Ive posted something similar a few years ago, figured I would give this one more shot in an effort to help salvage what is now pretty much a disaster in population balance.
There are several problem causes that negatively effect population imbalances in WvW, the core being that some servers are now overpopulated and in effect been overrun by players transferring, most of whom did so just to be on an elite WvW server.
Other things that effect balance can be time of play, some populations fluctuate based on the day of the week or time of day, while others may remain more stable OR oscillate the opposite direction, creating population extremes and deficits that bounce from realm to realm as the clock tics.
A simple and practical way to solve most, if not all, population problems:
Currently, there is a fixed cap on map population for each realm. Changing this to a VARIABLE cap based on the LOWEST AVERAGE realm population, can help alleviate imbalance in both the short term, and long term by accomplishing two things,
1: Overpopulated elite server que times will increase, acting as a deterrent to players tempted with the “grass is always greener” attitude, and give incentive to move to a lower populated server, as population will no longer give them an advantage, plus, they will now need to wait longer just to play.
2: Realms with lower populations should, as time goes on, start to see an increase in populations that will even out in the longer term, AND the current imbalance will be lessened, prompting more people to play without that hopeless feeling of “why bother, we will just get stampeded anyway”.
An example of a variable population cap:
Three realms, call them A B and C. Lets say A is an “elite” overpop, B is medium and C is a lower pop realm.
Say for this example A has a constant maxed pop count and a que, B has an average pop count of around 40, and C a count of 15 average.
Note- Pop sampling can be taken at random times to establish an overall average in order to avoid possible exploits, as well as compensate for blob map swapping.
OK, now we have an average pop count, here is where the variable cap would come into play. As realm C is the underdog in pop counts, that number would then determine the WvW que cap, plus or minus a given value, say for this example make it 8. As 15 is our lowest pop number, plus 8 would bring us to a cap of 23 for that current map count. Thus, the cap for all realms would be set to 23 while the current count is in effect.
Note- Should be obvious but just for the record, no one would be booted from the map if you happen to be on a higher pop realm, only the que would be effected.
A system such as this will give the lower pop realms reason to play even while facing an elite realm, as they now will have a chance, and the game is more balanced and fun for everyone.
In the long term, it should also help manage overpopulation as a que deterrent to those that only switch realms to gain an advantage.
Addition- One other thing, I mentioned blob map swapping earlier…
Also known as “blob bombing” a map, this is another reason we have population problems currently, as higher pop realms can take advantage of their numbers to jump into another realms map and essentially take over the map before the defending realm has a change to mount any kind of defense.
Setting variable ques with minimum and maximum values in home BL’s can help prevent this sort of “exploit” as well and give lower pop realms a chance to stop an invader before their entire home map is a different color.
Note- As realm populations are typically based more on a “attacker vs defender” scenario in BL’s, variable cap values in home borderlands can be weighted giving defenders a slight advantage based on invader populations, example:
IE- Variable que limit set by the LOWEST average pop value of either the invader or the defender:
invader variable que range = 15 to 50 (highest population invader)
defender variable que range = 15 to 50 + X
X = total invader pop / 10
This formula would give defending realms a slight pop increase in the event they have 2 realms invading with high numbers.
(edited by Radakill.3469)