Guild Wars 2

I had an idea of how we may be able to kill 3 birds with 1 stone here. I think the higher populated servers will hate it, but i think it will help WvW in the long run. anyway, the 3 big issues I seem to see are:

1. Some servers having a large overall WvW populationg, thus just winning by sheer numbers and giving others 0 chance.

2. “Night Capping”

3. Everyone flocking over to “winning” servers.

Here’s how i propose we handle these things. Simply make a limit of players based on the serverwith the lowest population currently in a WvW map. Maybe we can have an allowance of +50 players, or maybe a minimum of 100 players allowed, so that a server running say only 30 don’t the overall fight to 30 (or 80) players, but a server running only 120, would keep it to 120 (or 170) for everyone else. I have a more precise example below.

Example: Server A vs. B vs. C.
Server A is the high pop 24/7 server. B and C are lower pop. Server A is able to have a nice flow of lets 300 people on at any time, B can put 200 at peak, C has 150 on at peak. With my idea, both Server A and server B would be limited to only 150 people allowed in, so as to not horrednously outnumber server C, and B to an extent. As I said, maybe allowing some sort fo breathing room of +50 (number not set in stone, I have no data to know what a good number would be) would still be ok, meaning in this example servers A and B can have 200 people in.

This would also help burb the “night capping” since server C might only have 50 people on during offpeak. Well now servers A and B are limited to 50 people also (or 100). If you include the 100 minimum, then servers A and B are allowed 100 still even though server C might have only 10 on. Again, I don’t know if +50 or 100 minimum numbers are good since I have no data, but it’s the idea I’m trying to get out here.

This would also curb the flocking of everyone over to the major WvW servers and encourage spreading out to the lower populated ones due to the fact that the WvW participants would now be limited by the lowest populated server. Queue times would increase on the higher population servers, thus encouraging the change. This is why I said the higher population servers may not like my idea since I know they have longer queue times already, but apparently not long enough if it isn’t enough to drive people to the lower populated servers.

Some people also argue entire guilds may not want to move and this will annoy them, but entire guilds are already moving or have moved to the higher population servers. Surely given the appropriate incentives and continued free transfers they’ll do the same and move to the lower population servers.

Of course the system isn’t per perfect, what if at peak, server C’s numbers just happened to drop to 120, do server A and B just randomly kick 30 people to balance out? Now, that doesn’t seem fair to be playing and then just get booted. At that point server C is just pooched until A and B either have people leave or C gets more people back on. However despite that flaw, it’s still better than now where server C has maybe 100 people on and A is running 300.

Anyway, just an idea that I think would help with the outnumbering fights, “night caps”, and encouraging more people to go to the lower population servers. Of course the potential +X players to the minimum population and a potential minimum players allowed in can be tweaked from the examples I gave, but again, it’s the idea I’m trying to get out.

The dynamic capping idea hasn’t been too popular around these parts.

I like the idea. I want to suggest an idea I read on this forum earlier.

I’ll use your example of servers A, B and C.
C has 50 people, B has 100. A is allowed to have 50 + 100 = 150 players.
This allows servers A and B to both have 300 (or max) players active when C has very few.
The limit of a given server is the total of players in a specific* WvW-zone not belonging to said server. Limit for server A = Players from B + Players from C

*This might lead to queues on Borderlands and no queues on Eternal while it actually has more players. Seems a bit of a flaw to me.

This system makes sure there are always enough players to counter one server. Meaning not one of the servers will control everything. There’ll always be at least an equal amount of enemies. Pretty much all the time the limits will be the same as they are nowadays, you can expect that both the opposing sides have at least half the amount of max players during the day. This would only affect night-zerging.
This way the limits will easier go up and the lowest pop server will easier get outnumbered. But they’ll always have a chance to pick some towers while the other two servers are fighting each other.
There’d have to be a minimum limit of, say, 20 to 50 players to prevent emptiness.

The issue you mention that the limit can drop under the actual amount of players from a server (when players form the other servers leave).
Just keep it that way, people leave and join WvW all the time. They’ll have an advantage for a short while. None should ever be booted, because of limits.

Turukano.3106:

I like the idea. I want to suggest an idea I read on this forum earlier.

I’ll use your example of servers A, B and C.
C has 50 people, B has 100. A is allowed to have 50 + 100 = 150 players.
This allows servers A and B to both have 300 (or max) players active when C has very few.
The limit of a given server is the total of players in a specific* WvW-zone not belonging to said server. Limit for server A = Players from B + Players from C

*This might lead to queues on Borderlands and no queues on Eternal while it actually has more players. Seems a bit of a flaw to me.

This system makes sure there are always enough players to counter one server. Meaning not one of the servers will control everything. There’ll always be at least an equal amount of enemies. Pretty much all the time the limits will be the same as they are nowadays, you can expect that both the opposing sides have at least half the amount of max players during the day. This would only affect night-zerging.
This way the limits will easier go up and the lowest pop server will easier get outnumbered. But they’ll always have a chance to pick some towers while the other two servers are fighting each other.
There’d have to be a minimum limit of, say, 20 to 50 players to prevent emptiness.

The issue you mention that the limit can drop under the actual amount of players from a server (when players form the other servers leave).
Just keep it that way, people leave and join WvW all the time. They’ll have an advantage for a short while. None should ever be booted, because of limits.

I like the idea, but I don’t know if that would promote more 2v1 ganging when both the smaller sides know they’re numbers only equal the bigger side, and hence have to team up together. It definately is an idea also worth considering for sure I think.