Guild Wars 2

Blob wars or small group action?
Fights or objectives?

There are no right answers and while some players are devoted to one view or the other many players enjoy a bit of everything. So WvW should allow this variation, and since I’m not convinced the current system does I’d like to suggest an almost different approach: two divisions covering five tiers (15 servers in total).

Three tiers are arranged as we have now:

• T1 – servers A vs B vs C
• T2 – servers D vs E vs F
• T3 – servers G vs H vs I
  These tiers work as they do now. Scoring is league based and servers move up or down position according to their score (just as they can do now). I would suggest rotating maps between Desert and Alpine as already planned.
  The idea is to provide for large group fight based play – pretty much as the top 3 tiers used to be before linking.

Now for the other league:.
Two more tiers arranged thus:

• Group A – servers 1 vs 2 vs 3
• Group B – servers 4 vs 5 vs 6
  In this division the servers would be randomly matched against each other at reset each week. This gives 10 (I think) possible combinations with only a 40% chance of playing against any specific server. I would suggest Tier A has Desert BL and Tier B has Alpine so servers get each map on average half the time (servers can be randomly in either A or B group).
  The idea of these tiers is to allow smaller group strategic play.

Servers can’t move between divisions. Players can, with a cheaper transfer fee between divisions and more costly between servers in the same division (but less than twice the “division transfer” fee of course).

• Over all the reduced number of servers should see a boosted active population on each.
• Probably fewer players would want to play in the random matches division which would support the idea of smaller group combat.
• I would consider “blowing up” the existing servers and making newly named ones to try to give a fresh start (with scores reset too) however this is not essential – it could be implemented with existing servers.
• Some/many players would probably have accounts in both divisions. This isn’t a problem as players will have their main account in the division they prefer, with the chance to play alt accounts when they want a change.

Assuming that there is no perfect solution, would this provide a reasonable set-up that could work for the varied play styles and preferences?

Like the idea of setting up different leagues or divisions for different play type. I certainly don’t know how many servers we would need, so can’t comment on that.

Hmm, I think the random element to the "Other League" is interesting, that would probably dissuade the more competitive players, and have them gravitate toward the "Top Tiers". It would essentially make the leaderboards/glicko useless for the "Other League".

There is something I can’t quote put my finger on that feels off, might just be that I can’t visualize it. But do like the idea.

Great idea. This is actually where I thought Tyler was going when I first read his post about hypothetically creating the new servers. I thought he was going to create new servers for specific low pop play.

And I was thinking something similar – just let the T7 and T8 servers exist by themselves and not link them. Set their glicko artificially low so that they never have a chance to mix with the other tiers.

I didn’t see you mention it but how would you enforce the small group play? Would you set the map caps super low? That’s the only way I could see to make it work.

As soon as you introduce different too many “modes” or “rules”, you start to split up the entire community. It’s often been the reasons games fall. The simplest ones are the best and the ones that last. We already seen this happen twice in GW2. First time with EoTM which was – and still is – in direct competition with WvW over players. Second time with HoT which divided players with elite specs vs peas… I mean vanilla. The world linking could be counted as a third major event if you dont like that.

I dont want to see yet another event that split apart WvW. We’re already looking at the prospect of the new scoring mechanics being either great or a complete disaster. We dont need what the OP is suggesting.

Dawdler.8521:

As soon as you introduce different too many “modes” or “rules”, you start to split up the entire community. It’s often been the reasons games fall. The simplest ones are the best and the ones that last. We already seen this happen twice in GW2. First time with EoTM which was – and still is – in direct competition with WvW over players. Second time with HoT which divided players with elite specs vs peas… I mean vanilla. The world linking could be counted as a third major event if you dont like that.

I dont want to see yet another event that split apart WvW. We’re already looking at the prospect of the new scoring mechanics being either great or a complete disaster. We dont need what the OP is suggesting.

This is not a different mode. It is simply some servers being left as low pop servers to please the people who like that style of play.

There has been a not insignificant number of people saying that they do not like playing in a high pop environment. They liked their small server. This would give them an option to continue to play that way.

you might be able accomplish something similar by have another map with much lower map cap ( 30? ) in the existing matches. id think as a 4th bl or 2nd EBG (same physical map) not replacing the existing….

Not sure I would choose this “mode”, but it does seem a decent amount of peeps would.

Liston.9708:

you might be able accomplish something similar by have another map with much lower map cap ( 30? ) in the existing matches. id think as a 4th bl or 2nd EBG (same physical map) not replacing the existing….

Not sure I would choose this “mode”, but it does seem a decent amount of peeps would.

Yes, a “skirmish map” like this would also be an interesting variant, and would intrude even less on the game mode in general. Thought to be fair, I’d totally pick a low pop server if I could.

Thanks for the comments.

I don’t think this idea would be divisive, it’s sort of the equivalent between sPvP Ranked and unRanked play in that it should allow players a choice of why to play. There is no change in rules required, merely a change in how servers in the unranked league are matched.

I was unsure about map caps. I wonder if the different play styles would self select the right number of players? I would be ok with a smaller map cap for unranked but wouldn’t want it to interfere with players being able to play on these servers when they log in. Ideally no queues or very short queues – when I join WvW it is to play not to queue!

The fact that the unranked League would have random matches should make server stacking irrelevant here – the score doesn’t decide the next match and you’re not going to take any of these servers into the ranked League.

My only concern is whether the personal reward track is enough motivation for the players in the unranked League… there would be no route to glory as the top server here. On the other hand we haven’t had any rewards for server position for such a long time that this may not be a problem. Is this the bit that is missing Joneirikb?!

What about Competitions? If Anet introduce a WvW season the Ranked League is obvious (probably with blobs and server stacking and all the other ultra competitive stuff that players do). In the unranked League, would players accept average score per match? Or total score over the season? Would we actually want unranked servers to participate in a WvW season or would we be the safe-haven for players who don’t want that pressure or burnout? Remember: servers won’t transfer between leagues but players may still have accounts in each league allowing them to play where they wish.