Guild Wars 2

(I wrote this originally for the stormbuffisle forums, but I guess it might be of interest for others, too)

This week, JQ leads by more points than HoD and us have combined. Last week, we lead BG and IoJ by more points than they had combined. The week before it was HoD. Look at just about any tier (http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA) and you see that there seems not to be a single close match right now. And this was the same the week before, and the week before that. In fact, close matches are rare oddities in GW2. Why is that?

WvW is unbalanced
The reason is that WvW is structurally unbalanced. It is not that there is always some server that is much stronger in every tier. However, there is always one server that is a little bit better than the others. This small advantage is multiplied by the way WvW is set up and leads to total domination each and every time.

What is broken is the balance between mechanics that favor the winner, and mechanics that favor the underdog. You want some spoils for the victor (to keep players interested in winning), but you NEED some help for the underdog (or the winner dominates). In WvW right now, the former outweight the latter. That is, on average, the winning team gets stronger, while the losing team gets weaker. Since the winner was already the strongest team, this is a vicious circle.

Mechanics that help the underdog

There are three mechanics that help the underdog in the game at the moment. Outmanned buff, easier sieging on the home map, and 2 vs 1 against the winner. However, only the last one is off any effect, this is what everything depends on.

*Outmanned buff
Theoretically, this buff should induce people on the server to play WvW when we are losing, since the rewards are higher. In practise, doing PvE leads to much higher rewards, so the outmanned buff is not fullfilling its purpose. To the contrary, it is almost a signal of a lost cause that leads to players leaving the map.

*Easier sieging on the home map
When pushed back to your spawn, you can siege the NE and NW tower quite easy from your spawn point, giving some advantage to teams that are pushed back. However, at this point, the losing team is severly starved off supply. And, it is still much to easy for a zerg stationed in garrison to run left and right and retake those towers.

*2 vs 1
This is the big mechanic that ANet must have banked on. If one team pulls ahead, the others team up on it, effectively making it twice as hard for the winner. This still works to some extend on the EB map. However, on all other maps, it is overshadowed by all the disadvantages for the underdog.
Worst of all, losing leads to a loss of players, such that the 1 winning server outnumbers both losing servers combined, breaking the 2 vs 1 mechanic.

part 2

Mechanics that hurt the underdog

These are more, and unfortunately, more powerful than the above.

*Supply
One of the worst ways the underdog is hit is supply denial. Playing against a stronger enemy zerg, it becomes impossible to ever hold a supply camp. You may hit and run one, but you can not keep it once the enemy brings all their force. This, in turn, means less siege to start attacking their towers and keeps with. Less siege to defend your tower once you get one. And never, never, enough supply to upgrade the first structures you get.

*Upgrades
If you start taking structures on a map that previously belonged fully to the enemy, you face a dilemma: Your newly taken tower or keep is not upgraded at all. Meanwhile, all of the enemies structures are upgraded. If you chose to defend your non-upgraded structure, the enemy can concentrate all his forces against you. He has supply, you don’t. Therefore, equal forces on both sides, you will lose the structure. You can also chose to attack some other structure of the enemy. However, that is upgraded, yours is not. So the enemy zerg can retake your structure faster than you can take something new. You lose your structure and are hit behind by the zerg before you can get something new, taking you back to square 1.

*Orbs
Giving more health to the team already on top is just bad.

*Loss of moral
Probably the worst off all mechanics hurting the underdog. Losing is never fun, but it is especially unfun in WvW when you are the underdog. With no supply, no structures to fall back to, and the enemies having more health (orbs…), playing as the underdog is not some epic defense a la 300. It is a slaughterhouse. With the underdogs in the role of cattle.
It is not fun, and people stop doing it. That way, population inbalances are getting more pronounced. And, since the raw number of players is so hugely important in zerg vs zerg, this means the winner gets stronger, the underdog gets weaker, and even more people leave.

*Siege blueprints
The winner, especially once maps are 100% can easily do jumping puzzles, or farm the grub. Leading to more blueprints, that will make life harder for the underdog. The underdog team needs to spend money to buy blueprints. Since you can not make any seizable amount of money in WvW, the underdog team has to spend more time in PvE farming than the winner. Meaning that the population of underdog players actually in WvW takes another hit.

*Fighting for place 2
There is usually already a huge lead for the winner after 2 days of the weeklong match. Given that place 1 is out of reach, it is tempting for the loser to fight for second (to secure a place in the higher tier). So 2 vs 1 happens, but not against the winner, it happens in favor of the winner.

What are the results of unbalanced WvW?

It is no fun. And since it is no fun, people stop playing. We do not have any recent que data, but I am sure that if they published it, you would find that there are almost no ques anywhere. We are fighting in tier 1, the highest, and HoD never seems to have ques. We ourself almost never have ques (even on the weekend prime time, there is always a map without que).

Another unfortunate result is boredome on the side of the winner. You might remember the last days of the fight against IoJ and BG. A lot of people spend their time running around getting map completion rather than having any actual fights.

Finally, with server transfers still being free, you get bandwagoneers flocking to the top server. And you get dedicated guilds fleeing from the top server in an attempt to balance the unbalanced. HoD already was destroyed by their success. JQ is looking bad, too (check http://www.jadequarry.com/forum/m/6492678/viewthread/4574996-guilds-leaving-jq). We are seriously considering NOT going for No1 spot while transfers are free, just to avoid that fate.

Quo vadis WvW?

Where does this leave us? Personally, I still enjoy WvW. However, it is clear to me now that we are not experiencing some “starting pains”. The unbalanced matches are not due to some servers receiving so much better players, and some servers receiving so much worse. They are due to the mechanics of the game. And there is nothing that the player base can do against it. Even in a matchup of equal servers, one server will have a starting small advantage. And that small advantage gets exaberated by the way the game is set up.

