Why WvWvW Just Doesn't Hold Up

Why WvWvW Just Doesn't Hold Up

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Posted by: Drium.8509

Drium.8509

I’m not going to lie, I enjoy this game more than any other MMORPG I’ve played before, and I enjoy WvWvW too despite its issues. Unfortunately, I have to admit that the more I think about it, the least I want to keep playing the game. One of the big, main draws for me was the PvP, specifically WvWvW, although I enjoy sPvP just as much.

But right now, the server match ups just don’t work. I’m going to use the current Maguuma vs Tarnished Coast vs Dragonbrand pairing that is going on right now to illustrate this point better.

During the day, for the past four days, the spread has been along the lines of Dragonbrand 40, Maguuma 30, Tarnished Coast 30. Obviously Dragonbrand is the superior server by a slight margin, and I applaud their coordination and superior skills. There is no denying that they are holding their own against the other two servers , and I’m not going to badmouth them for winning. They’re playing better, and that’s that.

During the night, however, this turns into Dragonbrand 100, Maguuma 0, Tarnished Coast 0. Dragonbrand has a full queue of European and night-only players, while the other two servers have at most 10-15 people awake and playing.

This… is not fun, not fair, and not a contest of skill.

WvWvW, in my opinion, should be a contest of skill. Of which server can coordinate better, of which server can hold their positions better, of which server can play better. Instead, it has turned into a war of which server can man the most people during off-peak hours to cap everything while everyone else sleeps.

If Maguuma and Tarnished Coast were paired in a WvW, they would be perfectly even. But Dragonbrand thrown into the mix, with their full queue of night players, just demolishes the match up.

And I know this is an issue in a lot of other pairings, and I don’t understand why people are against putting limits on how many people a server can have fielded based on which server has the least out. If Maguuma and Tarnished Coast can only field 15 people during the night per battlefield, why should Dragonbrand be allowed to field the full 100 or however many it is? This goes against the spirit of WvWvW, and it leads to spawn camping and the impossibility to make a come back.

This isn’t just damaging for the spirit of players either. This is actively damaging for the economy, because the servers that roll around with night-crew zergs receive significantly more karma, exp, gold and bonuses than the other servers, making it a sub-optimal idea to play on any other servers at all.

Truth be told, Arenanet needs to get their act together, and I can think of so many ways to do it that I don’t understand why it has not been done yet. Let’s go over them real fast:

1- Servers can only deploy X people where X is the smallest amount queued up by the three servers (i.e. you cannot outnumber your opponents, ever).

2- When outnumbered, the outnumbered party gets an actual outmanned buff that actually matters (i.e. stat increases). Sorry, but getting +karma, +magic find, +exp is pointless. Outmanned servers get spawn camped. They get zero use out of those bonuses.

3- Regionlocking WvWvW (i.e. you can’t recruit a bunch of European players to play on North American servers during low-activity hours).

4- Shutting down server transfers except to low population servers.

5- Merging servers.

6- A buff that becomes stronger the more objectives you lose, to the point where if a server owns 100% of the map, the other two servers will be substantially buffed and able to actually make a come back and stop being spawn camped.

7- Match servers up based on their active timezones instead of nearly randomly, so that if a server seems to be active 24/7, it is paired against other servers which are just as active.

And I’m sure there are tons and tons of other ideas out there. But come on. You can’t tell me WvWvW is fine as it is. I’m not saying “I’ll quit!”, and besides, I already bought the game, what would they care if I quit? But I am saying, Guild Wars 2’s endgame consists almost entirely of PvP, whether it’s sPvP or WvWvW. sPvP is nice and balanced, why can’t WvWvW also be?

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Posted by: McNuggetBandit.8376

McNuggetBandit.8376

As has been said in every other thread like this. Once more matching data has been gathered servers with 24/7 presence will be matched together in the higher end of the scale. And you will most likly see that servers with your “night time” being their prime time will be matched together (as long as there isn’t a massive gap in the skill level) by the Devs the same as that happened in DAoC (seems the WvW team is practically DAoC’s RvR team)

Oh and before you complain about me not understanding im from tarnished coast

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Posted by: stealthmonkey.1563

stealthmonkey.1563

Obviously Dragonbrand is the superior server by a slight margin, and I applaud their coordination and superior skills.

Here’s where your argument fell apart. Going off your example, Dragonbrand is the vastly superior server. They are able to hold their side of things during half the day, and dominate you totally during the night.

You don’t get to complain about losing a fight you don’t even show up to. WWW is a 24/7 battle and if your server does not have a group capable of holding their own 24/7 you are not a top tier server. Currently the problem is being sorted as the oceanic-heavy servers are artificially low in ranking from the issues with 1 day long www. This is being corrected

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Posted by: Drium.8509

Drium.8509

I just can’t agree that recruiting people to play during the non-prime time of the server makes you “the better server”. It makes you “the bigger server”, and WvWvW is supposed to be about who is best, not about who has the most cannon fodder to throw around. This is completely unfair to most servers, and while I sure hope you’re right that servers will be properly matched up, the fact of the matter is that this may take several weeks, during which WvWvW is simply not very fun or viable.

