenge from taking down an NPC in a zerg as a real person.

yeah, i want to tag up on empty bl and zerg my way through the keeps. i bet npc’s would build rams faster then average zerg:P

I respect this idea and I can see why the OP suggests this but the issue I have with this isn’t that the NPC isn’t a player, and Anet’s track record on AI is limited to set scripted sequences which makes the AI predictable and not fun to play against (i.e. PvE). No, my problem is Anets inability to have AI elements added into WvW without tanking the server with the extra work and killing my FPS for the map even when I’m nowhere near the event. As it is now if they can’t handle the current AI workload when NPC events are triggered just imagine how much lag we’ll get if a server has a lot more NPC calculations to keep track of? It’d be a slide show for sure.

Thanks everyone for the replies! As Silberfederling mentioned, its definitely the discussion of ideas and discussing them in a constructive manner that will help us improve the game! Thanks for your feedback!

Having 24/7 ai would probably keep servers up in whatever tier for too long. In that sense, their tier becomes artificial. I think it is best to revisit the break out events (Siege Crusher/Razor), so at least when there is an balanced/active timezone they have a boost sweep and clean up the mess of the previous dead timezone.

Like, increase their aura buff of just 100 vitality to +300 to 10 people. While he does indeed put down siege, allow his yak to do a ram’s worth of siege damage to the gates (make the yak as tough as a ram). Something along those lines is better for the game mode than constant AI. While I wish GW2 had the heros/henchmen of GW1, I know it technically would be too taxing (unless combat/navigation was drastically simplified). RIP #AlesiaCarriedYou

That just turns WvW into PvE, making the game mode worse. The whole point of playing a PvP game mode is to play with and against other players not NPC’s. Adding MORE PvE to WvW would only make it that much worse, not better. I would rather fight with less numbers than add more NPC garbage to the game mode. On some PvP games players are the “castle lord”, if you cannot defend it, you do not deserve to keep it.

lil devils x.6071:

That just turns WvW into PvE, making the game mode worse. The whole point of playing a PvP game mode is to play with and against other players not NPC’s. Adding MORE PvE to WvW would only make it that much worse, not better. I would rather fight with less numbers than add more NPC garbage to the game mode. On some PvP games players are the “castle lord”, if you cannot defend it, you do not deserve to keep it.

I agree with this 100%.

On the point about the castle lord, imagine the salt flowing from the anti-night-capping crowd, “But I just spend all day defending this fort and when I log off ‘at night’ I left it undefended and someone walks up and caps it without effort!” So funny.

PetricaKerempuh.7958:

yeah, i want to tag up on empty bl and zerg my way through the keeps. i bet npc’s would build rams faster then average zerg:P

They’d still hammer on the gates and draw swords

StormageddonBK.9842:

lil devils x.6071:

That just turns WvW into PvE, making the game mode worse. The whole point of playing a PvP game mode is to play with and against other players not NPC’s. Adding MORE PvE to WvW would only make it that much worse, not better. I would rather fight with less numbers than add more NPC garbage to the game mode. On some PvP games players are the “castle lord”, if you cannot defend it, you do not deserve to keep it.

I agree with this 100%.

On the point about the castle lord, imagine the salt flowing from the anti-night-capping crowd, “But I just spend all day defending this fort and when I log off ‘at night’ I left it undefended and someone walks up and caps it without effort!” So funny.

They really could help resolve the peek hours Queues and non peak hours map coverage issues by changing how the maps work. Let’s say WvW only starts out with EBG. If players on all 3 servers in the match get 15 players in queue it triggers another EBG map. When both those maps get 15 players in queue from all 3 servers in the match, it triggers another map to go into game play. All maps being part of the score but only exist for a set amount of time. If the population dwindles they don’t get additional maps to play on, and it keeps cutting back maps until down to one if necessary. If the population stays the same or increases, the current maps stay in play or more or added to handle the population.

This would make it so less players are in queue during peak hours, less map to cover during non peak hours, AND you are not punishing players who all paid for the game just the same simply they work/ play different hours than most. This would ALSO discourage server stacking as well since ALL 3 servers in the match have to reach queue to be able to get new maps to play on. The stacked server would be the only one with players not being able to play in queue every time they come on and would encourage players to shift to servers where they would be able to do so. This way if only one server has off hours support in the match, they would only be able to ktrain one map worth of points during that time rather than run up the score by rolling all maps since they are undefended. If that one server is the only one with a queue, they would have to start shifting players to the other servers to be able to play during that time zone. Though I ALSO think players should be able to get free transfers once every so often like say you get one free wvw server transfer every 3 months or so just to ensure servers can stay balanced, encourage healthy competition since players come and go all the time throwing formerly balanced servers into imbalance.