Neither the winning side, nor the losing side of an unbalanced match is much fun. So I hope that Anet starts changing the fundamentals to make balanced matches possible. A very easy first step is to change the orb mechanic. If nothing is changed, games will only be competitive for the first few hours or days, and then be boring for the rest of the week.

- Xeeron

Thanks for putting everything we all know into one thread. :P ANET can address all these issues.

Edewen.8304:

Ok. Someone is tired of losing.

Last week, SBI stomped IoJ and BG. We won by a long mile. The week before that, we lost by the same amount. I have seen both the winning and the losing side of this, and I like neither.

- Xeeron

Edewen.8304:

Ok. Someone is tired of losing.
Let us address this point at a time.

1. It is not meant to be balanced. It is meant to be casual war based pvp.
2. Supply. Defend your caravans. Defend your camps. Not their problem.
3. Upgrades. Refer to supply.
4. Orbs. Ill give you that one. Orbs need to change a bit.
5. Loss of moral. Really?!?! How is this unbalance. You are losing your audience sir.
6. Blueprints. You can buy em. Since you all quit with no moral. Go farm instead of licking your wounds in LA. Rewards go to winners.
7. Fighting for second place. Again, This falls under player actions and is therefore not balance.

Fare thee well sir. You have proven no credibility.

I’ve been on HoD since launch and he’s right. Please spare me any nonsense about being tired of losing. HoD has experienced more wins than any server to date. And since the week matches began, I’ve been completely bored for the last half of every one of them whether we won or lost.

Edewen.8304:

Ok. Someone is tired of losing.
Let us address this point at a time.

1. It is not meant to be balanced. It is meant to be casual war based pvp.
2. Supply. Defend your caravans. Defend your camps. Not their problem.
3. Upgrades. Refer to supply.
4. Orbs. Ill give you that one. Orbs need to change a bit.
5. Loss of moral. Really?!?! How is this unbalance. You are losing your audience sir.
6. Blueprints. You can buy em. Since you all quit with no moral. Go farm instead of licking your wounds in LA. Rewards go to winners.
7. Fighting for second place. Again, This falls under player actions and is therefore not balance.

Fare thee well sir. You have proven no credibility.

Is there any way to get supply if you don’t own a supply camp? If the answer is no then there should be supply you can get without a supply camp, at least at the home base.

Edewen.8304:

Ok. Someone is tired of losing.
Let us address this point at a time.

1. It is not meant to be balanced. It is meant to be casual war based pvp.
2. Supply. Defend your caravans. Defend your camps. Not their problem.
3. Upgrades. Refer to supply.
4. Orbs. Ill give you that one. Orbs need to change a bit.
5. Loss of moral. Really?!?! How is this unbalance. You are losing your audience sir.
6. Blueprints. You can buy em. Since you all quit with no moral. Go farm instead of licking your wounds in LA. Rewards go to winners.
7. Fighting for second place. Again, This falls under player actions and is therefore not balance.

Fare thee well sir. You have proven no credibility.

Thank god you don’t call the shots at ArenaNet.

I only have one thing to mention. That is yes you can buy all the siege you want. but with out supply you cannot build it. The only imbalance I see with supply is how hard it is to defend a supply camp from a force with equal or greater size attacking it. Defending something should be easier (but not to much easier) than attacking it. Some force defending should have the option to upgrade defenses. This is already possible in tower, keeps, and castles but to my knowledge it cannot be done at supply camps. Maybe the option to build items such as a Palisade.

For those that do not know what a Palisade is here is the defenition. A palisade – sometimes called a stakewall – is typically a fence or wall made from wooden stakes or tree trunks and used as a defensive structure. This is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palisade and for more information check it out or just search it.

I know these are possible in the game for the time fram as I have seen some in PvE and very few in WvW (EB near Quentin Lake), and I have not seen any others.

I understand your frustration. My server hasn’t won since the first week. But lets be honest. Every advantage the other team supposedly has, you have too. Their supply camps are just as vulnerable to attack. Their caravans are just as easily killed. Most times that I have seen, supply camps are typical stormed and taken before it is even defended. That is not a problem with mechanics. That is a problem with scouts.

It boils down to a simple fact. Your server got outplayed. Lack of balance requires one side to have a significant advantage mechanically. The ONLY complaint you pose that meets this standard is the orbs which I wholeheartedly agree should be addressed. But everything else is server skill.

If you have no supply, go get some, if you have no supply camp, take one. Supply camps are barely defended for this reason. You don’t need supply to take it. You need bodies. And if you don’t own anything, you can theoretically have every body on the map take the supply camp and work outwards from there. This is why adding palisades would be a bad idea. Requiring siege to take a supply to get supply to build a siege is a bad plan. It can’t work.

Edewen.8304:

I understand your frustration.

No you don’t. My frustration is with WvW being unbalanced, not with the fact which side of the unequal balance I am on (obviously, being on the losing side is bad, but winning is very boring too). And the score chart proves me right: WvW is unbalanced. There is not a single close match right now.

- Xeeron

Orbs discourage the losing team(s) from participating.

They need to switch the orb and outmanned bonuses.

For me, the only problem here is the Orbs. Buffing the leading team just doesn’t motivate the losing team to fight. The losing team should be the one’s buffed, not with magic find lol.

The flaw with your entire position is that you are upset that WvWvW is unbalanced. I believe Anet blatantly stated that WvW is supposed to be an unbalanced fight.

I do agree, however, that the orbs are an issue. I play in the Eastern Timezone, as does most of my guild, so when we play against a server with a strong “night” population, we end up losing all three orbs while we sleep. I understand there is no good solution to time zone differences, but when I play again the next day and the players I was fighting on even or better grounds before, can now fight 1v3, there is an issue.

As already mentioned, switching the Orb and Out-manned bonus would go some way to alleviating the problem.

Basically, give those who are winning better loot and those who are losing, more health.

Making the winning team even harder to kill is a serious oversight. There’s absolutely no point playing after the first day or 2 once the point difference becomes too great, other than for the fun of it. But that fun quickly diminishes when you already know the outcome.