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Posted by: GettCouped.7846

GettCouped.7846

Do wars stop at night?

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Posted by: McNuggetBandit.8376

McNuggetBandit.8376

Numbers will always make a difference though as you can attack more of the map at once or swamp an area if you want so in WvWvW Nubmers do make you better, Alot of those servers recurting are semi coherent anyway (excluding Ruin “shudder”). It was always going to take time for things to balance as they need players testing and having data to balance upon. And i still do find WvW awesome i play on Tarnished coast and play in NA prime times (im from New Zealand but im a graveyard shift worker) and its still very fun to go around and messing with zergs with good tactics you can wipe them out. For example yesterday we saw a zerg attacking a tower. We send to peopel up as bait who then jump off a cliff and guess what the zerg follows, 8 of us and the bottom start one shotting half the zerg with AoE i honestly wish i got a video of it they were retardly hilarious. Just gotta make the most of what you got atm.

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Posted by: Xandax.1753

Xandax.1753

I just can’t agree that recruiting people to play during the non-prime time of the server makes you “the better server”. It makes you “the bigger server”, and WvWvW is supposed to be about who is best, not about who has the most cannon fodder to throw around. This is completely unfair to most servers, and while I sure hope you’re right that servers will be properly matched up, the fact of the matter is that this may take several weeks, during which WvWvW is simply not very fun or viable.

Word vs. World means it’s the World against World.
It’s a 24/7 game, so it is your worlds effort against the other world, so that does mean night coverage will be your worlds effort.

I think too many people are simply too hung up on the rather meaningless score and I don’t understand why they play the game if the score and ‘winning’ the score is the goal.

Yes, it can ‘suck’ to log into the game and see the map owned by somebody else. It’ll happen all the time. It happened in DAoC, in Warhammer and any other 24/7 game.
But all the more joy in going out and taking it back and kicking the enemy around when you actually are there. Payback sort of effort.
That’s IMO the fun; not whether the score counter says X or Y. You don’t win anything just by being on top of the ‘rank’ at all, you don’t get more respect and nobody is going to sleep with you because of it.

If you want the structure enforced by the game – sPvP is the way to go.

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Posted by: Drium.8509

Drium.8509

I just can’t agree that recruiting people to play during the non-prime time of the server makes you “the better server”. It makes you “the bigger server”, and WvWvW is supposed to be about who is best, not about who has the most cannon fodder to throw around. This is completely unfair to most servers, and while I sure hope you’re right that servers will be properly matched up, the fact of the matter is that this may take several weeks, during which WvWvW is simply not very fun or viable.

Word vs. World means it’s the World against World.
It’s a 24/7 game, so it is your worlds effort against the other world, so that does mean night coverage will be your worlds effort.

I think too many people are simply too hung up on the rather meaningless score and I don’t understand why they play the game if the score and ‘winning’ the score is the goal.

Yes, it can ‘suck’ to log into the game and see the map owned by somebody else. It’ll happen all the time. It happened in DAoC, in Warhammer and any other 24/7 game.
But all the more joy in going out and taking it back and kicking the enemy around when you actually are there. Payback sort of effort.
That’s IMO the fun; not whether the score counter says X or Y. You don’t win anything just by being on top of the ‘rank’ at all, you don’t get more respect and nobody is going to sleep with you because of it.

If you want the structure enforced by the game – sPvP is the way to go.

It does matter, because servers receive things like gold bonuses, exp bonuses, etc, for winning. Also, while I agree that the map being taken by the enemy means we get to take it back, when we’re 10 players against 100, being spawn-camped, it’s not going to happen. That means we can’t play WvWvW at all until people wake up.

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Posted by: Drium.8509

Drium.8509

Do wars stop at night?

This is not a war. This is a video game, and we’re supposed to be having fun. But this isn’t fun at all.

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Posted by: gloombot.3519

gloombot.3519

It’s fun for me. Also, I’m on Maguuma. So, I could argue it’s working as intended, since I’m pleased and having fun, since you’re simply doing the opposite… right?

Too many complaints on this forum about people thinking diversity = imbalance, along with various degrees of self-entitlement.

I loved in several other MMOs where the times throughout the day changed the dynamics of the playfield. Sometimes you were in an uphill battle as a team, others you had numbers and were taking over what you’d lost while you were outnumbered.

Second, it’s ridiculous to judge the system so quickly. It hasn’t even been given enough time to properly rank the servers. Don’t worry, Dragonbrand is superior and they will rise above our bracket soon enough. Eventually, you’ll only have even fights to complain about, OP.

Doom Bot – One Man Riot [iRez] – Maguuma – Guardian

(edited by gloombot.3519)