In addition, they should completely disconnect PVE servers from WvW servers. Say everyone gets to keep their current server, but that is now considered their " PVE server" and they create a few new servers and to play WvW players would have to choose a new WvW server to play WvW.

So combined with the changes I would like to see to PPK it would be like this:

• Disconnect WvW and PvE servers. Create fewer WvW only servers(some voice com only and some non voice com only to improve player communication and game play for both styles of play since they are so drastically different).
• ALL players that wish to play WvW have to choose a new WvW server in addition to their current PvE server.
• Start out with 1 map in play and add maps in play as population increases, remove maps in play as population decreases. ( every time all 3 servers in match hit 15 in queue or so new map goes into play when timer is up if not enough population to support map is on it will expire. All maps count towards score.
• Players get Free WvW server transfer every 3 months to help keep balanced and non stale matchups.
• PPK are increased and then doubled for defending objectives. ( Places value on player contribution to defending)
• Rare loot drops increased for defending players for killing players in an objective. (gives higher chance for ascended items, precursors, legendary crafting materials Encourages players defending objectives OVER open field without siege.) Moves the fight to the objectives.
• Loot and PPK ALSO increases for attacking team encouraging both attacking and defending, though I think defending should be slightly higher.
• No PPK or loot for siege damage on players. ( encourages fighting players without siege / discourages siege humping encouraging more fair fights)
• Changes will solve population issues/ Ktrain issues/ Zerg siege humping/ stale matchups/ non defending objectives/ Loot/ Which servers win every week and how they are matched up all at once without removing players choice of where they play, who they play and without rewarding AFKers and ALSO discouraging keep tapping since that would give the enemy team Loot and PPK advantages close to keep as well.

lil devils x.6071:

StormageddonBK.9842:

lil devils x.6071:

That just turns WvW into PvE, making the game mode worse. The whole point of playing a PvP game mode is to play with and against other players not NPC’s. Adding MORE PvE to WvW would only make it that much worse, not better. I would rather fight with less numbers than add more NPC garbage to the game mode. On some PvP games players are the “castle lord”, if you cannot defend it, you do not deserve to keep it.

I agree with this 100%.

On the point about the castle lord, imagine the salt flowing from the anti-night-capping crowd, “But I just spend all day defending this fort and when I log off ‘at night’ I left it undefended and someone walks up and caps it without effort!” So funny.

They really could help resolve the peek hours Queues and non peak hours map coverage issues by changing how the maps work. Let’s say WvW only starts out with EBG. If players on all 3 servers in the match get 15 players in queue it triggers another EBG map. When both those maps get 15 players in queue from all 3 servers in the match, it triggers another map to go into game play. All maps being part of the score but only exist for a set amount of time. If the population dwindles they don’t get additional maps to play on, and it keeps cutting back maps until down to one if necessary. If the population stays the same or increases, the current maps stay in play or more or added to handle the population.

This would make it so less players are in queue during peak hours, less map to cover during non peak hours, AND you are not punishing players who all paid for the game just the same simply they work/ play different hours than most. This would ALSO discourage server stacking as well since ALL 3 servers in the match have to reach queue to be able to get new maps to play on. The stacked server would be the only one with players not being able to play in queue every time they come on and would encourage players to shift to servers where they would be able to do so. This way if only one server has off hours support in the match, they would only be able to ktrain one map worth of points during that time rather than run up the score by rolling all maps since they are undefended. If that one server is the only one with a queue, they would have to start shifting players to the other servers to be able to play during that time zone. Though I ALSO think players should be able to get free transfers once every so often like say you get one free wvw server transfer every 3 months or so just to ensure servers can stay balanced, encourage healthy competition since players come and go all the time throwing formerly balanced servers into imbalance.

In addition, they should completely disconnect PVE servers from WvW servers. Say everyone gets to keep their current server, but that is now considered their " PVE server" and they create a few new servers and to play WvW players would have to choose a new WvW server to play WvW.

So combined with the changes I would like to see to PPK it would be like this:

• Disconnect WvW and PvE servers. Create fewer WvW only servers(some voice com only and some non voice com only to improve player communication and game play for both styles of play since they are so drastically different).
• ALL players that wish to play WvW have to choose a new WvW server in addition to their current PvE server.
• Start out with 1 map in play and add maps in play as population increases, remove maps in play as population decreases. ( every time all 3 servers in match hit 15 in queue or so new map goes into play when timer is up if not enough population to support map is on it will expire. All maps count towards score.
• Players get Free WvW server transfer every 3 months to help keep balanced and non stale matchups.
• PPK are increased and then doubled for defending objectives. ( Places value on player contribution to defending)
• Rare loot drops increased for defending players for killing players in an objective. (gives higher chance for ascended items, precursors, legendary crafting materials Encourages players defending objectives OVER open field without siege.) Moves the fight to the objectives.
• Loot and PPK ALSO increases for attacking team encouraging both attacking and defending, though I think defending should be slightly higher.
• No PPK or loot for siege damage on players. ( encourages fighting players without siege / discourages siege humping encouraging more fair fights)
• Changes will solve population issues/ Ktrain issues/ Zerg siege humping/ stale matchups/ non defending objectives/ Loot/ Which servers win every week and how they are matched up all at once without removing players choice of where they play, who they play and without rewarding AFKers and ALSO discouraging keep tapping since that would give the enemy team Loot and PPK advantages close to keep as well.