Yes obviously WvWvW is supposed to be “unbalanced”. The major and constant problem is that it isn’t just “unbalanced”; it is extremely unbalanced to the point where one server just completely dominates the other two and ends up being a bore fest for all servers. If that is working as intended by ArenaNet, then it is the biggest disappointment of GW2.

Translation: “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…”

If you lose, it doesn’t make the game inbalanced. There are obviously going to be some matchups where there isn’t as much competition as other matchups. There is an arbitrary grouping of three servers per fight, so if the fourth place was very close to the third place in score and it gets bumped down to fight a fifth place that is very far down, the fight will be a pushover.

Then, take into account the fact that 1st/2nd/3rd will not always fight. After that matchup they will fight different people, inevitably mixing in lower-tier servers with higher-tier servers. There is simply no way to fix the fact that some servers are going to get pounded sometimes. Don’t expect ANet to come from heaven above to fix it because they can’t.

In short, the way statistics works is that when you have a smaller sample size, you will get skewed results (not to mention servers like HoD where entire guilds switch servers so they can have an easier time). This happens in more than one way. There are a limited number of servers total and a limited number of servers per fight.

Take three servers, even servers at the top end, and one or two of them might not always be close enough to give a decent fight to the top one.

@SteiveMJH

So ANet doesn’t have to go and make the situation worse by buffing the already stronger side.
You think that’s conducive to better PvP?

StevieMJH.9105:

Translation: “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…”

If you lose, it doesn’t make the game inbalanced. There are obviously going to be some matchups where there isn’t as much competition as other matchups. There is an arbitrary grouping of three servers per fight, so if the fourth place was very close to the third place in score and it gets bumped down to fight a fifth place that is very far down, the fight will be a pushover.

Then, take into account the fact that 1st/2nd/3rd will not always fight. After that matchup they will fight different people, inevitably mixing in lower-tier servers with higher-tier servers. There is simply no way to fix the fact that some servers are going to get pounded sometimes. Don’t expect ANet to come from heaven above to fix it because they can’t.

In short, the way statistics works is that when you have a smaller sample size, you will get skewed results (not to mention servers like HoD where entire guilds switch servers so they can have an easier time). This happens in more than one way. There are a limited number of servers total and a limited number of servers per fight.

Take three servers, even servers at the top end, and one or two of them might not always be close enough to give a decent fight to the top one.

Except… this is the case in every matchup, and it happens every week.

The rest of your post is irrelevant, because you assume incorrectly that this lopsided situation is the exception, when in fact it is the rule.

Just from my perspective as a worthless peon, I have little motivation to log in when I have double the score of the other teams or half the score of the other teams. Neither scenario is conducive to having a fun fight.

Hi Zauric,

Exactly!
I play on Gandara and left the game last night with 100% of the map. Not much point playing any further.

One thing I really want to share here:

If I am just looking for a fight, I would rather go to sPvP and at least fight on an even playing field.

WvW is about massive, epic combat. Sometimes you are drastically outnumbered, and sometimes quick and creative manuevers will drop an objective in seconds. The best fights are those that are hard won, or hard lost.

These lopsided matches do two things… 1) they remove the “epic” feeling, and 2) they cause even the small scale PvP to dramatically favor the “winning team”. Neither of these things is fun, and combined they result in people giving up and finding other stuff to do.

Edewen.8304:

Ok. Someone is tired of losing.
Let us address this point at a time.

1. It is not meant to be balanced. It is meant to be casual war based pvp.
2. Supply. Defend your caravans. Defend your camps. Not their problem.
3. Upgrades. Refer to supply.
4. Orbs. Ill give you that one. Orbs need to change a bit.
5. Loss of moral. Really?!?! How is this unbalance. You are losing your audience sir.
6. Blueprints. You can buy em. Since you all quit with no moral. Go farm instead of licking your wounds in LA. Rewards go to winners.
7. Fighting for second place. Again, This falls under player actions and is therefore not balance.

Fare thee well sir. You have proven no credibility.

Someone needs to play more WvW and get a clue, instead of making himself a laughing stock by dismissing an entirely valid and correct summary by the OP.

OP has summed the issues pretty well. I too have experiences both sides, the crushing winner, and the crushed looser. Neither was fun. ANet would be wise to acknowledge the issues summed up in the 1st post and start to actively look for solutions. I have posted a few of such solutions myself, and so did others. All ANet needs to do is read the forums, it’s all there

Sky.9347:

StevieMJH.9105:

Translation: “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…”

If you lose, it doesn’t make the game inbalanced. There are obviously going to be some matchups where there isn’t as much competition as other matchups. There is an arbitrary grouping of three servers per fight, so if the fourth place was very close to the third place in score and it gets bumped down to fight a fifth place that is very far down, the fight will be a pushover.

Then, take into account the fact that 1st/2nd/3rd will not always fight. After that matchup they will fight different people, inevitably mixing in lower-tier servers with higher-tier servers. There is simply no way to fix the fact that some servers are going to get pounded sometimes. Don’t expect ANet to come from heaven above to fix it because they can’t.

In short, the way statistics works is that when you have a smaller sample size, you will get skewed results (not to mention servers like HoD where entire guilds switch servers so they can have an easier time). This happens in more than one way. There are a limited number of servers total and a limited number of servers per fight.

Take three servers, even servers at the top end, and one or two of them might not always be close enough to give a decent fight to the top one.

Except… this is the case in every matchup, and it happens every week.

The rest of your post is irrelevant, because you assume incorrectly that this lopsided situation is the exception, when in fact it is the rule.

Regardless of it being the exception or the rule, it is unavoidable. A 15% health bonus and a 150 stat bonus to the winners doesn’t turn the entire thing into one huge stompfest. And even if it did, everyone starts with an orb in the first place.

