Q:
I wanted to start a discussion on how to make WvW fun again for everyone. I’ve heard that in some battlefields, 2 out of the 3 worlds have worked together in an alliance against the 3rd world. How true that is, I’m not sure. While I can respect the ingenuity of that real world style tactic, I think it has ruined the fun and balance in WvW. Personally I liked it better when one side pushed forward only to be pushed back and there was some semblance of balance. With alliances happening, if you’re in that 3rd world, you might as well not play WvW as you have virtually zero chance to survive, which last I checked, isn’t fun. I think many players have used this as an excuse to transfer to other ‘winning’ worlds, if only to be on the winning team, or maybe just in an effort to finish achievements in the zones. I can certainly understand that, but I feel it was better when you had to storm that castle as a team to get to the vista or point of interest, even though you knew that shortly afterwards you would be pushed out of that castle once more. Maybe the game will balance by itself, but what if it doesn’t? What can Anet do? What about players that just want to explore the map without having to transfer to the winning world to do it? I have some ideas on it, good or bad.
For those wishing to just explore the map for vistas, jumping puzzles and point of interest. I suggest a vendor in the beginning portion of each map that sells a soulbound ‘white flag’ consumable which could permit a player unhindered travel for a set period of time. I would suggest that that the flag would only permit temporary ‘diplomatic immunity’ from enemy attack from any world invader, while the player would also not be able to attack. I would however suggest that any animals or other foes within the world would still be able to attack the player and vice versa to permit at least some challenge to the player. The flag could be pricey but not so ungodly that it isn’t worth the effort. For instance, if the flag were to be a one time use per battlefield to permit unlimited immunity for the length of time a player remains in the instance, I think the price of 5 gold would be appropriate. Perhaps a lower cost flags may only permit 15, 30 or 60 minutes of immunity. Now I know someone might say that this could be exploited where an entire army could use flags to get into an enemy owned castle, then wait for the effects to wear off so that they could conquer the castle, and I can also see that as a possibility so should the effects wear of in such a manner, the player should immediately be ejected from the enemy castle, whether placed outside the castle directly or just sent back to the starting area. Either way, I think it would handle that exploit, but who knows. The point is, give players a the opportunity to explore areas without having to resort to world swapping. Another exploit would be to use the flag to escape a battle or a death. The flag would not be usable if a player is already engaged or being engaged just like they can’t equip or unequip weapons so that exploit would not exist.
As for balancing WvW and breaking alliances, I know that would be much more difficult to do. Perhaps as one world begins to dominate more of the battlefield, the fewer npc support they receive, and more npc support the lesser dominate worlds receive and the more battle usable buffs they receive such as more armor or power? I’m not sure how, or if alliances could be prevented or broken apart, but here’s my thought on discouraging it, possibly. When a world owns a control point that is adjacent to an enemy control point (i.e. enemy lands border one another), the longer those control points remain uncontested by either world, the fewer points will be rewarded, or possibly negative points will be awarded to reduce each world’s overall score. Again, I admit I’m not yet up to speed on the scoring system so how or whether or not this would work I admit I’m not sure. The point is simply to discourage bordering worlds control points to remain idle and uncontested by any alliance. Alliances might still exist, but to keep the points up they would have to turn their attention to each other from time to time giving that 3rd world an opportunity to perhaps get back in the game. The only other option I could think of at the moment to break alliances is to make the battlefields soley two world conflicts, but I think that’s too drastic and would require more retooling than I’m sure Anet would want to do. Not to mention it would ruin the dynamic and what was once interesting and fun 3 world battles. These are just my suggestions, so if anyone has any others I would like to hear them.