Guild Wars 2

Winning matches in WvW boils down to very large coordinated pop with 24 hr coverage – nothing more. If your server lacks 1 or both of these 2 factors = no win. We all know sheer numbers overcome all the AC & other defense that can be manned by smaller pops trying to hold a point.

Recent WvW changes are “designed” with the intent to force action on the part of all the combatants. So the “design” of the current buff is supposed to force large pops (that want to keep the buff) to divide their numbers into more point holding groups. Based on my recent WvW experience + other threads in this forum, it’s questionable as to whether those changes are actually having THAT “desired effect”.

IMO all actions ANET takes to force action on the part of all combatants SHOULD be FOCUSSED on incenting the first sentence of this post. Everything else is either window dressing or further game imbalance. Once pops are EVEN, then and only then will things like recent changes/buffs force action on the part of all combatants. At least in the last week, it appears as if the recent change does little to incent more players on lower pop servers into WvW to address the pop imbalance caused by the current matchup algorithm.

A system which dynamically capped teamsize to within an errorbar of the smallest team would solve pop imbalance issue but obviously create discontent for those stuck in queue when they want to play. WvW has no autobalance feature like pvp & likely won’t for many practical reasons. Accordingly the playerbase must create its own pop balance solution to sustain the venue.

To the point of this post: Would ANET publish a histogram sub-grouped by map of WvW pop by server? Not a real-time histogram, but just hourly pop totals of previous matchup right after reset. Each server could more easily correlate when/where the match turned (if they also kept track of match points by hour) – stimulating tactics for future WvW matches. Think of it this way, if the entire WvW pop could see the historical pops by time of day, then sizable WvW pops from other servers MIGHT chose to transfer to a server where their contributions would make a significant difference (at least in 24 hr coverage). Those players that move probably won’t ever be stuck in another queue!! Give the player base enough data to make informed decisions prior to league introduction…

I said this on the mag forums and I’ll say it here too, I’d be happy with just an explanation of what ANet and the WvW team use for their statistics. How do they measure activity and what do they consider an “active WvW player” and the like.

I think Devon clearly outlines our course of action in his post. To protest this terrible buff and match-up system we need to stop playing WvW, until it’s fixed. They only care about declining WvW numbers, not our posts.

doomfodder.2906:

Winning matches in WvW boils down to very large coordinated pop with 24 hr coverage – nothing more. If your server lacks 1 or both of these 2 factors = no win. We all know sheer numbers overcome all the AC & other defense that can be manned by smaller pops trying to hold a point.

Recent WvW changes are “designed” with the intent to force action on the part of all the combatants. So the “design” of the current buff is supposed to force large pops (that want to keep the buff) to divide their numbers into more point holding groups. Based on my recent WvW experience + other threads in this forum, it’s questionable as to whether those changes are actually having THAT “desired effect”.

IMO all actions ANET takes to force action on the part of all combatants SHOULD be FOCUSSED on incenting the first sentence of this post. Everything else is either window dressing or further game imbalance. Once pops are EVEN, then and only then will things like recent changes/buffs force action on the part of all combatants. At least in the last week, it appears as if the recent change does little to incent more players on lower pop servers into WvW to address the pop imbalance caused by the current matchup algorithm.

A system which dynamically capped teamsize to within an errorbar of the smallest team would solve pop imbalance issue but obviously create discontent for those stuck in queue when they want to play. WvW has no autobalance feature like pvp & likely won’t for many practical reasons. Accordingly the playerbase must create its own pop balance solution to sustain the venue.

To the point of this post: Would ANET publish a histogram sub-grouped by map of WvW pop by server? Not a real-time histogram, but just hourly pop totals of previous matchup right after reset. Each server could more easily correlate when/where the match turned (if they also kept track of match points by hour) – stimulating tactics for future WvW matches. Think of it this way, if the entire WvW pop could see the historical pops by time of day, then sizable WvW pops from other servers MIGHT chose to transfer to a server where their contributions would make a significant difference (at least in 24 hr coverage). Those players that move probably won’t ever be stuck in another queue!! Give the player base enough data to make informed decisions prior to league introduction…

I touched on this a bit in the Bloodlust thread and somewhere else. I also suggested a player cap per borderland per server. My thoughts are if the que’s get to long for certain individuals or guilds that maybe it will promote them to transfer to a lower populated server.

My other suggestion is that WE as the WvW Community try and balance these things ourselves. That would take a huge amount of cooperation from those reading these forums to get the word out to the active WvW commanders, players on their servers.