It’s like saying that Baseball is imbalanced because the Cubs haven’t won the World Series in one hundred years.

The only way to fix this problem (which isn’t even in ANet’s control) is to have a way larger Guild Wars playerbase. The more players you have, the more servers you have, the more servers you have, the more likely you are to get fair matchups.

If there were another 20 new servers filled with players, then there would be more servers at every skill level that would fight it out fairly every week. Other than that, there is no way to stop this sort of thing from happening.

StevieMJH.9105:

Sky.9347:

StevieMJH.9105:

Translation: “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…”

If you lose, it doesn’t make the game inbalanced. There are obviously going to be some matchups where there isn’t as much competition as other matchups. There is an arbitrary grouping of three servers per fight, so if the fourth place was very close to the third place in score and it gets bumped down to fight a fifth place that is very far down, the fight will be a pushover.

Then, take into account the fact that 1st/2nd/3rd will not always fight. After that matchup they will fight different people, inevitably mixing in lower-tier servers with higher-tier servers. There is simply no way to fix the fact that some servers are going to get pounded sometimes. Don’t expect ANet to come from heaven above to fix it because they can’t.

In short, the way statistics works is that when you have a smaller sample size, you will get skewed results (not to mention servers like HoD where entire guilds switch servers so they can have an easier time). This happens in more than one way. There are a limited number of servers total and a limited number of servers per fight.

Take three servers, even servers at the top end, and one or two of them might not always be close enough to give a decent fight to the top one.

Except… this is the case in every matchup, and it happens every week.

The rest of your post is irrelevant, because you assume incorrectly that this lopsided situation is the exception, when in fact it is the rule.

Regardless of it being the exception or the rule, it is unavoidable. A 15% health bonus and a 150 stat bonus to the winners doesn’t turn the entire thing into one huge stompfest. And even if it did, everyone starts with an orb in the first place.

It’s like saying that Baseball is imbalanced because the Cubs haven’t won the World Series in one hundred years.

The only way to fix this problem (which isn’t even in ANet’s control) is to have a way larger Guild Wars playerbase. The more players you have, the more servers you have, the more servers you have, the more likely you are to get fair matchups.

If there were another 20 new servers filled with players, then there would be more servers at every skill level that would fight it out fairly every week. Other than that, there is no way to stop this sort of thing from happening.

I think you have a point in saying that the WvW player-base is spread out among too many servers to prevent eventual landslides in the current system.

I 100% disagree with your assertion that this is an unsolvable problem. There are a half dozen excellent possible solutions floating around here that wouldn’t “punish” anyone or remove the fact that Wv3 is inherently imbalanced.

As it stands, Wv3 is awesome for a night or two after reset… and then we all just kind of wait until the next reset. Sure, we will join a map and try to kick some kitten but it has a feeling of pointlessness about it. During the week, PvE and sPvP become far more popular than Wv3 simply because the game is over. The match can’t be won after the initial pull-ahead by the match-up titan, and what happens is both smaller servers start tearing each others eyes out while the titan continues to keep them both contained and on their heels.

This is a problem that players could solve, but it would require a consensus and sacrifice. Apparently there is a huge set of Wv3 players that are interested in neither thing.

Well I was going to tell Edewen how bad his argument was too, but it seems like he deleted his..well thought out reply.

I completed agree with the OP. Not all of these issues need to be changed, but a combination of them or some sort of change of mechanics need to be made to prevent these lopsided matches from regularly occurring. I liked the idea of switching the bonus from orbs and outmanned.

Sky.9347:

StevieMJH.9105:

Sky.9347:

StevieMJH.9105:

Translation: “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…”

If you lose, it doesn’t make the game inbalanced. There are obviously going to be some matchups where there isn’t as much competition as other matchups. There is an arbitrary grouping of three servers per fight, so if the fourth place was very close to the third place in score and it gets bumped down to fight a fifth place that is very far down, the fight will be a pushover.

Then, take into account the fact that 1st/2nd/3rd will not always fight. After that matchup they will fight different people, inevitably mixing in lower-tier servers with higher-tier servers. There is simply no way to fix the fact that some servers are going to get pounded sometimes. Don’t expect ANet to come from heaven above to fix it because they can’t.

In short, the way statistics works is that when you have a smaller sample size, you will get skewed results (not to mention servers like HoD where entire guilds switch servers so they can have an easier time). This happens in more than one way. There are a limited number of servers total and a limited number of servers per fight.

Take three servers, even servers at the top end, and one or two of them might not always be close enough to give a decent fight to the top one.

Except… this is the case in every matchup, and it happens every week.

The rest of your post is irrelevant, because you assume incorrectly that this lopsided situation is the exception, when in fact it is the rule.

Regardless of it being the exception or the rule, it is unavoidable. A 15% health bonus and a 150 stat bonus to the winners doesn’t turn the entire thing into one huge stompfest. And even if it did, everyone starts with an orb in the first place.

It’s like saying that Baseball is imbalanced because the Cubs haven’t won the World Series in one hundred years.

The only way to fix this problem (which isn’t even in ANet’s control) is to have a way larger Guild Wars playerbase. The more players you have, the more servers you have, the more servers you have, the more likely you are to get fair matchups.

If there were another 20 new servers filled with players, then there would be more servers at every skill level that would fight it out fairly every week. Other than that, there is no way to stop this sort of thing from happening.

I think you have a point in saying that the WvW player-base is spread out among too many servers to prevent eventual landslides in the current system.

I 100% disagree with your assertion that this is an unsolvable problem. There are a half dozen excellent possible solutions floating around here that wouldn’t “punish” anyone or remove the fact that Wv3 is inherently imbalanced.

As it stands, Wv3 is awesome for a night or two after reset… and then we all just kind of wait until the next reset. Sure, we will join a map and try to kick some kitten but it has a feeling of pointlessness about it. During the week, PvE and sPvP become far more popular than Wv3 simply because the game is over. The match can’t be won after the initial pull-ahead by the match-up titan, and what happens is both smaller servers start tearing each others eyes out while the titan continues to keep them both contained and on their heels.