Hey lil devils those are some good ideas! Just a point of clarification, regarding the server transfers, do you think they might be able to transfer to servers not only in terms of population but also timezones as well? Maybe people could get some ideas about active WvW timezones for each server and that way they would be able to transfer to the best server to match their timezone.

My biggest concern is during those timezones where one server has more people on and the other servers just simply dont have enough people on because of differences in work/school schedules as well as differences in timezones. I think finding a way to balance those population timezone differences where one server has 50 people and another server has 5.

I suggested that US and Europe servers be paired some time ago, no need to combine them just provide a cross atlantic temporary transfer option.

Problem with this is that rather than the stronger server backing up the weaker one in time of need you may find that the weak server is abandoned.. That could be reduced if you somehow combined their scores.

Serious.7083:

I suggested that US and Europe servers be paired some time ago, no need to combine them just provide a cross atlantic temporary transfer option.

Problem with this is that rather than the stronger server backing up the weaker one in time of need you may find that the weak server is abandoned.. That could be reduced if you somehow combined their scores.

NOOOOO!!!!

Leave EU alone!

Leave.
EU.
Alone!

lil devils x.6071:

They really could help resolve the peek hours Queues and non peak hours map coverage issues by changing how the maps work. Let’s say WvW only starts out with EBG. If players on all 3 servers in the match get 15 players in queue it triggers another EBG map. When both those maps get 15 players in queue from all 3 servers in the match, it triggers another map to go into game play. All maps being part of the score but only exist for a set amount of time. If the population dwindles they don’t get additional maps to play on, and it keeps cutting back maps until down to one if necessary. If the population stays the same or increases, the current maps stay in play or more or added to handle the population.

This would make it so less players are in queue during peak hours, less map to cover during non peak hours, AND you are not punishing players who all paid for the game just the same simply they work/ play different hours than most. This would ALSO discourage server stacking as well since ALL 3 servers in the match have to reach queue to be able to get new maps to play on. The stacked server would be the only one with players not being able to play in queue every time they come on and would encourage players to shift to servers where they would be able to do so. This way if only one server has off hours support in the match, they would only be able to ktrain one map worth of points during that time rather than run up the score by rolling all maps since they are undefended. If that one server is the only one with a queue, they would have to start shifting players to the other servers to be able to play during that time zone. Though I ALSO think players should be able to get free transfers once every so often like say you get one free wvw server transfer every 3 months or so just to ensure servers can stay balanced, encourage healthy competition since players come and go all the time throwing formerly balanced servers into imbalance.

In addition, they should completely disconnect PVE servers from WvW servers. Say everyone gets to keep their current server, but that is now considered their " PVE server" and they create a few new servers and to play WvW players would have to choose a new WvW server to play WvW.

So combined with the changes I would like to see to PPK it would be like this:
* Disconnect WvW and PvE servers. Create fewer WvW only servers(some voice com only and some non voice com only to improve player communication and game play for both styles of play since they are so drastically different).
* ALL players that wish to play WvW have to choose a new WvW server in addition to their current PvE server.
* Start out with 1 map in play and add maps in play as population increases, remove maps in play as population decreases. ( every time all 3 servers in match hit 15 in queue or so new map goes into play when timer is up if not enough population to support map is on it will expire. All maps count towards score.
* Players get Free WvW server transfer every 3 months to help keep balanced and non stale matchups.
* PPK are increased and then doubled for defending objectives. ( Places value on player contribution to defending)
* Rare loot drops increased for defending players for killing players in an objective. (gives higher chance for ascended items, precursors, legendary crafting materials Encourages players defending objectives OVER open field without siege.) Moves the fight to the objectives.
* Loot and PPK ALSO increases for attacking team encouraging both attacking and defending, though I think defending should be slightly higher.
* No PPK or loot for siege damage on players. ( encourages fighting players without siege / discourages siege humping encouraging more fair fights)
* Changes will solve population issues/ Ktrain issues/ Zerg siege humping/ stale matchups/ non defending objectives/ Loot/ Which servers win every week and how they are matched up all at once without removing players choice of where they play, who they play and without rewarding AFKers and ALSO discouraging keep tapping since that would give the enemy team Loot and PPK advantages close to keep as well.