I myself would like to start a thread that is more of a census to try and see if we can’t generate our own numbers and then communicate with some of the respected WvW leaders of each server and see if we can’t balance things out.

However the only way this works is with cooperation from Anet as well. Even if we managed to pull this off as a WvW community to essentially even out the playing field and pick teams as it were to balance out servers, and everyone was a willing participant, no one would do this without free transfers.

I’m curious if we pulled this off if Anet would allow one free transfer for players willing to straighten this out.

Wraistlin.6072:

I touched on this a bit in the Bloodlust thread and somewhere else. I also suggested a player cap per borderland per server. My thoughts are if the que’s get to long for certain individuals or guilds that maybe it will promote them to transfer to a lower populated server.

Player cap leads to queue. Queue’s are not the solution. If you’re stuck in a queue, you go do anything else. If it happens multiples times, you semi-permanently find anything else to do.

Wraistlin.6072:

My other suggestion is that WE as the WvW Community try and balance these things ourselves. That would take a huge amount of cooperation from those reading these forums to get the word out to the active WvW commanders, players on their servers.

I myself would like to start a thread that is more of a census to try and see if we can’t generate our own numbers and then communicate with some of the respected WvW leaders of each server and see if we can’t balance things out.

However the only way this works is with cooperation from Anet as well. Even if we managed to pull this off as a WvW community to essentially even out the playing field and pick teams as it were to balance out servers, and everyone was a willing participant, no one would do this without free transfers.

Couldn’t agree more. ANET can’t solve WvW pop blanace issue without player cooperation. The player base can’t solve WvW pop balance issue by itself without data from ANET. What data do you need in order to decide whether (or where) to move for WvW pop equilibrium?

Wraistlin.6072:

I’m curious if we pulled this off if Anet would allow one free transfer for players willing to straighten this out.

ANET could incent WvW pop balance by making a one time balance transfer free or even discounted. Unfortunatley, this might set a bad precident. Still, I can’t think of any other incentive ANET could offer …

ANET doesnt play WvW other then the occasional keyboard turner that runs around flagged with the zerg. The vision, as we have seen so far, is that megablobs are fun even though their own hardware cant support it. They acknowledge matchups are not even, yet make a league out of WvW… I think that speaks volumes.

Its just stuff they can put in press releases to make it look like the game is better then it is, the fact that it doesn’t work and lacks any insight into how WvW actually plays out is irrelevant for the PR machine.

It’s all in how the scores are done that incentivize the server stacking.

Lowering the impact of off hours scores to the match, via a x3 or more timer to the PPT tick would fix a lot of the off hour blow out problems. This still lets off time zone players PvD and get karma/WXP/XP/some coin for flipping things, but it doesn’t reward a stacked server for PvD to the match score anywhere near as much as it does currently.

This lets the large majority of match points be generated from kill spikes. Which gives servers with smaller WvW populations a chance to be competitive if they only have enough to critical mass on one map. So 2-3 strong open field guilds on a small server have a huge impact on the match competition facing even against T1 servers.

With the scoring changes, it disincentivizes having having multiple map blobs, since those extra blobs won’t contribute very much to the over all score. Of course there will be QQ’ing with players trying to get into the only map with action, and the stacked server pop will need to spread out to avoid the wrath of the que gods.

Last, to preserve siege play. Keeps&towers should be the hold points for buffs(throw another thread up for incentive). This will serve to reduce blob play from open field just for kills.

Its free to play.

Stop playing until they improve it. Forum posters are to be ignored and don’t reflect the population playing the game… or at least thats what a little birdie told me.

Krakah.3582:

It’s all in how the scores are done that incentivize the server stacking.

Lowering the impact of off hours scores to the match, via a x3 or more timer to the PPT tick would fix a lot of the off hour blow out problems. This still lets off time zone players PvD and get karma/WXP/XP/some coin for flipping things, but it doesn’t reward a stacked server for PvD to the match score anywhere near as much as it does currently.

This lets the large majority of match points be generated from kill spikes. Which gives servers with smaller WvW populations a chance to be competitive if they only have enough to critical mass on one map. So 2-3 strong open field guilds on a small server have a huge impact on the match competition facing even against T1 servers.

So this also disincentivizes having having multiple map blobs since those extra blobs won’t contribute very much to the over all score. There will be QQ’ing with players trying to get into the only map with action, and the stacked server pop will need to spread out to avoid the wrath of the que gods.

Also going to add to preserve siege play, keeps&towers should be the hold points for buffs(throw another thread up for that incentive). This will at least serve to spread blob play from all or nothing in the open field just for kills.

This ^^