This is a problem that players could solve, but it would require a consensus and sacrifice. Apparently there is a huge set of Wv3 players that are interested in neither thing.

I agree with that as well, actually. The match actually seems to be decided after the first day or two. I have never actually been in any matchup where the 2nd place team has actually caught up to win. It almost happened two matchups ago when Jade Quarry almost caught up to HoD, but the only reason that happened is because HoD literally stopped playing toward the end once they realized they had won regardless.

I heard a rumor somewhere that they were actually considering increasing the duration of matchups. That’s just a completely stupid idea. They should be a week in length tops.

However, I do have to reaffirm my stance that I don’t think there’s really any easy way to make it so that the matchups are any more balanced. If you give the losers bonuses for losing, wouldn’t they prefer losing to being in second place?

I just don’t see how a widespread problem like this can be fixed simply by giving bonuses for losing.

zerospin.8604:

Someone needs to play more WvW and get a clue, instead of making himself a laughing stock by dismissing an entirely valid and correct summary by the OP.

OP has summed the issues pretty well. I too have experiences both sides, the crushing winner, and the crushed looser. Neither was fun. ANet would be wise to acknowledge the issues summed up in the 1st post and start to actively look for solutions. I have posted a few of such solutions myself, and so did others. All ANet needs to do is read the forums, it’s all there

The OP summed up nothing. All but one complaint is based around skill and organization. Plain and simple. The ONLY valid point made was orbs. Lack or morale is not a balance issue. Not defending your supply lines is not a balance issue. There are many valid complaints about WvW from orbs to transfers. Even the people complaining about gathering and jumping puzzles have valid arguments. But arguing that it is imbalanced because someone is winning by a large amount is NOT one of them regardless of which side of the coin you are on because the MECHANICS are balanced (except orbs cmon anet).

If they’re going to switch anything, I would say that the outmanned buff should be changed entirely. The orb bonus should stay as-is, but the outmanned buff is completely ridiculous as it currently is. It’s basically telling everyone on the losing team to stop trying and to go farm. It should be changed so that the losing team gets a bonus, not to health or stats but to siege equipment costs, keep upgrade costs, gate health, wall health, keep lord health, etc., so that they no longer lose keeps just as easily as the winning team.

Giving them the same bonus as the winning team is ridiculous because then they would have no incentive for winning. Of course it would be nice to have better keeps, but would you be willing to lose just so that the keeps that you do have are better? No.

Don’t make it so that the losers and the winners get the same bonuses. Or the winners get a worse bonus. That’s just stupid. This isn’t elementary school and not everyone is a winner.

StevieMJH.9105:

I agree with that as well, actually. The match actually seems to be decided after the first day or two. I have never actually been in any matchup where the 2nd place team has actually caught up to win. It almost happened two matchups ago when Jade Quarry almost caught up to HoD, but the only reason that happened is because HoD literally stopped playing toward the end once they realized they had won regardless.

I heard a rumor somewhere that they were actually considering increasing the duration of matchups. That’s just a completely stupid idea. They should be a week in length tops.

However, I do have to reaffirm my stance that I don’t think there’s really any easy way to make it so that the matchups are any more balanced. If you give the losers bonuses for losing, wouldn’t they prefer losing to being in second place?

I just don’t see how a widespread problem like this can be fixed simply by giving bonuses for losing.

Sure, bonuses for losing would defeat the purpose and punish anyone who wants to win.

But, something to get players (and I’m not talking about us “hardcore” types who play it everyday and then argue about it on the forums when we can’t play it) back into the game would be fantastic.

ANet obviously considered this, because they designed an Outmanned buff. The problem is this outmanned buff doesn’t begin to cover the cost of breaking out of your spawn (in repairs, siege, and time) and so people say “eh… kitten it I’m gonna go PvE or sPvP until the reset and give it another shot”. Something here is broken, and needs to change.

I’m thinking maybe the server populations will balance out once free transfers slow down and queue times become a more regular problem. Not until then, though… too many bandwagoners.

And yes the idea is that eventually these matches will be 14 days long. That is the design intention, and eventually that will be fantastic. I feel like it shouldn’t even be considered until maybe 4 or 5 matches after the transfers are reigned in, though.

Edewen.8304:

zerospin.8604:

Someone needs to play more WvW and get a clue, instead of making himself a laughing stock by dismissing an entirely valid and correct summary by the OP.

OP has summed the issues pretty well. I too have experiences both sides, the crushing winner, and the crushed looser. Neither was fun. ANet would be wise to acknowledge the issues summed up in the 1st post and start to actively look for solutions. I have posted a few of such solutions myself, and so did others. All ANet needs to do is read the forums, it’s all there

The OP summed up nothing. All but one complaint is based around skill and organization. Plain and simple. The ONLY valid point made was orbs. Lack or morale is not a balance issue. Not defending your supply lines is not a balance issue. There are many valid complaints about WvW from orbs to transfers. Even the people complaining about gathering and jumping puzzles have valid arguments. But arguing that it is imbalanced because someone is winning by a large amount is NOT one of them regardless of which side of the coin you are on because the MECHANICS are balanced (except orbs cmon anet).

If the mechanics are flawless, can you point to any matchup lately that ended on a close and/or contested note?

I can only seem to find matches ending with one server days and days ahead of the other two. Why is that, pray tell? Is it because their “skill and organization” is so god awful that they can’t muster the courage to even try, or is it because the scoring system currently makes any small server advantage insurmountable?

This is not fun for anyone. It is very profitable for the server spawn camping, and very expensive for those being camped. So much so, in fact, that many players just switch servers.

StevieMJH.9105:

Regardless of it being the exception or the rule, it is unavoidable. A 15% health bonus and a 150 stat bonus to the winners doesn’t turn the entire thing into one huge stompfest. And even if it did, everyone starts with an orb in the first place.