Like most of this, generally a fan of the dynamically adjusted maps. I know we’ve argued this idea before, but I really like this version.

Edit: Un-kitten ed the quote function, I messed it up.

MuscleBobBuffPants.1406:

lil devils x.6071:

StormageddonBK.9842:

lil devils x.6071:

That just turns WvW into PvE, making the game mode worse. The whole point of playing a PvP game mode is to play with and against other players not NPC’s. Adding MORE PvE to WvW would only make it that much worse, not better. I would rather fight with less numbers than add more NPC garbage to the game mode. On some PvP games players are the “castle lord”, if you cannot defend it, you do not deserve to keep it.

I agree with this 100%.

On the point about the castle lord, imagine the salt flowing from the anti-night-capping crowd, “But I just spend all day defending this fort and when I log off ‘at night’ I left it undefended and someone walks up and caps it without effort!” So funny.

They really could help resolve the peek hours Queues and non peak hours map coverage issues by changing how the maps work. Let’s say WvW only starts out with EBG. If players on all 3 servers in the match get 15 players in queue it triggers another EBG map. When both those maps get 15 players in queue from all 3 servers in the match, it triggers another map to go into game play. All maps being part of the score but only exist for a set amount of time. If the population dwindles they don’t get additional maps to play on, and it keeps cutting back maps until down to one if necessary. If the population stays the same or increases, the current maps stay in play or more or added to handle the population.

This would make it so less players are in queue during peak hours, less map to cover during non peak hours, AND you are not punishing players who all paid for the game just the same simply they work/ play different hours than most. This would ALSO discourage server stacking as well since ALL 3 servers in the match have to reach queue to be able to get new maps to play on. The stacked server would be the only one with players not being able to play in queue every time they come on and would encourage players to shift to servers where they would be able to do so. This way if only one server has off hours support in the match, they would only be able to ktrain one map worth of points during that time rather than run up the score by rolling all maps since they are undefended. If that one server is the only one with a queue, they would have to start shifting players to the other servers to be able to play during that time zone. Though I ALSO think players should be able to get free transfers once every so often like say you get one free wvw server transfer every 3 months or so just to ensure servers can stay balanced, encourage healthy competition since players come and go all the time throwing formerly balanced servers into imbalance.

In addition, they should completely disconnect PVE servers from WvW servers. Say everyone gets to keep their current server, but that is now considered their " PVE server" and they create a few new servers and to play WvW players would have to choose a new WvW server to play WvW.

So combined with the changes I would like to see to PPK it would be like this:

• Disconnect WvW and PvE servers. Create fewer WvW only servers(some voice com only and some non voice com only to improve player communication and game play for both styles of play since they are so drastically different).
• ALL players that wish to play WvW have to choose a new WvW server in addition to their current PvE server.
• Start out with 1 map in play and add maps in play as population increases, remove maps in play as population decreases. ( every time all 3 servers in match hit 15 in queue or so new map goes into play when timer is up if not enough population to support map is on it will expire. All maps count towards score.
• Players get Free WvW server transfer every 3 months to help keep balanced and non stale matchups.
• PPK are increased and then doubled for defending objectives. ( Places value on player contribution to defending)
• Rare loot drops increased for defending players for killing players in an objective. (gives higher chance for ascended items, precursors, legendary crafting materials Encourages players defending objectives OVER open field without siege.) Moves the fight to the objectives.
• Loot and PPK ALSO increases for attacking team encouraging both attacking and defending, though I think defending should be slightly higher.
• No PPK or loot for siege damage on players. ( encourages fighting players without siege / discourages siege humping encouraging more fair fights)
• Changes will solve population issues/ Ktrain issues/ Zerg siege humping/ stale matchups/ non defending objectives/ Loot/ Which servers win every week and how they are matched up all at once without removing players choice of where they play, who they play and without rewarding AFKers and ALSO discouraging keep tapping since that would give the enemy team Loot and PPK advantages close to keep as well.

Hey lil devils those are some good ideas! Just a point of clarification, regarding the server transfers, do you think they might be able to transfer to servers not only in terms of population but also timezones as well? Maybe people could get some ideas about active WvW timezones for each server and that way they would be able to transfer to the best server to match their timezone.

My biggest concern is during those timezones where one server has more people on and the other servers just simply dont have enough people on because of differences in work/school schedules as well as differences in timezones. I think finding a way to balance those population timezone differences where one server has 50 people and another server has 5.

It would be great if they could have more data on the servers b4 you transfer, like they have the description of the server then maybe a stats tab? That shows when the server is populated and less populated? They would have to provide that information on the server selection screen somehow, or find some way to let servers advertise when they need help in the server selection process.