It’s like saying that Baseball is imbalanced because the Cubs haven’t won the World Series in one hundred years.

The only way to fix this problem (which isn’t even in ANet’s control) is to have a way larger Guild Wars playerbase. The more players you have, the more servers you have, the more servers you have, the more likely you are to get fair matchups.

If there were another 20 new servers filled with players, then there would be more servers at every skill level that would fight it out fairly every week. Other than that, there is no way to stop this sort of thing from happening.

Orbs definitely do contribute to the problem. The way that it is set up right now is “You know what we should do with the dominant server? Give them extra buffs and HP!” That is not something that “sometimes” happens, it has been happening in almost every tier every week. The dominant server will always have 2, if not 3 of all orbs the whole time. This makes it so the “weaker” servers in the match up are at an inherent disadvantage because if they try to take the orb back, they’re now going against an already dominant opponent that is noticeably stronger than they are now.

I completely disagree with the statement that “there is no way to stop this sort of thing from happening.” You can look at so many threads and posts on here that provide some really great examples on how ArenaNet can improve their current system. Obviously, they relied on the 2 weaker servers ganging up on the best server, but the point system simply does not encourage that at all. No servers do that… at all.

For example, to help encourage people to continue playing in WvW, even if their server is going to lose the matchup, ArenaNet can implement a WvW ranking system, like Dark Age of Camelot did with RvR. I am not talking about adding in special WvW abilities you gain, but simply special WvW rank titles. You know how everyone runs around with the generic invader name (ex. Jade Quarry Invader)? ArenaNet can grab what Mythic did and have 10 or so WvW ranks that effectively change “Invader” to other things that are special to WvW that designates progress with the final rank title as something like “Jade Quarry Warlord”. These rank titles can take a long time to achieve for each one that requires a lot of WvW. It can be based off of kills, keep captures, supply camp captures, and so forth and all add up in your personal WvW rank. As it stands right now, all the WvW you do is essentially for your server. There is no personal incentive to do WvW as there is nothing to really try to strive for that denotes progress to others. A personal ranking system will help bring people in because it gives each and every individual something that they can work towards to.

It doesn’t help that the server transfers are making it hard to build a community and a servers makeup from one week to the next can completely change, making it hard to actually match servers up in the tiers they belong in.

No one will remember a battle where one side decided to stay home and not fight.

Those aren’t battles at all.

The battles that are remembered are the ones where no one can guess who the winner will be until the very last minute.

I agree with OP in some ways. He brings up good points. The Orb and Outmanned buff are really kitten backwards and further compound the problem. Why would you offer the looser more loot? Really is that gonna help them if they are being stomped? The magic find buffs should be tied to the Orbs. The Outmanned buff should be the current bonus provided by the Orbs.

I think the OP brought up the spawn camping. Once your pushed back to your spawn it is hard to get enough supply to push back out and take towers that are upgraded. You may take a camp, try to defend but the winner just brings their zerg to the camp and takes it back. I have been on both receiving ends of this.

I think a good solution would be to have all spawn points generate a small amount of supply on their own. Could be at a slower pace then real supply camps and maybe only starts popping up if you have no camps on the map, kinda like a supply reserve sitting in the spawn.

I also think something needs to be done about the “zerg”. This is part of the Outmanned issued. Maybe we see the outmanned teams siege get buffed to do more damage? Reason I say this, is with the right numbers you can take/defend pretty much anything without using much siege even if your up against a location that has lots of siege. Another solution for those Outmanned, maybe reduce the costs of upgrades or siege? I have noticed people being reluctant to spend cash on upgrades/siege if they are loosing.

Munki.9452:

It doesn’t help that the server transfers are making it hard to build a community and a servers makeup from one week to the next can completely change, making it hard to actually match servers up in the tiers they belong in.

This is a big issue for me too. I seriously and still dumbfounded that free transfers are allowed. I actually at this point want and demand a explanation from A.Net about this. It appears to me that these free transfers are causing all kinds of server community issues in WvW.

I think the people saying the orb bonus is ok are not getting it imo. My server got crushed last week (IOJ) and this week we’re absolutely dominating which was fun for a few days but now I feel bad for the other side because I know exactly how being dominated feels. And that was caused by some of the things the OP say but most of all the orbs…we got all 3 early on and it was insanely easy to crush everyone with that…15% bonus to all stats is HUGE!!!

Earlier today I fought a 3 on 1 fight that I instigated and I killed one of them, downed another and MAY have won if more CD weren’t coming to help…so I ran away.

The point isn’t “im so super awesome” but “I don’t never think to do that without the orbs”….it makes any 1 on 1 fight laughable…I beat 2 guys without using a heal or any skills between 6 and 0….and that’s not normal. When I have no orb bonuses…trust me I don’t pick on 3 guys at the same time.

So when your zerg meets theirs even if you’re slightly smaller you’re dominating that side because of the orbs…I felt bad for ET last night because we were doing to them what SBI did to us last week…and they never had a chance because we were so OP from the orbs.

Mog.1589:

Munki.9452:

It doesn’t help that the server transfers are making it hard to build a community and a servers makeup from one week to the next can completely change, making it hard to actually match servers up in the tiers they belong in.

This is a big issue for me too. I seriously and still dumbfounded that free transfers are allowed. I actually at this point want and demand a explanation from A.Net about this. It appears to me that these free transfers are causing all kinds of server community issues in WvW.

This is insane imo. Free transfers should have ended weeks ago. If you had friends other places, you should have switched by now. How can you balance servers when populations are constantly shifting.

It makes ZERO sense and lessens the fun of the game so I’m COMPLETELY BAFFLED as to why AN is doing this. I can’t come up with any GOOD explanation.

Xeeron.9254 made some wonderful points and backed them up with clearly expressed reasoning. I hope Arena Net is paying attention as closely as Xeeron.9254 has been.

At the very least I feel that free transfers and orb bonuses should be addressed ASAP and then work on other issues that are more of a fine tuning process.

Inconceivable.7823:

Experiences with orbs

This has been my experience as well. I’ve been on both sides of this coin and either way it cheapens the WvW experience. If you stomp five people at once, its not because you’ve suddenly seen the matrix, its the orbs. If you’re getting stomped, it most likely not because you stink and they rock, check and see how many orbs they have.

Arena Net themselves said that food provides some of the best buffs and the game, and they are right! The problem is, having three orbs is like a free food bonus for everyone that could potentally be on top of another food bonus! To make matters worse, many casual people don’t use food so if a three orb person with food is attacking a “food-less” defender the stats spread is extreme.

Food works because everyone has the option to use it. It isn’t “locked out” because of a server mismatch or anything else and it is reasonably priced at the moment.

TL;DR Transfers need to be adjusted, orbs bad, food good.

-Coral
(From the Tarnished Coast)

Edewen.8304:

zerospin.8604:

Someone needs to play more WvW and get a clue, instead of making himself a laughing stock by dismissing an entirely valid and correct summary by the OP.

OP has summed the issues pretty well. I too have experiences both sides, the crushing winner, and the crushed looser. Neither was fun. ANet would be wise to acknowledge the issues summed up in the 1st post and start to actively look for solutions. I have posted a few of such solutions myself, and so did others. All ANet needs to do is read the forums, it’s all there

The OP summed up nothing. All but one complaint is based around skill and organization. Plain and simple. The ONLY valid point made was orbs. Lack or morale is not a balance issue. Not defending your supply lines is not a balance issue. There are many valid complaints about WvW from orbs to transfers. Even the people complaining about gathering and jumping puzzles have valid arguments. But arguing that it is imbalanced because someone is winning by a large amount is NOT one of them regardless of which side of the coin you are on because the MECHANICS are balanced (except orbs cmon anet).

Right, but the OP isn’t saying “WvW is unbalanced because one team is winning by a large amount all the time”, he’s saying “WvW is unbalanced because of X reasons, which is causing this side effect of lopsided match ups”.

I understand your underlying reasoning, that just because players are choosing to do something (like not queuing up for wvw because of morale, or not defending/attacking supply camps and caravans), doesn’t make it a game mechanic issue, but it’s the players fault for doing it. You’re missing the OPs point though, the argument here is that these are all side effects of unbalanced wvw because it is designed to benefit the winning team more than the losing team.

I don’t know that I agree with all of the problems described by the OP’s post, but I do believe there are problems with WvW as it stands right now. I’m SoR and we are absolutely murdering our opponents right now. That’s boring. People on our server find it boring. We all want a competitive match, not facerolling boredom.

That said, any approach to “fixing” the problems can’t be a knee jerk reaction. Sometimes, the cure is worse than the disease. Hopefully, when/if Anet directs its attention to WvW, they take a conservative approach to making WvW a more competitive feature.

I do feel that they need to stop server transfers. I understant that WvW can’t be the driver of that decision, since they are leaving it open for PvE reasons as well from a server balance perspective. But I do think that will help by forcing servers to cooperate and force some stability within the PvP community on the server.

However, what potential negative impact would changing the orb bonus create? Currently, orb bonuses favor the victor. It rewards successful coordination of the server’s forces on the field of battle. It creates/enhances the attacker’s advantage. What happens if that bonus is removed? What if it introduces the prospect of servers taking objectives but unable to hold those objectives for any length of time? Imagine a battle where all the objectives are fluid and constantly changing because there is no realistic way to hold territory without some bonus to make that possible. Is that the goal? I’m just trying to demonstrate that “fixing” a feature could introduce something just as bad or worse.

I’m not saying that no changes are needed. But I hope Anet doesn’t go overboard and create something much worse.

That thought crossed my mind Palefire. I think it would be important to try nerfing the orb bonus (or at least making the outmanned bonus worth a kitten ) before just removing it or changing it entirely

Palefire.6259:

However, what potential negative impact would changing the orb bonus create? Currently, orb bonuses favor the victor. It rewards successful coordination of the server’s forces on the field of battle. It creates/enhances the attacker’s advantage. What happens if that bonus is removed? What if it introduces the prospect of servers taking objectives but unable to hold those objectives for any length of time? Imagine a battle where all the objectives are fluid and constantly changing because there is no realistic way to hold territory without some bonus to make that possible. Is that the goal? I’m just trying to demonstrate that “fixing” a feature could introduce something just as bad or worse.

I’m not saying that no changes are needed. But I hope Anet doesn’t go overboard and create something much worse.

Nobody is saying remove Orbs. People are asking them to change the buff. Orbs are a reward for success but giving the victor a huge advantage when they already are winning is lame. They should be rewarded by having the orb yes, but by other means like +10% magic find per Orb or something.

I honestly do not see how changing that could negatively affect WvW. Take and not holding? If you cannot hold something you captured it is because you did not defend it with siege & players. As it stands now those who have the orbs can now hold their assets easily and get upgrades done faster because of the huge bonus.

The Orb bonus makes a HUGE difference trust me. My guild groups have easily been able to wipe out 2 to 3 times our number because of Orb buffs. I also play a Thief and giving me 15% more HP and 150 more stats makes me OP. 1v1 I will trash you with you that buff. Hell my guild formed a group of 5 Thieves and we all popped Daggerstorm on a zerg of about 30, OMG it was decimating. All because of the Orbs.

stop free transfer.

One thing about the Orb vs. Outmanned buff:

Keep in mind that each orb needs to be a substantial boon of some kind. These orbs ARE the reason for the Borderlands maps, and if you make them something people will ignore it removes a layer of strategic consideration from the map-wide planning efforts of those involved.

What I mean to say is… Orbs must remain important enough to be a very high priority on the BL maps.

Sure you explained some reasons as to what makes it unbalanced BUT IT IS NOT THE REASON WHY it is unbalanced and the reason is….. Free transfers and this will continue to unbalance things as long as they are up.
I am sure about 85% of the people on the forums and in wvw will say that it’s because of free transfers too, but what the heck? I am just stating my thought on what is making wvw unbalanced too just like everyone else… They have ignored all wvw threads besides locking one or two…

Palefire, I agree that the fix should not be knee-jerk. I’d rather have them take that time and come up with a good fix, than a quick and dirty one that makes matters worse.

They should start with small and easy fixes. That is why the orb and outmanned buffs are such an clear first step. Changing these requires almost no programming effort and is easily reversible. They could also address the other issues, but these would take much more time to properly fix.

However, we have seen that WvW is hurting atm. Large amounts of people are not playing for more than half of the week. With HoD one very successful server has already been destroyed (although free server transfers are much to blame here too). JQ is showing worrying signs as well. We simply can not affort to turn many people off of WvW. Maybe they will come back, but maybe they wont. So the sooner matches are made more equal, the better.

- Xeeron

Partly to keep this thread going (because it brought up MANY valid issues), however, it occurred to me on another thread talking about the necessity of the random npc mobs, a suggestion on what (I think) could be added to allow for balancing would out the winning teams lead, would be that after gaining some X% control of total map completion, a periodic event would begin occurring where some epic monster would start laying siege to the leading worlds garrison’s (perhaps even limiting it to a monster/champion of some sort spawns for a homeworld’s border land to retake the garrison).

Although this might be considered a “knee-jerk”, addition I think it’d alleviate some of the snowballing effect that is currently in play where the winning team simply widens their lead.

Also… I just think watching some epic monster laying siege to a fortress would be awesome.

I agree with some of the points in the OP. Here is how I believe ArenaNet should deal with those issues:

• Free transfers cannot go away right now. ArenaNet promised that the game would have a guesting system; when the game was released without said system, there was a lot of complaining around here, and thus ArenaNet promised that server transfers would be free until guesting was implemented. To remove free transfers now would be breaking a promise (something the community would likely not forget) and bringing back something that led to a lot of complaining a while ago. That being said, the guesting system doesn’t have anything to do with WvW. Ergo, if the idea is to allow people to play PvE with their friends, but to prevent WvW exploiting, my suggestion is: until guesting is implemented, someone who has transferred to a new server cannot join WvW until the end of the second week (in other words, the end of the current WvW match, plus the end of the following match). This would help a bit with the issue of queues (since, as ArenaNet has mentioned, there are more people wanting to play WvW at a given moment than they had expected), by keeping server hoppers out of the fight for a while; and it would be a strong deterrent to changing servers for the sake of WvW. Until someone could finally return to WvW, it’s likely that his chosen server would be in a very different situation than what was seen two matches before.

• Simply switching the Outmanned and the Orbs buffs is not enough. The Outmanned buff need to be completely reworked, beginning with its name. Right now, being seen as Outmanned is almost like having a “Fail!” symbol stamped over your character – the game is telling you that you are likely going to lose, and everyone knows it. The name of the buff and its description need to be changed to something else; just to give an example, it should be called something like “Determined”, and its description should be something like “Never surrender, never retrear”, giving the idea of fighting against the odds, not of being on the losing side. Just a raw boost in stats is not enough, either – it should deal with the way supply and upgrades favor the current winner, as well. My suggestion would be to make the “Determined” buff increase some stats, but also increase how much supply there is available in supply camps, how much supply a given player can carry, and the speed in which towers and camps are upgraded. This would help a bit the issue with how hard it is to begin to retake a map that has completely been taken by the enemy. For the records, something I think would be really interesting is, instead of increasing stats, giving a 10% movement speed bonus. Hopefully, this would make players try hit and run strategies, instead of trying to merely hit hard targets.

• Orbs should still give more kind of relevant bonus, though. If all they do is increase loot, they would become borderline meaningless – would anyone here want to fight as hard as people do today to take and defend them if all they did would be increase magic find? The current orb bonus is too strong, so it should be changed to give increased magic find, increased karma, increased experience and something else – something actually relevant to WvW, that would make people fight for it. Something small, like an increased change to get critical hits, but still something.

• There should be benefits in fighting against the winning team. As the OP here mentioned, when the distance between the leader and the other two teams is too big, it’s better for one of the losing teams to try to canibalize the other for second place than to gather together to try to defeat the winner. When there’s something like this – when the leader is very far ahead of the two other teams – fighting against the leader should give benefits. Things like having increased gold, karma and experience when taking areas from the current leader, or getting more items and even possibly siege blueprints by killing players of the winning server, would hopefully give players from the two losing servers reasons to attack the stronger ones.

Those changes should be implemented with caution, since players will always be trying to find ways to exploit them, but IMO they would increase WvW by helping to deal with some issues mentioned by the OP.
ArenaNet should not change how the supply camps are easy to take, though. As they currently are, supply camps have a massively huge importance in making small, quick teams more useful than just mindlessly zerging the entire map.
(For the records, I also like the idea mentioned above of making NPCs attack a server if it has been too dominant over the other two. While PvP players would complain that they want PvP, and not PvE, this kind of system could help the other changes and give players something to do if their servers have 100% world domination and the others have given up.)

Jade Quarry player here. Personally I think one of the worst mistakes they could have possibly made was adding Orbs or Power to the game. Relics were a bad idea 10 years ago in DAoC and they are still a bad idea now in GW2. Sure, fighting over them in DAoC was fun, but they also completely imbalanced the game realm populations.

I agree about supply etc also. The problem seems to be that the losers have to fight and uphill battle, and since they were already fighting an uphill battle population wise it puts the odds much more against them than they should be.

I like your post and pretty much agree with it all. It actually made me think for a bit and I came up with an unrefined idea for replacing the orbs…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/An-idea-that-could-replace-Orbs-of-Power/first#post443634